I vividly recalling reading and looking at the photographs in the book “In This Proud Land: America, 1935-1942, as seen in the FSA photographs” (1975) by Roy Emerson Stryker and Nancy Wood. I learned about the depression era Farm Security Administration photographers, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Marion Post Wolcott, Ben Shahn, Arthur Rothstein, Jack Delano, Russell Lee and others. The cover was the iconic Dorothea Lange photograph of a mother and two children.
“The photograph that has become known as “Migrant Mother” is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month’s trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Lange’s “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget: Migrant Mother,” Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).
The images were made using a Graflex camera. The original negatives are 4×5″ film. It is not possible to determine on the basis of the negative numbers (which were assigned later at the Resettlement Administration) the order in which the photographs were taken. Extended captions and supplementary textual files relating to this series in the FSA Written Records have not been found” (Library of Congress).
I recently reread “Mary Coin” (2013) a novel by Marisa Silver that fictionalizes the relationship between Dorothea Lange and Florence Thompson. The story begins in 2010 when Walker Dodge (totally fictional) is cleaning out his father George’s house. He reminisces about the family history as he cleans out clothes, books, furniture, generations of things. In the library he finds an article about photographer Vera Dare (Lange) and her photograph of Mary Coin, the migrant mother (Florence Thompson). He’s intrigued. Is there some connection to his family.
The chapters alternately highlight the lives of Walker, Vera and Mary. The writing is excellent, very alive. The story of each character interesting. The role of photography, seeing, capturing a moment, a person, a soul is explored. In the end, it’s revealed that indeed Walker’s father George was a child of Mary and Charles Dodge, the family that owned the farm where Mary worked when the photograph was taken.
I’ve always enjoyed historic photographs. Another favorite is Louis Hine’s photo of a girl at a cotton mill. The Hine caption read: “Addie Card, 12 years old. Spinner in North Pownal Cotton Mill. Vt. Girls in mill say she is ten years. She admitted to me she was twelve; that she started during school vacation and new [sic] would stay. In 2004 Joe Manning learned that a friend was writing a novel based on the photograph. He conducted a search to learn more about Addie. The book based on Addie is “Counting on Grace” by Elizabeth Winthrop. I might order a copy. I had dozens of books of historic photographs but sold all of them as part of my retirement clean up. Maybe a mistake.
About two years ago I began reading Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American.” I was drawn to her when I read she was a Boston College historian, living in Maine and Boston. Her “Letters” address the events of the day in an amazingly detailed historical context. Her command of history is astonishing, putting out a letter a day, usually published late evening or early morning. The letter is free or you can subscribe to her Substack post ($50 annually) which helps compensate her for all her work. There is little question that she is a political liberal. I also enjoyed that frequently on Sunday nights, she posts a photograph of Maine with a few comments. We all need some down time. Usually the photograph is one of Peter Ralston’s. He has a studio in Rockport and puts out a weekly newsletter about photography and Maine. This past October I visited Peter in his gallery. Several of his prints are framed in my dining room.
I finally decided to order one of Heather’s books and chose “To Make Men Free: a history of the Republican Party” (updated, 2021). Her thesis is that the Republican Party has pendulum like swung between two profiles. Initially it was the party of Lincoln, standing against the slave holders in the South, supporting a war that would end slavery in the United States and with the passage of Constitutional amendments give Blacks the right to vote and insure equal rights for all Americans. It was a progressive party. With reconstruction however the party shifted and began supporting states rights, accepting Jim Crow, and became an arm of big business.
Another shift came with Theodore Roosevelt and other progressive Republicans at the turn of the century. Some of the Republican Party again began to represent average Americans, workers, and support federal involvement. Robert La Follette, a Wisconsin Republican was part of this movement. “La Follette stated that his chief goal was to break the “combined power of the private monopoly system over the political and economic life of the American people”, and he called for government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, and protections for civil liberties. His diverse coalition proved challenging to manage, and the Republicans rallied to claim victory in the 1924 election. La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, one of the best third party performances in U.S. history.” (Wikipedia)
In the 1920s the Republican Party again became a strong supporter of big business, against federal involvement, for states rights, anti-immigrant, anti-Union. As Democrats became increasingly liberal with FDR, Republicans screamed socialism. Their support for working people declined. The Republicans shifted again to center in the Eisenhower years. They supported the federal government, were staunchly anti-communist but at the same time Ike warned against the “military-industrial complex.” The pendulum began to shift again with Goldwater conservatism. And then with the advent of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, conservative, racist Democrats (hold overs from the 1860s slave masters) fled to the now states rights, big business, Republican Party. It was a long road from Lincoln and Roosevelt Republicanism. Finally in the 1980s with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the conservatives totally captured the Republican Party.
It’s been 40 years and the once party of Lincoln, has been taken over by Donald Trump and radical Republicans. Democrats are labeled socialists, federal taxation is seen as taking from the hard working white Americans to subsidize free loaders (usually Black or immigrants), there is discussion of privatizing social security, walls at the Mexican borders, election denial, claims of fraud if a Republican didn’t win an election, an attack on the U.S. Capitol is labeled as patriotic. What happened?
For years I was a registered Democrat but changed to Republican to vote in the primary for John Anderson against Ronald Reagan. Ironically Republicans in Yardley Borough asked me to run for borough council. I did and served two terms. At the time Yardley Republicans were moderate, even liberal. I found county Republicans like Jim Greenwood, Dave Heckler easy to support. I never supported a national ticket. I had Republican friends and we could debate policy issues. But I didn’t find them radical right “crazies.”
And then there appeared Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, now Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Scott Perry, Paul Gosar and so many others. Don’t forget then George Santos. Today’s Radical Right Republicans are so different from the Radical Republicans of the 1860s. “The Radical Republicans (later also known as “Stalwarts” were a faction within the Republican Partyoriginating from the party’s founding in 1854—some six years before the Civil War—until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. They called themselves “Radicals” because of their goal of immediate, complete, and permanent eradication of slavery in the United States. They were opposed during the war by the Moderate Republicans(led by President Abraham Lincoln), and by the Democratic Party. Radicals led efforts after the war to establish civil rights for former slaves and fully implement emancipation. After unsuccessful measures in 1866 resulted in violence against former slaves in the rebel states, Radicals pushed the Fourteenth Amendment for statutory protections through Congress. They opposed allowing ex-Confederate officers to retake political power in the Southern U.S., and emphasized equality, civil rights and voting rights for the “freedmen“, i.e., former slaves who had been freed during or after the Civil War by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment.” (Wikipedia).
On February 2, Heather Cox Richardson wrote about today’s Republicans and those from the 1960s:
“Their rise is a logical outcome of the history of the Republican Party. Back in the 1980s, those Republicans determined to get rid of government regulation of business and social programs did two things.
First, they insisted that any government regulation of business or provision of a basic social safety net was “socialism” because, they claimed, the tax dollars that such government action cost would come from those with money—who they implied would be white people—and thus would redistribute wealth from hardworking white men to those who benefited from such programs. This idea has nothing to do with the modern definition of socialism, which means government ownership of the means of production. Instead, it is a holdover from the Reconstruction years in the United States, when white supremacists insisted that Black voting would mean a redistribution of wealth as formerly enslaved people voted for lawmakers who promised to fix roads, and build schools and hospitals.
Second, Republicans in the 1980s made a deliberate decision to court voters with religion, racism, and sexism in order to hold onto power. Antitax crusader Grover Norquist brought business leaders, evangelicals, and social conservatives into a coalition to win elections in 1985. “Traditional Republican business groups can provide the resources,” he said, “but these groups can provide the votes.” Over the decades their focus on religion, race, and sex ramped up until it took on a power of its own, stronger than the pro-business ideology of those who fed it.
Now, a generation later, that rhetoric has led to its logical conclusion: the Republicans have created a group of voters and their representatives who are openly white supremacists and who believe that any attempt to use the government to hold the economic playing field level is socialism. They are overwhelmingly evangelicals. They back former president Trump or someone like him and are eager to break the power of the current government even if it means defaulting on our debt. They threaten violence.
With the Republican Party just barely in control of the House, that group now wields enough power that it divides the House into three groups: the Democrats, the Republicans who want to cut taxes and gut regulation, and the Republicans who want to destroy the “socialist” government, want to keep white people in charge, support Trump or someone similar, are fervently Christian, and openly court violence.
Today, the House voted to condemn socialism—another attempt to appease that far right—while Republicans then chided those Democrats who refused to vote in favor of that condemnation because they said they thought it was a setup to cut Social Security and Medicare as socialism. (They are not socialism.)
Also today, former president Trump “retruthed” the words of a person who warned that he and “80,000,000” were willing to fight for Trump and were “Locked and LOADED.” In the House, some of the far-right group are wearing AR-15 pins, but when Emine Yücel of Talking Points Memo asked Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) why she was wearing one, her office answered that it was “about sponsoring a gun bill and has nothing to do with whatever blueanon conspiracy theories are being floated on Capitol Hill,” a reference to the idea that Democrats– rather than the Republicans like Greene who were QAnon adherents– are embracing conspiracy theories. The members wearing the pins have not, so far, introduced any gun bills.
This is alarming, but it is not the first time an extremist minority in Congress has organized, determined to control the country. In 1879, for example, before the parties switched into their current arrangement, Democratic former Confederates banded together, demanded the leadership of key committees—which the exceedingly weak speaker gave them—and set out to make the Republican president, Rutherford B. Hayes, get rid of key Republican policies by refusing to fund the government until he caved.
With the support of House minority leader James A. Garfield, Hayes stood firm, recognizing that allowing a minority of the opposition party to dictate to the elected government by holding it hostage would undermine the system set up in the Constitution. The parties fought it out for months until, in the end, the American people turned against the Democrats, who backed down. In the next presidential election, which had been supposed to be a romp for the Democrats, voters put Garfield, the Republican who had stood against the former Confederates, into the White House.”
Will I live to see another swing of the Republican pendulum? Can Republican Party moderates (maybe even a few liberals) regain power. Will Trump, the election deniers, and far right extremists fade into a bad memory. In the meantime I suggest you read Heather Cox Richardson and view current events through a historical lens.
In my sophomore or junior year at Boston College, I discovered Marshall McLuhan. I read his “Understanding Media” and pondered the impact of “hot” and “cold” media. What was the impact of TV video watching vs film in a theatre? I became a cult follower of another small book, “The Media is the Massage.” McLuhan may have been in part responsible for my interest in film — production and history. Fifty years later I’m still fascinated by the impact of media on our lives. My media interests were recently reawakened when Diane and I took a tour of WHYY studios in Old City, Philadelphia. We were invited by Adrienne Webb Schulman, the station’s planned giving officer. We’ve been WHYY supporters and members for decades. As with any non-profit, they hope I’ll continue as a supporter and maybe increase my donations.
Fortunately since it was pouring rain, WHYY has a small 10 car parking lot in the rear of the Sixth Street Bi-Centennial era building. We were given a space, after mistakenly approaching the parking gate for the Federal Reserve, setting off an alarm and a security guard. Adrienne gave us an overview history of the founding of WHYY (1963) and later PBS (1969) and NPR (1970). The creation of WHYY was spearheaded by Dr. W. Laurence LePage.
“With the generous help of Westinghouse Radio Stations Inc., which donated an operational FM station at 17th and Sansom streets in Philadelphia, WHYY-FM began broadcasting December 14, 1954.Three years later, WHYY-TV was born in leased, renovated studios at 1622 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Known then as Channel 35, WHYY-TV became the 23rd public television station in the country. It was hailed by Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth as “an example of the spiritual awakening of the city.” He praised “what citizens can do when they work together.” (WHYY History)
“In Philadelphia, WHYY was in for another move. Through a special arrangement with the city, WHYY moved its headquarters and Channel 12 administration to the former Living History Center Museum on Independence Mall in February 1979. WHYY-FM moved its headquarters to the Mall in August 1980. By April 1983, television and radio production and broadcasting — and all the corporation’s Philadelphia activities — were headquartered on Independence Mall. In continuing to serve Delaware, WHYY opened a facility housing studios and offices in January 1990 at 625 Orange Street in Wilmington.” (WHYY History)
As a former history teacher, I always enjoy some history, especially local history. We were joined by an engaging volunteer guide, Kieth. Unbelievable Diane and I were getting a private tour. We visited several studios and control rooms and talked with several staff. Overall it was extremely quiet and just few people working. Both Adrienne and Keith spoke about shows and personalities from television and radio. Marty Moss-Coane of Radio Times has always been a favorite. A resident of Newtown, I remember seeing her at the George School Peace Fair many years ago and at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
On November 18, 2022, Marty wrote:
“In 1987, when “Radio Times” made its on-air debut, I had no idea the program would last for more than 35 years. I was mostly thinking about my own daily survival and how to become a confident and competent interviewer. After some serious soul-searching, I have decided it’s time to end the program that I still love. The final “Radio Times” broadcast airs this morning.Hosting and producing “Radio Times” has been the most fulfilling job; talking with a wide variety of guests about every topic under the sun and being able to mix it up with our listeners. Your calls, comments, criticisms, texts, posts, tweets made me a better host.No program, especially one that is long-form and live, gets on the air without a talented, resourceful, creative, hardworking, and caring staff of producers. There have been 23 of them who have worked on the show over the course of 35 years and each left their unique mark. They made “Radio Times” a much better program. . . I will miss hosting “Radio Times,” but I also know I need to get off the daily grind while I still have some energy and brain cells left. I want to pursue interests outside of the station and something new at WHYY.”
We also enjoyed hearing about Terry Gross and “Fresh Air” another favorite. Kieth introduced us to the “Fresh Air” archives.
“For more than 40 years, Fresh Air with Terry Gross has inspired and engaged audiences in Greater Philadelphia and around the country. Now, thanks to a generous grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Fresh Air fans and new listeners alike can access the show’s entire catalogue at the Fresh Air Archive, a dedicated, purpose-built website designed to highlight the breadth and depth of all that Fresh Air has to offer. With a catalogue of more than 22,000 segments to date and new ones being added each week, the Fresh Air Archive is home to a living history of the American experience as shared by the thought leaders, cultural icons, and storytellers who shaped it. From former Presidents like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to writers like Maya Angelou and Philip Roth to entertainers like Madonna and Aretha Franklin, the Fresh Air Archive contains thousands of intimate conversations with some of the most important writers, actors, directors, musicians, comics, journalists, and scholars from the last 40 years and today.” (WHYY)
I listen to WHYY radio every morning, in the car. I hope to begin to listen to some of the archived broadcasts. I’ve also just discovered many WHYY posted articles about station personalities and programs. I haven’t listened to podcasts very often but we discussed them and it may become another WHYY and NPR habit. At the same time I’ve been expanding my WHYY TV viewing. What’s your experience with public broadcasting and WHYY specifically ?
Watched Rick Steves Rome. It reminded me of the trip I took with my father to Italy in 2002. We were there just over a week. We visited my cousin Nick Porfirio, Marie and their boys in Roccavivara and then stayed in a room in a monastery quite near the Vatican. The best part of the Rome experience was a morning tour we took with a private guide. We also got to go into the Vatican catacombs through a Spiritan contact. It was a great trip. My photographs are slides waiting to be digitized. But Steve’s special reminded me of our trip. We saw quite a few of the sites he featured.
This summer one of my Cape Cod reads was “ The Finest Hours: the true story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s most daring sea rescue” (2010) by Michael J. Tougias. While I was reading the book, we borrowed from the library the Walt Disney 2016 film based on the book. It’s the story of the SS Pendleton, an oil tanker that broke in two off Chatham, Cape Cod, not far from where we rent in Orleans, in a 1952 northeaster. Further south the SS Fort Mercer was similarly split in two. From the Coast Guard station in Chatham Bernie Webber and three other volunteers take CG 36500, a small boat to rescue crew stranded on the on the stern of the broken ship. They rescue 32 crewmen. It was a gripping story in both book and movie. We also went to see the CG 36500 which is docked at Rock Harbor, Orleans.
When I saw a review of “ Northeaster: a story of courage and survival in the blizzard of 1952” (2023) by Cathie Pelletier, I immediately ordered a copy. Its setting is from Portsmouth, NH up coastal Maine, Saco, Portland, Bath, Port Clyde, Bar Harbor and other towns. I read most of it in one day. It is the experience of about a dozen individuals or families during the storm.
James Haigh is a lobster dealer from Portsmouth. He needs to drive the four hours to Pleasant Point to meet Harland Davis who will take him to Port Clyde where he will buy lobsters. They are aware of a storm but decide to make the trip. The boat is overloaded. The storm hits and both are washed overboard. A rescue boat goes after them and eventually finds the bodies. Death by hyperthermia. They are among the six Maine deaths from the storm. The lobstermen from Mohegan Island who sold the lobsters to Haigh never cashed the checks.
Pelletier discusses why her book is titled Northeaster rather than Nor’easter. The later she claims is a literary affectation, how Mainers are suppose to talk. As she tells the story of about 9 average people affected by the storm, I kept consulting a map to check locations.
A young sailor, Paul Delaney had a date in Bar Harbor. He delayed and his car got stuck in the snow and eventually was buried in the massive drifts. He couldn’t get the doors opened and was trapped for three days. Sections of Route 1 and the Maine turnpike were closed. At the Kennebunk exit of the turnpike a Howard Johnson’s became the refuge for about 500 stranded refugees. Many were returning from an Ice Follies show in Boston. Chef Arthur LeBlanc and several cook helpers stayed on providing food and drink. The Chef baked and baked muffins for the stranded. They in turn took up a collection for the chef and cooks.
Charles Voyer, a retired theatre worker made the trip to Boston to see the Ice Follies. He drove rather than go on a bus making the trip. On the way home he encountered snow eight inched deep on the turnpike. Fourteen miles from home he pulled over with other cars that were stranded on the side of the road. Charles had a heart condition. He joined people from other cars, deciding to walk to safety. They reached a house but the strain was too much for Charles. He became another of Maine’s six victims.
Another death resulted when a young boy, Ray Palemow Jr., hitchhiked in the storm from his home in Brownsville to a WMCA. On the way home he got a ride with Daniel Speed. At a railroad crossing they were hit by a train snow plow. Ray was killed. Daniel was hospitalized on the critical list but survived. Fifty-six year old George Aspen was woolen mill carder in Warren. He decided to walk toward the mill in heavy snow, stopping at a local mill workers hang out. At home he collapsed and died of a heart attack.
James Merrill, a thirty year old bartender and his cousin Peter Godley, a thirty year old shoe factory worker were from Brewer. They had planned an ice fishing trip to Branch Lake and despite storm warnings made the trip, including a dog, Laddie. When they finally packed up to leave, snow had drifted and it was too deep. They were stuck. Should they walk or stay with the car. Local game wardens were notified that there were possible two fishermen stranded on the lake. They went in search. The next day the fishermen decided to try their luck and walk out. They made it safe to Camp Jordan where they were warmed and feed. The game wardens we’re notified to call off their search.
Pelletier tells well researched, detailed, good stories but the stories are intertwined following several days of storm and aftermath. So you read a bit about someone and return to them again and again as time passes. Bill Dwyer was a 67 year old retired from the Bath Iron works and a fireman. A cat lover, his Snooky went outside during the storm and didn’t return. Bill went to the door several times a day. He called. No Snooky. About 10 days after the storm, Bill helped a neighbor shoveling out her car. He heard a meow, Snooky made it, hungry but alive.
Another Bath resident that got caught up by the storm was Hazel Tardiff, a 34 year old Bath housewife, expecting her fourth child. With news of the approaching storm, she began to worry about the drive to the hospital. She promised to call her doctor, Virginia Hamilton at the first sign of labor pains. Snowplows were breaking down and getting stuck throughout Maine. Three days after the storm started, on Monday, February 19, when Hazel was ready but her husband couldn’t drive to town. The plows never came. Dr, Virginia Hamilton decided she would walk to Hazel. She and several others put on snow shoes, pulled a toboggan and brought Hazel to the hospital for a delivery.
I enjoyed “Northeaster” on several levels. Amazingly it was the same storm I’d learned about in “The finest Hours.” It was set in Maine and I enjoy zeroing in on locations. And finally natural disasters, floods, fires, hurricanes and northeasters make riveting reading.
And I sit here in Yardley in front of the wood stove, wishing for a gentle snowfall.
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