Category Archives: Memory

Fiorello La Guardia’s Memorial Days

26 Sunday May 2019

Posted by in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Incorporating New York (book manuscript project), John Purroy Mitchel, Memory, New York City, Preparedness (WW1)

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I hope everyone’s Memorial Day Weekend is going well. I’m meeting someone on the far end of Green-Wood Cemetery in about an hour. We’re going to explore the cemetery and then get lunch before the true heat of late spring kicks in. We submitted final grades the other day but there is still some detail work and mopping up in the coming days as we cap off the academic year. I started John Strausbaugh’s Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers During World War II. Last year after completing the manuscript for Incorporating New York I read his 2016 book about Civil War New York. I intentionally held off on reading it until finishing the draft of INY because I wanted to follow my own vision for the narrative and did not want others’ ideas seeping in.

I am profiting greatly from reading Victory City, which voters many of the themes my colleague and I covered with our class this just-concluded semester. One of the major figures–how could he not be?-of the book is Fiorello La Guardia. I know so much more about La Guardia than I did at the beginning of the calendar year. I thought in recognition of Memorial Day Weekend I would re-up this post from last year.

General Wladyslaw Sikorski (saluting) with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (right) at New York City Hall, 1942

John Purroy Mitchel, New York’s boy mayor, died 100 years ago this coming July. Mitchel was in office from 1914-17, thus overlapping almost entirely with the early years of the Great War. Mitchel was a proponent of Preparedness and as such became a natural ally of Theodore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood, and others advocating for American readiness to join the fight. After Mitchel left office he joined the Army Air Service and was killed in Lake Charles, Louisiana when he fell out of an airplane during a training exercise in July 1918. Friends dedicated a memorial to him in Central Park near 90th Street and Fifth Avenue in November 1928. For years, especially throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the Mitchel monument was a focal point of Memorial Day commemorations in New York City. One regular attendee was Fiorello La Guardia, who over the course of his tenure in office from 1934-45 observed at least nine of twelve Memorial Days at the monument to his mayoral forerunner, Fusion Party associate, and fellow World War 1 aviator.

New York Times, May 31, 1934: La Guardia is second from the right.

The photograph above shows La Guardia at the Mitchel monument on Memorial Day 1934. This would have been just over a year into the FDR Administration and with the Great Depression in full effect. This was also La Guardia’s first Memorial Day as mayor. There were still Civil War veterans marching in New York City’s Memorial Day parades in these years, about 25 this year. In the years after this their numbers dwindled into the single digits.

New York Times, May 31, 1944: La Guardia was pressing for full Axis surrender in the tense days before the Normandy Invasion.

The headline here in which La Guardia advocates for an “aviator’s peace” comes from the 1944 Memorial Day observation. While obviously the public did not know the exact day that the offensive to liberate France would begin, Memorial Day 1944 took place one week before D-Day. Thus we see La Guardia pressing for all out victory. Poignantly, 1944 also happened to be the first year that a Civil War veterans did not participate in Manhattan’s Memorial Day observation. Brooklyn and Queens each had one G.A.R. veteran in the ranks. Spanish-American War veterans, doughboys from the First World War now well into middle age, and active duty servicepersons including WACS, WAVES, and SPARS were all represented.

La Guardia was on hand again at the Mitchel memorial on Memorial Day 1945. He had gotten his “aviator’s peace,” at least in Europe. By Memorial Day 1945 V-E Day had passed and everyone was waiting anxiously to see what would happen in the Pacific.

(top image/NYPL)

Sunday morning coffee

28 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in 77th Division, Film, Sound, & Photography, Memory, Style

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Lieutenant Adrian C. Duff, aka The Camera Kid, took this image of two French peasants greeting a pair of infantrymen of the 77th Division in the final week of the war.

A few moments ago I hit “send” on a piece that should see the light of day in a week or so. I don’t want to give away too many details, but it relates to the 77th Division. In my research I came across this extraordinary image of two infantrymen from “New York’s Own” being welcomed by a French couple. History even remembers the couple’s names; they are Monsieur and Madame Baloux of Brieulles-sur-Bar, France. The image was taken on November 6, 1918 after the town was liberated from German occupation. The photograph was taken by a Lieutenant Adrian C. Duff, who the internet tells us served in the U.S. Signal Corps. I get the impression that Lieutenant Duff probably took many images of American troops on the Texas-Mexico Border during the Punitive Expedition and then in France during the Great War that are part of our iconography of those conflicts. His nickname was “The Camera Kid.” The image first appeared in the February 4, 1919 Albuquerque, New Mexico Evening Herald, on page one no less, adjacent to troubling news from Eastern Europe about the Czechs and Poles.

I wrote the first draft yesterday in a coffee shop in Brooklyn while waiting for a particular store to open. I’m trying to clear the decks of a few small projects like this as spring break winds down and I prepare for the final month of the semester. The next few weeks will be intense, but I’m looking forward to it. Alas I will not get to wear it for about six months and it gets cool again, but yesterday after leaving the coffee shop I headed down to my destination, where I bought a beautiful vintage, grey, tweed, herringbone suit. Being tweed, the suit is by definition less formal; nonetheless, it is quite understated and stunning in detail with patch pockets and a high rise to the trousers. Come fall I’m going to make suits part of my almost-daily arsenal.

Today I’m going to do laundry and prepare for the hectic week ahead. Enjoy your Sunday.

(image by Lieutenant Adrian C. Duff via Wikimedia Commons)

 

A little Sunday reading

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in 23rd (106th) New York State National Guard Regiment, Fiorello La Guardia, Memory, Monuments and Statuary, New York City, Robert Moses

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The New York City Mayor’s Committee on Permanent War Memorial’s official rendering for the unrealized enduring monument.

Here is a little something to read over the remainder of one’s weekend: my piece at Roads to the Great War about the temporary Victory Arch built in Madison Square in the winter of 1919. This is the article I was alluding to last week when I posted the pictures of the return of the 27th Division. I have always found it interesting the way civic leaders built such ornate edifices knowing they would be used hard for a few short months or years and then torn down. Almost all of the facilities built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago for instance, were temporary assemblies built not of marble or granite but timber and plaster of Paris. The White City in all its majesty appeared poised to stand for centuries when in reality its wood and plaster would not have withstood more than one or two Chicago winters. At least we have the stories and photographs to remember them by.

Enjoy your Sunday.

(image/New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections)

 

Remembering John Patrick Diggins

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in Historiography, Memory, Writing

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Andrew Delbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation and Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University, giving the 10th annual John Patrick Diggins Memorial lecture, CUNY Graduate Center, February 19, 2019

I can hear the snow melting as I type these words. I am leading a tour of Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza for a colleague’s class later this morning. It should be warm enough but hopefully not too squishy out there. This past Tuesday I went to the CUNY Graduate Center to hear Andrew Delbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation and Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University, give the 10th annual John Patrick Diggins Memorial lecture. I took a class on the Cold War with Jack Diggins in Fall 2004, fifteen years ago. He died in 2009, the same year my own father died. That these things were now so long ago is extraordinary to contemplate.

Professor Delbanco spoke movingly about fugitive slaves prior to the American Civil War, basing his lecture on his new book The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War. Delbanco is not a historian per se but an English and American Studies professor. He brought a strong narrative drive to the topic, touching on the writing of Melville, Emerson, and Frederick Douglass to name just three. One thing that made the talk so affecting was the human detail. It is one thing to say that 750,000 or more people died in the Civil War; it is another to give a sense of the human drama of individual lives a voice. As the cynical but accurate saying goes: one death is a tragedy, but one million deaths is a statistic. Delbanco also infused a sense of humility into his talk, something that is too often lacking in the writing and presentation of history. Who among us can say what we would have done had we lived in another time and place? What will our own disenchants say about us and the decisions we made, individually and as a society? One must embrace complexity. I could not think of a more fitting talk in the memory of John P. Diggins.

Washington’s Birthday 1928

17 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by in Alfred E. Smith, Brooklyn, Charles Loring Brace, Fiorello La Guardia, George Washington, Memory, Theodore Roosevelt Sr (Father)

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New York governor Al Smith reviewed the Kings County Volunteer Firemen’s Association on Washington’s Birthday in 1928 in the leadup to the presidential race.

I was reading a good-natured online debate the other between a couple of people arguing the merits and demerits of American holidays. One of the running threads–indeed, the instigation of the discussion–was the idea of President’s Day itself. Some were averring that the holiday we are observing this weekend is now a second-tier observance, which is tough to argue against. It was not always the case however. President’s Day began as George Washington’s Birthday, and is still legally considered as such in many of the fifty states. Up until around the Second World War however Washington’s Birthday was still considered one of our most prestigious holidays, ranking below Christmas and Easter and on par with the 4th of July. It makes sense that Americans would have two secular holidays–one in winter and the other in summer–of such consequence. From the early days of the Republic through the mass immigration of the early twentieth century these holidays gave Americans a shared narrative. The 4th of July is still part of that narrative, but Washington’s Birthday–or even the more general “President’s Day–not so much.

Some of the men assembled to speak at Brooklyn Borough Hall were in their 90s. Later that day Governor Smith and Congressman Fiorello La Guardia spoke at the Brace Memorial Newsboys’ Lodging House in Manhattan.

Here above we see a moment during which Washington’s Birthday was still very much part of our cultural fabric. In 1928 Governor Alfred E. Smith visited Brooklyn to review the organization of retired Kings County firemen. From the steps of Borough Hall he watched the procession of men, some in their 90s, as they hailed the man everyone knew would run for the presidency that coming November. The Eagle, whose offices were adjacent to Borough Hall, noted that “Only the Roman candles and fireworks of the old political campaigning [were] missing.” It was not just Brooklynites; firemen had come from throughout Long Island, Manhattan, and as far away as Philadelphia and Delaware to see and hear Smith.

The governor had been coming to this event throughout the 1920s. He had come down from Albany for a few days to appear at several events; after speaking to and lunching with the retired firemen in Brooklyn, Smith returned to Manhattan and dined at the Brace Memorial Newsboys’ House on William Street. Lodging houses like the one Smith spoke at on Washington’s Birthday 1928 dated back to the days when Charles Loring Brace and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. created them prior to the Civil War. There with Smith at the lodging house was U.S. Congressman Fiorello La Guardia. Smith’s message to the 1,200 assembled hardscrabble lads was to accept that life is difficult even under the best of circumstances. The governor and presidential aspirant understood difficulty, having been born a slum kid on the Lower East Side and toiling in the Fulton Fish Market before becoming a Tammany man and starting his rise.

(images/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

Armistice Day 2018

11 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, Memory, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Washington, D.C.

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Wall Street, Armistice Day 1918

It is hard to believe that the 100th anniversary of the Armistice is here. It seems like yesterday that I attended the WW1 Centennial Commission Trade Show in Washington. It is amazing what can change in four years, for good and ill. I thoroughly intend to carry on covering the Great War. As I said to someone earlier today, the fighting of did not end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Civil war raged in what was once Czarist Russia and small but equally intense conflicts erupted between Greece and the Ottoman Turkey, to give but two examples. These and other conflicts had enormous consequences and came with enormous costs. Putting the world back together at Versailles would prove a daunting task. We would do well to view the officials charged with that undertaking with humility and understanding. Theirs was no easy assignment.

I have been surprised at the wistfulness I have felt over the past few days. These anniversary observations are an interesting thing. For years, from 2009 (the anniversary of John Brown’s Raid) through 2015 with the 150th observation of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, many of us followed along and even visited the places where these things happened. For much of the rest of the world though, they were barely a thought. The same proved true from 2014-2018 Great War Centennial. I have met many interesting people who have enriched my life over these past few years. I had some ideas for various projects. Many of them came to fruition and others did not pan out as hoped. That’s the way it is with things. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Taking down the WW1 exhibit acquired on loan from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, October 2018

There are many memories I will always cherish, such as one steamy August Saturday a few years ago when my uncle took me around suburban Boston so we could photograph and record well over a dozen WW1 memorials, the freezing film excursion to Yonkers in March 2017, meeting and befriending the film editor who saved the day on that project, the screenings themselves later that year at my college and in Yonkers a few weeks later, Camp Doughboy at Governors Island, the exhibits that colleagues and I acquired on loan from the Embassy of Belgium & The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and so much else besides.

Regarding Armistice Day 2018 itself, there is so much coverage to watch, read, and contemplate that I will leave it up to you to discover it. I will however share one item: a friend sent me this article from The New York Review of Books written by historian Patrick Chovanec in which he ruminates on what he learned while tweeting the war in historical “real time.” That’s the thing about history: you and I know the outcome. We would do well to humble ourselves and remember that the people of the past lived just the way we do today: unaware of what the future holds and how it would all turn out.

(top image/New York Times Archive via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Remembering Franklin Pettit Updike

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Memory, Those we remember, WW1

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I wrote this four years ago and am re-posting it today, the 100th anniversary of the death of Private Franklin P. Updike in the Great War.IMG_1108I was in Green-Wood Cemetery on Sunday when I came across the headstone of Franklin P. Updike. These WW1 headstones are much rarer than the ubiquitous Civil War markers one sees so often in old garden cemeteries. For one thing, there were fewer American deaths in the First World War than there were during the Rebellion. what’s more, a significant portion of doughboys were interred overseas where they were killed.

Updike, I later learned, lived in Brooklyn Heights and enlisted in the Army a month after the U.S. entered the Great War.

Updike death copy

Updike is somewhat unusual in that he died during the war and was brought home. Note that the headstone was ordered in April 1942, just as the U.S. was entering the Second World War.

Updike grave marker copy

The young private was a wagoner, that is he tended horses and carts. This was a dangerous task; the enemy understood the importance of the enemy’s transport and so did everything to neutralize–kill–it. In his Memoirs George Marshall wrote of the wagoners in his division that at certain periods “the most dangerous duty probably fell to the Quartermaster Sergeants and teamsters who went forward each night.”

The people of St. Ann’s Church held a service for Updike at Thanksgiving 1918. The war had been over for two weeks by this time. This announcement and the one below are from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Updike St Ann's announcement copy

This afternoon on my lunch break I went to the Heights and took this photo of St. Ann’s as it is today.

IMG_1110

The people of Brooklyn did not forget Updike. Alas I don’t believe it still exists today but they named the local American Legion Post after him. This was in January 1924, ninety year ago this year.

Updike color presentation copy

Remembering Brooklyn’s G.A.R. Post 327

21 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.), Memory, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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G.A.R. Post 327 marker, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery

The Grand Army of the Republic was the premier fraternal organization for Union Civil War veterans. Returning soldiers founded the GAR just after the war and over the next several decades hundreds of thousands of men who had worn the Union blue joined posts across the nation to socialize, perform charitable works, and advocate for medical care and military pensions. One of the most active was Post 327 of Brooklyn, New York. Post 327 included men from such regiments as the 14th Brooklyn that fought at Antietam, Gettysburg, and elsewhere. The 327 also included many men who had served under Grant and Meade in the Overland Campaign and Siege of Petersburg, some of the toughest engagements of the war. These veterans marched and spoke regularly at Decoration Day commemorations, Fourth of July picnics, and other events, sometimes with Grant in attendance.

At Mount McGgregor on the morning of July 24, 1885, the day after the general died, representatives told Frederick Dent Grant that the post was changing its name to U.S. Grant Post 327 in tribute to their former commander. They were also in Mount McGregor to provide escort for General Grant as he made his way to his final resting place in Manhattan. Not surprisingly, men of U.S. Grant Post 327 participated in General Grant‘s funeral in 1885 and again at the dedication of the Tomb in 1897.

U.S. Grant Post 327 was still going strong in the early decades of the twentieth century, speaking to children at schools, marching in parades and, increasingly, symbolizing the passing of an era. As with other posts across the nation, their numbers were dwindling quickly until finally in the 1920s and 30s just a few remained. Many Civil War veterans who joined Post 327 are today buried in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Often these soldiers’ headstones are marked with circular tablets like the one we see here. I was in Green-Wood recently and wanted to share this image I took of a tablet marking a Union soldier’s headstone. Some of these markers are over a century old but, as we can see, are still quite legible. Note General Grant‘s likeness in the center of the tablet.

More on Quentin

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Memory, Monuments and Statuary, Quentin Roosevelt, WW1

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Quentin Roosevelt stone marker, Sagamore Hill

Quentin Roosevelt stone, Sagamore Hill

Thankfully there has been a great deal of interest in the life and times of Quentin Roosevelt this summer. Sagamore Hill for one is hosting a number of events and exhibits in this anniversary year of his death. Margaret Porter Griffin, author of The Amazing Bird Collection of Young Mr. Roosevelt, has a piece out today about the significance of Quentin. Above is the marker that Margaret mentions in her article. I took these photographs at the Theodore Roosevelt Association conference in October 2016.

 

John Purroy Mitchel, 1879-1918

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in John Purroy Mitchel, Leonard Wood (General), Lusitania, Memory, New York City, Preparedness (WW1), Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Those we remember, Woodrow Wilson

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Major John Purroy Mitchel in pilot gear, 1918

The have my article up and running over at Roads to the Great War about the life, times, and death of John Purroy Mitchel. New York City’s Boy Mayor was all of thirty-four when he became mayor in 1914. Initially he was an ally of Woodrow Wilson, who in 1913 had appointed him Collector of the Port of New York. Men like Chester Arthur had previously held the collectorship. Mitchel and Wilson soon had a falling out over what the mayor saw as the president’s poor leadership during the war. Soon, Mitchel was very publicly allying with friends like Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood advocating for Preparedness. When he lost his re-election bid, Mitchel became a military aviator. He died in a flight exercise in Louisiana on July 6, 1918, one hundred years ago today.

(image/courtesy of Margaret Maloney via Wikimedia Commons)