Tuesday, July 4,1826. The Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence.

July 4, 1826 was the fiftieth anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, of course.  By that time the country had not only achieved independence, but it had also survived a second war with Britain, one which the United States provoked and which nearly caused New England to succeed from the union.  And it had grown from 13 states, to 24.

The United States in 1825/26.

It's probably best remembered in the United States for being the date on which both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died.  What's even more peculiar about that, however, is that while 90 year old John Adams was living in Quincy, Massachusetts and 83 year old Thomas Jefferson was in Monticello, Virginian, Adams knew when Jefferson died, and commented on it.

The two men were not very much alike temperamentally.  Adams was a lawyer and a farmer who first entered the public's consciousness when he defended British troops in court following the Boston Massacre.  He was truly one of those rare characters who loved the law, something made even better for him as he was a circuit riding lawyer who also loved horses.  Active in farming his entire life, he was more closely matched Jefferson's yeoman ideal than Jefferson.  Somewhat taciturn, he dreamed of being a soldier at the beginning of the Revolution, but his talents lay elsewhere and he never was.

His place in history is secure due to his being the second President of the United States, but by the 20th Century he was one who was very little focused on.  His popularity enjoyed a resurgence, however, due to  David McCullough 2001 book which is somewhat of a hagiography.  

During his lifetime he had a falling out with Jefferson, who served as his Vice President, but they repaired their rift in later years.

If Adams was well known during his lifetime and the somewhat placed on the shelf, Thomas Jefferson has never been out of the public imagination.  At the same time, probably no American President has had his character analyzed and reanalyzed as much.

From a Puritan background, Adams is problematic for modern American far right-wing Evangelist in that his religious views were unconventional.  While a Congregationalist, he tended towards Universalist views and did not regard the Trinity as well founded.  While we have argued here that the United States is a Protestant nation, figures like Adams cut against that argument.  Adams was very much opposed to state established churches, for instance.

Like Adams, Jefferson was also a lawyer by training but what he really was by temperament and occupation was a planter.  An absolute renaissance mind he dabbled in everything, including engineering and agronomy.  One of the most influential figures of the founding generation, he served as the country's third President and was the first American President to engage in an undeclared war.

Regarded as a founding member of the Democratic Party, it was Jefferson's foresight that caused the U.S. to purchase Louisiana, converting the country from an Atlantic maritime power to a continental power.  Arguably, no President is more responsible for what the US became than Jefferson, even though he did not see it becoming what it became.  An Agrarian philosopher, he thought that it would take Americans 1,000 years to spread across the continent and that gave the country a 1,000 year chance at remaining a democracy.

Historians have been tortured by trying to define Jefferson's character ever since he died.  He was clearly a genius but his personal life was often in grave conflict with his stated beliefs.  Once hugely adored, in recent years his relationship with his sister in law and slave, Sally Hemings, has caused a great deal of debate on his personal morality.

North America with territories as claimed by the United States.

That the country had survived fifty years was somewhat amazing.  The War of 1812, not well remembered in the United States, had been a US war of choice that had not been supported by New England and which the United States, in spite of what is commonly claimed, lost.  The central seaboard South, which  had favored the war, proved to retain a sizable population that retained strong sympathies with the United Kingdom.  The US Army was twice very badly defeated by Canadian militias which gained ground in the Midwest, something also rarely noted.  Only the logistical difficulties faced by the British and a high desertion rate of its troops kept the country from returning to British possession.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 24, 1825. State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825.

Labels: 1820s, 1825, emigration, Hypocrisy, Immigration, Mexican State Colonization Law of March 24, Mexico, Slavery, Texas

Cellmate of Boethius: What’s Really Driving the Tradwife Phenomenon?

Cellmate of Boethius: What’s Really Driving the Tradwife Phenomenon?:  

What’s Really Driving the Tradwife Phenomenon?

Friday, June 28, 1946. First Hāfu (ハーフ).

The first recorded birth in Japan of a baby born of a Japanese mother and a father who was an American soldier occupying Japan, was announced on Japanese radio, barely more than nine months after the U.S. commenced occupation of Honshu.

The number of such children born during the American occupation from 1945 to 1952 is unknown, but best estimates put it at less than 5,000.  Small additional numbers had British and Australian fathers, with their fate being particularly harsh as British occupation authorities strictly prohibited liaisons with Japanese females and marriage was not an option.  Many of their children were given up for adoption as orphans.  In contrast,45,000 Japanese women became American war brides.

The entire matter was controversial in Japan, as generally it broke a strict cultural taboo regarding interacting with foreigners in this fashion. Cross cultural marriages were enormously looked down upon in Japan at the time and still somewhat are, albeit to a lesser degree.  The occupation period is the only instance in which Japanese women breached the taboo on a large scale.

In this case, the extremely rapid nature of the conception raises real questions about the nature of consent in the matter.

Comedian Gilda Radner was born in Detroit.

Actress Antoinette Perry form whom the Tony Awards are named died at age 58 of a heart attack. There were signs that it was coming, but as a Christian Scientist, she refused to see a doctor.  

She had been born in Denver, Colorado.

The Family Circle magazine featured a photograph of a cat in a wedding dress on the cover.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 26, 1946. The Nationalist Chinese Strike.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Chiang Kai-shek, China, Chinese Civil War, Germany, Nationalist Chinese Army, Nazi Germany, People's Liberation Army, poster, United States, Weapons

How the Sexual Revolution Brought Us Tradwives | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

 

"Homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon one taken in the act of adultery with the wife, provided that the killing takes place before the parties to the act have separated. "

Homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon one taken in the act of adultery with the wife, provided that the killing takes place before the parties to the act have separated. Such circumstance cannot justify a homicide where it appears that there has been, on the part of the husband, any connivance or assent to the adulterous connection.

Law of the State of Texas prior to 1973.

Frankly, whatever the law is anywhere now, if I were on a jury, I'd consider not convicting under these circumstances.  Of course, that's exactly why I'd never be on such a jury.  I probably would, but I wouldn't be keen on it.

Indeed, you have to take an oath that you'll uphold the law, and killing somebody is flat out wrong, but I'd not like that duty.

For that matter, I'd be a poor choice for a juror when an "ex" spouse killing a "new" spouse of his former spouse, as that is adultery, as divorce itself is a civil sham.  Same story there.  I guess I'd uphold my obligations as a juror, if I survived voir dire, which I probably wouldn't.

In some ways, the weeneyness of the current law is a shame.

Maybe the dilution of the current law is the real shame.  The old law, including the "heart balm" laws, were regarded as harsh.  They weren't harsh, they were realistic.  The decline in realism in this area since May 9, 1960, has not bee a good thing in every conceivable way.

Every one of their arguments.

Every one of their own arguments for divorce and remarriage leads directly to promiscuity; and leaves no kind of use or meaning in marriage of any kind. But the idea of the vow is perhaps a little too bold and bracing for them at present, and is too strong for their heads, like sea air.

G. K. Chesterton.

The Right’s Pre-Modern ‘Masculinist’ Fantasy | The Ezra Klein Show

 

Cowardly Men

She's a young beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes...

Donald Trump in a recent press conference.

Donald Trump is a creepy old man.

A few years ago there was a lot of ink spilled and electrons expended on whether or not there was a "crisis of masculinity" in American culture.  There's still a fair amount of discussion of it, as evidenced by this New York Times op ed from this year:

America Has a Masculinity Crisis

A much-needed, nuanced conversation about masculinity and feminism today.

I've thought about posting in it from time to time, but never had as its a difficult topic to really address, even though, as it involves a shift in social standards, it fits right into this site's purpose.

Seeing Donald Trump insult of a female reporter the other day however, makes it impossible not to address.

Trump is a creepy old man who came of age in the 70s and had early sexual morals like that of an alley cat.  He seems to lack any morals today.  The comment he made was not only demeaning, it demonstrates an absolute contempt of women.  The reporter is supposed to be a pretty adornment, in his view.

How many women have been confronted by the lech stating "why don't you smile more".  Indeed, if you are of a certain age, "why don't you smile more?" or "why don't you wear prettier dresses" or the like is pretty much raising the flag of an intended sexual assault of the pressure type.  Given Trump's dementia, it's not impossible to wonder if that was a line other women in other context have heard before.

It should have been met with a male reaction.

When I was young, even though I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, there was a set of expectations that boys learned and men followed.  I think to some extent they've fallen aside as in the 1970s men lost track of what was expected of them due to the wave of First Generation Feminism.  That era has passed, but knowing what to do and how to behave seems to have gone out to sea.

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

The old standards weren't quaint, they existed for a reason.  Two of the reasons are that men are more powerful than women and if the law of the jungle applies, lots of men will abuse women, and by abuse, you know what we mean.  The vulnerable girls at Epstein Island, where Trump traveled with the other rich and often unprincipled, provide an example of that.  Another reason is that the rules restrained men and oriented them towards decent behavior.  Finally, and quite frankly, the rules in fact reflected centuries old views of the relationship between men and women, much of which underwent assault in the 1970s, but frankly which reflect women, and men, in their more natural roles.

Now, let's be clear.  There were men who always violated these rules, some very openly, but they weren't admire for that.  And the reaction to violation could go far beyond mere internal contempt.

Amongst the rules were some that seem pretty minor.  You always opened the door for women, including women you didn't know.  You walked around a car to let a woman out of the car and opened the door for her, and when entering a car you opened the door for her.  Both of those actually reflect an era when doors were heavier, including car doors.

A man got up from his seat when women approached to address them, something depicted in the final seat of True Grit when Frank James does not get up when she approaches, and when she leaves she states "Keep your seat, trash".  

That is how that was viewed.

More seriously, however, men, including teenage boys, were taught not to insult a woman's virtue in any fashion.  The instruction was so serious that if you were in a relationship with a woman so insulted you were expected to immediately intervene, but it went beyond that.  If you were in a setting where that was done you were also expected to intervene, particularly if you knew the girl or the knew somebody who was in a relationship with the girl.  It was universally understood that a verbal rebuke of a person talking smack or insulting a girl, or saying the kind of thing Trump was saying, didn't cause them to knock it off, a fistfight was the probable result.  Generally, the exchange went something like:

"Hey, knock it off and leave her alone."

The reply normally was:

"Hey dude, I didn't mean anything by it".

If,, however, the insulting person did not back off, a fight often ensued.  

This is, of course, amongst younger men.  If an older man, like Trump, said something like that, a verbal rebuke and walking out was the norma.

That went something like:

"You sir, are being insulting and owe her an apology".

With an old baffoon like Trump, that was normally met with:

"Um, I all I meant. . . 

At which point the other men started leaving.

This is all 20th Century stuff, I'd note, and 20th Century middle class stuff.  Even when I was young in rougher society fights could arise in this fashion which went right to knives.  In European and European American middle class and upper class society of the 18th and 19th Century failing to yield often outright resulted in a duel.  

Now, these guys just stand there like lumps, saying nothing.

One of the things about our current society is that it's really become White Trash.  The gutter morals of men who view women as objects and who can't speak with any proficiency are dictating the culture of the country, and combined with this is the corruption that wealth has always brought about.  

Again, Trump provides us a fine example of that.  He's an immoral man who is steeped in immorality. He's hung around with the rich men who abuse teenage women to the point where questions about his behavior are legitimate questions.  He's made creepy comments about his own daughter when she was young. The wheels are coming off of his ability to restrain himself.  He gets closer and closer to the point at which he's going to outright proposition a woman on national television and not one male reporter has the courage to do anything about it.

But we're going to have to start doing something about this behavior.

Part of the claim of the MAGA movement and entities like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is that they were restoring America. Instead, they're just White Trashing it up.  Chuck Gray have us just such an example the other day when he acted like a 12 year old brat the Cowboy State Daily video program.

One of the things about the old rules is that even one person enforcing them was normally effective.  Even within the last few years I've seen that when an official got mad about something and started swearing and another official rebuked him with "there are ladies here".  I hadn't heard that in years, but it resulted in an immediate apology.

People around Trump need to start calling him on his behavior.  People around Trump who pretend its not important need to be called on that.  But beyond that, people in everyday conversation need to do the same.  The long road back won't become from the top of the generation in charge.  It'll have to come from the bottom.

Tuesday, June 1, 1926. Marilyn Monroe and Andy Griffith.

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles to Gladys Pearl Baker, nee Monroe, who was married at the time to her second husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, but who was not her father.

Newton Baker and Gladys had married when she was only 14 years old. Baker was reportedly abusive.  The couple had two children.  Interestingly, she was born to an American family living in Mexico but one that had strong connections to California, where she grew up.

In 1923 the Bakers divorced and obtained custody of all three of the couple's children.  He, however, kidnapped the oldest two and moved to Kentucky.  Baker was effected by the Roaring 20s and conducted herself to some extent as a flapper and participant in the early feminist movement, which then as later advocated sexual laxity.  She was pregnant when she married Mortensen, who she soon found to be boring, leading to divorce.

Norma Jean's father was likely Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys's superior at RKO Studios, where she was working.

Gladys and Norma Jeane.

Baker was likely mentally unstable ,which seems to have run in her family.  Based on what evidence exists, it seems like that there was a genetic component to this and she's spend much of the later years of her life institutionalized.

The rest of this story is, of course, well known.  While its speculation, it would seem likely that at least some of the genetic component of her mental instabilities visited themselves upon her daughter, who of course lived a very disrupted early life.

She outlived her daughter and died in 1984.

Andy Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina.  He was at first a voice comedian and later a famous television actor, best remembered for the Andy Griffith Show.  He was strongly connected to North Carolina his entire life.

The Andy Griffith Show almost defines a certain vision of rural America to this day, and it retains a very strong following.  Unlike the Sheriff protagonist of the show, Griffith married three times and had an affair with one of the shows love interests while it was running.  Irrespective of those failings, he remains widely admired.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 30, 1926. An oral arrangement.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, British Empire, Iraq, Petroleum, Turkey

Saturday, April 17, 1926.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 10, 1926. "Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business."

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Card Games, Chesterton, Clothing, Education, Geology, Golf, Hawaii, Native Americans, Random snippets, The Press, Youth Organizations

Thursday, April 11, 1946. Nostra culpa.

Einstein warned "I believe that the abominable deterioration of ethical standards stems primarily from the mechanization and depersonalization of our lives ... Nostra culpa!"

First powered flight of the X-1.

X-1 in flight.

Forced labor in French overseas territories, which had allowed for annual conscription for government projects, was banned.

The final edition of the China Burma Indian soldiers newspaper the Roundup was published.  It was a reprise of the war, and on its last page ran a selection of pinups, a feature of the newspaper with its pinups being a bit racier than Yank's.

In the last issue of this series (1946) we ran a story from the Rocky Mountain News about pregnant German women.  I.e., women who had become pregnant by American troops to whom they were not (and could not be, at that time), married.  The news ran the story in a somewhat lighthearted fashion, but that didn't match the reality.

Such children, of whom there were at least 200,000 by Allied troops, actually faced pretty rough conditions, as discussed here:

Occupation children

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 9, 1946. The Bomb, the accused, and pregnant Fräuleins.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, Colorado (Denver), Crime, Germany, Germany (Munich), Nuclear power, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Weapons

Tuesday, April 9, 1946. The Bomb, the accused, and pregnant Fräuleins.

The Rocky Mountain News reported on expenses associated with The Bomb.

The tragic story of Viola Elliot was back on the front page.  She first appeared there on February 8, 1946, when she gave birth while a prisoner due to the homicide in issue.

As we noted then:

She was accused of the beating death of her stepson, Robert.  She denied it, but she was convicted of second degree murder.  Her 8 year old son by a previous marriage was a witness for the prosecution at the trial and Mrs. Elliot admitted at the time of arrest that she had hit and kicked the child on the occasion of his death.  She later changed her story and claimed he'd tripped on his pajamas.

Her parents and husband said they'd stand by her at the time of her arrest, but I wonder if that was still the case later on.  At her sentencing, she stated that Leslie was just as responsible for the death and the judge agreed.  Leslie had already been arraigned for assault and battery and assessory after the fact.  In April she petitioned the County to make her children wards of the County, to which her husband objected.  They were noted to be "estranged" by that time.

Viola was 27 years old and on her second marriage at the time.  She would have had her first child, if her son who testified was the first at age 19 in 1937 or 1938.  The paper mentioned that there were three children, including the murdered boy.  Interestingly, I can find one other reference to a "Miss Viola Elliot" from 1937 indicating that Viola Elliot was employed as an arts and crafts teacher.  A 1943 edition mentions a Viola Elliott as being just back in town after visiting her husband in Tennessee, who was probably in the service.

Viola received 15 to 20 years for the murder.

Leslie would receive six months for assault and battery.

Her mother, Alice Faber, testified at the trial, as did her father.  Alice died in 1966 and is buried in Denver.  Her obituary listed Viola as still living, still with the last name Elliot, and in Denver.  The Fabers also had a son named Wilmer, who was alive at the time.  The boy who testified at the trial was living in California.

Her father died in 1961.

The impacts of the war in addition to the bomb were a story several pages in.

Peacetime conscription had not been a thing prior to 1940 and there remained a lot of opposition to it.  Indeed, it would go away for a time.

The plight of pregnant German girls in Munich, made so by American GIs, was seemingly without a solution and without sympathy.  By this point the Occupation Authorities were allowing for fraternization, but the U.S. Army was not approving enlisted marriages.  The young women seemingly expected help from the Army.

Munich had been Hitler's adopted town, we'd note, which is interesting in context here as the women in question would have become pregnant by American GIs very soon after the end of the war.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 4, 1946. Hirohito lucks out.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Far Eastern Commission, Hirohito, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, Standards, War Crimes, Women

 

Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says

Tuesday, April 2, 1946. MacArthur bans fraternization, Murray tries for national health insurance.

General Douglas MacArthur issued the first regulations against fraternization between American soldiers and Japanese citizens as an attempt to stop soldiers from consorting with prostitutes.  The regulations would grow into an extensive program of segregation.

Montana Democrat Senator James Murray convened his Committee on Education and Labor for the first hearing on comprehensive national health insurance.  His concern arose from his prior role as a labor lawyer for coal miners.

Murray had been born in Ontario and was moved to Butte upon the death of his father that very year.  He was left a very wealthy man by an inheritance that came about when his uncle, who raised him, died.

Murray was an Irish American/Canadian Catholic and died in 1961.

It's really dispiriting to realize that national health insurance, which was a desire of the Truman Administration, has never come about.  All the arguments against it really fail, but the opposition to it has left the United States the only major nation without it and has contributed enormously to the decline of the United States as a first rate nation since the 1970s.

Last edition:

Monday, April 1, 1946. The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Islands Earthquake

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aleutians, Coal, Disaster, Geology, Hawaii, Hawaii (Hilo), Hawaii (Maui), Imperial Japanese Navy, Malaya, Mining, Singapore, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, The Cold War, U.S. Navy

Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.

A really interesting Richard C. Miller photograph of Marilyn Monroe was taken, which we learned of due to Reddit's 80 Years Ago Sub, and which we repost here via fair use.

Miller had "discovered" Monroe, who was already modeling following her photo spread in World War Two's Yank.  Miller, typical for the era, photographed her in swimsuits, including bikinis (very modest ones by today's standards), but also  had a an entire series of other topics, including the subject shooting firearms.  Here he depicted her in a wedding dress.

The real life model had already been married and divorced by this time, having married at age 16 and then filing for divorce while her husband was deployed in the Navy during the Second World War.  This photograph is actually commonly claimed to be a wedding photo from her first marriage, which it is not, although the veil is remarkably similar to the one she actually wore in her wedding.

Actual photograph of Monroe at her first wedding, when she was 16 years old.

In the studio photograph she's holding some sort of book with a Christian cross on it, with that style of cross depiction very common for the era.  This is what causes us to note this photograph in a way, as it brings up the topic addressed here:

The Wedding Industrial Complex

Notes from the Spesia Underground

A really interesting episode.

This really fascinating look at modern weddings brings up a whole host of things we routinely discuss here, including agrarianism and subsidiarity.  The episode from Catholic Stuff You Should Know points out the extent that weddings were, at at the time the photo of Norma Jean was taken above still remained, community affairs and not big bride focused shows.

We've lost a lot here.

And we really need to recapture it.

While indelicate, this also shows the portrayal of a really beautiful woman before Playboy perverted all of that.

Monroe was, as is well known, Playboy's first, and unwilling, centerfold.  But what's interesting here is that prior to Playboy arriving on the scene, this was not an uncommon depiction of a really beautiful woman.  There were, of course, already some women who were focused on for being really busty, Jane Russell giving an example, but the theme did not absolutely dominate.  To look at the 19 year old Monroe here, you would not have thought of her in that fashion.  A decade later, you would, and even after Life intervened to push her nude photograph first as an art item.  We've dealt with that before here as well, although frankly we need to modify our entry.  That post is here:

Appearance. Shape and being in shape and women (men will come next).

Also posted via fair use, Colliers had an article on keeping everyone employed year around, showing how times were in fact changing.

We've looked at that here too.

Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two

Truman presented an ultimatum to Stalin demanding the Soviets comply with the agreement to pull their troops from Iran.

The Rocky Mountain News was a morning paper, so they didn't catch that, but they did catch something else that Truman had ordered the day prior.

The Army issued an order prohibiting soldiers from engaging in public displays of affection with Japanese women.

Out Our Way's gag was based on cleaning out the ash bin of a stove, something that's likely completely lost on modern readers.

Argentina extended its claims over Antarctica.

Mad King Donny must not be aware of this or we'd be staking a claim.

Indonesia Tentara Republik Indonesia (Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia) evacuated Indonesian citizens from the city of Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, after which the area was burned to avoid its use by the Dutch.

Commemorated as the Bandung Sea of Fire and a great patriotic act, poor people really don't have much of a say in things like this.

Last edition:

Friday, March 22, 1946. First U.S. rocket to escape the atmosphere.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, British Commonwealth, British League of Nations Mandates, Catholic, Christianity, Germany, Jordan, Nazi Germany, religion, Rocketry, United Kingdom, Westphalia