A Day in the Life…

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Ellis Island, Governors Island, National Park Service, Writing

At the beginning of the summer I added my chapter from The Wonder of It All into Academic Works with the help of a colleague at work. She recommended to me and others that we post our efforts on social media, etc. And so I figured I would link here to “What a Day with a Park Volunteer Can Do.” Essentially it is the story of how I came to Governors Island 5-6 years back. They asked us not to use names in our submissions. Here though I can say that the volunteer in the title is the great Sami Steigmann. Sami if you are reading this: we will do that interview sometime over the summer.

Louis Auchincloss, 1917-2010

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Those we remember, World War One Centennial Committee for New York City, Writing

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Earlier this month I read Louis Auchincloss’s memoir, A Voice from Old New York: A Memoir of My Youth. I have always found it oddly comforting that cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia still have remnants of the old families that ran things for, really, centuries. When one goes to a place like the University or Union League Club one can’t help but notice the names from these families of the sons who fought in our nation’s earlier wars. When I read the excerpt about his father and the training base in Kentucky I naturally had to do a small something about it.

The Wonder of it All

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, National Park Service, Writing

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I have written about this a bit in the past but today is the official release date of The Wonder of it All, the book published by the Yosemite Conservancy for which I contributed a story. My chapter tells the tale of the first time I took the Hayfoot to Governors Island. One of the guidelines was that the stories could not give names. Here, though, I can point out that the guide we had was the one and only Sami Steigmann. Sami was later the person who talked me into transferring as a volunteer to Governors Island.

Don’t forget that 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. It was so much fun to be part of a project marking the NPS anniversary. Though the shift of emphasis is different, I approached Wonder in the spirit of Oh, Ranger!, which was itself influenced by a book written by Horace Albright in the 1920s. It is getting warmer by the day. Wherever you are, make the Park Service part of your spring.

Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Writing

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The other day I finished Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood: A World War I Tale, a graphic novel brought to my attention last summer by one of the rangers at Governors Island. Graphic novels became a thing after Art Spiegelman published Maus in 1986. It is hard to believe that was thirty years ago. Even before then Spiegelman’s work had been published in installments before being anthologized. Spiegelman published Maus II in 1992 and won a Pulitzer Prize that same year. At the library where I work we have an entire section dedicated to the genre. If anything graphic novels have become too big in recent years. The quality of the writing and drawing varies markedly from work to work. It is not an easy thing to pull off, especially when one is writing about history related events. The author/artist must internalize and then condense a great deal of information and then make it understandable to both a general audience and the specialists who might be reading it to get the creator’s take on the topic. At the same time he must be true to historical events and the people who lived through them. And the graphics are equally important. The whole point of a graphic novel is to tell a tell with words and images. That’s why they’re called graphic novels.

One need not worry about that here. The narrative and the sketches here are rendered beautifully and with great thought and care. The narrator is none other than “Nathan Hale,” who in more than one book has avoided the noose by spinning a historical tale from the gallows stand to keep the hangmen entertained and their minds elsewhere. I must say it all works rather nicely. The book is ostensibly written for Young Adult readers but kids of all ages, especially those with an interest in the events of 1914-18, will find this an enjoyable and worthwhile read. Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood captures the entirety of the war, from an international perspective, surprisingly effectively, which is no small feat in a work that is less than 130 pages.

Five years and counting

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Writing

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I received an email from WordPress this past Saturday informing me that I reached my fifth anniversary as a blogger. Five years is a fair chunk of change and I must say that in some respects it does seem like eons ago. I remember getting excited then that the 150th anniversary of First Bull Run was only five months ago. Yikes. I went back the other day and looked at random at a few posts I’ve done over the years, which is something I never do. Occasionally, such as I did with the Pearl Harbor post for a few years, I’ll re-post something. For the most part however, once I have completed a post I am on to the next thing. It’s really the only way. Some of the old posts make me wince. To take a line from George Carlin, I can’t believe the material I once got away with. Usually my weakest posts were those where I failed to stay true to myself. Still, I haven’t posted anything I am truly ashamed or embarrassed about. I guess it all leads up to where one is today.

It may seem that the subject matter has changed here at The Strawfoot, especially as we moved from the Civil War sesquicentennial to the 100th anniversary of the Great War. I myself have never seen it that way, and think I bring the same perspective I always did. There was a shift of emphasis when I began volunteering at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in October 2013. I always knew a fair amount about both sides of the Roosevelt family, but going to the Roosevelt Birthplace every Saturday and writing regularly for the social media platforms. The TRB forced me to think harder.

I don’t know how much the blog says that is new or earth-shaking but I do like to believe it adds another perspective to the mix. I do know that some of you have been following along for several years now. It’s humbling to know that in the cacophony of modern life there are people out there who have made me part of their routine.

The smell of victory in the evening

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Writing

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I got home tonight and there in the vestibule was the author’s copy of The Wonder of It All sent to me by editors at the Yosemite Conservancy. There is nothing quite like seeing your name in print. The official release date is March 15, 2016, but the Conservancy has it exclusively until then. I did not know that Shelton Johnson had written something for the collection. Longtime readers may recall that I interviewed Ranger Johnson two years ago. It’s kinda cool to now be associated with him on a project such as this one for the 100th anniversary of the Park Service. I’m looking forward to reading his and the others’ contributions.

Coming soon: The Wonder of It All

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Writing

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The North Bridge over the Concord River, Minute Man National Historical Park

I received the good news today from the editor at the Yosemite Conservancy that the book for which I wrote a chapter has gone to the printer and will hit the warehouse in mid-October. As they said they might, the editorial people indeed changed the title; there is no official release date yet, but The Wonder of It All: 100 Stories from the National Park Service will be hitting book stores toward the end of the year. This will be the first book chapter I have gotten into print. I am very excited about it not just for that reason, but because if I do say so myself it reflects many years of dedicated volunteer work. Of course it is not only my story but that of other volunteers and the rangers at Ellis Island, the Theodor Roosevelt Birthplace, and Governors Island National Monument who work so hard to make one’s National Park Service experience rewarding. It has been my good fortune to work and volunteer with many people who have taught me so much.

I remember writing the piece last November. It was actually easy to do, as I just opened up about how and why I began volunteering the winter after I married and my father died. The draft was written, proofread and sent off less than thirty-six hours after I received the announcement seeking solicitations. Alas I have no image of the dust jacket to share now. They said they would send that as we get closer to the publication date. Remember that the focus of the collection is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. Find Your Park in 2016.

Reading Liggett

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Hunter Liggett (General), Writing

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Hunter Liggett authored these two books in 1925 (Commanding and American Army) and 1928 )A.E.F.).

Hunter Liggett authored these books in 1925 (Commanding an American Army) and 1928 (A.E.F.).

Last week I interlibrary loaned these two books by Hunter Liggett. Yes, this is the Liggett after whom the building on Governors Island is named. WW1 memoirs, or any memoirs for that matter, are notoriously self-serving. These two books work well because they are not so much personal narratives as they are accounts of American involvement in the Great War. I read the one of the left over the weekend and learned a great deal. Liggett recounts his responsibilities as the I Army Corps commander, then First Army commander, and then the III Army Corps commander during the German occupation. He does not mention Ted Roosevelt in this monograph, but I am really hoping to find evidence that General Liggett and Colonel Roosevelt knew each other personally. As an officer in the Big Red One Roosevelt would have been under Liggett’s overall command. I have a feel their paths crossed in the 1920s and 30s. We’ll see what happens.

Liggett Hall on Governors Island is named after Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett.

I was looking at the other volume today. As its title suggests, this one is more a general overview of the A.E.F. in France. Its seven chapters were each published individually in the Saturday Evening Post. One thing he conveys well in this volume is how intertwined the American Expeditionary Force was with the British and French fighting units. Pershing tenaciously and successfully held out against what was called amalgamation. However, brigades and divisions of one Allied nation sometimes inevitably came under the commands of another country. In both books Liggett captures the immediacy of the decision-making process and explains well why many of the decisions made during the war came to be.

(lower image/National Photo Company)

William Zinsser, 1922-2015

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Ellis Island, Those we remember, Writing

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In a piece about Ellis Island, William Zinsser famously took up the 300 word challenge to prove that a write need not be verbose to convey his message.

In a piece about Ellis Island William Zinsser famously took up the 300 word challenge to prove that a writer need not be verbose to convey his message.

The world became a smaller place this month with the passing of William Zinsser. A memorial service was held in his honor yesterday here in the city. I wrote about Zinsser way back in 2011 when he was still writing his weekly column for The American Scholar. Then in his late eighties, he was crafting 700 word pieces of grace and elegance on any topic he chose every Friday. A year after I wrote the vignette, Zinsser–then in his 90th year–won a National Magazine Award for digital commentary; he had mastered the internet just as he had mastered writing for newspapers and magazines in the heyday of periodical publishing in the middle of the twentieth century. The reason he stayed relevant is that he never strayed from his core belief: simplify your writing and thereby find your humanity.

I could go on, but won’t. Here is the homage I wrote in March 2011:

For several years in the mid-2000s I collaborated with two teachers and a librarian on a writing and research module at a local high school. The four of us taught the basics of scholarship to a group of Advanced Placement English and History juniors. The final assignment was a five-six page paper. I continually stressed the importance of writing clearly and concisely. We kicked things off each term with a reading and discussion of George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” One school year, when the budget permitted, we distributed copies of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style to each student that were theirs to keep. Most students eventually “got it,” but I was always struck by how tenaciously some clung to the belief that pretentious, ornate prose was the way to the teacher’s heart and a good grade. In his most recent “Zinsser on Friday” posting, the incomparable William Zinsser recounts a challenge once posed to him by an editor: submit a travel piece not to exceed 300 words. Not wanting to stray too far from home, he selected a certain island “a mere subway and ferry ride away.” Read the results.

(Note that the link immediately above is now dead. Because The American Scholar may link to it again, I am going to leave it there. Here is the Ellis Island piece.)

(image/Library of Congress; permalink: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97501086/)

The Sweet Science goes to war

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS), Writing

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World’s largest boxing class

Early last week I posted something about boxer Gene Tunney’s 1940 visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace on the TRB Facebook page. I had stumbled across a photo of Tunney at the house on East 20th Street while reading old RMA bulletins at the New York Public Library a few weeks previously. It turned out serendipitously because I had just completed Rex Passion’s The Lost Sketchbooks. Passion wrote text to go along with artist Ed Shenton’s drawings from the Great War. Shenton’s experiences included training in the Sweet Science while at Camp Hancock just outside of Augusta, Georgia. A little digging into the story reveals that over three million doughboys boxed as part of their training and preparation to fight in France. Those three million included Shenton–and Gene Tunney.

Boxing instructions, main barracks, Naval Training Station, San Francisco, California, circa 1918

Boxing instruction, Naval Training Station, San Francisco, circa 1918

The Commission on Training Camp Activities had created and implemented the idea. They even produced a training film consisting of highlights from the bouts of such fighters as Gentleman Jim Corbett and Kid McCoy to show doughboys the proper technique. Keep in mind that moving imagery was still a fairly new medium at the time. It might well have been the first film many of these young men had ever seen. The training program was so successful that in the months just after the war’s end the Knights of Columbus organized an A.E.F. tournament in Paris. This all came to pass in early 1919 with Tunney, a U.S. Marine at the time, walking away with the title. Soon, like all Americans marines and doughboys, he returned to the United States and civilian life. Less than a decade later he would beat Jack Dempsey and become heavyweight champ. He retired undefeated in 1928.

Tunney had come to the TRB in 1940 to help Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the upcoming presidential election. FDR was still wildly popular but many were upset that he was violating the then unwritten rule that presidents step down after two terms. Tunney and FDR, I recently discovered, went all the way back to late 1918. Roosevelt, in his capacity as assistant secretary of the navy, had made sure that the young marine could stay in Paris and train for the A.E.F. tournament. The two remained friends. He campaigned for FDR in 1932 and, obviously, continued doing so in ensuing elections.

(top image, Library of Congress; lower image, National Archives and Records Administration)

The Strawfoot

~ a New Yorker's American History blog

Category Archives: Writing