The article about Nat Turner’s rebellion in our October, 1973, issue (“Children of Darkness,” by Stephen B. Oates) evoked this interesting comment from William Styron, the eminent author of the novel The Confessions of Nat Turner:
I think thai the article covers the ground quite lucidly and comprehensively, and shows that Professor Gates has read the available source material well. It also demonstrates that while we can unearth a multitude of fascinating “facts” about the insurrection, the man himself and his deeper motivations remain, as with so many obscure historical figures, a matter of conjecture—hence the impulse to write plays about them, or novels, which should never even pretend to absolute “accuracy” even if accuracy were possible. Although I have never heard of Professor Gates, he is a professional historian and I am not; therefore under ordinary circumstances I suppose 1 should be rattled that he should consider my fictional treatment of the rebellion “unacceptable.” But other historians, vastly more eminent than Professor Gates and certainly more sophisticated in their understanding of the differences between fiction and history—I am thinking of C. Vann Woodward, Eugene Genovese and Martin Duberman —have all publicly testified to the historical integrity in my vision of Nat Turner. So I rest easy. In any case, I am pleased that Professor Gates seems to be so happily engaged in the cottage industry I established up at the University of Massachusetts and elsewhere.
SAVING THE FACTORIES
We have just received word of a vigorous historic preservation society that was hitherto unknown to us. The Society for Industrial Archeology, which operates under the aegis of the National Museum of History and Technology in the Smithsonian Institution, is dedicated to the saving and refurbishing of monuments from our technological past. The society casts a wide net and addresses its attentions to such diverse relics as factories, railroad sheds, ferryboats, and canals. While constantly battling the problems of a “bad image” (factories are big and dirty and frequently viewed as symbols of exploitation), the society seems to be making good headway in its various campaigns.
A recent issue of the SIA newsletter reports with happy surprise that the C&O/B&O (combined) Railroad has announced a million-dollar renovation of the magnificent old B&O Museum in Baltimore, which houses in a huge circular 1884 car shop the finest collection of historical locomotives and rolling stock in the country. On the other hand, nobody was able to save the passenger shed of Chattanooga Union Depot, that city’s last pre-Civil War building. The newsletter remarks that by and large, Chattanooga has been sadly indifferent to its historical heritage, industrial and otherwise. The city has no historical museum and the entire old part of town has been leveled. Little effort seems to have been made to explore adaptive uses for Union Depot although the preservation of the Southern’s Terminal Station as The Chattanooga Choo Choo is commendable, despite its branding with a cutsie name.
The society, realizing that few industrial buildings are likely to be saved for their architectural purity alone, stresses adaptive use of surviving structures. For instance, the newsletter reports the old V M Ybor Cigar Factory complex in Tampa, Florida, is in the process of being transformed into a shopping mall with accommodations for apartments and museums above the shops. One wing, however, will be preserved as a cigar museum complete with artisans rolling cigars. Feather fanciers will rejoice in the salvation of a San Francisco feather factory that, with its basement feather-cleaning plant and three stories, will become a hardware store.
Perhaps the most startling adaptive-use proposal concerns our dwindling supply of Liberty Ships. Of the twenty-seven hundred built to carry goods during World War n something over one hundred survive today. About forty of these are in foreign cargo service, and seventy-two are mouldering in the moth-ball fleet and due for scrapping. One, however, may escape this fate. The John W. Brown, which has been serving as a floating school in New York City and is now due for replacement and return to the government, may be preserved as a floating marine museum.
We heartily endorse all of these projects and wish the Society for Industrial Archeology all good fortune in its efforts to preserve a most significant part of our past.
TALKING BOOKS
We are pleased to announce that AMERICAN HERITAGE has been selected by the Library of Congress to be reproduced on “Talking Books” and distributed by regional libraries throughout the United States to those whose handicaps would otherwise prevent them from reading the magazine. A statement to this effect appears on the title page of this issue and will continue to appear in future issues.
THE CALL TO GREATER DUTY
When, in 1917, America threw in her lot with the allied nations fighting against Germany, there was a national draft for the second time in our history. On the whole, Americans were enthusiastic about the crusade, but few can have been so forthright about their reasons as the mountain woman who wrote the letter that appears below. This unusual document was recently discovered among the Woodrow Wilson papers in the Library of Congress by Donald Smythe, an associate professor of history at John Carroll University.
Dear U.S.
He can’t rote.
My husband ast for me to rote for him a recoment that he supports his family—he ant done nothing but drink lemon essence and play the fiddle since I maried him 8 years ago—and I gotta feed seven kids of hisn. Take him away and welcome, for I need the grub and his bed for the kids. May bee you can get him to cary a gun for hes good on squirrels and eating. Dont tell him, but take him. Name Withheld
IN MY MERRY REO
Mr. Charles E. Hulse, an automotive historian who specializes in early Oldsmobiles, has written to call our attention to an error in a picture caption for the article about William C. Durant that appeared in our August, 1973, issue. Mr. Hulse writes: I would disagree with the identification of the photo in the upper right-hand corner on page thirteen. This auto is not an Oldsmobile but a R.E.O., of 1905 or 1906 period. The man seated behind the wheel is not R. E. Olds. In fact, I fail to find Mr. Olds in the photo. I would identify the man behind the wheel as Mr. H. T. Thomas, a R.E.o. official.
OBSERVATIONS OF AN “AMATEUR” HISTORIAN
Don Russell, who has written extensively on the history of the American West, recently published an autobiographical essay entitled “How I Got This Way” in The Western Historical Quarterly. In it he traces his growth as a historian and makes some interesting observations on the study and uses of history. Herewith some excerpts.
It may be deduced … that I resent the tag “amateur,” even though it does mean love of the subject. History is produced by professional writers and by professional teachers. That professors of history should arrogate to themselves the title of professional historian seems inequitable. Some of the most readable history that I have found was written by professors of English. Is a prejudice detectable here? From what I read in the newspapers and in books that should have remained Ph.D. theses, I might suspect a taint. However, one thing I have learned from historical research: Never make hasty (or any) generalizations. And I have never met a history professor I did not like.
… Have I learned anything from all this? Yes, to be skeptical of anything that is said, or written, and, above all, printed in type, to be suspicious of any idea on which historians are generally agreed, especially if it be in accord with the latest fad in scholarship. Repetition in type does not make truth of an original error. On the other hand, the historian, unlike the lawyer, cannot impeach a witness for one erroneous statement. Even if the witness is 90 percent wrong, the remaining 10 percent may have historical significance. Fact erodes as the square of the time elapsed since the action, but reminiscence still has its value, if only in recapturing the attitudes and emotions of an earlier day. Sometimes it gets down to just plain common sense: What is the most reasonable interpretation of conflicting testimony? Rarely will witnesses agree, but a deliberate lie is also uncommon. I am intolerant of those who pass on as legends the lies they are too lazy to investigate; of writers who rush into print ignorant of their subject; of pedants who prove their lack of prejudice against popular minorities by exhibiting their prejudice against the majority; of hasty generalizing that condemns the army, the Indian Bureau, or the Establishment without understanding that all organized groups consist of individuals, some good, some bad, but mostly both; of explaining all failures by blaming a Custer, a Reno, a Lyndon Johnson, or some other historic character without considering that these were human beings, conditioned by their background of experience and personal characteristics to act the way they did and lacking our overwhelming advantage of hindsight; and of those who pervert their findings to fit a thesis. History’s enduring value lies in the interpretation of the present from the past. It loses all its values when we try to interpret the past from the present.
WHEN WE HAD MEAT TO SPARE
David Lowe, a frequent contributor to these pages, has come across an ebullient celebration of America’s littleknown part in bulwarking the British Empire.
In the 1870’s and 1880’s Chicago’s meat-packers finally perfected methods of canning beef and thereby opened up vast new markets abroad. Among their best customers were European governments with armies and navies in tropical countries. England, in particular, was a steady and enthusiastic purchaser of the new product. To supply the 1884 expedition sent to crush a self-proclaimed prophet called the Mahdi, who was leading a revolt against British rule in the Sudan, Her Majesty’s government ordered no less than 2,500,000 pounds of tinned provisions. (The campaign is remembered now chiefly because of the death of General “Chinese” Gordon at Khartoum.) This dependence of beef-loving England upon American stockyards inspired an anonymous Chicago rhymester to celebrate the fact in verse. “P.D.A.” is, of course, Philip Danforth Armour; “W.E.G.” is the British Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone; and the “Mackay-Bennett line” refers to the Commercial Cable Company organized in 1883 by John William Mackay and James Gordon Bennett.
The roast beef of old England
Is famed in song and story
Without it where was English brawn
That won old England glory?
But in these days of England’s gloom,
When war’s dread notes alarm her,
What does she send to save Khartoum?
Corned beef canned by Phil Armour.
When Gladstone first resolved on war,
No lack of ammunition
Delayed the movement up the Nile,
The problem was nutrition.
“Our cannonade,” the Premier mid,
“Must needs be sharp and brief,
Our cannonade, therefore shall be
Phil Armour’s canned corned beef.”
“To P.D.A.; Send p.d. quick,
Care John Hull, London docks,
Two million pounds of canned corned beef,
Ox tongues, pig’s feet and hocks.”
“To W.E.G.: (Send C.O.D.)”
Swift flashed the ready answer,
Wired per Mackay-Bennett line,
“I will, because I can, sir.”
At every mile along the line
Fanatics like El Mahdi
Will soon be skirmishing to find
A soul to fit a body.
The prophet had a host of Khans,
And some were brave and able;
But then, vow see, they couldn’t win—
They lacked the Armour label.
AMERICAN HERITAGE SOCIETY TOURS
Anybody who is even marginally interested in American history has probably had the experience of setting out optimistically to visit a historic site and, after a forty-minute drive, being confronted by a forlorn and obscure huddle of earthworks. There may or may not be a rusted iron plaque explaining the works; if there is, it most likely reads something like “Fort Walworth, built in 1810, was the scene of severe fighting during Pierce’s expedition of 1813. This marker erected and dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Newcomb Chapter, 1912.” Armed with this meager information, the visitor can do little but prowl bleakly through a scattering of masonry and return, highly unsatisfied, to his hotel.
On the other hand, in a city such as Philadelphia the tourist can find himself facing such a baffling variety of historic monuments that he spends a confusing and unrewarding day battling for parking spaces and running through crowded restorations.
Recently the American Heritage Society, in hopes of giving its members better access to the American past, established a series of tours of historic America. The tours were an immediate success and are now beginning their fourth season. Each of the tours is a seven-day excursion through a historically interesting region of the country. The tour groups are kept small—twenty-five people at most—and the society has gone to great pains to ensure the finest special attention, meals, and accommodations available along the way. The groups are met by historians who conduct them through museums, restorations, and battlefields, as well as homes and private collections that are not open to the general public. Here is a list and brief description of the tours we are offering during 1974. They all begin on a Saturday and end where they started on Saturday a week later, with the exception of the Pennsylvania tour, which ends in Wilmington, Delaware.
Virginia May II
We cover the formidable amount of history in this state with a tour that includes the twice-disputed battlefield at Bull Run; Jefferson’s estate, Monticello; the city of Richmond; the scrupulously restored colonial city of Williamsburg; the city of Fredericksburg; and Gunsten Hall Plantation.
California May 18
This journey through the northern part of the state begins in San Francisco and includes the once-notorious Barbary Coast; Muir Woods with its towering redwood trees; the Sonoma wine country; Sutler’s Mill, where gold was discovered in 1848; Carmel-bythe-Sea; and San Simeon, the astonishing pleasure dome of the late William Randolph Hearst.
Pennsylvania June 8
Starting in Philadelphia, the tour covers Independence Square and Fairmount Park; Valley Forge, where Washington held his army together for a miserable winter; the rich Amish country; the magnificently preserved battlefield at Gettysburg; Brandywine River Museum, with its fine collection of Wyeth paintings; and the Winterthur Museum, with the finest collection of American furniture and decorations extant.
Northern New England September 28
From Boston the tour heads north to take in the splendid Federal-style shipowners’ homes in Newburyport and goes on to visit the site of the original Portsmouth settlement at Strawbery Banke; the White Mountains, with their flaming fall foliage; Dartmouth College; the forty-five-acre Shelburne Museum; F’ort Ticonderoga; the battlefield at Bennington; and the Hancock Shaker Village.
New York October 5
After a reception in New York City the tour heads up along the Hudson, stopping at the restored Adam-style mansion Boscobel; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s home at Hyde Park; Olana, artist Frederick Church’s Moorish fantasy of a house; Cooperstown, on Lake Otsego, James Fenimore Cooper’s “Lake Glimmerglass”; Schenectady’s eighteenthcentury Village-Stockade; the fortress and military academy West Point; and Sleepy Hollow, made part of history and legend by Washington Irving.
New England Coast October 12
The tour leaves from Boston and includes stops at the Old North Church; Lexington and Concord, where the Revolution began; Sturbridge Village; the lovely restored colonial town of Old Deerfield; the Connecticut River Valley; Mystic Seaport whaling village; Newport, with its opulent “summer cottages”; New Bedford; and the meticulously reconstructed Plimoth Plantation.
For those who want to trace American history back to its British wellsprings, the society is offering three-week tours of England and Scotland. The tour of Scotland, which starts on June 5, will travel the highlands and lowlands of that kingdom. Included among the sights are castles and ruined abbeys; Loch Lomond; Culloden Moor, where English troops under “Butcher Cumberland” crushed the rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie; the Glen Grant distillery, where the tour will have a chance to taste thirtyyear-old whisky straight from the wood; Inverness; Forres heath, where Macbeth met three witches; a textile mill; the beautiful Isle of Skye; Glasgow; and Edinburgh.
The tour of southern England starts at Winchester on October 3 and goes on to cover a vast amount of the Sceptered Isle. Included in the itinerary are stops at rustic inns and great houses; the ancient Roman city of Bath; the rugged Cornwall coast; the famous sea wall at Lyme Regis; the Royal Yacht Squadron; H.M.S.Victory, the mammoth three decker that Nelson commanded at Cape Trafalgar; Brighton, with its fantastic Royal Pavilion and its Victorian amusement piers; Canterbury; and, of course, London.
We are pleased to announce that some of our society members have returned to take as many as a half dozen tours. If you are interested in accompanying one of the above tours and want further information, please write Mrs. Audre Proctor, Reservations Manager, American Heritage, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020, or telephone (212) 997-4789.
