January 2011

Yanqui imperialismo, as any good Latin-American orator will tell you, is a pretty insidious affair. With the pictures on these pages, therefore, we are happy to report on one of its conquests so subtle and secret that neither the conquered nor, for that matter, the C.I.A. is aware of it. The unconscious victims in this case are the lively womenfolk of the Cuna Indians, who live on the San Bias Islands off the coast of Panama, a tribe so fiercely independent that until recent times no outsider could safely spend the night on their islands without permission. Among them marriage to an outsider often led to ostracism and, some say, ritual killing in times past. Yet they have taken the culture of the norteamericanos to their bosom and in a way that would astonish the advertising men of Madison Avenue, who must only dream of similar conquests at home.

The Marble Cottages of Xanadu-by-the-Sea

At its northern end Manhattan Island shrinks to a spur of ground three quarters of a mile wide, bounded by the Harlem River on one side and the Hudson on the other. Mount Washington rises more than two hundred feet above the water on the Hudson River side, and it was here in July of 1776 that the Americans built a crude pentagonal earthwork that they dignified with the name Fort Washington. The tragic and ill-considered attempt to hold this position would result in the single greatest blow to American arms during the entire Revolution.

General George Washington:

The preservation of the passage of the North River was an object of so much consequence, that I thought no pains or expense too great for that purpose, and therefore … I determined … to risk something to defend the post on the east side, called Mount Washington. … Afterwards, reflecting upon the smallness of the garrison, and the difficulty of their holding it, if General Howe should fall down upon it with his whole force, I wrote to General Greene, who had the command on the Jersey shore, directing him to govern himself by circumstances, and to retain or evacuate the post as he should think best. …

General Greene, struck with the importance of the post, and the discouragement which our evacuation of posts must necessarily have given, reinforced Colonel Magaw with detachments from several regiments of the Flying Camp, but chiefly of Pennsylvania, so as to make up the number about two thousand.

Captain Alexander Graydon, Continental Army:

It may seem incredible now, but there really was a time when radio stations featured live programming almost all the time, albeit that was nearly a half century ago. The term “disc jockey” had not yet entered the lexicon, let alone the studios. Instead, stations in those days had “announcers,” and, true to the title, their duty was simply to announce the next number, then stand aside.

Such a personage greeted ten jittery young musicians who entered the broadcasting studio of Station WCAH in downtown Columbus, Ohio, one spring evening in the late 1920’s. He seemed genial, sophisticated, and suave, and the suggestion of a mustache decorated his upper lip, while a bright boutonnière sprouted from the lapel of his double-breasted suit. He may also have served as the program director, possibly even the station manager. At least no one else was in the studio that night, save for an engineer, seated in a glassed-in booth, who was surrounded by an awesome array of dials, switches, and flashing lights.

Three decades ago a battle was fought for St. Lô , Normandy, France, in the second of the great world wars of this century. To have been young at St. Lô and now to be old is a matter of personal amazement, for the time lapse seems instantaneous. In rank, the battle is in that heavily populated tier of major bloodlettings that have determined the course of campaigns, as opposed to the few decisive Gettysburgs and Waterloos on which history itself has turned. In keeping with this stature, St. Lô     seems destined for the footnotes of history, unlikely to be remembered beyond the memory span of the First United States Army and Seventh German Army veterans who fed its flames so prodigally, of those who anxiously followed their fortunes, and of the Normans whose lives and homes were in its path. Further in perspective: St.

Neither the Mrs. Astor nor any other of the formidable string of dowagers queening it over the Newport scene in the last decades of the nineteenth century could equal the imperiousness of James Gordon Bennett, an early devotee of the Rhode Island resort. His highhanded manner and the intensity of his tantrums when his will was not obeyed were unique. Professionally he was the publisher of the New York Herald , then the foremost American newspaper, and later of the Paris Herald ; and he was the man who casually sent H. M. Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone in darkest Africa. He was also as prominent in Newport society, in his own hectic fashion, as Mrs. Astor; he was the winner of the first transoceanic yacht race; and he was the most spectacular profligate of the Gilded Age—spending an estimated thirty to forty million dollars on various lordly whims. One of those whims was the Newport Casino, which he conceived in a fit of pique over being kicked out of the established male sanctuary—the Reading Room.

For most Americans who pass that way today, Bridgeport, Connecticut, is a place to get through as soon as possible. Belching smokestacks, bumpy pavement, grimy houses, dingy stores, an apparently bombed-out railroad station—except for a few acres of “urban renewal” that’s the traveller’s impression; and one is puzzled by the motto still cherished by Bridgeport’s denizens: The Park City. But the prideful epithet must once have been deserved, bespeaking a pleasant suburban community on Long Island Sound, with lush green trees, elegant homes, delightful vistas. In recent years some palpable evidence of Bridgeport’s golden past has been gathered through the rediscovery of the paintings of J. F. Huge, who lived and worked there for nearly a half century. The still life opposite, for instance, painted by Huge in 1856, was animated by a pencil-sketch background depicting Bridgeport’s lively, smogless harbor, its lawned, arboreous shore, and some of its prosperously dressed citizens.

As this issue goes to the printer, the world of cartography is still recovering from Yale University’s regretful announcement that its famous Vinland Map is an apparent fraud. We shared in the announcement of the map’s discovery in our October, 1965, issue.