In December, General Motors announced that it would phase out its Oldsmobile line by 2004. Thus, the oldest name in American automobiles will disappear, after 107 years. This is important, of course, only symbolically. The history of the American economy is littered with the once-great names of products and companies that have fallen victim to the creative destruction of capitalism. RCA, Pan American World Airways, Montgomery Ward, and TWA all have vanished in recent years. Of the 12 industrial companies that made up the first Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896, the year before the first automobile manufactured by the Olds Motor Vehicle Company putt-putted down the road, only General Electric still exists and is on the list today.
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January 2011
Well before dawn on December 7, 2000, hundreds of Navy veterans of three wars assembled at Norfolk Naval Station to board the USS Wisconsin for its final journey. Launched on Pearl Harbor Day in 1943, the nation’s last and largest battleship (nearly 888 feet long) was heading a few miles down the Elizabeth River to become a tourist attraction on Norfolk’s waterfront.
Only three other Iowa -dass battleships survive. The Missouri is a museum in Pearl Harbor, while the Iowa and New Jersey, located in San Francisco and Camden, New Jersey, are slated to become museums. The Iowa and Wisconsin are on ready reserve, so tours will be restricted to the main deck; the rest is off-limits. But nearby in the harbor, the National Maritime Center will provide exhibits on life aboard a battleship.
Book: Eames Design , by John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, Charles Eames, and Ray Eames (Abrams, 1989). A year-by-year compendium. Gallery: Eames Office Archive and Gallery, 2665 Main Street, Suite E, Santa Monica, CA 90405 (310-396-5991). Web site:
After World War I, things were supposed to go back to normal, but trying to remember “normal” proved harder than anyone thought. In the aftermath of World War II, Americans didn’t make that mistake. Things then were supposed to be different , and it was basic furniture that spoke of a fresh start to all those millions of Americans who were making their own fresh starts by moving into new homes.
In 1945 Ray Eames (rhymes with dreams ) and her husband, Charles, started introducing chairs that were clean and unencumbered, with a style so modern that it still smacks the eye today. The Eameses’ chairs were also strangely organic, despite being manufactured with high-tech processes and mass production.
I’ve been photographing roadside America and collecting its stories for nearly 25 years, so it was hard to restrict myself to only 10 favorite attractions. I could easily have focused on Florida alone, citing Cypress Gardens, Silver Springs, Coral Castle, the Weeki Wachee Mermaid Show, and the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. But in the interest of geographical diversity, I offer the following:
The small drugstore Ted Hustead bought in 1931 has grown into a 76,000-square-foot institution, now run by Ted’s grandsons. In summer, 20,000 visitors a day are drawn by carved statues of historical figures, an animated Cowboy Orchestra, the chapel, and even perhaps by the chance to fill a prescription at the original drugstore, the only pharmacy within 50 miles.
Texas pride has burned white-hot since Davy Crockett’s time, but until now there has never been one central place to contain all that passion. On April 21 the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, named for a late lieutenant governor who pushed for the project, opens its doors in Austin. The three-story pink granite structure holds relics of the state displayed in a high-tech setting that includes a clutch of theaters. Beyond the 3-D IMAX installation we’ve come to expect in such places, there is the Revolution Theater, built to resemble the Alamo the day after the battle. In the Texas Spirit Theater, where Sam Houston narrates a film called The Star of Destiny , the seats shake when a gusher shoots from an oil derrick and when a Saturn V lifts off, carrying astronauts to the moon. Texas State History Museum: 512-936-8746. Web site: www.TheStoryofTexas.com .