Wisconsin meat market, 1950.

Girls.

All-girl baseball team, Boston 1960.

Men.

American soldiers train for trench warfare in rear areas of France prior to deployment to the front lines, World War I, c. 1917.

Good eats, cheap.

The diner at Raymondville, Texas, 1939.

July 30, 1864.

On this date in 1864, Union forces laying siege to the Confederate stronghold in Petersburg, Virginia, blew a large crater in the Confederate defensive line in an attempt to break the stalemate.

Poorly directed Union troops rushed into the crater, rather than going around it, becoming trapped, and Confederate forces fired into the crater, killing 3,800 Union men.

General Grant said ‘it was the saddest affair he had witnessed in the war.’

A really old picture.

Dolley Madison (1768-1849), the wife of the fourth president, James Madison, served as first lady from 1809 to 1817.

She posed for this studio portrait in 1846, when she was 78 years old.

Lots of people.

Soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force who fought in France during World War I stream to the Red Cross canteen for supper as they await loading onto a troop ship which will return them to the US, c. 1918 or ‘19.

Old Hollywood.

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (1939).

"I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!"

My country ‘tis of thee.

American soldiers at a forward operating base in Iraq, 2007.

American art.

Thomas Eakins, Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic), 1875.

Building things.

Construction of New York’s Flatiron Building, 1902.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 30, 1940: Eighty German dive-bombers attacked the British port at Dover yesterday in the largest air assault of the war.

Transatlantic liners have arrived in Canada carrying two thousand European war refugees, including hundreds of children who will stay for the duration of the war.

Canada announced plans to recruit and train 300,000 single men for duty as homeland defense guards.

China has rejected a Japanese peace proposal which would cede five Chinese provinces to Japan and recognize a Japanese puppet as president of the rest of China plus French and British possessions in the Far East.

President Roosevelt asked Congress for authorization to call up the National Guard for one year of military training and potential deployment across the Western Hemisphere and the Philippines.

The US Navy has signed contracts to lay submarine nets at the entrance of major US harbors.

Artifacts.

Elizabeth Clarkson made this quilt in New York in 1830 using hundreds of small hexagonal pieces of printed cotton.

In 1830, Andrew Jackson was the US president and there were 24 states in the union.

12.8 million people lived in the US then and two million of them were enslaved.

Dog of the day.

I feel the same way…

Buying new shoes for the first day of school, 1957.

Girls.

These little girls lived on King Island, in the Bering Sea off the coast of Nome, Alaska, 1938.

Men.

Loggers at work on a Wisconsin river, 1900.

What they said.

Civil rights leader Booker T. Washington speaks at Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1906, at an event to raise funds for the education of Black Americans in the South.

Mark Twain, another speaker, sits on the stage behind him.

In his address, Washington told the audience (of wealthy people) that Black Americans had proven their loyalty to the country.

Twain said funding Black education was a moral imperative necessary to right the nation’s historical wrongs.

July 29, 1921.

On this date in 1921, Adolph Hitler became the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

July 29, 1981.

On this date in 1981, 750 million people watched the wedding of Britain’s Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

Lots of people.

German prisoners captured in the Ruhr Valley of western Germany, April 1945.

Old Hollywood.

Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in Camille (1936).

"It's my heart. It's not used to being happy."

My country ‘tis of thee.

American soldiers and equipment load into a Coast Guard landing craft on the west side of the Rhine River prior to making the crossing, March 1945.

American art.

Winslow Homer, Camp Fire, 1880.

Building things.

President Kennedy stands in front of “the bug,” NASA’s first effort in designing a lunar landing vehicle, at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, September 12, 1962.

This was the day in which he delivered his Rice University address announcing the US intention to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s:

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 29, 1940: German occupation authorities have halted all rail traffic between the occupied and free zones in France, which observers claim is a prelude to a German invasion of Britain.

This comes as Germany has deployed aircraft, submarines and torpedo-carrying surface vessels in escalating attacks against British military and industrial targets, ports, rail facilities and shipping.

In Japan, authorities have arrested eleven prominent British businessmen, plus a Reuters correspondent, in surprise raids said to have been undertaken as a response to pressure from the German government.

Artifacts.

President Theodore Roosevelt wore this ring, containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair, during his second inauguration on March 4, 1905.

He had received the ring the night before the inauguration from John Hay, Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, who had served as Lincoln’s private secretary forty years before.

Hay is said to have paid $100 for the lock of hair which was clipped during Lincoln’s autopsy.

Hay included this note with the ring:

"Please wear it tomorrow; you are one of the men who most thoroughly understand and appreciate Lincoln.”

Dog of the day.

Who wouldn’t give this good boy a treat?

‘Egg-in-a-spoon’ race, Fourth of July, 1922.

Girls.

Sleepy little girls at a birthday party, 1930.

Boys.

Boys on a scrap metal drive for the war effort haul an old stove out of a Roanoke, Virginia, junkyard, 1942.

July 28, 1945.

On this date in 1945, a Mitchell B-25 bomber heading for Newark Airport got lost in heavy morning fog and crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing the three men aboard and eleven people in offices.

July 28, 1965.

On this date in 1965, President Johnson said the number of US troops serving in South Vietnam would be increased from 75,000 to 125, 000.

The increase was needed, he said, “to convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power.”

To meet this increase in active forces, Johnson said the draft call would be raised from 17,000 to 35,000 per month.

Lots of people.

10,000 sailors, dressed in either blue or white uniforms, line up to create an image of the American flag.

Great Lakes, Illinois, Naval Training Station, 1917.

Word of the day: crooner.

In the 1920s, new microphones were developed which could pick up quiet sounds in a broad range of frequencies, enabling a singer to perform in a smooth, intimate style.

That’s crooning, a style which reached its peak of popularity in the Big Band era of the 1930s and ‘40s.

Old Hollywood.

Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934).

“What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not.”

My country ‘tis of thee.

US Coast Guardsmen arrive in Greenland to search for German weather installations, c. 1941.

American art.

John Singer Sargent, In the Generalife, 1912.

Building things.

Workers repair the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica following catastrophic flooding in 1938.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 28, 1940: As the Luftwaffe continued its bombardment of inland targets in Britain yesterday, the RAF struck oil refineries and depots in coastal regions of occupied France.

Mussolini invited sixty international journalists to his villa in Rome yesterday, two days before his 57th birthday, where he demonstrated his physical prowess by riding his horse as it jumped over fences and playing a set of tennis in the summer heat.

‘Do I look weak or sick or tired?’ he asked.

Germany has obtained rights to the Bor copper mine in Serbia, the largest copper producer in Europe, which had previously exported copper to the Allies.

This comes as Romania is expected to invite German and Italian interests to take over Romanian oil fields.

A squadron of 83 Canadian pilots, Canadian-built aircraft and ground crews have arrived in England where they will join the RAF air campaign.

As speculation mounts over the timing of a German invasion of Britain, Berlin sources report German paratroopers are training in an evacuated Polish city to land on rooftops where they use tin shears to cut through roofs and jimmies to pry open skylights and trapdoors.

Artifacts.

During the Civil War, Edwin Forbes was embedded in the Army of the Potomac as a combat artist for the news magazine Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

He drew 178 scenes from the Army’s Virginia campaigns which appeared as engravings in the Newspaper.

A large collection of these original drawings is held in the Library of Congress.

Dog of the day.

Oh! We ain't got a barrel of money
Maybe we're ragged and funny
But we'll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side.

Thru all kinds of weather
What if the sky should fall
Just as long as we're together
It really doesn't matter at all.

Eating popcorn during intermission at the drive-in movie theater, 1950s.

Doing the hard work.

A domestic servant on the job in Washington, D.C.,1941.

Women.

Red Cross “Donut Dollie” Dorner Carmichael with young Americans in South Vietnam. c. 1970.

Men.

William Henry Towns, age 83, a formerly enslaved man from Alabama, photographed at his home in Rogers, Arkansas, 1937.

Technology.

A ‘large format, wet plate’ camera from the late 1800s.

To take a picture, the photographer would first expand or contract the bellows to obtain a precise focus, then slide a piece of glass or metal dipped in silver nitrate into the camera.

He’d then remove the lens cap, exposing the wet plate to light for a few seconds, then rush to develop the photograph.

July 27, 1940.

On this date in 1940, the world was introduced to Bugs Bunny with the Warner Bros. Pictures release of the animated comedy short film A Wild Hare.

"What's up, doc?"

Time lapse.

Left: The National Mall as seen from the Capitol in 1863.

The Smithsonian Castle is in the center.

The unfinished Washington Monument [very hazy] is to the right.

Civil War hospital buildings stand in a row in front of the Castle.

A canal runs through the Mall, then turns towards the left.

The original Botanic Garden is in front.

Right: The view from the Capitol today.

Old Hollywood.

Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1942).

“Round up the usual suspects.”

My country ‘tis of thee.

Actor Douglas Fairbanks lifts Charlie Chaplin above a cheering Wall Street crowd to promote the sale of war bonds to fund the US effort in World War I, April 1918.

American art.

Mary Cassatt, Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly, 1880.

Building things.

Civilian Conservation Corps workers pour concrete for a canal which will divert water from an Oregon river reservoir, 1937.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 27, 1940: German efforts to isolate Britain have escalated sharply, with large-scale bomber and U-boat attacks on merchant convoys in the English Channel and aerial strikes on shipping near the coast of Northern Ireland.

Britain has registered four million men for military service since military conscription began last year.

In the Mediterranean, waves of Italian bombers struck the British naval base at Gibraltar.

In Asia, newspapers close to the Japanese government warned that a US prohibition on Japanese imports of American oil and scrap metal would be countered with a Japanese blockade on US imports of East Asian rubber and tin.

In Washington, President Roosevelt said refugee committees have a list of ten thousand European children waiting for evacuation to the US or Canada, but there was presently no guarantee that ships transporting them would be assured of safe passage.

Artifacts.

Emily, Nannie and Elizabeth Alsop, shown here in 1862, were the daughters of a wealthy Fredericksburg, Virginia, slave-holding family.

Their two older brothers served in the Confederate army.

Union forces occupied their home in 1862, causing much damage.

When the war ended, Elizabeth wrote this passage in her diary:

“How hard it is! How hard! Seeing them (our enemies) walking our streets, forcing our grey-headed fathers to take the oath [of allegiance to the Union]; and feeling that our cause is lost."

Dog of the day.

When they were twenty years old, these men were among those selected from thousands of Pennsylvania applicants to serve in an elite Union cavalry regiment during the Civil War.

They wore jackets with distinctive orange trim, became famous for fearsome mounted saber charges and saw action at Antietam, Stones River, and Chickamauga.

Now, four decades later, survivors have gathered at the Colorado Springs home of their former commanding officer.

They surround the commander’s daughters and his beloved Labrador, the symbols of the ‘hearth and home’ for which they fought.

New electric dishwasher and range, 1929.

Simpler times.

A federal program helps immigrants learn English, New York, 1938.

Doing the hard work.

Stevedores unload cargo from a ship docked at the Brooklyn waterfront, 1946.

Women.

Grandmas in Times Square, c. 1970s.

Men.

One guy and lots of girls, 1981.

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July 24, 1974.

On this date in 1974, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon must comply with a criminal subpoena and give tape recordings of his Oval Office conversations to the Watergate Special Prosecutor.

One of the tapes revealed Nixon’s involvement in covering up the Watergate break-in, leading to his resignation from office two weeks later.

The 1974 Nixon case stands for the proposition that ‘no man is above the law,’ a proposition which the Supreme Court weakened in its 2024 decision granting Trump immunity for official acts.

Good eats, cheap.

Norwegian dinner at the Senior Center: lutefisk, lefse and buns, 1960s.

Old Hollywood.

Henry Fonda and Bette Davis in Jezebel (1938).

“I like my convictions undiluted, same as I do my bourbon.”

My country ‘tis of thee.

Original photo caption: “All bundled up in leather jacket, khaki pants and boots, Marilyn Monroe is helped from a General Patton tank in which she got a ride to the Fortieth Division to stage a show for troops in Korea. Soldiers gather around tank,” February 22, 1954.

American art.

John Sloan, Gray and Brass, 1907.

Building things.

Wisconsin barn-raising, 1891.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 24, 1940: In Washington, Senate action is expected next week on the compulsory service bill which would require the registration of an estimated 42 million men between the ages of 18 and 64.

The first draft call, beginning in October, would enroll 1.5 million 21-to-30-year-olds in twelve months of military training.

In London, the British government proposed raising the income tax rate to 43.5%, with surcharges on high incomes.

With just a few more weeks of good flying weather remaining in the year, many in London speculate that the long-anticipated German invasion of Britain will come soon.

This belief has been bolstered by reports that supplies have been flooding in to German logistical centers in occupied Belgium and the Netherlands.

The British War Minister reported that Britain now has 1.3 million Home Guard troops ready to meet the challenge.

In Asia, the new Japanese government said it would not retreat from its ‘sacred campaign’ and urged the US to withdraw from Asia.

Artifacts.

New York infantryman James Turnbull fought in the Civil War for four years — from start to finish — and was present at Robert E. Lee’s surrender.

He describes the scene in this letter:

Camp of the 121st N.Y. Vols. West of Farmsville Va. April 10th 1865 

Dear brother 

It is with pleasure I take my pen to write a few lines to you...

we have knocked the rebs all to pieces and forced old Rob Lee to surrender his whole army 

the boys are all hoarse this morning they cheered so hard yesterday 

We had a desperate fight last Thursday 

they would not give up after they was whiped and the boys had to knock out their brains with the but end of the musket... 

I have got a piece of the tree that old Lee an Grand [Grant] settled the rebellion under

we are all in good spirits...

			James Turnbull

Dog of the day.

Private John Bortle, age 21, served in a Michigan infantry unit for three years during the Civil War, engaging in battles in Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and the siege of Vicksburg.

He lived through it all and returned home to Michigan at the war’s end.

I hope his dog was there to greet him.

Television store showroom, 1956.

Simpler times.

Students work on manual typewriters in their college typing class, St. Cloud (Minnesota) State University, c. 1960.

Doing the hard work.

Smithsonian anthropologist Frederick Webb Hodge (second from right) works with Native American men to uncover Zuni artifacts in New Mexico, c. 1910.

Girls.

Queen candidates for the 1961 Reseda, California, Jubilee.

Boys.

Boys from Cook County, Illinois, schools compete in the high jump at the annual county schools festival, 1916.

July 23, 1903.

On this date in 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car to Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning for $850.

Good eats, cheap.

Lumber camp kitchen, c. 1900.

Old Hollywood.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944).

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

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My country ‘tis of thee.

On July 4, 1860, the 84th anniversary of American independence, the New York State Militia and other civic groups marched down Broadway to New York’s City Hall.

The event is known as “The Last Parade.”

In nine months, the Civil War will begin, taking the lives of many of these men.

American art.

John White Alexander, Repose, 1895.

Building things.

Surveyors prepare anchorage lines on the walls of the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, the future site of the Hoover Dam, near Las Vegas, 1931.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 23, 1940: In a world-wide radio broadcast yesterday, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, formally rebuffed Hitler’s demand that Britain sue for peace.

‘An unbridgeable chasm exists between the philosophy of life of Nazi Germany and democratic Britain,’ he said, adding, ‘Britain will not stop fighting until freedom for ourselves and others is secured.’

The RAF underscored the Halifax statement with intensified bombing raids over Germany, which Berlin called ‘murderous attacks on German civilians.’

The German press said President ‘Roosevelt bore guilt in Britain’s refusal to give up.’

Artifacts.

On May 31, 1776, George Washington wrote a letter to his brother, John (above), expressing concern that members of Congress nursed hopes of reconciliation with Britain and were not taking sufficient care in drafting a new constitution:

many Members of Congress... are still feeding themselves upon the dainty food of reconciliation; 
and tho' they will not allow that the expectation of it has any influence upon their judgments (with respect to their preparations for defence) it is but too obvious that it has an operation upon every part of their conduct and is a clog to their proceedings... 

To form a new Government, requires infinite care, & unbounded attention; 
for if the foundation is badly laid the superstructure must be bad. 
too much time therefore, cannot be bestowed in weighing and digesting matters well.

every Man should consider, that he is lending his aid to frame a Constitution which is to render Million’s happy, or Miserable, 
and that a matter of such moment cannot be the Work of a day. 

Dog of the day.

Seeing the sights in Taos, New Mexico, with Dad, 1920.

Denver elementary school classroom, 1903.

Doing the hard work.

Members of the Hayden Expedition, a federally-funded geological survey team, at work in Wyoming, c. 1870.

The expedition’s maps, paintings and descriptions of the region convinced Congress to designate Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872.

Women.

Grandmothers in Milwaukee dance to accordion music, 1985.

Men.

Colorado miners (including some with candles mounted on their helmets) dig blast holes with rock hammers and chisels, 1900.

July 22, 1934.

On this date in 1934, Federal agents killed John Dillinger, a publicity-seeking gangster who claimed to have robbed 24 banks and four police stations, as he left a Chicago movie theater.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had recently named him “Public Enemy Number One.”

Over the next two days, 15,000 people stood in line at the Cook County Morgue to view Dillinger’s body.

Good eats, cheap.

Mom and Dad go camping, 1963.

Old Hollywood.

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938).

"I can't give you anything but love, Baby."

My country ‘tis of thee.

On the night of July 22-23, 1945, eight crewmen from the submarine USS Barb went ashore in Japan and laid pressure-sensitive explosives under a railroad track, which blew up a sixteen-car Japanese military train.

This episode was the only Allied ground combat operation on the Japanese homeland during World War II.

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American art.

Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865.

When old words fit.

Walter Cronkite speaks to his television audience after returning from a fact-finding tour of South Vietnam, February 27, 1968 (excerpt with slight edits):

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.

This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.

It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 22, 1940: The air war between Britain and Germany continues to escalate as Germany prepares for the invasion of Britain by attempting to establish air supremacy over Britain and the English Channel.

More British merchant convoys in the Channel were attacked yesterday and targets scattered across England and Wales were also struck.

German newspapers warned that Britain ‘would soon suffer destruction such as the world has never seen before.’

The new, pro-Soviet parliaments of the three Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — now under Soviet occupation, have declared themselves part of the Soviet Union.

In Washington, the Navy Department said appropriations under the the new ‘two-ocean navy bill’ will enable the reopening of American shipyards which have lain idle since the 1920s.

Artifacts.

In 2020, a researcher at the New York Public Library discovered a long-forgotten map of the Antietam battlefield which a railroad engineer prepared in 1864.

The map details the location of more than 5,800 graves of Union and Confederate troops who fell in the September 1862 battle.

The map has enabled researchers to pinpoint the exact burial location of individual soldiers, regiments, and even horses.

Dog of the day.

Eleven dogs, two monkeys, and two pretty girls in swimsuits and high heels, Michigan, 1970.

There’s no business like show business.

The living room, 1976.

Doing the hard work.

Construction workers build the Alcan Highway, linking the lower 48 US states, through Canada, to Alaska to speed the resupply of Allied military installations there, 1942.

Women.

A hurricane survivor walks through the Galveston debris field, 1900.

Men.

In 1861, a group of German immigrants in St. Charles, Missouri, who supported the Union in the Civil War formed a local militia (above) to guard the area against attacks by Confederate sympathizers (aka, bushwackers) and to protect a local railroad used as a Union supply line.

July 21, 1861.

On this date in 1861, the first major land battle of the Civil War took place in northern Virginia along a stream called ‘Bull Run.’

There, the Union army was routed in a fight which killed or wounded 5,000 Americans in total.

The battle took place in front of spectators from nearby Washington who had driven carriages to the area laden with picnic lunches.

In the aftermath, both sides acknowledged the possibility that the Civil War would not be a quick fight.

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Good eats, cheap.

The lunch line at the Los Angeles County Courthouse, 1959.

Time lapse.

The 230-acre farm of George and Dorothy Rose was the scene of the most intense fighting during the three-day Civil War battle in Gettysburg.

On the second day of battle, July 2, 1863, 20,000 Americans fought one another on the Rose farm, often resorting to hand-to-hand combat.

6,000 were killed or wounded.

Medics set up a hospital in the Rose house and barn and hundreds of men were buried there.

Old Hollywood.

John Wayne in Stagecoach (1939).

“Well, I guess you can't break out of prison and into society in the same week.”

My country ‘tis of thee.

These men are members of an elite Army airborne reconnaissance unit which conducted intelligence gathering deep behind enemy lines in the Saigon area and Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

They are shown here in January 1968 at Bien Hoa Air Base as they commence a three-day long-range reconnaissance patrol.

American art.

William Merritt Chase, At the Seaside, 1892.

Words.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

…Let us, then, be up and doing,  
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,  
Learn to labor and to wait.

     --- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, 1838.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 21, 1940: One hundred RAF aircraft repelled a mass German bomber attack against a merchant convoy in the English Channel yesterday as aerial duels between the Luftwaffe and RAF defenders played out across the British homeland.

In the Mediterranean, British bombers raided Italian bases across North Africa and Italy attacked British naval vessels in an engagement near Crete.

In the Netherlands, the German occupiers have established courts to try Netherlanders for acts against the German nation or people.

In Washington, President Roosevelt signed the four billion dollar ‘two-ocean navy bill’ which will fund a six-year ship construction program.

Administration officials said that if Britain were able to defend herself against Germany during the winter, ‘a vast and perhaps decisive quantity of American-made war materials would be made available to her in the spring.’

Artifacts.

In 1493, as Christopher Columbus returned home aboard the Niña from his first voyage to the Western Hemisphere, he wrote this letter to the Spanish Court describing the wonders of the New World and seeking funding for a return trip.

His letter was printed in Spanish and later, in Latin, German and Italian and was widely circulated across Europe, spurring the drive for colonies in the New World.

A single copy of the Spanish printing survives (above).

It is held in the New York Public Library.

Dog of the day.

These big dogs worked as scouts for the 1st Chickasaw Infantry Regiment (aka “Hunter’s Indian Volunteers”), a Confederate unit in the Civil War compromised of Chickasaw men who fought in skirmishes in Indian Territory, now present-day Oklahoma.

Grandmothers smoke and drink in the kitchen, 1960.

American families, c. 1900.

Left: Chief Heap Hungry of the Assiniboine tribe and his family on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, Montana.

Right: The Lopez family of Del Rio, Texas.

Girls.

Florida, 1934.

Boys.

An Italian boy at Ellis Island, c. 1905.

July 20, 1969: Men walk on the Moon.

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Good eats, cheap.

Coke and hotdogs at the carnival, Normal, Illinois, June 1945.

Gone but not forgotten.

North Tower, World Trade Center.

Old Hollywood.

Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront (1954).

"I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

My country ‘tis of thee.

Black sailors roll out barrels of oil for US aircraft and motorized equipment on the beach of Biak Island, Dutch New Guinea, following the capture of three Japanese airfields there, 1944.

American art.

William R. Leigh, Greased Lightning, 1946.

Words.

Lincoln?

He was a mystery in smoke and flags
Saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags,
Yes to the paradoxes of democracy,

Yes to the hopes of government
Of the people by the people for the people,
No to debauchery of the public mind,
No to personal malice nursed and fed,

Yes to the Constitution when a help,
No to the Constitution when a hindrance
Yes to man as a struggler amid illusions,

Each man fated to answer for himself:
Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind
Must I choose for my own sustaining light
To bring me beyond the present wilderness?

     -- Carl Sandburg, excerpt from The People, Yes! 1936

Today in World War II.

July 20, 1940: In a speech before the Riechstag last night, Hitler made a final appeal to Britain to sue for peace, warning that annihilation would come to either Britain or Germany if it did not.

“Churchill may believe it will be Germany,” he said. “I know it will be Britain.”

The British government issued no formal response and continued preparations for a German invasion.

Artifacts.

In 1531, the Nahua Indian people, living near present day Mexico City, sued their Spanish administrators, alleging they had forced the Nahua to pay excessive taxes in the form of goods and services.

Evidence in the case included an eight-page testimonial document on fig bark paper which uses pictographs to depict the excessive taxes paid.

The first page of the testimony, shown above, includes the earliest known Native American depiction of the Madonna and Child.

The Nahua people prevailed in their lawsuit and the Spanish king ordered his administrators to return two-thirds of their payments.

Dog of the day.

Auditioning for a role in The Odyssey.

Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1960.

How to be cool, c. 1953.

Women.

Saturday night in Detroit, 1941.

Men.

German prisoners captured by the US Army in Kuckhoven, in western Germany, February 1945.

Good eats, cheap.

Turkey and mashed potatoes on Clarence Swenson’s Thanksgiving table, Blue Mounds, Minnesota, 1911.

Gone but not forgotten.

The wrought iron and glass New York Crystal Palace, built on the current site of Bryant Park in 1853, housed America’s first world’s fair.

It showcased new designs of the Industrial Revolution, including Elisha Otis’s passenger elevator.

An adjacent 315-foot wooden observation tower offered visitors panoramic views of the New York City region.

The Palace was completely destroyed in 1858 in a fire which is said to have lasted just half an hour.

Old Hollywood.

Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in High Noon (1952).

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My country ‘tis of thee.

Original photo caption: “A company of American engineers which has just completed its tour of duty back of the trenches of the St. Mihiel sector, returns from the front through the shell-torn town of Nonsard, colors flying and everybody jubilant.” September 1918

[dog mascot in the lead]

American art.

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930.

Today in World War II.

July 17, 1940: The Japanese Army has forced the resignation of the Japanese Cabinet in favor of a new, one-party government which will seek control of the Far Eastern possessions of non-Asiatic nations.

Rumors swirl that Hitler will convene a meeting of the Reichstag next week in which he will offer Britain a final chance for peace.

Hitler’s terms would obligate Britain to stay out of European affairs as Germany and Italy divide the continent between themselves.

A German newspaper associated with Field Marshal Hermann Goering warned Churchill that ‘he must free England and the world of his presence,’ warning that if Britain follows Churchill’s war policies, it will suffer the same fate as France.

The British Admiralty said Germany’s use of French airfields to attack British convoys operating in the English Channel has led to increasing maritime losses.

Thirteen British ships were lost last week, in addition to nine others registered to Allied or neutral nations.

President Roosevelt has provided details on progress made in implementing the nation’s new ten billion dollar rearmament program, noting contracts have been signed for a wide range of items, including service shoes, anti-aircraft searchlights, trucks, tanks, aircraft, battleships and barracks construction.

July 17, 1858.

Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois Republican candidate for the US Senate, sat in the audience of challenger Stephen A. Douglas’s campaign speech in Atlanta, Illinois, on the morning of July 17, 1858, and also attended Douglas’s afternoon speech in Springfield.

Douglas supported the 1857 Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case which held that enslaved people were not US citizens and could not expect any protection from the federal government or the court, and also said Congress had no authority to ban slavery from the Federal territories, invalidating the Missouri Compromise.

In the evening, Lincoln spoke in the Illinois state house in Springfield:

[Judge Douglas] says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most -- that it has no practical effect; that at best, or rather, I suppose at worst, it is but an abstraction.

I submit that the proposition that the thing which determines whether a man is free or a slave, is rather concrete than abstract.

I think you would conclude that it was, if your liberty depended upon it, and so would Judge Douglas if his liberty depended upon it.”

Artifacts.

In 1845, the administrator of the Estate of Daniel Dunklin, of Jefferson County, Missouri, submitted to the county court this appraisal of six enslaved people whose ownership would pass to his surviving wife.

Transcript:

Dog of the day.

Some chase their tails.
I chase raccoons.

Mom’s new kitchen, 1950s.

Babies.

Bath time, 1900.

Women.

Casting call for the television show Love Boat, 1985.

Men.

Los Angeles jail’s ‘drunk tank,’ filled with intoxicated drivers, a few days before Christmas 1950.

July 16, 1945.

The US detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

July 16, 1969.

Former President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Spiro Agnew view the liftoff of Apollo 11, the flight which will put men on the lunar surface, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Good eats, cheap.

St. Louis members of the Daughters of the American Revolution enjoy a picnic lunch, 1903.

What they said.

Carl Sandburg, Cahoots, 1920:

"Play it across the table.
What if we steal this city blind?
If they want any thing let 'em nail it down.

Harness bulls, dicks, front office men,
And the high goats up on the bench,
Ain't they all in cahoots?

        Go fifty-fifty.
If they nail you call in a mouthpiece.
Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it.
        Feed 'em. . . .

Nothin' ever sticks to my fingers, nah, nah,
        nothin' like that..."

My country ‘tis of thee.

American soldiers in France, June 1918.

Good TV.

In September 1960, more than 60 million people watched John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon engage in the first televised presidential debate.

Millions more listened on the radio.

While some scholars have discredited the view that the televised debates gave Kennedy the victory, Kennedy thought they mattered.

After the election, he said ‘it was the TV more than anything else that turned the tide.’

The moderator, Howard K. Smith, who could only see the candidates’ backs during the debate, initially gave the win to Nixon.

But Smith changed his mind after viewing the television replay: ‘I could see that Kennedy swept it. He just looked so enchanting.’

American art.

John James Audubon, Farmyard Fowls, 1827.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 16, 1940: In response to Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s defiant speech vowing to defend Britain ‘town by town, street by street,’ the German government said it no longer considered London an ‘open city’ and it is a valid bombing target.

The British Air Ministry has appealed for ‘an unlimited number’ of experienced American pilots and Morse Code operators to join the RAF.

Japan announced it will blockade all remaining ports in China which it does not yet occupy.

The US Treasury Department has ‘frozen’ the assets of the Soviet-occupied Baltic nations to prevent the Soviets from accessing these funds.

The War Department has contracted for the construction of 600 light tanks for two new US mechanized divisions which are being patterned after the Nazi Panzer divisions.

Artifacts.

President Thomas Jefferson asked Meriwether Lewis to take precise measurements of the longitude and latitude of prominent geographic features encountered on his expedition along the Missouri River to enable the War Department to produce accurate maps of the Louisiana Purchase.

To do so, Lewis sought help from Philadelphia mathematician Robert Patterson, who, in 1803, prepared a notebook of instructions based on celestial observations.

Lewis brought this notebook on his journey (May 1804 to September 1806).

It contains Lewis’s field observations and a map of the Columbia River drawn by a Native American tribal leader.

Dog of the day.

Back-seat driver, St. Louis, c. 1930.

Left: A Cheyenne family dries animal hides at its camp in Colorado.

This is the oldest photo of Native Americans taken on location in the American West.

Right: A Boston family poses for a formal studio portrait.

Girls.

Left: a girl who lived in New York, c. 1850.

Right: a girl who lived in Chicago, 1949.

Men.

Union soldiers overlook the camp headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, Cumberland Landing, Virginia, May 1862.

July 15, 1876.

On this date in 1876, George “Grin” Bradley, of the St. Louis Brown Stockings, pitched the first officially recognized no-hitter in major league baseball.

(Bradley was famous for the smirk he gave batters.)

The no-hitter came against the Hartford Dark Blues at Grand Avenue Park in St. Louis.

July 15, 1937.

On this date in 1937, the first prisoners arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Good eats, cheap.

Grandmothers prepare pancakes over an improvised grill during a Cold War civil defense mass-feeding drill, 1954.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

US Coast Guardsmen, Cape Cod, 1942.

Doing the hard work.

Farmers wash up before dinner, 1923.

What they said.

We must do what they fear – tell the truth, spread the truth. 

This is the most powerful weapon against this regime of liars, thieves and hypocrites.

-- from Navalny's posthumous memoir, "Patriot"

Good TV.

In November 1983, more than 100 million people watched the ABC Television movie, The Day After, a dystopian film about the effects of a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and small farms located near US missile silos.

American art.

Jean Bijur Weiss, Pattern, (no date).

Today’s news in World War II.

July 15, 1940: In a radio address yesterday heard around the world, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said Britain will seek no peace terms from Germany in the war, and, 'while it may show mercy, it will seek none.’

"Should the invader come to Britain," he said, "there will be no placid lying down of the people in submission before him, as we have seen, alas! in other countries.

We will defend every village, every town and every city.

The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army, and 

we would rather see London laid in ashes and ruins than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved."

Artifacts.

Following the successful conclusion of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy commissioned Tiffany& Co. to produce 34 engraved, silver calendar paperweights as gifts for his close advisors.

This one was given to First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (JBK).

Dog of the day.

This terrier mix, named "Little Corporal," was the mascot for an Ohio infantry company which served in the Western Theater during the Civil War (Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas).

The dining room, 1960.

Girls.

This girl was born in New Orleans to an enslaved woman and was the property of her white father.

She was brought North in 1863 with others, after they were emancipated, to pose for photographs to be sold to raise funds for the education of Louisiana’s freed people.

The children were groomed and dressed in Victorian finery to shock the conscience of white Northerners who assumed all enslaved people had dark skin.

Many in the North had grown war-weary then and advocated a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy (perhaps permitting slavery to continue) to end the Civil War.

Men.

In 1917, 1,500 Confederate veterans of the Civil War held their 27th annual reunion in Washington, D.C., where they paraded in review for President Woodrow Wilson.

July 14, 1969.

On this date in 1969, the first US Marines began to leave South Vietnam as a part of President Nixon’s troop withdrawal program which he called “Vietnamization.”

The program was an attempt to gradually shift all responsibility for defending South Vietnam to the South Vietnamese Army.

July 14, 1881.

On this date in 1881, the notorious New Mexico outlaw, Billy the Kid, was killed in a gunfight.

He was 21 years old.

The “Kid” claimed to have killed 21 men and his daring jail breaks received national media coverage.

After his death, the legend grew that he had survived the gunfight, and, for years, dozens of imposters claimed to be the real Billy the Kid.

Doing the hard work.

Telephone linemen, 1928.

Good eats, cheap.

White children in a Georgia segregated school have milk and cookies, 1950.

Gone but not forgotten.

In 1892, the Beacon Hill Pavilion opened at the top of the Duluth Incline Railway, a funicular cable car system which took passengers high above the city for a superb view of the Duluth harbor on Lake Superior.

The pavilion burned down in 1901 and the railway stopped operations in 1939, but a hiking trail tracing its path remains.

Old Hollywood.

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in Red Dust, 1932.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

A dance at a stateside base given for Black soldiers in training during World War II.

American art.

Agnes Tait, Skating in Central Park, 1934.

Today in World War II.

July 14, 1940: Italy claims to have inflicted heavy losses on British naval vessels operating in the Mediterranean.

The Luftwaffe lost twelve more aircraft in yesterday’s daylight raids over Britain and the English Channel.

German officials refuted British claims of imposing a naval blockade on Germany, noting the occupation of France has brought Germany extensive sea access across the French Atlantic coastline.

Voters in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, now under Soviet occupation, will have only Soviet-aligned candidates to choose from in tomorrow’s parliamentary elections.

These elections will ratify the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union.

Artifacts.

Locks of hair of the first fourteen US presidents, collected in the 1850s by a Smithsonian curator.

On the right, a closer look at the hair of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Dog of the day.

Colorado miners, 1901.

US Army nurses in South Vietnam, late 1960s.

Men.

Ging Cui, Wong Fook, and Lee Shao are three of the eight Chinese workers who put the last rail in place to complete the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.

They are shown above at the 50th Anniversary celebration of the event in Ogden, Utah.

July 13, 1977.

On this date in 1977, a series of lightning strikes caused a massive electrical failure in New York City which plunged all five boroughs into 25 hours of darkness, with widespread looting.

Good eats, cheap.

Gus Allen’s Cafe in segregated Galveston, 1950s.

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Tell me a story, 1863.

A Union officer formerly held prisoner in the Confederates’ Libby Prison in Richmond describes the miseries suffered by the hundreds of Union prisoners there.

‘The three rooms on the upper floor contain at least two hundred Union soldiers each.

Four small-sized windows at each end of these rooms admit a limited amount of light for about 25 feet, leaving about 40 feet in the centre of each [dark].

There are ill-constructed water-closets [flush toilets] in the rooms, which, owing to the continual breaking of the waste pipes, emit a most intolerable effluvia.

In addition to all this, the whole place is one nest of the most abominable vermin.

About half a ration of bread and a plate of small, dark-colored beans, called ‘cow-peas,’ twice a day, is the usual fare.

[At one point], a rebel soldier was permitted to bring a human skull, with a rope passed through the eyes, and dangle it in front of the [Libby] window.

[He shouted] out, while he brandished a huge Bowie knife, ‘This is the last of one damned Yankee.’’

My country ‘tis of thee.

The 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters, was an all-Black New York National Guard unit during World War I which fought with the French Army because white American soldiers refused to fight alongside them.

The Hellfigters spent 191 days on the front lines of Northern France — longer than any other American unit — and received a hero’s welcome when they returned home to New York in 1919.

Hardscrabble.

Depression drought migrants stuck near Tracy, California, 1937: “Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!”

Simpler times.

Going to a live theater performance in the late 1800s and early 1900s meant watching a vaudeville show — a series of unrelated acts on a single bill, including singers, dancers, acrobats, magicians, comedians and trained animals.

Producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., who perfected the art form, got his start in 1894 with The Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles, starring Prussian bodybuilder Eugen Sandow.

American art.

Morris Kantor, Baseball at Night, 1934

Today’s news in World War II.

July 13, 1940: Citing Germany’s aggression in Europe and the threat it poses to the Western Hemisphere, President Roosevelt called for the activation of four divisions of the National Guard plus anti-aircraft and harbor defense units.

Congress is crafting legislation to impose a military draft in response to Army Secretary General George Marshall’s call to increase the size of the standing army, now at a strength of 250,000 men, to 500,000.

After daylight bombing raids on merchant convoys off the English coast yesterday, Luftwaffe bombers struck inland targets today in Germany’s ongoing effort to impose a blockade on Britain.

The RAF and anti-aircraft-artillery ground crews have downed 74 German aircraft over Britain in the past week.

Britain has expanded its civilian restrictions: additional coastal areas are now subject to sunset curfews; civilian vehicles, fishing boats and pleasure craft must now be locked or rendered unusable when left unattended.

British authorities have appealed for the donation of thousands of motorcycles for military use.

The Red Cross says that 35 million people in Europe are at risk of near-starvation due to the war’s impact on food production.

Artifacts.

Gilded copper-alloy sword crossguard with a small segment of antler hilt, English, c. 17th century, found in the 1718 shipwreck of Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, in waters off the coast of Beaufort, North Carolina.

Dog of the day.

Benedictine sisters from Duluth enjoy a picnic lunch in Bemidji, Minnesota, with a local dog who lives in the neighborhood, 1900.

Left: The White House North Portico during the Lincoln Administration, 1862.

Right: The North Portico during the Truman renovation, 1950.

Women.

Boston’s Emerson School for Girls, c. 1850.

Men.

Formerly enslaved men who have escaped from coastal South Carolina plantations pose on the deck the USS Vermont, 1861.

July 10, 1936.

On July 10, 1936, temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic region and the Northeast peaked as a historic heat dome traveled across the US, exacerbating drought conditions and causing thousands of deaths.

High temperatures on this day: Philadelphia - 104 °F; Rockford, IL - 106 °F; Frederick, MD - 109 °F; Aberdeen, SD - 114 °F.

Fewer than 1% of US homes then had any type of air conditioning.

Good eats, cheap.

Students and their teacher eat lunch in Eatonton, Georgia, 1952.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

American troops engaged in Operation Junction City near the Cambodian border in South Vietnam, 1967.

Technology.

Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist who led the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, stands alongside the computer code her team developed for the Apollo 11 lunar module and command module, 1969.

A hard thing to look at.

Union prisoners are buried at the Andersonville, Georgia, prison camp, c. 1864-65.

Home sweet home.

Tennessee coal miner’s family now works in farm fields near Sacramento, 1936.

American art.

Childe Hassam, Broadway and 42nd Street, 1902.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 10, 1944: British and Canadian troops have captured Caen, on the Normandy coast.

The port city is now a mass of rubble, after a month of heavy fighting, and is seeing an influx of refugees.

In Cherbourg, under Allied control for the past three weeks, US Army finance officers have set up a ‘GI bank,’ where they exchange US dollars for French francs to enable soldiers to purchase souvenirs and food from local shops.

A popular GI purchase is a tiny bottle of Paris perfume, which sells for the equivalent of four US dollars.

In London, currently in the throes of daily V-1 attacks, a newspaper reports the Germans are readying a new type of robot bomb, called the “V-2,” which is 36 feet long and carries 10 tons of explosives.

In the Far East, Americans have completed the conquest of Saipan.

Mohandas Gandhi has proposed the division of India into separate Moslem and Hindu states once India is granted its independence from Britain.

What they said.

A passage from Stephen Vincent Benét’s poem about the American Civil War.

Look at that column well, as it passes by,

Remembering Bull Run and the cocksfeather hats,

The congressmen,

the raw militia brigades

Who went to war with a flag and a haircloth trunk

In bright red pants

and ideals and ignorance,

Ready to fight like picture-postcard boys

While fighting still had banners and a sword

And just as ready to run in blind mob-panic....


These men were once those men.

These men are the soldiers,

Good thieves,

good fighters,

excellent foragers,

The grumbling men

who dislike to be killed in war

And yet will hold

when the raw militia break

And live where the raw militia needlessly die,

Having been schooled to that end.


The school is not a pretty school.

They wear no cocksfeather hats.

Some men march in their drawers and their stocking feet.

They have handkerchiefs round their heads,

they are footsore and chafed,

Their faces are sweaty leather.

And when they pass

The little towns where the people wish them godspeed,

A few are touched by the cheers

and the crying women

But most have seen a number of crying women,

And heard a number of cheers.

Dog of the day.

“Major,” the mascot of the 29th Maine Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, was killed in action in April 1864.

He is shown here with two Maine soldiers in December 1863.

Students at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania pose with their cadavers, 1892.

Men.

Dock workers unload sacks of oysters in New Orleans, 1938.

July 8, 1918.

On this date in 1918, two passenger trains collided head-on near Nashville, killing 101 people and injuring 171.

The collision is the worst rail accident in US history.

Good eats, cheap.

“Tellas Busy Bee” hot dog stand, New York, 1936.

What they said: Richard Nixon, 1968.

America is in trouble today not because her people have failed but because her leaders have failed.

And what America needs are leaders to match the greatness of her people.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

American troops lead a mule train packed with supplies and ammunition through a war-devastated Italian town, c.1944.

Breaking things.

Men use a threshing machine to beat harvested grain plants, 1950.

This separates the valuable grain kernels from their husks and stalks.

In other words, ‘separating the wheat from the chaff.’

Technology.

A plumb bob is a construction tool, consisting of a heavy weight suspended from a string, which uses gravity to establish a perfect vertical line.

They were first used by the pyramid builders in Ancient Egypt.

While lots of construction workers still use simple plumb bobs, tool companies now offer battery-powered laser plumb tools which cast a perfect line onto a surface.

Good TV.

The Walt Disney Anthology Television Series (known by several different Disney names over the years) began in 1954 and ran until 2008.

The program began as a showcase for its entertainment catalog, broadcasting edited versions of its animated movies.

Later, the show developed new programing based on Disney characters, such as Donald Duck, and developed miniseries featuring action heroes, such as Zorro and Davy Crockett.

American art.

Saul Kovner, Bathers, Harlem River, 1939.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 9, 1940: The Luftwaffe continued its unrelenting daily bombing raids over much of England yesterday, striking industrial and civilian targets as well as merchant convoys in the English Channel.

British fliers retaliated by striking deep into the German homeland and hitting German installations along the Channel coast having potential use in a German invasion of Britain.

In occupied France, a new constitution will be presented which will replace the French Republic with a totalitarian dictatorship modeled after Mussolini’s fascist government in Italy.

In the Mediterranean, the Italians attacked British installations in Malta and Alexandria, Egypt, and skirmished with a British motorized unit at the Libyan border.

In response to the German naval blockade, the British Food Minister asked the British people to cut down their tea consumption to two ounces, or twenty-five cups, per week.

In addition, restaurants will no longer be permitted to serve a fish course and a meat course in the same meal and sugar icing on cakes will be prohibited.

Artifacts.

The Marquis de Lafayette, commander of the Paris National Guard, was given the key to the Bastille after a Parisian mob stormed the notorious prison in 1789, sparking the French Revolution.

Lafayette then sent the key to President George Washington, his former commander during the American Revolution, whom he called his ‘adoptive father,’ as a token of the triumph of liberty over despotism.

Washington commissioned this gilded case for the key and displayed it in his Philadelphia executive residence and then in Mount Vernon, where it remains.

Dog of the day.

A shepherd and his dog at work on a Nevada ranch, 1940.

Family picnic at a Colorado mountain stream, c. 1920.

July 8, 1968.

On this day, US troops are completing the destruction and abandonment of the Khe Sanh Combat Base, located near the DMZ in South Vietnam, after suffering heavy losses in defending it during the previous six months.

The North Vietnamese will raise their flag over the combat base on July 9, 1968.

The Khe Sanh episode will signify, for many, the futility of the US war effort.

Women.

Black women wash clothes, c.1900.

Men.

New York City auxiliary firemen on the job, 1941.

What they said: Ben Franklin, 1758.

If Time be of all Things the most precious,

wasting of Time must be

the greatest Prodigality,

since Lost Time is never found again;

and what we call Time enough,

always proves little enough.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

Members of the 22nd New York State Militia, shown here at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1862, were wealthy New York City men.

Some brought their personal attendant along when they deployed to Union Civil War camps.

Historians suggest that might be the explanation for the young Black boy’s presence in this photo.

Breaking things.

Men work with long poles to break up a log jam on a Wisconsin River, c. 1900.

Good eats, cheap.

A lumberjack in Washington State eats homemade sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, 1941.

Technology.

The need for brass and copper for war materials forced the federal government to suspend the manufacture of civilian alarm clocks in 1942.

But when tardiness became a problem in round-the-clock war production plants, the government permitted the manufacture of simple ‘war alarm’ clocks, using molded plastic or compressed paper.

The government set a fixed price for them: $1.65.

Capitalism.

New Jersey children skip school to help the family pick cranberries, 1910.

American art.

George Inness, Apple Orchard, 1892.

Today’s news in World War II.

July 8, 1942: As German ground forces continue their drive toward Moscow, Berlin announced that a coordinated attack by Luftwaffe bombers and U-boats has sunk a heavy US cruiser and 28 out of 38 merchant vessels sailing in Arctic waters north of Norway.

The convoy, carrying aircraft, tanks, munitions and food, was bound for the Soviet port in Archangel, on the White Sea.

In Egypt, the Allied fight against Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Korps has, for the moment, settled into an artillery duel.

American heavy bombers struck Axis shipping in the Libyan port of Benghazi.

As questions swirled in Washington whether President Roosevelt would confiscate automobile tires or ration gasoline, the President told reporters he ‘was not trying to save tires or save gasoline; he was trying to save the country from conquest by the Axis powers.’

Artifacts.

In 1790, President George Washington purchased a 309-piece Sèvres banquet set from the departing French minister.

Washington used the set for official functions during his presidency and then brought the set to Mount Vernon after leaving office.

Historians say the set’s simple, yet elegant design suited Washington’s personal style.

Dog of the day.

The new puppy gets a ride, 1911.

A Wisconsin newspaper delivery boy presents his savings account passbook to the bank teller, who will record the boy’s deposit in the paper ledger, 1948.

Families.

Johanna Dykhof and her eleven children at Ellis Island, 1908. (two sets of twins?)

The note at the top of the photo says they are heading to Loretta, Minnesota, where I think her husband awaits.

It was common for men to immigrate to America alone and send money for their families to join them later, once they had found work and a place to live.

July 7, 1865.

On this date in 1865, three men and one woman who were convicted of conspiring to assassinate President Lincoln were executed by hanging in the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary (now Fort McNair) in Washington.

Union soldiers had killed the primary assassin, John Wilkes Booth, at a Virginia farm on April 26, 1865.

Girls.

Orange Parade Queen and attendants, Riverside, California, 1933.

Men.

Lakota tribal leaders came to Washington, D.C., in 1877, after the Great Sioux War and the Battle of Little Big Horn, to protest the government’s seizure of the Black Hills and to negotiate government demands that the tribes relocate.

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Doing the hard work.

Workers install statuary carved in Queens on the roof of Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, 1914.

Breaking things.

Left: A Union soldier in Northern Virginia surveys railroad tracks and telegraph wire which were destroyed by retreating Confederate troops in October 1863.

Right: Union troops in General Sherman’s army destroy railroad tracks in Atlanta, November 1864.

Good eats, cheap.

Outside the Lunch Room Cafe, Red Oak, Iowa, 1900.

Technology.

The Soviet Union launched “Sputnik I,” the first artificial satellite, into Earth orbit in October 1957, initiating the ‘space race’ and heightening Cold War tension.

My country ‘tis of thee.

Union Civil War veterans lead a Minnesota Memorial Day parade, 1902.

American art.

Winslow Homer, Gathering Berries, from Harper's Weekly, July 11, 1874.

Today in World War II.

July 7, 1944: Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that, for the past three weeks, London has been the target of 2,700 German ‘robot bombs’ (the V-1), which have killed 2,700 people and injured 8,000.

Churchill said he could offer no assurance that the threat of robot bombs could be eliminated, adding that, even in the face of such ongoing danger, the Allies would not be deterred from their month-old offensive in Normandy or the strategic bombing of targets in occupied Europe.

1,000 bombers and 750 fighters from the US Eighth Army Air Forces attacked German robot bomb launch sites in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

Artifacts.

This opal necklace, now displayed in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, was one of 27 jewelry pieces which Louis Comfort Tiffany designed and displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Tiffany’s pieces, made of enamel and semi-precious stones, marked a departure from the European tradition of using diamonds in fine jewelry.

Dog of the day.

This handsome Dalmatian, named “Rufe,” belonged to Civil War General Rufus Ingalls (driving the carriage, above right), a West Point classmate of Ulysses S. Grant, who served as quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, a job which required him to feed and supply an army of 100,000 men.

During World War I, 8,500 of the 12,000 employees who produced gas masks in the million-square-foot Long Island City, New York, Gas Defense Plant were women.

Military wives were especially sought after because employers believed they would work harder than others if they thought they were helping their husbands.

July 6, 1863.

General Lee has divided his defeated army into two segments for the retreat from the Gettysburg battlefield south into Virginia.

The wagon train carrying Confederate wounded and supplies stretches for 17 miles.

They travel in torrential rain and struggle to cross a flooded Potomac River.

Mathew Brady and staff photographers have arrived in Gettysburg to take pictures of the battle’s aftermath.

They find the town overwhelmed with thousands of wounded men and the battlefield littered with thousands of dead men and horses.

Girls.

May Queen coronation, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, 1912.

Boys.

High school football game in Chicago, 1904.

Simpler Times.

Air raid drill (“duck and cover”) in a Chicago elementary school, 1954.

Good eats, cheap.

Prisoners in the Wilshire Police Station in Los Angeles line up for a meal, 1920.

Technology.

Concrete parabolic acoustic mirrors were built along the southeast coast of England between the world wars to listen for the sound of incoming aircraft.

Their shape collected and magnified the sound waves and a microphone, placed in front, relayed the information to anti-aircraft defense batteries.

The British development of radar in 1940 curtailed the program, but a few mirrors still stand in Kent.

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My country ‘tis of thee.

American troops in South Vietnam interrogate a prisoner, November 1965.

American art.

Winslow Homer, Summertime, 1880,

Today in World War II.

July 6, 1941: Two weeks have passed since the start of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

In Russia’s North, the Soviet armies are largely defeated, but fierce battles rage in Ukraine.

As Britain’s RAF struck German targets along a thousand-mile stretch of occupied Europe, Britain’s Foreign Secretary pledged that the Soviets could count on Britain’s economic and military support.

Tokyo has announced the deaths of 109,000 Japanese soldiers during its four-year war in China.

More than two million Chinese soldiers have been killed during this period, Tokyo said.

In Washington, the Roosevelt Administration is expected to request Congressional enactment of sweeping price and rent controls to prevent spiraling inflation.

The War Department is seeking young females with long blonde hair who are willing to donate their hair for use in high-altitude weather monitoring instruments.

Such hair has proven to be the most effective filament for this purpose, scientists say.

With the war having eliminated traditional European hair supplies, procurement agents are hopeful the Scandinavian populations of the Midwest will step forward.

Artifacts.

This gondola hung beneath a hydrogen-filled balloon, providing a stationary observation platform for US military observers during World War I.

Using a map, binoculars and a telephone, the observers would communicate the location of enemy targets and adjust US artillery fire.

Dog of the day.

A boy of Montana’s Crow tribe carries his puppies, 1908.

More than 41,000 Americans were held captive by Japan during World War II.

27,000 were military prisoners of war; 14,000 were civilians.

40% of the military POWs died in captivity.

Boys.

Iowa brothers play with bows and arrows, 1940.

Girls.

Producer Billy Rose, kneeling on the right, auditions women in Cleveland for roles in his “Aquacade,” a swimming and dance revue to be featured in the 1939 New York World’s Fair, 1937.

Confederate diarist Mary Chesnut writes on July 8, 1862.

‘This war was undertaken by us to shake off the yoke of foreign invaders. So we consider our cause righteous.

The Yankees, since the war has begun, have discovered it is to free the slaves that they are fighting. So their cause is noble.

They also expect to make the war pay. Yankees do not undertake anything that does not pay.

We bear the ban of slavery; they get the money.

Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells it, manufactures it, but rarely pays the man who grows it.

Second-hand, the Yankees received the wages of slavery.

They grew rich. We grew poor.

The receiver is as bad as the thief.

That applies to us, too, for we received the savages [the Yankees] stole from Africa and brought to us in their slave-ships.

As with the Egyptians, so it shall be with us:

If [the Yankees] let us go, it must be across a Red Sea—but one made red by blood.’

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Simpler Times.

Spin the bottle, 1940s.

Doing the hard work.

Enslaved laborers at the Auschwitz concentration camp, 1944.

Technology.

‘Roll down the window.’

‘Lock the door.’

Home sweet home.

President Franklin Roosevelt entertains Crown Princess Martha of Norway and King George II of Greece on the patio of his home in Hyde Park, New York, 1942.

American art.

Grandma Moses, A Fire in the Woods, 1940.

Today in World War II.

July 3, 1940: Waves of RAF bombers struck the German naval base at Kiel yesterday, damaging the German battleship Scharnhorst.

In response, Luftwaffe raiders struck three cities in northeastern England, inflicting heavy civilian casualties.

The House of Commons has urged the British government to speed its plans to send British children to the US for the duration of the war.

In France, the Pétain government has relocated to Vichy, 200 miles from Paris.

A third American ship has been dispatched to Lisbon to pick up Americans fleeing Europe.

In the Far East, the Japanese have severed all land links between Hong Kong and mainland China to prevent military supplies from reaching Nationalist Chinese forces.

In West Orange, New Jersey, a man who had loudly praised Hitler in a tavern argument has been convicted of disorderly conduct and ordered to salute the American flag in front of the municipal building twice every Saturday indefinitely.

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Relics.

Crazy quilt made in 1877 as a memorial for a deceased daughter using fabric pieces cut from her dresses.

Dog of the day.

‘Sometimes you have to go along to get along,’ 1910.

I’ll see you on Monday.

— Brenda