One Hundred Years Ago

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

       

A lot of the credit should go to the gent in the middle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Henning

You are so right, Rix! I was hoping it would turn out he was born in 1916, but no such luck. 

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

That episode was hilarious. The whole series is great. I don't know who wrote for it but they deserve a life-time Emmy. If only today's shows were so hilarious and had such longevity. And, not to be a prude, but funny without having just to resort to sex, scatology, cursing or being "edgy." The portrayal of hippies in that episode was classic also. Smoked crawdads!

It's still one of my favorite series in large part because the writing was genuinely clever and didn't have to rely on the type of cheap gags you mentioned. However, given the often surreal aspects of that show and to a much greater extent, "Green Acres," another Paul Henning show, I have almost no doubt the writers were smoking their own brand of crawdads at the very least. 

[Walks_At_Night]

The Ford Motor Company was covered in the last autopost - now it is time to take a little closer look
at the Ford family.   So we'll call this the Ford's - Part I

In 1916, Henry Ford was 47 years old and very much in charge of the Ford Motor Company.   He was raised on
a farm near Dearborn, Michigan.  Not wanting to be a farmer he left home at the age of 16 to become a machinist
in Detroit and before long he was servicing steam engines.   Soon he would be an Engineer at the Edison Illuminating
Company and married to a woman named Clara. In 1893 they had their only child - a son they named Edsel and that
same year Ford would be named chief engineer at Detroit Edison.

He would work on developing a "horseless carriage" on his own time and at one point had the chance to pitch
his "Ford Quadricycle" to Thomas Edison. Edison wasn't interested but encouraged Ford to follow his passion.
BTW - Edison was Ford's idol and they would become good friends and even vacation together later on in life. 
We learned in the Ford Motor Company post that Ford had a couple of false starts but he would hit it big on
this third attempt with the Ford Motor Company and the Model T.  With this success he would found a dynasty
that is still heavily influenced by his descendants to this very day.

Henry Ford was a complicated guy.  Initially Ford was very good to his employees.  He offered a $5 a day wage
at a time when this was unheard of. After 6 months with Ford, employees were eligible for profit sharing - as long
as they lived their lives in a "respectable manner".   Unlike hard partying guys like Chevrolet and the Dodge
boys, Ford was an ardent prohibitionist and rather uptight.  His company had a  "Sociological Department" that
looked into an employee’s drinking, gambling and other activities. At one time the department grew to over
200 investigators who would show up unannounced at an employees home to ensure that all was in order.
The home needed to be clean, well maintained and the kids needed to be in school.  They would look into
the employees spending habits, marriage fidelity and morality.   The also started the Ford English
school to insure that every Ford employee was fluent in the English language [you have to communicate
clearly on an Assembly line or people get hurt - my Great Grandfather went through this school].  It's interesting
to translate all this into modern day America.  If you did good work, showed up for work at time [not under the
influence of anything], didn't  beat your wife and made sure your kids went to school each morning you could
double your pay. I'd sign up for it no questions asked but imagine the ensuing shit storm in the press these
days! 

When Henry Ford instituted the $5 a day wage his company was clearly the best auto company to work for
but as we'll see be the end of Ford's life it was clearly the worst.   When things were good they
were very good and employee loyalty was so high it impacted the speech patterns of the people in the area.
"Where do you work?"  'I work at Ford's' as in the possessive for Ford's factory.   Soon this quirk spread
beyond just Ford - it was every where and it's amusing to hear an old Detroiter talk.  My parents always
talked that way: "On Saturday I need to go to Walmart's, Kroger's and CVS's"  I guess living in NC for almost
30 years has beat it out of me as I don't do it anymore.

At times Henry Ford would go through bizarre phases with food - one time it was carrots.  He sponsored a
dinner advocating the carrot and had 14 dishes prepared with carrots.  In another phase he refused to eat
fresh bread - only stale bread would do.   At other times he would talk about getting "Food Drunk" and
he would power down huge amounts of eggs, sausages, and bacon.

Ford was an avowed pacifist.  Sickened by the outbreak of WW1 he came up with the idea of chartering an
Ocean Liner with a number of peace activists in the hope of generating enough world wide publicity to
prompt the waring nations to at least start a conference to begin discussions with each other.   The ship
Ford chartered was called the Oscar II but it was commonly referred to in the press as the "Peace Ship".
Of course it was a roaring disaster - during the voyage the activists bickered with each other, the press
covering the mission mocked it and then the final straw was when the Flu broke out onboard. By the time the
ship reached Norway a discouraged and ill Ford returned home almost immediately.  It was a long shot at
best but Ford was comfortable that he at least tried.

In 1916, Henry Ford's estate was finally ready and he moved into it.  It was called "Fair Lane" after an
area in County Cork where some of Ford's ancestors were from.   The initial design of the Manse was done by
Frank Lloyd Wright, although Wright did not finish it (Wright went off to Europe.)   At 31,000 square feet
and 56 rooms it was no shack but compared to something like the Biltmore House in Asheville it was fairly
modest.   Fair Lane still stands, is a National Historic Landmark.

While obviously a genius Ford was not well educated - however he did had an impressive amount of common
sense and a huge number of very nice qoutes are attributed to him:

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

and an all time favorite of mine:

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

Ford would also open an impressive Museum and historical village called The Henry Ford Museum and
Greenfield Village.   If you are ever in Detroit it is a must see if you are a history buff.  The
Museum is nice - full of neat stuff like Sikorsky's prototype helicopter, the chair Lincoln was sitting
in when he was shot at Ford's theater, the Lincoln Kennedy was riding in when he was shot.
Greenfield Village is also worthwhile.  Ford would buy up historical locations and move them piece
by piece to Dearborn and reassemble them.  The Wright brother's bicycle shop, the courthouse
where Abe Lincoln practiced law, an exact replica of Edison's lab and many other sites are there. 

Ford was also a member of the self proclaimed "Vagabonds" - a group of friends that would vacation together
in Ford automobiles and just bum around and go camping amd see the sights.  The core of the group was
Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone. At times they would be joined by John Burroughs who was
a naturalist and writer - he also looked like Rip Van Winkle.   While  it was true that they were camping
they were not exactly roughing it.   On a trip to the Smoky Mountains the caravan totaled 50 vehicles including
a specially designed kitchen car.  They had fun and of course the trips were great advertisements for
Ford cars and Firestone tires. 

A life long Democrat, Woodrow Wilson asked Henry Ford to run for US Senate in 1918.   Ford agreed and to
cover all the bases he entered both primaries - Republican and Democrat.   An alarmed Republican party of Michigan
was terrifed that Ford would win *both* primaries.  So they turned to Michigan's version of Theodore Roosevelt -
a guy named Truman Newberry.   The Newberry's were a very wealthy and prominent family in Michigan but when
the Spanish-American War broke out - Newberry was off to the Navy and served on the cruiser USS Yosemite. After
the war Newberry returned to Michigan and helped found the Packard Motor Company of Detroit.   Newberry would
then serve as Secretary of the Navy under Theodore Roosevelt.   So he was a natural to run against Henry Ford
and he not only beat Henry Ford out of the Republican Primary but won the general election in 1918 as well.   
However, Newberry had to spend tons of cash  and sling gobs of mud to do so.  There was such a stink that he has
tried for election corruption and was convicted.  The case worked it's way up to the Supreme Court which over turned the
conviction.  The US Senate was forced to admit that Newberry was entitled to his seat but they were not happy.
Newberry ended up resigning his seat in 1922 under duress.  It is unclear what impact if any that a Senator Henry Ford
would have had on the ratification of the League of Nations. Who knows?  The Republican's held a 2 seat
majority with Newberry's win so even without him they still would have had the advantage.  BTW - The Ford-Newberry Senate
race was very, very close and a Socialist named E.O. Foss drew about 1.10% of the votes- almost enough
to cost the Ford the election.   This is something Ford never forgot - he would tangle with the Socialists
again in the future and he definitely was not a forgive and forget type of a chap.

We'll close this post out at this point as it's getting long.  Up to this point we have covered alot of
Ford's strengths but he definitely had a dark side.  This dark side will be cultivated by a chance meeting between
Ford and a thug named Harry Bennett.   This would culminate in the Ford family almost losing control of the Ford
Motor Company forever.  We'll cover that and more in Part II of the Ford's

Henry Ford

Clara Ford


The Peace Ship was mocked in the press


Fair Lane



Vagabonds L-R   Ford, Edison, Burroughs, Firestone


Truman Newberry


Henry Ford Museum




Greenfield Village

[GravitySucks]

Cool post. I have been to that museum when I was a kid. They had a glass blowing shop. Edison's lab was my favorite part.

[Rix Gins]

Bravo, Walks!  Great piece and I've learned some things.  Looking forward to part two.

[albrecht]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia
Ive always had intererest in planned societies etc. Whether cults, companies, religions, sects, states, etd.
Post, Texas as another example.

[Rix Gins]

It's still one of my favorite series in large part because the writing was genuinely clever and didn't have to rely on the type of cheap gags you mentioned. However, given the often surreal aspects of that show and to a much greater extent, "Green Acres," another Paul Henning show, I have almost no doubt the writers were smoking their own brand of crawdads at the very least. 

I hear you, Robert.  I was always a big Beverly Hillbillies fan, as well as Green Acres.  I still chuckle when I think about the Hillbillies calling their swimming pool the cement pond.  And wondering who the hidden person was that would make musical sounds whenever somebody would happen to come to their front door.  I'm thinking that some distilled, crawdad 'juice' might have helped with the writing, too.    

[albrecht]

I hear you, Robert.  I was always a big Beverly Hillbillies fan, as well as Green Acres.  I still chuckle when I think about the Hillbillies calling their swimming pool the cement pond.  And wondering who the hidden person was that would make musical sounds whenever somebody would happen to come to their front door.  I'm thinking that some distilled, crawdad 'juice' might have helped, too.   

One of the many of my favs is the whole "frogman" theme: with the Navy man who might be Ellie May's beau but Granny thinks is a frog and then high-jinx and misunderstandings spreads for several episodes. Pure genius.

[Walks_At_Night]

Bravo, Walks!  Great piece and I've learned some things.  Looking forward to part two.

Thanks Rix & thanks thread.  I've learned some stuff as well - not the least of which is albrecht's
post about Fordlandia in Brazil.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

One of the many of my favs is the whole "frogman" theme: with the Navy man who might be Ellie May's beau but Granny thinks is a frog and then high-jinx and misunderstandings spreads for several episodes. Pure genius.

Maybe we should start a Paul Henning shows thread.  We havent't even begun to discuss how "Petticoat Junction" reconciles with "Green Acres" in the Hooterville universe, and I'm sure Rix would agree that this isn't the place to explore the topic, no matter how fascinating it may be.   

[K_Dubb]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia
Ive always had intererest in planned societies etc. Whether cults, companies, religions, sects, states, etd.
Post, Texas as another example.

Freeland, where my folks live on Whidbey Island, started as an offshoot of a short-lived socialist commune on the mainland.  The story is a familiar one:

Tempers flared and hard feelings developed among the "cooperators." The weekly meetings became prolonged wrangles. Eventually, the dispute became one continuous wrangle with meetings every night in the week.

The colony was being helped to financial ruin by pseudosocialist free-loaders. Newcomers, professing socialism, arrived penniless agreeing to work out their $160 membership fee.
      The unmarried men, especially, found the well stocked commissary and the home-cooked food most agreeable. They would work for a few weeks, draw on the commissary up to the limit, then sneak away to greener pastures.

http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/WestCounty/NW/Colony/EastonCL3-Equality1962.html

Today, all that remains is an overgrown plum orchard.  Gorgeous, sweet yellow plums -- we used to pick them, but last year a story appeared in the newspaper saying they were to be harvested and given to the island's food bank, so no picking.  Of course the effort was half-hearted and poorly run, the hungry preferred frozen pizza, and most rotted on the ground.  Fitting.

[K_Dubb]

From the Tacoma Times today.  I was all excited seeing the headline, hoping for Bigfoot.  Then, at least a feral human.



I found a passing reference to his capture in August, but no further details.



From Wikipedia:

Romola was pregnant, so the couple returned to Budapest, Austro-Hungary, to his mother-in-law Emilia Markus' house. Their daughter Kyra was born on 19 June 1914. With the start of the Great War (World War I), Nijinsky was classified as an enemy Russian citizen. He was confined to house arrest in Budapest and could not leave the country. The war made problems for the Ballets Russes too; the company had difficulty recruiting dancers and Fokine returned to Russia.

Diaghilev started negotiations in October 1914 for Nijinsky to work again for the company, but could not obtain release of the dancer until 1916. The complex negotiations included a prisoner exchange with the United States, and agreement that Nijinsky would dance and choreograph for the Ballets Russes' tour. King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Queen Alexandra of Denmark, Dowager Russian Empress Marie Feodorovna, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and the Pope Benedict XV all interceded on his behalf.

And more clues to the sounds of 1916:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x2ESyoD640

This ad is also in today's paper:



And Rix and I are still on the run:

[K_Dubb]

Here's the rest of the article.  Just our luck.



Maybe Trixie was the getaway driver.

[Rix Gins]

Great stuff to read on a Sunday K, thanks.  I'm so glad that we are still on the run, but if we do get caught, I at least hope that we have colorful names like old Diamond Tooth had.  Nice shot of Trixie.  I think that both of us kind of picture her being the self assured type.  I used our time machine to look into the question of whether Trixie had a sister named Bonnie.  It turns out no...but she did have a daughter by that name.  Here she is back in 1950, looking not entirely pleased with my visit.  It begs the question, did one of us get 'lucky' with Trixie, or were we both in the slammer at that time? 

[Rix Gins]

Everett True, February 28, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Chicago Day Book, February 28, 1916. 

[Rix Gins]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, February 28, 1916.

[albrecht]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, February 28, 1916.

I reckon Mr.Skelton won't be playing any indoor bb with the Eagles! "Rip Gizzard" sounds awful, but seems like an appropriate name. Crazy what prohibition does even today, as an aside, kids taking goodness knows what produced by some unregulated factory in China with all kinds of potential problems. At least with "real" drugs doctors etc know what they are dealing with. Dangerous, sure, but a known danger.

[K_Dubb]

Everett True, February 28, 1916.

It's things like this that annoy the hell out of me.  Clearly a "silk plug hat" connoted something in that culture that we've lost completely.  The only references I can find pair it with kid gloves in a way that suggests something effete, or maybe city-slicker sophistication.  Oh, to read the mind of Mr. True!  He obviously has strong feelings on the subject.



And yeah, I see Trixie as a woman who, if not quite a tomboy, at least genuinely likes men.  I am sure her daughter bears the noble stamp of your visage; I've never been lucky that way.

[K_Dubb]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, February 28, 1916.

Yet one more obscure term defined:



I wonder if the Mono beverage was distilled, or was it more like a mix of cider and beer?  Anyone know what "drawn off" means in this context?

[Rix Gins]

Thanks K, I was wondering what a jitney dance was.  When I was a kid, I worked at a place that called forklifts, jitneys...so my mind was conjuring strange images of people dancing as if they were forklifts.  Also, great photo of the silver setting.  Beautiful!  I was wondering about the silk hat, too.  Everett did accuse the guy of being in disguise...so too hoityâ€"toity for a business man to be wearing one?

[albrecht]

Thanks K, I was wondering what a jitney dance was.  When I was a kid, I worked at a place that called forklifts, jitneys...so my mind was conjuring strange images of people dancing as if they were forklifts.  Also, great photo of the silver setting.  Beautiful!  I was wondering about the silk hat, too.  Everett did accuse the guy of being in disguise...so too hoityâ€"toity for a business man to be wearing one?

Apparently gypsy cabs etc were also called "jitney?"

"Drawn off," I figure, is some kind of skimming or attempt at purifying the "Gizzard" brew? Like "devatting" in wine making?

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza, February 28, 1916.

The story about the government requiring people to justify their reasons for receiving mail at General Delivery is scary.  I'm guessing the headline was tongue in cheek and the policy probably had more to do wth concerns about espionage, but it still constituted a serious invasion of privacy by the federal government. 

However, it also would have been entirely possible for especially graphic love letters (or "snail sexting") to be considered "obscene" by the broad interpretation of the word allowed by the Comstock Act, which criminalized the use of U.S. Mail to send smut, adult novelties, contraceptives, and even information about contraceptives.  Those provisions weren't repealed until the 1970s, more than a hundred years after they were enacted.  It's hard to believe now that it took so long to do it.  Heck, even if those rumors about Thomas Jefferson commissioning an anonymous portrait artist to paint dick pics as whimsical gifts to Sally Hemings aren't true, it's likely that it never occurred to the Founding Fathers to give a tinker's dental dam about what people sent to each other.

[albrecht]

I've always been curious from references in old movies, radio, books, etc if you can still use "general delivery" to receive mail these days. Apparently it is still on the books though this mentions that the local postmaster can refuse or restrict its use. I'm tempted to try it out at my local, small post office and see if it works.
http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm/D930.htm

[GravitySucks]

Yet one more obscure term defined:



I wonder if the Mono beverage was distilled, or was it more like a mix of cider and beer?  Anyone know what "drawn off" means in this context?

It doesn't sound like a distillation process, more like a fermentation process where the liquid is drawn off, leaving the solids behind. I found references in both wine and kombucha fermentation sources.

[K_Dubb]

It doesn't sound like a distillation process, more like a fermentation process where the liquid is drawn off, leaving the solids behind. I found references in both wine and kombucha fermentation sources.

Ah, thanks!  So it's like a corn beer.

Popular myth blames the Europeans for bringing alcohol to the New World. That may be fair where spirits are concerned, but large swaths of the Americas were home to civilizations that co-evolved with fermented drinks. As with barley and wheat, maize was a grass tamed and nurtured over generations to become something more nutritiousâ€"and more fermentable.

Chicha, in all its incarnations, ranged from the Andes up to what is now the southwestern United States. The Apache made a traditional corn beer, the prohibition of which was one of Geronimo’s reasons for rebelling against the resettlement regime in the 1880s. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that some Pueblo tribes of modern-day New Mexico, long thought to be teetotalers, were making their own fermented corn drink about 800 years ago. So, arguably, chicha is the original American beer.

I wonder if the strange reference to spitting rabbits is a garbled transmission of this traditional method:

In manageable amounts, chew and moisten the corn with saliva, and form it into small cakes. Dry them in the sun before throwing them in the brewpot.

http://draftmag.com/how-to-make-chicha/

[K_Dubb]

From today's Morning Oregonian:



Presumably this is the Spirit Lake Lodge, seen here in 1947:



Spirit Lake Road, 1910s:


Deer in Spirit Lake:

[K_Dubb]

Whoops, further research indicates that incarnation of the lodge is from 1941.  I assume Julia Lange Gustafson is Robert Lange's daughter.



I can't find pictures of the original lodge identified as such, but these pictures of the Lange homestead may include it.  It looks like quite an operation:

Robert and Minnie Lange were at Spirit Lake long before the various lodges were established. Minnie had always lived in the Pacific Northwest and Robert had gone to the Spirit Lake with “gold fever” to try his luck with mining for gold and ore in the late 1800s. Although Lange succeeded at making some profit from a mine he set up, by 1911 his mining operations “tapered off” and he turned to lumbering in order to receive a homestead claim from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The following year, the sawmill Lange set up for lumbering was used to provide lumber for the Portland YMCA camp that had been visiting every summer. Two years following that, in 1914, Woodrow Wilson “personally signed” Lange’s Homestead claim, which helped the Langes maintain their prime location on Spirit Lake, but the sawmill could not completely support the couple.  Before they knew it, the Langes also began to find a place within the tourism market that was developing at Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens. In the 1920s, they opened a restaurant featuring the Minnie Lange’s very popular huckleberry pie to cater to the growing number of visitors to Spirit Lake. The existing lodges began to expand to accommodate more guests, and the number of summer campers grew into the hundreds.

And a 1913 account of a stop at Lange's:



Minnie, or maybe her pies, is honored in the name of Minnie Peak:

[Rix Gins]

Great info K, thanks.  I wonder what they had to wash down that delicious fried chicken with?

[Rix Gins]

Everett True, February 29, 1916.