Children
-
“Trusted with kids, not with a vote…” (DC Vote, 2006), Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010650572/; “Both will save your life. Only one has a vote in Congress…” (DC Vote, 2006), https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010650571/. ↩︎
-
Ike Allen, “A History of Congress Messing With DC: 50 years of home rule—and federal meddling," Washingtonian, November 8, 2023. ↩︎
-
President Biden will allow Congress to overturn new D.C. crime law, NPR, March 2, 2023. ↩︎
-
World War I poster advertising savings stamps for the war effort, via the Library of Congress. ↩︎
-
On this last point, see Simone Lässig, “The History of Knowledge and the Expansion of the Historical Research Agenda,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 59 (Fall 2016): 29–32. ↩︎
- See Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler, eds., On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871 (Washington, DC: Cambridge Universtiy Press, 1997). ↩
- On kin-culture communities, see Azar Gat with Alexsander Yakobson, Nations: The Long and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). ↩
- Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). ↩
- See Sharon E. French, "The Code of the Warrior," The Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History 47 (United States Airforce Academy: Colorado, 2004). French has published a book by the same title. ↩
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (Harper & Brothers, 1950).
I introduced this book to my granddaughter yesterday (via video chat), and she adores it. Apparently it once made an impression on my son, too, because he said it had been his favorite. It's a simple story in which Harold takes a walk, creating the world as he goes with a big purple crayon.
📽️ After watching Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 “Rome Open City” (Roma città aperta) this weekend, I’ve started on his “Paisan” (1946). This is only the second time I’ve seen this remarkable collection of six stories about soldiers and civilians during the Allied liberation of Italy, and it feels raw.
New York World-Telegram photograph by Fred Palumbo, 1964:
Miss April Lou, teacher at PS 1, Manhattan, with six Chinese children, recent arrivals from Hong Kong and Formosa [aka Taiwan], who are holding up placards giving his or her Chinese name (both in ideographs and in transliteration) and the [American English] name to be entered upon the official school records.
Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/94512334/.
“Mexican miner’s wife and child are visited by another miner’s wife (Hungarian) who is interested in starting a maternal health clinic there. Scotts Run, Bertha Hill, West Virginia” by Marion Post Walcott for the Farm Security Administration, 1938. NYPL Digital Collections, image id 58749987.
Women and Children Working in New York City Tenement Homes, 1908
Photographs of women and their children doing piecework: Lewis Wickes Hine took these for the National Child Labor Committee in New York City in January and February 1908. See individual captions below.
[1] 122 Sullivan St. 2nd Floor rear. Leveroni family. Earn 4 cents a gross making violets. Can make 20 gross a day when children work all day. Father has work. Mrs. Leveroni; Tessie Leveroni, age 9; Stephen Leveroni, age 6; Margaret Leveroni, age 7; Josephine Cordono, age 10. These children work on Saturdays on afternoons after 3 o’clock, and evenings until 8 or 9.
[2] Mrs. Finkelstein, 127 Monroe St. Bessie (age 13), Sophie (age 7). Girls attend school. Making garters for Liberty Garter works, 413 Broadway. Mother, a widow, earns 75 cents a day by working all day until 12 at night. Bessie works until 10 P.M. Sophie until 9 P.M. They expected to work until 10 P.M. to finish the job, although they did not know when more work would come in. Witness Mrs. Hosford.
[3] Widow & boy rolling papers for cigarettes in a dirty N.Y. tenement.
[4] Late at night. Sewing tapes on gloves. The boy helps. Family of five sleep in room where the work is done.
These photos are part of the National Child Labor Committee Collection held by the Library of Congress.
This Italian fascist poster prefigures the disgusting rhetoric of Putin and Trump: “On them rests the blame!” by Gino Boccasile, ca. 1942–45.
Via David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4bp0064p.
Good piece on the role of Black children and youth in the civil rights movement: “Hidden Herstory: The Leesburg Stockade Girls” by Tulani Salahu-Din, National Museum of African American History and Culture, nmaahc.si.edu….
“One of the many young newsboys selling late at night…, November 1912” by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee.
Via New York Public Library, image 464486.
Poster from the Spanish Civil War, ca. 1936–39. The main text reads, “We charge the rebels as assassins! Innocent children and women die. Free men, repudiate all those who support fascism in the rearguard.” The text, bottom right, with the arrow pointing at the mother and child reads, “Here are the victims.” Note, too, the black and red triangle of the Anarchists in the lower right-hand corner.
Source of image and main text translation: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5188576r. This page also offers historical context and analysis.
Japanese-American Internment as 'Evacuation' and 'Relocation'
These photos of Japanese-Americans and a few resident aliens on their way to internment for the duration of World War II are accompanied by captions that avoid the language of imprisonment or confinement. Instead of internment, there is talk of “evacuation” and the War Relocation Authority.
These pictures also suggest what a rupture the location of their internment would represent. It is hard to imagine these urbanites stepping out into the barely settled terrain they were headed to, even if an advanced party of men without dependents was sent out a few weeks in advance to prepare for the others' arrival.
"Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from West Coast areas under U.S. Army war emergency order. Japanese-American children waiting for a train to take them and their parents to Owens Valley." Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from West Coast areas under U.S. Army war emergency order. Japanese-Americans and a few alien Japanese waiting for a train which will take them to Owens Valley.” Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of Japanese-Americans from West coast areas under United States Army war emergency order. The Japanese referred to in this sign were an advance group going to Owens Valley for construction work.” Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Manzanar, Calif. Apr. 1942. Construction beginning at the War Relocation Authority center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry, in Owens Valley. Mt. Whitney, loftiest peak in the United States, appears in the background.” Photo by Clem Albers.
Source: Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Photograph Collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017744879, …/2017744872, …/2017817916, and …/2021647198.
Poster from 1919 Advocating American Citizenship
The notice in the bottom-right corner reads “Copyright 1919, The Stanley Service Co.” According to the Library of Congress Copyright Office’s Catalogue of Copyright Entries for that year, the company in question was the Stanley Industrial Educational Poster Service in Cleveland, Ohio. This provenance suggests to me that employers were being offered this messaging for their workers, even if the artist portrayed the immigrants as fresh arrivals.
Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95507947/
Photos of Children Working in Textile Mills, 1908–1914
The textile industry was long a stronghold of child labor. More than 75,000 children 10 to 16 years were employed in textile mills in 1910 – the census did not count those under 10 years.
– Lewis W. Hine in a photo study for the National Child Labor Committee, The New York Public Library.
Images from a photo study by Lewis W. Hine for the National Child Labor Committee, The New York Public Library. Linked captions lead to their respective image pages.
Imagining Some of the Worst: Domestic Edition
I doubt I’ll have the bandwidth to follow the machinations in Washington’s halls of power, as I did during the previous administration. I got out of the habit under the current one because I was exhausted, didn’t feel threatened, and ended up living a twelve-hour drive away. And now I want to focus on the parts of my life and world where my individual agency, talents, and interests might be leveraged for things more constructive, more life-affirming.
First, though, I’ll allow myself to imagine some of the worst coming our way, just to get the darkness out of my mind and into words: the destruction of the regulatory state and of our public medical, environmental, climate, and weather research infrastructure; the violent and cruel erasure of entire communities; the enslavement, indentured servitude, or other forms of abusive exploitation of people without papers under the “protection” of unscrupulous employers, landlords, neighbors, and government agents; the creation of a new generation of Hoovervilles inhabited by people with no health insurance, no immunizations, and pensioners whose Social Security checks and Medicare benefits no longer keep them housed; preventable contagious diseases killing our children; lawfully mandated medical malpractice killing girls, women, and trans men with the bad luck to become pregnant; the loss of LGBTQ+ family, friends, and community members to exile, to self-harm, and to the violence of bullies given license by their chosen leader; the possibility that insulin might grow out of my reach; the knowledge that Medicare will never cover the costs of help with elder care while I still need such help, and while private equity funds squeeze what they can out of old folks homes, leaving them woefully understaffed, their populations vulnerable to contagious disease, inattention, and abuse.
It doesn’t have to go this way, not even under the next president. But do we think a GOP-controlled Senate will respect the filibuster the next time around, if they manage to get the House too? Isn’t that just one more convention that the next president can demand they drop? And have any of them demonstrated even the slightest willingness to defend their institution, sure in the knowledge that they are part of a separate branch of government? GOP representatives in the House are no better, as they demonstrated during the previous president’s two impeachments.
American presidents have enormous amounts of power, and now, it seems, controlling the party and the mob will give the next president even more. Or will some Republican legislators put their constituents ahead of the slash-and-burn ideologues? What groups will they decide government might have a role in protecting? Of course, the House could still flip Democratic. Some Republicans could develop a conscience. Or the ambitions, incompetence, and contradictory aims, values, and beliefs of Orange Face’s supporters could lead to lots of friendly fire and delays.
Caveat: the GOP marched in lockstep to regain the presidency, but we have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. It’s possible they prefer to carry out dissent internally. It’s also a sure thing that Mr. Red Tie will keep all eyes on himself, with lots of help from the media, while the poisons are concocted in Congress and in other parts of the executive branch.
DC Residents Still Have No Vote in Congress
For more than 25 years, I had no representation in Congress because I lived in DC. That’s changed because of my caregiving responsibilities, so it will be bittersweet on Tuesday when I cast a straight Democratic ballot in Conway, NH. Yes, I have representation now, but that doesn’t change anything for my wife, friends, and former colleagues and neighbors in DC. A territory in the United States with more than 700,000 residents,1 DC has more people than Vermont and Wyoming. That’s why its license plates read “Taxation without Representation.” Other DC PR work has included these 2006 posters.2
Rubbing DC residents' noses in it, representatives sent by the rest of the country interfere in the city’s local life.3 In particular, Republicans who don’t approve of local measures or have a social experiment in mind can interfere with local policies. I remember school vouchers and condoms for high school students. Democrats are not immune to such behavior either, however, as this 2023 tweet by President Biden demonstrates.4
I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule—but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections—such as lowering penalties for carjackings.
If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did—I’ll sign it.
Winslow Homer, 'Bell-Time' (1868)
I used to occasionally run across Winslow Homer’s wood engravings of the American Civil War, which were widely circulated in Harper’s Weekly, but this is the first work of his I’ve seen that deals with immigrant factory workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Note the mix of genders and ages, including the presence of young children. This was not work that could feed a whole family. No matter the difficult pecuniary circumstances of his subjects, however, Homer portrayed them with dignity.
Credit: “Bell-Time” by Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, July 25,1868, via Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Russia is intent on eradicating the Ukrainian language and all aspects of Ukrainian identity, with young Ukrainians a particular target.
Children Watching
“The Children Were Watching,” dir. Robert Drew and Richard Leacock, USA 1961, 25 min. – This documentary doesn’t feel as old to me as I wish it did. In part that’s because I watched it in Trump’s America during an especially difficult year, but something deeper is at play. The film’s ongoing relevance represents an ambiguous answer to its directors' main question: What were the children of a New Orleans neighborhood learning as they watched their parents during the conflicts surrounding school integration in November 1960?
War Savings Stamps Poster, 1917
I find this 1917 poster interesting because it seems to target urban, working-class immigrants.1 Besides the dress of the people waiting in line to lend Uncle Sam some money, there is the American flag held by the child, whose enthusiasm attracts the attention of the adults around her.
Children, whether immigrants themselves or native born, seem to have played a special role in immigrant families, mediating in different ways the adults' encounter with the culture and institutions of the new country. Certainly the authorities saw such potential in these children.2
Why Study Atrocities?
I study European history, so why did I post about Sand Creek earlier today? And why excerpt seemingly gratuitous violence? I have no expertise in U.S. history, but I am interested in the history of violence per se, which can reveal a lot about peoples and cultures at a given point in history. Further, the U.S. Civil War has some important structural similarities to the Franco-Prussian War, and perhaps to other European wars in the mid nineteenth century.1 Given the causal relationship between the U.S. Civil War and the expansion of violence against Native Americans out west, there might be a case, for example, to include France’s nineteenth-century colonial conflicts in such a comparison. However, my main interest relates to cultural taboos---or lack thereof---about specific kinds of violence against specific categories of people, assuming those people have not been perceived to violate any important taboos themselves.
In this particular case, the willingness to kill women and children indiscriminately underlines how little value these people’s lives had in the eyes of their butchers. Further, it suggests how utterly alien these Indians were in the eyes of their attackers, how far outside the attackers’ own ethnos or kin-culture community.2 Indeed, in Michael Fellman's account of the guerrilla conflict in Missouri during the Civil War, white fighting men broke more cultural taboos in their fight against Indians than they did when committing violence against free and enslaved black people.3
At the same time, Congressional testimony points to other attitudes towards the slaughtered Native Americans. We hear of white men with native partners and sons, for instance, although the latter were called “half breed.” The paternalistic congressmen investigating the atrocity were also humane, in a certain sense, but a question about how long the witness-cum-translator had lived with the Indians suggests how different that congressman perceived him to be. At the same time, commentators who sided with the Colorado troops responsible for the massacre portrayed their opponents as brave. Of course, it was safer to make the women and children seem like incidental casualties of a battle, but the self-respect of fighting men also requires a worthy opponent. Without one, the act of killing brings no honor and---we are learning in recent conflicts---can leave deep scars in the soldier who pulls the trigger.4
Given the tiny source base behind this post, it only represents an approach to such violence, nothing more, especially since such an approach must also consider the specific historical context of this awful American story.
