January 2011

And while the capitals of Christendom, but a few hundred miles apart, remained as far asunder as if seas had rolled between them, the great capitals Cuzco and Quito [separated by 1,230 miles] were placed by the high-roads of the Incas in immediate correspondence. Intelligence from the numerous provinces was transmitted on the wings of the wind to the Peruvian metropolis, the great locus to which all the lines of communication converged. Not an insurrectionary movement could occur, not an invasion on the remotest frontier, before the tidings were conveyed to the capital and the imperial armies were on their march across the magnificent roads of the country to suppress it. So admirable was the machinery contrived by the American despots for maintaining tranquility throughout their dominions! It may remind us of the similar institutions of ancient Rome, when, under the Caesars, she was mistress of half the world.

William H. Prcscott, The Conquest of Peru

Across the bay from the little settlement of New York there appeared in the summer of 1776, gradually swelling throughout June, July and early August, the most formidable military force Great Britain ever sent abroad. The Narrows and Lower Bay were a forest of masts, men-of-war and transports by the hundreds; ashore on Staten Island were 27 regiments of the line, not to mention grenadiers, dragoons, artillery, light infantry, 8,000 Hessians, two battalions of the Guards and a bluebook of commanders—Lords Cornwallis and Percy, Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Viscount Howe, “Black Dick” to the fleet. Altogether this mighty host amounted to some 32,000 disciplined soldiers. To oppose them, General Washington mustered an untrained and poorly armed force numbering optimistically 19,000.

December 31, 1875, was probably celebrated in the cities of the United States with the usual quota of well-spiked merriment. But some 10,000 citizens of Philadelphia spent the evening in a Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot at Thirteenth and Market Street which had been outfitted with chairs and a platform big enough to hold a choir of 500. There they joined in hymns and prayer, and listened raptly while a barrel-chested evangelist named Dwight Lyman Moody urged them to accept Christ that night, roaring that the way to be saved was “not to delay, but to come and take—t-a-k-e— TAKE .”

The hymns were led by another revivalist of more than 200 pounds, adorned with mutton chop whiskers, Ira D. Sankey, who slammed out the tunes on a portable harmonium. These two had been holding nightly meetings at the depot since the twenty-first of November. They had already attracted over 300,000 visitors and were to pull in a total of 900,000 (counting repeaters) before they closed their mission in the city.

The first English settlers who landed at Jamestown in 1607 came dressed and armed for battle. In the best European tradition of the day, they carried not only firearms but pikes, poleaxes and swords. Across the chest they wore breastplates; to protect their legs they had light metal skirts, and on their heads sat iron pots. To the red men who watched them furtively from the fringing forests off the beach, these heavily appareled pale men must have presented a strange appearance indeed.

They were in fact a traveling exhibit of the art of war as practiced in Europe in the early Seventeenth Century. It was an age only 200 years removed from the Middle Ages, when cavalry and the lance dominated warfare. The longbow and the gun had unhorsed the plumed knight and wrought a revolution in the military arts, but the vestiges of an earlier age were still evident.

History is full of people, big and small, who balanced precariously on the fence of divided loyalty. Wartime military occupation by a foreign power, the fate of New York City during the Revolution, accelerates this agile pastime, and a modest silversmith named Charles Oliver Bruff unwittingly recorded his story for posterity.

Bruff first addressed his New York newspaper advertisements to the pocketbooks of zealous gentlemen patriots, offering to help defend their “Liberties” with Bruff-made swords, properly patriotically embellished. But when Sir William Howe (p. 24) led his occupying troops into the city in 1776, Bruff reversed course with scarcely a dent in his profit margin.

No more patriots, but “gentlemen of the navy and army” were bid to inspect his wares for scabbard and uniform, now royally decorated. A stock of “His Majesty’s likeness” moved briskly.

The month of September will be celebrated throughout the United States as John Marshall Bicentennial Month. A commission was established by the 83rd Congress to encourage commemorative programs throughout the country.

The commission is publishing a commemorative brochure on the life of Marshall and his place in the nation’s history. A nation-wide speakers bureau will provide state and local groups with speakers and discussion leaders.

Chief Justice Marshall was born September 24, 1755, in a log cabin in the wilderness near Germantown, Virginia.

He served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, was a lawyer, a member of the Virginia convention which ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788, and commissioner to France. He also served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives and Secretary of State in the Cabinet of John Adams. He was Chief Justice for 34 years.

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Songs of the North and South , a Decca long-playing recording (DL-8093), furnishes a musical impression of the Civil War period. Frank Luther, Zora Layman, and the Century Quartet perform 35 selections from both sides. The music expresses patriotism, love, anxiety, braveness, and humor. Many of the titles—once the hit songs of their day—have disappeared from familiarity, so that it is particularly valuable to have this collection to assist in re-creating an historic era.

Carl Sandburg recites and sings a program rich in Americana in Poet’s Gold , an RCA-Victor extended-play recording (ERB-30). In the first part of the recording, the poet reads eleven of his own compositions, most of which are on typical American subjects. The second portion consists of “From Coast to Coast in Song.” Here Sandburg draws on his experiences as a collector of folk and traditional songs and performs selections identified with various parts of our country, from “New York, Oh! What a Charming City” to “The Banks of the Sacramento.”

The millions of travelers using the American transportation facilities will be interested in the Life Filmstrip on our National Parks . The strip shows in splendid detail various examples of “America’s Wonderlands.” Featuring the magnificence of such parks as the Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon, the filmstrip also includes views of the Great Smokies and the Everglades. For those who want more than the natural grandeur of the landscape, there are also close-ups of notable examples of animal and plant life. The ordinary camera fan might bear in mind that this strip utilizes the efforts of Life ’s most skilled photographers.

A more historical treatment to a subject of cultural history is provided in the Life Filmstrip survey of Theater: Ritual to Broadway . The 69 black and white frames trace the development of the dramatic arts from Greek and Roman dramas to recent examples on the American stage. Most of the examples, in fact, are of modern American productions of the historic subject.

The needs of a restless people in a vast continent are forcefully revealed in a Life Filmstrip (9 Rockefeller Plaza, N.Y. 20) on the history of American Transportation: Horseback to Jet . Although the subject is a familiar one, the splendid selection of pictures provides a refreshing approach to the subject. With considerable emphasis on social history, the materials should also motivate interest in related aspects of economic history and technological advance.