David Durk, the New York police detective who teamed up with officer Frank Serpico to breach the aptly named ‘blue wall of silence’ died yesterday. His testimony before the Knapp Commission investigation into police corruption in 1971 made for some of the most moving public testimony ever broadcast.  Writing in The New York Times Book Review, WNYC Director Mary Perot Nichols said it was largely thanks to Durk’s persistence and contacts that their campaign against police corruption became a matter of public record. Above is an excerpt from his remarks on December 21, 1971.

David Durk, the New York police detective who teamed up with officer Frank Serpico to breach the aptly named ‘blue wall of silence’ died yesterday. His testimony before the Knapp Commission investigation into police corruption in 1971 made for some of the most riveting public testimony ever broadcast.  Writing in The New York Times Book Review, WNYC Director Mary Perot Nichols said it was largely thanks to Durk’s persistence and contacts that their campaign against police corruption became a matter of public record. Above is an excerpt from his remarks on December 21, 1971.

Today’s post is in honor of the booksellers on their way to Boston for the annual Antiquarian Book Fair (at the Hynes Convention Center, starting this Friday). The image features two Scottish booksellers, William Coke of Leith and John Guthrie of Edinburgh. Coke “was known to travel to Edinburgh three or four times in one day for the purpose of supplying the orders of his customers; and he would have performed the journey to obtain a sixpenny pamphlet.” That’s dedication to the trade and his customers.

On the right is John Guthrie, who is praised because “unlike modern open-air merchants, who pace the length of their stalls from morning till night, making idle time doubly tedious, he was constantly engaged in some useful employment–knitting stockings, working onion nets, or in some way or other having his hands busy…”

Hopefully the booksellers will be too busy this weekend to have any time to work on their onion nets.

You can read more about the two booksellers in John Kay’s A series of original portraits and caricature etchings, available online at Archive.org.

Ferdinand Marcos, the newly elected president of the Philippines, and his wife, Imelda, are welcomed to New York by Mayor John  Lindsay in a ceremony at City Hall. 

The mayor lauds Marcos as “a fighter for freedom” and notes that many of his countrymen reside in New York, where they add “strength, production, and luster” to the city. Then Marcos provides a brief historical sketch of the Philippines, noting that it was the first country to mount an anti-colonial revolution, and points out that English is the language of instruction, so that “everywhere you go, you will feel at home.” He thanks the schoolchildren who have serenaded him and calls New York “a city that has a heart.”

Although this recording is brief and features fairly “boilerplate” speeches from both Lindsay and Marcos, there are touching (if off-key) renditions of “Lupang Hinirang,” the Philippine national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Rodgers & Hart’s “Manhattan,” performed by the students of “a Jesuit high school,” as well as a halting introduction by an unnamed student pointing out the “close relationship” the Jesuit Fathers have had with the Philippine people.  

Marcos was born in 1917. As a child, he was known for possessing an extraordinary memory as well as a fascination with firearms. In 1933 it is generally believed he assassinated a political opponent of his father, a crime for which he was found guilty. Using his law school training, he was able to compose an appeal from his jail cell, eventually arguing and winning his case before the Philippine Supreme Court. (There is some evidence that a wealthy and powerful judge, rumored to be his true biological father, fixed the case.) During World War II, Marcos’s conduct was, at best, dubious. As the Gale Encyclopedia of Biography recounts:

Marcos emerged from World War II with the reputation of being the greatest Filipino resistance leader of the war and the most decorated soldier in the U.S. Armed forces. (Marcos served in the U.S. Army at the beginning and the end of the war as a “third lieutenant” on clerical duty; for a time in 1944 he was a U.S. prisoner of war under a death sentence.) The Army investigated these claims after the war and found them to be false and “criminal.” In fact, Marcos seems to have spent the war on both sides, and at various times, was in hospitals with fevers and stomach pains, possibly from the onset of lupus, the degenerative disease that ultimately ruined his health. In early 1943 in Manila, Marcos concocted a “secret” resistance organization called Ang Mga Maharlika (“Noble Studs”) which he claimed consisted of spies, saboteurs, and assassins, but in fact consisted of many forgers, pickpockets, gunmen, and racketeers, united by an interest in black market operations.

Nevertheless, after the war Marcos rose quickly. In 1965 he was elected president and in 1969 became the first president in the history of the Republic of the Philippines to be re-elected. His administration, while credited with making investments in infrastructure and the tourism industry, was widely viewed as corrupt. Claiming that insurgent campaigns threatened the country’s stability, Marcos declared martial law in 1972, effectively destroying the country’s democratic institutions. Opposition politicians, the Encyclopedia Britannica reports:

…were jailed, and the armed forces became an arm of the regime. Opposed by political leaders — notably Benigno Aquino Jr., who was jailed and held in detention for almost eight years — Marcos was also criticized by church leaders and others. In the provinces Maoist communists (New People’s Army) and Muslim separatists undertook guerrilla activities intended to bring down the central government. Under martial law the president assumed extraordinary powers, including the ability to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Marcos announced the end of martial law in January 1981 but continued to rule in an authoritarian fashion under various constitutional formats. He won election to the newly created post of president against token opposition in June 1981.

Marcos propped up his position by remaining a staunch ally of the United States during a time when Southeast Asia was a “hot spot.” His country received considerable financial aid and allowed the U.S. military to maintain its strategically important Clark Air Base on Luzon Island. But as the Philippines economy continued to weaken and the Vietnam War ended, his position grew untenable. The Columbia Encyclopedia describes how:

…his regime’s increasing isolation, fed by widespread corruption and the extravagance of his wife, Imelda, culminated with the assassination of Benigno Aquino (1983) on his return to the country. The opposition united behind Aquino’s widow, Corazon Aquino, who ran against Marcos in the 1986 election. Marcos was declared the winner but was widely suspected of electoral fraud. Protests drove Marcos into exile, and Aquino became president.

Marcos lived up to his reputation as a “kleptocrat” by having looted the Philippines treasury of an estimated $10 billion. In poor health, he spent the remaining years of his life in Hawaii.

Marcos died in 1989, at age 72.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

I was just browsing the seminar series’ run by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London and spotted a new series (well one I certainly hadn’t noticed before) – Gender and History in the Americas.  I thought the upcoming seminar Ladies, legislation and letters to Lester Pearson: policy and debates about married women’s right to work in Canada, 1945-1970 by Helen Glew (University of Westminster) sounded particularly interesting.

The National Union of Women Teachers campaigned vigorously on the issue of the marriage bar, calling for its removal for all women workers but campaigning particularly strongly for its removal for women teachers.  London County Council (LCC) rescinded the rule barring women teachers from working in 1935, with much of the credit for this decision going to NUWT and LCC member Agnes Dawson.  However this didn’t happen nationwide for women teachers until 1944 and even then the NUWT records record instances of dismissal of married women teachers into the late 1940s.  The NUWT collection does contain information on education and status of women in Canada but I couldn’t find anything particular to the marriage bar in Canada so I’ll be interested to here more about this at the seminar.

If you’re in London and would like to attend this seminar it is on Tuesday 3rd December at 5.30pm in Senate House. These seminars are free and open to all.  It says this seminar is at Stuart House, which is adjacent to Senate House – I found this map which shows the location.

If you’d like to know more on the NUWT campaign against the marriage bar you can find more by searching our catalogue for the term ‘marriage bar’

Tagged: discrimination, feminism, Institute of Historical Research, IOE, marriage, marriage bar, National Union of Women Teachers, NUWT, restrictive legislation, University of London, women teachers

In 1989, National Public Radio commissioned me to produce a Veterans Day documentary piece on General Smedley Butler, the consummate American soldier. Butler fought valiantly in every major U.S. military campaign from the Spanish American War through the China expeditionary force in the late 1920s including Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua and World War I. After retiring from the service he referred to himself as “a racketeer for capitalism.”  He was a Quaker who won the Congressional Medal of Honor not once, but twice. He battled bootleggers in Philadelphia, got into trouble for bad-mouthing Mussolini and foiled a plot to seize the White House. He is simultaneously the historical darling of both the left and the right.  Who was this guy?

I attempted to answer this question 23 years ago when I first produced the above documentary. I still marvel over Butler’s story; rich in action, idealism, intrigue and ‘all-Americanism.’ Indeed, I’ve always wondered who will play this complex character when his exploits are finally condensed into a treatment and brought to life on the silver screen.  Brad Pitt? Matt Damon?  Perhaps, Robert Downey? I think I’ll put my vote in for Sean Penn.

The inspiration for my research was the 1986 poster by Esther Parada. If you follow the link, you will see it is really quite simple, direct and powerful as it juxtaposes a quote from Butler writing critically about himself in Common Sense magazine in 1935 with General Douglas MacArthur singing Butler’s praises later on. In the middle stands an image of the man himself, a skinny little guy who was known by many as ‘the soldier’s general.’  So, on this day that marks the end of the ‘Great War,’ i.e., ‘the war to end all wars,’ let us pay tribute to a true American warrior who wanted nothing but peace by listening to this documentary and finding out who, indeed, Smedley Butler was.

Note: A version of the above documentary produced by Andy Lanset originally aired over WNYC as part of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered on Veterans Day, 1989 and again on Memorial Day, 1990 for the Soundprint documentary series. It have never aired as part of the series Hearing Voices.  It is streaming here courtesy of NPR.

A pamphlet for one of the many public talks given by General Smedley Butler in the 1930s (Andy Lanset Collection)

Photo from The New Masses magazine, 1935. (Andy Lanset Collection)

. . . the preparation . . .

29th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force training at Hastings Park, 1914. Stuart Thomson photo. Reference code AM1535-: CVA 99-155

Recruiting Station at Victory Square, 1941. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P265

. . . the fond partings . . .

Young Warren Bernard reaches out for one last goodbye to his dad, Jack Bernard, as the BC Regiment Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles, marches down 8th Street, New Westminster, October 1, 1940. C.D. Dettloff photo. Reference code AM54-S4-: LP 109

. . . and tragic last good-byes. . .

62nd Overseas Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, departing for service, March 1916. Stuart Thomson photo. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P67.2

. . . the service . . .

Canadian Women’s Army Corp in front of the Federal Building , between 1939 and 1945. Steffens-Colmer Ltd photo. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P220.1

. . . the sacrifice . . .

Members of the Returned Soldiers’ Club on the steps of the Elysium Hotel on Pender Street , ca. 1919. Stuart Thomson photo. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P40

. . . the loss . . .

Grave marker of Lieutenant Colonel William Hart-McHarg, (Poperinge, Belgium ), killed at the second battle of Ypres, 1915. His memorial tablet is at Christ Church Cathedral. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P216

. . . the jubilation . . .

Spontaneous rejoicing in the streets, looking down Granville from Georgia, on the original Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. Stuart Thomson photo. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P14.1

A member of the Canadian Women’s Army Corp celebrates the end of WWII, from atop a Court House (now Art Gallery) lion, August 14, 1945. Photo attributed to Pacific Command. Reference code AM54-S4-: Mil P220.3

Crowds in Vancouver celebrating VJ Day, August 14, 1945. James Crookall photo. Reference code AM640-: CVA 260-1463

Vancouver’s Chinese community celebrates VJ Day, Pender Street, August 14, 1945. James Crookall photo. Reference code AM640-: CVA 260-1508

. . . and the hope . . .

Two young boys distributing newspapers during VJ day celebrations in Vancouver, August 14, 1945. James Crookall photo. Reference code AM640-: CVA 260-1455

Chinese community parading on Cambie Street Grounds during VJ Day celebrations, August 14, 1945: “Let’s Have Lasting Peace”. James Crookall photo. Reference code AM640-: CVA 260-1484

Everything But Money is both the title of Sam Levenson’s autobiography and the theme in this 1966 appearance at a Books and Authors Luncheon. 

The youngest of 10 children raised in a slum, Levenson nevertheless paints a glowing portrait of family life. “This is the story of living without money and saying the thing which nobody really wants to say: that not all poor people are miserable.” His mother kept the “environment” at bay. Work was the way out, with education valued above all else. Even meals were sometimes skipped so money could be spent on books. 

In this classic recounting of the immigrant experience, the children were told to go from “undesirable to indispensable.” While the broad outline of this narration is in many ways timeless, the particulars root the story firmly in a particular historical period. “We were the Puerto Ricans of that time,” he proclaims. Another telling statement is when he describes the respect teachers were held in. “Teacher said; the world trembled.” Now, Levenson, a successful comedian, describes his middle-class life as the very opposite of all he was raised to believe in. He is supposed to make his children happy, instead of the other way around. While his parents fought against poverty, he fights against the “opulent environment” so his children won’t become shallow materialists. Finally, referring obliquely to the anti-Semitism he and his family encountered, he says he wrote the book as a way of standing up and describing the Jewish experience in America; to be proud, not ashamed. 

Levenson was born in 1911. As he describes in the above-cited talk, his upbringing was one of extreme poverty. After graduating from Brooklyn College he taught high school Spanish. Another career path awaited him, though, in what was then the thriving borscht belt community of upstate summer resorts. As the website Catskill Institute reports:

During the summers, the young pedagogue ventured up to the Catskills…where he discovered another vocation: “comedy tonight.”  Among the hotels that Levenson listed in his résumé were the Arrowhead, the Copake Country Club, Maud’s Summer Ray …Fallsview, Kutcher’s, the Flager, Paul’s, the Pines, Raleigh, Windsor, Tamarack, and Klein’s Hillside.

Samples of Levenson’s routines from those early days show it to be closer to “folk comedy” than classic stand-up, with a heavy reliance on parodying American show tunes and patriotic rituals in a fractured Yiddish-English. For several years Levenson both taught and performed, during which time his act became more polished and mainstream. Finally, he realized he was making more money as a part-time comic than a full-time teacher. In 1956 he hosted the TV game show “Two for the Money.” From 1959-64 he starred in “The Sam Levenson Show.” For the rest of his career he was a frequent guest on such variety shows as “Ed Sullivan” and “The Tonight Show.” He also published more books, including In One Era and Out the Other (1973) and You Can Say That Again, Sam! (1976). As the titles indicate, Levenson was known for his gentle, unthreatening humor, more a poking fun than a disquieting attack. At times his “jokes” seem to abandon humor entirely and strive for something closer to wisdom. His best known achievement in this area is “Time Tested Beauty Tips” which, bizarrely, is sometimes attributed to Audrey Hepburn, though there seems to be no dispute that Levenson wrote it:

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

Despite attaining a national stature, Levenson never “went Hollywood,” remaining a New York resident and maintaining his ties to the community he evoked so well. Here is a New York Times description of a Thanksgiving Day visit to the Jewish Institute for Geriatric Care:

Mr. Levenson waded through the crowd, hugging women who remembered him when he lived in Brooklyn, men who had heard him in the Bronx, pausing to be told by the center’s purchasing agent that she was in his Spanish class at Tilden High School.

Levenson died in 1980 at the age of 68.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

Last week, for Halloween, we posted pictures of some of the “scary” books in our collection. One of them was in the shape of a skull, but if you look closely, the letters “TOAST” create the eyes and nose. What does toast have to do with skulls? Is toast scary? Well, maybe if it’s burnt…

Toast Book was published in 1905, and is an illustrated compilation of drinking toasts. The skull connection comes from the poem “Lines inscribed upon a cup formed from a skull” by Lord Byron, which is included, in an abridged version,¹ at the beginning of the book (see first picture below). None of the 250 other toasts in the book are attributed to specific authors, although I definitely spotted at least one which is usually attributed to Robert Burns (see right-hand page in second picture below).

The compiler and illustrator was Clare Victor “Dwig” Dwiggins (1874-1959) who later became a popular syndicated cartoonist. In The World Encyclopedia of Comics, Bill Blackbeard calls him “the greatest of the American comic strip’s lost and forgotten talents.” In the 1910s, his Sunday feature strip School Days often included “elaborate devices cooked up by the kids to carry out various pranks, such as mechanisms of pulleys, wires, and wholly absurd connective parts such as dogs who have to lap up the contents of water buckets…In short, they were Rube Goldberg inventions before Rube Goldberg drew any inventions.”²

“Lines to a Skull Drinking Cup” facing title page

A Robert Burns toast on the right. (And note “DWIG” signature incorporated in the chick illustration)

The Publisher’s Weekly of Nov. 24, 1906 called Toast Book an “odd gift book,” and described a second book published around the same time: “The Rubaiyat of the Egg, also written and illustrated by Dwiggins, cut in the shape of an egg and printed on yolk yellow paper with scrambled-egg finish.” (p. 145) I’d love to see a copy of that one, since I don’t know what a “scrambled-egg finish” looks like…but I bet it goes well with toast.

¹An unabridged version can be found here.

²Blackbeard, Bill. “Dwiggins, Clare Victor.” The World Encyclopedia of Comics. Rev. ed. 1999.

Veterans Day has special meaning for us at the National Archives where we hold the almost 112 million individual personnel files and medical records of the men and women who have served in the military. Housed in St. Louis, Missouri and Valmeyer, Illinois, more than 800 staff process, protect, and service those records to ensure that veterans and their families can receive the benefits due to them, can document family histories, and can received replacement medals and awards. More than 5,000 requests are received each day and I am so proud of the dedication the staff brings to their work, often going the extra mile to ensure that our veterans get what they need.

Photograph of San Francisco Yeomen attached to the Naval Reserve, June 1918. National Archives Identifier: 533764

Another more than 10 million military service records and pension files from earlier wars—American Revolution through the Philippine-American War—are serviced in Washington, DC.

Each one of those records, as is the case with each record in our custody, tells a story. Two of thousands of stories:

A veteran’s family wrote hoping to confirm a story regarding a real “Great Escape” during World War II. Staff discovered that the veteran had been captured by the Germans in 1944 and sent to a labor camp in Poland. He escaped by tunneling under the wire fence,… [ Read all ]