January 2011

On a blowy March day during a season of cold rain that felt as if it might very well be eternal, the editors pondered the distant pleasures of summer with the goal of choosing the 10 people who are most responsible for the season as we experience it now. The exercise came down to some tough choices (Fred Waller, inventor of water skis, vs. Wally Byam, father of the Airstream, vs. Ed Headrick, the winner among this trio) but finally reached the following consensus:

1 Thomas Midgley, chemist.

In 1921 he gave a big boost to America’s nascent road culture by inventing leaded gasoline, which allowed cars to accelerate, climb hills, and go faster than 50 miles per hour without knocking and wheezing. Then in 1930 he unveiled the Freon family of chlorofluorocarbons. Not only did they make home refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners practical, but the damage they did to the ozone layer will have us all wearing sunscreen for decades to come.

The Top 10 Makers of the Modern American Summer The buyable past Resources Summer reading Summer reading Summer reading Summer reading Cars, cards, and father Brady’s war, revisited

I thank you for “"Overrated & Underrated” (October 2004). The “overrated” items remind us that there are two sides to every coin and perception does not always reflect reality. More important, though, are the “underrated” entries. They give us a glimpse into events and personalities that are often overlooked in the popular media. They especially provide fodder for full fledged articles that provide a deeper understanding of historically significant topics that are also neglected. In fact, two of the articles in the same issue seem to be along these lines: “America’s Unknown Intelligence Czar” (underrated spy chief) and “Franklin’s Forgotten Triumph” (underrated scientific contribution). I look forward to seeing more articles that bring to light America’s forgotten history and achievements.

I note that The Searchers is placed ahead of The Horse Soldiers . In that spirit, I intend forthwith to submit a list of the greatest Presidents in which Adlai Stevenson outranks John Kennedy.

But seriously, folks, doesn’t much of the fun of “10 best” lists in a given category consist in actually sticking to the category? To conflate Westerns and Civil War films is to miss an interesting historical point. The former have been a favored film genre with thousands of examples; the latter have been few, partly because Hollywood long considered the Civil War “box-office poison.”

Why? Maybe because movies must take a point of view—and are marketed nationally. It reminds me of a visit my family made in 1965 to an amusement park at Stone Mountain, Georgia. The park featured a train ride from which one observed Confederate soldiers enacting a skirmish—but it was with Indians, not Yankees. A century after Appomattox, with the civil rights controversy raging, blue vs. gray was evidently too hot to handle.

How Bruce Chadwick (“Actor Against Actor,” August/September 2004) could include movies whose plots are post-Civil War (The Searchers, The Ox-Bow Incident) and omit the excellent Ride With the Devil from his list of the 10 greatest Civil War movies is a mystery. Ride With the Devil is a superb portrayal of the guerrilla war along the Missouri-Kansas border as seen from the perspective of young Confederate bushwhackers. Their motivations, the historical context, and the course of action are accurately depicted. Moreover, the complexities and nuances of the characters are authentic as to time and place, a quality often lacking in any type of historical work these days. The movie gets right such period details as dress and weaponry, and the guerrilla fighting is as real as it gets in movies—especially the vastating raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in 1863.

In “America’s Unknown Intelligence Czar” (October 2004), Stephen Budiansky offers excellent insight on otherwise little-known Civil War events. It is a shame that the “connect the dots” lessons learned then did not continue to be applied thereafter. But Budiansky does make one error. After saying that “it was Sharpe’s work that directly made possible Hooker’s brilliant march on Lee’s rear at Chancellorsville,” the author goes on to mention “Hooker’s subsequent sudden loss of nerve.”

What actually happened was that Hooker’s command post suffered a direct hit, and the general was knocked unconscious for some time, suffering a concussion. The Army of the time had no provision for replacing a commander injured in this fashion. Thus Hooker, when he eventually regained consciousness, strove to carry on, despite his injury and his having lost precious command-decision time necessary for assessing and reacting to fast-paced events, with the result that Budiansky correctly alludes to but misdiagnoses.

At the close of “The Business of America: An Empire of Wealth” in your October 2004 issue, in reference to FDR’s first press conference and the desperate status of the economy, John Steele Gordon states: “At the end of the President’s remarks, for what is surely the only time in history, the hard-boiled, cynical, professionally skeptical Washington press corps broke into applause. Even they were desperate for the new President to succeed.” While such applause may have been unprecedented, it was not unique. The press corps applauded Harry Truman at his first press conference after taking office, for largely the same reason, and I also believe they did the same after his surprise win in 1948. I seem to recall the press corps did the same after Reagan recovered from his assassination attempt.

Your “Golden Anniversary” article retelling the story of the founding of American Heritage (November/December 2004) mentions James Parton’s approaching Winthrop Rockefeller, his Loomis School classmate, to become an investor. Rockefeller turned him down and proffered a loan instead, saying it was not in the tradition of his family to invest in publishing ventures.

Shortly thereafter Rockefeller moved to Arkansas, where in time he became a two-term governor. At his death, in 1973, he had established a record of good government, generous philanthropy, and dedication to public service that continues to enrich his adopted state in ways beyond number.

25 Years Ago

April 24, 1980 An attempted military rescue of American hostages in Iran is aborted after three out of eight helicopters malfunction. During the withdrawal another helicopter collides with a transport plane, killing eight soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigns within days, expressing his opposition to the rescue plan.

May 18, 1980 In southwestern Washington State, Mount St.
Helens, a volcano that had been dormant for more than a century, explodes with enormous fury. Despite warnings of the imminent eruption, 57 people die in the catastrophe, which levels 120 square miles of trees and causes a multitude of fires, floods, and mudslides.

100 Years Ago

April 17, 1905 In Lochner v. New York , the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a New York State law limiting bakers to a
10-hour workday as a violation of the right to free contract.