Old Picture of the Day: Bowler Hat

Old Picture of the Day: Bowler Hat: Today we look at the Bowler Hat. To be honest, I do not care for this hat style much. To me, it is neither practical nor does it look v...

Old Picture of the Day: Hats

Hat week on this blog included some interesting photos, and give as the thread on hats and caps is the most popular one here on this site, I thought I'd link them in.

Old Picture of the Day: Hats: They say that the Hat Makes the Man, so welcome to Hat Week here at OPOD. We will be looking at various hat styles and see the things ...

UW Trustees Appoint McGinity as President | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Appoint McGinity as President | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Change Name of Branch Campus to UW-Casper | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Change Name of Branch Campus to UW-Casper | News | University of Wyoming

A second state considers allowing its law-school grads to skip the bar exam

A second state considers allowing its law-school grads to skip the bar exam

From bad (UBE) to worse (no exam at all).

Radio

When I was young, my father listed to the radio a fair amount. What I really recall about that in particular is that he'd listen to Denver's KOA, which was an all talk radio station, but not like the ones we have now that are all right or left political talk.  It had a lot of different radio programs, and sports.  He particularly listened to the Denver Broncos and Denver Bears (their minor league baseball team at that time) broadcasts, and the radio shows that they had which discussed those teams. That certainly wasn't all they aired, however, and at one time, when I was fairly young, I used to listen to a fair amount of KOA myself.

The first radio tube, circa 1898.

KOA is still around, but those days are really gone, as are the days of all local radio.  We picked up KOA here over the air, on AM radio, and we listened mostly to AM.  FM doesn't travel far, and the big local station was also AM.  FM started coming on strong for music locally in the late 1970s.  Now, the radio scene is considerably altered, although the biggest local broadcaster, KTWO, remains the biggest local broadcaster.

But now radio must contend with satellite radio, which offers endless variety, just like cable television, and with the Ipod and Iphone, which can store so much music or other broadcast material that it would literally take years for many people to listen to their electronic libraries.  

One of the things XM Radio, one of the satellite channels, has is Old Time Radio, which plays the serial broadcasts of the 1930s through the 1950s.  It's fascinating to listen to, and really serves to remind a person of a completely different era in radio, when it occupied a major part of most Americans daily lives.

 It's hard to imagine how much this was the case now. But radio occupied a central position in the homes that its not only lost, but which is pretty difficult to imagine for most people. Coming in for most right after World War One, and staying up through the 1950s, through music, news and serialized shows, radio offered at that time what the combined Internet and television industries offer today.  And it had a similar impact.  People took their news, and often their views, from radio.

And radio, as "low tech" as it might seem today, was really the pioneer for the home entertainment revolution that would come later.  Prior to radio, which for almost all families was less than a century ago, at the end of a long day, people (well. . . men) went home to a house which only contained the noise that was animated by the lives therein.  Sounds for the most part had a human, or perhaps, animal origin in the immediate sense. For many people, that meant a pretty quiet evening.  If there was music, at that time, it might have been generated by a Victrola, but just as often it might have been played by the folks at home.  An incredible number of people sang and played musical instruments prior to radio, and most particularly prior to television.  But quite a few houses were no doubt mostly silent at night as well, with people reading for entertainment, or playing cards, if only solitaire.

 Fancy radio, probably 1920s.

After World War One, however, the radio was on.  Shows like Cavalcade of America, Dragnet, The Shadow, The Whistler, and  Gunsmoke played ever night on the radio, along with news and music.  People rapidly acclimated to having the radio on in their homes, and even if they still read at night, a lot of time was spent listening, just as later a lot of time was spent watching. Truly, a revolution in people's daily lives.

And a revolution in connectedness as well.  Prior to the radio, evens that happened far away were truly far away.  A person might learn of them rapidly through the newspaper, but still they had a remoteness connected with them, if they were remote.  Radio began to change that.  For the first time disasters and happenings that occurred far away could be learned of nearly immediately.

 

Mayor LaGuardia addresses New Yorkers on the topic of milk.

And for the first time, politicians could campaign nationally, or at least state wide, through a medium that didn't involve the written word nor the whistle stop.

Franklin Roosevelt addresses the nation in 1934.

Mid Week At Work: On The Job For Victory

Eagle Scout Letter « mikeroweWORKS

Eagle Scout Letter « mikeroweWORKS

Thursday, January 15, 1914.

 

Wednesday, January 14, 2024. Endless chain production and Out Of Africa.

Ford Motor Company introduced the endless chain for manufacturing vehicles, turning out a Model T in 93 minutes.  It was already using the assembly line.

Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya and, on the same day, married her Swedish cousin Bror Flixen-Finecke, thereby becoming a baroness.  She famously became the author of Out of Africa.

Blixen's father was a Danish army officer and parliamentarian who loved the outdoor life, and who authored a memoir featuring that which became a bit of a Danish classic, so she came by her writing skills naturally.  Like her to be husband, he also was given to affairs and had a daughter from a pre marriage affair in the United States with a Chippewa woman.  He suffered from having contacted syphilis in the United States.  He killed himself following impregnating one of his household maids, at which time Karen was only 9.

Blixen is still widely admired for that writing, and Out of Africa is an excellent book which was turned into an excellent film, so it's hardly noticed what a symbol of late state monarchy and empire she was.  A Dane who gained admittance to British Kenya, she did so only because she was a white immigrant at a time in which the benefits of flooding non-European lands with Europeans was not questioned.  Her marriage was really one of convenience, and it did not last with her husband being unfaithful, something that was so common amongst nobility that it was practically expected, but which also resulted in her being infected with syphilis.  Her farming activities were not really successful as much of the land that had been acquired was not suitable for it, with the original intent to have been ranching.  The land actually belonged to a family corporation, and not to the couple individually.

Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke went on to marry three times, having asked for divorce from Karen and having obtained it against her wishes.  He was an author in his own right.

Governor Hunt's World War Two Correspondence, Heart Mount Internment Camp

The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming has digitized Wyoming Governor Hunts papers, including correspondence he received or sent concerning the Internment Camp at Hear Mountain.

Included in these, is a surprising example of somebody writing to the Governor to inquire about receiving a "Japanese girl" for work at her ranch home.  She was willing to pay wages, but still, its not something I'd expect to have found anyone inquiring about.  A surprising thing to read.

The Big Picture: 74th U.S. Infantry 1918.

Holscher's Hub: Special Passenger Permit, Chinese Air Force

Holscher's Hub: Special Passenger Permit, Chinese Air Force: A Chinese Air Force (Nationalist China, i.e. Taiwan), issued to my father.

Watching the Morph. How the news gets spun by the right and left in the age of the unreliable Internet

Wyoming has a very large Indian Reservation, the Wind River Reservation, which is home to part of the Shoshone Tribe* and also home to the Arapaho Tribe. It's also the home to quite a few non Indians as well.

The Wind River Reservation has a fascinating history which includes sort of a smoldering dispute which has run for decades about the proper boundaries of the Reservation. This dispute is complicated, but what it basically surrounds is withdrawals of certain areas from the Reservation by Congress, so that these areas could be opened up for general homesteading outside of Tribal jurisdiction.  I'd note here, and it is very significant, that areas of Reservations could be, and were, opened up for settlement within Tribal boundaries.  Contrary to what is very evidently the general belief, you do not have to be an Indian to own land within a Reservation.  Indeed, the Wind River Reservation includes part of the Midvale Irrigation District, which is a very significant irrigation district which is mostly farmed by non Indian farmers who live within the Reservation. 

One of the areas that have long been disputed by the Tribes is the area around the city of Riverton. Riverton is the county seat of Fremont County, and it is located on lands that were opened up for homesteading in 1905 by the United States.  It's generally been nearly universally believed by all but the Tribes that this event took the area in and around Riverton outside the Reservation, with the Reservation bordering it.  Indeed, the general belief would be that, if you were driving West on the highway, you'd enter the Reservation just outside of Shoshoni, leave it again rapidly, enter the framing belt where Riverton is, and then cross the river back on to the Reservation, and then leave it again just before you entered Hudson.  Prior legal decisions support this view.

Recently, however, the Tribes petitioned the EPA for a status equivalent to that of a State in regards to regulating air quality. The EPA granted this petition, but in so doing it went one step further, for reasons I haven't looked into, and held that the1905 act opening up the land for homesteading did not withdraw the lands from the Reservation.

That decision is contrary to prior court rulings and it came as a surprise to everyone including, in my opinion, the Tribes, which haven't really fully reacted to it yet.  The Tribes are being careful to take this a bit slowly, as they aren't exactly sure what this would mean.  It does have real implications, as it would mean the transfer of some authority in Riverton to the Tribes, such as law enforcement, and potentially taxation. The town is ignoring the ruling, which is probably a solid legal approach to take, and the State of Wyoming is challenging it.  Ultimately the question will end up in Federal Court.

What this in no way means, however, is what is being reported on a right wing news oriented website (one I hadn't heard of before a person sent me the link to it). That site reported, amongst other things:

It appears that Obama’s habitual abuse of his executive action is beginning to rub off on the rest of his administration.  His EPA soldiers are now telling a town in Wyoming that they no longer have the right to live there. And what’s worse? They’re giving away that land that the residents rightfully bought to other people.

No, that's not accurate at all.  Not even close.

You don't have to be an Indian to live on an Indian reservation, and real property on the Reservation works the same way as it does everywhere else in Fremont County.  If you buy property, and anyone can, you record the deed in the County courthouse in Lander.  Riverton is still in Fremont County and still a town in Wyoming no matter what happens.  Just as Ft. Washakie, which has always been a Fremont County town in the Reservation, and Lander which has always been a Fremont County town outside of the Reservation, are.  

This is not to say that there wouldn't be a lot of legal implications to the boundary being reestablished. There certainly would be.  Most particularly questions regarding law enforcement, civil law, and the taxation, would be present. And there might, or might not, be somethings to work out regarding the schools, although I would note that there are Fremont County school districts which are part of the state system that are inside the Reservation.  For some reason, Fremont County has a lot of school districtions.

But what's so interesting here is how quickly this story morphed into a false one in some quarter, and a quarter that apparently had little if any connection with Wyoming.  Somebody must falsely believe that only Indians live on Indian Reservations, which is completely inaccurate.  Indeed, the Wind River Tribal Court doesn't even bother to determine if jurors it calls are enrolled Tribal members or not, and it calls Indians and non Indians in for jury service, just as the Ninth Judicial District calls in people from inside, and outside, of the Reservation for jury duty.

This sort of thing seems common in the Internet age.  Local stories, like the one about New Jersey's George Washington Bridge, get blown up out of proportion as if they are of national importance.  And a story like this, which is full of legal nuances, gets reported in some quarter as if the President has some vague relationship to it, and as if this means non Indians are about to be expelled from their homes. 

Odd how things become told as stories.

 _________________________________________________________________________________

*  The Shoshone were a fairly large Tribe, in releative terms, in the 19th Century and were truly indiginous to the region, unlike the Sioux and Cheyenne which were displaced in the East and moved to the West, becoming Plains Indians in the process of adopting the horse.  For this reason, i.e., immigration, the Cheyenne and Sioux were regarded as invaders, as they really were invaders, by the tribes already present in the region, such as the Shoshone and Crow.

The Shoshone were a very widespread tribe and are known by other names, probably not surprisingly. The Bannock, for example, are Shoshone.  While regarded as a separate tribe, the Comanche are actually Shoshone as well, distinct culturally as they were the early adopters of the horse in the 18th Century, as opposed to the rest of the tribe which only adopted horses some years later.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - The Centennial of World War One

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - The Centennial of World War One

Conversion of the Shoreham Hotel's furnace from oil, to coal. 1942

This interesting set of photographs purports to depict the conversion of Washington D. C.'s Shoreham Hotel's furnace from oil to coal in September, 1942.

I knew furnaces were converted from coal to oil, but I've never heard of oil to coal.  I didn't even realize that possible. A byproduct of World War Two shortages?