Food and diet

It's really easy to romanticize the past, including the kitchen table of the past, but a recent Freakanomics podcast I listened to suggests that some caution should be involved in that. That's no surprise really, but it is something that we rarely consider.

In our minds, the table of the past was always the place where home cooked meals were served, with fresh food of all kinds. But this really wasn't so. For one thing, refrigeration was not really terribly advanced until the 1930s or so. Prior to that, a lot of people had an "ice box". My father still referred to the refrigerator at the "ice box" in the 1970s, not really switching over to "refrigerator" until the 80s. An ice box isn't anywhere as efficient as a refrigerator.

People compensated for that by buying food every day, but that couldn't really take care of the entire problem. Fresh food simply isn't available every day, everywhere. Frozen food wasn't really fully available year around. Canned food was, in the 20th Century of course, but it wasn't always as good as the canned food we have now. Salted and pickled food made up for part of the problem.

And food variety was necessarily much more restricted. It isn't as if you could expect to buy oranges everywhere easily prior to relatively efficient transportation. Something like a Kiwi fruit would have been unheard of. Even when I was a kid fish came from the river or from a box in the freezer section of the grocery store. In the early 20th Century here fish would have been from the river, and that's about it.

Food related diseases, such as rickets and goiter, that are attributable to a simple dietary deficiencies. Vitamin D is now put in milk to address rickets, but when most people bought milk in glass bottles that was from a local creamery, this wasn't true. Iodine is now in salt, but it wasn't always.

In looking at images from the past, a full farm larder is easy to imagine. But that isn't always the way things were.

An interesting look at an aspect of this, in military terms, is on this Society of the Military Horse thread.

The distance of things, and self segregation

Sometimes its helpful to actually know what I'm writing about (d'oh!).

In the post The Distance of Things I commented on how remarkably close in proximity Mother of God, Holy Ghost, and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception are, and were not, in terms of transportation in earlier times.

Well, they are close now, to be sure, but Mother of God Church was not a Catholic Church until about 1949, so my analysis there fell sort of flat. Of course, Holy Ghost and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception have always been Catholic Church's, so my analysis still made sense there.

Be that as it may, another church also provides an interesting example of changing times, that being Holy Rosary. Holy Rosary is probably no more than five miles, maybe less, from the Cathedral, but it's north of I70, and it would be hard for people in the neighborhood to get to the Cathedral even now, so I can understand why it is there. Having said that, what surprised me is that, in reading the parish history, how ethnic it originally was.

The church, built in 1918, originally served a principally South Slavs population. Another Catholic Church existed within just a few blocks, but it was principally Polish in population. Prior to the construction of Holy Rosary, the South Slavs attended that church, but they wanted one of their own. That's probably understandable given language differences between the various parishioners. Of interest, a Russian Orthodox Church was and is located very nearby.

What all this shows is that there was a rich population of Eastern Europeans in this section of Denver early in the 20th Century. They all lived in the same area, but they also maintained certain distinctions between themselves. Overall, that's not surprising, but the degree to which the distinctions were maintained perhaps is.

Tuesday, March 7, 1911. Taft deploys troops to the border.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 7: 1911 The U.S. deploys 20,000 troops to the Mexican border due to the Mexican Revolution.

Expanding on that at 11:00 a.m. the Department of War issued a statement that "a large number of troops" was being moved to points in Texas and southern California, and that the Department of the Navy had ordered 15 ships from the Atlantic Fleet to the Texas coast, including four armored cruisers. 2,000 Marines were ordered to assemble at Guantanamo Bay. 

The Army had been secretly dispatched the prior day.  The Army commitment was 1/4 of the total Army. 

The event was somewhat camouflaged as it its real purpose.

An elk farm, which is illegal in Wyoming, was being established in Colorado.  It's just such an entity that's responsible for Chronic Wasting Disease.

Last edition:

Monday, March 6, 1916. Resumed fighting.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Aircraft, Battle of Verdun, New York, Verdun France, World War One

Monday, March 6, 1911. Madero defeated at Casas Grandes.

Madero's forces unsuccessfully attacked government troops at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua.

Madero blamed his scouts for his defeat, and had them hung.

Samuel J. Battle was sworn in as the first black officer of the New York Police Department.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 4, 1911. A refuge for elk.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Art, Blog Mirror, National Elk Refuge, Poland, Russia, Texas, Wyoming, Wyoming (Teton County)

Occasionally, things throw back.

Great video.

Saturday, March 4, 1911. A refuge for elk.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 4: 1911   The U.S. Congress appropriated $20,000 "to be made available immediately for feeding and protecting the elk in Jackson Hole and vicinity, and for removing some of them to stock other localities."  Attribution:  On This Day. 

Sen. J. W. Bailey of Texas resigned.  Later that day the Texas State Senate asked him to reconsider, as did the Governor, and he withdrew  his resignation and served out his term, under questionable legality.

The Duma voted down a proposal for limited self government in Poland.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, March 3, 1911. Infant Air Force, new Dental Corps, testing the M1911.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 61st Congress, actors and actresses, Aircraft, Army, Dental Corps, Medicine, Signal Corps, Weapons

Friday, March 3, 1911. Infant Air Force, new Dental Corps, testing the M1911.

Congress appropriated $125,000 for the Signal Corps to purchase aircraft.

The U.S. Army Dental Corps was established.

The U.S. Army began a "torture test" of the John Browning designed Colt M1911 pistol.

Jean Harlow (Harlean Harlow Carpenter) was born.  Always of fragile health, she died when she was only 26 years old.

Last edition:

Saturday, February 25, 1911. Battle of Casas Grandes and Kelley Creek.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Battle of Casas Grandes, Battle of Kelley Creek, Berbers, Francisco I. Madero, Indian Wars, J. C. Leyendecker, Maderistas, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Morocco, Native Americans, Shoshone people

The distance of things.

I was in Denver the past couple of days, and on my way out, I took some photographs for my blog on churches in the West.

I've been to Denver approximately a billion times. But trying to find photographs on a particular topic really focuses in your attention on some things. More on that later, but one thing I noted is that you can find multiple churches of a single denomination relatively close to each other, in modern terms.

For example,the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Denver, is really relatively close to Holy Ghost, a fine old church (which I did not get to photograph) in downtown Denver. If I lived in downtown Denver, I'd probably have to drive to the Cathedral for Mass, but it isn't far. Nor are either of these far, in driving terms, from Mother of God Catholic Church which is just on the edge of downtown Denver. It's a very small church.

In any event, these churches are all so close to each other, in modern terms, that I can't imagine all three being built now. All three are still in use. I was perplexed by it, until in considering it, I realized that they are really neighborhood churches, built for communities that were walking to Mass for the most part, save for the Cathedral, which no doubt served that function, but which also was the seat of the Archdiocese of Denver. Mother of God church no doubt served a Catholic community right in that neighborhood, and it likely still does. Holy Ghost served a downtown community, and probably also the Catholic business community that was downtown during the day.

This speaks volumes about how people got around prior to World War Two. It probably also says something about their concept of space.

Here's another example. Depicted here, one time close up, and a second time from down the street, is the Burlington Northern train depot. It's still a train depot, but it only serves to be the headquarters for the BNSF locally now. At one time, of course, passengers got on and off the train here. A friend recently sent me a very interesting article describing that process, and how passengers got off and went to a nearby, now gone, restaurant. For that matter, at least three major hotels were located within a couple of blocks of the depot, one of which is the Townsend, now converted into a courthouse.

Best Posts of the Week for the Week of February 20, 2011

The distance of things.

Saturday, February 25, 1911. Battle of Casas Grandes and Kelley Creek.

In the one instance of his acting as a field commander, Francisco Madero successfully oversaw revolutionaries in the Battle of Casas Grandes.  

Madero, however, was almost killed, after which he stayed away from the front.

Shoshones under Mike Daggett, fleeing a killing for which they feared they would not receive proper justice, and after having butchered some cattle, were run to ground and killed at Kelley Creek, Nevada in one of the last Indian engagements of what might be regarded as the Indian Wars.  Eight Shoshones were killed, of which two were children.  Most of the party was related to Mike Daggett, who was killed in the battle.  Of four members of the Daggett family who survived, all children and grandchildren, three died within a year of disease.

Daggett's daughter Heney (Louise, 17), and two of his grandchildren, Hattie (Harriet Mosho, 4))(left) and Cleveland (Mosho, 8).

It was one of the last "massacres" of the Indian Wars.

Berber chiefs meeting at Agourai determined to assassinate Berber pasha Thami El Glaoui and Grand Vizier Muhammad al-Muqri, to take place at a gathering of the leaders on March 14.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition

Monday, February 20, 1911. Combating the plague.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, China, Disease, Wyoming, Wyoming (Lincoln County)

Nice Post on what every American should learn about U.S. History

Very fine post on what every American should learn about U.S. History.

I'm often amazed by how little people know about the history of our nation. Nice to see somebody in the trenches considering it.

Heating

I'm reminded, semi painfully, of a major change in the last century being heating.

I don't know how the winter has been elsewhere, but here it's been a really cold winter. We've been down below OF repeatedly, including today.

Our house has electric heat. I actually like it quite a bit, but it's been having trouble keeping up in the really cold weather. Most houses around here have gas heat.

Most office buildings, if they're big ones like the one I work in, have a boiler. Ours has a boiler, but for some reason it's having trouble today.

This building was built in about 1917 or so. Not much insulation in it. When the heat isn't working, it's real darned cold in it.

For that matter, it was probably pretty cool in it back in the day during the winter, which is likely why men wore so much wool for office work in those days.

Monday, February 20, 1911. Combating the plague.

 Lincoln County Wyoming was established.

The Chinese government ordered villagers to burn their dead in order to combat the bubonic plague.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 16, 1911. A resolution to annex Canada voted down.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 61st Congress, Art, Canada, Socialism, The Madness of King Donald, United States, William Balfour Ker

Office machinery and the written word.

Just recently, I resumed using the Dragon voice recognition system for dictation. For those not familiar with it, it's a program that jacks into your computer, and you speak into a microphone
which then processes the spoken word immediately into print. This is the second time I've experimented with. The first time, I grew frustrated with it and, after the system collapsed, I abandoned using it and simply typed things out on my computer. I'm a pretty fast typist, so this was working well, but any way you look at it, it's slower than speaking. This time around, the Dragon system seems to be working very well, so I've very happy with my resumed use of it.

Anyhow, what a revolution in the process of generating pleadings and letters this is. When I first started practicing law, some 21 years ago, we were using Dictaphones. Now those are practically a thing of the past. For those not familiar with them, a Dictaphone is a specialized tape recorder that allows the speaker to dictate the document. This ended up, at that time, in an audiotape which was handed over to the secretary, who then listened to it and typed out the document. The secretary handed that back to you, and then you manually red lined it for changes. This process could take some time.

This, of course, was an improved process of dictation as compared to the original one, which entailed calling a secretary in to your office and dictating the document to her. She took it down in shorthand. My mother, who had worked as a secretary in the 40s, 50s and 60s, could take excellent shorthand as a result of this process. Now, shorthand is nearly as dead of written language as Sanskrit.

Even earlier than that, legal documents were processed through a scrivener, a person whose job was simply to write legibly. That person wasn't normally the lawyer.

I'm not sure if this entire process is really quicker than the older methods, but it is certainly different. My secretary only rarely sees a rough draft of anything. That rough draft goes on my computer, and I edit it from there. About 80% of the time, by the time I have a secretary proof read a document, it is actually ready to go. Those entering the secretarial field, for that matter, generally no longer know how to take shorthand or even how to work the Dictaphone machine. They're excellent, however, on working the word process features of a computer.


All this also means, fwiw, that the practice of law, at least, is a much more solitary profession than it once was, at least while in the office. Generating a pleading, in a prior era, was more of a community effort in a way. The lawyer heard the pleading for the first time, in many instances, as the same time his secretary did. Over time, most secretaries were trusted to make comments on the pleadings. In the case of letters, they were often simply expected to be able to write one upon being asked to do so, something that still occurs to some degree today. But for pleadings, today, a lawyer tends to wall himself off by himself while drafting them, and any outside input tends to start after a relatively complete document has been drafted. Of course, with computers, it's much easier to circulate drafts and to change documents as needed.

What one building says about the march of history.

This is the Ewing T. Kerr Federal Courthouse in Casper, Wyoming. I recently posted these photographs of it on my courthouse blog.

In doing this, it occurred to me that this building, in many ways, symbolizes how many changes have come about in the last 80 years.

This building was built under appropriations set out in 1926, but actual construction did not start until 1931. It was completed in 1932. The building, therefore, came early in the Great Depression.

The ceremony for the corner stone included a Masonic Ceremony. That's an amazing fact in and of itself. A Masonic Ceremony would be regarded as unthinkable now for a Federal event, and it probably generated some concern amongst the Catholic lawyers in town at the time. The Masons, however, were quite powerful in Casper in this era, and of course fraternal organizations of all type were much more common then as opposed to now.

The building itself was not built with just the judiciary in mind. Indeed, there was no sitting Federal judge for it at all. At the time, there was one Federal judge who sat in Cheyenne. He was, however, a bit of a circuit rider, and Federal courthouses existed in Cheyenne, Casper, Green River, Lander and Yellowstone National Park. The courtroom was on the second floor of the courthouse, and the main floor and part of the basement housed the Post Office. Service recruiters were also located here, along with other Federal officers. The building was built with this in mind, and it served in this fashion up until about 1970 when a new much larger Federal office building was constructed. This itself shows how much smaller the Federal government actually was, as there is no way this building could serve in this fashion today. Even as late as the early 80s, however, the building still housed various Federal offices, including the United States Geological Survey, for which I briefly worked. It's odd to think that the dingy basement USGS office was once located in what is now a very nice courthouse. Even odder yet is to recall the beautiful Depression Era murals that were once on the main floor, with the mail boxes. The murals depicted scenes of Western migration, and were removed to the new post office (which is now the old post office) when the post office went to the new Federal Building in 1970.

What this courthouse did not see by that time was very much use as a court. By the 1950s at least the Federal Court made little use of this courthouse, and the ones in Green River and Lander had fallen into near complete disuse. In part, this may simply have been due to advances in transportation and technology. The addition of additional Federal judges, however, meant that the court needed to once again use this courthouse, and it was remodeled in the late 1980s and now has a sitting Federal judge.

Even the name of the building illustrates a change. This building was simply called "the Post Office" by most people here when I was young. Later, it was called "the old Post Office". When it acquired a sitting Federal judge most people started calling it The Federal Courthouse. The official name, the Ewing T. Kerr Federal Courthouse, came about in honor of long time Wyoming Federal judge, Ewing T. Kerr. Judge Kerr is notable, amongst other reasons, for being the last Wyoming Federal judge to lack a law degree. He had never attended law school, and actually started off as a teacher. He "read the law" and passed the bar.

By the way, just behind the courthouse is the old First National Bank building. It hasn't been used in that fashion during my lifetime, I think, but was a major office building up until the 1970s. It then fell into disuse, and was abandoned for many years. Very recently, it was remodeled into appointments, and where the bank lobby once was a grocery store now is.

Also, this view is considerably more open than at any time prior to the present time. A small building neighboring the courthouse was recently removed so that room could be made for parking. They heavy iron fence serves a security purpose. Up until recently this also did not exist, showing, I suppose, how things have changed in another fashion.

Thursday, February 16, 1911. A resolution to annex Canada voted down.

U.S. Representative William Stiles Bennet (R-New York), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution proposing that the United States annex Canada, after unsuccessfully opposing the reciprocal trade agreement with the country.

He was a sore loser.

The proposal had no chance of passage but rightfully angered Canadians, who had kicked American a** twice in prior armed attempts to annex it.

The resolution failed 9 to 1. Today Republicans would show dronish servitude to King Donny the Mad and vote to approve it.

Life magazine issued its "Socialist Number"

The illustration was by William Balfour Ker, and quite striking.  The choice was intentional as Ker, who generally did illustrations, including for Life, was a dedicated Socialist, and one who lived an unconventional lifestyle as was common for radicals of the period.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 15, 1911. Bogosity then and now and "Viva Diaz!"

Labels: 1910s, 1911, boats and ships, Mexican Revolution, Mexico (Juarez), panoramic, Porfirio Díaz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Spanish American War, The roles of men and women, Women

365 Days With A Model A.

Here's a blog that takes an interesting look at the early automobile era.

The author notes that this is because he doesn't feel that everything should have a computerized element to it. I couldn't agree more.

Wednesday, February 15, 1911. Bogosity then and now and "Viva Diaz!"

NAVARRO IN JUAREZ; REBELS GO SOUTH; Mexican General with 1,000 Men Greeted with Cries of "Viva Diaz!" -- Met No Insurrectos.

Headline in the New York Times.

Compulsory domestic service? Crud, most women had that then, and still do today.

A completely ineffective medicine that purported to be a remedy for the treatment of tuberculosis made up of  olive oil, squill root, almonds, nettle and red poppy petals was granted U.S. Patent 1,368,974.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is probably ready to back it as we speak or read, assuming he's not recounting his glory days of sniffing coke off of toilet seats.

Ah. . . the best and the brightest. . . 

"13 anniversary, destruction of the U.S.S. Maine, Havana Harbor, Feb. 15, 1911"

Last edition:

Tuesday, February 14, 1911. Madero reenters Mexico, John Browning patents the 1911.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Canada, Diplomacy, Francisco I. Madero, John Browning, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Texas, United States, Weapons, Wyoming (Niobrara County)

Tuesday, February 14, 1911. Madero reenters Mexico, John Browning patents the 1911.

Madero crossed back into Mexico from Texas to assume command of Mexican revolutionaries, and to evade a U.S. warrant for his arrest.

John Browning was issued a patent:

The House of Representatives approved a controversial reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada, by a 221-92 margin.

Niobrara County, Wyoming, was established.

Last edition:

Monday, February 13, 1911. Taking Durango.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Growing up in the 1970s, Growing up in the 1980s, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Nicaragua, Texas, Wyoming (Campbell County)

Monday, February 13, 1911. Taking Durango.

The Acting Secretary of State to the Governor of Texas.

Department of State,

Washington, February 13, 1911.

Your telegram of the 10th instant. Department informed by Embassy at Mexico City that Mexican Government does not just now desire to ask for permission to move troops over United States territory.

Huntington Wilson

Troops under Jose Luis Moya took Durango.  55 years old, and therefore into advanced years by the standards of the day, he was an unusual example of a wealthy man who joined the revolution.  He'd lose his life in its service in May, 1911.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1911  Campbell County created.

A coal and hydrocarbons producing county, the population of the county has grown by a factor of nearly ten since my birth, and doubled since I graduated from high school.  I vividly recall going there for swim meets in the late 70s and early 80s at which time it was an incredibly rough county.

Nicaragua's President Juan José Estrada declared martial law after an explosion in Managua destroyed a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 12, 1911.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Disaster, Ohio, Ohio (Findlay), Petroleum

Sunday, February 12, 1911.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 9, 1911. Establishing the size of the House of Representatives.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Arizona, Army, British Empire, Coles Phillips, Democracy, Government, Jack London, Lighter than air aircraft, Malaya, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Juarez), Slavery, Socialism, Texas (El Paso), United States