Category Archives: History

March 10, 2014

Was Norman Rockwell Gay?

By Joe

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Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.
—Norman Rockwell

Born in New York City in 1894, Norman Rockwell always wanted to be an artist. Rockwell found success early. He painted his first commission of four Christmas cards before his sixteenth birthday. While still in his teens, he was hired as art director of Boys’ Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, and began a successful freelance career illustrating a variety of young people’s publications.

At age 21, Rockwell’s family moved to New Rochelle, New York, where Rockwell set up a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe and produced work for such magazines as Life, Literary Digest, and Country Gentleman. In 1916, the 22-year-old Rockwell painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine considered by Rockwell to be the “greatest show window in America.” Over the next 47 years, another 321 Rockwell covers would appear on the cover of the Post. Also in 1916, Rockwell married Irene O’Connor; they divorced in 1930.

The 1930s and 1940s are generally considered to be the most fruitful decades of Rockwell’s career. In 1930 he married Mary Barstow, a schoolteacher, and the couple had three sons, Jarvis, Thomas, and Peter. The family moved to Arlington, Vermont, in 1939, and Rockwell’s work began to reflect small-town American life.

In 1943, inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress, Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms paintings. They were reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post with essays by contemporary writers. Rockwell’s interpretations of Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear proved to be enormously popular. The works toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored by the Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort.

Although the Four Freedoms series was a great success, 1943 also brought Rockwell an enormous loss. A fire destroyed his Arlington studio as well as numerous paintings and his collection of historical costumes and props.

In 1953, the Rockwell family moved from Arlington, Vermont, to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died unexpectedly. In collaboration with his son Thomas, Rockwell published his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, in 1960. The Saturday Evening Post carried excerpts from the best-selling book in eight consecutive issues, with Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait on the cover of the first.

In 1961, Rockwell married Molly Punderson, a retired teacher. Two years later, he ended his 47-year association with The Saturday Evening Post and began to work for Look magazine. During his 10-year association with Look, Rockwell painted pictures illustrating some of his deepest concerns and interests, including civil rights, America’s war on poverty, and the exploration of space.

So much has been written about Rockwell, including his own autobiography, that his life would seem to be a closed case. But he receives a fascinating rethinking in Deborah Solomon’s American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, in which she makes a case for his homoerotic desires.

Although she can’t conclusively prove that Rockwell had sex with men, she makes an argument that he “demonstrated an intense need for emotional and physical closeness with men” and that his unhappy marriages were attempts at “passing” and “controlling his homoerotic desires.” Rockwell also had a close bond with the openly gay artist J.C. Leyendecker and his gay brother, Frank, also an artist, and counted himself as the “one true friend” the brothers had. As Solomon states, “it was both an artistic apprenticeship and an unclassifiable romantic crush.” According to Solomon, Rockwell went on to have close relationships with his studio assistants (even sleeping in the same bed with one on an extended camping trip) and created his own version of idealized boyhood beauty.

While digging into his back story, Solomon offers sensitive close readings of some of his well-known works that smack of homoeroticism but have been cherished (and sanitized) for their depiction of all-American values. For example, when she points out that in the beloved portrait of a young boy seated next to a police officer at a diner counter, “The Runaway,” the cop can be seen as a “figure of tantalizing masculinity, a muscle man in a skin-tight uniform and boots,” it’s almost as if we’re seeing a proto-Tom of Finland emerge before our eyes. In this analysis, it’s not only a painting that represents a desire for both independence and security, it shows the tenderness between men (of any age) and encapsulates the complicated life and desires of an artist many have written off as a proselytizer of an American dream that didn’t include them. According to Solomon, Rockwell was constantly yearning for another ideal, of youthful male beauty, that always seemed to lie beyond reach.

I’m all for taking a close look into history and uncovering evidence that a historical figure may have been gay; however, this is one instance where I tend to think that Solomon is making a bit of a stretch. I personally have never viewed Norman Rockwell’s work as homoerotic, but as idealistic Americana. I certainly see no traces of a Tom of Finland police officer in the doughy 1950s officer of “The Runaway.” I will admit that I have not read Deborah Solomon’s book nor have I had the chance to evaluate the evidence, but it seems like pure speculation to me. American Mirror has produced a fair amount of controversy, so I do not think I am alone in finding fault with Solomon’s assumptions.

Patrick Toner, a professor at Wake Forest University, wrote:

In her new biography, however, Deborah Solomon presents a Rockwell we might not be inclined to love so much. Her most shocking claim is that he was sexually attracted to young boys. Almost equally shocking, but more subtle, is her suggestion that Rockwell’s self-absorption had a body count—his behavior led directly or indirectly to at least three ugly deaths.

There is no reason to go along with Solomon about these things. As I’ll show, her arguments—such as they are—are deeply flawed, and she has a pronounced tendency to either distort or ignore evidence to the contrary of her claims. As her interpretation of Rockwell himself is irremediably flawed, so is her interpretation of his art. Hers is a book without merit.

Toner continues by stating:

Her evidence for Rockwell’s pedophilia consists of three intertwined claims: First, he paints a lot of boys. Second, he forms strong relationships with some of the boys who serve as models for these paintings. Third, some of these paintings are sexually suggestive. Solomon thinks that pedophilia serves as the best unifying explanation for these claims. I doubt even that, but even if it were the case, there are problems with all three.

Toner’s review of American Mirror is quite long but interesting. From what I have read, it seems as if Solomon had a particular agenda, probably for publicity, in writing her Rockwell biography. It seems that sensationalism is what sells biographies these days, and Solomon has certainly written what seems to be a sensational book. The fact is, if Norman Rockwell was homosexual, there seems no way of proving it except through speculation. I doubt it would surprise many people if one of America’s greatest artists was gay, because let’s face it, most of history’s great artists were. However, I think Rockwell would have probably painted a new version of the picture below to answer the questions of his sexuality:

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In “The Gossips,” a Saturday Evening Post cover from March 6, 1948, it seems Rockwell had a neighbor who started a disagreeable rumor about him. What can one do about a nasty gossip? Well, if you are a famous illustrator, you can paint a cover about it. It started with just a couple of people, then it just grew, leaving Rockwell in need of more models. The result, said the editors, is that we see “almost the entire adult population of Arlington, Vermont.” As he worked on the project, the artist worried that his friends and neighbors might be offended, so he included his wife and himself. Mary Rockwell is second and third in the third row, spreading the rumor via rotary phone. In the gray felt hat in the bottom row is, of course, the artist himself (you can click on the image for a close-up). You’ll notice the lady at the end is the one at the beginning who started the rumor, and our friend Rockwell appears to be giving her a piece of his mind. Apparently, the neighbor who started the rumor in real life never spoke to Rockwell again. I have a feeling it was no great loss.

1 Comment | posted in Art, Book Review, History

March 3, 2014

8 Surprising Historical Facts That Will Change Your Concept Of Time Forever

By Joe
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You probably should know these things didn’t happen anywhere near when you thought they did…

Not everyone can be a world history master, especially when we tend to learn about it in specifically segmented classes like “European History” or “American Revolutionary History.” Maybe you have an exceptional grasp on the global historical timeline. But for those of us who don’t, the list below, inspired by a recent Reddit thread called “What are two events that took place in the same time in history but don’t seem like they would have?” puts key historical moments into some much-needed context.

1. Betty White is older than sliced bread.
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Sliced bread was introduced in 1928 by inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Before this moment, bread was sold in whole loaves as bakers didn’t trust sliced bread could stay fresh. Betty White was born in 1922 and spent her early years not eating sliced bread. But White recently celebrated her 92nd birthday, which means she’s been able to experience the first “greatest invention” much longer than most of us.

2. Harvard University was founded before calculus was invented.
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Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the U.S. The “New College,” as it was originally called, had no calculus classes because it didn’t exist yet. The invention of calculus would come in the late 17th century with Gottfried Leibniz’s 1684 publication of “Nova Methodus,” and in part with Isaac Newton’s “Principia” in 1687, followed by additional explanations and reformulations by subsequent mathematicians. Also, European physicist, mathematician and astronomer Galileo was still alive during Harvard’s early years — he died in 1642.

3. The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed.
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The Chicago Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908. This was back when there were still teams such as the Brooklyn Superbas and the Boston Doves. The Ottoman Empire, which was founded in the 13th century, also existed back then. Mehmed VI was the last sultan of the empire and his reign ended in 1922 when the sultanate was abolished and the Turkish government took governing control over the new republic — 14 years after the Cubs last won the World Series.

4. The Pyramids of Giza were built in the time of wooly mammoths.
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From what we can tell, the last of the wooly mammoth died out around 1700 B.C. on Russia’s Wrangel Island. In Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza were built around 4,000 years ago, although there have been claims that they’re even older. This also means that Cleopatra’s time on Earth is actually closer to us in history than to the construction of the pyramids.

5. The fax machine was invented the same year as the Oregon trail migration.
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The first fax machine was invented in 1843 by a Scottish mechanic named Alexander Bain. This early model used a combination of synchronized pendulums, electric probes and electrochemically sensitive paper to scan documents, and then send the information over a series of wires to be reproduced. The “Great Migration” on the Oregon trail began the same year, when a wagon train of about 1,000 migrants attempted to travel west, but probably died of dysentery along the way.

6. The jewelry store Tiffany & Co. was founded before Italy was a country.
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While Rome was officially a holdout for a number of years after, in 1861 General Giuseppe Garibaldi led a successful campaign to gather the various city-states and bring them under one nation. Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young founded Tiffany & Young in 1837 and then became Tiffany & Co. in 1853. This means Audrey Hepburn could have gotten “breakfast at Tiffany’s” before she could have had her Italian “Roman Holiday.
Similarly, Macy’s was founded in 1858, also before Italy became the nation we know it as today.

7. France was still using the guillotine when “Star Wars” came out.
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The last time the guillotine was used as a form of execution in France was in 1977. The guillotine lasted for about two centuries. The first “Star Wars” film was also released in 1977 a few months before the execution.
Another mind-blow French historical fact: The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, which is the same year Nintendo was founded and that Van Gogh painted “The Starry Night.”

8. Two of President John Tyler’s grandsons are still alive.
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John Tyler was America’s 10th President, serving from 1841 to 1845, but somehow two of his grandsons are still alive. Mental Floss first reported on this fact in 2012, but since then Snopes has verified their identities, while New York Magazine even interviewed one of the grandsons. As of last year, both Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. and Harrison Tyler were still only in their 80s.

5 Comments | posted in History

February 25, 2014

Once I Pass’d Through A Populous City

By Joe

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Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for future
use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met
there who detain’d me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together–all else has long
been forgotten by me,
I remember I say only that man who passionately clung to me,
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

There are many different ways in which I find poems that I want to post, but this one came to me in a rather shocking way: porn. I’ve discussed on this blog before that I enjoy watching porn, so it should not be too shocking that I was doing just that the other day on my day off. However, I didn’t really expect to be inspired to find a poem for a post in a porn video. The video in questions, in case you are wondering, is the CockyBoys video “A Thing of Beauty.” It’s a pretty hot video about a threesome, but I digress. At the beginning of the video, we see three guys enjoying a vacation, when they narrator begins to read “Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City” by Walt Whitman. So after watching the video, and well, I will be modest and not discuss the particulars of watching the video, I looked up the poem, and what I found was fairly shocking, but I will get to that in a moment.

If one were to expect a poem in a gay pornographic video, you probably would be surprised to hear one by Walt Whitman, whose sexuality is generally assumed to be homosexual or bisexual based on his poetry, though that has been at times disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author’s presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of “that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians”. Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships. Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his “Calamus” poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond.

If you are at all familiar with Whitman’s poetry, then you are familiar with the homoeroticism that exists within.

Emory Holloway, in his Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative (1926), provided the first scholarly biography of the poet, and his experience may stand as an example of the continuing controversy over Whitman. In his research, Holloway happened to run across the manuscript of a “Children of Adam” poem, “Once I Pass’d through a Populous City,” and discovered that it had originally been addressed to a man—and therefore “belonged” in the “Calamus” cluster. He was the first biographer to agonize over how to write about Whitman’s sexuality. A revealing footnote to Holloway’s biography is that he later became obsessed with demonstrating that Whitman was telling the truth in his claims to fatherhood in his letter to Symonds; his obsession led to his publication, after long years of research, of Free and Lonesome Heart: The Secret of Walt Whitman (1960), claiming discovery of “Whitman’s son.”

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Holloway’s discovery here lies the interesting part of “Once I Pass’d.” Originally, this poem was addressed not to a woman but to a man, as I have done above. Nearly every place that I looked for the text of the poem used the published version which used feminine forms.

The original story behind the poem states that in 1848, at age 29, Whitman visited New Orleans, the populous city in the poem. There he met a man, who became the inspiration for the poem. Most scholars now reject the idea that Whitman was involved with a Creole woman of higher social rank than his own and that his sudden exit from New Orleans was due to complications deriving from this relationship. The theory of a New Orleans romance, started by Henry Bryan Binns in his A Life of Walt Whitman (1905), proposes to explain the mystery of Whitman’s letter to John Addington Symonds in which he discussed his life down South and mentioned six illegitimate children (for which there is no documented evidence). It is also used to explain the dramatic change in Whitman after the New Orleans trip, his sexual awakening, and the inspiration for the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855). Some biographers think the lines “O Magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South! My South! / O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!” in “Longings for Home” (later “O Magnet-South”) suggest a New Orleans romance. Some quote the first five lines of “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” as support for the idea. Basil De Selincourt asserts in his 1914 critical study of Whitman that “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” bemoans the death of one who was all but wife to him—the genteel New Orleans lady. Still others see further evidence in “Once I Pass’d through a Populous City,” in which Whitman penned, “Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain’d me for love of me . . . who passionately clung to me.” However, Whitman’s earlier manuscript, which read “the man” instead of “a woman,” is telling.

When Walt looked back on his New Orleans passion, he penned a poem, “Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City” that was branded “obscene” when it was published. But when it was published, it hid the truth. In 1925 Emory Holloway discovered the original hand-written manuscript of “Once I Pass’d Through A Populous City,” showing the poet had changed the gender before the poem was published. Only eight letters make the difference between the original and the published version. In my opinion, those eight letters tell a completely different story. It seems that there was a romance during the three months (from 25 February to 25 May in 1848) that Whitman spent in New Orleans, but not with a creole woman, but a man.

New Orleans has always had a long history of homosexuals, or at least fluid sexuality, so why would it be surprising that the young Whitman came into his sexual being in New Orleans, “A Populous City.”

Source of the Whitman’s original manuscript: Walt Whitman Poetry Manuscripts in the Papers of Walt Whitman, Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

3 Comments | posted in History, Poetry

February 17, 2014

King and Buchanan: America’s Gay VP and President?

By Joe

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In honor of Presidents’ Day, let’s discuss two men, a US president and vice-president who may have been gay. While Abraham Lincoln has stolen the limelight with rumors about his furtive sex life, some historians have proclaimed that America’s first gay president was really his predecessor, the now-obscure James Buchanan. (He was the 15th president, serving from 1857 to 1861). Buchanan is the only bachelor to ever have held America’s top office, and his private life raised many eyebrows while he was alive. There are some who think that, yes, there was a gay president. Historian James W. Loewen is one of those who thinks that both James Buchanan (15th President of the United States) and William Rufus King (13th Vice President of the United States) were not only gay but also lovers.

More than 150 years before America elected its first black president, Barack Obama, it most likely had its first gay president, James Buchanan (1791-1868). Buchanan, a Democrat from Lancaster County, Pa., was a lifelong bachelor (throughout American history this was often code for homosexual). He served as president from 1857-61, tumultuous years leading up to the Civil War. Loewen has done extensive research into Buchanan’s personal life, and he’s convinced Buchanan was gay. Loewen is the author of the acclaimed book Lies Across America which examines how historical sites inaccurately portray figures and events and Lies My Teacher Told Me which examines how history books have been marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies.

In 1819, Buchanan was engaged to Ann Caroline Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy iron manufacturing businessman and sister-in-law of Philadelphia judge Joseph Hemphill, one of Buchanan’s colleagues from the House of Representatives. Buchanan spent little time with her during the courtship: he was extremely busy with his law firm and political projects during the Panic of 1819, which took him away from Coleman for weeks at a time. Conflicting rumors abounded, suggesting that he was marrying her for her money, because his own family was less affluent, or that he was involved with other women. Buchanan never publicly spoke of his motives or feelings, but letters from Ann revealed she was paying heed to the rumors.

After Buchanan paid a visit to the wife of a friend, Ann broke off the engagement. She died soon afterward, on December 9, 1819. The records of a Dr. Chapman, who looked after her in her final hours, and who said just after her death that this was “the first instance he ever knew of hysteria producing death”, reveal that he theorized, despite the absence of any valid evidence, the woman’s demise was caused by an overdose of laudanum, a concentrated tincture of opium.

His fiancée’s death struck Buchanan a terrible blow. In a letter to her father, which was returned to him unopened, Buchanan wrote “It is now no time for explanation, but the time will come when you will discover that she, as well as I, have been much abused. God forgive the authors of it […] . I may sustain the shock of her death, but I feel that happiness has fled from me forever.” The Coleman family became bitter towards Buchanan and denied him a place at Ann’s funeral. Buchanan vowed he would never marry, though he continued to be flirtatious. Some pressed him to seek a wife; in response, Buchanan said, “Marry I could not, for my affections were buried in the grave.” He preserved Ann Coleman’s letters, keeping them with him throughout his life; at his request, they were burned upon his death.

“I’m sure that Buchanan was gay,” Loewen said. “There is clear evidence that he was gay. And since I haven’t seen any evidence that he was heterosexual, I don’t believe he was bisexual.” According to Loewen, Buchanan shared a residence with William Rufus King, a Democratic senator from Alabama, for several years in Washington, D.C. Loewen also said Buchanan was “fairly open” about his relationship with King, causing some colleagues to view the men as a couple. For example, Aaron Brown, a prominent Democrat, writing to Mrs. James K. Polk, referred to King as Buchanan’s “better half,” “his wife” and “Aunt Fancy … rigged out in her best clothes.” Brown may have been trying to slander King in this letter. He was a friend of the Polks and was James K. Polk’s law partner, but he was also an early proponent of secession after his years as Governor of Tennessee. Most accounts by historians of King’s political career portray him as a moderate southerner who supported slavery while emerging as a strong unionist. King voiced opposition calls by some of his fellow southerners for the South to secede from the United States during the tense decade prior to the Civil War. King was always considered a moderate Democrat who was a staunch Unionist, which probably led to some political disagreements between Brown and King.

William Rufus DeVane King, the 13th United States vice president, has the distinction of having served in that office for less time than any other vice president and for being the only U.S. official to be sworn in on foreign soil. He died of tuberculosis on April 18, 1853, just 25 days after being sworn into office while in Cuba on March 24, 1853. Some historians have speculated that King holds yet another distinction — the likely status of being the first gay U.S. vice president and possibly one of the first gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

King (1786-1853) served in the House of Representatives from North Carolina for six years beginning in 1811 and later served in the Senate from the newly created state of Alabama from 1819-44, when he became U.S. minister to France. He returned to the Senate in 1848, where he served until he resigned after winning election in November 1852 as vice president on the ticket of Franklin Pierce.

When in 1844 King was appointed minister to France, he wrote Buchanan, “I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation.” Loewen also said a letter Buchanan wrote to a friend after King went to France shows the depth of his feeling for King. “I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me,” Buchanan wrote. “I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.” Loewen said their relationship — though interrupted due to foreign-service obligations — ended only with King’s death in 1853.

Even though his vice presidency was short, fraught with illness, and uneventful, William King is remembered as a perceptive decision maker with the utmost integrity … and also, possibly, as the nation’s only gay Vice President! There is no direct evidence that William R. King was in any kind of relationship with President James Buchanan, who was also a bachelor. However, they were referred to as “Siamese twins” by many people in Congress (which was a slang for homosexuals in those days.) Also, King was the only unmarried vice president in history. King actually lived as Buchanan’s house companion for many, many years. Andrew Jackson invented the nicknames “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy” for King, while Aaron V. Brown referred to King as “Buchanan’s wife.” The only evidence that could have been salvaged were the numerous letters written back and forth between the two.

Some of the contemporary press also speculated about Buchanan’s and King’s relationship, but the two men’s nieces destroyed their uncles’ correspondence, leaving some questions about their relationship; but the length and intimacy of surviving letters illustrate “the affection of a special friendship”, and Buchanan wrote of his “communion” with his housemate. In May 1844, during one of King’s absences that resulted from King’s appointment as minister to France, Buchanan wrote to a Mrs. Roosevelt, “I am now ‘solitary and alone’, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone, and [I] should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.”

Circumstances surrounding Buchanan’s and King’s close emotional ties have led to speculation that Buchanan was homosexual. Buchanan’s correspondence during this period with Thomas Kittera, however, mentions his romance with Mary K. Snyder. In Buchanan’s letter to Mrs. Francis Preston Blair, he declines an invitation and expresses an expectation of marriage. The only President to remain a bachelor, Buchanan turned to Harriet Lane, an orphaned niece, whom he had earlier adopted, to act as his official hostess.

Loewen said many historians rate Buchanan as one of the worst U.S. presidents. Buchanan was part of the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party, and corruption plagued his administration. But Loewen said those flaws shouldn’t discourage members of the LGBT community from acknowledging Buchanan’s status as a gay man. “If we only admit that really great people are gay, what kind of history is that?” Truthfully though, even the letters written by Buchanan do not really point to more than merely a great friendship and affection that was common between men of the nineteenth century, especially during a time when women were still seen as intellectual inferiors.

A lifelong bachelor, King lived for 15 years in the home of future U.S. president James Buchanan while the two served in the Senate. In a time when Congress was only in session part of the year, and senators often returned home when not in session, it would not have been that unusual for two senators to share a home. King’s relationship with Buchanan, who was from Pennsylvania, could have been a factor in Buchanan’s sympathy for the South.

From the research I have done about King, he seems to be a fairly boring and moderate politician, as most Vice Presidents in history have been. Like many men of his status, he traveled widely in Europe during his life, often as a diplomat. He also sent his nephews and nieces to Europe as well to round out their education. The only evidence I have seen is what Brown stated to Mrs. Polk in his letter and in the way that Buchanan pines for him in his letters.

Is this really enough evidence to be the proof that Loewen claims to have? I personally think that either man would be a wonderful addition to the list of LGBT historical figures, especially King, who I have long admired. What do you think?

3 Comments | posted in History, Politics

February 1, 2014

Moment of Zen: The Year of the Horse

By Joe

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I want to dedicate today’s Moment of Zen to my dear friend “fan of casey.” He has been a long time loyal follower and a true friend. There are many times when I don’t know what I would do without his advice and generosity. He is also a Chinese-American, and so this post for the Chinese New Year is for him especially, but also for any other readers of Chinese descent who celebrate the Chinese New Year..

The 15-day celebration of Chinese new year started on Friday, with the first new moon of the calendar year. The day marks the end of the year of the snake and welcomes the start of the year of the horse. To bring you luck this new year, I’ve listed eight (a lucky number in China) things you possibly didn’t know about the year ahead.

1) The Chinese zodiac – or Shēngxiào – is a calendar system originating in the Han dynasty (206-220BC), which names each of the years in its 12-year cycle after an animal: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, in that order. According to the system, the universe is made up of five elements – earth, water, fire, wood and metal – which interact with the 12 animals, resulting in the specific character of the year ahead.

2) People born in the year of the horse are said to be a bit like horses: animated, active and energetic – they love being in a crowd. They are quick to learn independence – foals can walk minutes after birth – and they have a straightforward and positive attitude towards life. They are known for their communication skills and are exceedingly witty.

3) If you were born in the year of the horse, you should be looking for potential partners who were born in the years of the tiger, goat or dog. Avoid those born in the year of the rat, ox, rabbit or horse. You won’t like them.

4) If none of this rings true, don’t worry. The animal signs of each year merely indicate how others see you or how you choose to present yourself. There are also animal signs for each month, known as inner animals, signs for each day, called true animals, and animals for each hour, or secret animals.

5) According to superstition, in your zodiac year you will offend Tai Sui, the god of age, and will experience bad luck for the whole year. To avoid this you should wear something red, which has been given to you by someone else. In general, the lucky colors of team horse are green, red and purple; the lucky numbers are three, four and nine, and the lucky flowers are giant taro and jasmine.

6) Raymond Lo, a feng shui and destiny consultant, says the year of the horse is a year in which people are likely to stand firm on their principles, making negotiation difficult. For example, 2002 (the last year of the horse) was the year of Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy’s legendary World Cup bustup, and 1990 was the year of the poll tax riots. German reunification also happened in 1990, but we’ll ignore that.

7) If you were born in the year of the horse, you’re in good company. Fellow members of the horse club include Genghis Khan, Mongol ruler; Franklin D Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the US; Louis Pasteur, a 19th-century scientist; Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon; the American singer Aretha Franklin; and the model Cindy Crawford.

8) Years of the wooden horse are associated with warfare. The battle of Dien Bien Phu, which ended with the defeat of France by the Vietnamese, happened in 1954 and 1894 saw the start of the first Sino-Japanese war. “With such serious conflicts on historical record in the previous two yang wood horse years, I cannot rule out the possibility of war and fierce battle in 2014,” predicts Lo.

Kung hei fat choy! Happy Chinese new year!

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December 30, 2013

The Sexuality of T.E. Lawrence

By Joe

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Last night I watched “Lawrence of Arabia” on Turner Classic Movies. As usual with a historical movie, I began to read more about Thomas Edward Lawrence. I have a special interest in the First World War, so this is not the first time that I have researched Lawrence. As I was refreshing my memory last night, I remembered that there have been questions about Lawrence’s sexuality. Often in recent years, the life and achievements of Lawrence have been somewhat overshadowed by controversial claims published in posthumous biographies concerning his sexual orientation, accusations that he had been a closet or self-repressed homosexual.

The claim was first made by author Richard Aldington 20 years after his death, controversial at the time because none of Lawrence’s friends or family supported it. In the wake of his being immortalized in the 1962 David Lean classic “Lawrence of Arabia” a host of other biographers rode Aldington’s coat tails, making the titillating claim that he had been both homosexual and sadomasochistic. Claims seemingly given credence by newspaper interviews with privates of the Tank Corps who confessed to having had flogged Lawrence at his solicitation between 1925 to 1934, combined they set the seal on the alleged secret life of Lawrence of Arabia.

However those making these claims only told half the story, deliberately neglecting or downplaying the effect his having been raped had on his thoughts and actions. In both Seven Pillars of Wisdom and a 1919 letter to a military colleague, Lawrence described an episode on November 20, 1917, in which, while reconnoitering Dera’a in disguise, he was captured by the Ottoman military, subjected to humiliating beatings and sexual assault at the instigation of Governor, or Bey. The precise nature of the sexual contact is not specified. There have been allegations that the episode was an invention of Lawrence’s and that the injuries Lawrence claims to have suffered were exaggerated. Although there is no independent testimony, the multiple consistent reports, and the absence of evidence for outright invention in Lawrence’s works, make the account believable to his biographers. At least three of Lawrence’s biographers (Malcolm Brown, John E. Mack, and Jeremy Wilson) have argued this episode had strong psychological effects on Lawrence which may explain some of his unconventional behavior in later life.

Rape in time of war is age old, most people are aware of the suffering of woman and girls during hostilities; however since ancient times it has been a weapon of war used against men. The word itself is derived from the Latin rapere meaning to steal, seize or carry away. In the military context it was a means of stealing a man’s honor, a victorious soldier emasculating a vanquished foe in the belief that by forcibly penetrating him he lost his manhood. This indignity was more often inflicted on members of the officer class in the belief it robbed them of their authority as a leader of men, sometimes resulting in the victims suicide. Gang rape was also considered a means of punishment in some cultures, the Romans, Persians, Ottomans and other societies practiced it.

The Ottoman Turks were infamous for inflicting it throughout the Great War on captured enemy troops, beating and gang raping enemy officers often as a matter of due course. Prisons and garrisons often had personnel who specialized in this abuse, although there was nothing homosexual about it. The Turkish soldiers perpetrating this war crime certainly never considered themselves gay, like male rapists in prison the act has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the attacker or victim.

It was a remarkable manifestation of courage, perhaps cathartic release, that Lawrence detailed what happened to him in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 1926. Then as now the fear of being labelled homosexual as a result of such disclosure was a legitimate fear, society having the tendency of blaming the victim of sexual assault rather than the perpetrator. Homosexuality was a taboo subject at that time, same sex rape was even more taboo. The suspicion Lawrence was homosexual is likely to have been a natural by-product of his shocking disclosure, some readers finding a homoerotic undertone to his retelling of events. Then as now few understood the incident in its historic context, the consensus being only homosexuals are victims of same sex rape, that a man can protect himself and if he’s raped it’s because he wanted to be.

If the 28 year old Lawrence was a virgin at the time of his assault, as many biographers believe, the experience would have had a profoundly negative affect on his concept of self and sexuality. Alas in his lifetime there were no counseling services available to men who had suffered sexual assault, they were expected to get on with their lives with a stiff upper lip. The post traumatic effects of same sex rape often last a lifetime, T.E. Lawrence manifested all the classic symptoms: workaholism, depression, anger, increased sense of vulnerability, destructive self-image, emotional distancing.

In the wake of the Great War he had difficulties with intimacy, withdrew from relationships or carried them out via mail, had problems trusting people and a defunct sex drive. Not that he ever had much interest in sex at earlier stages of his life, there is no concrete evidence of him having had an intimate relationship with anyone male or female, and he seems to have willingly chosen celibacy as many academics of his class and generation did. His family and friends attested to his sense of horror with regards to sexual subject matter in the years following the war.

Many heterosexual rape survivors question their sexual orientation, “it’s not uncommon for a victim to blame himself for the rape, believing that he in some way gave permission to the rapist. Recollection of involuntary physiological responses, erections or ejaculations, etc, during the event often make them question whether they deserved or wanted to be assaulted. There are certainly aspects of this post traumatic introspection in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which many readers have mistaken as homo-erotic influences. In his description of the Dera’a beating, Lawrence wrote “a delicious warmth, probably sexual, was swelling through me.”

If he was homosexual, though most likely asexual, it wouldn’t add or subtract from his legacy, but in the interests of historical scholarship it’s important to view facts in their proper context. Although Lawrence lived in a period during which official opposition to homosexuality was strong, his writing on the subject was tolerant. In Seven Pillars, when discussing relationships between young male fighters in the war, he refers on one occasion to “the openness and honesty of perfect love” and on another to “friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace.” In a letter to Charlotte Shaw he wrote “I’ve seen lots of man-and-man loves: very lovely and fortunate some of them were.”

The fact is that no strong evidence one way or another has ever emerged about the sexuality of T.E. Lawrence. He left behind a tremendous legacy, one that was immortalized in the 1962 film, “Lawrence of Arabia.” It was also a legacy that he tried to escape. After the war Lawrence was so disillusioned that he refused medals about to be presented to him by the King, leaving the shocked George V (in his words) “holding the box in my hand.” He lived on the masochistic side of asceticism, denying himself the recognition he had earned. A many-sided genius whose accomplishments precluded the privacy he constantly sought, Lawrence became a mythic figure in his own lifetime even before he published his own version of his legend in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. By the manufacture of his myth, however solidly based, he created in his own person a characterization rivaling any in contemporary fiction.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in History

December 16, 2013

The Codpiece

By Joe

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One look at Leonard Whiting’s Romeo in Frank Zifferelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet and I fell in love with the codpiece and Leonard Whiting. I will also admit that Whiting’s codpiece was not the only thing I liked about him, what gay boy sitting in English class watching Romeo and Juliet can forget seeing Romeo’s beautiful naked butt. However, this post is not about the beauty of Leonard Whiting, it’s about the history of the codpiece. If you are not familiar with this piece of Renaissance fashion, a codpiece (from Middle English: cod, meaning “scrotum”) is a covering flap or pouch that attaches to the front of the crotch of men’s trousers and usually accentuates the genital area. It was held closed by string ties, buttons, or other methods. It was an important item of European clothing in the 15th and 16th centuries

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One may well ask, if the button fly preceded the zipper, and the codpiece preceded the button fly, what preceded the codpiece? The answer is, quite literally, nothing. Leather leggings, the antecedents of Renaissance hosiery, were merely tubes of animal skins held on by strips of leather and connected together rather perfunctorily at the top. In fact, the crotch was most often left almost completely open, for ease of access during those “privy” functions. One was protected from exposure of one’s “person” by tunics which reached the knees or beyond.

However, with the rise of the merchant class at the beginning of the Renaissance, came “Fashion Trends”. Clothing for the poor remained functional, of course, but for the wealthy, changing one’s fashion to follow, or build on, a social trend became a way of displaying one’s wealth, and for men, one’s masculinity. With the use of the newly popular button, fashions became more fitted and tight to the body, (no need to cut a garment loose so that it could fit over one’s head). Thus, the popular look became long, elegant, and youthful.

To achieve this look to an even greater degree, the waistline of the tunic was dropped to the hips to make the body look longer, and the hemline was shortened to make the legs look longer. By 1360 men’s hems rose to mid-thigh. This was a shocking event indeed, considering that the basic design of men’s hosiery had not changed. When a man sat, or mounted a horse, one might have quite a “regimental” view of his state of affairs. The clergy, (those who were not themselves following the fashion), as well as other guardians of public morals, were up in arms. In Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” the Parson criticizes these short garments for their revealing nature:

Alas! some of them show the very boss of the penis and the horrible pushed-out testicles that look like the malady of hernia in the wrapping of their hose, and the buttocks of such persons look like the hinder parts of a she-ape in the full of the moon. And moreover, the hateful proud members that they show by the fantastic fashion of making one leg of their hose white and the other red, make it seem that half of their privy members are flayed. And if it be that they divide their hose in other colors, as white and black, or white and blue, or black and red, and so forth, then it seems, by the variation of color, that the half of their privy members are corrupted by the fire of Saint Anthony, or by cancer, or by other such misfortune.

During the years 1420-40 tunic hemlines reached the top of the thigh and “the occasional glimpse of the male sexual organs that had caused such an outcry in the fourteenth century was now replaced by the permanent exposure of that zone.”

The next fashion trend was to go about in one’s hose and shirt, (the shirt being what we think of as a doublet with a chemise worn underneath), sans the tunic. Measures had to be taken! (Please pardon the pun.) In 1482 Edward IV introduced a law which forbade persons below the rank of Lord to expose their private parts by short doublets. People ignored it. Finally the public outcry became too fierce, and, since men would certainly not be inconvenienced by simply sewing the crotch seam shut, the codpiece was invented.

To begin with, it was simply a triangular piece of fabric tied at the three corners, or stitched at the bottom angle and tied at the top two angles, over the gap in the front of the hose. However, men quickly discovered, as they are wont to do, that what might have been revealed before as somewhat lacking in size and stature, could be easily artificially enhanced under the masque of this new fashion. Over the next century, the codpiece developed from a flat piece of fabric, to a pouch in which the “family jewels” rested in as protruding a manner as possible, to a padded pouch, to a very padded pouch, (some of them very oddly shaped), until finally the pouch idea was discarded altogether, along with any pretense to function, and large padded shapes of bizarre dimensions were tied onto either hose or shirt, the “items of value” simply residing behind these bombastic shapes.

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It has been assumed that the fashion of genital promotion was de rigeur, however, no thought appears to have been given to the possibility that the codpiece fashion developed because of necessity and not by whim. From 1495 onwards a pandemic of a new disease swept across Europe and was a great plague. The disease caused foul and large volumes of mixed pus and blood to be discharged from the genital organs and the swellings in the adjacent groin tissue. The mess would require bulky woolen wads and woven cloth bandages to be applied, distorting the whole of the genital area and the lower abdomen.

The new disease was syphilis, and in all probability was not a new disease; there are descriptions of illnesses involving the fundamental findings for the diagnosis of syphilis from ancient times, though it is most often assumed to have traveled back from the Americas with Columbus’s men.

Though syphilis may have added to the popularity of the codpiece, one need to only look to gay men’s fashion today to see how we still like to accentuate the penis. Whether it’s Andrew Christian or CN-2, underwear marketed mostly to gay men do their best to accentuate the crotch area.

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8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in History

December 13, 2013

Willem II of The Netherlands

By Joe

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The other day I received an email from the editor of the Dutch magazine Gay News, the biggest gay publication in the Netherlands, which, since 1992, comes out every once a month, and is Amsterdam’s gay magazine. Gay News is entirely bilingual (in both english and dutch) and is distributed in The Netherlands & Belgium. Hans Hafkamp, the editor of Gay News, wrote that he has always enjoyed my blog and appreciated my dedication to history. He attached an article published in the December issue of Gay News about Willem II, King of the Netherlands (1840-1849).

In 2007 Queen Beatrice, on the occasion of her jubilee, gave three historians permission to open up the archives of the royal family for biographies of the first three kings. As Willem II was only king for nine years, his rule did not get as much attention as those who ruled for much longer periods of time before and after him. Jeroen van Zanten of the Department of History at the University of Amsterdam took on the task of writing the biography of Willem II. Though other historians preferred to research the longer ruling kings, Dr. van Zanten believed they were very wrong to overlook Willem II. Dr. van Zanten remarked in an interview with newspaper “de Volkskrant”: “He (Willem II) led a very adventurous life. In addition to which, he is extremely interesting for leaving autobiographical notes. A prince and king with self-reflection!” Van Zanten also discovered through a series of letters that Willem II was often pressured (i.e. blackmailed) because of his “bisexuality.”

William II had a string of relationships with both men and women. The homosexual relationships that William II had as crown prince and as king were reported by journalist Eillert Meeter who published a book about Willem I and Willem II in 1857. Meeter’s biography of the two kings was published first In Great Britain, but did not get published in The Netherlands until 1966. King Willem II surrounded himself with male servants whom he could not dismiss because of his ‘abominable motive’ for hiring them in the first place. Willem’s male liaisons were not just focused on his servants but also on a few political figures as well. He was apparently blackmailed at least four times, once by a former lover who was at the time of the blackmail in a German prison, two soldiers, and his aide-de-camp when he was still the Crown Prince. The last blackmail by the jailed Petrus Janssen led to the blackmailing of Willem II by liberals during the liberal Revolution of 1848, which in turn forced the already liberal minded Willem to sign the Dutch Constitution.

The extent of how much the blackmail over his homosexual affair influenced Willem is up to debate. The Revolutions of 1848 broke out all over Europe. In Paris, the Bourbon-Orléans monarchy fell. William became afraid of revolution in Amsterdam. One morning he woke up and said: “I changed from conservative to liberal in one night”. He gave orders to Johan Rudolf Thorbecke to create a new constitution which included that the Eerste Kamer (Senate) would be elected indirectly by the Provincial States and that the Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives) would be elected directly. The electoral system changed into census suffrage in electoral districts (in 1917 census suffrage was replaced by common suffrage for all men, and districts were replaced by party lists of different political parties), whereby royal power decreased sharply. That constitution is still in effect today.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in History

November 18, 2013

The Eleven Nations of America

By Joe

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For hundreds of years, this nation has been known as the United States of America. But according to author and journalist Colin Woodard, the country is neither united, nor made up of 50 states. Woodward has studied American voting patterns, demographics and public opinion polls going back to the days of the first settlers, and says that his research shows America is really made up of 11 different nations.

Woodard says that while individual residents will have their own opinions, each region has become more segregated by ideology in recent years. In fact, he says the mobility of American citizens has increased this partisan isolation as people tend to self-segregate into like-minded communities. Woodard lays out his map in the new book “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” Here’s how he breaks down the continent:

YANKEEDOM. Founded on the shores of Massachusetts Bay by radical Calvinists as a new Zion, Yankeedom has, since the outset, put great emphasis on perfecting earthly civilization through social engineering, denial of self for the common good, and assimilation of outsiders. It has prized education, intellectual achievement, communal empowerment, and broad citizen participation in politics and government, the latter seen as the public’s shield against the machinations of grasping aristocrats and other would-be tyrants. Since the early Puritans, it has been more comfortable with government regulation and public-sector social projects than many of the other nations, who regard the Yankee utopian streak with trepidation.

NEW NETHERLAND. Established by the Dutch at a time when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world, New Netherland has always been a global commercial culture—materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience. Like seventeenth-century Amsterdam, it emerged as a center of publishing, trade, and finance, a magnet for immigrants, and a refuge for those persecuted by other regional cultures, from Sephardim (Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent; I had to look it up, so I thought I’d share the definition) in the seventeenth century to gays, feminists, and bohemians in the early twentieth. Unconcerned with great moral questions, it nonetheless has found itself in alliance with Yankeedom to defend public institutions and reject evangelical prescriptions for individual behavior.

THE MIDLANDS. America’s great swing region was founded by English Quakers, who believed in humans’ inherent goodness and welcomed people of many nations and creeds to their utopian colonies like Pennsylvania on the shores of Delaware Bay. Pluralistic and organized around the middle class, the Midlands spawned the culture of Middle America and the Heartland, where ethnic and ideological purity have never been a priority, government has been seen as an unwelcome intrusion, and political opinion has been moderate. An ethnic mosaic from the start—it had a German, rather than British, majority at the time of the Revolution—it shares the Yankee belief that society should be organized to benefit ordinary people, though it rejects top-down government intervention.

TIDEWATER. Built by the younger sons of southern English gentry in the Chesapeake country and neighboring sections of Delaware and North Carolina, Tidewater was meant to reproduce the semifeudal society of the countryside they’d left behind. Standing in for the peasantry were indentured servants and, later, slaves. Tidewater places a high value on respect for authority and tradition, and very little on equality or public participation in politics. It was the most powerful of the American nations in the eighteenth century, but today it is in decline, partly because it was cut off from westward expansion by its boisterous Appalachian neighbors and, more recently, because it has been eaten away by the expanding federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk.

GREATER APPALACHIA. Founded in the early eighteenth century by wave upon wave of settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Appalachia has been lampooned by writers and screenwriters as the home of hillbillies and rednecks. It transplanted a culture formed in a state of near constant danger and upheaval, characterized by a warrior ethic and a commitment to personal sovereignty and individual liberty. Intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike, Greater Appalachia has shifted alliances depending on who appeared to be the greatest threat to their freedom. It was with the Union in the Civil War. Since Reconstruction, and especially since the upheavals of the 1960s, it has joined with Deep South to counter federal overrides of local preference.

DEEP SOUTH. Established by English slave lords from Barbados, Deep South was meant as a West Indies–style slave society. This nation offered a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight against expanded federal powers, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor, and consumer regulations.

EL NORTE. The oldest of the American nations, El Norte consists of the borderlands of the Spanish American empire, which were so far from the seats of power in Mexico City and Madrid that they evolved their own characteristics. Most Americans are aware of El Norte as a place apart, where Hispanic language, culture, and societal norms dominate. But few realize that among Mexicans, norteños have a reputation for being exceptionally independent, self-sufficient, adaptable, and focused on work. Long a hotbed of democratic reform and revolutionary settlement, the region encompasses parts of Mexico that have tried to secede in order to form independent buffer states between their mother country and the United States.

THE LEFT COAST. A Chile-shaped nation wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade and Coast mountains, the Left Coast was originally colonized by two groups: New Englanders (merchants, missionaries, and woodsmen who arrived by sea and dominated the towns) and Appalachian midwesterners (farmers, prospectors, and fur traders who generally arrived by wagon and controlled the countryside). Yankee missionaries tried to make it a “New England on the Pacific,” but were only partially successful. Left Coast culture is a hybrid of Yankee utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploration—traits recognizable in its cultural production, from the Summer of Love to the iPad. The staunchest ally of Yankeedom, it clashes with Far Western sections in the interior of its home states.

THE FAR WEST. The other “second-generation” nation, the Far West occupies the one part of the continent shaped more by environmental factors than ethnographic ones. High, dry, and remote, the Far West stopped migrating easterners in their tracks, and most of it could be made habitable only with the deployment of vast industrial resources: railroads, heavy mining equipment, ore smelters, dams, and irrigation systems. As a result, settlement was largely directed by corporations headquartered in distant New York, Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco, or by the federal government, which controlled much of the land. The Far West’s people are often resentful of their dependent status, feeling that they have been exploited as an internal colony for the benefit of the seaboard nations. Their senators led the fight against trusts in the mid-twentieth century. Of late, Far Westerners have focused their anger on the federal government, rather than their corporate masters.

NEW FRANCE. Occupying the New Orleans area and southeastern Canada, New France blends the folkways of ancien régime northern French peasantry with the traditions and values of the aboriginal people they encountered in northeastern North America. After a long history of imperial oppression, its people have emerged as down-to-earth, egalitarian, and consensus driven, among the most liberal on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in the economy. The New French influence is manifest in Canada, where multiculturalism and negotiated consensus are treasured.

FIRST NATION. First Nation is populated by native American groups that generally never gave up their land by treaty and have largely retained cultural practices and knowledge that allow them to survive in this hostile region on their own terms. The nation is now reclaiming its sovereignty, having won considerable autonomy in Alaska and Nunavut and a self-governing nation state in Greenland that stands on the threshold of full independence. Its territory is huge—far larger than the continental United States—but its population is less than 300,000, most of whom live in Canada.

“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.”

His main thesis seems to be that the culture of violence is one of the main dividing factors between the “11 Nations.” Though Woodward says that clashes between the 11 nations play out in every way, from politics to social values. He particularly notes that states with the highest rates of violent deaths are in the Deep South, Tidewater and Greater Appalachia, regions that value independence and self-sufficiency. States with lower rates of violent deaths are in Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Midlands, where government intervention is viewed with less skepticism. States in the Deep South are much more likely to have stand-your-ground laws than states in the northern “nations.” And more than 95 percent of executions in the United States since 1976 happened in the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater and the Far West. States in Yankeedom and New Netherland have executed a collective total of just one person.

Woodward does point out that while these particular “11 Nations” are original to him, others have suggested similar divisions, which include maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history. Woodward writes that “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities, a phenomenon analyzed by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing in The Big Sort (2008). Even waves of immigrants did not fundamentally alter these nations, because the children and grandchildren of immigrants assimilated into whichever culture surrounded them.”

He also makes the following distinctive point:

Before I describe the nations, I should underscore that my observations refer to the dominant culture, not the individual inhabitants, of each region. In every town, city, and state you’ll likely find a full range of political opinions and social preferences. Even in the reddest of red counties and bluest of blue ones, twenty to forty percent of voters cast ballots for the “wrong” team. It isn’t that residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but has to deal with nonetheless. Because of slavery, the African American experience has been different from that of other settlers and immigrants, but it too has varied by nation, as black people confronted the dominant cultural and institutional norms of each.

Though Woodward makes some interesting points, and I will admit that I have not read his new book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, I think he has oversimplified the issue by erring on political correctness and gun control debates. The areas that he claims are more violent are often either more racially diverse or more economically divided. Yet, Woodward does not discuss this in any meaningful way in his article in Tuft Magazine. I hope he does in his book.my biggest problem, however, is that he completely ignores Hawaii and south Florida, both of which he dismisses as not being part of the United States. It seems to me that it would have been a better choice to have 13 Nations, not 11, which would have been more in line with the historical distinction of the Thirteen Colonies. Then he could have included south Florida as part of the Spanish Caribbean and Hawaii as a culture distinct of its own. Yet, I’m not sure that Hawaii shouldn’t be aligned with the Left Coast, bit Woodward simply does not consider it.

No matter what the problems with Woodward’s thesis is, it is an interesting debate, especially considering how he pits the two superpowers of the eleven nations against each other. He ends his article in Tufts Magazine by writing:

Among the eleven regional cultures, there are two superpowers, nations with the identity, mission, and numbers to shape continental debate: Yankeedom and Deep South. For more than two hundred years, they’ve fought for control of the federal government and, in a sense, the nation’s soul. Over the decades, Deep South has become strongly allied with Greater Appalachia and Tidewater, and more tenuously with the Far West. Their combined agenda—to slash taxes, regulations, social services, and federal powers—is opposed by a Yankee-led bloc that includes New Netherland and the Left Coast. Other nations, especially the Midlands and El Norte, often hold the swing vote, whether in a presidential election or a congressional battle over health care reform. Those swing nations stand to play a decisive role on violence-related issues as well.

For now, the country will remain split on how best to make its citizens safer, with Deep South and its allies bent on deterrence through armament and the threat of capital punishment, and Yankeedom and its allies determined to bring peace through constraints such as gun control. The deadlock will persist until one of these camps modifies its message and policy platform to draw in the swing nations. Only then can that camp seize full control over the levers of federal power—the White House, the House, and a filibuster-proof Senate majority—to force its will on the opposing nations. Until then, expect continuing frustration and division.

In many ways he’s correct, the great American divide is still between the North and the South. In every major American conflict from the American Revolution to the Civil War and from the Civil Rights Movement to the modern Gay Rights Movement, the North and South are still pitted against one another.

Links:

“Up in Arms” by Colin Woodward, Tufts Magazine

“Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?” by Reid Wilson, The Washington Post.

“Forget The 50 States; The U.S. Is Really 11 Nations, Author Says” NPR

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Book Review, History, Politics

November 12, 2013

Remembering the War Poets

By Joe

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Yesterday was Veterans Day—originally Armistice Day—was renamed in 1954 to include veterans who had fought in all wars. As discussed in yesterday’s post, this day of remembrance has its roots in World War I—Nov. 11, 1918 was the day the guns fell silent at the end of the Great War. On this day after Veterans Day, we celebrate the poetry of World War I, one of the legacies of that conflict. My love of poetry and the history of World War I go hand in hand. As an undergraduate, I became fascinated with World War I, and from there, I became fascinated with the poetry from that war, which only intensified my love of poetry. So I am dedicating this post to the three poems that I believe are the most important for understanding the First World War.

Soldiers like Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, John McCrae and Rupert Brooke wrote evocative poems about their experiences. One of the most famous poems of the war is Brooke’s “The Soldier.” Brooke died of dysentery and blood poisoning aboard a troop ship headed for Gallipoli in April 1915. Brooke’s poem “The Soldier” reads:

The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

“The Soldier” shows the eagerness for war that was so apparent in the militarism that helped move the world toward war. “The Soldier” was written at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, as part of a series of sonnets written by Rupert Brooke. Brooke himself, predominantly a prewar poet, died the year after “The Soldier” was published. “The Soldier”, being the conclusion and the finale to Brooke’s ‘1914’ war sonnet series, deals with the death and accomplishments of a soldier. This sonnet encompasses the memoirs of a deceased soldier who declares his patriotism to his homeland by declaring that his sacrifice will be the eternal ownership of England of a small portion of land upon which he died.

As the Great War continued and bogged down on the Western Front, the attitude of patriotism began to wane slightly. Militarism had given the world the impression that wars would be short and glorious occasions, yet as 1914 turned into 1915 with no sign of end in sight, war was not seen through the naive young eyes of ready and willing soldiers, but of those of war weary soldiers of the front. One of these soldiers was a Canadian doctor named John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially unsatisfied with his work, discarded it. “In Flanders Fields” was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

“In Flanders Fields” demonstrates McCrae’s preoccupation with death and how it stands as the transition between the struggle of life and the peace that follows. It is written from the point of view of the dead. It speaks of their sacrifice and serves as their command to the living to press on. As with many of the most popular works of the First World War, it was written early in the conflict, before the romanticism of war turned to bitterness and disillusion for soldiers and civilians alike, yet it has a more sorrowful tone than Brooke’s “The Soldier.”

One of the lasting legacies of “In Flanders Field” is the symbolism of the poppies. The red poppies that McCrae referred to had been associated with war since the Napoleonic Wars when a writer of that time first noted how the poppies grew over the graves of soldiers. The damage done to the landscape in Flanders during the battle greatly increased the lime content in the soil, leaving the poppy as one of the few plants able to grow in the region. Even today, you will see many citizens of the British Commonwealth, and even some in the United States, wear a red poppy pinned to his or her lapel to commemorate the soldiers of the Great War.

The last poem I want to discuss is that of Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum est.” This is a poem written by poet Wilfred Owen in 1917, during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Owen’s poem is known for its horrific imagery and condemnation of war. When Owen wrote this poem, the romanticism of war was long gone. The Battles of Verdun and the Somme had destroyed any residual romanticism left in soldiers of the trenches.

Dulce Et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The historian and literary critic Paul Fussell has noted in The Great War and Modern Memory that, “Dawn has never recovered from what the Great War did to it.” He argues that World War I, with its unprecedented trench warfare and mass devastation across the European landscape, left a dark cloud hanging over the world. Despite the patriotism, optimism, and idealism held by the young men who eagerly fought for their respective country, World War I was fraught with widespread destruction and loss.

The very symbol of dawn, which traditionally would bring with it the hope and freshness of a new day, was reconfigured in a war like no other in history. Instead of the symbolic hope and freshness of a new day, the Great War dawn often brought with it the profound reality of a landscape flecked with causalities and devastation as young soldiers peered from the dark depths of their trenches. With dawn as a common symbol in poetry, it is no wonder that, like a new understanding of dawn itself, a comprehensive body of “World War I Poetry” emerged from the trenches as well.

Perhaps the most widely read and anthologized World War I poet, Wilfred Owen fought and ultimately died in World War I. His famous poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” presented a raw portrait of the life soldiers often experienced during the War. From the horrors of the trenches, we have the beauty of the War Poets to keep the memory of the war alive.

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