Today’s Photo Extra
Today’s Photo
Ninth Month Ninth Day
The Compromise of 1850 was put in place 162 years ago today with the admission of California as the 31st state and the creation of New Mexico and Utah territories.
Joe Theismann is 63. Allegedly his name was pronounced Thees-man until he went to Notre Dame and they realized that Thighs-man rhymed with Heisman (as in the Trophy). No, really. (Theismann was runner-up to Jim Plunkett of Stanford for the Heisman in 1970.) NewMexiKen was at RFK that Monday night in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor broke Theismann’s leg.
Once-upon-a-time child star Angela Cartwright is 60. She was Danny Thomas’s step-daughter, Brigitta in Sound of Music, and Penny Robinson in Lost in Space.
Hugh Grant is 52. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?
Adam Sandler turns 46 today.
Michelle Williams is 32.
Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.
Though his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purist form. His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted the R&B charts beginning with the Top Ten appearance of “Mr. Pitiful” in 1965, none of his singles fared better than #21 on the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” That landmark song, recorded just four days before Redding’s death, went to #1 and stayed there for four weeks in early 1968.
Redding wrote the song known as Aretha Franklin’s signature hit, “Respect.”
Tolstoy was born 184 years ago today.
Elvis Presley’s first famous TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was 56 years ago tonight.
From Peter Guralnick’s excellent Last Train to Memphis:
On September 9 he was scheduled to appear on the premier Ed Sullivan Show of the season. Sullivan, however, was recuperating from an August automobile accident and, as a result, was not going to be able to host the program, which Elvis would perform from the CBS studio in Los Angeles. Elvis sent Sullivan a get-well card and a picture autographed to “Mr. Ed Sullivan” and was thrilled to learn that the show would be guest-hosted by Charles Laughton, star of Mutiny an the Bounty. Steve Allen, who had presented him in his last television appearance, was not even going to challenge Sullivan on the night in question: NBC was simply going to show a movie.
He opened with “Don’t Be Cruel,” strolling out alone from the darkened wings onto a stage spotlighted with silhouettes of guitars and a bass fiddle. He was wearing a loud plaid jacket and an open-necked shirt, but his performance was relatively subdued, as every shoulder shrug, every clearing of his throat and probing of his mouth with his tongue, evoked screams and uncontrolled paroxysms of emotion. Then he announced he was going to sing a brand-new song, “it’s completely different from anything we’ve ever done. This is the title of our brand-new Twentieth Century Fox movie and also my newest RCA Victor escape – er, release.” There was an apologetic shrug in response to the audience’s laughter, and then, after an altogether sincere tribute to the studio, the director, and all the members of the cast, and “with the help of the very wonderful Jordanaires,” he sang “Love Me Tender.” It is a curious moment. Just after beginning the song he takes the guitar off and hands it to an unseen stagehand, and there are those awkward moments when he doesn’t seem to know quite what to do without his prop and shrugs his shoulders or twitchily adjusts his lapels, but the moans which greet the song — of surprise? of shock? of delight? most likely all three — clearly gratify him, and at the end of the song he bows and gestures graciously to the Jordanaires.
When he comes back for the second sequence, the band is shown, with Jordanaire Gordon Stoker at the piano and the other Jordanaires in plaid jackets at least as loud (but nowhere near as cool) as his own. They rock out on Little Richard’s “Ready Teddy,” but when Elvis goes into his dance the camera pulls away and, as reviews in the following days will note, “censors” his movements. It doesn’t matter. The girls scream just when he stands still, and when he does two verses of “Hound Dog” to end the performance, the West Coast studio audience goes crazy, though the New York Journal-American‘s Jack O’Brian, after first taking note of Presley’s “ridiculously tasteless jacket and hairdo (hairdon’t)” and granting that “Elvis added to his gamut (A to B) by crossing his eyes,” pointed out that the New York audience “laughed and hooted.” “Well, what did someone say?” remarked host Charles Laughton, with good humor, at the conclusion of the performance. “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?”
The show got a 43.7 Trendex rating (it reached 82.6 percent of the television audience), and in the Colonel’s view, which he shared gleefully with Steve Sholes, really boosted Presley’s stock with an adult audience for the first time.
It was about this time that Elvis began dying his hair from its natural sandy-dark blond to jet black — “Clairol Black Velvet.”
San Juan Island National Historical Park (Washington)
. . . was authorized on September 9, 1966.
San Juan Island is well known for splendid vistas, saltwater shore, quiet woodlands and orca whales. But it was also here in 1859 that the United States and Great Britain nearly went to war over a dead pig.
Fort Davis National Historic Site (Texas)
. . . was established on this date in 1961.
Set in the rugged beauty of the Davis Mountains of west Texas, Fort Davis is one of America’s best surviving examples of an Indian Wars’ frontier military post in the Southwest. From 1854 to 1891, Fort Davis was strategically located to protect emigrants, mail coaches, and freight wagons on the Trans-Pecos portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road and the Chihuahua Trail, and to control activities on the southern stem of the Great Comanche War Trail and Mescalero Apache war trails. Fort Davis is important in understanding the presence of African Americans in the West and in the frontier military because the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry and the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry, all-black regiments established after the Civil War, were stationed at the post.
Today Ought to Be a Holiday
Two country music immortals were born on September 8th.
Jimmie Rodgers, considered the “Father of Country Music,” was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He died from TB in 1933. Jimmie Rodgers was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists.
Patsy Cline, the most popular female country singer in recording history, was born in Winchester, Virginia, on September 8, 1932. She died in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy Cline is an inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cline is invariably invoked as a standard for female vocalists, and she has inspired scores of singers including k. d. lang, Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, and Wynonna Judd. Her brief career produced the #1 jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson) and her unique, crying style and vocal impeccability have established her reputation as the quintessential torch singer.
Today’s Photo (Bonus)
The larger versions you can see by clicking are much better.
Today’s Photo
Click images for larger versions.
Today’s Photo
Click images for larger versions.
Chief Executive Victim of Most Cowardly Anarchist
On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Leon Czolgosz, a Polish citizen associated with the Anarchist movement, fired two shots at McKinley who was greeting the public in a receiving line.
McKinley died September 14, whispering the words of his favorite hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee.” He was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.
— Source Library of Congress.
Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair on October 29, 1901.
See The New York Times articles from the day of the shooting.
Title for this post from headline in The San Francisco Call.
Today’s Photo(s): The Photo-Taker Who Cried Wolf
[First, a caveat. My wildlife photos are shameful, varying from mediocre to awful to unusable. Still, I hope they illustrate the story.]
Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves (Canis lupus) were native to Yellowstone but had been eradicated by a government predator control program. The last packs were reported killed by 1926, not even stragglers were seen by the 1940s, and there was no sign of wolves at all by the 1970s. They were brought back under a highly controlled program beginning in 1995. There are now thought to be about 100 wolves in the Park, in ten packs.
This was my sixth visit to Yellowstone since the wolves were reintroduced. I hadn’t seen them the first five times; it was my primary objective this trip.
The Lamar Valley is in the northeastern part of the Park. I camped at Tower Fall Friday to be near. The camp host told me that the evening before people had seen wolves (and a grizzly) at a bison carcass not far from the road into the Lamar Valley.
That evening around six I found dozens, soon to be scores, of people lining the shoulder. An Australian archaeologist working for the summer in the Park told me she had seen seven wolves harass a grizzly away from the carcass that morning. The remains were just several hundred yards away.
We waited. And waited. The wind blew over my tripod, crashing my camera to the gravel on the shoulder of the road. It seemed OK. We waited. More people arrived and some left. (I heard later that at one time there had been 80 cars lined up.) After about 90 minutes I left. I have my rules: full professors get 10 minutes; wolves and bears 90. (None showed after I left.)
Further up the road in the Lamar Valley I was shown little moving spots a mile or more away on a hill and told they were wolves. Even through a spotting-scope they were pretty vague to me. About a bazillion bison wandering around though (photos will follow in days-to-come). I wasn’t satisfied that I could add wolves to my life-list based on such an inadequate sighting.
And so, I was the first one back near the carcass the next morning — I think I was actually there before 6; what was I thinking? — the temperature was in the 30s. After about an hour of no shows, I moved back up into the Lamar.
And there they were, across the river visible when in the open to the human eye.
We begin with this scene in the Lamar Valley (the Lamar River in the foreground). There are two bison and three wolves (that I can find) in this photo. Click the image for the larger version and see how many of the five critters you can find.
These wolves I learned were part of the Mollie Pack (named for the late Mollie Beattie, first woman to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). There were some said six on the slope stalking the bison. I saw five, though not all at one time. They eventually wandered away, deciding I guess that particular bison wasn’t vulnerable.
The Mollie’s are one of the few Yellowstone packs that know how to kill bison, a very difficult proposition. The same Mollie’s black male yearling who cavorted with Lamar Canyon 820F has been making a shopping trip through Lamar Valley’s bison herds every few days.
One morning, as he passed by a bison cow and calf, he suddenly grabbed the calf by the neck, and the race was on. Together they galloped, side by side, with the wolf clamped on the calf’s neck, for about 45 seconds.
Just as the wolf brought the calf down and it appeared to be all over (and I was wondering where the heck the calf’s mother was), a thundering herd of bison bulls rushed in to save the day! Unbelievably, the cow had actually run off to get help!
The bulls chased off that wolf and swarmed around the calf, literally scooping it back into the vortex of the roiling group of bulls. The calf, apparently unharmed (thanks to incredibly thick neck skin, a quick-witted mom and her pals), helped lead the group back to the main herd, with quite a story to tell. The whole thing was simply amazing.
Kathie Lynch’s June 2012 Yellowstone Wolf Update, The Wildlife News
Back to the photo with two enlargements:
And five minutes later, still close.
Like the wolves, I too wandered away, ultimately back down the road to the carcass. There I saw — and heard! — three wolves, also from the Mollie Pack, but my photos (the camera was acting weird — I will say that) are worthless. Well, not to me.
September 5th
John Milton Cage was born 100 years ago today. The New York Times described Cage as a “prolific and influential composer whose Minimalist works have long been a driving force in the world of music, dance and art.”
Cage’s first experiments involved altering standard instruments, such as putting plates and screws between a piano’s strings before playing it. As his alterations of traditional instruments became more drastic, he realized that what he needed were entirely new instruments. Pieces such as “Imaginary Landscape No 4″(1951) used twelve radios played at once and depended entirely on the chance broadcasts at the time of the performance for its actual sound. In “Water Music” (1952), he used shells and water to create another piece that was motivated by the desire to reproduce the operations that form the world of sound we find around us each day.
While his interest in chance procedures and found sound continued throughout the sixties, Cage began to focus his attention on the technologies of recording and amplification. One of his better known pieces was “Cartridge Music” (1960), during which he amplified small household objects at a live performance. Taking the notions of chance composition even further, he often consulted the “I Ching,” or Book of Changes, to decide how he would cut up a tape of a recording and put it back together.
His most influential and famous piece is 4’33”. It consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The work was among National Public Radio’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.
The piece, premiered in 1952, directs someone to close the lid of a piano, set a stopwatch, and sit in silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Musicians and critics alike initially thought the piece a joke. But its premiere pianist, who never played a note, calls it his most intense listening experience. “4:33” speaks to the nature of sound and the musical nature of silence.
Cage died in 1992.
Jesse James was born on this date in 1847. If James were alive today, he’d be the kind of guy who’d park a Ryder truck in front of a federal building. He was not the Robin Hood character many learned, but rather a racist, anti-emancipation, anti-union murdering terrorist long after the Civil War had effectively decided the larger matters. See T.J. Stiles masterful Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.
“As this patient biography makes clear, violence came to Jesse James more or less with his mother’s milk.” — Larry McMurtry.
“Overall, this is the biography of a violent criminal whose image was promoted and actions extenuated by those who saw him as a useful weapon against black rights and Republican rule.” — Eric Foner
Napoleon Lajoie was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, on September 5, 1874. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 (second year).
Second baseman Napoleon Larry Lajoie combined grace in the field with power at the plate. Renowned for hitting the ball hard, Lajoie topped .300 in 16 of his 21 big league seasons, ten times batting over .350 for a lifetime average of .339. In 1901, making the jump from the Phillies to the Athletics of the new American League, Lajoie dominated the Junior Circuit. He captured the Triple Crown, led league second basemen in fielding average and batted .422 — an American League mark that has yet to be topped.
Back row: Honus Wagner, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, George Sisler, Walter Johnson.
Seated: Eddie Collins, Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, and Cy Young.
Ty Cobb is absent from the photo; he had missed a train and arrived late.
Paul Volcker is 85. Bob Newhart is 83. Carol Lawrence is 78. Jonathan Kozol is 76. John Stewart, one-third of the Kingston Trio, is 73. Raquel Welch is 72. Werner Herzog is 70. Michael Keaton is 61.
Baseball Hall of Fame member Bill Mazeroski is 76.
In 1954, 17-year-old Bill Mazeroski signed with Pittsburgh as a shortstop and was promptly moved to second base by the Pirates’ Branch Rickey. Mazeroski eventually became one of the best defensive second baseman in history with a lifetime .983 fielding percentage. The 10-time National League All-Star led the league in assists nine times, fielding percentage three times and double plays eight times. A consistent batter, with 2,016 career hits, Maz achieved hero status in Pittsburgh’s 1960 Fall Classic against the Yankees, when he became the first player ever to end the World Series with a home run.
The first Labor Day parade was held in New York 130 years ago today.
The Oglala Lakota Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) was killed by his military guard at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on this date in 1877.
You Have to Be a Weeble to Catch
It’s Fall sports season in Virginia and we have four boy Sweeties playing baseball and one girl Sweetie in soccer. Jill reports on 6-year-old Reid:
Reid has been petitioning his baseball coach for a chance to play catcher and he finally got his shot tonight. We had to buy him a cup first. (Oh, he is tickled pink by that cup.)
Anyway, he put on all the gear and he could barely stand up. He tried to catch about 20 pitches from the machine and every single pitch knocked him over completely backwards — including one that hit him plum in the face.
I think it’s the weight of the equipment that is tipping him over, more than anything else.
It was pretty awesome.
Early Lifestyle Choices
First day of school yesterday and Jill reports on Mack and Aidan.
Going through Mack’s papers and one of his teachers had them do a handout about themselves and their hobbies and what they like/don’t like about school, what they like in teachers, etc.
One question is, “If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?”
Mack said he would buy a business so he could earn a bunch more millions of dollars.
Which is a good answer.
It also made me think of what Aidan told me earlier — his teacher asked them all what they would do with a thousand dollars (apparently, the rate of return on imaginary investments greatly increases between third and sixth grades).
Aidan said he would buy a hot tub.
Today’s Photo
El cuarto de septiembre
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola)* was founded on this date in 1781. We call it L.A.
The Edsel was introduced by the Ford Motor Company 55 years ago today (1957), on Henry Ford II’s birthday. The car was named for his father, the only child of Henry and Clara Ford.
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard on this date in 1957 in an attempt to prevent nine African-American students from entering Little Rock Central High School. Eventually President Eisenhower responded with the 101st Airborne.
Tom Watson (63) and Raymond Floyd (70) share this birthday. Between them they won 12 major golf championships but Watson (8) never won the PGA and Floyd (4) never won The Open [British].
Beyoncé is 31.
Beyoncé Knowles is one of the reigning queens of pop music, and one of the few pop stars left with a wholesome, good-girl image. She has sold more than 75 million records and as a member of the trio Destiny’s Child. Ms. Knowles was also the top winner at the Grammy Awards on Jan. 31, 2010, her six prizes the most in one night for any woman in the awards’ 52-year history.
Ms. Knowles has also acted in several films. In “Cadillac Records” she played the legendary blues singer Etta James, a former heroin addict and the daughter of a prostitute. Her role as the hard-living and emotionally scarred singer altered the direction of her latest album, “I Am…Sasha Fierce” (Music World/Columbia Records). The film opened in December 2008. Ms. Knowles’s previous work in “Dreamgirls” (2006) earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Mitzi Gaynor is 81.
Richard Wright was born 104 years ago today. This from his obituary in The New York Times in 1960:
Mr. Wright was hailed by critics as the most eloquent spokesman for the American Negro in this generation and one of the most important literary talents of contemporary America.
His greatest success, both financial and literary, was “Native Son,” a harsh, realistic, brutal, angry novel that appeared in 1940. This story was based partly on Wright’s own experiences in the Chicago slums and partly on the case of Robert Nixon, a Chicago Negro who was put to death in the electric chair in 1938 for the murder of a white girl.
The novel won almost universal acclaim from reviewers. Charles Poore in The New York Times said that it was “enormously stirring,” and Peter Monro Jack, writing in The Sunday Times Book Review, called it the “Negro American tragedy.”
“Native Son” was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and enjoyed a large sale not only in the United States but also in most other countries, including the Soviet Union.
His next big success was the autobiography of his youth, “Black Boy,” issued in 1944. This was also a Book-of-the-Month Club choice and sold throughout the world. After World War II, Mr. Wright expatriated himself to Paris, where he could live more congenially with his white wife, Ellen Poplar of Brooklyn, whom he had married in 1940.
* The Spanish mission at the Pecos Pueblo had a similar name: Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula de los Pecos. Porciúncula or Porziuncola is the name of a small chapel near Assisi, Italy, where St. Francis established the Franciscan Order in the early 13th century.
Geronimo
The chief himself was in his late fifties and perhaps decided that it was time to retire from the more athletic activities of his career. Nonetheless, when he finally gave up once and for all, on September 4, 1886, it was a negotiated surrender, and not a capture.
Geronimo and Naiche (son of Cochise) surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles on this date in 1886 at Skeleton Canyon, near the Arizona-New Mexico line just north of the border with Mexico. It was the fourth time Geronimo had surrendered — and the last. With them were 16 men, 14 women and six children. The band was taken to Fort Bowie and by the 8th were on a train to Florida as prisoners of war.
“General Miles is your friend,” said the interpreter. The Indian gave Miles a defoliating look. “I never saw him,” he said. “I have been in need of friends. Why has he not been with me?”
This photograph was taken at a rest stop along the route to San Antonio. Naiche is third from left, Geronimo third from right (with the straw hat) in the front row.
After time in Florida and Alabama, Geronimo and the other Chiricahua Apaches were moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1894. Geronimo, despite remaining a prisoner of war, became a marketable celebrity, paid to appear at expositions and fairs. He died at Fort Sill in 1909, about age 80.
Also pictured are Geronimo at his third surrender in March 1886 (above) and Geronimo on exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (below).
Quotations are from Geronimo! by E. M. Halliday, published in American Heritage in June 1966.
Today’s Photo
The Third of September
Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorfon in what is now the Czech Republic on this date in 1875. Porsche was an automotive engineer instrumental in the early development and racing of Austrian and German cars, notable at Austro-Daimler (1906-1923) and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (1923-1929). He developed the compressor for Mercedes-Benz and the torsion bar suspension with his own design company in 1931. And he was the leader in the development of the Volkswagen, which began production just before World War II.
It was, however, Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche, the first Ferdinand Porsche’s son, who built the race and sports cars we recognize today, beginning in 1948.
It’s pronounced like the name Portia — por-sha.
George Hearst was born in Missouri in 1820. He went to California in 1850, panned for gold, but quickly became a good judge of mining properties. His fortune followed, first with the Comstock Lode near Virginia City, Nevada, then the Ophir mine, the Homestake gold mine in Dakota Territory, the Anaconda copper mine in Montana and the Cerro de Pasco Mine in Peru. 41-year-old Hearst married 19-year-old Phoebe Apperson in 1862 and moved to San Francisco. They had their only child the following year, William Randolph Hearst. George Hearst was United States Senator from California in 1886 and 1887 until his death in 1891. His personality as portrayed in Deadwood was largely fictional.
Mark Hopkins was born on this date in 1813. Hopkins came to California in 1849, but to become a merchant not a miner. With Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, Hopkins established the California Pacific to build east to Utah from Sacramento as part of the first transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific eventually merged with the Southern Pacific, which they — The Big Four — also owned. Today it is part of the Union Pacific, one of the four remaining major rail lines.
Alan Ladd, best known for his portrayal of the title role in Shane, was born 99 years ago today. He was 5-foot-6. Ladd died in 1964 at age 50.
Mort Walker is 89 today. He’s the creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, beginning at the University of Missouri.
Pulitzer-winner, for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie is 86 today.
Al Jardine, the only member of the original Beach Boys not related to the others, is 70 today. He sang the lead on “Help Me, Rhonda.”
Writer Malcolm Gladwell is 49.
Charlie Sheen is 47.
Three-time All-American softball pitcher Jennie Finch is 32 today.
Shaun White is 26.
The Treaty of Paris that formerly ended the American war with Great Britain was signed on this date in 1783, more than eight years after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.
Article 1:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
Labor Day 2012
155.2 million
Number of people 16 and older in the nation’s labor force in June 2012.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
85.0%
Percentage of full-time workers 18 to 64 covered by health insurance during all or part of 2010.
Source: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, derived from Table 8
26.3 million
Number of female workers 16 and older in management, business, science, and arts occupations in 2010. Among male workers, 16 and older, 23.7 million were employed in management, professional and related occupations.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey, Table C24010
5.9 million
The number of people who worked from home in 2010.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey, Table B08128
$47,715 and $36,931
The 2010 real median earnings for male and female full-time, year-round workers, respectively.
Source: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010
Today Ought to Be a Holiday
Labor Day as a national, legal holiday had an interesting evolution. The legalized celebration of Labor Day began as individual state celebrations. In 1887, New York, New Jersey and Colorado were among the first states to approve state legal holidays. Then other states joined in to create their own state Labor Days. Finally, in response to a groundswell of support for a national holiday celebrating the nation’s workers, Sen. James Henderson Kyle of South Dakota introduced S. 730 to the 53rd Congress to make Labor Day a legal holiday on the first Monday of September each year. It was approved on June 28, 1894.
The first “Labor Day” was in New York City at Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and 9th Avenue on Tuesday, September 5, 1882.
By 10 a.m., the Grand Marshall of the parade, William McCabe, his aides and their police escort were all in place for the start of the parade. There was only one problem: none of the men had moved. The few marchers that had shown up had no music.
According to McCabe, the spectators began to suggest that he give up the idea of parading, but he was determined to start on time with the few marchers that had shown up. Suddenly, Mathew Maguire of the Central Labor Union of New York (and probably the father of Labor Day) ran across the lawn and told McCabe that two hundred marchers from the Jewelers Union of Newark Two had just crossed the ferry — and they had a band!
Just after 10 a.m., the marching jewelers turned onto lower Broadway — they were playing “When I First Put This Uniform On,” from Patience, an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. The police escort then took its place in the street. When the jewelers marched past McCabe and his aides, they followed in behind. Then, spectators began to join the march. Eventually there were 700 men in line in the first of three divisions of Labor Day marchers. Final reports of the total number of marchers ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 men and women.With all of the pieces in place, the parade marched through lower Manhattan. The New York Tribune reported that, “The windows and roofs and even the lamp posts and awning frames were occupied by persons anxious to get a good view of the first parade in New York of workingmen of all trades united in one organization.”
At noon, the marchers arrived at Reservoir Park, the termination point of the parade. While some returned to work, most continued on to the post-parade party at Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue; even some unions that had not participated in the parade showed up to join in the post-parade festivities that included speeches, a picnic, an abundance of cigars and, “Lager beer kegs… mounted in every conceivable place.”
Rosie the Riveter
The song came first, in 1942.
“Rosie the Riveter” by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb
All the day long, whether rain or shine
She’s a part of the assembly line
She’s making history, working for victory
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter
Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage
Sitting up there on the fuselage
That little frail can do more than a male can do
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter
Rosie’s got a boyfriend, Charlie
Charlie, he’s a Marine
Rosie is protecting Charlie
Workin’ overtime on the riveting machine
When they gave her a production ‘E’
She was as proud as a girl could be
There’s something true about, red, white, and blue about
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter
Then came the “We Can Do It!” poster — but that wasn’t really Rosie.
In 1943 Norman Rockwell created a “Rosie” for The Saturday Evening Post — but he “adopted” the name from the song (and the Post was nervous about that for a long time).
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In 1942, as World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific and the song “Rosie the Riveter” filled radio waves across the home front, manufacturing giant Westinghouse commissioned artist J. Howard Miller to make a series of posters to promote the war effort. One such poster featured the image of a woman with her hair wrapped up in a red polka-dot scarf, rolling up her sleeve and flexing her bicep. At the top of the poster, the words ‘We Can Do It!’ are printed in a blue caption bubble. To many people, this image is “the” Rosie the Riveter. But it was never the intention to make this image “Rosie,” nor did many Americans think of her as “Rosie.” The connection of Miller’s image and “Rosie” is a recent phenomenon.
The “Rosie” image popular during the war was created by illustrator Norman Rockwell (who had most certainly heard the “Rosie the Riveter” song) for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943 — the Memorial Day issue. The image depicts a muscular woman wearing overalls, goggles and pins of honor on her lapel. She sports a leather wrist band and rolled-up sleeves. She sits with a riveting tool in her lap, eating a sandwich, and “Rosie” is inscribed on her lunch pail. And, she’s stepping on a copy of Adolph Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”
After the cover, stories about real-life Rosies, many of them actually named Rosie, sprouted in newspapers. And the Federal government adapted the name and depiction for one of the most successful advertising campaigns ever.
Howard Miller’s “Rosie” has emerged as the most recognizable of the Rosies, but she wasn’t even a Rosie.
One version of the song that started it all.
Five Historic New Mexico Saloons
“New Mexico’s historic bars reflect the lives and times of the common and not-so-common people who made our history. They include rough saloons that catered to miners, polished hotel bars for traveling merchants, and flashing-neon honky-tonks to attract Route 66 tourists.”
Click the link to read about the five:
The Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House, Pinos Altos
No Scum Allowed Saloon, White Oak
Hotel Eklund, Clayton
Silva’s Saloon, Bernalillo
The 49er Lounge, Gallup
Today’s Photo
Fort Union
Once the largest army post in the southwest, Fort Union is now little more than a shadow of its former self set among beautiful grasslands north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. For 40 years in the second half of the 19th century, it was the Santa Fe Trail equivalent of an interstate truck stop and regional warehouse.
When New Mexico became United States territory after the U.S.- Mexican War, the army established garrisons in towns scattered along the Rio Grande to protect the area’s inhabitants and travel routes. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, and in April 1851, Lt. Col. Edwin V. Sumner, commanding Military Department No. 9 (which included New Mexico Territory), was ordered “to revise the whole system of defense” for the entire territory. Among his first acts was to break up the scattered garrisons and relocate them in posts closer to the Indians. He also moved his headquarters and supply depot from Santa Fe, “that sink of vice and extravagance,” to a site near the Mountain and Cimarron branches of the Santa Fe Trail, where he established Fort Union.
Photos were taken four years ago yesterday with iPhone 3G.