20th Century – Sharing History

Remembering the Great American Jackalope

November 10, 2024November 10, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

In the summer of 1978, my parents were eager to test out their gigantic, new RV with their five children (they would eventually add one more child to the family in 1980).

Our trip stretched between Texas and Canada with stops to see relatives and national parks in New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The first leg of the trip culminated at an uncle’s house near Raymond, Alberta, Canada and included a trip to Waterton Lakes National Park.

Along the way, we entertained ourselves by playing endless rounds of Old Maid and Go Fish and collecting souvenirs at gas stations and the gift shops in parks. My mother collected spoons from her travels which she placed in a brown, wood spoon display rack in her kitchen. I am pretty sure the spoons are still there today.

My sister collected patches that my mom then sewed onto a jacket, which she also likely still has. I believe I may have also collected patches, but my sister assures me that I was not cool enough for that.

Additionally, we collected mini A&W root beer mugs and postcards. Back in those days, it was common to mail your friends postcards on your travels, updating them in much the same way people update social media today, and there was one postcard– an actual photograph of an American jackalope– that was available in about every gas station and gift shop along our route.

This creature both thrilled and terrified me and had I actually been in grade school at the time, I might have realized that the photo was a trick of taxidermy. But rabbits can be very still animals, so it was not completely out of the realm of possibilities that this could be real, photographic evidence of the existence of jackalopes. Reality TV shows have been created from less.

I never forgot the jackalope, and I am pretty sure my family was entertained enough to not set me straight about them. That job was left for the internet to handle years later.

In truth, the jackalope is a mythical creature that was made popular in the 1930s when Wyoming resident, Douglas Herrick (1920-2003) and his brother– who had studied taxidermy by mail–began fusing deer antlers onto rabbit carcasses to make and sell the mysterious jackalopes. According to Wickipedia, the first jackalope the Herricks sold garnered $10 and was displayed at the Douglas’ La Bonte Hotel. That jackalope was later stolen in 1977 (not by me).

The idea of horned rabbits has apparently been around for centuries and was later explained to be a symptom of rabbits afflicted with Shope papilloma virus which causes horn-like tumors to grow on their bodies.

Bob Petley (1912-2006) of Arizona, also known as the “King of Postcards,” actually created the famous jackalope postcard that I purchased on my trip west. He produced it by photographing a taxidermied jackalope he had obtained in a Phoenix novelty store against the Papago Buttes.

Years later, I would be taken on my first snipe hunt and would find out about other mythical creatures like Bigfoot through a book I purchased at a Scholastic book fair, but the jackalope really had the cool vibes that neither snipes nor Bigfoot could muster.

It was likely the setting in which I found the jackalope that contributed to its coolness factor. The jackalope was introduced to me in the midst of the first great adventure of my life in the gorgeous deserts and mountains of the American west.

Also its name, a portmanteau of jackrabbit and antelope, is just too funny to forget. Walk up to anyone born before 1980 and say “jackelope” and see if you don’t also get a laugh.

I have made many, many road trips through the west since then with my own children and we have purchased enough western-themed merch memorializing every amazing aspect of this stretch of land to clothe and entertain us for eternity, and I hope to travel there many more times and buy even more unnecessary paraphernalia for future grandchildren.

Because a childhood exposed to the grandeur of nature alongside the thrill of obtaining small mementos and accented with a few, scary monsters that might pop around the corner is the best childhood of all.

Miranda Rights

June 11, 2024June 15, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On June 13, 1966, the United States Supreme Court issued its final ruling in the case Miranda v. Arizona. Setting precedent for a set of legal warnings we now refer to as “Miranda Rights,” the case ensured that when one is detained by a law enforcement officer, the officer is required to inform the detainee of the following rights: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

In March 1963, Arizona police arrested Ernesto Miranda on suspicion of rape and kidnapping. He was brought to a station and interrogated by police officers. After two hours, Miranda signed a confession. When Miranda was presented at court a few weeks later, he was not given an attorney to represent him.

Two years later, a lawyer files an appeal of Miranda’s case, claiming Miranda’s constitutional rights under the 5^th and 6^th Amendments, including protection from self-incrimination and the right to a state-issued attorney. The state of Arizona does not change their ruling. Miranda then appeals his case to the Supreme Court. In February 1966, the case is argued before the Supreme Court. In June of that year, the court rules 5-4 that Miranda’s confession is illegitimate under the 5^th and 6^th Amendments. In Chief Justice Earl Warren’s written ruling, he said that any statements made by a suspect in police custody are inadmissible unless four warnings, including their rights to stay silent and be assigned an attorney, are given to them by the arresting officer.

The next year, Miranda is retried without the confession. Even so, a jury finds him guilty and sentences him to 30 years in prison, of which he serves five. Several years after being released, Miranda is stabbed to death, and his killer receives his Miranda Rights.

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“America Was Promises”

May 8, 2024June 15, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On May 7, 1892, a baby boy was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Scottish immigrant and businessman Andrew MacLeish and college professor and president Martha Hillard. Martha named him Archibald, and as he grew, she encouraged in him a love for reading. This love took root in her son, who would go on to become a famous poet, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and influential statesman. Reflecting on his upbringing later, Archibald MacLeish said, “Her insistence on reading those books that had meant most to her . . . was the greatest piece of luck ever. I’ve often wondered how much it had to do with my commitment to poetry. I think I have a guess.”

Archibald MacLeish studied at Yale University where he edited Yale Literary Magazine. After graduation, he attended law school at Harvard University. While a student there, he met and married Ada Hitchcock in 1917. The two were married for 65 years. During MacLeish’s second year of law school, the U.S. entered World War I. MacLeish left to serve in France at a front-line hospital. He later transferred to a field artillery unit. MacLeish referred to WWI as “the most murderous, hypocritical, unnecessary and generally nasty of all recorded wars.” He said, “I had been under fire myself just enough to feel a lack of real purpose, only a presence of accidental mechanical purpose, and it colored the whole experience for me.” MacLeish was discharged in 1919 and returned to finish his law degree, graduating first in his class. During all this, MacLeish never stopped writing.

In 1923, after working for a prestigious Boston law firm for a few years, MacLeish and his wife decided to expatriate to Paris, where MacLeish could focus on his writing. He joined the group of writers often known as “The Lost Generation,” which included such literary legends as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Of that time, MacLeish said, “what lured us to Paris and held us there was the fact of the magnificent work being done by people from all over the world and in all the arts. This was a period really like the great Quattrocento . . . it was a period of extraordinary achievement.” This was certainly true for MacLeish. He published a series of poems that would go on to become staples of literary anthologies.

In the 30s, MacLeish and his family returned to the U.S. He was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the librarian of Congress and, subsequently, assistant secretary of state. Of this time, MacLeish said, “I think that the reorganization of the Library of Congress . . . was the best thing I did.” In 1949, MacLeish became a professor of rhetoric at Harvard. MacLeish’s works garnered him plenty of attention. Some of his most enduring works are Conquistador, J.B., You, Andrew Marvell, Immortal Autumn, and America Was Promises. The hallmark of a legendary author is that their work is timeless. This certainly feels true of MacLeish’s writing. For example, in the last poem MacLeish wrote before taking the job as librarian of Congress, he explores the idea of America as the promise of the fulfillment of dreams. He writes:

Who is the voyager in these leaves?

Who is the traveler in this journey

Deciphers the revolving night: receives

The signal from the light returning?

America was promises to whom?

East were the

Dead kings and the remembered sepulchres:

West was the grass.

And all beautiful

All before us

America was always promises.

He goes onto suggest that the original promises of America haven’t always been kept. That

the Aristocracy of politic selfishness

Bought the land up: bought the towns: the sites:

The goods: the government: the people. Bled them.

Sold them. Kept the profit. Lost itself.

But he believes there is a chance. MacLeish reminds the reader of freedom-seeking uprisings in

Spain Austria Poland China Bohemia.

There are dead men in the pits in all those countries.

Their mouths are silent but they speak. They say

“The promises are theirs who take them.”

He goes on to implore his generation of Americans that if the promise of their country is not being given to them, they must take it. At the end of his life, MacLeish said of this poem: “Everything about America is based on a beginning which was all promises. We certainly have buggered them, but I guess that’s what mankind does, bugger the promises, and maybe save a few,” a message of action and hope that still seems poignant some eight decades later.

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The Waco Siege

April 19, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On April 19, 1993, a stand-off between a Christian group called the Branch Davidians and federal agents ended in an extremely deadly and tragic disaster. The federal government’s tactics during the stand-off have been heavily criticized since and have inspired further violence and militia building.

The Branch Davidians were an off-shoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. They had a had a settlement just east of Waco, Texas called Mt. Carmel. There, approximately 100 adults and 50 children lived under the cult leadership of David Koresh, who believed himself to be a messiah. As such, Koresh claimed that God had commanded him to assemble an army and prepare for the end of times. The group began to stockpile weapons and ammunition. In May 1992, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), started an investigation into Koresh, who they believed was illegally manufacturing machineguns, bombs, and grenades. ATF agents prepared to enter the compound to serve warrants on February 28, 1993.

Unfortunately, the Branch Davidians had been warned of the raid. As ATF agents approached the compound, they were met with gunfire. The two groups battled for about two hours. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians were killed in the process. After a ceasefire was called, approximately 900 federal agents arrived and surrounded the compound. They remained there for 49 days.

As those 49 days played out on televisions all over the country, two separate FBI teams seemed to be working at odds with one another. FBI negotiators attempted to approach Koresh peacefully, offering food and drink, even a national radio address in exchange for the surrender of children from the compound. The FBI Hostage Rescue Team was not willing to be so patient. According to a New Yorker article written on the subject, “The two FBI factions were working at cross-purposes: a negotiator would make headway with the Davidians only to learn that the tactical team had just run over one of Koresh’s beloved vintage cars with a tank.” Frustrated with the lack of progress, the FBI sought the approval of US Attorney General Janet Reno to raid the compound. She gave it.

On April 19, the FBI used explosives to make holes in the side of the compound. They then pumped in about 400 canisters of tear gas, hoping the action would make the Branch Davidians flee the building. Instead, the federal officers watched as the building burst into flames at several points. Because of the gas, the firefighters could not enter immediately. The delay allowed the flames to engulf the entire building. Seventy people, including about 24 children perished in the compound. Many were killed when the building collapsed on them, but several others, including Koresh, were shot by others or themselves.

The federal government was heavily criticized for their handling of the situation. It was suggested that the ATF rushed their confrontation to complete the raid before a congressional budget meeting, in hopes of touting a successful mission. FBI groups fought about ideal negotiation tactics. A report from Alan A. Stone, M.D., a Professor of Psychiatry and Law at Harvard University, suggested that the FBI acted without fully considering the effect the tear gas would have on the children and infants inside and that the FBI should have made better use of their behavioral science resources. The Waco Siege, as it came to be known, as seen around the country as a complete bungle on the part of the federal agencies involved. It encouraged fringe groups to hoard even more weapons and create local militias. It was the inspiration for the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history: the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City exactly two years after the Waco Siege.

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The Creation of NATO

April 5, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On April 4, 1949, twelve nations signed a treaty, creating NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The goal of the treaty was to create a united front against the threat of Communist expansion beyond the Soviet Union. Each of the signed nations agreed that an attack on one was an attack on all. Since its inception, the organization has grown to include 32 countries. It is the largest peacetime military alliance in the world.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States leadership became concerned about the rising tide of communism. Besides its strong presence in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, large communist parties were emerging in France and Italy. The U.S. government enacted the Marshall Plan (named after then Secretary of State, George C. Marshall), which was a large-scale aid program for European countries devastated by the war. The U.S. also pledged aid (military and otherwise) to any country fighting against a Soviet takeover. Several Western European countries had already signed the Brussels Treaty, which created a military alliance between them, but the U.S. agreed that the risk was great enough to warrant their first-ever alliance with European countries since the 18^th century.

12 countries worked together to write the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed by the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom on April 4, 1949 in Washington, D.C. It stated, most notably that, “An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” This section of the treaty, Article 5, was used for the first time in 2001, following the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11.

Since the original creation of the organization, 20 countries have joined the pact, including Greece and Turkey (1952); West Germany (1955); Spain (1982); Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); North Macedonia (2020); Finland (2023); and Sweden (2024).

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The Origin of Daylight Savings

March 19, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On March 19, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signed “The Standard Time Act” into law. This act divided the U.S. into five time zones and established daylight savings. The act said that the clock would be advanced one hour on the last Sunday in March and pushed back an hour on the last Sunday in October. The idea of daylight savings came and went several times over the ensuing decades, becoming permanent in most states in 1966.

The idea of daylight savings time actually originated in Europe. Embroiled in World War I, European countries adopted the practice to reduce the amount of fuel needed to illuminate and heat buildings. It was also suggested that adjusting the time would increase productivity and have positive health effects. The U.S. took several years to jump onboard, with Congress finally passing the bill to instate daylight savings time on March 16, 1918. According to a Washington Herald article published on that day, the benefits of the bill for Americans would include: “Saving of one to one and a half million tons of coal per year, according to Fuel Administration estimates. Increased food production by suburban gardeners. Less traffic accidents. Improvement in health of all the people. More fresh air. Women workers will return from work in daylight. Speeding up of freight transportation by giving extra hour at docks and terminals. New York and London Stock Exchanges will be open for one hour together . . . More time for golf, amateur baseball and tennis.” President Wilson signed the act three days later.

The bill that President Wilson signed only enacted daylight savings for a few years. It took Congress several tries to repeal the act because President Wilson kept vetoing it. In 1919, Congress was finally able to override the veto and repeal daylight savings. Another daylight savings act was passed during World War II. It expired in 1945 at the end of the war. Over the next two decades, the observance of daylight savings was a local decision. It meant that one might pass through several different time zones within the same state. It wasn’t until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 that the issue was solved, and daylight savings became a permanent fixture in most states in the union.

Studies have debated the usefulness of daylight savings in our time. Some studies have suggested that daylight savings contributes to a decrease in productivity and an increase in accidents of all sorts. Furthermore, in 2022, a study done by Monmouth University said that 61% of Americans would like to do away with the twice-yearly time change.

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The Church of England’s First Female Priests

March 12, 2024May 7, 202420th Century, European HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 12, 1994, The Church of England ordained female priests for the first time. The ordination of these 32 women was so controversial that hundreds of male priests and thousands of church members left the church in protest. Despite the exodus, today, approximately 30% of the clergy of the Church of England are women.

In 1992, the General Synod of the Church of England (their governing body), agreed to ordain women to the priesthood of the church for the first time since the church’s birth in the 16^th century. For some church members, the announcement was met with excitement, gratitude, and relief. Angela Berners-Wilson, the first woman ordained as a priest on March 12, 1994, said, “it [is] the greatest privilege to finally be able to live out my calling . . .” Christine Clarke, another woman ordained that day said, “It’s been a long wait, but now there is a sense of everything coming together. There is a feeling that for this I was born. Now we are walking right into the central structure of the church.” The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, George Carey, was known to have said, “It is the humanity of Christ which is important, not his maleness.” While those who attended the ordination at the Bristol cathedral applauded the 32 women who made such an historic leap, there were thousands who left the church over it.

As a result of this ordination, several bishops and approximately 700 priests left the Church of England in favor of the Catholic Church, which still doesn’t ordain women to their priesthood. Thousands of church members followed them feeling that the ordination of women was, as Reverend Malcolm Widdecombe said, “against the tradition of the church and the teaching of Scripture.” To appease those who were unhappy with the change, the Church of England put several restrictions in place. Women could be ordained priests but not bishops (though this changed in 2015). “Traditionalist” bishops were assigned to each area so that those opposed to the ordination of women could have access to them instead.

There are now approximately 6,000 women ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England. Between over the last decade, almost half of new bishops appointed in the church were women. Despite this, female members of clergy continue to face discrimination from other clergy members and parishioners alike. The Church of England has created a group that studies “how women and men experience ministry differently in a range of contexts.”

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The Peace Corps: Kennedy’s Legacy of Service

March 1, 2024May 7, 20241960s, 20th CenturyLeave a Comment

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order that established the Peace Corps, an organization of volunteers that work in countries around the world addressing agricultural, economic, environmental, educational, and medical problems. Presented as an idea to university students in an impromptu speech, Kennedy formed the organization that would send over 240,000 Americans around the world as harbingers of peace and cooperation.

About six months before its official establishment, during his campaign for the presidency, then-Senator John F. Kennedy visited the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He arrived late, at 2 a.m., but with 10,000 students waiting to greet him, Kennedy gave a short, improvised speech on the steps of the Michigan Union. In it he said:

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend on the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the efforts must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”

In March of the next year, after winning the election and becoming president, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 and established the peace corps, asking his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver to be its first director. The first group of Peace Corps volunteers left in August 1961, headed to Ghana and Tanganyika (presently Tasmania) to provide service. The service was very popular among recent college graduates, and the program grew to 15,500 volunteers by 1966. Since then, over, 240,000 volunteers have served in 141 countries around the world. Today, around 2,400 volunteers are serving with the Peace Corps.

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“MAS*H:” “A Timely Satire”

February 27, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On February 28, 1983, over 106 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch the series finale of the incredibly popular television show “M*A*S*H.” This episode remains the most-watched program (outside of the Super Bowl) of all time. The finale aired after 11 seasons of the show: a situational dramedy about a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. “M*A*S*H” not only broke the mold of television sitcoms, but also, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, addressed antiwar sentiment in a groundbreaking way.

The “M*A*S*H” storyline, based on a movie by the same name that had been released several years prior, featured two surgeons, Captain Benjamin Pierce, played by Alan Alda, and Captain John McIntyre, played by Wayne Rogers. The two, while talented doctors, are consistently caught up in silly hijinks, flirting with the nurses (though today we’d consider much of their flirting harassment), and drinking away the horror of war. The two are supported by a bevy of colorful characters, including the uptight nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan and her side-kick, Major Frank Burns, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, whose shocking death was one of the greatest television blindsides in history, the company clerk Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly, whose uncanny ability to anticipate needs earned him his nickname, and Corporal Max Klinger, who did anything he could think of to earn a medical discharge.

Though the characters were interesting and relatable, it was the commentary on war that captured the hearts and minds of the nation. At the time of the series’ first season in 1972, the U.S. was embroiled in the conflict of the Vietnam War. By this point, antiwar sentiment was high. As James Poniewozik of The New York Times wrote, “the covert operation ‘M*A*S*H*’ pulled off was to deliver a timely satire camouflaged as a period comedy.” The show looked like a sitcom and the laugh track could convince you that’s all it was, but “M*A*S*H’s” ability to lay sitcom lightness on a backdrop of dark, dark war. In doing so, according to Poniewozik, “even the sitcom-standard high jinks—dealing with the black market for medicine, inventing a fictional officer in order to donate his pay to an orphanage—were forms of protest.” CBS executives were unsure about this move. In fact, star Alan Alda remembers that after the season one episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,” in which a friend of Hawkeye’s turns up on the operating table and dies, the network was convinced the show was ruined. Someone from the network said, “What is this, a situation tragedy?” But America loved the drama. And so, the show went on. For ten more years. And, as Alda observed, “the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences . . . the crazy behavior wasn’t just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness.”

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The Deadliest Natural Disaster in U.S. History

September 8, 2023September 16, 202320th CenturyLeave a Comment

On September 8, 1900, a hurricane hit Galveston, an island just off the coast of Texas. To this day, that hurricane remains the deadliest natural disaster in our nation’s history, with an estimated 8,000 deaths and an almost complete destruction of the city itself. The effect of the Great Galveston Hurricane lasted long after the city was rebuilt. Galveston, which had previously been the largest port city in Texas lost that designation to nearby Houston, and the people and money went with it.

In September 1900, Galveston and its 40,000 residents enjoyed the growth and prosperity of being the leading port city in Texas. While the US Weather Bureau were aware of the storm brewing in the Gulf Coast at the beginning of the month, the hurricane veered last minute toward the Texas coast. They did not have the advanced tracking or communication systems of today, so they were unable to say where the storm might head. Unfortunately, the hurricane proved more violent than anyone had predicted. Winds swirled at 130 mph and a storm surge of over 15 feet swept over the city. As the city flooded, residents sought refuge in the tallest and sturdiest buildings in the city, including the Tremont Hotel and St. Mary’s Infirmary.

The next day, the New York Times reported, “All Texas is in the keenest state of doubt and uncertainty to-night concerning the fate of Galveston Island and city. There is a suspicion that an awful calamity rests behind the lack of information from the Gulf coast. . . bridges leading from the mainland to the island have been swept away by the terrible force of the wind . . . not a wire is working into Galveston, either telegraph or telephone.” Those who were on the island the next day painted a gruesome picture of the state of the city. One such account reads, “On Sunday morning, after the storm was all over, I went out into the streets and the most horrible sights that you can ever imagine. I gazed upon dead bodies lying here and there. The houses all blown to pieces; women, men, and children all walking the streets in a weak condition with bleeding heads and bodies and feet all torn to pieces with glass where they had been treading through the debris of fallen buildings.”

After dealing with the initial devastation, the residents of Galveston Island mustered the strength and courage to rebuild. They raised the entire city, including utilities, businesses, and homes almost 10 feet. They built an impressive 17-foot-tall seawall that stretches now for 10 miles. Despite the resilience shown by the people of Galveston, the city never returned to its former glory. People chose to build their lives and businesses on the mainland, where they felt safer, and Galveston lost its position as main shipping port of Texas to the city of Houston.

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