November 25, 1920. Thanksgiving Day

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1920. 

Thanksgiving's date has moved over the years but this one was nearly on the exact same day as it will be this year, 2020.  Also the same as a century later, normally, there was a full slate of football games, including a local high school game, to entertain people on their Thursday off.

And it was the start of broadcasting those games as well, which you can read about here:

November 25, 1920: The First Broadcast of Play by Play College Football By Radio Station

Commercial radio, as we've discussed before, was brand new.  1920 was turning out to be quite a year for radio firsts.

My father used to listen to football and baseball both on the radio, and I've listed to baseball occasionally that way. Football is a sport I lost interest in when I was a kid, although my wife likes it.  I haven't listed to a football game on the radio for years, and probably haven't ever listened to one that way of my own volition.  Indeed, the last time I did that I think I was going hunting with a friend during football season and he wanted to listen to a game that was being played.

The day wasn't limited to team sports.  On the same day the Pulitzer Prize Trophy Race was held, which is mentioned in the newspaper above, and which you can read about on this blog here:

This Day In Aviation:  25 November 1920

Aviation was a new thing as well, as we have been tracking, and things associated were still so novel as to make the front page in newspapers.

Also on this day the last big event of the automobile racing season occurred with a 250 mile race in which the youngest of the Chevrolet brothers, Gaston, was killed.

Gaston Chevrolet.

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

Catherinettes parading in 1932 in Paris.  By this time the tradition must have been changing as a photograph from 1920 (copyright protected, apparently, and therefore unable to be posted here) shows a huge crowed of young women on the streets generally dressed in the fashions of the day, save for odd hats. The weather must have been colder on that 1920 day as well, as  they're all wearing coats.  This photo makes less sense, but the references to sailors probably is a bit more salacious.

Then, as now, magazines offered advice on how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving Dinner:

How to Serve a Great Thanksgiving Dinner, 1920 Style

November 23, 1920. Empires

The news on this Tuesday in 1920 was still reverberating with the stories of recent European violence.

This included, as seen above, the naïve hope that the United States was going to be Armenia's protector.

In Washington D.C., high ranking officers of the Department of the Navy were out.

USMC Gen. John A. Lejune, 11/23/1920

 Navy personnel and Josephus Daniels

Anchorage Alaska, which had been founded in 1915, was incorporated.

Anchorage was, and is, as the name indicates a port city.  And today its a large one, much like any other large port city, all of which have a certain universal character.  It was also, however, right from the onset a railhead, which made it all the more important.

November 22, 1920: Violence and Echoes of Violence

An almost indescribable slate of violent events made the Monday morning headlines on this day in 1920. 

Of interest, and probably depending upon whether  you were receiving a morning or evening newspaper, the violence in Ireland may have focused on one side, or the other, in the strife going on there.

On the same day Woodrow Wilson, acting as the arbiter on where the boarder between Turkey and Armenia was to go, issued his decision.  It was a moot point, the Turks, who had prevailed in their war against Armenian, would dictate where that border would be to Armenia's detriment.

DuPont bought a giant share of General Motors.

Governor Octaviano Larrazola pardoned sixteen Mexicans who had been imprisoned for the March 9, 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico noting that they appeared to have no real connection with Villa and were press ganged by the Villista's at the time of the raid and forced to participate.

Governor Larrazola had been born in Mexico to then wealthy parents who had suffered under the French rule and who ultimately went bankrupt.  He entered the United States with a Catholic Bishop as a teenager intending to study theology, which he did do, and then become a Priest.  Ultimately, he determined he was not called to the Priesthood and became a teacher in El Paso, Texas.  In El Paso his focus turned to the law which he studied and then stood for the bar in Texas.  He moved to New Mexico in 1895 where he practiced law and entered politics, becoming the state's Governor in 1918.  He'd ultimately serve a term in Congress.  As he was highly independent and tended to anger his own party, his political career was intermittent.

November 21, 1920 Bloody Sunday

This day is remembered to history as Bloody Sunday, one of two days in Irish history bearing that unfortunate title.  The day featured violence on both sides.

The day started with Michael Collins' men of the IRA targeting members of the "Cairo Gang" for assassination.  Many of the fifteen men killed by the IRA were British Army intelligence officers assigned to that effort with a few policemen and a few people of unknown allegiance also killed in the early morning action.

Photograph commonly claimed to be the Cairo Gang, but for which there is some doubt and which may actually be of the Igoe Gang.  RIC officers who worked undercover.

That afternoon British police forces raided a football match at Croke Park. The force was a mixed one of RIC personnel and Auxiliaries.  The situation was tense and shooting broke out, resulting in the British forces firing over 200 rounds and ultimately killing fourteen people.  The RIC later claimed that they were fired on first, but there is little evidence to support it. Testimony by municipal police who simply happened to be on duty there due to the football match was to the contrary. The best evidence is that the RIC and Auxillaries simply stormed in and began shooting.

Croke Park today, after being expanded. From Wikipedia Commons.

That evening two IRA men in British custody were killed, with the British claiming they were shot while after trying to violently escape but the evidence otherwise contesting that.

Like a lot of things in the Anglo Irish War, the bloody day has been mythologized and therefore has become a legend, but probably a tragic one that is still somewhat out of context.  The RIC and the Auxiliaries were already notorious for their heavy handedness, a shocking example of which we provided earlier this week.  But the bloodiness of the day really commences with IRA assassinations aimed at what was proving to be a successful British counterintelligence action. Those killings themselves came in the context of the IRA resorting a war of murder which has, over the years, been glossed over to be presented as a sort of urban guerilla war.  In reality, given their weakness in comparison to the British, they were terrorists and justified their actions in the context of their goals.  The British counterintelligence actions came in that context and were proving successful, but not so successful that the IRA wasn't able to figure them out and strike back, as the did on this day.

The killings later that day by the RIC were marked by the unwise decision to raid a football match, something of questionable purpose at best, and an even worse decision given the tensions that had developed during the day.  Given the nature of the RIC and the Auxiliaries, and the British counterintelligence effort in general, the chances of it turning into a bloodbath featuring what might have simply been reprisal killings of innocent people was high.  The RIC was already turning the minds of the uncommitted Irish, whom were a majority of the population, against the British and something like this was guaranteed to greatly increase that trend

Oddly the number of people killed in the 1972 Bogside Massacre by British paratroopers when they opened up on civil rights protesters was fifteen people, with eleven more wounded, making it about equivalent in terms of loss of life by British arms in a similar event.  It's that event that was commemorated in U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday.

November 20, 1920. Seasonal scenes. Reflections of a century ago and today.

 On this day in 1920, the White House Thanksgiving entre was delivered in a White House shaped crate.

I don't know if this was before the moronic custom of "pardoning the turkey" or not.  Of note, this turkey isn't as plump as the ones you see today in this role for a simple reason, farm turkeys have been genetically selected in the past century to be plump, and hence are more plump than their ancestors of a century ago, save for wild turkeys, which are just about like this.

The custom of collections for the needy was in swing.

The House of Mercy was collecting donations on this day in 1920.  The organization was an Anglican organization that aided unwed mothers.

I have no idea what the giant dog represented.

The House of Mercy now has the unfortunate status of having its named as part of a goofball dance play, Escape from the House of Mercy, by the highly woke who performed it briefly pre Coronavirus Pandemic at a park which is at the location of the New York House of Mercy.  Further performances of this silly stupidity have been postponed until COVID 19 is beat, by which time hopefully the woke will have moved on to something else.

This helps demonstrate, however, that the well off and historically ignorant section of society has no real understanding of conditions of the past in numerous ways.  Society at large in 1920 wasn't as wealthy as it is in 2020, the government largely did not fund welfare systems, and the ability of almost any woman to support herself and an infant without a male income winner was darned near impossible.  Institutions designed to address this weren't hotel resorts, to be sure, but the alternatives tended towards abject destitution.  Fruity dancers aren't likely to experience that condition today, in a much wealthier society in which there are extensive publicly funded social institutions.

Various notables were photographed, and some honored, at some sort of big event in Washington D.C.   This included General Payton March and his family.

Secretary of War Newton Baker and his son Jack also were there.

What this was isn't clear to me, but my guess is that it was a football game.

The Country Gentleman hit the stands with a seasonal cover illustration.

The Russian Orthodox Church issued a Ukase, a set of instructions with the force of canonical law, directing Bishops to carry on outside of Russia, a measure which acknowledged that in most of the country and its former empire the Communist Party was now in control and was suppressing religion. The move lead to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.  It still exist today in spite of the fall of the Soviet Union, but it reentered communion with the Church in Russia in 2007.  The ROCOR was not the only Russian Orthodox body outside of the Soviet Union, and a small element of its membership went into schism at the time of the reunion. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest Orthodox Church. 

November 19, 1920. Apparently the Christmas Season has always started early.

 

November 16, 1920. Timely advice, then and now. Airlines, then and now. Beersheba.

Cartoon of this date with some timely advice.  From Reddit's 100 Years Ago Subreddit

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The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, Qantas, was formed on this day in 1920.  The third oldest airway in the world, its now the Australian national airline.

Qantas' first office.

Herbert Samuel, the British governor of Palestine, toured Beersheba.

November 14, 1920. Russian and Irish Tragedies

Remnants of the Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet steam away from Sebastopol forever carrying the remnants of Pyotr Wrangels White Russian Army and refugees.  The fleet managed to continue to exist as an entity until 1921, going first to Turkey and then to France.  In 1924 the ships were turned over to Soviet control but found to be unserviceable, and were sold as scrap.

On  this day, the fight of the Russian Whites in the eastern half of what had been the Russian Empire came to an end and the Russian White forces under Pyotr Wrangel abandoned Sebastopol and fled on the remaining loyal elements of the former Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet, together with refugees.  Allied ships also departed the port taking with them their own nationals.  While fighting would go on in the east, it was the effective end of the Russian Civil War in the west, and the effective end of the war in general in terms of who would ultimately prevail.

Poster of Wrangel in Cossack regalia.

Wrangel would attempt to lead Russian refugees after his exile and formed, for a time, an organization that attempted to centralize that effort and to plan for a future war against the Communists in Russia, a quixotic effort under the circumstances.  In 1927 he moved to Belgium and became a mining engineer.  He was poisoned in 1928 by the brother of his butler, who is believed to have been a Soviet agent.  His descendants have refused to have him reinterred in Russia as the current Russian government has not denounced the evils of Communism.

Wrangel, who was part of the Russian military community descended from German origin, a surprisingly common demographic in Imperial Russian military leadership, had such close German roots that his grandfather had in fact been Lutheran.  Pyotr Wrangel was Orthodox however and had in fact been trained as an engineer prior to joining the Imperial Russian Army.  Like many senior military figures, he had actually dropped out of the service at the time of the Russian Revolution and only joined the Whites after having been arrested by, and escaping from, the Communists.  Such experiences were surprisingly common and to a degree demonstrate how Red paranoia actually fueled the war against them.  He was a very able commander and highly successful in the Russian Civil War before his reversal of fortunes.  A failure to find an overall command for the White effort partially explains this failure.

Wrangel, of wealthy and aristocratic background, obviously managed to find some success after his exile.  Most Russian refugees, however, were of much more modest means.  In the west they spread out among a collection of countries, with France being a common one, and rebuilt new lives in new countries while also retaining their Russian identity.  Their fortunes varied considerably from their compatriots who fled into China a few years later where economic conditions were dire.

Fr. Michael Griffin.

On this same day, Father Michael Griffin, a Catholic Priest in Ireland who sympathized with Republicans, and who had been missing since November 14, was found in an unmarked grave.  He is believed to have been murdered by the Black & Tans.  He is remembered in the name of a road in Galway, where he was from, and in the name of an Irish football club which is called The Father Griffins.

Eileen Quinn

This event shows the way the Anglo Irish War was starting to go, with guerilla extrajudicial killings becoming common.  Just a few days prior the pregnant Eileen Quinn, age 24, was shot by a police auxiliary, a police unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary often confused with the Black & Tans, when she was out in front of her tenant farmhouse nursing a baby.  She was wounded in the stomach and died later that day.  She and her husband Malachi were tenants of Lady Gregory Augusta, an Anglo Irish playwright of nationalist sympathies.  The death of Mrs. Quinn left her husband a widower and her three children without a mother.  Her husband had been away at the time of the killing attempting to negotiate a purchase of land.  A subsequent military investigation came to the conclusion that the killing was accidental and from a random shot designed to attempt to clear the area.

Both killings resulted in a way from the IRA ambush and murder of Sheriff Frank Shawe-Taylor the previous March, which had brought the Black & Tans and Auxiliaries in.

Black & Tan in Dublin, 1921.  He is armed with a Lewis Gun and an incredibly low slung .455 Webley revolver.

The British government had, as noted here the other day, just extended home rule to Ireland, but events like this showed that the measure had come too late.  Additionally, their heavy handedness resulted in contempt in both Ireland and the United Kingdom over them and support in Ireland for the IRA.

November 13, 1920. Those teenage years.

A photographer was at work in Craig Colorado, where he took a photograph of the students of the school there, which must have been a unified (all grades) school.  He also photographed the athletic teams of Craig and Meeker.

On the same day, a band of teenagers in Omaha pulled off what was, up until that time, the largest train robbery in the United States, taking over $3,500,000 in fresh United States currency being shipped from a mint.  It involved breaking into into a train car and then departing it at its first stop, where there was a waiting car. So it was a planned thing.

In current dollars, that would amount to $46,000,000.

They burned most of it shortly thereafter, although some of what was taken was in the form of coins.  The amount of money must have spooked them, and therefore they didn't profit by their crime and, in the end, the US really didn't lose much.

Not to condone theft, but burning the cash was really stupid.

November 12, 1920. First and lasts in sports, and in life events.

November 12, 1920: Man o' War's final run

Read about it at the above, an unfortunately seemingly inactive blog.

On the same day, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and at the same time the major leagues took on their present organizational form.

This occured, of course, in the wake of the Black Sox Scandal and as part of an effort to address deficiencies in the organization of the sport and clear up its name.

Italy and what would become Yugoslavia entered into the Treaty of Rapallo. The treaty adjusted territorial boundaries between the nations, which had been disputed in the wake of World War One and the creation of the new state.  The new South Slav kingdom and Italy shared populations that were of the ethnicities of the other state. While the treaty did leave few Italians in Yugoslavia, about 500,000 South Slavs remained in what became Italian territory.

The border would be readjusted following World War Two.

Former resident of Cheyenne and teenage lover of Charlie Chaplin, actress Mildred Harris, was granted a divorce from Chaplin.

Harris' sad story, as well as her peculiar role in history (she's at least partially responsible for Wallace Simpson meeting King Edward VIII, has been addressed elsewhere on this blog.

President Wilson refused to sign the execution warrant for Sgt. Anthony F. Tamme, who had been convicted of espionage during World War One.

November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

It was, of course, Armistice Day.

In the U.S., veterans gathered.

In France and the UK, their unknown soldiers were interred.

In the UK, Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act which provided for home rule in Ireland, in two separate political entities, north and south Ireland.  It never went into effect in the south due to the Anglo Irish War.  It simply came too late.

Mid Week At Work Blog Mirror: A Career in Wireless: 1920

 

A Career in Wireless: 1920

An interesting look at an article from Boys Life in 1920.

In 1920, radio was just coming in.  I wonder how the radio careers that existed then, compare to the ones that exist now?

November 6, 1920. The death of John P. Woodward.

1920  U.S. Air Mail pilot John P. Woodward was killed when he flew into a snowstorm near Tie Siding, on his way from Utah to Cheyenne.  His plane crashed near Laramie, a few miles away.

From  here.

The 26  year old Woodward was flying a DH4 when the crash killed him.  He as last sighted over Laramie itself.  In his honor, Woodward Field was named after him at 22nd West and North Temple in Salt Lake City, the city which he had last departed from at 11:30 that morning.  He was to have landed in Laramie at 3:00 and nearly in fact made it.

Woodard Field is now the Salt Lake International Airport.

The Saturday Evening Post depicted a young woman having bobbed her hair.

She didn't look too happy about it in Coles Phillips' illustration.

November 5, 1920. The high country.

Isabelle Glacier, Colorado.  November 5, 1920.

 

November 4, 1920. Byran suggests Wilson should resign. He didn't.

Life magazine considered the plight of the family dog in its November 4, 1920 issue.  Life was a humor magazine at the time.

On not humorous, or maybe humours, William Jennings Bryan apparently was at his gadfly height.

The headline was misleading. Bryan suggested Wilson should resign.

The suggestion was stupid and Wilson didn't take it.

Blog Mirror: 1920 Voting Machine

 

1920 Voting Machine

November 2, 1920. Harding sweeps the race, Racial violence sweeps African American Ocoee out of existence

Cox only did well in the South, which at the time was solidly Democratic.

Harding barely mentioned Cox during the race, choosing instead to campaign against his predecessor, Wilson and to promise a "return to normalcy".  The strategy was a success for Harding in a nation that was tired of the events that occured from 1912 to 1920, which had included constant turmoil and strife.

Warren G. Harding.

Harding hadn't really started out wanting to be President, however.  He was talked into it by party leadership following the race that developed after Theodore Roosevelt's January 1919 death.  Roosevelt, at that point, didn't really have his heart in the race either, but he would have run and, but for his death, would almost certainly have won as a Progressive Republican.  Harding won promising that things would return to normal.

He wouldn't live out his term, dying in office from a heart attack in 1923.  At the time of his death he was a well liked President.   Scandals later associated with Harding were not known during his lifetime, including the story of his two mistresses, one former and one ongoing, which had resulted in the birth of his only child in 1919.

KDKA broadcast election results from Pittsburg, the first time that a radio station had done so.  KDKA, which was owned by Westinghouse, is regarded as the world's first commercial radio station, although that claim can be disputed.

Voting on this day resulted in the Ocoee Massacre, an assault on African American voters. The assault resulted in the deaths of at least 30 black Floridians and the destruction of the black quarters of the town. Survivors were driven from the town.

Voting related death, of a sort, also came to James Daly, an Irish born solder of the Connaught Rangers who had figured in a mutiny in India earlier that year.  For his role in the mutiny he was executed by the British Army.  While nineteen soldiers of the unit received the death sentence for their role an effort that was obviously doomed from the onset, Daly's was the only one carried out.