Steve Atkinson – Page 10 – View From the Shore

The Plymouth Pilgrims

"The Landing of the Pilgrims" (1877) by Henry A. Bacon — “The Landing of the Pilgrims” (1877) by Henry A. Bacon

During the first part of the 17th Century a group called the Separatists felt a need for a complete separation from the Church of England. They wanted to worship in a very simple manner without all of the ritual and symbols which were used in the Anglican Church. This group first went to Amsterdam and then in 1609 to Leiden, Holland. By the end of 1619 the Leiden Separatists asked King James for a Royal Charter, which would allow them to establish a colony in the New World. Although James refused to give them a Charter, he promised that he would not try to stop them from settling abroad.

It was originally intended for the entire Leiden congregation to move to America, but they decided to send only sixty or seventy of their most able members to establish the community with the others to follow at a later date.

Before leaving England, the Separatist leaders went to talk with Captain John Smith, who had been to the New World and had made some extensive surveys of the New England area. Captain Smith would have been willing to sail with them on the Mayflower as an adviser. However, the Pilgrim Fathers did not have the money to pay for his service. Instead, they purchased his book, which included a detailed map of the New England region.

The Mayflower made her final departure from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620, with 102 passengers aboard and a crew of about 30. Of this number only 41 were members of the Leiden church. The remainder of the passengers were hired men, paid servants, or “strangers” who wanted to make a new life in America.

The sea voyage lasted about two months before the Pilgrims arrived at Cape Cod. For the next few weeks they explored the area as well as creating the Mayflower Compact. The Compact was an agreement signed by all the men on board agreeing to abide by laws that would be drawn up and agreed upon by all male members of the community.

The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on December 31, 1620. Of those who left England only 53 people were alive to celebrate the first “Thanksgiving”. Even though none of the women would die during the voyage to the New World only 4 of the 18 women survived into the first summer.

Thanks to US Veterans

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I ended with the signing of the Armistice. November 11th since that day has been referred to as Armistice Day.

President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 was the first President to proclaim this day.

“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

In 1954 Congress declared that November 11 would be a day to honor Veterans of all wars and not just WWI. They did this by using the official designation of Veterans Day and not Armistice Day.

In 1968 as part of the Uniforms Holiday Bill, Veteran Day was made one of the holidays that was moved to a Monday, for people to have a 3 day weekend. However after protests by veterans groups the holiday in 1978 reverted back to November 11th.

Veterans Day is largely intended to thank veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to United States national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served – not only those who died – have sacrificed and done their duty.

Leaving Daylight Saving Time

For those who don’t know the rhyme we spring ahead an hour in the spring and fall backward one hour, in the fall. Some people mistakenly call it Daylight Savings Time, but it is Daylight Saving Time. In 2007 with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that President George Bush signed into law in 2005, the new dates for Daylight Saving Time will begin on the second Sunday of March and end the first Sunday of November.

Daylight Saving Time is not a modern idea. Benjamin Franklin first mentioned it in a letter to the Journal of Paris in 1784. He didn’t really say that the clocks should be changed, but that to take advantage of the extra daylight, one should arise from bed earlier.

It wasn’t put into practice until the German government put it in place in 1916 between April 30 and October 1. In the same year the United Kingdom adopted it from May 21 to October 1.

The U.S. Congress established it at the same time they formally adopted the Rail Road Time Zones in 1918, observing it for seven months in 1918 & 1919 It became so unpopular that the law for DST was repealed in 1919.

In 1942, during World War II, DST was reinstated in the U.S. although from the end of the war in 1945 until 1966, there wasn’t a Federal Law that addressed DST.

In 1966 DST was established and has been in place since, although the law gave states the capability to exempt themselves and a few, such as Arizona and Hawaii have. Many countries follow some sort of DST plan.

A Little About Halloween

Halloween has many different names such as: All Hallows Eve, Samhain, All Hallowtide, The Feast of the Dead, Haloween and All Saints Eve.

All Hallows Eve has its origins as a pagan celebration that dates back over 2000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred and on the night of October 31 the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. The tradition of wearing masks deals with hiding from the dead.

Orange and Black are used as Halloween colors. Orange represents the fall harvest while black is for the coming dark winter.

When the Irish immigrants came to America in the 1800s They brought with them the traditions of Halloween and the use of Jack-O-Lanterns. The lantern, carved from a turnip, potato, or beet and lit with a burning lump of coal or a candle, represented the souls of the departed loved ones and were placed in windows or set on porches to welcome the deceased. They also served as protection against malevolent spirits or goblins freed from the dead. Since turnips and gourds were not as readily available in the Americas the pumpkin was used as a replacement.

One possible origin of Trick-or-Treat may come from the Druids who believed that the dead would play tricks on mankind and cause panic and destruction. They had to be appeased, so country folk would give the Druids food as they visited their homes. Another is an old Irish practice of going door to door to items in preparation for the festival of St. Columb Kill.

Candy doesn’t have to be the only treats given out to those young ghouls and goblins that come knocking on the door. A couple of welcomed but not ordinary treats are packages of Hot Chocolate (great for those cool night) and small bags of microwave popcorn.

Republic of West Florida

Photo: 1806 John Cary map shows West Florida (including Pensacola, which was not part of the U.S. claim) in the hands of Spain, separate from the U.S.-held Louisiana Purchase. — 1806 John Cary map shows West Florida (including Pensacola, which was not part of the U.S. claim) in the hands of Spain, separate from the U.S.-held Louisiana Purchase.

On October 27, 1810 President James Madison declared parts of the region known as West Florida as part of the United States. His reason for the annexation was he claimed it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. This ended the 90-day existence of the Republic of West Florida.

Beginning in the 17th century through 1763 the French, the Spanish and the English each laid claim, at different times, to the region that now includes parts of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

At the conclusion of the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Year War) Great Britain received from the French portions of Louisiana between the Mississippi and Perdidio Rivers and the Spanish Colony of Florida. The British divided the region into East and West Florida. Boundaries of West Florida were the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee Rivers and North at the 31st parallel. The Gulf of Mexico was the Southern Boundary.

The colony had been invited to the 1st Continental Congress, but did not send representatives. They were one of 5 continental colonies that did not send representatives, the others being East Florida, Quebec, St. John’s Isle, and Nova Scotia.

The Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, the British set the American Boundary at the 31st Parallel and ceded the both Florida Colonies to the Spanish. This was just the beginning of a number of border disagreements between the United States, Spain and France.

In 1810, Americans who had settled in the region resented the Spanish Rule. This lead to a rebellion On September 23 the rebellion took the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge and the Republic of West Florida was born and lived for 90 days.

Vaudeville Becomes Less Vulgar

Photo: A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894), showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists, costumed dog, singers and costumed actors — A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894), showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists, costumed dog, singers and costumed actors.

Vaudeville was a style of entertainment, popular in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, that took the form of a series of separate, unrelated acts. The performance could include all or some of the following; musicians, dancers, comedians, animal acts, magicians, impersonators, acrobats, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, or later short films.

Prior to 1880 Vaudeville was thought to be vulgar. Tony Pastor cleaned it of its obscenity to make it more wholesome to the general public. On October 24, 1881 he staged the self-proclaimed “clean” vaudeville in New York City. It was an effort to lure more women into the male dominated saloon and variety halls.

Vaudeville’s popularity increased when B.F. Keith built a chain of Vaudeville stages in various east coast cities. This was the beginning of the Vaudeville Circuit, a single booking system contracting acts for regional and national engagement that could be from a few weeks to two years.

It was common for the performers to term a theatre by how much they were paid to perform at them. The three most common were the “small time”, the “medium time,” and the “Big Time”. When a performer reached the “Big Time” they were considered the best and most famous. The Big Time found its home in 1913 at New York City’s Palace. The Palace featured the best and brightest on its bill and many would consider playing there to be the apotheosis of their careers.

While Vaudeville never really died it just seemed to fade away as cinemas and radio gain popularity. Many of the early radio and cinemas stars, such as Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen and Abbott and Costello began on the Vaudeville circuits

Even though vaudeville as entertainment is dead, it lives on in popular culture and entertainment. Many of the ‘entertainment slang’ came from vaudeville, such as “a flop” (an act that does badly) and “the limelight” (from the lime-green color of phosphorus lights). It’s not unusual to see common techniques and gags of vaudeville on television and in films today.

The Louisiana Purchase

President Thomas Jefferson was unsure whether the United States Constitution gave him the right to negotiate with a foreign government for the purchase of territorial rights in the area west of the 1803 United States. In fact he was under the impression that it didn’t, but he did understand the value of the Port of New Orleans and wish for it to be part of the United States.

The American negotiators, Robert Livingston and James Monroe were allowed to offer as much as $ 10 million dollars for New Orleans. France under the rule of Napoleon had at one time a plan to build a new French Empire in America, but with a defeat of his armies in present day Haiti and a possibility of war against Great Britain were in need for monetary resources. Livingston and Monroe were offered the entire region for $ 15 Million.

A treaty was signed on April 30, 1803 and the process began for what has become known as the Louisiana Purchase. The territory would double the size of the United States for a cost of less than 3 cents per acre. The total area was 529,911,680 acres with 523,446,400 acres of land and the rest water.

The ratification of the Louisiana Purchase treaty was by the Senate vote of 24 to 7 on October 20, 1803. On December 20, 1803 France formally turned New Orleans over to the United States at Cabildo, the seat of the colonial government in New Orleans. A ceremony at St Louis transferred the entire territory over to the United States.

Most of the territory was populated by Native Americans and in reality all that was accomplished with the treaty was the transfer of European territorial rights from France to the Unite States.

In the end the total paid to the French was $ 23,213,568. This figure included interest. The original cost was $ 11,2500,000 plus the cancellation of debts worth $ 3,750,000.

A Vanishing Scene

The Delmarva Peninsula has an agriculture heritage. But even with that heritage when traveling throughout the peninsula one will see many old barns that have been discarded, let to degrade and some even being fully coverage by foliage.

This old barn can be seen among the current construction in the middle of Middletown Delaware. One wonders how much longer it’ll be there.

A Delmarva Scene photograph. This photograph is one of the photographs in the 2019 Delmarva Scenes Calendars by SG Atkinson.

An American Playwright – Eugene O’Neill

Alice Boughton - from the United States Library of Congress — Alice Boughton – from the United States Library of Congress

Recently I was talking with an old college friend discussing Historical Figures. We had taken a number of theater classes, both of us are still doing theater work and while in that conversation we discussed who we may want to do a history theater performance. He would want to be Abraham Lincoln. I mentioned that I had always thought about working on a play with the Playwright Eugene O’Neill narrating the story of his life. He was an American Playwright, who many felt was the Shakespeare of the American Theater of the first part of the 20th Century. In the ’70’s Jason Robards Jr was in a few revivals of his plays.

O’Neill was born into show business. His father James O’Neill was considered a matinee idol as a stage actor in the later half of the 19th Century, his most famous role was that of The Count of Monte Cristo. Eugene O’Neill was born in a hotel room on October 16, 1888, the third of three children of James O’Neil and his wife, Mary Ellen Quinlan O’Neill.

It wasn’t until after he spent much of 1912 and 1913 in sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis that he decided to write plays. Prior to this he had spent time at sea. Quite a few of his early plays cold be classified as Sea Plays.

His career as a playwright can be seen as divided in 2 parts. The first from 1914-1936. His plays were a standard on Broadway during this period winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1920, 1922, 1928,) and in 1936 the Nobel Prize for Literature, the second American to win. The second part begin in 1946 after a 10 year period where no new plays of his were produced. Then Ice Man Cometh an autobiographical play was produced. It was the first of a number of autobiographical plays he wrote during this second phase of his career. Long Day”s Journey into Night is thought by many to be his best.

He was married 3 times; Kathleen Jenkins (1909–12), Agnes Boulton (1918–29) and Carlotta Monterey (1929–53). He had three children, Eugene Jr with Jenkins and with Boulton Shane and Oona. Oona married Charlie Chaplain at the age of 18. Chaplain was 54. O’Neill disapproved of the marriage and he never saw her again.

After a long illness, which for many years made it difficult to write, O’Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953. It is said that while he was dying he whispered “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room.”

Lillian Gish

When Lillian Gish died on February 27, 1993, at the age of 99, the world lost a great actress. She was born in Springfield, Ohio on October 14, 1893 with the birth name of Lillian Diana de Guiche.

Miss Gish’s career started on the stage when she was just six years old. She had a very successful stage career before she found herself making films. She would have a second stage career beginning in the late 1920’s where she was well received by critics and the public.

In 1912 she met D.W. Griffith. Her first film was the Griffith directed The Unseen Enemy. She played the older of two orphaned sisters. The younger sister was played by her real life sister, Dorothy Gish. In 1912 alone she would appear in 12 films for Griffith. By 1915 she had become one of the top stars in the industry and was the star for two of Griffith’s most ambitious projects, The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance.

Miss Gish, from the beginning of ‘sound’ movies until her last film appearance in The Whales of August released in 1987, would appear in many films. Her appearances were always of quality but would be irregular, with long gaps between appearances.

She would receive only one Academy Awards nomination. Her major work was prior to their first ceremony. That nomination came in 1946 for Actress in a Supporting Role in Duel in the Sun. She lost to Anne Baxter in The Razor’s Edge. She would receive a Honorary Award in 1970.

On June 11, 1976, Bowling Green University dedicated The Gish Film Theater and Gallery. Lillian Gish accepted the honor in person for herself and her sister. Bowling Green University is in Ohio near where the two sisters were born. Lillian Gish received on the next day the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts. Upon her death items from her estate were set to the University, where they are on display.

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Author’s Note:
When it comes to doing things one enjoys, it’s often said that ‘Life gets in the way’. I would say that is exactly what has happened with View From the Shore and 6 Things to Consider. I have been very busy these past couple of months and often doing only the things that I have blocked off time to do on my calendar.

I have now blocked off time for this blog and hope you enjoy. I know that 6 Things to Consider will continue. And I am also looking to post a Photo of the Week of my View from the Shore on Thursday.

Thanks
Steve Atkinson