December 3rd Should Be a National Holiday

Gilbert Stuart was born on this date in 1755.

Because he portrayed virtually all the notable men and women of the Federal period in the United States, Gilbert Stuart was declared the “Father of American Portraiture” by his contemporaries. Born in Rhode Island, the artist trained and worked in London, England, and Dublin, Ireland, from 1775 to 1793. He then returned to America with the specific intention of painting President Washington’s portrait.

Stuart resided in New York (1793-1795); Philadelphia (1795-1803), where he did his first portrait of George Washington; and the new capital at Washington, D.C. (1803-1805). In 1805 he settled in Boston and painted the Gibbs-Coolidge Set, the only surviving depiction of all five first presidents. Before his death at seventy-two, Stuart also taught many followers. A charming conversationalist, Stuart entertained his sitters during long hours of posing to sustain the fresh spontaneity of their expressions. To emphasize facial characterization, he eliminated unnecessary accessories and preferred dark, neutral backgrounds and simple, bust- or half-length formats.

Stuart often was irritatingly slow in completing commissions, in spite of his swift, bravura brushwork. Though he inevitably commanded high prices, Stuart lived on the verge of bankruptcy throughout his career because of his extravagant lifestyle and inept business dealings. In London, for instance, he had owned a carriage, an unheard-of presumption for a commoner. And Stuart’s years in Ireland, both coming and going, had been ploys to escape debtors’ prison.

National Gallery of Art

George B. McClellan was born on this date in 1826. McClellan was the commander of Union forces in the east during much of the first two years of the War of the Rebellion. He loved to organize and feared to fight. McClellan was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President in 1864, receiving 21 to Lincoln’s 212 electoral votes.

“Many say they would almost worship you, if you would put a fighting general in the place of McClellan. This would be splendid weather for an engagement.” Mary Todd Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln, November 2, 1862 — Lincoln removed McClellan November 7th

Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born on this date in 1857. Born in the Ukraine of Polish descent, Joseph Conrad learned English in the British merchant marine in his twenties. He began writing in the 1890s and published his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, in 1895. Lord Jim (1900) and Heart of Darkness (1902) are his most famous works.

Daryl Hannah is 55 today. So is Julianne Moore. Together they have five Oscar nominations, three for leading actress — a win last year — and two for supporting actress. All are Moore’s, of course.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

… became law on this date in 1980, more than doubling the size of the national park system.

Alaska

According to America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents edited by Lary M. Dilsaver:

In the waning days of the Carter Democratic administration, Congress acted to further protect and expand preserved areas in Alaska, many rescued from exploitation two years earlier by presidential proclamation. This complex and lengthy act defines preserved parks, forests, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, and Native American corporation lands and the degrees of preservation and usage for each. It prescribes timber, fish, and wildlife protection and use by Native Americans and other citizens.

New areas for the national park system included Aniakchak National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Kenai Fjords National Park, Kobuk Valley National Park, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Noatak National Preserve, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The act also added new lands to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Katmai National Monument and Preserve, and Denali National Park and Preserve (renamed from Mount McKinley National Park).

New wild and scenic rivers under Park Service administration included Alagnak, Alatna, Aniakchak, Charley, Chilikadrotna, John, Kobuk, Mulchatna, Noatak, North Fork of the Koyukuk, Salmon, Tinayguk, and Tlikakila rivers. Other wild and scenic rivers are designated or expanded in wildlife refuges and in other areas.

The vast majority of acreage in the Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Noatak, and Wrangell-St. Elias units is designated wilderness.

Go Boom

At 3:25 P.M. on December 2, 1942, the Atomic Age began inside an enormous tent on a squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. There, scientists headed by Enrico Fermi engineered the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. The result, sustainable nuclear energy, led to creation of the atomic bomb and nuclear power plants—two of the twentieth century’s most powerful and controversial achievements.

The Library of Congress has more.

November 25th

Andrew Carnegie was born on this date in 1835. He died in 1919.

Until he was a septuagenarian, Andrew Carnegie believed that he was born in 1837. Then on a return visit to his native town in Scotland he learned that the date 1837 in the church records merely meant that the records were commenced in that year, and he was listed as a living child in the first census. He announced his correction of the date of his birth by clicking the news to his brother telegraphers on a miniature telegraph instrument at his plate at the dinner they were giving in his honor, supposing it to be his seventy-first when it was really his seventy-third birthday.

The New York Times

“The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which were free for him to administer during life, will pass away ‘unwept, unhonored, and unsung,’ no matter to what use he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will be, ‘The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.'”

— Andrew Carnegie (1898)

Karl Benz, the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile (1885), was born on this date in 1844.

Between 1885 and 1887, three versions of the three-wheeler were designed: the Model 1 which Benz donated to the Deutsches Museum in 1906, the Model 2 which was probably altered and rebuilt several times, and lastly the Model 3 with wood-spoked wheels which Bertha Benz took on the first long-distance journey in 1888.

By 1886 the existing production facilities could no longer cope with the insatiable demand for stationary engines and “Benz & Co. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik” moved to a larger factory building in Waldhofstrasse in which motor vehicle engines were manufactured until 1908. The appearance in 1890 of new partners, Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganß, marked the growth of “Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik” into Germany’s second-largest engine factory. In 1893 Karl Benz introduced the axle-pivot steering system into automobile construction and in 1896 he developed the “contra” engine which was to become the precursor to today’s horizontally opposed piston engine.

Between 1894 and 1901 the Benz “Velo” was built at Benz & Co. It was a reasonably priced, light automobile for two people which signaled the breakthrough to higher sales and, with total production of some 1200 units, can be legitimately described as the first series production car. As the turn of the century approached, Benz & Co. had grown into the world’s leading automotive manufacturer. In 1899 the firm was converted into a joint-stock company.

— Mercedes-Benz USA

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born on this date in 1881. He became Pope John XXIII in 1958 (and died in 1963).

Joseph Wood Krutch was born on this date in 1893. He graduated from the University of Tennessee and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia. He became an author and lecturer and was drama critic for The Nation during the years 1924-1952. He wrote two criticially acclaimed biographies, Samuel Johnson (1944) and Henry David Thoreau (1948).

Krutch moved to Tucson in 1952 and turned his focus primarily to nature writing. Among his notable works were The Desert Year, The Voice of the Desert and The Great Chain of Life.

From The Voice of the Desert:

Here in the West, as in the country at large, a war more or less concealed under the guise of a “conflict of interests” rages between the “practical” conservationist and the defenders of the national parks and other public lands; between cattlemen and lumberers on the one hand, and the “sentimentalists” on the other. The pressure to allow the hunter, the rancher, or the woodcutter to invade the public domain is constant and the plea is always that we should “use” what is assumed to be useless unless it is adding to material welfare. But unless somebody teaches love, there can be no ultimate protection to what is lusted after. Without some “love of nature” for itself there is no possibility of solving “the problem of conservation.”

Joe DiMaggio was born on this date in 1914. He died in 1999.

DiMaggio Plaque

Joe DiMaggio was a cultural icon; he married Hollywood starlets Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Arnold, he was immortalized in Paul Simon’s hit song Mrs. Robinson, to a generation he was the face of Mister Coffee, and he was regarded as one of the greatest players who ever played the game. He was an American hero. Hall of Fame teammate Phil Rizzuto recalled “There was an aura about him. He walked like no one else walked. He did things so easily. He was immaculate in everything he did. Kings of State wanted to meet him and be with him. He carried himself so well. He could fit in any place in the world”.

Baseball Hall of Fame

JFK JrJohn F. Kennedy Jr. was born on this date in 1960. He died in 1999. The photo was taken on his third birthday.

November 20th

Today is the birthday

… of Don DeLillo. The winner of the National Book Award for fiction is 79 today. He won for White Noise and was also nominated for Underworld.

… of comedian Dick Smothers. The straight man of the duo is 76. (Tom is 78.)

… of Vice President Joe Biden. He’s 73.

… of Joe Walsh of The Eagles. He’s 68. Life’s been good to him so far.

I have a mansion forget the price
Ain’t never been there they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all

They say I’m crazy but I have a good time
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life’s been good to me so far

Walsh joined The Eagles in 1976. The first album with Walsh in the band was Hotel California, which says all you ever need to know about both The Eagles and Joe Walsh.

… of Bo Derek. She’s now five 10s and a 9.

Robert F. Kennedy might have been 90 today. He was assassinated at age 42.

Astronomer Edwin Hubble was born on this date in 1889.

During the past 100 years, astronomers have discovered quasars, pulsars, black holes and planets orbiting distant suns. But all these pale next to the discoveries Edwin Hubble made in a few remarkable years in the 1920s. At the time, most of his colleagues believed the Milky Way galaxy, a swirling collection of stars a few hundred thousand light-years across, made up the entire cosmos. But peering deep into space from the chilly summit of Mount Wilson, in Southern California, Hubble realized that the Milky Way is just one of millions of galaxies that dot an incomparably larger setting.

Hubble went on to trump even that achievement by showing that this galaxy-studded cosmos is expanding — inflating majestically like an unimaginably gigantic balloon — a finding that prompted Albert Einstein to acknowledge and retract what he called “the greatest blunder of my life.” Hubble did nothing less, in short, than invent the idea of the universe and then provide the first evidence for the Big Bang theory, which describes the birth and evolution of the universe. He discovered the cosmos, and in doing so founded the science of cosmology.

Source: TIME 100: Edwin Hubble

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was born on this date in 1866. His name, misspelled, came from the place and battle in Georgia (Kennesaw Mountain) where his father fought and lost a leg for the Union. Landis was appointed Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 — and continued to serve for the first few months after he became the first Commissioner of Baseball in 1920. He was commissioner for 24 years.

It was Landis that cleaned up the gambling that had led to the Black Sox scandal. It was also Landis who kept baseball segregated. That dam broke only after his death in November 1944. Like many, Landis held the job far too long — long enough to go from savior to obstacle.

Best Line of the Day

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?

Captain Ramius: I suppose.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?

Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

The Hunt for Red October

Hey, We Can All Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for Free Now

Larry King, 82.
Dick Cavett. He’s 79.
Ted Turner, 77.
Ann Curry. She’s 59.
Jodie Foster, 53.

Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was born on November 19, 1921.

A star with both the bat and glove, Roy Campanella was agile behind the plate, had a rifle arm and was an expert at handling pitchers. He was named National League MVP three times, including a 1953 selection when he set single-season records for catchers with 41 homers and a National League best 142 RBI. Before signing with the Dodgers, the broad-shouldered receiver starred with the Negro National Leagues’ Baltimore Elite Giants for seven seasons. His career was cut short by a tragic auto accident prior to the 1958 season.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Bandleader and trombonist Tommy Dorsey was born on November 19, 1905.

Though he might have been ranked second at any given moment to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or Harry James, Tommy Dorsey was overall the most popular bandleader of the swing era that lasted from 1935 to 1945. His remarkably melodic trombone playing was the signature sound of his orchestra, but he successfully straddled the hot and sweet styles of swing with a mix of ballads and novelty songs. He provided showcases to vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Jo Stafford, and he employed inventive arrangers such as Sy Oliver and Bill Finegan. [Dorsey] was the biggest-selling artist in the history of RCA Victor Records, one of the major labels, until the arrival of Elvis Presley, who was first given national exposure on the 1950s television show [Tommy Dorsey] hosted with his brother Jimmy.

VH1.com

Evangelist Billy Sunday was born on November 19, 1862. Sunday played professional baseball for the Chicago White Stockings, Pittsburgh Alleghenies and Philadelphia Phillies 1883-1890. Following a conversion in 1886, Sunday became the most influential preacher of the era.

In the early 1900s, Billy Sunday sold what was then a unique brand of muscular, testosterone-laden Christianity.

Today, ministers in some of the country’s largest churches preach in shirtsleeves and talk about God in terms of football or golf. Billy Sunday was one of the first to do this. He was a professional baseball player turned tent preacher who became the richest and most influential preacher of his time.
. . .

Sunday, says Martin, was “one of the most acrobatic evangelists of the age.” One newspaper columnist at the time estimated that Sunday traveled about a mile during each sermon.

NPR : Billy Sunday, Man of God

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fist less and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!”

James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was born on this date in 1831. He was assassinated two months before his 50th birthday.

But James A. Garfield – president for less than four months before he was shot is 1881 – is for most Americans an historical footnote.

And that, says author Candice Millard, is a great shame.

“He was without question one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president,” she told Rocca. “He was absolutely brilliant. He was born into incredible poverty – the last of the ‘log cabin presidents.’ His father died before he was two years old, so to put himself through college his first year, he was a janitor and a carpenter. By his second year they made him assistant professor of literature and ancient languages.

“By the time he was 26 he was his college’s president. He had just an off-the-charts mind.”

His loss is all the more heartbreaking because Garfield (Millard writes in a new book) didn’t need to die – even after he was shot.

How Doctors Killed President Garfield, CBS News, 2012

Millard’s Destiny of the Republic about Garfield’s death is first-rate, an excellent read.

Zion National Park (Utah)

… was established on this date in 1919.

Zion

Located in Washington, Iron, and Kane Counties in southwestern Utah, Zion National Park encompasses some of the most scenic canyon country in the United States. Within its 229 square miles are high plateaus, a maze of narrow, deep, sandstone canyons, and the Virgin River and its tributaries. Zion also has 2,000-foot Navajo Sandstone cliffs, pine- and juniper-clad slopes, and seeps, springs, and waterfalls supporting lush and colorful hanging gardens.

With an elevation change of about 5,000 feet-from the highest point at Horse Ranch Mountain (at 8,726 feet) to the lowest point at Coal Pits Wash (at 3,666 feet), Zion’s diverse topography leads to a diversity of habitats and species. Desert, riparian (river bank), pinyon-juniper, and conifer woodland communities all contribute to Zion’s diversity. Neighboring ecosystems-the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin, and the Rocky Mountains-are also contributors to Zion’s abundance.

Zion National Park

Originally Zion was proclaimed Mukuntuweap National Monument (July 31, 1909); Mukuntuweap was incorporated into Zion National Monument (March 18, 1918); Zion National Monument became Zion National Park.

President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 152 Years Ago Today

Nicolay Copy

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

November 16th Ought to Be National Holiday

W. C. Handy was born on this date in 1873, the son of former slaves.

I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
‘Cause my baby has left this town.

If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, just like I feel today,
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, like I feel today,
I’ll pack my trunk and make my get-away.

St. Louis woman, with all her diamond rings,
Stole that man of mine, by her apron strings;
If it wasn’t for powder, and her store-bought hair,
That man I love wouldn’t’ve gone nowhere!
Nowhere!

W.C. Handy is widely recognized by his self-proclaimed moniker, “Father of the Blues” due to his steadfast and pioneering efforts to document, write and publish blues music and his life-long support of the genre. Although much of his musical taste leaned toward a more sophisticated and polished sound, Handy was among the first to recognize the value of the blues, and Southern black music in general, as an important American legacy. Handy was an accomplished bandleader and songwriter who performed throughout the South before continuing his career in New York. He came across the Delta blues in the late 1890s, and his composition “Memphis Blues,” published in 1912, was the first to include “blues” in the title. Some historians don’t consider “Memphis Blues” to be an actual blues song, however it did influence the creation of other blues tunes, including the historic “Crazy Blues,” which is commonly known as the first blues song to ever be recorded (by Mamie Smith in 1920). A Memphis park was named after Handy in recognition of his contribution to blues and the Blues Foundation recognizes the genre’s achievements annually with the prestigious W.C. Handy award.

The Blues | PBS

NPR told the Handy and St. Louis Blues stories as part of the NPR 100 in 2000. Report includes Handy’s own reminiscences and the complete 1925 recording of the song by Bessie Smith accompanied by Louis Armstrong, possibly the most influential recording in American music history. 

The Smith-Armstrong recording makes my desert island list every time.

The Santa Fe Trail

… was opened on this date in 1821.

Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1821 until 1846, it was an international commercial highway used by Mexican and American traders. In 1846, the Mexican-American War began. The Army of the West followed the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico. When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war in 1848, the Santa Fe Trail became a national road connecting the United States to the new southwest territories. Commercial freighting along the trail continued, including considerable military freight hauling to supply the southwestern forts. The trail was also used by stagecoach lines, thousands of gold seekers heading to the California and Colorado gold fields, adventurers, fur trappers, and emigrants. In 1880 the railroad reached Santa Fe and the trail faded into history.

Santa Fe National Historic Trail

The 1940 film Santa Fe Trail, with Ronald Reagan playing George Armstrong Custer — and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland — has little basis in historical fact other than that there was a Santa Fe Trail.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (New Mexico)

… was proclaimed a national monument 108 years ago today by President Theodore Roosevelt (1907).

Explore the world of ancestors of Puebloan people who lived in the Mogollon area over 700 years ago. Enter the village they built within five of the natural caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon. Become inspired by the remaining architecture. Admire the spectacular views from inside these ancient dwellings.

Within a few miles of the cliff dwellings, elevations range from around 5,700 to 7,300 feet above sea level. In the immediate vicinity of the cliff dwellings, elevations range from 5,700 to about 6,000 feet. The terrain is rugged, with steep-sided canyons cut by shallow rivers; forested with ponderosa pine, Gambel’s oak, Douglas fir, New Mexico juniper, pinon pine, and alligator juniper (among others); and usually dry. There are numerous caves in the area. There are several hot springs in the Gila National Forest and within hiking distance of the Visitor Center (there is also a privately-owned hot spring in the nearby community of Gila Hot Springs). Temperatures usually range from hot to very hot. The Visitor Center is located near the junction of the west and middle forks of the Gila River.

When visiting the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, you’ll see corn cobs that are over 700 years old! The ancient Puebloans of the Mogollon area grew corn, beans and squash, including some varieties from Mesoamerica. This substantiates trade amongst the peoples of a large region.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

November 15th Should Be a Holiday

Georgia O’Keefe was born November 15, 1887.

In 1929 O’Keeffe took a vacation with her friend Beck Strand to Taos, New Mexico. The trip would forever alter the course of her life. In love with the open skies and sun-drenched landscape, O’Keeffe returned every summer to travel and to paint. When Steiglitz in 1946 died, O’Keeffe took up permanent residence there. More than almost any of her other works, these early New Mexico landscapes and still lifes have come to represent her unique gifts. The rich texture of the clouds and sky were similar to her earlier, more sensuous representations of flowers. But beneath these clouds one found the bleached bones of animals long gone.

American Masters

Alfred Stieglitz photograph of O'Keeffe with sketchpad and watercolors, 1918
Alfred Stieglitz photograph of O’Keeffe with sketchpad and watercolors, 1918

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe

Today’s Photo

In Virginia the streams they call “run” often have more water than the streams we in New Mexico call “river”. Taken October 18, 2013, iPhone 4S. Click for larger version.
In Virginia the streams they call “run” often have more water than the streams we in New Mexico call “river.” Broad Run, taken October 18, 2013, iPhone 4S. Click for larger version.

The Republican Platform

“But their positions on the central issues are not that far apart. Next fall, the Republican Presidential nominee will be committed to taking away health insurance from eighteen million people, keeping the minimum wage where it is, cutting tax rates on the wealthy to historic lows, reducing the progressivity of the income tax, creating trillions of dollars in new deficits, returning to a militarized foreign policy, and allowing Iran to resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by tearing up the deal just signed.”

George Packer