In the next few pages we take our readers on what we regard as a magical journey into the past. It begins at the right with one of the two frames of a stereopticon view, reproduced in its exact original size. The scene is a railway station at Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1867, and it is scarcely prepossessing. Even the planting of two girls in the foreground (an old ploy of our esteemed contemporary the National Geographic ) does little for the photograph. But that is the heart of the matter. Life lurks within the picture, waiting to be released. Turn the page and see what happens when one part of it is enlarged. Then open the double fold-out and look at a detail of that enlargement spread over four of our pages. Suddenly there is no end to what can be seen; you are right there, in a suspended moment, almost jostling against the everyday life of over a century ago.
Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
SEARCH 75 YEARS OF ESSAYS!
January 2011
Sir: Recently, in the course of some research for a book, I arrived at a conclusion which I would like to expose to your readers. It requires a brief explanation: Sometime in 1844 or 1845, on a trip up the Hudson to photograph Martin Van Buren and Washington Irving for his “Gallery of Illustrious Americans,” Mathew Brady paid a call on Major John Livingston, veteran of the Revolutionary War and a member of the distinguished Livingston family (his brother Robert was an author of the Declaration of Independence; Chancellor of New York State; the Minister to France who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase; and patron of Robert Fulton, who named his steamboat Clermont for the Livingston estate). Brady’s daguerreotype of Major Livingston was made when the old gentleman was in his ninety-first year (he was born in 1755, the year of Braddock’s defeat, and lived until 1851).
Sir: “Old Ironsides” lived up to her name during the hurricane that hit New England in 1938. [“A Memorandum to Oliver Wendell Holmes,” February, 1970].
As the daughter of a naval officer living in the Boston Navy Yard, I remember my father being called out during the height of the storm. Old Ironsides’ stern lines had parted. Her stern swung over and dented the then new, all steel destroyer U.S.S. Phelps , tied up at an adjacent dock. As I recall, there was not a scratch on the old Constitution! …
She is priceless and must be preserved.
Sir: Having received a ballot for the American Heritage Society Awards to preservation projects, we wish to commend your organization on the remarkable foresight and concern shown for our vanishing environment and historical heritage.
We certainly hope that the leadership shown by publications such as yours in providing not only space but also money for citizen groups struggling to reverse the current destructive trends will generate a real awakening in this country.
The Thorn Creek Preservation Association is a group involved in an attempt to preserve the last sizable undeveloped forest in a three-hundred-square-mile area south of Chicago in eastern Will County, Illinois. It is directly in the path of urban growth, and part is included in the plans of a new community. A new university is to be built adjacent to the site, Chicago’s third airport can possibly go near here, and an east-west freeway is proposed to run through the forest.
Sir: The February feature “A Wrecker’s Dozen” included a photo of the Franklin School of Washington, D.C., slated for demolition. It is an interesting coincidence that this school was the alma mater of Vivian Burnett, “The Real Little Lord Fauntleroy,” who was the subject of my article in the same issue. Vivian and his brother, Lionel, both attended Franklin School. They were together in the eighth grade at the school with Miss Ella Morgan as their teacher when “Fauntleroy’s” brother was stricken with his fatal illness.
Sir: The December article “A Flier’s Journal,” by General Kenney, was of special interest to me as the former Commanding Officer of the 2nd Photo Section assigned to the gist Observation Squadron (I succeeded the Lieutenant Suydam who is mentioned).
Perhaps you might be interested to know the story behind the gist insignia accompanying the article. This design was taken from the drawing used on the masthead of the editorial page of the old Life magazine and was adopted as their official insignia. This design was painted on each side of the squadron’s planes, and for every German plane officially confirmed as being brought down by the pilot-observer crew, a black German cross was painted on the shield of their plane. Four or five crosses were not uncommon. …
Sir:… For years now newspapers and television documentaries have reported in horrifying detail that central Appalachia—and eastern Kentucky in particular—is being shredded by strip mining. [See AMERICAN HERITAGE , December, 1969.] The truth of this reporting has been verified by both state and federal studies. Multitudes of worried and compassionate people have visited the region and deplored the heartless assaults against the land and the men, women, and children who call it their home. Scores of politicians (including Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy) have come to see the devastation and poverty, and editorial writers have used barrels of ink denouncing the exploitation. But despite all the outrage and hand-wringing, the strip mining goes on. The trees continue to fall, the streams continue to die as valley after valley is gutted, and the impoverished and demoralized people continue to flee to Michigan and Illinois. Exposés and public outrage count for nothing against the money and prestige of the corporate destroyers. They are, apparently, too big and too rich to check.