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Demolishing the Sound Barrier!

The Contributions of Yeager & Whitcomb

APPENDICITIS IN A KING A VESTIGAL INVESTIGATION

"Into the Valley of Death" The Charge of the Light Brigade

Harold Lloyd: Iconic Silent Film Comedian

The Revenge of the Swiss Defeating Charles the Bold

Historic Headaches

Charivaris, Shivarees and Skimmingtons

HISTORY

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Genius of the Western Brush Artist Charles M. Russell

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Appendicitis in a King — Page 8

CONTENTS

McSorley's Old Ale House — Page 24

Historic Headaches — Page 31

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 Opening Notes ........................................................... 6 Rickshaws; The Dancing Plague

On the Cover: Page 15

Appendicitis in a King ............................................... 8 Julius Bonello, MD, and Carley Demchuk, BA investigate the storied life of British surgeon Frederick Treves

Genius of the Western Brush .................................. 15 Brian D'Ambrosio examines the life of renowned western painter Charles M. Russell

"Into the Valley of Death" ...................................... 18 David A. Norris looks at how bungled orders and incompetent commanders made a legend out of the Light Brigade

McSorley's Old Ale House: Where Time Stands Still .......................................... 24 Geoff Cobb looks at a New York landmark that has been around since the mid-19th century

4

History Magazine February/March 2018

Cover Credit: Photo courtesy of the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. For more information, visit http://cmrussell.org.

The Revenge of the Swiss — Page 34

Harold Lloyd — Page 40

Demolishing the Sound Barrier! — Page 48

Historic Headaches: Charivaris, Shivarees, and Skimmingtons ........... 31 Melody Amsel-Arieli looks at public demonstrations down through the ages

The Revenge of the Swiss ...................................... 34 Erich B. Anderson examines the 1476 Battle of Murten and the fall of the would-be Burgundian Empire

Harold Lloyd: Silent Film Comedian ..................... 40 Brian D'Ambrosio puts the lens on the extraordinary career of the early 20th century prolific film star

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Henry Bosse: Mississippi River Cartographer and Photographer ......................... 44 Constance R. Cherba looks at the life of the man who is said to have created the first photographic map of a major river

Demolishing the Sound Barrier! ............................ 48 Welles Brandriff highlights the contributions of Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager and Richard Whitcomb: two individuals who changed the face of aviation forever

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Call 1-888-326-2476 or visit www.history-magazine.com February/March 2018 History Magazine

5

TRIVIA

RICKSHAWS

T

he rickshaw is seen as an East Asian icon of a bygone era since it appears in many old photographs and in period dramas of that region. Its use also spread to India and parts of Africa. The name of these simple wooden vehicles originates from the Japanese word jinrikisha, which literally means “human-powered vehicle”. This mode of transport in its original form still sparsely exists, but more common are its modern successors.

Several theories of the origins of the rickshaw dating from the mid19th century include Japanese and even a few American inventors. One story is that an American missionary in Yokohama built one to transport his invalid wife in 1869, the same time that rickshaws were said to have been invented by the Japanese after the ban on wheeled vehicles was lifted in 1868. The Japanese government issued permits in 1870 to their three nationals believed to be the inventors, and the rickshaw replaced the human-carried sedan chair in that country by 1872 in addition to being regarded as more economical than horse-drawn transport.

Japan began exporting rickshaws to China in 1874 for use by wealthy Chinese and foreigners. Singapore first imported them in 1880, and these soon replaced horse-drawn gharries (carriages). Rickshaws made their appearance in India that same year, and Korea and South

Bengal man in a Chinese rickshaw in Singapore, circa 1890. Public domain

Africa began importing them by the end of the 19th century. Their use peaked in numbers during the early decades of the 20th century, even when the automobile became more prevalent. In Singapore, for example, the approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 doubled in number by 1930.

The popularity of rickshaws quickly declined as the availability of motorized transportation

THE DANCING PLAGUE

S

ince the 1920s, dancing marathons have become popular competitions done typically for charity or fleeting fame and glory. However, they don’t hold a candle to the dancing mania that swept through Europe throughout the late middle ages and early modern period.

This bizarre phenomenon featured people engaging in uncontrollable dancing fits that lasted for hours, days and even weeks. The several well-documented cases attested that the dancing displays started spontaneously, sometimes with just one person, with dozens more joining in over time. Many of the people who stopped dancing did so only after collapsing from exhaustion which, in certain cases, even proved fatal.

One notable outbreak of this “plague” occurred in July 1518 in Strasbourg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. Supposedly, the event was started by a single woman known only as Frau Troffea who began dancing uncontrollably. By the end of the week, she had been joined by dozens of other people. That number ballooned to over 400 by August.

Local officials were at a loss as to the solution to the problem. Physicians believed “hot blood” to be the cause of the hysteria and recommended that the afflicted should simply dance the disease away. To that end, authorities built a wooden stage, opened guildhalls and even hired musicians to play music. All of this likely exacerbated the phenomenon to the point where it became the largest case of dancing mania in history. Dozens of people died from exhaustion or heart attacks.

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History Magazine February/March 2018

17th century engraving based on original work of artist and firsthand witness Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Public Domain

The Strasbourg event was unusual in the sense that contemporary officials accepted a physical cause for the phenomenon rather than a supernatural one. Typically, cases of dancing mania were

prevailed, along with concerns of safety and exploitation of the rickshaw pullers. Although their use offered many unskilled workers employment, the pullers continued to experience poverty with long hours of hard work often in sweltering heat and harsh conditions, including risks of injury or death by overexertion or accidents. Even with low pay, the puller had to buy the rickshaw in the first place or pay a broker to use one. Addressing the safety reasons, the British colonial government in Singapore gradually phased out rickshaws starting in the late 1920s until its abolishment in 1947. Mao Zedong disallowed them in China during the 1950s as he saw them as too capitalistic to exist in a Communist society. In Japan, rickshaws were common up through World War blamed on curses or possessions.

Common remedies of the day included exorcisms and prayers to St. Vitus or St. John the Baptist.

There is no modern consensus on an explanation for the dancing plague. A popular theory during the mid 20th century placed the blame on ergot poisoning. Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye, barley and wheat, all common food sources that were often poorly stored during medieval times. Prolonged ingestion leads to ergotism, formerly known as St. Anthony’s Fire. Symptoms could include uncontrollable spasms, hysteria and mania.

This theory has fallen out of favor in recent times because ergotism also presents itself with gangrenous symptoms that would make the affliction obvious to observers. Other suggested physical conditions included encephalitis and typhus but these, like ergot poisoning, fail to account for all symptoms.

II due to high gasoline prices, but their presence quickly declined thereafter.

While the use of rickshaws virtually disappeared, their successors took their place in the societies where they had been prevalent a century earlier. The trishaw – the primary successor – initially became a pedalled three-wheeled replacement of the rickshaw around the latter’s demise, even being initially powered by former rickshaw pullers. These and the motorized versions, commonly known as auto rickshaws, are used widely today in many developing countries in the tropics and subtropics, providing pedalled/motorized transportation, delivery services, and a novelty for tourists. Hm — Marc Servos

Other scholars, such as historian John Waller, consider the dancing plague to be one of the earliest forms of mass hysteria.

The stress of a life rife with famine and disease combined with a strong belief in superstition led to a group psychosis manifested through dancing.

There is also a belief that many of the participants simply faked it for various reasons. Some dancers were reported to get naked, make obscene gestures, behave like animals and even have sex. Blaming the mania could have been their way of overcoming the suppressive religious environment of the day. In other cases, dancers were described as foreigners who wore strange clothing and had garlands in their hair. These people could have used the dancing plague as a smokescreen for forbidden religious rituals that would, otherwise, lead to persecution. Hm — Radu Alexander

Volume 19 Number 3

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February/March 2018 History Magazine

7

MEDICINE

Sir Frederick Treves, 1884. Public domain, and in the USA – created before 1923.

APPENDICITIS IN A KING

A Vestigial Investigation

JULIUS BONELLO, MD, AND CARLEY DEMCHUK, BA INVESTIGATE THE STORIED LIFE OF BRITISH SURGEON FREDERICK TREVES Except where noted, photos courtesy of authors

A

verting his eyes so that his fellow surgeons could not see his tears, Treves gently pulled the white sheet over the young woman’s face. Should I have operated earlier? I did what I thought was right, he thought to himself. The year was 1900. Treves, an English authority on typhlitis, or what the Americans were calling “appendicitis”, had performed hundreds of

8

History Magazine February/March 2018

operations. He had suspected this in the child, but was waiting for the quiescent phase. It never appeared. She lost her life to overwhelming infection and inflammation. Weeping and heartbroken, Treves slowly walked out of his daughter’s room.

Frederick Treves was born 15 February 1853. He was the third of five children of William Treves, a cabinetmaker, and his wife Jane (née Knight), in Dorchester, England. William Barnes, an English writer, poet, musician, artist, and philologist, deeply influenced his elementary education. Fluent in Greek, Latin, and several other modern European languages, Barnes had a dramatic influence on Treves and instilled in him a lifelong multidisciplinary approach to education and the quest for truth in all disciplines.

In 1867, after the sudden death of his father, Treves’ family moved to south London where he finished his secondary schooling at Merchant Taylor’s School, a private school for boys. In 1871, Treves matriculated into University College London. The University at that time specialized in science and medicine. Founded in the early 1800s, the University would provide an education for those excluded from Oxford and Cambridge because of their social status. After a few months, Treves, like his two elder brothers, realized that medicine was his vocation. However, Treves desired to be a surgeon. Needing a program to further his studies, Treves chose the London Hospital because of its large number of surgical cases and its distinguished faculty.

Treves could not have picked a more propitious time to become a surgeon. According to several historians, 1870 through the end of

LEFT:

Plaque outside Treves birthplace. RIGHT: The Royal London Hospital where Treves studied medicine.

the 20th century was the Golden Age of Surgery. Although medicine was advancing quickly, surgical techniques were advancing by leaps and bounds. The use of anesthesia for the control of pain, Lister’s discovery of antisepsis reducing the risk of infection, and the growth of the science of anatomy all contributed to this rapid progress.

Advancing quickly through his medical studies, the brilliant Treves published his first scientific paper during his second year.

After graduating, he passed his membership examination for the Royal College of Surgeons on his first try, astounding both his fellow students and faculty. In 1876, Treves began to court Anne Elizabeth Mason. They married in 1877 and, within three years, were blessed with two daughters. Needing a job, Treves bought a share in a general practice near his hometown. However, petty jealousies arising with his partners and Treves passing his fellowship exam for the Royal College of Surgeons convinced him and his wife to pack their bags and leave for London.

Returning to his old haunts, Treves took a job as a lowly surgical registrar in the London Hospital. Arduously working, Treves was promoted to assistant

surgeon and a year later, was promoted to lecturer in practical anatomy. In 1881, at the age of 28, he was elected Professor of Pathology. He published his first textbook Surgical Applied Anatomy in 1883, the last edition appearing in 1962. His ever-growing fame brought both students and physicians to the London hospital and enhanced the reputation of its medical school. In 1884, Treves became a full-time surgeon and soon commanded for the next 20 years the highest fees of any surgeon in London.

Over the next decade, Treves performed over 1,000 surgeries and taught hundreds of medical students. He also spent time in the lab perfecting operative techniques and inventing surgical instruments. In 1889, he presented a talk on the surgical treatment of typhlitis. In the discussion, he recommended surgical intervention during the quiescent phase of typhlitis. He stated, “the use of the knife will very rarely be called for before the fifth day.” He differed from the American surgeons who were urging earlier surgical intervention. A decade later, this procedure would prove to be both a personal tragedy and a professional victory.

When the Boer War started in 1899, Treves volunteered for the

medical Corps and served gallantly in South Africa for one year.

Upon returning to England, he proudly defended the medical Corps despite the 65% mortality secondary to disease. This public display endeared Treves to the royal family. He was already a personal surgeon to the Duke of York. In 1900, because of his fame and this personal connection, he was appointed surgeon to Queen Victoria. Fortunately, for the Queen’s son, the Prince of Wales, the timing was impeccable.

After ruling for 63 years, Queen Victoria died 2 January 1901. Her successor and eldest son, 62-yearold Albert, would assume the

Sculpture, Edouard VII, by Francis Derwent Wood.

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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MEDICINE

10

throne under the regnal name Edward VII. After a year of mourning, his coronation was scheduled for 26 June 1902. With the upcoming coronation, London was the place to be. The city was teaming with an impressive array of visitors from across the continent. Guests, dignitaries, and royal heads of state arrived daily to witness the first coronation of the new century. Expecting Edward to be eagerly anticipating his coronation, attendants were mystified by the king’s mood and actions. Usually jovial, outgoing, and quite gregarious, the prince had become rather edgy and irascible. Even the press following the prince’s every move knew that something was amiss.

After holding a long court on 13 June, Edward started experiencing abdominal pain and retired early after a light supper. The next day after no improvement, he consulted his private physician, Sir Francis Laking. Laking advised rest, but Edward insisted on attending a military review, 40 miles outside of London. That night, the soon-to-be king’s abdomen was distended and he complained of severe pain. At midnight, Laking was summoned again and ordered a milk diet and bed rest.

The next morning, Edward’s physician was summoned for the third time in 48 hours. The prince had experienced an elevated temperature and chills during the night. Thomas Barlow was summoned for a second opinion. On their examination, Edward was found to have right lower abdominal tenderness. The press, hungering for a diagnosis, was advised that the prince had an attack of lumbago. He was treated with pain medication.

On Monday, 16 June, the prince felt better and traveled by carriage to Windsor Castle. However, he continued to complain of constant

abdominal pain. Laking was worried. Prince Edward’s illness was beyond a physician’s reach. If the coronation had to be postponed, he needed a definitive diagnosis.

On 18 June, Laking summoned the surgeon Frederick Treves. To alleviate the potential for alarm and to ensure secrecy, Laking resorted to a cloak and dagger plan. The names and titles of all medical personnel, physicians, nurses, and surgeons attending the Prince were abandoned, and assigned numbers. Treves was number six. When reached by telegram or mail, Treves was given the pseudonym Mr. Turner.

Upon arrival at the castle, Treves examined the prince and found an ill-defined tender mass in the right abdomen. In addition to an elevated temperature, Edward was diagnosed with appendicitis (Treves had finally accepted the nomenclature of his American colleagues). Treves’ reaction was measured. He was an advocate of the wait-and-see treatment for appendicitis. However, his daughter’s death two years before must have weighed heavily on his mind. Luckily, Edward’s condition improved.

Over the next 48 hours, Edward’s temperature returned to normal and his appetite improved; perhaps the prince would get well on his own. On 23 June, Edward returned to London and, in preparation for his coronation, hosted a small banquet for his royal coronation guests. Always a gourmand, the menu consisted of eight courses accompanied by wine, brandy, and cigars. While everyone enjoyed the meal and illustrious company, with no warning or obvious cause, Edward relapsed that evening.

Laking and Barlow, after examining Edward, consulted Treves.

All three concluded that the prince needed an operation. Upon

History Magazine February/March 2018

hearing this and hesitant to postpone his coronation, Edward refused surgery. Visibly shaken, but still trying to be kingly, he insisted, “I must go to the Abbey.”

Exasperated, Treves issued the direst warning a modern-day surgeon ever gave to a king: “Then Sire, you will go as a corpse.”

Edward relented. Prince Edward was told that a room in Buckingham palace was being readied for the operation. The coronation would have to be postponed.

Treves immediately telegrammed the hospital and asked for an anesthetist and a nurse to assist him in the operation. Again, absolute secrecy was to be maintained. In the morning, the soonto-be-king’s physicians gathered in his bedchamber and examined him again. A large abscess, which was easily palpated, had formed in Edward’s abdomen. At 10 AM, an official bulletin posted on the Buckingham palace gates stated that the King was to undergo an operation. Edward was suffering from perityphlitis.

On the morning of 24 June, Treves, disguised as Mr. Turner, arrived early with the surgical team to prepare the makeshift operating theater in Buckingham Palace. At 12:20 PM , Edward and his wife Alexandra walked into the operating room. Treves was worried. Not only was he operating on the future King of England and the future ruler of 25 percent of the population of the world at that time, Edward’s comorbidities presented quite a challenge. Elderly, morbidly obese (waist of 48 inches), and a history of excessive smoking causing chronic lung disease, all added to the life and death drama. Complications began immediately with the induction of anesthesia. Edward experienced episodes of hypoxia, causing him to wave his arms around and his face to become

almost black from cyanosis.

Alexandra, terrified at this site, had to be lead out of the room.

At 12:30, Treves rolled his sleeves up and asked the nurse for the scalpel. Legend has it that Treves hand shook so badly that the skin incision had to be made by an assistant. Treves rallied and deepened the incision in the right lower quadrant. Because of Edward’s obesity, his assistant had to elevate his pannus for Treves to make this incision. Having cut 41/2 inches deep through Edward’s adipose tissue, Treves finally was able to find the abdominal abscess and evacuate it. For continuing drainage, he placed two large rubber tubes covered with iodine soaked gauze in the abscess cavity.

Contrary to contemporary reports, Treves did not remove the appendix.

Postoperatively, Edward’s temperature returned to normal.

Treves spent seven sleepless days and nights performing daily dressing changes and watching over his patient. By mid-July, Edward was well enough to embark on a three-week cruise accompanied by his wife and his surgeon. His recovery complete, he was crowned King Edward VII on 9 August 1902.

“Gentlemen you may smoke!”

With this infamous and improvident quote, the Edwardian era had begun. Sadly, his reign lasted just under eight years. The comorbidities that worried Treves continued unabated throughout his reign. Morbid obesity, smoking a pack of cigarettes and 12 cigars a day all took its toll. In reading the events around his death, it appears that Edward, the “Uncle of Europe”, died of cor pulmonale (right heart failure secondary to COPD) on 6 May 1910, surrounded by his family, friends, and even his mistress.

Because of his meritorious

service to the King, Treves was named a Baronet in 1902, earning him the title “Sir”. After conferring with the royal family, Treves retired from active surgical practice in 1903 to devote his remaining years to travel and writing.

After almost 20 years of traveling and publishing extensively on his travels, Treves retired to the south of France and later to the Lake Geneva area of Switzerland. However, he was not finished. Urged on by his friends, Treves wrote a story about one of his more memorable patients.

In 1884, Treves visited a sideshow of a street circus. There he saw a deformed, rather

The skeleton of Robert Merrick, a.k.a. the Elephant Man.

hideous-appearing man being displayed. His name was Robert Merrick. Seeing a chance of medical showmanship, Treves gave the man his card and invited him to be displayed in front of the London pathological society.

Merrick, showing little interest, returned to the circus and disappeared. He joined another circus and traveled throughout the continent. Growing tired of his freakish circus life, he ran away.

He found his way back to London where he found himself homeless, cold, and alone. Fortunately, in his pocket, he found Treves’s card and contacted him. Treves was able to find a room for Merrick in the attic of the London hospital.

There, Merrick became a celebrity, entertaining guests, including the Queen herself. Three years later, he died of asphyxiation.

With such an enormous head, Merrick had to sleep with his head propped up. Treves believed Merrick died because he wanted to sleep lying flat like everyone else.

Treves worked furiously on his book, The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, and handed it to the publisher in November 1923. Sadly and ironically, one month later on 7 December, Treves was admitted to the hospital in Lausanne with two days of abdominal pain. He died later that day. Medical historians believe Treves died from peritonitis secondary to perforated appendicitis.

Since the evolution of humans, the appendix – a vestigial organ – has been a formidable opponent to the health of humankind.

Throughout recorded history, the cause of right lower abdominal pain has changed with the advancement of anatomy. Sadly, the anatomy book that medical students used for almost 1,300 years was based on the anatomy of the Barbary ape. The Barbary ape

February/March 2018 History Magazine

11

MEDICINE

does not have an appendix. Eventually in 1453, based on human dissection, Vesalius drew the appendix. Over the next 400 years, its nom de guerre varied and caused confusion in the medical literature. Finally, in 1886, an American pathologist published a paper showing the appendix as the definitive cause of typhlitis.

He named the disease appendicitis. Today, acute appendicitis is the most common reason for emergency abdominal surgery, and appendectomy is the most commonly performed emergency abdominal operation conducted in North America.

JULIUS BONELLO, Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria, Illinois and surgeon at Peoria Surgical Group, has a passion for the history of medicine.

CARLEY DEMCHUK is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria campus.

She hopes to match into an internal medicine residency program.

Senior author at Treves gravesite, Dorchester Cemetery, Dorchester, West Dorset District, Dorset, England.

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GENIUS OF THE WESTERN BRUSH

BRIAN D’AMBROSIO EXAMINES THE LIFE OF RENOWNED WESTERN PAINTER CHARLES M. RUSSELL Photos courtesy of the C.M. Russell Museum

O

n 24 October 1926, Charles M. Russell, 61, famous painter of western scenes, known the nation over as the “cowboy artist” whose paintings had sold in his own country and Europe, died suddenly around midnight at his home in Great Falls, Montana. Death followed a sudden heart attack. His wife and a local physician were with him when he died.

Mr. Russell complained of being in pain and in 20 minutes was dead. His brother and sister in St. Louis, S. Ben Russell and Mrs. Portis, were notified. In addition to the relatives in St. Louis, Russell left behind his widow and son, Jack. He had recently returned from the Mayo hospital in Rochester where he underwent an operation for a goiter and had not entirely regained his strength. Two years earlier, Russell suffered a severe attack of sciatica rheumatism which confined him to his bed for a number of months, and left him in a weakened physical condition. Thought to be on the road to recovery, he continued his work; on the day of his death, he spent the afternoon visiting with friends and expressed himself as “feeling better than for some time.”

For the final two years, owing to his physical condition, he had been unable to ride a horse and this fact caused him much concern in his conversations with friends, as he was a horseback rider for more than 40 years over northern Montana. Russell had his home and studio in Great Falls and here, did all of his famous paintings for a quarter of a century. The studio was an old log cabin of the early day type.

In it, Russell was at home amid typical old-time west surroundings. His paintings were famous world-wide; a number of them bringing large sums, one sold to Bill Hart, another to Douglas Fairbanks, one to the Prince of Wales and others were reported as $10,000 transfers. Russell held

February/March 2018 History Magazine

AMERICAN ARTISTS

Charles M. Russell depicted the landscapes, the spirit, and the environments of the West during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1864, Russell is widely considered to be the foremost artist of the American West.

He died in Great Falls, Montana in 1926.

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AMERICAN ARTISTS

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exhibitions of his paintings in New York several times, in London and in Canada.

Although his fame spread farther and farther, finding itself in the galleries of the old World and in the metropoles of the new, Charlie Russell chose to remain in the realms of the days that were. The traditions of the west, the stirring life of the puncher, were fixed as his inspiration.

A vagary of fate thrust upon Charles M. Russell a career which led him to a high place among the artists of the generation.

When in the winter of 1886-87, he painted on a sheet of writing paper “The Last of the Five Thousand” telling as no written story could have impressed, of the ravages of a winter which decimated vast herds of cattle on the hills and prairies of Montana, “Kid Russell” won the sobriquet of the “Cowboy artist”, which followed him to the Dore Gallery in London, New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago.

He came to Montana in 1880 from St. Louis and, for 34 years, had been a resident of Great Falls. He was married in Cascade on 9 September 1896 to Mrs. Nancy Cooper, who survived him. At the time of his death, he was an honorary life member of the Great Falls lodge of Elks, 214. His “I Rode Him”, an initiation painting with Russell and a goat as the central figures, was famous in every lodge in the United States. For the local lodge, Russell also painted one of his largest pictures, the subject being a herd of elk heading back to the mountains from the valley in the early spring time, with a giant elk in the foreground resting lazily in the sun. The painting was one of his most magnificent elk paintings and had been insured in the 1920s for $10,000 by the lodge. (There was a time when he

The Charles M. Russell house and studio in Great Falls, Montana, are listed together as a National Historic Landmark. They reflect the life and work of Charlie Russell, cowboy, artist, author, raconteur, and Western philosopher.

gladly sold a picture for $5, but the time came when oils of his brought $10,000 each.)

Charles M. Russell was born in St. Louis 19 March 1864, the son of Charles Silas Russell and Mary Elizabeth Mead, the latter a native of St. Louis of Irish descent. His mother died there in 1894. His father was engaged in the brick and tile business, owning one of the larger institutions of that city. He came to Great Falls to visit his son shortly after the latter’s marriage and his wedding present to his son was the studio and home on Fourth Avenue North.

As a boy, Russell went to school in St. Louis and attended a military school in Burlington, NJ for a brief time before heading west alone, arriving in Montana with a mere fifty cents in his pocket.

He came to the Judith Basin and

History Magazine February/March 2018

met Jake Hoover, one of the old-time hunters and trappers of the old west, who took the boy on. Russell hunted and trapped with Hoover for two years in the snowy and little Belt Mountains, going north for a time across the Canadian line and mingling with the trappers and Indians.

Shortly after, he was employed as a “horse wrangler” by a man named Horace Brewster for the N. Bar N. outfit. A “horse wrangler” in the early time of cattle running on the open range was the night herder, or “wide awake rider”, of the horse herd belonging to the roundup. For 11 years, Russell was a horse wrangler and cowpuncher in the Judith Basin section, when that section was wild, making his headquarters with the Jesse Phelps outfit, property of the late Helena cattle king, Jesse Phelps.

From the basin, Russell came with the cattle herds of Milk River and, in 1892, went to Great Falls and lived there for the remainder of his life. One of the best-known artists on western subjects, Russell’s paintings were in demand all over the world.

Many of them found homes in European galleries, others in the homes of America’s wealthiest men.

In the 1920s, the state of Montana took possession of what is considered to be one of his finest, depicting a meeting of the Lewis and Clark parties with the Shoshone Indians as the explorers approached the Rocky Mountains at Armstead, Montana. As he matured, he began to portray the Indian and range life, and his pictures were noted for detail. His intimate acquaintance

with Montana in its days of the gold camps, the wide ranges, cattle drives from the Rockies to the markets of the lower Missouri, days before the Indians were held to the reservations — these made him an authority on western scenery.

Russell was a typical westerner in appearance. He did not take kindly to attempts to hold him up as a celebrity, but preferred a circle of friends among his old acquaintances. He did, however, accept, in 1925, an honorary degree from the University of Montana.

Russell, famous painter of buffalo, horses, Indians and the old west, carried his love for the horse and old things to the last.

When his funeral procession went to the grave Wednesday afternoon (27 October 1926), the

hearse containing his body was drawn by two black horses and the four miles to Highland cemetery would be traveled by horse instead of by motor. This was in accordance with a request made by the artist before he underwent an operation at Rochester. “I want to be carried out to ground by horses,” he told his wife.

BRIAN D’AMBROSIO lives, works in, and writes from Missoula, Montana. He contributes regularly to multiple publications on a vast variety of subjects. His most recent contribution to History Magazine was a piece on American painter Grant Wood, which appeared in the June/July 2017 issue.

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www.history-magazine.com February/March 2018 History Magazine

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CRIMEAN WAR

This bird’s-eye view shows the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, charging the main Russian batteries (left) while coming under crossfire from enemy artillery, cavalry, and infantry. Library of Congress

“INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH”

DAVID A. NORRIS LOOKS AT HOW BUNGLED ORDERS AND INCOMPETENT COMMANDERS MADE A LEGEND OUT OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

T

he 1853-1856 Crimean War was the largest war involving the European powers between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

The age-old enemies France and Britain were for once on the same side; helping the Muslim-ruled Ottoman Empire was Britain’s long-time ally, Russia. Now, over a century and a half later, probably the most-remembered event of the war was a disastrous and unnecessary bungle. The mutual hatred of three officers who couldn’t stand to be in the same room, or the same war, with each other led to the legendary, but futile, Charge of the Light Brigade.

In moving against Russia, the French and British selected the Black Sea port of Sebastopol as their target. Russia had ambitions centered to seize land from Turkey, thereby gaining an

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outlet from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. French and British planners wanted to prevent Russian expansion from threatening their own position in Europe.

History Magazine February/March 2018

French and British troops pushed toward Sebastopol, and their allied winning at the Battle of the Alma on 30 September 1854. But, after crossing the Alma River, the allied commanders hesitated, and the Russians used the valuable time granted to them to construct spectacular defensive fortifications around Sebastopol.

Since their resounding 1815 victory at Waterloo, the British Army had done little to prepare for a modern war. They emphasized fancy uniforms and headgear more than updating tactics or weaponry. Most officers

purchased their commissions, rather than earning them through merit and experience.

Political and social influence rather than military ability made generals. “Professional” officers with middle-class backgrounds were considered inferiors, and the hard lessons they’d learned while campaigning in India or elsewhere were brushed aside.

As an island-based sea power, Britain built up its navy more than the army. For the Crimea, they committed about 26,000 men, about one fourth of their army. The British cavalry, divided into light and heavy units, numbered only about 1,200 men.

Heavy cavalry carried more weapons and were mounted on larger horses. Light cavalry could move faster and were valuable for scouting or quick raids and attacks. In the Crimea, five horse regiments made up the British cavalry’s Light Brigade: the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, the 17th Lancers, and the 8th and 11th Hussars. British cavalry regiments were much smaller than American regiments of the period, and disease and combat whittled down their ranks even more. Combined, these five regiments had fewer than 700 officers and men ready for duty.

General FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, Baron Raglan commanded the British contingent.

Lord Raglan, a good-natured and conscientious soldier, lost an arm at Waterloo back in 1815.

Hampered by corruption and inefficiency, Raglan was swamped with administrative details, and struggled against corruption and inefficiency. Many of his quarrelsome and untalented commanders served him poorly.

George Charles Bingham, the 3rd Earl of Lucan, commanded the British cavalry. Lucan, a

Officers of the 8th Hussars, one of the British units that took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Roger Fenton, whose images make up the world’s first collection of military photography, took this picture and many others during the Crimean War. Library of Congress

hard-working officer, kept his regiments looking sharp. But, his frequent floggings of enlisted men and constant reprimands of his officers cost him their esteem.

Lord Lucan’s subordinate, in command of the Light Brigade of Cavalry, was James Brudenell,

the 7th Earl of Cardigan. Immensely rich, Cardigan lived aboard his yacht in the harbor of Balaclava. He was also one of the most ill-tempered officers in the army. England’s papers carried stories about his scandals and embarrassments such as the “Black Bottle Affair”. In May

Photograph of painting by Richard Caton Woodville, Jr., 1897. Wielding sabers and lances, British cavalrymen of the Light Brigade briefly overran a line of Russian artillery during the 1854 Battle of Balaclava. Ordered into action by mistake, their doomed charge became the most famous incident of the Crimean War. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain in the US because original work created before 1923

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CRIMEAN WAR

1840, Brudenell ordered the arrest of Capt. John Reynolds, an officer of his regiment, the 11th Hussars. Reynolds’ “crime”? He served some wine out of the bottle it came in, rather than pouring it from a decanter.

Lucan and Cardigan were brothers-in-law, but despised each other and squabbled constantly. Raglan kept them apart as much as possible and mediated their disputes, but succeeded only in making both generals angry at him.

About eight miles from the Allied siege lines around Sebastopol, the small harbor of Balaclava was the main British supply base. In October 1854, the Russians planned to capture Balaclava and crush the invaders.

Raglan believed using spies was dishonorable, and he dismissed French and Turkish warnings of Russian movements.

At dawn on 25 October 1854, 25,000 Russian foot soldiers

backed by cavalry and nearly eighty pieces of artillery swept down from the Fedioukine Hills south onto the Balaclava Plain.

Most of the British were still around Sebastopol. Counting the French and Turkish contingents, there were only about 4,500 troops on hand to defend Balaclava.

The Balaclava Plain was split into the North Valley and the South Valley by a ridge called the Causeway Heights. Early in the battle, the Russians overran some Turkish redoubts (small fortified outworks) along the Causeway Heights.

Next, the Russians pushed across the South Valley toward the route to Balaclava. Maj. Gen. Sir Colin Campbell and the 93rd Highlanders shattered one massive Russian cavalry charge, and Britain’s Heavy Brigade of cavalry repelled another. During the heavy fighting, Cardigan’s Light Brigade stood idle, awaiting

orders, even as the retreating Russians rode across their front.

Above the battlefield, Lord Raglan viewed the action from the Sapouné Heights, west of the causeway and the plain. Raglan awaited more infantry from the Sebastopol lines, but they were late. Sending his available foot soldiers toward the captured redoubts, Raglan ordered Lord Lucan to retake the Causeway Heights with the cavalry, if possible and with infantry support.

However, Lucan remained in place as he saw no British infantry on hand.

The Russians began to haul away the guns they’d captured from the Causeway Heights redoubts. Raglan placed tremendous importance on retaking those guns. He had a staff officer, General Richard Airey, draft an order to Lucan.

Scribbled in pencil, the order was difficult to read and unclear in its meaning. It read: “Lord

A 19th century map shows the route of the Light Brigade, through the North Valley between the Fedioukine Hills (top) and the Causeway Heights. Library of Congress

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History Magazine February/March 2018

Col. Lord George Paget commanded the 4th Light Dragoons during the Charge of the Light Brigade. He rallied many of the surviving soldiers, who cut their way through Russian cavalry to make their way back to safety after their disastrous charge. Library of Congress

Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front – follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.” Because he was an expert rider who could quickly manage the steep descent from the heights, Captain Edward Nolan was entrusted to deliver the written message. Nolan was also given a verbal message: “Tell Lord Lucan the cavalry is to attack immediately”.

Although a fine rider, Nolan was nonetheless a bad choice to deliver the message. An expert on cavalry, Nolan had seen action and also had written two books on cavalry tactics. However, one of the few things Lucan and Cardigan agreed on was a mutual hatred of Nolan. The captain in turn despised them; Nolan dubbed the cautious Lord Lucan as “Lord Look-on”, and

sneered at Cardigan as “the Noble Yachtsman”.

The Light Brigade and Cardigan were at the western end of the North Valley, about half a mile in front of and well below Raglan.

When Nolan delivered Raglan’s orders, Lucan was puzzled. The problem was that while Raglan from above plainly saw the Russians moving the guns, Cardigan and the Light Brigade could not see them from their position on the floor of the North Valley. The only guns in sight were some Russian batteries arrayed about one mile away at the eastern end of the valley.

Lucan saw that attacking these guns would be fatal for cavalry, and he asked for more explanation. Nolan had no idea that the cavalry commander was absolutely ignorant of the removal of the captured guns from the Turkish redoubts just over the hill. The aide impatiently snapped, “There, my Lord, is

your enemy; there are your guns!”, while making a wild, but vague sweeping gesture with his arm.

Angered by Nolan’s attitude, Lucan spoke to him no more.

Lucan tersely relayed Raglan’s order. When Cardigan tried to point out the foolhardiness of such an attack, Lucan simply replied that it was a direct order from Raglan and it must be obeyed. Rather than engage in any sort of discussion, Lucan ordered Cardigan to form the 673 men of the Light Brigade into two lines, and charge down the valley at the distant guns.

Up on the Sapouné Heights, Raglan was astounded to see the Light Brigade moving away from the redoubts and directly into the Russian artillery. He sent two aides to head off the impending disaster.

Rather than return to safety, Nolan fell in with the Light Brigade. But, he was shocked when he realized that Lucan and Cardigan had misunderstood Raglan’s orders and that the brigade was headed in the wrong direction, into the concentrated fire of the Russian artillery. The aide spurred his horse and galloped away from the line to cross the front of the formation.

Nolan desperately shouted for them to halt, while waving his sword. The doomed horsemen never heard his warnings. In those moments, the Russian guns opened fire. As the roaring cannons drowned out his last words, one of the first shells exploded and drove an iron fragment through Nolan’s heart.

As he was struck dead, Nolan gave a horrible and unearthly cry. Private James Wightman wrote decades later that, “the weird shriek and the awful face” of the dead captain “haunt me now to this day”. Although stone

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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CRIMEAN WAR

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dead, Nolan’s body remained upright in the saddle. One lifeless hand gripped the reins, and although his saber slipped from his grasp, the hand of his sword arm was still held aloft. In panic, Nolan’s horse bolted through the British line and galloped back to the rear for a considerable distance until the captain’s corpse at last dropped from the saddle.

Cardigan had no idea that Nolan was dead, nor what the “impertinent devil” meant by riding like a madman in front of the brigade. Passing the redoubts, the horsemen closed in on the Russian batteries at the far end of the North Valley.

Tactless and arrogant though he was, Cardigan lacked nothing for courage. The brigade commander rode in the front as Russian shot slashed into the dwindling ranks of the cavalry.

He aligned the men with paradeground precision, and kept them to a steady pace. When a captain tried to gallop ahead to speed up the charge, Cardigan blocked him by drawing his sword and holding it in front of the officer.

Nearing the Russian artillery, the Light Brigade came under fire from more guns and muskets on the high ground on both sides of the valley. It was impossible to keep neat formation now. Cannonballs tore gaps in the line. Riders maneuvered their mounts over dead and dying horses and men. Officers and sergeants kept up a constant barrage of orders to “close up” and keep together.

Terrified and riderless horses tried to keep pace, throwing confusion into the ranks. Col. Lord George Paget, commander of the 4th Light Dragoons, was beset with as many as eight or nine wounded and frightened horses closing around him, spraying his uniform with their blood.

Lord Raglan was worn down by his responsibilities as commander of the inefficient and poorly prepared British force in the Crimean War. He died in 1855, the year after the Charge of the Light Brigade. Wikimedia Commons

Russian gunners were so surprised at the unexpected charge of saber-wielding riders against their artillery that for some minutes, they hadn’t even opened fire. Now, what was left of the Light Brigade was only a

few horse-lengths away from the muzzles of the guns. One by one, the Russians fired their guns into the onrushing horsemen. There was no time to reload, and the British surged through the line of empty cannons.

Cardigan seemed to vanish into the smoke as he urged his horse between two guns, and his men followed. Some of the Light Brigade clashed with enemy cavalry behind the artillery line.

Others tried to capture the guns, hacking at the artillerymen with sabers or lances. Some of the Russians hid under the wheels and gun carriages, while others tried to pull the cannons away to the rear.

Cardigan eluded capture and turned his horse back into the smoke and confusion. Alone in the thick haze, he saw only scattered men riding singly or in small bands, and it seemed little or none of his force remained.

So, the Light Brigade’s commander rode back to where the charge had started. Still unaware that Nolan was dead, Cardigan loudly denounced him for breaking formation and screaming. Soldiers heard the earl

A contemporary woodcut shows a fanciful view of the famous 1854 “Charge of the Light Brigade”. Steamships, the telegraph, steam-powered printing presses, and rising literacy made the Crimean War the first conflict covered by the mass media.

Library of Congress

History Magazine February/March 2018

The crowded little harbor of Balaclava was too small for an efficient supply base for the British forces in the Crimea. Among the vessels packed into the harbor was the personal yacht of Lord Cardigan, commander of the Light Brigade. Library of Congress

threaten to bring charges against him. He was quieted only when General Scarlett of the Heavy Brigade told him that he’d just ridden over Nolan’s body where it had fallen.

Amid the Russian guns, there were far too few light horsemen to hold the position. Lord Paget saw more Russian cavalry coming from the rear, blocking their only route of escape, and his men heard him say “We are in a desperate scrape; what the devil shall we do? Has anyone seen Lord Cardigan?” No one had.

Paget gave the only order he could: “You must go about, and do the best you can!” With that, the last of the Light Brigade hacked through the Russians and headed for the British lines.

The Light Brigade’s losses ran to 113 men killed and 134 seriously wounded. Many survivors trudged back on foot, as 475 horses (two thirds of the brigade’s mounts) were killed or so badly hurt they had to be put down. A French commander, Gen. Pierre Bosquet, summed up the action with what has become a famous quote: C’est magnifique,

mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie (“It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness”).

Balaclava was saved from capture, but from the combined efforts of the other Allied troops, not the reckless sacrifice of the Light Brigade.

Correspondents filled the columns of the newspapers of England and the empire with stories of the charge. The press praised the heroic soldiers, but condemned Raglan, Cardigan, and Lucan for their role in ordering the pointless slaughter.

As far as officialdom was concerned, with Nolan dead, the confusion in orders was regarded as an unfortunate muddle. No formal charges were brought against the commanders.

Cardigan later obtained a different claim to fame. To cope with the bitter cold of the Crimean winter, he took to wearing a button-up sweater in addition to his regular uniform.

News correspondents noted this, and began calling such garments “Cardigan sweaters”. Also in Britain today, ski masks are called “balaclavas”, after makeshift

winter headgear worn by the troops in the Crimea.

Six weeks after the ill-fated charge, Alfred, Lord Tennyson finished his famous poem that immortalized the cavalry at Balaclava, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. A famous section of the poem was a tribute to the steadfast rank and file: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Decades later, the movies also drew upon the legendary charge in the dashing 1936 Hollywood film “The Charge of the Light Brigade” starring Errol Flynn, and a more realistic and cynical 1968 British version with the same title.

For many decades in the 20th century, Sebastopol and Balaclava were Soviet military centers, and closed to tourists. In 2004, retired and active British Army personnel visited the battle site for the 150th anniversary of the charge. Re-enactors in 1850s uniforms rode across the historic ground, which by then was mostly farmland and vineyards.

Dented long ago by a Russian lance, the very bugle used to sound the Charge of the Light Brigade sounded once again in “the Valley of Death”.

MORE INFORMATION Christopher Hibbert, The Destruction of Lord Raglan John Selby, Balaclava: Gentlemen’s Battle.

DAVID A. NORRIS is a regular contributor to History

Magazine, Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy Today.

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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ALE HOUSES

MCSORLEY’S OLD ALE HOUSE: WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

McSorley’s has been a New York institution since opening in 1854. Courtesy of Leonard Di Franscisi

GEOFF COBB LOOKS AT A NEW YORK LANDMARK THAT HAS BEEN AROUND SINCE THE MID-19TH CENTURY

A

wall-sign in the historic bar located at 15 East Seventh Street in New York City states the obvious: “We were here before you were born.” It is not only true today, but it would have also been true if your great grandfather had drunk there in his youth. Other bars in New York claim to be older, like the Lower West Side’s Ear Inn, or Near’s in Queens, but no New York bar can match McSorley’s historic atmosphere. Half alehouse, half history museum, McSorley’s is a New York landmark, preserving a special part of old New York.

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History Magazine February/March 2018

It is not just that McSorley’s is old, but more importantly, McSorley’s has changed very little in its hundred and sixty-three years. Gazing around the place, it is as if time had stood still or you had traveled back in time. In a rapidly changing city that has seen so many New York historic

landmarks vanish, McSorley’s amazingly remains.

IRISH ROOTS John McSorley, an Irish immigrant, opened his alehouse in 1854, modeling his place on the alehouses he knew as a young man in Dungannon, County Tyrone and a strong sense of old Ireland still pervades McSorleys.

John ran the pub until his death in 1910, changing little from its opening day and many of those original elements survive to this day. McSorley’s originally only offered light or dark ale and still today no other alcohol is served.

Although there is now electric lighting, the gas lamps that illuminated McSorley’s still hang above the bar. Many of the first customers were butchers dripping blood, so John McSorley spread sawdust on the floor to protect the floors and still today the floors are covered in sawdust. The original potbelly stove still heats the place in the winter.

FAMOUS GUESTS Above the entrance to the back room, the founder hung his simple rule of behavior: “Be good or be gone.” A gruff character, McSorley often barked out this warning to rowdies for he tolerated no nonsense. Old John was also, though, an affable host, entertaining many of the famous men of his era at the bar including Boss Tweed, Boxer John L. Sullivan and Ulysses S. Grant.

His favorite customer was the millionaire inventor Peter Cooper who founded Cooper Union right around the corner from the alehouse. Cooper was such a regular

in a place of honor behind the bar near a horseshoe from a horse that reputedly carried Lincoln’s funeral cortege through the streets of Manhattan.

A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK When Old John passed away, his son Bill took over in 1910. He commissioned a painting of his father, which he hung in the backroom and often sat looking at it, lost in thought. Throughout his life, Bill’s principal concern was to keep the alehouse exactly as he had inherited it. When anything had to be changed or repaired, he

HISTORIC MEMORABILIA EVERYWHERE Perhaps the most unique element in McSorley’s is its amazing historic memorabilia, which seems to cover every inch of the bar’s wall space. Old John had a remarkable passion for historic memorabilia and he spent years amassing his unique collection.

There are a number of original presidential campaign posters, as well as a number of portraits of assassinated presidents. There are also images galore of nineteenth century horses, steamboats, actors, singers and boxers.

One of my favorite artifacts is a pair of manacles, a gift from a customer who was once imprisoned in the notorious Andersonville lock up during the American Civil War.

Ashcan school artist and McSorley’s regular, John Sloan, painted the bar in 1912.

Public domain. Wikimedia Commons

that he got his own table and McSorley was so grief-stricken when he died that he commissioned a painting of Cooper, which still hangs in the back room.

The most famous patron ever to enter McSorley’s was Abraham Lincoln who made a speech at Cooper Union in 1860 before quaffing a few McSorley’s ales.

The chair where Lincoln sat rests

even seemed to suffer physical pain. Like his father, Bill was highly suspicious of modern business practices, resisting bank accounts, checks and bookkeeping, running the place in exactly the same manner his father did in the 1850s. He even seemed wary of making too much money. When the bar grew crowded, he would call out in an angry voice that he was getting too much trade and

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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ALE HOUSES

he would close up early. Just like his father, he only kept the bar open at night until he grew tired and then he bought all the remaining customers a free round for last call.

As the bar became increasingly famous, and Bill grew older, the owner grew more and more surly, and less and less mindful of the needs of his customers. He would often read a newspaper, completely disregarding five or six customers with empty glasses waiting for service. If they complained, he would angrily curse them and resume his reading.

Despite his grumpy disposition, the customers not only put up with his eccentricities, but even grew fond of the old curmudgeon.

HISTORIC REMINDERS When America entered the First World War, many of the customers went off to fight, but before they left, they hung turkey wishbones on the gas lamps, promising to break them off when they returned. More than a century later, some of the bones remain, a grim tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

One night, the legendary Harry Houdini arrived at McSorleys, but Bill proclaimed him a fake, wagering that if Harry could escape being handcuffed to the bar, he could drink all night long for free. In short order, Houdini extricated himself, but the handcuffs still remain, locked to the bar rail.

EVEN PROHIBITION DID NOT CLOSE MCSORLEY’S Amazingly, McSorley’s stayed open throughout prohibition without a spy hole or payment of protection money. Bill just decided he would ignore the law of the land and the place was never raided, thanks in part to many of

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the high-ranking police officers and politicians who were regulars.

Three times a week, a retired brewer arrived from the Bronx, quietly heading to the cellar to make vats of beer.

In 1936, Bill McSorley, now old and tired, shocked one of the regulars, a cop who had drunk in the bar for thirty years, when he offered to sell McSorleys on the strict promise he would change nothing. The ownership changed, but nothing else did.

CHANGE COMES GRUDGINGLY One thing has changed in the alehouse – the role of women.

There was once a saying of Old John posted on the walls that read, “Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies”. Following the old Irish tradition, women, for many years, were not admitted into McSorleys, but after many losing legal battles, in 1970, McSorleys for the first time, grudgingly served women. Females, however, did not have their own bathroom until about twenty years ago.

Now, times have changed and two of the present owner’s daughters actually tend bar.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TIME FOR YOUR VISIT It is important to choose the right time of the day to enjoy the historic ambiance of the old bar.

Evenings can be horrible. There are long lines and once inside the packed, raucous crowds in the small bar prevent you from enjoying the memorabilia. Afternoons are often the perfect time. Grab some ale, sit beside the potbelly stove and soak in all the history.

History Magazine February/March 2018

THE STANLEY CUP AT MCSORLEY’S In 1994, the New York Rangers finally won the Stanley Cup after decades of frustration, bringing it to McSorleys. Many members of the team swilled ale from the trophy and the partying got so raucous that the cup suffered several dents and had to be returned to the NHL for repairs.

FAMOUS PAINTERS AND WRITERS A number of writers and artists have tried to capture the McSorley’s experience. The Ashcan school painter, John Sloan, painted his iconic McSorley’s bar there in 1912. In 1933, E.E Cummings wrote his 1923 poem “I was sitting in McSorley’s”, describing McSorley’s as “the ale which never lets you grow old”. In 1943, a columnist for the New Yorker Magazine wrote a brilliant piece of prose that perfectly captured the spirit of the place. Joseph Mitchell’s McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon is a must read if you want to truly enjoy your McSorley’s visit. More recently, Rafe Bartholomew has written a great book, entitled Two and Two about following his dad into bartending at the alehouse.

GREAT FOOD TOO! There is one final throwback: the low cost. The prices at McSorley’s are actually reasonable, something extremely rare in today’s ultra expensive Manhattan. Sandwiches and burgers are simply delicious and one of New York’s best values, so head to McSorleys for some good ale, fine food and the most enjoyable history lesson you will ever have.

GEOFF COBB is a high school history teacher and the author of Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past

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Public domain

CHARIVARIS, SHIVAREES, SKIMMINGTONS:

Historic Headaches

MELODY AMSEL-ARIELI LOOKS AT PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION DOWN THROUGH THE AGES

F

rom the Middle Ages – if not before – villagers across France, Germany, Italy, England, and Wales have condemned deviant private behavior through cacophonous public demonstrations called charivaris. This curious term, despite its melodious lilt,

may have evolved either from Greek for “heavy head” or Late Latin for “a severe headache”.

Both are apt descriptions.

In France, for example, outraged villagers, assembling by word-of-mouth, humiliated social offenders, like unwed mothers, adulterers, and wife-beaters, by clashing wash pans and kettles, rattling tin cans, hooting, tooting whistles, clanging cow bells, blowing ram’s horns, banging cleavers, and anything else that came to hand.

Most of these spectacles, in addition to their ear-splitting din, were heightened with improvised chants, parodies, ditties, and dance. Because each charivari reflected a specific object, occasion, and location, however, they varied in content. Some, for instance, parodied “stag hunts”, with human “hounds” pursuing “stag” adulterers. Some perched husband-beaters on donkeys, facetoward-tail, while their henpecked spouses, donkey tail in hand, led the way. Many charivaris “serenaded” scandalous second marriages, hasty nuptials after widowhood, illicit relationships, or “unnatural” unions like the very young with the very old.

Others mocked politically or socially unpopular neighbors who were leaving town or off to prison.

Though typically harsh in nature, charivaris rarely became violent. Still, reports of mortified victims fleeing to other areas, driven to murder, or committing suicide, have been found. Therefore, perhaps, the Roman Catholic Church, in the early 17th century, forbade participation on pain of excommunication. Just the same, these harsh rituals lingered in far

February/March 2018 History Magazine

PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION

Charivari from the Roman de Fauvel, a French allegorical verse romance, c. 1300. Wikimedia Commons.

31

PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION Brass serpent, a distant ancestor of the tuba, from Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1883, vol. 3 page 469, scanned by Andrew Alder, “ from an old book in his personal collection”.

Wikimedia Commons. Public domain

flung French villages.

In England, charivaris, known as skimmingtons or skimmington rides, not only punished deviant townsfolk. As they wound their way through town, their raucous “rough music, like bellwethers, forewarned secret and potential transgressors”.

“To the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams’ horns, and other historical instruments,” wrote Thomas Hardy (The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886), skimmingtons mocked licentious and wayward townsfolk by forcing them to participate in their own humiliation. Males were often handshackled, then carted, paraded pillory-like on wooden poles or “horses,” or perched backwards on donkeys. Alternatively, their harassers “rode the stang” (sat along long poles born by others),

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mouthing obscenities while lampooning their victims. Others paraded lifelike effigies of the offenders. As excitement rose, some of these were ceremoniously “drowned”. Most, however, were consigned to bonfires.

Many of these harsh practices, which Thomas Hardy described as “skimmity-riding with rout and flare,” hark back to British religious, military, and mob justice of old. During the Elizabethan Era, tens of thousands gathered as criminals and traitors were carted to execution. Many not only celebrated their gruesome, public hangings, drawings, and quarterings with food and drink, but also purchased commemorative souvenirs. Some, afterward, even snatched bits of hanging-ropes or victims’ clothing.

From 1606 on, townsfolk set off fireworks and burned effigies to celebrate the execution of the convicted traitor, Guy Hawkes.

Public hangings, carnival-like family entertainment, continued as well. Many spectators, children in tow, picnicked within sight of the gallows. Others, reeking of liquor, carousing, and jostling for the best views, ended up in muddy brawls. Though skimmingtons largely died out, a few survived well into the 20th century, in villages in South

Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, England.

When French settlers introduced charivaris to the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and Louisiana, and the British to America, most did not condemn or ostracize. Instead, these cacophonous rituals usually celebrated weddings, uniting communities instead of dividing them. Though first called sherrie-varries, they were soon called chivarees or, more commonly, shivarees.

Wedding guests, warmed by swigs of hard cider, beer, or spirits stronger yet, typically “shivareed” newlyweds to their bridal beds by whooping, hollering, spinning brides around in wheel barrows, or dumping grooms in horse troughs. Some, to forestall wedded bliss, tumbled couples from bed to floor or “kidnapped” bridegrooms, abandoning them far afield – sometimes naked.

Many, to the accompaniment of horns, horse fiddles, and rattled tin pans, also sent off deafening rounds of blank cartridges. These ritual hazings were all in good fun. But not all.

In 1900, for example, under the headline, “Order-Loving Communities Are Doing Away With This Idiotic Survival of Semicivilized Times,” the Yakima Herald (Yakima, Washington), a newlywed couple

Hudibras Encounters the Skimmington, William Hogarth, engraving published by Baldwin & Craddock, 1822. Heath Edition. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain

History Magazine February/March 2018

experienced a shivaree of a different sort entirely. As they stepped out on their porch and ordered their noisy serenaders to leave them in peace, “one of the party pointed his gun at the young couple and fired [live bullets]. . . The bridegroom was shot in the face, but not fatally…. The bride’s face and breast [however] were filled with buckshot, and she died an hour later.” [Note: Across the Arab world, many, even today, celebrate weddings by sending live gunfire sky high. Results can be disastrous.]

Nuptials that fell on or near popular North American holidays were often doubly shivareed. In October 1923, for instance, the Hendricks of Santa Ana, California, back from their honeymoon, found thirty friends and neighbors waiting outside their door, “dressed in Hallowe’en garb,” ready for an “old-time” shivaree. “… out-fitted with horns, harps, cow bells, tin pans and other noise-producing instruments, each offering different time and harmony, they serenaded the

Paris men sing a drunken serenade in Honoré Daumier's series of humorous cartoons, The Musicians of Paris.

Created 31 December 1840. From the Honoré Daumier Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum. Wikimedia Commons.

In public domain in the USA – created prior to 1923

bride and groom… until … the happy, noisy group “was invited in for holiday refreshments.”

By this time, shivarees had become part of mainstream culture, though cloaked in modern guise.

People attended not only shivaree wedding parties, but also rollicking, shivaree-style picnics. In addition, scores of trendsetters turkey-trotted and shimmied to pieces like “Shivaree,” a jazzy, ragtime one-step by George L. Cobb (1886-1942). Yet some, including an anonymous contributor to The Pittsburgh Press (possibly a classical music lover), declared both ruckus-raising shivarees and newfangled jazz disconcerting.

I wonder if there ever was Another racket such as jazz As jazz which simply seems to be An orchestrated shivaree A shivaree most ill-advised, And painfully deharmonized Through the 1920s, shivarees were also featured in advertising.

The Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma), for instance, proclaimed “Shive-a-ree, Fellers Shivaree” offering to put “the ‘shiver’ in shivaree. Not the shivaree they give you at a wedding,” it explained, but the kind you feel on slipping into a featherweightsummer suit The term shivaree has traditionally referred to chaotic discord.

Through the years, however, it has figured, one way or another, in a variety of novels, plays, music, and multimedia forms. During the French Baroque Era, charming pastoral pieces, inspired by the “charivari style”, were popular.

By 1832, when Le Charivari, a French satirical magazine, appeared, the term charivari symbolized sardonic humor. The hugely influential, long-lasting British weekly Punch, or The

London Charivari soon followed.

In 1943, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein immortalized American shivarees in their prize-winning musical, Oklahoma. From 1965 through 1966, Shivaree, a musical variety TV show that hosted rock ‘n’ roll greats, ran nationwide and internationally. Several years later, Leonard Bernstein composed Shivaree: A Fanfare for a clamorous collection of cymbals, drums, tambourines, trumpets, French horns, trombones, and a tuba. Others wrote rousing shivarees for woodwind ensembles and concert bands. In addition, the American band Shivaree, inspired by down-home, Southern style and flavor, performed from 1997 through 2007. In recent years, Charivari Agréable, a British early music ensemble, has been offering concerts of ‘pleasant tumult.’

Elements of North American shivarees live on. Friends and family sneak into newlyweds’ motel rooms, short-sheet their beds, remove and hide their bedroom doors, or play pranks that involve toilet paper, Vaseline, Saran Wrap, or Jell-O. Scores adorn wedding cars with amusing sayings, balloons, ribbons, and rattling tin cans. And many send honeymooners off by joyously blaring car horns, whooping, and hollering.

MELODY AMSEL-ARIELI is an American-Israeli freelance writer whose articles have appeared in genealogical and historical magazines across the UK, US, and Canada. She is the author of

Between Galicia and Hungary: The Jews of Stropkov (Avotaynu 2002) and Jewish

Lives: 1750-1950 (Pen & Sword, 2013). Visit her website at

http://amselbird.com.

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND

Earlier portrait of Charles before he became the Duke of Burgundy.

Painted by Rogier van der Weyden between 1454-1460, the portrait shows Charles wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Catholic order of knights established by his father, Philip the Good, in 1430. Wikimedia Commons

REVENGE OF THE SWISS

ERICH B. ANDERSON EXAMINES THE 1476 BATTLE OF MURTEN AND THE FALL OF THE WOULD-BE BURGUNDIAN EMPIRE

O

n 28 February 1476, the Swiss garrison from the city of Bern who held Grandson Castle surrendered the fortification to Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy. Once captured, the Burgundians ruthlessly executed nearly all of the several hundred Bernese; many were hung on walnut trees outside the walls and the rest were drowned in the nearby lake. By March, Swiss forces had retaken Grandson, which allowed them to gain access to their slain countrymen. The sight of the massacre increased the Swiss hatred of the Burgundians and vengeance against Duke Charles became the sole mission of Bern. When the enemy armies clashed again at the battle of Murten on 22 June, the full fury of the Swiss was unleashed.

THE BURGUNDIAN WAR At the end of March/beginning of April 1474, the League of Constance was created through a coalition of several cantons and cities of the Swiss Confederation with Austrian and Alsatian allies.

These princes, magnates and urban centers joined forces in response to the aggressive actions of Duke Charles who desired to become the overlord of a formidable Burgundian Empire that spread throughout central Europe. On the other hand, some of the members of the League, particularly the Swiss city of Bern, also wanted to expand their lands and power.

The most obvious target for the

34

expansion of Swiss dominion were the territories claimed by the Burgundians.

Tensions between Duke Charles and the alliance continued to escalate over the following months until the Swiss officially declared war against Burgundy on 29 October 1474. The Confederation finally became a part of the Burgundian Wars to end the duke’s aspirations of conquest and prove their martial superiority over his mercenary-filled forces. Two weeks later on 13 November, the Swiss, with their Austrian and Alsatian allies, defeated a small Burgundian force,

History Magazine February/March 2018

not led by Charles, at the battle of Héricourt. Swiss armies, predominantly from Bern, followed up the victory by seizing strategic territory that improved their position against the duke. Among the valuable locations captured by the Swiss was the fortified town and accompanying castle of Grandson, taken on 1 May 1475.

By the end of October, the contested region known as the Vaud was completely conquered by the Swiss.

While the Swiss campaigned in the Vaud, Charles was first carrying out the siege of Neuss, followed by the conquest of Lorraine; therefore, the duke was not able to respond to the Swiss incursions until the end of 1475.

Then from 22 January to 6 February 1476, the Burgundian forces gathered at Besançon for the mission to reclaim the lands that the duke felt were rightfully his to control. By 13 February, the army was ready to march, thus, Charles led them to the fortress of Yverdun, situated close to the coasts of Lake Neuchâtel. However, once the Burgundians reached the

fortifications on 18 February, they discovered that the Swiss soldiers had left in order to reinforce the garrison at nearby Grandson Castle, which soon became the next target of the duke.

The day after, Charles and his men reached the town of Grandson. By 21 February, the fortifications of the town were overrun, yet the adjacent castle remained untaken. The several hundred soldiers from Bern who garrisoned the fortress remained defiant and were able to repel the attacks of the Burgundian army. The situation quickly deteriorated for the Swiss troops as they were completely surrounded and endured devastating artillery fire that continuously struck the walls they stood upon. On 24 February, the defenders had become so desperate that two men risked their lives to notify Bern of the severity of the predicament that the garrison was in. The messengers left because the Burgundian siege guns had destroyed much of the fortifications, and the provisions within were so low that the only remaining food was damp, unmilled wheat, which would only last for a few days at most. To make matters worse, the Swiss artillery master was slain and three barrels of gunpowder ignited in flames.

This illustration by the historian Johann Stumpf in 1548 depicts the siege of Grandson, specifically the massacre of the Swiss garrison in the aftermath.

Wikimedia Commons

THE SLAUGHTER AT GRANDSON

An illustration from the Bern Chronicle of Diebold Schilling depicting the Swiss troops kneeling in prayer under the flags of Bern, Freiburg, Thun and Schwyz before the battle of Grandson. On the right, the Burgundian cavalry is shown during the battle. Wikimedia Commons

On 28 February, the Bernese garrison had become so hopeless that they decided to surrender. Once the Swiss soldiers had become Burgundian prisoners, the duke ordered his men to exterminate the several hundred troops of the garrison. Since other Burgundian forces were also reclaiming lost territory during those same weeks, the fall of Grandson resulted in the majority of the Vaud being taken back by Charles. The

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND

Swiss were too slow to muster in order to save their comrades, though Bern managed to rally its allies at Neuchâtel the same day the garrison was massacred. Then, on 1 March, reports of the surrendered and slaughtered soldiers at Grandson Castle reached the Swiss army. From then on, the Bernese and much of the Swiss were firmly on the path of vengeance against the Duke of Burgundy.

The Burgundian army and the Swiss forces were marching toward each other, but both sides did not know it until they collided on 2 March by accident. While the Swiss vanguard of 1,000-2,500 soldiers was traveling on a path through heavily wooded slopes in the direction of Grandson, the Confederate troops emerged from the forest and stumbled upon Charles’ men as they were setting up an

advanced camp. Though surprised, the duke was able to rally his forces and rode to the frontline as the Burgundian troops moved into formation. The duke’s army consisted of around 20,000 soldiers, thus, the Burgundian forces advanced with confidence towards the meager Swiss contingent.

However, the Confederate warriors did not back down even though they faced such overwhelming odds. The massed Swiss pikemen and halberdiers charged down the slopes to engage in brutal close combat with the duke’s men.

The Swiss infantry armed with their large polearms repelled the Burgundian cavalry charges, but then fell under an intense barrage of artillery fire. The bombardment did not stop the pikemen from crashing into the Burgundian ranks of foot soldiers. While

Charles had his gunners maintain their heavy fire, he also ordered his vanguard to give some ground and feign a retreat. The duke hoped that the Swiss troops would eagerly rush forward so that his larger army could then envelope the smaller force. However, the timing of the maneuver was disastrous for the Burgundians because at that moment the Swiss center and rearguard arrived behind their van, which increased the Confederate forces to 10,00020,000 soldiers. Since the Swiss army was augmented with so many men just as the Burgundian frontlines appeared to break, panic rapidly spread throughout the rest of the duke’s forces who thought the vanguard had been overwhelmed. Therefore, the middle contingent and rearguard of the Burgundian army, mostly

Another illustration of the battle of Grandson in the Lucerne Chronicle of Diebold Schilling. In the background on the left, the main Swiss force advances under the banners of Solothurn, Uri, Lucerne, Entlebuch, Freiburg, Bern and Schwyz. In the foreground on the left, the Burgundian archers fire their arrows at the Swiss troops during the first phase of the battle. In the background on the right, the Burgundian camp at Grandson is shown with the famous wooden tent house of Philip the Good and the Burgundian artillery. Wikimedia Commons

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History Magazine February/March 2018

PREPARATIONS FOR COMBAT

The pillaging of the Burgundian camp after their defeat at the battle of Grandson in this illustration by Diebold Schilling of the Bern Chronicle. Wikimedia Commons

comprised of Italian and German mercenaries, fled from the field.

Seeing that a considerable amount of his forces had retreated, Charles escaped as well.

In the end, nearly 300 Burgundian troops lay dead on the field while around 200 Swiss were also killed.

After the Burgundians were routed at the battle of Grandson, the Swiss army did not pursue them. Instead, the victors seized the incredibly valuable plunder left behind by the duke and his forces, including Charles’ throne and hat covered with precious jewels. Yet even more important for the Swiss cause was the capture of the formidable Burgundian gunpowder artillery arsenal, which amounted to as many as 400 abandoned pieces. The Swiss, especially the Bernese, were also quick to reach the castle and view the carnage carried out by the duke’s men. Their slain compatriots were then cut down from the trees and as many bodies as

possible were retrieved from the lake so that the deceased could be given proper burials. The approximately thirty Burgundians that remained to garrison Grandson then felt the wrath of the Bernese who threw the captives from the castle walls to their deaths.

Charles the Bold was defeated, but not broken, thus, the duke spent the weeks from 14 March to 27 May reinforcing his surviving troops at Lausanne and securing gunpowder weapons from his subjects in order to replace his depleted arsenal. On the other hand, the Swiss made no moves toward another confrontation with the Burgundians, except for the city of Bern. On 31 March, the Bernese augmented the garrison at the fortress of Murten with a further 1,500 soldiers because that was believed to be Charles’ next target. Bern also pleaded with the other Swiss Confederates and their allies in the League of Constance to make preparations for the inevitable clash with the Burgundians; most refused to muster their forces until Charles actually threatened the Swiss lands, not just conquered territory held by the Bernese like Murten. Yet, the Confederation would soon discover that the duke had every intention of attacking the Swiss for he stated to the Milanese ambassador on 4 June that “he could not

A 19th century relief by a Swiss artist depicting the battle of Murten.

Wikimedia Commons

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND

live with the disgrace of having been defeated by these bestial people.�

At the end of May, Charles and his army were prepared to leave Lausanne, so he advanced with somewhere between 10,00018,000 men towards the territories held by his primary foe, Bern.

The Burgundians reached Murten on 11 June and then immediately put the city under siege. Murten was defended by another contingent of Bernese troops numbering 500 soldiers, which arrived prior to the Burgundian assault and was added to the already substantial garrison within the city. Furthermore, because the defenders had

placed most of the artillery arsenal stolen at Grandson on top of the walls, the Burgundians were actually fired upon by their own weapons.

Yet despite the augmentations made to the city’s defenses, the Burgundians were relentless in carrying out the siege, often working after nightfall to avoid the barrages from the numerous gunpowder weapons fired by the defenders. The besiegers also attempted to demoralize the garrison by attaching notes to their crossbow bolts promising to hang everyone in the city once it was taken, such as what had happened at Grandson Castle. In a week, the

An illustration showing the battle of Murten in the Great Burgundian Chronicle of Diebold Schilling. Wikimedia Commons

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History Magazine February/March 2018

Burgundians were able to devastate the southern fortifications with their heavy bombards, enough to breach the walls and execute a fierce assault that lasted for eight hours on 18 June. Somehow, the garrison managed to hold off the Burgundians. Then, even more relief came for the Bernese troops because Charles ordered his army to halt their attacks soon after. The duke received reports that the Confederation, along with its allies, had finally decided to help Bern and assembled its forces. The 20,00025,000-strong, predominantly Swiss army was on its way.

THE BATTLE OF MUR TEN By the morning of 22 June, Charles was convinced that the Swiss forces would not attack and had only marched out to draw him away from the siege. The duke had even seen some of the allied army camp near his location the day before, but remained certain there would be no confrontation if he did not advance first to engage them. To block the eastern approach towards Murten, the Burgundians had constructed a heavily fortified line of palisades and earthworks known as the GrĂźnhag; however, Charles was so confident in his assessment of the situation that he ordered only 1,200 cavalry, along with 2,000 archers and handgunners, to man the defenses.

There were severe storms throughout the night before that continued into the morning, though before noon, the heavy rainfall stopped and the sun appeared. Shortly afterwards, the allied vanguard of roughly 5,000 men, many of whom were Bernese, emerged from the Buggliwald Forest edge to the east. Led by Hans von Hallwyl of Bern, the mostly Swiss forces advanced with pikemen in the center and cavalry

on the flank, including handgunners and crossbowmen to skirmish in the front. As the Swiss troops advanced towards the Grünhag, they fell under heavy missile fire from the Burgundian crossbows, handguns, longbows and light artillery. The barrages of projectiles had many targets to hit amongst the compact pike formation of the Swiss, therefore, the vanguard began to suffer heavy losses. However, the Schwyzer continent among the allied forces eventually managed to overcome the earthworks. Once the Burgundians manning the Grünhag were attacked in their flank by the Schwyzer troops, the vastly outnumbered soldiers abandoned their posts.

With the Grünhag bypassed, the Swiss army was free to approach the much less defended and grossly unprepared Burgundian soldiers in their camp; some groups of Burgundian troops rallied and stood against the wave of Swiss pikemen, though the scattered warriors were quickly overwhelmed by the vastly superior numbers of the Swiss. Once the huge center division of the Swiss army, composed of around 12,000 men, entered the fray, the battle was over. Any remaining resistance from the Burgundian rearguard was easily swept aside by the numerous Swiss pikemen.

Meanwhile, the approximately 7,000-strong Swiss rearguard moved across the southern end of Murten to intercept any fleeing Burgundian soldiers. To complete their encirclement, the Swiss also placed troops to cut off any retreat to the north as well. Some of the Burgundian forces managed to make it to safety, yet thousands were slaughtered. By the end of the battle of Murten, possibly as many as 12,000 Burgundians were killed, while the Swiss only lost 410.

The corpse of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, discovered after the Battle of Nancy, from the painting La mort de Charles le Téméraire devant Nancy by Charles Houry in 1852. Wikimedia Commons

THE FALL OF BURGUNDY After the serious defeats the Swiss inflicted upon Charles at Grandson and Murten, they had achieved their revenge. However, the duke survived the Swiss onslaught that ended his siege, therefore, he remained a threat. By the end of the year, Charles raised another army of 8,00012,000 troops and besieged the city of Nancy, which exploited the weakness of the duke after his losses by SOURCES rebelling against his rule. In response, Charles’ enemies assemMichael, Nicholas. Armies of bled once more with 20,000 men, Medieval Burgundy 1364-1477. including 8,400 Swiss warriors, to Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1983. relieve the city. The two sides Miller, Douglas. fought on 5 January 1477 through The Swiss at War 1300-1500. heavy snow. Not only were the Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1979.

Burgundians crushed again, but Smith, Robert Douglas. The Artillery the defeat was total, for the duke of the Dukes of Burgundy, 13631477. Rochester: Boydell Press, 2005. was slain during the combat. After the death of Charles the Bold, Vaughan, Richard. Charles the Bold: Maximilian, the husband of the The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy.

Rochester: Boydell Press, 2004. duke’s daughter, inherited the lands of Burgundy. The future Holy Roman Emperor was unable ERICH B. ANDERSON is the to protect all of the Burgundian author of Cataphracts: Knights territories, especially from the invasions of King Louis XI of France. of the Ancient Eastern Empires.

He has written over 55 articles Then, once Maximilian ascended on ancient and medieval history the imperial throne in 1493, the for a number of different remaining lands formerly held by Charles became part of the Holy publications, including History Roman Empire. The remnants of Today, Military History Monthly, the would-be Burgundian empire Ancient Warfare and that the bold duke aspired to creMedieval Warfare. ate completely vanished.

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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SILENT FILMS

The image of Harold Lloyd clinging desperately from the hands of a skyscraper clock during Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most memorable of film history.

Lloyd performed this stunt-climbing scene in downtown Los Angeles.

H

HAROLD LLOYD: SILENT FILM COMEDIAN

BRIAN D’AMBROSIO PUTS THE LENS ON THE EXTRAORDINARY CAREER OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY PROLIFIC FILM STAR All photos courtesy of the Pawnee County Historical Society

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History Magazine February/March 2018

arold Clayton Lloyd was born at 24 Pawnee Street on 20 April 1893, in Burchard, Nebraska, to Elizabeth and James “Foxy” Lloyd.

It was during his childhood that Lloyd acquired a passion for the theater experience. His mother read Shakespeare to him and encouraged him to assemble his own costumes and put together his own shows at home. At age eight, he acted in his first stage performance, a rendition of Macbeth.

Lloyd once said, “I was possessed from my earliest youth with a definite, violent desire to act that in no way conformed with the rest of my character.”

Harold Lloyd’s theater interest could have been short-lived if not for a chance meeting, at the age of twelve, with John Lane Connor, the producer and leading actor of the Burwood Stock Company.

Connor began boarding at the Lloyd house, and in return, Harold gained a mentor for his acting career.

After his parents divorced in 1910, Harold moved to San Diego with his father and enrolled as a senior at the San Diego School of Expression. Lloyd used his competitive energies as a boxer and debater, but was most interested in theater. During this time, his lifelong habit of constant activity was formed, including a nickname to match his lifestyle. In a vaudeville act he saw with his father, the featured boy, named Harold, whined to be called Speedy. “Speedy” became Harold Lloyd’s nickname as well as the title of his last silent picture in 1928.

Harold Lloyd’s professional acting career began with drama rather than the vaudeville comedy from which many other silent film stars emerged. Lloyd worked at Universal Studios as an extra for $5 per day and later as a comic actor for $3 per day with producer Hal Roach.

It was while working with Roach that Lloyd created his tramp character, Willie Work. When only one of the “Willie” films, Just Nuts (1915), found its way to distribution, Harold Lloyd left Hal Roach to work with Mack Sennett’s production company for a few years, but returned to Roach and created the famous hayseed hobo (and Chaplin imitation), Lonesome Luke. The Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach team made more than 60 Lonesome Luke shorts in two years.

After seeing a play that featured a fighting priest who wore hornrimmed glasses, Lloyd experimented with the idea of wearing glasses himself. Soon, Lloyd had created a clean-cut Horatio Algertype character with trademark horn-rimmed glasses and a straw hat. The new character made his debut in the film Over the Fence (1917). Lloyd found he could be anything he wanted with the glasses on. The meek mild-mannered character would transform into a dynamo of energy and wild success.

“I liked the glass character, because it allowed you to be a human being. It allowed you to be the boy next door or anyone…,” Lloyd said.

Harold Lloyd gained fame as this all-American boy next door, “anxious to get ahead, not very good at anything, but willing to compensate with energy for his lack of talent.” This character found popularity leading audiences through an unending series of gags and comedic stunts. Despite irresistible odds, Lloyd’s character seemed to win in any situation. The “comedy of thrills” that continued from one movie to the next kept audiences

coming back. Harold Lloyd’s most famous feature film, Safety Last (1923), is one of the best examples.

In this movie, Lloyd first climbs 12 floors on the outside of a skyscraper dodging police, pigeons in his face and a net that’s accidentally dropped from a store window.

Painters scaffolding then tangles his legs, and the safety rope he grabs at isn’t tied to anything. In the film’s most famous scene, Lloyd grabs hold of the building’s clock as its minute hand slides down to six, and the face pops out leaving him dangling 12 floors up.

“Neither he nor anyone else ever again achieved the rhythmic brilliance, the amazing, controlled crescendo of Safety Last,” wrote David Robinson, author of The Great Funnies.

In the midst of his success, Harold Lloyd’s dreams were momentarily shattered. On 14 August 1919, Lloyd lost the thumb and forefinger of his right hand when a stage prop “bomb” exploded.

Although his face and eyes healed, his hand could not be repaired and the loss seemed a terrible burden for him. He obtained prosthetic devices for camera work and always wore gloves to hide the deformity.

Lloyd made almost 200 films between 1915 and 1919, most of which were comedies associated with thrills and climactic acrobatics. This is a staggering number compared with the 50-plus short films Chaplin made between 1913 and 1918. In fact, he made more films than Chaplin and Buster Keaton, a native of neighboring Piqua, Kansas, combined.

In 1922, Lloyd left Hal Roach’s film organization and created the Harold Lloyd Corporation complete with a studio and the ability to continue making films. Lloyd made 10 films with this endeavor and another six films at the beginning of the sound era.

He married co-star Mildred Davis on 10 February 1923, to, according to Lloyd, “prevent her from leaving their film organization.” The marriage lasted until 1953.

In 1938, Lloyd left films to pursue his other interests. A great deal of his time was spent simply enjoying the family’s 16-acre estate, Greenacres, in Beverly Hills. The estate included a 44-room Italian Renaissance mansion with lush gardens, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a nine-hole golf course.

At the zenith of his career, Harold Lloyd, 1893-1971, was one of the most popular and highest-paid stars of his time. He made approximately 200 films between 1915 and 1919, most of which were comedies abundant with daredevil thrills.

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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SILENT FILMS

“Lloyd was a brilliantly successful comedian, and he retired gracefully from pictures to enjoy his family and the millions of dollars he had made…,” wrote Gerald Mast, author of The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies.

In 1952, the Motion Picture Academy awarded Harold Lloyd a special Oscar as “master comedian and good citizen”.

One of Lloyd’s greatest passions was 3-D photography (stereo photography). He was the first president of the Hollywood Stereoscopic Society and produced over 300,000 3-D photographs. After reviewing the many photographs, Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, Harold’s granddaughter, selected 67 of the photos to compile 3-D Hollywood, Photographs by Harold Lloyd.

The Harold Lloyd birthplace home in Burchard, Nebraska is now a museum.

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In his later years, Lloyd was active in the Shriners and their charitable programs. Lloyd traveled widely for the Shriners as Imperial Potentate.

It was in the late 1960s that Lloyd became a victim of prostate cancer. He died 8 March 1971, at the age of 77.

In 1991, after several locals heard that Harold Lloyd’s original home in Burchard, Nebraska was going to be destroyed, they formed the Harold Lloyd Foundation of Burchard with the goal to preserve and honor the memory of the legendary silent film star.

The Harold Lloyd Foundation restored his small, three-room birthplace home, which features memorabilia from Lloyd’s life. The home is open to the public.

BRIAN D’AMBROSIO lives, works in, and writes from Missoula, Montana. He contributes regularly to multiple publications on a vast

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PHOTOGRAPHERS

HENRY BOSSE

Mississippi River Cartographer and Photographer Portrait of Henry Bosse, 1900.

Public domain

CONSTANCE R. CHERBA LOOKS AT THE LIFE OF THE MAN WHO IS SAID TO HAVE CREATED THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHIC MAP OF A MAJOR RIVER

T

he Guttenberg, Iowa Lockmaster’s House Heritage Museum located on the Mississippi River at Lock and Dam No. 10 is full of historic artifacts. Perhaps one of the most captivating is a bright blue oval photograph taken along the river by Henry Bosse. The image raises many questions – who was Henry Bosse and when, how, and why did he take such an impressive blue photo of the river?

Henry Bosse was born on 13 November 1844 near Magdeburg, Prussia, on the estate of his grandfather, Count Neihardt von Gneisenau, a general said to have played a role in Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Tracing Bosse’s ancestry back a few more generations, we find renowned French engravers.

As a youth, Bosse studied engineering, art, and music at the provincial capital of Magdeburg.

In 1865, at the age of 21, he sailed from Glasgow, Scotland to Montreal, Canada during a period of heavy German emigration. By 1870, he had moved to the US and settled in Chicago where he worked as a partner in a book and stationery shop. Unfortunately, the business was destroyed by the great Chicago fire of October 1871.

In 1874, Bosse began working as

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a draftsman for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Chicago, but was soon transferred to the Corps’ River and Harbor Improvement Office on the Mississippi River in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Another transfer in 1878 moved Bosse downriver to the Corps’ Rock Island, Illinois District where he was employed as a draftsman and cartographer.

Under the supervision of Rock Island District Engineer Maj. Alexander Mackenzie, Bosse began the task of surveying and mapping the Upper Mississippi River from the St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis to the confluence of the Illinois River and the Mississippi upstream from St. Louis, Missouri. The assignment would occupy Bosse for ten years between 1882 and 1892.

During the late 19th century, Mississippi River navigation was

History Magazine February/March 2018

in its infancy as steamboats began negotiating the river’s treacherous rapids, sandbars, and snags. The Mississippi was changing – moving from a wild, untamed river to an important route of travel and commerce. In the late 1800s, Congress authorized a 4.5-foot channel from St. Paul to St. Louis. It was up to the Army Corps of Engineers to restructure some 700 miles of river by building wing dams and rock walls to channel the flow of water toward the center of the river bed, increasing the current and scouring action of the river.

Bosse’s cartoon self-portrait, 1890.

Public domain

Bosse’s map of the Upper Mississippi River near Wabasha, Minnesota, 1890.

Office of History, HQ, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, public domain

While river traffic increased, railroads also began expanding and hiring workers to build bridges across the expanse of water. The map Bosse drew along with his assistant, A.J. Stibolt, ranked as the most detailed and accurate depiction of the Mighty Mississippi available at the time and provided a crucial reference in the engineering of bridges, locks, and levees.

Although photography was not part of his assignment, Bosse took his huge camera and a supply of glass plates on his map-making expedition. As he carried out his mapping duties, he also captured some 300 images of the river, the shoreline, bridges, and boats.

Often, the river appears blurred in his photos indicating Bosse had to keep the camera lens open for a long time to capture adequate light.

Bosse’s river photos are thought to offer the first photographic map of a major river. Thanks to Bosse, we have historic images of long-vanished views of bluffs and coulees, expanding river towns, workboats pulling snags out of the new channel, steamboats, rock quarries, dredging operations, and construction projects focusing on wing dams, bridges, and the 4.5-foot navigation channel.

Bosse printed his photos as blue cyanotypes, utilizing a simple, low-cost process that combined just two chemicals to produce

cyan blueprints. He printed the images on fine French cyanotype paper measuring 14.6 inches x 17.2 inches.

Although some of Bosse’s photos were reproduced as single images to supplement the mapmaking project, he bound some in leather albums which he titled Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn. and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891. Bosse framed the album cyanotypes in oval masks and hand titled each photograph in black ink. Bosse presented albums to a few friends and fellow Corps employees, including his boss Alexander Mackenzie, who later served as

the Corps’ Chief of Engineers from 1904 to 1908.

Deviating from cyanotypes, Bosse also developed some of his negatives as albumen or silver prints and exhibited the softtoned sepia photographs at the Chicago World’s Fair/Great Columbian Exposition of 1893.

The photos set a new standard which some call a turning point in photographic history.

In 1903, Henry Bosse died unexpectedly in a Davenport, Iowa hospital at the age of 58. In midDecember, he had become violently ill after eating preserved asparagus. Although he appeared to have recovered, his symptoms reappeared the next day, and he was rushed to the hospital. Bosse suffered a fatal heart attack as he was being prepared for emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction.

Following Bosse’s death, the Corps’ steamboat Vixen was renamed Henry Bosse by his fellow Rock Island colleagues. Bosse’s Mississippi River Map was revised in 1901, 1903-1905, and 1915 and still serves as an important reference detailing river changes over time.

Cover of Bosse’s album Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn., and St. Louis, Mo., 1883-1891. Photo by Deb Otto

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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PHOTOGRAPHERS

46

Unfortunately, Bosse’s photographs were all but forgotten after his death. They were rediscovered in 1990 when East Coast antique dealer Mike Conner discovered one of Bosse’s albums in the attic of a Washington, DC house once inhabited by Alexander Mackenzie.

Conner sold the album to Sotheby’s Auction House in New York City for $60,000. Charles Wehrenberg, a collector from San Francisco, purchased the album and has sold some individual images for as much as $25,000.

Where are the rest of Bosse’s albums? The Rock Island District of the Army Corps of Engineers has two cyanotype albums (two volumes of a three-volume set) in addition to the 1893 World’s Fair album, several unbound prints, and a few glass plates. Unfortunately, all but a half-dozen of Bosse’s glass-plate negatives were broken when movers dropped them going downstairs during an office move.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota holds the album presented to Dr. William Mayo on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Minnesota, Board of Regents. The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, has two albums which once belonged to A.L. Richards, an assistant engineer with the Rock Island District.

A few individual cyanotypes can be found in art galleries, historical museums, and private collections across the US. Henry Bosse’s photographs have been included in the permanent collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the New

Page in Bosse's Views on the Mississippi River album showing bridges at Dubuque, Iowa. Photo by Deb Otto

York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Texas, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minnesota.

The St. Paul District of the Army Corps of Engineers owns

Bosse’s “Boatyard of Kahlke Bros., Rock Island, Ill., 1891”. Wikimedia Commons public domain

History Magazine February/March 2018

one of Bosse’s albums with an interesting history. In 1937, the album was presented to the dredge William A. Thompson on the occasion of its christening.

The dredge was named for William Thompson, a Corps engineer who died in 1925 and had once worked alongside Bosse. The inscription on the album cover reads, “To U.S. Dredge William A. Thompson by Mrs. William A. Thompson”. We can surmise that Bosse had given the album to his friend and colleague before their deaths, and Mrs. Thompson decided to present the album to the boat named in honor of her husband.

From 1937 until 1989, the album sat on the captain’s desk on board the Thompson.

When the dredge returned upriver to St. Paul in 1989, the Corps retrieved the album and put it into a bank vault for safekeeping. At that time, the album

was appraised at $1 million.

Twenty years later, Sotheby’s valued the album at more than $4.5 million.

In order to make Bosse’s photographs available to a wider audience, the Corps loaned the Thompson album to the Minnesota Historical Society. The Society created digital images available for public viewing and downloading through Minnesota Reflections, a collection maintained by the Minnesota Digital Library. To view Henry Bosse’s breathtaking photographs of the Upper Mississippi River, go to: Minnesota Reflections U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District Collection, http://cdm160 22.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/land ingpage/collection/army, and enter “Henry Bosse” into the search line. You won’t be disappointed!

Since I live in Dubuque, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to contact the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and make an appointment with Collections Manager/Registrar Tish Boyer to view the museum’s copies of Bosse’s albums.

The two albums are stored in separate archival boxes. They appear to be very fragile – the leather is worn on the edges and at the spines. However, the cyanotypes nestled between protective sheets retain their bright blue coloring, and Bosse’s hand-lettered titles are crisp and clear. What impressed me most was the sharpness of the photos. I had expected to see clear images, but the detail depicted in each photo is breathtaking. It’s hard to believe Bosse’s photos are more than 125 years old!

CONNIE CHERBA is a freelance writer from Dubuque, Iowa.

She enjoys historical research, canoeing the backwaters of the Mississippi River, and working the occasional dig as a skilled archaeologist with the Iowa Office of State Archaeologist.

Tracing Your Germanic Ancestors This new edition to our Tracing Your Ancestors series is authored by Leland K. Meitzler and contains a wealth of information on resources to help you locate your Germanic ancestors. Articles include: Finding the Place, The Hail Mary Genealogical Search, Using German Maps and Gazetteers, Passenger and Immigration Records, Online Database and Family Tree Sources, German Parish and Civil Records, Census Records of Germany, Reading Fraktur German Printing, Calendars and Religious Feast Days, Reading Old German Gothic Handwriting, and more. 68 Pages. Magazine format.

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47

AV I A T I O N H I S T O R Y

Captain Chuck Yeager sitting in Bell X-1 cockpit.

Scanned from print signed by Chuck Yeager at Edwards AFB on March 1, 1994.

Public domain. Photo by Jack Ridley, Courtesy US Air Force, Edwards AFB, Historian Office

DEMOLISHING THE SOUND BARRIER

WELLES BRANDRIFF LOOKS AT THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHARLES E. “CHUCK” YEAGER AND RICHARD WHITCOMB: TWO INDIVIDUALS WHO CHANGED THE FACE OF AVIATION FOREVER

W

hat do you do with a World War II fighter pilot after the war is over? If he is a born pilot who has few peers in the sky and his name happens to be Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, you send him to Flight Performance School where he trains to be a test pilot.

By the same token, what do you do with a young aeronautical engineering graduate who was hired

by NACA’s Langley Research Lab during the war years to assist with the research effort, but began

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pestering his boss to let him carry out some independent research. If his name is Richard Whitcomb, then he has already shown that he is a gifted engineer who is most productive when he works under

History Magazine February/March 2018

minimal supervision. So, if you’re his boss, you back off and let him pursue his own interests. * * * * * * Sixty years ago, on 19 January 1956, The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor to NASA, awarded Richard Whitcomb the Distinguished Service Medal for outstanding achievement in the field

of aeronautics. The DSM was given to just seven individuals and Whitcomb was the first person to receive one. Whitcomb had been working on a project whose goal was to identify the aerodynamic factors that prevented an aircraft from flying beyond the speed of sound and find a way to eliminate or, at least, minimize them. He succeeded, and it was this achievement which earned him the DSM. Our story really begins with Chuck Yeager, though, who, after serving with distinction in the European Theatre of Operations, and completing training as a test pilot, made a record-setting flight in October 1947 by piloting a rocket plane through the sound barrier. The sound barrier was the speed at which sound traveled and it varied inversely with the altitude at which the aircraft was flying.

Some experts believed that man was not equipped to travel that fast

and that the aircraft would disintegrate, killing the pilot. The aircraft Yeager flew, designated the Bell X-1, was basically a rocket with wings. The record flight lasted only a few minutes, but it proved that men could pass through the sound barrier without self-destructing.

One drawback was that the rocket plane guzzled prodigious amounts of fuel during the course of its brief flight. It seemed apparent that Yeager’s flight, though noteworthy, was a dead end when it came to designing an aircraft that could satisfy military requirements and also meet financial constraints while exceeding the speed of sound.

The story now shifts back to Richard Whitcomb. When Whitcomb began working at the Langley Research Center, aeronautical engineers were facing a dilemma.

As an aircraft approached the

In the 8 foot High-Speed Tunnel in April 1955, Richard Whitcomb examines a model designed in accordance with his transonic area rule. Public domain. Photo courtesy of NASA

sound barrier, air flow over the wings was disrupted causing a dramatic increase in drag, the force which opposes the forward movement of the aircraft.

Since the military services were looking for aircraft that could routinely exceed the speed of sound, they looked to the research centers to provide the designs that would meet that need. Unfortunately, preliminary tests were not encouraging, especially in light of the power rating of the existing jet engines.

Engineers at the Langley Research Center had been using a wind tunnel to study the problem of transonic drag during the war years. When Whitcomb arrived at Langley, John Stack, the head of the Wind Tunnel Branch, assigned him to assist other researchers in monitoring their tests. After his boss gave Whitcomb approval to pursue his own line of research on the drag issue, Whitcomb began a series of his own experiments using the high-speed wind tunnel.

Preliminary results were not encouraging. Alternative approaches such as using models mounted on actual aircraft and rockets didn’t prove feasible for various reasons.

Either they were too expensive and/or lacked the controlled environment needed for an experiment to provide valid results.

On the other hand, the wind tunnel also had a drawback. In the test section of the tunnel, the flow of air was impeded, therefore, could not reach the speed of sound. This problem was solved by making slots in the wall of the tunnel. As a consequence, Whitcomb and his colleagues were now in a better position to determine the cause of aerodynamic drag with the slotted wind tunnel.

Whitcomb had been an avid model plane hobbyist as a teenager. He had spent hours shaping the balsa wood models to

February/March 2018 History Magazine

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AV I A T I O N H I S T O R Y

50

improve their flight characteristics. Whitcomb applied the same technique to the models he was testing in the 8-foot transonic wind tunnel. In fact, he kept a cot at the lab because he often worked a double shift. He spent so much time in the tunnel that it came to be referred to as Whitcomb’s wind tunnel.

There were a number of tools and techniques available to assist aerodynamicists in their research.

For instance, small strips of cloth taped to the fuselage and the airfoil indicated disturbances in the airflow. Perhaps the most useful device was Schlieren photography, a process which enabled engineers to see the flow of air, and revealed the location where shock waves were developing and creating aerodynamic drag.

These photographs revealed that, in addition to the generation of drag at the front of the aircraft, there were two other locations where drag was generated: at the point where the wing and fuselage were joined and at the trailing edge of the wing.

Whitcomb’s commitment to his work, combined with a number of natural gifts, enabled him to make his first major contribution to the field of aeronautics: he discovered a way to overcome the obstacle that stood in the way of achieving efficient supersonic flight.

It had been Whitcomb’s practice to spend time at the end of the day mulling over the events of the day and seeing if they would lead to any new insights. It was during one of those periods of reflection in combination with a thoughtprovoking presentation by another aerodynamicist that led to the socalled Eureka experience.

For the reader who is not familiar with the origin of this expression, it can be traced back to the Greek mathematician, Archimedes, who discovered the relationship

between weight and volume while taking a bath and supposedly took to the streets shouting Eureka about his discovery. Apocryphal or not, it conveys something of the excitement that Whitcomb must have felt when he realized that he couldn’t look at the wing in isolation from the fuselage, but had to consider them as a system. It was the fuselage, wing and tail whose combined cross-section had to be addressed and the best way of handling that was to tuck in the fuselage at the point it was attached to the wing.

Shortly before Whitcomb published his findings a team of Convair engineers who had heard about his report visited the Langley Lab and witnessed the performance of a model of the YF-102 in the 8-foot wind tunnel that had not incorporated Whitcomb’s modifications.

Despite the poor performance in the wind tunnel, the engineers went back to the company dubious that Whitcomb had discovered a solution to the drag problem.

The company’s top management decided to keep producing the aircraft as it was originally designed.

The end result was an aircraft that could not reach supersonic speed.

As a consequence of this failure, the Air Force ordered Convair to stop producing the original aircraft (YF-102) and take steps to reconfigure the production line for the modified model (YF-102A) which incorporated Whitcomb’s area rule.

Whitcomb went on to make other contributions, including the supercritical wing and winglets, but his discovery of the area rule was the defining achievement of his career.

Meanwhile, Chuck Yeager went on to operational assignments in England, Germany, Spain and eventually Vietnam. After being promoted to full colonel and

History Magazine February/March 2018

attending the Air War College, Yeager was named the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School which trained pilots for NASA and the United States Air Force. In 1969, he received his first star and was assigned as Vice Commander of the 17th Air Force. He retired from the Air Force in 1975, but continued to fly as a consulting test pilot for both NASA and the USAF. If Yeager had not flown the aircraft that broke through the sound barrier, another pilot would have done so. And if Whitcomb had not discovered the area rule, it’s highly likely another engineer would have done so. In fact, German aerodynamic research led to the design of an aircraft with a tapered fuselage in the nineteen forties. At the same time, two British engineers approached the drag problem from a mathematical standpoint, as did a doctoral student at Caltech. But none of these individuals moved beyond the mathematics. So, as James Hansen neatly sums it up in Engineer in Charge, Whitcomb “conceived [the area rule] independently, thanks to a highly individual nonverbal process of thinking that involved seeing shapes and changing them, not interpreting symbols.”

It is not clear whether Yeager ever met Whitcomb, but he, like all other post-WWII pilots, benefited from Whitcomb’s aeronautical achievements.

WELLES BRANDRIFF lives in Hamden, CT. He has had a checkered career, having served as an Air Force officer, university financial administrator, adjunct faculty member, high school teacher, and in retirement, has written both historical fiction and non-fiction magazine articles.

Heroes & Desperados!

by David A. Norris This special issue from History Magazine features a collection of stories about famous, and not-so-famous characters down through history: some nice — and some not-so-nice. David A. Norris, a regular contributor to History Magazine as well as several of our other successful special issues, has compiled entertaining accounts of William Tell, Daniel Sickles, Lieutenant Maynard, Australia’s Bushrangers, Boyle The Turncoat, The Bow Street Runners, Highwaymen and more!

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BOOKS

HINDSIGHT

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018

THE OHIO

THE HISTORIC RIVER IN VINTAGE POSTCARD ART, 1900-1960

by John Jakle and Dannel McCollum

The first half of the 20th century was a period of great change along the historic Ohio River corridor.

It was then that the Ohio became the most heavily engineered river in the world, facilitating its use as an artery of commerce. It was also a period of great change in transportation as different means of travel appeared along the margins of this storied waterway. And it was the era of the picture postcard, in which postcard publishing companies chose views for the public to buy and share with family and friends via the United States Postal Service.

All of these themes are woven together through a full-color display of more than 150 historic postcards that takes the reader along a 981-mile journey from the industrial colossus of Pittsburgh, past its trailing southern elements, and into the mining and agricultural areas on the way to Cincinnati, once known as Porkopolis. From there, postcards offer views of Louisville, once the tobacco capital of the United States, and through interesting, but less famous, places on the way to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio meets the “Father of waters”, the Mississippi River, on more than equal terms.

Employing this unique collection of historic postcards as both artifacts and images, authors John Jakle and Dannel McCollum effectively document the importance of the Ohio River in American history.

THE ORIGINS OF THE IRISH

by J.P. Mallory

About eighty million people today can trace their descent back to the occupants of Ireland. But where did the occupants of the island themselves come from and what do we even mean by “Irish” in the first place?

This is the first major attempt to deal with the core issues of how the Irish came into being. J. P. Mallory emphasizes that the Irish did not have a single origin, but are a product of multiple influences that can only be tracked by employing the disciplines of archaeology, genetics, geology, linguistics, and mythology.

Beginning with the collision that fused the two halves of Ireland together, the book traces Ireland’s long journey through space and time to become an island.

The origins of its first farmers and their monumental impact on the island is followed by an exploration of how metallurgists in copper, bronze, and iron brought Ireland into increasingly wider orbits of European culture. Assessments of traditional explanations of Irish origins are combined with the very latest genetic research into the biological origins of the Irish.

Published by Thames & Hudson 320 pages; ISBN: 978-0-500-29330-0 Price: $16.95 (US), $22.95 (CAN)

Published by The Kent State University Press; 184 pages ISBN: 978-1-60635-316-5; Price: $24.95

February/March 2018 History Magazine

53

BOOKS

A WOMAN’S PLACE IS AT THE TOP

A BIOGRAPHY OF ANNIE SMITH PECK, QUEEN OF THE CLIMBERS

by Hannah Kimberley

Annie Smith Peck is one of the most accomplished women of the twentieth century, however, few know the story of this remarkable woman. An early feminist and accomplished adventurer, Peck led an incredible life and refused to let gender stereotypes stand in her way. Now, in A Woman’s Place is at the Top: A Biography of Annie Smith Peck, Queen of the Climbers, Hannah Kimberley presents the first comprehensive biography of this remarkable woman who transcended the limitations and expectations of her time.

Annie Smith Peck was a scholar, writer, lecturer, mountain climber, swimmer, oarswoman, horsewoman, splendid conversationalist and well-trained listener. She gained fame as the third woman recorded in history to climb the Matterhorn – not for her daring alpine feat, but because she climbed wearing pants – and would eventually be the first climber ever to conquer Mount Huascaran (21,812 feet) in 1908. She would also race Hiram Bingham (the model for Indiana Jones) to climb Mount Coropuna in 1911.

Peck single-handedly carved her place on the map of mountain climbing, women’s rights, and international relations as well. She marched in suffrage parades, was the president of the Joan of Arc Suffrage League in New York City, and became a political speaker and writer before women had the right to vote. Peck was also an expert on North-South American relations, and an author and lecturer contracted to speak as an authority on multinational industry and commerce before anyone had ever thought to appoint a woman as a diplomat.

Recognized as an expert on Annie Smith Peck, Hannah Kimberley had unprecedented access to Peck’s original letters, diaries, and artifacts. In this empowering biography, she brings Peck’s entire life to the page for the first time and places her at the level of other influential historical women like Nellie Bly, Susan B. Anthony and Gertrude Stein.

Published by St. Martin’s Press; 368 pages; ISBN: 978-1250084002; Price: $26.99 Also available as eBook.

54

History Magazine February/March 2018

THE IMPOSSIBLE PRESIDENCY

THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICA’S HIGHEST OFFICE

by Jeremi Suri

In The Impossible Presidency, celebrated historian Jeremi Suri charts the rise and fall of the American presidency, from the limited role envisaged by the Founding Fathers to its current status as the most powerful job in the world. He argues that the presidency is a victim of its own success – the vastness of the job makes it almost impossible to fulfill the expectations placed upon it. Contemporary presidents, as managers of the world's largest economy and military, must react to a truly globalized world in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. There is little room left for bold vision.

Suri traces America’s disenchantment with our recent presidents to the inevitable mismatch between presidential promises and the structural limitations of the office. A masterful reassessment of presidential history, this book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand America's fraught political climate.

Published by Basic Books; 368 pages; ISBN: 978-0-465-05173-1 Price: $32.00 (US) $39.00 (CAN) Also available as an eBook.

GREATER GOTHAM

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY FROM 1898 TO 1919

by Mike Wallace

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Mike Wallace and Edwin Burrows set a new standard for urban history in its sweeping and definitive portrait of the city from its early days as a Dutch colony to the consolidation of the five boroughs. Twenty years in the making, Mike Wallace continues the story with Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, starting on the cusp of the 20th century and continuing through World War I – a pivotal time when the city was swiftly moving from national to global prominence.

In the first two decades of the 20th century, New York was utterly transformed. Its boroughs were connected by newly built bridges and tunnels. Skyscrapers shot ever upward as immense networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduits tunneled underground to support the needs of the growing population. Gotham’s neighborhoods pulsed with life and energy: from the overcrowded tenements of the Lower East Side and the bohemianism of Greenwich Village to the citadel of black empowerment taking shape in Harlem and the relentless ambition of Wall Street. These twenty years saw expansion as well as conflict – between entrenched wealth and immigrant ambition, between those holding on to power and those seeking radical change.

Greater Gotham tells a story of America’s greatest city, one that reflects the history of an entire nation. Immersive and beautifully written, it offers a portrait of New York at the very moment it was becoming the political, economic, social, and cultural powerhouse it remains today.

Published by Oxford University Press 1,196 pages; ISBN: 978-0195116359; Price: $45.00

Heritage Travel!

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This new edition to our Tracing Your Ancestors series is co-authored by genealogy educators and lecturers Lisa A. Alzo and Christine Woodcock. Here is some of what is included in the issue: Ten Things You Should Know Before You Go; How to Hire the Right Guide; Awesome Travel Apps for the Heritage Traveler; Immersion Genealogy; Build an Itinerary with Trello; Journal Your Journey; Preparing Travel to Your Ancestral Homeland; Social History Museums; Food, Family & Folklore; After the Tour: Prepare to Tell Your Story; Speaking Your Ancestors’ Language, and more.

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