Cabbages, Babies, and Bathing Beauties

The Newport, RI Most Beautiful Pageant as depicted on “Another Period.” (Courtesy of Comedy Central.)

As a fan of comedy, I’ve really been enjoying the new Comedy Central show Another Period. The premise is fun and silly – the show centers on the rich, debauched and aristocratic Bellacourt family, who live in an opulent mansion in Newport, Rhode Island during the Gilded Age. It’s a little Downton Abbey and a little Keeping Up With the Kardashians with a touch of Upstairs Downstairs.

One of my favorite things about the show is that in spite of its silliness, many of the crazier plot threads are based on actual events. It inspired me to check out a documentary on the history of the mansions of Newport Rhode Island – many of which were incredibly decadent and built to compete with the mansions of their (also filthy rich) neighbors.

One event on the show really got me curious about its historical inspirations though. In the fourth episode, the Bellacourt family hosts the first Newport’s Most Beautiful Pageant – which pits women against babies and cabbages.

Babies, cabbages, and beautiful women — oh my! (Courtesy of Comedy Central.)

I had to wonder, was there actually a precedent for this sort of thing? Were there truly beauty contests back in the day where bathing beauties would compete alongside vegetables?

Lillian Bellacourt prepares herself for the swimsuit competition. (Courtesy of: onionav.club.)

An advertisement from 1898 depicts the swimsuit fashions of the time. (Courtesy of: loc.gov.)

The short answer is pretty much, and the man responsible is none other than P.T. Barnum. According to this Library of Congress page:

P.T. Barnum staged the first modern American pageant in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest. He kept the contest going by substituting daguerreotypes for women, a practice quickly adopted by newspapers. Newspapers held photo beauty contests for many decades: in 1880, the first “Bathing Beauty Pageant” took place as part of a summer festival to promote business in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

The first beauty contest took place at Barnum’s American Museum, which you can learn all about on The Lost Museum website. According to the site, “the Museum was the first institution to combine sensational entertainment and gaudy display with instruction and moral uplift. For a twenty-five cent admission, visitors viewed an ever-revolving series of “attractions,” from the patchwork Fejee Mermaid to the diminutive and articulate Tom Thumb.

Triplets! Twins! Fat Babies! An advertisement from 1863 for the National Baby Show. (Courtesy of The Lost Museum.)

Some of Barnum’s most popular attractions were “national contests” where dogs, chickens, flowers, and even children (and women!) were displayed and judged for paying audiences. The poultry and baby contests were especially popular, although there were some critics who called for others to protest the baby shows, hilariously seeing them as an, “unseemly public display of private maternal virtue.”

A polka composed for Barnum’s National Poultry Show. (Courtesy of The Lost Museum.)

A polka composed for Barnum’s National Baby Show. (Courtesy of The Lost Museum.)

So, while I was not able to find any specific mention of cabbages, it appears that ladies were indeed being judged alongside babies, chickens, and nonsentient objects – but at least they weren’t competing against each other!

Tara

PS – In case you’re still not sure if the show Another Period is for you, I present you with this dog in a wig — enjoy!

Gilded Age!

When I was in high school I had a history teacher who was very passionate  about the Gilded Age – but as I was a callow and feckless youth, I thought it was all boring tycoons and railroads and stuff. Well, it turns out that there’s more to the Gilded Age than trains and big mustaches, and a lot of it is pretty darn interesting. So with belated apologies to my tenth grade history teacher (but I was only fifteen, so cut me some slack), I present a list of not-boring Gilded Age books.

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The Floor of Heaven: a True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush, by Howard Blum – If you ever manage to pull off a spectacular gold heist, don’t try to melt down your ill-gotten gains in a frying pan over your campfire, or you’ll just end up with a gold-plated frying pan – that’s what I learned from this book. There are more prospectors and ruffians than tycoons in these pages, so save this one for when you get tired of bankers and millionaires.

The Murder of the Century: the Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars, by Paul Collins – Oh, there’s a lot of fun stuff here – bloody ducks (yes, you read that right), a distinctively patterned oilcloth, an army of reporters on bicycles, and best of all – a headless, legless torso with some very unusual identifying marks that couldn’t be discussed in polite company. Ladies, it’ll give you the vapors.

Topsy: the Startling Story of the Crooked-tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison, by Michael Daly – Turns out that this one’s a great history of elephants in the United States and of the early days of circuses. Thomas Edison appears mainly as the evil villain (NOTE: the link is a spoiler and is NOT for the faint of heart), though to be fair, everyone was pretty evil to animals in those days. Bonus: Topsy and Edison are also the subjects of an excellent episode of Bob’s Burgers.

Conquering Gotham: a Gilded Age Epic: the Construction of Penn Station and its Tunnels, by Jill Jonnes – The Pennsylvania Railroad was miffed that it couldn’t get its trains into Manhattan like its chief rival, the New York Central Railroad. So with typical Gilded Age bravado they said, “Screw this!” and built a tunnel under the Hudson River. It was very muddy, squishy work. This is a neat book about finance, architecture, engineering, working conditions, and getting the bends.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, by Erik Larson – An architect, a serial killer, a world’s fair, an oddly suspenseful low-speed pursuit – good times! If you’re only going to read one book from this list, make it this one. But it’s such a good book that you’ve probably read it already. (Suzy has, and she even mentioned it in an earlier post, which led me to state that “I am pretty sure that every librarian is required to write about The Devil in the White City at least once in their career”).

The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough – The moral of this story? Rich people make lousy neighbors. A classic combination of history and disaster, with strong local ties. Since the book was originally published in 1968, it’s somehow more tasteful than modern disaster nonfiction, if that makes any sense – as if one can be tasteful about people burning to death in huge piles of flood wreckage. Still, good stuff.

AC/DC: the Savage Tale of the First Standards War, by Tom McNichol – For those of you who’d like a little science with your tycoons and mustaches, we present Thomas Edison vs. local favorite George Westinghouse (with a little assistance from the nerd’s nerd, Nikola Tesla) in an electrical battle for the ages. Somehow we manage to go from electrocuting dogs (lots of dogs, reader beware) to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (re: The Devil in the White City) in slightly less than two hundred pages. It’s probably the shortest book on this list but it’s well worth the effort.

Passing Strange: a Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line, by Martha A. Sandweiss – Fancypants white geologist Clarence King (one of the most blond-haired, blue-eyed people ever) was able to live a second, secret life with his black wife and their mixed-race children simply by creating a second identity and telling people that he was black. Apparently, that (and some clever scheduling) was all it took. Rather heavy on details from King’s point of view, as his wife (Ada Copeland) wasn’t in a position to leave a mark on history, to put it gently.

In the Kingdom of Ice: the Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette, by Hampton Sides – Any book that has people freezing to death in it is all right by me. This super fun book relates the chilly seafaring tale of an arctic expedition funded by eccentric (like, pees-in-your-piano eccentric) publishing tycoon Gordon Bennet. Things start out well – they spend lots and lots of money on supplies and a ship, pick up a whole mess of sled dogs (and give them amusing names), and head north. But then their newfangled Edison arc lights don’t work, the ship is crushed by the arctic ice pack, someone has a raging syphilis infection, people are forced to eat their pants, and it’s all downhill from there.

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America, by Les Standiford – More local heroes. I’m gonna be honest here and tell you that I read this one a while ago, and I can’t remember any particularly fun anecdotes other than maybe “Alexander Berkman is a lousy assassin.” But there’s a really good overview of the Homestead Strike, for those of you who (like me) zoned out for this particular chapter in our local history. Gunfights on barges would liven up any history lesson, right?

The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age, by Janet Wallach – Hetty Green was the daughter of a New England Quaker family, the original People Who Don’t Take Anyone’s Crap. And Hetty spent the rest of her life refusing to take anyone’s crap – and amassed a spectacular fortune in the process. Just read it.

A Disposition to Be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor’s Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States, by Geoffrey C. Ward – Ferdinand Ward was, by all accounts, a smooth operator and a complete jerk – but to be fair, his parents were pretty jerky, too. Things start out slowly, as there’s a lot of religious and family history to wade through, but it really picks up when our little Ferd moves to the big city. This account was penned by his great-grandson, most widely known for his work on the PBS documentary series The Civil War (and apparently not a jerk).

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These last few books are not quite Gilded Age; they’re early 1900s. But they’re pretty darn close, they have a lot of Gilded Age influences, and they’re super fun (“super fun” being a relative term).

Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul, by Karen Abbott – A romp through the seamier side of Chicago that focuses on the high-class Everleigh club and the sisters who ran it. You’ll learn the origin of that “drinking champagne from a shoe” thing and some inappropriate things to do with gold coins. This book ties in nicely with The Devil in the White City and is nearly as awesome, though not nearly as murdery.

Empty Mansions: the Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, by Bill Dedman – Huguette Clark, the daughter of a wealthy senator, lived in her own little world and never wanted things to change. It’s the story of a lonely woman who was never really independent, who never learned the value of a dollar, and who was severely taken advantage of by her caretakers before her death. Part sentimental, part pathetic, and entirely fascinating (if you need more convincing, Eric wrote an excellent post about this book last year).

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the “It” Girl, and the Crime of the Century, by Paula Uruburu – Another one with a local connection! Somewhat batty Harry Kendall Thaw, son of a Pittsburgh coal baron, marries turn-of-the-century hottie Evelyn Nesbit. He learns of her past affair with fancypants architect (and somewhat pervy) Stanford White, and shoots him in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Trials and scandals and secrets and madness abound.

– Amy, who didn’t have access to interesting nonfiction when she was in high school

Stacking ‘Em Up: Our Favorite Reads From 2013

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a library blog in possession of a good staff must be in want of a best books post. Library workers are frequently their own best customers, passing titles back and forth with reckless abandon, buttonholing colleagues in stairwells to insist they check out the book that kept us up late swooning (or shivering). Nothing brings us more joy, however, than turning those efforts outward and sharing our favorites with you.

The Eleventh Stack team consumed a mountain of reading this year (probably taller than Richard, and he’s pretty tall). Here are some of the ones we enjoyed most.

Maria:

The Turncoat by Donna Thorland

Though labeled historical fiction, this book has a passionate and sizzling romance at its heart, so I would call it historical romance as well. The first book in the Renegades of the Revolution series, I loved this dangerous romance set amid the intrigues of Revolutionary War Philadelphia. Quaker country-girl-turned-rebel-spy Kate Grey falls for British officer Peter Tremayne despite their opposing allegiances. I especially enjoyed its life meets fiction aspect as George Washington, John Andre, General Howe, and Peggy Shippen all make appearances here. I look forward to reading more in the series from this debut author. Thorland, who is also a filmmaker, made a fascinating book trailer; I think it would make a great movie.

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

My poor hometown. Native metro-Detroiter and award-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff writes a raw and thoroughly readable portrait of the Motor City’s state of emergency, from its abandoned neighborhoods, horrible city services, double-digit unemployment rates, and rampant crime to the die-hard residents who refuse to give up. A moving and frightening account of the decline of a great American city.

Melissa F.

I spent most of 2013 hanging out with some questionable, unreliable, but incredibly memorable characters from the Gilded Age.  You don’t get much more eyebrow-raising than Odalie from The Other Typist, Suzanne Rindell’s debut that has been described as “part Hitchcock, part Patricia Highsmith, and part Gatsby.” It’s a phenomenal, can’t-put-down read that I’ve been recommending all year long.  Also of note is The Virgin Cure , Ami McKay’s historical fiction story of a twelve year old orphan in 1870s New York that is based on the true story of one of her relatives.  

And then there was benevolent Talmadge from The Orchardist. I adored Amanda Coplin’s luminous debut novel with its grand, overlapping themes of morality and religion, of being one with the earth and the eternal struggle of good versus evil. It’s been compared to The Grapes of Wrath (this one is way better). Like Steinbeck, Amanda Coplin joins the list of authors who have given us a true American classic.

(Other highly recommended books in case the Gilded Age isn’t your thing: Tenth of December and In Persuasion Nation, both by George Saunders; Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan; Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys, The Bird Saviors, by William J. Cobb, When It Happens to You, by Molly Ringwald (yes, THAT Molly Ringwald!), Still Life with Oysters and Lemon and Dog Years by Mark Doty (listen to the audio version); Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon, and Songdogs, by Colum McCann.)

What can I say? In the words of Sinatra, it was a very good year.

Jess – Burial Rites, Hannah Kent

If you’ve had good experiences with Alice Hoffman and Geraldine Brooks (Kent even gives a shout out to Brooks as a mentor in her acknowledgements), then this is for you.

In rural Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir has been tried and accused of murder – and now must await execution in her home district. No prison means she’s forced upon a family who obviously wants nothing to do with her. Over the next months, Agnes is put to work on the farm. She slowly begins to open up about her messy past to a young priest, chosen for a long ago kindness, and to the wife of the household, who begins to see a Agnes as woman who has been worn down by a harsh life. Based on true story of one of the last two executions in Iceland, Kent deftly blends some amazing research with strong prose to weave a story about woman who was truly a victim of her circumstances.

Suzy– Traveling Sprinkler, Nicholson Baker. Suzy really enjoyed this book a lot, but is not here to tell us about it because she is off riding her bike someplace not currently buried under several feet of snow. We are extremely jealous of very happy for Suzy, and hope she comes home soon to tell us more about the book.

Leigh Anne

Much to my surprise, the two books I’ve enjoyed most this year were both set during World War II. I’ve never been much of a war buff, but that’s a testament to how the power of good fiction can make you more interested in history. In this case, the novels were Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity.

Life After Life –the tale of an Englishwoman who keeps reincarnating as herself and trying to kill Hitler–has cropped up on a number of best/notable lists this year, including the New York Times, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and I’ve already reviewed it earlier this year, so let me just say this: what an ending. When I read the last few sentences, and the light bulb over my head finally went on, I was amazed at how cleverly Atkinson had made her point: no matter how hard we strive as individuals, we can never act out of context. We always need other people to help us achieve our objectives, even if we are strong and clever.

Code Name Verity takes us behind enemy lines as Verity the spy and Maddie the pilot tell their stories in alternating sections. The crux of this novel–which I also reviewed earlier this year–is truth: who’s telling it, who’s hiding it, and how flexible it can be depending on how high the stakes are. For Maddie and Verity, the stakes are very high, indeed, and I loved that the book, while intended for a teen audience, didn’t shy away from the horrors of war…or deliver a tidy happy ending. If you want a great portrait of what it must have been like to be a teenager during WWII, pick up this novel….but be prepared to have All Of The Feelings. If you adore Wein as much as I do after you’re done, you’ll want to move on to her 2013 release, Rose Under Fire, in which pilot Rose Justice is captured and sent to the concentration camp Ravensbruck.

It was really hard to pick my favorites from what turned out to be an amazing run of excellent reading this year. Some other books I devoured include Letters From Skye (historical romance), Longbourn (historical fiction), and The Son (epic southwestern family saga). And now I must stop, before I blog your ear off…

 Joelle 

I do love fantasy books! My favorites for this year were The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman. Both of these books have already achieved positive critical acclaim, but I will add mine:

The Golem is created by a mysterious and mischievous Rabbi as a bride for a young man who is set to travel to New York from Poland. The Jinni had been trapped for centuries in a lamp which also made its way to New York City. They both try to fit in to society with their separate supernatural talents, but recognize each other as different right away. It is interesting to see these magical beings from two different cultures coming together. The author creates characters with unusual and distinctive personalities.

 Neil Gaiman is the master of creating fantasy worlds that do not follow any specific cultural tradition, yet are somehow universal. A man journeys back to his old home town, and is drawn to a place only half remembered. The reader is transported to the mind of a seven year old, a time in a person’s life when one is very vulnerable, and when one can accept magic as a matter of fact.
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Holly
Nestled behind the International Poetry Room on CLP-Main’s second floor, you’ll find one of my favorite places in the Library.  The Oversize Book Room is home to volume upon volume of giant, gorgeous books. These are books that are graphic-heavy, photo-heavy, and often really heavy in weight, and therefore they do not fit on our regular book shelves/make great impromptu weapons.  Fashion, art, landscape photography, crafts and home repair are some of the subjects that you can find here.   One day while helping a patron find another book in this section, I stumbled upon the splendid  Jack London, Photographer. This is my favorite book of 2013 because it exemplifies what I love most about the Library and the serendipity that lives here.  I had no idea that Jack London was a photographer, and a talented one at that!  This gem contains somewhat disparate, at least in terms of location, photo collections.  They are a fascinating  look at early 20th century history through the eyes of a classic author.  Chapters have titles like ” The People of the Abyss,”  which is a stark look at impoverished Londoners in 1902. Battlefields are a subject as well, such as  those of  the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 and the Mexican Revolution of 1914.  I loved this book because it was a rejuvenating break from my usual reading of text-heavy new fiction and new nonfiction.

Don

For me this was an unusual year, and my reading reflected all the strangeness. I found myself reading old (Kim by Rudyard Kipling), new (A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki), rereads (The Final Solution by Michael Chabon and The Fall by Albert Camus), pastiche (The Mandela of Sherlock Holmes by Jamyang Norbu), Buddhist fiction (Buddha Da by Anne Donovan), science fiction (Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone by Ian MacDonald), and the truly, wonderfully bizarre (Duplex by Kathryn Davis).

Part of the unusual nature of all this is the fact that, thematically, there is a great deal these books have in common. There are all kinds of connections between them, come to think of it. And really, there is not a book listed above that you can go wrong with, but, since we are picking favorites, here we go…

My favorite book of the year turns out to be a tie between the first two listed: A Tale for the Time Being, and that hoary old chestnut, Kim. Both of these books surprised, in different ways. I was frankly stunned by how good Kim (and Rudyard Kipling) is. I’d always thought of Kipling as just another dead old white guy, with a penchant for British colonialism and simplistic stories, who might easily be ignored for, oh, 50-plus years or so. And was, by me.

It really is delightful to wake up every day and realize how very, very wrong you can be.

Ozeki’s book is difficult to describe, so I’ll let the author speak for herself (from her website):

A Tale for the Time Being is a powerful story about the ways in which reading and writing connect two people who will never meet. Spanning the planet from Tokyo’s Electric Town to Desolation Sound, British Columbia, and connected by the great Pacific gyres, A Tale for the Time Being tells the story of a diary, washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox, and the profound effect it has on the woman who discovers it.

Kim is part quest–for self and for meaning–, part old-fashioned adventure via the time-honored motif of the journey, and, consistently, a fine, penetrating story on what it means to be human.

Yes indeed, how very good it is to wake up each and every day.

Melissa M.

Of course my favorite book this year was a cookbook, specifically Michael Symon’s 5 in 5: 5 Fresh Ingredients + 5 Minutes = 120 Fantastic Dinners. I’ve watched this man on television so many times now that as I was reading the recipes I could hear them, inside my head, being read to me in his voice. Now, Michael does cheat the five ingredients rule a little because he uses items from his pantry that are not part of that total number. The first section of the book, after the introduction, is a list of what items should be in your pantry at all times. These include things like extra virgin olive oil, a variety of vinegars, pasta, canned beans, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and other spices. You probably already have most of those in your kitchen cupboards, so no worries there. The recipes are not complicated; most have only 3-4 steps. This is food you could cook on a weeknight and would want to eat. Plus, who wouldn’t love a cookbook with a chapter called “On a Stick”? Foods on a stick rule!

There you have it! Your turn. What were your favorite reads of 2013, whether new finds or old favorites?

The Gilded Age*

When I was a teenager, I saw the movie Ragtime  and I was fascinated by the depiction of the history of turn-of-the-century America, the elegant and stylish clothes, and the music.

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.

I later learned that this era in history was the latter part of what has been called the Gilded Age. But what exactly was the Gilded Age? Apparently, it was first coined by writer Mark Twain in his book of the same name. Gilded means coated in gold and, during this period (late 1800s/early 1900s), before the income tax, several businessmen–think Carnegie, Frick, and Rockefeller–became outrageously wealthy with all the industrial changes and innovations.

Over the years, I’ve read several non-fiction books about this time period; here are a few I couldn’t put down.

 The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson. Read about the history of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago (from its idea to reality), the difficulties in bringing the ambitious fair to fruition within a very limited time frame, the famous names behind the scenes (Frederick Law Olmsted, Thomas Edison, Daniel Burnham), and the hunt for a serial killer amid all the excitement. In case you hadn’t heard, Erik Larson will be at the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures series on September 24.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, The Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of the Century  by Paula Uruburu. Here’s a Pittsburgh connection for you.  In 1906, millionaire Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh shot and killed New York architect Stanford White during a performance in Madison Square Garden because his young wife, entertainer & artists’ model Evelyn Nesbit, had had an affair with White years before their marriage when she was a teenager. Thaw was declared insane but White’s reputation was tarnished forever. And as for Evelyn? This is her story. Incidentally, this story is mentioned in the book, movie, and musical, Ragtime.

 When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age by Justin Kaplan. Ah, the old beautiful luxury hotels! The author describes the history of the elegant and exclusive hotels in turn-of-the-century New York city, describing the families who built them, the culture of the leisurely life of the very rich, and the gorgeous architecture of the buildings themselves.

~Maria

*This is the tenth in a series of recommended historical non-fiction.

My Own Little Myopia

I’m sure all of you are familiar with the parable of the three blind men and the elephant. Asked to describe the animal all three gave widely disparate explanations, informed by the limited sensory exposure they possessed. The first man only felt the trunk and described the pachyderm as twisty and serpent-like; the second man at one of the legs described a rather static and stout animal. The third man feeling the tail felt the elephant to be a small, swift and rat-like creature.

Degradation of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

How often have we, whether by omission or commission, made the same error? If by chance you attended Hebrew School (that’s after “real” school 2x a week,) you likely learned about the Dreyfus Affair and its role in the establishment of the Zionist movement. The narrative went something like this; in 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus – a French Jewish officer was accused of treason, court-martialed, found guilty and sentenced to a long prison term on Devil’s Island. During the course of the Affair barefaced Anti-Semitism became the norm in France complete with public demonstrations and shouts of “Death to the Jews”.  An assimilated secular Austrian Jew – Theodore Herzl, was covering the Dreyfus trial as the Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper the Neue Freie Presse.

Theodore Herzl
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In the account we learned, Herzl came to the realization that 100 years of emancipation and Jewish assimilation were pointless. In 1897 Herzl initiated the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and presided over the birth of modern political Zionism and the end of the Dreyfus Affair in the Hebrew School curriculum.

On the one hand, it exposed us (at elementary school age I should note) to an event we otherwise might never have learned about. On the other hand, like the blind men and the elephant we didn’t even scratch the surface of an episode that along with the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) traumatized and defined modern France until World War I. For France, the Dreyfus Affair was more involved, gut-wrenching and soul-searching than almost any comparable experience we’ve had in the US.  The Sacco & Vanzetti trial may be the closest we’ve come.

Even having read several works on Dreyfus over the years, the affect of l’affaire Dreyfus wasn’t made clear until I started reading about the political and social changes in Europe (affected and resisted by the inter-related monarchies,) and the emergence of the US as a world power. Two particular works drew me in:

• King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay
• The Proud Tower; a Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman.

Tuchman in particular does a wonderful job pointing out all the changes emerging at the turn of the century that will ultimately result in the emergence of Germany as a unified, industrial powerhouse, and the eclipse of the European states economic and social influence by the United States.  Both Tuchman and Clay point out how poorly prepared the traditional European monarchies (and their related class structures) were for the new century and the social forces emerging with it (Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, the labor movement, etc.)

So where does Captain Dreyfus fit in?  Dreyfus was framed by a fellow French officer – Ferdinand Esterhazy.  While Esterhazy’s role was brought to light after Dreyfus’s initial conviction and sentencing, the French establishment wouldn’t  acknowledge that “they” -the establishment had erred.  The army and its supporters could not bring themselves to admit that the system had failed.  In 1896 when enough evidence had been assembled to cast doubt on the Dreyfus conviction and pointed towards Esterhazy’s role, a reconvened court-martial acquitted Esterhazy and upheld the original conviction – based entirely on evidence deliberately withheld by the army.  It was not until 1906 that Dreyfus was exonerated and all charges dropped.

Emile Zola’s J’Accuse
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Dreyfus affair was significant because it set France against itself; a painful situation for a country smarting from its defeat 25 years earlier by the Germans, the abolition of the Bonapartist empire, and the resulting loss of honor and territory (Alsace & Lorraine.)  In the French psyche of the time, the army was France and France was the army; it couldn’t be fallible.  Those who were against any questioning of the case or the government’s role saw the army as representing those principles which made France great – academe, honor, justice, liberty, fraternite.  Those who supported Dreyfus (the Dreyfusards) believed in those same principals too, and believed the army’s position contradicted what made France great.  The Dreyfus Affair consumed French life (and was carefully followed overseas too, including the USA) as no other issue would until 1914.  The French judicial system was assumed to be impartial and fair; how could France accuse and convict a man in so unfair a manner?    The Anti-Semitism that so influenced Herzl, was an aside – a shocking one – but nevertheless an aside.  The issue wasn’t jingoistic patriotism or territorial, it was philosophical – “What is France?”

– RK

Does History Move or Repeat?

The last time I wrote something here, it concerned the continuation of the Arab Spring specifically in Libya.  It’s one month later and there is no change yet in Libya’s governance or what is left of it.  The rebels are strong enough to not be beaten, but then again, so are Quadaffi’s forces.  Unlike the protests and demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, etc., the Libyan situation seems entirely stalemated, and reliant on limited NATO involvement to keep things  . . . static.  And as I observed wonderingly a month ago, Libya is still pretty much non-news.

In a passing conversation with Schuyler, another Eleventh Stack contributor, we both commented on what the current state of world affairs as represented by the Arab Spring might portend for the world.

• Is it a good thing?
• Is it really a significant development?
• Could the Arab populations establish democracies?
• Had we seen anything like it before?
• Is it good for the U.S.?

My observation was that perhaps we’re at a moment in time similar to what the world may have been like in the 20-30 years leading up to WWI.  Before anyone gets too depressed or alarmed, it’s not that I see a major war in the offing, but rather what we’re witnessing today has some historic parallels.  We are seeing a shifting of the relative strengths and influence of the major powers, much as occurred in the quarter century leading up to World War I: the emergence and challenge to British supremacy by Imperial Germany, and the simultaneous emergence of the United States as a military and industrial power, especially taking into account our emergence from the Civil War.  Today it’s the U.S. role as the sole-superpower, and does that really bring any advantages and freedom of action?  It’s also about the emergence of China (and India, Brazil, Russia?) as economic powers, and the lingering effects of the 2008 recession.

One of Schuyler’s comments stuck with me as we parted ways — something to the effect of  “Is there another Metternich today?”  For your edification, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich was an Austrian-German politician and diplomat.  His efforts as Chair of the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna established a European political order that remained largely in place until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, finally crumbling entirely in August 1914.

Congress of Vienna

It took over 100 years before some of the nations of the world met again to determine a practical course to peace — I’m excluding here the failed- before-it-started Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928.  Near the end of World War II the soon to be victorious Allies (The United Nations) met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. to arrange the structure of the soon to be established UN, including the Big 5 veto in the future Security Council.  Maybe this model has worked, though there’s a side of me (and others) who wonder if the UN wasn’t greatly helped along by the well defined bi-polar world of the Cold War.  Unlike the knife fight in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. seemed to have rules and structure to their conflict.  As the Chinese sometimes prophecy — we live in interesting times.

—Richard