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TR & the Pennsylvania Coal Strike of 1902

1/31/2015

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                Source: Edmund Morris. Theodore Rex (2001)
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     Today, huge conglomerates are called corporations, but at the turn of the 20th Century, they were known as Combinations. President Theodore Roosevelt's predecessors paid scant attention to Combinations (e.g. Standard Oil, the Pennsylvania Railroad), but TR knew (as did most US citizens) that Combination led to monopoly (what many called "Dark Power"). Once a Combination was achieved, the predictable economic results were higher prices and lower wages . . . but there were also clear benefits for the consumer.
     To form a "Trust", the companies that were merged into a Combination reorganized their shares in the Stock Market, and created an "Independent" Board that would then operate the colossus. The goal was to crush competition to maximize profits, and few were better at the Combination Game than John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, that controlled 90% of the oil industry by the time TR became President in 1901. 
     Potential profits were so great, and many Combinations were formed in many industries, that Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890. But that law wasn't enforced by Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley, because consumers largely benefited somehow / someway from Combinations. For example, Standard Oil refined and sold the safest (and very affordable) kerosene on the market; there were Combinations for virtually every consumer good, including a Combination for chewing gum. TR was ideologically conservative towards Combinations, believing that the overall benefits outweighed the costs . . . 65% of the overall wealth in the US was attributed to Combinations.

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      It didn't take TR too long, as President, to believe that at some point the federal Government had the right to supervise and regulate Combinations; TR viewed himself as the Director of the greatest Combination of all - the US Government. To TR, the "Labor Question" was the greatest single problem confronting 20th Century America; in his view, the contempt for unskilled workers sowed the seeds for future Revolution. In 1902, the biggest tinderbox in terms of conflict between Capital and Labor was located in the coal mines in the Alleghenies. 
     The resistance by the Coal Combination to the growing United Mine Workers was profound; they did have at least tacit public support since the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago (1886) convinced most of the public that Labor was the main antagonist. TR's support of Labor had severely dimmed as a result of the Haymarket Riot, but on the other hand, he understood more than most that Combinations (especially in transportation and industry) consumed the resources as if they were a swarm of locusts. Conservation, a term that by 1901 had become fashionable and accepted by many Americans, meant not only should natural resources be preserved, but Combinations should be prevented from destroying those resources.
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     Coal mine owners also owned the coal-bearing railroads; by that fact alone, they were among the most powerful of Combinations. The anthracite coal ("hard" coal, that burned much cleaner for heating compared to the "soft" bituminous coal, which was less efficient for heating, and was often used in the production of steel since "coke" could be extracted) produced in these Pennsylvania mines and fields heated all of Northeast America. 
     In situations involving extreme points-of-view, TR always wanted to find the center. TR's speeches on the "Coal Crisis" equivocated, and editorials on both sides of the issue harshly criticized the new President. However, mixed in with the equivocations was TR's desire for the national government to regulate Combinations.
         (Pictured: UMW leader John Mitchell leading miners in a protest during the lockout)
     Demand for coal skyrocketed with the continued Capital v. Labor struggle in Pennsylvania, and the approaching winter. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (MA); one of TR's closest friends and advisors, demanded that TR do something to end the crisis; TR responded that unless the Governor of Pennsylvania asked for assistance, the federal government's hands were tied. TR suspected that the real issue was that the Coal Combination wanted to save face in the public arena, as well as with other Combinations . . . the mine owners didn't want to acquiesce to the government, or even a single politician, in the public arena.
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     The Governor of Massachusetts, W. Murray Crane, gave TR the idea of a Bipolar Conference; that strategy had solved the Teamsters Strike in Boston in less than 24 hours. TR faced murder, sabotage, coal shortages, and thousands of civilian deaths in the upcoming winter if he didn't end the crisis in Pennsylvania. After five months of stalemate, TR had enough; the Coal Combination (and Labor) was threatening the "Public Good". 
     Both sides in the crisis had made it clear in the media that they would not be receptive to any interference from state or federal governments. So TR sent out duplicate telegrams to the Coal Combination owners and Labor in the guise of "Presidential Invitations". which was in reality a polite Presidential Order. Shockingly, both parties agreed to meet in the same room with President Roosevelt. TR met with the leaders of both parties still confined to a wheelchair, since he was still convalescing from a near-fatal car-trolley accident some weeks prior (he was thrown from the car over twenty feet, landing flat on his face, and his right shin needed two operations)

       (Political Cartoon of Labor "Striking" Capital)
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     President Roosevelt, UMW leader John Mitchell, and the Combination representatives met at the "Temporary White House" (22 Jackson Place; the White House was undergoing major renovations), with TR in his wheelchair, and all 14 others arranged around him in a semicircle. TR admitted that he had no legal authority, but he hoped to influence an end to the crisis, and get the coal once again flowing from the mines. TR stated that there were actually THREE involved parties: Capital, Labor, and the General Public, of which he was their representative.
     The representatives of the Coal Combination didn't think that UMW leader Mitchell should be part of the assembled party, since he was part of the bituminous (soft) coal industry, not anthracite (hard) coal. Nonetheless, TR gave all 14 assembled his written views, and adjourned the meeting until 3 pm; the Combination representatives spent the adjournment fuming. 
     The Combination told TR that the 10% wage hike he was suggesting would threaten their profitability (which was true); what they really wanted from TR was protection from the federal government against the striking miners in order to get "scabs" (replacement workers) into the mines. The Anthracite Coal Combination representatives knew that bituminous coal was far more plentiful, and if the flow of anthracite coal continued to be interrupted, they could be out of business. 
     When the meeting resumed at 3 pm, TR asked the Combination reps if Mitchell's (UMW) proposal for a 3rd-Party mediation to the dispute was acceptable - the Combination reps immediately stated that it was unacceptable. The media lauded TR for trying to end the crisis, and excoriated both Capital and Labor for their continued intransigence. 
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     During the impasse of TR's negotiations with Capital and Labor, violence once again descended on Western Pennsylvania; the UMW was openly inciting mobs of striking miners to riot. TR decided to appoint a Commission of Inquiry, then he would find a way to end the crisis. Secretary of War, Elihu Root (one of TR's closest advisors) suggested that J.P. Morgan
 was the perfect choice to find a solution to the Coal Crisis. 
     TR sent Root to see Morgan, after he briefed both Root and Attorney General Philander Knox that he was about ready to use the Army; not since April, 1861, had the U.S. been in such a potential state of affairs. Rumors of a General Strike (workers striking across many industries) were pervasive, and TR gave orders to General Schofield that he only answered to the President, and if he was ordered to go to Pennsylvania, he was to use overwhelming force to quickly end the crisis.
     On 13 October, 1902, SecWar Root and J.P. Morgan met with TR; Morgan stated that Capital tacitly acknowledged the supremacy of the federal government. Morgan also broached the subject of the Coal Combination's wish of who would be a member of the Commission of Inquiry - under no circumstances did they want a member of Labor to be on the commission. Since the Coal Combination expressed support of the inquiry, with one major demand, TR felt that he had quite a bit of latitude in how he could proceed.
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     On 14 October, 1902, TR, Morgan, and Root met on Root's yacht, the "Corsair"; the 
"Corsair Agreement" officially announced the Commission of Inquiry to end the Coal Crisis, but still unresolved was the question of who would be on the commission. Combination reps finally agreed to a Labor representative on the Committee of Inquiry if he wasn't officially identified as a representative of Labor. To TR, this was a case of "Tweedledum v. Tweedledee", but he pounced on the opening. 
     The Combination reps agreed to a Labor leader being on the Committee of Inquiry if he was publicly identified as a SOCIOLOGIST. Soon, all seven members of the Committee of Inquiry were in place, and the flow of anthracite coal once again resumed, ending the crisis. TR was universally lauded as the hero that ended the potential catastrophe (which was to a large extent true), and was portrayed as the first President to stand up to a Combination (which was true). TR's "Litmus Test" for when to challenge a Combination was to determine of the "Public Good" was threatened; even before the Coal Crisis, TR was in the process of challenging J.P. Morgan's "Northern Securities" Railroad Combination proposal. 
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5 Things I Learned From Reading "A Covert Affair" by Jennet Conant (2011)

1/24/2015

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1) The world-famous gourmet Julia Child worked
     in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner 
     of the CIA) during WW II in the Pacific (mostly, what 
     she was tasked with doing was operating an 
     areas's "Registry", keeping track of all the paperwork 
     coming in & going out)

2) Even after V-E Day in August, 1945, Japanese troops were 
    still actually used by the Allies, including America, in such areas
    as Indonesia and Southeast Asia, as de facto "Peacekeepers" in
    order to keep some sort of order until the European powers 
    were able to reclaim their colonies

3) FDR inspired nationalism in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, but
     after his death, Truman's political views tended more towards
     a return to European colonialism.  This paved the way for
     such groups as Ho Chi Minh's resistance (Viet Minh) against
     France to take root and grow in influence and numbers.

4) One OSS operation that was attempted during WW II in the
    Pacific against Japan was based on the supposed fear that
    the typical Japanese citizen had concerning foxes.  An
    operation was actually attempted, dumping dozens upon
    dozens of foxes in to the Pacific by an island held by the
    Japanese military. The foxes, once they hit the water, turned
    tail and actually swam out to sea, never to be seen again

5) Julia, before she met Paul Child during WW II, had culinary 
    tastes that were best described as a "Meat & Potatoes" palette.
    She had minimal cooking skills until after she married Paul in
    1946, and he was reassigned, by the State Dept., to Paris.
    (Even during the peak of her fame, she enjoyed eating at a
    Chinese restaurant in the Boston area, noting that there
    was barely enough time in one lifetime to master French
    cooking, why not enjoy the various Asian foods that had
    changed her attitudes and palette for the rest of her life)
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5 Things I Learned From Reading "A Crack in the Edge of the World" (San Francisco Earthquake of 1906)

1/24/2015

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Source: Simon Winchester. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the 
                                               Great California Earthquake of 1906 (2005)
1) San Francisco, from the Gold Rush to the eve of the earthquake, was a gallimaufry (I learned a new word from this book; it basically means "Hodge-Podge") of varying attitudes, morals, building quality, and social status. It was a city that wanted to be the "Paris of the West", but couldn't quite pull it off, despite being the most important city west of St. Louis

2) Before the city was named San Francisco (after St. Francis, of course), it was known as
Yerba Buena (Good Herb).  In the 1770s, Spanish explorers came across an island in the bay that had a minty herb that had a myriad of uses.  The area Natives, as well as the Spaniards, used the herb for virtually any purpose to promote health (e.g. tea, topical uses, food additive). That island in  San Francisco Bay is stilled called Yerba Buena.

3) Chinatown, like every other part of San Francisco, was hit incredibly hard by the earthquake. In a desire to permanently remove the Chinese from San Francisco, city leaders tried to relocate the survivors to a nearby peninsula.  In the end, Chinatown survived and thrived, but a result of the earthquake was the new purpose of Angel Island.  Since the identification papers of resident Chinese immigrants were lost, and many more Chinese were now attempting to enter via San Francisco to take advantage of the "paperless" situation, Angel Island became a de facto detention center for all Chinese that couldn't immediately prove they were in America legally.  Sometimes, several months would pass until the ruling came down, either way, for a Chinese individual at Angel Island

4) City leaders, as well as railroad executives, were scared to death after the earthquake that people would no longer want to relocate to, or visit, San Francisco.  So, in a somewhat organized conspiracy of sorts, the official line of what caused the most destruction of the city was deemed to be the subsequent fire, not the actual earthquake.  These same city leaders ignored warnings about the failing water pipes before the earthquake; there was very little water available to fight the fires, although the scope of the post-earthquake fire was such that it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

5) The theory of plate tectonics is surprisingly recent: Tuzo Wilson, in the late-1960s, published his plate tectonic theory, and faced a surprising level of criticism from fellow geologists and scientists for a few years.  The San Francisco Earthquake was caused by the "Slip-Slide" movement of plates, in which the Pacific Plate slipped a bit against the North American Plate.  San Francisco basically sits astride the San Andreas Fault, whereas Los Angeles (most of it, anyway), is west of the fault

** 5 days after the quake, as the effort to locate survivors / bodies continued, a dog (terrier) emerged from the wreckage, none the worse for wear, wanting to play (and I assume eat).
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Steve McQueen: "A Magnificent Actor"

1/24/2015

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     Source: Marc Eliot. Steve McQueen. 2011 (Steve McQueen's filmography)
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         Screen capture from The Great Escape (1963), my favorite Steve McQueen movie . . .
     Since I was old enough to remember, Steve McQueen was a Hollywood superstar, even though I didn't see any of his movies until after his death from lung cancer in 1980 (at the age of 50).  Among the interesting things I learned from reading Marc Eliot's biography was . . . 

** McQueen had a rough childhood, never really able to experience anything close to a 
     traditional upbringing; basically, he ran away from home, joining a carnival of all things, at      the age of 15, and eventually joined the Marines

** He was a "Method" actor, which basically meant he totally immersed himself with the
     role he was playing (the style was en vogue in the 1950s & 1960s, in particular).  A by-
     product was that he was very difficult to work with on-and-off the set, from the POV's
     of directors, producers, and fellow actors (especially fellow method actors, such as
     Dustin Hoffman in 1973's "Papillion"). It was ironic that he had a life-long antipathy 
     towards authority, but when he had authority, he basically abused it as an actor. He was
     married three times - his second marriage was to the most successful actress of the late-
     1960s/early-1970s, Ali McGraw, and his first marriage lasted over 15 years. 

** McQueen, like most Hollywood superstars, turned down roles in movies that would
     have made him an even bigger star.  A sampling of the roles he turned down for various
     reasons include: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, 1969 (Robert Redford); Dirty Harry,
     1971 (Clint Eastwood); Play Misty for Me, 1971 (Clint Eastwood); The French 
     Connection, 1972 (Gene Hackman won his first Oscar in this role); Superman, 1978 
     (Marlon Brando); Apocalypse Now, 1979 (Marlon Brando).  To be fair, this kind of 
     thing does happen often enough in Hollywood. Some famous examples include: Tom Cruise
     turned down "Ghost" (1990, Patrick Swayze benefited from that decision), while Julia 
     Roberts turned down both "The Proposal", and "The Blind Side" (2009), to Sandra Bullock's
     great benefit.

** The lung cancer that he died from at the age of 50 was guaranteed to happen, it turns out,
     due to an extended period of time removing asbestos as a Marine, for one of the many
     times he was disciplined in the Corps. The first inkling of that cancer appeared in 1972
     while he was making the movie "The Get Away" w/ Ali McGraw; he made the last few 
     movies of his career, and life, and tremendous pain and discomfort.  The lung cancer
     wasn't diagnosed until he was making the movie "Tom Horn", in 1979.

** He had a chance with 'Bullitt" (1968), to franchise that action "anti-hero" to multiple 
     movies, much like Clint Eastwood did w/ Dirty Harry; no one in Hollywood understood 
     why he didn't take advantage of that role with future sequels, but instead focused on 
     choosing roles that his fans didn't support at the box office (largely through his production 
     company Solar, which was a financial albatross)

** The highest-grossing movie in which he starred was 1974's "The Towering Inferno", in
      which he finally appeared in a movie w/ Paul Newman (McQueen was incredibly jealous
      of Newman's super-stardom).  He chose the role of the chief firefighter, in part, in order
      to literally have the last line in the movie over Newman (Ironically enough, it was Newman
      himself, in 1968, that offered McQueen the role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
      but McQueen apparently didn't want to work w/ Newman at that point)

** McQueen was surprisingly lazy when he wasn't on the set, or racing cars or motorcycles.
     A life-long drug addict, philanderer, and couch potato, he wanted to drift through life
     in his 40s, "letting himself go", never making another movie.  His financial realities kept
     him making movies just to live the life he wanted to live (e.g. his last movie, "The Hunter",
     1980)

** Like Denzel Washington and George Clooney, McQueen was a TV star before he became a
     movie star.  McQueen starred in 94 episodes of "Wanted: Dead or Alive", for CBS in the 
     late-1950s, portraying a bounty hunter, which makes his last movie, "The Hunter", kind of
     an ironic last movie for his career.

** The movies that are considered to be the "Essential McQueen" are:
      - The Magnificent Seven (1960) 
      - The Great Escape (1963)
      - The Cincinnati Kid (1965; a poker-player version of Newman's "The Hustler" in 1961)
      - The Sand Pebbles (1966)
      - The Thomas Crown Affair (1968; a role turned down by Sean Connery)
      - Bullitt (1968; to this day, this movie has what is considered by most movie critics as the 
                  greatest car chase in movie history)
      - Papillion (1973)
      - The Towering Inferno (1974)
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Destiny of the Republic (The Assassination of James Garfield)

1/24/2015

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Source: Candice Millard. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and 
                                           the Murder of a President, 2011
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    During 1st Semester of 2013, I read Destiny of the Republic over a weekend (I borrowed the book from my Mom, who highly recommended it) in order to learn more about the Assassination of President James Garfield (1881). So much has been written, discussed, in addition to founded and unfounded speculation, on the Lincoln and JFK assassinations, but not nearly as much has been written on our second assassinated president.  The book focused on six principal players surrounding this assassination - 


** Dr. Joseph Lister: His antiseptic theory (e.g. sterilizing hands, surgical instruments, germ 
     theory) was mostly accepted in Europe, but not in America in 1881.  The aftermath of the 
     Garfield assassination led to the general acceptance of his theory and practices in American
     medicine

** Dr. Willard Bliss: Garfield's lead doctor was basically a medical dictator; he had total control
     to who could access Garfield after the shooting.  For almost three months, he treated
     Garfield in his way, refusing to listen to other medical opinions.  He desperately wanted to
     enhance his reputation by being the doctor that healed the president, but his treatment,
     even by the standards of 1881, bordered on the cruel and unusual. In the end, his 
     treatment (and that of a few others before him) led to MASSIVE sepsis (infection), that 
     was very disturbing to read about, to say the least. He became convinced that the bullet 
     could only be located on one side of the President's body . . . "Dr. Tunnel-Vision"

** Alexander Graham Bell: Interestingly, the only reason why he became famous for inventing
    the telephone was that he was late registering for an "Inventor's Fair", and was located in 
    an obscure location. About to give up since there had been no foot traffic his way, a group
    of very important men walked by on their way out, but one of them recognized Bell, and 
    the group stopped, and they were amazed by the telephone.  Five years later, he wanted to
    help find the elusive bullet, and he adapted technology related to the telephone which in 
    effect, became a kind of "Bullet Detector".  This invention worked, but he wasn't able to 
    find the bullet due to two reasons: a) Bell wasn't told, and didn't bother to find out, that 
    Garfield was on a metal-spring bed, which was rare in 1881; b) Dr. Bliss absolutely refused 
    to let him use his invention on the other side of Garfield's body.  Had Bell been allowed to 
    do so, he would have quickly found the bullet.

** Charles Guiteau: Garfield's assassin was a certified psychotic; everyone that had any 
     dealings with him experienced his insanity.  Guiteau, in the end, believed he was doing a 
     great service for the future of America by killing Garfield.  He, after at least one failed 
     attempt, succeeded in shooting Garfield in the back at close range as the President was 
     heading on vacation in a train station.  Guiteau was the only of the four presidential 
     assassins to receive a fair trial; in the end, the jury refused to acknowledge any aspect of 
     an insanity defense, and sentenced Guiteau to hang. Guiteau's last words were "Glory, 
     Glory, Hallelujah."

** James Garfield: The President lived for almost three months after he was shot by Guiteau;
    given the medical practices of 1881, and the tyrannical Dr. Bliss, he never had a chance 
    due to the infection that invaded his body.  I was struck by how talented and capable he 
    was politically; it's a shame that we haven't had more presidents with his character, 
    discipline, and acumen. I think he was the perfect president at the perfect time, which
    doesn't happen as much in our history as we would like, or need . . . thanks  so much, 
    CHARLES. During the autopsy, the bullet was found safely encapsulated in scar tissue in 
    the pancreas.  Had nothing been done other than making him comfortable, or had doctors 
    adhered to Dr. Lister's procedures, he would have survived, and finished his term.  The 
    nation mourned his assassination every bit as much as Lincoln's death twenty years earlier.

** Roscoe Conkling: The most powerful man in America in 1881 was a U.S. Senator from New
    York. The Republican Party was torn apart by a battle between the "Stalwarts" (Conkling, 
     et al), which supported the "Spoils System" (Cronyism) and the "Half-Breeds" (Garfield, et 
     al), which supported the "Merit System". According to the "Half-Breeds", it wasn't who you 
     know that mattered, but whether or not you were competent for the appointed job.  This 
     battle was intense, and almost ripped the Republicans apart.  One after-effect of the 
     assassination was that Conkling was politically out-maneuvered, and actually was convinced
     to resign his seat in the Senate.  Then, he found out, the state legislature of New York 
     refused to send him back to Washington; even his right-hand man, Vice-President Chester 
     Arthur, abandoned him, even after he was sworn in as the 21st President.  Garfield must 
     have been a very inspiring figure, given the complete turnaround of Arthur, who supported
     the "Merit System" as president, turning is back on Conkling, the man that politically made
     him.

This book was selected as a "One Book, One City" selection for Lincoln in 2011 - I'm glad I had the chance to read it - I learned so much from reading the book - thanks MOM! (But no thanks to you, CHARLES)
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The Economics of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"

1/24/2015

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      I had never read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and I decided it was time to do so. I started reading it during our de facto school-wide daily study hall the last week before Christmas Break, and I finished reading this classic novel on the Saturday before Christmas.  At the heart of economics is "Benefit v. Cost"; what made The Grapes of Wrath a very captivating reading experience was that throughout the book, Steinbeck focused on "Benefit v. Cost" from a variety of viewpoints - he didn't limit himself solely to the choices facing the migrants heading towards California. What follows is my analysis of some examples of "Benefit v. Cost" from Steinbeck's most famous novel. BTW, Steven Spielberg recently announced that he was producing a re-make of the movie, "The Grapes of Wrath".  The classic movie that was released in 1940, just one year after the book was published, is loyal to the book for the first half of the film, but not so in the second half - nonetheless, Steinbeck was happy with the movie, especially with Henry Fonda's portrayal of Tom Joad.

1) Why did the Joads leave Oklahoma in the 1930s?
    - Firstly, the practice of straight-plowing must be addressed; farmers on the Great Plains believed in plowing perfectly straight lines (contour plowing was rarely used; there were even straight-plowing contests for prize money in the Great Plains), which was proven to be the worst strategy imaginable when the rain stopped in the early-1930s.  Since the price for crops was incredibly low, the basic strategy for most farmers was to plow-up more land in order to plant more crops, and make money by volume.  The problem was that most every farmer was doing so, and by the mid-1930s, the tractor enters the picture on an epic scale.  The Joads, like thousands of other tenant farmers, were "Tractored-Out", in that the landowners decided to plow up (and harrow) more land with the tractor, and the tenant farmers were in the way (unemployment due to technology . . . and the Dust Bowl). One trick the landowners used to persuade their renters to leave was to use the tractor to knock-off their small house from the foundation, which is what happened to the Joads. With the promise of work and decent wages in California (the infamous orange handbill), the benefit of going West far outweighed the cost of staying in Oklahoma. 

2) Why did Tom Joad decide to violate his parole by leaving the state line?
    - The main character of the book was just released from prison (on parole) for killing a
man in a bar fight.  The main concern of his parents was that if he left Oklahoma, he would violate his parole.  Tom Joad decided to gamble that if he didn't get in any more trouble, the Oklahoma authorities would view trying to track him down as too costly. The clincher for his decision to violate parole, of course, was the idea that he (and his family) would be working in California, and that their standard of living would increase.

3) The Burials of Grandpa and Grandma Joad
    - Grandpa Joad (Tom's grandfather), never really wanted to leave the homestead, and not
long after leaving Oklahoma, died of a stroke in Ivy and Sairy Wilson's tent (the first fellow migrants going West that the Joads came across).  The agony of benefit v. cost in terms of what to do with their loved one's remains was addressed. It was viewed as too costly to involve the nearest coroner, and spend $40 ($630 now) in the cheapest, legal way to resolve the crisis. Instead, Grandpa Joad was buried not far from the highway; it was even decided not to leave a mound of dirt on the grave, just in case his remains were found, and he was somehow traced back to them.  But, why did the Joads decide to spend $40 when Grandma Joad died?  Not long after they crossed the California state line, the Joads were stopped at a check-point to see if they were bringing in any fruits or vegetables.  Mama Joad refused to let the officer search the back of their 1925 Dodge truck (jalopy), but did show him how sick Grandma was, and he let them pass . . . well, Grandma was already dead by that point.  Even though the Joads had been warned by those heading back East that there weren't any decent jobs available, the Joads believed there was still hope - so much so that Mom rode with a dead older relative next to her in the truck (at least she didn't strap Grandma Joad to the roof rack of the Family Truckster), and the family spent $40, most of the rest of their money, for a coroner in Barstow to take care of Grandma, since they almost certainly would be working very soon.  Since they were past the check-point, very close to the orchards, etc., the Joads figured it would be less costly to properly take care of Grandma Joad at that point.

4) The Waitress in the Cafe
    - A strategy Steinbeck used throughout the book was to feature interludes from other points-of-view, in order to provide more context for the struggles of the migrant farmers. One such interlude focused on a cafe on Route 66, in either Texas or New Mexico.  A waitress at the cafe had decided a while ago to only invest her time, focus, and energies on truckers, and no one else.  Truckers, if treated right, would come back, time-and-time again, and tell others about their experience, which meant more truckers as customers, and more tips, of course.  So, when migrant farmers stopped in, trying to, for example, buy a loaf of bread that cost 15 cents for a dime, she had a dilemma. She didn't want to have an unpleasant scene with any migrant farmers that would make the truckers uncomfortable, so she (benefit v. cost) decided to sell the bread for a dime. She even, just to get the migrant family out of the cafe, took a another penny from the migrant farmer so his two kids could have a piece of candy each, even though the candy cost a nickel.

5) Traveling Caravans of "Okies" on Route 66
    - According to Steinbeck, it did not take too long for Westward migrant farmers to group
together, forming mobile communities.  The costs of grouping included rules of conduct, punishment for violating the rules (#1 punishment: being shunned); all for the main benefit of security. Another main cost was that if a family wanted to travel faster, they were unable to do so. In essence, these groupings became a sort of modern Wagon Train - the Joads experienced something of the sort when they decided, with Ivy and Sairy Wilson, to make a two-car caravan, mostly in order to be sure they were able to get through the mountains in New Mexico.

6) Why did Californians (in the book) hate "Okies"?
    - Steinbeck described a strategy that went something like this: In order to keep wages very low, and to maximize profits for the California landowners, a huge surplus of workers was needed - in other words, a situation was created for their great benefit (e.g. issue an orange handbill in the East, in order to bring a surplus of workers to California).  But the cost of this decision led to the hatred of the "Okies" (a term that was used pejoratively by Californians in the book), since now, with all these idle (and angry) unemployed migrant farmers, their property was now obviously at risk. So, another strategy was created, in order to minimize the cost - "Union-Busting" strategies were employed (e.g. harassment, jail, physical attacks, lynching).

7) The Market Experience for the "Okies"
    - A constant source of frustration for the tenant / migrant farmers was that they just could not get a fair price, whether buying or selling. The desire for immediate cash outweighed the luxury of haggling or walking away.  One example from the book illustrates the plight of these farmers when trying to sell an item: A used car salesman purchased a vehicle from a farmer for $10 ($160 now) and the farmer, before he went West, saw his car for sale at the lot for $75 ($1200 now). An example that showed their untenable position when purchasing items occurred when the Joads were picking peaches for five cents a box, and Mama Joad went to the grocery store owned by the landowner.  The cost of driving to the nearest town for cheaper prices would be greater than paying up to 25% more for virtually everything in the store. Expectations for a decent meat & potatoes dinner for the Joad family after their first day of work in California were dashed when very little was purchased on $1 credit.

8) The (Grapes of) Wrath of the Migrant Farmers in California
    - During the Great Depression, there was actually a surplus of food in America, but far too many people were desperate for food.  One of the reasons for this historic reality was analyzed in this book.  Cherries, peaches, oranges, grapes, and potatoes were being grown, but the market prices for those crops were so low, that most California growers couldn't make a profit unless they slashed wages to ridiculously low levels. So, on some farms and orchards, the fruit dropped to the ground and rotted, and potatoes were thrown into a river. But, linked to the distrust and hatred for the "Okies", orchard owners doused these fallen oranges with kerosene, so the "Okies" couldn't have free fruit (and then stay in the area longer) - some potato farmers even paid hired guns to keep "Okies" from "Potato Fishing" in the river. 
    Wages were far too low (kids were actually starving to death in the Hooverville camps, which actually happened during the Great Depression), yet there was a bounty of food available . . . a desire to organize against the California landowners was growing . . . towards the very end of the book, Tom Joad decided to become a labor leader for migrant farmers (he gave his "I'll be there" speech to his Mom, in his hideout,  a dark rabbit hole), deciding that the benefit of working to get higher wages for migrant farmers outweighed the cost of leaving his family, and being arrested or murdered.

9) The "Association of Farmers" in California
    - It's worth noting that the "Association" immediately denounced their portrayal when the book was published (almost 500,000 copies of the book were sold in one year).  That being said, it was accurate that the "Association" colluded in setting wages, and hired some not-very-nice folks to break any attempt to form a union.  The "Association" was even mentioned in a parody of "Roll out the Barrel" called "Roll Out the Pickets", about the California Cotton Strike of 1939. 

10) Why were wage-earners referred to as "Reds"?
    - When an "Okie" would ask a landowner "what is a Red", invariably, the answer was that a "Red" was anyone that wanted a wage that was higher than what they wanted to give . . . it was an over-used, collective term for wage-workers wanting a fair wage during the Great Depression.
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Did a Barmaid Start the Civil War?

1/24/2015

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Source: Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, 2008
     The vast majority of high school U.S. History teachers are at least somewhat familiar with the "Peggy Eaton Affair", which occurred during Andrew Jackson's first term as president 
(1829 - 1833).  What immediately follows is a traditional, "Reader's Digest" version of what I was taught in college, what has been featured in the Jackson documentaries that I've seen, and what I have generally taught in my classes concerning the significance of the "Peggy Eaton Affair": Peggy Eaton, the wife of the Secretary of War (who at one point in her life worked as a bar maid), was from Tennessee, not of the Eastern Elite, and was "shunned" by the other Cabinet member's wives (e.g. at dinner parties). The Eatons were personal friends of Jackson, and when the "shunning" did not end, he removed the members of his Cabinet, and replaced them, and yet the "shunning" continued. When Jackson discovered that his Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, had instigated the entire affair, he politically embarrassed Calhoun to the point where he resigned, went back to his native South Carolina, and started the Nullification Crisis.  A Civil War nearly occurred 30 years before the real thing, leading South Carolina to view the threat of secession as a useful strategy . . . therefore, a bar maid helped start the Civil War.  
     As I started reading American Lion, I was curious to find out the true significance of the "Eaton Affair"; about half of Meacham's book features primary documents (especially letters) from the principal figures involved (the last third of the book contain his source notes).  So, from reading Meacham's heavily researched biography on Jackson's Presidency, I formed the following conclusions . . . 

a) The "Peggy Eaton Affair" did not cause the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina.
    South Carolina nullified (cancelled) the Tariff of 1832 seven days AFTER Jackson won 
    re-election over Henry Clay. At most, the "Eaton Affair" was only one of several events that 
    led many Americans to believe that Jackson was concentrating too much power in the
    Executive Branch. Many more Americans, as a result of the Election of 1832, showed that 
    they believed that he was actually representing the interests of the majority over those of 
    the Eastern Elite. (BTW, South Carolina nullified a Supreme Court ruling concerning slavery 
    in 1822; the "tradition" of nullification long predated the Eaton Affair).

b)  The Eaton Affair did not directly lead to Jackson replacing his Cabinet; Martin Van Buren          resigned as SecState for political reasons, and then John Eaton resigned as SecWar on his
     own accord, in order to pursue a U.S. Senate seat back in Tennessee (which he did not 
     get); Jackson then decided to remove the rest of the Cabinet, since his two must trusted 
     members were no longer there (the most significant addition was his new Attorney 
     General, Roger B. Taney, soon to replace John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme 
     Court). In was true that Jackson cleared out his Cabinet, in part, due to the "shunning" of 
     Margaret Eaton - to Jackson, an attack on him was an attack on the nation (in a way, his
     motto could have been that of the Feminist Movement of the late-1960s/early-1970s - 
     "The Personal is the Political"). Jackson's enemies called the removal of the remaining 
     Cabinet members a "purge"; to them, it was just one more example of Jackson 
     consolidating Executive power at the expense of Congress. The Eatons, by 1 January, 
     1833, were "Old News" in Washington D.C. & Nashville society; they didn't matter 
     anymore, because they no longer had power (Margaret Eaton had become quite ill by 
     that point; possible reasons include that she had a hard time adjusting to life after her 
     husband resigned his Cabinet position).

c) While it was true a Calhoun instigated the "Eaton Affair", it wasn't the Vice-President, 
    but his wife, Floride Calhoun.  The "scuttlebutt" among the Eastern Elites was that Margaret
    Eaton, in her past, displayed behavior that was associated with "loose women", and was
    repeatedly ignored and slighted at such social/political functions as dinner parties.  As 
    difficult as Floride Calhoun (and many other women) was, Margaret Eaton was not the
    innocent "Social Martyr" that popular history portrays.  Margaret Eaton was at least as
    culpable as Floride Calhoun for the political firestorm that consumed Washington, D.C., 
    especially President Jackson.  Margaret Eaton, in many ways, was her own worst enemy; 
    she even wrote a letter to Jackson attacking his niece, Emily Donelson, the de facto First
    Lady, who was doing her best to keep her negative views of Margaret Eaton to herself. 
    After John Eaton died, Margaret Eaton married an Italian dance instructor - she was 59,
    he was 19 years old - shortly after their marriage, he ran off w/ Margaret Eaton's
    granddaughter.

d) The "Eaton Affair" did play a major role in continuing the political version of "total war"
     in Washington, D.C. politics.  The tradition of trying to crush anyone that disagreed with
     their politics was an outgrowth of the Constitutional Era. In part due to the "Eaton Affair",
     Martin Van Buren (who was the only major politician other than Jackson to support the
     Eatons) created the first truly national political party in our history - the Democratic Party -        to crush any opposition (The Whig Party was created in 1834, largely by those that 
     believed Jackson had accumulated far too much power as President at the expense of
     Congress). For those that think the current political climate in Washington, D.C. is the
     worst it has ever been, Meacham made a very convincing argument, with plenty of 
     documentary evidence, that the political polarization during Jackson's presidency
     was much, much worse than what we see today.

e) The "Eaton Affair" did do significant damage in one regard: it temporarily split Jackson's
    family in the White House (his niece and her husband were his family in D.C.).  Jackson,
    in 1831, actually banished his niece, Emily Donelson, to Tennessee, over some comments
    that she made about Margaret Eaton in a recent letter (that letter was sent to Jackson
    after he read Margaret Eaton's letter "trashing" Emily).

f) John C. Calhoun did not resign the Vice-Presidency due to the "Eaton Affair"; he waited
    until the South Carolina state legislature selected him to the U.S. Senate. The "Eaton 
    Affair" did not play a role in his decision to resign; his desire to run for President in 
    1832 was his major motivation (he decided not to run when he calculated he would not be
    able to get enough Southern Electoral Votes to force the election to the House of
    Representatives).  He, like many others in South Carolina (and other Southern states), 
    argued that Nullification (in essence a state decides what is Constitutional, and what is
    not) was an extension of Jefferson's "Republican Virtue".  In the end, South Carolina stood 
    alone with its threat to secede from the Union in 1833; the other Southern states had a 
    cost-benefit analysis dilemma - was Nullification, a respectable enough political theory in 
    their eyes, worth Civil War?

     President Andrew Jackson had significant political battles during his first term in 
office, which included the future of the 2nd National Bank, Indian Removal, Nullification, and
the one that consumed him the most during his first term, the "Eaton Affair".  However, the "Eaton Affair", which took so much of his time and focus as President, had the least historical significance relative to the other three events.  When Jackson weakened the 2nd National Bank (Nicholas Biddle, the Bank's president, actually destroyed his own bank), what could have remained a "regular" depression intensified to a severe economic downturn starting in 1837. Jackson's policy towards Natives (it's important to remember Indian Removal was politically very popular in 1830s America) started the tradition of mass-removal to less desirable locations, such as to what is now Oklahoma. The U.S. Government's policy forcing Natives to reservations after the Civil War was an extension of what Jackson started during his first term in office.  The Nullification Crisis with South Carolina planted the seeds for Civil War, in that the only real lesson South Carolina learned from the crisis was that the threat of secession was a useful political tool then, and for the future.  In comparison, the "Eaton Affair" didn't have near the historical impact of the previous three events.  At most, the "Eaton Affair" was a focal point for Washington, D.C. (and Nashville, TN) political society, but when John Eaton left Washington, D.C., the "crisis" was over.  The "Eaton Affair" was only a partial cause for Jackson's Cabinet "Makeover", and was not a factor at all with Calhoun's resignation as Vice-President, or the Nullification Crisis with South Carolina. 
     The "Eaton Affair", to me, was rather similar to the divergent views of Nebraska Cornhusker football fans toward Coach Bo Pelini during the 2013 season - what consumed NU football fans simply did not matter at the national level (reinforcing the historical truism that "All Politics Are Local").  So, I would argue, based on reading Jon Meacham's American Lion, that a bar maid did not help start the Civil War. 
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Walter Cronkite & JFK in 1960

1/24/2015

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                               Source: Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite. 2012
 Walter Cronkite was the television news anchorman that my parents watched every day on CBS, oftentimes while we ate dinner.  My first memory watching Walter Cronkite on television was during the Apollo 8 mission during Christmas Break, 1968 (at the age of 6), in which NASA (Cronkite was a HUGE supporter of NASA) orbited three astronauts around the moon ten times; I still remember Jim Lovell reading from the book of Genesis during the broadcast from the spacecraft.  
     My wife purchased the audio book for her father, and it is now in my possession - it has been wonderful learning about Cronkite's professional life.  The above video segment features a brief analysis of Cronkite's famous broadcast announcing the death of JFK to the nation - he needed to do the broadcast from the radio room since the large television cameras took at least 15 minutes to warm up, and he needed to broadcast immediately.  Cronkite became a supporter of JFK, in part, due to Kennedy's vision of landing an American on the moon before the end of the 1960s.  Therefore, it was very interesting to listen to Cronkite's first face-to-face interaction with JFK in the Fall of 1960, after Senator Kennedy was nominated by the Democratic Party to run for President against the Republican candidate, Vice-President Richard Nixon.
     Cronkite was conducting a series of 8 political interviews on CBS leading up to the 1960
Presidential Election.  When Cronkite visited Senator Kennedy, and officially invited him to be on the program, JFK not-so-nicely declined.  Cronkite stated that JFK would have to do the interview if he was able to schedule Vice-President Nixon to appear on the program.  According to Cronkite, JFK said that Nixon would never agree to be on the program.  Very soon after that meeting, Cronkite met with Nixon, and the Vice-President enthusiastically agreed to appear on the program; JFK's hand was forced - he too had to appear on the program the following week.
     Nixon's interview (on videotape, to be broadcast soon afterwards) went exceedingly well; Nixon was not only very prepared, but also, contrary to what many may believe, very engaging during his interview with Cronkite, he even cracked a joke about his "5 O'Clock Shadow".  The following week, JFK was interviewed by Cronkite on the same program, but, for some reason, JFK was not prepared, nor very engaging.  Often, JFK's response to a question by Cronkite started with an "Um", or an "Ah"; his lack of preparation and interest in doing the interview
was beyond-evident.  After the last question was answered, and the cameras turned off, JFK told Cronkite that the interview would never air.  JFK even went so far as to go over Cronkite's head to the CBS brass, not only to keep the videotaped interview from being aired, but to actually re-do the interview itself.  
     What occurred next is my favorite part of the audio book so far: Cronkite, when told of JFK's phone call to his superiors, shortly after the interview, actually went upstairs to JFK's bedroom (the interview had been conducted in one of JFK's homes).  Cronkite approached the bedroom, and the door was open - JFK was lying on the bed, undoubtedly resting his back, and Lincoln, Nebraska's own Theodore Sorensen, his main speech-writer, was with him. Basically, a highly agitated Cronkite told JFK that it would be no problem to re-do the interview, but he would have to place a disclaimer at the beginning of the program that unlike Vice-President Nixon, this interview was Senator Kennedy's second go-round.  A furious and frustrated JFK told Cronkite to air the videotaped interview as it was, which Cronkite did. 
     One wonders what impact that interview had on JFK's campaign strategy in running for President in 1960 - JFK was very well prepared for his televised debates with Nixon later on in the campaign (a sample of that first debate is below).  Maybe, Cronkite's journalistic integrity was the jolt JFK needed in order to be more prepared and engaging for his televised debates with Nixon, starting in September, 1960.

Here is Chris Matthews' NY Times Sunday Book Review of Cronkite (6 July, 2012)
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Top Ten Walter Cronkite Television Moments

1/24/2015

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                        Source: Douglas Brinkley. Cronkite. 2012
This "Top 10" list is from the friendly folks at WatchMojo.com; it's hard to argue with the top of their list, in that it includes Cronkite's reports on Watergate, the Tet Offensive, Apollo 11, and the death of JFK.  One event that I thought could have been included in this video was the television report that made Cronkite a "household name": his report on the first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, on 20 February, 1962.  While Glenn was sitting in his chair travelling at over 17,000 miles per hour around Earth for orbit-after-orbit, Cronkite was sitting his chair, hour-after-hour, providing a running commentary of the event.  What separated Cronkite from the other (absolutely great) news anchors, such as Chet Huntley and David Brinkley at NBC, was that he had developed a great relationship with NASA since their inception, and he was basically a "Space-Geek".  His love of space exploration (which had its roots in his WW II assignment covering the Army Air Corps in Europe for UPI) and his knowledge of what NASA was doing (he studied, studied, studied) gave his coverage more credibility in the opinion of television viewers at the time.  
     Some perspective as to why his Watergate broadcast (which were actually two PRIME TIME
broadcasts on CBS a week-and-a-half before the 1972 Presidential Election), was controversial - Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America" by 1972, decided that he couldn't compete with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, so why not have two programs that summarized what the Post reporters had discovered?  Up to then, Watergate hadn't reached "Scandal-Status", but Cronkite's broadcasts made Watergate a visual story for the first time. Also, the Washington Post was out on a journalistic branch on their own, and Cronkite's broadcasts provided a much-needed boost.  As Ben Bradlee, the chief editor of the Washington Post said, it was a "big kiss" from Walter.  It was true that Cronkite was an avowed liberal, especially by 1972 (there was even a grass-roots effort at the Democratic National Convention to convince George McGovern, the presumptive nominee, to have Cronkite run as his Vice-Presidential running mate), but that alone doesn't explain why Nixon absolutely hated Cronkite (and all other members of the media).  Cronkite had become one of top names on Nixon's infamous "hit list" long before his extended Watergate broadcast.  Among the the reasons was that Cronkite was the only member of the media to be able to conduct not one, but two clandestine television interviews with Daniel Ellsberg, the author of "The Pentagon Papers", an expose on the U.S. Government and Vietnam (think Old-School "Wiki-Leaks"). The FBI couldn't find Ellsberg, Nixon's men couldn't find Ellsberg, but Cronkite did, and the Ellsberg interviews meant that Nixon had a political bulls-eye placed on Cronkite's head.  Long before Cronkite's Watergate broadcasts, Nixon and his men tried very hard to isolate and discredit Cronkite as an ultra-liberal with an obvious agenda against the President.
    The impact of Cronkite's Watergate extended broadcasts didn't make any difference on that year's election; Nixon won the largest victory in presidential history in terms of states won (49 to 1; McGovern only carried Massachusetts, he didn't even carry his home state of South Dakota). The impact of Cronkite's broadcasts was delayed; it took time for Americans to digest all the information.  Also, since Cronkite attached his name to the Post reports, any new development concerning Watergate in the Washington Post had the implied consent and support of Cronkite as well, which lent even more credibility to Woodward & Bernstein's investigative journalism (it also helped that Cronkite kept echoing the Post reports in his nightly CBS newscasts).  
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1st Term (1953 - 1957)

1/24/2015

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        Source: Jim Newton, Eisenhower: The White House Years, 2011
What follows is a some of the things I learned reading the section of Jim Newton's biography on Ike's first term in office (1953 - 1957) . . . 

*  Starting in 1951, Eisenhower was courted by both major parties, but it became obvious that     his political philosophy matched the Republicans far more than the Democrats at the time. 
    Ike believed in a "Middle Road" approach to politics, which was an outgrowth from his
    many years serving his nation in the military.  When he finally was convinced to confirm
    his candidacy, he actually was not the favorite to win the Republican nomination in 1952.
    The favorite was Robert Taft (President Taft's son, and one of the most respected senators
    in U.S. History), who, by using convention rules that favored him, was almost guaranteed 
    the nomination in terms of delegates.  But Ike's advisers succeeded in removing key rules
    (e.g. settling which contested delegates from certain states would vote) in order to make 
    the process far more equitable.  Eisenhower secured the hard-fought nomination, and then
    faced the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, in the general election.  Eisenhower, 
    unsure about his popularity, campaigned hard, traveling across the nation - this was also 
    the first presidential election to feature campaign commercials on television.  Ike 
    defeated Stevenson by a large margin in 1952; his popularity remained high during both
    terms in office, rarely dipping below 70% in terms of approval from popularity polls.

* Ike had a love affair with covert affairs - successful "regime changes" in Iran and
   Guatemala, spearheaded by the CIA, convinced Ike that covert strategies were a useful
   and necessary tool in order to contain Communism.  In Iran, Eisenhower encouraged
   the efforts to remove Mohammed Mosaddegh from power; he was viewed as not only
   unfriendly to U.S. interests in the Middle East, but also as a leader that just very well may
   hold the door open for the USSR to enter, and dominate the region.  Iran was viewed as
   a strategic lynch-pin for the U.S. in containing the USSR, and as far as Eisenhower &
   his advisers were concerned, Mosaddegh had to be removed.  In effect, the CIA created a
   political atmosphere in Iran that made it impossible for Masaddegh to stay in power, 
   opening the door for a leader that was far-more friendly to U.S. interests, Mohammed Reza      Pahlavi . . . the Shah of Iran. This regime change had a long-term consequence, in that 
   when the U.S. placed the Shah in power, an Islamic religious leader started to view the
   U.S. in an extremely unfavorable light - the Ayatollah Khomeini entered the political
   landscape in Iran.
       In Guatemala, Ike also favored regime change; it was perceived that a Communist was in
   power in that Central American nation, and unlike in Iran, he was much easier to remove
   from power.  The long-term consequence of this regime change featured another person
   that resented U.S. influence in the region, a 26 year-old who became a force to be reckoned
   with soon enough in Latin America - Che Guevera

* Ike labeled his foreign policy in dealing with Communism (especially the USSR), the 
  "New Look".  It featured three parts: a) Containment - continue Truman's foreign policy;
   b) Deterrence - not only stay ahead of the USSR in terms of nuclear weapons, but also be
   very clear that the U.S. intended to use them if sufficiently provoked (Mao Tse-Tung was
   the recipient of more than one of those threats from Eisenhower); c) "Roll-Back" - Ike
   wanted to take back some of Communist Eastern Europe that was in the Soviet Union Bloc;
   he had high hopes that covert operations could build enough resistance in nations such as
   Poland, where the USSR would hopefully tire of the increased political resistance, and leave
   Poland to its own affairs.  

* Richard Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice-President for both terms, but he was never part of
   Ike's inner circle (what Ike, and some in the media called, "The Gang").  Nixon lost quite a
   bit of political capital in Ike's eyes during the investigation of financial shenanigans after 
   he was named Ike's VP candidate (Nixon saved his spot on the ticket, as well as his 
   political future, with his famous televised "Checkers" Speech). Ike never really distrusted
   Nixon; it appeared that he just didn't think Nixon was politically seasoned or talented 
   enough to be an important adviser, or a future President of the United States.  When Ike
   decided to run again in 1956, he left Nixon politically hanging for months, never really
   committing to him as his Vice-President until the eve of the Republican National
   Convention.
 * By 1954, President Eisenhower had enough of Senator Joseph McCarthy's (Wisc.) 
    attempts at exposing loyalty and security risks in the federal government; when McCarthy
    started to claim that the U.S. Army was coddling Communists, it was too much for
    the former general to bear.  What you see above is the U.S. Army's counsel, Joseph
    Welch (one of Ike's favorite people), embarrassing, but more importantly, exposing 
    McCarthy as a bully - no one had really stood up to McCarthy before . . . no one dared.
    Ike had successfully maneuvered McCarthy into not only conducting a Congressional
    hearing concerning the Army, but also to televise those hearings; millions watched the
    "Army-McCarthy Hearings" in lieu of the afternoon soap operas.  Once Welch stood up
    to McCarthy, in a fashion and time encouraged by Ike,  McCarthy's influence immediately 
    waned; no longer was he as feared, and soon enough, McCarthy was even censored 
    in the Senate.  

* Eisenhower had health problems, most chronically, Crohn's Disease (severe intestinal
   cramps and pain - it is a very debilitating disease).  The most severe of Ike's medical
   episodes was also the most covered-up - Ike's heart attack late in his first term.  Shortly
   after midnight, Ike awoke, complaining of a variety of ailments (he wasn't himself all day),
   and his wife, Mamie, called for his personal physician, Dr. Howard Snyder (also a personal
   friend).  Why Dr. Snyder didn't immediately diagnose the heart attack is unknown - he
   tried numerous strategies to help his patient, but nothing worked.  Eisenhower, who by
   then was well into his sixties, lied down, with Mamie holding him, trying to keep him
   calm - and Ike went back to sleep for several hours.  It turns out that that period of
   sleep saved his life; upon waking, he was taken to a hospital by ambulance, and properly
   diagnosed as having a heart attack.  Dr. Snyder, as one would expect, did all he could
   to help Ike; he also did all he could to cover up his misdiagnosis, writing many unsolicited
   letters to various parties, claiming that he did indeed immediately diagnose and treat Ike's 
   heart attack. Interestingly, Ike helped with the cover-up, insisting that all was well - Dr. 
   Snyder continued in his capacity as the President's doctor.  
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Leisure ("Cheap Amusements") of the Middle and Working Classes During the Progressive Era

1/24/2015

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     The main themes that I will discuss from Cheap Amusements by Cathy Peiss are:
                1) Division of Work/Leisure / 
                2) Respectability/Sexuality
                3) The Rise of Consumerism (Individualism)

     Work and Leisure: For working class immigrant men in "Packingtown" in turn-of-the-century Chicago, the concept of leisure time centered around the saloon. Spending time in "their bar" (e.g. Irish in Irish bars, Germans in German bars . . . heaven help the Jewish immigrant, I guess) was definitely the "highlight" of their day - their guaranteed "down time". As Peiss mentioned, it was interesting that the working class men that worked the most hours and/or earned the least in wages spent the most time in saloons. One of the most
common questions my students ask is how that situation can be possible; and that's the perfect time for a economics lesson in the inelasticity of goods!  Inelasticity, very simplified, means that demand of a good doesn't change when the price increases. Since all motion is relative, if one's wages decrease, and the price remains the same, it is still a price increase. Alcohol consumption is one of the great examples of inelastic goods in American history, and it is a guaranteed item of purchase, especially in poorer neighborhoods to this day (Did you know that in 1991, right before the arrest of Rodney King, that South-Central Los Angeles had more liquor stores than the entire state of Ohio?). 
     I mention working class men in saloons and price inelasticity because, for young, single working class women, the dance halls were their equivalent to the saloon, and it was a guaranteed item of purchase. Like working class men in a saloon, the dance halls were "their time" for working class women, and if they needed to "go without" a necessity in order to afford the price of admission for an evening at the dance hall, so be it. More single, young working class women had leisure time because they were finding employment in factories (e.g. the garment industry), and in low-wage white collar jobs, such as sales or clerical work by the late-19th Century. Despite the long hours, when the shift ended for these young, unmarried working class women, they were on "their own time." These working class women drew a "Line of Demarcation" between work-and-leisure time, and were very willing to make difficult cost-benefit analysis decisions in order to enjoy their time in the leisure sphere. One of those cost-benefit analysis decisions involved the time spent on entertainment, in particular, on the weekend. "Blue Mondays" referred to the significant percentage of working class women that didn't show up for their shift on Monday because they were in "recovery mode." 

      Respectability and Sexuality: It is one thing to have the time to spend in the leisure sphere as a young, single working class woman, but what if there isn't enough money to spend for commercial amusement? True, there were relatively free amusements, such as activities in "The Street", but these young working class women wanted more excitement and adventure, and that meant paying for commercial amusements. Basically, young, single working class women had to negotiate a level of sexuality with a man in order to afford commercial amusements. "Treating" was their ticket to these commercial amusements, and through these amusements, working class women hoped to find a man to marry. So, "Treating" provided 
commercial amusement plus the possibility of finding a husband. "Treating" presented a constant dilemma for young, single working class women in terms of respectability and sexuality, in that what were the expectations of the "beau", and how would they be viewed by their community? In short, the sexual norms of young, single working class women differed from those of the middle class during the Progressive Era, when the Victorian Code was still 
pre-eminent. 
     What Peiss called the "Charity Girls" provide a glimpse of the fine line between respectability and sexuality, in that they were willing to "offer themselves" to some degree in exchange for material gain (e.g. a pair of shoes for work) or attention, but not for money. Young, single working class women in the leisure sphere were constantly approaching, and even crossing, the line of respectability in the opinions of the Victorian middle class. Perhaps the most common example was dancing - in their desire to find adventure and excitement on a regular basis in the leisure sphere, certain dancing styles (e.g. "tough dancing"; basically "suggestive" dancing) were the norm. I'm sure the middle class reactions to that kind of dancing were similar to the reactions in 1960 when kids were dancing-to-the-devil with "The Twist." Interestingly, one common thread between those two "dancing eras" is that the Victorian model in the 1910's, and the "Code of Conformity" in the 1950's / early-1960's for the corresponding middle classes had started to crumble. 

      Rise of Consumerism (Individualism): By the 1910's, entertainment had become 
a commodity in the growing "Consumer Culture" that valued a high degree of individualism (for the middle class, individualism became the "Pursuit of Pleasure"). During the late-19th Century, the young, single working class women's pursuit of sensual pleasure was equated with immorality by the Victorian middle class during the Progressive Era. Preiss pointed out, by the Post-WW I Era, the middle class had largely accepted social freedom, sexuality, and mixed-gender fun in its commercial amusements; self-fulfillment equaled consumerism (individualism). Two of the key developments in commercial amusements that allowed these trends to become at least more acceptable to the middle class were modern amusement parks and movies - if these ventures were going to turn a profit, they needed to have a large number of young, single working class women as patrons, as well as a sizable middle class contingent.  While Luna, on Coney Island, was met with acceptance by both middle-and-working classes with its "Disney World-esque" themes, it was the Steeplechase amusement park that had staying-power. If a young, single working class or middle class woman wanted to have an exciting-and-adventurous excursion to Coney Island, Steeplechase was the destination. This amusement park was designed for "sexual brinksmanship", in that participants could approach "the line", but couldn't cross that line. The intimacy and voyeurism provided by Steeplechase was packaged and contained so this "brinksmanship" was the normal experience for its patrons, both from the working and middle classes.
    In other words, the close proximity between the genders (and increasingly between classes) was rendered relatively harmless at Steeplechase. This "Sexual Brinksmanship" became acceptable for the middle class after World War I, which indicates the diminishing influence of the Victorian model and its reformers. Progressive Era Victorian middle class reformers tried to "weave their magic" by influencing the content of movies. These reformers may have won some battles (e.g. screening movies in advance for content) which led to movies reflecting middle class virtues and morals, but there were still many movies being made that appealed to working class women. The middle class reformers may have been able to influence the content of the movies, but they were unable to change the social aspect of the experience for the working class women (In part, that was due to the reality that all working class women could remain "in their sphere" by going to the movies that were being made, in essence, for them). 
     After World War I, the middle class started to adopt some of the working class norms into their own in terms of what was acceptable in the world of commercial amusements. This is 
hardly the only time the middle class has "adopted" something that they didn't start as "their own." Jazz, rock, and hip-hop are all examples of white middle class kids, in particular, adopting a genre of music as their own that was pioneered by others. In a way, amusement parks and movies in the early-1900's were the equivalent of Benny Goodman, Bill Haley and the Comets, and, my blood is curdling . . . Vanilla Ice. The middle class eventually adopted the values and behaviors in these commercial amusements as their own; by the early-1920's, individualism, the constant pursuit of pleasure by the middle class, had largely replaced the Victorian Code - the Progressive Era was over.
      In the introduction of her book, Cathy Preiss argued that young, single working 
class women pioneered new manners and mores; the "true skeptic" in me said "prove 
it." After reading the book, I was convinced with evidence that the statement was true. How interesting: by pursuing fun, these young single working class women helped change attitudes towards work and leisure, not only in their time, but also in American History.

    Out of curiosity, I went to such sites as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and found
               (scroll down on the above .pdf to page 2, Leisure Activities in 2014)
      - In 2014, for people 15-and-over, total leisure time per day totaled 6 hours
        (2.8 of the 6 hours was involved watching TV)
     - In a 2010 Consumer Expenditure Survey, Americans spent 5.49% of their income
        on entertainment; it was 10.83% if one includes "Food Away from Home"
                Source: Cathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements (2011)
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Calvin Coolidge and the Boston Police Strike of 1919

1/24/2015

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                  Source: Amity Schlaes, Coolidge. Harper-Collins, 2013
"In college, Coolidge had observed that men succeeded in politics when they got out in front of a movement that other politicians had not yet identified" (Schlaes, e-pages 299-300). 
     In the immediate aftermath of World War I, class conflict increased, much to the dismay of the middle class Progressive reformers.  Coolidge (who was the governor of Massachusetts in 1919) was among the vanguard of politicians that realized that the nation was ready to move on from the seemingly non-stop class conflict (e.g. labor strikes) that had regularly occurred since the end of the Civil War.  
     By 1919, it was widely known and accepted by most everyone in Boston that its police 
force was underpaid and overworked.  Labor strife became more widespread after World War I, in part due to the vast shortage of jobs with about 1 million veterans returning home from Europe (there was no equivalent of a G.I. Bill).  During the war, laborers in city-after-city were promised that once the war ended, wages would increase.  However, city and state governments were unable to do so after the war, since the "velocity of money" (consumer spending) had stalled, leading to a short but brutal post-war recession.  In this post-war landscape in Boston, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, nicknamed the "Wobblies", an aggressive Socialist worker's union) was able to establish a level of influence with a significant number of Boston police.  Their gamble: by walking off the job for higher pay and shorter hours, other laborers in Boston would also go on strike in support (a General Strike, shutting down all services in Boston). In particular, the striking Boston police were hoping that the ladies that operated the city's telephone switchboards would join them, igniting the General Strike: Boston and Massachusetts politicians would then undoubtedly be forced to negotiate.
     The striking workers had reason to believe their strategy would be effective, in that Governor Calvin Coolidge had a history of taking a "Middle of the Road" approach to labor conflicts in the recent past.  In September of 1919, the vast majority of Boston police went on strike - the city's social order collapsed almost immediately.  Similar to the chaos in Los Angeles in 1991, a percentage of Boston's population decided to take full advantage of the absence of law enforcement. Reports of assaults, theft, and even deaths became commonplace, and requests for gun permits skyrocketed. The Boston Police Strike became national news, in that an economic and political precedent may be set - if the Boston Police Strike was effective, then other city's police forces would also go on strike (the Washington, D.C. police force was, in essence, at the starting line, ready to strike at a moment's notice).  
     President Woodrow Wilson was focused on his national speaking tour promoting the League of Nations, trying to put pressure on the U.S. Senate to reconsider its vote rejecting U.S. involvement in the League.  Added to that were his efforts at trying to avert a national steel strike, and, to cap it off, his health was failing fast - he would suffer a very debilitating stroke during his national tour.  Therefore, it was predictable that the President didn't place enough importance on the Boston Police Strike, although while in Montana, he would eventually endorse Coolidge's actions in ending the strike.
     Governor Coolidge was in a tough spot - it seemed the only real choice was to negotiate with the police labor leaders, giving them at least most of what they wanted so the city would be safe once again.  Coolidge's decision stunned most observers - he in essence fired all the striking police men, vowing to never hire them back; he then ordered the entire state's militia (National Guard) into Boston to quell the spreading violence and lawlessness, citing the state constitution's clause that allowed the governor to act as "Commander-in-Chief" in emergency situations.  Coolidge also was lucky - the ladies that operated the telephone switchboards decided not to strike, ensuring that communication was still in place to use the militia as a temporary substitute police force.
     Some historians argue that Coolidge either waited too long, or went too far with his decision, but it seemed to me that Schlaes argued that Coolidge didn't decisively act until he was convinced that a "Middle of the Road" solution would be not only disastrous for Boston, and Massachusetts, but also for the nation.  Coolidge, with plenty of support and some precedence, stated that due to public safety, the police of the city of Boston had no right to strike whatsoever.  Coolidge, showing that he did indeed have sympathy for the striking police, tried to help as many as possible find a job - but he did not allow them to come back to the Boston police force - he made sure that the striking police men were replaced by newly hired candidates.
     Coolidge's political popularity in Boston and Massachusetts increased to even greater heights with his decision to use the militia. With the terms of elected office so short in Massachusetts in those years, Coolidge was up for re-election for governor very soon, but it turned out that he had become such a prominent Republican politician as a result of ending the strike, that he was on the short-list of Republicans for the Vice-Presidential slot in 1920.  Calvin Coolidge, not President Wilson, was the politician that was out in front in dealing with the Boston Police Strike of 1919; Wilson was mostly focused on the past, with his League of Nations tour, while Coolidge realized that America was at the brink of a new era.  Schlaes argued that 1919 was similar to 1787; America was ready to move on from a major war, and Calvin Coolidge was among the first major politicians after World War I to recognize and act on that belief.  
    With the election of the Republican Warren Harding as president in 1920 (w/ Coolidge as his Vice-President), the Progressive Era was officially at an end.  Harding received over 60% of the popular vote, campaigning on the slogan "A Return to Normalcy".  In 1923, Harding died of natural causes, and Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States, winning election in his own right in 1924.

New York Times article on Amity Schlaes' Coolidge (14 February, 2013)
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President Coolidge's Economic Strategies

1/24/2015

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                    Source: Amity Schlaes, Coolidge. Harper-Collins, 2013
    President Calvin Coolidge was one of the primary reasons for the "Boom" economy in the 1920s, but at the same time, he was at least partially responsible for the "Bust" that was soon to occur, despite doing his best to avoid that economic catastrophe.  
     The Governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, never really planned, or initially wanted, to be Warren Harding's Vice-Presidential running mate in 1920.  During the Republican National Convention, Harding, after ten ballots, became the Republican nominee, and after some maneuvering by Coolidge's key politicos, Coolidge, somewhat reluctantly, accepted the nomination as Vice-President.  When Harding died of what was almost certainly congestive heart failure (although there is a conspiracy theory that his wife poisoned him due to his infidelity) in 1923, Calvin Coolidge was thrust into the presidency. In short order, Coolidge ran for President in his own right, easily defeating the Democratic candidate, John W. Davis in theElection of 1924. 
     After reading Schlaes' biography, I learned that Coolidge focused on two major economic areas during his years as President.  First, Coolidge wanted to trim the federal budget down to $3 billion, which, for all practical purposes, he accomplished.  President Coolidge regularly met with one his most-trusted advisers (General Herbert Lord), and they, for his entire time in office, trimmed government spending at the federal level.  Coolidge believed that the federal government should operate within its means (Coolidge was a living example of a colossally successful person that lived within his means), and he worked tirelessly to trim the budget.
     Secondly, he teamed up with his Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon (quite possibly the second-most famous SecTreas behind Hamilton), and started the process of what Mellon called "Scientific Taxation".  The impetus behind this, for lack of a better word, experiment, was the crushing federal government debt after World War I - 75% of the federal government debt was related to the Great War (the worst scandal of Harding's Presidency, in terms of wasted federal spending and embezzlement, was an effort to start a federal system of assistance for U.S. veterans). Mellon believed that if the tax rates were reduced for America's top earners, more money would be spent in the areas of Consumption and Investment.  In other words, Coolidge and Mellon predicted that if taxes were lowered in the upper quintile, more money would be spent in the economy, which would then actually lead to more government revenues; and they were correct in their hypothesis. There was some "lag-time", but it became abundantly clear that reducing those tax rates not only encouraged more spending and hiring, but the government was able to bring in more revenue than even Mellon had predicted.  Of course, Coolidge and Mellon were not able to do this unilaterally; Congress was involved, and Coolidge and Mellon were not able to enact every aspect of "Scientific Taxation".  However, this Congress didn't dilute or eliminate as much as some Progressive Era Congress's may have, so it seemed that Mellon's theory was sound.
     The problem with "Scientific Taxation" was that it produced, what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan many decades later termed, "Irrational Exuberance".  The American economy started to expand at a rapid pace; the Dow Jones Industrial Average skyrocketed to over 300, an incredible figure in those days.  Coolidge wondered (and worried) why the value of stocks became so inflated in such a short period of time.  The federal government was collecting more revenues than had been predicted, and more-and-more politicians in both parties wanted to spend that excess instead of reducing the federal government's debt (There was constant pressure, for example, to provide a "bonus" for WW I veterans, and for veterans of previous wars).  Even the leading Republican not-named-Coolidge, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, was pressuring for government spending for flood control.  In terms of what Hoover wanted, Coolidge was in a tough spot - the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927showed that states were unable to cope with emergencies of that scope, and Hoover was an advocate of greater government spending for relief and dam-building.  Coolidge believed that as horrific as the flood was in terms of the human and financial cost, it was the burden of the states to deal with the disaster - the federal government didn't get involved in the way we are accustomed to seeing (and expecting) today. Coolidge held firm in his stance, even when his beloved home state of Vermont experienced the worst flooding in a century shortly thereafter.  The tradition of the federal government "coming to the rescue" after a natural or economic disaster would not occur until the early-1930s when Herbert Hoover was President.
     During the summer of 1927 in South Dakota (Coolidge accepted an invitation to have the "Summer White House" near Mount Rushmore, which was under construction), Coolidge announced that he would not run for another term as President.  Still incredibly popular, not only within his party, but with most Americans as well, Coolidge decided that he was through. His decision was based partly on his health (he died of a heart attack on 5 January, 1933 - FDR hadn't yet been inaugurated), and also because he felt that he could accomplish no more in terms of trimming the budget, lowering taxes, and expanding the economy.       
     Before I finish, I just want to mention that this author's research was impeccable, but she is an avowed Coolidge fan (of which there is a lot to admire), and I think she lets Coolidge off the hook at least a little bit in terms of his economic decisions that were part of what caused the Great Depression.  That being said, she found primary sources that showed Coolidge, late in his presidency, predicted that if Hoover became president, he would spend too much government money, which would increase the federal government's debt (which Coolidge had worked so hard to reduce to a more manageable level).  She also found documentation that Coolidge predicted that if the Democrats took office during a depression, they would spend far too much government money with very little focus for which that money was spent.  
     Coolidge made those statements, but the "Velocity of Money" in the economy did start to super-heat during his presidency, due in part to his tireless efforts in support of SecTreas Mellon's "Scientific Taxation" strategy. It would have been very interesting, if Coolidge had decided to run for President in the Election of 1928 (he would have easily been re-elected), to see what his decision-making would have been at the onset of the Great Depression.
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Rachel Carson and the Emergence of the Environmental Movement

1/24/2015

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                      Source: William Souder. On a Farther Shore (2012).
     Rachel Carson was one of the most famous authors in America by 1962, and when her seminal book Silent Spring was published that year, William Souder compared its impact to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.  Carson had already published two best-sellers about the ocean (The Sea Around Us in 1951, and The Edge of the Sea in 1955), and had become keenly aware of mankind's increasingly negative impact towards nature. By the late-1950s, Carson had reached a similar conclusion that many other scientists had reached as early as World War II - DDT, the world's most-used pesticide, was entering the food supply, causing incalculable harm.  Rachel Carson had the gift of making the complex simple, which made Silent Spring's scientific content and conclusions very readable for millions of Americans. Most readers, and as it turned out a significant majority of Americans, believed her conclusions of the damaging and long-lasting effects that DDT had on the world's population.
     In 1954, a Japanese fishing vessel, the Lucky Dragon, started its trek in the Pacific in search of blue fin tuna.  For many weeks, the Lucky Dragon's crew wasn't very lucky at all in terms of their catch, and had sailed well east of the Marshall Islands trying to change their fortunes. One night, deckhands saw a bright flash in the distance to their west (later to be confirmed as 187 miles west), and not long after that came huge waves in the sea, and shock waves in the air, nearly capsizing the vessel.  Very soon thereafter, crew members lost their appetites, and their hair started falling out. The decision was made by the captain and crew to head back to Japan. The entire fishing vessel was covered in ash, and at least a few samples were taken.  
     Later, despite denials by the U.S. Government, it was confirmed that the Lucky Dragon was
too close (not its fault) to the Bikini Atoll (in the Marshall Islands), as a hydrogen bomb was tested.  American scientists were expecting an explosion of the equivalent of 6 million tons of TNT, but due to the addition of lithium isotopes, the explosion reached 15 million tons of TNT, producing an explosion 2.5 times larger than expected. The crew of the Lucky Dragon were the first, and most immediate, victims of the test explosion. There would be more . . . many more as it turned out - the explosion sent radiation well above 17,000 feet in the air, which meant massive dispersal of radiation to far-distant locations.  After a moratorium, the USSR resumed their atmospheric nuclear tests, and the U.S. followed suit, and more-and-more radiation was invisibly descending on world populations, especially in North America. By the early-1960s, it was confirmed that Strontium 90 had entered the U.S. food supply (with other less harmful but very real radiation), and the U.S. public was predictably upset, concerned, and afraid in terms of their health, and the health of future generations.  
     At the same time, the American public was learning that something else was poisoning the food supply, and actually or potentially harming millions of people: DDT.  Used as an insect pesticide to help U.S. soldiers during World War II, the U.S. Government basically went "all-in", totally committing itself to its use after the war; more specifically, the Department of Agriculture fell in love with DDT after WW II.  True, DDT was very effective in combating malaria by killing mosquitoes, as well as other insects that were a huge health hazard in other locations (e.g. the Gypsy Moth), but it was confirmed fairly early that insects developed resistance to DDT.  For Americans directly involved with growing crops for the global market, DDT (and other related chemicals) simply meant more yield per acre, and more potential profit.
     Rachel Carson argued, in Silent Spring, that the actual problem was the over-use of DDT. She didn't advocate a total ban of chemicals to combat the threat of insect infestations (for example, she did support an appropriate use of chemicals to combat malaria where needed); she argued that U.S. farmers and the U.S. Government were using far too much DDT in far too many locations, and it was contaminating the food supply.  An experiment served as an example: DDT was sprayed on hay, and that hay was feed to cows, and then the cows were slaughtered, and the beef was cooked. That beef was then fed to pigs, and then the pigs were slaughtered . . . in the end, the bacon from those pigs had the exact same level of DDT as did the hay.  Carson, very early in Silent Spring, connected radiation from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the use of DDT, showing that by the early-1960s, virtually all Americans were at risk for consuming contaminated food (milk was especially at risk from both sources), which led to significant health problems (e.g. birth defects and certain types of cancer).
     The battle lines were set: The Chemical Industry, Agriculture, and the U.S. Government versus a petite unmarried woman in her mid-50s who by then was experiencing severe health problems (most significantly, cancer).  Unlike her previous best-sellers, the publication of Silent Spring caused an eruption of protest. President Kennedy even inquired if there was a way for the federal government to discredit her conclusions during the fall of 1962 (he soon had a rather unpleasant distraction with the Cuban Missile Crisis).  Throughout the howls of protests from those parties with a vested interest in the continued use of DDT and other pesticides, tests and experiments involving DDT were conducted by a variety of scientists, both inside and outside the federal government, and their conclusions matched those of Rachel Carson, and those of the scientists from which she based her research.  Eventually, as the social and political battles intensified during the 1960s, the use of DDT (and related pesticides) was drastically reduced in the United States.
     When Rachel Carson argued, with scientific evidence in support, that radiation and pesticides were a clear threat to the health of virtually every American, the fledgling Environmental Movement was galvanized.  In November of 1963, the same month in which JFK was assassinated, the Secretary of the Interior, Steward Udall, spearheaded the publication ofThe Quiet Crisis,  which served as the U.S. Government's effort to warn the public about environmental pollution (President Kennedy wrote the introduction to the book).  It is worth mentioning that for many years before she became a successful author, Rachel Carson worked in the Fish and Wildlife division of the Department of the Interior, writing informative educational brochures and advertisements; SecInterior Udall was an admirer and supporter of Carson.  Shortly after the publication of Silent Spring, federal laws were enacted such as the Clean Air Act (1963), the Water Quality Act (1965), and the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965).  By 1970, the Environmental Movement had built enough momentum and political influence where the  Environmental Protection Agency was created, and the first "Earth Day" was established on 22 April that year.
     By 1962, Rachel Carson's health was declining rapidly - the main culprit was cancer, but she also experienced what was most probably rheumatoid arthritis.  She died in her "Happy Place", her cottage on the coast of Maine, in April, 1964, never really able to fully appreciate the impact she made by researching and writing Silent Spring.  As she was researching and writing the book, she was encouraged by her publisher to title it "Silent Spring", referring to the lack of birds singing (especially due to the death of robins) in the areas where there was heavy use of DDT.  Rachel Carson's best friend, Dorothy, was at least somewhat comforted that Rachel was able to hear birds sing outside her window, as she was also able to see, hear, and smell her beloved ocean during the last days of her life.

   Here is a New York Times book review of William Souder's On a Farther Shore
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1965: The Real Beginning of the Tumultuous 60's

1/24/2015

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Source: James T. Patterson. The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed 
                                                America (2012).
     For many Americans, the Assassination of JFK in 1963 opened the door to the divisive 1960s, while others claim the "British Invasion" in 1964 as the tipping point, while many others say that America started tearing itself apart in 1968, citing the Chicago Democratic National Convention.  Dr. James T. Patterson argued that the "Tumultuous Sixties" started in 1965, due mostly to America's growing commitment and involvement in Vietnam.  Dr. Patterson also argued that the ever-increasing expectations (and in the inner-cities, increasing rage) of African-Americans also played a major role. In addition, 1965 was the year in which the "White Conservative Backlash" started to have a significant influence, while at the same time the high-tide of Liberalism started to ebb. At the focal point of these events of 1965 was President Lyndon Johnson, who by that summer understood his "no-win" situation in terms of trying to decrease poverty and increase Civil Rights in America, while also trying to contain Communism in Southeast Asia. Complicating matters for LBJ was a monumental shift that occurred in 1965: America changed from a rules-based society to a rights-based society.
     The year 1964 was still basically the 1950s: America remained a rules-based society. Clothing was still generally conservative across the nation (no "hippies" yet), and television and movies still reflected comfortable and reassuring content.  True, the music had changed, and would soon be the de facto religion of the Counter-Culture, but in 1964, only the first few verses had been written, even with the unprecedented success and influence of The Beatles. In 1964, the first of the "Baby-Boomers" were entering college, and the U.S. economy was not just expanding, it was roaring along (GDP increased by at least 25% since the mid-1950s). In general, Americans were trusting and confident about the the federal government, in terms of knowing what needed to be done, and the best way in order to accomplish its goals. The only real ferment in American society was with the African-American Civil Rights Movement, which among many unresolved issues, featured the continued struggle in states such as Mississippi to get African-Americans to be able to register to vote. In terms of African-American Civil Rights, 1965 was the year the movement started to radicalize.
     In March of 1965, the Selma March (really three marches, the last, successful march led by MLK, Jr.) occurred, which was a key event in pressuring LBJ and Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that same year. However, despite these great Civil Rights events, more-and-more African-Americans became impatient with the pace of change - there was a gathering sense that abolishing legal racism would not lead to racial equality.  And, despite these great Civil Rights events, virtually every state was ignoring Civil Rights for African-Americans . . . what to do?  
     On 6 August, 1965, the Voting Rights Bill was signed into law by LBJ; five days later, theWatts Riot started in Los Angeles.  Thirty-four people were killed (all but five were white), over one-thousand were injured, over four-thousand were arrested, over one-thousand buildings were destroyed (mostly white homes & businesses), and the estimated cost of destruction was $40m ($287m in 2012 dollars). In 1965, whatever line that had restrained African-American rage outside the South was disappearing.  Poverty plus sky-high expectations led to rage: efforts to gain Civil Rights did not lead to a greater standard of living. The Watts Riot changed the attitudes of millions of white Americans: 88% polled stated that self-help was preferable to federal assistance . . . Patterson argued that this was the beginning of organized "White Conservative Backlash".  Second only to the Vietnam War, the Watts Riot did more damage in terms of polarizing America, which opened the door to the Tumultuous Sixties. 
     By the fall of 1965, impatient, ever-more rights-conscious advocates for the poor were demanding federal assistance. At the same time, ultra-conservative opposition was forming in this era of Liberalism (most famously with Ronald Reagan's candidacy for governor in California).  I'm sure LBJ lamented more times than he could count that 1965 was not 1964; few presidents in the era of scientific polling had greater support than LBJ in 1964. Concrete evidence of that support came in the Election of 1964, where he received 61.1% of the popular vote, which is highest percentage in history (well, since 1824, when presidential elections were opened up to the average voter).  Warren Harding in 1920, FDR in 1936, and Richard Nixon in 1972 were the only other presidents to receive over 60% of the popular vote, and LBJ surpassed them all.  During 1965, with the rules-based "Political Center" quickly diminishing, and the rights-based liberal and conservative extremes starting to grow with no stabilizing force in place, the formula for polarization in American politics and society was created.  Most of LBJ's signature legislative achievements in his "Great Society" (e.g. Civil Rights, reducing poverty, improving education) were more promise-than-substance.  Almost manic in his desire to out-do his idol, FDR, in terms of legislation over a short period of time, LBJ was unable to follow-through and clarify/enforce legislation.  LBJ often over-promised and over-stated during the legislative process, which then led to greater expectations, and then to the all-but-guaranteed under-performance of his cherished legislation.  By 1965, President Lyndon Johnson had a credibility-gap with an increasing number of Americans.  
     Everything didn't change in 1965 - "feel-good" entertainment was still very popular. During the spring, almost all the songs were about love and personal feelings; even Bob Dylan scaled-back his lyrics.  The "Sound of Music" was released in theaters, and despite a relatively lukewarm reception by some major critics, millions of Americans saw the movie (adjusted for inflation, it's the third highest-grossing movie in history).  But with music, forces of change were rolling, literally - The Rolling Stones' "(I Ain't Got No) Satisfaction" topped the Billboard charts; in a way, the song became a sort of national anthem for the emerging Counter-Culture. But it was another song that made a larger impact during 1965 and beyond: "The Eve of Destruction", performed by Barry McGuire, which went #1 on the Billboard Singles Chart on 25 September. The lyrics focused on Vietnam, nuclear holocaust, Civil Rights, and the hypocrisy of organized religion. It very likely only reinforced existing viewpoints while not changing very many, if any, minds towards the topics in the song, but by the fall of 1965, as a result of this song, more-and-more people started to gravitate towards the topical and confrontational in the world of music.
     In the halcyon days of 1964, most Americans supported involvement in Vietnam (that was still true towards the end of 1965 to a lesser degree).  LBJ inherited U.S. involvement in Vietnam from his predecessors, but decided to continue their policies, in part, because he wanted to avoid the label of appeasement (Munich, 1938, was still fresh in most American's memory).  Also, he wanted to avoid any comparison to Truman and "Losing China" (1949) with Vietnam.  LBJ's major problem, however, was that he didn't have a strong background in foreign policy; domestic policy was in his wheelhouse.  Former JFK advisers that continued in service for LBJ, such as Robert McNamara (SecDef), McGeorge Bundy (NSA), and Dean Rusk (SecState) basically gave the president bad advice concerning Vietnam.  Many powerful high-level politicians advised LBJ to avoid increasing America's commitment in Vietnam, and to even vacate the region, but LBJ decided to head in the other direction.  In short, LBJ gambled that with the expanding economy, he could afford to pursue his goals with his "Great Society" as well as expanding America's role in Vietnam in order to stop the spread of Communism.
     Vietnam, more than anything else, spurred the polarization that characterized the 1960s.
A timeline of events concerning Vietnam in 1965 as outlined by Dr. James T. Patterson helps to illustrate that point:
27 January: The "Fork in the Road" memo from McNamara & Bundy: bomb North Vietnam.
7 February: Pleiku (8 Americans killed; 100+ wounded) 
8 February:  LBJ ordered large-scale bombing of North Vietnam
2 March: The official start of "Operation Rolling Thunder" (bombing North 
   Vietnam), including napalm and Agent Orange - this is the event that triggered 
   the massive U.S. involvement in Vietnam
8 March: 3500 Marines land at Danang (the first U.S. soldiers in Asia since the Korean War)
24 March: The first "Teach-In" occurred at the University of Michigan, spreading to other
   campuses that spring
17 April: The first Anti-War Rally in Washington, D.C. (25,000, surprising everyone; the
   largest peace demonstration in history to that point)
7 June: General Westmoreland demanded more soldiers; the U.S. was already venturing 
   beyond its original "Enclave" strategy of just defending key locations in South Vietnam
28 July: LBJ's press conference, announcing the escalation as if it was just "one more item"
  LBJ did not prepare citizens for the realities of Vietnam, even though he foresaw what the
  long-term consequences could entail; he decided to, in essence, pull a "Nixon", and move
  forward as secretly as possible . . . from this point on, it was LBJ's war, "Ground Zero" for
  the "Turbulent Sixties".
5 August: CBS (Cronkite) footage of U.S. Marines destroying a village hut despite the pleas of
  an elderly woman; 150+ dwellings were destroyed by flamethrowers & lighters . . . for the
  first time, a significant number of viewers believed that Vietnam could not be won
31 August: LBJ signed into law making the burning of draft cards a federal offense (5 yrs)
14-18 November: Ia Drang Valley (240 U.S. soldiers KIA in 5 days, triple the average 
  for a "normal" week in Vietnam; it was the first large-scale encounter of U.S. troops
  with the enemy in Vietnam)
Fall of 1965: Most in the media no longer view Anti-War protesters as "trivial"
  - For the first time in front of the White House came the chant "Hey, Hey, LBJ, How
    Many Kids Have You Killed Today" (LBJ was not in the White House the first time)
    
     1965 was the year in which America became unhinged, primarily due to LBJ's decision-making regarding America's involvement in Vietnam. Added to the volatile atmosphere was the rising expectations and rage of African-Americans, as well as the growing polarization that resulted with the diminishing influence of Liberalism versus the increasing influence of Conservatism.  In 1966, one of the most conservative mainstream politicians, Ronald Reagan, easily won election as Governor of California. In 1967, the Detroit Race Riot occurred, far exceeding what happened in Watts in 1965.  In early-1968, the Tet Offensive showed that LBJ and General Westmoreland were, in essence, lying about the progress of the War in Vietnam, and on 31 March, LBJ announced his decision that he would not be a candidate for President.
     Only four years before that televised speech, on 22 May, 1964, LBJ was invited to speak at the University of Michigan. He spoke of a "Great Society" that would provide abundance and liberty for all. The goal of his "Great Society" would be an end to poverty and racial injustice in their lifetime . . . that speech set the tone for his campaign against the ultra-conservative Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, in 1964 to continue as President of the United States.

Click HERE to see the television commercials from the campaigns of both Presidential candidates from the Election of 1964 (courtesy of the "Living Room Candidate")
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General Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War

1/24/2015

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Sources:  *H.W. Brands. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in 
                  War and Peace (2012)
                *Bruce Catton. Never Call Retreat (The Centennial History of the
                  Civil War, Volume 3; 1965).
     In late-1863, a bill was introduced in Congress to resurrect the rank of Lieutenant General, which had not been in existence since General George Washington held that rank during the Revolutionary War. The bill was intended solely for General Ulysses S. Grant; when the bill passed both houses, Grant became the overall commander of all the Union armies, including the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Tennessee, the Army of the James, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Army of the Ohio. President Lincoln had desperately searched for a general that would be able to lead an army without the need for micromanagement and extrinsic motivation in order to be successful. President Lincoln also finally had a general whose overall strategy in fighting the Civil War matched his own - in effect, they both saw that a "full court press" had to be applied to the few remaining armies of the Confederacy in order to win total victory.  
     From the very beginning of his time as a general in the Civil War, Grant's philosophy was to engage and destroy an army of the Confederacy.  Location(s) was important, but Grant thought that defeating / destroying a Confederate army led to the acquisition of key strategic locations, as opposed to capturing the strategic location(s), which would lead to the destruction of an army. In February of 1862, Grant decided to engage a Confederate army atForts Henry & Donelson, only eight miles away from each other on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Grant could have out-flanked or by-passed the Confederate forces (especially the larger one at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland), but he chose to engage.  After a close-call in terms of a surprise Confederate attack, Grant forced the surrender of 12,000 troops, earning a promotion to major general in the process.  Far more important to Grant, however, was the ability to proceed south on the Tennessee & Cumberland rivers to engage another Confederate army in the west at Corinth, Mississippi.  
     By destroying the Confederate army at Corinth (led by Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston), Grant would then be able to gain access to the lower-Mississippi River, and a "Jumping-Off" point to move towards Chattanooga, Tennessee, which would basically divide the Confederacy not just once, but two times over . . . all by destroying one Confederate army.  Before Grant could engage Johnston's army at Corinth, Johnston attacked Grant's army in SW Tennessee at what would be known as the Battle of Shiloh (April, 1862).  Like at Fort Donelson, Grant was surprised by a Confederate offensive, but at Shiloh, the scale of the Confederate offensive was much, much larger.  That being said, Grant never lost his focus; he kept his emotions in check. Those that came to know him were astounded that his demeanor never changed, regardless of the circumstance.  After a disastrous first day of battle, the second day was all in the Union's favor, and Grant forced Johnston's army to abandon the field of battle (Johnston suffered a fatal wound to his femoral artery during the first day at Shiloh).  The casualties were astounding: in two days of battle, almost as many Americans died at Shiloh that had died in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War, combined.  While victorious, Grant was essentially sidelined for a time, blamed for the excessive casualties despite gaining a crucial Union victory in the west. Grant's immediate superior, General Henry Halleck, an ambitious and vindictive sort, did the "sidelining", and actually traveled to the west to take over Grant's command.  
     However, General Halleck was re-assigned to Washington, D.C., to be the lead Union general in terms of administration, which suited his ambition. Halleck's promotion doesn't get very much historical attention, but without it, Grant probably would have left the army, and faded into obscurity. Back in command, Grant decided to take the last area of Confederate strength that remained on the Mississippi River - Vicksburg (Mississippi) and the surrounding forts.  In order to do so, he needed to defeat General Pemberton's forces at Vicksburg, while at the same time, defeating General Joseph Johnston's army at Nashville.  The general that Grant ordered to engage Johnston's army was General William Tecumseh Sherman (who not only became his most trusted general, but also a close friend), whose philosophy of battle was different than Grant's.  Sherman believed that geography was more important than the destruction of an enemy army; whenever possible, he tried to by-pass the enemy, destroying anything that could supply them on his way to his destination.  Sherman forced Johnston to retreat from Nashville by rarely engaging him in battle; he kept destroying rail lines and roads, and out-flanked Johnston's forces.  Once Johnston was forced out of Nashville, Grant ordered Sherman to join him, so they could focus on Vicksburg. Vicksburg was one tough nut to crack - it took Grant months to finally get on the same side of the Mississippi River as Vicksburg. General Pemberton's fate was sealed at Vicksburg when General Sherman was able to take the last Confederate artillery position on high ground in the area, but still, he stayed, hoping for reinforcements.  After months of maneuvering, and then a siege, Grant finally accepted the surrender of Vicksburg on 3 July, 1863, which was the same day the Battle of Gettysburgended. Gettysburg often overshadows Vicksburg, but Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America, saw that Vicksburg had the potential to turn the tide of the war in the Union's favor.  
     President Lincoln wanted to focus on a strategy which historians refer to as "Concentrations in Time"; attack the Confederacy on multiple fronts at the same time in order to end the war as soon as possible.  After Grant secured another Union victory in Tennessee, further dividing the Confederacy, he was placed in charge of all the Union armies.  Grant and Lincoln met for the first time during the Winter of 1863 - 1864, and Lincoln was satisfied that he finally had his "Concentrations in Time" general.  Grant believed that to win the Civil War, he needed to destroy Lee's army, as well as the remaining Confederate armies (e.g. Joseph Johnston's army in Tennessee, and Jubal Early's cavalry outside of Washington, D.C.).  Grant's orders were the following: a) Sherman was to destroy Johnston's army; b) General Phil Sheridan (cavalry) was to deal with Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley; c) General Benjamin Butler and the Army of the James would attack Lee from behind; d) General George Meade would advance on Lee's army. Basically, Grant dismissed the notion held by most northern politicians that to win the Civil War, the Union needed to capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.  
     The strategy, of course, worked, but not as smoothly or as quickly as Grant or Lincoln envisioned.  General Butler, a political appointee who was not a very good tactician, blundered badly, and never did threaten Lee from behind - ironically enough, his Army of the James became bogged down on the James River outside of Richmond.  Sherman, under orders from Grant to destroy railroads and roads to his rear as he advanced towards Johnston, was going nowhere fast, and Grant, who was with Meade, was having extreme difficulty with Lee in the spring of 1864 (e.g. The Battle of the Wilderness, Sharpsburg, and Cold Harbor).  The only positive, as Catton mentioned in Never Call Retreat, was that Lee wasn't able to take the offensive, which was his preference, but had to engage in defensive strategies against Grant. General Sherman provided the turning point for Grant's strategy: he asked Grant for permission to take the offensive in Tennessee, and then in Georgia, focusing on geography rather than Johnston's army.  This strategy became known as "Sherman's March to the Sea",after he captured Atlanta in September, 1864.  He used the census of 1860 to focus on which parts of Georgia to devastate, and he continued with that strategy to Savannah, and then through the Carolinas, until he joined up with Grant in Virginia.  General Sheridan also received permission from Grant to do essentially the same thing in the Shenandoah Valley west of Washington, D.C., which meant that Lee was almost entirely isolated, and starving, his army down to 20,000 effectives.  
     On 2 April, 1865, Richmond was evacuated, and largely burned, and was occupied by Union forces. On 8 April, Lee gambled that he could take his army to the Danville railhead, and resupply his army.  As long as Lee had hope to feed his army, he refused to surrender to Grant.  At this point, Grant was using the strategy that historians call "Concentrations in Space", massing all of his forces in one location, in this case to force Lee to surrender. Sheridan beat Lee to the railhead, denying him any chance to feed his army, and he was then surrounded by Union armies commanded by Meade, Sherman, and Ord (who replaced Butler).Lee surrendered to Grant on 9 April, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.  Grant, probably on his own, but was also counseled by Lincoln to do so, gave Lee's army honorable terms for surrender, plus he ordered his quartermaster to provide five days of rations to Lee's starving army . . . in effect, the Civil War was over (General Joseph Johnston didn't surrender to General Sherman until 26 April, 1865, which was also the day John Wilkes Booth was captured and killed).
     In the late-1850s, Grant was toiling in a Missouri field, trying to make something of his life as a farmer. He was farming in Missouri since it was land that his wife's family owned (he had married Julia Dent during the Mexican War in the late-1840s), and he had a terrible go of it. Grant's social standing among his neighbors, in a slave state, was tremendously low.  In a northern state, Grant's efforts in the field would be seen as admirable, but in Missouri, working with African slaves in the field diminished his social standing to the lowest in his life, and Grant was fully aware of his station.  One wonders what his former neighbors thought of Grant during his ascendancy in the Union army during the Civil War, becoming not only the most famous Union general, but also, by 1900, the most famous person in American History, surpassing Washington, Jackson, and even Lincoln.
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General Ulysses S. Grant: Between the Civil War and the Presidency (April, 1865 - March, 1869)

1/24/2015

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Source:  H.W. Brands. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in 
                                      War and Peace (2012)
     After the Civil War, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant held the same rank, but his title became General-in-Chief of the Armies.  As the months passed after the conclusion of the Civil War (which technically didn't end until the summer of 1865, when remnants of a Confederate army in Texas surrendered), General Grant was forced to enter the world of politics, an arena in which he was admittedly not well-suited to enter.  Even though he was an admitted political neophyte, he earned the Republican nomination for president by acclamation, and easily defeated the Democratic nominee in the Election of 1868: his campaign slogan of "Let Us Have Peace" resonated in the North and the South.
     Grant's entry to the world of post-Civil War politics occurred very quickly.  General WilliamTecumseh Sherman negotiated a surrender with the Confederate general Joseph Johnston (after Appomattox) without consulting President Lincoln, SecWar Stanton, or General Grant. Even by Grant's standard, Sherman's surrender terms were viewed as far too generous, and actually set up post-Civil War Reconstruction policies at the state level contrary to what the Republican leadership wanted. General-in-Chief Grant was in a political pickle: SecWar Stanton, his superior, wanted Sherman demoted, or even cashiered, but Grant wanted Sherman to remain at his current rank.  SecWar Stanton honored Grant's request to allow Sherman to remain, but Stanton decided to embarrass Sherman politically by basically insulting his intelligence in the newspapers.  Sherman never forgot that Grant supported him, and he never forgave SecWar Stanton for what he considered libel.
     While this political kettle was boiling, President Lincoln was assassinated.  Mary Todd Lincoln had assumed that the Grants would attend "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater with her and the President - advertisements had already been released stating that the Grants would do so.  Julia Grant had her heart set on visiting family, and despite her husband's demanding schedule, had made arrangements for the trip.  With General Grant away from home, Julia received a message from Mary Todd Lincoln on 14 April, 1865, which indicated that it was a forgone conclusion that the Grants would alter their plans and attend the play that night, in just a few hours.  While General Grant would have been very receptive to the idea of going to the theater with Lincoln, a man he truly admired and respected, Julia made the executive decision that they would not attend the play. Julia's decision was based on a very simple reason - she had learned to despise the First Lady, intensely. She adamantly refused to alter her plans to suit Mary Todd Lincoln, and it's not clear whether General Grant knew at that time what had just transpired. On their way to visit family, the Grants were told of the assassination, and Grant had to immediately return to Washington, D.C. to help bring order out the chaos of Lincoln's Assassination.
     It must have been a difficult transition for Grant to serve as General-in-Chief in the Andrew Johnson administration after serving with Lincoln.  In short, Grant didn't like or respect the President, but he tried his best to respect and serve the position - Johnson didn't make that very easy for Grant. During the off-year elections of 1866, Grant had reluctantly decided to accept Johnson's invitation to travel with the President as he campaigned against the Radical Republicans, trying to reduce their influence in Congress.  It didn't take Grant long to determine that his role was in essence to be the "Celebrity-in-Chief", helping Johnson sway as many voters as possible by simply being seen.  As Grant heard Johnson speak during this campaign, he decided that he wanted to be as neutral (and as invisible) as possible, which was politically impossible. The end-result for Johnson's efforts were that the Radical Republicans(who wanted to punish the Southern states for the Civil War while advancing civil rights for African-Americans) gained a significant number or seats in the House, and a few in the Senate. Johnson's campaign strategy had backfired, but Grant fortunately remained politically unscathed, unlike the President.
     President Johnson had another plan in store that would actually lead Grant to believe he would go to jail if he continued to honor the President's wishes.  In early-1868, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which was designed to insure that SecWar Stanton, a Radical Republican, remained in Johnson's Cabinet.  The law, passed over Johnson's veto, required the President to involve Congress in the removal of a Cabinet member.  Johnson, smart-but-stubborn, decided to challenge the law, and suspended Stanton while Congress was not in session - which technically meant he didn't violate the Tenure of Office Act.  But in the world of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors", violating the spirit of the act was enough for the House to impeach Johnson.  Grant, in the meantime, was appointed by Johnson to be the interim SecWar in Stanton's absence.  Grant did not have any desire to become the SecWar on a permanent basis, and as the drama unfolded, he didn't want to be the Acting SecWar either. After Johnson survived removal in the Senate by one vote, 35-19 (he was never in any danger of being removed - the Moderate Republicans did not want the Pro Tem of the Senate, Benjamin Wade, as the next president).  It soon dawned on Grant that Congress could, if they followed the letter of the law, actually put him in jail since he was Stanton's replacement.  The whole unsavory episode for Grant ended after Johnson's acquittal in the Senate (after three 35-19 votes!); Johnson, now a confirmed lame-duck president, decided that he wasn't going to challenge Radical Republican policies, and Grant went back to only having one duty, General-in-Chief.
     During the Civil War in 1864 the Sand Creek Massacre occurred in Colorado.  Colonel Chivington and his small Union army soundly defeated Native warriors from the Arapahoe and Cheyenne nations.  While historians have long debated the significance of Sand Creek in the Civil War, what is certain is that Sand Creek was the touchstone for organized Native resistance on the Great Plains after the Civil War.  As early as 1865, the Cheyenne allied themselves with the Lakota nation in the Northern Plains, and U.S. forts north of Fort Laramie were attacked. By 1868, the Lakota leader Red Cloud, and his chief lieutenant, Crazy Horse, had gained total control of the Bozeman Trail, and General Grant ordered a tactical retreat, abandoning those forts on the trail.  Ironically, Red Cloud had actually won a war against the U.S. military, with Grant in overall command.  Given the impact and profusion of railroads in that part of America, Red Cloud's victory would be short-lived, but Grant, in the short-term, was forced on the defensive, and was politically criticized for his strategy.
     General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant was nominated by acclamation during the Republican National Convention in the summer of 1868.  The Democratic National Convention, on the other hand, needed over a dozen ballots before they were able to nominate Horatio Seymour as their candidate.  The presidential candidates of 1868 provided a stark choice for voters - Seymour's campaign slogan of "It is a White Man's Nation; Let White Men Rule", versus Grant's "Let Us Have Peace".  Grant, like virtually every prior presidential candidate, didn't actively campaign; he spent most of his time between the convention and the election in his hometown of Galena, Illinois. While Grant won the popular vote by a margin of 300,000, his margin of victory in the Electoral College in the Election of 1868 was much greater.  Not only was Grant's accomplishments and celebrity in play, but the Democratic Party would be associated with disunion for a few more presidential elections (it wouldn't be until 1884 that a Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, would win a presidential election).  
     On 4 March, 1869, Grant was inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States.  In his inaugural address, Grant stated his desire that the U.S. should return to the Gold Standard is soon as possible (the "Greenbacks" of the Civil War were not backed up by gold).  He also stated that African-Americans (men) needed and deserved the right to vote, and that a 15th Amendment to the Constitution should be proposed, and then ratified.  For many Americans in the North and South, it seemed to them that the new President was moving too fast for the times, in that there was still significant concern about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. While most people today focus on the 14th Amendment's "Equal Protection Under the Law" clause, there is another aspect to the amendment that had millions of Americans after the Civil War concerned.  By making African-Americans citizens, the "3/5's Compromise" contained in the Constitution was essentially nullified.  The battle over how to count African-Americans for representation in Congress resumed, 92 years after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.  Southern states wanted to count African-Americans as citizens, without granting them the right to vote, gaining power in the House, and maintaining power at home.  Northern states were deeply conflicted, in that they didn't want to establish a precedent that African-Americans were eligible to vote, but they certainly didn't want the South to dominate the House of Representatives. A compromise was reached: States could only count African-Americans as citizens if they were given the right to vote.  Republicans in Congress believed that the "enforcement clause" to the 14th Amendment (Section 5) would be a sufficient deterrent if any state refused to follow through on the agreed interpretation.
     The Republicans in the new Congress and the new President would soon find out that such language didn't provide any actual deterrence in the South.  Grant became President during a time when the Republicans were looking deep into the future concerning African-American Civil Rights and economic expansion, while Democrats were looking to the past, trying to re-create their traditional social order that existed before the Civil War. 
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President Ulysses S. Grant (1869 - 1877)

1/24/2015

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Source:  H.W. Brands. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in 
                                      War and Peace (2012)
     Most presidents that were re-elected experienced second terms that didn't measure up to their first term in office.  Among them were Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and President Ulysses S. Grant.  Some historians downgrade Grant's Presidency due to his decision-making during the nation's worst economic depression at that point in history (starting in 1873), while others focus on the scandals that metastasized in his last two years in office.  While Grant does not deserve a place at the head table with our great or near-great presidents, he certainly does not deserve relegation to the "Kiddie Table" with Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, or Andrew Johnson. While it is true that Grant's second term was a disaster relative to his first, one must remember that he succeeded in securing the future of the United States as a unified, Democratic nation, which was most definitely in doubt in the years that followed the Civil War.
     While President Grant was trying to re-unify the nation, his Republican Party was dividing along two fronts. The Radical Republicans (sometimes called "Consciousness" Republicans), led by Senator Charles Sumner (MA) and Representative Thaddeus Stevens (PA), were basically idealists that wanted to advance Civil Rights for African-Americans, while punishing the former Confederate states. The opposing faction in the Republican Party was a more practical wing that wanted to focus on economic expansion and business. In a way, both factions achieved their goals, in that the Radical Republicans were able to direct Reconstruction, while the other faction was able to expand the Northern economy to almost unimaginable horizons. But President Grant was caught in the middle within his party, not being nearly idealistic enough for one faction, and in some ways, not pro-business enough for the other. This fracture within the Republican Party would not only limit Grant as president, but it would also open the door for a return to national influence and prominence for the Democratic Party.
     Almost immediately in his first term in office, Grant found that it was indeed difficult to please the leaders within his own party. While Grant nominated capable men in his Cabinet (the best member of his Cabinet was Hamilton Fish as SecState), he didn't follow the established decades-long procedure of providing the names ahead of time to the Party leaders in Congress as a courtesy. In a time when virtually no Cabinet nomination met resistance in terms of confirmation in the Senate, Grant had to withdraw at least two nominations due to the sheer lack of support in that chamber. While Grant was able to eventually form a reliable Cabinet, the struggle to do so was a portent of things to come, not only within his party, but also within the nation.
     In 1870, Grant, again not following established protocol, tried to annex the Dominican Republic; he tried to do so while Congress was not in session. Grant saw the Dominican Republic as a way to establish an American "Footprint" in the Caribbean. In his mind, by providing a stable government in the form of a U.S. Territory (very much like what Puerto Rico would become) in the Dominican Republic, the U.S. would benefit in terms of being better-able to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, while acquiring controlled access to sugar cane. Senator Charles Sumner (who as the years went by became more-and-more unhinged in terms of his views and behavior, even among his fellow idealists) repeatedly blocked all of Grant's attempts to annex the Dominican Republic, in part due to his belief that the U.S. should be focused on expanding freedom for African-Americans in the South, not in a poverty-stricken part of an island in the Caribbean. While President Grant saw the annexation of the Dominican Republic as a potential benefit, the Radical Republicans saw it as an unnecessary cost at the expense of Reconstruction
     The Ku Klux Klan, and other reactionary terrorist groups, were reeking havoc and vengeance in the South after the Civil War. In states such as Louisiana, the White League assassinated Republican politicians (e.g. the Coushatta Massacre), and in South Carolina, the Klan was doing more of the same. Grant was besieged with letters from Republicans in Southern states begging for protection under the 14th Amendment. Gaining support from the Radical Republicans (the idealists), the Ku Klux Klan Act became law in 1871; the law gave Grant the power to use the rules of engagement that existed during the Civil War. In other words, Grant was able to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in dealing with suspected Klansmen, much the same as our government can do today with suspected terrorists. Grant's enforcement of the Klan Act in South Carolina worked, driving the reactionaries underground - the threat of the same thing occurring in other states reduced the reactionary activity. While the idealists in the Republican Party applauded these actions, the practical wing bemoaned those actions, believing that the President should shift his focus to the Northern economy.
     During Grant's Presidency, Great Britain became a trusted ally instead of an ancient enemy. The basis of this transformation centered around the still-lingering dispute from the Civil War over the "Laird Rams"; ships that the British had manufactured for the Confederate Navy, the most famous being the Alabama. The U.S. demanded an apology and war reparations from the British, and the British refused to do either.  Relations between America and Great Britain remained strained, until the Franco-Prussian War. With the growing threat from Germany, the newest empire in Europe, as well as internal problems in France, Great Britain desperately needed an ally, and decided to settle the whole affair with the United States. Thus, during Grant's time in office, the longest-lasting alliance in modern world history was established, and, both wings of the Republican Party were satisfied with the result (for differing reasons, of course).
     Grant wanted to include Natives in Modern America if at all possible; to such great leaders as Red Cloud, Grant offered "survival".  In essence, Grant started a system called "Concentration", which provided a Limited Homeland for Native nations / tribes (it was the stage before the Reservation System). Grant saw his program as a "Peace Initiative"; he very much wanted to end the conflicts in the Great Plains and in the American Southwest, in part because he needed troops to enforce the 14th Amendment in the South, but also so the nation could more easily expand West. In general terms, the Radical Republicans supported the strategy (potentially more troops to be used in the South), but the practical wing of the Party loved the strategy - they believed it would be much easier to expand the system of rails to the West. That heavy expansion (with the accompanying speculation) would play a role in starting the nation's worst depression in its not-quite 100 year history.
     The Election of 1872 pitted Grant, whose popularity was even greater than in 1868, against the Democratic candidate, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley. In effect, the Democrats nominated an un-electable candidate; Grant's victory in the popular vote was the greatest vote-differential in American History to that point. Undoubtedly in the throes of victory (I'm thinking of Sally Fields' "You Really Like Me" acceptance speech after winning an Oscar in 1985) Grant declared that it was basically "Mission Accomplished" in the South, and by inference, the West. Then, with very little warning, the bubble burst on the economy with the Panic of 1873, which led to the first "real" depression. The previous economic depressions hit the agricultural sector the hardest, which was most of America. Also, farmers had a built-in safety net in that they could grow their own food during hard times. But in 1873, America was transforming to an industrial giant, and when a person lost their factory job, there was no safety net. 
     Grant was a supporter of "Hard Money" (the Gold Standard), and he held firm in terms of expanding the money supply more than what was already in the financial system. While Grant did sign a bill into law that restricted the flow of money to banks in the East, trying to help banks out West, he refused to do more, believing that a sound "Hard Money" policy would be the best cure. Idealists didn't think Grant did enough, because the depression drastically eroded Northern interest in Reconstruction, and the practical Republicans wanted Grant to do something to encourage economic expansion. About the only group of Americans that supported Grant's policies concerning the depression were bankers, who benefited from "tight money".  
     With the North losing almost total interest in Reconstruction due to the "Great Depression" of that era, it should be no surprise that while the Civil Rights Act of 1875 became law (barely voted into law before the next Congress was sworn in after the mid-term elections; the next Congress had far more Democrats, and would not have supported the bill), it was never enforced. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed by Grant, outlawed segregation in public areas.
But with the depression and far-fewer Radical Republicans in positions of power, and President Grant understandably tiring from being asked to come to the rescue by Southern Republicans, the Act was in the books, but never enforced. Not until the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s / 1960s would the issue of public access be addressed again.
     Although there were scandals during Grant's first term (the Gould-Fisk Scandal, and the
Credit Mobilier Scandal), when the "Tweed Ring" in New York City was exposed, the general public started to pay far more attention to political scandals. When the "Whiskey Ring" was exposed, it was then predictable that the participants were actually prosecuted.  Grant promised vigorous prosecution and enforcement for those involved, and was extremely dismayed to find out that his own private secretary was accused of being a major participant. And to make matters worse, his own brother, Orville Grant, was involved in a scandal concerning the Secretary of War's wife, and after her death, SecWar Belknap himself, for receiving "kick-backs" for favors rendered. In terms of Grant's Presidency, scandals became synonymous with his name: "Grantism".  While the scandals occurred, Grant himself was never a part, but the scandals are part of his presidency.
     By 1876, Grant's "Peace Initiative" on the Great Plains was in tatters (in part due to the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874), and he had to make two key tactical decisions. Firstly, he calculated that a defeat of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana would strengthen Red Cloud in the Dakotas, with which he would then negotiate. Secondly, he wanted a military leader that would deliver that victory, and the media and general public thought that Colonel George A. Custer was the man.  Grant, however, had deep misgivings about Custer's leadership capabilities, and placed a man he knew well from the Civil War, General Alfred E. Terry, in overall command. However, in June, 1876, Custer and about 200 of his men were killed at Little Bighorn. What the defeat meant to Grant was that there was absolutely no chance of any negotiations for peace on the Great Plains (or in the Southwest); the media and the public were clamoring for an end to the conflict. The timing of the battle was at least partly to blame, since it occurred about a week before the Centennial Celebration, and as a result, there was a general desire for retribution and revenge.
     During his second term, Grant had made it official: he would not run for president in 1876.
As a result, both political parties found it very difficult to nominate their candidates, needing more ballots than what each party considered necessary to select their standard-bearers. The Republicans selected a former Civil War general, Rutherford B. Hayes, while the Democrats finally selected the NY attorney general that put "Boss Tweed" in jail, Samuel Tilden.  With Grant no longer in the picture, the Democrats nearly won the election. With election "shenanigans" in three Southern states, each candidate claimed a victory in the Electoral College. A special commission was created, mirroring the make-up of Congress, so there were 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats on the commission.  Tilden needed just one of the states to become president, and Hayes needed all three - the commission, along party lines, gave all three states, and the presidency, to Hayes. But, a crucial decision was made in what became known as the "Compromise of 1877"; the Republicans had Hayes as president, but the Democrats were able to get U.S. troops out of the South, which signaled the end of "Political Reconstruction" (but not the end of social or economic Reconstruction by any means). Another main result of the Election of 1876 was that the Democratic Party had made its return to national level politics, only a little over a decade after the Civil War.
     From 1863 - 1877, tumult constantly threatened the Union, and Grant was the only historical figure directly involved during all those years, as a general, and then as a two-term president. By 1877, secession was no longer an option, even with the most reactionary extremists in the South. And while forms of slavery still existed (e.g. Sharecropping, Literacy
Tests, and the Poll Tax), the future of Democracy in America was insured, largely due to the efforts, influence, and vision of Ulysses S. Grant, a universally acclaimed military leader and tactician, but in the views of more-and-more historians such as H.W. Brands, a tremendously under-appreciated president.
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Feminism on Television in the 1960s, 1970s, & Early-1980s

1/24/2015

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Source: Susan J. Douglas. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the
                                             Mass Media (1994).
     Millions of Americans grew up watching such classic television programs such as 
I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched in the 1960s, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, 
Police Woman, and Charlie's Angels in the 1970s, and Dallas and Dynasty in the early-1980s. Every one of the previously listed shows prominently featured women, and on closer examination, one can trace the development of the Feminist Movement from the 1960s
through the early-1980s.  
     When Bewitched debuted in 1964, many critics and female viewers saw Samantha Stevens (portrayed by Elizabeth Montgomery) as a "breakthrough" character for women, since she had unique abilities (she was a benevolent witch), and was seemingly able to control events.  I Dream of Jeannie made its debut in 1965, and was criticized by many female viewers for its portrayal of Jeannie (Barbara Eden) that had special powers, but was in essence a captive of the lead character, Major Nelson (Larry Hagman).  The opening credits of this classic sitcom even show this relationship, in that Major Nelson is out of his capsule, but Jeannie is confined to her, for lack of a better word, bottle.
     Susan Douglas called this TV depiction "Domesticating the Monster", in that with shows like
I Dream of Jeannie, when the female character used her powers, problems in the public 
sphere (the "Man's World") occurred.  Many people that grew up watching television in the 1960s may be surprised to find out that Bewitched fit the same model as I Dream of Jeannie.
When Samantha used her powers at home in the private sphere, there was usually a positive outcome, but when she used her powers in the public sphere (e.g. to help her husband's career), disaster was the usual result.  According to Douglas, the message was clear in 
sitcoms such as these: women should remain in the private sphere - after all, look what happens when they are allowed to interact in the public sphere (it should be no shock that 
men were the creators of these two sitcoms).  Take a look at the opening credits of 
Bewitched, and see that, despite being inferior in terms of power, the
husband is still in charge . . . 
     So, while I certainly watched and enjoyed these two sitcoms as a child, it's very 
interesting to see that these shows actually did not advance women's rights - the message
was that of patriarchal tradition - the proper place for a woman was in the private (domestic) sphere.
     The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted in 1970, and was very different from previous fare.
One can describe the character of Mary as an "Independent" kind of feminist, in that she wasn't married, and that she worked hard to advance her career in the public sphere. There had never really been a female TV character like her before, and in that regard, the show was popular with feminists.  However, some in the Feminist Movement panned the show by referring to Mary as "I Am Woman, Here Me Purr"; by that, those feminists meant that the show vacillated between feminism and femininity.  A look at the classic opening credits show Mary's independence, and at least some of that combination of feminism and femininity . . . 
     And then there's Maude . . . two years after the debut of Mary Tyler Moore, Bea Arthur 
portrayed Maude Findlay, a very politically opinionated female lead.  Susan Douglas 
thought that Maude had good attributes, but was packaged as a scary, radical woman.
Maude was part of Norman Lear's TV empire (it was a spin-off of All in the Family),
and he favored politics-heavy fare.  Maude represented the desire for women to be taken
seriously, not only for their political views, but also to be taken seriously in the public 
sphere.  One look at the opening credits of Maude shows the stark difference between it and
The Mary Tyler Moore Show in terms of feminism . . . 
     When Police Woman debuted in 1974, feminists hailed the show as a breakthrough for
women in television.  At last, a woman of real power in the public sphere, and a detective
no less. Upon further examination, according to Susan Douglas, the feminist praise falls
short of the mark.  In episode after episode (1974 - 1978), Angie Dickinson's character, Sgt.
Lee Ann Anderson, was always called "Pepper" by her male colleagues, which kind of 
sounded like a stage name of a stripper to Douglas.  Also, despite being a police detective,
"Pepper" was constantly going under cover as a prostitute, or as bait to lure a predator, or as 
a woman limited to the private sphere.  Added to all that, when "Pepper" got in trouble, she
was rescued by her male colleagues, instead of solving the situation herself.  As Douglas
pointed out, it was rather ironic that feminists supported the show to a great degree, given
the lead character's portrayal and restrictions.  The opening credits to Police Woman 
illustrate some of the misgivings of Susan Douglas concerning the feminist praise accorded to
Police Woman . . . 
Feminists HATED Charlie's Angels (its first season was 1976); it was labeled "Jiggle TV"
(it didn't help that the three lead female characters, just seconds into the opening credits,
were called "girls"). But, when closely watching the episodes, one finds that the women not only get themselves out of trouble in every episode, but they far more often than not help each other get out of trouble as well.  There was constant tension in Charlie's Angels between
feminism and anti-feminism; that mirrored reality, in that Feminism, as a political movement,
reached its apex in 1976, and started its political decline in 1977.  The down-side of Charlie's Angels (and the Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman) was that their power in the show was not based on reality; oftentimes, their power was kept "secret" if it was in play in the public sphere (much like Bewitched).  The message for women on TV, by 1977, seemed to be that women COULD "have it all", but it was impossible to attain . . . the political power of the Feminist Movement, by the late-1970s, was in decline.  
     By the late-1970s, Women's Liberation (Feminism) had morphed into a form of
narcissism.  Evidence of that shift was seen in the marked increase in the sales of cosmetics 
late in the decade. In television blockbusters such as Dallas (1978 - 1991) and Dynasty 
(1981 -1989), women were objectified, and pitted against each other. As Susan Douglas
stated, elitism plus narcissism led to more of a personal focus for women instead of a
political focus.  In effect, by the late-1970s, instead of the Feminist slogan "The Personal is
the Political", the new slogan could have been "The Personal is the Physical, and the Material".
Women in television in the late-1970s / early-1980s preferred to be envied instead of
respected, something that would have made Mary from The Mary Tyler Moore very uncomfortable.  Women became very insecure about their physical appearance; that can be confirmed by the profusion of exercise videotapes that were sold (e.g. Jane Fonda's Workout) during that period.  Take a look at the opening credits for Dallas and Dynasty, to see glimpses of what Susan Douglas discussed in terms of the decline of Feminism in the late-1970s . . . 
      I hope you noticed that all of the women you saw in the opening credits for Dallas and
Dynasty were basically portrayed in the private sphere, except Joan Collins in Dynasty.
She was in the public sphere (the business world, wanting to be powerful and rich), and was the show's main villain . . . hmmm.   
    The Feminist Movement became a political force in the late-1960s (e.g. picketing the
Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City in 1968), reached the apex of its political power and
influence in the mid-1970s, and then rather suddenly, began its decline before the decade
was out.  We can trace those three phases of the Feminist Movement through the television
shows of the 1960s, 1970s, and early-1980s.  Susan Douglas argued that by the early-1980s,
narcissism became liberation for most women in America - that can certainly be seen in the
television shows during those three decades.
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Edward Muybridge & "The Borrowers"

1/24/2015

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Source: Edward Ball. The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age
                                     Murder and the Birth of Motion Pictures (2013)
     They made an odd couple: Edward Muybridge was an eccentric man of art and science, while Leland Stanford was a man of power, profit, and image. Yet, from 1871 to 1881, they had a mutually-beneficial relationship of sorts.  Stanford spent a small fortune in order for Muybridge to prove that when a horse was at full-gallop, all four hooves left the ground. Stanford benefited from spending all that money in that, in essence, he gained bragging-rights among his wealthy peers in terms of solving a mystery that mattered to them. Muybridge benefited in that he became famous for something other than murdering a man in cold blood in the mid-1870s.  Yet, from 1882 - 1893, Muybridge and Stanford became completely estranged, never again speaking to each other. Muybridge would eventually wish that he had never spoke to Thomas Edison in 1888 - Edison, to a greater degree than Stanford, "borrowed" from the vision and mind of Edward Muybridge, and Muybridge was not able to truly shine, not when he was under the shadow of these two titans in American History (Personal observation: I have a hard time feeling too sorry for Muybridge since he was also a murderer). 
     The falling-out between Muybridge and Stanford began in 1882, when they were both in France, independently of each other.  Muybridge was in France to learn more in the world of photography, while Stanford was traveling in Europe to relax, and also to escape the spotlight and pressure of being the most powerful and influential Californian. When Stanford (and his family) was in Paris, Stanford became extremely jealous of the glowing reception in the newspapers that Muybridge received; he felt slighted that Muybridge never mentioned his name in conjunction with his success with moving pictures. Stanford, a man that always had things the way he wanted them, went back to San Francisco and used Muybridge's collection of photographs for his own published book. Stanford's book of Muybridge's photos (Muybridge was rarely mentioned in the book) sold well enough in America and in Europe, that when Muybridge traveled to his nation of origin, Great Britain, he was accused of plagiarism. When Muybridge came back to the United States, he sued Stanford, but lost, mostly due to the fact that Stanford had an all-star legal team in play. At this point, the only way that Muybridge could make money was to travel across America, giving presentations using his Zoopraxiscope(projector); Muybridge was the first to show motion pictures to paying audiences. By the end of 1882, Muybridge and Stanford reached the point where they detested each other.
     In 1883, Muybridge accepted a position at Penn; the university decided to sponsor him in order to have a famous Artist / Scientist in residence. Muybridge accepted the position because he needed the money and prestige, but also so he could try and upstage Stanford. For the next five years, Muybridge worked on projects that interested him, free of any meaningful supervision from the Penn administration. Most of Muybridge's projects involved photographing people in motion, even himself from time-to-time. The major problem as far as Penn was concerned was that these people photographed in motion were also nude. By 1888, Penn tired of his eccentricities, and refused to renew his contract. The good news for Muybridge by 1888: he had been cleared of all charges of plagiarism from Stanford's book, and was still famous . . . the bad news was that he was in need of a source of regular income.   
     In February, 1888, Muybridge met with a young-but-famous Thomas Edison. Muybridge, almost certainly hoped that a connection with Edison would prove to be fruitful in terms of work, money, and prestige, discussed an idea with the "Wizard of Menlo Park". Muybridge's idea: combine his pictures in motion with Edison's phonograph. Very soon after their first-and-only meeting, an article mentioning this idea appeared in "The Nation" (founded in 1865; a journal that contained opinions and analysis . . . it's still published); it is not known who provided the information for the article, but Edward Ball believed that Edison had the most to gain by "leaking" the idea.  Muybridge, back to presenting his moving pictures on his projector to paying audiences, was near West Orange, New Jersey, where Edison had recently relocated in order to have a larger base of operations. Edison had a nasty habit of "borrowing" the work and ideas of others, and passing them off as his own, and that is what he did with Muybridge's life work.  It is due to this "theft" that to this day, most Americans believe that Thomas Edison
invented motion pictures.  
     Muybridge never bothered to patent his projector, and Thomas Edison took full advantage. Edison submitted a "caveat" to the U.S. Patent Office for a projector; a caveat is the step before a patent, in which a person shows significant progress - in schoolyard terms, a caveat is "legal dibs" on an idea / item (it was abolished in 1909).  Edison even traveled to France, and talked to the same experts that Muybridge had visited earlier, and submitted more caveats to legally cover his bases so he wouldn't have to worry about someone else applying for any patents related to motion pictures. 
     Celluloid, the original plastic material, was "developed" by the late-1880s; George Eastmanwas using celluloid by 1889, calling it "film".  Celluloid changed everything for motion picture technology. Muybridge could not do what Edison could - Research & Development, market, advertise, and innovate in the fledgling world of motion picture technology - Edison even coined the term "Filmmaker".  In 1893, Muybridge reached the peak of his fame during theChicago World's Fair; he had a permanent exhibit, and for the first time, people came to him while he presented his moving pictures that featured twenty-four photographs on his Zoopraxiscope; one could argue that his exhibit was the first movie theater. Leland Stanford was attending the Chicago World's Fair, but refused to visit Muybridge; by then, Stanford was ailing, being taken around the exhibits in a wheelchair. Stanford would die that same year at the age of 69, never having reconciled with Muybridge. 
    During this period, Edison invented the Kinetograph (motion picture camera using celluloid) and the Kinetoscope (one-person motion picture viewer), and in April, 1894 in New York City, Edison created the first Kinetoscope Parlor for the paying public. Edison soon faced competition from the Lumiere Brothers in France - the Lumieres invented a celluloid projector that could display movies on a screen for an audience to watch together at the same time.  Edison, knowing that his Kinetoscope was dead-in-the-water, developed his "Vitascope" in 1895 to beat the Lumieres to the punch in the United States.  Both Edison and the Lumieres were on to the same thing that Muybridge had discovered years before: people liked to view motion pictures in an audience (a "Communal Gaze").  1895 was the year that motion pictures became a common amusement in cities; it was also the year that Muybridge closed down his exhibit in Chicago, and moved back to Great Britain. He gave his last presentation in 1896; by then, no one was willing to pay to see his dated technology at work.  
     On 8 May, 1904, Edward Muybridge died in Great Britain. An eccentric to the end, Muybridge died while continuing to dig a huge hole in his back yard that was, for some reason, in the shape of the Great Lakes. In 1905, the first true movie theater opened in Pittsburgh; before this theater, movies were shown as "teasers" before live performances (e.g. Vaudeville). By 1915, Edison was out of the movie business due to the U.S. Government's enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against his efforts at creating a monopoly in the emerging movie industry.
     Edward Muybridge was among the first to create moving pictures. However, Muybridge WAS the first to show moving pictures to audiences, since that was the only way he could make money from his vision and expertise in the world of photography.  Due to "The Borrowers", namely Leland Stanford and especially Thomas Edison, Muybridge has largely been lost in U.S. History. At best, Muybridge is remembered in popular history as the photographer that showed that all four hooves of a horse leave the ground when it is at full-gallop. He is forgotten as one of the pioneers of motion pictures (and as a murderer), a visual medium that continues to enthrall and engage Americans, whether or not they are a fan of Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which I saw earlier today . . . it was great . . . BTW, contrary to popular belief, Captain America was never President of the United States).

New York Times Book Review of Edward Ball's The Inventor and the Tycoon: 
                           A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Motion Pictures (2013)
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Motion Pictures & Murder: The Story of Edward Muybridge - 1866 - 1880

1/24/2015

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Source: Edward Ball. The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age
                                    Murder and the Birth of Motion Pictures (2013)
Picture
     Edward Muybridge was one of the pioneers of the technology that led to motion pictures.
In effect, Muybridge, by finding a way to quickly take twenty-four consecutive stop-motion photographs, "kidnapped" time.  After Muybridge, the "Media" became possible; all elements of what became the media had to rely on his template.  While Muybridge was able to "kidnap" time with a camera, he was also able to commit murder with a Smith and Wesson revolver. For a time, he was equally famous as an American icon in terms of photography, and as a cold-blooded killer whose story of why and how he committed murder made national headlines.
     Edward Muybridge was born (and grew up) in Britain, but emigrated to the U.S. in the
years before the Civil War. He went back to England as the Civil War began, and didn't come back to the U.S. until the Civil War was over. While some historians wonder about that coincidental timing, Muybridge used his time abroad, and learned quite a bit about photography during those years. In 1866, Muybridge went to San Francisco, and called himself "Helios" (Muybridge, born Muggerridge, was constantly changing his name to suit his circumstances): a professional photographer was born. Helios hated taking portraits of people; he preferred to photograph landscapes, even if there was no market for that kind of print.  In 1867, Helios (Muybridge) traveled to Yosemite, and in essence started the popularity of American Landscape Photography, while at the same time making himself known nationally. While there were photographers that preceded him in terms of landscapes, the photographs of Helios were different - his predecessors focused on space . . . he focused on time.  Helios had the gift of capturing time in a still photograph, even with the limited technology in the 1860s. 
Above, Helios photographed himself in Yosemite - he called this photograph "Charon at the Ferry" (1868).  He envisioned himself as Charon in his boat crossing the river Styx in Greek Mythology
Picture


In 1872, back at Yosemite, Helios / Muybridge photographed himself in a very dangerous position. He admitted that it would have been very easy to lose his balance and fall to his death 2000+ feet below.  This photograph was used in his murder trial in order to try and illustrate his lack of rational decision-making
     Helios just happened to be in San Francisco in 1868 when an earthquake hit the city (while severe, it wasn't nearly as bad as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake). Helios was actually able to photograph San Francisco before AND after the earthquake.  As a result of his Yosemite and San Francisco photographs, Helios was a national figure, and General Henry Halleck selected Helios to go to Alaska with him in 1868 in order to document what was in America's newest territory ("Seward's Folly").  By the late-1860s, the technology of photography had advanced enough where Helios started to feature speed AND time in his prints. The improved technology also allowed Helios to "doctor" photographs in the development stage (it was still the glass-plate era).
     In "Cemetery With Cloud Effect" (1875), Muybridge inserted clouds in the sky during the development phase of the photograph. The actual photograph had a clear sky, as you can see in the original photograph at the left.
Picture
     As you can see in "Cemetery Without Cloud Effect", the photograph isn't as pleasing to the eye. Muybridge (he stopped calling himself Helios by the early-1870s) loved open sky; but in his photographs, he felt clouds enhanced the overall quality of the print . . . 
Picture
     1871 was a big year for Edward Muybridge, in that the studio owners that showcased his photographs introduced him to two people that year: Leland Stanford, his future patron, and Flora Brown, his future wife.  That same year, he married Flora Brown, even though she was twenty years old, and he was forty-one.  Muybridge constantly left his bride for months at a time for his adventures in photography, and he was completely oblivious to the fact that she had an affair with a man named Harry Larkyn (basically a colorful grifter).  In 1873, Muybridge was told of the affair by his housekeeper, and he even warned Larkyn about "California Justice". 
     When Flora gave birth to a boy in 1874 that was obviously a result of her affair with Larkyn, Muybridge followed through on his threat.  Muybridge traveled to Napa Valley near a town called Calistoga, and in a miner's cottage, shot Larkyn in the chest in a doorway in front of several witnesses.  Muybridge was almost lynched on the spot, but avoided that fate when one of the witnesses calmed down the throng.  Charged with murder, Muybridge needed a lawyer, and Leland Stanford was more than happy to supply one.  The first extremely wealthy Californian hired Muybridge to take interior photographs of his palatial mansion in 1871 (later published as a "Picture Book" in the late-1870s), and by 1874 was in the middle of an experiment which involved Muybridge's talent and expertise. 
     Stanford sent his best lawyer to represent Muybridge, and that lawyer convinced a jury to acquit him of murder (the prosecution helped by insisting on "first degree murder or nothing"). Flora Downs divorced Muybridge as one would expect, and desperately tried to get alimony, but she died suddenly in 1875 at the age of twenty-four, most likely of influenza.  Muybridge was completely free to resume his part of the experiment with Leland Stanford, since he no longer had any fear of any financial loss with the death of his former wife (BTW, Muybridge only visited his son, "Harry Jr.", once, when he was nine years old).
     The main reason why Stanford supplied an excellent lawyer free-of-charge for Muybridge was that he and Muybridge were in the middle of trying to solve a mystery over which Stanford obsessed.  Stanford, a horse-nut, believed that at full-gallop, all four of a horse's hooves left the ground; he wanted to prove that he was right (no one knew for sure). After his acquittal, Stanford purchased a huge tract of land outside of San Francisco in 1876 in order to have a place to keep his race horses, and to also provide a location for Muybridge to continue his work. On "The Farm" were two sequoias, which inspired Stanford to name the area Palo Alto (Tall Tree) - the future home of Stanford University, but that's another story for another U.S. History Blog entry. Stanford purchased over one million dollars worth of equipment in today's dollars for Muybridge to prove his "horse theory" was right.  
     In 1878, Muybridge finally succeeded in capturing one of Stanford's horses at full gallop with twenty-four photographs. Muybridge had succeeded in stopping time; in 1879, he would "re-start" time.  Muybridge invented (and received a patent for) what he called a"Zoopraxiscope", which was a projector he invented to display his twenty-four images so they would appear to be in motion - in essence, he invented the first motion picture projector.  
     In 1880, Leland Stanford, former Governor of California and the Chairman of the Central Pacific Railroad, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in America, hosted a gathering at his mansion in San Francisco on Nob Hill (Nob was from the Indian word "Nabobs", which meant extreme wealth). The occasion was for Muybridge to display his "motion pictures", including that of Stanford's horse, to California's Elite.  The phenomenon of watching objects in motion from a projector was so astounding, that Muybridge actually had three public showings with his projector in the days following his debut at the Stanford mansion. Overnight, Muybridge became a magician with a projector, instead of a murderer with an obsession. However, despite reaching this peak of innovation and fame, there were storm clouds on the horizon. While Stanford spent an exorbitant amount of money on the process, he never really paid Muybridge much at all.  By 1882, a little over ten years after they were introduced and solved a vexing mystery together, they would drift apart, and become completely estranged.
    The story of Edward Muybridge was not over in 1880 - in the years that followed, he became a celebrated artist / scientist in America and Europe, and had a historically significant conversation with Thomas Edison, but he never again connected with Leland Stanford. How Leland Stanford became incredibly wealthy and powerful, and the role that Thomas Edison played in the development of motion pictures at the expense of Muybridge are for another U.S. History Blog post(s)
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Post-Hiroshima: The Morality of the Atomic Bomb

1/20/2015

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Source: Paul Boyer. By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and 
                                  Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (1994).
     After Hiroshima, until the late-1940's, the "Atomic Debate" centered mostly around "Morality vs. Security"; by the end of the decade, the debate shifted to "Morality AND Security." As Boyer pointed out in Chapter 27, the atomic bomb, which was the "Dread Destroyer" in 1945, became the "Shield of the Republic" by 1950.
     Boyer pointed out that a small-but-tenacious minority held firm in their moral beliefs about the atomic bomb in the first few years after Hiroshima. Although never truly united, churches were the "greatest voice" against the use (and future use) of the atomic bomb. Their argument was based on the belief that the moral cost of using the bomb was too great, and that the Japanese were the equal of Americans in terms of the sanctity of life. 
     The popularity of John Hersey's Hiroshima in 1946 seems to indicate that quite a few Americans were at least leaning towards that viewpoint. In its extreme, the religious moral view was eschatological in nature; in other words, America will pay for its use of the atomic bomb on "Judgment Day." Another moral viewpoint against the atomic bomb came from the African-American communities, in that they were openly questioning why the atomic bomb was used on non-whites, instead of, for example, Germany or Italy. 
     Most Americans regarded the atomic bomb in terms of security after Hiroshima. 
Increased worry about destruction was a greater concern than not only moral objections, but also to peacetime applications from the atomic bomb. In part, that was due to the effectiveness of the U.S. government and military controlling atomic-related information, shaping the public's perception of "all things atomic." I think the government was largely successful in encouraging the public to see the atomic bomb in terms of security instead of morality, in that most Americans were inclined to place less emphasis on the past and present, and focus on the future. The view towards security allowed the luxury of looking towards the future, instead of analyzing (and agonizing) over the past and present. The "Science Movement" fits this model, in that while individual scientists lamented the use of the bomb, the movement focused on increasing the security of nations with a new international order in the "Atomic Era."
      By the late-1940's, "Atomic Morality" became equated with pacifism; in other words, the "Atomic Debate" became centered around "Morality AND Security." By this time, the atomic bomb, in the eyes of more-and-more Americans, was justified and "morally praiseworthy." Boyer mentioned that the increasingly common view, by around 1949, was that "God meant for America to have and use the atomic bomb." In particular, after the U.S.S.R.'s first successful test of its atomic bomb in 1949, WHO drops the bomb started to matter - and America is the only "Good Guy" with atomic weapons. As Boyer asserted, once that threshold was crossed, there was no going back. 
     By the late-1940's, most Americans had an increased desire for the U.S. government to have an "Atomic Supremacy" over the U.S.S.R.; which basically meant build bigger-and-better bombs compared to Russia. When the first test of the hydrogen bomb was announced, the level of moral objections in America were nowhere near those after Hiroshima. The fear of the Soviet Union was greater than any "Atomic Morality", and the increased focus on civil defense trumped moral consciousness as well by 1950.
     Within five years after Hiroshima, the debate centering around the use of the atomic bomb had shifted to a national security strategy based on the belief that the U.S. was morally entitled to have an "Atomic Supremacy" over the U.S.S.R. This nuclear deterrence strategy created, as Boyer called it, an "Illusion of Diminished Risk" that formed a basis for how Americans coped with the possibility of nuclear war.
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Why Did the South Win the Battle for Reconstruction?

1/20/2015

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Source: Eric Foner. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and 
                                 Reconstruction (2006)
Summary of Foner’s main points:
      Overall, Foner’s main points concerning Reconstruction centered around: 
a) Former slaves “digging in” and demanding meaningful and immediate freedom; b) Southern white Democrats refusing to accept emancipation; c) President Andrew Johnson’s lack of flexibility, vision, and leadership skills and; d) Political unity and division within the Republican Party in the North & South. In the end, The North’s unwillingness and inablitiy to stay involved with Reconstruction in the long-run led to the Southern states reasserting their economic, social, and political order.

What does Foner see as the most central issue of Reconstruction?
      I would argue that Foner saw race as the most central issue of Reconstruction. From the African-American perspective, “being a people” required political and economic equality within the American democracy. That, in turn, could only happen if the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were enforced by the federal government. From the Southern white Democrat perspective, “remaining a people” after the Civil War could only occur if the federal government did not, at least consistently, enforce the “Civil War Amendments”. From the perspective of most Northern whites (and politicians), enforcing the “Civil War Amendments” during Reconstruction became too costly; race was the easiest and most justifiable way to rationalize the decision to end involvement in Reconstruction. 


Could Reconstruction have turned out differently?
     I do not believe that Reconstruction could have turned out differently; “Non-Negotiable” economic, social, and political issues caused too much polarization for any long-term changes to take root during Reconstruction. These “non-negotiable” issues from various groups, in particular from Southern white Democrats, helps explain why Reconstruction started out with prominent African-Americans in the South “shouldering the responsibility”, but became a “White Man’s Burden” towards the end of the 19th Century. In the economic arena, much of the “Battle for Reconstruction” centered around land and labor reform. Radical Republicans in the North wanted to transform land ownership in the South by, in essence, transferring ownership of the land to the former slaves. 
     In terms of labor, Republicans were in favor of free labor (with the notable exception of Stevens); even during the Civil War, discussion of a “New South” featuring free labor for African-Americans was a predominant view. Southern white Democrats were against any type of free labor system for African-Americans; the last thing most Southerners wanted was a volatile and unreliable labor force. African-Americans in the South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War demanded the right to own land and negotiate wages and working conditions. In the short-run, it must have looked very promising for African-Americans and Republicans to achieve their economic goals in the South. Added to this mix was the “Up-Country” Southern Republicans; in such areas as eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, resentment was high against the planter class, and a sort of “marriage of convenience” was created with African-Americans in pursuit of free labor. But, without long-term and meaningful assistance from the North, reform in terms of land ownership and labor was impossible. 
     Despite efforts at increasing the transportation network in the South, especially with railroads, very little meaningful and tangible results were achieved. The Northern effort at creating an economic “rising tide that lifts all ships” in the South was derailed in part due to corruption, but mostly due to the Panic of 1873. In economic terms, this depression shifted the focus of the North inward during Reconstruction; almost immediately, the North considered such issues as wages, eight-hour work days, and reform of the railroad monopolies far more important than any reform that would benefit African-Americans in the South.
      Socially, African-Americans in the South had a powerful ally in the Radical Republicans; both wanted civil liberties to take root and last for the long-term. And, for a few years, civil liberties seemed to be achievable, in particular with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. But as the years progressed during Reconstruction, a sort of “silent acceptance” occurred in the North, basically sanctioning oppression of African-Americans in the South from constant discrimination all the way to lynching. As Reconstruction played out, political cartoons reinforced the Northern and Southern views of racial superiority. Northern political cartoons often softened the reality of the oppression that was going on in the South, and Southern cartoons were used as a propaganda weapon to convince whites that African-
Americans must remain a subordinate group because they were an “inferior race”. 
     Any chance at gaining meaningful civil liberties disappeared when the “Civil War Amendments” were not consistently enforced by the federal government; it was very difficult for Northern Republicans to justify changing the social order in the South when little support existed among the North’s citizenry; in short, “Social-Darwinism” was taking root in the North. The reality of this lack of social progress can be seen by comparing two former African slaves: Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. At the beginning of Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass advocated equality across-the-board for African-Americans. By the late 19th Century, Booker T. Washington was forced to accept the social (and political) reality, and did his best to work within the confines of “Separate but Equal”, focusing on the “Equal” aspect in trying to help African-Americans gain at least a modicum of civil liberties.
      Politically, one could make a convincing argument that the Union won the Civil War, but the South won Reconstruction; Southern white Democrats “dug in”, and outlasted the Northern and Southern Republicans. In the beginning of Reconstruction, all Republicans wanted loyal Southern state governments in place, which could only really occur with African-American representation in the state houses. With the reality of an incredibly high level of political energy and enthusiasm by African-Americans in the South (the “Tocsin of Freedom”), this goal seemed to be an achievable one. However, Southern white Democrats were not only able to outlast Northern Republicans, but were also able to “re-package” the Civil War, in essence, controlling the propaganda during Reconstruction. 
     In the end, African-American representation in the Southern state legislatures existed only in the short-run; the North, especially during Grant’s presidency, started to experience “Reconstruction Fatigue”. By that, I mean it was becoming more and more untenable to keep “coming to the rescue” in the face of conservative and reactionary resistance in the South to Republican Reconstruction policies. Increasingly, Southern white Democrats were able to organize their resistance against a “Power From Without”; more and more “Redeemers” were “rolling back the clock” in terms of political power in the Southern states. 
     When the 15th Amendment was ratified, most Northerners viewed it as the end of Reconstruction; this also is the time-frame for the rise of the Liberal Republicans. When an increasing number of Northerners believe, as propagated by Liberal Republicans, that African-Americans had “their chances”, but didn’t take advantage, politically, Northern efforts at Reconstructing the South are effectively over. When an increasing number of Northerners believe that “The Lost Cause” is a valid explanation for the Civil War, then political Reconstruction is over. When Supreme Court decisions reinforce states rights, and provide a sort of “diplomatic immunity” when committing crimes against African-Americans (Cruikshank), then politically, Reconstruction can no longer occur in the South. When Congress and the President of the United States cannot extinguish reactionary terrorist groups like the KKK, but only force it into hibernation, the Southern white Democrats control the politics of Reconstruction. 
      In paraphrasing W.E.B. DuBois, African-Americans basked in freedom in the short-run after the Civil War, but soon, during and after Reconstruction, economic, social, and political slavery returned in the South.
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How Did Early Americans Celebrate Christmas?

1/20/2015

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Short summary of the author’s major ideas:
     Nissenbaum’s main points in the last three chapters of his book focused on how the celebrations of Christmas changed in the 19th Century due to a combination of external pressures and internal reforms. Among the changes that Nissenbaum chronicled were: a) A change in the “Battle for Christmas” from a class struggle, to more of a generational struggle; b) The rise of the middle class / working class; c) The increasing focus on children, and; d) The change in gift-giving.  Lastly, Nissenbaum wrote about Christmas in the Antebellum South, which served as a microcosm and a comparison for his earlier assertions about how Christmas celebrations used to be observed, and how they changed, in areas such as New York and Philadelphia.

What do the changes in how Christmas is celebrated tell us about what changed in 1800’s America?
    The main changes that occurred in how Christmas is celebrated that were also seen in America’s social history during the 19th Century include: a) The changing roles / authority within a typical household; b) The growing focus on children; c) The growing influence of a status-conscious middle class, and; d) The growing influence of industry.
 During the 19th Century, the typical American household (working / middle class) 
changed in terms of paternal and maternal roles. 
     Over time, the father became the “external” agent of the household, and the mother became the “internal” agent. By that, I mean that the father was most-often the primary wage-earner, and focused much of his attention to such areas as politics (and in many instances, taverns). The mother became the “moral center” of the household, focusing much (if not most) of her attention on the children, and in other areas such as religion and charitable work. As a general trend during the 19th Century, women worked much harder at home, not only during the Christmas season, but every day in a domestic sense. And, to add to the overall stress level, many women also worked part-or-full time as well. One of the reasons why the Temperance Movement gathered steam in the 19th Century is that activists tapped into a vein that resonated with many “internal” agents: “Get my man out of the tavern so I have some help at home!” 
     During the 19th Century, in general, households focused more-and-more attention on children. While the concept of childhood had already been “conceived”, America during this period started not only to acknowledge the existence of childhood, but to center domestic life around them, not only during Christmas, but for the rest of the year. During the 19th Century, fewer-and-fewer Americans were embracing the Puritan model of “breaking a child’s will” during their development. The strategy that was becoming more common was a Universalist approach to “train” children to be, among other things, less selfish. The “Catch-22” in this approach was acknowledged by some of its proponents: by “training” children in this way, more attention was being given, and children may in fact become more selfish as a result. The evolution of how the Christmas tree was used in many households during the 19th Century was, in part, to encourage children to be more unselfish without using the heavy-hand of physical punishment. 
     In the 19th Century, an American middle class became one of the “anchors” in society. As an example for the influence of the middle class on Christmas, “misrule” became less frequent due to a growing and more influential middle class. If a household has more property and wealth than previous generations, then “misrule” represents more of a potential threat to what is possessed. If an increasing number of Americans have more property and status to protect than ever before in our history to that point, then fewer Americans will value “misrule” during the Christmas season, or “shenanigans” (one of my most favorite words) outside of the season. Nissenbaum discussed an interesting link between children and social status for adults that occurred during the 19th Century. If I have his argument straight, he stated that children were not responding to their gifts in a manner that their parents had wanted and expected during Christmas, so “public charity” became more common. 
     In addition to such things as clothing and manners, this type of charity allowed many middle-and-upper class Americans to increase or validate their status by experiencing the recipients of their charity “gushing” over their efforts on a public stage. I would think that towards the end of the 19th Century, when the Gilded Age was in full force, that this type of status-enhancing charity became not only more common during the Christmas season, but more over-the-top as well. 
     The last change I will discuss is the growing influence of industry in American society during the 19th Century. At the beginning of the century, it was still true that December was mostly down-time for most Americans, and extended Christmas celebrations were the result, whether-or-not Christmas was declared a legal holiday. As industry become more influential in American society, there were more Americans than ever before working just as hard in December as they were in the other months of the year. One of the realities of an increasingly industrial America during the 19th Century was that, state-by-state, Christmas was declared a legal holiday to politically satisfy, or even mollify, the large segments of American society that needed a physical and mental break from the factory.
            Source: Stephen Nissenbaum. The Battle for Christmas (2010)
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The Meaning of Christmas For Early Americans

1/20/2015

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Source: Stephen Nissenbaum. The Battle for Christmas (2010)
Short summary of the Nissenbaum’s major ideas:
     Nissenbaum set the stage for the transformation of Christmas from the early-17th Century through the early-20th Century by establishing some “battlegrounds” concerning Christmas in its “early days” featuring: a) Expansion v. Restriction (Constriction); b) Bawdy v. Respectable, and; c) Public v. Private. As he closed Chapter 1, Nissenbaum stated that by the mid-18th Century, religion hadn’t yet transformed Christmas to a holiday of “quiet pleasure”, and market forces hadn’t yet transformed Christmas to a commercial phenomenon. 
What seems to have been the “meaning of Christmas” for early Americans; what did Christmas mean and why did Puritan leaders oppose it?
      For early Americans, Christmas represented a time to “let loose”; it was a time when the typical workload was lighter, and it was the end of the harvest and “slaughter” season. As Nissenbaum pointed out, this was the best time of the year for consuming fresh meat, as well as properly aged wine and beer. Christmas to many in America during this period was much more like carnival in South America than our contemporary Christmas. 
     In addition to “letting off steam” with food and drink, a sort-of social role-reversal (“inversion”) occurred that was linked to celebrating Christmas. The most common form of what was called “misrule” was face-to-face charity when the wealthy provided charity for the poor, in part to “re-establish” the goodwill that was lost over the year. To some elites, this was an inconvenience, but a wise investment nonetheless, because the alternative was rather more costly. That leads me to what I found to be the most fascinating (and somewhat disturbing) aspect of Christmas in America in the mid-to-late 17th / early-18th Centuries: “Wassailing”. Wassailing basically equaled Christmas carols with a “message” attached. In its most polite form, wassailing was singing (sometimes even in a home), and gifts were received in exchange. In its most extreme form, wassailing led to vandalism and theft; in the eyes of these “wassailers”, they felt they were entitled to their spoils because the property owners were properly warned in advance that this behavior could occur if the anticipated charity didn’t come their way. 
     By the mid-18th Century, Christmas celebrations started to focus more and more on reducing excess behavior, but still maintaining “good cheer”; the group that lagged behind this social celebratory shift were typically young people, especially young single men. In summation, Christmas, for most Americans in this period of our history, meant an end-of-season celebration of “feasting”, and for many other Americans, a chance to take advantage of a small window of opportunity to experience charity through a social process of “inversion”, whether receiving or giving, depending on one’s goals and social status.
      From the perspective of the Puritan leadership during 17th Century, Christmas
was associated with “misrule”. While it is true that Puritans opposed Christmas in part because there was no Biblical proof that 25 December was linked to the Nativity, the main reasons for Puritan opposition to Christmas centered around behavior that, in its extreme form, served as an excuse for challenging authority, whether religious or political. 
     These challenges to authority included rowdy displays of drinking, begging, theft, and mocking those in power. In the opinion of Puritans such as Increase Mather, this type of behavior seemed to be valued far more than anything resembling a celebration of the Nativity. Two examples from Nissenbaum come immediately to mind when discussing why Puritans opposed Christmas: “Mumming” and “Chambering”. During the Christmas season, it was common enough to see men and women cross-dressing (“Mumming”), while more disturbing to the Puritans was pre-marital sex (“Chambering”); the noticeable increase in births in the area every September / October confirmed that this behavior occurred. 
     What was really going on that disturbed the Puritans is that the social hierarchy was temporarily inverted; for a time, the lower-class seemed to be in control. To a group that valued discipline and self-regulation above most everything else, this must have been very difficult to endure. When reading this segment, I immediately thought of parts of America in the 1960’s / 1970’s where counter-cultures challenged many social conventions to the horror of conservative Americans. To Puritans, the manner of the celebration mattered the most where Christmas was concerned. 
     One method the Puritans used to try and control the “Battle for Christmas” can be seen in the almanacs of the era. Nissenbaum pointed out that before 1730, Puritans by and large were able to control the language with the calendar in a typical almanac; the power to name (or not name) a day was also the “power to control”. After 1730, and most definitely by 1760, it was safe to label Christmas on 25 December in an almanac; not only that, but it was an exception when Christmas wasn’t a labeled feature on 25 December by 1760.
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