History: Bottom Lines

Book reviews: how they got started....

"...they tend to joy..."

Thursday, March 10, 2016

“Mama!”

Alexander Graham Bell patented his “electrical speech machine” 140 years ago. A few months later he tried unsuccessfully to sell the patent to Western Union. Apparently the company didn’t think the invention had much promise.

I think Bell would have bet the ranch that it was plain crazy to imagine that people would someday be able to walk down the street while they were talking to a friend on the other side of the world. One story has it that Bell thought folks would use the telephone primarily to listen to distant musical performances.

In his youth Bell was a dedicated tinkerer, with a steady penchant for inventing gadgets and stuff. Before the telephone became a reality, he and his brothers “built a working model of a mouth, throat, nose, and movable tongue, and attached a set of bellows for lungs. They were so successful in getting the model to wail ‘MaMa’ that the neighbors began to search for a child in distress.”

What are your kids inventing these days?

"...ain't no protest song."

"A Man of Feeling..."

"A majority of life's errors..."

"...surely it will"

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

“…ain’t no protest song.”

Maybe it’s been a while since you said to yourself “Oh gosh, I’m getting old.”

It’s been 54 years since Bob Dylan introduced “Blowin’ In The Wind” in Greenwich Village. He recorded this iconic song a couple weeks later, and it was released in 1963. Dylan claimed he wrote the song in 10 minutes. The Beatles claimed it was one of the songs that altered their early musical development.

I can mention my personal experience of hearing “Blowin’ In The Wind” sung by just about every band that played for the troops in Vietnam, more or less at the same time they were belting out “Leaving On A Jet Plane.”

Dylan blandly claimed “this here ain’t no protest song.” Of course it was.

Maybe you forget some of the words. Here they are:

How many roads must a man walk down
before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
before it is washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
and pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
that too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

"A Man of Feeling..."

Homework....think again....

How many are enough?

Friday, February 26, 2016

"A Man of Feeling…"

Christopher Morley (1890-1957)

Journalist, novelist

Morley once contributed a few words to an advertisement for Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia:

"…Why do the literary journals say so little in honor of man's only nirvana, the Secondhand Bookstore?...A Man of Feeling always frequents the secondhanders."

Exactly. I find that I am never annoyed by spending another few minutes in an old bookstore where there are used books stacked floor to ceiling….

If that makes me a "Man of Feeling," well, yes, I plead guilty.

Sadly, Leary's—despite Morley's kind words—closed its doors in 1969.

Requiescat in pace.

When safety standards were more interesting....

The wisdom of William Cronon

Homeward

Monday, February 22, 2016

The boob tube….

My parents were early adopters in the early 1950s: they bought a television set. How they rationalized that expenditure I do not know. I think it was a portable, maybe with a 7-inch screen.

They were among millions who were putting down the cash to acquire technology with rabbit ears.

TV in its infancy was the fastest blooming technology in the history of humankind.

At the end of World War II there were only a few tens of thousands of privately owned television sets. Within 10 years, two-thirds of American households had one. By the early 1960s more than 90 percent of homes had a boob tube.

In the early years, when few households had a set, the neighborhood tended to gather at the house with a TV for a social evening, watching whatever was on one of the (maximum 3) available channels. I was a kid when the family drove into Philadelphia to watch The Wizard of Oz on my uncle’s brand-new color TV.

I don’t watch TV now—stopped channel checking almost seven years ago. OK, I make exceptions for the Super Bowl and the State of the Union address and election returns in early November.

I’m bound to say I don’t think I’m missing much.

The news media industry, particularly TV, has become a beast with no scruples. I think it is deranging our society.

At least, in the old days, we had the Milton Berle Show.

When safety standards were more interesting....

"...led by donkeys..."

Fahrenheit 451, anyone?

Maybe your kid shouldn't go to college

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Your great-grandmother didn’t have a teddy bear

Did you have a special name for your teddy bear?

I did not, or, at least, I don’t remember one. My teddy bear was nearly as big as me, as I recall my earliest memory of that huggable creature.

He got all scruffy with age, and a bit broken down….nonetheless, I think I cried when I spotted that bear in flames in the trash burner we used way back then. I think I wanted to save him, but I don’t think the rescue actually occurred.

1903 teddy bear

Anyway. Your great-grandmom likely didn’t have one, because retailer Morris Michtom introduced the stuffed bear toy in 1903 after getting approval from President Roosevelt (Teddy) for the use of his nickname in the soon-to-be-quite-popular commercial sensation.

"See the [segregated] USA, in your Chevrolet..."

Book review: Shakespeare's Wife

Book review: Classic Writings on Poetry

Sunday, February 14, 2016

When safety standards were more interesting….

In 1912, testing the ruggedness and protective features of a football helmet was a fairly straightforward process:

1912 helmet safety test

Find someone who knew how to simulate diving through the defensive line, strap the helmet on him and do the test.

William "Pudge" Heffelfinger

Football already was starting to hit the big time in 1912. You might say that professional football got started on November 12, 1892, when the Allegheny Athletic Association paid William “Pudge” Heffelfinger $500 under the table to help the AAA team beat the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0 (touchdowns were worth 4 points at that time). Nobody worried too much about head or brain injuries back then.

The thing that bothers me most about the safety test picture is that the three safety consultants appear to be enjoying themselves a bit overmuch. Of course, they didn’t have TV back then.

"...led by donkeys..."

Technology 'R" Us

What it doesn't say....

Book review: Classic Writings on Poetry

Populism: just say no

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

“…led by donkeys…”

At the outbreak of World War I, Britain had a relatively small professional army (247,000 men). Close to half of them were stationed overseas throughout the British Empire.

Thus, on the home island in August 1914, Britain’s generals mustered about 150,000 men to be the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that crossed the English Channel, to join the French in fighting the German attackers.

Within three months, that half of Britain’s professional army was gone. Most of the men in the BEF were dead.

p.s. Britain’s total WWI casualties: 673,375 dead and missing, 1,643,469 wounded

Reference:

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1492- Present (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005), 360.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Technology 'R" Us

Often we don’t have a really explicit idea of what we mean when we say “We’ve come a long way….”

For instance, 130 years ago doing the household laundry was a bona fide chore—it was hard work. Why? In 1886 a study estimated that “washing, boiling and rinsing a single load of laundry used about 50 gallons of water.”

So what? Think about it: in the days before indoor plumbing, somebody (think Mom and the kids) had to haul that water from some source outside the house, maybe a pump, maybe a well, maybe a nearby spring or waterway.

That’s 8-10 trips—or more—to haul enough water for the wash, almost enough water to fill an oil drum.

That’s just to do the white and light-colored stuff. Think about doing it again for the dark load.

Things did get better, but slowly. By 1940, roughly 40 percent of homes had heating (not from a fireplace or stove), about 60 percent had flush toilets indoors, 70 percent had water coming out of a tap inside the house and a whopping 80 percent had electricity.

What it doesn't say....

Donkey and elephant enter politics

Book review: Statue in Search of a Pedestal

Yeah, a blanket fort

Monday, February 1, 2016

What it doesn’t say….

I’m pretty sure that a lot of folks thought teaching was a proper job for women in 1915 in Sacramento.

Of course, there weren’t a lot of other career paths open to women who wanted to work, or needed to work.

I wonder what women thought about applying for a teaching job, and, of course, complying with the rules and regulations. At least, judging by this example, teachers had a more or less free rein in deciding what and how they should teach.

Wait a minute. I just noticed it doesn’t say anything about romping naked with wild animals in public. Does that mean….?

Donkey and elephant enter politics

Worse than Fahrenheit 451

I didn't bother on Thursday night

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Donkey and elephant enter politics

Ever wondered about the origin of the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant?

Thank Thomas Nast, the 19^th century political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly.

Think back 146 years, to January 1870, when Nast drew a cartoon titled “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.” He used the jackass/donkey to depict Democratic newspapers in the South, savaging Edwin Stanton, who had been Lincoln’s Secretary of War.

About four years later, Nast drew a bloated and berserk elephant to represent the Republican electorate during a political brouhaha about the prospect that President Ulysses Grant might run for a third term (he didn’t).

Imagine what Nast might have done with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram….

Amos 'n' Andy: good stuff

Book review: A Thousand Mornings

Phase transition

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Your pedestrian ancestors

Imagine living the rest of your life without your car.

Hold on, breathe! I didn’t say “without your cell phone,” I only mentioned “car.”

In 1903 most people weren’t even thinking “car,” let alone “cell phone.” Most people walked to where they wanted to go, most of the time.

Here’s a slightly blotchy video of downtown Boston more than 100 years ago, with a couple streetcars, lots of horse-drawn vehicles and stunning throngs of people on the move on the sidewalks. Look at how much clothing they’re wearing. Look at the blobs of horse hockey on the street.

The cameraman passes the Jordan Marsh store, and travels on Boylston Street to Copley Square and the Boston Public Library.

Even without cars, look at the traffic!

Notice there aren’t any parking spaces. I guess nobody ever parked really, the streetcars and carriages just stopped long enough to let passengers get on or off.

It’s estimated there were 21.5 million horses and mules in the United States in 1900, about 1 horse/mule for every three people. (Today, about 6.9 million horses for 323 million people, a horse/people ratio of about 1:47).

Boston firemen and their nags in 1900

Of course, this silent film doesn’t convey any sense of the smell on city streets. Imagine what 14,000 horses in 1903 Boston could do to the fragrance of the downtown. About 33 horses can produce a ton of horse stuff daily, so think about 425 tons of manure dropping to the streets of Boston every day. Carting the horse manure out of town was a big business.

Horses were a big business in many ways. In 1900 in Boston, there were 105 carriage dealers, 99 harness makers, 51 hay dealers, 30 wheelwrights, 238 horseshoers and 192 livery, boarding and sales stables.

Amos 'n' Andy: good stuff

Book review: Lafayette: Lessons in Leadership

We're cooking the planet (part 13)

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Eight-year-old kids go on strike

The abuses of child labor are no longer a big issue in America. Child labor was a big deal in the latter part of the 19^th century.

The Industrial Revolution came to America as early as 1813, when the first water-powered textile mill opened in Waltham, MA. Within a few decades, mills and factories were sprouting along waterways everywhere, and workers streamed off the farms to join immigrants who were employed in them at low wages.

The ongoing abuses of child laborers were condemned (by unionized adults) as early as the 1830s. In the following decades, regulation of the working conditions for kids occurred piece-meal, state by state. By the end of the 19^th century, 28 states had enacted laws governing (but now outlawing) the working hours and conditions for children. Work by youngsters was finally outlawed in America when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938.

In 1881 eight-year-old textile workers in Maine—some of them working for 8 cents a day— started a strike when they discovered that kids their age at another mill were making a penny more per day. The three-day strike was partly successful.

Mill owners and factory owners and other 19^th century capitalists were forced, over time, to cease exploitation of poor kids on the shop floor.

Cabot Mill

Imagine that you work in the Cabot textile mill. Imagine that you take your eight-year-old son to work with you every day, so he can work for 12 hours for pennies in grimy conditions, with poor lighting, breathing air filled with cotton lint and climbing barefoot on the humming machinery so he can replace the empty spindles.

Imagine that you need his paltry income to keep food on the table for your family.

Amos 'n' Andy: good stuff

A beautiful book

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Amos ‘n’ Andy: good stuff

Just taking a moment here to give a nod to the legendary “Amos ‘n’ Andy” show, a perennial radio/TV show from 1926 to 1966. It was the highest-rated radio comedy in history.

Gosden and Correll

I watched the syndicated reruns on the tube in the 1960s. Listen to an early radio segment here.

Amos and Andy were two genial characters who dabbled in most of life’s experiences. Amos Jones and Andrew Hogg Brown were black characters, although the creators of the series were two white radio personalities: Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They started broadcasting the “Sam ‘n’ Henry” show from Chicago in January 1926, and shifted to the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” format two years later.

Ultimately the show was carried by 70 radio stations nationwide, and attracted 40 million listeners—roughly 1 out of 3 Americans.

Childress and Williams

Gosden and Correll were skilled entertainers in the established vaudevillian “blackface” tradition. By the time the show moved to television in 1951, “blackface” had lost its credibility and black actors played the roles. Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams play the two main roles.

The TV version of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was the first television production with black actors and would remain the only opportunity for black acting talent for 20 years.

Of course, Gosden and Correll—and even Childress and Williams—gratuitously portrayed the racial stereotypes that were commonly accepted in white society at the time. The show was a spectacular comedic success.

I tried without much success to ascertain the popularity of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” among black audiences. I found one reference to a poll (no details on validity) that reported “77 percent of black New Yorkers” liked the TV show.

Think for a moment about what entertainment was like before cell phones, iTunes and social media.

"See the [segregated] USA, in your Chevrolet..."

Book review: The End of Greatness

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Mr. Kite et al.

Our notion of the modern circus got its start in a homegrown ring in London in January 1768.

Philip Astley, a former cavalry sergeant major, invited the public to watch him ride his horse around the ring, brandishing his sword while he stood upright with one foot on the saddle and the other on his horse’s head. He was a big hit.

Astley quickly assembled more horsemen, a clown and a band to perform in Astley’s Amphitheatre. His troupe performed for French King Louis XV in 1772. In 1782 a competitor opened the “Royal Circus” in London.

In 1792 an Englishman brought the circus idea to Philadelphia, and then New York and Boston. One-ring shows turned into two-ring shows and so on, until 1871, when P. T. Barnum and a partner created “The Greatest Show on Earth” with three rings in Brooklyn. Calliope music has been popular ever since.

A footnote to this history:

The Beatles were singing about a real guy in circus history when they sang “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” in their 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The “celebrated Mr. K.” worked for a showman named Pablo Fanque, who owned the Circus Royal in the mid-19^th century. William Kite was Pablo’s riding master, and also a tightrope walker. Lennon and McCartney speculated that “Mr. K. performs his tricks without a sound.”

With all the hoops and garters and the “Hogshead of REAL FIRE!,” Pablo Fanque’s fair must have been a rollicking good show.

Once you get there, it’s hard to hate the circus.