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    <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:29:04 +0200</pubDate>
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      <item>
        <title>An Update from the Editors</title>
        <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt; Below, you’ll find the letter we sent to our subscribers at the end of last year, which explains our hiatus these past few months. Although &lt;/em&gt;The Appendix&lt;em&gt; will be winding down at the end of 2015, we’ll also be resuming posting new content in the months between then and now, so keep reading. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And if you’re interested in writing for us, please send us a short pitch at editors@theappendix.net. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for your interest and support over the past three years. &lt;br /&gt;
—The Editors  &amp;lt;/em&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dear Appendix subscribers,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the editorial letter to our current issue, we mentioned some upcoming changes for &lt;em&gt;The Appendix.&lt;/em&gt; We’re writing now to explain what those changes are. The idea for &lt;em&gt;The Appendix&lt;/em&gt; was hatched on a porch in Austin, TX about five years ago. Three years after that, we were scattered across Texas, Brazil, and Peru, putting the finishing touches on &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2012/12&quot;&gt;our first issue&lt;/a&gt;, a labor of love that we promised would serve as a salon for ‘Things often tossed in the dustbin of history—but better off in &lt;em&gt;The Appendix&lt;/em&gt;.’ In retrospect, those ‘things’ were seeds, and with your support they flowered: stories of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/quests-for-fire-neanderthals-and-science-fiction&quot;&gt;birth of fire&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/4/the-woman-in-green-a-chinese-ghost-tale-from-mao-to-ming-1981-1381&quot;&gt;Chinese ghost tales&lt;/a&gt; told in reverse; ancient Andean &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/7/tuned-to-the-senses-an-archaeoacoustic-perspective-on-ancient-chavin&quot;&gt;echo chambers&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/1/the-most-soviet-park-in-russia&quot;&gt;lost Soviet amusement parks&lt;/a&gt;, brave men and women, &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/10/reclaiming-a-fugitive-landscape&quot;&gt;running from enslavement&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/4/the-phantom-punch&quot;&gt;boxing&lt;/a&gt; their way to freedom; and as many &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/an-art-of-air-and-fire-brazils-renegade-balloonists&quot;&gt;balloon stories&lt;/a&gt; as your patience would bear.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now, after two years, eight issues, and 172 contributors later, we’re moving away from a quarterly issue format. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10&quot;&gt;current quarterly issue&lt;/a&gt; (“In Motion,” which wraps up at the end of this month) will be our last, and we’ll no longer produce PDF and ebook formats, and will no longer accept subscriptions. However, new articles and blog posts will continue to appear on our website in the coming year.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As far as what happens to your subscription: last month’s payment was the last we will charge you. This month’s installment is on us. The account you use to log in to theappendix.net to download the e-books will remain active well into next year in order to give you a chance to download any materials you haven’t had a chance to read yet or that you would like to archive. We realize that a loyal core of our readership—namely, you, our subscribers—have taken advantage of our PDF and ebook formats, and that many of you might be disappointed by this temporary narrowing of focus. We apologize for the inconvenience, and want to offer our sincere thanks for supporting our work. Since launching in the fall of 2012, &lt;em&gt;The Appendix&lt;/em&gt; has become one of the most popular independent history websites in the world, and we owe that success to you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We’re looking forward to bringing you more great history at theappendix.net, and are accepting submissions. As always, if you’re interested in contributing, please email us at editors@theappendix.net with a two to three paragraph article pitch. Keep those flowers coming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Happy holidays from your Appendix co-founders,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Benjamin Breen&lt;br /&gt;
Felipe Cruz&lt;br /&gt;
Christopher Heaney&lt;br /&gt;
Brian Jones&lt;/p&gt;
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        <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2015 08:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/posts/2015/04/an-update-from-the-appendix</link>
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      <item>
        <title>How Victorian London Almost Ended Up with a Roman Sewer</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Wazer1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Wazer1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Father Thames cartoon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Punch&lt;/em&gt;, July 3, 1858, via Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
Edwin Chadwick was not a man especially concerned with the past. A staunch Utilitarian social reformer and friend of John Stuart Mill, Chadwick used statistics to show that the poor faced disproportionate amounts of death and disease in England’s booming industrial cities, and that the reason for this was environmental. As the Commissioner of the brand new General Board of Health, created in 1849, Chadwick became a crusader for a new conception of sanitation—one that drew on ancient Roman precedents even as it looked forward to a new vision of urban modernity.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
“All smell is disease,” Chadwick famously &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=iRRcAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;amp;pg=PA109&amp;amp;amp;dq=%22All+smell+is+disease%22&amp;amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;amp;ei=rQQrVN2GOM6TyATgiIDoDA&amp;amp;amp;ved=0CEMQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q=%22All%20smell%20is%20disease%22&amp;amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;proclaimed&lt;/a&gt; in front of Parliament in 1846. He was forward-thinking in terms of the social determinants of health, but never questioned the prevailing understanding of disease causation: like other educated Englishmen, Chadwick was convinced that all disease was caused by miasma, or polluted air. The centerpiece of Chadwick’s vision for a modernized, healthy London was therefore a complete reconstruction of the city’s centuries-old sewer system, whose porous brick walls and lack of drainage fostered terrible smells that wafted up to the city above.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
Using plans drawn up by the engineer John Roe, Chadwick replaced several old brick sewers with round earthenware pipes that emptied into the Thames. These pipes were installed on a gradient so that sewage would flow out of the city rather than festering underground. In a &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=CZlWAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;amp;lpg=PA5&amp;amp;amp;ots=t9_u7HjNgB&amp;amp;amp;dq=%22When%20upon%20the%20observation%20of%20the%20evil%20effects%20and%20the%20expense%20of%20permeable%20brick%20drains%22&amp;amp;amp;pg=PA5#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q&amp;amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;report to Parliament&lt;/a&gt; regarding the status of these trials, the forward-thinking Chadwick made an appeal to antiquity:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
When upon the observation of the evil effects and the expense of permeable brick drains, I proposed the substitution of tubular earthenware drains, I was unaware that the simple expedient had ever been tried; but Mr. [Edward] Cresy traced out the tubular earthenware drains as systematically laid down in the colosseum at Rome.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
He continued:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
A friend at Zurich has forwarded to me a specimen of an earthenware pipe laid down by the Romans probably two thousand years ago, and which has worked until recent times under five hundred feet of pressure. Vitruvius points out the evils of lead and metal pipes for the distribution of water, and the advantages of earthenware pipes as substitutes. Miss [Harriet] Martineau recently found the remains of earthenware pipes laid down for the distribution of water through the ancient city of Petra. The remains of water-closets, which are thought to be an English invention, were found at Pompeii.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
This same Edwin Chadwick later dismissed the study of history as “one great field of cram, of reliance on memory, and of dodging.” Still, the sources and material he cites above betray him as something of an archaeology buff, familiar with trends in the rapidly maturing field. Chadwick used these few bits of information to manufacture a new vision of the past, one in line with his own political beliefs. He was one of the first modern politicians to discover the power of cherry-picked historical anecdotes. And he did so by digging deep into the history of something few of us want to think about: the sewer.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
At the dawn of the nineteenth century educated Englishmen were certainly familiar with the ancient Romans. But they knew them as abstractions, filtered through the tortuous Latin of Tacitus and Vergil’s heroic verse, or the high political drama of Gibbon’s &lt;em&gt;Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire&lt;/em&gt;.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
By the 1840s, however, the study of the ancient world was undergoing a revolution.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
No longer focusing exclusively on great works of art, curiosities, and the romanticism of ruins, European scholars began to take a more painstaking approach to excavating. Archaeology suggested a host of new questions. How did ancient people build their impressive monuments in the first place? How and when did their cities grow? How did the Romans manage the physical requirements of their daily lives, like acquiring water and disposing of waste? By the end of the century, thanks to men like William Cunnington, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, and Augustus Pitt Rivers, archaeology had become a recognized scientific field with its own jargon and formal methodologies.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
1849, the year Chadwick seems to have discovered the utility of archaeology for his own project, falls right in the middle of this transformation from antiquarianism to archaeology. There had been just enough news of the engineering marvels of Roman civilization published to capture the collective European imagination, but not enough so that Chadwick could refer to an authority on Roman sewers. Instead, he had to piece together his own picture of ancient sanitary engineering using a hodgepodge of sources.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
The Mr. Cresy Chadwick refers to is the architect Edward Cresy, who in 1821 along with his colleague George Ledwell Taylor published &lt;em&gt;The Architectural Antiquities of Rome&lt;/em&gt;. The book included the first architectural plans of a number of Roman monuments, including the Colosseum. Unlike Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s romantic etchings of Roman ruins from the previous century, Taylor and Cresy’s plans were drafted with an architect’s eye for precision. These plans were detailed enough to include the drainage system in plain black and white, neatly labeled.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
The other contemporary writer Chadwick cites, Harriet Martineau, was, like Chadwick, a pioneering social reformer involved in Whig politics. Also like Chadwick, she was not an archaeologist, antiquarian, or historian. Instead, her knowledge of the drainage systems of ancient Petra, a Nabataean-Roman trading city in modern Jordan, came from a sightseeing trip she took with friends on a whim in 1846. Martineau published her notes from this trip in 1848 in a massive multi-volume book titled &lt;em&gt;Eastern Life, Present and Past&lt;/em&gt;.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
Her &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=kVT7lYDDqj4C&amp;amp;amp;pg=PA411&amp;amp;amp;lpg=PA411&amp;amp;amp;dq=%22A+conduit+runs+along,+and+a+little+above,+the+wayside%22&amp;amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;amp;ots=K4NysbYUy0&amp;amp;amp;sig=imFgD_obz9MH58SHwaZErj6mzcg&amp;amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;amp;ei=OgkrVKahJIOqyQT73oC4Dw&amp;amp;amp;ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q=%22A%20conduit%20runs%20along%2C%20and%20a%20little%20above%2C%20the%20wayside%22&amp;amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;description&lt;/a&gt; of Petra’s water system in this book is a single sentence long: “A conduit runs along [the main street], and a little above, the wayside—a channel hollowed in the rock: and in parts there are, at the height of thirty feet, earthen pipes for the conduit of water.” In 1848 and 1849, Martineau gave a series of public lectures on a wide range of topics including history and sanitation; perhaps Chadwick heard about the Petra pipes at one of these. Petra was not formally excavated until the 1890s, so traveler stories like Martineau’s were the only way an interested party in London could learn about the site, short of going there himself.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
For other evidence to support his vision of Roman rational sanitation, Chadwick cites the excavations of Pompeii. Ongoing since 1748 and more recently a popular tourist spot, Pompeii was in 1836 the subject of a two-volume publication of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, a Whiggish project for public education. Chadwick mentions the first century BC architectural writer Vitruvius, who wrote (among many other things) on the best kind of plumbing. Intriguingly, he also mentions a recovered specimen of Roman terra cotta pipe from the Roman city of Turicum (present-day Zurich). This is the only piece of Roman hydraulic engineering that Chadwick seems to have seen with his own eyes.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Wazer2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Wazer2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Roman sewer pipes&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Ancient Roman sewer pipes in Klis, Croatia.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
Chadwick does not reveal the name or the occupation of his Swiss friend: was he a member of the growing class of scientific archaeologists? A landowner who discovered the pipe on his estate during construction? Or an antiquities collector? Regardless of its origin, the pipe was to Chadwick physical proof of the brilliance of the Romans who, he had just discovered, shared his opinion on the best type of sewage removal system. It was to become briefly famous in Anglophone sanitarian circles.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
In January 1850, the &lt;em&gt;Edinburgh Review&lt;/em&gt;, a Whig-leaning periodical for which both Chadwick and Harriet Martineau had written, picked up and augmented Chadwick’s small body of evidence for Roman rational sanitation in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=C7xZAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;amp;lpg=PA214&amp;amp;amp;ots=-RSVJ_p50T&amp;amp;amp;dq=%22With%20them%20nothing%20seems%20to%20have%20been%20deemed%22&amp;amp;amp;pg=PA214#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q=%22With%20them%20nothing%20seems%20to%20have%20been%20deemed%22&amp;amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;review article&lt;/a&gt; on recent developments in public health:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
With them nothing seems to have been deemed ‘common or unclean’ that could protect the public health. We find Pliny writing to Trajan about a fetid stream passing through Amastris, as if it were an affair of State. The cloacae of the Tarquins are still among the architectural wonders of the world. The censors, ediles, and curators, who at different periods had charge of the buildings, and of the apparatus for the removal of impurities, were invested with great powers for the execution of their functions, and derived a corresponding dignity from them.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
The Edinburgh Review was targeted at people much like Chadwick and Martineau: educated, well-off, and interested in social reform. They were perennially concerned with the lot of the poor and, more recently, the public health. The review quoted above goes on to detail recent developments, especially the progress of the sewer system, and the containment of cholera in the city. The above passage does something radical: it places the modernizing program of the sanitarians within a historical context, giving it an august genealogy stretching back to the early days of Western civilization.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
This is a much more political—and radical—point than the technical-minded Chadwick ever made, and it relied on the convergence of two things: first, the classical education the &lt;em&gt;Review&lt;/em&gt;’s readers would have received, and second, the cutting-edge, if hodgepodge, archaeological research collected by Chadwick. The first stirred up a sense of historical importance and imagination. The second drove home the point that modern London could literally rebuild itself in the model of ancient Rome, transforming itself from a pestilential cesspit into a paragon of public health.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
As carefully researched as Chadwick’s plan was, it stalled in Parliament. Earthenware pipes were a hard sell to architects and contractors, who were used to building cheaper brick sewage systems in new construction. Even more difficult was convincing local authorities to require the replacement of existing drainage systems. Chadwick managed to organize limited trials in the suburban neighborhoods of Richmond and Sydenham, but the tangle of old buildings in central London presented more of a problem.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
The biggest roadblock was securing funds: tearing apart and rebuilding central London would require a significant investment from the government. Chadwick proved not much of a politician. He argued his case with painstaking surveys of the sanitary conditions and outflow volumes of London neighborhoods, and equally exacting trial runs with differently sized round pipes, all of which he dutifully reported back to Parliament. As Chadwick’s biographer R.A. Lewis put it, this campaign for a new sewer “was dullness unrelieved.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
Chadwick did eventually bring about the legislation that funded a new sewer system for London, but only in an indirect and unfortunate way. The one aspect of his program that Chadwick had been able to enforce was the elimination of private cesspools, which he had pushed through in the late 1840s. All residences in the metropolitan area now had to be connected to the existing sewers, which emptied into the Thames. This was perhaps Chadwick’s greatest misstep: he moved the bulk of human waste out from under houses and into public space. In summer the smell was prodigious. Worse still was that much of the city’s drinking water still came from the Thames, downstream of the sewer outflow.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Wazer3.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Wazer3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Dirty Father Thames cartoon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
“Dirty Father Thames,” in &lt;em&gt;Punch&lt;/em&gt; (December, 1848).
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
In 1848, &lt;em&gt;Punch&lt;/em&gt; criticized the foul and worsening condition of Thames water with a cartoon of the Thames personified as a grizzled old man trying in vain to clean himself up. The cartoon was accompanied by a poem that began:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 25 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-25&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Filthy river, filthy river,&lt;br /&gt;
Foul from London to the Nore,&lt;br /&gt;
What art thou but one vast gutter,
&lt;br /&gt;One tremendous common shore?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
All beside thy sludgy waters,&lt;br /&gt;
All beside thy reeking ooze,
&lt;br /&gt;Christian folks inhale mephitis,&lt;br /&gt;
Which thy bubbly bosom brews.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
All her foul abominations
&lt;br /&gt;Into thee the City throws;&lt;br /&gt;
These pollutions, ever churning,&lt;br /&gt;
To and fro thy current flows.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
And from thee is brew’d our porter -
&lt;br /&gt;Thee, thou guilty, puddle, sink!&lt;br /&gt;
Thou, vile cesspool, art the liquour&lt;br /&gt;
Whence is made the beer we drink!
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 26 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-26&quot;&gt;
Chadwick had recognized the poor condition of the water and in fact had campaigned for a reorganization of London’s water supply as part of his sanitation program, but was unsuccessful because of a combination of his growing political unpopularity and vehement opposition from the private water companies that supplied the city. In the meantime London bustled around a water source that at best stank, and at worst circulated pathogens including cholera from privy to water pump and back again.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 27 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-27&quot;&gt;
What finally convinced Parliament to loosen its purse strings and fund a new, state of the art sewer system was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink&quot;&gt;Great Stink of 1858&lt;/a&gt;, during which the stench of the sewage-filled Thames infiltrated Westminster Palace. Unable to concentrate on normal business due to the smell, the House of Commons pushed through funding for the sewers and began searching for an acceptable proposal. A plan by Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, was accepted the next year.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Wazer4.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Wazer4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Death as highwayman&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Death portrayed as a highwayman roaming the Thames during the Great Stink (&lt;em&gt;Punch&lt;/em&gt;, July, 1858).
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 28 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-28&quot;&gt;
While Bazalgette relied heavily on Chadwick’s sanitary research for the specifics of his plan, his sewers ferried waste far downstream of city limits by way of pumping stations and newly invented “deodorizing” intercepting sewers. Bazalgette’s pipes were also much larger than the ones Chadwick proposed: looking to the future, he accounted for a continued boom in London’s population.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 29 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-29&quot;&gt;
The sewers themselves were encased in the monumental embankments that still line the Thames today. At the beginning of its construction in the early 1860s, the &lt;em&gt;Observer&lt;/em&gt; called London’s new sewer “the most extensive and wonderful work of modern times.” Though the fact went unremarked, Bazalgette’s sewer also far surpassed the Roman one Chadwick so admired. It was larger in capacity and used new techniques to minimize smell and leakage. Although Pliny the Elder named Rome’s sewers and drains as “the most noteworthy things of all” among the Roman Empire’s accomplishments, they were physically and technologically dwarfed by Bazalgette’s system.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Wazer5.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Wazer5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Photo of Bazalgette surveying sewer&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Bazalgette (top right) viewing the Northern Outfall branch of the new London sewer system.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;BBC&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 30 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-30&quot;&gt;
The construction of London’s new sewers happened just as European scientists were delivering death blows to the old miasma paradigm of disease causation that Chadwick had so believed in. In 1854, John Snow famously proved that cholera was transmitted not by smell but by contaminated water; between 1860 and 1864 Louis Pasteur collected evidence connecting microscopic pathogens to the spread of disease. The Romans, it turned out, were not the final authority on what made a person or city healthy.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 31 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-31&quot;&gt;
Just as scientists of the late nineteenth century turned their backs on ancient disease theory, British public health leaders ceased holding Rome up as a paradigm of urban sanitation in Parliament and in public outreach. The reason was simple: in the time between Chadwick’s first call for a renovation of the sewers and the completion of Bazalgette’s system, European health science had surpassed Roman achievement. Like medicine, public health now turned to the future.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Tue, 23 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/how-victorian-london-almost-ended-up-with-a-roman-sewer</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/how-victorian-london-almost-ended-up-with-a-roman-sewer</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>The Hawaiian Invasion</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ukulele&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Confronted by imperial aggression, Hawaiian musicians developed a distinctive playing style that had a profound impact on twentieth-century musical culture.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
On January 16, 1895, Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s last monarch, was arrested and imprisoned in a bedroom on the second floor of the Iolani Palace, the kingdom’s historic seat of government. She was charged with treason for alleged involvement in an abortive counter-revolution attempted by royalist supporters several days prior. These conspirators hoped to restore Liliuokalani to the throne from which she had been deposed two years earlier, in a coup conducted by a group of mostly American citizens whose ultimate goal was the annexation of the Hawaiian islands to the United States.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
Apart from a humiliating trial, the queen was confined to that forlorn room for eight months. Although she was initially not permitted to have newspapers, Liliuokalani must have suspected fairly quickly that her people’s struggle for political sovereignty was irretrievably lost. Three years later, in a decisive victory for American political and business interests, Hawaii was formally annexed to the U.S. over the objections of a majority of the native population.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
To soften the sting of solitude, the queen turned to musical composition, her “usual solace in either happy or sad moments.” She recalled that “hours which I might have found long and lonely passed quickly and cheerfully by, occupied and soothed by the expression of my thoughts in music.” Like many of her royal ancestors, Liliuokalani loved music. It was during her house arrest that she transcribed what was to become her most popular song, “Aloha Oe” (Farewell to Thee). In the languor of her captivity, the tune, originally inspired by an affectionate farewell between lovers, became a lament of dispossession.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
Confronted by imperial aggression and commercial hegemony, future generations of Hawaiian musicians were able to offer their erstwhile queen at least some degree of consolation.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Queen Liliuokalani&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A color postcard of Queen Liliuokalani, late 1910s or early 1920s.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
The primary weapon of the Hawaiian invasion was the steel guitar. Many have taken credit for its invention, and it is possible that the technique of noiselessly sliding a piece of glass, steel, or bone across the strings of a guitar developed independently, multiple times: a convergence in music technology. Nevertheless, the story of the native Hawaiian Joseph Kekuku has emerged from music history’s apocrypha as the best documented and accredited case. After a teenage Kekuku’s alleged seven years of privately perfecting his method in the 1880s and 1890s, it swept the islands and then worked its way to the mainland.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
In the early years of the 1900s, the seductive, evocative sound of the steel guitar drifted over the ocean and astonished American audiences. The first generation of Hawaiian players, including Kekuku, Ernest Kaai, Ben Hokea, and Pale K. Lua, toured the States and Europe, buoyed by their virtuosity. They established reputations so strong that some of them never returned to Hawaii. The “foreign” musical import began to gain a major foothold in the U.S. and interact with contemporary currents in American music like ragtime and early blues.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
Although the new Hawaiian sound was circulating on vaudeville tours and a limited number of recordings before the early 1910s, it was the 1911 theatrical production of a Broadway play, &lt;em&gt;The Bird of Paradise&lt;/em&gt;, that truly piqued national interest and catapulted players like Kekuku into international fame. The show, an otherwise hackneyed love story between an American military man and a Hawaiian lass, highlighted a quintet of Hawaiian musicians playing steel guitar and ukulele. A &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt; review was not alone in lauding its “introduction of the weirdly sensuous music of the island people.” Imitation plays sprang up and companies released recordings and sheet music of Hawaiian songs to capitalize on its immense success.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer3.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ukulele Cartoon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A cartoon satirizing the ukulele craze by Louis M. Glackens in the &lt;em&gt;New York Tribune&lt;/em&gt;, Sunday, November 5, 1916.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
Universal expositions and world fairs in the first two decades of the twentieth century also served as important vehicles for the presentation and popularization of Hawaiian music. The most extravagant and well attended of these was the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco, which escalated the Hawaiian sound into a bona fide national obsession. A member of the Hawaii Promotion Committee said that the islands’ pavilion at that exposition was intended to render them “the tourist mecca of the travel world.” He boasted that it was “the best-known building” at the exposition and a “colossus in popularity, for the strum of ukuleles and the tinkle of guitars gently touching passers-by, compelled entrance to the building.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
The exposition did elevate Hawaii’s touristic cachet. But it also allowed native performers to tour the mainland. As curious visitors to the exposition were “lured by the ear-haunting melodies of the Hawaiian musicians,” increasing numbers of native performers were likewise drawn into the commercial riptide and deposited far from home in American studios and stages.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
By the 1920s, the channels through which Americans accessed new music were expanding. The plaintive call of the steel guitar permeated the country through records, movies and radio transmissions as well as live performances and traveling shows. Many of the nation’s leading country and blues musicians drew inspiration from Hawaiian steel. A young and ambitious Jimmie Rodgers, before he had earned his title as the “Father of Country Music,” pooled his cash earned from performances on a traveling show to create his own “Jimmie Rodgers Hawaiian Tent Show.” Country player Bob Dunn, later a pathbreaker in electrical amplification, watched a Hawaiian stage show in Eastern Oklahoma at age nine and took up the steel guitar soon afterward. Jerry Byrd, renowned pioneer of the Nashville sound, had a similar epiphany at thirteen when he witnessed a Hawaiian troupe touring during the Depression. Influential bluesman Oscar “Buddy” Woods imitated the Hawaiian guitar style that he observed during a show in the early 1920s. Troman Eason, early innovator of the “sacred steel” gospel tradition, became hooked after hearing a Hawaiian play it over the radio in Philadelphia in the mid-1930s.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
One could speculate that the vocal-like quality of the slide technique was attractive to early country musicians who had previously used instruments like the fiddle and harmonica to imitate the human voice. The first country performer believed to have recorded a steel guitar on his lap in the established Hawaiian style was a West Virginian coal miner named Frank Hutchison, who cut two songs, “Worried Blues” and “Train that Carried the Girl from Town” in 1926. Jimmie Rodgers would record thirty-one songs featuring the steel guitar during his career (and play ukulele on one). Maybelle Carter of the celebrated Carter Family converted her guitar to a “Hawaiian setup” in 1928. The first ensemble to be labeled on a record as “hillbillies,” a collection of string musicians from North Carolinian and Virginian counties, made early use of the steel.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
The instrument’s Pacific origins found acknowledgement in the names of 1920s Southern string bands like the North Carolina Hawaiians. Some of these early roots groups performed renditions of traditional Hawaiian tunes in a prefigurement of the modern “cover version.” Examples include the Scottsdale String Band’s version of “My Own Iona” and the Shamrock String Band’s rendition of “High Low March,” most likely a simultaneous adaptation and mispronunciation of the earlier Hawaiian recording, “Hilo March.” Early cowboy bands would assume different identities for consecutive gigs, performing one night under a name like Hawaiian Troubadours and the next as Barn Dance Troubadours. The distinguished country songwriter Ted Daffan only needed one steel guitar to play in a Hawaiian-themed group called the Blue Islanders in 1933 and a country ensemble called the Blue Ridge Playboys the next year. Eminent steel guitarist Herb Remington moved with ease in the other direction, from the Texas Playboys to his Hawaiian group, the Beachcombers. This sonic shapeshifting was both an effect and cause of the blurred lines between distinctly Hawaiian music and the nascent folk forms ripening in the U.S. during this time.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer4.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Postcard Ukulele&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Banjo ukelele emblazoned with the words “Jesus Saves,” from a 1936 postcard from Pennsylvania.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Jim Linderman&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
The Hawaiian influence upon African-American blues musicians is evident as well, although it demands more careful historical scrutiny as some sort of sliding technique on guitar may have been invented independently by black players. W. C. Handy, the “Father of the Blues,” recalled the “unforgettable” effect of seeing a man in 1903 pressing “a knife on the strings of [a] guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars.” Some scholars have argued that the early blues technique of sliding a knife or broken neck of a bottle against guitar strings may have roots in an African instrument, a single-stringed musical bow. Significantly, most blues players of the era held their guitars in the upright position, in contrast to the Hawaiian style in which the instrument is rested on the performer’s lap.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
Nevertheless, the seminal bluesman Charlie Patton played in both styles. A set of blues guitarists in the 1930s, including Kokomo Arnold, Casey Bill Weldon, Oscar Woods, Tampa Red, and Black Ace adopted the Hawaiian style and incorporated the Hawaiian practice of playing long melodic lines, as opposed to a blues style defined by short, staccato riffs. Casey Bill Weldon was advertised on some of his recordings as the “Hawaiian Guitar Wizard.” B. B. King has credited Hawaiian steel guitar as an influence, particularly Bukka White, who played in the Hawaiian style. Legend has it that White gave B. B. his first guitar. When Elmore James recorded his composition “Hawaiian Boogie” in the early 1950s, he concurrently paid homage to the music that had inspired the previous generation of bluesmen and illustrated how far the blues had come from its humble origins.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-video&quot;&gt;
&lt;iframe width=&quot;640&quot; height=&quot;480&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/4f08SuuUe5o?rel=0&amp;amp;showinfo=0&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;Casey Bill Weldon - “I Believe I’ll Make A Change”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;


&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
For the historian tracing the genealogy of the American roots idiom in the first few decades of the twentieth century, these examples reveal some part of the dense web of influence spun by Hawaiian sounds. Quantifying this influence appears to be difficult, if not impossible. The historian could perhaps content herself with the impressionistic conclusion that some of the many ears that heard Hawaiian songs on the mainland were inspired, consciously or unconsciously, to appropriate stylistic or instrumental elements into their own music.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
In reality, the narrative of the Hawaiian invasion is not simply one of abstract inspiration via radio waves and traveling circuses. It is equally a story of personal interaction and musical communion between Hawaiian immigrants to the mainland and American performers.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
Some of the best-known first-wave Hawaiian guitarists would never return to the islands, instead settling down in major mainland cities to open music studios and teach. Kekuku did so in Chicago and then Detroit, Walter Kolomoku in New York, and Ben Hokea in Toronto and Ottawa. Ernest Kaai moved to Miami to establish a music store and studio, where a small colony of Hawaiians had sprung up as a result of its tropical climate and setting. American companies seeking to capitalize on the popularity of the steel guitar and ukulele made sure to advertise that their lessons were offered by “native” Hawaiians. Even during tours and expositions when their services were in high demand, these musicians would give lessons to inquiring Americans. Kekuku remained in Seattle for some time after the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909 to teach steel guitar, and some of his students there went on to become musicians and music teachers themselves. George E. K. Awai, the leader of the Hawaiian troupe that performed at the Pan-Pacific Exposition, stayed behind in San Francisco afterwards to teach ukulele and steel guitar, and to publish instructional manuals for the instruments.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
Jenks “Tex” Carman, the “Dixie Cowboy,” was mentored by Frank Plada, one of the first Hawaiian musicians to come to the States. Carman’s song “Hillbilly Hula” provides an alliterative example of the cross-cultural fusion that defined much of nascent country music. Hawaiian virtuoso Bennie Nawahi’s curiously-named band in the 1930s, King Nawahi and the International Cowboys, featured a young Roy Rogers before he became a cowboy phenomenon. Bob Dunn took steel guitar lessons for several years through correspondence with Walter Kolomoku, who had first gained fame on a &lt;em&gt;Bird of Paradise&lt;/em&gt; tour. Renowned Nashville steel player Buddy Emmons enrolled in the Hawaiian Conservatory of Music in South Bend, Illinois, as a teenager. Troman Eason was so enamored of the steel sounds emanating from his radio that he arranged for lessons with their source, one of two brothers who came to the States to teach at the Honolulu Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer5.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ukulele Sheet Music&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Sheet music for W. C. Handy’s ukulele blues, 1925.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;tatteredandlostephemera.blogspot.com&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
In addition to these pedagogical associations, professional and collaborative partnerships arose between these musicians. Vernon Dalhart, a major influence on the development of country music, produced his first recording of the style with the accompaniment of native Frank Ferera’s steel guitar. Rodeo star and actor Hoot Gibson brought the guitar maestro Sol Hoopii from the islands to Hollywood in the early 1920s to play in a cowboy band. Rodgers recorded sessions on separate occasions with three Hawaiian guitarists. Nawahi played with a group of black musicians, the Georgia Jumpers.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
Jimmie Rodgers’s 1929 cut of “Everybody Does It In Hawaii” offers an illustrative example of the genre-bending ethos of this period. The lyrics, indulging a miscegenational fantasy with the islands, are not particularly noteworthy. However, the music, which superimposes Rodgers’s famous country yodel over the Hawaiian Joe Kaipo’s steel guitar, seamlessly blends Honolulu and Dallas (where the song was recorded). Rodgers’s partnership with Kaipo extended to several other classics as well. The Hawaiian steel’s yearning chime feels right at home underneath Rodgers’ lonesome crooning. Soon after, Rodgers would record with Lani McIntire, who headed one of the most famous Hawaiian ensembles at the time.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
Hawaiian fingerprints extended even to the technical development of the guitar. The steel guitar models of famed luthier Chris Knutsen were inspired by his contact with Hawaiian musicians and their home-made instruments at the 1909 Exposition in Seattle. George Beauchamp, an early guitar innovator taken in by the Hawaiian sound, entrusted his tri-cone prototype to the trusty fingers of Sol Hoopii, who cut a series of 1926 recordings that propelled the model into the national spotlight almost overnight. Advertisements for Beauchamp’s guitars frequently featured the endorsements of renowned Hawaiian guitarists such as Hoopii and Sam Ku West.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Lerer6.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Lerer6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;College Love Film&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
1929 poster for the ukelele-related film &lt;em&gt;College Love.&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Universal Pictures&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
The guitar demanded amplification as audiences grew in the 1930s, and the quest for volume naturally bore marks of Hawaiian inspiration. Beauchamp’s “Frying Pan,” the first electric guitar ever produced, was a Hawaiian steel model. Leo Fender, inventor of his eponymous guitar and a major influence on the subsequent development of electronic instrumentation, was also an avowed appreciator of the Hawaiian sound. During the planning stages for the Stratocaster model, he recruited Hawaiian prodigy Freddie Tavares as an assistant and design collaborator. Tavares would later innovate pedals for the electrified steel guitar, enabling the extensive volume and pitch control that now define modern country music.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
The national obsession with the Hawaiian sound could even be credited with reorienting the landscape of popular music around the guitar and launching its career as the quintessential instrument of twentieth-century American music. Naturally, guitars were played on the mainland prior to Hawaii’s annexation, but they served primarily to provide rhythmic and chordal backing. The Hawaiian groups of the early twentieth century transformed the guitar into a lead instrument, placing it front and center as the iconic focus of the ensemble. One scholar’s examination of guitar magazines in this period shows shifting perceptions of the instrument during this era, as musical communities found themselves divided between the older, “sophisticated” tradition of classical guitar and the new phenomenon of steel guitar. The latter’s mellifluous sounds popularized (or vulgarized, depending on one’s point of view) the guitar and advanced its availability, accessibility, and acceptability in the American musical imagination.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
History, like sound, cannot occur in a vacuum. Both move so rapidly and ceaselessly that they become indistinguishable from the process of motion itself. To precisely measure the impact of Hawaiian guitar in American music is thus an impossible task. We can only chase the echoes.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/the-hawaiian-invasion</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/the-hawaiian-invasion</guid>
        
        
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      <item>
        <title>The Space Between</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-LibroEntradasYSalidas1793.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-LibroEntradasYSalidas1793.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ship Log&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Title page of Cartagena’s 1793 book of ship arrivals and departures.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Archivo General de la Nación, Bogota, Colombia. Archivo Anexo 1, Aduanas, 22, 539-569&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Entradas1793.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Entradas1793.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ship Log&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Sample pages of Cartagena’s 1793 book of arrivals and departures.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Archivo General de la Nación, Bogota, Colombia. Archivo Anexo 1, Aduanas, 22, 539-569&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Salidas1793.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Salidas1793.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ship Log&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Sample pages of Cartagena’s 1793 book of arrivals and departures.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Archivo General de la Nación, Bogota, Colombia. Archivo Anexo 1, Aduanas, 22, 539-569&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
On January 9, 1793, the schooner &lt;em&gt;Ana María&lt;/em&gt;, captained by Pedro Camariles, sailed from Cartagena to Sabanilla. In Sabanilla (so it declared when leaving Cartagena) it was going to load cotton, most likely to sell later in Jamaica or in another foreign colony. This much we can know from a single entry into shipping returns like the one pictured above.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
In theory, shipping returns, also called books of arrivals and departures, register every legal arrival into and departure from a particular port. Much like modern airport arrival and departure screens, shipping returns give us a sense of the ways in which a particular port was connected with the world. Shipping returns list the name of the ship’s captain, the ship’s nationality, its port of origin or destination, and a brief description of its cargo. On occasion, they also include the tonnage of the ship and a short note regarding unusual circumstances accounting for a ship’s arrival (it was common to make a note about ships that entered after being captured at sea as well as those that entered &lt;em&gt;de arribada&lt;/em&gt; or in distress).
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
In an ideal world, one might piece together thousands of records like that of the &lt;em&gt;Ana María&lt;/em&gt; to get a complete picture of the workings of the maritime networks connecting Cartagena (or any other port) to the wider world. Such a reconstruction, in turn, would provide a clear picture of the geographic space that sailors and other frequent travelers inhabited. But that assumes that these records exist for all ships. And it assumes that all ships’ movements were recorded.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
Following ships in the archives, tracing the routes of the sloops and schooners that navigated the Caribbean during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is a difficult task. The problem—mostly—has to do with the fragmentary nature of the information available in archival repositories. Neither the Spanish colonial archives (I worked at Seville’s Archivo General de Indias and Colombia’s Archivo General de la Nación) nor the UK’s National Archives allow for a complete reconstruction of the dynamic world of transimperial exchanges in which New Granada’s Caribbean ports were actively involved.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassinew1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassinew1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;None&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Nightingale (1825), a two gun schooner.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassinew2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassinew2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;None&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The schooner Little Cumberland, 1802.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
Shipping returns, to begin with, are only available for selected ports and selected years. In addition, because many ships sailed the Caribbean carrying contraband, their owners, captains, and sailors made conscious efforts to avoid colonial authorities and, by extension, the colonial archive. A certain lack of imagination when it came to naming ships—or religious scruples demanding seamen to seek heavenly protection when braving the seas—adds difficulty to the task of following ships as they navigated Caribbean waters. Names like &lt;em&gt;San Josef&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;San Joseph&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;San Josef y las Ánimas&lt;/em&gt; and many other variations) and &lt;em&gt;Carmen&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;Nuestra Señora del Carmen&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;El Carmen&lt;/em&gt; and many variations thereof) were very common. With multiple ships bearing the same name it is often impossible to avoid confusion and successfully follow the maritime path and archival trail of a specific ship. Sometimes ship aliases, captain names, and tonnage are helpful in distinguishing between two ships of the same name. But aliases and tonnage are not always available. And frequent changes of captains, sometimes unaccounted for in the shipping returns, do not always make it easy to distinguish between two schooners called &lt;em&gt;Nuestra Señora del Carmen.&lt;/em&gt; Add to this other issues, including flag changes, sales that lead to renaming, and shipwrecks, and you could imagine maritime historians finding themselves lost at sea while trying to follow a ship across the seas.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
Even in cases where shipping returns yield what seems to be a detailed itinerary of a ship’s Caribbean cruise, a careful look at the arrival and departure dates reveals moments in which the ship “gets lost.” Where does a ship go when it temporarily disappears from the archival record? It enters the space between. That is, the geographic area and the time elapsed between the moments of visibility afforded by shipping returns. While shipping returns allow us to see ships entering and leaving ports, much of their actual journeys remains invisible. What happens in between ports is concealed from the historian’s gaze unless the ship encounters troubles that put it again on the archival record. Sometimes the space between falls well between the parameters of what can be considered normal. Often, it does not. This is when things get interesting.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
The visible trajectories of two schooners, the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; and the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;, demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of shipping returns. They also show the almost limitless possibilities of the space between. Maps 1a to 1d depict the estimated cruise of the schooner &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; during 1814. The &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt;’s documented cruise began in Kingston on March 26. Eleven days later it entered Santa Marta, on April 6, carrying rum, candles, and dry goods. After two weeks in Santa Marta it sailed, in ballast, toward Riohacha. The &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt;’s next documented sighting was in Kingston, on May 12, which it entered loaded with Nicaragua wood, a cargo commonly found in ships entering Kingston, Cartagena, and Santa Marta from Riohacha. There is no registry of the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; entering or leaving Riohacha. In fact, there are no port records available for Riohacha at all. Still, the twenty-two days that elapsed between its departure from Santa Marta and its arrival at Kingston make its declared Santa Marta-Riohacha-Kingston itinerary credible. The path traversed by the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; between Santa Marta and Kingston seems to have been—as declared—the seaspace between Santa Marta and Riohacha, the port of Riohacha itself, and the seaspace between Riohacha and Kingston.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Bassi1a.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Bassi1a.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Bassi1b.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Bassi1b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassi1c.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassi1c.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassi1d.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassi1d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
Nine days after sailing from Kingston on May 21, again carrying rum and dry goods, the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; entered Santa Marta. After a twenty-day stopover it sailed, in ballast, from Santa Marta to Riohacha and Maracaibo. Forty days later, on July 30, it entered Santa Marta from Riohacha with &lt;em&gt;registro&lt;/em&gt; from Maracaibo (&lt;em&gt;registro&lt;/em&gt; refers to paperwork and merchandise that confirmed that it actually was in Maracaibo). Even in the absence of shipping returns for Riohacha and Maracaibo, the fact that it entered Santa Marta with &lt;em&gt;registro&lt;/em&gt; from Maracaibo gives credence to the itinerary depicted in map 1b. In addition, assuming navigation times of about a week for each of the four steps of the Santa Marta-Riohacha-Maracaibo-Riohacha-Santa Marta journey, and stays in port of about five days, the forty days elapsed between its departure from Santa Marta and its return to the same port further add credibility to the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt;’s declared itinerary. Nevertheless, one wonders.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
The next steps in the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt;’s 1814 journey (map 1c) involve two new ports: La Guaira and Puerto Cabello. In this case, the space between gets murky. Shipping returns only show that it sailed from Santa Marta to Riohacha on August 8 and, two months later, on October 11, returned to Santa Marta from Riohacha with &lt;em&gt;registro&lt;/em&gt; from La Guaira and Puerto Cabello. Did the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; follow the Santa Marta-Riohacha-Puerto Cabello-La Guaira-Puerto Cabello-Riohacha-Santa Marta route that the shipping returns imply? The &lt;em&gt;registro&lt;/em&gt; from La Guaira and Puerto Cabello proves that the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; visited these two ports. The order in which it entered them, and potential visits to other Spanish or foreign ports, cannot be verified. The conspicuousness of contraband in the area raises suspicions about the likelihood of the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; actually following its stated route. Dutch merchants from Curaçao and the indigenous Wayuu of the Province of Riohacha were known to be actively engaged in this illicit trade. Proving these suspicions, however, is not possible.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
The last portion of the schooner’s 1814 journey is far clearer. After sailing from Santa Marta to Riohacha on November 3, records show it entered Kingston, from Riohacha, on November 16. Eight days later, on November 24, it sailed from Kingston to Santa Marta, entering this last port (declaring that it was coming from Kingston) on December 1. On December 20, it sailed from Santa Marta to Riohacha, only to return two days later claiming that strong winds made it impossible to continue its journey. After a week docked in Santa Marta, the &lt;em&gt;Samaria&lt;/em&gt; began its last trip of 1814, sailing to Riohacha on December 30.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
The retrievable itinerary of the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; (maps 2a-2e) provides a better sense of the possibilities of the space between. From January 10, 1793, when it sailed from Cartagena to Riohacha with &lt;em&gt;frutos&lt;/em&gt; (agricultural produce) to December 24, when it sailed from Cartagena to Kingston (again with &lt;em&gt;frutos&lt;/em&gt;), the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; frequently crisscrossed the seaspace between Jamaica and the Caribbean coast of New Granada. Its declared itinerary includes repeated visits to Kingston, Cartagena, Riohacha, and the small port of Sabanilla. But the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s 1793 journey is full of holes—the kind that make a historian wonder what might have happened in the vast spaces between its documented entries in Cartagena’s book of arrivals and departures. During the first half of the year, for instance, the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; appears to have followed two identical triangular paths sailing from Cartagena to Riohacha, from Riohacha to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to Cartagena.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Bassi2a.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Bassi2a.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Bassi2b.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Bassi2b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassi2c.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassi2c.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassi2d.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassi2d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-bassi2e.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-bassi2e.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Map&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
Appearances, in this case, can be deceiving. Shipping returns only provide certainty about four dates:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
1) January 10, when the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; sailed from Cartagena declaring that it was sailing to Riohacha; &lt;br /&gt;2) April 3, when it entered Cartagena from Jamaica; &lt;br /&gt;3) May 29, when it left Cartagena declaring Riohacha as its destination; and &lt;br /&gt;4) June 25, when, once again, it entered Cartagena from Jamaica.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
It is tempting to fill the gaps in this itinerary with two straightforward trips from Riohacha to Jamaica in order to complete the triangular path suggested by Cartagena’s shipping returns. While this is a possibility, there are other plausible scenarios. Did the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; actually sail to Riohacha both times? If it did, what port did it visit next? Did it sail from Riohacha to Jamaica or did it sail to another foreign port? If, in fact, it followed the same path on both occasions, why did it take it almost two months to return to Cartagena the first time and less than a month the second time?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
The space between, here, bursts with possibilities: delays in Riohacha and Kingston linked to procuring supplies and commodities; weather, in the form of rough seas or complete lack of wind; harassment by foreign ships at sea; undeclared trips to other foreign ports to procure foreign (mostly British) clothes to later introduce surreptitiously to New Granada; even clandestine arrivals to hidden coves to unload said contraband.  Any of these things could have happened. And because all of these things happened with some regularity, customs officers could not simply dismiss them. Neither can historians combing through the archives today.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
In the absence of further records documenting its arrival to other ports between January 10 and April 3 (or between May 29 and June 25), the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s itinerary remains murky. Its maritime path for the second half of 1793, given that it involved sailing to Sabanilla—a hidden, yet well known, cove frequented by smugglers—features an equally murky space between.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
What are historians to do when facing these gaps? Fleeing them to avoid the dreaded (by some, not me) speculation is definitely one path. Embracing them and working to suggest an account that is simultaneously speculative and persuasive seems more enticing.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
Contemporary reports abound with complaints about unauthorized travels and testimonies describing the tricks small vessels performed to bypass regulations. French traveler François Depons, writing from Venezuela, described the practice by which Spanish vessels sailing from Neogranadan and Venezuelan ports in 1801 claimed to be sailing to Guadeloupe, when in fact they were headed for British islands like Jamaica, Trinidad, and Curaçao (in 1801 Curaçao was under British control). Similarly, William Walton described how, during the Anglo-Spanish War of 1796-1808, “many Spanish vessels cleared out for Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Domingo, then in possession of their allies, and when they returned, produced false clearances and fabricated papers” to cover their actual trips to British islands. Taking advantage of the permissions granted by all imperial powers to trade with neutrals, James Stephen denounced, merchants of all nations were pursuing “a war in disguise” characterized by the fraudulent use of neutral flags to undertake trade with war enemies. The schemes, most times, involved declaring to sail to a port and then proceeding to a different one. This practice warns against taking shipping returns at face value.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
Like these foreign observers, local merchants also doubted the advisability of trusting shipping returns. Prominent Cartagena merchant José Ignacio de Pombo, for instance, denounced the contraband transported under the cover of the legal trade in slaves as well as the ways in which small vessels abused permits granted to trade with foreign neutrals. In his opinion, trade with foreigners not only favored contraband but also set a negative precedent and constituted “an addiction, difficult to cure after acquired.” Provincial authorities in Cartagena, Santa Marta, and Portobelo shared Pombo’s concerns. Manuel Hernández, the Spanish crown’s treasurer at Portobelo decried the practice some vessels legally trading with Jamaica pursued: they &lt;em&gt;added&lt;/em&gt; stopovers in hidden coves like Sabanilla, and Bahía Honda before entering their official ports of destination. Sabanilla, as ship captain Domingo Negrón witnessed after his schooner, the &lt;em&gt;Concepción&lt;/em&gt;, fell prey to a British ship, was a dynamic hidden port, which Spanish vessels legally sailing from Jamaica to Cartagena frequently entered to unload illegal merchandise before officially entering Cartagena with their legal cargo. Bahía Honda, which Spanish authorities considered a marvelous bay “capable of harboring the biggest fleet,” was—unfortunately for Spanish purposes—“only useful to foreign… ships” that used it “to introduce their goods… and take away the &lt;em&gt;palo del Brasil&lt;/em&gt;, pearls, cottons, and gold from this province” of Riohacha.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
Even when captured &lt;em&gt;in flagrante&lt;/em&gt;, smugglers and sailors facing charges of piracy could come up with alibis to save themselves from jail or execution. Claiming that they had entered a forbidden port because their ships were sinking (suspicious Spanish authorities called these arrivals &lt;em&gt;arribadas maliciosas&lt;/em&gt;) or that the “winds and currents” had deviated them from their stated courses, many sailors ended up giving judicial declarations in ports where, according to their navigation documents, they were not scheduled to stop. The archival bundles containing these declarations stand as visible counterparts to the invisible files never created by the many ships that fraudulently—either without being noticed by colonial authorities or with their complicity—entered a forbidden port before continuing their navigation to the scheduled port.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
Let’s get back to the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; to imagine a possible pathway to explain its space between. Two intervals between recorded departures from and arrivals to Cartagena stand out as particularly intriguing: the 83 days between January 10 and April 3 and the 71 days between July 12 and September 21 (maps 2a and 2c). Two months (almost three in the first case) at sea is an awful lot of time for direct Cartagena-Riohacha-Kingston-Cartagena and Cartagena-Sabanilla-Kingston-Cartagena trips. In the first case, the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s arrival record contains information that makes it possible to believe that its actual trip included illicit transactions in the hidden coves of New Granada’s Caribbean coastline.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
Upon entering Cartagena, the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; declared “3 &lt;em&gt;bozales&lt;/em&gt;” (African slaves) among its cargo. While selling slaves imported from foreign colonies was legal, having &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; 3 slaves for sale seems hardly a wise business decision. Given the abundance of voices that claimed that “the ships that sailed [to foreign colonies] to look for slaves, brought back contraband goods,” it seems (highly) plausible that the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; took part in this illegal trade, many times consisting of clothes. An undeclared stopover in Sabanilla, one of the most frequented hidden coves, to unload said clothes could have accounted for a portion of the 83 days it supposedly spent sailing to Riohacha, Kingston, and back to Cartagena. If the contraband goods included weapons—another item frequently present in reports, denunciations, and seizures—it also makes sense to imagine a potential stopover in Bahía Honda, where the Wayuu were always ready to buy British weapons. Adding these two hidden stopovers still allows time for the winds and currents to have played a role in the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s journey between its January 10 departure from Cartagena and its April 3 return.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
The second long unaccounted interval—between July 12 and September 21—raises similar questions regarding the business skills of the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s owners and captains. If shipping returns are to be trusted (and it seems, in this case, they should not), the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; sailed to Sabanilla “to get &lt;em&gt;palo mora&lt;/em&gt; [a dyewood] for sale in Jamaica.” With its cargo of palo mora, it proceeded from Sabanilla to Kingston, sold the palo mora, and then returned to Cartagena “in ballast.” This trip took the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; 71 days. Both the duration and the cargo (or lack thereof) make this straightforward trip unlikely. While palo mora was certainly a valuable commodity, it is hard to believe that the only commercial transaction the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; undertook during its 71 days of navigation was the selling of palo mora in Jamaica. It simply does not make business sense. In this case, it appears that the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s navigational trajectory included much more than the shipping returns show. Before entering Cartagena in ballast, the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; may have visited Sabanilla or another hidden cove to unload contraband goods obtained in Jamaica. The unlikelihood of a two-month-long Cartagena-Sabanilla-Kingston-Cartagena trip that only involved obtaining palo mora in Sabanilla to sell in Kingston simply calls for other explanations. In the absence of hard evidence, the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s trip requires speculation.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
While shipping returns do not allow us to fill the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt;’s space between, properly contextualized, they can help us understand its possibilities. Knowing exactly what path the &lt;em&gt;Santiago&lt;/em&gt; traversed is impossible. Concluding that its navigational trajectory between January 10 and April 3 (and then between July 12 and September 21) was much more truculent than Cartagena’s port records suggest, seems in this case to be a safe bet.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 25 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-25&quot;&gt;
Using shipping returns to reconstruct the navigational trajectories of Caribbean schooners offers historians a way to imagine alternative paths that deviate from the official ones delineated in books of arrivals and departures. Despite their fragmentary information, shipping returns remain the key source to study maritime networks in the Age of Sail. Reading them with an awareness of their limits helps us understand the mobile world sailors inhabited.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 26 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-26&quot;&gt;
Mobility and mobile lives help us see the world in a different way. Instead of a world of hard borders and fixed geographic units, a focus on mobility brings to life a world of connections invisible to the eyes trained to see through the lens of political geographies. In the world of the Age of Revolutions—the world I inhabit in my research—focusing on mobility allows us to demolish the fiction of “imperial self-sufficiency” created by an excessive emphasis on imperial political geographies as units of analysis. Mobility and mobile lives also pose great challenges and make us aware of the many possible paths mobile subjects could have taken. Following ships as they cut across political boundaries makes these potential paths visible. It opens up the possibilities of the space between.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 27 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-27&quot; class=&quot;alternate-voice&quot;&gt;
Maps created by Ernesto Bassi
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/the-space-between</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/the-space-between</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>A Satisfying View</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Weinberg1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Weinberg1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Balinese Shadow Puppet&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A Balinese shadow puppet figure representing a pistol, 1978.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Tropenman Museum, Amsterdam via Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Yes, my brothers,&lt;br /&gt;I know this is a view which satisfies you&lt;br /&gt;for you have worked so intently to create it.&lt;br /&gt;—W. S. Rendra, “Twilight View”
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Word of Mouth&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
Our island, our Bali, is an island of rivers and gorges: the rivers flow from the mountains down to the ocean, carving deep ravines we navigate to get our water, to flood the fields and quench our thirst and wash the daily filth from our clothes. News from Bali sweeps down from Gunung Batur, from the temples perched atop the volcano, and flows past us in whispers and roars. Often it floats by unnoticed. Other times it catches in an eddy or a rice field, turning into gossip until it’s time for the field to be drained and for the news to trickle down to the next village, the next field. It returns up the mountain in rain clouds and prayers, transforms, and makes its way once more.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
News from beyond, from Java, Sumatra, Lombok, comes in from the sea and is borne into the village markets on the backs of travelers and foreigners.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
Sometimes what we hear is true: at the markets we hear about statues a neighboring village has put in their main intersection to decorate and bless the road, about another village’s transition to a new headman, about good harvests, drought; we hear news of our newborn government from the capital, the date of the next election, the latest policy Sukarno has enacted to make life in this new Indonesia peaceful. But more often, by the time news reaches us it’s shifted into something unrecognizable, the way a storm changes shape on its way across the land.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
So of course we didn’t believe it when Nyoman and Wayan, home from their work at a hotel by the ocean, said that Sukarno’s generals had been killed at Lubang Buaya, in Java. We worried that their time at the hotel, an hour’s walk from our village, was corrupting them, making them less Balinese, but we knew they were paid well, knew our island was changing, that the hotels were important, inevitable. Still we doubted.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
But that’s what they’re all saying, they insisted as we gathered round them, as we guided them to the open platform of the &lt;em&gt;bale banjar&lt;/em&gt;, the building in the village center where we conducted all our business, where we came together at night, played music, told stories.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
Pak Yudi hurried down the dirt road to his family’s compound and returned with his radio. He placed it in the center of the bale banjar and we surrounded it, so many of us crowding round that we were pressed up against the columns that held up the roof, that we spilled down the steps to the grass around the platform, each of us straining to hear. Sukarno is still alive, the announcer told us, despite the communists’ attempts to kill him. But he has ceded power to keep the country safe.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
We looked at each other, confused. What did the communists have to do with anything? Nevertheless! the announcer cried atop a swell of patriotic music, The governor of Bali has declared that we are still loyal to Sukarno!
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
A murmur moved through us as we tried to understand the news, as each of us added new questions to the confusion. How could Sukarno, president for life, cede power? Why did the governor need to reaffirm our loyalty? Why would the communists want to kill our president, who by his own words had embraced them? Some of us were communists, members of the Partai Komunis Indonesia, and we would never want to harm Sukarno. We weren’t political. We were farmers, most of us. Jakarta was so far away; it hardly concerned us. Our worries were close to home: Would we have enough food for our families? When would it be our turn for the controlled floods that made it possible to grow our rice? Whom would our children marry?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
Pak Yudi was still fiddling with the radio—wasn’t he PKI? We’d never bothered to keep track. We thought perhaps Pak Gde was, too, and here he came, bicycling up the road waving a newspaper at us.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
Have you read the news? he called. Of course we hadn’t; so few of us could read in those days. He leaned his bicycle up against the platform of the bale banjar and opened the newspaper. It was more of the same: communists tried to take over the government, shot the generals, threw them in a well to rot.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
Ngurah, the schoolteacher, shook his head. This is nonsense, he said. The government is making it up.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
We wanted to believe him but each day the newspapers and radio announcers insisted it was true. Over the next month whispers traveled along the rivers that people in Java were being killed. The government, or perhaps it was the army, or perhaps someone else entirely, was blaming the communists, rounding up the women of Gerwani, the women’s wing of the PKI.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
The details Pak Gde read to us as we huddled out of a rainstorm were different, even more gruesome, though we hadn’t thought it possible. The generals, we learned, had been tortured. They had been raped by the women of Gerwani. Then they had been castrated, all before being thrown in the well.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
Pak Yudi interrupted Pak Gde. It can’t be true, he said. Just yesterday the papers quoted Sukarno—the PKI hadn’t been involved, that there was no sign the generals were tortured.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
But what about the other papers? we asked. They all say it happened, they all say it was the communists.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
And anyway, we said. Wasn’t Pak Yudi a communist? Wouldn’t he side with them no matter what?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
It just can’t be true, he said, picking at the edge of the sarong.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
Still, some of us weren’t sure. They wouldn’t do that, said Bu Ayu, scratching at her Gerwani tattoo, and we wondered who she was talking about. Gerwani? The army? The communists? How could she know? And we were noticing these things more, the tattoos and clothing that marked people’s loyalties. But they were our friends, our family; we had known them all our lives, and our community, our livelihoods, depended on them. We cooperated. We always had.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
But we didn’t know what to think. We knew not to trust the government but we also knew better than to question it. But when Bu Ayu asked again, Why would they? we had to admit we didn’t know.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Weinberg2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Weinberg2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Rice Fields&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Elizabeth Weinberg&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Some Grievances&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
Dewa barely contributed his share of food and offerings to the last three temple festivals. His wife sat idle, hardly ever taking the time to weave palm leaves into ceremonial baskets or to buy flowers to fill them, hardly ever leaving the finished offerings at their compound’s entrance as we were taught, and certainly never taking them to the village temple.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
Pak Yudi rarely shared his radio, claiming the batteries were too expensive—but we heard staticky voices trickling out of his bedroom each night, even when it played nothing more than what he’d been listening to all day.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
Bu Ayu railed on and on about how we treated our wives, about how our daughters should be allowed to go to school, when she knew very well we needed them at home. She always came to the bale banjar to discuss village business even though she was a woman. She said because her husband had married into &lt;em&gt;her&lt;/em&gt; family, because she was higher caste than him, it was her right. But her husband should have come.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
Rai promised Nyoman she would marry him but put the wedding off for months, finally marrying Budi instead. Although Nyoman was too &lt;em&gt;halus&lt;/em&gt; to show it, we knew she had broken his heart.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 25 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-25&quot;&gt;
Putu was always demanding special treatment, more time to speak at meetings at the bale banjar, extra food at temple festivals, all because his father was our headman. We respected his father, of course, looked to him to solve our problems, moderate our disputes. But Putu wasn’t him.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 26 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-26&quot;&gt;
Pak Agus was from Java and although he was a professor at the new university, and although he went on and on about the importance of education, he was forever using low Balinese instead of higher forms, forever insulting those above him in caste.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 27 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-27&quot;&gt;
Pande always had bits of rice and onion stuck in his teeth and spat when he talked. Surya neglected her family’s laundry and the scent of unwashed clothes followed them through the village like a hungry mongrel.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 28 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-28&quot;&gt;
Kari talked too loud.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 29 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-29&quot;&gt;
Pak Gde was always flirting with Wayan’s wife. Wayan’s wife was always flirting back.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 30 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-30&quot;&gt;
You know, don’t you? These were all just little things. Any village has its problems.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 31 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-31&quot;&gt;
And the most important thing, always, was to be truly Balinese, to be smooth, to be halus, to hold our tongues.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;High Tide&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 32 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-32&quot;&gt;
We tucked our gossip into corners, dropping our volume and taking care to ensure that no onlookers were around to witness, only telling what we’d heard to our closest friends. Our teasing at the market became gentler, especially with people we didn’t know as well, those from the other side of the market, in higher or lower castes than us—if we weren’t sure about the woman selling fruit or the girl with mounds of dried salted fish spread out before her we might still ask if she really thought that was a fair price, but we didn’t comment on her general cheapness, didn’t tease her for being short, or fat, or explain to her in detail how those things might affect her bargaining skills.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 33 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-33&quot;&gt;
Wayan and Nyoman brought newspaper clippings back from the hotels and Ngurah read the reports of killings and riots in central Java, explained to us that the violence was real and it was spreading east. We wondered if it was only a matter of time before the violence crossed the strait to us. We wondered who we would point to if necessary. We all had neighbors we didn’t like, and at night before we slept, surrounded by the rare silence in the village, we deliberated whether our lives would be better with them gone.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 34 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-34&quot;&gt;
If we were thinking it, we knew, they might be too. So we stayed quiet. We didn’t want anything to be thrown in our faces later if what the papers were saying was true. And we knew that we would shame our families, shame &lt;em&gt;ourselves,&lt;/em&gt; if anyone knew we were even considering such things. So we swallowed these thoughts, tried to let them go.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 35 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-35&quot;&gt;
Weeks after the first reports Pak Agus returned from the university paler than the Westerners who came through the village from time to time, marveling at our arts and dabbing at their dripping foreheads with already-soaked handkerchiefs. We had never, in the three years he’d lived among us, seen him so upset. He was the only one of us who had been to university in Java and for that, despite his foreignness, despite the fact that he was hardly even Hindu, we respected him. As he trudged down the road toward his home, we diverted him to the bale banjar, ushered him up the steps, did not even wait for him to remove his shoes. Professor, we asked, What happened? What’s wrong?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 36 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-36&quot;&gt;
Not Professor, he told us, burying his head in his hands like a child. I’ve been fired. They fired most of us, and wouldn’t let us leave before we gave them the names of other PKI members.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 37 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-37&quot;&gt;
We glanced around, tried to remember which, if any, of us were PKI. A few of us hid trembling hands in the folds of our sarongs but the younger ones, the optimists, said, They only want to know. If they wanted to kill anyone they would be here already.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 38 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-38&quot;&gt;
For the first time the possibility seemed real.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 39 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-39&quot;&gt;
The professor looked at his briefcase, which he was still clutching to his chest as if it might bring his job back. I hope so, he said finally. He pushed his way through us and walked away alone to tell his family the news. When he was gone, we tried to change the subject, to talk about the coming rain, to tease the children. We knew better than to dwell on this.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Further Complaints&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 40 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-40&quot;&gt;
Years ago, after the Japanese left and the Dutch were gone too, once we were finally independent, we tried to redistribute the land, to put things back the way they’d been years before. But Pande refused to give back what the Japanese had given him. Even though it had been our land, had been Wayan’s family’s, had been Dewa’s. It was his, he said, by right. He had grown up with this land, he said, so how could it not be his?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 41 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-41&quot;&gt;
And it was rumored that Pak Agus had chests of money hidden in his bedroom that he’d brought over with him from Java, treasures that he’d taken from his family’s temple. We never saw a single bit of it, not even when a torrential rainstorm moved through the year before and ruined the ocean-facing wall of the village temple for the dead.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 42 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-42&quot;&gt;
At the last temple festival Bu Ayu went into a trance, took the form of the goddess Durga, and spit in the face of her husband, all the men around her, even her son, barely five years old. Not until the face of each surrounding man was soaked in saliva did she return to herself, remembering none of it, or at least claiming not to.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 43 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-43&quot;&gt;
We all, even those of us who were too young to remember, even those who had not been born yet, knew the story of how Pak Gde’s grandfather had killed Putu’s, and how that debt had never been repaid.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Combustion&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 44 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-44&quot;&gt;
The fighting came to Bali. Villages to our north quarreled about whose fields should be flooded first—even though there was an order to it, there always had been—and these quarrels escalated into arguments about loyalties. We heard, even, that neighbors were killing one another.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 45 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-45&quot;&gt;
But people in other villages were different, less refined. We knew that. We were calmer.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 46 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-46&quot;&gt;
We knew how to bury our disputes, how to stay &lt;em&gt;halus&lt;/em&gt; and calm and even-keeled.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 47 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-47&quot;&gt;
But still we woke one night to the acrid smell of burning thatch. The air was thick and those of us who lived closest to the smoke could hardly breathe. At first we panicked, thinking the volcanoes were erupting.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 48 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-48&quot;&gt;
But when we ran out into the street we saw Pak Agus’s compound in flames, the fire climbing from room to room, building to building, crawling up the roofs. Some of us ran to the wells for water, others to the river. Our containers were too small to help. None of us could get close enough.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 49 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-49&quot;&gt;
Agus’s family clustered around him. His wife, Javanese too, held their daughter tightly as she sobbed. His daughter’s arms were empty. We all knew she had a baby, Agus’s first grandchild. We’d seen her cradling it, playing with it, had teased it and helped care for it ourselves. Some of us had even been there when the baby was born. We knew then why she was crying so hard in public.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 50 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-50&quot;&gt;
Pak Agus was quiet but stared at each of us in turn, his eyes full of accusations. We knew. It had been a hot night, silent but for a few frogs croaking in the fields, mosquitos buzzing past our ears. No lightning strike, no rumble of an army truck.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 51 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-51&quot;&gt;
But these things happened, we told ourselves. Our roofs were made from dried and woven thatch. These things happened. Sometimes homes burned down, and no one was to blame.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Loyalties&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 52 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-52&quot;&gt;
The army came to our friends’ doors and told them they could sign papers renouncing their PKI membership in exchange for a complete pardon. There could be no neutrality, they said, stiff-backed and brawny in their Western-style uniforms. Either you were against the PKI or you were a traitor.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 53 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-53&quot;&gt;
We watched Pak Agus as he signed outside his half-charred home, his eyes still weary with grief, and we flinched at his silence.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 54 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-54&quot;&gt;
The few who refused to sign were arrested and we watched the trucks pull away with young men handcuffed in the back. None returned.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 55 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-55&quot;&gt;
When the army had left we gathered in the streets, mourned and keened for those who had been taken, cried together for as long as we could stand.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 56 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-56&quot;&gt;
But the army came back with news: Gerwani women had been selling themselves to soldiers in exchange for weapons, then killing them as soon as they’d been handed guns and knives. At first this sounded ridiculous but then Putu reminded us of the way Bu Ayu was always grabbing power, was always insisting we let her speak, that she was right. We went to her house in search of the truth. We looked under the beds and in the pots and pans for guns. We marched out to the garden and searched for signs that it had been dug up to hide weapons. All the while Bu Ayu berated us, asking if we had no shame. We asked the same of her.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 57 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-57&quot;&gt;
We began to joke that she was a witch, that she was bringing pestilence down on us. Some of us weren’t sure if we were joking.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 58 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-58&quot;&gt;
A crowd—among them Pak Agus, Pak Yudi, Pak Gde, Dewa, Surya, and Budi—had trailed behind us the whole way over, quietly imploring us to stop. We did our best to ignore them; we needed to know the truth. Then maybe we would understand what to do.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 59 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-59&quot;&gt;
Anyway, someone else said. The communists are all atheists. They couldn’t possibly have magic.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 60 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-60&quot;&gt;
We wondered how you could be Balinese and not believe in the Gods.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 61 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-61&quot;&gt;
That night Bu Ayu’s family compound burned to the ground. We stayed in bed and listened to the flames, clapped our hands over our ears to block out the cries of children trapped under thatched roofs. None of us went to the wells for water to put it out. We knew if we did, our houses would be next.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Quotas&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 62 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-62&quot;&gt;
Then the army came at night with lists. They entered home after home, emerged with those they claimed were members of the PKI. They told us that they were building a better Bali.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 63 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-63&quot;&gt;
If we fought the army, told them their lists were wrong, told them we didn’t care who was what party, sheltered those they wanted, what would stop them from taking us, too?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 64 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-64&quot;&gt;
Pak Agus’s son was one of the first to go. They took him in the middle of the night and we didn’t realize he was gone until the morning, he had gone so quietly. The next morning we came across Ngurah and the headman quarreling shamelessly in the street. The headman was yelling that of &lt;em&gt;course&lt;/em&gt; Agus’s son was PKI and of &lt;em&gt;course&lt;/em&gt; the PKI were vermin, were nothing but rot in our village. Ngurah’s arms were crossed in front of his chest and he spoke quietly, urgently, asking how the headman could say such things when he knew the communists were no different from the rest of us.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 65 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-65&quot;&gt;
Ngurah never lost his temper and so had won the argument, but the headman’s words stayed in our minds like dirt wedged under our fingernails.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 66 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-66&quot;&gt;
And after his son was taken, Pak Agus stopped speaking entirely. For days he was jumpy, flinching at the slightest sound, the wind through the palm trees, the pound of women’s pestles grinding spices, the early morning crow of the roosters. He watched the roads as if waiting for the trucks to come back for him. But after a week he no longer seemed to see the road, didn’t seem to remember that it led anywhere, not even to his once-beloved university. He resigned himself to the knowledge that it was only a matter of time. He wandered around as if possessed. Not even the &lt;em&gt;balian&lt;/em&gt; could help him. Not even the balian was willing to try.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 67 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-67&quot;&gt;
He had been in his trance for days when Yudi’s screams pierced the dark night air. He cried out for us to help him, told the soldiers he was innocent, that they had the wrong person—maybe it was Yuda they wanted, there was a Yuda in the next village over, he said. We stood by the road and watched them take him away. In the morning we refused to mention it. We talked to Yudi’s wife as if Yudi was just out in the fields.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 68 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-68&quot;&gt;
There were others like Yudi who went screaming, crying, begging for us to help them; we knew they weren’t PKI, they told us, we knew! But their disgrace, their coarseness, their cries told us that even if we weren’t sure how to feel about the communists, that they were, somehow, still at fault.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 69 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-69&quot;&gt;
We didn’t know what happened to them. We heard stories, yes, of course we did, there were always stories, people forced to dig their own graves before they were shot, others killing their own family members to spare them torture at the army’s hands. But these stories couldn’t possibly be true. You wouldn’t have believed them either.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 70 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-70&quot;&gt;
And anyway, we told each other, in low whispers over pots of boiling water, in murmurs over the pounding of rain in the fields, the army had their reasons. Everyone who was taken was guilty, at least of something.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 71 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-71&quot;&gt;
But Ngurah. He wasn’t a communist.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 72 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-72&quot;&gt;
We didn’t notice when he was taken, not until our children started bothering us as we worked, asking where he had gone, why he hadn’t come to school that day to teach them, whether he was sick.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 73 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-73&quot;&gt;
Was he sick? We went to his compound to find out but it was empty—not even his parents remained. We couldn’t believe it. Maybe he had left of his own accord, maybe he had gone elsewhere, maybe—but no one did that in those days.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 74 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-74&quot;&gt;
We lied to our children at first, told them Ngurah had gone to the capital, to the university, had moved his family with him. But then the children asked why he had abandoned them, when he would be coming back.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 75 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-75&quot;&gt;
And we realized then that he &lt;em&gt;had&lt;/em&gt; abandoned them, had abandoned us, must have done so long ago. He’d been teaching our children, caring for them, but what, exactly, had he taught them? We’d thought he was on our side, but clearly, we were wrong.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 76 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-76&quot;&gt;
We had to protect our children from the likes of Ngurah—and we worried, now, that by sitting in his classroom they’d been implicated, that they would be next.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 77 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-77&quot;&gt;
What was our side? No one was willing to ask, no one knew &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; it had happened, when we had started thinking of people as communists or not communists. We told ourselves that we were all neighbors, that we were all innocent, but when the army came to take people they deemed incendiary, we nodded and told ourselves, well, yes, it made sense, well, yes, perhaps they had been against the good of the island, the country.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 78 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-78&quot;&gt;
But we hated the way our stomachs felt heavy and thick when we walked past Ngurah’s house, past the schoolyard.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 79 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-79&quot;&gt;
But the army must have known something we didn’t.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Floods&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 80 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-80&quot;&gt;
Militias formed all over the island. They swarmed the village, holding meetings at the bale banjar and telling us that it was our patriotic duty to take sides. They repeated the news we’d been hearing for so long but they brought evidence that the communists truly were anti-Balinese: posters declaring the caste system corrupt, pamphlets encouraging atheism. And there was more! The PKI wasn’t just planning a coup, they said. They were planning to kill anyone who wasn’t a communist, not just in Java, but here too. They would murder anyone who got in their way and anyone who refused to help their revolution.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 81 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-81&quot;&gt;
We had no choice.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 82 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-82&quot;&gt;
We held a meeting. A few of us were still uncertain. Dewa asked how we could be sure, how we knew that there was something wrong with the communists; only weeks ago we hadn’t even known who was what party! But Nyoman listed off the facts, one at a time, one for each finger until his fists had opened into hands.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 83 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-83&quot;&gt;
And behind him, Putu stood, arms crossed. Because his father was the headman, Putu was one of the strongest of us all; he had always had plenty to eat. He looked at each of us in turn and we knew that we had to nod, had to admit that we needed to protect ourselves, that this was getting out of hand.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 84 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-84&quot;&gt;
We organized ourselves. We went from house to house at night. Militias brought lists to us, and when they ran out of names, they told us numbers. We didn’t know who else it could be but we named people anyway, people who had betrayed us in the past or who refused to share their land or their food, people who had insulted us, people who we’d always wished would just move away.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 85 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-85&quot;&gt;
We named Bu Ayu, Pak Gde, and then stayed home as they and their families were herded out.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 86 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-86&quot;&gt;
This was our chance to build a better Bali.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 87 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-87&quot;&gt;
Putu declared Ketut Reti a communist. We knew it wasn’t true, we’d &lt;em&gt;seen&lt;/em&gt; Ketut Reti before the last election, wearing Nationalist Party colors, but we also knew that Putu had had his eye on Reti’s wife for months. We said nothing, not even when Putu visited Reti’s compound days later, not even when Reti’s wife shook and wailed for days.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 88 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-88&quot;&gt;
Don’t you see? We were at war. We &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; the army. We were defending our homeland from those who would betray us—who &lt;em&gt;had&lt;/em&gt; betrayed us. The village was our home; our souls were planted in the soil by our doors and if we left, even to go to the next village over for the market, we felt ourselves tugged home, our bodies begging not to leave. So we had to protect that. We did what we needed to do.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 89 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-89&quot;&gt;
And it wasn’t easy, of course it wasn’t easy. On the worst nights we swore we heard things, the ghosts of people who were gone but had not been properly mourned. The wind on our faces at night was too cold. Each birdcall, each footstep, each stray wisp of smoke was a sign that we weren’t on the right side anymore, that we had been betrayed. So we gathered closer together, played gamelan louder, joked into the night, kept each other company.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 90 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-90&quot;&gt;
The trucks stopped coming. We were ordered to take care of things ourselves, told that the army was needed elsewhere, that we would have to step up and do our part. We worked together, used whatever we could. None of us wanted to be responsible for any person’s death.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 91 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-91&quot;&gt;
We felt closer to each other than we had in years.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 92 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-92&quot;&gt;
Every day we thought it should be over, that we had found them all, but we knew if we only looked harder we would uncover more communists, more traitors. Some of us followed Putu to the next village. When we arrived they eyed us warily but we told them we were on their side, told them our plan. They agreed.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 93 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-93&quot;&gt;
We went home and rounded up our remaining communists—amazed, but then, that there had clearly been so many hiding like vermin in our gardens—and brought them back to the neighboring village. Some of them were our cousins, our siblings. We hated knowing that our own relatives were traitors. We didn’t like to think that we were sending them to die. But the nationalists from the next village brought their communists to us, and in our fields we killed them. We didn’t like to admit it, but it was easier killing people we didn’t know.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 94 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-94&quot;&gt;
And although we were reluctant to say it—we had killed our cousins! Our brothers!—all this was strangely satisfying. We all had disputes running back generations. We all had quarrels.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Questions&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 95 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-95&quot;&gt;
Without the army, would we have done this? How were we so eager to point to our friends, our neighbors? Why did no one ever point to us?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 96 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-96&quot;&gt;
What would we tell our children, our grandchildren? Would we need to tell them anything? Would they understand that we were doing what we had to do?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 97 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-97&quot;&gt;
When would everything return to normal?
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 98 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-98&quot;&gt;
You have to understand that we hardly slept in those days. None of us could. None of us was willing to, for fear that we’d be next.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Weinberg3.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Weinberg3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sunset&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Elizabeth Weinberg&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;Silence&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;!-- 99 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-99&quot;&gt;
One humid, heavy morning, we woke and realized that the communists were gone and our duty was fulfilled. The war was over, and we had won. Those we hadn’t killed were in prison. A few relatives of PKI members remained in the village, but we avoided them.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 100 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-100&quot;&gt;
We gathered in the temple, held a festival, played gamelan and coaxed the shadow puppeteer to put on a show. We celebrated into the night, repelling all the demons and ghosts.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 101 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-101&quot;&gt;
We rebuilt. We redistributed the land we had seized, rewarding those who helped most. We replanted the rice, harvested it. We listened for news. We waited for the rivers to return to their normal color, for the eerie blood-red tinge to fade away.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 102 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-102&quot;&gt;
We waited to forget, but we wondered if it was really over. Each round of gamelan we played together in the bale banjar seemed too short, the resetting of the patterns each instrument wove together coming too soon, each gong and gangsa and drum piling on top of one another, crying out for more attention than we could give. We had always loved the chaos of our music but now we flinched when the wrong note was hit. We kept waiting for the final gong to reverberate through our chests like an earthquake, to tell us it was finished, that this wasn’t just a lull before the cycle continued. But we didn’t hear one.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 103 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-103&quot;&gt;
We held our breath.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 104 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-104&quot; class=&quot;alternate-voice&quot;&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Further Reading&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In 1965, a failed coup in Indonesia set into motion events that ultimately led to the dismantling of the Sukarno presidency. Military and government officials pinned the blame on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI, &lt;em&gt;Partai Komunis Indonesia&lt;/em&gt;) and the affiliated women’s organization, Gerwani (&lt;em&gt;Gerakan Wanita Indonesia&lt;/em&gt;, Indonesian Women’s Movement). Over the following months, beginning in Java and then moving outwards to Bali, Sumatra, and elsewhere, members of these organizations were killed, both by the army and by civilians—many of whom were neighbors or family of those killed. Estimates of the number of people killed in Bali and Java range widely, from 100,000 to two million.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While this story is based in historical research, it is still a work of fiction and I have taken liberties in order to fill in the gaps, both emotional and factual. The events are still not widely discussed in Indonesia, and there is still more work to be done to write the history of 1965-66 and to examine how Indonesia copes with this past in its present. Still, there are quite a few books and articles that can illuminate the events in ways that I could not in fiction. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best among them are: Geoffrey Robinson’s &lt;em&gt;The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali&lt;/em&gt; (1995); Leslie Dwyer and Degung Santikarma’s “Speaking from the Shadows: Memory and Mass Violence in Bali” (2007); and Mary Zurbuchen’s “History, Memory, and the ‘1965 Incident’ in Indonesia” (2002).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would also like to thank Drs. Ni Wayan Pasek Ariati, Thomas Hunter, and Peter Just, all of whom helped guide me to the right information for this story. I am in their debt.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/a-satisfying-view</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/a-satisfying-view</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>Cambodian Dancers, Auguste Rodin, and the Imperial Imagination</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-blair1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-blair1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Paris&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
How Cambodian culture was hijacked by the French colonial project—and helped inspire Rodin.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
On a July evening in Paris, a troupe of Cambodian dancers mesmerized Auguste Rodin. “I am a man who has devoted all his life to the study of nature, and whose constant admiration has been for the works of antiquity,” Rodin wrote. “They made the antique live in me.” The sculptor was so fascinated by the dancers that he followed the troupe to southern France, where they took up residency at the 1906 Colonial Exposition of Marseilles. Here Rodin drew them incessantly, obsessively.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
The Cambodian Royal Ballet gripped the imagination of the French public during their visit to Paris and to the 1906 Colonial Exposition in Marseilles. But it was Rodin’s sketches of the dancers that immortalized this encounter between ancient Khmer dance and early twentieth-century France. Rodin did not represent the dancers realistically. Instead he recorded his psychological impressions, capturing the energy of Cambodian dance using techniques from European art. The sculptor’s appropriation of Khmer dance reflected primitivist currents of his time. But it also highlights the importance of public spectacles of cultural difference in pre-war France—spectacles like the Colonial Exposition.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
The Cambodian Royal Ballet arrived in France accompanying King Sisowath, who also attended the Colonial Exposition in Marseilles. It was the first trip of a Cambodian monarch to France. The Colonial Exposition aimed to present France’s colonies on a truly grand scale, serving as a prototype for later imperial exhibitions in Marseilles in 1922 and Paris in 1931. The Cambodian dancers performed in the Theatre of the Indochinese Pavilion (modeled on the Bayon temple in Cambodia) alongside a short film showing images of Indochina. King Sisowath’s pride in his dancers was matched by the enthusiasm with which they were received by the French. While Cléo de Mérode, a French dancer, had organized an approximation of Cambodian dance for the Universal Exposition of 1900, French audiences had never before had the opportunity to witness the ballet firsthand. Javanese dancers at the 1889 and 1900 Expositions had been the only non-European dancers to perform in France in recent years. There was, accordingly, great excitement for the Cambodian performances in 1906. The dancers were welcomed as representing “the timelessness of Cambodian culture” and portrayed as a counterpoint to Sisowath himself, who was treated as a comic and showy figure, “dressed up as a pagoda.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Cambodian Dancers Poster&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A poster advertising the 1906 Exposition, prominently featuring a Cambodian dancer.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
By 1906, Auguste Rodin was a highly public figure. He had roughly fifty assistants, and his &lt;em&gt;Thinker&lt;/em&gt; was on display in front of the Pantheon in Paris, the burial place for France’s national heroes. He was “certainly the contemporary French artist about whom most [had] been written.” His time consumed by bureaucracy and the demands of celebrity, Rodin was not, at this point, producing the sculptural masterpieces for which he is known. Rodin had long been interested in the dances of other cultures, sketching Indonesian dancers who he called “marvelous princesses” in 1889. Rodin similarly admired Sada Yacco’s performance of &lt;em&gt;The Geisha and the Cavalier&lt;/em&gt; in 1900, and later became fascinated with a Japanese dancer known as Hanako.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair3.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Hanako Portrait&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s &lt;em&gt;pâte de verre&lt;/em&gt; (cast glass) portrait of Hanako, 1911.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Rodin Museum&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s feverish excitement for the Cambodian Ballet, however, surpassed this earlier curiosity. In Paris he attended two shows. When the Cambodian Royal Ballet returned to Marseilles after a week, Rodin followed them. He spent five days sketching, writing subsequently that he “would have followed them to Cairo.” In Marseilles, Rodin attended performances and made sketches at the pavilion where the ballet stayed, allowing Rodin to capture movements he had admired in performances. After their departure, Rodin copied the images again in his studio, outlined them in graphite and highlighted them using watercolor and gouache, arriving at a total of around 150 sketches. On the day of the dancers’ departure, Rodin was struck down with illness, having exhausted himself in his urgent attempts to record them.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
The Cambodian Royal Ballet struck Rodin’s imagination due largely to his association of them with the cultures of antiquity. Rodin wrote that the ballet provided “a complete show that restored the antique by unveiling mystery.” He wrote that they “seemed to… have escaped from the bas-reliefs of the famous temples” at Angkor and from the “ancient stones” of French architecture, claiming in &lt;em&gt;Les Cathédrales de France&lt;/em&gt; to have seen, in an angel at Chartres, a Cambodian figure. Rodin regarded the Cambodian dancers as embodying the past, as carrying “all that antiquity can contain” in their traditional dance. It is this Orientalist view of Cambodian culture that led him to consider the Cambodian dancers as ideal models, their bodies and movements uncorrupted by modern living.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
This view of the Cambodian dancers as intimately linked with antiquity can be seen in the drawings themselves. The garments Rodin draws are simple but voluminous, large planes of fabric tied around the body like the togas of Western antiquity, as in &lt;em&gt;Cambodian Dancer, in Right Profile&lt;/em&gt;. Rodin’s omission of visual context universalizes the figures; this dancer loses the costume that ties her to a particular dance style and similarly lacks individualized facial features. Movements, too, cannot be definitely linked to Cambodian dance; they are loose echoes of the dance Rodin sees. Rodin’s dancers are Cambodian primarily in name and, in images such as &lt;em&gt;Six Studies of Cambodian Dancers&lt;/em&gt;, in the brown tones audiences would associate with Cambodian skin—though the performing dancers had their faces painted white so as to give a ghostly impression. In this way, Rodin’s focus on line and gesture, discarding unnecessary details, universalizes his models, rendering them timeless.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;ul class=&quot;image-gallery&quot;&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;Rodin, “Cambodian dancer in right profile,” 1906.&quot; data-credit=&quot;Musée Rodin, Paris&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;blair1&quot; title=&quot;Rodin, “Cambodian dancer in right profile,” 1906.&lt;span class='credit'&gt;Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair4a.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-Blair4a.jpeg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;Rodin, “Six studies of Cambodian dancers,” 1906.&quot; data-credit=&quot;Musée Rodin, Paris&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;blair1&quot; title=&quot;Rodin, “Six studies of Cambodian dancers,” 1906.&lt;span class='credit'&gt;Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair4b.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-Blair4b.jpeg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;“Cambodian dancer from waist with arms extended”, 1906.&quot; data-credit=&quot;Musée Rodin, Paris&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;blair1&quot; title=&quot;“Cambodian dancer from waist with arms extended”, 1906.&lt;span class='credit'&gt;Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair4c.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-Blair4c.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
This view of the Cambodian Royal Ballet as having sprung from stone, as holdovers from antiquity, can be seen elsewhere. Another spectator described the dancers as “perfect copies of the old stone apsaras,” commenting particularly on the gestures and costumes. Few had visited Cambodia or seen the stone to which the dancers were compared, but photographs were widely circulated and, to the French public, Angkor and Cambodia were synonymous. The Cambodian dancers wore costumes modeled after the bas-relief of Angkor Wat, though more modest, and their headdresses resembled temples, constructed in decorative levels that tapered to a point. To French audiences, the ballet was visually linked with the past. For Rodin, this had an additional appeal; in these similarities the dancers sprang not simply from Angkor, but simultaneously from Ovid’s Pygmalion myth. Rodin’s sculptural practice was deeply imbedded with the idea that life and movement could be captured in stone, and the dancers suggested a more literal animation of stone. Their appeal may have been heightened through this imaginative leap; Galatea, to Rodin, appeared in these dancers.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair5.JPeG&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair5.JPeG&quot; alt=&quot;Apsaras&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Apsaras at Angkor Wat, 2013.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Anna Blair&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
Yet while Rodin likened the dancers to “those engraved in the stone ten centuries ago,” his renderings also modernized his subjects, using them as a starting point for invention and experimentation. Costuming linked the dancers to those of Angkor bas-reliefs, particularly the adorned sampot worn around the hips; while Rodin’s writings praise this costuming, he improvises the garments in his drawings. Rodin’s poses are based on those of the Cambodian Royal Ballet, but he gives them an energy and looseness that may not have existed in the slow, exacting Khmer tradition. While Rodin was amazed by Khmer dance movements, praising the dancers’ “continually flexed” legs and “the staccato shudders that the body makes,” these drawings draw their vitality from Rodin’s imaginative refiguring of the dancers forms. Rainer Maria Rilke was struck by the colors used in the drawings, the dancers transformed into “human flowers” through watercolour washes. Rodin’s  Cambodian dancers were models for his imagination; he used some gestures he saw in the performances and discarded other aspects, creating his own version of Cambodian dance.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s treatment of the Cambodian dancers more as inspiration than subject is reflected in his withdrawal from inclusion in &lt;em&gt;The Story of the Cambodian Dancers in France&lt;/em&gt;, by George Bois, an admirer of Rodin’s sketches. Rodin withdrew from this project with the claim that his “drawings were not good from a specifically Cambodian point of view,” instead being “halfway between the European and the Cambodian.” Bois’s book was instead published with the sketches of Noel Dorville. In Dorville’s sketches, colours are bright and varied, capturing the energy of the costumes, while the childlike nature of the individual dancers can be seen in the innocent expressions with which they regard the viewers. The positioning of the dancers, “rigid in their heavy garments weighed with gold,” can be seen in postcards and photographic albums, the young girls appearing dwarfed by their attire. In these photographs, the viewer is drawn to the faces of the girls, who stare wide-eyed at the camera as they dance, too slowly for the camera to register motion. By contrast, Rodin’s dancers are always moving and are not individuals due to a paucity of detail. Their faces are often composed of little more than a scrawled mouth and dotted eyes.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair6.png&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair6.png&quot; alt=&quot;Indo-chine Pittoresque&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Pierre Dieulefils_, Indo-chine Pittoresque et Monumentale. Ruins d’Angkor, Cambodge_, published c. 1909&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s drawings, despite the beauty of their execution, are symptomatic of European engagement with foreign cultures at the turn of the century.  Rodin pulls the dancers out of context, stripped of costume, storyline, and individual identity. In transcribing the Cambodian Royal Ballet to paper, Rodin prioritizes the study of form and motion, denying the significance of Khmer dance and stagecraft as an art form in itself. The Cambodian Royal Ballet becomes simply source material, transformed by and subordinated into the European artistic vision. In 1906, Cambodia was seen as colonial periphery to France’s center, and so the appearance of the Cambodian Royal Ballet in France was a prime opportunity for the presentation of Cambodian culture to Europe. Rodin’s drawings, however, reduce the significance of Cambodia as a player in this encounter. When the dancers left and Rodin’s drawings went on display, it was the dancers’ impact on Rodin—rather than their skill as performers—which became memorialized. Thus while Rodin’s enthusiasm for the Cambodian Royal Ballet contributed to their preservation in national memory, his drawings transformed the dancers into European property, their bodies fodder for a distinctively French modern imagination.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
The Colonial Exposition itself co-opted other cultures into European narratives, presenting Cambodia to the French people to celebrate the French colonial endeavor. The ballet was regarded as something Indochina offered France, who in turn ‘protected’ Cambodian culture from indigenous rule. King Sisowath initially regarded the trip as beneficial, giving his government political capital and a more prominent place amongst France’s colonies; it was expected, too, that a market for Cambodian dance would revive the Royal Ballet. Yet while the dancers proved successful in France as an exotic entertainment, this did not translate to their own country. Refusing 200,000 francs for a European tour, the Cambodian Royal Ballet declined from 1910 onwards. They appeared again at the 1922 Marseilles Colonial Exposition, advertised as “the famous Cambodian dancers,” but were unable to perform at the 1931 Exposition in Paris. A private Cambodian dance company instead appeared at the 1931 Exposition, advertised as the ‘Royal Ballet’ despite their origins, so as to ensure the public felt France’s colonial administration continued to protect the cultural riches that Cambodia offered.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair7.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;1922 Marseilles Colonial Exposition&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
An image advertising the return of the Cambodian dancers at the 1922 Marseilles Colonial Exposition.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
Cambodian culture was hijacked by the French colonial project, transformed into a symbol of French success as opposed to Cambodian talent. Prior to the arrival of the dancers, Cambodia was known to Europeans primarily via accounts focused on the exoticism of the country’s temples and jungle, the lack of human company, and the strange antics of animals.  Louis Delaporte’s &lt;em&gt;View of the Bayon&lt;/em&gt; is representative: the image depicts a huge temple, framed by trees. Though a Cambodian appears in the lower left corner of the image, almost hidden by undergrowth, he occupies a marginal place, an accessory used to indicate scale, dwarfed by his environment. Due to such representation and to the difficulty of foreign travel, in 1906 European audiences did not know Cambodia through its people. In visiting and performing in France, the Cambodian Royal Ballet, alongside King Sisowath, were amongst the first Cambodians to infiltrate French society. Rodin’s drawings, taking the dancers as their subject, became a prominent exception to the trend of depicting Cambodia as sparsely populated jungle. Rodin’s drawings, however, use the Cambodian dancers as accessories to his own artistic project of capturing form and gesture. While his drawings are of Cambodian people, their facial features are scarcely rendered, sacrificed in the pursuit of movement on a page. Rodin’s drawings took Cambodian girls as their subject, but still did not give them personhood. Thus while his drawings distanced the dancers from the Colonial Exposition’s subsuming spectacle, they readopted them for his own ends, not working from or toward an understanding of Cambodian dance.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair8.jpeg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair8.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;View of the Bayon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Delaporte’s “View of the Bayon,” 1866.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Musée Guimet, Paris&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
The story of the Cambodian court coming to Marseilles has acquired an epic dimension, becoming an encounter through which the dynamics of the colonial relationship were played out in miniature. Originally regarded as an exemplar of beneficent empire, it was instead an acting out of the power imbalances of colonization: despite France’s posture as a caring friend to King Sisowath, the monarch was asked even to pay for the gifts he received while visiting France. Meanwhile he was racially ridiculed by a French media, referred to as a “coconut seller.” While these modes of thinking colored Rodin’s sketches of Cambodia, the sketches today draw attention to these events, and encourage reflection on the colonial project even as they exemplify it.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
Contemporary reception of Rodin’s sketches has been mixed. The display of the Cambodian series at the National Museum of Phnom Penh in 2006 saw many of those at the opening, particularly dancers in attendance, describing his lines as “lazy” or “ugly”; it has been suggested that critical appreciation of Rodin’s drawings has been influenced by his lofty position in the Western artistic canon. Yet ambivalence to Rodin’s drawings can be seen throughout their exhibition history. The sketches at first reached a wider public in George Bois’s article in &lt;em&gt;L’Illustration&lt;/em&gt;, published on the 28th of July in 1906. Bois noted that the “sketches may appear to be cursory and strange,” but reminded viewers that Rodin had produced great sculpture, linking distrust of the drawings with the mixed feelings that arise in “the uninitiated” when confronted with modernity. An article appearing in October of the same year in &lt;em&gt;Je Sais Tous&lt;/em&gt; was more critical, describing the works as “haphazard, without any search for tones, nor for perspective or some kind of semblance of composition.” The drawings were first exhibited a year later at Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. The reviews for this show were largely positive, with &lt;em&gt;Le Figaro&lt;/em&gt; going so far as to instruct readers that “it is imperative to have seen this.” In 1908, the drawings were shown in Brussels and in Leipzig. Following this, Rainer Maria Rilke published a short article that commented on his surprise at the lack of enthusiasm for Rodin’s drawings in Germany. Rodin himself felt that his drawings were underappreciated, writing to Antoine Bourdelle in 1907 that society did “not understand [his] drawings.” Bourdelle responded that “truthful works are not understood.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair9a.jpeg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair9a.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
‘Front of Cambodian dancer’, 1906.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair9b.jpeg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair9b.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
‘Cambodian dancer in left three-quarter profile’, 1906.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
While Rilke and Bourdelle appreciated Rodin’s drawings, not all those working alongside him saw his sketches in this light. Anthony Ludovici, Rodin’s assistant from June 1906, claimed that Rodin’s sketches,  “give the spectator but a poor idea both of the models who stood for them, and of the artist who executed them,” crediting their celebration as due to “the misguided efforts of enthusiasts.” Ludovici claimed also that Rodin himself attached small value to his drawings, often giving them away, a suggestion that does not fit with Rodin’s repeated inclusion of the drawings in exhibitions he organized.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
Ludovici saw this as evidence that the drawings were not worthy of appreciation; other critics of the time, however, recognized that the immediate and unrefined aspects of the drawings gave them liveliness and energy. Camille Mauclair, after writing that the sketches “are not themselves works of art,” conceded that they are “beautiful” and likened them to “a sort of passionate writing.” Similarly, Clément Jasmin, an art critic, wrote extensive praise for Rodin’s earlier sketches, regarding them as closely connected to his sculptural oeuvre. Just as Rodin’s writings have been of interest to art historical scholars, his drawings, too, are both beautiful and interesting. The use of drawing as preparation for other works does not detract from the merits of the sketches themselves.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Blair10.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Blair10.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Rodin Sketch and Bust of Victor Hugo&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s sketch (left) and sculpted bust (rught) of Victor Hugo.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Musée d’art moderne et contemporain and Musée Rodin, Paris&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
While most critics agree that Rodin himself, whatever his thoughts on drawing, did not place his sketches as on the same plane as his sculpture, views differ on the relationship between his drawings of the Cambodian Royal Ballet and his subsequent sculptural work. Catherine Lampert writes that Rodin’s drawings were preparation for sculpture. It was, however, rare for Rodin to make sculpture from his drawings. While Rodin’s &lt;em&gt;Bust of Victor Hugo&lt;/em&gt; was done from drawings, preliminary drawings exist for few of his other works. Rodin’s sketches of Hugo use shading to indicate recesses transferrable to a sculptural figure, with form and depth evident on the page; Rodin’s dancers, by contrast, are made of sparing lines and watercolour washes, ill-suited as preparatory drawings for sculpture.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
It would seem, then, that Rodin planned no sculptural project involving the Cambodian dancers. George Bois closes his 1906 &lt;em&gt;L’Illustration&lt;/em&gt; article with the note that related statues would appear “hopefully, at the next Salon d’Automne.” Bois appreciated Rodin’s drawings both as insight into his process and as beautiful in themselves; the apparent expectation is for sculpture embodying the same elements. Bois’s article is based on correspondence with Rodin, suggesting that it was his stated intention to complete sculpture based on the dancers. This, however, did not appear. In Rodin’s sculpted dancers and hands, where one might expect correlation, there is little influence. Rodin’s sculptures of dancers draw from Western ballet; the poses he depicts cannot be found in Khmer dance.  The hands of the Khmer dancers, similarly, cannot be seen in Rodin’s sculpted hands. &lt;em&gt;The Secret&lt;/em&gt; displays an intimacy foreign to his solitary dancers; these are the hands of two figures coming together, not a practiced pose. The most direct sculptural link comes in the form of two plaster casts from arms of Cambodian dancers, in poses from Khmer dance, with marks on the upper arm where the dancers wore armbands. These do not resemble any sculpture Rodin later made.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
Rodin’s sketches of Khmer dance immortalized the Cambodian Royal Ballet’s 1906 visit to France, capturing the excitement of French audiences, and ensuring that this encounter between colonizer and colonized would not be quickly forgotten. In utilizing the Cambodian Royal Ballet for his artistic ends, Rodin’s drawings, like the Colonial Exposition itself, are beautiful. But they testify to a long record of European efforts to aestheticize foreign cultures rather than a true engagement with Cambodia. While Rodin never completed larger projects based around the Khmer dancers, plans for the Museum of Living Artists show their continued impact. To Rodin, as to his compatriots, the Cambodian Royal Ballet seemed to be the direct descendants of a hazy and ever receding pre-modern world. In sketching the dancers, Rodin created his own colonial myth.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/cambodian-dancers-auguste-rodin-and-the-imperial-imagination</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/cambodian-dancers-auguste-rodin-and-the-imperial-imagination</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>Blurred Forms: An Unsteady History of Drunkenness</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Drunk1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Drunk1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Cruikshank cartoon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
“Alcohol, Death, and the Devil” by George Cruikshank, c. 1830.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Library of Congress&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
During an evening of carousing and drinking at a Salisbury tavern, a soldier and his comrades were drinking to one another’s health. Then the soldier did the unthinkable: he drank to the health of the Devil. Boldly daring the Devil to appear, the soldier claimed that if the Devil did not, it was proof that neither the Devil, nor God, existed. The soldier’s drinking companions quickly fled the room out of fear, but they returned “after hearing a hideous noise, and smelling a stinking savour.” After returning to the room, the soldier had vanished, and all they found was a broken window, the iron bar within it bowed and covered in blood. The soldier was never heard from again.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
This peculiar tale, told in 1682 by the Anglican minister Samuel Clarke, made up a part of his warning to all regarding the treacherous fates that awaited drunkards. The soldier made the fatal error of losing his wits and drinking to the health of the Devil, inviting the evil being into his world. This story, however, was only one of the terrifying possibilities outlined by Clarke. Illness, madness, bodily and spiritual destruction, and–ultimately–death comprised the tragic fates that awaited every drunkard.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
Such critiques and warnings initially did little to sway daily drinking practices, but over time, the cries of those who stood in opposition to alcohol steadily grew louder. Murmurs in the mid-seventeenth century–shocked at the sudden increase of cheaply available spirituous liquors–increased to a roar of condemnation throughout the decades of the following century. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the damnations against alcohol had become a deafening clamor that came in the form of speeches, books, medical inquiries, and artwork. One aspect often featured in such anti-liquor declarations were the drunkards themselves–more specifically, the drunkard’s unsteady, untrustworthy body.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Drunk2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Drunk2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;first page of Clarke panels&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Samuel Clarke warned of a number of violent fates for drunks (eight of them pictured here) in his 1682 book &lt;em&gt;A Warning-piece to All Drunkards and Health-Drinkers&lt;/em&gt;.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Early English Books Online&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-drunk2b.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-drunk2b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;second page of Clarke Panels&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Early English Books Online&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
Spiritual and medical inquiries about the effect of alcohol on a person’s body remained a constant source of concern, long before nineteenth-century movements for temperance. Published inquiries often emphasized the personal manner in which alcohol, after entering the body, initiated a process of deterioration and a literal process of &lt;em&gt;physical transformation&lt;/em&gt;.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
In 1677, Edward Bury, a former minister of Great Bolas in Shropshire, and a contemporary of Clarke, wrote at length about the ways alcohol distorted the body. He posed to the reader, “Consider also how much this Beastly sin of &lt;em&gt;Drunkenness&lt;/em&gt; doth debauch, defile, &lt;em&gt;deform&lt;/em&gt; the Body of man.” Drinking, Bury claimed, transformed the body–a perfect work of creation–by turning “the Nose, the Eyes, the Cheeks… red and pimpled, the Face swoln like a Bladder, the Countenance disturbed, writhen, and deformed.” To Bury, the most comparable creature to the drunkard was the swine, as drunkards seemed to take great pleasure in wallowing in their own vomit, dung, and the dirt. Drunkards even came to resemble swine by crawling about, after losing control over their ability to walk; though, while beasts are serviceable in this manner, Bury remarked, “the &lt;em&gt;Drunkard&lt;/em&gt; [is] good for nothing but to spend and consume.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-drunk3.png&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-drunk3.png&quot; alt=&quot;woodcut&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Frontispiece of Thomas Heywood, &lt;em&gt;Philocothomista, or the Drunkard, Opened, Dissected and Atomized&lt;/em&gt; (London: 1635).
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://senseshaper.com/gif-ing-the-early-modern-woodcut-or-early-modern-party-animals/&quot;&gt;Senseshaper.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
To Clarke, imbibing alcohol did not turn men into swine, as Bury claimed. Instead, he claimed that drinking resulted in a much more profound transformation:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The bewitching, besotting nature of Drunkenness:  It doth not turn men into Beasts, as some think, for a Beast scorns it… But it turns them into Fools and Sots, dehominates them, turns them out of their own Essences for the time, and so disfigures them, that God saith, &lt;em&gt;Non est hæe Imago mea&lt;/em&gt;, This is not my Image…
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
Drinking altered the physical appearance of the body in a way that no other vice seemed to do. According to Clarke, by soaking one’s body with liquors, the drunkard experienced a process of metamorphosis; the body grew malleable, so much so that it was like soft clay with which “Satan can mould [the drunkard] into any shape.” Consuming alcohol could warp the drunkard’s features to the extent that his own Creator would no longer recognize his distorted face.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
Spiritual concerns dominated early denouncements of drinking, but new observations of alcohol’s transformative power emerged in the eighteenth century. If a drinker, saturated in pernicious liquors, opened their bodies to Satan’s devious touch, man did not turn into beast. Instead, the body seemed to wither and collapse on itself. With a pallid countenance and leathery skin, the drunkard’s decaying appearance became one popularly associated with death.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
The sudden rise in the drinking of gin amongst the poor of London at the turn of the eighteenth century brought forth a number of such claims. The bodily destruction was described as a gradual process; the drunkard’s constitution slowly broke down, their eyes–“except when lighten’d by the Fire of the spirituous Draught”–remained heavy and dull. The drunkard’s face was pale, their demeanor listless. If the drunkard was a woman, “the Bloom of her Beauty is soon changed for red Pimples in her Face,” and her complexion turned dull and sallow. Once the woman lost her beauty, a victim to her drunkenness, all hopes for marriage vanished, leaving the woman with truly no hope for the future.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
Thomas Wilson, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, who also spoke in opposition to the increased consumption of gin, pointed out the ways in which drinking seemed to emaciate the drunkard, essentially reducing the body to a skeleton.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-drunk4.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-drunk4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;detail from Hogarth engraving&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A disturbing detail from William Hogarth’s engraving “Gin Lane,” 1751.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
Such a description harkened an image that was unmistakably associated with mankind’s inevitable mortality. Overconsumption did not turn drunkards into beasts, or unrecognizable in the eyes of God, as Bury and Clark suggested; instead, these besotted individuals came to resemble the appearance all held once in the grave. The drunkard’s deteriorated body became a symbol of death, an unquestionable threat to all. Wilson was not the only to comment on such stark appearances. An eighteenth-century poem by Charles Darby likewise captured the haunting imagery of a skeletal drunkard:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The Actors in this Scene were not of one&lt;br /&gt;Age, Humour, Figure, or Condition.&lt;br /&gt;See One with hollow Cheek, meagre, and lean,&lt;br /&gt;By Sipping-Hectick, e’en consumed quite,&lt;br /&gt;As he a Skeleton had been,&lt;br /&gt;Enough to put Death’s self into a Fright
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
This imagery became a powerful tool for organized opponents to alcohol. Quite often, the notion of a drinker who wasted away unto the point of death became a mainstay of anti-alcohol literature. Physicians who wrote about drinking’s effects did not shy away from such warnings either. Benjamin Rush, the famous physician from Pennsylvania, told the story of a man who failed to find satisfaction in his drinking. Always seeking out stronger tipples, this man moved from a daily toddy, to grog, to raw Jamaican rum, mixed with a tablespoon of ground pepper, to (as Rush stated) “take off their coldness.” Rush succinctly concluded this tale, without much expression of sympathy, or even surprise, when he stated that the man died, “a martyr to his intemperance.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
While Rush’s efforts against the consumption of alcohol certainly stood at the forefront of the emerging temperance movement, he, as well as other physicians, did attempt to convey some understanding of how drinking affected the human body. Rush noted the frequency of upset stomachs and vomiting the morning after a person engaged in heavy drinking. He also commented on the development of tremors in a drunkard’s hands, which could only be eased with a dose of cordial liquor, as well as a paleness in the face, contrasted against small, red streaks that appeared across the drunkard’s cheeks.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-drunk5.jpeg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-drunk5.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;Rush’s ‘moral thermometer’&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Rush’s “Moral Thermometer” of the effects of different forms of drink, ending with the deadliest, “Pepper in Rum.”
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
In &lt;em&gt;A Treatise, on the True Effects of Drinking Spirituous Liquors, Wine and Beer, on Body and Mind&lt;/em&gt;, published in 1794, the anonymous author discussed the physical alterations caused by drinking. Initially, the author claims that drinking brought on an early form of aging–preventing “the growth of youth,” and mutating the young body so that it prematurely reflected the decay of old age. Throughout the piece, however, the author makes a claim–one that echoed the arguments made by Edward Bury a century before:  that drinking not only aged the drunkard’s body, but by corrupting judgment, it made the drinker more beast than man.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
By the final decades of the eighteenth century, questions began to arise regarding the proper amount of alcohol one should drink, or if one should drink at all. Due to the traditional association of alcohol and medicine, many physicians, ministers, and other societal leaders did claim that alcohol was perfectly acceptable to drink in moderation. Rush himself made this claim, but he carefully noted that only &lt;em&gt;certain&lt;/em&gt; alcoholic beverages were acceptable to drink in moderation. Many of the more popular spirits, he stated, were not acceptable to drink at all, and those who did risked an array of diseases and punishments (with almost all ending in certain death).
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
Even as certain kinds of alcohol fell under scrutiny, however, the long-held notion that drinking in moderation remained acceptable likewise came into question. The previously mentioned anonymous author was especially critical of what drinking in moderation actually meant, stating:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
[F]or instance, many a one would think three glasses of gin daily taken, to be a very moderate quantity, and another by drinking them would in a short time be thrown into a violent fever; for this reason it is impossible to determine the quantity that is harmless and that which will hurt.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
Certainly, three glasses of gin a day might fall under suspicion as to whether that qualifies as “drinking in moderation,” but this question did mark a shift in the view that introducing alcohol–of any amount–into the human body could potentially lead to decay and transform a moderate drinker into a deplorable drunkard.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
By the nineteenth century, organized advocates for temperance gathered to end the habitual consumption of the “demon drink.” Temperance literature often emphasized the inevitable “road to ruin” awaiting each person who made the unfortunate decision to drink. Timothy Shay Arthur, in particular, helped convince the American public of the dangers of alcohol through his popular novel &lt;em&gt;Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There&lt;/em&gt;, originally published in 1854. Set in a tavern called the “Sickle and Sheaf,” Arthur lays out the menace of alcohol in dramatic detail. Throughout the novel, descriptions of drunkards, again, emphasized the physical deterioration drinking caused, revealing the continued importance of the body in anti-alcohol literature. In particular, the town drunkard, Joe Morgan, stands out in Arthur’s narrative as an unwanted but familiar element of the tavern. Arthur noted the physical decay habitual drinking had on the man’s body:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
A glance showed him to be one of a class seen in all bar-rooms; a poor, broken-down inebriate, with the inward power of resistance gone – conscious of having no man’s respect, and giving respect to none.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-drunk7.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-drunk7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;trajectory of a drunkard&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The trajectory of a drunkard in T. S. Arthur’s &lt;em&gt;Grappling With the Monster&lt;/em&gt;.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
Again, after the passage of a year, and with the return of Arthur’s protagonist to the same bar, comments on Joe Morgan appear once more:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
He was standing at the bar, with an emptied glass in his hand. A year had made no improvement in his appearance. On the contrary, his clothes were more worn and tattered; his countenance more sadly marred.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 25 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-25&quot;&gt;
Depictions of a demoralized local drunkard were only one aspect of the physical decline drinking wrought. In another, non-fictional book published by Arthur, &lt;em&gt;Grappling With the Monster&lt;/em&gt;, he lays out the ways alcohol “Curses the Body,” stating:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 26 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-26&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
One would suppose, from the marred and scarred, and sometimes awfully disfigured forms and faces of men who have indulged in intoxicating drinks, which are to be seen everywhere and among all classes of society, that there would be no need of other testimony to show that alcohol is an enemy to the body. And yet, strange to say, men of good sense, clear judgment and quick perception in all moral questions and in the general affairs of life, are often so blind… as to affirm that this substance, alcohol… is not only harmless, when taken in moderation – each being his own judge as to what ‘moderation’ means – but actually useful and nutritious!
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 27 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-27&quot;&gt;
Scarred, disfigured features mark the faces of drunkards–how evident it is that alcohol is an invasive “enemy to the body.” Also, once more, the issue of moderation is brought into question; is such moderation even possible? As the temperance movement gained full strength during the era of Arthur’s publications, it was no longer an issue of debate. Alcohol cursed the body, deteriorated physical features, and reduced the drunkard into a “broken-down inebriate”-far from our contemporary notion of a functioning alcoholic.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 28 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-28&quot;&gt;
And yet, those dramatic warnings created a counter response–a skeptical backlash that questioned the validity of such claims. Did drinking really result in bodily decay? Could a person imbibe alcohol without turning into a beastly, mindless drunkard or an unwanted societal burden? Was it possible that the drunkard did not transform but vacillating observations did? A cartoon from &lt;em&gt;Puck&lt;/em&gt; magazine presented a different image of temperance, one that struck a balance “Between Two Evils.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-1888.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-1888.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;‘Between Two Evils’ cartoon&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
“Between Two Evils,” &lt;em&gt;Puck&lt;/em&gt;, 1888.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Library of Congress&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 29 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-29&quot;&gt;
To the right, an Intemperate Teetotaler appears, snobbishly refusing to even gaze upon a repulsive glass of alcohol. To the left, an Intemperate Drunkard, who, in many ways, reflects the same physical deterioration as described by temperance writers like Arthur. In the middle, though, sits a man who represents True Temperance. He holds a mug of beer, but no bodily decay marks the Temperate Man’s features; he is well dressed and of amiable countenance. While anti-liquor advocates long promoted the physical decline incurred by drinking, this figure represents quite the opposite. T. S. Arthur scoffed at the idea that alcohol could provide any source of nutrition. Benjamin Rush claimed that drinking at all would create an insatiable appetite for stronger drinks, leading, inevitably, to incurable drunkenness and death. Samuel Clarke warned that alcohol would open the drinker to possible corruption from the Devil.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 30 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-30&quot;&gt;
Sitting between these two extremes, the Temperate Man grasps his mug of beer and, with a small smile, resolutely states, “I want nothing to do with either of you!”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/blurred-forms-an-unsteady-history-of-drunkenness</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/blurred-forms-an-unsteady-history-of-drunkenness</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>Lobsters in the Archive</title>
        <description>&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;Thence with mighty content homeward, and in my way at the Stockes did buy a couple of lobsters, and so home to dinner, where I find my wife and father had dined, and were going out to Hales’s to sit there, so Balty and I alone to dinner, and in the middle of my grace, praying for a blessing upon (these his good creatures), my mind fell upon my lobsters: upon which I cried, Odd zooks! and Balty looked upon me like a man at a losse what I meant, thinking at first that I meant only that I had said the grace after meat instead of that before meat. But then I cried, what is become of my lobsters? Whereupon he run out of doors to overtake the coach, but could not, so came back again, and mighty merry at dinner to thinke of my surprize.&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;ul&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Samuel Pepys, Wednesday, 13 June, 1666.&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On an inauspicious Wednesday in 1660, Samuel Pepys left his lobsters in the back of a London taxi. According to his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/06/13/&quot;&gt;diary&lt;/a&gt;, he often purchased lobsters from fish markets in the city and brought them home for dinner. He also ate lobster at the homes of friends, served them at an elaborate dinner party, consumed them in pubs with prawns and ale, and indulged in lobster &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/06/29/&quot;&gt;“with his mistress.”&lt;/a&gt; Eating lobster was as much a part of this London bureaucrat’s daily life as singing music with friends, buying a book, or seeing a play.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Of course, Pepys fancied himself an epicurean with great taste in food and drink. He was prone to sing the joys of excess in his gustatory feats. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/&quot;&gt;online Pepys “encyclopedia”&lt;/a&gt; gathers his many references to food and drink in an impressive searchable list. But lobsters also lurk in the corners of many other early modern documents: their name is defined in multilingual dictionaries, mentioned in descriptions of Virginia and the East Indies, numbered among delicacies in chronicle accounts of banquets, and cataloged among beasts of sea and land. The lobster’s notable red hue when boiled is used to describe flushed faces. “Lobster” is the favored insult of a surly sea captain in an &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/cu31924013325422&quot;&gt;anonymous play&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For an gourmand like Pepys, lobster was both notable and quotidian. Pepys was able to purchase fresh lobster in London markets because earlier in the century English fishing fleets had adopted the Dutch practice of using &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=HbcmYPVphZUC&amp;amp;lpg=PP1&amp;amp;dq=elizabeth%20townsend%20lobster&amp;amp;pg=PT21#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;“smacks,”&lt;/a&gt; or well vessels, to keep fish alive while en route from the sea to the market. It was a meal worth mentioning, like a tasty dish of rabbit or oysters, but a loss to leave such delicious shellfish in a hired coach. The crustacean’s purported effect as an aphrodisiac was its most exotic property and perhaps inspired Pepys to couple lobster and lust on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/06/29/&quot;&gt;at least one occasion&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Scuttling along the bottom of the Atlantic, the lobster was not so much a trans-Atlantic voyager during this age of seafaring exploration as a trans-Atlantic constant: Lobsters were always in motion under the deeps.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Lobster sustained indigenous populations from the Americas to the antipodes long before the arrival of Europeans on their shores. While lobster could be consumed fresh, it was commonly smoked or salted for later consumption. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupaia_%28navigator%29&quot;&gt;Tupaia&lt;/a&gt;, Captain Cook’s Polynesian navigator, sketched a Maori man exchanging a large, live spiny lobster for a piece of cloth when the Endeavour landed in New Zealand in 1769.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
  &lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/blog/2014/12/Tupaia_bartering_lobster_high_res-large.jpg&quot;&gt;
    &lt;img src=&quot;/images/blog/2014/12/Tupaia_bartering_lobster_high_res-medium.jpg&quot; width=&quot;640&quot; alt=&quot;lobsters&quot; /&gt;
  &lt;/a&gt;
  &lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
    Self portrait of Tupaia, Captain Cook’s Polynesian navigator, bartering a lobster c. 1769.
    &lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;
      British Library
    &lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We are now in a new age of lobster abundance, and accordingly, an awful lot of ink has been spilled over the lobster. As warming oceans drive huge lobster harvests, it seems like I’m reading about lobster everywhere. Elisabeth Townsend’s &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books/about/Lobster.html?id=HbcmYPVphZUC&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lobster: A Global History&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (2011) devotes an entire chapter to the future of the lobster. In the July 2014 issue of &lt;em&gt;Vogue&lt;/em&gt; Tamar Adler’s article “Surf and Turf” documents a series of lobster meals consumed on the coast of Maine. The Spring, 2014 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lky.ph&quot;&gt;“All You Can Eat Issue”&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;em&gt;Lucky Peach&lt;/em&gt; features lobster-driven fiction by Kevin Moffett.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Perhaps most memorably, David Foster Wallace &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster&quot;&gt;considered the lobster’s&lt;/a&gt; capacity to feel pain in his iconic &lt;em&gt;Gourmet&lt;/em&gt; essay in 2004. But Wallace also connected the scientific and ethical question driving his inquiry to the idea of the “gourmet.” Wallace writes, “After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be sensuous? Is it really all just a matter of taste and presentation?” Likewise, the history of the lobster’s ubiquity in the world’s oceans is a fundamental element of when, why, and how we have consumed lobsters in the past and will consume them in the future.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it comes as no surprise that there are many recipes for lobster in the archive. Recipes for cooking the common crustacean abound from simple preparations for roasting, boiling, and preserving to using lobster eggs in fish sauces and particularly &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/2014/06/dalis-green-white-and-red-lobster-and.html&quot;&gt;surrealist preparations&lt;/a&gt;. Indeed, a lobster recipe I found while surveying early modern recipe books at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts forced me to consider the lobster anew.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The recipes for Roast Lobster and an accompanying sauce transcribed below are from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/pageturn.html?q=ljs+165&amp;amp;id=MEDREN_5405356&amp;amp;currentpage=25&amp;amp;rotation=0&amp;amp;size=2&quot;&gt;MS LJS 165&lt;/a&gt;, an English collection of culinary, medicinal, and household recipes compiled between 1690 and 1802. This recipe is an interesting hybrid of indigenous, colonial, British, and French methods for preparing lobster.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Native American tribes, like the Algonquin, often baked or roasted seafood and these “clambakes” usually included lobster. British colonials followed suit and roasted lobsters in their new settlements. They also adopted indigenous methods for salting and smoking lobster, however disenchanted they were with the appearance and taste of this abundant shellfish. In eighteenth-century England lobsters were roasted in the fire or potted in oil and preserved. By contrast, &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=u034x6M7_ncC&amp;amp;dq=Le%20Cuisinier%20francois&amp;amp;pg=PP7#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;seventeenth-century French recipes&lt;/a&gt; instruct cooks to boil lobster in seasoned bouillon or season it with creamy sauces. Pepys never describes how, exactly, his lobsters were prepared in his diary. He may have eaten something rather like the hybrid lobster preparation included in MS LJS 165.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
  &lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/blog/2014/12/roast_lobster-large.jpg&quot;&gt;
    &lt;img src=&quot;/images/blog/2014/012/roast_lobster-medium.jpg&quot; width=&quot;640&quot; alt=&quot;lobsters&quot; /&gt;
  &lt;/a&gt;
  &lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
    Roast lobster recipe in the LJS 165 recipe book at the University of Pennsylvania.
    &lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;
      Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania
    &lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To Roast a Lobster&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Take Lobsters alive tye them to a spitt with tap[e]
when they begin to be hott baste them with white wine
Vinegar, &amp;amp; salt mixt, when turn red baste them with
butter very well &amp;amp; still as they dry baste them as l[on]g
as they roste, you may know when enough by the
gravy. when leaves dropping they are enough&lt;/em&gt; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;sawce see below&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Sawce for Lobsters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;1/2 pint white wine or to your quantity put in some swe[et]
hearbes 2 anchovis a litle horseredish a litle lemonpeal
&amp;amp; onion boyle it well then take out the time &amp;amp; oinion &amp;amp; put
some grated nuttmeg the gravy of the Lobsters and then
boyle it again &amp;amp; stirr in a good pees of butter, if
they are large they will be 2 howres aroasting.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Tied to a stake, the lobsters are roasted over a fire and basted with butter for approximately two hours. An accompanying white wine and butter sauce, seasoned with anchovies, horseradish, lemon, onion, and nutmeg, complements the rich flavor of the lobster itself.
When I write about historical recipes for my &lt;a href=&quot;http://rarecooking.wordpress.com&quot;&gt;Cooking in the Archives&lt;/a&gt; project, I’ve cooked them, usually with my collaborator Alyssa Connell by my side. But I’ve hesitated to try roasting a lobster according to the MS LJS 165 method. Initially, I attributed this reluctance to my recent move from the east coast to the west and the difficulties of sourcing live seafood in a new locale. Yet I’ve come to think that my reluctance is more about the idea of tying a living thing to a stake.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The pot of boiling water or the quick hand with a knife are far more appealing regardless of their ambiguous ethics. I fear that like Pepys I would end up yelling “Odd zooks!” and find myself at a loss as lobsters crawled across my counters. Instead, I suspect that I will stay attentive to lobsters and their contexts, to paraphrase David Foster Wallace, as I read in the archive of historical recipes. There are certainly more lobsters lurking there.&lt;/p&gt;

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</description>
        <pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2014 07:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/posts/2014/12/lobsters-in-the-archive</link>
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      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>Atomic Anxiety and the Tooth Fairy: Citizen Science in the Midcentury Midwest</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Tooth1.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Tooth1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;St. Louis Baby Tooth Study&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
How the St. Louis Baby Tooth Study reconciled the domestic ritual of childhood tooth loss with the geopolitics of nuclear annihilation.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
Ava was getting desperate. Her latest baby tooth to come loose was hanging on with uncharacteristic vigor. No matter how she worked at it, there it was—wiggling in her jaw every time she ate, drank or talked. She had been waiting for her next loose tooth ever since her homeroom teacher had announced Operation Tooth in class.  Other kids already had their buttons and tooth club membership cards. Ava was tired of waiting.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
Ava looped a string around the base of the tooth and tied the other end to a doorknob. She braced herself in a chair, cocked her head back, opened wide, and slammed the door. The tooth clattered on the linoleum. She couldn’t see it at first—it blended in with the white speckles on the blue tile—but she scanned the floor until she found a tiny dot of blood. Her tooth. She picked it up, wrapped it in tissue, and prepared her letter. She was going to help scientists, and everyone would know it because the scientists were going to send her a bright red button inscribed with the following message:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
I GAVE MY TOOTH TO SCIENCE.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Button_pin.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Button_pin.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Tooth Button Pin&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Button pins like this one were sent to children in recognition of their donation of a tooth.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/decades-later-baby-tooth-survey-legacy-lives-on/article_c5ad9492-fd75-5aed-897f-850fbdba24ee.html&quot;&gt;St. Louis Post-Dispatch August 1, 2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
For a few days in January of 2014, I drove each morning in bitter cold from my mother’s house in the St. Louis suburbs to the state historical archive at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. A few months earlier, an archivist friend had mentioned over lunch that she had a connection to my hometown—in fact her first job as an archivist was in St. Louis, organizing the papers from a midcentury study of radioactivity in children’s teeth. I had been unable to shake the story, and found myself up late at night reading about nuclear weapons testing, or daydreaming during work about purity and milk, innocence and poison, the movement of invisible contamination. A follow-up with my archivist friend revealed that the archive contained letters from children—to scientists, and to the tooth fairy.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
The story unfolded against my expectations. I went to the archive expecting cute letters from children and poignant missives from parents concerned about their kids’ exposure to radiation. I found these, to be sure—at the end of each day in the archives I felt exhausted from the weight of the letters’ polite Midwestern formality tinged with anxiety. The story I didn’t expect, though, had much higher stakes.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
In the postwar United States, scientific progress dominated national conversations. Vannevar Bush’s influential report to President Roosevelt, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm&quot;&gt;“Science: The Endless Frontier,”&lt;/a&gt; set the terms of this conversation in 1945. The report, which international historian Odd Arne Westad calls “the classic statement of technology as power in the postwar world,” promised rewards to every sector of society in return for state investment in science:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-teethSN.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-teethSN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Science: The Endless Frontier&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The cover of Vannevar Bush’s influential report “Science: The Endless Frontier.”
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Advances in science when put to practical use mean more jobs, higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant crops, more leisure for recreation, for study, for learning how to live without the deadening drudgery which has been the burden of the common man for ages past. Advances in science will also bring higher standards of living, will lead to the prevention or cure of diseases, will promote conservation of our limited national resources, and will assure means of defense against aggression. But to achieve these objectives—to secure a high level of employment, to maintain a position of world leadership—the flow of new scientific knowledge must be both continuous and substantial.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
Bush’s promises obscured the clash between nationalism and science that came to the fore as the euphoria of V-Day gave way to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. By the late 1950s, any scientist who questioned the United States’ atomic test detonations risked meeting the same fate as J. Robert Oppenheimer, disgraced and dismissed as a Communist sympathizer.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
Yet the scientists of the Greater St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information not only expressed their misgivings, but also proved the validity of their concerns with a citizen science project carried out on a massive scale. The study collected more than 250,000 baby teeth from the children of St. Louis city and county and analyzed them for traces of radioactivity. This effort to understand and inform the public about the effects of radioactive fallout from above-ground atomic weapons testing ultimately persuaded President John F. Kennedy to sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Tiny teeth, it turned out, could speak louder than bombs.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-tooth2.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-tooth2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A survey card from the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;St. Louis Post Dispatach / University of Washington at St. Louis&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
In August of 1958, &lt;em&gt;Nature&lt;/em&gt; published a brief article by Danish biochemist Herman M. Kalckar. Though scarcely more than a page long, the article’s innovative thesis sparked a vast research project that defied official public safety claims with evidence taken from the mouths of St. Louis’s child population. Scientists suspected that radiation from the above-ground atomic weapons tests taking place from 1945 onward could pose a significant health risk to the populace, but no one knew how much radiation human bodies were absorbing. Atomic weapons detonations released the radioactive isotopes Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 into the environment as explosion debris. These were entirely new substances that had not existed until the advent of nuclear weapons testing. Some of the debris contaminated with these previously unknown isotopes fell to earth quickly, but the rest remained in the atmosphere, mixed with water molecules, and eventually fell to earth as rain. It then passed into the food chain and subsequently into the body. Cesium-137 (CS-137) accumulated uniformly across bodily tissues due to its chemical similarity to salt. Strontium-90 (SR-90), however, was similar to calcium and thus accumulated mainly in calcium-rich areas, posing the potential for cancer in bone and surrounding tissues as it decayed over its twenty-nine-year half-life. 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
Kalckar opened his article with a disclaimer and a refusal: “Without expressing here any opinion concerning atomic weapons test programmes, I wish to suggest a scientific study which would at the same time have educational values in its practical demonstration of the peacetime value of atomic research.” Not all of Kalckar’s academic colleagues were so reticent. To the contrary, physicists and other scientists had begun voicing grave concerns about the ill effects of fallout from atomic weapons testing programs on public health.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
The article’s argument was simple. Geiger counters could measure radioactivity in food, but tracking its absorption into and passage through the human body was a trickier matter. How to measure the levels of radiation absorbed by the human body? Bone samples were one avenue by which accumulation in the body could be measured. However, the limited samples of bone available from autopsied adults provided a small and erratic body of data.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
To avoid these problems, Kalckar proposed turning to a different source of samples: children’s baby teeth. Near-term prenatal incisor teeth (in other words, children’s front baby teeth or “milk teeth”) took up high levels of radioisotopes during their formation, yet renewed their cells at a far slower rate than bone. Therefore, baby teeth could provide a stable snapshot of radiation absorbed by human bodies in a given geographic area around the time of a child’s birth. Since children tend to shed incisor teeth around the age of seven, teeth being shed in 1958 would reflect the levels of environmental radiation absorbed by unborn children around 1951.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-tooth3.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-tooth3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;RDS-1 Soviet Atomic Bomb&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A 1949 photograph of the RDS-1, the first Soviet atomic bomb test.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
The first atomic bomb test, codenamed Trinity, took place in 1945. The United States was the sole nation to wield the bomb until 1949, when the Soviet Union performed its first atomic test detonation. The number of tests increased year by year as the 1950s unfolded and the Cold War intensified, with both the United States and the Soviet Union attempting to exceed the other in demonstrations of nuclear might. While US atomic weapons testing initially took place in the Pacific Islands, cost and timing considerations drove the decision to begin testing within the United States in 1951. Testing continued in the Pacific, including the detonation of hydrogen bombs too powerful to test closer to home.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
The US’s 1954 test Castle Bravo (the second and most powerful American hydrogen bomb test) took place at Bikini Atoll, and it was more than eight hundred and forty five times as powerful as the Trinity test. Due to a misunderstanding of the reaction between the uranium and hydrogen elements of the device, the test released almost three times the expected destructive power—and radioactive fallout—its creators had anticipated. The unanticipated volume of fallout from the detonation poisoned fish and Marshall Islanders alike, and caused an international uproar over the toxic aftereffects of atomic testing.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-tooth4.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-tooth4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The 1954 Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;US Air Force&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
The atomic testing of the 1950s raised unsettling questions. If the detonations in the South Pacific were sickening Marshallese people and killing Japanese fish stocks, were they also exerting milder effects as far away as the United States? For that matter, how was the continued testing of atomic weapons in Nevada affecting food supplies in the United States? In 1957 alone, the United States government detonated twenty-nine atomic weapons in the Nevada desert.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
The presence of the new isotopes prompted concerns about food safety. Because of its high calcium content, the milk of cows grazing in fields contaminated by fallout from atomic bomb tests was a likely site for concentrated accumulations of radioisotopes. Milk SR-90 levels had risen in April of 1957. In response, the U.S. Public Health Service initiated a pilot study to test milk for SR-90 and CS-137. Milk was already the focus of contamination concerns; further, milk was particularly well suited for a survey of contamination levels because it was produced across the nation and year round, providing a source of data independent of seasonal rhythms and local growing seasons.  The study drew samples from “milksheds” in five cities: New York, Cincinnati, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis. In 1958, the Health Service reported its results.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
St. Louis reported the highest levels of SR-90 in its milk supplies.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0034.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-SAM_0034.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Milk Supply&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Milk supplies flowed to St. Louis from across the bi-state area, as this map of milk producers shows.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri-St. Louis&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
Still, the Public Health Service framed this level as being well below the suggested threshold level of lifetime exposure to SR-90. A lifetime of consuming such milk, it assured, would only expose a person to about one-fourth of the safe lifetime exposure level. The reassurances implicit in the Public Health Service’s claims rested on one key assumption: a nonlinear threshold model of SR-90 exposure. Exposure to 80 micro-curies or less of SR-90, it suggested, was safe. But many physicists rejected the nonlinear, threshold model of radiation exposure, objecting that the scientific evidence behind such a model was flimsy and unreliable. They feared that the threshold model espoused by the authorities would lull the public into a false sense of certainty when, in fact, so much about the physical effects of exposure to radioactive fallout remained unknown.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
The Public Health Service was right to be concerned. A linear risk model with no minimum threshold is now widely accepted as the consensus model of radiation exposure on human health.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
Debate and uncertainty over conflicting models of radiation exposure and its health effects entered the public consciousness when Adlai Stevenson made it a key point in his 1956 bid for the presidency—charging, for example, that the U.S. Government had known about SR-90 contamination in milk as far back as 1954 but had failed to inform the public. But it was physicist Linus Pauling’s public talks at universities that rallied thousands of scientists to publicly speak out against the ongoing testing. Strontium-90 had not existed before the atomic bomb, and scientists were unsure of its effects on public health. It was “a new hazard to the human race,” Pauling urged, “a new hazard to the health of people—and scientists need to talk about it.” After a particularly impassioned speech in 1957 at St. Louis’s Washington University, Pauling, together with physicist Edward Condon and biologist Barry Commoner (both faculty members at Washington University) drafted what would become known as the Pauling Petition. The petition, which called for a halt to atomic weapons testing, garnered signatures from 9,235 scientists by the time Pauling presented it to the United Nations in January of 1958.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
A month after the drafting of the Pauling Petition at Washington University, Commoner wrote to Pauling:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
We are about to try to organize a local group in St. Louis which might be called something like The Citizens Committee for Atomic Information. The idea would be to provide a means for getting the facts about fallout—and probably about the consequences of nuclear warfare—before the public so that people can decide for themselves what our policy on these matters should be.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
This group, the Greater St. Louis Citizens’ Committee for Nuclear Information (CNI), brought together physics, biology and dentistry faculty from Washington University and Saint Louis University with laypeople (many of them volunteers from civic and social organizations such as the League of Women Voters) in its membership. Members wrote essays for publication in general-interest magazines, stuffed envelopes, and gave talks to local Kiwanis Clubs and other interested members of the public about the basics of atomic science, explaining what we knew—what isotopes are, for example—and what we didn’t know—most pressingly, how radioactive fallout from nuclear testing affects the body. Members also took part in what turned out to be more than a decade of scientific data collection for a project inspired by Herman Kalckar’s short article on teeth as sources of data on radioisotope absorption levels.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 25 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-25&quot;&gt;
Kalckar’s article established a method by which researchers could chart the levels of radiation absorbed by human bodies. Yet establishing baseline exposure levels for the years prior to massive multiple test detonations would require immediate action. In 1951, only about 24 nuclear test detonations had taken place, many of them relatively small compared to the kiloton or megaton levels of tests between 1952 and 1958. If scientists acted quickly, they could collect the data inscribed in deciduous teeth during the period preceding the 1952 and 1954 detonations of hydrogen bombs. The evidence of those baseline levels of absorbed radiation from the early years of testing was all around, in the mouths of children. It slept in their jaws, was nestled under their pillows and thrown away or stashed in drawers after being exchanged for fifty cents from the “Good Fairy.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 26 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-26&quot;&gt;
CNI initiated the Baby Tooth Survey in December of 1958 with a grant from the United States Public Health Service (later funding came from subsequent Public Health Service grants, along with funds from the Leukemia Guild of Missouri and Illinois.) Louise Reiss, an internist at the St. Louis City Health Department, helmed the study, which aimed to collect 50,000 teeth a year from children in the St. Louis area in order to acquire sufficient quantities of tooth material for testing.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 27 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-27&quot;&gt;
Such an ambitious effort required the participation of every school in the St. Louis area and a publicity blitz to match. Reiss met with the superintendents of each school system. She met with dentists, school librarians, YMCA directors, local dental and pharmaceutical professional groups.  A 1964 report on the study detailed the extraordinary support Reiss won from the community:
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 28 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-28&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
During the weeks of the semi-annual Tooth Round-ups, public service time is given generously by radio and television stations to publicize the needs of the Survey. Mayor Raymond Tucker has proclaimed Tooth Survey Week. Last December the Veiled Prophet queen, St. Louis’ traditional reigning beauty, celebrated the Survey’s fifth birthday with a party at Children’s Hospital. A large model of a tooth (with a child inside) gives out forms in department stores. And, most important, dentists are reminded by letter and at conventions how helpful it will be if they make the forms available in their offices. So well known has BTS become that letters from children, addressed simply “Tooth Fairy, St. Louis,” reach their destination at the CNI office.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 29 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-29&quot;&gt;
It was a coincidence the city that reported the highest measured levels of SR-90 milk contamination in the nation hosted the Baby Tooth Survey, but the high levels of contamination may have lent urgency to the effort and prompted higher levels of parental participation in the Baby Tooth Survey. As a &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt; article in July of 1960 noted, ”St. Louis area residents have an occasional twinge of nervousness at their unwanted position at the top of the list.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 30 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-30&quot;&gt;
Both kids and parents sent letters to CNI. Children often mentioned the fifty cents they were giving up to help science, and even in some cases requested repayment: “that will be fifty cents, keep the teeth,” wrote one. A childhood fascination with the abstraction of science (reminiscent of Vannevar Bush’s postwar report) abounds: “I always loved science and things of the sort,” confided one young girl. “I hope you are successful in what you are trying to do for science and people.” Another boy praised the scientists for their bravery and selflessness, declaring that God would give them “an eternal reward” for their good deeds (one wonders if perhaps a classroom lesson on the Curies’ death from exposure to radium prompted him to imagine the CNI scientists’ work as a suicide mission). Many addressed their notes to the Tooth Fairy, and one kid began simply “Dear Science.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 31 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-31&quot;&gt;
Adults in St. Louis who took part in the study as children recall the lure of the I GAVE MY TOOTH TO SCIENCE buttons sent out to participant children, a visible marker of honor and belonging. Kids’ notes bear this out: “Dear Sir,” one reads, “I lost my pin, will you please send me another one? I sent for it last week. Plus this one? Thank you.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;ul class=&quot;image-gallery&quot;&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;&quot; data-credit=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;jack1&quot; title=&quot;&lt;span class='credit'&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0180.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-SAM_0180.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Letters to CNI from children&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;&quot; data-credit=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;jack1&quot; title=&quot;&lt;span class='credit'&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0174.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-SAM_0174.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Letters to CNI from children.&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;&quot; data-credit=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;jack1&quot; title=&quot;&lt;span class='credit'&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0176.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-SAM_0176.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Letters to CNI from children&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;&quot; data-credit=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;jack1&quot; title=&quot;&lt;span class='credit'&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0054.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-SAM_0054.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Letters to CNI from children&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;li data-caption=&quot;&quot; data-credit=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; rel=&quot;jack1&quot; title=&quot;&lt;span class='credit'&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0063.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/thumb-SAM_0063.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Letters to CNI from children&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;!----&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;!-- 32 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-32&quot;&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Letters to CNI from children.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri-St. Louis
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 33 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-33&quot;&gt;
In contrast to the kids’ concerns about button pins and tooth fairy money, parents’ letters are at turns anxious or good-humored. Some letters enquired about possible means of lowering the radiation risk from milk, including a parent whose doctor advised that freezing milk would cut its SR-90 levels in half. Another note asked plaintively, “Please send any results that you may have on the study of strontium 90 content in our children and what it is doing and any available information on St. Louis children.” Despite the gravity of the study, though, many notes have a light, chuckling tone that perhaps helped parents make peace with the study’s dark possibilities. For example, mothers writing to CNI told stories of younger siblings trying to work their teeth loose in exchange for a button, or waiting eagerly on the doorstep for the button to arrive in the mail delivery: “please, hurry, it’s kinda cold out there.” One letter written on stationery festooned with poodles closed with the sign-off, “happy teething, fellers!” The same mother promised in another note, “as fast as the boys knock each others’ teeth out, I will send them to you.”
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0057.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-SAM_0057.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Letter from Doris Gould to CNI&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0058.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-SAM_0058.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Letter from Doris Gould to CNI&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 34 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-34&quot;&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Letter from Doris Gould to CNI.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri-St. Louis
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 35 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-35&quot;&gt;
Each tooth was placed in an unsealed, numbered envelope. The tooth information form served as a file card. The file card was numbered, any missing information was obtained via phone, and the tooth-bearing envelope and file card were clipped together and boxed for delivery to a volunteer dentist. The dentist examined each tooth, noting the condition of the root and the presence of cavities and/or fillings. He then sealed the tooth in its envelope and filed it in a box by number.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 36 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-36&quot;&gt;
The volunteer workforce produced work of varying quality. In an undated note, dentist J. Findley Smartt of University City fumed, “Out of the possible 100 boxes of teeth that I have classified this last three were the worsed meed up [sic] batch I have ever had. They were up side down, the fact [face?] of the cards were backward and poorly packed, cards were bent in every way, making it hard to work with… Who ever pack the boxes were very careless and just wanted to get the card out of there hands.” Perhaps Dr. Smartt was simply a poor typist, but it’s easy enough to imagine him dashing off this note on his receptionist’s typewriter after hours, and to see in its many typos and extraneous spaces between letters a register of his irritation.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-SAM_0177.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-SAM_0177.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Letter from J. Findley Smartt&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
Letter from J. Findley Smartt to CNI.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri-St. Louis&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 37 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-37&quot;&gt;
Once the teeth had been examined, they were returned to the CNI office. The teeth were catalogued by year. Selected samples from each year were collected into pooled sample lots and the remaining samples were sent to storage. The pooled lots were forwarded to Isotopes Incorporated, a commercial laboratory based in Westwood, New Jersey. There the concentration of SR-90 was measured in the Survey teeth, along with additional samples of cow milk, human breast milk, and the bones and teeth of full-term stillborns. Dr. F. Bazan of Isotopes Incorporated then sent test results by mail, and they were incorporated into Reiss’s findings.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 38 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-38&quot;&gt;
Meanwhile, SR-90 levels in the St. Louis milkshed climbed as the 1950s drew to a close. The &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt; reported eighteen and a half micro micro-curies in January of 1959. Twenty-two and a half micro micro-curies in March. Twenty-five micro micro-curies by October.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 39 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-39&quot;&gt;
Louise Reiss published the initial findings from the CNI’s Baby Tooth Survey in November of 1961. The study found that bone and teeth took up SR-90 at the same rate, making teeth a viable substitute for bone samples. Of the teeth studied, SR-90 levels in the incisor teeth of children born in 1951 was dramatically lower than levels for those born in 1954. There was no appreciable difference in SR-90 levels between the teeth of children fed breast milk and those fed cow’s milk during the early years of their lives. These findings reached to the highest levels of American power: in 1963 Reiss’s husband Eric, a medical doctor and Washington University faculty member, related the study’s findings at congressional hearings on the effects of fallout. According to the recollections of Reiss’s son, President John F. Kennedy telephoned Reiss at home to discuss the research and its implications.  Shortly after the hearings, Kennedy signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Baby Tooth Survey continued until 1970. Data from the study showed that strontium 90 levels in children’s teeth peaked in the mid-1960s, at fifty times the magnitude measured for 1950.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 40 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-40&quot;&gt;
Perhaps one of the reasons Reiss’s paper had such an impact on President Kennedy is that it didn’t fit the prevailing narrative about atomic fallout and its dangers. By 1961, the fallout shelter loomed large in popular culture.  &lt;em&gt;Life&lt;/em&gt; magazine printed a special issue on fallout shelters in September of that year. A man in a metallic “civilian fallout suit” peered gravely from the cover, his furrowed brow and wide eyes framed in the transparent face-plate of the suit. The issue featured a letter to the public from President Kennedy announcing a civil defense initiative to identify public buildings that could serve as public fallout shelters, label them clearly, and stock them with food, water and medical supplies sufficient for two weeks’ survival. A thirteen page-spread followed, with cutaway views of backyard shelters, basic principles for reducing radiation exposure, and photographs of young families grimly displaying the blankets, radios and board games with which they had stocked their own shelters.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 41 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-41&quot;&gt;
Just two weeks after the issue hit newsstands, the television show &lt;em&gt;The Twilight Zone&lt;/em&gt; aired its episode “The Shelter,” in which suburban conviviality quickly devolves into battles over the limited space in a backyard shelter once the bomb sirens sound. That autumn, the Office of Civil Defense distributed more than 20 million copies of “Fallout Protection: What to Know and Do About Nuclear Attack,” a 46-page booklet detailing strategies for surviving the fallout that would accompany an atomic attack. The magazines, informational booklets, television shows, comic books, instructional films, and pop songs of 1961 reflected a consistent narrative in the cultural imagination, a narrative in which fallout from cataclysmic Soviet nuclear strikes drove the population into shelters.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-fallout.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-fallout.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Fallout Shelter&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A 1957 Civil Defense rendering of a fallout shelter.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;“Temporary Basement Fallout Shelter, (artist’s rendition.) - NARA — 542104,” via Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 42 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-42&quot;&gt;
The dominant trope of Soviet attack and shelter below ground was sensationally cinematic; nuclear attack fantasies in popular culture still follow the basic formula of tranquil (if banal) routines interrupted by a literal flash and bang that changes lives irreversibly. The power goes out, the radio fails to deliver anything but a canned emergency message, and the survivors inhabit a broken world where the living envy the dead. The results of the Baby Tooth Survey suggested another story, one in which fallout quietly infiltrates foodstuffs and human bodies as day-to-day life rolls on unimpeded. It’s a story that presents atomic danger—and science itself—in completely different terms.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 43 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-43&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Science, The Endless Frontier&lt;/em&gt; offered a vision of science as the source of American military and economic power. The spectacular horror of American nuclear warheads exploding over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki fixed atomic weaponry as the centerpiece of postwar American science. This was a muscular science, an almost paternal force powerful enough to protect the United States’ geopolitical dominance and provide for every aspect of American lives. Kalckar’s article, and the Baby Tooth Study that it inspired, drew on Bush’s vision of science but also revealed its shortcomings. Kids’ letters to the CNI bear this out. They reflect and sometimes directly address a heroic but abstract concept of science. CNI drew strength from the fantastic possibilities of science in the public imagination with the I GAVE MY TOOTH TO SCIENCE button pins that kids so coveted. Yet the fascination with progress and possibility that infuses the kids’ letters is the same spirit that, when combined with military prerogatives, spurred the ongoing atomic tests that the study sought to question. CNI mobilized that spirit to gain kids’ participation (and their teeth). But it also used the principles and methods of science to reveal the harms that might result from a cavalier sense of mastery over nature.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 44 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-44&quot;&gt;
To paraphrase political theorist Jane Bennett, there was no “away” to which the fallout could go.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 45 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-45&quot;&gt;
Yet the trope of Soviet attack could not account for the insidious rise in SR-90 levels across the country. Popular coverage of the Baby Tooth Study reconciled the mundane, domestic ritual of childhood tooth loss with geopolitics, technological innovation, and scientific discovery by transforming the figure of the Tooth Fairy. A 1960 issue of &lt;em&gt;Woman’s Day&lt;/em&gt; magazine, for example, illustrated a short news item about the Committee for Nuclear Information with an image of a tiny, balding, bespectacled scientist with lab coat and wings. He alights from a sleeping child’s bed, grinning smugly at the tooth in his cradled hands. With the image of the tooth fairy as scientist, the child’s lost tooth is transformed from an artifact of innocence to a complex geopolitical resource.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 46 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-46&quot; class=&quot;alternate-voice&quot;&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Acknowledgements:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br /&gt;The authors wish to thank Anne R. Kenney; Michael and Jessica Friedlander; Zelli Fischetti, Kenn Thomas, and Nancy McIlvaney at The State Historical Society of Missouri; and Amy Kohout.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

</description>
        <pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/atomic-anxiety-and-the-tooth-fairy-citizen-science-in-the-midcentury-midwest</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/atomic-anxiety-and-the-tooth-fairy-citizen-science-in-the-midcentury-midwest</guid>
        
        
      </item>
    
      <item>
        <title>Moved by Fire: History’s Promethean Moment</title>
        <description>&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-San_Carlos_025.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-San_Carlos_025.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Nantac Rim&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The view from Nantac Rim, looking northeastwardly across the Nantanes Plateau.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Steve Pyne&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 1 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote id=&quot;paragraph-1&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire.&lt;br /&gt;-Gaston Bachelard, &lt;em&gt;The Psychoanalysis of Fire&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 2 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-2&quot;&gt;
Herakleitos famously observed that everything is change, and more specifically concluded that all things are an exchange for fire, and fire for all things. For him fire was a metaphor for dynamism. Fire changed matter. It moved: fast or slow, the world burned, and that burning accounted for Earth’s ceaseless motions.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 3 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-3&quot;&gt;
By the nineteenth century, modern science had demystified fire. Energy replaced fire as a universal medium, and scientists reconceptualized flame as form of oxidation, a subset of physical chemistry. But the notion of fire as a motive power endured. Slow combustion in the form of respiration powered the living world. Fast combustion in the guise of flames transmuted landscapes. And internal combustion within mechanical chambers powered the industrial revolution.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 4 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-4&quot;&gt;
Recently, in a &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/a-rationalists-mystical-moment.html?_r=0&quot;&gt;essay&lt;/a&gt;, arch-rationalist Barbara Ehrenreich described a mystical experience she once had in which “the world—the mountains, the sky, the low scattered buildings—suddenly flame into life.” In fact, the fire was always there, if latent. It’s just that, barring some epiphany, we rarely notice. Likewise, it is everywhere in the past, yet almost nowhere in our formal histories. As with Ehrenreich, it seems that some special spark of intellectual transcendence needs to kindle in order for us to see it.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 5 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-5&quot;&gt;
Fire history is Big History: it’s the story of what makes the Earth what it is. Our planet is built to burn. Life in the oceans fluffed the atmosphere with oxygen, life on land stuffed surfaces with combustibles. Combustion takes apart what photosynthesis brings together. The chemistry of life is a chemistry of combustion. It’s what makes the animate world move. Earth has been burning continuously for 420 million years. Fire is older than insects, trees, and Pangaea.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 6 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-6&quot;&gt;
For eons, fire came and went as local circumstances permitted. Being a reaction, not a substance, fire was what its setting made it. It integrated climate, the mountains and ravines that altered local winds and biotas, the evolution of plants and the animals that fed on them (and the animals that fed on those animals). Some places and times overflowed with fire; others lay wet, dark, and inert. The fires of the Carboniferous period differ from those of the Permian. Miocene fires rippling over grasslands differed from Eocene fires that had no grasses to burn. The rhythms of fire were the rhythms of Earth as it spun and wobbled through space, bubbled with species lost and gained, and watched storm tracks, laden with lightning, wander over lands.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 7 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-7&quot;&gt;
The Pleistocene, the past 2.6 million years (save the last 10,000) changed this dynamic as it iced over or dried out whole subcontinents. Yet the epoch we commonly identify as an Ice Age could be also be defined as the start of a Fire Age. It marked the greatest inflection point in fire history since lightning initially zapped dry vegetation in the Devonian. For the first time, a species acquired the capacity to start, and within limits, to stop fire. With &lt;em&gt;Homo erectus&lt;/em&gt; that power became a permanent part of the hominin toolkit. Fire myths around the world proclaim that when we got fire we segregated ourselves from the rest of creation—and went to the top of the food chain. Whether or not hominins sought a &lt;em&gt;domus&lt;/em&gt;, tended fire could not survive without one, which may well make fire the paradigm for domestication overall. Thereafter fire and humanity co-evolved. Our pact with fire was our first Faustian bargain.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 8 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-8&quot;&gt;
Precisely when hominins learned to manipulate fire is unclear. But recent research suggests that fire, in the form of cooking, helps account for the leap into the genus &lt;em&gt;Homo&lt;/em&gt;, who became physiologically dependent on cooked food. By boosting calories, and by detoxifying and softening food, controlled fire allowed us to exchange big guts for big brains.  Experiments confirm that we cannot thrive or reproduce on raw foods alone: they simply cannot deliver the calories and they require more chewing, digestive juices, and intestinal machinery. With cooking that digestive process begins earlier. If the observations hold, they say that humans and fire have not simply co-existed but co-evolved. We are not only the keystone species for fire: fire is a keystone process for our existence.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 9 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-9&quot;&gt;
But why only burn carcasses or tubers? Why not begin the process earlier and burn the habitats that produce those favored flora and fauna? If prize game are drawn to the greenup that follows a burn, why not burn that landscape, and wait for the fresh forage to lure bovids to it? If camas and &lt;em&gt;mahias&lt;/em&gt; grow best in scorched settings, why wait for random acts of nature to produce them? With the evidence for the value of controlled fire all around them, early hominins began to cook landscapes.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 10 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-10&quot;&gt;
With fire they could project their reach far beyond their immediate grasp, for one of the foundational properties of fire is that it spreads. Its power lies in its capacity to propagate. Landscapes that already had fire could be taken over and redirected by anthropogenic burning. Landscapes that lacked routine fire could acquire it. If its firepower allowed humanity to expand, so too humanity became the vector by which fire could propagate into new realms. The two became co-extensive. Humanity carried fire to Antarctica.  Fire lofted humanity into space.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-Jan_Cossiers_-_Prometheus_Carrying_Fire.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-Jan_Cossiers_-_Prometheus_Carrying_Fire.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Prometheus&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Jan Cossiers, &lt;em&gt;Prometheus Carrying Fire&lt;/em&gt;, 1630s, Prado Museum. via Wikimedia Commons&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 11 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-11&quot;&gt;
Consider a quick historical panorama.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 12 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-12&quot;&gt;
There is little in our technology or habitat not touched by fire. Aboriginal economies of hunting and foraging routinely burned—light, early, and often. Flames could drive and draw game; they massaged biotas for favorable plants; they opened landscapes and routes of travel. In suitable settings, the outcome could resemble a rude landscaping, or in Rhys Jones’s striking phrase for Australian Aborigines, “firestick farming.” Still, the firestick could ignite only what was ready to be kindled. If too arid, too wet, or too cold, a spark would simply expire. Snow doesn’t burn. Nor do sand deserts. For humanity to expand its firepower, people would have to render the landscape more combustible.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 13 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-13&quot;&gt;
This it did across much of the Earth by slashing, draining, loosing domesticated herds and flocks to chew and trample, and otherwise rearranging vegetation in ways that allowed it to dry out and carry fire beyond the constraints of climate and terrain. The upshot is, in common language, something like agriculture. There are horticultures based on floating gardens and dung heaps, and there are rich farmlands in floodplains where water takes the place of fire to fumigate and fertilize. But most agriculture requires the catalytic jolt of flame somewhere in its cycle. Even wet-field rice cultivators commonly burn off the stubble. And since fire requires fuel, the logical way to ensure fuel was to grow it. Agronomic critics long condemned fallow as a waste, and worse, something routinely burned, a double waste. In reality, the fallow was not burned to get rid of it, but was grown that it might be burned.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 14 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-14&quot;&gt;
Such examples testify to fire as a bio-technology. But fire has been no less fundamental as a physical technology, for which, again, cooking serves as exemplar. People cooked wood, stone, metal, and liquids. With fire they hardened spears and shattered stone; distilled wood into tar and turpentine; melted sand into glass; smelted ore into iron and copper; baked clay into bricks. Fire was the basis for chemistry—&lt;em&gt;philosophus per ignem,&lt;/em&gt; as the alchemists had it. Then fire was replaced by combustion, and combustion was disaggregated into heat and light. Fire disappeared from modern science as an informing principle and became a subset of chemistry, thermodynamics, and forestry.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 15 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-15&quot;&gt;
Nor was fire alien to humanity’s built environments. If anything, it can be argued that structures—from caves to windbreaks—were shelters to protect fire. The hearth became the core of the house, as the &lt;em&gt;pyrtaneum&lt;/em&gt; became the pyric equivalent to the village well, and the vestal fire the sacred fire of the tribe or state. But since villages were built of materials drawn from the surrounding environment, they burned according to the same rhythms of drought and wind. The cold front that slashed through the Lake States on October 8, 1871, caused Chicago’s fire to shift just as it did in the woods around Peshtigo, Wisconsin, where between 400 and 1,400 people reportedly perished. Urban fires were so common as to be expected. When people remade cities in less combustible forms, they did so out of materials such as brick, steel, concrete that had already, as it were, passed through the flames.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 16 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-16&quot;&gt;
The great phase change came when people exhausted the firepower offered by Earth’s living biota and turned to its fossil varieties. They converted from open burning to closed combustion, from landscape fires and hearths to coal-fired furnaces, gasoline-powered cars, and natural gas-driven dynamos. For industrial societies fire as a presence disappeared. It vanished from houses, from factories, from fields, and continues to do so. It survives when the social order collapses due to wars, famines, or natural disasters. People no longer burned their lawns. Laws banned bonfires. Student dorms banned even candles. Barbecues abandoned wood and charcoal for propane. Free-burning fire existed in lawless zones and, as though it were an endangered species, in nature preserves.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 17 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-17&quot;&gt;
The only fires that people living in an industrial society typically see are those on screens. Fire has become virtual. It has been deconstructed into machines and sublimated into electricity. If the present is the key to the past, then it no longer makes sense to search for fire in history because it has left the present as a fellow traveler of human history. It exists only in nature reserves and feral landscapes. It has become a subset of disaster narratives. It no longer enjoys the presumption that it is an informing principle to human life and Earth.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 18 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-18&quot;&gt;
Those of use who see history with fire in our eye probably do so for personal rather than professional reasons. As it happened I began this essay while preparing for a research trip to the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona. Out of a necessity that has become an opportunity, San Carlos has evolved a curious hybrid of managed fire on its wildlands. I wanted to see the outcome—and to track its history.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-San_Carlos_Google_earth.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-San_Carlos_Google_earth.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;San Carlos Apache Reservation&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
A map of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Modified from Google Earth&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 19 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-19&quot;&gt;
The odds were slight I would see any smoke. If they were fighting fires, the San Carlos fire officers couldn’t host me; nor if they were busy lighting them in the form of controlled (or prescribed) burns. I assumed I would have to search for fire’s spoor in still-blackened terrain and amid libraries. At least I didn’t have to explain my enthusiasms to the San Carlos fire cadre: they lived in a fire-drenched landscape, the highest region for lightning-kindled fire in the United States. For nearly every aspect of San Carlos geography and history, fire was a presence, if not a catalyst. The removal of free-burning fire, not its emergence, was the great disturbance in the force.  Their challenge was to find a way to put it back into present day geography. Mine was to devise a way to reinstate it to history.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 20 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-20&quot;&gt;
Everything I did to unravel that history had combustion in its character. I had driven an internal-combustion engine to the Hayden Library at Arizona State University in order to retrieve copies of old reports. The library was lit by electricity generated by a power plant fed by fossil fuels. Its furniture and rugs had been vetted for flammability by the Underwriters Laboratories. The number of people allowed within, the size and placements of its doors, the density of materials, some of Hayden’s core design features—all were dictated by building codes intended to prevent loss of life in the event of a fire. There were emergency exit signs everywhere. The elevators would shut down, replaced by protected exit stairwells whose entries were illuminated by electric signs charged by an autonomous power system. There were smoke detectors. There were fire alarms. Hayden Library was as fully sculpted by fire (or the fear of fire) as the grand terraces of San Carlos Reservation that stepped down from the Mogollon Rim to the Gila River.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 21 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-21&quot;&gt;
It just wasn’t as visible—was in truth intended to be unseen. So it has proved with the fire histories written in Hayden.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-hayden.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-hayden.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Hayden Library&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The Hayden Library at Arizona State University; sunken entry at lower right, stacks to far right.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;Arizona State University&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 22 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-22&quot;&gt;
I assumed my expedition to San Carlos would likewise leave me not with fire directly but with its simulacra: I would have to trace its record in the literature and whatever blackened patches of landscape I could reach. I was wrong. The night before I arrived, lightning kindled two fires. I watched as the San Carlos fire cadre debated how to box and burn them—how to promote the good benefits latent in those ignitions without absorbing their potential bad side effects. For the next six weeks they identified firelines (boxed) and fired out from them (burned), and otherwise loose-herded the flames across the Nantac Rim. When the saga ended, the Basin fire had burned 6,000 acres and the Skunk fire a whopping 74,000 acres.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-image&quot;&gt;
&lt;a class=&quot;fancybox&quot; href=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/large-San_Carlos_fire_atlas_with_2014_fires_-_Appendix.jpg&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;/images/issues/2/4/medium-San_Carlos_fire_atlas_with_2014_fires_-_Appendix.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;San Carlos Reservation&quot; /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;
The past decade of fire—wild, prescribed, managed—at San Carlos Reservation. The Skunk and Basin fires are circled.
&lt;span class=&quot;credit&quot;&gt;San Carlos Agency&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;!-- 23 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-23&quot;&gt;
The episode was a master class in living with fire, and it was one wholly invisible to anyone not on site, a public primed to imagine fire as something feral and destructive. The San Carlos cadre had put useful fire back on the landscape. It was my job to put it back into history for scholars traditionally trained to see fire as incidental and disastrous.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;hr class=&quot;special&quot; /&gt;

&lt;!-- 24 --&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;paragraph-pack&quot;&gt;&lt;p id=&quot;paragraph-24&quot;&gt;
Fire runs through the past like a Herakleitean current. Yet not trained to look for it, most people assume free-burning fire is a relic or hazard mostly banished from the modern world, and its appearance is like watching a bout of plague. They assign it to natural history along with grizzly bears, or to a human past that vanished with Shasta ground sloths. If fire appears as formal history, if it finds voice at all, it gets shunted to an appendix. Yet from time to time the blinders fall away and, like Barbara Ehrenreich, we discover that the world has been burning all along.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;inline-video&quot;&gt;
&lt;iframe width=&quot;640&quot; height=&quot;480&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/r9Fwq6l3Bqk?rel=0&amp;amp;showinfo=0&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
&lt;p class=&quot;caption&quot;&gt;Footage of the Skunk Fire from three helicopter flyovers, 2014. From Bil Grauel, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Interagency Fire Center.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;


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        <pubDate>Thu, 20 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
        <link>http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/moved-by-fire-historys-promethean-moment</link>
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