Redrawing America

20 Sunday Nov 2011

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Many, even most, Americans today find it difficult to believe there was a time when millions fought and died for Union.  A reason for this lack of understanding is that many Americans simply take for granted that their country is a fixed entity, permanent and indissoluble.  That it could be otherwise is, literally, inconceivable.  Things will not be changing anytime soon, but nowhere is it written that ours will be a nation of fifty states in perpetuity.  Forever is a long time.  Some social scientists compiled data from the Where’s George? project to understand better how Americans currently live their lives in and across the state borders.

Homeward bound

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Memory

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Hey everybody, it is Friday afternoon and I am in the Albany Amtrak station waiting for the 3:05 back to New York.  I had a fun and productive two days here at the Researching New York conference.  My panel was this morning.  I spoke about the New York Harbor defenses during the Civil War; my co-panelist Bruce Dearstyne gave an informative presentation on the state of Civil War memory and historiography within New York State.  As you can imagine this set off a lively discussion during the Q&A period. I could not agree more with his premise that the Empire State needs more and better Civil War scholarship at the state and local levels.  For myriad reasons, this is not happening to the extent one would like.  New York sent more men and materiel to the cause than any state in the union.  It would be a tragedy if the state’s role in the Civil War were lost in the narrative.  I guess the sesquicentennial is our opportunity to not let that happen.  To be continued.

New toys

15 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Media and Web 2.0

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I got a knock on the door this evening and on the other side was the UPS man with two packages.  In one was our new Fire; the other contained the His and Hers Kindle Touches we’ve been looking forward to.  I’ve spent a good part of the evening configuring them, which is not too arduous a task but a bit of a challenge for yours truly given that this is new to me.  To make the time go, I downloaded the new Pink Martini album, 1969, to the tablet.  I think I have bought my last cd.  Remember buying compact discs in the early 1990s and thinking they were state of the art?  Today the ones still remaining on my shelves look old and tired.  I am speaking at the Researching New York conference in a few days and I think I needed to not think about my presentation for a night.  I am looking forward to taking the ereader on the train to Albany.

Happy Reading.

O Captain! My Captain!

14 Monday Nov 2011

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Whitman and Doyle

I have always been intrigued by Walt Whitman and feel an especial affinity for him because the house he once lived in, although no longer standing, was diagonally across the street from the building where I work every day.  Beyond this personal anecdote, Whitman is intriguing because of the warmth and humanity he exuded. Through his prose he rendered the 620,000 men killed in the war more human.  He chronicled what he saw, heard, and smelled in the hospital wards unflinchingly, yet somehow never succumbed to cynicism or despair.  The real war, he famously told us, would never get into the books.  And yet he never lost his confidence in democracy and the innate wisdom of the American people.  These were no small things when so much was falling apart between 1861-1865.

Whitman’s companion of many decades was Peter Doyle.  Doyle was a native Irishman, which is somewhat surprising given Whitman’s slight tendencies toward nativism.  His family moved to Virginia when he was eight and it was there that the two met years later. Distance and sexual orientation would keep the two from settling together, but they managed a surprisingly open relationship given the time.  Doyle was also the muse for many of Whitman’s most famous works.

(Image by M.P. Rice, courtesy Ohio Wesleyan)

“I need to wear that uniform”

11 Friday Nov 2011

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Ranger Betty Soskin works at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California.  She is ninety and began her NPS service five years ago.  Ranger Soskin is also a blogger.  The Rosie the Riveter park seems like a fascinating place with an interesting story to tell–the World War II period being much messier than we sometimes believe–and Soskin is uniquely positioned to tell it.  She was born in Detroit in 1921, lived through the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 while living in New Orleans, and moved with her family to California not long thereafter.  She was not a factory worker during the war, but did work in a Jim Crow era union hall during the conflict.

In the mid 1990s military historian John Keegan wrote that the true history of the Second World War has not yet been told.  Thankfully it now is at places like the Rosie/Homefront Historical Park, by people like Ranger Betty Soskin.

Looking to the weekend

10 Thursday Nov 2011

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Hey everybody, I am sorry about the lack of posts recently but it has been a crazy week.  The Hayfoot texted today lamenting that we have hardly seen each other in the past few weeks.  Alas, all too correct.  Her classes are keeping her busy and her new job at the U.N. is challenging, though rewarding.  I spent the bulk of this evening working on my final draft for next week’s Researching New York conference.  Things are taking shape.  This weekend I will put the final touches on the photographs and then the hard work will be done.  We’re going to try to slow down a little this Saturday and Sunday.

We had a treat on campus today when Pete Hamill was in attendance to participate in a panel discussion.  I have seen Hamill speak several times and what always impresses me is his ability to tailor a talk for the audience and the occasion.  We are fortunate to live in New York and where we get to see and hear people like him on a regular basis.  Living in the Big Apple is something I never take for granted.

Enjoy your weekend.

The Natural State

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Museums

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Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

I have been to the Louvre, the Musee D’Orsay, and the Hermitage and ranking with them on my short list of favorite institutions is the Newark Museum, which lies just a half hour away from New York City via mass transit.  If it were in Manhattan it would be a world renowned institution on par with the Met; stuck across the Hudson as it is, the museum remains one of the hidden gems of American cultural institutions.  Why does Newark have such a vital museum?  It is the old maxim that art follows money.  Many once prosperous Gilded Age cities–Newark, Hartford, Rochester, and Toledo just to name a few–house some of the greatest collections ever assembled.  Walk from Newark Penn Station to the museum and you will pass buildings that, if you look closely enough, still show the grandeur that Newark once was. (Thankfully Newark is reviving.)  Most of the wealth generated in these Rust Belt cities is long gone, but the toys remain.  Today the money has moved to places like Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of Art.

My father lived in Arkansas and I believe the museum may be a tipping point for the Natural State.  Arkansas is evolving into a Sun Belt destination, probably at the point where Florida was thirty and Arizona twenty years ago.  The Clinton Library in Little Rock has been bringing people to the state for years now. The Crystal Bridges museum is the project of Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.  Wal-Mart has a considerable (to put it mildly) presence in Bentonville and when one travels there one sees the changes taking place.  Bentonville is also the home of Pea Ridge National Military Park.  I am eager to get back and check out this new museum on our next visit to the region.

(Photo/Aker Imaging)

Fall back

05 Saturday Nov 2011

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Hey everybody, I am at the Apple store in SOHO.  I woke up bright and early for a 9:00 am personal project session.  It was cold when I left the house.  I am putting together the visuals for my upcoming talk at the Researching New York conference in Albany, which is now less than two weeks away.  I am looking forward to meeting Tony Horowitz, who is giving the keynote.  There is also going to be a tour of the New York State Museum.  Yesterday I had a meeting in the city and afterward I walked around the corner to Penn Station to buy my train ticket.  I have never been to Albany before.

It has been interesting because I bought this new Mac Air in August and then a used iPad 1 in September.  My research interests and technology sessions are going parallel to each other; if all goes as intended they will merge down the line.  Last month I purchased Keynote for both and am going to use the two together during my presentation.  Because one never knows with technology, I am also going to build in redundancy and save it to a flash drive along with a cd.  It is tedious, but I find I enjoy it.

The Hayfoot started a contractual position at the United Nations this week and has been happily but hectically busy.  She is actually there right now catching up on a few things.  With the semester in full swing one takes it a day at a time. It won’t be all work though.  Tomorrow is the Hackensack Toy Soldier Show in New Jersey.  It will be another early morning when I get on the subway to the Port Authority to catch the bus.  This is the big show where everybody blows their allowance.  I have a feeling there will be some troops making the trip back with me.  I will take some photos.

Enjoy your weekend.  And remember to move your clocks back.