January 2011

The crowd roared. Cowbells clanged, and horns blared. It was October 31, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had taken the podium before a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Angered by Republicans’ recent attacks on what he considered his finest work—Social Security—and unrestrained by his advisers, who were absent that evening, Roosevelt was about to deliver one of his most fiery and unforgettable speeches, the last of his reelection campaign.

The din of the ovation lasted nearly fifteen minutes before the President requested silence with raised arms and then began to speak. His were “the old enemies of peace,” he said: “business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism and war profiteering.” The audience interrupted him to voice its deafening approval. “Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.” Again the crowd roared. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” Roosevelt said. “They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

Henry Luce, co-founder of Time Inc., wanted to start a new weekly magazine—a news picture magazine. “He’s got it in his blood bad,” a colleague said in early 1936. Photojournalism had developed rapidly in recent decades, partly due to the advent of miniature cameras such as the Leica, which allowed quality photographs to be snapped quickly under the worst conditions. But “the cream of the world’s pictures,” Luce said, had yet to be made accessible within one publication. Neither had anyone tried to “edit pictures into a coherent story,” he argued, “to make an effective mosaic out of fragmentary documents which pictures, past and present, are.” On November 19, after months of frantic labor at Time Inc., some two hundred thousand copies of the magazine went on sale. It was called Life , and most copies were snatched from newsstands before the day was out.

Do you know the somber presence in the picture above? You should. …

He made a decision that turned out to have a staggering cost in blood, and when he died, a fellow jurist said, “Shame will forever roll its burning fires over his memory; and such a consummation is justly his due.” But if you can’t quite place him, don’t worry: he will appear next month—along with a gallimaufry of statesmen and soldiers and quotations to remember—in “101 Things Every College Graduate Should Know about American History.” This enlightening exercise in quintessence has been compiled by John A. Garraty, professor of American history at Columbia, who knows what you need to know to be a useful citizen of the Republic.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” …

Among recently published books that fall within our bailiwick, the editors of American Heritage have selected some outstanding titles.

An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace Connecticut Railroads: An Illustrated History Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American Chain Restaurants The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune A Field Guide to America’s History

by Clare Brandt; Doubleday & Co. ; 297 pages; $19.95.

by William Broyles, Jr.; Knopf; 284 pages; $17.95.

In 1969 William Broyles was a young Marine lieutenant fighting the Vietcong. He lived through it, came home, and in time got to be editor-in-chief of Newsweek . The war was far behind him. But he found it wouldn’t let him rest; he had left something in the bitter hills south of Da Nang, and fifteen years later he went back to find it. For a month he traveled through Vietnam—three thousand miles by car and jeep, ferry and sampan. On the way he spoke with hundreds of people: Communist party officials, soldiers who had fought him, mountain tribesmen, men and women who kept the supplies flowing over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, somebody who had survived My Lai, somebody who had survived the far less publicized Vietcong massacres.

by Gregg M. Turner and Melancthon W. Jacobus, edited and with a foreword by Oliver Jensen; The Connecticut Historical Society; 317 pages; hardcover, $39.95/paperback, $25.95.

As everybody knows, American railroads are not in terrific shape just now, and the rise, flourishing, and disintegration of train travel in Connecticut is a paradigm for the same phenomenon across the country. Under the able guiding hand of Oliver Jensen, a founder and longtime editor of American Heritage, the authors tell the story of railroads in their native state with good humor and verve. The narrative is enriched by scores of fine photographs of the ravishing equipment that gives steam power an eternal aesthetic advantage over longhaul trucking.

by Philip Langdon; Knopf; 224 pages; hardcover, $30.00/paperback,
$19.95.

Fred Harvey was the pioneer. His chain of restaurants along Western rail lines was established to feed passengers in the early, dinerless days. He led the way by providing decent food, served by neat, wholesome Harvey Girls. The increasing industrialization of the country created more and more demand for such fast, inexpensive food away from home, and architects devised buildings to both tempt and hurry the customers: white (as in White Castle) to imply cleanliness, backless seats to keep diners from eating too slowly. With cars came carhops so the customer didn’t have to be seated at all. For more leisurely stops, the Howard Johnson chain featured a New England-church architectural motif to appeal to homey values. The final stage is the totally standardized food of the McDonald’s chain, vastly successful and much emulated. In this lively, generously illustrated book, Philip Langdon shows us the buildings as well as describing how and why their styles evolved.

by Richard Kluger; Knopf; 816 pages; $24.95.