Signs of the times from the New York Times (the times being 1916)

On today's 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit we learn a couple of interesting things.

 Horse drawn fire engine, New York City, 1916

One is that the head of New York City's fire department was proposing to convert the last horse drawn engine companies to automobiles.  Most already had been in NYC, but 700 fire horses remained with an average age of 13, apparently.

End of an era.

Secondly we learn that a study at Columbia University had found that it was perfectly possible to work your way through university.  Interesting to see that concern then, when many fewer attended it and they tended to be from classes with means as a rule.  Clearly the times were truly changing.

 Columbia library, 1915.

The study listed various jobs finding that shoveling snow lead the pack but posing as an "art model" came in second, although only one woman opted for that job.  Of various occupations listed, one curiously labelled one was "companion", which was a role performed by one female student.  Quite a few women worked as stenographer and typists which, although we hardly think of it that way now, were jobs that were actually new to women.

Female typist, 1917.  In this case the typist is 15 years old.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

Churches of the West: Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

This is the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The church combines Gothic features with Art Deco features, reflectingits construction in 1929.

The Cheyenne State Leader for December 3, 1916. Carranza sets to take on Villa and Teachers take on booze.

On Sunday December 3, readers in Cheyenne were perhaps a bit relieved to find that Carranza's forces seemed to be rallying, perhaps meaning that National Guardsmen at the border wouldn't be finding Villistas crossing back over into the United States.

At the same time, teachers came out in favor of Prohibition. 

That doesn't really surprise me, and indeed strikes me as natural.  I'm not a teetotaler but its rather obvious that alcohol creates a flood of societal problems, quite a few of which teachers have to deal with daily. 

Along those lines, it amazes me that in our current era we've not only come to regard the concerns that lead to Prohibition as being quaint and naive, but we're out trying to legalize ever intoxicant we can.  Related back to the concerns of the teachers in 1916, just this past week a 19 year old died in this town of, it appears, complications due to the ingestion of an illegal drug.  It would seem that the intoxicants that  are legal now are quite enough really.

Poster Saturday: Italian Red Cross Matinee.

Injured players get full pay for their contracts in baseball.

On this day in 1916 the National Commission in baseball ordered that injured baseball players get full pay for the duration of their contracts.  Prior to that the injury clause in their contracts allows clubs to suspend players after fifteen days.  The Players League had pressured for the change.

The Cheyenne State Leader for December 2, 1916. American Troops Ready to Stop Bandit Villa.

Things were starting to look increasingly dangerous on the border.

The Laramie Republican for December 2, 1916: Maybe there's nothing to worry about on the border.

Residents of Laramie would have been less disturbed by border news today than those in Cheyenne would have been.

The Casper Weekly Press for December 1, 1916: White Slavery and Boom on in Casper

While the Cheyenne papers warned of bodies burning in the streets of Chihuahua and Villa advancing to the border, as well as the ongoing horrors of World War One, the Casper Weekly Press hit the stands with tales of white slavery.

White slavery, for those who might not know (we don't hear the term much anymore) was basically the kidnapping of young women and forcing them into prostitution.

Headlines like this are easy to discount, and seem lurid, fanciful, and sensationalist, but in reality they give us a view into the hard nature of the past we'd sometimes completely forget.  White Slavery, i.e., the kidnapping of women and the forcing them into prostitution, was actually a bonafide problem, and to some extent, it remains one.

I've spoken to one now deceased woman who escaped an attempt to kidnap her on a large East Coast city when she was a teen and who was convinced that she was almost a victim of such an effort.  And it wasn't all that long ago that it was revealed there was an Hispanic white slavery ring in Jackson Wyoming, where very young Mexican teenage girls were being brought up to that Wyoming resort town as prostitutes, working in an underground economy there focused on single Mexican laborers.  That one was discovered, oddly enough, through the schools.  Still, the evil practice, fueled by money and drugs, is with us still, although with advances in technology, and just more knowledge on such things, it wasn't what it once was, thankfully.

We don't want to romanticize the past here, so we've run this, although with all the news on bodies burning in the streets, etc, we probably can't be accused of romanticism anyhow.

Meanwhile an oil boom was on in Casper causing housing shortages.

Page two of the Casper Weekly informed us that a Ford had become a necessity.  If it wasn't quite true at the time, it soon would be.

The Wyoming, a store apparently took a shot at Prohibitionist by advertising that they had "everything a Prohibitionist likes."

The Wyoming Tribune for December 1, 1916: Carranza prepares to fight at the border

Just a few days ago the news was reporting that US forces would be able to withdraw from Mexico and an agreement with Carranza was on the verge of being signed. Today the Tribune was reporting fears that Villa would advance to the US border.

And former Governor Osborne, presently U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, we're told, was contemplating running for the Senate.

The Cheyenne Leader for December 1, 1916: Grim scenes in Chihuahua

Aerial view of Motor Truck Group, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, Major F.H. Pope, Cavalry, commanding, December, 1916

Movies In History: Flyboys, The Red Baron and The Blue Max (and The Great Waldo Pepper).

Sometimes the only purpose a movie serves is to remind you how good an earlier movie actually was.

Drama in the air, biplanes, war, romance. . . how could you go wrong?

Well, apparently you can. At least if Flyboys and The Red Baron are any guide.

Let's start off with a really good film fearing all of this, however.  The Blue Max.

The Blue Max was a 1966 movie featuring George Peppard as Lt. Bruno Stachel, a German commoner who is elevated to officer rank as a pilot during World War One.  It's based on a novel by the same name, which I have not read.  Stachel finds himself elevated out of the trenches, out of the enlisted ranks and into both the infant Luftwaffe and to the company of German nobility, the latter of which he does not mix well with.  Highly competitive and not entirely likeable, Stachel's story is well developed and the film does a nice job of exploring a world that was being killed by World War One.  The title of the film is taken from Stachel's pursuit of the Prussian award for valor, the Pour le Merit, an award that was given to quite a few German aviators during World War One.

The film features a nice collection of aircraft built for the story, which in some ways are as much the stars of the film as the actors. Period aircraft were not available so they built them for the film.  Fortunately, I suppose, aircraft of that period were relatively simple.

This is an excellent film.  In terms of material details, in regards to aircraft, its superb.  It's good also in regard to German uniforms, which were a mix for aviators.  It's one of the few films regarding World War One aircraft that demonstrate how filthy of job it was, given that the engines of the period spewed oil back on the pilots.  A film history buff could pick a few complaints with the use of British small arms for German ground troops, but as that's a secondary aspect of the film, it shouldn't really detract much and it was common at the time.  Otherwise, it's excellent in every way.  It's by far the best modern World War One aviation film every made.

Before moving on to the lesser films, we should mention The Great Waldo Pepper, which is a film in which Robert Redford plays the title role, a barnstormer in the 1920s.  The barnstorming era is romantically remembered, but off hand this is the only film I'm aware of that features it.  Again, the story is a good one, the planes are also the stars, and the material details are excellent.  Concerning those planes, quite a few of them from this 1975 film were made for The Blue Max, so the accuracy of the aircraft shouldn't surprise us, perhaps.

And then there's the others.

Recently I've been posting a lot on the year 1916, so it's only appropriate that both Flyboys and The Red Baron would be on television.  For really lightweight entertainment, I guess their okay, but only barely so.

Flyboys is a 2006 film featuring James Franco in an early role as a pilot joining the French military in a squadron loosely, and I do mean loosely, based on the Lafayette Escadrille.  It's pretty bad.

This is the first film of which I'm aware that CGI was used for the aircraft.  A viewer who is familiar with The Blue Max will be disappointed as the aircraft look fake, at least to the experienced eye.

The story is fake, to the knowledgeable viewer, and more than a little odd.  For example, one of the American pilots in this squadron is portrayed as highly religious and sings Onward Christian Soldier as he flies into battles.  This story takes place in World War One, not World War Two, and therefore there isn't an intelligible religious element to the story.  I.e, the Germans were Christians too and no matter what you think of their cause they weren't being lead by Hitler (indeed, their sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm, would disdain Hitler in exile).

For some odd reason, in addition, every German fighter in this film is a Fokker Triplane  Weird.  And they're all painted red save for the black one flown by a real baddy.  This contrasts with The Blue Max which correctly shows that German squadrons flew a real mix of aircraft and those aircraft tended to be painted in all sorts of different ways, all within a single squadron.

The only saving grace, really, to the story is the portrayal of a French farm girl by the improbably named French actress Jennifer Decker.  She does a nice job in a story that's otherwise a mess.

Even worse, is the 2008 film The Red Baron, which is currently showing on Netflix.  A German made film, but in English, it's best just flat out skipped.  The basic plot could be summarized as; young boy dreams of flying his whole life (improbable given that aircraft had existed for only eleven years when WWI broke out), becomes flyer, flies in a noble airborne game of chess, falls in love with nurse who exposes him to war, became anti war.

Bleh.

A lot of this strikes a person as sort of an excuse to try to make a film that really romanticizes a German officer who was really deadly at his craft and make him into sort of anti war hero in the process.  Well, Manfred Von Richthoffen wasn't awarded the Blue Max as he was an airborne pacifist.

This makes of this film also seem to have been compelled to take the concept that the war in the air was chivalrous, a somewhat doubtful or at least overdone proposition, a bit further than the bounds of reality will tolerate.  Every modern World War One aviation film does this to some extent, and the proper extent is likely that depicted in The Blue Max, but this one is really over the top in these regards.  Developing a personal relationship, for example, between Manfred Von Richthoffen and Canadian pilot Roy Brown is really a bit much.

So, skip Flyboys and The Red Baron and rent The Blue Max and The Great Waldo Pepper instead.

The Cheyenne Leader for November 30, 1916: A National Guard Casualty

Only meriting a small entry at the bottom of the page, we learn on this day that Wyoming National Guardsman Pvt. Frank J. Harzog, who enlisted from Sheridan, died in Deming of encephalitis.  He was to be buried at Ft. Bliss, so he wold never make it home.

Too often soldiers who die in peacetime are simply forgotten; their deaths not recognized as being in the service of the country. But they are.  Indeed, the year after I was in basic training a solider who was in my training platoon, a National Guardsman from Nebraska, died in training in a vehicle accident.  A Cold War death as sure as any other.

Thanksgiving Day, 1916

November 23 was Thanksgiving Day in 1916.  Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation to that effect on November 17, 1916.

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

It has long been the custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that has elapsed since we last observed our day of thanksgiving has been rich in blessings to us as a people, but the whole face of the world has been darkened by war. In the midst of our peace and happiness, our thoughts dwell with painful disquiet upon the struggles and sufferings of the nations at war and of the peoples upon whom war has brought disaster without choice or possibility of escape on their part. We cannot think of our own happiness without thinking also of their pitiful distress.

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do appoint Thursday, the thirtieth of November, as a day of National Thanksgiving and Prayer, and urge and advise the people to resort to their several places of worship on that day to render thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of peace and unbroken prosperity which He has bestowed upon our beloved country in such unstinted measure. And I also urge and suggest our duty in this our day of peace and abundance to think in deep sympathy of the stricken peoples of the world upon whom the curse and terror of war has so pitilessly fallen, and to contribute out of our abundant means to the relief of their suffering. Our people could in no better way show their real attitude towards the present struggle of the nations than by contributing out of their abundance to the relief of the suffering which war has brought in its train.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-first.

It must have been a stressful one for a lot of people.  War was raging in Europe and a lot of Wyomingites were serving on the border with Mexico.  The local economy was booming, and there were a lot of changes going on in the towns, but due to the international conflict.

Big Metal Bird Episode 10 — Tarmac

Because I've watched them out the window of the plane so many times.

Natrona County Closes Schools. . and the upcoming State Budget.

From the Casper Star Tribune:

The Natrona County School District Board of Trustees voted Monday to close Grant Elementary School as a mother and the school’s principal sat in the back and cried. The approval means that Grant and Mills Elementary will likely be removed from inventory — preferably sold but potentially demolished — by Sept. 1, 2017. North Casper Elementary, the old Roosevelt High School and the Fairgrounds should be disposed of by July 1. The Star Lane Center will be closed no later than the end of the 2017-18 school year.

I haven't been running many articles on the economy recently, I guess the election drowned them out, but obviously the economy hasn't been doing well.We're now going to see some school closures locally, partially due to this reason.

The Tribune also reports that Governor Mead's upcoming budget will see "steep program cuts", given diminished state revenues.

One of the victims of state cuts could be the Wyoming Veterans Museum in Casper, which may find its three employees reduced to two part time ones, the Tribune reports.

 

Wyoming Veterans Museum.

Could be a rocky session for more reasons than one.

The Wyoming Tribune for November 29, 1916: Villa in the headlines

Scary headlines in the Tribune, which reported that Juarez, on the Mexican border, might be Villa's next target.

The Cheyenne State Leader for November 29, 1916: Chihuahua in Villa's hands = Carranza agreeing to Protocol?

The Leader made the curious assumption that Villa taking Chihuahua would cause Carranza to agree tot he draft protocol with the US that was designed to bring about an American withdrawal.

Now, why would that be the case? Carranza had been opposed to American intervention, but as it was, the American expeditionary force amounted to a large block of troops in Villas way if he really intended to move north.

A curious assumption.

And the US acting on behalf of besieged Belgium was also in the news.

Chicago Tribune: CO-EDS SHOULD SET FASHION Nov 29, 1916

From the Chicago Tribune for November 29, 1916 (courtesy of Reddit's 100 Years ago Subreddit:

Nov 29, 1916

CO-EDS SHOULD SET FASHION

Prof. James of Northwestern Is Against Domination of Paris, London, and Michigan Avenue.

Woman's dress criticized yesterday by Prof. James A. James, professor of history in Northwestern university. In a lecture to a class in American history in Harris Hall.

"How long are we to be dictated to by Paris, by London. or even by Michigan avenue?" he said. “How many of you in this class leave a store having purchased just what you wanted in the way of clothes?

“I am willing to-say that our descend- ants a hundred years from now will look back on our time with contempt for, our slavishness In matters of dress. Why can’t our college women set the standard of dressing? The simple dress of the college girl of fifteen or twenty years ago was attractive but above all sensible.”

Interesting comments from an age when apparently college co-eds dressed more sensibly than women of fashion.

Perhaps they still do?

Women's fashion would, FWIW, really change in this era, courtesy of the Great War. As noted here previously, women went to work in large numbers during World War One in factories and on farms and this in turn mean that restrictive clothing that had been fashionable had to go.  Indeed the war brought about a permanent change in women's undergarments, according to the Roads To The Great War blog, which goes to show the truth, once again, of Holscher's Fourth Law of History.

 Women war workers in dormitory, 1917.

Lex Anteinternet: The tumult and the shouting

 The day after the election I posted this:

Lex Anteinternet: The tumult and the shouting: I wonder if there's any chance that Facebook shall return to normal tomorrow or later this week. . . . to the extent it was normal. Hm...

I knew better, but I did sort of hope.

By this point, after the oddest election in anyone's memory,  I think most people are so burnt out and tired they'd like a political break.  I know that I would.  Indeed, I'd planned on more post election commentary, but I'm so tired of it all already that I haven't done it, and likely won't much.  I can hardly even stand to listed to the weekend political shows right now.

None of which, I'll note, stops the real diehards.

Maybe that's part of the problem.

We've endured eight years of comments from people who thought Barack Obama was the worst thing ever.  While some are now denying it, a lot of that commentary got extreme rather quickly, and quite a bit of it bordered on racist.

Not racist, but an example of this, is that I have a dear friend who was just appalled by President Obama's election as he was so much further to the left than my friend, who took up calling Obama a Marxist and who meant it.  Whatever he was, President Obama was not a Marxist, nor a closet Muslim, nor a Kenyan.  It was all too much.

Now we're going to see four years of the same thing, I fear, with Donald Trump.  One liberal friend of mine seriously takes the position that Trump, in order to make good his suggestion that he'll work with the left (which I don't recall Trump making) needs to surrender on the Supreme Court. That's a little like Custer demanding a Sioux surrender at Little Big Horn as a show of good faith.  It isn't going to happen as its absurd.

I've now seen a Facebook meme with a photo of a tired US soldier in World War Two claiming that those who voted for Trump are traitors, having betrayed the cause the soldiers fought for by voting for an implied fascists.  Oh come on.  That's the same thing as calling Obama a Marxist.

Enough for awhile.