Monthly Archives: October 2023

The American Buffalo

21 Saturday Oct 2023

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography

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Augustus Kollner lithograph, circa 1850s; Library of Congress

Last night I was listening to it rain and watching episode one of Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns’s The American Buffalo. I had about fifteen minutes still to go when a friend emailed and said he had finished the entire two-part, four-hour series. It led to a brief email back and forth in which we agreed that we had both learned some things we had not known. Some of the buffalo story was of course familiar: the centrality of the bison to Native American life for centuries, the land hunger and push ever-westward in the years just before and after the Civil War, the way the railroad companies advocated—successfully—for the annihilation of the great herds. Other parts of the story were less familiar to me, such as the use of buffalo-hide leather in literally turning the gears during the Industrial Revolution. Two years I took a trip to the Mystic Seaport Museum. Until that visit I did not grasp the full role of whaling in the industrial economy. In some ways the whale and buffalo are analogous. For one thing whale oil lubricated the gears rotated by the buffalo-hided belts that turned the spinning wheels on the factory floors of the Eastern mill towns. What is more, the remains of the whale and the buffalo were used in clothing, combs, corsets, jewelry, glue and just about everything one can imagine.

Burns and his colleagues have covered aspects of the buffalo story over what are now decades, most obviously in the nine-part The West (1996) and six-episode The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009). There is a through line in the corpus of work; some of the historical figures and themes that appear in The American Buffalo were naturally present in those earlier projects too. Burns and his colleagues have gone deeper here in this effort and given us a fuller picture. I’m looking forward to learning more tonight when I watch the concluding episode.

Young Ben Franklin arrives in Philadelphia

06 Friday Oct 2023

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Ben Franklin arriving in Philadelphia on October 6, 1723 as depicted by E. Boyd Smith in the 1910s. His future wife, Deborah Read, stands in the background.

A big project at work that will run through the end of the semester has taken me temporarily away from some of my other projects, but I’m doing what I can to keep my other irons in the fire. Today marks a significant moment in the history of British North America, even if no one recognized it at the time. How could they have? It was three hundred years ago today, October 6, 1723, that the seventeen-year-old runaway Benjamin Franklin arrived in Philadelphia. Several weeks previously he had fled Boston and the indentured servitude contract he had signed with his abusive older brother, unsuccessfully sought printer’s work in New York City, and finally made his way on that Sunday morning to Market Street. In his Autobiography, written in late middle age, Franklin remembered that “my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refus’d it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but little.”

I have a fairly firm grasp of Civil War historiography but I must say that I still have a steep learning curve when it comes to that of the Colonial and Revolutionary eras. One can’t understand the history without knowing the historiography behind it. Colonial and Revolutionary War memory is much more involved than that of the War of the Rebellion, and yet surprisingly thin. I don’t understand why. As for Franklin’s sojourn itself, it was not until 1980 that a historian proved conclusively that it was indeed on October 6 that Franklin arrived in Philadelphia. Apparently there had been talk after that discovery of designating October 6 “Ben Franklin Day” in Philadelphia, sort of like the annual Patriots Day in several New England states. That never came to pass, but later today the University of Pennsylvania is hosting a three hundredth anniversary celebration from 12:00-2:00 pm. Above we see an illustration by the noted children’s book illustrator E. Boyd Smith from a 1916 edition of Franklin’s Autobiography showing the young man starting his new life three hundred years ago today.

Addendum: There seems to be slate of events around Philadelphia later this morning, including one at the American Philosophical Society at which the document proving October 6 as the date of Franklin’s arrival will be on view.

Sunday morning coffee

01 Sunday Oct 2023

Posted by in Baseball

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I’m up early today because I’m off to the rehab center to visit a friend who suffered a bad fall in late August. He was in the hospital for several weeks until being transferred to this second facility. Our meeting on a Sunday was already pre-planned but I made a conscious effort yesterday to avoid mass transit after Friday’s storm knocked out much of the system. I’m still recovering from the ninety minute walk home on Friday afternoon. I say that knowing I am one of the fortunate ones. Many had it worse than I did. I must say though that getting home was a grind.

I received an out-of-the blue email earlier this week from an editor to whom four years ago I submitted my manuscript about Civil War Era New York City. It didn’t get picked up them for a few reasons, none of which were insurmountable. Still, for whatever reason I chose not to pursue it, put the thing in a drawer, and moved on to other pursuits and intellectual interests. I may well submit it again, perhaps even this afternoon when I return from the city. Should it even get picked up, returning to it would be a bit of a challenge after the passage of several years. Friends and family however have been pressuring me these past several months not to let it go, so maybe it’s all a sign.

A friend texted yesterday about the passing of Brooks Robinson, which I had not seen until receiving his message. When I was growing up the Orioles were one of the most dominant American League teams. He had a little something to do with that. I see that the Orioles are having a public service tomorrow at Camden Yards. It’s somehow fitting that Robinson died in a moment when the Orioles have returned to form after so many years of being dreadful. The regular season ends today.