January 2011

For thousands upon thousands of American children, summer has long begun with the sewing on of nametags and the boarding of the train—now superseded by the bus—to camp. Deep in the mountains that once were home to some 270 summer camps, and still support 70, the magnificent Adirondack Museum has just opened a show called A Paradise for Boys and Girls: Children’s Camps in the Adirondacks . Among the displays are that mess-hall staple, the mural. The group effort shown below, whose flat, sharply delineated swimmers anticipate the work of the painter Alex Katz, brightened up Camp Severance for Girls on Paradox Lake from 1949 until the camp closed in 1972. “A Paradise for Boys and Girls” is on view until October 13 and will reopen next year; a Web-based exhibit on children’s camps accompanies it: www.adkmuseum.org .

In 1991 the Custer Battlefield National Monument, in Montana, was renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to reflect the fact that not one but two groups of Americans fought there in 1876. A dozen years later the process of reconciliation continues. On June 25, the 127th anniversary of the battle, the National Park Service will dedicate a memorial in recognition of the Indians who died on both sides. In keeping with the official theme of “Peace Through Unity,” a walkway will connect the Indian memorial with the obelisk that already commemorates Custer’s 7th Cavalry, and a traditional “spirit gate” will serve, according to the NPS, “to welcome the Cavalry dead and to symbolize the mutual understanding of the infinite that all the dead possess.” The living have yet to achieve that understanding, which is why, at press time, today’s 7th Cavalry was serving in Iraq (with great distinction). Whatever the outcome of that conflict, surely everyone can hope that it will not take 127 years for descendants of the two sides to coexist in peace and jointly mourn their forebears.

The Story of the San Patricios— released under the somewhat baffling title One Man’s Hero —is a compendium of everything that’s wrong with the movie business. The original script, based on the history of the U.S. Army’s Irish brigade in the Mexican War of 1846–48—the St. Patricks, or San Patricios as they came to be called by the Mexicans—sat around for years waiting for John Wayne to make up his mind about whether he would play the unit’s star-crossed leader, John Riley. Apparently he was finally dissuaded by his friends, who convinced him that playing a man convicted of disloyalty to the United States wouldn’t fit his screen image.

“Because of Cubbie’s support for our troops, we no longer serve French fries. We now serve freedom fries.” So proclaimed the sign posted this past February on the window of a small chain restaurant in Beaufort, North Carolina. It was the owner’s way of protesting France’s refusal to support the United States in its desire to make war on Iraq. The restaurant also stopped listing French dressing on its menu. Instead, diners were offered liberty dressing .

Other Cubbies followed suit, and the movement soon spread. In Washington, D.C., the word French was banned from menus in government cafeterias that serve members of the House of Representatives. The announcement posted in the food court of the Longworth Office Building on March 11 read: “Now Serving … In All House Office Buildings FREEDOM FRIES .”

Richard Brookhiser has written biographies of Washington, Hamilton, and the Adamses, but none of them, he says, were as good company as Gouverneur Morris, the subject of his latest book, Gentleman Revolutionary . “Morris, alone among the founding fathers, thought that his private life was as important as his public life. … When public life was not going well, he could go home—not to bide his time before his next opportunity, or to enjoy the retirement on a pedestal of a Cincinnatus, but because he enjoyed farming, reading, eating, fishing, making money, and making love as much as founding a state.” But the infant nation was fortunate that Morris could bring himself to leave the comforts of the bed and the dinner table. Here is Brookhiser speaking of what made a fellow writer so good:

Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google, knows the virtues of computer technology if anyone does, but he has also sat through too many PowerPoint presentations. Eventually, he says, “I imagined what Abe Lincoln might have done if he had used PowerPoint rather than the power of oratory at Gettysburg.” It was easier than he expected. PowerPoint’s AutoContent Wizard software set up a template and even titled four of the slides. “I thought Pd have to spend some time choosing bad fonts and garish color schemes, but the Wizard did it all for me.”

The Gettsburg PowerPoint Presentation “Lightness And Force” Why Do We Say That? Screenings An Indian Memorial at Little Bighorn Sleepaway Editor’s Bookshelf The Quilts of Gee’s Bend

25 Years Ago

May 26, 1978 America’s first legal casino outside Nevada opens in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

50 Years Ago

April 1, 1953 Congress establishes the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. On April 11 Oveta Culp Hobby is sworn in as the department’s first Secretary.

April 24–25, 1953 Wayne Morse of Oregon filibusters in the U.S. Senate for 22 hours and 26 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to block a bill that would return control of offshore oil reserves to the states.

100 Years Ago

May 1, 1903 New Hampshire ends 48 years of statewide prohibition by allowing liquor to be sold by licensed dealers.

May 23, 1903 Wisconsin becomes the first state to institute direct primary elections. By 1948 all states will have done so.

175 Years Ago

On May 11, 1928, radio station WGY, in Schenectady, New York began America’s first regularly scheduled television broadcasts. The programs lasted from 1:30 to 2:00 P.M. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Most of the viewers were on the technical staff at nearby General Electric, which had designed the system and was using the broadcasts to refine its equipment, but a handful of hobbyists who had built their own sets were also able to watch. Those who tuned in had to make constant adjustments, turning two knobs at once to keep the blurry picture discernible on their three-inch-square screens.

Although television was still in the experimental stage, it was making rapid strides. Before the decade was out, British researchers would demonstrate prototypes of color and three-dimensional television, and make transatlantic broadcasts. The technology was already mature enough that, by the end of 1928, 17 more stations around the country began scheduled broadcasts.