When men wore fur coats

People tend to think of fur in terms of fashion.  And fur is thought of in terms of fashion because its expensive.  It was worn, however, as it was practical.

It's easy to think otherwise, in our day of synthetics. But, in thinking on it, fur is a renewable natural resource where as synthetics can be the opposite.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Benedict Catholic Church, Roundup Montana

Churches of the West: St. Benedict Catholic Church, Roundup Montana:

This is St. Benedict Catholic Church in Roundup Montana. The church is built in a fairly modern style, although I do not know the year of construction.  It's located directly across the street from the Musselshell County Courthouse.

Freight station, Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad. Philadelphia. February 12, 1917.

Freight station, Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad.  Philadelphia.  February 12, 1917.

Some Gave All: Home Front In World War One. Poster display at Fort Caspar, Wyoming.

Home Front In World War One. Poster display at Fort Caspar, Casper, Wyoming

The Best Posts of the Week of February 5, 2017

The best posts of the past week:

Some Gave All: Home Front In World War One. Poster display at Fort Caspar, Wyoming. Home Front In World War One. Poster display at Fort Caspar, Casper, Wyoming

Looking at the nature of Wyoming's economy again

The Casper Star Tribune has started a series looking at the Wyoming Economy.
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And so it ended. The Punitive Expedition.

Two days ago we reported on the last US soldier leaving Mexico:

The Punitivie Expedition: U.S. complete its withdrawal from Mexico. February 5, 1917.

The smile on the soldier to the left's face was likely quite genuine.  The 6th and the 16th Infantry crossing back into the United States.

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Women and Trousers. No big historical deal, or the triumph of the harpies in trousers?

 

 This overalls wearing lass, whom is portrayed an industrial giant (take that, Rosie the Riveter) is wearing overalls, albeit one of the baggiest pairs of overalls ever.  She's also wearing a canvass cap to cover her hair, with hair styles being voluminous at the time.  She doesn't look very happy, we might note.

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The Punitivie Expedition: U.S. complete its withdrawal from Mexico. February 5, 1917.

The smile on the soldier to the left's face was likely quite genuine.  The 6th and the 16th Infantry crossing back into the United States.

Poster Saturday: The Motor Corps of America Horse Show.

The Sherdian Enterprise for February 11, 1917; Austrian officers dudes no more, U.S. reestablished diplomatic relations with Mexico.

I haven't put too many Sheridan Enterprise up here, but this one I had to because of the great headline about Austrian officers

Wow.  Austrian officers "cease to be dudes".

That probably doesn't quite read the same way now.

In other items, this issue also reported the war news and on the restoration of diplomatic relations with Mexico.  And again, a tragic automobile accident was reported.

Sunday State Leader for February 11, 1917. Diplomatic relations with Mexico restored.

Things were changing a bit in our relationship with Mexico, as this paper, and one more I'll put up from this date, shows.

Wyoming's National Guard was still  on the border, but the US was reestablishing relations with Mexico, recognizing the Constitutionalist as the legitimate government of the country.

Also in the news was the crisis with Germany, not surprisingly.  And the legislature was still in session.

Radicalism was popping up in Cuba.

Fatal automobile accident,s, a nearly constant news item of the early automobile era, were also in the news.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 11, 1917. Commissioner of Labor authorized by the Wyoming Legislature

Today In Wyoming's History: February 11:1917  Commissioner of Labor authorized by the Wyoming Legislature.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

And now, let's add watch bands. . . .

to the list of things it is impossible to buy here.

Amazing.

I sued to buy them at the jewelry store downtown, where I also bought batteries.  It's now closed down, however, the owner having retired. The other jewelry store does not carry watch bands.

So, in addition to shoes and shoelaces, I have to now find replacement watchbands on the net.

One more service that the modern big box age has made impossible to find in locations that aren't served by a large city.  Sure, I could find any hip trendy kids shoe going, but dress laces, well, as recently noted, forget it.  And replace a watch band. . .hit the net, i guess.

End of Sugar Cane farming in Hawaii.

Hawaii’s last working sugar mill, in Puunene, Maui, produced its last harvest last month. The last truck, piled high with newly cut cane stalks, blew its horn as it circled the mill yard. People cheered and held high their phones; a priest led a prayer. The cane was later put on a ship for processing in California, and 375 employees of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company became the last of the last to be laid off.

So stated an article I picked up a couple of weeks ago, and now have lost the source of.

Quite a change.

Initial colonization of Hawaii was for agricultural purposes, and agriculture, including sugar, was big on several islands.

And now its gone.

 

Sugar Cane field being burned on Maui.  Now a scene of the past.

Movies In History: Hail Caesar!

You probably have to be a Coen Brothers fan, a history fan, and an old movie fan, to like this movie. Fortunately for me, I guess, I'm all three.

This latest Coen Brothers film takes a One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich approach to the story of protagonist Eddie Mannix, played by Josh Brolin.  Taking place in a relatively short period of time in 1951, Mannix, whatever his theoretical role with a major motion picture studio, is a fixer.  That is, he fixes problems that occur on the set, and those problems have to deal with the personalities he encounters.

In order to really grasp the film a person has to have a bit of a background in the times, arts, and i particular film. A series of films are being worked on in the studio, all of which are typical for the era.  One of the films is purely a vehicle for background and a side plot, that being an Ester Williams type swimming extravaganza, but with the Williams stand in being a rough, street wise, and pregnant DeeAnna Moran, played very well by Scarlett Johansson with a brilliantly played and very funny cameo by Jonah Hill.  The main movie feature involved in the plot is a Holy Land epic featuring a Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney, who is kidnapped by Communist screenwriters.  Other films and genre actors feature in that story, however, including a sailor featuring musical, a dramatic epic, a self affecting homosexual director, a communist song and dance man, a singing cowboy, a Latin dancer and so on.  For those not familiar with movies of the 1940s and 1950s, many of these film snippets and characters will seem outlandish, but in reality, they are all actually extremely close to what actual films were like at the time and the characters, while parodies of Hollywood people at the time, aren't much different from what actual characters were like, except exaggerated.

Apparently the central character is based on a real Hollywood figure who had the role of a fixer. As played in this film, he's tortured by his role and is being worked to death, basically.  Deeply religious, and facing an offer from Lockheed Industries to work elsewhere, like Ivan Denisovich his daily life is simply a struggle to get through.

Coen films tend to have hit and miss receptions by the movie going audience, and this one was apparently a bit of a miss.  That doesn't surprise me much as a person has to be really familiar with film of the era it depicts in order to not think that everything is an outlandish exaggeration, when in fact the exaggeration is fairly slight.  I really enjoyed the film, my wife really disliked it.  I found it interesting that this is yet another Coen brothers film where religion plays a big part, and beyond the debate by a Rabbi, Orthodox Priest, Catholic Priest, and Protestant minister on the portrayal of Christ in the Biblical epic being filmed.  The Mannix character is played as profoundly Catholic and taking refuge in prayer in his effort to decide his own future and (spoiler alert) making that decision in the Confessional. 

I like it and recommend it.

The Cheyenne Leader for February 9, 1917: German activity in Mexico drawing the attention of the Secret Service

Two days after the Punitive Expedition had officially ended Germans in Mexico were still drawing U.S. attention. . . and not for incorrect reasons, as it would turn out.

The US was too proud to fight, even after the lifting of unrestricted submarine warfare, regarded as a really immoral act at the time.  And the legislature was still busy, working on another alcohol bill even after a run at Prohibition had failed earlier in the week.  Much like today, some economic hopes were being pinned on outside industries even though the economy was doing great, fueled by the agricultural and petroleum boom caused by World War One.

The Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War: Every Other Day

World War I: Every Day

Looking at the nature of Wyoming's economy again

The Casper Star Tribune has started a series looking at the Wyoming Economy.

As you know, dear reader, we did that some time ago:

The Wyoming Economy. Looking at it in a different way. 

 Big Horn foothills. There's a reason why I've posted this here, but you'll have to slog through the post to discover why.

I thought about starting this thread just the other day.  On what must surely be a "Great Wyoming Minds Think Alike" type of day, Neil Waring, on one of his blogs (like me, he keeps more than one blog) posted this item on the same topic:

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Bring on the Tourists: Must Be In Wyoming With Wyoming coal now suffering at the hands of environmentalists, the downturn in crude oil prices, and natural g...

So he got there first.

The article includes some interesting analysis, including this:

Can it be done?

Colorado School of Mines professor Graham Davis said that if the Cowboy State was going to become a hub for non-extractive industries, that already would have happened. “I can tell you there have been many, many regions and nations that have tried to diversify away from natural resources through planning exercises,” Davis said. “None have succeeded.”

He said Colorado, a state that moved from mining, oil, coal and precious metals to boasting a variety of major industries including high-tech, did not takeconcerted steps to diversify its economy.“It’s just market forces,” Davis said. Denver, San Francisco and many other metropolitan centers in the United States were creations of gold rushes or other mining booms — essentially random events that can lead to a thriving region. Wyoming’s borders were e effectively drawn in the 1860s as an act of corporate welfare meant to subsidize the railroad.

And the article goes on from there.

Is it correct?

Well, I don't know about statehood being drawn as an act of corporate welfare. That strikes me, FWIW, as an example of (and this won't quite sound the way its going to sound) as something from the Marxist school of history and it doesn't really square, in my view, with the historical record.  But otherwise, I think he may be on to something, that something being that geography matters and, in addition, state lines aren't really natural lines.

Indeed, looked at that way, the region is doing well economically even if the state might not be.  The regional economic capital is Denver, by that analysis, with perhaps Salt Lake and Calgary being contenders.  That doesn't mean states down have their own unique characters and even cultures, but it would also be the case that they're part of a larger geographic entity.

If that's right, that doesn't mean that the state should just ignore the economy, in my view.  But it might mean that the analysis that I set out above might be closer to being correct than some of what the legislature and others may have been looking at recently, taking the long view.

When Aviation was part of Wyoming's economy?

The Casper Star Tribune has started a series, which will run this week (and has been running all week, at the time of this post) regarding diversifying Wyoming's economy.

This very interesting item appeared into today's article:

Before World War II, it was aviation. Planes heading from one coast to another needed a stopover, and Cheyenne was on the safest route across the Continental Divide. Boeing and American Airlines had offices there, and the first of the well-mannered, manicured and uniformed airline stewardesses were trained in Wyoming’s state capital.

Then the war came, bringing with it new technologies and better planes. The stopover in Cheyenne was left behind like an old railroad hub miles from a new interstate highway.

I had no idea.

Aviator Elliott C. Cowdin and Financier Prince Poniatowski arrive on the Espagne, February 8, 1917.

Cowdin was a surprisingly old member of the Lafayette Escradrille.  He would have been about 31 years old at the time this photograph was taken which, while not elderly, was beyond youth, especially in this era.  By the war's end he had served in the French, British, and American air arms, although all of his combat victories came early in his service when he was serving with the French.  A member of society, at the time of this photograph he would have been returning to the United States due to an inheritance.

He survived the Great War and was credited with downing three German aircraft during the war.  He died of cancer in Florida in 1933.

And so it ended. The Punitive Expedition.

Two days ago we reported on the last US soldier leaving Mexico:

The Punitivie Expedition: U.S. complete its withdrawal from Mexico. February 5, 1917.

The smile on the soldier to the left's face was likely quite genuine.  The 6th and the 16th Infantry crossing back into the United States.

And today is the official end of the Punitive Expedition into Mexico by some accounts.  Why the extra two days?  Well, I'm not sure, but no military operation ever concludes on a precise time.  It seems to me that at one time I had the information on this, but I'm no longer exactly sure what the story was. What I do recall is that most of the troops were over the border well before February 7, and what I think is actually the case, as already noted, is that the last were over the border on February 5, but there was some trailing involvement and actions in regards to the expedition for anot her two days.  We'd expect that.

Which, as already also has been noted, didn't mean that everything just returned to normal, officially or unofficially.  A heavy military presence remained on the border for years, and certainly in 1917 there were real fears about a resumption of Mexican military activity, likely rebel activity, in the United States. The upcoming revelation of the contents of the Zimmerman Note, of course, would make those fears a bit more intense, even as the United States was already using reservist for anti sabotage efforts on the East Coast, with the suspected feared enemy agents being German.

The military itself would officially run the campaign, as it calculated it, from January 1, 1916 to April 6, 1917, concluding it, for purposes of eligibiltiy for hte Mexican Border Service Medal, on the date the United States entered World War One.

Mexican Border Service Medal, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Even at that, however, an ongoing campaign was recognized officially in the form of the Texas Cavalry Medal, honoring two brigades of Texas State Guardsmen who remained in the United States to patrol the border throughout World War One.  

Texas Cavalry Medal.

The men who served in those brigades were otherwise ineligible for the World War One Victory Medal, under the relatively strict criteria for that award, and hence their service to the country was recognized in this fashion for their service from December 8, 1917 to November 11, 1918, the period during which it was determined to leave those units on the border.  The award is unique, being the only one every authorized which was unit specific.

So, while our story hasn't ended, it's certainly taken a turn, and started to wrap up a bit.

How did we do?

Senate Resolution of February 7, 1917

WHEREAS the President has, for the reasons stated in his address  delivered to the Congress in joint session on February 3, 1917, severed  diplomatic relations with the Imperial German Government by the  recall of the American Ambassador at Berlin and by handing his passports to the German Ambassador at Washington; and 

WHEREAS, notwithstanding this severance of diplomatic intercourse,  the President has expressed his desire to avoid conflict with the Imperial German Government; and 

WHEREAS the President declared in his said address that if in his judgment occasion should arise for further action in the premises on the part of the Government of the United States he would submit the matter to the Congress and ask the authority of the Congress to use such means as he might deem necessary for the protection of American seamen and people in the prosecution of their peaceful
and legitimate errands on the high seas: Therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Senate approves the action taken by the President as set forth in his address delivered before the joint session of the Congress, as above stated.