The America Comes Alive!™ Blog

When the Saints and the Colts take the field this Sunday for Super Bowl XLIV, their uniforms and protective gear differ markedly from the gear worn by those who played the game 90 years ago.

A family photograph of the 1917 University of Colorado football team, for which my grandfather played quarterback, hangs in our front hall and shows a very different player of what was clearly a different type of game. The photograph is one of those marvelous panoramic ones that stretch three feet wide, and it depicts two striking elements about the team: The first is the size of the men. My grandfather was 6'2" and at least half the players in this photograph are taller than he is. I always thought previous generations were somewhat shorter in stature than we are...not true with those farm boys. I might add that these players were tall and rangy, not like the muscle-bound players of today.

The second element that catches everyone's attention is their protective gear--or lack of it. The players are wearing very small shoulder pads, more akin to ladies' fashion shoulder pads of the 1980s. The men's thighs are covered with some type of padding, and they may be wearing thin shin guards. For the sake of the picture, each player's small leather helmet is placed on the ground in front of him. Face masks did not exist at that time. None of the gear seems capable of having protected against almost any kind of injury.

Their footwear looks like a well-crafted leather work boot. The boots may have had cleats that are not visible in the photo.

This photo--and the upcoming Super Sunday--sent me on a mission to find out more about early football. I learned that it was a rough game with inadequate protective gear.

Today our military has access to many ways to observe the enemy. From unmanned drones that fly reconnaissance missions to satellite imagery and infrared sensors to detect enemy presence, modern technology permits battles to be plotted by GPS and tracked via computer in ways that earlier military units could not even imagine.

On a recent visit to Gettysburg Battlefield, the licensed battlefield guide reminded our group of the Civil War novel, Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. My interest was caught immediately by the opening chapter, "The Spy," which focuses on a lone rider, a former actor and non-military man, who scouted the movement of Union troops for Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee's second in command.

The thought of this "hired gun" being an important part of the Confederate war cabinet sent me on a mission to find out more about how the military observed the enemy and communicated their movements during the Civil War.

"Innovation" and the "United States Postal Service" are not words that we would normally find in the same sentence, but next time you go to the airport, you might say a silent thanks to the postal service for their work in the early 20th century. They--before the military or the department of commerce--saw the potential in air travel and pushed for progress.

Shortly after Wilbur and Orville Wright's first successful flight in 1903, the brothers approached the "war department" for additional support; in return, the Wrights promised to share what they were learning. In 1908, the U.S. owned only one plane that was not in very good condition, and they did not warm to the Wrights' suggestion.

If you love stories, cemeteries are almost irresistible - every headstone has a tale to tell. Whether it's a date, a name, a poem, or a piece of statuary that catches your eye, it is hard to avoid wondering, "Who was this?" "Where did they live?" "Why did the family choose these words to memorialize them?" or: "Why did she die so young?"

My most recent cemetery trip was to visit the former inhabitants of my hundred-and-twenty-year-old house. I never knew them but they lived here a very long time, and I knew that Henry Brevoort Towle (1864-1926) was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. One beautiful Sunday this past October, I journeyed to Woodlawn and found Henry's grave. Of course, with Henry I found several other people who had lived in my house. My "family" expanded with this discovery.

Then last week I received an e-mail about "green burials" from Elizabeth Fournier, a mortician and funeral director in Oregon, and her information gave me pause. While I love walking through a cemetery's park-like lanes, seeing the statuary, and reading the headstones, I never gave much thought to what lies beneath. Nor had I considered the idea that as more Americans die, community planners might have better uses for our land than more cemeteries.

When it comes to community planning, American cities and towns are in a difficult bind. You don't need to sit in traffic on the freeways of Los Angeles or note what a big box store does to a neighborhood to know that our preparation for the future is far from perfect.

In many cases, our towns and cities were originally planned for people who traveled by horse or carriage. In more "modern" communities, the streets were designed for many fewer cars or perhaps electrified streetcars. Our bridges are old; our highways need to be re-built; and we are a country in great need of more walkable towns or better infrastructure for public transportation.

 

President Barack Obama's first year in office is almost at an end, and as evidenced by the fact that both the House and the Senate have passed versions of a health care reform bill, we have proof that our governmental system is at work. While there is distress all around that neither version is "perfect," and the final bill has yet to be written and voted on, this is a good time to recall that big progress starts with small steps.

If you go back to examine government involvement in some type of health care for the poor, the elderly, or the injured, we would need to first consider the workmen's compensation laws that were enacted starting in the beginning of the 20th century.

 

Even in the 1920s, the economy had quite an effect on the holidays, starting with changes for the president and his family. In 1928 Herbert Hoover and his wife had done their holiday shopping in Rio de Janeiro and celebrated Christmas Day on a battleship traveling back from their good-will tour of Latin America. It was reported that in 1929 they were to celebrate very differently. Here are some of the aspects of the Hoovers' 1929 celebration:

The White House Christmas dinner featured two turkeys that were killed by one of the President's secretaries, Lawrence Richey. Richey also gave the White House staff half of his other killings, three pheasants and two mallard ducks. "Mr. Richey is by no means a frail man, but when he entered the White House with all those birds hung over his shoulders, he had some difficulty walking." (The New York Times, 12-24-29)

 

Just as stores in 2009 took special precautions after a Wal-Mart worker was trampled by a frenzied crowd on Black Friday in 2008, stores in earlier times also learned from the past.

While some of the measures are no different from safety measures today, some are unique to the time period. A 1929 article in The New York Times (12-6-29) quoted some of the suggestions made by the fire commissioner to prevent fire dangers:

• Post guards at entrances to stop persons from carrying lighted cigars and cigarettes into the building.
• Instruct all floor-walkers to stop all smoking by smokers.
• Do not place paper shades over electric lights.
• Organize and maintain a fire brigade.

Robbery then and now was a problem, but in 1939 a store executive at Woolworth five-and-ten-cent store located in Times Square went above and beyond the call of duty to foil a hold-up.

In preparation for a panel discussion being held at Greenwich Library this month as part of the celebration of Lincoln's bicentennial, I began wondering how the holidays were viewed in Lincoln's time--particularly early in the Civil War.

Though Lincoln certainly had his hands full, the press of the day did seem to give the Lincoln family some privacy when it came to their holiday celebration. A check of the New York Times of the era showed scant mention of Lincoln and Christmas, though there were certainly some stories that give us a flavor of the time.

In 1861, eight months after the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter and the Civil War began in earnest, the news reports of December 25, 1861 were subdued. There is mention of the fact that there is little news because of Christmas, and that "extensive preparations have been made in all the camps for the celebration of Christmas...The President and Cabinet intend making a trip down the Potomac on board the new steam sloop-of-war Pensacola." (NYT 12-25-1861). There is no mention of Lincoln's family or specific activities at the White House.

Most of us love going to the movies. Whether we are there to be entertained, enlightened, or to be exposed to other worlds, we love sitting in the darkened theater to "be told a new story."

One hundred years ago people had the same desire to see, to think about, to be entertained by stories, but of course, there were no films, not even silent movies. There were, however, cycloramas. These were panoramic paintings, usually of historical events, that were designed to be viewed by an audience that could move about on a central platform to examine the enormous painting that encircled them. During each viewing, a guide would tell the story of what was happening in the painting, often with musical accompaniment. The overall effect was to make audiences feel they were in the midst of the action.