WWI – Sharing History

“America Was Promises”

May 8, 2024June 15, 202420th Century, US HistoryLeave 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 Origin of Daylight Savings

March 19, 2024May 7, 202420th Century, US HistoryLeave 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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On This Day: The Bonus Marchers

July 28, 2023July 31, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

During WWI, approximately 4.2 million young Americans served as part of the US Army. About half of those were drafted. As a soldier, young men could expect to be paid about $1.00 per day of service, while friends at home working were making 10 times that. As the war drew to a close, WWI veterans thought they deserved more pay and lobbied for an additional service bonus, something they received in 1924 when Congress passed a bill that promised veterans a cash bonus that would be paid out in 1945. Perhaps this promise would have satisfied the veterans had it not been for the Great Depression.

As the depression pushed on and people were unable to provide necessities for their families, WWI veterans pushed Congress for an early payout on their bonuses. Early in 1932, Representative Wright Patman introduced a bill to Congress that would do just that. Encouraged by the bill and inspired by their First Amendment rights, WWI veterans from all over the country traveled to Washington D.C. to petition Congress to pass the bill. Within a few weeks, over 20,000 veterans had set up camp along the Anacostia River. They called themselves the Bonus Marchers.

In June 1932, the bonus bill was passed in the House and then struck down in the Senate. The government expected that the Bonus Marchers would return home. But they stayed. The Washington police were sent in to evict the marchers from their camp along the river. Unfortunately, the altercation ended in violence and two Bonus Marchers were shot.

On July 28, 1932, President Herbert Hoover sent in the US Army, led by Army chief of staff Douglas MacArthur, to break up the camp. The army marched in and began burning the camp to the ground. Bonus Marchers fled as the army attacked with tear gas. As one might imagine, the images and newsreel of this eviction did not play well with American voters. President Hoover and MacArthur looked like the villains in the Bonus Marchers’ story. A few months later, Hoover lost the presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

4 years later, in 1936, the bonus bill finally passed, and the WWI veterans finally received their promised bonuses. In 1944, the GI Bill was passed, which helps veterans receive monetary and other benefits after their service.

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On This Day: Of the Lost Generation

July 21, 2023July 31, 202320th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A world-famous writer who championed a minimalistic writing style, he created a body of work that continues to inspire generations of readers.

Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

After Hemingway graduated from high school, he longed for adventure. He took a position as a reporter in Kansas City as he repeatedly tried to enlist in the US Army. Eventually, he became an ambulance driver in World War I. This experience greatly affected his world view and his writing. It was also the inspiration for his famous novel, The Sun Also Rises.

After being discharged from the Army, Hemingway took a job as a foreign correspondent in France. There, he met a group of American expatriates often referred to as the Lost Generation. This group included Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Lost Generation, or those who were young adults at the end of WWI, were considered lost because they found themselves in a post-war society in which the values and teaching of their parents no longer made sense for their own situations. They struggled to advance in life, felt the weight of materialism, and were emotionally beaten down by their experiences. This life and attitude greatly influenced Hemingway’s works. He explored themes of war, masculinity, love, and the meaning of life. He wrote novels such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. He also penned short stories like “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Hills Like White Elephants.” He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

While his personal life was not without its struggles, including bouts of depression, his art with its pursuit of meaning and frank exploration of the human experience has resonated strongly with readers for the last 100 years. It’s possible that his work is even more relevant now among Millennials, a group who identify strongly with the Lost Generation. Are Millennials the new Lost Generation? What would Hemingway have to say about their sense of disenfranchisement? Pick up a Farewell to Arms and find out.

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Order Hemingway’s works from an independent bookstore, like this one: https://www.strandbooks.com/search-results?page=1&ernest%20hemingway&searchVal=ernest%20hemingway&type=product