Man of Steel (and Iron)

December 15, 2010 by Sheila Leave a comment

Ah, Paris… The history! the art! the cafés! the romance of an evening stroll beside the Seine with the lights of the Tour Eiffel twinkling downstream! Unless, of course, you are among the artists, poets, and other French citizens of 1887 who were horrified to contemplete the erection of what one writer called “an odious column of bolted metal” that “even commercial America would not want on its soil,” and who together signed a paper protesting its construction.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) was born in Dijon, France, and after obtaining his baccalaureate came to Paris for further education. After the disappointment of rejection by the Polytechnique (take heart, aspiring applicants), he obtained a diploma in chemistry from the École Centrale de Paris and launched a career in metallurgy, a fortuitous choice at this exciting phase of the Industrial Revolution.

Eiffel was hired first to manage, then also to design, the construction of bridges. Within ten years he became an independent consultant and started his own company for the creation and construction of new large-scale iron and steel engineering projects. Because he was gifted as an engineer and construction manager, and the economy was booming, Eiffel was soon successful, rich, and in demand. He designed not only bridges but train stations, churches, lighthouses, palaces, and the armature for Bartholdi’s new Statue of Liberty. When a competition was held to design an iron tower for the Exposition Universelle de 1889, the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, Eiffel’s design was chosen from the 107 entries. Despite the aforementioned protests, Modernists and Republicans (as opposed to Monarchists) viewed the project with enthusiasm.

Construction began in January 1887, and the increasing fascination of the steadily growing tower foreshadowed its future popularity. It was completed in twenty-six months without a single fatality, and as the newly tallest structure in the world immediately drew crowds of visitors. (Amazingly, the weight of the tower per square inch is no greater than that of a man sitting in a chair.)

Eiffel went on to design other projects, including an ill-fated Panama Canal venture in 1887 that, through no fault of his, collapsed due to financial mismanagement. Discouraged, he turned from construction to experimental research (another of his passions). Eiffel had planned in advance multiple functions for the new tower, and he began a series of aerodynamic, meteorological and radiotelegraphic experiments to be undertaken from its height. In 1898 an antenna was mounted for radio transmission.

Originally planned for removal after twenty years, by 1907 the tower had become far too useful and admired. A new generation of artists now celebrated the Eiffel Tower in paint and literature. Who can envision Paris without it? Of all Eiffel’s work, this tower that bears his name is probably the most beloved. Happy Birthday, Gustave Eiffel! What a gift you have given to painters, photographers, filmmakers and lovers.

This sketch is from our old neighborhood in Paris.

St. Nicholas Day: Part 2

December 7, 2010 by Sheila Leave a comment

(continued from December 6th)

However, after Livingston’s death in 1829, Moore quietly wrote to the newspaper asking if they knew the author of the popular verse, “The Night Before Christmas.” When the editors replied that they did not, as it had been published anonymously, Moore claimed authorship, saying that he had been “too embarrassed” to claim it previously. His surprised and delighted family, and many others, came to believe him.

When Moore later included it in a book of “his” poetry (which actually included several other poems later revealed not to be Moore’s own—tsk, tsk), the astonished Livingston children protested. But would a rich and respected theologian actually LIE about his work? Not to be believed. So nobody did. Livingston’s papers, including his handwritten copy of the poem with its changes and crossed-out passages, had perished in a fire, and the children had no evidence beyond their personal knowledge. Moore later churned out several handwritten copies of his own (not exactly matching Livingston’s original, but what the heck) which eventually sold to collectors for big bucks.

End of story… until the arrival on the scene of Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar and a well-known textual scholar, who included in his 2000 book Author Unknown a fascinating analysis of the use of language in the work of Moore and of Livingston. His conclusion, built step by step on literary evidence, is that Livingston, and not Moore, authored the poem in question.

But even we lay people, dear reader, can probably deduce this for ourselves by reading further examples of poetry.

For example, contrast with Moore’s grim and foreboding efforts the poem Livingston wrote for his own daughter’s marriage:

‘Twas summer when softly the breezes were blowing

And Hudson majestic so sweetly was flowing

The groves rang with music & accents of pleasure

And nature in rapture beat time to the measure

When Helen and Jonas so true and so loving

Along the green lawn were seen arm in arm moving

Sweet daffodils, violets and roses spontaneous

Wherever they wandered sprang up instantaneous.

And another, in a letter to his brother, praising the sewing of a cousin:

To my dear brother Beekman I sit down to write

Ten minutes past eight & a very cold night.

Not far from me sits with a baullancy cap on

Our very good couzin, Elizabeth Tappen,

A tighter young seamstress you’d ne’er wish to see

And she (blessings on her) is sewing for me.

New shirts & new cravats this morning cut out

Are tumbled in heaps and lye huddled about.

My wardrobe (a wonder) will soon be enriched

With ruffles new hemmed & wristbands new stitched.

The only real benefit from Moore’s perpetrated fraud is that Livingston’s poem has survived for generations to enjoy it. Perhaps now, thanks to Donald Foster, its true author will be recognized.

St. Nicholas Day: Part 1

December 6, 2010 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas. On the eve of this day, our children put out their shoes, and in the morning each finds therein a golden walnut (we have quite a collection by now) and one or two small gold-wrapped treats. In honor of this day, I post a tribute to the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” Henry Livingston, Jr.

“Uh, Henry Who?” you are muttering. “I thought it was written by Clement Clarke Moore.” Well, that’s what Clement Clarke Moore would like you to think, too, unless he has repented his wicked ways in whatever hell is the repository of naughty plagiarists.

Henry Livingston (1748-1829) was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. As a young man he served briefly in the army; later he worked as a farmer and surveyor, and in his spare time wrote poetry and made sketches for the amusement of his large family (eventually nine children). His daughter Eliza wrote, “When we were children he used to entertain us on winter evenings by getting down the paint box… first he would portray something very pathetic, which would melt us to tears; the next thing would be so comic, that we would be almost wild with laughter.”

Some of his work was published anonymously in local papers and journals. One of these poems was “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which the children recalled their father reciting to them in the early 1800s. It made its way through the family’s various households and it was submitted, as usual anonymously, and printed in the newspaper. In this pre-electronic era, writing and reading poetry were popular pastimes, and there was plenty of dreck going around. But this particular poem was well-received, and it grew in popularity. Livingston died a few years later, unacknowledged as its author, except by his family.

Enter Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), a prosperous Biblical scholar in New York and a relative of Livingston by marriage. Moore also dabbled in poetry in his spare time, churning out tracts and verses admonishing children and reminding them to be humble and serious. Here is an excerpt from Moore’s jolly poem “Old Santeclaus,” written from Santa’s perspective:

But where I found the children naughty,

In manners rude, in temper haughty,

Thankless to parents, liars, swearers,

Boxers, or cheats, or base tale-bearers,

I left a long, black, birchen rod,

Such as the dread command of God

Directs a Parent’s hand to use

When virtue’s path his sons refuse.

Or, how about this cheery, romantic poem Moore penned for his daughter on her wedding day:

But oh! how soon we pass this endless track,
That, like perspective art, deludes our view:
And, when we turn and on our path look back,
How short the distance! and our steps how few!

Till death do part, how gaily we repeat
When joy and health are in their prime and strength:
Life is a vista then whose borders meet;
So endless, to our fancy, seems its length.

Trust not the gilded mists and clouds that rise
Where flattering Hope and fickle Fancy reign;
But turn from these, and seek with anxious eyes
The clear bright atmosphere of Truth’s domain.

Moore’s work did not capture the heart of the public. How disappointing.

(continued on December 7th!)

Free as a Bird

November 13, 2010 by Sheila 1 Comment

Today, after spending fifteen of the past twenty-one years under house arrest in Burma (misleadingly renamed “Republic of the Union of Myanmar” in 1989 by the psychopathic reigning military junta), the brave and resilient Aung San Suu Kyi (b. 1945) has finally been released.

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, who was considered the father of the movement for Burmese independence from Great Britain. After fighting with the British against the Japanese in WWII, Aung San and his colleagues successfully negotiated Burma’s freedom, completed a new democratic constitution, and founded a transitional government, whereupon most of them were assassinated by political rivals.

After her father’s assassination, Suu Kyi was raised by her mother, who herself became active in the new government. The fledgling democracy struggled, torn by disputes among factions, paving the way for a military coup in 1962 from which it has never recovered. Over the years the junta, though occasionally rearranging its participating hoodlums, has nevertheless successfully implemented their apparent plan to destroy all human rights and run the economy into the ground. Intermittent struggles for greater freedom and participatory democracy have been routinely crushed.

After the coup, Suu Kyi studied and worked abroad for several years, married, and had two sons, but when she returned to Burma in 1988 to care for her ailing mother, she became involved in the pro-democracy movement. That year saw mass demonstrations and the founding of a new political party, the NLD (National League for Democracy), which, unlike some self-described democratic movements, actually aspired to the establishment of genuine democracy. The junta responded to its citizens’ calls for Change by killing thousands of them. Count your blessings, USA. Many left Burma altogether (eventually including Suu Kyi’s husband and children). Suu Kyi, who helped found the NLD and became its leading candidate, was briefly put under house arrest, a punishment that would become familiar.

Having tidied up the place a bit, the military junta then called for general elections in 1990, naively believing that their fabulous management would render them universally popular. To their astonishment, the NLD won 59% of the vote, giving them 82% of the seats in Parliament and Suu Kyi the office of Prime Minister. The junta promptly declared the election results void and, despite international protests, put Suu Kyi back under house arrest, where she has mostly remained, with occasional trips to prison or the hospital or inexplicable brief periods of limited freedom to move about.

Suu Kyi has handled her confinement with incredible strength and grace, maintaining, when she can, contact with those few friends and colleagues who have been permitted to see her. Her time has been spent writing for the encouragement of her people, when she has had the materials to do so. House arrest effectively put an end to her family life, as she was informed that if she were ever to leave the country, she would not be allowed to return, obliging her to choose between a comfortable and free family life elsewhere and the continued struggle for the future of her fellow citizens. And she chose the latter. Her husband died of cancer in 1999, having been denied permission to visit his wife one last time.

Suu Kyi, an avowed Buddhist, has never advocated violence but only adherence to Burma’s democratic constitution and improvement in the lives of the Burmese people. While detained, Suu Kyi has been awarded numerous awards for her relentless yet peaceful struggle, including the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize (the prize money was used to set up a health and education trust for the Burmese people).

The government has not prevented her from writing, perhaps feeling it gives them an illusion of magnanimity. Several books have been published abroad (unavailable in Burma, obviously), one of which, Letters from Burma, written for a Japanese newspaper column, covers 52 weeks of life in Burma with subjects ranging from national festivals to sharing tea to government craziness, with delightful vivacity, humor, poignancy, and everlasting patience.

Supporters around the world rejoice at her release, but also express concern. Freedom for Suu Kyi is not really free. She is always at risk, a potential target for government operatives and their hirelings. She immediately spoke up for thousands of other Burmese political prisoners who have been similarly detained, imprisoned, or attacked, and to support an investigation into Burma’s recent rigged elections. (In Burma to support such an investigation is illegal.) Thus is the wild heron always at risk, from storms, enemies, and unexpected danger. But like the heron Suu Kyi carries on fearlessly. May she also enjoy her breath of freedom, fly strongly, and live long.

Martha

Veterans Day/Martinmas

November 11, 2010 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is Veterans’ Day, instituted first as Armistice Day after WWI, then Veterans’ Day after WWII (although my mother occasionally still called it Armistice Day) as a tribute to veterans of both world wars. It’s also the Feast of Martinmas, which is less well known in this country, although having been raised Catholic I grew up familar with the story of Saint Martin of Tours. It seems somehow fitting that Veterans Day is celebrated on the festival of a former Roman soldier.

Martin was born in the 4th century in what later became Hungary but what was then Pannonia, a province of the Roman Empire. His father, an important officer in the Roman army, naturally expected his son to follow in his footsteps (Martin had been named for Mars, the god of war, presumably to encourage that military spirit). But apparently young Martin was an easy-going, sociable fellow, more curious about strangers (and generous with handouts) than aggressive toward them, so to get him into the army his father arranged for his kidnapping and forcible enlistment by his soldiers, hoping that Martin would grow accustomed to military life through daily exposure. I bet Dad didn’t get many loving letters from the front. Today this method of recruitment is frowned upon.

However, there was Martin, a soldier at last, obliged to serve the Emperor for three years, outfitted with a Roman uniform and a sword. Even in the army, Martin was open-handed, and his military salary usually found its way into the hands of the unfortunate. His unit was sent to Gaul, as part of an ongoing attempt to civilize the native barbarians. Civilization in Gaul was eventually attained at a level far beyond their wildest dreams, but that’s another story.

One winter day, the story goes, Martin arrived at the gates of Amiens, where he encountered a poor ragged beggar shivering by the side of the road. Martin had already given away all his extra clothing, but, taking pity on the beggar, Martin unsheathed his sword and cut his warm woolen (army-issue, uh-oh) cloak in half and wrapped one half around him.

That night, Martin dreamed that Jesus appeared to him wrapped in Martin’s half-cloak saying, “Martin has covered me with this garment.” This made him determined to leave the army permanently, at the end of his term. When he attempted it, however (inconveniently during a barbarian invasion), he was accused of cowardice, in response to which he offered to advance alone against the enemy. Instead he was imprisoned. Eventually he was released at the conclusion of an armistice, and was finally able to pursue his vocation, settling in Gaul, founding an order, living very simply and developing a reputation for feeding the hungry and healing the sick.

Over the years our homeschooling group has celebrated Martinmas (sometimes in combination with Diwali, Festival of Light, which can occur at around the same time—this year it falls on the 12th) with storytelling, a night-time walk in the park carrying lanterns and singing songs about light, and afterward gathering to share dessert. Happy Martinmas! Happy Diwali! Happy Veterans Day, everyone!

Skywatcher

November 9, 2010 by Sheila 1 Comment

If you lived in 17th century England and were found guilty of stealing, consequences could be severe: whipping, branding, a term in the pillory, even hanging. An alternative was transportation to the New World and seven years of indentured servitude. The colonies needed laborers.

For some people what was essentially permanent exile might have seemed worse than hanging. But it apparently worked out well for one Molly Welsh, a dairymaid who was transported and indentured to a Maryland tobacco planter in 1683 when she was found guilty of stealing, or at least knocking over, a pail of milk. It was a life-changing accident. After working a seven-year term, Molly had earned enough to buy a tobacco farm of her own, and bought a slave named Banneka (or Banneky) to help work it. Although interracial marriage was illegal at the time, love triumphed. Molly freed Banneka; the two were married and had four daughters.

One of their daughters also fell in love with a slave, so her parents bought his freedom to enable them to marry. Because like many slaves he had no surname, when they married he took their name (now Banneker) as well. And these were the parents of Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), whose birthday it is today.

Benjamin was from all accounts a very bright child. His grandmother Molly taught him to read and write, and he was eager to learn from any available source. But books were few. Around 1770, three Ellicott brothers from a large Pennsylvania Quaker family built a mill, homes, and store nearby, which eventually became the hub of a prosperous community (now Ellicott City). The Ellicotts and their offspring were mechanically inclined and enjoyed experimenting with mechanical and scientific inventions. The family befriended their knowledge-hungry neighbor Benjamin and lent him books, tools, and a telescope.

From that moment Banneker was devoted to astronomy, which he taught himself from the books and from studies of the night sky he made (in addition to carrying on the work of the family farm). He became so skilled that in 1791, when Andrew Ellicott, who had helped complete the Mason-Dixon Line survey, was hired to survey the land for the nation’s new capital city, he asked Benjamin Banneker to help him with the necessary astronomical observations. It’s pretty rough spending your nights outdoors for months stretched out on the cold ground measuring the stars when you’re 59 years old, but Banneker agreed. (This is the scene depicted above in my daughter’s Main Lesson book from our homeschooling Local History and Geography block.) So off they went to lay out the boundaries for the ten-by-ten-mile square that was to become Washington, DC. Some of the original boundary stones are still visible.

In the course of this project Banneker grew ill and was obliged to retire to the farm. But he was undeterred from his studies, and by 1792 he had created and published an almanac that included forecasts of weather, tides, eclipses and other movements of heavenly bodies—all calculated by Banneker—as well as festival days, essays and poetry (including work by Phillis Wheatley), instructions for home medical care, and Banneker’s views on free public education and religion.

The almanac was distributed in four states and went through several editions, one of which included an exchange of correspondence between Banneker and Thomas Jefferson, then serving as Secretary of State under George Washington. Banneker pointed out in his letter the irony of Jefferson’s having stated in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” while simultaneously “detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” In Jefferson’s polite and complimentary response, however, he avoids addressing this conundrum in his life, as he adroitly managed to do whenever it was mentioned.

Abolitionists in the colonies and Great Britain were thrilled with the almanac as another piece of evidence for the immorality—in fact, the downright senselessness—of slavery. Happy Birthday, Benjamin Banneker. Your work is another milestone on the road to freedom.

Tashina

United Nations Day

October 24, 2010 by Sheila 2 Comments

These drawings are from a couple of sketchbook-journals carried on visits to the beautiful gardens of Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown, Washington, DC. However, I post them not for the sake of those lovely gardens themselves (to which the sketches don’t do justice) but in honor of today’s anniversary of the ratification of the charter for the brand-new United Nations. Perhaps some of you folks out there already knew that the foundation of its charter had been hammered out at Dumbarton Oaks. I only learned it recently.

Dumbarton Oaks, built in 1801 as a private home, was purchased in 1920 by diplomat Robert Bliss and his wife Mildred. With Beatrix Ferrand they created the fabulous gardens and renovated the house, adding a music room for concerts and lectures, and a museum for their art collection. In 1940 they gave the property to Harvard University.

Although in 1940 the United States had not yet even officially entered the Second World War, entities private and governmental were already discussing the possible creation of a post-war international peacekeeping organization—but secretly, because of the strong isolationist, anti-League of Nations element existing in the country. Isn’t it amazing what significant matters we managed to keep secret in a pre-Internet era?

FDR first offered the optimistic term “United Nations” to refer to such an organization in a 1942 Declaration composed at the Arcadia Conference by the USA, the UK, the USSR, China, and twenty-two other countries to lay out their common goals during and after the war. Other nations signed on later. Bliss, speaking for Harvard, offered the use of Dumbarton Oaks as a possible location for future talks. This setting was deemed suitable, and the offer was accepted.

So, between August and October, 1944, representatives of the USSR, the UK, the USA, and China (although never with the USSR and China at the same table at the same time!) gathered at Dumbarton Oaks to wander the lawns, dine in the Orangery, and sit in the music room for a series of discussions. At their conclusion, the four nations had agreed upon a series of proposals which, along with provisions born of the Yalta conference, formed the basis for the new United Nations Charter, which was signed in San Francisco on October 24th, 1945.

Among the goals were these: The development of friendly international relations. The strengthening and maintenance of international peace and security. The removal of threats to peace through collective cooperation. And collective measures to solve economic and humanitarian problems.

What an impressive and inspiring global perspective, especially for a species that only a few thousand years earlier routinely regarded an unfamiliar tribe as the enemy. (This antiquated response is occasionally observed even now.) May we see these goals one day fully realized.

Eugenie

Aunt Mary

Woman in the Air

October 23, 2010 by Sheila Leave a comment

Probably ever since we began paying attention to the birds, we human beings have longed to fly ourselves. And once the Wright Brothers proved this possible in 1903, it was not only men who were keen to give it a try.

Blanche Stuart Scott (1885-1970), born in Rochester, New York, was known as a “tomboy.” Her father let her drive the family automobile around town, and although some of the neighbors objected to a fifteen-year-old behind the wheel, there was as yet no minimum driving age.

In 1910 Scott became the first woman to drive across the country, from New York City to San Francisco, which brought her to the attention of Jerome Fanciulli, a promoter for Glenn Curtiss. Curtiss was a pioneer in the U.S. aviation industry, who designed aircraft and hired pilots to demonstrate his products. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of training a female pilot, though he agreed to accept her as a pupil—but he kept a block of wood behind her throttle pedal, so that although Scott learned to operate the plane and run it back and forth on the ground, it never took off.

This was probably fun for a while, but one day while Scott was practicing, the block of wood mysteriously became dislodged. Oops! Wonder how THAT happened! Scott zoomed off on an unscheduled flight, alarming her instructor but landing safely, and demonstrating that a woman could actually operate a plane not only on the ground, but also in the air. Eventually she joined Curtiss’ Exhibition Team, and made her first Official Flight on October 23rd, 1910, of which today is the anniversary. (That first “accidental” flight didn’t count.)

Scott became known as “Tomboy of the Air,” flying upside-down and executing heart-stopping dives, for a heart-stopping salary, too. In 1911 she made the first woman’s long-distance flight—sixty miles—another “unplanned” event, when she decided one day just to keep flying. Scott went on to become the first female pilot to test prototypes, but after a number of male colleagues lost their lives in terrible accidents, and sensing that her spectators anticipated her own eventual crash, she retired from flying and spent several decades in broadcasting instead. Her flying days weren’t over, however—in 1948 she became the first American woman to fly in a jet, piloted by none other than Chuck Yeager.

From a travel sketchbook I post a page that seemed appropriate for today’s anniversary: airplane/daring daughter.

Jan