Gordon Parks: Segregation Story

Life Magazine, 1956; Gordon Parks was sent down south to document the lives of segregated communities. The text, by Robert Wallace, mentions the most poignant disadvantage of segregation, and that was the lack of mobility. The states with segregation had as many poor whites as poor blacks, because poverty can ruin all colors the same way. The whites, however, were free to move anywhere they wanted, but the blacks could only live where they were allowed. If the only area open to them was near the town dump, then that was where they had to live. If it was on a street that flooded when it rained, that was that.

One of the people in this photo essay was a woodcutter, financially sound enough to eat well, but he had to be wary of outdoing white competitors. He was not allowed to vote, because the county had a literacy requirement that he couldn’t pass. Illiterate white voters were probably overlooked, but the average black man in the south wasn’t dumb enough to complain. If the whites attacked, the police would  probably look on, and the courts would take the side of the whites.

On a positive note, the community were mostly self-supporting. They did their own repair work, mended their own clothes. The school for black children was cramped and Spartan, but it was maintained. The children, however, were not getting a good education, and even the teacher’s kids could not read well. There was one teacher for 120 kids, and she had to use the old-style method where one group reads, while the teacher listens to the other group recite. On top of that she would’ve had to handle all the discipline and custodial chores.

Economically, the community was in a bind, because most stores would not sell to them, and they were at the mercy of the stores that did. A sack of flour that would cost a white customer a nickel probably cost a black customer a lot more. The kids were seeing and hearing the same news and advertisements as white children, but they had to watch the county fair through the fence, not allowed to attend.

The cover has a photo of a black governess with a white baby, the well-dressed mother looking on as if she disdains the very notion of having to have her kid in her lap. I feel sorry for that white baby as much as I do for the low-paid black woman caring for him. Perhaps this goes to show that the nasty attitudes behind segregation can harm both colors equally.

Jesuit mapmaking in China: D’Anville’s Nouvelle Atlas De La Chine (1737)

Scrap whatever you learned about Marco Polo, because whatever he did pales in comparison to these men. Some of the greatest explorers in the world were not soldiers or fortune seekers, but Christian missionaries. The Jesuits went on dangerous and uncharted journeys to spread Christianity, but they ended up becoming the great adventurers, introducing unknown lands to the Europeans.

Matteo Ricci can be credited with being the first European to explore China. Portuguese sailors knew it was there, but Ricci took efforts to learn the language, explore the land, learn the customs, translate the books, and bring all this knowledge back to Europe. He translated the works of Greek mathematicians into Chinese, and brought back translations of Kun Fu Tsu, known in Europe as Confuscius. Based on his work, Italian mapmakers returned 44 years later and created Novus Atlas Sinensis, the first map of China.

The maps are remarkable, not just for the details, but for how extensive they are. The maps show the entire coastline, including Japan, Korea, and Formosa, with accuracy. Next come the rivers and the mountains, which would have been no easy feat for the Italians. These mapmakers were in a land they knew nothing about, cut off from anyone they knew, dependent on their guides, exposed to the elements, and god help them if they got caught near the Yangtzee river when it flooded. Even with the emperor’s men guarding them, they would still have been in danger of attack by bandits.

According to this book, the Italian and German Jesuits were well received in China. There’s a funny story about Johan Adam Schall, the Jesuit mathematician in charge of the mission’s astronomy department. The emperor Shunzhi had lost his father, and saw the white-bearded patriarch as a surrogate parent. The Jesuit’s astronomy skills were in big demand, because accurate calendars were needed, perhaps for the crop planting times. I bet they needed to predict the seasons as well, because rainy seasons would’ve brought China’s infamous floods.

The book touches on the issue of Christian rivalry as well. Ricci began his mission at a time when Catholic and Protestant kings were at war over Europe, and the Jesuit mission to China may have been a way of expanding the influence of Catholic nations, like Portugal and Spain. There is, however, an economic reason for the expedition; the missionaries made the trip on Portuguese boats, and this might have been a way for them to gain a foothold on trade in Asia. By ferrying men and goods to and from China, they could establish a rapport with the empire, gain a monopoly, and outdo their competitors. They could outdo Britain, with her West Indian sugar, and Spain, with her gold from Latin America.

The maps are beautifully reproduced, the writing and research are excellent. Han Qi, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Science, writes how the Kangxi emperor made trips to the west of China, and brought along Jesuit astronomers who taught him how to measure distance. It reminds me of an earlier book I reviewed, titled “How The West Won,” in that it shows how much China learned from Europe. I don’t know how the emperor’s army and tax collectors found their way around, given that all the best mapmakers were Italian. Did they navigate visually? If a road was washed out, how would they identify the landmarks?

I suspect that China’s unique terrain, with its famous mountains, would have had more landmarks with which to navigate. The Italian mapmakers plied their craft for sea captains, who had absolutely no landmarks to tell them where they were. By the time Matteo Ricci came to China,  Europe’s Age of Discovery was already 200 years old, and that was plenty of time for the Italians to become experts in maps and navigation. China, however, had no such industry. Their kings weren’t like Henry the Navigator, who used his royal money to finance exploration. The last great Chinese explorer, Zhang He, was long dead and his ships burned. A great opportunity had been wasted, and China would be isolated.

Perhaps this book is really a way to explain why European’s were so successful at colonizing other lands? When “enlightened” rulers make an effort to learn all that is learnable, they can dominate those that do not.

Dessert Mashups

Whenever a kid misspells  the word “dessert,” I tell them to remember it this way; dessert has two “s,” and that’s because you want seconds. Dessert Mashups gives exactly the kind of recipes that a kid will want seconds of, and even better, that the kid will want to make herself. Most of the recipes involve minimal ingredients and almost no cooking, like the s’more cookies, which rely on candy bars and other store-bought stuff. There’s the Milky Way brownie pie, the “Elvis hand-pie” made of peanut butter and bananas, with a store-bought crust.

The benefits of this book are that the recipes are easy for a child to make, and it’s great for party food, especially if you’re serving the type of people who don’t want fancy desserts, like wine-poached pears in chocolate sauce.  The problem with this book is twofold; first, the desserts like the death by chocolate brownies might be too rich for kids, and second, these recipes are not only meant for kids, but they’re only good for kids. These desserts will not appeal to adults, especially the health-conscious ones.

It makes sense, however, to have some things that the kids can make, seeing as most children aren’t ready to handle the oven. As for the over-sweetened desserts made of store-bought candy, why take the risk of your friend’s picky-eater son whining that the chocolate mousse looks weird? Stick a brownie in his mouth, and keep everything cheerful.

The Social Studies Curriculum

Social studies began as civic education, says the author of this book. That makes sense, as in 1916 the USA didn’t have much of a history, at least not a history that was seriously written. Most education in this country was geared to vocational skills, so having a history lesson, aside from classics, would probably have seemed impractical. Even “American literature” didn’t exist as an academic discipline; it would not be until the 1920’s that Melville, Twain, Poe, Hawthorne, and Whitman were catalogued as “literature” for colleges.

This book isn’t a guide for teachers, but a discussion on the controversies. For example, the chapter 

Dangerous Citizenship shows how much censorship there is when it comes to social studies. In Texas, there is a massive push to rewrite history, eliminating all traces of feminism, socialism, and “equality” from the curriculum. Efforts to make it pro Confederacy and remove the Seneca Falls convention are gaining ground, with the goal of making the woman’s role in society look more submissive. Harriet Tubman would be included as a form of “good citizenship,” but there would be no mention of women’s rights. For economics, students would learn about Milton Friedman and his free market capitalism, but learn none of the negative traits.

The chapter Class Struggle In The Classroom is about how you can teach high school students about labor in the USA. By using the book Class Matters (NY Times) one you show the kids how the workers, capitalists, and unions all have competing goals. There’s a funny description of a cartoon where the capitalist is questioned over how much he pays the worker, how much the worker makes (in products) and what the capitalist did to get where he is. Finally he says “shut up, the workers and media might hear you.”

This book is a great eye opener to what social studies has become. However, a lot of the negative news regarding censorship didn’t arouse any sympathy from me. Even if subjects are removed from the curriculum, there’s nothing to stop the teacher from sneaking it in. For instance, let’s say the state of Texas removes the Seneca Convention from the curriculum. A student could use that for a project, and the teacher can let her (or him) be “teacher for a day” and teach the class. Whatever you achieve in the classroom is all on the head of the teacher, not the curriculum.

Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City

The cover illustration for this comic makes Robert Moses look demonic, which given his reputation, doesn’t shock me. It chronicles his upper-class boyhood to his metamorphosis into the city’s biggest vampire, sucking the blood from neck of New York. The book tries to create a balanced image of Robert Moses, including his great contributions and his catastrophic destructive habits. In the end, his mega-callousness wins out. Try as you might, you can’t make this guy look good.

Despite making Robert Moses look like the domineering bulldozer that he was, the book is unbiased and even in its portrayal. He did care about the health of the city, which is why he pushed for the creation of the city’s beaches. It was better to have a decent beach, he thought, than to have kids jump off the docks and into the river. He also built swimming pools, which for the average working class New Yorker had previously been out of reach. That alone is wonderful. He built bridges to connect the boroughs, and went under-budget. That’s great. He emptied several decaying square blocks, on both the Upper West Side and the East 14’s, to build co-op complexes. That’s sort of good. He put in restrictive covenants to keep African Americans out. That’s not good. Then he plowed up whole neighborhoods to build a highway through the Bronx. I’m sorry, but that’s bad.

Olivier Balez, a French comics artist, creates artwork is brilliant, with realistic drawings and bright colors. When necessary, the artist uses slightly muted colors to evoke the mood of the era. Great artwork, great writing, I’ll call this a great book about a horrible guy. If you’re interested in learning more about Robert Moses, I would also recommend watching the Channel 13 documentary The World That Moses Built. It has interviews with the people who lived in the neighborhoods that he bulldozed for the Cross Bronx Expressway.

There is one thing missing from this book, and that is an explanation of the financing. Moses’ bridges, tunnels, pools, and beaches were often financed with bonds, and the profits financed his other efforts. An illustration of this process would’ve been welcome

Racial Formation in the United States

First published in 1986, and updated for the Obama age, this book discusses how the fight for racial equality led to women’s rights, gay rights, and other efforts for equality and acceptance. Michael Omi and Howard Winant craft a long and detailed book of racial history in the USA, with regard to ethnicity, economics, migration, and politics. Beginning with a chapter on ethnicity, they write how the US ideal of race was based on white skin as being superior, while others were beneath them. However, by the early 20^th century, the ideal had turned more to those of Anglo Saxon versus foreigner, as the country was now teaming with immigrants.

For example, Chicago in the early 20^th century experienced racism, as the Irish, Italian, and Jewish populations fought for their hold on the job market. On the other hand, Hawaii didn’t have a whites versus blacks mentality; there’s was a case of Anglo Hawaiians against the natives and Asians. In Europe, there wasn’t racism, but anti-Semitism. In WWI the USA had anti-German sentiments, and in WWII, it was against Japanese Americans. Now the target ethnicity is Arabs and Muslim Americans. Who knows what the next feared minority will be?

This book continues with treatises on religious based prejudice, scientific racism, and class conflict. Though not specifically mentioned in this book, there was once a conflict between the Puritans and Quakers in New England, but it ended after the English Civil War in the mid-1600’s. With the Puritans no longer the majority, their powers ebbed. A lot of it was economic too; the Puritans weren’t the only industrious people in Massachusetts, so they lost their economic dominance too.

In the last chapter, on neoliberalism and Obama, the authors discuss economics. It seems that the problem today involves class and economics more than color alone. For instance, Obama didn’t create the financial meltdown, but he didn’t do much for the people who suffered from it. He agreed to bail out the auto industry, but not the foreclosed homeowners, nor has he done much for the traumatized war veterans who can’t afford therapy. He did nothing about the Mormon polygamists who kidnap and traffic underage girls, nor any other issue involving sex trafficking. Will he do anything about ISIS recruiting Americans?

Racial Formation in the United States pulls no punches. The authors are clear that talking about race can backfire, and contrary to what Eric Holder says, we can’t have a dialogue on race. In the book’s discussion on 80’s and 90’s racial politics, reverse discrimination was a big deal at the time, and conservative politicians were using code words like “welfare” and “low income.” In the so-called “post racial era,” where liberals thought a black president would cure our troubles, this book is more important than ever. We need to look at race frankly and honestly, without worrying about whether or not it offends.

Confederate Odyssey: The George W. Wray Civil War Collection

George Wray was a collector of antiques known as Americana, which generally means anything old and made here in the USA. His specialty of Americana, however, was from the American Civil War. He collected uniforms, weapons, and documents, but the weapons comprise most of this book. One of the most sentimental pieces in his collection is a blood-stained coat, worn by a young soldier in the Southern army. Wray took pains not only to acquire it, but also to find out who the soldier was, so I guess you can call George Wray the original battlefield detective.

Wray was an employee of a silver company, and his work took him throughout the country, giving him time to go to military collector fairs. The network of antiques dealers on the Confederate memorabilia circuit would keep him posted of any new pieces they had. As for the purchases, he often knew more about them than the dealers. He would discover the particular weapon, go from one antiques fair to another until he found it, and then seek out the gunsmith’s story. During a 30 year hunt for the elusive Thomas Morse, he found that the gunsmith was a Copperhead; a Yankee who took the Confederate side. Morse’s life went from New Hampshire, to Richmond, and back to his hometown again. Not surprising, if you consider that Richmond was a “burned house” at the end of the war, while the Northern industries, especially the gun factories, were bigger than ever.

One of the main points of this book is that the South was unready when it came to industry. As we see with Wray’s discovery of Thomas Morse, it was Northern gunsmiths that took care of the weapons. The South was weak in terms of arms manufacturing, so they really had to improvise. For instance, one of the first (and wisest) things the Confederacy did was raid the arms factory at Harper’s Ferry, then move everything to Richmond. Still, it wasn’t enough, because the South lacked iron to make the guns, railroads to transport them, and food to feed the soldiers. They did however, have a greater number of marksmen, and their best rifles were all designed for sport. Still, it couldn’t win the war for the South. Rifled barrels were more accurate than smoothbores, but they took more effort to manufacture. Breach-loading weapons were easier to load than the old muzzle-loaders, but they were also harder to make. A breech-loading rifled musket would’ve been a great weapon, but even the North didn’t outfit the troops with those. For the South, great fighters were in great supply. Great weapons were not.

Thomas Morse guns were as good in quality as those today. In the Wray collection is a Morse rifle set in a wooden carrying case, containing the usual ammo and cleaning kit, but there’s another important feature; the interchangeable barrels. You could make this firearm into a long-range rifle, short barreled rifle, or shotgun, all in the change of a tube. But this was an expensive weapon, and supplying it to an entire regiment was more than the Confederate government could afford.

Years ago, I had an eighth grade student who’d done a project on the Civil War, and knew the names of all the generals, and how/why the armies won or lost. He shocked the more liberal teachers by writing that he’d rather fight for the Confederacy; as he saw it, the Confederates were fighting with honor. General Lee was a great leader, he said, while (in his opinion) Grant was an alcoholic and Sherman was a bully. Maybe so, after all we have to respect the opinion of the scholar, but it does seem as though the Southerners were willing to put up with hardship. When the war was over, their Yankee allies turned their backs on them and went home, like Thomas Morse. He could’ve taken advantage of cheap land and labor, and a job-generating gun factory would’ve been welcome in Richmond. Instead he went home, now that he had less to gain financially. Wray found that he’d moved right back to his hometown of Lancaster, and bragged that he made sure he didn’t shoot the guys he recognized. Whether anybody believed it, I don’t know. Did they suspect he actually spent the war feted in a Southern mansion, being waited on by slaves, while young boys got killed?

Perhaps this book is about Southern resilience. The guns, though old and used, are in great condition, as are the uniforms. These people took good care of their things, and they’re still intact after 150 years. Thanks to George W. Wray, these guns are all ready to view at the Atlanta History Center, and I’m definitely heading that way if I ever visit that city.

There is one minor thing I find missing here, and that is the documents. I would love to see the letters that the soldiers wrote, if there are any. Wray’s sleuthing in search of the gunsmiths should have unearthed some more documents about these guys. They would tell us one important detail; were the Southern troops optimistic until the end, or were they ware that they were losing the war?