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Founder of the Raising Capitalists Foundation and previous co-host of The Real Estate Guys Radio show, Russell Gray, joins Keith to discuss the historical and current devaluation of the U.S. dollar, its impact on investors, and the broader economic implications. Gray highlights how the significant increase in interest rates has trapped equity in properties and affected development. He explains the shift from gold-backed currency to paper money, the role of the Federal Reserve, and the impact of the Bretton Woods Agreement.  Gray emphasizes the importance of understanding macroeconomic trends and advocates for Main Street capitalism to decentralize power and promote productivity. He also criticizes the idea of housing as a human right, arguing it leads to inflation and shortages. Resources: Connect with Russell Gray to learn more about his "Raising Capitalists" project and his plans for a new show. Follow up with Russell Gray to get a copy of the Beardsley Rummel speech transcript from 1946. follow@russellgray.com Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/558 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”.  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai  Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, what's the real backstory on why we have this thing called the dollar? Why it keeps getting debased? What you can do about it and when the dollar will die? It's a lesson in monetary history. And our distinguished guest is a familiar voice that you haven't heard in a while. Today on get rich education.   Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with a better business bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   Russell Gray  1:54   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:10   Welcome to GRE from St John's Newfoundland to St Augustine, Florida and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith weinholden. You are inside get rich education. It's 2025. The real estate market is changing. We'll get into that in future. Weeks today. Over the past 100 years plus, we've gone from sound money to Monopoly money, and we're talking about America's currency collapse. What comes next and how it affects you as both an investor and a citizen.   I'd like to welcome in longtime friend of the show and someone that I've personally learned from over the years, because he's a brilliant teacher, real estate investors probably haven't heard his voice as much lately, because until last year, he had been the co host of the terrific real estate guys radio show for nearly 20 years. Before we're done today, you'll learn more about what he's doing now, as he runs the Main Street capitalist platform and is also founder of the raising capitalists foundation. Hey, it's been a few years. Welcome back to GRE Russell Gray.   Russell Gray  3:19   yeah, it's fun. I actually think it's been maybe 10 years when I think about it, I remember I was at a little resort in Mexico recording with you, I think in the gym. It was just audio back then, no video.    Keith Weinhold  3:24   Yeah, I remember we're trying to get the audio right. Then I think you've been here more recently than 10 years ago. But yeah, now there's this video component. I actually have to sit up straight and comb my hair. It's ridiculous. Well, Russ, you're also a buff of monetary history. And before we discuss that, talk about the state of the real estate market today, just briefly, from your vantage point.   Russell Gray 1  3:55    I think the big story, and I'm probably not telling anybody anything they don't know, but the interest rate hike cycle that we went through this last round was quite a bit more substantial, I think, than a lot of people really appreciated, you know. And I started talking about that many years ago, because when you hit the zero bound and you have 6,7,8, years of interest rates below half a point, the change when they started that interest rate cycle from point two, 525 basis points all the way up to five and a quarter? That's a 20x move. And people might say, well, oh, you know, I go back to what Paul Volcker did way back in the day, when he took interest rates from eight or nine to 18. That was only a little bit more than double. Double is a far cry from 20x so we've never seen anything like that. Part of the fallout of that, as you know, is a lot of people wisely, and I was on the front end of cheerleading This is go get those loans refinanced and lock in that cheap money for as long as possible, because a loan will actually become an asset. The problem is, when you do that, you're kind of married to that property. Now it's not quite as bad. As being upside down in a property and you can't get out of it, but it's really hard to walk away from a two or 3% loan in a Six 7% market, because you really can't take your same payment and end up getting more house. And so that equity is kind of a little bit trapped, and that creates some opportunities, but I think that's been the big story, and then kind of the byproduct of the story. Second tier of the story was the impact it had on development, because it made it a lot harder for developers to develop, because their cost of funds and everything in that supply chain, food chain, you marry that to the 2020, COVID Supply Chain lockdown and that disruption, which, you know, you don't shut an economy down and just flick a switch and have it come back on. And so there's all of that. And then the third thing is just this tremendous uncertainty everybody has, because we just went from one extreme to another. And I think people, you know, they don't want to, like, rock the boat, they're going to kind of stay status quo for a little bit, whether they're businesses, whether they're homeowners, whether they're anybody out there that's thinking about moving them, unless life forces you to do it, you're going to try to stay status quo until things calm down. And I don't know how close we are to things calming down.   Keith Weinhold  6:13   One word I use is normalized. Both the 30 year fixed rate mortgage and the Fed funds rate are pretty close to their long term historic average. It just doesn't feel that way, because it was that rate of increase in 2022 that caught a lot of people off guard, like you touched on Well, Russ, now that we've talked about the present day, let's go back in time, and then we'll slowly bring things up to the present day. The dollar is troubled. It's worth perhaps 3% of what it was 100 years ago, but it's still around since it was established in the Coinage Act of 1792 and it's still the world reserve currency. In fact, only three currencies have survived longer than the dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. So talk to us about this really relentless debasement of the dollar over time, including the creation of the Fed and the Bretton Woods Agreement and all that.   Russell Gray 7:09   That's a big story, as you know, and I always like to try to break it down a little bit. One of my specialties I'd like to believe, is I speak macro and I speak Main Street. And so when I try to break macroeconomics down, I start out with, why do I even care? I mean, if I'm a main street investor, why do I even care? In 2008 as you know, is a wipeout for me. Why? Because I didn't think anything had happened in the macro I didn't think Wall Street bond market. I didn't think that affected me. One thing I really cared about was interest rates. And I had a cursory interest in the bond market. We just try to figure out where interest rates were going. But for the most part, I thought, as a main street real estate investor, I was 100% insulated. I couldn't have been more wrong, because it really does matter, because the value of the dollar, in other words, the purchasing power of the dollar, and usually you refer to that as inflation, right? If inflation is there, the dollar is losing its purchasing power, and so the higher the inflation rate, the faster you're losing that purchasing power. And you might say, well, maybe that matters to me. Maybe it does. But the people who make the money available to the mortgage community, right to the real estate community to borrow that comes out of the bond market. And so when people go to buy a bond, which is an IOU, they're going to get paid back in the currency that they lent in, in this case, dollars. And if they know, if they're making a long term investment in a long term bond, and they're going to get paid back in dollars, they're going to be worth a whole lot less when they get them back. One of the things they're going to want is compensation for that time risk, and that's called higher interest rates. Okay, so now, if you're a main street investor, and higher interest rates impact you, now you understand why you want to pay attention. Okay, so let's just start with that. And so once you understand that the currency is a derivative of money, and money used to be you mentioned the Coinage Act Keith money, which is gold, used to be synonymous with the dollar. The dollar was only a unit of measure of gold, 1/20 of an ounce. It was a unit of measure. So it's like, the way I teach people is, like, if you had a gallon of milk and you traded, I'm a farmer, and I had a lot of milk, and so everybody decided they were going to use gallons of milk as their currency. Hey, where there's a lot of gallons of milk. He's got a big refrigerator. We'll just trade gallons of milk. Hey, Keith, I really like your beef. I you know, will you sell me some, a side of beef, and I'll give you, you know, 100 gallons of milk, you know, like, Oh, that's great. Well, I can't drink all this milk, so I'm going to leave the milk on deposit at the dairy, and then later on, when I decide I want a suit of clothes, I'll say, well, that's 10 gallons of milk. So I'll give the guy 10 gallons of milk. So I just give him a coupon, a claim, a piece of paper for that gallon of milk, or 20 gallons of milk, and he can go to the dairy and pick it up, right? And so that's kind of the way the monetary system evolved, except it wasn't milk, it was gold. So now you got the dollar. Well, after a while, nobody's going to get the milk. They don't care about the milk. And so now. Now, instead of just saying, I'll give you a gallon of milk, you just say, well, I'll give you a gallon. And somebody says, Okay, that's great. I'll take a gallon. They never opened the jug up. They never realized the jug is empty. They're just trading these empty jugs that used to have milk in them. Well, that's what the paper dollar is today. It went from being a gold certificate payable to bearer on demand, a certain amount of gold, a $20 gold certificate, what looks exactly like a $20 FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Today they look exactly the same, except one says FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, which is an IOU backed by nothing, and the other one said gold certificate, which was payable to bearer on demand, real money. So my point is, is he got money which is a derivative of the productivity, the beef, the soot, the milk, whatever, right? That's the real capital. The real capital is the goods and services we all want. Money is where we store the value of whatever it is we created until we want to trade it for something somebody else created later. And it used to be money and currency were one in the same, but now we've separated that. So now all we do is trade empty gallons, which are empty pieces of paper, and that's currency. So those are derivatives, and the last derivative of that chain is credit. And you had Richard Duncan on your show more than once, and he is famous for kind of having this term. We don't normally have capitalism. We have creditism, right? Everything is credit. Everything is claims on wealth, but it's not real wealth, and it's just when we look at what's going on with our current administration and the drive to become a productive rather than a financialized society, again, as part of this uncertainty that everybody has. Because this is not just a subtle little adjustment on the same course. This is like, No, we're we're going down a completely different path. But fundamentally, your system operates on this currency that is flowing through it, like the blood flowing through your body. And if the blood is bad, your body's sick. And right now, our currency is bad, and so it creates problems, not just for us, but all around the world. And now we're exacerbating that. And I'm not saying it's bad. In fact, I think it's actually it's actually good, but change is what it is, right? I mean, it can be really good to go to the gym and work out before we started recording, you talked about your commitment to fitness, and that if you stop working out, you get unfit, and it's hard to start up again. Well, we've allowed our economy to get very unfit. Now we're trying to get fit again, and it's going to be painful. We're going to be sore, but if we stick with it, I think we can actually kind of save this thing. So I don't know what that's going to mean for the dollar ultimately, or if we end up going to something else, but right now, to your point, the dollar is definitely the big dog still, but I think it's probably even more under attack today than it's ever been, and so it's just something I think every Main Street investor needs to pay attention to.    Keith Weinhold  12:46   And it was really that 1913 creation of the Fed, where the Fed's mandates really didn't begin to take effect until 1914 that accelerated this slide in the dollar. Prior to that, it was really just periods of war, like, for example, the Civil War, where we had inflation rise, but then after wars abated, the dollar's strength returned, but that ceased to happen last century.   Russell Gray  13:11   I think there's a much bigger story there. So when we founded the country, we established legal money in the Coinage Act of 1792 we got gold and silver and a specific unit of measure of gold, a specific unit, measure of silver was $1 and that's what money was constitutionally. Alexander Hamilton advocated for the first central bank and got it, but it was issued by Charter, which meant that it was operated by the permission of the Congress. It wasn't institutionalized. It wasn't embedded in the Constitution. It was just something that was granted, like a license. You have a charter to be able to run a bank. When that initial charter came up for renewal, Congress goes, now we're not going to renew it. Well, of course, that made the bankers really upset, because bankers have a pretty good gig, right? They get to just loan people money. They don't have to do any real work, and then they make money on just kind of arbitraging, you know, other people's money. Savers put their money in, and they borrowed the money out, and then they with fractional reserve, they're able to magnify that. So it's, it's kind of a cool gig. And so what happened? Then he had the first central bank, so then they got the second central bank, and the second central bank was also issued by charter this time when it came up for renewal, Congress goes, Yeah, let's renew it, right? Because the bankers knew we got to go buy a few congressmen if we want to keep this thing going. But President Andrew Jackson said, No, not going to happen. And it was a big battle. Is a famous quote of him just calling these bankers a brood of vipers. And I'm going to put you down. And God help me, I will, right? I mean, it was like intense fact, I do believe he got shot at one point. I think he died from lead poisoning, because he never got the bullet out. So, you know, when you go to up against the bankers, it's not pretty, but he succeeded. He was the last president that paid off all the debt, balanced budget, paid off all the debt, and we got kind of back on sound money. Well, then a little while later, said, Okay, we're going to need, like, something major, and this would. I should put on. I got my, this is my hat, right now, I'll kind of put it on. This is my, my tin foil hat. Okay? And so I put this on when I kind of go down the rabbit trail a little bit. No, I'm not saying this is what happened, but it wouldn't surprise me, right? Because I know that war is profitable, and so sometimes, you know, your comment was, hey, there's the bank, and then there was, you know, the war, or there's the war, then there's a bank, which comes first the chicken or the egg. I think there's an article where Henry Ford and Thomas Edison went to Congress. I think it was December. The article was published New York Tribune, December 4. I think 1921 you can look it up, New York Tribune, front page article   Keith Weinhold  15:38   fo those of you in the audio only. Russ started donning a tin foil looking hat here about one minute ago.    Russell Gray  15:45   I did, yeah, so I put it on. Just so fair warning. You know, I may go a little conspiratorial, but the reason I do that is I just, I think we've seen enough, just in current, modern history and politics, in the age of AI and software and freedom of speech and new media, there's a lot of weird stuff going on out there, but a lot of stuff that we thought was really weird a little while ago has turned out to be more true than we thought. When you look back in history, and you kind of read the official narrative and you wonder, you kind of read between the lines. You go, oh, maybe some stuff went on here. So anyway, the allegation that Ford made, smart guy, Thomas Edison, smart guy. And they go to Congress, and they go, Hey, we need to get the gold out of the banker's hands, because gold is money, and we need money not to revolve around gold, because the bankers control gold. They control the money, and they make profits, his words, not mine, by starting wars, because he was very upset about World War One, which happened. We got involved right after Fed gets formed in 1913 World War One starts in 1914 the United States sits off in the background and sells everybody, everything. It collects a bunch of gold, and then enters at the end and ends it all. And that big influx created the roaring 20s, as we all know, which ended big boom to big bust. And that cycle, which then a crisis that created, potentially a argument for why the government should have more control, right? So you kind of go down this path. So we ended up in 1865 with President Lincoln suppressing states rights and eventually creating an unconstitutional income tax and then creating an unconstitutional currency. That's what Abraham Lincoln did. And then on the back end of that, you know, it didn't end well for him, and I don't know why, but all I know is that we had a financial crisis in 1907 and the solution to that was the Aldrich plan, which was basically a monopoly on money. It's called a money trust. And Charles Lindbergh, SR was railing against it, as were many people at the time, going, No, this is terrible. So they renamed the Aldrich plan the Federal Reserve Act. And instead of going for a bank charter, they went for a constitutional amendment, and they got it in the 16th Amendment, and that's where we got the IRS. That's where we got the income tax, which was only supposed to be 7% only affect like the top one or 2% of earners, right? And that's where we got, you know, the Federal Reserve. That's where all that was born. Since that happened, to your point, the dollar has been on with a slight little rise up in the 20s, which, you know, there's a whole thing about whether that caused the crash or not. But at the end of the day, if you go look at St Louis Fed, which you go look at all the time, and you just look at the long term trend of the dollar, it's terrible. And the barometer, that's gold, right? $20 of gold in 1913 and 1933 and then 42 in 1971 or two, whatever it was, three, and then eventually as high as 850 but at the turn of the century, this century, it was $250 so at $2,500 it would have lost 90% in the 21st Century. The dollars lost 90% in the 21st Century, just to 2500 that's profound to go. That's right, it already lost more than 90% from $20 to 250 so it lost 90% and then 90% of the 10% that was left. And that's where we're at. We're worse than that. Today, no currency, as far as I understand, I've been told this. Haven't done the homework, but it's my understanding, no currency in the history of the world has ever survived that kind of debasement. So I think a lot of people who are watching are like, okay, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And then the big question is, is when that when comes? What does the transition look like? What rises in its place? And then you look at things like a central bank digital currency, which is not like Bitcoin, it's not a crypto, it's a centrally controlled currency run by the central bank. If we get that, I would argue that's not good for privacy and security. Could be Bitcoin would be better. I would argue, could go back to gold backing, which I would say is better than what we have, or we could get something nobody's even thought of. I don't know. We don't know, but I do think we're at the end of the life cycle. Historically, all things being equal. And I think all the indication with a big run up of gold, gold is screaming something's broken. It's just screaming it right now, not just because the price is up, but who's buying it. It's just central banks.   Keith Weinhold  20:12   Central banks are doing most of the buying, right? It's not individual investors going to a coin shop. So that's really screaming, telling you that people are concerned. People are losing their faith in giving loans to the United States for sure. And Russ, as we talk about gold, and it's important link to the dollar over time, you mentioned how they wanted it, to get it out of the bank's hands for a while. Of course, there was also a period of time where it was illegal for Americans to own gold. And then we had this Bretton Woods Agreement, which was really important as well, where we ended up violating promises that had to do with gold again. So can you speak to us some more about that? Because a lot of people just don't understand what happened at Bretton Woods.   Russell Gray  20:56   What happened is we had the big crash in 1929 and the net result of that was, in 1933 we got executive order 6102 In fact, I have a picture of it framed, and that was in the wake of that in 1933 and so what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in signing that document, which was empowered by a previous act of Congress, basically let him confiscate all The money. It'd be like right now if, right now, you know, President Trump signed an executive order and said, You have to take all your cash, every all the cash that you have out of your wallet. You have to send it all, take it into the bank, and they're going to give you a Chuck E Cheese token, right? And if you don't do it, if you do it, it's a $500,000 fine in 10 years in prison. Right? Back then it was a $10,000 fine, which was twice the price of the average Home huge fine, plus jail time. That's how severe it was, okay? So they confiscated all the money. That happened in 33 okay? Now we go off to war, and we enter the war late again. And so we have the big manufacturing operation. We're selling munitions and all kinds of supplies to everybody, all over the world, right? And we're just raking the gold and 20,000 tons of gold. We got all the gold. We got the biggest army now, we got the biggest bomb, we got the biggest economy. We got the strongest balance sheet. Well, I mean, you know, we went into debt for the war, but, I mean, we had a lot of gold. So now everybody else is decimated. We're the big dog. Everybody knows we're the big dog. Nine states shows up in New Hampshire Bretton Woods, and they have this big meeting with the world, and they say, Hey guys, new sheriff in town. Britain used to be the world's reserve currency, but today we're going to be the world's reserve currency. And so this was the new setup. But it's okay. It's okay because our dollar is as good as gold. It's backed by gold, and so anytime you want foreign nations, you can just bring your dollars to us and we'll give you the gold, no problem. And everyone's like, okay, great. What are you going to say? Right? You got the big bomb, you got the big army. Everybody needs you for everything to live like you're not going to say no. So they said, Yes, of course, the United States immediately. I've got a speech that a guy named Beardsley Rummel did. Have you ever heard me talk about this before? Keith, No, I've never heard about this. So Beardsley Rummel was the New York Fed chair when all this was happening. And so he gave a speech to the American Bar Association in 1945 and I got a transcript of it, a PDF transcript of it from 1946 and basically he goes, Look, income taxes are obsolete. We don't need income tax anymore because we can print money, because we're off the gold standard and we have no accountability. We just admitted it, just totally admitted it, and said the only reason we have income tax is to manipulate behavior, is to redistribute wealth, is to force people to do what we want them to do, punish things and reward others, right? Just set it plain language. I have a transcript of the speech. You can get a copy of you send an email to Rummel R U, M, L@mainstreetcapitalist.com I'll get it to you. So it's really, really interesting. So he admitted it. So we went along in the 40s and the 50s, and, you know, we had the only big manufacturing you know, because everybody else is still recovering from the war. Everything been bombed to smithereens, and we're spending money and doing all kinds of stuff. And having the 50s, it was great, right, right up until the mid 60s. So the mid 60s, it's like, Okay, we got a problem. And Charles de Gaulle, who was the president of France at the time, went to a meeting. And there's a YouTube video, but you can see it, he basically told the world, hey, I don't think the United States is doing a good job managing this world's reserve currency. I don't think they've got the gold. I think they printed too much money. I think that we should start to go redeem our dollars and get the gold. That was pretty forward thinking. And he created a run on the bank. And at the same time, we passed the Coinage Act in 1965 and took all the silver out of the people's money. So we took the gold in 33 and then we took the silver in 65 right? Because we got Vietnam and the Great Society, welfare, all these things were going on in the 60s. We're just going broke. Meanwhile, our gold supply went from 20,000 tons down to eight and Richard. Nixon is like, whoa, time out. Like, this is bad. And so we had inflation in 1970 August 15, 1971 year before August 15, 1971 1970 Nixon writes an executive order and freezes all prices and all wages. It became illegal by presidential edict for a private business to give their employee a raise or to raise their prices to the customers.    Keith Weinhold  25:30   It's almost if that could happen price in theUnited States of America, right?    Russell Gray  25:36   And inflation was 4.4% and it was a national emergency like today. I mean, you know, a few years ago, like three or four years ago, we if we could get it down 4.4% it'd be Holly. I'd be like a celebration. That was bad. And so that's what happened. So a year later, that didn't work. It was a 90 day thing. It was a disaster. And so in a year later, August 15, 1971 Nixon came on live TV after Gunsmoke. I think it was, and I was old enough I'm watching TV on a Sunday night I watched it. Wow. So I live, that's how old I am. So it's a lot of this history, not the Bretton Woods stuff, but from like 1960 2,3,4, forward. I remember I was there.    Keith Weinhold  26:13   Yeah, that you remember the whole Nixon address on television. We should say it for the listener that doesn't know. Basically the announcement Nixon made, he said, was a temporary measure, is that foreign nations can no longer redeem their dollars for gold. He broke the promise that was made at Bretton Woods in about 1945   Russell Gray  26:32   Yeah. And then gold went from $42 up to 850 and a whole series of events that have led to where we're at today were put in place to cover up the fact that the dollar was failing. We had climate emergency. We were headed towards the next global Ice Age. We had an existential threat in two different diseases that hit one right after the other. First one was the h1 n1 flu, swine flu, and then the next thing was AIDS. And so we had existential pandemic, two of them. We also had a oil shortage crisis. We were going to run out of fossil fuel by the year 2000 we had to do all kinds of very public, visible, visceral things that we would all see. You could only buy gas odd even days, like, if your license plate ended in an odd number, you could go on these days, and if it ended on an even number, you could go on the other days. And so we had that. We lowered our national speed limit down to 55 miles an hour. We created the EPA and all these different agencies under Jimmy Carter to try to regulate and manage all of this crisis. Prior to that, Nixon sent Kissinger over to China, and we opened up trade relations. And we'd been in Vietnam to protect the world from communism because it was so horrible. And then in the wake of that, we go over to Communist China, Chairman Mao and open up trade relations. Why we needed access to their cheap labor to suck up all the inflation. And we went over to the Saudis, and we cut the petro dollar deal. Why? Because we needed the float. We needed some place for all these excess dollars that we had created to get sucked up. And so they got sucked up in trading the largest commodity in the world, energy. And the deal was, hey, Saudis, here's the deal. You like your kingdom? Well, we got the big bomb. We got the big army. You're going to rule the roost in the in the Middle East, and we'll protect you. All you got to do is make sure you sell all your oil in dollars and dollars only. And they're like, Well, what if we're selling oil to China, or what if we're selling oil to Japan? Can they pay in yen? Nope, they got to sell yen. Buy dollars. Well, what do we do with all these dollars? Buy our treasuries. Okay, so what if I got this? Yeah, and so that was the petrodollar system. And the world looked at everything went on, and the world is like, Hmm, the United States coming back to Europe, and Charles de Gaulle, they're like, the United States is not handling this whole dollar thing real well. We need an alternative. What if all of us independent nations in Europe got together and created a common currency? We don't want to be like one country, like the United States, but we want to be like an economic union. So let's create a current let's call it the euro. And they started that process in the 70s, but they didn't get it done till 99 and so they get it done in 99 as soon as they get it done, this guy named Saddam Hussein goes, Hey, I'm now the big dog here. I got the fourth largest army in the world. I'm here in, you know, big oil producing nation. Let's trade in the euro. Let's get off the dollar. Let's do oil in the euro. And he's gone. I'm not sure I should put my hat back on. I'm not sure, but somehow we went into Afghanistan and took a hard left and took this guy out.   Keith Weinhold  29:44   Some credence to this. Yes, yeah, so. But with that said,   Russell Gray  29:47   you know, we ended up with the Euro taking about 20% of the global trade market from the United States, which is about where it sits today. And the United States used to be up over 80% and now we're down below 60% still. The Big Dog by triple and the euro is not in a position to supplant the US, but I think China, whose claim to fame is looking at other people's technology and models and copying it, looked at what the United States did to become the dominant economic force, and I think they've systematically been copying it. I wrote a report on this way back in 2013 when I started really paying attention to it and began to chronicle all the things that they were doing, this big D dollarization movement that I think still has legs. It's the BRICS movement. It's all the central banks buying gold. It's the bilateral trade agreements where people are doing business outside the dollar. There's been not just that, but also putting together the infrastructure, right? The Asian Infrastructure Bank is an alternative to the IMF looking, if you have you read Confessions of an economic hitman. No. Okay, so this is a guy that used to work in the government, I think, CIA or something, and he would go down and he'd cut deals with leaders of countries to get them to borrow from the United States to put in key infrastructure so they could trade with the US. And then, of course, if they defaulted, then the US owned that in the infrastructure. You can look it up. His name is Perkins, right. Look it up confessions of economic hit now, but you see China doing the same thing. China's got their Belt and Road Initiative. And you go through, and if you want to trade with China on that route, you have traded, you're gonna have to have infrastructure. You can eat ports. You're gonna need terminals for distribution. But you, Oh, you don't have the money. We'll loan it to you, and we'll loan it to you and you want. Now we're creating demand for you want, and we also are enslaving borrower servant to the lender. We're beginning to enslave these other nations under the guise of helping them by financing their growth so they can do business with us. It's the same thing the United States did and Shanghai Gold Exchange, as opposed to the London Bullion exchange. So all of the key pieces of infrastructure that were put in place to facilitate Western hegemony in the financial markets the Chinese have been systematically putting in place with bricks, and so there's a reason we're in this big trade war right now. We recognize that they had started to get in a position where they were actually a real threat, and we got to cut their legs out from underneath them before they get any stronger. Again, I should put my hat back on. Nobody's calling me up and telling me, I'm just reading between the lines. Sure,   Keith Weinhold  32:23   there certainly are more competitors to the dollar now. And can you imagine what rate of inflation that we would have had if we had not outsourced our labor and productivity over to a low wage place like China in the east? Russ and I have been talking about the long term debasement of the dollar and why. More on that when we come back, including what Russ is up to today. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Russell Gray. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time, in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family, 266, 866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family, 266, 866,   Garrett Sutton  34:36   hi. This is Rich Dad advisor, Garrett Sutton. You're listening to the always valuable. Get rich education with Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.    Keith Weinhold  34:52   Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with the main street capitalists Russell gray about this long term debasement of the dollar. It's an. Inevitable. It's one of the things we actually can forecast with pretty good predictability that the dollar will continue to debase. It's one of the few almost guarantees that we have in investing. So we can think about how we want to play that Russ one thing I wonder about is, did we have to completely de peg the dollar from gold? Couldn't we have just diluted it where we could instead say, Well, hey, now, instead of just completely depegging the dollar from gold, we could say, well, now it takes 10 times as many dollars as it used to to redeem it for an ounce of gold. Did it make it more powerful that we just completely de pegged it 100%   Russell Gray  35:36   it would disempower the monopoly. Right? In other words, I think that the thing from the very beginning, was scripted to disconnect from the accountability of gold, which is what sound money advocates want. They want some form of independent Accountability. Gold is like an audit to a financial system. If you're the bankers and you're running the program, the last thing in the world you want is a gold standard, because it limits your ability to print money out of thin air and profit from that. So I don't think the people who are behind all of this are, in no way, shape or form, interested in doing anything that's going to limit their power or hold them accountable. They want just the opposite. I think if they could wave a magic wand and pick their solution to the problem, it would be central bank digital currency, which would give them ultimate control. Yeah. And it wouldn't surprise me if we maybe, perhaps, were on a path where some crises were going to converge, whether it's opportunistic, meaning that the crisis happened on its own, and quote Rahm Emanuel and whoever he was quoting, you know, never let a good crisis go to waste, and you're just opportunistic, or, you know, put the conspiracy theory hat on, and maybe these crises get created in order to facilitate the power grab. I don't know. It really doesn't matter what the motives are or how it happens at the end of the day, it's what happens. It happened in 33 it happened in 60. In 71 it's what happens. And so it's been a systematic de pegging of any form of accountability. I mean, we used to have a budget ceiling. We used to talk about now it's just like, it's routine. You blow right through it, right, right. There's you balance. I mean, when's the last time you even had a budget? Less, less, you know, much less anything that looked like a valid balanced budget amendment. So I think there's just no accountability other than the voting booth. And, you know, I think maybe you could make the argument that whether you like Trump or not, the public's apparent embrace of him, show you that the main street and have a lot of faith in Main Street. I think Main Street is like, you know what? This is broken. I don't know what's how to fix it, but somebody just needs to go in and just tear this thing down and figure out a new plant. Because I think if you anybody paying attention, knows that this perpetual debasement, which is kind of the theme of the show is it creates haves and have nots. Guys like you who understand how to use real estate to short the dollar, especially when you marry it to gold, which is one of my favorite strategies to double short the dollar, can really magnify the power of inflation to pull more wealth onto your balance sheet. Problem is the people who aren't on that side of the coin are on the other side of the coin, and so the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Well, the first order of business in a system we can't control is help as many people be on the rich get richer. That's why we had the get rich show, right? Let's help other people get rich. Because if I'm the only rich guy in the room, all the guns are pointed at me, right? I wanted everybody as rich as possible. I think Trump and Kiyosaki wrote about that in their book. Why we want you to be rich, right? When everybody's prospering, it's it's better, it's safer, you have people to trade with and whatnot, but we have eviscerated the middle class because industry has had to go access cheap labor markets in order to compensate for this inflation. And you know, you talk about the Fed mandate, which is 2% inflation, price inflation, 2% so if you say something that costs $1 today, a year from now, is going to cost $1 too, you think, well, maybe that's not that bad. But here's the problem, the natural progression of Business and Technology is to lower the cost, right? So you have something cost $1 today, and because somebody's using AI and internet and automation and robots and all this technology, right? And the cost, they could really sell it for 80 cents. And so the Fed looks at and goes, Let's inflate to $1.02 that's not two cents of inflation. That's 22 cents of inflation. And so there's hidden inflation. The benefits of the gains in productivity don't show up in the CPI, but it's like deferred maintenance on an apartment building. You can make your cash flow look great if you're not setting anything aside for the inevitable day when that roof is going to go out and that parking lot is going to need to be repaved, right? And you don't know how far out you are until you get there and you're like, wow, I'm really short, and I think that we have been experiencing for decades. The theft of the benefit of our productivity gains, and we're not just a little bit out of position. We're way out of position. That's   Keith Weinhold  40:07   a great point. Like I had said earlier, imagine what the rate of inflation would be if we hadn't outsourced so much of our labor and productivity to low cost China. And then imagine what the rate of inflation would be as well, if you would factor in all of this increased productivity and efficiency, the natural tendencies of which are to make prices go lower as society gets more productive, but instead they've gone higher. So when you adjust for some of these factors, you just can't imagine what the true debased purchasing power of the dollar is. It's been happening for a long time. It's inevitable that it's going to continue to happen in the future. So this has been a great chat about the history and us understanding what the powers that be have done to debase our dollar. It's only at what rate we don't know. Russ, tell us more about what you're doing today. You're really out there more as a champion for Main Street in capitalism.   Russell Gray  41:04   I mean, 20 years with Robert and the real estate guys, and it was fantastic. I loved it. I went through a lot, obviously, in 2008 and that changed me a little bit. Took me from kind of being a blocking and tackling, here's how you do real estate, and to really understanding macro and going, you know, it doesn't matter. You can do like I did, and you build this big collection. Big collection of properties and you lose it all in a moment because you don't understand macro. So I said, Okay, I want to champion that cause. And so we did that. And then we saw in the 2012 JOBS Act, the opportunity for capital raisers to go mainstream and advertise for credit investors. And I wrote a report then called the new law breaks Wall Street monopoly. And I felt like that was going to be a huge opportunity, and we pioneered that. But then after my late wife died, and I had a chance to spend some time alone during COVID, and I thought, life is short. What do I really want to accomplish before I go? And then I began looking at what was going on in the world. I see now a couple of things that are both opportunities and challenges or causes to be championed. And one is the mega trend that I believe the world is going you know, some people call it a fourth turning whatever. I don't consider that kind of we have to fall off a cliff as Destiny type of thing to be like cast in stone. But what I do see is that people are sick and tired of monopolies. We're sick and tired of big tech, we're sick and tired of big media, we're sick and tired of big government. We're sick and tired of big corporations, we don't want it, and big banks, right? So you got the rise of Bitcoin, you got people trying to get out from underneath the Western hegemony, as we've been talking about decentralization of everything. Our country was founded on the concept of decentralization, and so people don't understand that, right? It used to be everything was centralized. All powers in the king. Real Estate meant royal property. That's what real estate it's not like real asset, like tangible it's royal estate. It's royal property. Everything belonged to the king, and you just got to work it like a serf. And then you got to keep 75% in your produce, and you sent 25% you sent 25% through all the landlords, the land barons, and all the people in the hierarchy that fed on running things for the king, but you didn't own anything. Our founder set that on, turn that upside down, and said, No, no, no, no, no, it's not the king that's sovereign. It's the individual. The individual is sovereign. It isn't the monarchy, it's the individual states. And so we're going to bring the government, small. The central government small has only got a couple of obligations, like protect the borders, facilitate interstate commerce, and let's just have one common currency so that we can do business together. Other than that, like, the state's just going to run the show. Of course, Lincoln kind of blew that up, and it's gotten a lot worse after FDR, so I feel like we're under this big decentralization movement, and I think Main Street capitalism is the manifestation of that. If you want to decentralize capitalism, the gig economy, if you want to be a guy like you, and you can run your whole business off your laptop with a microphone and a camera, you know, in today's day and age with technology, people have tasted the freedom of decentralization. So I think the rise of the entrepreneur, I think the ability to go build a real asset portfolio and get out of the casinos of Wall Street. I think right now, if we are successful in bringing back these huge amounts of investment, Trump's already announced like two and a half or $3 trillion of investment, people are complaining, oh, the world is selling us. Well, they're selling stocks and they're selling but they're putting the money actually into creating businesses here in the United States that's going to create that primary driver, as you well know, in real estate, that's going to create the secondary and tertiary businesses, and the properties they're going to use all kinds of Main Street opportunity are going to grow around that. I lived in Silicon Valley, when a company would get funded, it wasn't just a company that prospered, it was everything around that company, right? All these companies. I remember when Apple started. I remember when Hewlett Packard, it was big, but it got a lot bigger, right there. I watched all that happen in Silicon Valley. I think that's going to happen again. I think we're at the front end of that. And so that's super exciting. Wave. The second thing that is super important is this raising capitalist project. And the reason I'm doing it is because if we don't train our next generation in the principles of capitalism and the freedom that it how it decentralizes Their personal economy, and they get excited about Bitcoin, but that's not productive. I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying it's not productive. You have to be productive. You want to have a decentralized currency. Yes, you want to decentralize productivity. That's Main Street capitalism. If kids who never get a chance to be in the productive economy get to vote at 1819, 2021, 22 before they've ever earned a paycheck, before they have any idea, never run a business. Somebody tells them, hey, those guys that have all that money and property, they cheated. It's not fair. We need to take from them. We need to limit them, not thinking, Oh, well, if I do that, when I get to be there, that what I'm voting for is going to get on me. Right now, Keith, there are kids in ninth grade who are going to vote for your next president, right?   Keith Weinhold  45:56   And they think capitalism is evil. This is part of what you're doing with the raising capitalists project, helping younger people think differently. Russ, I have one last thing to ask you. This has to do with the capitalism that you're championing on your platforms now. And real estate, I continue to see sometimes I get comments on my YouTube channel, especially maybe it's more and more people increasingly saying, Hey, I think housing should be a human right. So talk to us about that. And maybe it's interesting, Russ, if I take the other side of it and play devil's advocate, people who think housing is a human right, they say something like, the idea is that housing, you know, it's a fundamental need, just like food and clean water and health care are without stable housing. It's incredibly hard for a person to access opportunities like work and education or health care or participate meaningfully in society at all. So government ought to provide housing for everybody. What are your thoughts there?   Russell Gray  46:54   Well, it's inherently inflationary, which is the root cause of the entire problem. So anytime you create consumption without production, you're going to have more consumers than producers, and so you're going to have more competition for those goods. The net, net truth of what happens in that scenario are shortages everywhere. Every civilization that's ever tried any form of system where people just get things for free because they need them, end up with shortages in poverty. It doesn't lift everybody. It ruins everything. I mean, that's not conjecture. That's history, and so that's just the way it works. And if you just were to land somebody on a desert island and you had an economy of one, they're going to learn really quick the basic principles of capitalism, which is production always precedes consumption, always 100% of the time, right? If you're there on that desert island and you don't hunt fish or gather, you don't eat, right? You don't get it because, oh, it's a human right to have food. Nope, it's a human right to have the right to go get food. Otherwise, you're incarcerated, you have to have the freedom of movement to go do something to provide for yourself, but you cannot allow people to consume without production. So everybody has to produce. And you know, if you go back to the Plymouth Rock experiment, if you're familiar with that at all, yeah, yeah. So you know, just for anybody who doesn't know, when the Pilgrims came over here in the 1600s William Bradford was governor, and they tried it. They said, Hey, we're here. Let's Stick Together All for one and one for all. Here's the land. Everybody get up every day and work. Everybody works, and everybody eats. They starved. And so he goes, Okay, guys, new plan. All right, you wine holds. See this little plot of land, that's yours. You work it. You can eat whatever you produce. Over there, you grace. You're going to do yours and Johnson's, you're going to do yours, right? Well, what happened is now everybody got up and worked, and they created more than enough for their own family, and they had an abundance. And the abundance was created out of their hunger. When they went to serve their own needs, they created abundance forever others. That's the premise of capitalism. It's not the perfect system. There is no perfect system. We live in a world where human beings have to work before they get to eat. When I say eat, it could be having a roof over their head. It could be having clothes. It could be going on vacation. It could be having a nice car. It could be getting health care. It doesn't matter what it is, whatever it is you need. You have the right, or should have, the right, in a free system to go earn that by being productive, but the minute somebody comes and says, Oh, you worked, and I'm going to take what you produced and give it to somebody else who didn't, that's patently unfair, but economically, it's disastrous, because it incentivizes people not to work, which creates less production, more consumption. I have another analogy with sandwich makers, but you can imagine that if you got a group if you got a group of people making sandwiches, one guy starts creating coupons for sandwiches. Well then if somebody says, Okay, well now we got 19 people providing for 20. That's okay, but then all the guys making sandwiches. Why making sandwiches? I'm gonna get the coupon business pretty soon. You got 18 guys doing coupons, only two making sandwiches. Not. Have sandwiches to go around all the sandwiches cost tons of coupons because we got way more financialization than productivity, right? That's the American economy. We have to fix that. We can't have people making money by just trading on other people's productivity. We have to have people actually being productive. This is what I believe the administration is trying to do, rebuild the middle class, rebuild that manufacturing base, make us a truly productive economy, and then you don't have to worry about these things, right? We're going to create abundance. And if you don't have the inflation is which is coming from printing money out of thin air and giving to people who don't produce, then housing, all sudden, becomes affordable. It's not a problem. Health care becomes affordable. Everything becomes affordable because you create abundance, because everybody's producing the system is fundamentally broken. Now we have to learn how to profit in it in its current state, which is what you teach people how to do. We also have to realize that it's not sustainable. We're on an unsustainable path, and we're probably nearing that event horizon, the path of no return, where the system is going to break. And the question is, is, how are you going to be prepared for it when it happens? Number two, are you going to be wise enough to advocate when you get a chance to cast a vote or make your voice heard for something that's actually going to create prosperity and freedom versus something that's going to create scarcity and oppression? And that's the fundamental thing that we have to master as a society. We got to get to our youth, because they're the biggest demographic that can blow the thing up, and they're the ones that have been being indoctrinated the worst.   Keith Weinhold  51:29   Yes, Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself said that we live in a economic system today that is unsustainable. Yes, the collectivism we touched on quickly descends into the tyranny of the majority. And in my experience, historically, the success of public housing projects has been or to mixed at best, residents often don't respect the property when they don't have an equity stake in it or even a security deposit tied up in it, and blight and high crime rates have often followed with these public housing projects. When you go down that path of making housing as a human right, like you said earlier, you have a right to go procure housing for yourself, just not to ask others to pay for it for you. Well, Russ, this has been great. It's good to have your voice back on the show. Here again, here on a real estate show. If people want to connect with you, continue to see what you've been up to and the good projects that you're working on, promoting the virtues of capitalism. What's the best way for them to do that?   Russell Gray  52:31   I think just send an email to follow at Russell Gray, R, U, S, S, E, L, L, G, R, A, y.com, let you know where I am on social media. I'll let you know when I put out new content. I'll let you know when I'm a guest on somebody somebody's show and I'm on the cusp of getting my own show finally launched. I've been doing a lot of planning to get that out, but I'm excited about it because I do think, like I said, The time is now, and I think the marketplace is ripe, and I do speak Main Street and macro, and I hope I can add a nuance to the conversation that will add value to people.   Keith Weinhold  53:00   Russ, it's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show. Thanks, Keith.   Yeah, terrific, historic outline from Russ about the long term decline of the dollar. It's really a fresh reminder and motivator to keep being that savvy borrower. Of course, real estate investors have access to borrow giant sums of dollars and short the currency that lay people do not. In fact, lay people don't even understand that it's a viable strategy at all. Like he touched on, Russ has really been bringing an awareness about how decentralization is such a powerful force that reshapes society. In fact, he was talking about that the last time that I saw him in person a few months ago. Notably, he touched on Nixon era wage and price controls. Don't you find it interesting? Fascinating, really, how a few weeks ago, Trump told Walmart not to pass tariff induced price increases onto their customers. Well, that's a form of price control that we're seeing today to our point, when we had the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman here on the show, five weeks ago, tariffs are already government intervention into the free market, and then a president telling private companies how to set their prices, that is really strong government overreach. I mean, I can't believe that more people aren't talking about this. Maybe that's just because this cycle started with Walmart, and that's just doesn't happen to be a company that people feel sorry for. Hey, well, I look forward to meeting you in person in Miami in just four days, as I'll be a faculty member for when we kick off the terrific real estate guys Investor Summit and see and really getting to know you, because we're going to spend nine days together. Teaching, learning and having a great time on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 3  55:13   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  55:36   You know whatever you want, the best written real estate and finance info. Oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read. And when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text. GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, GRE to 66866   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.

America's hidden Marxist history reveals a country where radical ideas took root in ways we've deliberately forgotten. Dr. Andrew Hartman takes us on a journey through this erased past, uncovering how deeply Marx's ideas penetrated American society from the Civil War through today.Marx himself was surprisingly connected to America, writing hundreds of articles for the New York Tribune—the world's most-read newspaper in the 1850s—and developing key theories about labor and freedom through his analysis of American slavery. These writings would profoundly shape his masterwork, Capital, yet few Americans know this historical connection exists.The real revelation comes when we discover how widely Marx's ideas spread across America's heartland. Oklahoma socialists outnumbered Republicans for a decade. Mining towns in Montana and Colorado witnessed class warfare that rivals any European struggle. Jack London wasn't just writing adventure tales but promoting Marxism through passionate speeches and novels like The Iron Heel. These weren't fringe movements but significant political forces shaping American life.What makes American Marxism distinct is its remarkable hybridization—merging with evangelical Christianity in the South, populism in the Midwest, and civil rights activism in Black communities. Far from a rigid foreign ideology, Marxist thought provided analytical tools that diverse Americans adapted to understand their specific struggles against exploitation.Through economic crashes, war, and cultural upheaval, Marxist ideas have resurged repeatedly in American life—most recently since the 2008 financial crisis. By recovering this deliberately obscured history, we gain insight not just into our past but into the persistent appeal of radical critiques when capitalism fails to deliver on its promises of freedom and prosperity for all.Send us a text Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to BitterlakeLeadership Lessons From The Great BooksReading great literature is better than trying to read and understand...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showCrew:Host: C. Derick VarnIntro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.Intro Video Design: Jason MylesArt Design: Corn and C. Derick VarnLinks and Social Media:twitter: @varnvlogblue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.socialYou can find the additional streams on YoutubeCurrent Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon

After the main arch was completed, a writer for the New York Tribune said: Perhaps never in human history has a mechanical triumph of such magnitude been launched with so little fanfare. In the second half of our Hell Gate show, founding member and story director Erika Iverson interviews the authors before their story partners […]

150 Years Ago (August 1874) Charles Watts, a machinist, and James Coleman, 13, swam from Newburgh to Dennings Point, a little over 1 mile, in an hour. Philip Smith, the editor of the Pawling Pioneer, put a call out for material for what became the General History of Duchess County, from 1609 to 1876, Inclusive. Prospectors continued their search for iron ore in the Fishkill Mountains east of Dutchess Junction. Some of the iron recovered from the vessel of two men arrested in Poughkeepsie and accused of being river pirates came from Fishkill Landing. A deckhand was kicked in the mouth aboard the Union ferryboat by an unruly cow. Walter Brown, 8, drowned in the reservoir of the new hat works. The Hudson River Railroad adopted a new method of collection: The conductor punched tickets, and the collector followed behind to take them. An iron box supposed to contain Capt. Kidd's treasure was discovered in the creek. After a great effort to get it ashore, it turned out to be a mill door made of oak and bound with heavy strips of iron. It was 3 feet by 5 feet and weighed about 1,000 pounds. "Visions of sudden wealth vanished in an instant," said The Cold Spring Recorder. James Jones, the street sprinkler, closed his business for lack of funds. Jonn Jones, 16, lost the tip of three fingers to a hay cutter. John Haley, who lost a leg to a train at Dutchess Junction, sued the Hudson River Railroad Co. for $10,000 [about $275,000 today]. A contractor was hired to carefully disassemble a wooden bridge at Matteawan to recover the materials but instead demolished it. A passenger on the Newburgh ferry, while checking the time, dropped his $35 [$1,000] pocket watch into the river. An alcohol lamp exploded at the Seamless Clothing factory, seriously burning a carpenter named Divine, who was blamed for the accident. Fishkill Bay was filled on a Sunday afternoon with rowboats, sailboats, yachts and miniature steamers. A 16-year-old Fishkill boy arrested for stealing a $10 [$275] accordion was sentenced to six months in jail. His 8-year-old brother was not charged. Citing prices that had fallen by nearly 70 percent, brickyard owners said they would close unless workers accepted a reduction in pay. At Fishkill Landing, a husband who kept a "whiskey ranch" [distillery] began breaking the dishes during a fight with his wife. According to a news report, she "asserted the supremacy of women's rights" by knocking him down with a single punch and choking him until he surrendered. The highway commissioners decided to erect an iron post bridge at Fountain Street. They awarded the job to Mr. Hutchinson, who bid $2,225 [$61,000]. The 43-year-old Fishkill Journal changed its name to the Matteawan Journal. After a creditor seized the assets of the Sluthoun & Son's Circus during its stop in Fishkill Landing, the performers who remained in town after losing their jobs organized a troupe that performed a sold-out show at Swift's Hall in Newburgh. 125 Years Ago (August 1899) The Beacon Hose Co. chartered the Emeline for a moonlight family excursion. While digging a ditch, a farmer near Newburgh discovered what appeared to be the bones of a mastodon. He declined an offer from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to buy them. Barton Fitzsimmons died at the General Hospital at Fishkill Landing after being stricken with hiccoughs [hiccups] for five days. Members of the Matteawan yacht club traveled to New York City to retrieve its new boat, the Matteawan. Michael Hora was shot in the chest at a brickyard, renewing tensions between Black and Arab workers, but declined to name the assailant. The New-York Tribune claimed that more trouble was expected because every worker "carries a large revolver." Rosanna Wakeman of Newburgh died of blood poisoning after she pared her corns too closely with a razor. 100 Years Ago (August 1924) In swimming races at Dennings Point organized by the Beacon Playground Association and the Beacon Journal, T.W. Wilson of Cold Spring ...

Send me a text messageFinding Margaret Fuller is a fictionalized account of 19th-century feminist Margaret Fuller's life, including her influential relationships, work in women's rights, and role as the first female foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune. Despite being a mentor to significant figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Louisa May Alcott, Fuller remains an unsung heroine. Alison shares the process of discovering and writing about Fuller, and they discuss her profound impact on modern society despite her tragic early death. 

Editor's note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing. 150 Years Ago (July 1874) A brickyard laborer at Fishkill Landing, while drunk, went into a home and tried to steal clothing. The woman of the house caught and beat him. Fishkill Landing implemented a license fee of $5 [about $138 today] for hack drivers, $10 for stage drivers and $10 for peddlers. The Newburgh Telegraph reported: "The boat race and foot race that was announced to take place at Fishkill Landing did not come off. It is said that the announcement was made to get a crowd of people over there. It was a complete humbug." A horse owned by Lewis Tompkins at Fishkill Landing was "sun struck" [suffered heat stroke] and died in great agony. A drunk couple stopped at the Fishkill Landing home of Miss Newlins selling what they said was soap. Miss Newlins told them to leave, but the man lingered until a neighbor, Mr. DeWhittemore, took him by the shoulders to guide him away. At the same time, the wife struck Miss Newlins over the head with a branch, knocking her down. Husband and wife were each sentenced to a year in jail. John Seeley, while drunk, jumped 25 feet from the Fountain Street bridge into the creek but was not hurt. The assets of the Sluthoun & Son's Circus were seized at Fishkill Landing by Andrew Tubbs of Schuylerville, to whom the concern owed a great deal of money. Tubbs had learned the circus was leaving horses behind to pay its bills, so he came to Fishkill Landing to secure the remaining property. A former captain of the ferryboat Union was declared the champion clam-eater of the central Hudson Valley after a competition at Denning's Point. He ate 160. The current captain of the Union was second with 147. The steamer William Baxter, built at Fishkill Landing, made 16 stops over six days during an efficient delivery run to Buffalo from New York City. Powered by coal, its fuel cost was calculated at 4 cents [$1] per mile. While Misses LaForge, dressmakers at Fishkill Landing, were engaged in their work, a man walked into the parlor, picked up a roll of silk from a table, neatly wrapped it in paper and walked out. 125 Years Ago (July 1899) Leonard Livingston, a hatter in Matteawan, inherited $25,000 [$946,000] as the sole heir of a wealthy aunt. After "a bitter canvass," according to the New-York Tribune, a vote on whether to merge Fishkill Landing and Matteawan failed with 65 percent against. The Tribune said Fishkill Landing residents didn't want to live in a village called Matteawan and Matteawan residents didn't want to live in a village "with people who would let a name stand in the way of improvement." The vote was 164-72 in Matteawan and 91-65 in Fishkill Landing. Edith Ramsey, who killed her husband at the Garden Hotel in New York City while he slept, was committed to the Matteawan Asylum for the Criminal Insane. She said she cut his throat because of his snoring. A jail physician testified that Mrs. Ramsey danced a jig and asked if she would be electrocuted. Walter Keene, of the Leader Baseball Club of Glenham, broke his arm while throwing a curveball. After a riot involving about 200 Black and Arab brickmakers at Freeman & Hammond's in Dutchess Junction, the sheriff organized a posse to prevent further violence. The brickyard owner, Michael Freeman, said the trouble began when two Black workers hit an Arab peddler over the head with a brick. The Arabs, he said, skipped work the next day to buy guns, which they fired that night into the Black shanties. In the morning, most of the Black workers left to find work on Long Island. The Arabs, however, thought they had gone for their own guns and prepared for a showdown, while the Arab peddler boasted that he was a former circus strongman and could lick every Black man in town if no bricks or razors were allowed. Freeman thought he might just hire a whole new crew. The sheriff warned that his officers would shoot to kill anyone who started trouble. The cornerstone was laid f...

SERIES 2 EPISODE 203: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:40) BULLETIN: The New York Times has called for a candidate to drop out of the presidential race after his performance in a debate - a debate which has IMPROVED his standing against his opponent in several polls. No, President Biden is not dropping out. And that wasn't a family oligarchy intervention Sunday at Camp David to tell him to. It was an offing photo shoot. There are no indications (and let's not fully exhale; we don't know if the impacts might appear long-term) that the debate had any significant impact on the presidential race. CBS-YouGov polling released Sunday says even in the wake of the understandable blunt-force trauma we all went through as we watched, 55% of the Democrats have NO interest in changing horses while after the same debate 54% percent of EVERYBODY says TRUMP should drop out. “I am finishing my second battleground state poll post-debate,” writes the Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, “and both surveys show the same thing: the debate had no effect on the vote choice. The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it is still extremely close and competitive today.” Morning Consult and Data For Progress polled right after the debate, the percentages of those who think Biden should drop out went up like four points, but the Biden-versus-Trump match-up… Biden went UP a point. In Survey USA he went UP THREE points. Translation: yeah, maybe he should drop out but if he doesn't, I'm still voting for him. The almost negligible impact on Biden's poll numbers may be as transitory as whatever it was that impaired the president during the debate, because his health and age is baked-in to the voters' perception of him. There was nothing before the debate, nothing in his grueling international travels to the G7 and Normandy and elsewhere that was as bad as what he did during the debate. He was clear the day before and the next morning. And there is a plausible and intuitively satisfactory possible explanation for what CAUSES something like that in an 81-year old man. If the President had a cold – and I don't know about you, but I'll admit it: I'VE had colds in my life, and his hoarseness, it sounded to me like a cold – if he had a cold, did he take cold medicine? You know, like just Tylenol. Cold medicine. The Yale School of medicine professor, cardiologist and head of outcomes evaluation at Yale New Haven Hospital Center Dr. Harlan Krumholz wrote a piece for Newsweek: “Biden's symptoms are consistent with someone suffering from temporary drug-induced cognitive impairment. Most people believe common over-the-counter cold medications such as Dayquil, Tylenol, or Advil to be harmless. While generally well tolerated, these medications have well-documented side effects and can cause reduced alertness, diminished attention, poor memory, and reduced reaction time, especially in older individuals. These impairments are transitory but can appear consequential and alarming. Every experienced clinician has seen this effect thousands of times…" The real illness right now may be in our media. NBC News got the Camp David thing utterly wrong. The Times made fools of its editorial board and top columnists and based on something a staffer wrote there is every reason to suspect that it acted as it did because if Biden were to drop out it would prove the Times wasn't a fatally broken organization that put its thumb on the scale because he wouldn't give them a one-on-one interview. Regardless: the breaking news is - nothing's broken.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the fall of 1907, Mary Farmer decided she was tired of her modest life. So, one day, Mary wakes up with a plan to obtain her neighbors' house…illegally.  Weaving a web of lies, Mary is desperate to stay in her new big house and stay out of prison. Tea of the Day: Barry's Tea Theme Music by Brad FrankSources:Deadly woman vol 15: 20 Shocking True Crime Cases of Women Who Kill by Robert Keller, Copyright 2023.“Woman's Body In Trunk.” New-York Tribune, Tue, Apr 28, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/187176288/https://www.villageofbrownvilleny.com/“Mrs. Farmer Confesses Crime,” Yonkers Statesman, Tue, Apr 28, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/675968687/“Confesses Brennan Murder.” The New York Times, Wed, Apr 29, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/20440019/“Confesses, Say Police.” Buffalo Courier Express, Wed, Apr 29, 1908, Page 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/344263753/“Mrs. James Farmer Makes Confession.” The Buffalo Enquirer, Sat, May 02, 1908 ·Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/325711398/“New Facts Brought To Light.” The Buffalo Times, Wed, May 06, 1908 ·Page 3, https://www.newspapers.com/image/441770244/“Mrs. Farmer Guilty.” Rutland Daily Herald, Sat, Jun 20, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/533212606/“Woman Being Tried For Killing Woman.” The Morning Call, Fri, Jun 12, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/274596842/“Mary Farmer Put On Trial For Murder.” Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, Wed, Jun 17, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114047250/“Swear That Mary Farmer Was Insane.” The Buffalo News, Thu, Jun 18, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/842991136/“Case Near The End.” Star-Phoenix, Thu, Jun 18, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/507501763/“Special Cell Needed For Condemned Woman.” The Brooklyn Citizen, Sun, Jun 21, 1908, Page 10, https://www.newspapers.com/image/541735960/“Troubled By Woman Slayer.” The New York Times, Mon, Jun 22, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/20432288/Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, Fri, Jun 26, 1908, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114049119/“Respite for Murdress.” Lebanon Courier and Semi-Weekly Report, Fri, Aug 07, 1908, Page 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/81498581/“Man and Wife in Death House.” Democrat and Chronicle, Tue, Nov 03, 1908, Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/135480143/“Good Home for Child.” The Buffalo Enquirer, Mon, Nov 16, 1908, Page 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/326283315/“Husband and Wife, Leaving Baby Boy, Will Die Together in Electric Chair.” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, (Special to the Press) Auburn, NY, Tue, Nov 10, 1908, Page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/395192939/“Life of an Ex-Local Woman Rests with Highest Court.” Press and Sun-Bulletin, Wed, Jan 20, 1909, Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/252653485/“Shall Motherhood Suffer Death in the Dreadful Chair.” Evansville Press, Wed, Feb 24, 1909, Page 3, https://www.newspapers.com/image/138553942/“Sal Randazzio & Pacy Hill: 2 of 12 Convicted of Murder in Cattaraugus and Executed.” Thomas McCarthy,General Secretary/webmaster, NY Correction History Society, https://www.correctionhistory.org/html/timeline/cattaraugus/salrandazzio&pacyhill.html“Secure Affidavits From Local People To Save Mary Farmer From Electric Chair.” Press and Sun-Bulletin, Sat, Feb 27, 1909 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/252663306/“Mrs. Farmer Is Electrocuted; Last Words Exonerate Husband.” The Buffalo News, Mon, Mar 29, 1909 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/351410552/“Mrs. Farmer Says Husband Had Nothing To Do With Murder.” and “Mrs. Farmer is Electrocuted in Auburn Prison.” (By United Press) The Cincinnati Post, Mon, Mar 29, 1909, Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/761312669/“James Farmer Escapes Chair.” The Buffalo Commercial, Wed, Mar 02, 1910 Page 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/279032363/“Jury Acquits Farmer on Its First Ballot: Greeted By Applause.” The Post-Standard, Wed, Mar 02, 1910 Page 8, https://www.newspapers.com/image/18716036/“Farmer Can't Work Till He's Stronger.” The Post-Standard, Tue, Mar 15, 1910 Page 12, https://www.newspapers.com/image/18719951/“Wife's Story Saves and Innocent ‘Judd.””Daily News, Tue, Jan 10, 1928 Page 304, https://www.newspapers.com/image/411639588/

Tune in for the sister episode to last week. This case covers another woman sentenced to death via electric chair in New York, just like Martha Place. Meet Maria Barbella, who walked up to her lover, Dominico Cataldo, and slit his throat from ear to ear because he refused to marry her. However, there is much more to this story than the newspapers are willing to print. Grab a tea and travel back to 1895 New York with us.Content warning: This episode covers sexual assault Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1- 800-799-7233National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673Tea of the Day: Iron GoddessTheme Music by Brad FrankSources:“A Desperate Girl's Crime.” (Saturday's New York Sun) Fall River Daily Evening News, Mon, Apr 29, 1895 ·Page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/590758305/“ ‘I have no tears left.'” The Boston Globe, Sat, Apr 27, 1895 Page 12, https://www.newspapers.com/image/430862206/“Maria's Crime Told in Court.” The Evening World, (New York) Thu, Jul 11, 1895 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/146735804/“Maria Barberi at the bar. On Trial for the Murder of Her Faithless Lover.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Thu, Jul 11, 1895 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/50411135/“Goaded Into Killing Him.” The Evening World, (New York) Fri, Jul 12, 1895 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/146735821/“The Barberi Murder Trial.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Fri, Jul 12, 1895 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/50411148/New-York Tribune, Sat, Jul 13, 1895 Page 11, https://www.newspapers.com/image/149994722/“A Kind Hearted Prosecutor.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sun, Jul 14, 1895 Page 5, https://www.newspapers.com/image/50411201/“Maria Barberi is Guilty.” The New York Times, Tue, Jul 16, 1895 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/20303295/“To Die on August 19th.” The Standard Union, Thu, Jul 18, 1895 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/542220914/“Murder Justified.” Boston Post, Sun, Jul 21, 1895 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/72251869/“Woman As Criminals.” The Daily Sentinel-Tribune, Sat, Aug 10, 1895 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/882581856/“Would Die for Her.” The Sentinel, Tue, Aug 13, 1895 Page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/343922149/The Boston Globe, Sun, Aug 18, 1895 Page 9, https://www.newspapers.com/image/431001031/“The Barberi Case.” The Buffalo Enquirer, Mon, Nov 16, 1896 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/325596108/“Pleased with jury.” The Boston Globe, Wed, Nov 18, 1896 Page 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/430773455/Library of Congress, “Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History.” https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/tenements-and-toil/Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Tenement Life.” https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Tenement-Life_.pdf“Mary Livermore.” Boston National Historical Park, https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-livermore.htm“In Her Defense.” The Standard Union, Fri, Nov 20, 1896 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/542425165/“Maria Barberi's Family Tree.” Chicago Tribune, Sat, Nov 21, 1896 Page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/349857733/The Philadelphia Times, Sun, Nov 22, 1896 Page 2, https://www.newspapers.com/image/53387436/“Ill-Fated Ancestors.” The Boston Globe, Tue, Nov 24, 1896 Page 2, https://newspapers.com/image/430775593/“Maria Barberi's Story.” The Boston Globe, Wed, Nov 25, 1896 Page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/430776058/“Barberi Testifies.” Carbondale Daily News, Thu, Nov 26, 1896 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/638800630/“Experts Give Testimony.” The Standard Union, Thu, Dec 03, 1896 Page 3, https://newspapers.com/image/542424980/“Maria Barberi is Free.” Chicago Tribune, Fri, Dec 11, 1896 Page 5, https://www.newspapers.com/image/349883737/“Maria Barberi's Acquittal.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Fri, Dec 11, 1896 Page 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/50337240/“Maria Barberi Not Guilty.” The Times, Fri, Dec 11, 1896 Page 3, https://www.newspapers.com/image/79799997/“Maria Barber Lost?” The Daily Times, Fri, Dec 18, 1896 Page 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/13040409/“Heroic Maria Barberi.” Intelligencer Journal, Thu, Dec 31, 1896 Page 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/557171839/“Maria Barbella Married.” The New York Times, Thu, Nov 04, 1897 Page 10, https://www.newspapers.com/image/20443000/“To Mrs. Foster's Memory.”The New York Times, Tue, Feb 25, 1902 Page 5, https://www.newspapers.com/image/20394619/ People of the State of New York v Maria Barberi (Trial #53), In collection Criminal Trial Transcripts of New York County Collection (1883-1927), July 8 1895 (created), January 2015 (digitized), Lloyd Sealy Library, https://dc.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/3802

Baseball Ballads by Grantland Rice audiobook. Grantland Rice, was a sports journalist with several newspapers, although his Sportlights column, in the New York Tribune was what brought him fame, and through it he helped popularize golf in the US, and to help the cause of American Professional Football. This book of poetry, is a tribute to baseball, the sport he played at Vanderbilt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of the printing industry in the United States was forever changed with the installation of a Linotype typesetting machine in June 1886 in the offices of the New York Tribune newspaper. Linotype produces lines of words as a single strip of metal, rather than hand setting type by individual letter. It streamlined the typesetting process making it faster to produce a page of type.

The Lawrence/Foster/Disbrow AffairEpisode 423 delves into a love triangle gone awry. When two sides of the triangle, including an expert swimmer and sailor, are found drowned dead in a Long Island bay, suspicion immediately falls upon the third, even though the coroner declares the whole thing an accident.Culled from the historic pages of The New York World, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The New York Tribune, and other newspapers of the era.Ad-Free EditionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Am Morgen des 15. Juni 1904 scheint die Sonne von einem nahezu wolkenlosen Himmel hinab auf die freudige Menge an Ausflüglern, die das Pier am New Yorker East River entlang auf den Schaufelraddampfer „General Slocum“ zu hält. Das hell gestrichene Schiff soll sie für ein Picknick nach Long Island bringen und so das Ende des Sonntagsschuljahres markieren. Dafür hat die Gemeinde der St. Mark's Lutheran Evangelical Church das Schiff gechartert. Doch nicht eine Stunde später würden die meisten der 1.358 Passagiere – vor allem Frauen und Kinder – tot sein und der Untergang der „General Slocum“ würde gemessen an den Opfern als größte zivile Schiffskatastrophe in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika in die Geschichtsbücher eingehen. In der neusten Folge von „Früher war mehr Verbrechen“ begeben sich Nina und Katharina an diesen schicksalshaften Tag und gehen auch der Frage nach, ob das Unglück zu verhindern gewesen wäre. // Quellen & Shownotes // - General-Anzeiger der Stadt Mannheim und Umgebung: badische neueste Nachrich-ten, Mittagsblatt, 16.06.1904, S.2, https://www.deutsche-digitale-biblio-thek.de/newspaper/item/DYCOKM754QRMWDCQJ7CIPGCAPU43ICXK?tx_dlf[highlight_word]=slocum&issuepage=2&query=slocum&fromDay=1&fromMonth=1&fromYear=1903&toDay=31&toMonth=12&toYear=1905&page=2&hit=9 - General-Anzeiger für Dortmund und die Provinz Westfalen, 17.06.1904, S.1, https://www.deutsche-digitale-biblio-thek.de/newspaper/item/QDJQPEDRI3FZYRB7RTPUDE6RVKFU2JLM?query=slocum&fromDay=1&fromMonth=1&fromYear=1903&toDay=31&toMonth=12&toYear=1905&page=2&hit=4&issuepage=1 - Houghtaling, T., Witness to Tragedy: The Sinking of the General Slocum, 24.02. 2016, New York Historical Society, https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/witness-to-tragedy-the-sinking-of-the-general-slocum - King, G., A Spectacle of Horror – The Burning of the General Slocum, Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-spectacle-of-horror-the-burning-of-the-general-slocum-104712974/, 21.02.2012 - Kreye, A., Das fatale Feuer auf der "General Slocum", Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, 15. Juni 2004, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/new-york-general-slocum-1.858611 - Library of Congress, Fotografien und Publikationen, https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=subject:general+slocum+%28steamboat%29 - New-York Tribune, December 20, 1912, Page 7, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1912-12-20/ed-1/seq-7/?date1=1911&index=17&date2=1913&language=&sequence=&lccn=&state=&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=van+schaick&year=&phrasetext=&andtext=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange#words=%5Bu%27SCHAICK%27%2C%2520u%27VAN%27%5D - Northrop, H. D., New York's awful steamboat horror, Philadelphia 1904, https://www.loc.gov/item/04026220/ - O'Donnell, E. T., Little Germanys Untergang, Spiegel Online, 07.04.2006, https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/schiffstragoedie-in-new-york-little-germanys-untergang-a-410073.html - Ogilvie, J.S., History of the General Slocum Disaster, New York, 1904, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/historyofgeneral00ogil/historyofgeneral00ogil.pdf - Report of the United States Commission of Investigation upon the Disaster to the Steamer "General Slocum." https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/CG-5PC/INV/docs/documents/Slocum.pdf - Westfälischer Merkur, 17.06.1904, S.3, https://www.deutsche-digitale-biblio-thek.de/newspaper/item/2TM7HUFMJCBL4CRWOL7DWNOR4KYUUVAW?query=slocum&fromDay=1&fromMonth=1&fromYear=1903&toDay=31&toMonth=12&toYear=1905&hit=19&issuepage=3 // Tickets zu unserer Lesung gibt's hier:// https://www.vhs-taufkirchen.de/kurssuche/kurs/Frueher-war-mehr-Verbrechen/241-2129 // Folgt uns auf Instagram // https://www.instagram.com/frueher.war.mehr.verbrechen/?hl=de // Karte mit allen „Früher war mehr Verbrechen“-Tatorten // https://bit.ly/2FFyWF6 // Mail //: https://linktr.ee/fwmv // Kaffeekasse //: https://ko-fi.com/fwmvpodcast GEMAfreie Musik von https://audiohub.de

When twenty-year-old Walter Brooks was found dead from a bullet to the head on Valentine's Day 1902, suspicion immediately fell on Brooks' nineteen-year-old sometimes-girlfriend, Florence Burns. The two were known to have a tumultuous relationship and had fought violently on the morning of his death, and there was considerable evidence indicating that Burns had been in the hotel room at the time of Brooks' murder. However, despite all the evidence indicating guilt, Florence Burns was never brought to trial for Brooks' murder or even formally charged with a crime, and Walter Brooks murder officially remains an unsolved case in New York.While the story of Walter Brooks and Florence Burns is relatively uncomplicated in terms of the crime around which the story is built, the story is a remarkable illustration of the ways in which things like class, gender, and technological advances can influence and even shape how the law is applied in the United States. Indeed, at the time of the murder, the nation was undergoing incredibly social and cultural changes as a result of dramatically expanded transportation and communication technology, giving rise to a youth culture the likes of which had never been seen in the nation prior. That youth culture and the rebelliousness it produced in many young wealthy Americans played a direct role, not only in Walter's life and death, but also in the socio-cultural perspectives and Victorian beliefs that allowed Florence to get away with murder.Thank you to the wondrous Dave White of Bring me the Axe Podcast & 99 Cent Rental for Research!ReferencesEvening World. 1902. "Denised she shot broker in hotel." Evening World, February 15: 1.Ferranti, Seth. 2019. The Affluenza Murder Case That Shocked America 100 Years Ago. March 15. Accessed December 11, 2023. https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3meyv/the-affluenza-murder-case-that-shocked-america-100-years-ago.McConnell, Virginia A. 2019. The Belle of Bedford Avenue: The Sensational Brooks-Burns Murder in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press.New York Times. 1902. "Brooks murder case ends." New York Times, May 21: 5.—. 1903. "Florence Burns on the stage." New York Times, February 15: 10.—. 1902. "Jerome on Burns case." New York Times, March 25: 7.—. 1902. "Man shot, girl arrested ." New York Times, February 16: 3.New York Tribune. 1910. "Florence Burns again in hands of police." New York Tribune, September 21: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're replaying some of our favorite feline-themed episodes. In this episode from October 2021, the story of a black and white cat from the streets of France became the first cat to go into space. She didn't choose to go, of course, but she's a pioneer just the same - and until a few years ago, a greatly underappreciated one. Plus: back in 1922, a girl in Illinois made it to school after being run over by a train?!?  ⁠Félicette, the First Feline in Space, Finally Got Her Due⁠ (How Stuff Works) ⁠Et si Félicette, le premier chat dans l'espace, avait bientôt sa statue ?⁠ (Le Parisien)   ⁠Today in 1922: a six year old in Illinois made it to school after being run over by a train (!!!!!!!)⁠ (New York Tribune via Twitter) ⁠Our Patreon backers are podcasting pioneers  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coolweirdawesome/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coolweirdawesome/support

Patience Worth was a popular writer in the early 20th century. But she was a 17th-century ghost, using Pearl Curran as her conduit from spirit realm to printed page. Research: Braude, Stephen E. “Dissociation and Latent Abilities.” Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. June 2000. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233449262_Dissociation_and_Latent_Abilities Cory, Charles. “Patience Worth.” Psychological Review. 1919. pp. 397-407. https://archive.org/details/psychologicalre01pratgoog/page/396/mode/2up Denny, Diana. “Written by Pearl Curran … Or Ouija Board?” Saturday Evening Post. Sept. 16, 2010. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/09/written-pearl-curranor-ouija-board/ Diliberto, Gioia. “Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond.” Smithsonian. Sept. 2010. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/patience-worth-author-from-the-great-beyond-54333749/ Millard, Bailey. “Will she meet her astral guide?” Los Angeles Times. Jan. 16, 1938. https://www.newspapers.com/image/380740453/?terms=pearl%20curran&match=1 “Mrs. Pearl Curran, Known as ‘Patience Worth,” Dies.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dec. 4, 1937. https://www.newspapers.com/image/139329811/ Prince, Walter Franklin. “The Case of Patience Worth.” Boston Society for Psychic Research. https://books.google.com/books?id=KUvOAAAAMAAJ&dq=I+am+molten+silver,+running.+Let+man+catch+me+within+his+cup.+Let+him+proceed+upon+his+labor,+Smithing+upon+me.+Let+him+with+cunning+smite+my+substance.+Let+him+at+his+dream,+Lending+my+stuff+unto+its+creation.+It+shall+be+no+less+me.&source=gbs_navlinks_s Ross, Isabel M. “Enduring Mystery of the Ouija Board reincarnation.” New York Tribune. November 23, 1919. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/dlc_davis_ver01/data/sn83030214/00206532452/1919112301/0761.pdf Simon, Ed. “Ghostwriter and Ghost.” The Public Domain Review. Sept. 17, 2014. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/ghostwriter-and-ghost-the-strange-case-of-pearl-curran-patience-worth/ “The Women Helping to Boost.” Cherryvale Journal. January 28, 1910. https://www.newspapers.com/image/418556008/?terms=%22pearl%20curran%22&match=1 “State Aid By Women.” The St. Louis Star and Times. January 27, 1910. Https://www.newspapers.com/image/204738278/?terms=%22pearl%20curran%22&match=1 Yost, Casper S. “PATIENCE WORTH: A PSYCHIC MYSTERY.” New York. Henry Holt and Co. 1916. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50810/50810-h/50810-h.htm Worth, Patience. “The Sorry Tale; a Story of the Time of Christ.” Henry Holt and Company. June 1917. https://archive.org/stream/sorrytaleastory01currgoog/sorrytaleastory01currgoog_djvu.txt Simon, Ed. “Darkness Made Visible: Eamonn Peters on Imagined Literature.” The Anthology of Babel, edited by Ed Simon, Punctum Books, 2020, pp. 365–88. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.2353922.22 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**//Triggerwarnung// ** In dieser Folge werden Suizid, Vergewaltigung, Schwangerschaftsabbruch und Alkoholsucht angesprochen. Am Nachmittag des 28. Juli 1841 wird am Ufer des Hudson in Hoboken, New Jersey, die Leiche einer jungen Frau aus dem Wasser geborgen. Schnell wird sie als die 21-jährige Mary Cecilia Rogers identifiziert, eine junge Dame, die zu Lebzeiten bereits als „Das schöne Zigarrenmädchen“ Schlagzeilen gemacht hatte. Nun füllen sich die Zeitungen im ganzen Land mit Geschichten um ihren mysteriösen Tod – und inspirieren damit nicht nur Edgar Allan Poe, sondern auch die Entwicklung der Kriminalistik. Erfahrt in dieser Folge von „Früher war mehr Verbrechen“ mehr über das Leben und die Zeit der Mary Rogers, wie ihr niemals aufgeklärter Mord den Lauf der Geschichte beeinflusste und welche Rolle eine immer selbstbewusster werdende Presse dabei spielte. // Quellen & Shownotes // - Stashower, D.: The beautiful cigar girl. Mary Rogers, Edgar Allen Poe and the Invention of Murder, New York 2007 - Serratore, A.: Edgar Allen Poe Tried and Failed to Crack the Mysterious Murder Case of Mary Rogers; In: Smithsonian Magazine, Artikel vom 31. Oktober 2013; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edgar-allan-poe-tried-and-failed-to-crack-the-mysterious-murder-case-of-mary-rogers-7493607/ - Walton, G.: Mary Rogers: A Sensational 1841 Murder, Artikel vom 28. März 2022; https://www.geriwalton.com/mary-rogers-a-sensational-1841-murder/#_ftnref6 - New York Tribune; The Murder of Miss Rogers; Auf: History Hit, Artikel vom 17. August 1841; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030212/1841-08-17/ed-1/seq-1/ - The North Carolina Standard: The Case of Mary Rogers; Artikel vom 6. Oktober 1841; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042147/1841-10-06/ed-1/seq-2/ - New York Herald: The Mary C. Rogers Mystery – Examination of Mrs. Loss‘ boys yesterday at Jersey City; Artikel vom 20. November 1842; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1842-11-20/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1841&index=1&rows=20&words=Mary+Roger+Rogers&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1842&proxtext=Mary+Rogers&y=16&x=11&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 - Port-Gibson Herald: Speaking of Mary Rogers, the unfortunate „Cigar Girl“; Artikel vom 8. Dezember 1842; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1842-11-20/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1841&index=1&rows=20&words=Mary+Roger+Rogers&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1842&proxtext=Mary+Rogers&y=16&x=11&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 - Distorted History Podcast: The Murder of Mary Rogers Part I, Podcast Episode vom 4. Oktober 2020; https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UAzniiuVxNjsyCzBdTe28 - Distorted History Podcast: The Murder of Mary Rogers Part II, Podcast Episode vom 18. Oktober 2020; https://open.spotify.com/episode/39dSScvVwkXPszVNLvqhqJ //Tickets und weitere Infos zur Lesung am 30.09.2023 in Brühl gibt's hier// https://www.literatur-rheinland.de/veranstaltungen/2023-09-30-crimetime-frueher-war-mehr-verbrechen-exklusive-historische // Folgt uns auf Instagram // https://www.instagram.com/frueher.war.mehr.verbrechen/?hl=de // Karte mit allen „Früher war mehr Verbrechen“-Tatorten // https://bit.ly/2FFyWF6 // Mail //: https://linktr.ee/fwmv // Kaffeekasse //: https://ko-fi.com/fwmvpodcast GEMAfreie Musik von https://audiohub.de

Sumarið 1874 stóð mikið til í Reykjavík og nágrenni. Haldin var þjóðhátíð til að minnast 1000 ára afmælis Íslands byggðar. Bayard Taylor, bandarískt skáld og ferðabókahöfundur, kom til Íslands þetta ár á vegum bandaríska blaðsins New York Tribune, til að fylgjast með hátíðahöldunum. Hann kom til landsins frá Egyptalandi og skrifaði bók um dvöl sína þar og í sömu bók segir hann frá dvölinni á Íslandi. Umsjónarmaður les frásögn hans. Umsjón: Illugi Jökulsson.

Sumarið 1874 stóð mikið til í Reykjavík og nágrenni. Haldin var þjóðhátíð til að minnast 1000 ára afmælis Íslands byggðar. Bayard Taylor, bandarískt skáld og ferðabókahöfundur, kom til Íslands þetta ár á vegum bandaríska blaðsins New York Tribune, til að fylgjast með hátíðahöldunum. Hann kom til landsins frá Egyptalandi og skrifaði bók um dvöl sína þar og í sömu bók segir hann frá dvölinni á Íslandi. Umsjónarmaður les frásögn hans. Umsjón: Illugi Jökulsson.

In this director's cut episode, Mina taps into celeb "courtcore" aka the way that celebrities dress when appearing in the judicial court. In this special episode, she also dives further into history, starting with Joan of Arc and ending with contemporary films and the way characters are costumed for trial (e.g. Legally Blonde). Keep up with High Brow on Instagram! Subscribe to the Patreon! and keep up with Mina on Youtube, Instagram, and Tiktok! Clothing | Joan of Arc | Jeanne-darc.info Primary Sources and Context Concerning Joan of Arc's Male Clothing Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser The Misgendering of Joan of Arc Mary, Queen of Scots, Became an Iconic Figure for Many Catholics Over the Centuries, Scholar Says Fatty Arbuckle and the Birth of the Celebrity Scandal | The New Yorker “Fatty's Wife's Smiles Lighten Grim Tragedy,” The Washington Times (1921) “Women Throng First Hearing of Arbuckle Case,” The New York Tribune (1921) What America will remember from Gwyneth Paltrow's ski crash trial - The Washington Post Courtroom Style: Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder, Lindsay Lohan and more's iconic outfits while on trial The most iconic celebrity courtroom outfits The Verdict on Winona's Clothes - The Washington Post Why Did She Do It? - TIME Naomi Campbell Shows the World How to Dress for Court Lindsay Lohan wears fancy pants to court. Who decides her attire? | EW.com In Court, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Dress to Suggest - The New York Times Experts Decode Amber Heard's Suited Courtroom Looks Amber Heard accused of COPYING Johnny Depp's courtroom outfits: see similarities between ensembles | Daily Mail Online free" Winona From Faux Pas to Fashion Statement - Los Angeles Times https://www.facebook.com/wmagazine/photos/a.10166595114335004/10166627967380004/?type=3 Lindsay Lohan's 'F-You' a Joke, Says Lawyer...Then Quits | LAist Did Lindsay Lohan Write 'F*** U' on Her Fingernail for Her Probation Hearing? Cardi B Is Guilty... of the Best-Ever Celebrity Court Fashion Megan Thee Stallion sent a powerful message with the purple suit she wore to testify against Tory Lanez -- who's found guilty of shooting her, more courtroom fashion over the years | Gallery | Wonderwall.com How Should Gwyneth Paltrow Dress for Court? Our celebrity trial obsession sets a dangerous precedent American Trial Films and the Popular Culture of Law Case Study 4: Chicago (2002) – The Femme Fatale and the Distortion of Female Criminality Legally Blonde Fashion: Costume Designer Sophie de Rakoff on Elle's 'Signature Color' | EW.com Legally Blonde, Legally Fashionable: The Evolution of Elle Woods - The Art of Costume My Favourite Outfits In Legally Blonde – The Vault Publication Written by Mina Le, Ella Gray, and Sophie Carter Edited by Sophie Carter Music by Olivia Martinez Cover by Lindsay Mintz 

Todays show, we will look back at a fascinating epoch in our US history and specifically at the election of 1844 with the help of the great David Walker Howe and his excellent tome, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848Key Points from the Episode:The candidates themselves The importance of the pivotal election of 1844 and the many shenanigans in New York and Michigan with 3rd party votes The very influential newspaper editor of the Whig rag, The New York Tribune,   Horace Greeley and his comments years later looking back on the election of 1844Other resources: More goodnessGet our top book recommendations listWant to leave a review? Click here, and if we earned a five-star review from you **high five and knuckle bumps**, we appreciate it greatly, thank you so much!Because we care what you think about what we think and our website, please email David@teammojoacademy.com, or if you want to leave us a quick FREE, painless voicemail, we would appreciate that as well.Be sure to check out our very affordable Academy Review membership program at http:www.teammojoacademy.com/support

Francis Marion Crawford was an American author and journalist who lived from 1854 to 1909. He was born in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, to a family of art connoisseurs and spent much of his childhood traveling throughout Europe. Crawford attended Harvard University for a year before leaving to pursue a career in writing.Crawford began his writing career as a journalist, working for several newspapers and magazines such as the New York Tribune and the Boston Evening Transcript. He wrote travel books and essays about his experiences living in Italy, and these early works were well received.In 1882, Crawford published his first novel, "Mr. Isaacs," which was a critical and commercial success. He went on to write over 40 novels, as well as numerous short stories, essays, and plays. Many of his works were set in Italy and drew on his experiences living there, including some of his best-known novels such as "Saracinesca," "Sant' Ilario," and "Casa Braccio."Aside from his success as a writer, Crawford was also descended from a long line of artists and writers. His grandfather, William Crawford, was an American portrait painter, and his great-grandfather, Gilbert Stuart, painted George Washington's portrait. Crawford's father, Thomas Crawford, was a successful sculptor who created several prominent public sculptures in the United States, including the statue of Freedom on top of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.Crawford's novels explored complex themes such as love, betrayal, and social class, and his characters often struggled with their own personal demons, making them relatable to readers across time and place. Crawford was considered one of the leading writers of his day and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded several honorary degrees from universities in the United States and Europe.Despite his success, Crawford was known for his private nature and his avoidance of public appearances. He was married twice and had four children. Crawford died in Sorrento, Italy, on April 9, 1909, at the age of 54. His works continue to be read and enjoyed today for their vivid depictions of Italian society, their engaging characters, and their ability to transport readers to other times and places.The Upper Berth"The Upper Berth" is a horror story by F. Marion Crawford, first published in 1886. One of the strengths of "The Upper Berth" is Crawford's ability to create a suspenseful and eerie atmosphere. He builds tension throughout the story, gradually revealing more and more about the strange happenings in Brisbane's cabin. The descriptions of the creaking ship, the eerie silence of the night, and the mysterious noises from the upper berth all add to the story's creepy atmosphere.However, one of the flaws of "The Upper Berth" is its reliance on clichés and stereotypes. The story includes many of the standard tropes of horror stories, such as the lone traveler in a strange place, the creepy sounds in the night, and the mysterious disappearance of previous passengers. Additionally, the story relies on stereotypes of sailors as rough and superstitious, which can be off-putting to modern readers.Overall, "The Upper Berth" is a well-written horror story that effectively creates a sense of suspense and unease. While it may rely on some clichés and stereotypes, it remains a classic example of the genre and is worth readiNew Patreon RequestBuzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREESupport the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback

This week's headline, "Straw Hat Smashing Orgy Bares Heads From Battery to Bronx",comes from New York Tribune on Saturday, September, 16, 1922See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Disciple Up # 298 Dishonest Christian Publishers By Louie Marsh   Links used during this Podcast   https://estephenburnett.lorehaven.com/pssst-christian-endorsers-of-bad-books-may-not-have-even-read-them/   https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/march-web-only/christian-publishers-book-endorsements-authors-tgc-butler.html   https://archive.thinkprogress.org/meet-donald-trumps-new-evangelical-advisory-board-6a5bfc5460d7/   Excerpts from CT article:   The Problem with Christian Book Endorsements Publishers and authors have played along by pushing celebrity blurbs—but it's time to rewrite the rules of promotion. KATELYN BEAT   As an editor at a Christian publisher, I review multiple book proposals each week. Authors pitching a new project will share a table of contents, a sample of their writing, their bio, statistics about their platform, and—always—a list of confirmed or potential endorsers.   It's a strange detail, since most trade nonfiction books aren't already written when the author goes under contract with a publisher. This means that endorsers have agreed to endorse something that doesn't exist.   Authors and agents are simply playing the rules that publishers set, and in Christian publishing—as with all book publishing—it's about who you know.   Many authors hate seeking endorsements; it feels self-promotional and vulnerable. But endorsements are simply part of the deal, going back to at least 1856, when Walt Whitman had Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter praising Leaves of Grass published in the New-York Tribune prior to the book's second edition.   It's a risky thing to do—especially when an endorser hasn't read the book.   Last week, The Gospel Coalition published, then unpublished, an excerpt from the forthcoming book Beautiful Union: How God's Vision for Sex Points Us to the Good, Unlocks the True, and (Sort of) Explains Everything. Readers criticized the author, Joshua Ryan Butler, saying he misconstrued the marriage metaphor in Ephesians 5, making it pornographic, male-centric, and ripe for abuse.   As criticisms mounted, ministry leader Dennae Pierre and pastor Rich Villodas publicly retracted their book endorsements. Pierre said she had written hers “based on training Josh had done for local pastors” and had done a “quick skim” of the book. Villodas said a mutual friend had invited him to endorse the book: “I agreed to the favor, but in poor judgment, read only 25-30% of it.”   It was good for Pierre and Villodas to admit they hadn't fully read a book that will feature their names, at least on the first printing. Their retractions are a wake-up call for book buyers: Endorsements aren't always about quality of writing or theological soundness. In practice, they aren't even always an honest assessment of someone else's work.   Rather, in an age fixated on platform, endorsements are about establishing the market appeal of an author based on their connections to famous people. As such, endorsements are usually driven by celebrity, mutual back-scratching, and power consolidated through loose social, professional, and ministry networks. There's a reason that endorsements come through the marketing team (not editorial): Endorsements are marketing tools, not editorial reviews.   Of course, many endorsers offer blurbs for good reasons. They want to support friends and acquaintances. In a market where sales often boil down to platform, many famous people want to share the spotlight, or shine it on emerging voices. Plus, a Christian culture of niceness—and the blurring of lines between friendship and commerce—make it hard to say no to endorsement requests. (Note that Villodas said he agreed to a “favor.”) After all, whoever blurbs sparingly will also be blurbed sparingly, for God loves a cheerful blurber.   I consider it a red flag that some faith-based publishers will write an endorsement for a celebrity who doesn't have time to write it themselves. Let me repeat that: A publishing team member, coveting a celebrity's name on a forthcoming title, will contact them or their team and say, “We know you're very busy because you're very important and clearly called to do big things for God, so you probably won't have time to read this book. But we would be so honored to have your support. Might you say something like this? [fill in endorsement].” Then the celebrity or their assistant signs off on the wording or tweaks it before it appears on the book.   Imagine if the blurb appeared as it was written:   Timely and compelling message! —Famous Pastor —Marketing Intern   It doesn't have the same ring, but at least it's honest.   Likewise, it's mostly up to blurbers to be honest about their blurbs. Personally, I would love to see more blurbs that include praise and critique; one needn't agree with every detail in a book to commend it as worth reading.   It would be unorthodox, from an industry view, for faith-based publishers to drop endorsements on principle of resisting celebrity. But it could also honor the central task to which Christian publishers are called: to edify Christian readers and deepen the faith of everyday believers, not to serve as an avenue for aspiring leaders to boost each other's careers.   Christian publishers have been implicated in scandals around ghostwriting, plagiarism, and extending the platforms of unhealthy and abusive leaders. If they are also asking endorsers to essentially lie to book buyers, we have deep problems to attend to.   Katelyn Beaty is editorial director of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. She is the author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church.   ANOTHER ARTICLE:   At The Gospel Coalition, Joe Carter summarized who said what:   On Tuesday, several evangelical leaders drew criticism for promoting the newest book of Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher who has repeatedly been accused of teaching heretical doctrines. Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said “you might want to check it out.” Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, said to “give it to anyone looking for hope!” Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, declared, “It is powerful. I highly recommend it!” And Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, added, “Paula's life is an encouragement to so many and I'm sure this book will encourage you.” (It's unclear whether these men have actually read the book or if they support White's teachings.)   Since then, several of those endorsers have removed their original tweets, such as Franklin Graham's.   But here's one annoying secret about book endorsements: Sometimes the endorser has not even read the book being endorsed.   This apparently open “secret” leaked some time ago, thanks in part to author Randy Alcorn. In this article, he wrote:   I'm often asked to endorse an entire book based on one chapter, and several times I've been sent an-already written endorsement and asked if I would agree to have my name attached to it! Personally, I don't think this is ethical. I've also been told by several Christian leaders they would be glad to endorse my book, and they were having a staff person read it and give me the endorsement under the leader's name. I've had to explain I don't believe in ghost-written endorsements, so no need to send me one because I couldn't use it. That's an awkward situation for everybody.   This is one of several objections Alcorn shared about “acceptable” practices in Christian publishing. He also critiques ghostwriting and other practices, such as paid celebrity endorsements for nonprofit groups. Alcorn calls these “the scandal of evangelical dishonesty.”1   Earlier this week, I shared some of this info (along with a little speculation about one old, and since removed, celebrity endorsement of another book). Since then, blogger Julie Roys confirmed that, indeed, one endorser had not actually read Paula White-Cain's book:   . . . When pressed about whether he's certain that there's nothing in White's book that supports prosperity gospel, Jeffress said: “My schedule is so busy, I can't read every book word for word. But what I did see was really her autobiographical account of her past and how God redeemed her life.”   . . . Yet when I asked Jeffress if he's sure that White's theology is orthodox, and that she is not a proponent of the prosperity gospel, Jeffress said, “All I can say is she claims not to be.” I asked Jeffress whether he's investigated what White teaches for himself and he answered, “No, no . . . I'm too busy in my own ministry to launch an investigation.”   Sure, perhaps Christian leaders really are very busy. Perhaps they haven't time to investigate another Christian leader, who has been reputably charged with promoting heresy. But in that case, perhaps you should—at minimum!—avoid endorsing the person's book? Especially if you haven't even read it? And even if you and the professing-Christian author share the same political fandoms?  

Due to being away, please enjoy this episode taken from the, 'Even Weirder' series on patreon. This is a monthly bonus episode series, available for both tiers. Soup-thick fog and the Bermuda Triangle make for some weird on-the-water encounters. This month, I cover the weird encounter the former packet ship, being the Ellen Austin, encountered while sailing from Liverpool to New York. What do you think happened - was it a curse, or something else? Tune in and be the judge. Need a distraction? I got you.  Listener discretion is advised. Shout out to Patrons Tom, Bailey, Angela, Jon, Alicia, Lynn, Shadow, Courtney, Cheryl, Susan, & Jennifer! Thank you for supporting Weird Distractions on Patreon. You can also support the show on Patreon and get monthly bonus episodes, behind the scenes footage, and more - www.patreon.com/weirddistractionspodcast  If you want to provide feedback or even your own weird story to be read on air in an upcoming Listener Distractions episode - please email: weirddistractionspodcast@outlook.com. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. It's the best way to support the show (for free)!Thanks for listening! Weird Distractions is a proud member of the Cultiv8 network: https://www.patreon.com/cultiv8podcastnetwork/  Resources: Mysterious Universe website - “The Outlandish Encounter of the Ellen Austin” - by Brent Swancer - September 28th, 2019 - https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/09/the-outlandish-encounter-of-the-ellen-austin/ New York Tribune article - “Brutality at Sea” - 19 Feb 1857 - https://www.newspapers.com/image/78131622/ To Contrive and Jive website - “The Ellen Austin Encounter" - by Ally - July 4th, 2021 - https://tocontriveandjive.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/the-ellen-austin-encounter/ Skeptoid Podcast website - “The Mystery of the Ellen Austin” - by Brian Dunning - October 29th, 2019 - https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4699?gclid=CjwKCAjw7eSZBhB8EiwA60kCW6TiOUX3v8HD0j8doHsMysLjmdwoNDe5TKaYAgzWOOASQB70Gn0IzBoCxjwQAvD_BwE Wine & Crime Podcast - “Ep263 Bermuda Triangle Mysteries” - March 31, 2022 - https://wineandcrimepodcast.com/show_episodes/ep263-bermuda-triangle-mysteries/ Apeejay News article - “Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle: Ellen Austin” - By Ekachit Khullar - August 31st, 2022 - https://apeejay.news/mystery-of-the-bermuda-triangle-ellen-austin/ The New York Times article - “The Ship Ellen Austin” - July 24th, 1860 - https://www.nytimes.com/1860/07/24/archives/the-ship-ellen-austin.html Sometimes Interesting website - “The Ellen Austin Encounter” - https://sometimes-interesting.com/the-ellen-austin-encounter/ Wikipedia - Packet Boat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_boat Ocean Service website - What is the Sargasso Sea? https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sargassosea.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil's garden.Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed.From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office.Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield's assassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them in extraordinary, surprising ways.Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism, epidemics, and spectacle, the book's interwoven stories fuse together in the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881—at the same time as the Oneida Community collapsed.Colorful and compelling, An Assassin in Utopia is a page-turning odyssey through America's nineteenth-century cultural and political landscape. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/houseofmysteryradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1890 the Danish-American journalist Jacob Riis turned his eye-opening reporting and lecture series into a ground-breaking book called How The Other Half Lives, a best seller which awoke Americans to the plight of the poor and laid the groundwork for the Progressive Era.Riis exposed more than a humanitarian crisis. He laid bare the city's complacent Gilded Age divide in revolutionary ways, most notably with the use of a new tool -- documentary photography.For our 400th episode, following our tradition of exploring the legacies of urban planners in past centennial shows (#100 Robert Moses, #200 Jane Jacobs, #300 Andrew Haswell Green), we finally look at the life of the crusading police reporter and social reformer who forced upper and middle class New Yorker to examine the living conditions within the city's poorest neighborhoods.Riis was himself an immigrant who spent his first years in the United States drifting from place to place, living on the street, his only companion a faithful dog. Journalism quite literally saved Riis, providing him with both a stable living and a purpose, especially after he became a police reporter for the New York Tribune in 1877.But it was his fascination with visual media -- magic lantern shows and later flash photography -- which set him apart from other crusading writers of the period like Nellie Bly (who we only wish had a camera with her!)Jacob Riis' culminating work How The Other Half Lives made him one of America's most famous writers -- his friend Theodore Roosevelt called Riss "the model American citizen" -- but the book has an imperfect legacy today, with Riis' broad characterizations of the people he was writing about undercutting the book's noble purposes.PLUS: The legacy of Riis lives in a very popular Queens beach. And Robert Moses chimes in!Visit the website for more informationFURTHER READINGThe Battle with the Slum / Jacob RiisThe Children of the Poor / Jacob RiisHow The Other Half Lives / Jacob RiisThe Making Of An American / Jacob RiisThe Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America / Tom Buk-SwientyJacob A. Riis and the American City / James B. LaneJacob Riis: Reporter and Reformer / Janet B. PascalRediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York / Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel CzitromAfter listening to this show, check out these past Bowery Boys episodes with similar themes:-- The First Ambulance-- Has Jack the Ripper Come to Town?-- Case Files of the New York Police Department 1800-1915-- Women of the Progressive EraStories from this website:"The original IMAX: Jacob Riis and His Magic Lantern""The harsh lives of New York City street kids, captured — in a flash — by Jacob Riis""Jacob Riis' Not-so-Rockin' ‘Sane' New Years Celebration""The legendary police headquarters at 300 Mulberry Street""Finding Pietro"   

Last time we spoke the reluctant Lord Elgin took up the job as the new emissary to China. Alongside his french counterpart Baron Gross, both men would overlook their military coalitions expedition in China to force the Qing emperor to abide by their treaty and some new demands. They began with a bombardment and occupation of the grand city of Canton and then Ye Mingchen was hunted down and arrested. Ye was replaced with a puppet named Pih-Kwei who would be nominally controlled by the European forces. Now the coalition would fight their way to Beijing to force an audience with Emperor Xianfeng, but something lied in their way, the famous Taku forts at the mouth of the Bei He River. Could the coalition fight past these legendary forts and strangle Beijing  enough to get their demands met?   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #21 This episode is Part 3 of the Second Opium War: battles for the Taku Forts At high tide the Taku Forts were surrounded by water, the Bei He River became something like a natural moat. The entrance to the Bei He River was 200 yards in width, forcing the British and French warships into a bottleneck gauntlet with each shore holding 137 pieces of antiquated artillery. When the invaders arrived, the Qing forces quickly went to work creating earthwork walls with sandbags to bolster the defenses. The Qing forces presumed the European gunboats hulls were too deep and thus they would not risk entering the river until it was very high tide to avoid going aground. That presumption was a grave error as Seymour and Rigault were willing to risk it and mounted a surprise attack at 10am on May 20th. Elgin made one last ditch effort to get Tan to surrender peacefully, but Tan did not even bother to respond to Elgins message. Now in a similar fashion to the first opium war, as you might remember a large problem for the Qing was their outdated artillery. Their cannons were usually immobile, unable to aim at all degrees and angles. The Taku Fort cannons were aimed in such a way to hit warships at high tide, but the British-French force was going to attack during low tide. Alongside the Taku Forts cannons another defensive obstacle was a 7 inch thick boom made out of bamboo. The Europeans opened fire unleashed pure hell upon the forts and when the forts unleashed their own volley, literally all of their shots went over the European masts. To add insult to injury, the British sacrificed one of their ships, the Coromandel to ram into the boom which broke with ease. The Coromandal received a nasty gash in her hull, but the job had been done. As pieces of the boom floated away, the rest of the European armada began to steam through the gap while the Qing helplessly fired their cannons straight over their masts. The French ships Mitraille and Fusee alongside the British Cormorant fired upon 2 of the Taku Forts on the left bank while the French Avalance, Dragonne and British Nimrod fired upon the 3 forts on the right. The Chinese manning Gingalls had much better luck than the cannons, though it also came at the price of making the Europeans laugh watching men fall over from firing each shot. However not all was funny as Gingalls could be properly aimed unlike the cannons and managed to kill 5 British and 6 French while wounding another 61. Then tragedy happened when a gunpowder cache in one of the Taku forts accidentally exploded killing 100 Chinese. Alongside the invaders maelstrom of gunfire and the defenders despair at the futility of their cannons many began to panic. Even before many of the British and French forces began to land ashore, countless Qing forces were deserting the earthen parapet en masse. In desperation seeing his men flee, the Qing commander launched 50 fireboats stuffed with straw at the barbarian ships, only to see the fireships crash into the bank at the bend in the river. Not a single fireship was able to cause damage to the invaders. With the last ditch effort a complete failure, the commander of the Taku Forts went to the Temple of the Sea God and slashed his jugular vein with his sword killing himself.  The Viceroy of Zhili province was banished to the desolate border territory with Russia in the north. As he packed his bags, Emperor Xianfeng condemned the Viceroy's mismanagement of the Taku Fort defense as being “without plan or resource”. Elgin after witnessing the victory over the Taku Forts had a really interesting thing to say “Twenty-four determined men with revolvers, and a sufficient number of cartridges, might walk through China from one end to another.”  Back home in Britain Elgin was being praised and was rewarded likewise with carte blanche for all further military actions and negotiations. The new Prime Minister, Lord Derby, haha looks like those grand speeches worked out for him, well he sent Elgin a congratulatory dispatch “giving me latitude to do anything I choose, if only I will finish the affair.” The very same man who condemned British imperialism the year prior was now a warhawk. Lord Malmesbury became the new foreign minister replacing Lord Clarendon. Back in China, the European gunboats made their way up the Bei He River triumphantly towards the next Qing stronghold, Tianjin. Tianjin was around 30 miles away from Beijing. The 3 Plenipotentiaries stayed further behind at the Taku Forts for their own safety as Seymour and Rigault took the lead. As they steamed up the Bei He River, both the Fusee and Cormorant ran aground numerous time, but the Europeans found some very unlikely allies to help, the local Chinese. Turns out a lot of the populace absolutely hated their Manchu overlords and volunteered their tugboats free of charge to help the Europeans. Apparently when the Europeans tried to pay them many refused if it is to be believed.  On June 4th the European armada arrived at Tianjin without any resistance along the way. The Qing defenders at Tianjin morale was so low they were at the point of surrender. There was also a rumor spreading around that Emperor Xianfeng had been overthrown and replaced by a new dynasty who was willing to simply sign a new treaty with the Europeans. Seymour and Rigault advised Elgin he should stay at the Taku Forts for security, but he disregarded this and came up to the war party on May 26th. Elgin wrote in his diary as he made his way up the river. “Through the night watches, when no Chinaman moves, when the junks cast anchor, we laboured on, cutting ruthlessly and recklessly through that glancing and startled river which, until the last few weeks, no stranger keel had ever furrowed. Whose work are we engaged in, when we burst thus with hideous violence and brutal energy into these darkest and most mysterious recesses of the traditions of the past? I wish I could answer that question in a manner satisfactory to myself. At the same time there is certainly not much to regret in the old civilisation which we are thus scattering to the winds. A dense population, timorous and pauperised, such would seem to be its chief product. “ The Plenipotentiaries were quite surprised when they were met outside Tianjin by a detachment of local Qing officials and merchants who came looking for opium. Yes these were those types of middle men folks who were used to bribes and the lucrative business of moving opium. Despite the rumors, Emperor Xianfeng had not been overthrown, but he was willing to negotiate with the Europeans. Emperor Xianfeng sent commissioners to Tianjin in the hope of stopping the European advance to Beijing. Meanwhile with Tianjin not putting up a fight, Elgin wrote in his diary “[I have] complete military command of the capital of China, without having broken off relations with the neutral powers, and without having interrupted, for a single day, our trade at the different ports of the Empire.” The Europeans were treated with the utmost respect and the lavish temple known as the Supreme Felicity was used as headquarters for the Europeans. The Europeans transformed the temple by creating a bowling alley, they used its myriad of altars for washbasins and placed vanity mirrors in front of statues of the gods. This cultural vandalized would be an appetizer for events in the future. Two emissaries were sent by Emperor Xianfeng, both were commissioners, the first was the 74 year old Guiliang, a senior military officer. The other was a 53 year old Mongolian military officer. They met with the Europeans at the Temple of Oceanic Influences southwest of Tianjin. Elgin arrived on June 4th alongside 50 Royal marines and a band from the warship Calcutta to add some muscle.  The first meeting went…terribly. The commissioners had the authority to negotiate, but lacked carte blanche to finalize any deal. Elgin stormed out of the first meeting, completely blowing off this lavish buffet the Qing had set for the party to celebrate the new peace treaty. Elgin was well known to be courtes, but after spending 6 months in China had quickly learnt the only way to get Qing officials to act was to show some bravado. Elgin even wrote to his wife at the time “I have made up my mind, disgusting as the part is to me, to act the role of the ‘uncontrollably fierce barbarian.'” As Elgin stomped his feet walking off he made a threat that he would soon march upon Beijing, even though in truth the Europeans did not have the land forces to do so. Elgin left his brother to continue negotiations, Lord Frederick Bruce. One of Fredericks interpreters, Horatio Lay decided it was a good idea to use some Sturm und Drang and began to literally scream at the Qing commissioners whenever they talked about clauses in the new treaty. Lay even threatened to lay waste to Beijing and would slap the Emperor himself, this guy had some balls. Lay's abuse of the two commissioners became so bad, the men went around his head to speak to Putiatin and the American envoy William Reed. Reed sent a letter to Elgin asking him to help rein in the tyrannical Lay, but Elgin ignored the letter, wow. Putiatin asked Gros whom he knew had grown very close to Elgin, to intercede, but Gros declined to do so as he feared it would alienate his friendship to Elgin. The Qing then resorted to bribery, they tried to give Lay a horse, but Lay did not change his aggressive stance.  The negotiations were taking very long, it was the typical Chinese strategy of procrastination. Elgin was becoming livid and wrote in his diary about Reed and Putiatin “These sneaking scoundrels do what they can to thwart me and then while affecting to support the Chinese act as their own worst enemies.” Elgin also felt British parliament had failed to back him up. Elgin received a letter from the new Foriegn minister Lord Malmesbury on April the 9th, berating him for not concluding the peace treaty in due time. “A Cabinet has been held today and it is our anxious wish to see this Chinese business settled if it can be done without loss of honour and commercial interests as at present enjoyed. Our reputation is sufficiently vindicated at Canton and we do not look at the chance of a war with the Chinese Empire without much apprehension. I trust therefore that you will not engage us in a contest of this sort if you can possibly avoid it.” The negotiations over the terms of the new treaty stretched for 3 weeks and the Qing were rejecting two clauses the British absolutely wanted: free passage throughout China and for a permanent British and French embassy at the Qing imperial court. The two commissioners stated that accepting either of these would cost the men their lives. Gros and Putiatin began arguing that the permanent embassy point was not critical as long as their ministers had access to Beijing in some form. After much arguing the commissioners conceded to the two points and thus the Treaty of Tianjin was formed. The Europeans made sure to add a clause they henceforth they would no longer be called barbarians in official communications and treaties, though it should be noted the term used by the Chinese literally just meant “those who don't speak Chinese”.  The Treaty of Tianjin opened new ports for trade: Tianjin, Hangzhou and Nanjing. It should be noted the Qing were all too happy to toss Nanjing into the treaty as the Taiping were occupying it as their own capital. Perhaps if they were lucky, the Europeans would go to Nanjing, run into some trouble and attack the Taiping for them! Baron Gros raised concerns over the clauses as he argued Britain would have to bear even more military might to enforce the treaty. As Gros pointed out to Elgin, the Confucious principle, a promise made under duress does not need to be kept. Another item on the treaty clauses was the payment of 2 million taels of silver to Britain for the damage to their factories at Canton and another 2 million in general reparation. The French were to receive 2 million taels as well. Now the warnings Gros made concerned Elgin and he was having second thoughts. One major concern was the idea of extracting he enormous sums of money from what seemed to be an Empire on the verge of Bankruptcy. Elgin wrote back to the foreign minister, concerned that extracting the large sums of money would lead to the toppling of the Manchu rule “Everything we saw around us indicated the penury of the Treasury. To despair, by putting forward pecuniary claims which it could satisfy only by measures that would increase its unpopularity and extend the area of rebellion.” Elgin ended by saying the humiliating treaty would be a large beacon for the Taiping Rebels. William Reed recommended legalizing opium as a clause, arguing the tax revenue from it would benefit the Qing Empire. The British wanted a tariff of only 30 taels and the Cohong merchants supported this. Jardine & Matheson & co released a statement “The use of opium is not a curse, but a comfort and benefit to the hard-working Chinese.” Boy you can't get any more gross than that one. The French for their part performed a study of the opium problem in China. Baron Gros found that users who smoked upto 8 pipes per day had a life expectancy of only 6 years. Casual consumers could expect around 20 years after starting to smoke it, many died around the age of 50 or so. Opium addicts were found to be spending 2/3 ‘s of their income to feed their addiction. The Russians and Americans agreed with the French that the opium trade was horrible. The French however have little to nothing to say about another form of trade they took part in with China, the “pig trade”, that being the enslavement of coolies. Now you have to hear this one, this is so symbolic of the event as a whole. The translator for the treaty took forever because he was an opium addict. You just can't make this stuff up folks. The Russians agreed to the terms first on June 18th Putiantian signed off, making Elgin feel betrayed and abandoned because he still had qualms. What was really important to Russia was the border they shared with the Qing, it had been a source of much conflict. Thus Russia settled with a visiting ambassador to Beijing with no permanent status. Christianity received a formal toleration and the Russians got access to 2 more ports on Taiwan and Hainan. Five days later the Americans signed off on a similar agreement to the Russians. Both the Americans and Russians made sure to include the most favored nations clause in their treaties, which meant that whatever further concessions went to the British and French, they too would enjoy them. Thus the 2 nations who brought zero military aid and did basically nothing reaped the same benefits as the 2 nations shouldering everything, ain't that nice? Putiatin sent Elgin and Gros a copy of Russia's treaty urging them not to topple the manchu rule with too many humiliating concessions. Reed made a similar appeal. Gros reached an agreement on june 23rd and did not hesitate to sign the treaty because he did not want to undercut Elgin's negotiators, preferring to let them finish the job. The French also sought much less than Britain from the Chinese. A week after and the British had still not come to an agreement, Gros became impatient and sent Elgin a letter, that if the British did not sign soon the French would simply sail off. The British were stuck on two key issue; to have a permanent ambassador in Beijing and freedom to travel anywhere in China. The Chinese commissioners desperately sought the aid of Gros and Putiatin, indicating to them the Emperor was going to have them killed if they agreed to the two clauses. Elgin threatened to march on Beijing and it seems the commissioners were forced to give in. On June 26th the British Treaty of Tianjin was ratified. The Chinese would pay 5 million in war reparations, Christian missionaries would be allowed to work unhindered throughout China and 11 ports would be opened for trade. Taxes on imported goods would be set on a follow up meeting at Shanghai, and there 5% was agreed upon. Taxables goods would be silk, brocades and of course opium. The taxation agreement basically made opium legal in China, but without bringing the subject up. The Commissioners signed the treaty, but when they got back to Beijing, take a wild guess, the Emperor rejected the humiliating terms. Now Elgin failed to bring up the issue of the opium trade and its official legalization as were his instructions from Clarendon. Elgin probably felt since Clarendon lost his position he no longer had to respect the order. Clarendons successor Lord Malmesbury did not give a similar order. On July 3rd, 400 men and a naval band serenaded Elgin signing the Treaty of Tianjin at the Temple of Oceanic Influences under some paper lanterns. And despite the fact the commissioners, as they said it, were soon to be beheaded, they invited Elgin to a lavish dinner at the temple after the signing. At the dinner one of the commissioners, Hua Shan gave Elgin copies of some famous poetry. The next day, Baron Gross signed the French treaty but cheekily added some new demands that the commissioners were forced to abide by. He demanded the release of all Chinese christians imprisoned for their faith. Gros sent a triumphant report back home stating “Je suis heureux de pouvoir annoncer aujord-hui à Votre Excellence que la Chine s'ouvre enfin au Christianisme, source réelle de toute civilisation, et au commerce et à l'industrie des nations occidentales.” (“I am happy to be able to announce today to Your Excellence that China has at last opened itself to Christianity, the real source of all civilization, and to trade and the manufactures of the nations of the West.)” Back in Britain Elgins triumph was met with mixed reviews, though most were favorable. Elgins private secretary Laurence Oliphant, noted the impressive cost/benefit ratio of the casualties in his 1860 account of the campaign, ‘Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan': “Hostilities with the Empire of China had terminated with a loss to the British arms of about twenty men killed in action...and a treaty had been signed far more intensive in its scope, and more subversive of imperial prejudices than that concluded fifteen years before, after a bloody and expensive war, which had been protracted over a period of two years.” Karl Marx, yes the Karl Marx, was working at the time as the European correspondent of the New York Tribune wrote a letter to his writing partner Friedrich Engels on some thoughts towards the conflict  “The present Anglo-Chinese Treaty which in my opinion was worked out by Palmerston in conjunction with the Petersburg Cabinet and given to Lord Elgin to take with him on his journey is a mockery from beginning to end.” Karl Marx would have a lot more to say about the Taiping Rebellion, which is quite interesting given the rebellion is considered a proto marxist one. Elgin himself was quite depressed over the ordeal, he wrote this in his diary “I have an instinct in me which loves righteousness and hates iniquity and all this keeps me in a perpetual boil. Though I have been forced to act almost brutally I am China's friend in almost all this.” To try and raise the celebration somewhat, Elgin decided to take 5 ships up the Yangtze River as a demonstration of Britain's naval power and to discourage the Chinese from going back on the new treaty. However news of some raids against Canton forced him to pull be short. The new Viceroy of Canton named Huang had incited a rebellion rallying Canton residents to quote “Go forth in your myriads, then, and take vengeance on the enemies of your Sovereign, imbued with public spirit and fertile in expedients.” In July a group of Cantonese got their hands on some artillery and began to shell the British resident at Whampoa. The Cantonese mob followed this up by performing a raid after they heard about the humiliating terms of the treaty of Tianjin. During a short conference in Shanghai, Elgin demanded Viceroy Huang be removed. On top of the Canton problem, the two commissioners, Guiling and Hua Shan had reneged on the treaty clauses about allowing British ambassadors in Beijing. They sent a letter to Elgin stating that had agreed to such clauses under duress and suggested that future British ambassadors visit Beijing from time to time as diplomatic business warranted. They argued that because of large scale xenophobia in Beijing, they feared for the lives of any British dwelling there. Then 4 days later they added another excuse; they said that to allow British ambassadors to live in Beijing would generate fear and a loss of respect for the Qing government. Such further humiliation might very well topple the Manchu and allow the Taiping to take over. Elgin was somewhat swayed by the Taiping excuse and said he would pass their message onto his foreign officer. Elgin was also in a tough position as the fact a rebellion was occurring in Canton made it seem clear that guaranteeing the safety of British ambassadors in Beijing would not be an easy task. The French concurred with Elgin, that to have ambassadors in Beijing would be dangerous now. In the meantime Elgin had set up a 2 month survey of the Yangtze River using 2 gunboats to demonstrate Britains new right of travel throughout China. The idea had been to see if the local Chinese would obey the treaty clauses. Elgins tour wound up going past the Taiping capital of Nanjing and it is alleged a single cannon perched on a Nanjing wall fired upon Elgin's ships. Elgin's reprisal was pretty brutal, he sent a volley knocking out the Taiping cannon then ordered a 99 minute naval bombardment of Nanjing before sailing on. Eglin had planned to finish the trip by meeting with the Emperor and giving him a letter from Queen Victoria, but the worsening of the Canton situation forced him to pull back south. In February of 1859 Cantonese rebels ambushed and massacred 700 British marines around the countryside of Canton. In retaliation, General van Straubenzee, the military commander of 3000 troops in Canton, hunted down the headquarters of the rebels which they found at Shektsing a few miles south of the city and completely annihilated all those there and razed everything to the ground. The destruction of the rebel camp seems to have worked quite well as suddenly the Emperor sent word to ratify the treaty of Tianjin's clauses and had Huang removed from power and demanded the rebels disband. While Elgin dealt with the renewed China problem, his brother Frederick Bruce returned to Britain with the signed Treaty of Tianjin. Lord Malmesbury rewarded Bruce by naming him the first ambassador to China, a post Elgin would have received, but he was too wary of the post given the circumstances now. Elgin left China in March of 1859, taking the chance to link up and meet his brother in Sri Lanka in April as Bruce was on his way back to China. Now Bruce was not lets say, as great as his brother. He had recently been the Lt-governor of Newfoundland, then the Colonial secretary of Hong Kong. In all honestly a lot of his appointments were merely a result of him being Elgin's brother. But Bruce did have working knowledge of Chinese customs. Bruce arrived back at the mouth of the Bei He River on June 18th of 1859 alongside a force of 16 warships. Admiral Seymour had returned to London and was replaced by Rear-admiral James Hope. Unfortunately it seems Hope was even more racist and hated the Chinese more than Seymour. 3 days later the new American ambassador showed up John E Ward aboard a steamer, the Powhatan. The French representative, Anton de Bourbelon brought 2 warships with him as the French fleet had remained close by in Indo-China. Now Emperor Xianfeng wanted above all else to keep the Europeans the hell out of Beijing. The Emperor suggested right away that they ratify the new treaty at Shanghai, but all 3 of the European powers declined this. Many of the Emperors close advisors wanted to resist the foreigners taking up residence in Beijing. Some of these high ranking officials gave orders for 3 large bamboo booms, 3 feet thick to be strung across the Bei He river to block the foreigners advance. It looked like war was back on the menu and in a vain attempt Bruce tried writing a letter to Beijing politely asking the booms be removed. Well Bruce got no reply and this prompted Admiral Hope to ask permission to blow the booms apart. On June 21st, Hope sent captain Willes aboard a steamer to break through the first boom which went successfully, but the other 2 proved unbreakable. The British tried using some gunpowder but it just couldn't do the job, then to add insult to injury during the night the Qing repaired the first boom.  On June 25th Bruce received a letter from the Viceroy of Zhili, Heng Fu. Heng suggested the ambassadors lodge at Beitang, around 8 miles north of Beijing, basically it was a face saving gesture. The British however were armed to the teeth and had just undergone 3 annoying and long years of negotiations and war and had no patience. Bruce told Admiral Hope to attack the booms again. That afternoon Hope took his flagship Plover and attempted ramming the boom, but this time hit ship was stopped cold. The Qing had learnt a lesson from the previous conflict and this time had made the 2nd and 3rd booms out of full sized tree trunks sling together with heavy chains. As the Plover staled and the other European gunships had to stop just before it, all of a sudden the forts portholes were cast aside to reveal a full complement of 40 cannons and they opened fire. The first salvo took the head right off Plovers bow gunner and 3 other sailors fell wounded. For 3 hours Plover was pulverized. Hope unwisely stood on his deck wearing a gold braid basically showing the Chinese he was a high ranking official. A Qing sharpshooter landed a shot hitting Hope in his thigh. Hope fell on deck and was bound up by a surgeon as the Qing retaliated. For a rather surprising change, the Qing cannons, though still immobile were better aimed and managed to blow Hope's second in command and 8 other sailors to pieces, 22 others were wounded. Plovers hull eventually burst sinking the ship into the mud and this would lead to the deaths of countless crew. Hope believe it or not got up and rowed over to another ship, the Opossum and began standing on its deck in plain sight. Because of his thigh wound he had to hold onto a railing to hold himself upright and that said railing was hit by a Qing cannonball. The railing collapsed and Hope fell breaking several ribs, ouch. This prompted him to turn command over to Captain Shadwell. The Qing volleys managed to disable 5 of the invaders frontal gunships prompting Bruce to order 7 more which were 8 miles away to come forward and replace the damaged ones. By the evening, 5 British warships had been immobilized and 2 had run aground and one was a sitting duck for fort cannons.  The fort guns went silent in the early evening and the British officers took it to mean that the forts garrisons had fled like they had in the previous year. The landing parties surged ahead as planned and that was when disaster struck again. It turned out to be a ruse to entice the landing parties to storm the beach. The landing party soon found out to their horror 2 trenches were dug in front of the walls, filled with water and mud and some large iron spikes behind them. That was bad, but immediately when the marines got off their barges the muddy banks seized their feet leaving them helpless as the forts unleashed carnage upon them. Those lucky enough to make it to the trenches found the muddy water was too thick to swim. Many men in despair clambered beside the base of a fort wall to escape the trenches and gunfire. The Qing began setting off fireworks to illuminate the trapped marines as they fired upon them. Although America said it would remain neutral, Commodore Josiah Tattnall aboard the USS Powhatan was trying to get past the booms as well when he ran into the conflict. Tattnal was a veteran of the war of 1812 and like pretty much any American at the time disliked the British. Tattnal received word that Hope had been shot and upon witnessing the horror show he suddenly cast neutrality to the wind. Tattnal was from Georgia, a loyal southerner with a lets say, strong sense of racial pride…yeah we will call it that. Whatever hate he held for the British was cast aside as he suddenly screamed out “blood is thicker than water, I'd be damned if I stood by and watched white men butchered before my eyes!”. Tattnals charge forward hardly turned the tide of battle, it amount mostly to him towing more British marines forward to their horrific death. Some of his men grabbed and operated some British guns firing at the fort while Tattnall personally tended to Hope. A single american died and the breach of neutrality could have caused a catastrophe, but one thing it did do was set a new tone for British-American friendship. As the London times wrote “Whatever may be the result of the fight, England will never forget the day when the deeds and words of kindly Americans sustained and comforted her stricken warriors on the waters of the Bei He.” Around 7pm, as the Qing set off fireworks to illuminate the area, Captain Shadwell with 50 royal marines and French seamen led by the French commander Tricault landed on some muddy flats outside one of the Taku forts. They clamored through knee deep mud as the defenders rained Gingall fire down upon them at short range. The British-Franco force found themselves literally stuck in the mud, unable to use their wall scaling ladders to get over the fort. Shadwell sent word back to his superior that he and his men were pinned down and requested reinforcements to storm the Taku walls. There was no more fighting men available however, he was eventually order to limp back to the ships. The British and French suffered high casualties. Shadwell was wounded, Tricault was dead, and of the 1000 men who took part in the battle around half were killed or wounded, 29 of them officers. Many men dragged themselves or limped through mud to get back to their ships. A lot of these men were veterans of the Crimean war and had never tasted such defeat. One veteran of the battle of Balaclava said he would rather have relived that battle three times over than suffer the Taku Forts again. The gunboats, Lee, Plover and Cormorant were disabled, the Kestrel sank.  Admiral Hope sent a dispatch to the Admiralty showing his shock at how the Qing performed “Had the opposition they expected been that as usual in Chinese warfare, there is little doubt that the place would have been successfully carried at the point of the bayonet.” To try and save face, Bruce reported back to Britain that the sudden military prowess of the Qing forces at the Taku forts was because Russians were helping them. He alleged based on eyewitness testimony that some men in fur hats and European dress had been seen directing operations atop a Taku fort, it was mere bullshit. The real reason for the Qing victory was because of Prince Senggelinqin. Senggelinqin was a mongol cavalry commander that had helped the Qing crush a large army of Taiping rebels. He was a member of the Borjigin clan and the 26th generation descendant of Qasar, a brother to Genghis Khan. He led Qing forces to smash the Taiping during the Northern Expedition in the southern suburbs of Tianjin. When the Second Opium War broke out he was appointed Imperial commissioner in charge of the defense of Tianjin. Seng rejoiced in his well earned victory. He wrote back to the emperor acknowledging the British and French might return with more ships, but asserted confidently he would thrash them again and again “the pride and vainglory of the barbarians, already under severe trial, will immediately disappear. When that happens, China can then enjoy some decades of peace. The barbarians, already somewhat disillusioned and repentant, may lend themselves to persuasion and be brought under control. If they of their own accord should wholeheartedly become obedient, then peace would be secure and permanent.” The Emperor responded with caution “the foreigners may harbor secret designs and hide themselves around nearby islands, waiting for the arrival of more soldiers and ships for a surprise attack in the night or in a storm” Emperor Xianfeng still shared a sense of relief and expressed hope the foreigners needs for Chinese goods would mean that they could sort out their problems in Shanghai and that there would be no need for ambassadors in Beijing nor new treaties. Seng also pointed out during the battle the Americans got involved. “Although the starting of hostilities was by the English barbarians, France and America's cooperation in the melee is also inescapable.” Seng based his claim off intelligence extracted from a Canadian POW named John Powers. John claimed to be a neutral American in an attempt to escape imprisonment. The Chinese did not free him and instead used him as proof the Americans had abandoned neutrality. Seng much like most Chinese at the time were weak on Western Geography and assumed Canada was part of the United States, sad Canadian noises. At one point an American missionary who spoke Chinese tried to explain to Seng the difference between English and French Canada and the United States, Seng described the experience in a letter to the Qing imperial court. “[The missionary] stated that America contained Englishmen and Frenchmen, and when there was fighting, the flag was the only criterion.” Eventually John was released after a month, the Qing simply did not want to add America to a list of growing enemies. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The battle for the Taku Fort was an absolute catastrophe resulting in humiliation for the Europeans for once. Prince Seng had a grand victory, perhaps now the foreign barbarians would learn their lesson and stop their war. Or perhaps the Europeans would like their wounds and come right back.  

The Treaty With China by Mark Twain audiobook. "A good candidate for 'the most under-appreciated work by Mark Twain' would be 'The Treaty With China,' which he published in the New York Tribune in 1868. This piece, which is an early statement of Twain's opposition to imperialism and which conveys his vision of how the U.S. ought to behave on the global stage, has not been reprinted since its original publication until now."

As a teenager, Mabel Lee fought for the women's vote in the U.S. even though she wouldn't benefit from it. As an adult, she continued to live a life in service, as community and spiritual leader in New York's Chinatown.             Research: National Archives. “Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).” https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act “Erasmus Hall Academy.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/places/erasmus-hall-academy.htm Yang, Jia Lynn. “Overlooked No More: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Suffragist With a Distinction.” New York Times. Sept. 19, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/obituaries/mabel-ping-hua-lee-overlooked.html?searchResultPosition=1 “New York City's Chinatown Post Office Named in Honor of Dr. Mabel Lee '1916.” Barnard College. December 3, 2018. https://barnard.edu/news/new-york-citys-chinatown-post-office-named-honor-dr-mabel-lee-1916 Hond, Paul. “How Columbia Suffragists Fought for the Right of Women to Vote.” Columbia Magazine. Fall 2020. https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/how-columbia-suffragists-fought-right-women-vote “Chinese Girl Wants Vote.” New York Tribune. April 13, 1912. https://www.newspapers.com/image/467709486/?terms=Mabel%20Lee&match=1 “Parade of Women in New York Saturday, May 4, Will Break Record for Number in Line.” The Daily News, Frederick, MD. May 2, 1912. https://www.newspapers.com/image/7632082/?terms=Mabel%20Lee&match=1 “Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/people/mabel-lee.htm Tseng, Timothy. “Saving China, Saving Ourselves: 1911-1965.” ChinaSource Quarterly. Winter 2020. Posted online Dec. 7, 2020. https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/articles/saving-china-saving-ourselves-1911-1965/ Lee, Mabel. “The Meaning of Woman Suffrage.” The Chinese Student Monthly. May 1914.  526-529. Republished: https://timtsengdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/mabel-lee-the-meaning-of-woman-suffrage-1914.pdf Cahill, Cathleen D. “Mabel Ping-Hua Lee: How Chinese-American Women Helped Shape the Suffrage Movement.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/mabel-ping-hua-lee-how-chinese-american-women-helped-shape-the-suffrage-movement.htm Tseng, Timothy. “Dr. Mabel Lee: The Intersticial Career of a Protestant Chinese American Woman, 1924-1950.” Paper to be presented at the 1996 Organization of American Historians meeting. https://timtsengdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/mabel-lee-paper-1996.pdf Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.” National Women's History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mabel-ping-hua-lee Michael H. Hunt. “The American Remission of the Boxer Indemnity: A Reappraisal.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 31, no. 3, 1972, pp. 539–59, https://doi.org/10.2307/2052233 “New York and the 19th Amendment.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/new-york-and-the-19th-amendment.htm Sears, Charles Hatch. “A Chinese Leader in New York City.” Missions: American Baptist International Magazine. Volume 16. 1925. https://books.google.com/books?id=D5rNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA682&lpg=PA682&dq=%E2%80%9CA+Chinese+Leader+in+New+York+City,%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=F29TTo2f7y&sig=ACfU3U1pd1puccje3hlTvSi815lN9_M3Gg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy39acm8v3AhVWkokEHUNtCTAQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CA%20Chinese%20Leader%20in%20New%20York%20City%2C%E2%80%9D&f=false “Suffrage Army Out on Parade.” New York Times May 5, 1912. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/05/05/100533097.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CLICK HERE to listen to episode audio (4:27).Sections below are the following: Transcript of Audio Audio Notes and Acknowledgments ImagesExtra Information Sources Related Water Radio Episodes For Virginia Teachers (Relevant SOLs, etc.). Unless otherwise noted, all Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 5-20-22. TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is Virginia Water Radio for the weeks of May 23 and May 30, 2022.  This episode, marking the Memorial Day holiday observed this year on May 30, repeats an episode first done in 2015. MUSIC – ~17 sec – instrumental. That tune, composed during the U.S. Civil War, sets the stage for a water-related exploration of the origin of Memorial Day.  Have a listen to the music for about 35 more seconds. MUSIC – ~35 sec – instrumental. You've been listening to a version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,” recorded by Chloe Benner and Stewart Scales.  The tune was composed in 1863 by John Hill Hewitt.  The title, and the lyrics associated with the tune, are from “The Picket Guard,” a poem by Ethel Lynn Beers, published in 1861.  The poem relates the loneliness, homesickness, and then sudden death of a rank-and-file soldier patrolling the dark, wooded, and deceptively quiet Potomac riverbank.  As a similar tragic fate befell tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers along rivers, ridges, and battle lines in Virginia and elsewhere, surviving family and friends began honoring fallen soldiers by decorating their graves with flowers, especially during spring.  The practice grew across both North and South, eventually becoming a spring tradition known as “Decoration Day.” On May 5, 1868, Gen. John Logan called for Decoration Day to be an annual, national holiday on May 30, and the first national ceremony was held that year in Arlington National Cemetery, near the banks of the Potomac.  After World War I, the annual observance began to include honoring those who had died in all U.S. military conflicts.  In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day an official national holiday, to occur on the last Monday of May. Memorial Day invokes very personal and local expressions of honor and remembrance, true to the holiday's origin of individuals decorating Civil War graves with flowers.  In that spirit, we close this tribute to Memorial Day with about 25 seconds of “Flowers of the Forest,” by No Strings Attached, from their 2002 album, “Old Friend's Waltz.” MUSIC – ~26 sec – instrumental. SHIP'S BELL Virginia Water Radio is produced by the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, part of Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment.  For more Virginia water sounds, music, or information, visit us online at virginiawaterradio.org, or call the Water Center at (540) 231-5624.  Thanks to Stewart Scales for his banjo version of Cripple Creek to open and close this episode.  In Blacksburg, I'm Alan Raflo, thanking you for listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water. AUDIO NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This Virginia Water Radio episode revises and replaces Episode 215, 5-25-15, and Episode 318, 5-30-16. The version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight” heard in this Virginia Water Radio episode was performed by Chloe Benner and Stewart Scales, used with permission.  More information about Mr. Scales and the group New Standard is available online at http://newstandardbluegrass.com.  This music was used previously by Virginia Water Radio most recently in Episode 619, 3-7-22.  Another version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,” by Bobby Horton, was featured in Episode 101, 3-5-12. Information on “All Quiet Along the Potomac,” about Ethel Beers, the author of the poem from which the song was derived, and about John Hill Hewitt, who composed the tune, is available from Bartleby.com, online at http://www.bartleby.com/270/13/474.html; from Britannica Encyclopedia, online at www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/58438/Ethel-Lynn-Beers; from Library of Congress, “All quiet along the Potomac to-night,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200002411/; and from Song of America, online at https://songofamerica.net/song/all-quiet-along-the-potomac-tonight/. “Flowers of the Forest” and “Old Friend's Waltz” are copyright by No Strings Attached and Enessay Music, used with permission.  More information about the now-retired, Blacksburg/Roanoke-based group No Strings Attached is available online at https://www.enessay.com/index.html.  This music was used previously by Virginia Water Radio most recently in Episode 573, 4-19-21.  Information on “Metsäkukkia,” the original Finnish tune on which the No Strings Attached selection was based, is available from Andrew Kuntz, “The Fiddler's Companion,” online at http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/MER_MIC.htm; and from Jeremy Keith, “The Session,” online at http://thesession.org/tunes/4585. Click here if you'd like to hear the full version (1 min./11 sec.) of the “Cripple Creek” arrangement/performance by Stewart Scales that opens and closes this episode.  More information about Mr. Scales and the group New Standard, with which Mr. Scales plays, is available online at http://newstandardbluegrass.com. IMAGES(Unless otherwise noted, photographs are by Virginia Water Radio.) Looking towards the confluence of the Shenandoah River with the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, West Va., August 14, 2008.  Harper's Ferry was a strategic location and the site of a federal arsenal during the Civil War era.The confluence of Antietam Creek (foreground) with the Potomac River in Maryland, as seen from the C&O Canal Towpath, August 13, 2008.  The confluence is several miles downstream of where the creek flows through Sharpsburg, Md., the site of a major Civil War battle in 1862.      EXTRA INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAYThe following information is quoted from the Library of Congress, “Today in History—May 30/Memorial Day,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-30/. “In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day ‘for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.' “The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried.  Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day.  In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. “Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War's end.  Records show that by 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedents for Memorial Day.  Songs in the Duke University collection Historic American Sheet Music include hymns published in the South such as these two from 1867: ‘Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping,' dedicated to ‘The Ladies of the South Who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead,' and ‘Memorial Flowers,' dedicated ‘To the Memory of Our Dead Heroes.' “When a women's memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers on April 25, 1866, this act of generosity and reconciliation prompted an editorial piece, published by Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, and a poem by Francis Miles Finch, ‘The Blue and the Grey,' published in the Atlantic Monthly.  The practice of strewing flowers on soldiers' graves soon became popular throughout the reunited nation. “President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Waterloo, New York, as the ‘Birthplace of Memorial Day,' because it began a formal observance on May 5, 1866.  However, Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, also claims to have held the first observance, based on an observance dating back to October 1864.  Indeed, many other towns also lay claim to being the first to hold an observance. “In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended the honor to all soldiers who died in American wars.  A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30. “Today, national observance of the holiday still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag.  Protocol for flying the American flag on Memorial Day includes raising it quickly to the top of the pole at sunrise, immediately lowering it to half-staff until noon, and displaying it at full staff from noon until sunset. … “Many veterans of the Vietnam War, and relatives and friends of those who fought in that conflict, make a pilgrimage over Memorial Day weekend to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., where they pay their respects to another generation of fallen soldiers.” SOURCES USED FOR AUDIO AND OFFERING MORE INFORMATION On the History of Memorial Day Library of Congress, “Today in History—May 30/Memorial Day,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-30/. Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of American History, “You asked, we Answered: Why do we celebrate Memorial Day?”, by Ryan Lintelman, May 24, 2013; available online at http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2013/05/you-asked-we-answered-why-do-we-celebrate-memorial-day.html. Public Broadcasting System, “National Memorial Day Concert/History of Memorial Day,” online at http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/memorial-day/history/. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs:“America's Wars,” online (as a PDF) at http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf;“Memorial Day,” online at https://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday; and“Memorial Day Order,” by Gen. John A. Logan, May 6, 1868, online at https://www.cem.va.gov/history/memdayorder.asp. On Rivers and Other Water Bodies in the U.S. Civil War The History PlaceTM, “The U.S. Civil War,” online at http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/ USA Civil War Web Site, “Civil War Rivers and Streams,” online at http://usa-civil-war.com/CW_Rivers/rivers.html RELATED VIRGINIA WATER RADIO EPISODES All Water Radio episodes are listed by category at the Index link above (http://www.virginiawaterradio.org/p/index.html).  See particularly the “History” subject category. Following are links to some other episodes on Virginia waters in history related to military conflicts. Battle of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War – Episode 390, 10-6-17.Bull Run's present and Civil War past – Episode 223, 7-21-14. Civil War Battle of the Ironclads – Episode 412, 3-19-18.Lincoln's James River trip to Richmond at the end of the Civil War – Episode 459, 2-11-19.Potomac River in the Civil War – Episode 101, 3-5-12.Rivers and attempts to capture Richmond in the Civil War – Episode 164, 6-3-13 (for Memorial Day 2013).River origins of Virginia signers of Declaration of Independence – Episode 220, 6-30-14. Various waters involved in the Revolutionary War – Episode 168, 7-1-13. FOR VIRGINIA TEACHERS – RELATED STANDARDS OF LEARNING (SOLs) AND OTHER INFORMATION Following are some Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) that may be supported by this episode's audio/transcript, sources, or other information included in this post. 2020 Music SOLs SOLs at various grade levels that call for “examining the relationship of music to the other fine arts and other fields of knowledge.” 2015 Social Studies SOLs Grades K-3 History Theme1.2 – Virginia history and life in present-day Virginia.1.4 – Lives of people associated with major holidays.2.5 – Lives of people associated with major holidays. Virginia Studies CourseVS.1 – Impact of geographic features on people, places, and events in Virginia history.VS.7 – Civil War issues and events, including the role of Virginia and the role of various ethnic groups. United States History to 1865 CourseUSI.2 – Major land and water features of North America, including their importance in history.USI.9 – Causes, events, and effects of the Civil War.Virginia and United States History CourseVUS.7 – Knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.Virginia's SOLs are available from the Virginia Department of Education, online at http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/. Following are links to Water Radio episodes (various topics) designed especially for certain K-12 grade levels.Episode 250, 1-26-15 – on boiling, for kindergarten through 3rd grade. Episode 255, 3-2-15 – on density, for 5th and 6th grade. Episode 282, 9-21-15 – on living vs. non-living, for kindergarten. Episode 309, 3-28-16 – on temperature regulation in animals, for kindergarten through 12th grade. Episode 333, 9-12-16 – on dissolved gases, especially dissolved oxygen in aquatic habitats, for 5th grade. Episode 404, 1-22-18 – on ice on ponds and lakes, for 4th through 8th grade. Episode 407, 2-12-18 – on snow chemistry and physics

In 1909, New York City Police discovered the corpse of a white woman stuffed into a trunk. Because cops found the corpse in a Chinese man's apartment, the murder ignited a ‘war' against Chinese Americans, who the press claimed were out to steal and spoil white women. This episode is the story of the Chinatown Trunk Mystery, the ‘Yellow Peril,' and the destruction it caused for America's immigrant communities.This episode is in honor of Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.......#history #herstory #historian #historylover #historybuff #historicaltruecrime #truecrimehistory #truecrime #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #americanhistory #ushistory #newyorkhistory #newyorkcityhistory #chinatown #chinatownhistory #manhattanhistory #chineseamerican #aapiheritagemonth #elsiesigel #chinatowntrunkmystery #chinatowntrunkmurder Sources:Bovsun, Mara. “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery.” Daily News. 25 March 2008. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/chinatown-trunk-mystery-article-1.269236Chow, Kat. “How The White Establishment Waged A ‘War' on Chinese Restaurants in the U.S.” GBH. 16 June 2017. https://www.wgbh.org/news/2017/06/16/how-white-establishment-waged-war-chinese-restaurants-usFuchs, Chris. “The Chinese railroad workers who helped connect the country: Recovering an erased history.” NBC News. 22 April 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/recovering-erased-history-chinese-railroad-workers-who-helped-connect-country-n991136Lui, Mary Ting Yi. The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).“The Murder of Elsie Sigel by her Chinese Lover, 1909.” Historical Crime Detective. https://www.historicalcrimedetective.com/ccca/the-murder-of-elsie-sigel-by-her-chinese-lover-1909/Powell, J. Mark. “The Body in the Trunk: Who Killed Elsie Sigel?” 29 October 2015. http://www.jmarkpowell.com/the-body-in-the-trunk-who-killed-elsie-sigel-2/“Why Social Workers in the Slums Become Depraved.” The Star Company. 1914.Newspapers:Day Book. 6 January 1912. P. 23.Evening Star. June 20 and 25 1909.Los Angeles Herald. 27 June 1909.New York Times. June 19 to 28, 1909.New York Tribune. 23 June 1909.Orange County Observer. 1 July 1909.Palestine Daily Herald. 21 June 1909.Princeton Union. 8 July 1909.San Jose Mercury News. 23 June 1909.Spokane Press. 26 June 1909.Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comFor more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Vendendo vestidos e marcando uma entrevista. Minhas opiniões a partir de 28:19

An unidentified, mostly noncommunicative man in a Minnesota mental hospital, known as J.C.R., was the plaintiff in a case to prove his identity as a North Dakota rancher's son.  Who was J.C.R.?  Will we ever know? Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodcastDarkness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agable_fd/ Part of the Straight Up Strange Network: https://www.straightupstrange.com/ Opening music from https://filmmusic.io. "Dark Child" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Closing music by Soma. SOURCES “Accused of Writing Bogus Checks.” Washington Post, January 7, 1905. “Aphasia Victim May Be Naval Officer.” New York Tribune, May 26, 1913. “Are Positive of Identity.” Long Beach Telegram (California), May 23, 1913. “Bullets Write New Chapter in 'J.C.R.' Mystery.” Leavenworth Times (Kansas), May 4, 1917. “Caldwell Will Case Postponed.” Grand Forks Herald (North Dakota), August 27, 1917. “Dorothy Harris Claims to be Daughter of 'J.C.R.' and Heir to a Large Fortune.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, November 16, 1919. “Famous Identity Case Concluded Late Last Week.” Dickinson Press (North Dakota), January 20, 1917. “Found Paralyzed.” La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin), July 13, 1907. “Four Others Identify 'Aye-Hee' as Ramsey.” Oregon Daily Journal, May 23, 1913. “Girl, 18, Claims 'J.C.R.' Mystery man as Father.” Maurice Times (Iowa), December 11, 1919. “Hopes of Fortune Depend on Flute.” Spokane Daily Chronicle, November 17, 1919. “Insane Prisoner Attacks Sheriff.” Billings Gazette (Montana), August 10, 1917. “Is He? Or Is He Not? Week of Court Serves to Deepen Mystery of 'J.C.R.'.” Dickinson Press (North Dakota), January 6, 1917. “'J.C.R. Again in Our City.” Dickinson Press (North Dakota), July 31, 1915. “'J.C.R.' Face to Face With Lost Identity.” Chicago Inter Ocean, January 17, 1914. “J.C.R. Identified as James Harris Now Making Home with Former Wife.” Ward County Independent (Minnesota), August 26, 1920. “'J.C.R.' in Visit to Dickinson.” Bismarck Tribune, November 14, 1921. “'J.C.R.' on Co. Wants to Let Go.” Dickinson Press (North Dakota), April 10, 1915. “'J.C.R.,' the Man of Mystery, Declared Seen in Spokane.” Spokane Chronicle (Washington), January 24, 1920. “'J.C.R.' Walks to Dickinson.” Williston Graphic (North Dakota), August 5, 1915. “Man of Mystery Found.” Seattle Star, January 27, 1920. “Mrs. Pitkin Has an Unenviable Record.” Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (North Dakota), December 14, 1914. “Mysterious 'J.C.R.' Identified as Man Missing since 1906.” St. Louis Star and Times (Missouri), November 19, 1914. “Mystery Man for 13 Years is Brought Home.” Minneapolis Morning Tribune, August 18, 1920. “Mystery Man of Stark is Paralyzed.” Bismarck Tribune, January 31, 1921. “Noted Murder Case in North Dakota.” Rapid City Journal (North Carolina), June 19, 1917. “Says She is Wrong.” Long Beach Telegram (California), May 22, 1913. “'Silent Man' an Oklahoman?” Oklahoma Weekly Leader, May 29, 1913. “Slayer of Two Caldwells Held Insane by Jury.” August 14, 1917. “State News and Comment.” Bismarck Daily Tribune (North Dakota), April 10, 1915. “Strange Case of 'J.C.R.' the Man of Mystery Who Has Apparently Lost All Track of Himself.” Asheville Citizen-Times (North Carolina), November 9, 1913. “Trial of Mike Chumack Likely to be Postponed.” Hope Pioneer (North Dakota), June 14, 1917. “Wife Looks for Jas. P. Harris.” Tampa Times, January 13, 1920. Burnett, W. Fulton. “The Case of the Mysterious J.C.R.” North Dakota Law Review, volume 25, number 4 (1949). Callahan, Edward W. List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps, from 1775 to 1900. New York: L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1901. James H. Caldwell - Facts (ancestry.com) Waseca County Minnesota Railroad Stations (west2k.com) Strange Company: Who Was J.C.R.?

  In the winter of 1891-1892, a series of slashing attacks - and one murder - took place in the rough streets of the Bowery in Lower Manhattan, barely a stone's throw from the seedy hotel where “Old Shakespeare” was slain only a few months before. Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodcastDarkness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agable_fd/ Part of the Straight Up Strange Network: https://www.straightupstrange.com/ Opening music from https://filmmusic.io. "Dark Child" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Closing music by Soma. SOURCES “Arraignment of the Slasher.” New York Sun, January 20, 1892. “Carson's Slayer.” New York Evening World, January 18, 1892. “Caught Cutting a Throat.” New York Tribune, January 18, 1892. “Dowd Was Mad, the Jury Say.” New York Sun, January 30, 1892. “Jack the Slasher Again.” Passaic (NJ) Daily News, January 16, 1892. “Jack the Slasher in Court.” New York Evening World, January 28, 1892. “Masterson a Roundsman Now.” New York Sun, January 20, 1892. “Men Whom Dowd Slashed.” New York Evening World, January 29, 1892. “Murder or Suicide?” New York Evening World, January 15, 1892. “Red Revenge Day By Day.” Pittsburgh (PA) Dispatch, January 18, 1892. “Saloon Keeper Flynn's Frenzy.” New York Sun, July 6, 1887. “Slasher Dowd's Defense.” New York Evening World, January 21, 1892. “Slasher Dowd's Trial Put Off.” New York Evening World, January 25, 1892. “The Slasher's Brother Sane.” New York Evening World, January 28, 1892. “The Weather.” Brooklyn Times-Union, January 18, 1892. “Who Killed Lawyer Carson?” New York Evening World, January 16, 1892. Dekle, George. The East River Ripper. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2021. New York, U.S., Sing Sing Prison Admission Registers, 1865-1939 - Ancestry.com Daytonian in Manhattan: The 1894 House of Relief -- Nos. 67-69 Hudson St. (daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)

How did one man's vision of a legitimate Greco Roman championship go very wrong...and how did it accidentally became absolutely amazing? Listen to Nick and Chango discuss the hubris, the action, and the weirdness of the 1915 International Tournament!   Primary Sources: -New York Times, 05/20/1915, 05/26/1915, 05/27/1915,  05/29/1915, 05/30/1915, 06/03/1915, 06/08/1915, 06/11/1915 06/12/1915, 06/13/1915, 06/15/1915, 06/17/1915, 06/23/1915, 06/24/1915, 10/26/1915, 11/07/1915, 11/11/1915, 11/13/1915, 11/17/1915, 11/23/1915, 11/24/1915, 11/28/1915. -New York Evening World: 10/26/1915, 11/02/1915, 11/12/1915, 11/13/1915, 11/16/1915, 11/27/1915, 12/01/1915, 11/03/1915, 11/30/1915, 12/14/1915, 12/24/1915, 12/28/1915, 12/30/1915. -Cincinnati Commercial Tribune 06/20/1915 -New York Tribune: 11/10/1915, 12/04/1915, 12/17/1915, 12/19/1915. -Masked Marvel to the Rescue, by Ken Zimmerman Jr & Tamara Zimmerman.  

Synopsis One of the 20th century's most important – and most lurid – operas had its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on today's date in 1907. Richard Strauss's “Salome” is a faithful setting of Oscar Wilde's play about the decadent Biblical princess who, after her famous “dance of the seven veils,” demands the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward. She then confesses her love to the severed head and kisses it. This scene, accompanied by Strauss's graphic music, proved too much for early audiences to take. “A reviewer,” wrote The New York Tribune, ”should be an embodied conscience stung into righteous fury by the moral stench with which Salome fills the nostrils of humanity.” The Met cancelled the rest of the scheduled performances, and “Salome” was not staged there again until 1934. Closer to our time, the American composer Terry Riley put a more positive spin on the legend of Salome. In the 1980s, Riley wrote some string quartets collectively titled “Salome Dances for Peace.”  “I conceived my quartets as a kind of ballet scenario,” said Riley, “in which contemporary world leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev are seduced by a reincarnated Salome into realizing world peace.” Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864-1949) — Dance of the Seven Veils, from Salome (New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond.) DG 7890 Terry Riley (b. 1935) — Good Medicine, from Salome Dances for Peace (Kronos Quartet) Nonesuch 79217

Judge and former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, chooses to nominate the suffragette, businesswoman, and founder of Time and Tide magazine, Margaret Haig Thomas, also known as Lady Rhondda. Born in 1883, Lady Rhondda was brought up an only child, in South Wales, by her feminist parents. She survived the sinking of the Lusitania and sat on the board of 33 companies, becoming, in 1926, the first and to-date only female president of the Institute of Directors. In 1927, the New York Tribune called her ‘the foremost woman of business in the British Empire'. She was also one of the most prominent British feminists of the inter-war years, marching with the Pankhursts and setting fire to a letterbox, for which she was briefly sent to Usk prison. Lady Rhondda was also the founder and editor of the pioneering, hugely influential weekly paper Time and Tide, which featured women's perspectives and essays by literary greats from Orwell to Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. The Former President of the Supreme Court, Brenda Hale, believes Lady Rhondda's most important lesson is "that there are always new battles to be fought...You must never give up. You must always go on." With expert insight from Angela V. John, Honorary Professor of History. Produced by Ellie Richold for BBC Audio in Bristol

This week we're traveling back to 1920s France with A Very Long Engagement! Join us to learn about the amazing story of that time the president of France fell out of a train in his pajamas, the No Man's Land, WWI-era aircraft, the Paris Flood of 1910, and more! Sources: Film Background: Rotten Tomatoes, A Very Long Engagement: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_very_long_engagement_2004 Roger Ebert Review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-very-long-engagement-2004 Liza Bear, "Jean-Pierre Jeunet, With a Distaste for War, on His Bittersweet 'A Very Long Engagement'", IndieWire: https://www.indiewire.com/2004/11/jean-pierre-jeunet-with-a-distaste-for-war-on-his-bittersweet-a-very-long-engagement-78528/ Execution and the No Man's Land: Nicholas Atkin, Petain. Routledge, 1998. Self Harm and Hand Wounding, National Archives, UK: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/loyalty-dissent/self-harm-hand-wounding/ John Sweeney, "Lest We Forget: The 306 'Cowards' We Executed in the First World War," The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/nov/14/firstworldwar.uk William A. Pelz, "Protest and Mutiny Confront Mass Slaughter: Europeans in WWI," A People's History of Modern Europe, Pluto Press. Steven R. Welch, "Military Justice," The International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Available at https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/military_justice Bentley B. Gilbert and Paul P. Bernard, "The French Army Mutinies of 1917," The Historian 22, 1 (1959) Douglas Gill and Gloden Dallas, "Mutiny in Etaples Base in 1917," Past and Present 69, 1975. Airpower in WWI: Malcolm Cooper, "The Development of Air Policy and Doctrine on the Western Front, 1914-1918," Aerospace Historian 28, 1 (1981) "Who Killed the Red Baron?" Nova, available at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/redbaron/race-nf.html Ellen Castelow, "WWI: The Battle for the Skies," available at https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/World-War-One-The-Battle-for-the-Skies/ The 1910 Paris Flood: Nalina Eggert, "When Paris was under water for two months," BBC News 3 June 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36443329 The Guardian, "Flooding in Paris in 1910," 7 January 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/weather/gallery/2010/jan/07/paris-france-great-flood-1910 Ishaan Tharoor, "What Paris looked like the last time floods were this bad," The Washington Post 3 June 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/03/what-paris-looked-like-the-last-time-floods-were-this-bad/ Paul Simons, "The great Paris flood of 1910," The Times (London), 19 February 2020, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-great-paris-flood-of-1910-3rmlz22mw Pierre-Alain Roche, "The Seine River Flooding in the Ile-de-France Region" OECD https://www.oecd.org/env/cc/33995401.pdf The Sisseton weekly standard. (Sisseton, Roberts County, S.D.), 18 Feb. 1910. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99062049/1910-02-18/ed-1/seq-9/ The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.), 28 Jan. 1910. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085947/1910-01-28/ed-1/seq-1/ The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.), 07 Feb. 1910. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1910-02-07/ed-1/seq-1/ Associated Press, "Grim Specter Stalks Over Paris," Weekly Journal Miner 2 February 1910 (Prescott, AZ), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85032923/1910-02-02/ed-1/seq-1/ United Press, "Paris Flood Now Abating; Fight to Prevent Disease," Perth Amboy Evening News (Perth Amboy, NJ) 29 January 1910, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85035720/1910-01-29/ed-2/seq-1/ "Scientific American, ""Lessons of the Paris Flood."" 102, no. 6 (February 5, 1910): 118. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26008227 " President Deschanel and the Train: Edwin L. James, "Deschanel Escape Thrills France," The New York Times 25 May 1920, https://nyti.ms/323VKcW Laurence Hills, "M. Deschanel Escapes Death," The Sun and the New York Herald 25 May 1920, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030273/1920-05-25/ed-1/seq-1/ Ralph Courtney, "President of France Falls From Fast Train at Night," New York Tribune 25 May 1920, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1920-05-25/ed-1/seq-1/ Associated Press, "Deschanel in Pajamas Falls Off Moving Train," Evening Public Ledger Philadelphia, PA, 24 May 1920, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1920-05-24/ed-1/seq-1/ "French President Falls From Moving Train But Is Not Missed for 40 Miles," The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]), 24 May 1920. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1920-05-24/ed-1/seq-1/ https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-very-long-engagement-2004 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Long_Engagement

Hello Interactors,This is the last full week of fall and so the last episode on economic geography. Happy early winter solstice everyone. Soon we in the North start tilting toward the sun. I’ve learned a ton this season and hope you have too. Today I conclude with a summarization of the history and effects of capitalism as we know it today and offer a glimpse at alternatives. We like easy answers to hard problems, but I’m here to tell you it’s messy and complex. And that’s just the good stuff.As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…THE URGENCY OF CRYPTOCURRENCYCryptocurrency was trending as a topic again this fall. It spiked in October. I still see residual evidence of this in my social media feeds where debates rage on over whether it’s a legitimate form of currency or just a speculator’s delight.Cryptocurrency was invented to circumvent the juggernaut that banks, governments, and credit card companies hold on the currency market. But the more it gets legitimized as an alternative currency, the more interested these traditional institutions become. For example, one form of cryptocurrency rising in popularity are stablecoins. It’s a digital currency that can be converted into ‘real’ money and is issued by the very institutions the inventors were hoping to circumvent. It seems there is no escaping Western economic dominance.Money in the U.S. is commonly believed to come from the government, but most greenbacks issued today come from banks. They order currency from the Federal Reserve based on public demand which is then put into general circulation – which is growing worldwide. In fact, there are more U.S. dollars circulating outside of the U.S. than in it. Much of which is used by people struggling financially around the globe.Meanwhile, those not struggling are using cash less and less. Recently, some New York retailers even attempted to go cashless. It prompted the city to pass a law requiring food establishments to accept cash or face a $1,000 fine.Still, increasingly we see people paying for items with their phone. In this digital, post-cash society it’s easy to imagine an alternative virtual currency sneaking in. If our democracy can be challenged, why not our currency? A recent New York Times article by Peter Coy on the slipping grip of cash notes that “Some economists believe there is a risk that we’ll someday find ourselves with nothing that is universally accepted as a medium of exchange.” He goes on to remind us that is was Socrates who “originated the concept of a noble lie, which is a myth that elites propagate for what they view as the good of the public.” He then quotes Michael Dorf of the Cornell Law School who believes “the solidity of money is one such lie.”The truth is, alternative currencies and economies exist all around us and have for centuries. For example, in a district of central London call Brixton, where David Bowie once lived, shops no longer accept the British Pound. Instead they take an alternative currency called the Brixton Pound that features a picture of Bowie on a paper bill that is as nicely designed and proportioned as Bowie himself.It’s been in circulation since 2009 and 250 area shops accept it. Workers in Brixton also get paid with it and you can even settle your utility bills with it. It’s a hyper-local monetary scheme that incentivizes local residents to shop local, buy local, and live local. The Brixton Pound has inspired cities across the UK to do the same and now Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Liverpool, and Plymouth all have their own alternative local currencies.Many schemes like this exist outside of the Western world too – and they’re often not tied to the dominant currency system. For example, there’s a settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya called Bangladesh. Not to be confused with the country of Bangladesh. It was named after an early settler who unexpectedly packed up and moved to Bangladesh never to return. The area was hence called Bangladesh. It’s a poor informal settlement made of self-made homes and little to no infrastructure, yet is home to over 20,000 people. They work at nearby industries at the fringe of Nairobi doing odd jobs regularly paid workers refuse to do.Many are well educated, but work is intermittent and there are more qualified workers than there are jobs. It leads to extreme poverty, apathy, and strife. One local teacher in the Peace Corps, Will Ruddick, became frustrated that he was graduating kids with no where to go. He said many of whom were more skilled academically than many he’d witnessed at Stanford. Ruddick happens to also have a PhD in econophysics – a branch of economics that draws inspiration from the field of physics. He began wondering how he could devise a way for residents in areas like Bangladesh to earn consistent wages doing meaningful work in their community. He wanted ways for them to create and share in their abundance, take charge of their own livelihoods, and build a self-sustaining economic future.So in 2010 he launched an alternative local currency experiment called Eco-Pesa in three informal settlements in Kenya. That experiment became permanent in Bangladesh with the creation of their own currency; the Bangla-Pesa. Unlike the Brixton Pound, this alternative currency can’t be exchanged for the national Kenyan currency. It’s a closed system of money creation that serves one purpose: support a shared willingness among community members to accept and trade money in exchange for goods and services.It has over 2000 members and 220 businesses and has helped fill the settlement with money, eliminate market instability brought on by outside nationalistic forces, provide opportunities for investment, and grow Bangladesh businesses that generate jobs.  He went on to found Grass Roots Economics which is a resource and platform that supports and inspires experiments like his. The platform has launched seven different forms of local currency in poverty stricken informal settlements across Africa, including two in South Africa and one in Congo. Last year the Red Cross leveraged the organization to establish more local currencies during Covid helping to grow the number of registered users of local currencies to over 50,000 people. Ruddick sees no reason why it can’t continue to scale regionally and even nationally. Maybe even across the second largest continent in the world. And he has the track record and models to substantiate his claim.GREAT DIVIDE; WHITE PRIDEThe primary obstacle to such schemes taking hold too pervasively is the default global capitalocentric economic system of the West; a scheme that relies on places like Bangladesh to perpetuate its dominance. It’s a form of power and control that has existed since the spread of European colonialism starting in the 1400s.Europe had yet to be introduced to capitalism. Which means, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t invent it. There’s now ample research pointing to evidence of capitalist trade and profit already occurring across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Folks like Christopher Columbus would have tripped over these capitalist trade routes as he stumbled his way upon their shores. In fact, it’s more likely European colonial scouts like Columbus were in the untenable position of trying to convince these well established economies that they should allow lowly Europeans to even participate in their capitalistic schemes.The Ming dynasty in China and the Mughal Empire of South Asia would have been two of the more established world centers of economics at the time. Medieval Europe, in comparison, would have looked primitive and backwards by their standards. But over the course of centuries, the Europeans managed to disrupt (often violently) existing capital structures creating what has been called the Great Divergence – a socioeconomic shift in balance to the West.Just how ‘great’ it was is a matter of perspective, of course. To Amer-Europeans it was great. I certainly grew up learning that. I was taught Europeans were fortunate geographically, gifted intellectually, and superior culturally. Their ‘enlightened’ selves rose above the paltry ills of feudal medievalism to erase an embarrassing historical stain. Their inventiveness gave rise to free and fair democracy and capitalism that eventually spread from America’s sea to shining sea. Not so fast.A new book by Anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow show compelling evidence that it was actually a visit from the Native American (Huron-Wendat) statesman, Kandiaronk, who planted the seeds of ‘enlightenment’ with European philosophers in his eloquent and observant criticism of European ways. Here is a fragment of a speech he delivered to a group of French philosophers and statesmen in 1703:“I have spent six years reflecting on the state of European society and I still can’t think of a single way they act that’s not inhuman, and I genuinely think this can only be the case, as long as you stick to your distinctions of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’. I affirm that what you call money is the devil of devils; the tyrant of the French, the source of all evils; the bane of souls and slaughterhouse of the living. To imagine one can live in the country of money and preserve one’s soul is like imagining one could preserve one’s life at the bottom of a lake. Money is the father of luxury, lasciviousness, intrigues, trickery, lies, betrayal, insincerity, – of all the world’s worst behaviour. Fathers sell their children, husbands their wives, wives betray their husbands, brothers kill each other, friends are false, and all because of money. In the light of all this, tell me that we Wendat are not right in refusing to touch, or so much as to look at silver?”The heart of Kondiaronk’s critique is what fueled the ‘great divergence.’ Their ‘slaughterhouse of the living’ is what disrupted existing Asian economic dominance. It wasn’t ‘enlightenment’ but well documented, practiced, and executed forms of slavery, racism, and war-instigated establishment of European controlled capitalism. They re-centered economic activity around themselves through force, but convinced themselves, and others to this day, that their actions were justified. The British and American economic geography professor, Eric Sheppard, from UCLA puts it like this:“The stories Europeans told themselves, and imposed on others, amounted to a self justification of their role as a uniquely civilizing force, marginalizing the colonized (from Ireland to India and the Belgian Congo) as less-than-civilized, in order to justify their less than-human treatment by self-described liberals.”In the late 1800s, after the U.S. slaughtered 3,000 Filipinos as part of an overnight raid in the colonization of their land, America’s favorite poet at the time, Rudyard Kipling, wrote a poem that emblemizes the racist, violent, and self-justified imperialistic sentiment of the time:Take up the White Man’s burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.It was published in the New York Tribune, New York Sun, and San Francisco Examiner. It was also loved by President Theodore Roosevelt who sent a copy of it to his close friend and Massachusetts politician, Henry Lodge, with a note that read:“Rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.”Capitalism is rooted in racism and its emergence was tied to the colonization of captured territories over seas through militaristic invasions. By the time Roosevelt was putting it in practice in the U.S., it was a centuries old well-oiled machine. The rights of European territories to claim sovereignty and organize captured territories first emerged in Europe after the signing of the Treaty of Westfalia in 1648. After 80 years of European territorial and religious wars, this peace treaty forced the Holy Roman Empire to divvy out sovereign states (countries) across Europe and allowed them to also choose their own official religions.This event coincided with the emergence of political economists in Scotland, England, and France who had been debating and writing socioeconomic theories for years. Especially after the visit from Kondiaronk. They seized the opportunity to imbue their concepts with a secular vision that allowed capitalism to thrive between diverse European countries, and religions, for their mutual benefit. One such economic theory to eventually emerge was Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand.’With a European model of economic abstraction established, it was then tied to government controlled nation-state territories. It was a no-brainer to replicate this model for any remote territory conquered, bartered, and stolen overseas. And just like that, global colonization had taken hold. The emergence of the great divergence.It is from this confluence of events that the Western educated world has come to believe capitalism as conceived in the minds of Enlightened European thinkers. And because they self-justified themselves as intellectually and spiritually superior to other races and religions, including Kondiaronk, they believed, and we’ve been taught, that the European colonial and capitalistic expansion was for the good of humanity.But let’s be honest, this is fantasy. And it’s dangerous to abstract away capitalism from the real and documented horrors of racism, slavery, rape, persecution, theft, exploitation, and extermination that allows it to flourish to this day. It shouldn’t be sanitized as a ‘great divergence.’ It should be chastised as a hate insurgence.With the rise of Trumpism we are witnessing the sheen of capitalist oriented racism shining through decades of opaque but fading layers of failed attempts and promises of liberty and justice for all. And it’s in the spirit of domineering nationalists taking up Kipling’s distant, but misguided, call to accept the ‘White Man’s burden.’ And how much better is the Biden administration when kids captured at the border under Trump still remain in cages like ‘new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child.’ In the words of Kondiaronk, “the world’s worst behaviour.”Both the left and the right, who are still smarting from Covid supply chain woes and wringing their hands over increasing inflation, are both viewing the global economic juggernaut their parties helped to construct with suspect for the first time. They’re not alone. Every country in the world is scrambling to reconsider their local economy as it relates to Western capitalistic global domination. No wonder the world is suffering a collective anxiety attack.DON’T CRINGE AT THE FRINGEWe are witnessing an array of identity crisis across the socio-political spectrum. From far right nationalistic white-supremacy authoritarianism to the far left hopes of reconstituting socialist theories of idealized utopias. Both of which are different forms of top-down autocratic attempts at organizing social order and economies – one through neoliberal capitalistic oligarchies and the other through socialistic governmental central control. And because our poor human brains are attracted to binary polars, seek simple answers, and loath the messy middle, we suffer.Meanwhile, fringe experiments in alternative economic schemes continue to flourish as they always have. But some encroach on the establishment more than others. And one in particular operates at a scale big enough to challenge the West’s strangle hold on global economics – China. China’s global Belt and Road Initiative, while China-centric, is also undeniably globally inclusive.They have been dispersing their investments in infrastructure and commodity creation and extraction in a myriad of countries – big and small, rich and poor – around the world since 2013. At home they operate a hybrid Socialist and Capitalist government that then orchestrates attempts at controlling a global economy. If a hybridist socioeconomic experiment is seriously challenging the default world economy of the last 50-60 years, shouldn’t the U.S. and Europe consider conducting experiments of their own? Or has hubris and denial taken too strong of a hold? Only history will tell.It’s safe to say that the days of claiming Western style capitalism and U.S. exceptionalism have been exposed and debunked. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” has come into the light and it’s empty. And the neoliberal free market economy is anything but free and has financially imprisoned millions for decades. Also gone are the Eurocentric interpretations of history. It’s time we stop insisting that the capitalistic scheme dominating the world today, while not perfect, is the least-bad option and therefore every country must adopt it. It’s rhetoric like this that the global North uses to twist the arms of the poorer global South to align them with their socio-political and economic agenda.  Our beloved binary brains, again, are attracted to global North versus global South battles of theories and victories. The same can be said of East versus West. But most countries caught in this polarization have their own theories, some invented, and some borrowed or influenced – good or bad – by centuries of globalization, education, and financing from the global North. It’s no fun, but we need to wrestle with the messy middle.We in the West are so trained to assess and judge other geographies, cultures, and economies from our ivory towers of exceptionalism – as if surveying a globe from a godly perch – labeling, cataloging, and objectifying human and non-human entities, that we forget the interaction of people and place. As the late great economist, Herb Simon, says, (as illustrated on my about page)Those folks in Kenya stand at the fringe of a global economic system that either ignores them, exploits them, or starves them to death. It’s what it means to be marginalized. But with the help of a friend, they are discovering their plight is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which they find themselves. They have found a way to stand up, recognize and accept the apparent complexity, and act out of respect for each other’s position relative to one another…and the selfish globalized economic apparatus that put them there.Professor Sheppard concludes that he and his Western educated colleagues, “suffer from a particular set of geographical blinders.” He says, “they look at our world in ways that normalize the European perspective on how development happens.” It’s a perspective he’s critical of because it’s a model of economic geography that “fails to deliver on its promise of development for all, everywhere.”He goes on to offer that because Western style capitalism relies on “uneven and asymmetric connectivities” that end up “driving uneven geographical development”, we’ve arrived at a place where the dominant global economic scheme of globalization has failed “at scales ranging from the globe to the neighbourhood.”To help combat his own implicit bias, he planted himself in Jakarta to do his research. “Thinking through Jakarta”, he says, “the raggedy fringes that matter are the hybridity of Indonesia’s political economy, informality and biophysical processes.” Instead of hypothesizing over concepts or proselytizing projects from the canons of capitalism, he’s asking that we recognize, as those in Bangladesh and Brixton did, that “relations with Capitalism are crucial to understanding how” emerging alternative economies embedded on the insides of dominant systems “coevolves with its outsides.”Instead of propagating or placating a dominant global economy, what if we acknowledge, embrace, fertilize, understand, celebrate, and experience alternative economies embedded within or on the fringe of the establishment. After all, these are economies that have been forged through the interaction of people and place whose shared histories have, as Sheppard says, “found them encountering, rather than propagating, Capitalist economic development.”Cryptocurrency is likely to trend again. Our anxiety has us looking for easy answers and social media likes shiny technocratic objects. Meanwhile, I’m rooting for Will Ruddick and his grass roots economies. A humane form of reciprocity that even the brilliant, eloquent, and enlightened Kondiaronk would recognize. And maybe even support. Subscribe at interplace.io

Today in 1963, a black and white cat from the streets of France became the first cat to go into space. She didn't choose to go, of course, but she's a pioneer just the same - and until a few years ago, a greatly underappreciated one. Plus: today in 1922, a girl in Illinois made it to school after being run over by a train?!? Félicette, the First Feline in Space, Finally Got Her Due (How Stuff Works) Et si Félicette, le premier chat dans l'espace, avait bientôt sa statue ? (Le Parisien) Today in 1922: a six year old in Illinois made it to school after being run over by a train (!!!!!!!) (New York Tribune via Twitter) Our Patreon backers are podcasting pioneers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/support

Everyone has their favorite holiday, but do you know how your favorite holiday came into being? The answers may surprise you. For instance, in 12th century England, New Year's Day was celebrated on March 25th, but the ancient Celts celebrated their New Year (Sumhain) on November 1st. So why do we now celebrate the New Year on January 1st? And why do we now use the Gregorian Calendar as opposed to the Julian Calendar? Also, did the Druids really use human sacrifices during their celebrations? And why would shepherds be tending their flocks in the middle of December? Did slavery still exist after June 19, 1865? Here in our 30th episode we answer every single one of those questions and much more!Episode Notes:King Numa Pompilius (c. 700 BC) is credited with adding January and February to the old 10-month Roman calendar, but March 1st remained New Year's Day for Romans until the Julian calendar was developed around 45 BC.President Abraham Lincoln did not, in August of 1862, write to Horatio Seymour, former and future Governor of New York, about slavery and the Union, but rather to Horace Greeley, editor of The New York Tribune.  As promised, here is Rebecca's Spotify playlist, “October Songs”. Books:A Brief History of the Calendar by David Harper, PhD, FRASNew Year's Day Wikipedia articleThe Civil War Day by Day by E.B. LongLincoln by David Herbert DonaldHalloween by Ruth Edna KelleyA Brief History of the Druids by Peter Berresford EllisThe Christmas Encyclopedia by William CrumpHistorical Dictionary of Catholicism by William J. CollingeFilm:The Wicker Man (1973) – with Edward Woodward, Diane Cilento

Hugh tells the story of a petty exchange that took place in the pages of the New York Tribune and the Syracuse Post-Standard, and culminated one hundred years ago today. Follow along with the show notes.

This week EO dives into what a perfect society would look like and what it takes to succeed. Artwork: Jovana StekovicLogo:  nydaaaMusic: Home Base Groove by Kevin MacLeod   Casey's Sources: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Shangri-lahttps://www.dictionary.com/browse/utopiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurovillehttps://auroville.org/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirra_Alfassahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville#/media/File:Matrimandir_Auroville_Pondicherry.jpghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MatrimandirKaren's Sources:https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/letter.html#ripley2https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/brhistory.htmlMyerson, Joel, and Brook Farm. “Two Unpublished Reminiscences of Brook Farm.” The New England Quarterly www.jstor.org/stable/364662https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-communism-and-socialism-195448Wilson, J. B. “The Antecedents of Brook Farm.” The New England Quarterly www.jstor.org/stable/360529Gohdes, Clarence. “Getting Ready for Brook Farm.” Modern Language Notes Jwww.jstor.org/stable/2912067Delano, Sterling F. “Thoreau's Visit to Brook Farm.” The Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. www.jstor.org/stable/23400775. Myerson, Joel. “Rebecca Codman Butterfield's Reminiscences of Brook Farm.” The New England Quarterly, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/365824. "Death of Margaret Fuller" New-York Tribune 23 July 1850, page 4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fuller#Deathhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Anderson_Danahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Curtis#Workshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_C._Barlowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiana_Bruce_Kirbyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Hecker#Cause_for_sainthoodHome Base Groove by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source:  http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100563 Artist:  http://incompetech.com/ 

On Friday's Mark Levin Show, President Biden chose to run for president but would never release his medications list. Despite his many cognitive failures the media continues covering for his obvious decline. Using the guise of a COVID health emergency Biden's senior staff has no problem telling Facebook what social media posts they want to be censored. The fact is there isn't a single case of death related to anyone's Facebook post about the coronavirus. Now, Jen Psaki says if an individual is banned from one social media platform they should be banned from all. What's next, banning talk radio hosts or conservative commentary on cable news? Will dissent or disagreement be labeled as misinformation that kills people too? Then, Karl Marx was viewed as a prolific writer and fancied himself a journalist for the New York Tribune, this is why the Marxists in the media are a disaster and are indeed the enemy of the people. The American media have become special pleaders for the Americanized Marxist movement in various areas of our once open and free society. The silencing of opposition (repression) is their main tactic as they claim ideological purity. Later, Michelle Lette, a member of the Fairfax, VA Parent Teacher Association, called for the critics of critical race theory to be allowed to die. Even some parent groups have been compromised by the teacher unions. Afterward, Candidate for Governor of California, Larry elder, joins the show to discuss his run for Governor of California.

On Friday's Mark Levin Show, President Biden chose to run for president but would never release his medications list. Despite his many cognitive failures the media continues covering for his obvious decline. Using the guise of a COVID health emergency Biden's senior staff has no problem telling Facebook what social media posts they want to be censored. The fact is there isn't a single case of death related to anyone's Facebook post about the coronavirus. Now, Jen Psaki says if an individual is banned from one social media platform they should be banned from all. What's next, banning talk radio hosts or conservative commentary on cable news? Will dissent or disagreement be labeled as misinformation that kills people too? Then, Karl Marx was viewed as a prolific writer and fancied himself a journalist for the New York Tribune, this is why the Marxists in the media are a disaster and are indeed the enemy of the people. The American media have become special pleaders for the Americanized Marxist movement in various areas of our once open and free society. The silencing of opposition (repression) is their main tactic as they claim ideological purity. Later, Michelle Lette, a member of the Fairfax, VA Parent Teacher Association, called for the critics of critical race theory to be allowed to die. Even some parent groups have been compromised by the teacher unions. Afterward, Candidate for Governor of California, Larry elder, joins the show to discuss his run for Governor of California.

It's being reported that Trump is preparing to issue as many as 100 pardons. This surprises exactly no one, as it's a fitting last act of a president who has been largely lawless during his four years in office. But what are the consequences for the people who decide to accept a pardon from Trump? The Supreme Court answered that question in 1915 in the case of George Burdick v. The United States. Mr. Burdick was the editor of the New York Tribune who refused to accept a pardon from President Woodrow Wilson. The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Burdick was well within his right to refuse the pardon because accepting a pardon carries with it "an imputation of guilt and a confession" that you committed the crime for which you are pardoned. This is an important doctrine because those "confessions" by individuals who accept Trump's pardons can actually come back to haunt them in a number of ways. Here's how . . .  Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/glennkirschner) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

-William Henry Fry, born a Philadelphian in 1813... or 1815... well it seems no one really knows for sure. But, either is close enough for us. Though it might seem a foreign concept to us, being able to hear great music in the 19th century was completely dependent on an orchestra or opera company actually putting on the performance, geographically nearby, on an evening when you could go, assuming you could afford a ticket. No internet, YouTube, obviously. Philadelphia was great for Fry in this regard. In the 1830s, a French opera troupe toured to Philly and performed French opera sung in French, in addition to some other standards of the repertoire, like Rossini's _La Gazza Ladra_. Multiple Italian opera companies came through with similar programming. These and many other experiences available to him in Philadelphia led to Fry not only taking composition lessons, but also having some early overtures and even operas performed. - Professionally, however, Fry took up the family business of journalism. His father founded the Philadelphia _National Gazette_, and later working as a foreign correspondent for the _Public Ledger_ and _New York Tribune_, Fry was able to spend 3 years in Paris (6 years total in Europe). Well, being the industrious man that he was, he took advantage of that time, soaking in as much music and culture as he could.- It also seems he soaked in a little arrogance as well! He constantly compared Paris to Philly and America generally. Particularly, in this quote… again this is a quote(!), Fry is very cutting: “Philadelphia is a Quaker abortion as regards plan; New York a Dutch monstrosity; Boston a Puritancial fright… When the groveling, penny-scraping, health destroying folly that blotted out the only dash of Beauty born of the narrow spirit which planned Philadelphia—the Centre Park—which changed that pretty little circle of verdure and trees into four square what-nots… which are a disgrace to Philadelphia and human nature, when that beggarly abortion which should be gibbeted as a criminal against good taste… shall be changed, a new birth shall be given to Democracy and the strength and splendor which royalty has conferred on Paris, social justice shall spread over our community. Perhaps if the Tuileries Gardens were in Philadelphia some money grub would vote for cutting it up to admit vehicles through, or worse even, for city lots.” As you can tell, the man had a lot to say…- At any rate, Fry did return to the US and lived out his life as news editor, critic, and composer. He relentlessly criticized audiences for wanting European-centric only programming, while championing American music. He even found time to do a series of music history lectures.- As for Fry's compositions, many were lost upon his death. What remains is more than enough to fill out a musical sketch of the man at any rate.- Notably, Fry wrote an opera titled _Leonora_, and upon it's production in 1845 it became the first grand opera written by an American composer. He additionally wrote 2 other operas, _Aurelia the Vestal_ and _Notre-Dame of Paris_. - An interesting quote by Fry on opera: “Rightly to hear and enjoy an old opera, we should place ourselves, so far as possible, in the circle of thought, artistic and general, of the period at which it was produced. With such mobility we may, to a degree, see with the eyes and hear with the ears of generations gone by.”- This thinking actually endears me to this man, as my personal, preferred production of a Mozart opera includes wigs and corsets. It's not for everyone, and the modern thinking is to “update” all visual elements. But the dated scenery and costumes helps me enter the moment and the time period and disassociate from the present.- Fry wrote as many as 7 symphonies, or that's what he calls them. They are really tone-poems, each one heavily programmatic, much shorter than expected, and usually not structured much like any symphony I know of. More on that later...- The 2 most famous ones, _Niagara_, also written in 1854, which we will discuss shortly, and the Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony, of 1853. The Christmas Symphony is quite unique. Fry calls for a saxophone, which is possibly the first use of the instrument in an orchestral setting. Like, the saxophone had only been invented like 10 years earlier, and no one had yet thought about putting it in a symphony. The piece is full of instrumental solos, even one for double bass! Not at all as memorable as Mahler's bass solo in the 3rd movement of his 1st symphony, but still unusual. The piece is very engaging, and dramatically ends with Adeste Fideles, or Oh Come All Ye Faithful as it is better known.####Culture- As I mentioned, Fry wrote Niagara for a “Grand Musical Congress” at New York's Crystal Palace. Now, the Crystal Palace has an interesting, though short, history. It was erected in 1853, aaaaaand burned down in 1858, so not much could come of the 5 years it existed. Patterned after London's own building of the same name, this one was also built with iron and glass, in the shape of a Greek cross with a 100 ft dome atop the center. - This performance was in fact the 2nd opening of the Crystal Palace after the initial opening ceremony was apparently a dud, which included hours of musical performances and political speeches—including an appearance by President Franklin Pearce—in addition to the art and sculpture exhibition. In Fry's review of the original he doesn't hold back either: “The various speeches delivered on the occasion were attentively listened to by a select body of hearers, but the immense space of the Crystal Palace with its two floors and the multitudinous partial partitions, prevented the great mass present from hearing. The bad and vulgar American habit of talking and walking on such occasions, added also to the difficulty of catching what the speakers said... The effect produced upon the audience by the music foreshadows the success of keeping up that source of enjoyment for the Million as long as the Exhibition may be kept open.” In other words, Fry is saying why would they care how the music sounds as long as the politicians get to speak!- So, this Grand Musical Congress for the 2nd opening was to be an overwhelming event. One review at the time described it as quote “unit[ing] in one grand ensemble the elite of the instrumental celebrities of Europe and America, together with the great choral societies, solo singers, etc., of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, etc., etc.—to the number of some fifteen hundred performers”. And of course this kind of grandiose event could only come from the mind of one P.T. Barnum, the newly appointed President of the Crystal Palace.- As a featured composer of this 2nd event and a music critic with the New York Tribune, Fry got completely on board. He even elevated the event and the building to the level of the Greek Gods(!), asserting that the Crystal Palace quote “may be considered the Olympian festival of the Nineteenth Century.” Well, that's one way to promote the event anyway!- Fry was to have 2 pieces performed on this concert: the Adagio from “The Breaking Heart” and our subject du jour, the Niagara Symphony, which does in fact bear the dedication “Composed for the Musical Congress at the Crystal Palace of New York.” However, since there is only one known review of the performance, and that review only mentions the Adagio, we are NOT even certain that the Niagara Symphony was performed at all! Well... I guess that's technically true, but there is no other reason to doubt that it wasn't performed either. And despite that, as we will see, the piece itself is thematically 100% in line with the event and all of its pomp and frills.###Analysis of piece####Overall scope- The _Niagara_ Symphony is certainly large in effect, meaning to evoke the visual and aural scene of the Falls themselves. But, it is by no means one of Fry's largest works, like his opera Leonora and the more well known _Santa Claus_ Symphony. What the piece does is showcase Fry's penchant for experimentation and visually evocative writing. The first rarity is the orchestration, calling for 5 timpanists playing 11 drums! ... Then, just as oddly, he calls for 2 “bass brass instruments”, specifying “tubas, ophicleides, bombardones... using very high register.” I had to look up the bombardone... it's essentially the bottom range trombone, with the same range of a tuba! I have no idea how feasible this was at the time, but certainly today we would just use 2 tubas, similar to replacing the 2 serpentines Berlioz' calls for in his _Symphonie Fantastique_. ####Excerpts- Now, lets hear excerpts of the piece itself.- A dull murmur of timpani rolls begins the piece, and as if turning a small bend in the water to take full view of the falls, the music builds quickly to a grand climactic fanfare- Then just as quickly, this climax erupts into confusion, running chromatic scales, even in the trumpets!, possibly representative of the rocky ride over the waves toward the falls 『play chromatics』- After yet another climactic crash (of waves, maybe?), the sound finally calms, opening up to a surprisingly stately, contrasting theme. Though, the timpani rolls persist beneath throughout, foreshadowing what is to come- In a moment of compositional brilliance, Fry creates a way of ending this stately theme and moving back to the drama of the falls, all while keeping the listener visually “in the boat” so to speak. Before fully ending the section, there are four rousing interjections, followed by stillness, only the ever rolling timpani heard. Only then, after rising tremello and brass chords does he finally arrive at a recap of the beginning fanfare- Now we get another moment of real creativity and real brilliance Fry. After repeating much of the opening material again, at a moment of tight dissonance and tension, Fry creates a distant sounding echo of this moment, and quietly ends the piece in oblivion. In the score, Fry specifically says of the ending measures “Retard these eight bars very much at the second time of playing them to produce a continued monotony of effect.”###Closing- This is truly a unique piece, even now. Even if you've never been to Niagara Falls, Fry's work is engaging and vivid.- Like I said earlier, no matter what he calls it, this really isn't a Symphony, or at least as designed by Haydn and perfected by Beethoven. And Fry spent enough time studying Art Music that he knew very well what a Symphony was. Maybe it was more of a marketing idea? Or possibly he had intended the pieces to be longer, originally?- At any rate, the entire piece is worth enjoying, in totality, as it is, no matter the title.Music:Niagara SymphonyBy: William Henry FryPerformed by: Tony Rowe; Royal Scottish National OrchestraCourtesy of Naxos of America, Inc.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/american-muse-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

City of Greeley History as an agricultural community: “Now embracing iHemp!” Founded in 1869 as an experimental utopian society by Horace Greeley, editor at the New York Tribune, that popularized the phrase "Go West, young man". Located at the confluence of the Cache la Poudre and South Platte Rivers, the construction of irrigation ditches was central to the agricultural vision for Greeley. Greeley's water history is long and elaborate, including the 13-miles long Number 3 Ditch completed in 1870 and the 35 miles long Ditch No. 2 opened in 1872 that irrigated 2,000 acres. The City of Greeley has a long commitment to supporting local agriculture with water and services to underpin its agri-food economy. City of Greeley Department of Economic Health & Housing Benjamin Snow: Director of Economic Health & Housing Benjamin.Snow@Greeleygov.com Philip McCready: Economic Development Manager Philip.McCready@GreeleyGov.com 1100 10th Street, Suite 201 Greeley, Colorado 80631 www.Greeleygov.com (970) 350-9384 

From an early age, Margaret Fuller dazzled New England's intelligent elite. Her famous Conversations changed women's sense of how they could think and live; her editorship of the Dial shaped American Romanticism. Megan Marshall tells the story of how Fuller, tired of Boston, accepted Horace Greeley's offer to be the New York Tribune's front-page columnist. The move unleashed a crusading concern for the urban poor and the plight of prostitutes, and a hunger for passionate experience.