Lift Every Voice and Sing

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here's a lovely rendition of my favorite patriotic song:



Thanks, James Weldon Johnson, for the song, and deepest gratitude to MLK and all who have lived the words.  True patriotism always, always holds our feet to the fire.  'Til victory is won...

A Today in History/Images from the Past Hybrid: Silent Cal, Native Headgear, & the Coolidge Menagerie

President Calvin Coolidge died today in 1933.  Coolidge became president following the death of Warren Harding in 1923 and was elected in his own right in 1924.  The 30th president was legendary for a very un-modern-presidency approach toward public life: namely, he preferred to say as little as possible.  A famous tale relates his reaction to a guest who told him that her friends bet she couldn't make him say three words: "You lose."  Many textbook authors have enjoyed juxtaposing their tales of "Silent Cal" with this photo indicating that perhaps the laconic chief executive had a lighter side:

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Often overlooked is the reason for this photo (and a series of other, less formal, snapshots in headdress): Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States.  Yes, prior to this date, the country's original inhabitants were not automatically regarded as U.S. citizens.  About 2/3 of Native Americans had gained citizenship through a variety of means, some of which required leaving behind traditional cultural practices (see this Oklahoma State site for more extensive information).  For making Native citizenship universal, in theory if not always in reality (see this Politico article for information on how some states continued to fight universal Native citizenship), the Sioux made Coolidge an honorary tribal member.

On a truly lighter note, Coolidge and his wife, Grace, were avid pet lovers, caring for dogs, cats, birds, and more exotic species throughout their lives.  Here's Silent Cal with his white collies, Rob Roy and Prudence Prim, on vacation in New York:

Here's Grace Coolidge with the couple's raccoon, Rebecca:

Other companions included Enoch the goose, lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, Ebenezer the donkey and a host of domestic cats.  For a complete list, as well as credits for both pet photos above, see the Web site of the Presidential Pet Museum.

Link: breaking the NFL color barrier

Interesting link to a new documentary on the first four African American NFL players to break the color barrier imposed between 1933 and 1946 -- a year before Jackie Robinson famously began the process of dismantling segregation in Major League Baseball.

Image Link: Presidents, Before and After

Lest we forget how stressful the top job truly is:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/05/presidents-before-and-after-photos_n_5617891.html

Lincoln is particularly arresting, but they all change substantially.

Interesting Resource Link: Political Cartoons of Clifford Berryman

I haven't had a chance to look through the entire online exhibit yet, but I just came across a cool Web site devoted to the cartoons of Clifford Berryman, who drew political cartoons first for the Washington Post (1896-1907) and then the Washington Evening Star (1907-1949).  I enjoy using political cartoons to illustrate lectures, as they often convey essential truths about an era better than any other medium I might choose.  Nice to be aware of this resource for future reference.

Today in History: Civil War

Union forces entered Atlanta, Georgia, on this date in 1864.  Atlanta's status as a railroad link made this Union victory especially significant; General William Sherman embarked upon from Atlanta upon his famous March to the Sea.

In lieu of the historical photo posting I missed yesterday (ah, Labor Day, in my life you are a day filled with labor), here's a great 1950s-era soap commercial I found while looking up newsreel footage for class.  Useful preparation for the next time you find yourself "showing off your trousseau":

World War I in Britain, Then and Now

Take a look at this interactive Web site contrasting historical photos taken in Britain during World War I with contemporary street views.  Fascinating!  The site was created by a British real estate company, of all things.  I was struck by the continuity in many of these photos, even where structures suffered significant bomb damage.  I would love to see a comparable time-lapse comparison of, say, streets in Los Angeles.  If you've come across something similar in your travels through the ether, let me know; if I come across anything like that I will post it here.

Article Link: Dorothea Lange

Interesting article on a new documentary about photographer Dorothea Lange.

Today in History: Lutherans!

The first Lutheran church body in America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was founded on this date in 1748.  There were Lutherans in North America before this date.  Click here for the Web site of the Lutheran Church of the Ascension, a Savannah, Georgia congregation dating from 1741 and housed in a beautiful building in the city's historical district.  The Pennsylvania Ministerium was important, though, because it marked a first effort at wide-scale organization and a common liturgy.  German immigrant pastor Henry Muhlenberg was central in this effort.  A historical feature I've written including a profile of Muhlenberg will be published in the November 2014 issue of The Lutheran magazine.  Will link when that appears.

Images from the Past: Althea Gibson

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You might have noticed that today's "Google doodle" honors Althea Gibson, the women's tennis great, who was born on this date in 1927.  Here's an interesting profile of her life and career.  I was intrigued to note that prior to her first major tournament win at the French Open in 1956, she was sent by her sponsor, the United States Lawn Tennis Association, on a U.S. State Department-sponsored world tour.  Gibson competed in places such as India, Pakistan, and Burma.  Not coincidentally, nations like these were among the "non-aligned" states that the U.S. and the Soviet Union so assiduously courted during the Cold War years.  American racism impacted Gibson significantly -- and it also impacted U.S. foreign policy.  State Department tours like this one in 1955 aimed to counteract the justifiably poor reputation the United States suffered for its backward race relations.

Reflection on the Week: Aspiration

As you may have heard, artist Mary Engelbreit has become the center of a firestorm of controversy this week for a piece of art she created to benefit the Michael Brown, Jr. Memorial Fund.  The art, visible at this link to an "artnet news" story on the controversy, depicts a child in his mother's lap; a single tear courses down the mother's face as they gaze at a newspaper headline from "Everywhere, U.S.A." reading "Hands up!  Don't Shoot!"  The little boy's hands are raised.  Engelbreit's caption reads "No one should have to teach their children this in the U.S.A."

I believe in aspiration.  I routinely encounter history students who are comprehensively distressed by the many misdeeds of the American past.  I tell them this: American history is littered, from its origins to the present, with racism and injustice.  We've done terrible things, and we need to understand what we've done as a foundation for living better into the future.  What we do have, though, is a set of founding documents that have been expanded over time to mean way, WAY more than our Founding Fathers could ever have dreamed.  Their expansive language of liberty and justice has been successfully employed to fight for the rights of those they enslaved, and those they refused to let vote or hold property.  It continues to animate our better angels to advocate for continued progress toward a path to justice and equality that Does. Not. Yet. Exist.  And guess what?  They're Americans, gifted with this legacy.  It's their -- our -- job to continue the quest.

They look a little shell shocked sometimes, but I think it's good for them.

We can do better.  We should do better.  We have been granted an incredible legacy that should empower us to do better.  Engelbreit's right.  No child should ever have to learn this lesson, and no mother should face the pain of teaching it.

Patriotism should always come with a to-do list.  In that spirit:

Article Link: Roméo Dallaire

General Roméo Dallaire was the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1994.  In January 1994, the Canadian general's mission received information from a Hutu informant about Hutu extremists stockpiling arms in preparation for mass killings.  Gen. Dallaire informed UN headquarters that he planned to raid the arms caches and break up the genocide planning.  UN headquarters overturned his plans.  He repeated his request the next month.  Again, he was turned down.  By April, Rwanda was in crisis.  Eventually 850,000 would die, with millions of people displaced and thousands raped and subjected to other atrocities.*

Gen. Dallaire has published a piece in the Washington Post arguing that the international community is making the same mistake in Iraq.  In particular, he is deeply concerned about the role played by children in this crisis.  The record demonstrates that we should have listened to Gen. Dallaire in 1994.  I'd argue it's well worth listening to him now.

* Information taken from Bruce W. Jentleson, American Foreign Policy, 5th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), 574-575.

Today in History: Orville Wright

Orville Wright, the younger of the famous Wright brothers who designed the first airplane to make a sustained flight, was born on this date in 1871.  His brother Wilbur was four years older.  See here for an interesting biography of Orville (and the opportunity to connect to interesting biographies of other members of the Wright family -- click on "History and Culture" to the left and then on "People").

I, at least, tend to think of events like the Wright brothers' historic flight as feats of adventure.  An adventure it was, but the Wright brothers were practical; not only did they study the work of other aviation pioneers, even going so far as to write the Smithsonian Institution that would one day own their historic airplane, but they were so wary of competitors that they refrained from conducting flight tests between late 1905 and spring 1908 while some of their patents pended.  The romance of the skies, tempered by a dose of business-world reality.

Images from the Past: Fire Hydrant Fun

It's hot, and I'm hot (and very thankful for modern air conditioning), and just looking at these historic images of children playing in New York fire hydrants makes me cooler.  Enjoy!

Harlem, 1939

Lower East Side, 1957

Block Party, 1970

For more great photos, click on this link (also the source of the images shared above).

Reflection on the Week: Fun Charts

It has been a busy week, and I seem to have used the last vestiges of the "deep reflection" part of my brain attempting final revisions on a journal article.  Happily, the New York Times has provided light stimulation for my tired brain by publishing a fascinating interactive feature graphically demonstrating U.S. population movement since 1900: find it here.  It's a wealth of information, some predictable (14 percent of Oregonians are successful California escapees) and some rather surprising, at least to me (only 40 percent of current Wyoming residents were born in the state!).  Seventy-two percent of Mississippians were born in the state, while only 55 percent of Georgia residents are natives -- statistics very much in keeping with Atlanta's status as a "Sunbelt" migrant draw.  Late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century immigration trends are especially clear in states such as the Dakotas, where influxes of Scandinavian settlers were not countered by new immigrant streams in the latter part of the twentieth century (the charts tabulate population movement from "outside the United States" but don't break that down by country or region).  Take a look -- I'd love to hear of any surprises you find in the data.

Article Link: John Dean

The Daily Beast recently ran an interesting interview with John Dean, available here.  I don't particularly agree with his characterization of the skills of lawyers versus historians (no problem with lawyers; just think he should give historians more credit).  It's fascinating that one of the key figures in the Watergate affair has become perhaps the authoritative expert on Nixon's role in the cover-up.  The interview includes a link to Bob Woodward's glowing review of Dean's The Nixon Defense.  

Today in History: Windy City

Chicago was incorporated as a town on this date in 1833.  It would be incorporated as a city four years later.  As historian William Cronon so eloquently explained in his Nature's Metropolis, the Windy City became the locus point for the development of the United States as breadbasket -- and side of beef, and so on -- to the world.

Chicago's first permanent non-Native resident was a man named Jean Baptist Point du Sable.  He was a free black man, probably from Haiti, who arrived in the 1770s.  Chicago's checkered racial legacy -- burgeoning African American culture spurred by the Great Migration of the World War I era coupled with insidious residential "red-lining" -- makes this origin story all the more fascinating.

See this history provided by the City of Chicago for more information and anecdotes regarding this central location, literally and figuratively, in the development of American political, economic, and cultural life.

Images from the Past: Summer Camp

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Here's a nice little colorized number in honor of day camp week here at the Gifford household, a blessed time of fun for the 8-year-old and lesson planning/article editing for me.  This hand-tinted vintage postcard from the 1950s (available for purchase from a Eugene, Oregon artist via the link) demonstrates that while styles may change, the goofy faces children of this age make for photographs remain constant...

Reflection on the Week: Stories

Our community recently experienced the tragedy of a missing wife and mother.  Sadly, she was found a couple days ago, having evidently experienced the hopelessness that leads to suicide.  Unfortunately, even those close to an individual can't always discern what is going on inside another's head.  I feel awful for her husband, her children, and her family and friends.

One thing that struck me, though, was how news of her story -- her life as a member of the community, and her unexplained disappearance after leaving to run errands one day -- permeated our town, prompting search efforts and communication networks that extended for days.  Folks knew her story.  They identified with her and her family.  And they cared.

Remarks have been made about citizens' willingess to put forth so much effort to find someone who was white, who was relatively privileged (simply by being middle class), who perhaps looked like them, when so many people in our country fail to receive similar treatment.  Perhaps they're too poor; perhaps they're minorities; perhaps their life journeys have taken them down paths with which it's harder for middle-class America to identify.  And I know that -- tragically -- this is true.  It happens.  It's not just.

Even so, I'm intrigued by the possibilities of story.  We who are human are storytellers.  We need narrative to feel compassion, to move down the road toward understanding.  I would argue this is something fundamental in the way we are wired.  Part of the problem with the deficiencies in our society noted in the previous paragraph is our failure to take sufficient time to hear others' stories, to develop the connections narrative brings and start to feel that compassion.  It was easy to hear this local woman's story; it's harder to hear the stories that come from contexts outside our lived experience.

What would happen if we worked harder to learn stories?  We privilege quantifiable information -- refugee numbers, casualty figures, crime statistics, and lines of demarcation in conflicts.  What if we spent more time on refugees' stories?  The details of the lives that are lost?  The life journey traveled, both by the victim and the criminal?  The identities of combatants?  For that matter, what would happen if we knew more about our elected officials -- and our elected officials knew the stories of the people and groups with whom they disagree?  If we recognized people, and not just undifferentiated populations, how might that change things?

I don't want to suggest this is a one-step path to world peace, but I do believe it's worth some thought.  I am weary of vitriol and weary of "othering."  By that logic, I am somebody else's "other."  You are somebody else's "other."  We both know we are so much more than that, don't we?  Let's learn the stories.

Article Link: Science in History

This article in the Huffington Post about a colonial-era ship discovered during excavations for the new World Trade Center buildings illustrates a contention I've long made with my introductory survey students: the study of history is the study of everything about our past, all the innumerable elements that contribute to our existence today.  Here, remarkable tools of science -- dendrochronology, in particular -- have been put in service of understanding when this ship was constructed, where it was built, how it was used and even what might have led to its discovery almost two and a half centuries later, buried deep under lower Manhattan.  History is about curiosity and a search for understanding.  The names and the dates of our common perceptions of "history class" are mere data points in the context of something far deeper and broader -- and essential to our understanding of who we are.  Our self-perceptions may not turn upon the identification of one ship, but the story is a great illustration of how many approaches we can take toward exploration of our past.  Science, too, is a historical discipline!