Uncategorized – Page 4 – Sharing History

The Voice

December 12, 2023December 7, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On December 12, 1915, singer and actor Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. A December birthday seems appropriate for this icon, whose Christmas songs remain some of his most streamed. Sinatra, crooner turned swinger, is perhaps the first of a legacy of singer/actors who captivated the hearts and minds of America. Early in his career, he was nicknamed “the Voice” because of his unmatched vocal ability, and it rang true. Sinatra certainly was “the Voice” of the mid-19^th century.

Sinatra was born to Italian-American parents, Dolly and Martin Sinatra, who owned a tavern: Marty O’Brien’s. It was here that Frank got his start singing for crowds. He was inspired as a young man by Bing Crosby and his phrasing, something that Sinatra would come to be known for. Sinatra dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming a singer. In 1939, at age 24, Sinatra was waiting tables and performing at a restaurant when he was discovered by famous trumpeter Harry James. James invited Sinatra to sing with his orchestra, and with that, Sinatra was catapulted into the limelight. His fans loved the way his particular phrasing made his singing seem intimate, as if he was in conversation with each of them individually.

Sinatra began acting in films in the mid-40s, appearing on screen and recording numbers for the soundtracks. He starred in such films as The Manchurian Candidate, From Here to Eternity, and On the Town. During these years, he continued recording, pioneering both the conceptual album and the “celebrity squad” by joining the Rat Pack. The Rat Pack was a group of singers, including Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin, who performed on stage and in movies together. The group starred in the original Ocean’s Eleven in 1960.

Sinatra remains one of the best-selling artists of all time. His influence on the development of pop and rock n’ roll music was enormous. As an icon who influenced generations of artists, the epitaph on his gravestone “The Best is Yet to Come” seems particularly poignant.

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Death of a Dreamer

December 8, 2023December 5, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On December 8, 1980, music legend John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York City apartment. His death, often referred to as “the day the music died,” devastated a generation of fans whose youth, filled with war and strife, had been brightened by the Beatles subversive rock culture. Despite Lennon’s tragic early death, his music and life, both as a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist continue to be extremely influential even now, four decades after his death.

John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940. In 1964, at the age of 24, Lennon became a household name as a member of the unbelievably popular music group, the Beatles. In part, the Beatles were so popular because their music didn’t sound like anything the world had heard before. Between Lennon’s iconic rock and roll voice and Paul McCartney’s pop vibe, the band created music about love and pleasure. The group became so beloved that Lennon famously stated that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now,” which led to religious fanatics burning Beatles albums. Lennon was also an outspoken political activist. He was so passionately opposed to the Vietnam War that the Nixon administration attempted to deport him. But no matter what they did or said, people loved the Beatles. In 1970, the Beatles broke up. John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono spent the next ten years working on music together, releasing albums like “Imagine” and “Double Fantasy,” which have become classics.

On December 8, 1980, Lennon spent the day working with his wife, including participating in a photoshoot with Rolling Stones photographer Annie Leibovitz that produced one of the most iconic photos of Lennon and Ono of all time. That night, Lennon returned home to his apartment in the Dakota in New York City. As he walked up on the building’s entrance, a deranged man emerged from the shadows and shot Lennon four times. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The man who shot Lennon, Mark Chapman, was believed to have done so for fame. He said, “I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on earth.” He remains in prison to this day. Forty years after his death, Lennon remains an icon. 2023 saw the Beatles hit 1 billion streams on Spotify, proving that even after all this time, Lennon’s words and music make the world feel something good.

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The Driest State in the Union Repeals Prohibition

December 5, 2023December 4, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On December 5, 1933, the Eighteenth Amendment was officially repealed, ending American prohibition. The repeal required committees from 36 states to vote unanimously to pass. The 36^th state to vote for the repeal and end prohibition was an unlikely one: Utah.

The temperance movement began in the early 19^th century and was largely championed by women. Early 19^th century men were drinking three times as much alcohol as they do today, and the drinking led to gambling and abuse. In an effort to protect their livelihoods, their children, and their physical safety, women encouraged Americans to vote to outlaw alcohol at a federal level. On January 6, 1919, the 18^th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed, outlawing the production and distribution of alcohol in the US. However, the beginning of prohibition did not mean the end of drinking. Instead, illegal activity ran amok. People were brewing in their basements and opening speakeasies. In fact, the explosion of organized crime is attributed to prohibition because it encouraged gangs to build nationwide networks to make and ship alcohol. The prohibition experiment had failed.

In 1933, the 21^st Amendment was drafted. It would overturn the 18^th Amendment and end prohibition. States were asked to create conventions of delegates to vote on the passage of the repeal. Utah created its own convention and began considering whether repeal was right. Utah was already considered a “dry” state before prohibition was passed as they had banned alcohol in 1917. The support for temperance among Utahns was not surprising given the fact that the state was made up mostly of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, whose religion famously calls for abstinence from alcohol. When the repeal came up for a vote, church leadership encouraged their members to vote to maintain prohibition. However, Utahns, like many other Americans felt that the illegal activity prompted by prohibition was worse than the effects of alcohol itself. Additionally, the effects of the Great Depression were hitting Americans hard and the money the country and states would earn in alcohol tax was too good to pass up. In a preliminary vote, approximately 60% of Utahns voted to repeal prohibition. On December 5, 1933, the convention of delegates voted the same, and Utah became the 36^th and deciding state to pass the 21^st Amendment.

The end of prohibition did not turn the country into a free-for-all binge fest. It simply allowed the states to decide how to regulate the manufacture and distribution of alcohol. Many states, including Utah, decided to very strictly regulate the sale of alcohol, making it, in many cases, more difficult to obtain alcohol after prohibition ended than while it was in effect. However, the day after the vote, newspaper headlines celebrated, reading, “Prohibition Is Dead! Mormons Killed It!”

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Alcott and Her Little Women

December 1, 2023December 3, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On November 29, 1832, famed author Louisa May Alcott was born in Philadelphia. She was born to two transcendentalist parents who filled her youth with idealism, books, and political activism. Alcott was taught by famed thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. With such an upbringing, it is hardly a surprise that Alcott grew into an intelligent woman with strong beliefs about women’s rights and abolition. Her fierce independence and wit is written into her female characters, providing inspiration for generations of girls and women, encouraging them to read, create, and be unfailingly themselves.

Lousia May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a transcendentalist philosopher with a particular interest in education reform. During Alcott’s childhood, he started an experimental school in Boston and a utopian community in Harvard. Due to the nature of her father’s work, Alcott, her mother, and her three sisters lived in poverty, relying on charity and help from friends (including Emerson) to live. It was her family’s need that led Alcott to submit her writing to magazines. She wrote under a pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, which was not discovered to be Alcott until the 1950s. Under this name, Alcott wrote gothic thrillers and earned a small living to support her mother and sisters.

Alcott’s beliefs as an abolitionist led to her volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War. While working in a hospital, she contracted typhoid fever and was forced to return home. Her experiences as a nurse inspired Hospital Sketches, published in 1863. This work was immediately popular, and so, shortly after, Alcott was offered a job writing for a children’s magazine called Merry’s Museum. It was the editor of this magazine, Thomas Niles, who asked Alcott to write a novel for girls. While Alcott was not particularly interested in this project, her family needed the money, so she began in earnest.

Little Women is an autobiographical novel following Jo March (based on Alcott herself) and her three sisters: Meg, Beth, and Amy (based on Alcott’s sisters Anna, Lizzie, and Abby). The book follows these sisters and their long-suffering mother, Marmie, as they navigate life with their father gone at war, much as Alcott and her sisters would have done as their father was off philosophizing. The book was one of the first to feature educated, independent heroines and thus became an inspiration for many. Female writers in every generation since have acknowledged Alcott and her March sisters as guideposts for their own works. These writers include Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Atwood, Susan Sontag, and Anne Tyler. The novel has been adapted into plays, movies, radio shows, and television series too many times to count. The novel has sold over 10 million copies. The grip Little Women has on us all has not diminished over the years. With any luck, it never will.

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Buy your copy of Little Women from an independent bookstore like this one: https://www.horizonbooks.com/search/site/louisa%20may%20alcott

The Holland Tunnel: A Landmark Feat of Innovation

November 10, 2023November 22, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On November 13, 1927, the Holland Tunnel, the longest underwater tunnel of its kind in the world at the time, opened to public traffic. The tunnel connects Jersey City and Manhattan and supports the crossing of over 30 million vehicles every year.

The Holland Tunnel was commissioned in 1920 by the New Jersey Interstate Bridge and Tunnel Commission and the New York State Bridge and Tunnel Commission. They hired engineer Clifford M. Holland as chief engineer on the project. He had previously worked as a tunnel engineer on the construction of the first New York subway and therefore was an excellent candidate for the job. Holland dedicated himself to the problems faced by building an underwater tunnel that was so long. In fact, he was so dedicated, the media referred to him as “the Head Mole.” The team began by pushing cylindrical steel pieces into the river’s bottom starting at each shore and meeting in the middle. Shortly after this achievement in 1924, Holland passed away.

Strangely enough, the second engineer to be assigned to the project, Milton Freeman, passed after only five months of working on the project. It was the third engineer, Ole Singstad, who solved the most significant problem of this long tunnel: ventilation. He installed an automatic ventilation system by building two ventilation towers on each side of the river. They housed 84 fans that could refresh the air every 90 seconds, keeping the travelers safe from any fumes inside. This innovation was the first of its kind in the world and an inspiration for many underwater vehicular tunnels afterward.

The design of this indispensable method of transportation was such an important step in the development of tunnel design that in the 1980s, the bridge was named a National Historic Civil and Engineering Landmark.

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“City Hall to Harlem in 15 Minutes”

October 27, 2023October 26, 2023Uncategorized1 Comment

On October 27, 1904, the New York City subway ran for the first time. After four years of construction, during which New York streets were dug up, the subway was built, and then the streets were covered up again, the way the city moved changed irrevocably. Today, about 2.4 million people ride the New York City subway each day. The NYC subway has the most stations of any subway in the world and is one of the only metro systems to be open 24/7/365.

The original subway system was built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). They hired contractor John McDonald on a $35 million contract to build the first line. Engineer William Barclay Parsons worked on the design. This line covered 9.1 miles and took passengers from City Hall to Harlem. On October 27, 1904, the line was opened with great fanfare by Mayor George McClellan. He ceremoniously stood at the controls and started the first train, enjoying the task so much that he drove the train all the way to 103^rd St. The passengers were 15,000 invited guests, many of whom had worked on the completion of the metro line. According to a New York Times (NYT) reporter, “there were a great many who did not make the round trip from City Hall Park to One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street and back again, but got off at their own stations on the return trip in the most natural and matter-of-fact way, as if they had been doing it all their lives,” and New Yorkers have been riding the subway thus ever since.

At 7:00 that evening, the subway opened for public use. Over 150,000 people rode the subway between 7:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. that first day, each of them paying a nickel for the privilege. The same NYT reporter wrote, “it was astonishing, though, how easily the passengers fell into the habit of regarding the Subway as a regular thing . . . the men on the trains were quietly getting out at their regular stations and going home, having finished what will be to them the daily routine of the rest of their lives. It is hard to surprise New York permanently.”

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Return of the King: The Book of the Millennium

October 20, 2023October 19, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On October 20, 1955, the third volume of The Lord of the Rings, entitled Return of the King, was published. Following the publication of the first two volumes, Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, during the previous year, the third book was very popular. However, the series did not explode in notoriety until the 1960s when young adults latched onto the fantastical world and heroic adventures of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings is the best-selling fantasy series of all time. It has even been considered by many as “the book of the millennium.”

J.R.R. Tolkien penned the famous The Lord of the Rings series while working as a professor at Oxford University. In 1937, Tolkien had released his first novel, The Hobbit, as a children’s story. It was incredibly popular, and his publishers looked to him for a sequel. Thus, was The Lord of the Rings born. The 1,100-page book was meant to be one story but was released in three volumes for logistical and financial reasons. Famous poet, W.H. Auden wrote of the series, “If one is to take a tale of this kind seriously, one must feel that, however superficially unlike the world we live in its characters and events may be, it nevertheless holds up the mirror to the only nature we know, our own; in this, too, Mr. Tolkien has succeeded superbly, and what happened in the year of the Shire 1418 in the Third Age of Middle Earth is not only fascinating in A.D. 1954 but also a warning and an inspiration. No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy . . .”

The Lord of the Rings was the first fantasy book of its kind. It included detailed maps, original languages, unique creatures, and alternate history. This is, perhaps, why the books took off as they did. Readers could immerse themselves in a different world, even learning some of Tolkien’s made-up languages. This type of fantasy world has since become very popular, many modern fantasy novels include maps and family trees. The Chairman of the Tolkien Society said, in 2015, that Tolkien created “the archetypal fantasy story with Gandalf, Gollum, hobbits, the Ring now being all-pervasive in popular culture—it’s no wonder that so many authors have followed in his wake.”

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1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

October 13, 2023October 12, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On October 13, 1792, George Washington laid the cornerstone for the building that would become the White House. Washington chose the location of the building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. but opened up the design of the house itself to submissions. Architect James Hoban’s design for a Georgian-style mansion was chosen in 1792, and construction started that year. In two centuries since, the White House has been burned down, rebuilt, and renovated. It has seen 44 presidents and their families move in and out and has been the site of countless historic moments and decisions.

Though George Washington was the president to begin building the White House, he never got the chance to live in it. It took eight years for the building to be built by enslaved people and Scottish stonemasons. James Madison and his wife were the first to move into the building in 1800. In 1814, as part of the War of 1812, British troops set fire to the White House. It took three years to rebuild and be ready for residency again. The next extensive renovation came in 1902 under the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt. He converted the second-floor offices into bedrooms for his six children and began construction on the West Wing to make room for staffers. In the 1940s, the building was found to have major structural problems and was completely rebuilt over the course of four years. The most recent renovation took place in the early 60s when Jackie Kennedy redesigned much of the White House and reawakened public interest in the building by hosting a televised tour.

Thomas Jefferson was the first president to open the White House to the public for tours and that tradition continues today. Over 1.25 million people visit the White House every year. Approximately 400 people work in the White House full-time. Strangely enough, despite all these people coming in and out and the numerous renovations of the building completed over the years, the original cornerstone laid in October 1792 by George Washington and a group of Freemasons has never been found. During the 1940s renovation, President Truman specifically asked construction workers to search for it, but it never turned up. The missing cornerstone remains a historical mystery worthy of a National Treasure movie.

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Spiro Agnew: The Almost President

October 10, 2023October 9, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew became the first U.S. Vice President to resign his position under duress. An impending criminal conviction combined with pressure from President Richard Nixon, who was himself under investigation, led Agnew to deliver the following statement to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “I hereby resign the office of Vice President of the United States, effective immediately.”

Spiro T. Agnew was born in November 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as an officer in the US Army during WWII. Agnew was a law student at the University of Baltimore and practiced law for about 10 years before beginning his political career. Agnew was voted in as governor of Maryland in 1967. As far as Agnew’s politics went, his have been considered the origin of the Trump GOP. Authors of a book on the subject said that, as a politician, Agnew took on “what decades later would become the holy trinity of targets for Trump’s MAGA movement—the media, coastal elites, and higher education—Agnew went from punchline to patron saint of middle America” (2). In 1968, Richard Nixon chose Agnew as his running partner, and Agnew became more and more popular with a group of radical republicans into his second term as vice president. It certainly seemed that Agnew had the republican nomination for the 1976 presidential election in the bag.

However, in 1973, the US Justice Department began investigating charges of income-tax evasion and bribery during Agnew’s time as Governor of Maryland. Though Agnew aggressively fought the claims of wrong-doing, the evidence soon became undeniable. Agnew had received money in return for awarding high-priced government contracts and had not reported that money on his taxes. By this time, the Nixon administration knew Agnew was unlikely to escape conviction, and Nixon was facing his own criminal indictment for the Watergate Scandal. According to the US line of presidential succession, if both Nixon and Agnew were removed from office by impeachment, House Speaker Carl Albert, democrat, would have taken office. To avoid giving a democrat the job, Nixon’s administration sought to remove Agnew from office and replace him with a suitable successor by pressuring Agnew to resign.

Agnew’s lawyers came to an agreement with the Justice Department that Agnew would plead “nolo contendere,” or no contest, to the charges of tax evasion, and the Justice Department would drop the charges of bribery and extortion against him. Agnew was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years’ probation. He was disbarred by the state of Maryland the following year. Less than a year after Agnew’s departure from office, President Richard Nixon resigned due to accusations surrounding the Watergate Scandal, ceding the presidency to Agnew’s replacement, Gerald Ford.

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Tokyo Rose: American Scapegoat

October 6, 2023October 6, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On October 6, 1949, an American woman named Iva Toguri d’Aquino was the seventh person to be convicted of treason in the United States. She was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and fined $10,000 for her crimes. What exactly was her crime? Broadcasting a radio show to American troops during WWII.

Iva Ikuko Toguri was born in Los Angeles in 1916. Her parents were immigrants from Japan who had settled in California. Toguri attended school, earned her degree from UCLA, and worked with her father in his shop. A normal American girl, Toguri soon found herself living a nightmare when, in 1941, she traveled to Japan to visit her aunt. Before she could return home to the US, Japanese troops attacked Pearl Harbor, and Toguri found herself stuck in Japan, far from her family, who had been forced into an internment camp.

As she waited out the war, Toguri got a job as a typist at Radio Tokyo where she met Australian POW Major Charles Cousens. He and several other captured Allied soldiers had been brought to Radio Tokyo to be the voices of a Japanese propaganda show intended to discourage US troops posted in the Asia Pacific area. Cousens asked Toguri to be an announcer on the show, Zero Hour. She and dozens of other women who announced on the show became collectively known as “Tokyo Rose” by US troops who listened to it. However, the announcers of the show claimed to be trying to sabotage the propaganda program. Toguri repeatedly joked with her listeners that the show was Japanese propaganda, saying, “Be on your guard, and mind the children don’t hear!”

As the war ended, the US media set its sights on now-married Iva Toguri d’Aquino. Two reporters traveled to Japan, promising d’Aquino money for an exclusive interview. Desperately in need of funds, she agreed to the interview. Once her name was published by the American media, the government moved in to investigate. d’Aquino’s name became synonymous with treason, and years of American upset and aggression were heaped upon her. A year’s investigation yielded no evidence that her show was anything other than “innocuous entertainment.”

It was unfortunate then, that famous radio host, Walter Winchell, was unwilling to let it go. He continued to insist that charges of treason be brought against her. In 1949, the government capitulated to pressure from the media and American public and brought her case to trial. Despite people who testified on her behalf, she was declared guilty, sentenced to a decade in federal prison, and stripped of her American citizenship.

d’Aquino served about six years in prison before being released on good behavior. She fought the government’s deportation efforts and moved to Chicago. In 1976, two of the key witnesses from her 1949 trial came forward to say they were pressured into giving false testimony against d’Aquino. Shortly after, the jury foreman from d’Aquino’s trial said that the jury was pressured by the judge to deliver a guilty verdict. In 1977, President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva d’Aquino and restored her citizenship.

In the decades since the Tokyo Rose debacle, many reasons have been given for the obvious scapegoating of d’Aquino. There were certainly politics, racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, and media bias at play. Iva herself said, “I supposed they found someone and got the job done; they were all satisfied. It was eeny, meeny, miney, and I was moe.”

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