The 11th World Series in October 1914 pitted the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics against the National League champion Boston Braves. The Athletics were the defending World Series champions and were heavily favored. Oh, but those Braves! They had rallied from last place in the National League on July 4th to become the league champion by 10.5 games; and then pulled off one of the greatest upsets in baseball history by winning the series in a four-game sweep, earning the team the nickname “Miracle Braves.” Photos: 1. Boston Mayor “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald greets the Braves. 2. Braves Hank Gowdy, Dick Rudolph, Joe Connolly, Lefty Tyler, Oscar Dugey. 3. Fans sit on Phila. rooftops to watch the game. 4. A’s in their dugout, Shibe Park, Phila. 5. Team captains. 6. Conference with refs. 7. “Gettysburg Eddie” Plank, A’s pitcher. 8. Hank Gowdy, Braves catcher (first major leaguer to enlist in WWI) 9. Walter "Rabbit" Maranville, future Hall of Famer, played 23 seasons in the majors.
2. New York City’s big snowstorm, 1908.
The blizzard began on Jan. 23, 1908, and by the next afternoon, NYC was blanketed in 10 inches, with drifts 10 feet high in places. Sand was spread on the streets to keep horse from slipping, but despite best efforts, horses fell in heaps across the City. But the snow brought opportunity to 3,000 unemployed men who had lost jobs in the financial panic of 1907 and had prevailed over 30,000 other applicants to obtain temporary snow removal jobs. They labored with hand tools to clear the snow and ice away, mostly in the business sections of lower Manhattan, piling it into 1,800 wagons for removal.
3. The WWII “Jedburghs,” the first US commandos.
We’ve seen them in films about D-Day: small groups of paratroopers landing under the cover of darkness in the French countryside, deep behind enemy lines, in advance of the Allied beach assault; being met by French resistance fighters and secreted in barns and basements; and then springing into action with hit-and-run sabotage against the Nazi occupiers. These men were the elite Jedburgh teams, America’s first commando units. They trained initially in Maryland, at the hunting lodge that would become Camp David, and then shipped out to England for advanced instruction in the French language, navigation, amphibious operations, parachute jumping, skiing, mountain climbing, radio operations, Morse code, small arms, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, and espionage tactics. On June 5, 1944, the night before D-Day, ninety-three three-man Jedburgh teams parachuted into France. Their first task was to secure the Allies’ initial bridgehead area and cripple German defensive efforts by damaging French rail and communication systems. Later, the Jedburghs coordinated airdrops of arms and supplies for the French resistance and conducted sabotage operations against German installations and troop positions. Seventeen Jedburgh men were killed in action in France. Many who survived the war later joined the CIA, including William Colby, who stands at the front of the plane in the last photo, who became the CIA director in 1973.
4. Killing off the buffalo, 1880s.
At their peak, sixty million buffalo roamed the grasslands between the Appalachians and the Rockies, supplying Native Americans with food and materials for clothing and shelter. But by 1889, hunting by white men, who saw the buffalo as walking cash machines, had reduced their numbers to near extinction. Only 541 buffalo remained. These hunters had shipped buffalo hides to Eastern factories which used them to make industrial machine belts, rugs, bedspreads, couch covers and buggy lap robes. Amateur hunters killed buffalo for sport, including adventure seekers who hunted them from open train windows, leaving the dead animals on the prairie to rot. Buffalo conservation efforts began in the early 1900s with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Now, a herd of 3,000 free-roaming purebred buffalo live in Yellowstone National Park and significant herds live on public lands in four other national parks in the US and Canada. About 200,000 buffalo, mostly the product of crossbreeding with cows, now live on US commercial ranches, where they are raised for their meat, hides and skulls; and a few states permit limited buffalo hunting, for guys who crave “trophies.”
5. Everyday life stateside in the early 1940s.
1. Junkyard, Butte, MT. 2. Colorado River, between AZ and CA. 3. Viola Sievers steam-cleans a locomotive in Clinton, IA, to support her family while her son-in-law serves overseas. 4. Doctor administers typhoid innoculation at a TX public school. 5. Mom takes her six daughters and one son to the Vermont State Fair in Rutland. 6. Maine potato farmers wait to unload their harvest at the Caribou starch factory. 7. Barefoot workers chop cotton near White Plains, GA. 8. Lunchtime at Dee's Cafe, Cascade, ID. 9. Mrs. Staggs and her prize-winning quilt, NM.
Thanks for taking a look. We’ll be back on Saturday with more.
