The Discovery of ING TUT S TOMB - History Magazine · using their plan to put mer-chandise in the...

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•• Zero: A Brief History of Nothing •• The Adventures of Jumbo the Elephant•• Going Long: The Story of Football in North America

The Discovery of

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...And Much More!

March 2008

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KING TUT’S TOMB

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Tutankhamun. Page 25.

Wax.Page 22.

Jumbo. Page 17.

She-She-She Camps. Page 13.

1500-1509. Page 7.

Zero.2.

Lost Days. Page 54.

Touchdown! Page 49.

Bertillon. Page 44.

Marlowe.Page 36.

History Magazine • February/March 2008 3

OPENING NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Trivia items: The First Donut Machine, Earmuffs, CaissonDisease

THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 1500S . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Victoria L. King explores the legacy of a period that stilllingers

THE SHE-SHE-SHE CAMPS OF THEGREAT DEPRESSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Jane Kahramanidis looks at Eleanor Roosevelt’s attempts to keep the women of America busy during the GreatDepression

JUMBO THE ELEPHANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Doug Elliott follows the trail of the world’s most famouspachyderm

THE BOAR WAR: MUCH ADO ABOUT A PIG . . . . 19Kathryn Russell Selk looks at the pig that sparked an international incident

WAX: THE FLUID MEDIUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Francine Kirsch follows the story of wax through the ages

THE DISCOVERY OF TUTANKHAMUN’S TOMB . . . 25Phill Jones documents one of archeology’s most famousdiscoveries

ZERO — A BRIEF HISTORY OF NOTHING . . . . . . . 32In an article about “nothing”, Ed Haag explains why zero is such a big deal

THE ART OF INTRIGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Kel Morin-Parsons delves into the mysterious life and death of playwright Christopher Marlowe

OPIUM DENS AND BOHEMIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Abridged from the book A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York, author Timothy J. Gilfoyletakes us on a tour of an opium den

THE MEASURE OF A MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Phill Jones studies the case of Alphonse Bertillon, the 19th-century biometrician

HEY BUDDY, WANNA BUY A TOWER? . . . . . . . . . 47Brian J. Noggle tells the story of the men who sold the Eiffel Tower

TOUCHDOWN! THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALLIN NORTH AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Matt Polacko goes deep as he examines the beginnings of all things pigskin

HINDSIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52We take a look at some recently released items that may be of interest to our readersTHE LOST DAYS OF SEPTEMBER 1752 . . . . . . . . . . 54Huck DeVenzio tracks the change to our modern-daycalendar

WHAT’S COMING IN HISTORY MAGAZINE . . . . . . 55A peek at what we are working on for future issues ofHistory Magazine

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EARMUFFSSOMETIMES A GREAT idea comes when one least expectsit. For Chester Greenwood, a flash of inspiration hap-pened while ice skating on Abbot Pond in Maine; itwas a particularly frigid day in December 1873. Fif-teen-year-old Greenwood wanted to test out his newskates, but the icy wind rushing by his ears cut shorthis fun.

Most people in those days prevented cold ears bytying a wool scarf or muffler around their heads.Unfortunately, the woolcaused Greenwood’s ears toitch and the muffler was notsecure enough to enjoy win-ter sports. Undeterred,Greenwood asked for hisgrandmother’s help in fash-ioning something to keephis ears warm. Green-wood’s design includedfarm wire (a precursor ofbailing wire) for the head-band and a combination offur and velvet to cover theear. His grandmother sewedit together while Green-wood shaped the headband with a pair of pliers, andthe prototype of the first earmuff was born.

Many years later, The Wall Street Journal wouldreport that Greenwood’s ears “were so sensitive thatthey turned chalky white, beet red, and deep blue (inthat order) when the mercury dipped.”

Greenwood had always been an industrious lad.

As one of six children helping out on his family’sfarm, he sold eggs door-to-door along an eight-mileroute to raise extra money. Sometimes he madecandy or fudge to sell as well. But once he beganwearing his ear protectors, as Greenwood calledthem, his life went in a new direction. His peersasked their parents for earmuffs, and before long,everyone in the small community of Farmington,Maine, wanted a pair. The following winter, Greenwood was mass producing his Greenwood

Champion Ear Protectors. Young and old alike

were wearing Greenwood’sself-proclaimed “blizzard-proof” earmuffs, but hewasn’t satisfied. He madetwo important changes tohis invention. The first wasto solve the problem of themuff flapping too much.Greenwood attached ahinge to each side to keep itflush against the ear. Abyproduct of this changewas that the earmuff couldnow be folded and stored in

a pocket. Then Greenwood substituted the farm wirein the headband for flat, spring steel. “I believe per-fection has been reached”, he said and never madeanother alteration to his design.

On 13 March 1877, the US Patent Office awardedGreenwood with patent #188,292 for his invention.He was just 18 years old. Greenwood soon opened a

4 History Magazine • February/March 2008

The drawings submitted for patent #188,292 for“Improvements for Ear-Mufflers”.

THE FIRST DONUT MACHINEDONUTS HAVE BEEN around for centuries, but theywere all made by hand until a Russian immi-grant saw an opportunity in the early20th century.

Adolph Levitt emigrated fromRussia with his family to Americain 1892. His father died within ayear, forcing Adolph to leaveschool at the age of 10. As ateenager, he began a mercantilebusiness with his brother, John.They opened several storesusing their plan to put mer-chandise in the windows toattract customers. The storesprospered for awhile but, it didn’t last.

At 37, Adolph moved to NewYork and bought into a bakery chain.Soldiers returning from WWI clamoredfor the donuts they had eaten in France.Adolph heard about this and began frying donutsin a kettle placed in the window of his bakery in

Harlem. People lined up to watch the donuts fryand to purchase them fresh. Soon, he was unable to

make enough donuts to keep up with thedemand.

Levitt had an idea for a donutmachine that could fry and auto-

matically turn donuts whilepushing the fumes to the roofwith a fan. With such amachine, he would be able toproduce donuts in greaternumbers and meet thedemand. Levitt worked withan engineer on 12 prototypesbefore creating a successful

one. The total cost was $15,000.Levitt called his machine The

Wonderful Almost Human Auto-matic Donut Machine. He chose

Mayflower Donuts for his brandname. He put the machine in the bakery

window and produced large quantities ofdonuts. A circle of dough, shaped like a ringdropped from a hopper and into a vat of boiling oil,

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factory which produced 30,000 earmuffs per year andemployed 20 people full-time. The business continued toflourish and expanded to a downtown shop. In 1936, Green-wood Champion Ear Protectors was making 400,000 earmuffsannually. Even after most of the manufacturing process wasautomated, the factory still relied upon hand labor. It seemedthe only way to attach the muff to the headband was the wayhis grandmother had done it — by hand.

Greenwood continued to turn his ideas into inventions,and by the time he died in 1937, he had been granted morethan 130 patents. The Smithsonian Institute named Green-wood as one of America’s 15 outstanding inventors of the 20thcentury.

Each year in December, the state of Maine celebratesChester Greenwood Day to honor the man who found a wayto keep our ears warm. — JACQUELIN CANGRO

A full index of History Magazine’s past articles can be found athttp://www.history-magazine.com/historyindex.html.

circulated, turned over to brown bothsides and rolled out of the oil on amoving ramp. He set up a donutmachine in a shop window in TimesSquare, New York that drew so manyonlookers, it caused traffic to come to ahalt.

Soon, Levitt sold machines to smallshops and large baking companies allover America. By this time, he was doinga 25-million dollar a year business.Levitt’s next step was to manufacturethe mix for the donuts. He started morebakeries, opened restaurants to sell thedonuts and created advertising to sellthem. During WWII, he rented machinesto the Red Cross so the soldiers couldhave donuts.

Donut machines grew to be morerefined and many other companies produced their own version of Levitt’smachine.

Today, some 300 million donuts areconsumed in the US. In Canada, TimHorton’s, famous for its donuts, hastwice as many stores in the country asMcDonald’s. — SANDRA MCGARRITY

Today earmuffs comein a variety of colors

and sizes.


OPENING NOTES


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Jeannette’s e-mail address is [email protected] and the toll-free number is 1-888-326-2476, extension 111.

ATTENTION SNOWBIRDS!

CAISSON DISEASETHE DEMAND FOR coal skyrocketed during Europe’sindustrial revolution, and inventors sought ways toextract coal from previously inaccessible sites. In1839, Charles-Jean Triger, a French mining engineer,devised a method of excavating a rich vein of coalburied under quicksand at Chalonnes. Triger had a70-foot-long metal tube — a caisson — built in a mineshaft. Using compressed air, he drove water and sandfrom the caisson and cleared a space for miners. Theminers entered and exited the pressurized shaftthrough an airlock on the surface.

A French company used a caisson to evacuateunderground water from a mine. The technologyovercame the difficulty of installing a drainagemachine with a capacity greater than that of incomingwater currents. The new technique had a price: min-ers experienced severe pain in their arms, chest andlegs. Two men died.

In 1854, two physi-cians, Pol and Watelle,published a treatise onthe effects of air com-pression. The dangerdoes not lie in enteringa mine under com-pressed air, theyobserved. “You onlypay when you leave.”

British engineersadapted Triger’s caissontechnology to sink piersthat supported bridges.Basically, workers builtthe shell of a pier in alarge box or tube, whichwas closed at the top. After sinking the caisson — openend first — into the river bed, compressed air forcedwater from the caisson. Toiling in pressurized air, themen dug to the bedrock. To form the pier’s core, work-ers poured concrete into the caisson’s interior.

While traveling through Europe, American engi-neer James Buchanan Eads observed the use of com-pressed air caissons. In 1869, he used the technologyto build the first bridge across the Mississippi River atSt. Louis. Problems arose. At about 55 feet below theriver’s surface, men had joint pains while they dugout the riverbed. As they continued to dig, they expe-rienced painful paralysis of their legs. Eleven caissonworkers died in five months. Eads shortened theworkers’ hours and called for his personal physician,Alphonse Jaminet. Despite the doctor’s efforts, anoth-

er nine men died from compressed air exposure.In September 1871, Washington Roebling started

work on the New York caisson of the BrooklynBridge. Borings indicated that bedrock lay from 77 to92 feet below the surface. Every two feet translatedinto an additional pound of pressure

By late January, the caisson reached a depth of 51feet, and workers experienced serious health prob-lems. Roebling commissioned Dr. Andrew H. Smithto help his men. During the next four months, Smith,who coined the term “caisson disease”, treated menfor the mysterious illness. Roebling himself sufferedfrom caisson disease which he received while work-ing on the Brooklyn Bridge and was permanentlyaffected by it.

On 18 May 1872, the caisson reached a depth of78½ feet. Three men had died from caisson disease.Aware of the St. Louis Bridge tragedies, Roebling

stopped excavation. Hegambled that the toweron the New York sidecould stand on sand.

Smith treated 110reported cases of cais-son disease. Undoubt-edly, the disease hadaffected many moremen, who feared that areported illness wouldban them from futureprojects. Workers keptto themselves if theyhad a dose of the Gre-cian Bends, a nameshortened to the“bends” and inspired

by the Grecian Bend stance, a fashionable forwardbent posture of women who wore the restrictivecorsets, crinolettes and bustles of the period.

Smith, Pol and Jaminet correctly focused on rapiddecompression as the cause of caisson disease. After awork shift in a caisson, the drop in atmospheric pres-sure caused dissolved nitrogen to form bubbles in theworkers’ bodies. A rapid decompression overwhelmedtheir lungs’ ability to expel the gas. Consequently, nitro-gen bubbles hindered the flow of oxygen to tissues,causing intense pain and even permanent damage.

Today, decompression sickness, as caisson diseaseis now known, usually affects pilots of unpressurizedaircraft and underwater divers. Sufferers are placed inrecompression chambers; however, the damage issometimes irreversible. — PHILL JONES

Sectional view of the Brooklyn caisson of the East River Bridge from Harper’s Weekly (17 December 1870).



The First Decade of the 1500sVictoria L. King explores the legacy of a period that still lingers

IN MANY WAYS, the events and accomplishments of thefirst decade of the 16th century remain relevant todayin the 21st century.

The artistic giants of the Renaissance, Leonardoda Vinci and Michelangelo, created works in thisdecade which are still revered. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa,believed to have been painted between 1502 and 1505,is the world’s most famous portrait. The masterpieceis celebrated for its enigmatic subject, and has set astandard against which all other portraits have beencompared. The painting, now five centuries old, continues to fascinate.

Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel’s ceil-ing frescos was also begun in this decade. The artist,who considered himself primarily a sculptor, depictedscenes and figures from the Bible which are stilladmired for their drama and beauty.

Christopher Columbus, the world-famous explorer,undertook his final voyage in this period, dying shortlyafterwards. His “discovery” of the New World changedthe course of history forever. Other explorers also madetheir marks on the map in this decade. The coasts of

Newfoundland and Brazil were explored and islands inthe Atlantic and Indian oceans were discovered.

Another famous figure from this period wasCesare Borgia. The natural son of Pope Alexander VI,the ambitious Borgia sought to create a kingdom forhimself in Italy. Borgia’s ruthless determinationbrought him many successes; however, it came at aprice. He was betrayed, and when his father died,Borgia quickly lost all that he had gained. Years later,Borgia’s cold, calculating style became inspiration for one of the most notorious books of all time,Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Another notable legacy from this decade is theubiquitous and humble portable timekeeping deviceknown as the watch. The first watch more resembleda large egg than what we are familiar with today.However, the invention of the watch allowed societyto leap forward, much as new inventions (usually)make our lives easier now.

The events described here happened five cen-turies ago. However, so much of what occurred in thisdecade still resonates today.

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1500:Pope Alexander VI declares the yeara Holy Year of Jubilee and authorizes

various celebrations.

Christopher Columbus returns fromhis third trip to the New World.

France and Spain agree to invadeand divide the spoils of Italy

between themselves. The Frenchagree to the northern portion, includ-ing Naples, and Spain the southern.

Gaspar Côrte-Real visits the coast ofNewfoundland, naming severalplaces. Several Natives are kid-

napped and sent to England.

Surviving an assassination attempt,Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglie, husbandof Lucrezia Borgia and son-in-law of

Pope Alexander VI, recovers inRome. However, a servant of his

brother-in-law Cesare Borgia, laterstrangles him.

The coast of present-day Brazil isexplored by Portugal’s Pedro

Álvares Cabral.

1501:Amerigo Vespucci sails along the

coast of South America, and concludes that the land mass is a

new continent.

Ascension Island in the SouthAtlantic is discovered. The islandremains uninhabited until 1815.

Pursuing a dynastic claim, France,with the assistance of Spain,

conquers Naples.

The Danube River floods, submerging one-story buildings.

This disaster is the worst floodingever of the river.

The Portuguese become the first tobring Asian spices to Europe via the

Cape of Good Hope.

1502:Arthur, Prince of Wales, dies. His

widow, Catherine of Aragon isbetrothed to Henry, Arthur’s

younger brother. However, due torivalry between Spain and England,the marriage does not take place for

several years.

Christopher Columbus leaves on hisfourth trip to the New World.

Cochin, a small fishing village on thesouthwest coast of India, becomes aPortuguese trading station and animportant port of Portugal’s Asian

trading route.

James IV of Scotland marries Margaret, daughter of Henry VII ofEngland, as part of their “treaty of

perpetual peace”. Their descendantseventually unite the two countries.


1500-1509

CESARE BORGIA’S SHORT but dramat-ic life is the material for books,and, indeed, one of the most infa-mous books ever was written withhim in mind.

Cesare was born in Rome in themid 1470s, the son of CardinalRodrigo Borgia and his mistress,Vannozza Catanei. While a child,Pope Sixtus IV legitimatized theyoung Cesare, so he could holdecclesiastical office. This was quick-ly taken advantage of, as the seven-year-old Cesare was made canon ofthe Cathedral ofValencia. Cesarewent on to be bish-op of Pamplona andthen became arch-bishop of Valenciashortly after hisfather became PopeAlexander VI inAugust 1492, all ofwhich happenedbefore Cesare was20 years old.

Althoughmuch of Cesare’ssuccess was due tohis father, Cesarewas consideredbrilliant and “thehandsomest man inItaly”. Early in his father’s pontifi-cate, Cesare was made an arch-bishop and, in 1496, Alexandermade his son commander of thepapal army.

Despite this, Cesare was moreknown for his clothes and romancesthan for his piousness, and whenhis younger brother was murderedin 1497, it was rumored that Cesarehad done the nefarious deed.Despite the rumors, Alexander stillrelied on Cesare and began makingplans for a marriage alliance forhim with the sister of Jean d’Albretof Navarre, Cesare gave up his car-dinalship accordingly. With the sup-port of Navarre. Alexander andCesare began to reassert papal dom-inance over Italy using militarymight. By 1502, Cesare had enjoyeda number of successes. However, hewas not popular.

Cesare was seen as a powerhungry man, capable of great cru-

elty. He was determined to createhis own kingdom in Italy, while hehad the chance. Cesare’s involve-ment with the murder of hisyounger sister’s husband in 1500did little to help his reputation.

In 1503, Cesare’s commanders,fearing his growing power, con-spired against him and strippedhim of his followers. With the finan-cial aid of his father, Cesare rebuilthis forces. Cesare then entered intonegotiations with his former com-manders. A meeting was arranged

where Cesarepromptly had theformer comman-ders arrested andexecuted on 31December 1502.

The death ofAlexander on 18August 1503marked the declineof Cesare’s for-tunes. Cesare wasalso ailing at thetime and unable totake advantage ofthe situation. InOctober, GiulianoDella Rovere, anenemy of the Bor-gias, became Pope

Julius II. Julius refused to supportCesare and had him arrested. Afteragreeing to surrender his conquests,Cesare was allowed to go free. Hewent to Naples seeking support,only to be rearrested. He wasimprisoned, but escaped in 1506.Cesare joined his brother-in-law’sarmy, but died in battle in 1507.

Cesare Borgia might have simply been a minor figure in thetumultuous 16th century, a manfeared in his day and then forgot-ten. However, Cesare was immor-talized in Niccolò Machiavelli’s16th-century classic work of politi-cal thought, The Prince. Unlikemany of his contemporaries,Machiavelli seemed to admireCesare. He worked for Cesare andsaw firsthand how he controlledand manipulated situations to hisadvantage. Machiavelli’s literaryportrait of Cesare is a testament tothe man who wanted to be a king.

Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia.

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THE MONA LISA IS arguably theworld’s most famous painting.Begun sometime around 1502 andworked upon for four years by theItalian genius Leonardo da Vinci,today the painting is instantly recognizable.

The oil painting is believed tobe of the wife of Francesco delGiocondo, thus the painting’snickname, La Gioconda.Giocondo was a cloth mer-chant and in the Florentinegovernment, and both heand his wife, Lisa, were artlovers. If the painting is ofLisa del Giocondo, it isbelieved to have been paint-ed around the time of thebirth of her second son.

The subject is seatedagainst a background ofmountains and rivers, theshapes of which are echoedin the sitter’s hair and clothing. Da Vinci used ashading technique called“sfumato”, which involvesthe layering of coats ofpaint to create depth in awork. The repetition createsharmony in the painting.The seated woman is smil-ing faintly; many suggestthat her eyes are happierthan her mouth, which mayexplain her enigmaticexpression.

However, the paintingwas unfinished. Accordingto Giorgio Vasari, whowrote in 1550, “after he [DaVinci] had lingered over itfour years, [he] left it unfin-ished.” A receipt or indica-tion of payment for thepainting has never beenfound. Da Vinci took thepainting with him to France in1516, when the 65-year-old painterwas invited there by King FrancisI. While in France, Da Vinciworked on the painting, butstopped shortly before his death.When Da Vinci died in France in1519, the painting became theproperty of the king.

During the reign of Louis XIV,the Mona Lisa was moved to Ver-

sailles. Napoleon had the portraithung in his bedroom. Then theMona Lisa was given a spot in theLouvre and became a popularwork due to the Symbolist artmovement, which praised thepainting for its embodiment offemininity.

Despite her new home, theMona Lisa’s adventures were not

over. In August 1911, the portraitwas stolen. It remained lost fortwo years until a former Louvreemployee, Vincenzo Perugia, wasarrested for the crime. Perugia, anItalian nationalist, thought thefamous painting deserved to be inItaly. On 21 August 1911, Perugiahad found himself alone with theportrait in the gallery room, tookthe painting off its hooks and

walked out with it under his coat.He had smuggled the paintingback into Italy to sell it to an Ital-ian museum. When the UffiziGallery of Florence wasapproached to buy the painting,they contacted the Louvre. TheMona Lisa was returned to Francein 1914 and Perugia was impris-oned for the theft, but only served

a few months. The year 1956 was not a

good one for Mona Lisa. Theportrait had acid thrown onit and then a rock tossed atit, resulting in the picturehaving to undergo restora-tion. It is believed that anearlier restoration hadremoved the eyebrows andeyelashes that once gracedthe sitter. (However, it wasalso common in the early16th century for women topluck off their eyebrows, sothe Mona Lisa may neverhave had them.)

In the 20th century, theMona Lisa traveled to theUS, the former USSR andJapan.

The painting is probablymore famous now than everbefore. The Mona Lisa hasappeared in movies, songsand books, including DanBrown’s book, The Da VinciCode, which features theportrait and has sold morethan 64 million copies.

Also, recent study of thepainting has kept the MonaLisa in the spotlight. It wasdiscovered that the subjectis wearing a translucentgauze garment called aguarnelo over her dress. Theguarnelo, as painted by Da

Vinci is undetectable to the nakedeye. A guarnelo was worn by preg-nant women or by those who hadjust given birth, which gives somesupport to the theory of the sub-ject being Giocondo.

Today, the painting is on display in the Louvre Museum inParis, behind bullet-proof glass,and is viewed by some six millionpeople a year.

The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is arguably the world’s most famous portrait.

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1500-1509

(1502 continued)

Sir James Tyrrell is executed. According to Thomas More, Tyrrellconfessed to murdering the Princes

in the Tower — Edward V andRichard of York — in 1483 on theorders of their uncle, Richard III.

The South Atlantic island of SaintHelena, eventual island prison of Napoleon, is discovered by

the Portuguese.

1503:Christopher Columbus leaves his

brother, Bartholomew, in present-dayPanama to establish a colony. How-

ever, attacks by the Natives forcethem to abandon the expedition.

Italian traveler Lodovico de Varthema becomes the first Christian

known to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Pope Alexander VI dies. FrancescoTodeschini Piccolomini becomesPope Pius III, but dies less than a

month into his pontificate. GiulianoDella Rovere is elected Pope Julius II.

Vasco da Gama returns from his second voyage to India.

1504:A tax is imposed in colonial SpanishAmerica on mineral products, suchas precious metals and rare stones.The crown took one-fifth, hence its

name of quinto real, which becomes alarge source of revenue for Spain.

Arguing over the spoils of their vic-tory, France loses Naples to Spain.

Christopher Columbus returns fromhis fourth — and final — trip to the

New World.

Isabella I of Castile dies. Her daughter Juana becomes queen,

although Ferdinand II of Aragon,Juana’s father, rules the country.

The marble sculpture of David is finished by Michelangelo.

The teston or testoon, a coin repre-senting one-twentieth of a pound isstruck for the first time in England.Some years later, the coin’s name is

changed to “shilling” and remains inuse until the late 20th century.

1505:A famine strikes Hungary. It is

reported that some parents eat theirchildren in order to survive.

Hiëronymus Bosch begins work onhis Garden of Earthly Delights triptych.

Ivan III of Russia dies and is succeeded by his son, Vasili.

The Ceiling of theSistine Chapel

THE PAPAL SISTINE Chapel was com-pleted in 1481 for Pope Sixtus IV.The Chapel in the Vatican Palace isfamous for its frescoes byMichelangelo and other celebratedartists.

Frescoes are created by apply-ing water-based paint to fresh plas-ter, which is absorbed and becomespart of the wall or ceiling surface.

The frescos on the walls of theSistine Chapel were begun in the1480s by leading artists of the day,such as Sandro Botticelli, famousfor painting The Birth of Venus.These wall frescos depicted thelives of Christ and Moses. Abovethese, on the same level as thechapel windows, were popes, twoon either side of each of the 12windows.

When Michelangelo beganworking on the Sistine Chapel’sceiling in 1508, he was only 33 yearsold and still in the early stages ofhis career. (Michelangelo wasalmost 89 years old when he died in1564.) Up until then, Michelangelowas primarily known for his sculp-ture, and it was this medium thathe saw himself most associatedwith throughout his long career. Bythis time Michelangelo was well-known, and had already completedtwo sculptures, the Pietà and David,which are still famous today.

Despite being unfamiliar withfresco painting, Michelangelo wascommissioned to finish the ceiling.Nine scenes from the Old Testa-ment, such as God dividing light

from darkness, the creation ofAdam and the Flood, were depict-ed by Michelangelo. Along thesloping sides, where the ceilingmet the wall, prophets and sibylsare shown, with the ancestors ofChrist between them, just abovethe inner windows. In the four corners of the sloped ceiling arestories concerning the salvation ofthe Jews, as told in the Bible.

To access the ceiling, a scaffoldwas erected. At first, guidelinesand drawings were used in thework. However, these aids wereabandoned as Michelangelobecame more confident in hisskills. The work took four years,with a brief break in the middle.

The Sistine Chapel’s ceilingfresco was probably finishedsometime in October 1512, as PopeJulius II celebrated mass in thechapel on 1 November 1512.

Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo’s16th-century biographer, said “Thewhole world came running whenthe vault was revealed, and thesight of it was enough to reducethem to stunned silence.”

Michelangelo returned to theSistine Chapel to work on a frescoconcerning the Last Judgmentfrom 1534 to 1541.

Today, the Sistine Chapel isused by the Sacred College of Cardinals for their papal electionsand has some 10,000 visitors a day.Recently, the frescoes have beencleaned and restored, removingcenturies of smoke and dirt.

Above: God creating Adam, as envisioned by Michelangelo.Right: A self-portrait of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.


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WHEN CHRISTOPHER Columbusreturned from his third voyage tothe New World in 1500, he was inchains. This was a dramaticchange from what had happenedonly seven years earlier with thehomecoming of his first voyage,when Columbus, as Admiral ofthe Ocean Sea, was at the height ofhis powers.

Columbus’ sponsors, Isabellaof Castile and Ferdinand ofAragon, had been delighted withthe reports of riches inthe New World, alongwith the precious metals,exotic creatures, spicesand human captives hebrought back to Spain in1493. However, theenchantment did not last.The monarchs were dis-appointed with theresults of the second voy-age (1493-96). The Euro-peans left behind fromthe first voyage in theNew World had beenkilled by the Natives.Columbus’ subordinatesalso began to complain ofhis harsh methods as gov-ernor. Most importantlyto the monarchs, theinvestment in Colum-bus’s second voyage wasnot recouped.

However, the tempta-tion of possible richesmeant that funding for athird voyage was grant-ed. Columbus set sail in1498 with high hopes.However, they were soondashed. The passage toIndia remained elusive.Columbus and his broth-ers, who were also involved inthe venture, were becomingunpopular due to their ruthlessways, with both the Europeansand the Natives. When a chiefjustice arrived to investigate whatwas happening in the NewWorld, he had the three Colum-bus brothers arrested and sentback to Spain.

During the voyage home,Columbus wrote a letter to Isabel-

la and Ferdinand. He stated thathe believed he had reached theEarthly Paradise and that theriches it held would soon befound. When Columbus reachedSpain, the Spanish monarchsremoved Columbus as governor.However, his past successesmeant that he was allowed tolead a fourth voyage to the NewWorld.

The voyage began on 9 May1502, with just four ships, a far cry

from the 17 vessels that embarkedon the second voyage. Columbuswas instructed to avoid Hispanio-la, where many of the problemshad previously occurred, andinstead search for a sea passage toIndia. Columbus, however, dis-obeyed and made for Hispaniola.Turned away by the new gover-nor, Columbus reluctantlyreturned to his mission.

During this voyage, Columbus

explored the islands of Jamaicaand Cuba and along the coasts ofHonduras, Nicaragua, Costa Ricaand Panama. However, the adven-turers were plagued with badluck. Two of the ships were aban-doned as unseaworthy. The crewswere twice caught in violentstorms while at sea, includingwhat is believed to have been ahurricane, and were eventuallybeached as castaways on the coastof Jamaica. Men were sent to His-

paniola to get help, whichwas over 400 miles ofopen sea. While waitingfor the rescuers to come,Columbus predicted alunar eclipse with the helpof astronomical tables,and frightened theNatives into helping themwith food.

Help did not arrive forseveral months and it waslate 1504 when Columbusfinally returned to Spainas a disappointed andbroken man. He cameback to learn that hisgreatest supporter, QueenIsabella, was dying. Inaddition, evidence thatColumbus had not, infact, reached Asia wasmounting. Although arich man from his suc-cesses in the New World,Columbus felt he wasshortchanged and spentpart of his remaining timetrying to get an audiencewith Ferdinand ofAragon.

Columbus died on 6May 1506, convinced thatwhat he had discovered

was a route to Asia. Today, it is well known that

Columbus was not the first Euro-pean to reach the Americas. How-ever, these earlier Europeans hadfailed to maintain links to the NewWorld. After Columbus’ first voy-age, the European powers beganto take notice of what lay to thewest, beginning a new chapter inhistory.

The Last Voyage of Columbus

A posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus.


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1500-15091506:

Christopher Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain.

Claude, heiress of Brittany, isbetrothed to Francis of Angoulême,the future Francis I of France. Themarriage permanently unites Brit-

tany and France.

Philip, the 28-year-old husband ofQueen Juana of Castile, dies sudden-

ly. The already-unbalanced Juanaloses her mind in her grief and

refuses to be parted from his body.

The first Swiss Guards arrive at theVatican, at the suggestion of a Swissbishop. The Swiss-born mercenary

soldiers are under the direct controlof the Pope.

The island group of Tristan daCunha is discovered by the Por-

tuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha.The islands remain uninhabited for

the next three centuries.

The sweating sickness breaks out inEngland, though the continent is not

affected. Though it usually had ahigh mortality rate, this is the only

known mild outbreak of the disease.

Work on the Basilica of St. Peter inRome begins under the direction of

Donato Bramante.

1507:Margaret of Austria, aunt of the

future Holy Roman Emperor,Charles V, is appointed regent of the

Netherlands on his behalf.

Martin Waldseemüller names theAmericas after Amerigo Vespucci in

his world map.

1508:Juan Ponce de León conquers mod-ern-day Puerto Rico, which is used

as a base for expeditions in search ofthe fabled fountain of youth.

The League of Cambrai is founded.The League consists of Pope Julius II,Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I,

Ferdinand II of Aragon and Louis XIIof France claiming to be against theTurks. The League was, in reality,

against the Republic of Venice.

1509:Diego Columbus, son of the famousexplorer, arrives in Santo Domingo(present-day Haiti and DominicanRepublic) as royal governor of the

West Indies.

Henry VII of England dies. He is succeeded by his son, Henry. The newking marries Catherine of Aragon, the

widow of his elder brother.

The French are victorious overVenice at Agnadello.

The Invention ofthe Watch

IN THE EARLY YEARS of the 16th cen-tury, a German locksmith fromNuremberg named Peter Henlein(or Hele) invented a portable time-keeping device, which is consid-ered the first watch.

Very little is known of Hen-lein, who died sometime in 1542.Like many locksmiths, Henleindabbled in other fields and he tookcare of the local clocks of churchesand the town hall. Apparently, in1504, after being involved in a vio-lent scuffle that ended a man’s life,Henlein fled to a Franciscanmonastery for protection. Hestayed for several years and it isbelieved heinvented a portabletimepiece whilethere.

Various sourcesgive different datesfor the invention, allwithin the earlyyears of the 16thcentury. However, awork from 1511,called the Cosmo-graphia PomponiiMelae states the fol-lowing: “Every daynow they invent more subtlethings: Peter Hele (Henlein) ofyouthful age, executes works thatraise the admiration of mathemati-cians, viz., he makes watches fromiron with many wheels, that, how-ever, they are worn, in the stom-acher or in the purse will showand strike the hour during fortyhours.”

Henlein used a spring to drivethe portable timepieces. The use ofa spring allowed the timepiece tobe smaller than traditional clocksand thus portable. As the tightlywound spring relaxed, it drove thetimekeeping mechanism. How-ever, because the force exerted bythe spring decreased as it uncoiled,the timekeeping was irregular.

Prior to this, timepieces werestationary. Mechanical clocks wereweight-driven and difficult, if not

impossible, to move; sundialsneeded to be in the same place orthe readings were inaccurate.Water clocks were also difficult tomove, notched candles wereexpensive and inaccurate. Thenecks of hourglasses became wornafter repeated uses, allowing sandto flow more quickly and distort-ing time telling.

Despite the drawbacks of theearly portable watches, they wereconsidered status symbols.

These timepieces, later nick-named “Nuremberg Eggs” due totheir shape, measured about fourto five inches in diameter and

about three inches indepth and could becarried about in thehand.

These early time-keeping deviceswere made of iron orsteel, but laterwatches were madeof brass and steeland these timepieceschimed the hour.They also lacked aminute hand, whichwas not invented

until the late 17th century, and alsodid not have a glass face, alsointroduced in the 17th century.

Watches became more popularas they became more reliable inkeeping time. The invention of thefusee in the mid-16th centurymade spring-driven time devicesmore accurate. The fusee is a cone-shaped grooved pulley that com-pensates for the lessening of theforce of the spring, delivering con-stant pressure. Portable timekeep-ing devices also became necessaryin the age of navigation, as theywere needed for determining lon-gitude at sea.

It has recently been reportedthat the sale of watches hasdecreased as people are now relying on their cellular phones,Blackberries, iPods and com-puters to tell the time. HM

What is believed to be a PeterHenlein watch from 1505.

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IT WAS A CLOUDY June morning in1933 as 17 young women, 20 to 35years of age, boarded a bus inNew York City. None of themknew what to expect at the end oftheir journey and, for most, it wastheir first trip into the country.Each woman, victimizedby the Great Depression,had been determined bythe government to beappropriately destitute,single and unemployed toqualify for a camp vaca-tion at the taxpayer’sexpense. In fact, thisgroup, consisting ofunemployed stenogra-phers, clerks, saleswomen,seamstresses, factoryworkers and a dancer wasthe first to begin a NewDeal program for joblesswomen that wouldbecome confused in itsmission and mired in con-troversy, but would helpmore than 8,000 women in90 sites across the US from1933 to 1937.

So why in the midst ofthe Great Depression wereprecious resources spentto send unemployedwomen on vacation? Theanswer lies somewherebetween the agenda ofEleanor Roosevelt and theCivilian ConservationCorps (CCC).

The CCC was one ofthe most popular and suc-cessful New Deal pro-grams. Two and a halfmillion young men fromall over the Depression-ravaged US worked in stateforests doing conservation work.They lived in camps and earnedone dollar a day. PresidentFranklin Roosevelt especially cher-ished this project because it cham-pioned both his passion for rural

life and the philosophy of WilliamJames, who deemed this sort ofprogram as the “moral equiva-lency of war”. Although adminis-tered by the Army, the campswere not to be militaristic becausethe Administration did not want

any embarrassing semblance to“Hitler Youth”. The “tree armies”kept an emerging young malepopulation occupied and out ofthe job market. But, “what aboutthe women?” asked Eleanor Roo-sevelt.

Plight of Jobless WomenIndeed, shocking stories aboutwomen sleeping in subway tun-nels and “tramping” proliferatedin the early ‘30s. Two millionwomen across the country soughtjobs. Why weren’t women in the

soup lines? ActivistHelena Weed of theNational Women’s Partyanswered, “Men throngedthe bread lines whilewomen hid their plight.”

Minnesotan writer/feminist, Meridel LeSueur, reported thatwomen “will go for weeksverging on starvation,crawling in some hole,going through the streetsashamed, sitting inlibraries, parks going fordays without speaking toa living soul like someexiled beast.”

Hilda W. Smith, NewDeal Education Specialist,said, “People were hungryall over the country. Iknow, I went to see someof our students in NewYork, and they showedwhat they had for supper.They opened the oven,and they were cooking alittle puppy they hadpicked up on the street.”

The First Lady wasespecially aware of theplight of unemployedwomen in New York City.She initiated the “roomservice” program at theheadquarters of theWomen’s Trade UnionLeague (WTUL) where

jobless women went to get clothes,food and job information. Daysafter the inauguration she visitedthis program and several othercharity centers in New Yorkdesigned to help unemployedwomen. She called on the Salva-

SOCIAL PROGRAMS

The She-She-She Camps of theGreat Depression

Jane Kahramanidis looks at Eleanor Roosevelt’s attempts to keep the women of America busy during the Great Depression

Above: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wifeEleanor Roosevelt pose on a train caboose near Denver, Col-orado in this undated photograph. Below: Eleanor Roosevelt

addresses the women at a She-She-She Camp for unem-ployed women, Bear Mountain, State Park, New York 1933.


SHE SHE CAMPS HM.qxd 12/5/2007 1:36 PM Page 1

gram. Those in the Administrationsupportive of the programincluded: Harry Hopkins, FERADirector; Frances Perkins, Secre-tary of Labor and especially HildaW. Smith, who would officiallyjoin the New Deal Administrationas Specialist in Adult Education.

Smith started her new positionin September 1933 with instruc-tions from Hopkins to “do some-thing” for jobless women. Smithwas eminently qualified for thisjob as she had taught at BrynMawr College and established thefamous Bryn Mawr SummerSchool for Working Women in1921. Desirous of expandingthe experience to include moreeducational opportunities, andworkers’ education, Smithworked to develop a moredefined purpose to the campsapart from health and relax-ation. It would take severalmonths of tireless promotionalwork to activate the program.

In November 1933, Mrs.Roosevelt and Ellen Wood-ward, FERA Women’s Direc-tor, organized an all-dayconference with 100 womenfrom government andwomen’s organizations withthe mission of planning anational camp program tohelp unemployed women.Although the conference par-ticipants were unsure of fund-ing, they put together a planthat would utilize emptycamps, hotels, schools and anyother donated buildings andprovide vocational training,health education and recre-ation. Smith also wanted to teach“workers’ education”, a term thathad a strong communist associa-tion. She related years later, “Ihardly dared mention it because itwas so unpopular.”

However, the program failedto get off the ground. Smithaddressed the FERA field repre-sentatives in February 1934 andmet opposition. Participants com-plained there would be “seriousdiscipline problems if womenwere brought together to live.”Smith then published a pamphlet,“The Woman with the Worn outShoes”, depicting the plight of the

jobless woman and recommendingcamps as a way to solve this prob-lem. Half of the FERA field repre-sentatives polled said they had nointerest or need for such a pro-gram in their states. It wasn’t untilApril 1934 after another confer-ence that the plan was finallyapproved.

Smith and Roosevelt held apress conference announcing theirprogram which was “intended toserve as social and educationallaboratories (from which) womenwill go forth to cope more intelli-

gently and with renewed strengthand courage for their special prob-lems.” A few weeks later, 28camps in 26 states began opera-tion. The camps were to be run bythe participating states and feder-ally funded, however Smithwould not have authority overtheir management or curriculumofferings.

There were 90 camps scatteredacross the country by 1936. Eachreflected the different challengesand cultures indigenous to theirlocations and depended heavilyupon available local resources andtalent. There were stories of com-

munities cleaning old facilities anddonating bedding, clothes, foodand other necessities for thewomen. North Dakota Indianwomen left their reservation forthe first time to attend a campprogram. Barnard College in NewYork City hosted unemployedunion women. Oberlin Collegewelcomed clerical workers into itsSummer School for Office Work-ers. The YWCA in Philadelphiaprovided space for 40 women tolive and study. Black sharecropperwomen studied at an Arkansas

agricultural college. Unem-ployed professional women inNew Jersey attended a specialprogram. Rented houses pro-vided unemployed womeninstruction in housekeepingskills in Michigan and Ozarkwomen attended literacyclasses.

ControversyHowever controversies raged.In a meeting in the morning of2 July 1936, the AmericanLegion of Rockland Countyaccused Camp Tera of usingFederal funds to promotecommunism.

Camp Tera Director, Ber-nice Miller, denied the charge.“The campers were permittedthe completest freedom to sayand discuss what theypleased,” she said, “and singwhatever songs they wantedto.” Some, Miller admittedwere “of communist andsocialist persuasion.” How-ever most supported the cur-rent government.Specifically the complaints

were that the “Internationale” andother radical satires were sung,communist speeches were madeand controversial material read.Critics complained that “a gatehad been put up to keep visitorsout and the communist practicessecret.”

Embarrassing events plaguedthe program. There was a riot in aMontana mountain camp that tookseveral hours to subdue. Womenfrom Camp Tera “escaped” andwent to a men’s CCC campnearby. Harry Gersh, teacher atCamp Tera said, “It was a most


SOCIAL PROGRAMS

Above: “The Whole School — Students and Fac-ulty”, the Resident School for Unemployed Women

in Oberlin, Ohio. Below: Negro Camp for Unem-ployed Women in Atlanta, GA from July 1934.

(Images courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library).


tion Army’s Unemployed Girls’Hostel, where women could live,and the New York League of Girl’sClubs canteen service, which wassimilar to the WTUL’s. However,resources for these private chari-ties were strained.

Opening a Model CampMrs. Roosevelt wasted no timeafter her husband’s inaugurationthat March of 1933 activating heragenda. She enthusiastically sup-ported the CCC plan, and she andher feminist friends hoped toestablish something similar forwomen. But what exactly did theyhave in mind?

Mrs. Roosevelt had justfinished reading the popularbook Prohibiting Poverty byPrestonia Mann Martin,granddaughter of HoraceMann, who advocated autopian concept where thenation’s youth, men andwomen, would work for eightyears and produce the neces-sary products and services forthe rest of the population.This philosophy fit perfectlyinto her desire for utopianplanning and experimenta-tion. “It may be possible to tryout some of these ideas underthe emergency relief,” said theFirst Lady.

In an effort to be includedin the initial CCC funding thatMarch 1933, Hilda W. Smithquickly organized a meetingof the Women’s Trade UnionLeague. The women proposeda series of schools and campsto be set up for jobless womensimilar to the ones operated by theYWCA. The proposal requestedthat the camps be funded by fed-eral relief money and located onpublic property.

Most officials scorned the ideaand derisively called them the“She-She-She” camps. The idea ofhaving a camp opportunity forunemployed women would prob-ably have died except for therelentless pursuit of the First Lady.

She knew that the New YorkLife Insurance Company ownedan abandoned employee camp inBear Mountain State Park near herhome in Hyde Park, New York.

She asked the President for fundsto start a model camp there forunemployed women. FDR gavethe proposal to Harry Hopkins,Director of the Federal EmergencyRelief Administration (FERA),who in turn instructed New YorkState to fund the project with reliefmoney. Thus Camp Tera (Tempo-rary Emergency Relief Adminis-tration), later called Camp JaneAddams, began on 10 June 1933with those 17 young women fromNew York City. But what exactlywould the campers do? Wouldthey work? Take classes? Getpaid?

Red Tape and ConfusionAs Camp Tera Director, MarianTinker, showed the women andthe press around the 200-acre facil-ity that first day, she told themthat rest was to be the prioritywith other activities and classesadded later. The plan was to have20 girls arrive two times a weekuntil the capacity of 200 was met.However confusion and massivered tape prevailed.

Eleanor Roosevelt first visitedCamp Tera a few days after itopened, driving from Hyde Parkacross the Bear Mountain Bridge,and she was very disappointed tofind only 30 campers. “I like this

place very much, but I think therequirements too strict,” she said.Mrs. Roosevelt thought it unbe-lievable that it would be difficultto find 200 unemployed women inNew York City who could use thehelp. “If they do not get the quota,the camp idea will have to beabandoned,” she warned.

Suddenly on the hot seat, Wal-ter W. Petit, field representative ofthe State Relief Administrationexplained the slow process andthe method of choosing thewomen to go to the camp. “It is avery thorough investigation,” hesaid. As of June 20, 700 women

had applied. Petit said that thereason the camp filled soslowly was because of the“rigorousness of the qualifica-tions for eligibility.” The agewas raised to 40; however thestringent qualification processremained the same.

There were a lot of ques-tions as to the nature of thecamp. Some women thoughtthey would have to work atreforestation and wear uni-forms as the men did in theCCC. “Some of the girls in thecity were afraid to comebecause they thought theywould have to work too hardand get nothing to eat butmaybe some beans,”explained a stenographer.Others feared losing a chanceat a job. A few took one lookat the camp and climbed rightback on the bus to go home.

Despite the initial prob-lems, Camp Tera gained

nationwide media attention. Mailpoured into the White House fromall over the country with offers ofproperties for more camps, pleasfrom individuals to attend such aprogram and promises from gov-ernment officials to organizecamps if Camp Tera was success-ful.

Expanding the ProgramEncouraged by the outpouring ofsupport from people across thecountry and the reported positiveexperience of Camp Tera partici-pants, proponents of the She-She-She camps renewed their effortsthat fall of 1933 to expand the pro-


Above: Unemployed women campers in New Jerseyoff for dinner in the woods, August 1934. Below:

Camp for Unemployed Women in Maine, from July1934. (Images courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library).


unnatural environment for thesewomen… No one had thoughtthat sexual isolation would be aproblem.”

Another ongoing negativecondition regarding the campswas the fact that American citizensin the ‘30s objected to the use ofpublic resources to support indi-viduals, especially women.Besides, most felt, the role of awoman was in the home andit was wrong to entice her outinto the public and the workforce.

Camp ExperiencePauli Murray, who wouldlater become a lawyer, writer,black civil rights activist andEpiscopal priest, came toCamp Tera on the advice ofher doctor for three months atthe end of 1933 and beginningof 1934. Living on the edge ofpoverty had taken its toll onMurray and she had pleurisy.

Murray’s camp experiencewas cut short by her clashwith the camp’s director, MissMills. Murray described Direc-tor Mills as “a raw-boned,gray-haired, authoritarian person who had driven anambulance in World War I andattempted to run the camp onsemi military lines.” Murrayhad a copy of Das Capital inher trunk and when DirectorMills found it, she had toleave. However, this spiritedblack woman would laterbecome a close friend ofEleanor Roosevelt.

After the campers finishedtheir two- or three-month visitthey were asked to commenton their experience. Mostspoke effusively of how thecamps had helped them overcomenot only health problems, but feel-ings of hopelessness and loneli-ness. Others spoke of a new skillthey learned. However somecampers came with expectationsthat were not met. “I attendedwith the idea that the school,being a government school, wouldmean a lot in securing a job,” saidone camp participant. “The schoolwas a good idea but if you can’tget a job after you return home,

the government school can’t meanvery much.” In fact between 1934and 1935 only one fifth of thecampers got jobs and then mostlyin relief projects.

After returning to New YorkCity from Camp Tera, a group ofwomen joined the radical Work-ers’ Alliance. Sarah Rosenberg,spokeswoman for the organizationand critic of the benefit of the She-

She-She camps said, “More thanone girl says there is nothing leftexcept suicide or tramping on theroads.”

The Camps CloseOn 16 August 1937 the New YorkTimes reported that the women’scamps would close on 1 October1937. The National Youth Admin-istration, then in charge of the pro-gram, criticized the objectives andnecessity of the camps and

decided it was too expensive. Asthe crisis of hunger and sheltereased, the camp program forwomen could not be justified andit ended.

Mrs. Roosevelt was neverhappy with either the women’s ormen’s camps. She objected to themilitary aspect of the CCC andthought women should have aparallel experience. She and her

feminist friends shared loftygoals for the camp programand it confused the states. Hervision was a two-year pro-gram for young men andwomen devoted to domesticprojects such as conservation,health care, education and set-tlement houses. At the end of1933 she said, “There is noth-ing more exciting than build-ing a new social order.”

Despite the controversiesrelated to communist influ-ence, the extravagance offunding camp vacations, theconfused mission and variousembarrassing skirmishes, theShe-She-She camps of theGreat Depression did con-tribute to the well being ofthousands of young women.The friendships and direction

as well as healthful living, forhowever brief a time, provided awelcome lift for these women.Also, perhaps most importantly,and in the words of a camper:

“It seemed like someone didhave an interest in whether welived or starved and was trying tohelp.”

Top: “The Swimming Pool” at aCamp for Unemployed Womenin New Jersey (July 1934). Middle: Camp for UnemployedWomen in Minnesota (July1934). Bottom: Camp for Unem-ployed Women in New Hamp-shire: “Robin Hood” (June 1934). (Images courtesy of the Franklin D. RooseveltLibrary).

HM


SOCIAL PROGRAMS


THE 10 HORSES STRAINED againsttheir massive burden as thewooden crate rumbled its ponder-ous way toward the docks. A bois-terous crowd followed under thewatchful eyes of the constables.Under the great weight, thewheels smoked and shot sparks,requiring frequent stops as waterwas poured over the axles.Through a gap in the front ofthe crate, a gray trunk wavedgently. Jumbo was leavingLondon.

In 1865, Abraham Bartlett,Superintendent of the LondonZoological Gardens atRegent’s Park — the original“zoo” — arranged anexchange with Paris’ Jardindes Plantes. Paris got a rhinoc-eros and London got a smallbull African elephant, perhapsfour years old. Bartlett namedhis new acquisition Jumbo,possibly from the Zulu jumba(a large package) or theSwahili jambo (hello) or jumbe(chief).

Bartlett selected MatthewScott, a man with no previousexperience handling ele-phants, as the elephant’skeeper. Pachyderm andkeeper became very close andScott soon developed a propri-etary and protective attitudetowards his charge.

Improved public transportbrought growing crowds toRegent’s Park and it became fash-ionable on fine days in the late1800s to walk in the Zoo. Thelargest elephant then in captivity,Jumbo became a favorite with visi-tors who grew accustomed to see-ing him lumbering through thepark, a handful of grinning pas-sengers on his back. This was adecided novelty: previous ridingelephants had all been of thesmaller, more tractable Indianvariety. It was widely believedthat African elephants could notbe trained, but to Bartlett, the gen-tle Jumbo proved otherwise.

“There is no elephant like him inEurope,” wrote The Spectator,“and, we imagine, very fewindeed like him anywhere.”

So it remained for almost 15years until, in 1880, Jumbo beganshowing signs of restlessness. Heflew into periodic rages andsmashed the doors and walls of

his enclosure, punching holes inthe metal plates of its walls andbreaking off both his tusks. WhenScott, the only one who couldapproach him during theseepisodes, took him walking in thepark, he became placid again.Bartlett became increasingly con-cerned. He could not confineJumbo permanently and he fearedan outburst that would threatenpark visitors. Preparing for theunthinkable, he quietly petitionedthe Zoo’s Council to purchase anelephant gun.

The answer to Bartlett’s night-mares arrived in the form of thegreat American showman, P.T.Barnum. Constantly seeking newnovelties for his famous circus,Barnum learned in 1881 that

Jumbo was a powerful magnet forthe public, but a serious problemfor his owners. In January 1882,The Times announced that Jumbowould be sold for £2,000 to Bar-num, who would be responsiblefor shipping him to America. Bar-num also offered Scott a lucrativeposition as Jumbo’s keeper.

There was no immediate pub-lic reaction to the sale. Indeed, ifBarnum’s men had successfullydelivered Jumbo for his scheduledsailing to America on February 19,we may have heard little more ofhim. It was not to be.

Jumbo, it appeared, did notwant to leave. He refused to enterthe heavy wheeled shipping cratethat Barnum’s men brought to theZoo. Scott then attempted to leadhim through the streets to thedocks, hoping he would enter thecrate there. Emerging from the Zoogates in front of a large crowd, thegreat beast abruptly knelt downand refused to go farther.

That week a letter appeared inThe Times expressing “disgust” atthe sale and at “the pathetic and

ANIMALS

Jumbo the ElephantDoug Elliott follows the trail of the world’s most famous pachyderm

Jumbo the elephant at the London Zoological Gardens at Regent’s Park, c.1880. Jumbowas said to be 13 feet (four meters) tall when he died.


JUMBO HM.qxd 12/5/2007 1:51 PM Page 1

almost human distress of the pooranimal at the attempted separationof him from his home and his fam-ily.” A torrent of similar corre-spondence to the press and to theZoo itself followed. Some Fellowsof the Zoological Society evensued the Society itself to prevent itfrom disposing of the animal, butthe motion failed in court. Scoresof letters, many from children,arrived at Barnum’s door, plead-ing him to cancel the deal in theinterest of Jumbo’s welfare. Bar-num declined to comment, butpublished several of the letters,thriving on thepublicity. WhenJumbo had knelton the street bythe Zoo gates,Barnum had glee-fully wired hismen, “Let him liethere a week if hewants to. It is thebest advertise-ment in theworld.”

The ends wereremoved from thecrate and it wasset into a trench atthe entrance toJumbo’s enclosure,forming a tunnelbetween the enclo-sure and the Park.He happilywalked through this tunnel everyday for more than a week. On themorning of March 22, Scott haltedJumbo inside the tunnel and car-penters closed the ends, leavinggaps in front for Jumbo to see andto extend his trunk. Crowds joinedthe journey the following day asthe horse-drawn crate rumbled itsway, wheels smoking, to St.Katharine Dock. Three days later,Jumbo, secure in the hold of theAssyrian Monarch, left England forhis new life in America. Jumboma-nia faded in England, but in Amer-ica, the excitement was onlybeginning.

On April 10, the ship was metby Barnum and the press in NewYork’s North River. Jumbo hadweathered the journey “fine assilk”, the captain reported. Thecrate was pulled by 16 horses and

two of Barnum’s circus elephantsto Madison Square Garden, homeof the circus’s New York show.

Joining Barnum, Bailey &Hutchinson’s “Greatest Show onEarth”, Jumbo received prominentbilling as the “Towering Monarchof His Mighty Race”. He led thegrand parade of almost 30 ele-phants and after the show, he gaverides to children. His debutboosted attendance at the circusand spawned a flood of Jumbosouvenirs.

Barnum fanned the publicityby leaving Jumbo’s actual height

and weight a mystery. When theanimal had left London, he wasnearly 11 feet tall and weighed sixtons. Barnum claimed that he hadcontinued to grow in America butrefused to let anyone weigh ormeasure him.

At the end of the run in eachcity, the circus was packed up andloaded onto railway trains, nearly100 cars, including Jumbo’s owncustom-made Palace Car, for thetrip to the next city. Scottremained close at all times, livingin quarters in Jumbo’s car. On therare occasions that Scott wasabsent, Jumbo fussed and pinedfor his keeper.

On 15 September 1885, the circus was playing St. Thomas inwestern Ontario. At the end of theperformance, the elephants wereled through the railway yards to

their respective cars. Their pathfollowed along an unused trackbetween the circus train and asteep slope down to the adjoiningfield. Suddenly, a freight trainappeared, bearing down on themon the very track on which theywere walking. Trapped betweenthe embankment and the circustrain, Scott hurried Jumbo alongthe track away from the onrushingtrain. The freight engineerslammed his engine into reversebut it was too late. The locomotiveknocked Jumbo over and derailed.Scott rushed to the prone form of

his old compan-ion. Jumbo’s trunkgrasped his hand.A few minuteslater, Jumbo died.Scott was incon-solable.

Barnum hadplanned for theinevitable. Twomen arrivedshortly to retrievethe skin andskeleton forpreservation. Bar-num toured theskeleton and taxi-dermied skin withthe circus for twoyears. In 1889, hegave the stuffedskin to Tufts Col-lege in Medford,

Massachusetts, where it became aschool mascot until it was lost in afire in 1975. He donated the skele-ton to the American Museum ofNatural History in New York. Cornell University boughtJumbo’s heart.

The great elephant’s name isnow part of our lexicon. Jumbo, theadjective meaning large, is appliedto a wide variety of objects fromshrimps to airliners. As a noun, ithas come to mean elephant andcarries a mythic association withregal grace and gentleness. Jumbo’sstory has been retold in books, aBroadway musical and a film. Thetown of St. Thomas, 100 years afterthe tragic event that raised itbriefly to the world’s attention, feltthe need to commemorate Jumbo’smemory by dedicating a full-sized statue.

Workers stand around Jumbo’s body following the elephant’s tragic death in St. Thomas, Ontario on 15 September 1885.

HM


ANIMALS

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LYMAN CUTLAR HAD A problemwith a neighbor’s pig rooting inhis vegetable garden. Cutlar com-plained to the neighbor, but onemorning, the pig was there again.Cutlar grabbed his shotgun, killedthe pig — and nearly started awar between the United Statesand Britain.

The year was 1859, and Cutlar,a US citizen, was on San JuanIsland, one of a group of islandssitting between what is now themainland US and Canada’s Van-couver Island. The pig — actuallya “Berkshire boar” — was theproperty of the Hudson’s BayCompany, whose agent on theisland, Charles Griffin, had estab-lished Belle Vue Farm there in1853. Unfortunately for Cutlar, hisact would ignite tempers in analready long-simmering conflictbetween the US and the British. Itwould also lead to what wouldeventually be called the “PigWar”.

The Disputed “Oregon Country”In the early 1800s, the Pacific coastof North America was in dispute,with both the British and the USamong those claiming the “Ore-gon Country”. This vast, resource-rich area included all ofpresent-day Washington, Oregonand Idaho and parts of Montanaand Wyoming, as well as much ofthe current Canadian province ofBritish Columbia. Despite thepresence of indigenous NativeAmericans, the US and the Britishclaimed the region based upontheir “discovery” of it.

Fur trading was a major com-mercial venture in the area and, in1812, the Hudson’s Bay Companyhad established a foothold by tak-ing over a significant fur tradingpost in what is now NorthwestOregon. Two years later, in theTreaty of Ghent, some boundarieswere set between the two coun-

tries, but the “Oregon Country”was not addressed.

Negotiations continued, withno result. The British did not wantto lose the lucrative fur trade routeof the Columbia River, in thesouthern part of what is nowWashington State. The US, how-ever, wanted to secure the impor-tant port of Seattle, well north ofthe Columbia, because the ports ofwhat later became California were

not yet in American hands.With matters at a standstill,

both sides agreed to jointly occupythe region for 10 years. This timepassed and joint occupation con-tinued. In the meantime, by the1840s, American settlers weresteadily pouring into the areaalong the Oregon Trail. Some inthe US became interested in activeconfrontation, including PresidentJames K. Polk, who declared in hisinaugural address on 4 March1845, that the US claim to “the

country of the Oregon” was “clearand unquestionable”.

Soon the belief in a “manifestdestiny” to the entire continenthad begun to grip the minds ofmany in the US and some beganto call for war on the border issue.In 1846, the US Congress passedresolutions urging peaceful resolu-tion, and negotiations were hastilybegun. By June of that year, the“Treaty of Oregon” was ratified.

Through the Middle of “SaidChannel” and into Further ConflictIn the treaty, the British living nearthe Columbia River were givennavigation rights, and the borderwas set in North America west ofthe Rockies, in general, at the 49thparallel. There was one majorproblem, however. The treaty setthe boundary in the Pacific North-west region “along the forty-ninthparallel of north latitude to themiddle of the channel which sepa-

Kathryn Russell Selk looks at the pig that sparked an international incident

The Boar War: Much Ado About a Pig

Former British Camp, now part of San JuanIsland, a National Historic Park, showing theblockhouse and a little of the garden.

“CONFLICT”


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rates the continent from Vancou-ver’s Island, and thence southerlythrough the middle of the saidchannel, and of Juan de Fuca’sStraights, to the Pacific Ocean.”

But there was not one suchchannel — there were several. Oneof them (now known as RosarioStrait) divides the mainland ofwhat is now Washington Statefrom nearly all the islands in thechain. Another channel runs to theeast of San Juan Island, dividingthe islands roughly down the mid-dle. The largest channel, HaroStrait, runs between San JuanIsland and Vancouver Island.

Whether through lack ofknowledge of the region’sgeography or out of a desire tosettle more pressing disputes,the drafters of the Treaty ofOregon left open a very largequestion. The British chose tointerpret the “channel” divid-ing the two countries as theone now known as RosarioStrait, thus giving them virtu-ally all the islands in the chain.The Americans, not surpris-ingly, chose Haro Strait, whichgave the US the bulk of theislands, including San Juan.

With the specter of contin-ued US settlement, the Gover-nor of the Crown Colony ofBritish Columbia and theCompany’s chief factor at FortVictoria, James Douglas,decided to take action. He hadthe Company set up a salmoncuring station on San JuanIsland in 1851 and, in 1853,ordered Griffin to establishBelle Vue Farm.

Soon after, an Americancustoms collector started com-ing to the farm to demand that theCompany pay customs duties onthe livestock there. The collector,Isaac Ebey, declared the animalsillegally “smuggled” into Ameri-can territory. Ebey also appointedan inspector to remain on theisland, and tensions increasedwhen the inspector was nearlyarrested by the British for thecrime of calling himself a custom-house officer on British soil.

Others then got into the act,including a sheriff of the newlyestablished Whatcom County,

which included San Juan Island atthe time. When his efforts to col-lect “county” taxes were rebuffed,the sheriff paddled over to theisland with a group of bidders. Herounded up a bunch of the Com-pany’s livestock, sold them in auc-tion on the beach after midnight,and managed to herd about half ofthem into tiny boats while bran-dishing guns at the frustratedGriffin, who had arrived too late.The US Secretary of State, alarmedat the hi-jinks, warned the territor-ial governor in the area that such

confrontations with the Britishwere to be halted immediately,pending resolution of the bound-ary dispute.

A boundary commission wasunable, however, to come to anyconclusion. In the meantime, set-tlers, seen as squatters by Griffinand Douglas, were continuing toland on the island. One of themwas Cutlar.

A Pig of Very Great PriceAfter shooting the pig, Cutlarwent to Griffin and offered to

replace it. Things deterioratedquickly, however, when Griffinstarted demanding the then-hugesum of $100. According to Cutlar,Griffin also threatened to arresthim and take him to Victoria fortrial if he refused to pay.

Cutlar and the other Americansettlers then threw a defiantFourth of July party on the island,running a US flag up a pole. Itwas still flying a few days later,when it was seen by US GeneralWilliam S. Harney while visitingoutposts in the territory aboard

the USS Massachusetts. Curi-ous, Harney landed andquickly became enraged at thestories the settlers told.

Harney, well-known for hisanti-British sentiments, had thesettlers write up a list of theircomplaints. He then orderedCaptain George Pickett and his9th infantry to the island, inorder to protect American citi-zens on what he deemed wasUS soil. A letter Harney wroteat the time reported the claimthat Douglas’ son-in-law hadarrived at the island in a sloop-of-war and threatened to takeCutlar forcibly to Victoria tostand trial.

Escalation Towards WarOn 30 July 1859, four daysafter Pickett landed and about45 days after the pig was shot,Griffin sent a demand. He toldPickett the land the Americanswere on “is the property andin the occupation of the Hud-son’s Bay Company”. Pickettresponded that he did not“acknowledge the right of theHudson’s Bay Company to

dictate my course of action” onwhat he deemed American soil.

By then, Douglas had ordereda 30-gun British frigate to theisland, under the command ofCaptain Geoffrey Hornby. Fearingimminent attack, Pickett beggedColonel Silas Casey at FortBellingham to send help. In themeantime, Hornby had also calledfor help, as it had become clear hewould need more than one ship tocarry out his orders of preventingPickett from building fortificationsor landing more US troops.

Auction notice for buildings from both British and American camps. The buildings were sold

off after the Pig War ended.

“CONFLICT”


By August 3, two more armed British ships hadarrived. At meetings with the British, Pickett refusedto leave, threatening to fight any British troops thatlanded. Douglas had already ordered Hornby to makethe occupation “at least... a joint one.”

For some reason, Hornby kept his troops offshore.There they stayed while both the Massachusetts andCasey arrived. By about August 12, Casey estimated,the British forces had increased to 1,940 men, 167 gunsand five warships.

On August 13, Douglas wrote Harney, declaringthe continued American presence on the island a“marked discourtesy to a friendly government”, “cal-culated to provoke a collision between the militaryforces of two friendly nations”. But Harney would notback down. Instead, the US forces began to build afortification, called a “redoubt”, and gathered sup-plies, including guns, preparing for the worst.

Cooler Heads PrevailIn the beginning of September, Washington DC finallybecame aware of what was going on. An alarmedPresident James Buchanan hastily dispatched Lieu-tenant General Winfield Scott to sort things out. Scottproposed joint occupation while the boundary disputewas resolved. The British eventually agreed. ByNovember, the dispute was mostly over. Within a fewmonths, the British and Americans would set up sepa-rate camps on opposite sides of the island.

It would be 12 years before the boundary disputewould be resolved. After an agreed arbitration in frontof a commission appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm I ofGermany, the US interpretation of the treaty won. The“Pig War” had ended with only one casualty — thepig.


Map showing the disputed boundaries between the Americans and the British.

HM


WAX HAS BEEN crafted as long asbees have been kept, but it wasonly after 1867, with the arrival ofthe first commercially producedparaffin, that the wide world ofwax products opened up to theaverage person.

Because natural wax —whether from bees, whales orplants — is malleable, easy to colorand lifelike, for millennia it was afavorite medium among the well-to-do. Ancient Egyptians, for exam-ple, created encaustic paintings,paintings made by fusing hot, pig-mented wax onto wood with hotirons, or in some cases cartonnagepanels, which were inserted intothe mummies of the deceased.

Wax became even more desir-able in the 18th century as itbecame more readily available.Still, it was an expensive and frag-ile medium, so only professionalsand wealthy amateurs workedwith wax — and it was only thewealthy who could afford wax creations.

Many of these creations werewax portraits, often, but notalways, miniatures. They might beof royalty or relatives or, in theUS, of patriots like George andMartha Washington (see title back-ground). Some portraits wereexceptionally realistic, even wear-ing seed pearl jewelry, and theircream color contrasted with theblack velvet background of theirshadow box frames.

Even in America,rich young women

were sent to specialschools to learnwax portrait mak-ing. However,these girls posedno threat to maleprofessionals.

For instance, the same men whomade wax church figures werealso privately commissioned tomake wax dolls.

Other uses for wax were quitepractical. Cadavers for medicalschools were in such short supplythat wax models of human limbsand organs were much sought

after. One highly regardedanatomical artisan, Dr. PhilippeCurtius, expanded his art to com-plete, life-sized figures. His niece,Marie, who was also his appren-tice, immigrated to London in1802, and later opened MadameTussaud’s wax museum in 1835.

Once paraffin, a by-product ofthe new petroleum industry, wasfound to be stronger, more abun-dant and, therefore, more afford-able than natural wax, theprofessional monopoly was bro-ken. In only five years, paraffinfound its way into the “parlor” artsenjoyed by Victorian ladies.

Professionals with a survivalinstinct turned into teachers, sup-

pliers and authors. Quite a few ofthe new professionals werewomen, the best known beingEmma Peachey. Appointed the first“Artiste in Wax Flowers to HerMajesty” by Queen Victoria,Peachey made wax hair ornamentsfor court balls, which survived theheat better than natural blossoms.For the Queen’s wedding crown,Peachey crafted a headpiece com-posed of wax orange blossoms.Real orange blossoms soon becameso popular — and expensive — forweddings that an entire waxorange blossom industry emergedin western France.

At the 1851 Great Exhibition inLondon, an entire section wasdevoted to wax flowers. Peacheyhad a display space separate fromthe many other wax artists, proba-bly because of her royal connec-tions. Peachey’s work wasoutshined by a Mrs. Strickland’swax model of the Victoria Regiawater lily, which showed everystage in the development of thisalso royally linked bloom.

The public immediately tookwax flowers to its heart. Waxcamellias were all the rage in 1852,thanks to Alexandre Dumas’ hitplay, The Lady of the Camellias. All12 issues from 1856 of the Ameri-can magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book,contained directions for homemadewax fruits and flowers.

Part of this infatuation wasdue to the Victorianwoman’s passion forbotany. In someschools, wax flowermaking was taughtto girls as a sciencesubject. Realism wasthe goal, down to abrowning leaf or thebruise on a pear. In


Francine Kirsch follows the story of waxthrough the ages

ARTS AND CRAFTS

A sixth-century encaustic icon fromSaint Catherine’s Monastery, on

Mount Sinai.

Wax: The Fluid Medium

Image courtesy of D

onna Weaver, http://w

ww

.waxportraits.com

.

wax.qxd 12/5/2007 1:57 PM Page 1

the home, wax food was displayedalongside the real thing to fool theeye or, in dining rooms, to “pro-voke appetite”.

One all-wax creation boastedfruit, slices of layer cake, vegeta-bles, oyster shells and hard-boiledeggs cut open. Another was com-posed of watermelon slices, applesand peaches, cakes and strawberrypastry.

Men, too, took the scientificside of wax seriously. ScientificAmerican named Edmunds & Gillthe year’s best wax fruit makers inits November 1850 issue. English-men John and Horatio Mintornwere renowned in the 1870s fortheir wax models displayed in theBritish Museum and, later, forthose in New York’s AmericanMuseum of Natural History. Theywere also known for making waxmourning wreaths and publishedwax crafting handbooks.

Wax crafting produced a floodof how-to manuals, many of whichwent into second and third edi-tions. For example, the book WaxFlowers: How to Make Them, wasoriginally published in 1864, butwas re-issued as The Art of MakingFlowers in 1885. This second editionwas produced without the earliervolume’s extensive fruit-makingsection, which had covered moldmaking, casting and finishing. Thebook also instructed how to bleachwax at home, remove wax from adress and — like many manuals ofthe era — make wax flower vari-eties unfamiliar to us, such asheartsease and coreposis.

Other books gave directionsfor such arrangements as the nat-ural Easter cross or an Easter crossof flowers. Crosses were consid-ered the perfect form for wax craft-ing. An 1875 book detailed themaking of both marble andautumn leaf crosses. The 1888 Pop-ular Art Instructor told how to repli-cate icicles on an imitation granitecross by spooning melted wax over

its arms, then sprin-kling on “diamondpowder”. It alsoadvised arrangingwax violets, snow-drops and trailingarbutus around thecross’ base.

Because of the painstakingrealism required, a woman mightspend a decade assembling onebasket of flowers. The processbecame faster (and easier) whensheets of wax could be boughtinstead of made at home. Printedpatterns and metal cutters elimi-nated the need to pull apart realflowers for tracing. Molds forfruit, birds and animals could alsobe purchased, instead of being castfrom plaster by the artist.

For those with limited talent,waxed flowers were an alterna-tive. While wax dipping dimmedcolored flowers, it added luminos-ity to white ones. Many whitewaxed wedding bouquets orfuneral wreaths found their wayunder glass domes or into shadow

box frames around a photographof the bridal couple or a deceasedloved one.

Wax also had uses beyond thebotanical. British straw-plaitersmade wax figures to wear thebraided straw costumes theydesigned. Wax angels and cherubswere sold as Christmas tree decora-tions. Even after china and compo-sition dolls took over the market,some dolls wore a wax layer overtheir pottery base. Tiny wax babiesdecorated greeting cards celebrat-ing births and baptisms.

Possibly the most imposingwax figures were the display man-nequins, which “peopled” thewindows and selling floors of thenew department stores. The best“dummies” had real hair, glasseyes and amazingly lifelike skin.

Wax crayons, once made onlyin black for crate marking, becameavailable in a rainbow of colors in1903 by the Crayola Company.Waxed sewing thread wasstronger and easier to use — andthe wax that seamstresses pulledtheir thread through often came innovelty shapes.

In the 1920s, people used seal-ing wax not only for correspon-dence, but for modeling flowersand birds to adorn baskets, boxes,vases, lamps, lampshades andmirrors. This sealing wax decora-tion was a variation on the popu-lar gesso-based craft called barbolawork, in which objects would becrafted out of a thick paste andthen painted.

Dennison ManufacturingCompany, in particular, offeredsealing wax in many colors. In aDennison newsletter from the1930s, “paint” made by dissolvingwhite sealing wax in alcohol, wasapplied to a picket fence-like win-dow box. Another article told howthe Queen of Italy invited a Den-nison instructor from Rome toteach her sealing wax crafts. Thearticle was illustrated with aphotograph of the instructor’s cre-ation which had so pleased theQueen: A plate centered with abeautiful sealing wax bouquet.

Candy shops in the 1940s soldred wax lips and little wax bottlesfilled with sugary liquid. And, inthe 1950s, factory-made wax fruitfilled many a bowl on dining andcoffee tables, alongside sequinedand beaded varieties. While mostwax flowers were superceded byplastic ones, a 1950s crafts book(Joseph Leeming’s Fun with Artifi-cial Flowers) gave instructions forwaxing crepe paper flowers with acombination of beeswax andparaffin. The same volume toldhow to model wax flowers usingcandle wax colored with crayons.

Today, wax art isn’t as preva-lent, but many crafters are stillbrushing melted wax over collagesmade from the pages of artist’sbooks to createinteresting andunusual effects.

Image courtesy of the V&A Museum of Childhood.


HenryPierotti perfected thepoured waxmethod usedfor makingdolls’ headsin the 1800s.

HM

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Have you ever wonderedabout the story behind the tea bag? Or who invented the parking meter? Whatabout lipstick, the GreatMolasses Flood, the game ofMonopoly or Fig Newtons?

Now, thanks to HistoryMagazine’s Book of Trivia, youcan learn the incredible storiesbehind these topics anddozens more! This fascinatingbook has been specially written for History Magazineby author Phill Jones.

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The Discovery ofTutankhamun’s Tomb

Phill Jones documents one of archeology’s most famous discoveries

ARCHEOLOGY

ON 4 NOVEMBER 1922, a young,restless water boy made history atan excavation in Egypt’s Valley ofthe Kings. Imitating his elders, hedug into the hot sand. Soon, he hita hard surface — a stone step. Theboy ran across the site and toldHoward Carter about his finding.By the end of the day, workersuncovered a stone stairway thatled to an ancient tomb.

Carter sent a telegram to Eng-land.

“At last have made wonderfuldiscovery in Valley,” he told hisbenefactor, Lord Carnarvon, “amagnificent tomb with sealsintact; re-covered same for yourarrival; congratulations.”

Before long, Carter wouldlearn that the tomb held one of thegreatest archeological discoveriesof the time: the final resting placeof King Tutankhamun.

The Boy KingAmenhotep III, who might havebeen Tutankhamun’s father orgrandfather, became pharaoh atthe age of 12 and ruled for 38years. During this golden age ofthe 18th Dynasty, the Egyptianempire accumulated immensewealth, and excelled in literaryand artistic achievements.

As a ruler, the pharaoh’s son,Amenhotep IV, failed to measureup to his father. Amenhotep IVabandoned the god Amun and thepantheon of lesser Egyptian gods.Turning from the traditional gods,Amenhotep IV advocated devo-tion of the Aten, the solar disk.The new pharaoh changed hisname to Akhenaten, “servant ofthe Aten”, and he built a new cap-ital city christened Akhetaten,“horizon of the sun disk”,

which is modern Tel el-Amarna. Indoing so, the eccentric kingremoved power from the adminis-trative headquarters in the city ofMemphis and religious center inthe city of Thebes.

Smenkhkare succeededAkhenaten. He ruled for a brieftime and quietly left.

Around 1343BC, a boy of about10 years, Tutankhaten, ascended tothe throne and assumed control ofthe Egyptian superpower.Although his name meant “livingimage of the Aten”, the boy kingrestored the old ways by reinstat-ing the traditional pantheon ofgods and reopening their temples.Tutankhaten also reestablishedMemphis and Thebes as seats ofpower. To honor the god Amun,Tutankhaten and Ankhesenpaaten,his chief queen, changed theirnames to Tutankhamun andAnkhsenamun.

Tutankhamun’s relativelypeaceful nine-year reign endedwith his untimely death. Manyconspiracy theories evolved toexplain how the boy king died.

Howard Carter delicately works onKing Tut’s funerary mask.

History Magazine History Magazine • • FebrFebruary/Maruary/March 2008 ch 2008 2525

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Despite a lack of evidence of mur-der, two of the pharaoh’s advisorshave figured in assassination theo-ries: Aye, who might have beenAnkhsenamun’s grandfather, andGeneral Horemheb, the comman-der-in-chief of the army.

The burial ritual of Tutankha-mun reflected the Egyptian beliefthat his ba and ka, the two parts ofthe king’s personality, separatedfrom the body. The ka, an individ-ual’s life force, needs food, drink,clothing and other earthly require-ments to function in the afterlife.The ba, the soul or personality,could leave the tomb and travelaround the earth during daylight.A correctly mummified body andproperly executed funerary riteswould enable the ba and ka to bereunited, allowing the deceased tobecome an akh, an eternal spirit.

An elaborate embalmingprocess preserved the body so thatthe ba could return to the mummyat night and ensure its continuedlife. Embalmers removed the lungs,liver, stomach and intestines, driedthe organs in salts, anointed themwith oils, wrapped the organs andplaced them in solid gold minia-ture coffins. Using a long metalhook, the embalmers removed thebrain through the nostrils.

They dried the corpse’s fleshwith natron, a mixture of salt andbaking soda. After applying resinsto soften the skin, embalmerswrapped Tutankhamun’s limbs inlinen bandages, while priestschanted spells and placed amuletsand jewelry between the layers ofcloth. They covered the body’s fin-gers and toes with golden cylin-ders and placed a golden funerarymask on his face.

Aye, Tutankhamun’s succes-sor, prepared a small set of roomsin an underground tomb near thefloor of the Valley of the Kings,located on the west bank of theNile and across from Thebes. Soonafter the burial, thieves broke intothe tomb, but were caught in theact. Officials resealed the vault. Intime, workers constructed a tombfor another pharaoh nearby. Theirhuts obscured Tutankhamun’sburial place. Over the years,floods erased any surface evidenceof the young king’s tomb.

Howard Carter Draws Near HisDestinyCarter was born on 9 May 1874.As a boy, he suffered from illhealth and lived with his aunts inSwaffham, Norfolk. Carter’s par-ents, who believed their son toodelicate to attend a private school,arranged for home education.Carter’s father was an artist whoworked for the Illustrated LondonNews and also specialized in ani-mal paintings. He taught Howarddrawing, and found that his son

had an aptitude for it.Howard Carter’s interest in

Egyptian antiquities and his artis-tic talent brought him to Egypt in1891. London’s Egypt ExplorationFund had hired Carter to help P.E.Newberry record drawings andinscriptions of tombs at Beni Has-san and el-Bersha. During the fol-lowing decade, Carter gainedarcheological experience at theexcavation of el-Amarna withFlinders Petrie and as a member ofan expedition at the temple ofHatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri.

In 1899, Carter accepted theposition of Inspector General ofMonuments for Upper Egypt, andcontrolled archeological work inthe Nile Valley. A fight betweendrunken French tourists andEgyptian guards ended Carter’sAntiquities Service career. Carterrefused to apologize for hisguards. He insisted that his menhad only defended themselves; itwas the tourists who should apol-ogize. Following a demotion to aminor post, Carter resigned fromthe Antiquities Service in 1905.

At the same time, GeorgeEdward Stanhope Molyneux Her-bert, Lord Carnarvon, touredEgypt to recover from a terribleautomobile accident. In 1908,Carnarvon decided to finance anarcheological exploration. Thegovernment required that suchwork must be supervised by anexperienced archeologist. Carter,who eked out a living as a com-mercial artist and tour guide, hap-pened to be available.

At first, Carter and Carnarvonfocused on Thebes. In 1912, theymoved their operation to the Deltawith modest result.

The Egyptian government —under British occupation —granted qualified archeologistspermission to excavate on ancientsites. The Antiquities Departmentallowed them to take out of thecountry half the antiquities thatthey found. The governmentexcluded the Valley of the Kingsfrom this rule, but did grant onelicense to explore the area.

Since 1902, Theodore M.Davis, a wealthy American, hadsecured the license to dig in theValley of the Kings. In 1906, Davis’


Above: The mummified head of King Tut. Below: The viscera coffin

of Tutankhamun.

ARCHEOLOGY


archeologists uncovered a blueglaze cup bearing the cartouche ofTutankhamun. During the nextyear, they found a rock-cut cham-ber that held numerous objectswith Tutankhamun’s name. Davisassumed that he had discoveredthe tomb of Tutankhamun.

Carnarvon had acquired oneof the most valuable private col-lections of Egyptian antiquities by1914. Nevertheless, when Davis,who believed that he had uncov-ered all major finds in the Valley,relinquished his license, Carter

convinced Carnarvon to obtain theconcession.

For years, Carter had gatheredscraps of information onTutankhamun and believed thatthe pharaoh’s tomb remained hid-den in the Valley of the Kings. Theoutbreak of WWI forced the twoto postpone their work.

In 1917, Carter and Carnarvonbegan their exploration of the Val-ley of the Kings. Carter decidedthat the only way to search forTutankhamun’s tomb would be toignore earlier excavations. Hefocused on a two-and-one-halfacre triangular plot of landdefined by the tombs of RamessesII, Merenptah and Ramesses VI.For the first time in the history ofEgyptian archeology, he wouldclear the surface down to thebedrock. To ensure that the workwould be systematic, Carterdevised a grid system based on

the step-by-step artillery barragesof the war. Carter’s plan requiredthe transport of hundreds of thou-sands of cubic meters of sand,rock chips and boulders, laborperformed by men and youngboys with picks, hoes and smallbaskets.

For five years, the workyielded little. In the summer of1922, Carnarvon told Carter thathe would no longer fund the expe-dition. Carter persuaded his bene-factor to continue for one moreseason.

Grave DiscoveryOn November 1, Carter continuedhis search in the Valley of theKings. After a water boy discov-ered a stone step on November 4,Carter and his workers spent theafternoon uncovering 12 steps of arock-cut stairway that descendedat a 45-degree angle into a smallhillock below the entrance to thetomb of Ramesses VI. At the levelof the 12th step, Carter found theupper portion of a door con-structed of large stones that hadbeen plastered. The doorway’ssurface bore the Royal Necropolisseal: Anubis over nine foes. Cartercould not find a royal name, buthe did notice that a corner hadbeen resealed, indicating that rob-bers had broken into the tombduring ancient times and thatsomething valuable remained.

Carter made a small peephole,inserted an electric light and

looked inside. A passage filledfrom floor to ceiling with stonesand rubble lay on the other side ofthe door, a sign that care had beentaken to protect the tomb. Heordered his workers to refill thestairway for protection and sent atelegram to Carnarvon in England.

Three weeks later, LordCarnarvon arrived with hisdaughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert.After clearing all 16 steps of thestairway, Carter found a sealimpression of Tutankhamun onthe lower part of the doorway.

When the workers cleared the rub-ble from the corridor, they found asecond plastered doorway, whichalso appeared to have been brokenand resealed in antiquity.

On November 26, Carter usedhis hands to dig a small breach inthe second doorway. He insertedan iron rod into the opening andfound empty space on the otherside. He then lit a candle to checkfor noxious gases. In his book, TheTomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen (1923),Carter recorded his impressions ofthe moment:

“At first I could see nothing,the hot air escaping from thechamber causing the candle flameto flicker, but presently, as my eyesgrew accustomed to the light,details of the room withinemerged slowly from the mist,strange animals, statues and gold— everywhere the glint of gold.For the moment — an eternity it


Left: Excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Right: Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn Herbert and Mr. Howard Carter at theentrance to the tomb; work at King Tut’s tomb continued until 1933.


must have seemed to the othersstanding by — I was struck dumbwith amazement, and when LordCarnarvon, unable to stand thesuspense any longer, inquired anx-iously, ‘Can you see anything?’ itwas all I could do to get out thewords, ‘Yes, wonderful things.’”

Carter and Carnarvon enteredthe room that they would namethe antechamber. Here, they foundthree large gilt couches with sidescarved in the form of animals, andtwo life-sized figures of a king inblack that faced each other likesentinels dressed in gold kilts andgold sandals, and armed withmace and staff. The room alsoheld painted and inlaid caskets,alabaster vases, black shrines,carved chairs, beds, a goldeninlaid throne and a heap of over-turned chariots that shimmeredwith gold and inlay. On the floor,Carter found a large bouquet offlowers with preserved petals andleaves.

Despite the hundreds of trea-sures it held, the antechamber mea-sured only 12 by 26 feet with aceiling seven-and-one-half feethigh. It did not contain a mummy.Through a plunderer’s hole in onewall, they found a ransacked roomthat they named the annex. Thecluttered chamber held oils, wine,food, carved thrones, an ivory-cov-ered, carved chest, detailedalabaster figures of animals and aboat, game tables, vases and othereveryday items that the pharaohcould take with him to the afterlife.

Between the antechamber’stwo sentinel statues, they foundanother sealed doorway. Did itlead to the burial chamber? Carterand his colleagues secured thesite, mounted their donkeys andreturned home, silent and sub-dued.

After notifying the AntiquitiesService, Carter assembled an inter-national team of experts to exam-ine the tomb and preserve itscontents in drawings and photo-graphs. They offered the first offi-cial press viewing ofTutankhamun’s tomb on Decem-ber 22. News of the richest collec-

tion of ancient Egyptian treasuresparked a frenzy in the media.Although it had been hastily ran-sacked, the tomb remained almostintact. For the first time, archeolo-gists could study all of apharaoh’s funerary equipmentthat offered insights into anancient culture.

Triumph Begins to UnravelTens of thousands of visitorsrushed to the Valley of the Kingsand interfered with the study ofthe site. Carter became frustratedand began to turn everyone awayfrom the tomb, including thosewho had official government per-mission.

By the end of February, thecontents of the antechamber hadbeen carefully removed for exami-nation. Carter made a hole in thedoorway between the sentinelsand inserted an electric torch. “An astonishing sight its lightrevealed,” Carter wrote, “for there,within a yard of the doorway,stretching as far as one could seeand blocking the entrance to thechamber, stood what to all appear-ance was a solid wall of gold.”

They removed stones from thedoorway, revealing the side of anine-foot-tall shrine. Within thisshrine, they found a secondshrine, built to cover a sarcopha-gus. They had entered the burialchamber.

The room contained objectsthat the king would need duringhis journey through the under-


ARCHEOLOGY

Left: The antechamber’s sealed door intact, and right, in the process of being uncovered.

Diagram showing the layout ofTutankhamun’s tomb.


AFTER HOWARD CARTER and histeam finished their examination,they replaced Tutankhamun’sremains in his coffin. Themummy rested undisturbed forabout 40 years.

In 1968, a group from theUniversity of Liverpool used x-rays to learn more about theyoung pharaoh. They foundbone fragments insideTutankhamun’s skull. Did politi-cal enemies bludgeon the youngpharaoh to death? X-raysrevealed that the mummylacked the sternum and somefrontal ribs. Had the pharaoh’schest been crushed in a chariotaccident? The spine displayedsigns of scoliosis.

Almost another 40 yearspassed before researchersapplied a new technology to theriddle of the boy king’s healthand death. In January 2005, sci-

entists removed Tutankhamun’smummy from the sarcophagus,and transported it to a nearbytrailer equipped with a mobilecomputerized tomography scan-ner. The machine scanned thebody in 0.62-millimeter slices,producing 1,700 three-dimen-sional images. An Egyptianteam of radiologists, patholo-gists and anatomists, as well asthree international experts,examined the scans.

The images revealed a well-nourished 19-year-old boy whostood about five-feet six-inchestall and had a slight build. Heappeared to have enjoyed goodhealth, or at least, avoided anydisease that would have left atrace on his remains. Theexperts decided that a misalign-ment during embalming hadproduced the spine’s curvature,not scoliosis. Tutankhamun had

a slightly cleft palate, an over-bite and an elongated skull.

The scan revealed the bonefragments uncovered by earlierx-rays. However, the expertsconcluded that embalmers orCarter’s group had inflicted thedamage. The pharaoh had notbeen murdered by a blow to thehead.

A break in Tutankhamun’sleft thighbone suggested a pos-sible cause of death. The scanrevealed a thin coating ofembalming resin around a bonebreak that showed no sign ofhealing. This suggested that thepharaoh broke his leg just beforehe died. A fatal infection couldhave set in.

The damaged chest still pre-sents a mystery. Did embalmersremove the breastbone and partof the front rib cage? That ques-tion remains unanswered.

CSI: EGYPT

world: seven oars to ferry himselfacross the waters of the under-world, lamps of translucent cal-cite, a silver trumpet and jars ofperfume and unguents. The wallsof the chamber were decoratedwith brightly painted scenes andinscriptions.

Further examination revealedthe entrance to yet another cham-ber: the treasury. A figure of thejackal god Anubis guarded theentrance to this chamber, whichcontained a monument, the centralportion of which consisted of alarge shrine-shaped chest overlaidwith gold. A statue of a goddessguarded the shrine on each of itsfour sides. The chest held jars ofpreserved organs. The treasuryalso held numerous black shrines,chests and caskets of ivory andwood.

In April, Lord Carnarvon diedunexpectedly. A cut mosquito bitebecame infected, and Carnarvon,who suffered poor health, per-ished from pneumonia. His deathmarked the beginning of a declinein Carter’s outlook of the excava-tion.

The Egyptian Antiquities Ser-vice, now unencumbered by a

British Protectorate, began to exertgreater control over the excavationsite. Carter bristled against thediminishing power over his find.

In February 1924, Carter con-ducted special guests into thetomb for a long-awaited event:examination of Tutankhamun’smummy. It was not a simple mat-ter. First, massive granite slabs ofthe sarcophagus lid had to bepried up, so that stones could berammed into the opening. Aftersecuring straps around the lid, thegranite slabs, weighing nearly twotons, were raised from the stonecoffin. When Carter shone a lightinto the sarcophagus, he saw anobject obscured by linen shrouds.He removed the linen wrapping toreveal a golden effigy of the boyking made of gilded wood anddecorated with thin gold plates,faience (tin-glazed earthenware)and semiprecious stones.

After they left the tomb,Carter asked Pierre Lacau, directorgeneral of the Antiquities Service,if the excavators’ wives could visitthe tomb before the press viewingon the following morning. Thenext day, Carter learned that theMinister of Public Works had

denied the request. Carterresponded to the calculated insultimpulsively. With the massivestones hanging over the youngpharaoh’s remains, Carter and theexcavators went on strike.

The Egyptian authoritiesaccused Carter of negligence.Carter demanded apologies fromthe government for the disrespectit showed him and his staff.Instead of an act of contrition, thegovernment required Carter andLady Carnarvon to sign a waiverstating that they would not makea claim on objects found in thetomb.

After a year of negotiation, theEgyptian government agreed topay Lady Carnarvon £36,000, theapproximate amount of Carnar-von’s expenses over the years.Carter received about £8,500 ofthis sum and was allowed toresume work on the excavation.

In January 1925, HowardCarter returned to the Valley. Heraised the lid of the gilded coffinthat he had seen a year before andfound a second coffin, this onecovered with fine linen shroudsand adorned with garlands offlowers. Carter rolled back the



shrouds to reveal yet another cof-fin, one fashioned of thick goldfoil inlaid with engraved glass thatsimulated red jasper, lapis andturquoise.

After they pried open the lidof the third coffin, Cartersaw Tutankhamun’smummy. A sticky, hard-ened, black resin coveredthe body and bound theking’s head to a life-sizedgold mask inlaid withblue glass simulatinglapis lazuli.

For four days, theteam unraveled bandagesand recorded each of theartifacts hidden withinthe wrappings. With theassistance of Dr. DouglasDerry, professor ofanatomy at the EgyptianUniversity, Carter slicedthrough 13 layers of stifflinen. By the time thatthey had finished, theyhad collected 143 pieces of jewelry,ornaments, amulets and imple-ments.

To examine the resin-coatedmummy, they cut off the head atthe neck and used hot knives topry the skull from the mask. Thenthey separated the pelvis from thetrunk and detached the arms andlegs. Two medical specialistsexamined the mummy and con-cluded that the king had diedbetween the ages of 18 and 22.

After the examination, theyreassembled the remains on alayer of sand in a wooden boxwith padding to conceal the dam-age and replaced the mummy inthe tomb.

The Tutankhamun excavationmarked Carter’s last. He died inEngland in 1939.

In his account of the firstexploration of the antechamber,Carter wrote that, “The day fol-lowing (November 26) was theday of days, the most wonderfulthat I have ever lived through, andcertainly one whose like I cannever hope to see again.”

This might seem like an oddstatement. According to his official

account, Carter had the opportu-nity to explore the burial chamberand treasury months later. WhatCarter failed to mention in his ver-sion of events is that he, Carnar-von and Evelyn had secretly

revisited the tomb. Afterbreaking through theantechamber, they riskedtheir license by exploringthe burial chamber andtreasury. Afterwards,they had disguised tracesof their adventure.

A report of their unau-thorized explorationemerged years afterCarter’s death. Yet Cartermight have hinted aboutthe excursion in his book.“I think we slept but lit-tle, all of us, that night,”he wrote.

Further Reading:• Carter, Howard andA.C. Mace, The Discovery

of the Tomb of Tutankhamen (NewYork: Dover Publications, 1977).• Hoving, Thomas, Tutankhamun:The Untold Story (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1978).• Smith, G. Elliot, Tutankhamen andthe Discovery of His Tomb (London:George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.,1923).

HM

IN JANUARY 1923, Carnarvon hadto minimize the press’ intrusionon excavation workers, and hehad to acquire additional fund-ing for the expensive project.Carnarvon solved both prob-lems by signing an exclusivecontract with the London Times.Reporters from other publica-tions resented the Times’ monop-oly on breaking news.

Lacking facts, excludedjournalists eagerly reported that,at the time of Carnarvon’suntimely death, Cairo’s lightsblacked out, while in England,Carnarvon’s dog, Susie, howledand dropped dead. The

mummy’s curse slew Carnar-von, newspapers informed theirreaders.

Journalists backed up thecurse story with reports of omi-nous hieroglyphs. One reporterinvented a curse written inhieroglyphics on the door of thesecond shrine: “They who enterthis sacred tomb shall swift bevisited by wings of death.”

In front of the Anubis shrineof Tutankhamun’s tomb, Carterhad found a wick lamp with asmall mud base bearing hiero-glyphics that read: “It is I whohinder the sand from chokingthe secret chamber. I am for the

protection of the deceased.” One correspondent embellishedCarter’s find by adding thewords, “and I will kill all thosewho cross this threshold into thesacred precincts of the RoyalKing who lives forever.”

Six of the 24 people presentat the official tomb opening haddied by 1934. No matter hownatural the circumstances, eachdeath rekindled stories aboutthe dreaded mummy’s curse.However, recent statisticalanalyses show that those pre-sent at the opening of the tombdid not experience a decreasedsurvival time.

THE MUMMY’S CURSE

Howard Carter and a worker examine King Tut’s sarcophagus.

ARCHEOLOGY



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Carryover FC.qxd 12/5/2007 2:08 PM Page 1


MATH

Zero — A Brief History of Nothing

In an article about “nothing”, Ed Haag explains why zero is such a big deal

FOUR MINUS FOUR may equal zerotoday, but in the days of ancientGreece and Rome the answer wasnot so simple. This is becausezero was not a concept includedin Greek or Roman counting sys-tems. Not even by the MiddleAges, in fact, had zero found ahome in the counting systems ofEurope. Why? Because zero hasan uncommon history. And itwould take centuries before zerowould finally ensconce itself com-fortably in the framework ofEuropean society.

Zero in Ancient SocietiesZero was discovered indepen-dently at least three times. Whenit was discovered, its solitarypurpose was as a place holder inplace value counting systems. Awritten record of its use in thismanner by the ancient Babyloni-ans in present-day Iraq around300BC is the first known.

Originally, the Babylonianshad no symbol for zero becausean empty space between numberswas considered sufficient demar-cation of a place holder. Butbecause blank spaces could beeasily overlooked or misinter-preted, the method proved unreli-able. The Babylonians respondedby coming up with the firstknown symbol for zero, two dif-ferent symbols in fact, althoughtheir use was infrequent.

The wedge shape of theBabylonian zero little resembledthe zero of today, but it success-fully accomplished its purpose asa placeholder and as a markerbetween two numbers to indicatean empty position. But as timepassed, and Babylonian culturedeclined, zero did too. And indoing so, began a pattern ofhibernation and emergence inhuman society that would proveto be zero’s trademark for a longtime to come.

The ancient Greeks had amore sophisticated number sys-tem than the Babylonians andtheir advancements in knowledgewere unprecedented. Despite this,the Greeks had no symbol forzero in their number system. Infact, zero had a tendency to cause

problems for the Greeks of liter-ally universal proportions.

Numbers were important tothe Greeks. To say that theGreeks worshiped numbers isnot, in fact, hyperbole. Their col-lective brilliance in both geome-try and philosophy can be traced

back to their passion for numbersand their relationships. Music,astronomy and society could allbe sensibly explained to theGreeks using numbers and num-ber relationships. Numbers werethe cornerstone of the Greek uni-verse. One Greek thinker,Pythagoras, even took to organiz-ing a cult around the worship ofnumbers. There was only oneproblem — the Greeks used onlyrational numbers (any numberthat can be written in the forma/b, such as ½, where a is anyinteger and b is any integerexcept zero). They would have tolearn by experience that num-bers, like the humans that createdthem, were not always rational.Men like Hippasus of Metapon-tum died, according to legend,before the Greeks admitted tocracks in their perfect rationalnumber universe. Hippasus wasexecuted by members of the cultof Pythagoras for revealing thesecret truth about irrational num-bers (numbers that cannot beexpressed as fractions, such aspi).

Although the next appearanceof zero anywhere post Babylonianwould take time, that time wascertain to arrive. It would, in fact,be centuries later, halfway acrossthe world, where zero wouldreprise its role as a place holder— in the intricate calendar systemof the Mayan culture of CentralAmerica, where it would survivefor hundreds of years. But, unfor-tunately, as Mayan culture crum-bled, so again did zero.

Zero in IndiaWhile the west had difficultywith zero, the east took to it withan almost instinctual sense. Thefact that Indian Hinduism is areligion that acknowledges, evenworships, a “void” concept,likely played no small role in

Above: The Babylonian symbolsfor zero. Below: Pythagoras,

shown seated, was a sixth-centuryBC philosopher and mathemati-

cian, who is often called the“father of numbers”.

Zero.qxd 12/5/2007 2:10 PM Page 1


zero’s acceptance there. Conse-quently, it’s no surprise thatzero’s first known appearance asthe symbol and number we knowtoday has been traced back toIndia in the ninth century AD. Itwas there that a tablet wasinscribed with directions for sup-plying garlands to a local temple.The instructions included thenumbers “50” and “270” andwere written almost exactly asthey are today.

From the moment it wasborn though, zero wouldbegin causing problems. Andone of the biggest of all forIndian mathematicianswould be how to evenapproach the concept ofdivision by zero. Regard-ing this, Bhaskara II, aleading Indian mathe-matician, writes, “Thisfraction is termed an infi-nite quantity… there isno alteration, thoughmany may be inserted orextracted; as no changetakes place in the infiniteand immutable god whenworlds are created ordestroyed, thoughnumerous orders ofbeings are absorbed orput forth.” It wasn’t thefirst time the divinewould be referenced indiscussing zero. Norwould it be the last.

Zero Catches OnAs India went intodecline, so did zero onceagain. But this time itwouldn’t be for long.From India, it went toChina and to Arab andIslamic cultures. It wouldbe Islamic culture, in fact,that would act as the cru-cial link between Indiaand Europe when it came to thetransmission of zero. Men, likethe Muslim mathematician andastronomer Al-Khwarizmi (fromwhose name comes the Englishwords algorithm and algebra),would continue to spread theidea of zero with brilliant mathe-matical treatises that elaboratedupon the Indian Hindu number

system and its properties. It wasthe Latin translation of Al-Khwarizmi’s Algoritmi de numeroIndorum (Concerning the HinduArt of Reckoning) in c.1200AD thatwould, more than any other sin-gle work of mathematics, help toraise Europe from the miasma ofthe Middle Ages.

Oddly enough, many of thereasons why zero failed to catchon in the west had to do withphilosophy and religion, ratherthan mathematics. Zero repre-sented nothing, the void, thegreat chaos from which all cre-ation sprang. It was a dark andfrightening concept in Churchtheology, just as it had been in

Greek philosophy. And its impli-cations were so terrifying to theintelligentsia of the time that itsdiscussion was taboo. Since muchof Church philosophy and cos-mology was derived from ancientGreek culture, the taboo mental-ity of many pre-Renaissancethinkers was the same as that oftheir Greek predecessors. Thephilosopher-mathematicians (asthey were frequently called sincephilosophy and math were often

intertwined in those days, aswere philosophy and science)of the day could not, or didnot, want to grasp the impli-cations of the existence ofnothingness or a void.

The Italian LeonardoPisano, also known asLeonardo Fibonacci, wasthe first European to rec-ognize zero for its poten-tial in the 13th century.And as trade and com-merce between Europe,the Middle East, Islamicand Arab countriesbecame increasingly com-mon, so would the conve-nient number system ofthe Arabs. The fullimpact of the numberzero in the Hindu-Arabicsystem would take twocenturies to really makean impression, but indoing so would have pro-found implications forEuropean society. And beone of the foundations ofthe Renaissance.

Zero and the ChurchThe Church toleratedmany Renaissance ideasat first, but it wasn’t longbefore it began fightingback. All the talk of zero,infinity and the void wasthreatening to undermine

the Church universe and, moreimportantly, it threatened toundermine God himself, or atleast their version of God. TheChurch reacted with a number ofmeasures meant to contain therising tide against their authority.The Spanish Inquisition wasinstigated, the Jesuit order wasinstituted, Galileo was ordered to

The Très Riches Heures were designed for the Duc de Berryin the early 15th century. January, shown here, lacks per-

spective as the figures in the foreground and in the distanceare out of proportion in relation to one another. Also, thetable and the wall behind the seated Duc de Berry do not

have the correct angles and perspective.

Zero.qxd 12/5/2007 2:10 PM Page 2

stop his scientificinvestigation andput under housearrest, and menwith controver-sial views, likeGiordano Bruno,were burned atthe stake.

As theChurch itselfwould eventuallydiscover how-ever, its objec-tions toRenaissance ideaswere in vain. Andit would have tolearn to reconcileits authority withthe revolution inthought that wasoccurring allaround it.

Zero and the RenaissanceThe impact of zero on Europewas immense. And the contribu-tions to the Renaissance directlyor indirectly attributable to zeroare many.

For example, European mer-chants began to recognize thevalue of nothing when it came tounderstanding busi-ness and keepingtrack of goods.

Another suchadvancement wasknown as the van-ishing point. Mathe-matical inconception, it cameabout as artists real-ized that a singleone dimensionalpoint had within itthe power of thevoid and infinityfrom which every-thing couldemanate. Its firstuse in European arttransformed themedium, as itbrought the tech-nique of perspectiveinto play for thefirst time. Before theRenaissance, paint-ings and drawingswere flat and two

dimensional. Now they could bedeceiving in their realism.

The revolution in science inthe Renaissance can be traced tozero as well. For zero’s symbol-ism of infinity and the voidwould quite literally open up sci-entific thought to whole newworlds. Copernicus with his

heliocentric the-ory, Pascal withhis work on vacu-ums and theindependent dis-covery of calculusby Leibniz andNewton, all owea debt to zero,infinity and thevoid.

As mathemati-cian G.B. Halstedsaid of zero, “Nosingle mathemati-cal creation hasbeen more potentfor the generalon-go of intelli-gence andpower.”

Zero’s Adven-tures TodayZero still likes to

stir things up occasionally. Thegreat millennium cyber panic ofthe year 2000 is sufficient evi-dence of that. It also still has apenchant for confounding eventhe greatest of mathematic andscientific minds today as it did amillennium ago. One thingappears certain though, after cen-

turies of disappear-ance and discovery,it looks like thistime, zero is here tostay.

Further Reading: • Barrow, John D.The Book of Nothing(London: VintagePublishing, 2001)• “History Topic: AHistory of Zero” byJ.J. O’Connor andE.F. Robertson(www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PrintHT/Zero.html)• Seife, Charles.Zero: The Biographyof A Dangerous Idea(New York: PenguinBooks, 2000).

Perugino’s fresco Giving of the Keys to St. Peter in the Sistine Chapel showsthat perspective — a concept that used zero — revolutionized artwork.

Executed less than a century after the Très Riches Heures of Duc de Berry, the advancement in technique is clear. The diagonal lines of the courtyard’s

stones all move towards a vanishing point in the distance, creating depth in the two-dimensional work.

MATH


The Harmonia Macrocosmica of Andreas Cellarius dates from themid-17th century. The Harmonia Macrocosmica is a star atlas showing

the heliocentric system. The heliocentric system, vacuums and theunderstanding of much of the modern world are possible with zero.

HM

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NO MATTER HOW famous the namesor how much information we seemto have, people from centuries pastseem invariably remote to us. Thismakes sense, of course; we didn’tknow them, and they lived in atime that was very different fromour own. This sense of distance isespecially pronounced when oneconsiders those who were artists ofsome sort — poets, playwrights orpainters. After all, such creaturesseem exotic at the best of times,even when they are our contempo-raries.

But we know that, at base, peo-ple are people, regardless of whenthey lived, and it is often the small,overlooked details that draw themout of the mists of time and makethem seem familiar. When we arelucky enough to have any informa-tion about a historical figure, wemay be surprised by how appeal-ing and intriguing we find that per-son, and how the centuries seem tomelt away.

Christopher Marlowe is such afigure. Most people who recognizehis name think simply of a poet orplaywright — someone who diedyoung and has been overshadowedby his contemporary, WilliamShakespeare. Marlowe, however, isfar more than just a footnote orafterthought. Upon examination,the pieces we know of his life makehim seem like a character from aspy novel. We know with certaintythat he was a noted and admiredwriter in his own time, the late 16thcentury. On top of this, however,there are indications that heworked as an intelligence agent forthe government of Elizabeth I ofEngland, may have been an atheistat a time when it was illegal andwas probably homosexual. Finally,he met a violent end at the age of29 in an incident that has long beenshrouded in controversy.

Education and IntrigueChristopher Marlowe was born inthe southeastern English town ofCanterbury. His baptism, at thechurch of St. George the Martyr,

took place on 26 February 1564. Hewas the son of a shoemaker, JohnMarlowe, and his wife, KatherineArthur. Although there is some dis-agreement about the financial stateof Marlowe’s family during hischildhood, there is no question thatshoemakers were not terribly highon the Elizabethan social scale; theywere considered artisans, and thustended to be more “respectable”than prosperous.

Despite his humble back-ground, young Marlowe’s keenintelligence was evident early, andhe was given a good education.After attending the King’s School inCanterbury, he was sent to the ven-erable Corpus Christi College ofCambridge University in 1580.Marlowe attended Cambridge as ascholarship student thanks to thelegacy left by Archbishop of Can-terbury Matthew Parker. It seemsthat Marlowe was originally des-tined to enter the church, as hereceived a six-year scholarship,generally reserved for studentsintending to take holy orders.Studying history, philosophy andtheology, Marlowe was granted hisBachelor of Arts in 1584; three yearslater, he obtained his Master of Artsdegree. While this course of eventsmay seem unremarkable, it is dur-ing this period that Marlowe’s life

starts to become intriguing. When Marlowe arrived at uni-

versity, Elizabeth I was queen. Twoof the most powerful men in Eng-land were her trusted advisor SirWilliam Cecil, and her secretary ofstate, Sir Francis Walsingham.Walsingham, known to history asElizabeth’s spymaster, was a manof exceptional shrewdness and cun-ning, and had worked diligently toestablish one of the best and largestintelligence networks in Europe.His close colleague, Cecil, was aPrivy Councillor and Lord HighTreasurer — and also Chancellor ofCambridge University.

These facts in themselves wouldmean little in terms of Marlowe’sstory, were it not for the circum-stances surrounding the granting ofhis master’s degree. Cambridgewas initially reluctant to approvethe degree for a couple of reasons.First, Marlowe had been absent forextended periods of time, and didnot seem inclined to take the holyorders for which his scholarship(and the graduate degree) had fit-ted him. Second, it was rumoredthat he was spending his time awayin the French city of Rheims.

In Marlowe’s day, Rheims wasnotorious as the home of a seminarywhere English Catholics and con-verts were trained to return to Eng-land to serve and encourage thefaithful there. Elizabeth was Protes-tant and Catholicism was outlawedin England under her reign. TheCatholic powers on the continentwere eager to see her removed frompower and England returned to itsCatholic roots. The rumor that Mar-lowe was visiting Rheims wasenough to make Cambridge author-ities assume that he was contem-plating conversion. That, combinedwith Marlowe’s cavalier attitudetoward attendance, jeopardized hissecond degree. What finally com-pelled Cambridge to grant Marlowethe MA was a letter from QueenElizabeth’s Privy Council — signedby, among others, Privy Councillorand Chancellor of Cambridge University, Sir William Cecil.

The Art of IntrigueKel Morin-Parsons delves into the mysterious life and death of playwright Christopher Marlowe

MYSTERY

A portrait in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, believed to

be of Christopher Marlowe.


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Intervention from the PrivyCouncil was not, of course, usual indisputes between the university andits students. The fact that this letterexists at all is extraordinary, andmakes clear that whatever was tak-ing Marlowe away from his studieswas considered important by themost powerful people in the land.The letter does not specify just whatMarlowe was doing while absentfrom university, but it alludes to therumor that he had visited Rheimsand intended to remain there. Theletter denies this, and instead saysthat Marlowe was engaged inimportant business on the Queen’sbehalf, and that Her Majesty didnot want his degree jeopardized asa result of this service.

It is impossible to say for cer-tain what sort of government busi-ness Marlowe was engaged induring that time, but it seems evi-dent that it involved intelligencework. The Privy Council lettermakes it clear that he was not simply an ordinary civil servant,and Rheims (if Marlowe did,indeed, travel there) was a target ofspy activity for the English, as itwas a fertile ground for plotsagainst the Queen. The so-calledBabington plot, which was aimedat assassinating Elizabeth and herchief advisors and placing theCatholic Mary Queen of Scots onthe throne, was exposed in 1586,and it is thought that Marlowemay have been involved in itsexposure.

Marlowe’s employment as aspy makes sense when one consid-ers his circumstances at Cambridge.Chancellor Cecil was close to Wal-singham the spymaster, who wouldhave been interested in sharp andadventuresome young men whomight make able spies. Cecil wouldhave been aware of the mostpromising students, and could haveadvised Walsingham about them.Supporting this theory is the factthat, while at Cambridge, Marlowebecame friends with Thomas Wals-ingham, a cousin of Sir Francis.Thomas Walsingham, whose ensu-ing career kept him close to thecourt for the rest of his life, becamean important artistic patron of Mar-lowe’s, and would have an omi-nous connection with the

circumstances of his death. By 1587, “Kit” Marlowe, the

shoemaker’s son, had attracted theattention of some very powerfulpeople, and had proven himselfworthy of their confidence. Thisconfidence, however, may havebeen fatally shaken by Marlowe’sconduct as the years went by.

Art and IncarcerationMarlowe proceeded to Londonafter leaving university. Anythoughts of taking holy orders wereclearly behind him. Instead, the

writing career he had begun atCambridge became his focus. Mar-lowe wrote some poetry at Cam-bridge, but the plays for which heis best remembered were writtenafter that period. Such works asTamburlaine the Great parts I and II,Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta andEdward II all belong to the fertileseven-year period between 1587and 1593. Several of his major the-atrical works are still producedtoday, and in their own dayrevealed the power of blank versein the hands of an expert. As well,among his enduring poems aresuch pieces as The Passionate Shep-herd to His Love (“Come live withme and be my love”), still a favorite

in poetry anthologies. During this time, Marlowe’s lit-

erary reputation grew, provokingboth imitation and jealousy amongother members of London’s livelytheatre community. Regardless,unlike his contemporary Shake-speare, Marlowe showed no signsof becoming a settled, successfulbusinessman of the theatre. In Eliz-abethan England, the world of theperforming arts was generally con-sidered scandalous and degraded,even by those aristocrats andnobles who enjoyed its fruits.Shakespeare was able to navigatethis prejudice and become awealthy landowner in his home-town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Thefocus and discretion that made thispossible, however, were evidentlyof no interest to Marlowe.

In 1589, Marlowe and a friendwere charged with murder as theresult of a street brawl; he spenttwo weeks in jail, but was let offwith a warning. Three years later,Marlowe was arrested in theNetherlands on a charge of coun-terfeiting, and was sent back toEngland. Although Cecil was sup-posed to have dealt with him onthis serious charge, there is no evi-dence to indicate that Marlowe waspunished in any way. It is thoughtthat this incident may well havebeen part of Marlowe’s ongoingintelligence work. The same year,Marlowe was charged with assault-ing two police constables in Lon-don, though he again seems tohave escaped with only a warningto keep the peace.

While it seems clear that Mar-lowe’s connections protected himfrom the worst consequences of hisactions, his brash, impulsive behav-ior can hardly have been compati-ble with sensitive espionage work— and it ultimately may have ledto his tragic death.

Marlowe’s life did not becomecalmer or more stable in the wakeof his brushes with the law. Instead,in the summer of 1593, he foundhimself in even deeper trouble. InMay of that year, authoritiesarrested a playwright namedThomas Kyd for possession of doc-uments that denied the divinity ofJesus Christ. At the time, this wasconsidered heresy, a serious crime.

The house on the corner of St. George’sStreet and St. George’s Lane, believed tobe where the Marlowes lived during theearly years of Christopher’s life. It wasdestroyed in a German air raid in 1942.


Image courtesy of The Marlowe Society, www.marlowe-society.org


In 1589, Kyd had written The Span-ish Tragedy, an incredibly popularplay in its day, and he was well-known in London theatre circles.Under torture, Kyd claimed that theincriminating documents, whichhad surfaced during a raid on hislodgings, in fact, belonged to Mar-lowe, with whom he had beenroommates a couple of years before.As a result, Marlowe was arrested,but was not tortured as the haplessKyd had been. Instead, he was puton probation, and was warned toremain where Elizabeth’s advisorscould find him.

Shortly after this incident, aman named Richard Baines, aknown government informantwho was connected with Mar-lowe’s counterfeiting trouble inthe Netherlands, brought to thePrivy Council a note suppos-edly outlining Marlowe’s blas-phemous feelings on matterscrucial to the Christian faith.Some of the contents of thisnote, along with a number ofreferences in Marlowe’s playsand poems, have also con-tributed to the opinion that hewas homosexual. It was theatheistic material, however, thatput the playwright in danger.The young writer’s recklessnessseemed to be catching up withhim.

The Final ActPerhaps it would have been betterif Marlowe had been jailed after hisarrest. On 30 May 1593, still await-ing a summons or judgment fromElizabeth’s authorities, he dined inDeptford, now a southeast Londonsuburb. The company he kept therereinforces the notion that Marlowewas deeply embedded in an under-world of espionage, filled withcharacters that could most charita-bly be described as shady.

The three men who dined withhim were Robert Poley, NicholasSkeres and Ingram Frizer, all knowncon men engaged in intelligencework through their association withMarlowe’s patron Thomas Walsing-ham (Frizer was actually describedas a “servant” of Walsingham’s). Allthree men were involved in theexposure of the Babington plot —the very matter thought to have

drawn Marlowe away from Cam-bridge during his graduate studies.Marlowe had probably known theseoperatives for some time.

What truly transpired thatevening in Deptford will probablynever be known, but after theevening meal, a dispute apparentlyarose between Marlowe and Frizer.The general description of whatensued was that Marlowe wasstabbed as a result of a brawl overthe paying of a bar bill, and died. In1925, Renaissance scholar LeslieHotson discovered the report of thecoroner’s inquest into Marlowe’sdeath in the Public Record Office.

This brought eyewitness accounts tolight for the first time in several cen-turies. The first thing the report didwas set the record straight on theplace of Marlowe’s murder. Mar-lowe dined and died at the home ofone Dame Eleanor Bull, a widowwith ties to the Elizabethan court.Her place was neither a bar nor atavern, but a private home that isnow thought to have been a safehouse for agents employed by thegovernment. The four men presentthat evening had spent most of theday at the house, and had lunchedand dined in an upstairs room.After the evening meal, Marloweapparently reclined on a bed behindthe dining table. The other threemen remained seated at the tablewith their backs to him. The coro-ner’s report claims that Marlowe’sangry exchange with Frizer was

indeed over payment of the day’stab. As the argument grew heated,Marlowe grabbed Frizer’s knife andattacked him with it. In defendinghimself, Frizer grabbed the knifefrom Marlowe and stabbed himover the right eye, killing the 29-year-old Marlowe instantly.

This account sounds plausible,and may have been what hap-pened. The men involved in thisincident could all be described aspotentially violent, and Marlowe’shistory makes it clear that he had ahot temper. Considering the largequantities of wine that may havebeen consumed, it wouldn’t have

been surprising if circum-stances got out of hand.

The fact is, however, thatthe only accounts offered ofMarlowe’s murder were thoseof the three men present whenhe died, one of whom was hiskiller, and all of whom were ofquestionable reputation. Marlowe’s notoriety was at itspeak in the spring of 1593, andhe was facing the possibility ofserious legal trouble andsevere punishment for hisbehavior and supposed beliefs.If he was a government agent— and it is hard to dismiss theevidence that he was — thenhis handlers may have decidedthat he was too great a liabilityto continue in their service, oreven to be left alive. Did

Thomas Walsingham, acquaintanceor employer of all the men presentin the Deptford room, order Marlowe disposed of before hewas called to account for hisbeliefs and actions? Theoriesabound, and the truth is probablynow beyond reach.

One thing is indisputable,however: Christopher Marlowewas a larger-than-life figure whoseimpact on English literature ismatched by the excitement andtragedy of his existence. Hereminds us that even a few intrigu-ing pieces of a personal historyfrom the distant past, when care-fully considered and investigated,can yield a story as gripping asanything we observe today.

On 29 June 1613, the thatched roof of the Globe the-atre, where many plays of the time were performed,caught fire and destroyed the building. This engrav-

ing shows the second theatre built in its place.

HM


MYSTERY


ON ENTERING THE place [4 MottStreet], I was surprised to see somany new smokers. In fact, the jointwas crowded with young men andgirls. Most of them were strangers tome. I was unable to order an opiumlayout, still having the prison clotheson. I felt out of place and was aboutto go out, when a young man calledout: “Hello, George! Come over here.”As I approached, he got up from thebunk. He shook hands with me, andsaid: “When did you come down from‘above’ (Sing Sing Prison).” I toldhim and showed him the clothes theygave me coming out. He laughed andsaid: “I’ll fix you up in the morningwith a front (clothes) so that you canget out and make some coin. So laydown here and roll up some pills forme and have a talk.” So I lay down,cooked up the card of opium and weboth fell asleep. The next morning hebought me a complete outfit of wear-ing apparel and loaned me five dollarsbesides. This man was a crook and hisbusiness was a confidence swindler,or better known as a “handshaker.”His name was Burt Fitzgerald.

Every night I would go to theopium joint and I soon got acquaintedwith all the habitués of the place andtheir line of business. Every one ofthem with the exception of a few werecrooks in every line of graft. As Ilearned the different systems bywhich one could earn money easy andwith less risk than picking pocketsand other rough ways, I started in formyself and was quite successful inmaking money in “sure thing graft”as it is called by crooks. I had a run ofgood luck for nearly five months....

Mott Street was being desertedby the good American people onaccount of the Chinese tenants drift-ing into the neighborhood rapidly.With the Chinamen came manyAmerican opium habitués from theWest, most of them from San Fran-cisco, and all crooks in every line ofstealing brought on to the East by theCentennial Exhibition at Philadel-phia. They worked their different linesof graft, and then drifted into NewYork and made the opium joint in the

basement of 4 Mott Street their hang-out. This place was the first publicopium joint opened for the Americanhabitués and was managed by a Chi-naman called “Poppy.” The place wascrowded day and night by opiumhabitués from all stations in life, bothmen and women, some of good socialand financial standing. Most of therest were crooks in every line of dishonest business, from the bankburglar down to the petty thief.

George Appo’s experiences inGotham’s earliest opium densmarked the emergence of a newkind of criminal — the drugaddict. Opium dens represented aunique place of criminal assembly,an underworld collectivitydevoted to the pleasures of thepipe. Like the street and prison,the opium den served as a schoolfor Appo, providing the means tolearn alternative and safer formsof illicit enterprise. “Sure thinggraft” — confidence games orswindling operations with very

high rates of success like bunco,flimflam, fake jewelry, and greengoods — supplanted pickpocket-ing. The opium den proffered anew criminal career for Appo.

Opium was a commonplacedrug in the 19th-century UnitedStates. While its precise use priorto 1920 remains uncertain, con-temporaries and later historiansacknowledged a dramatic increaseafter the Civil War. By 1870 opiateuse in the United States was notonly widespread but virtuallyunregulated; it was more popularand widespread than tobaccowould be a century later. Physi-cians and pharmacists, for exam-ple, prescribed laudanum,morphine, and other addictiveopiates as painkillers. Since opiumdid little damage to the kidneysand liver, some doctors assumedthe drug was less detrimental thanalcohol. Others falsely believedthat opium cured alcoholism. Forthese and other reasons, theUnited States never prohibited theuse of opium for nonmedical pur-poses until the 20th century.

Like his contemporaries Appoattributed the rise of opium smok-ing to Chinese immigrants. Themissionary E.W. Syle reportedfinding extensive opium smokingamong the few Chinese immi-grants in New York in 1854.“There is no question that the Chi-nese imported the opium habitinto America,” complained onenewspaper in 1883. While racialstereotyping — if not outrightracism — characterized mostanalyses, probably a minimum of20 percent of Chinese immigrantsused opium.

The growth of opium smok-ing, however, was more than aproduct of Chinese immigration.Indeed, the emergence of opiumdens — commonly called “opiumjoints” or simply “joints” — wasstimulated by their popularitywithin the non-Asian population.During the 1840s and 1850s, theincreasing Chinese population

Opium Dens and BohemiaDRUG CULTURE

Abridged from the book A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York,author Timothy J. Gilfoyle takes us on a tour of an opium den

Extracted from A Pickpocket’s Tale byTimothy J. Gilfoyle. Copyright (c)

2006 by Timothy J. Gilfoyle.With permission of the publisher,

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


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DRUG CULTURE

generated little, if any, discussionof the drug. Opium smoking, forexample, was never mentionedduring Quimbo Appo’s trials formurder in 1859 and 1860. Only asopium grew popular in under-world, entertainment, and leisurevenues after 1865 did contempo-raries take notice.

Opium smoking differed fromother forms of drug use. In con-trast to orally ingesting the nar-cotic, smoking required a lengthypreparation process and an expen-sive “layout.” Smokers needed aspecial 18-inch pipe, bowl,sponge, chisel, and tray. The“cooking” was usually performedby a resident “chef,” whoshredded and then boiledraw opium, allowing himto separate the “essence”or “purified” opium. Theresidue was then kneadedin a pan and fermentedinto a gooey, thick blackpaste, which smokerscalled “dope.” Unlike“opium eaters,” who usu-ally became addictedbecause of a medical con-dition, opium smokersused the drug for plea-sure.

Opium smokingattracted increasing atten-tion after the Civil War. In1871 one writer noted thatopium shops were foundin cities “where the hoi pol-loi, the ‘filth and scum’ are proneto live.” By 1873 Donovan’s Lane,where Appo lived as a child, hadat least one reported Chinese“opium saloon,” later documentedin a lithograph by the artistWinslow Homer. Manhattan phar-macists claimed that numerouspoor, “half-stupid” men andwomen came in and purchasedopium to get high. By the early1880s numerous observersclaimed that scores of over-crowded joints operated in Pell,Mott, and Doyers Streets and onthe lower Bowery.

Despite the growing visibilityof opium smoking, legal authori-ties were slow to respond for sev-eral reasons. First, the practicewas considered an “importedvice” identified with Chinese

immigrants. In the 1880s, whenvarious officials expressed outrageregarding opium use, their con-cern focused on non-Chineseusers. Second, opium smokingwas hidden and confined to Chi-nese boardinghouses, groceries,laundries, and gambling dens,some of which secretly suppliedopium to select customers. By the1880s Chinese laundries in differ-ent parts of New York functionedas opium dens for American cus-tomers, part of an informal net-work of dens extendingthroughout the United States.Appo testified that “Poppy” onMott Street provided friends with

addresses and “tickets” to laun-dries with opium dens in Syra-cuse, Chicago, Buffalo, andCleveland. “It’s a poor town nowa-days that has not a Chineselaundry,” wrote one critic in 1883,“and nearly every one has itsopium lay-out.” Finally opiumdens were frequently hidden orovershadowed by other under-ground enterprises on the samepremises. Appo remembered that4 and 17 Mott Street, for instance,were also gambling dens andhouses of prostitution.

The den at 4 Mott Street wasone of the best known, but not thefirst opium den in New York City,as Appo believed. More accu-rately, it was the first well-knownopium joint that allowed Euro-American visitors to indulge in

opium smoking. In 1882, anEvening Post reporter described avisit to 4 Mott Street as “an extra-ordinary experience.” The denwas situated in a four-story tene-ment just off the Bowery, only afew steps from several prominentconcert saloons. Inside, smokersreclined on low platforms extend-ing the length of the small, dimlylit room, their heads supported bysmall wooden stools. The Chineseproprietor, Poppy, weighed andserved opium in little seashells.Fumes from the pipes filled theroom with such a thick, bluishcloud that one visitor claimed itwas impossible to see his hands

held at his waist. Whenthe smoke cleared, heobserved a dozen smallpeanut-oil lamps glowing“like the fire flies in afog,” and a room packedwith smokers, all ofwhom were Euro-Ameri-cans. Poppy busily movedfrom patron to patronsupplying opium, manycrying out, “Poppy,gimme a quarter’sworth.”

The proliferation ofChinese-operated opiumdens evidenced a moresignificant phenomenon:the emergence of anAmerican bohemian sub-culture. An ill-definedintellectual proletariat of

penniless and carefree writers,journalists, poets, actors, andartists, bohemians challenged ahost of Victorian social norms. Fora variety of people, the bohemianmilieu of opium smoking wasaccessible to almost anyone,allowing not only men andwomen to intermingle but alsoindividuals of different class, eth-nic, and racial backgrounds. Theopium dens frequented by Appoin Lower Manhattan embodiedthe popularization of bohemianlife in the United States. After vis-iting one Pell Street den, onereporter wrote that “in five min-utes [we] found ourselves in busyPrinting-house Square, minglingagain with that civilized half ofthe world which knows not, norcould ever dream, how the other

Addicts in an opium den.

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half lives.” Another claimed thatby the 1870s, the opium dens inChinatown competed with thecity’s most popular concertsaloons, attracting patrons fromuptown spots like the Bijou andthe Haymarket.

Elements of a bohemian sub-culture with alternative views onsexuality appeared before theCivil War. The most notable wasHenry Clapp’s group of writers,actors, and intellectuals that gath-ered at Pfaff’s Broadway saloonjust north of Bleecker Street.Clapp fostered a reputation as“king of the bohemians,” andattracted the patronage of writerFitz-James O’Brien, poetsWalt Whitman and AdaClare, actress AdaMenken, and journalistand future French primeminister GeorgesClemenceau. Other, lessideological malesascribed to an ethic ofpleasure, even hedonism.“Sporting men,” “fancymen,” dandies, andnabobs challenged“respectable” definitionsof urban masculinity andmale sexuality. A hetero-geneous mix of wealthyand poor, educated andignorant, fashionable andragged, sporting maleculture valorized a sexual ethicbased upon male aggressivenessand licentiousness. Some evenattributed the growing popularityof opium smoking to sportingmen.

American writers like EdgarAllan Poe and Fitz-Hugh Ludlowwere the first to describe in detailthe world of opium users andabusers. While their examinationsemphasized orally ingestedopium, Poe introduced some ofthe earliest opium-addicted char-acters in American literature, insome quarters becoming “theprophet of organized Bohemian-ism.” Fitz-Hugh Ludlow went onestep further: He became addictedto hashish as a teenager. After hepublished The Hasheesh Eater in1857, Ludlow became a regular atPfaff’s and went on to a writingand editorial career, during which

time he remained addicted to thenarcotic. He published The OpiumHabit (1868) before his prematuredeath in 1870.

The opium use and bohemian-ism popularized by Poe, Ludlow,and the Pfaffians was limited to asmall, elite group of intellectualsand artists. “Opium eating,” inparticular, tended to be a solitaryactivity. This changed by the1870s. As opium use shifted fromeaters to smokers, the drugbecame more accessible and com-munal. In fact smoking was asocial experience. In places likePoppy’s Mott Street den, smokersorganized themselves into small

groups of two to six persons, allsharing a pipe and smokingequipment. One individualcooked the drug and prepared thepipe, which was then shared andsmoked in turn by the others.Opium den patrons told stories,cracked jokes, sang in low voices,and drank beer. In contrast to theraucous and sometimes violentatmosphere of the saloon, theopium den was a place of relax-ation and quiet contemplation.Numerous smokers maintainedthey enjoyed a kinship with fellowhabitués. Opium smoking“loosens the tongue and developssocial qualities,” observed onewriter, “rather than the fightingspirit engendered by whiskey.”

Opium smokers saw the drugas the raw substance of dreams.Smoking opium put the user in adeep but refreshing sleep, lasting

anywhere from 15 minutes to sev-eral hours. Upon waking, thesmoker felt no aftereffects like ahangover. Opium induced a sub-dued tranquillity, “an indescrib-able sense of completesatisfaction,” “dreamy wakeful-ness,” and “paradise,” accordingto various smokers.

A new language emerged inthis paradise. Habitual opiumsmokers were labeled “hopfiends” or just “fiends.” Novicesand infrequent users were simply“pleasure smokers.” By the 1890sthe drug was called a variety ofnames: “victor medicine,” “Span-ish cigarettes,” and “dope.” As

opium dens spreadthroughout cities in theUnited States, theybecame part of an under-world social networkwith a common argot,shared rules, and peerreinforcement, anticipat-ing the pattern of 20th-century drug subcultures.

The opium den pro-moted a certain egalitar-ian ethos. One formeraddict and otherwise crit-ical observer noted that“the old saying, ‘There ishonor among thieves,’applies equally well toopium fiends. They neversteal from each other

while in the joint.” He was mostimpressed by witnessing intoxi-cated men and women enteropium dens, lie down, and go tosleep with jewelry exposed andmoney in their pockets. Fighting,he and others noted, rarelyoccurred. Similarly a reporter wasimpressed with the loyalty andcamaraderie among opium smok-ers, in which social positionaccounted for little.

Opium dens also promoted anexotic, “Oriental” ambience ofAsian mystery. Typical was onePell Street den with a narrowroom decorated with vases, colorprints, mirrors, and Chineseinscriptions. Two broad shelves ordivans extended along a wall, theupper about six feet above thefloor, the other less than two feethigh. Each was covered with bam-boo mats and pillows, turning


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them into “bunks” on whichopium smokers reclined. “Themysterious gloom, the flickeringopium-lamps, the barbaric colorson the walls, the trance-likeappearance of the smokers, andthe deathly stillness,” wrote onevisitor, “contributed to make thescene a weird and impressiveone.”

Although opium smokinginduced sleep and lethargy, opiumdens were identified with “licen-tiousness.” The physician andopium researcher Henry H. Kanebelieved that opium smoking pro-duced “satyriasis” in men andnymphomania in women. Opiumdens were consequently perceivedas sites of seduction.Repeated observationsnoted that opium denswere filled with scantilyclad women who dis-robed on entering inorder to make themselvescomfortable. At the veryleast the atmosphere waserotic.

The presence of pros-titutes further sexualizedthe opium den. By 1887certain businessmen andproperty owners com-plained that prostitutesworked out of most ofthe buildings along MottStreet and north of ChathamSquare. Opium dens on adjoiningstreets displayed a similar mixtureof drug use and commercial sex.When the police raided establish-ments on Pell and Mott Streets forprostitution violations, they foundthe inmates “hitting the pipe.” By1890 at least six tenements onDoyers Street were noted for theirmixture of prostitution andopium.

The link of opium with prosti-tution and various illicit activitiesconvinced some that the milieu ofthe hop was filled with social out-casts. “The people who frequentthese places are, with very fewexceptions, thieves, sharpers andsporting men, and a few badactors; the women, without excep-tion, are immoral,” wrote one. Thewriter James L. Ford admitted that“the criminal classes of NewYork” — gamblers, prostitutes,

confidence men, and thieves —took up opium smoking early on.

Numerous other commenta-tors, however, noted the diverseclientele of the joints. Entertainersassociated with the theater wereamong the most frequently citedopium smokers. “Together with afew brilliant Bohemians,” sur-mised writer Allen Williams, the-atrical people “compose thearistocracy of the joints.” Some,like the den under Paddy Martin’sWine Room at 9 Bowery, wereknown for their patronage bywell-known actors. Others, likeBessinger’s Fourteenth Streetopium joint, attracted so manythespian addicts in the 1880s that

the proprietor admitted patronssimply to observe famous stageperformers getting high. Onepolice reporter concluded that the“lower order” of theatrical people— variety actors and dancers —represented “the greater part ofthe white devotees of the pipe inNew York.”

Yet Euro-American opiumsmokers also came from affluentbackgrounds, in part becauseopium was expensive. One Chi-nese writer claimed in 1888 thatsome addicts needed to smokethree dollars’ worth of opiumdaily in order “to keep straight,” ahabit costing approximately onethousand dollars a year, roughlythe entire annual wage of mostAmerican workers. Reportsdescribing dens full of “societywomen,” “richly-dressed ladies,”“respectable people,” and “thebest class of customers” multi-

plied in the final quarter of the19th century. Opium smoking,concluded one writer, was anindulgence for primarily “theindolent and rich.”

For many opponents of opiumuse, however, the most controver-sial element of the den was therandom, unregulated intermin-gling of classes, races, and sexes.The societal markers of the “out-side” world broke down under anethic of individual hedonism andnarcotic license. In contrast toopium dens in London, the jointsAppo frequented, like 4 MottStreet, were filled with “men andboys of respectable conditions,girls and hardened women,

thieves and sportingmen, actors and actresses,drunken carousers andChinamen,” according toone reporter. One detec-tive noted that all“castes” were set aside inopium dens. Homelessbeggars lay down besideoffspring of the wealthy;whites, blacks, andAsians shared the samephysical space. Areporter concurred, not-ing how in certain dens a“Union League Club manwill lie with the head of aCity Hall Park bunco

steerer upon his chest, laughingand joking with him as if they hadbeen ‘comrades, comrades, eversince we were boys.’“ Periodicpolice raids, random arrests, andprosecutorial indictments con-firmed many such charges.

These behaviors alarmed crit-ics, but to little avail. New York’sKoch Law of 1882 made buying,selling, giving away, or usingopium for the purpose of smokinga misdemeanor, but most arrestsresulted in little more than sus-pended or dismissed cases. Moreoften than not law enforcementofficials tolerated opium dens.Numerous reporters andobservers claimed that police offi-cers stationed in Chinatown rou-tinely brought “slumming parties”of outsiders, curious about thegoings-on in opium dens. Oneaddict remembered policemenentering a Pell Street opium den,

Repeated observations noted that opium dens were filledwith scantily clad women who disrobed on entering in order

to make themselves comfortable. At the very least, the atmosphere was erotic.

PP.qxd 12/5/2007 2:17 PM Page 4

arresting several suspects, andwalking out without bothering thesmokers. Reportedly the wardman was a close associate of theproprietors.

In the final decades of the19th century, the opium dens ofChinatown facilitated and repre-sented an ill-defined, inarticulatebohemian world. While this inter-cultural milieu fostered little intel-lectual debate, displayed lessmiddle-class self-consciousness,and attracted fewer females com-pared with Greenwich Villagebohemia after 1900, it neverthelessembodied a liminal space foster-ing an ethic of mutuality, hedo-nism, and fantasy. The bohemiaGeorge Appo confronted in theseearly opium dens at once con-veyed an exotic and erotic “Orien-talism” alongside a “rough,” maleunderworld. In Gotham’s opiumdens pickpockets like Appo mettheir “genteel” Victorian counter-parts. Respectable actors,actresses, artists, and “clubmen”fraternized with sneak thieves,confidence men, and prostitutes.Evoking an ambiance of Asianmystery, this hidden subculturewas devoted to the pleasures ofthe pipe and the body. Opiumsmoking then gave birth to a dis-tinct American bohemia.

So one cold winter’s night, I driftedinto a Mott Street opium joint atNo.17 (basement at the time) where aman named Barney Maguire and his“green goods” employers were smok-ing opium and drinking wine atMaguire’s expense. In the place at thetime I noticed a young man lying onthe bunk all alone smoking opium. Ashe was an entire stranger and I hadnever seen him around before, I satdown on the foot of the bunk near himand without a word between us, hehanded me the opium pipe with a pillon it to smoke. I took it and lay downand we soon became acquainted. Iasked him where he was from and hesaid from the West. Every evening Iwould meet him at the joint and soonlearned that he was a traveling housethief and robbed wealthy people’shomes at supper or dinner hours inthe fall and winter.

One evening I went out with himto see how he worked, but he made a

failure that evening. He then told mehe was going West. I told him Iwould join him and we would workboth ways, that is, I would help himat his work and he would help me atmine. He agreed and the next day weboth went to Philadelphia, where westayed three days. He made no moneythere, but I was successful and wewent to Scranton, Pennsylvania.

On arriving there, I said to him:“Should you ever get arrested, whatname would you give in?”

He replied: “Fred Crage.”“Is that your right name?” I

asked.“No, my right name is Fred

Young.”I told him I would give the name

of George Leonard, so we workedScranton and many other cities untilwe reached the city of Chicago, wherewe made a long stay, about 3 months,and all the money he made from NewYork to Chicago was $17. I paid rail-road fare and all other expenses fromthe results of my stealing from NewYork to Chicago.

So one day, just the beginning ofwinter time, Fred said to me: “Wewill go to St. Paul, Minnesota. I havea good ‘thing’ up that way and if I amlucky we will be ‘away up in G.’”

“Well, all right, any place suitsme.” So we went to St. Paul. In twoweeks, he made eight dollars. Finally,one afternoon we took a train forMinneapolis, only a short ride fromSt. Paul. That night he took me up toa place called the “Five Corners.”Above this section all the rich peoplelive. He went to a house, climbed theporch and opened a window and gotin while I was on the lookout for him.He soon came out and when a safedistance away we met and he showedme a silver watch and a cheap stick-pin. I told him that was very poorgraft and too risky and that he hadbetter give it up.

He replied: “You just wait, I’llget there, good and fat.”

“I hope so,” said I, so we wentback to St. Paul to our room. On thenext evening at 5:45 p.m., I was atthe St. Charles Hotel in Minneapolisby appointment with Fred, who toldme to be sure to be there. I waited forhim until 10 p.m. at the hotel, but hedid not show up himself, so I wentback to St. Paul to my room andwaited there all night. As he did not

appear, I went and got the morningpaper and therein was an articleabout the house being robbed of jew-elry and money to the amount of$37,000 while the family were at din-ner. The fact that Fred had tried thenight before to rob the house andfailed and he disappointed me at thehotel by not showing up to [meet] me,led me to believe that he robbed thehouse alone and left me out.

I then made up my mind to hunthim up and bring him to account forhis mean act, or as the “crook” says— “Putting me in the hole for myshare of the coin.” I knew that he wasdeeply attached to a young girl about17 years of age who was an inmate ofa parlor house in St. Louis on ElmStreet. In fact, he was all the timetalking about her to me, so I got amove on myself, made some moneypicking pockets that day and thenbought a ticket to St. Louis and leftSt. Paul that night.

On reaching St. Louis, I wentdirect to the fast house where his girllived. I saw and talked with her andshe said to me: “Fred was here andleft about an hour ago for New York.See what nice presents he made me,”showing me a pair of diamond ear-rings, a diamond ring and a sealskinsacque. “Fred is going to send for meand take me to New York in a fewdays,” said she. I commented uponhis generosity and bid her goodbye.

After one day’s graft in St. Louis,I left for Louisville, and from there toCincinnati, and kept on going fromtown to town until I arrived in NewYork. Then began a search for Fred inthe opium joints. After visiting threeof them and not meeting him, Ifinally learned that Barney Maguire,the green goods financial backer, hadopened a swell opium joint on CrosbyStreet, opposite Niblo’s Garden The-atre. I called there and was informedthat Fred had been smoking there andthat he had taken a ship and sailed forParis, France. This information Ifound to be true, so I gave up thechase and soon forgot about Fred’smeanness until one day about fivemonths after he sailed for Europe, Iheard from a friend of Fred’s, who gota letter from him, stating that he wassentenced to 15 years imprisonmentin Paris, France for burglary. Then Iforgot him entirely.

HM


PP.qxd 12/5/2007 2:17 PM Page 5

FORENSICS

ALPHONSE BERTILLON MATURED inan atmosphere of scientificachievement. His father, Louis-Adolphe, a pioneer of demogra-phy and anthropology, served aspresident of the Paris Anthropo-logical Society. His brother Jacquesbecame a prominent statistician.Alphonse, on the other hand, dis-tinguished his early years as adedicated underachiever.

After get-ting the bootfrom his firstschool,Alphonse irri-tated his German tutorinto quitting.Alphonse wenton to boardingschool wherehe tried to usea spirit lamp tocook inside hisdesk. Thisexperiment,and the resultant fire,secured a dismissal.

His blem-ished formaleducation didnot prepareAlphonse for acareer. He drifted from one job toanother, joined the army for awhile, and gave medical school atry. With his father’s help, a 26-year-old Alphonse secured a cleri-cal job in the department of thePréfecture of Police in 1879. Here,he copied information aboutarrested felons and entered thedata in a record. Bertillon, whofound the work excruciatinglyboring, might well have moved onto another job. Instead, inspirationstruck.

At this time, European lawenforcement agencies faced thedilemma of recidivism (habitualoffending), a problem nourishedby the anonymity of new, largecities. In France, the proportion ofrécidivistes among arrestees rose

from 10 percent in 1828 to 40 per-cent in 1869. Government officialsconcocted a way to curb the prob-lem: Treat first-time offendersleniently and repeat offendersseverely. Implementation of thispolicy required a system for iden-tifying habitual criminals.

Bertillon became familiar withdeficiencies of current identifica-tion tactics, a mixture of vague,

written descriptions, blurry pho-tographs and police officers’ mem-ories. Drawing upon his father’sand brother’s specialties, Bertillondeveloped an anthropometricidentification system that requireda series of measurements.

First, he classified a criminalby one of three general head sizetypes. Using an 11-step process, hethen categorized an individual byheight, length of trunk and dimen-sions of various parts of the body,including the forearm, middle andring fingers, and the left foot.Bertillon also noted distinctivecharacteristics, such as scars,moles, tattoos and eye color.Finally, he enhanced the tradi-tional arrestee photo by includingfrontal and profile views. The mug

shot format remains a worldwidestandard.

Bertillon met resistance to hisidentification scheme, but severalyears’ persistence earned him anextended trial. In Bertillon’s sys-tem, officials measured anarrestee, recorded descriptions ofcharacteristics and photographedthe subject. They preserved infor-mation and photos on a large

cardboardform. To searchfor a matchindependent ofthe name givenby an arrestee,investigatorssorted cardsuntil a smallnumber hadthe correctcombination ofmeasurements.Mug shotsconfirmedidentification.

In February1883, bertillon-age revealed ahabitual crimi-nal who hadbeen arrestedunder differentnames. By theend of the

year, Bertillon had identified 49habitual criminals. During 1884,the first full year of operation, heidentified 241 recidivists.

Across the globe, law enforce-ment agencies adopted Bertillon’ssystem. In part, fear drove thisenthusiastic response, a fear of theanarchist movement. As directorof the new Judicial IdentificationService, Bertillon showed howbertillonage could fight politicalradicalism. In 1892, Bertillonrevealed that the infamous anar-chist “Ravachol” was FrançoisClaudius Koenigstein, a massmurderer.

Even as Bertillon enjoyed histriumph, a contender for bertillon-age emerged. In his book FingerPrints (1892), Francis Galton sug-


Taking arm span and ear measurements at the New York Police Department, c. 1908.

The Measure of a ManPhill Jones studies the case of Alphonse Bertillon, the 19th-century biometrician

Source: US Library of Congress

bertillon.qxd 12/5/2007 2:31 PM Page 1

gested a new identifica-tion system based uponan examination of fingerfriction ridges. Over thenext decade, fingerprint-ing gained momentum.Edward R. Henry, Com-missioner of London’sMetropolitan Police, pro-posed a fingerprint classi-fication and analysissystem to replacebertillonage. In 1901, Scot-land Yard opened a smallFingerprint Branch. Ayear later, the organiza-tion abandoned bertillon-age after attempting tocombine the systems.

Fingerprintingoffered several advan-tages. A person requiredlittle training and equip-ment to record a set offingerprints. Henry’sclassification systemmade it easy to perform asearch of records. The fingerprintsystem also allowed police achance to connect a criminal to a

crime by fingerprints left behind.Law enforcement agencies

were ready for a simpler identifi-

cation method. Bertillon-age had proved difficultto put into practice.Calipers, sliding com-passes and other measur-ing tools requiredfrequent maintenanceand recalibration, and thelabor-intensive measur-ing process called for rig-orous training. Evenhighly trained officerscould decide upon differ-ent values after measur-ing the same persontwice. And, unlike finger-prints, bertillonage reliedupon characteristics thatchanged as criminalsaged.

The anthropomorphicsystem persisted in partsof Europe, bolstered byBertillon’s prestige andinfluence. After Bertillondied in 1914, however,fingerprint identification

rapidly overtook bertillonage.


Mug shots of Francis Galton, taken during a visit toBertillon’s Criminal Identification Laboratory (Paris, 1893).

Courtesy of Gavan Tredoux, galton.org

HM

bertillon.qxd 12/5/2007 2:31 PM Page 2

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IG Current issue.qxd 12/5/2007 2:34 PM Page 1

IN AMERICA, CON artists, such as George C.Parker, made a living selling the BrooklynBridge. However, they didn’t usually preyupon native New Yorkers. Sometimes,well-heeled foreigners saw the visiblelandmark and coveted the toll revenueproduced — hundreds of dollars a day atthe turn of the 20th century. Althoughaudacious, the cons yielded only hundredsof dollars from naive newcomers — a bar-gain for a bridge that cost $15.1 million tobuild.

Across the ocean in Paris, a Bohemiannative pulled off a more daring and morelucrative scheme: He sold the Eiffel Towerto a native Parisian.

Victor Lustig took to the seas at anearly age. Not as a sailor, but as a conartist working the transatlantic liners filledwith gullible passengers. Lustig worked anumber of cons on the ships and stateside.Along the way, he befriended “Dapper”Dan Collins, another conman. The duodecided to settle in Paris, not as honestmen, but as schemers with bigger dreams.

In 1925, Paris had recovered fromWWI and was returning to prominence asan artistic hub. American expatriate writ-ers, such as Ernest Hemingway, EzraPound and Sherwood Anderson, congre-gated in the salon of Gertrude Stein andAlice B. Toklas. Pablo Picasso and HenriMatisse were being recognized as brilliantartists. However, at the center of Parisstood a blight that many Parisiansdeplored: La Tour Eiffel.

Gustave Eiffel built his namesake toserve as the entrance to the 1889 ExpositionUniverselle (World’s Fair). Many didn’t carefor its appearance. French novelist Guy deMaupassant purportedly ate at the restau-rant in the Eiffel Tower daily because itwas the only place in Paris from which onedid not see it.

The tower served its purpose, and thecity granted permission for it to stand for20 years. After that, the city of Parisplanned to tear it down, but the inventionof radio gave the structure a new purpose.

In the early 20th century, the towerwas not the tourist attraction it is today. Itsheight and structure lent it to radio trans-

mission, so the city decided to extend thetower’s lifespan. But the maintenance,including some 60 tons of paint appliedregularly to prevent rust, burdened thecity’s coffers. When a Parisian newspaperran an article detailing the city’s concerns,Victor Lustig found inspiration.

The Eiffel Tower weighs approximately7,300 tons and includes more than 18,000pieces of puddle iron, an alloy with hightensile strength that was cutting edge inthe latter half of the 19th century. Eiffeldesigned the tower for easy disassembly atthe end of the 20-year period. This infor-mation provided a ready back story forLustig. Unlike his American counterparts,he would not target people who mighthave an interest in operating the EiffelTower for profit. Instead, he targeted thosewho would profit from its easy destruc-tion: Scrap metal dealers.

Together, Lustig and Collins acquiredcounterfeit government stationery andinvited several scrap metal dealers to ameeting at the prestigious Hotel de Cril-lon in Paris. Six men arrived, at whichpoint Lustig identified himself as adeputy minister. He detailed the tribu-lations of maintaining the Eiffel Towerand said that the government haddecided to sell it for scrap. Lustigtook the group on a tour of thetower to point out the value in themetal.

He then solicited bids fromall, but made them vow to keepthe pending sale secret. Toavoid a public outcry, heasserted, the government didnot want to release newsuntil the details were final-ized. Regardless of the bidsreceived, Lustig onlywanted one bid in partic-ular: Andre Poisson’s.

Lustig’s researchindicated that Pois-son was somethingof an outsider inthe Parisianworld, makinghim an ideal

Brian J. Noggle tells the story of the men who sold the Eiffel Tower

History Magazine History Magazine • • FebrFebruary/Maruary/March 2008 ch 2008 4747

CRIME

Hey Buddy, WannaBuy a Tower?

eiffeltower.qxd 12/5/2007 2:37 PM Page 1

target. Additionally, Lustig expected that Poissonwould be on the lookout for a big deal to earn therespect of his business peers — and the Eiffel Towerdeal could provide that impetus to greatness.

Something in the initial meeting confirmedLustig’s hopes and expectations about Poisson.When Poisson provided a bid, Lustig sent him wordthat his bid had won, and Lustig’s secretary, Collins,scheduled a second meeting.

At the second meeting, Poisson was slightly sus-picious. His wife had raised concerns that the dealseemed too good to be true. However, Lustig hintedat his own dishonesty, indicating that he needed abribe as part of the deal. This subterfuge provedeffective, for Poisson could see a reason for the sur-reptitious meetings and what was in it for thedeputy minister. Perhaps Poisson had met with suchofficialsbefore.

Poissontook the baitand bribedthe corrupt“govern-ment offi-cial”. Lustigaccepted thebribe and acashier’scheck —reportedlyfor 250,000francs(approxi-mately halfa milliondollars UStoday) —for the EiffelTower. Afterquicklycashing the check, Lustig and Collins left the coun-try, expecting the authorities on their heels. But Pois-son apparently didn’t report the crime. Perhaps hefeared that the swindle would have made him thelaughingstock of his peers instead of a leaderamongst them. After this, Poisson faded from view,probably left bankrupt and shamed.

A month later, Lustig and his companionreturned to Paris and tried the scam again.

They selected another mark and rounded upadditional scrap dealers, but this time, the markgrew suspicious and alerted the authorities. Lustigand Collins, however, eluded capture. Lustigreturned to America to run many more cons, includ-ing escaping custody by selling a money-makingmachine to the incarcerating sheriff.

Although Lustig’s sale of the Eiffel Tower andhis other exploits have become legend, there’s onescam he has never been associated with — selling theBrooklyn Bridge.


HM

Victor Lustig successfully conned peopleuntil 1934, when he was sent to Alcatraz.He died 13 years later from pneumonia.

eiffeltower.qxd 12/5/2007 2:37 PM Page 2

FOOTBALL IS AN extremely popularteam sport enjoyed by millions theworld over, yet it has numerousvarieties, including two distinctforms native to North America.North American football owes itsorigins to British Association Foot-ball and rugby that developed inthe early 19th century. Canadianand American football werespawned in the latter half of the19th century as an amalgamationof the two sports, to which thepath into its modern identifiableform was wrought with manytwists and turns.

Both British football andrugby were played in NorthAmerica in the 19th century, mostprominently amongst the easterncolleges and universities. Differentrules were adopted at differentcolleges, as there existed no realuniformity at first. The first club tobe formed was the Oneida Foot-ball Club of Boston in the 1860s,composed of high school boysfrom Boston. Many of them wenton to attend the Ivy League col-leges of the region, where theybrought with them their moreorganized form of football.

It was from this that thefirst intercollegiategame of football

was played on 6 November 1869in New Brunswick, New Jersey,between Rutgers and Princeton.The rules used that day were verysimilar to Association Football andit was deemed a success asColumbia, Yale and Stevens alljoined the original two colleges incompetition in the followingyears.

During those years, Harvardwas perfecting their own game,similar to rugby, as it was charac-terized by less kicking andallowed running with the ball if aplayer was being chased. An Inter-collegiate Rules Convention washeld in New York in 1873 withHarvard’s refusal to attend as theynow found a shortage of oppo-nents to challenge. This decisionhad far reaching consequences, asit caused Harvard to look else-where for opponents and, as luckwould have it, a team in a similarpredicament existed north of theborder.

While British football waspopular in the United States dur-ing this period, Canada tended tolean towards a game that was

more similar to rugby, partly dueto climactic conditions. Rugbycould be played under worse fieldconditions than football and thus,later into the fall, better befittingthe Canadian calendar. Membersof the English garrison stationed inMontreal during the 1860s playedrugby against civilian teams com-posed principally of McGill stu-dents. This led to an upsurge inthe game’s popularity amongst theEnglish-speaking segment of Que-bec and by the early 1870s, Quebeccould boast of having the bestrugby teams in North America.

Harvard’s isolation and simi-lar style caused them to challengeMcGill to a series of contests in thespring of 1874 at Cambridge,which has frequently been cited asthe most important turning pointin the history of North Americanfootball. The first game was con-tested under Harvard’s rules andthe second under McGill’s.Although both teams normallyused more than 11 men, McGillonly arrived with 11, which gavebirth to the present number of 11men-a-side in American football.The Canadian style was also more

open and made a good impres-sion on the Americans,

as the editor of the

Touchdown! The History of Football in North America

SPORTS

Matt Polacko goes deep as he examines the beginnings of all things pigskin


FOOTBALL HM.qxd 12/5/2007 2:42 PM Page 1

Harvard Magenta thought it to bemuch better than the “somewhatsleepy game now played by ourmen.” Harvard then adoptedMcGill’s style, which included anegg-shaped ball along with thedrop kick and free kick.

Subsequently, Harvard wenton to challenge its fierce rival Yaleto a game of rugby the followingyear and Yale was quickly wonover. By 1877, the rest of the IvyLeague schools had adopted thenew style. The Association Foot-ball style of play disappeared fromAmerican campuses until shortlyafter the turn of the century, whichallowed American football to

firmly take root in the US.It took one man, affectionately

known as the “Father of AmericanFootball”, Walter Camp, to offi-cially transform rugby footballinto a new sport. Camp was a leg-endary player, and later coach, atYale, who wrote the first bookever published on football. Whileplaying for Yale, he devised therevolutionary changes that trans-formed the game.

The first was the introductionof the scrimmage, which meantthat instead of dropping the ballbetween two teams locked inscrums, one side would be givenpossession to plan offensive move-ments, and the other side wouldhave to try to stop them. Once ascore was made, the teams wouldexchange control of the ball. Thescrimmage was initiated to speedup the game, however, it proved tobe a complete failure when put

into practice, as some teams wouldkeep the ball for entire halves. Tosolve this problem, Camp decidedto adopt the system of downs usedin Canada, whereby a team wouldhave three opportunities to movethe ball five yards. In 1912, thisrule was changed to the presentform of four downs allowed togain 10 yards.

Camp later reduced the num-ber of players per team from 15 to11 and each player was assigned aspecific position to specialize inand a standard arrangement ofseven linemen, a quarterback, twohalfbacks and a fullback wasdevised. He also created signal

calling and reduced the field sub-stantially in size from 140 by 70yards to its modern 100 by 53 yarddimensions. Lastly, he revised thescoring system, giving a largervalue to touchdowns than fieldgoals, which placed a greateremphasis on running over kicking.Camp’s introductions later set thestage for football’s lasting domina-tion by statistics (yards per carry,total passing and runningyardage, etc.).

The new game introduced byCamp did not come without prob-lems, however, as a defining char-acteristic of early Americanfootball was its extremely violentnature. Injuries were rampant andfatalities would occur on a regularbasis. In 1905 alone, 18 people losttheir lives and 154 more were seri-ously injured. To remedy thisproblem, the forward pass wasbrought into the game in 1910.

This final major development tothe game introduced some finesseand precision to a sport that hadpreviously been based on sheerphysical force.

Canada developed its ownversion of football, separate fromthe British and American models,which became basically a hybridof the two. After the McGill-Har-vard game in 1874, the Canadiangame ceased to influence theAmerican game and the rolesbecame reversed. Canada movedcautiously away from rugbytowards American Football, whichbecame the major reason whyCanadian and American schools

soon ceased playing exhibitiongames against one another. Likethe Americans, Canada droppedthe rugby scrum in the 1880s andadopted the scrimmage. However,it was a compromise between thetwo styles, as it was only a three-man scrimmage, which attainedmore motion and flow than theAmerican game. The game alsobecame notable for kickingexchanges rather than for runningor lateral exchanges.

At this time, Canadian rugby-football was still highly disorga-nized, as games were playedsporadically between various col-leges and universities in Ontarioand Quebec. There were variousrugby unions that organized com-petitions, and many disagree-ments arose between them overrules until the Canadian RugbyUnion (CRU) was formed in 1891.A hodgepodge of rule adjustments


In these undated profile pictures, unidentified Charlotte Hall Military Academy football players go through their warm-ups at practice.

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SPORTS


was made by the CRU, many atthe behest of former Toronto Var-sity captain J.T.M “Thrift” Burn-side. He proposed 12-men-a-sideand three downs to acquire 10yards, both still in place to thisday, along with the continued useof the larger field. These rulesstand out as the primary definingfeatures of the Canadian game.Many other minor variations wereintroduced in the years thereafter,leading up to the last major ruleintroduction in 1931, when theCRU finally approved the forwardpass for all leagues. This led to thedropping of the old oval rugbyball, and a new streamlined andnarrower ball was adopted inorder to facilitate passing. As aresult, the Canadian game finallyresembled less of rugby andbecame a variation of the Ameri-can game.

The development of footballfrom an amateur game to a profes-sional one was an even longerprocess than the initial creation ofthe game. The first professionalteam in the United Statesappeared in 1894 in Greensburg,Pennsylvania. The first pro leaguewas not established until 1920with the advent of the AmericanProfessional Football Association,which consisted of 14 teams, alllocated in the Midwest. It was notuntil the mid-1920s that the progame achieved respectability,which was largely due to thearrival of the talented and exciting

running back Red Grange. He wasnicknamed the “Galloping Ghost”and toured the nation with theChicago Bears in 1925, filling sta-diums wherever he went. The progame continued to grow and bymid-century, it was one of Amer-ica’s most popular sports. Theadvent of the Superbowl andmerger of the two top leaguesallowed football to easily attainthe crown of most popular sportin America in the 1970s, which hascontinued to this day.

Professional development wasmuch slower in Canada. The Inter-collegiate Union was set up in1898, which awarded Canada’soldest football trophy, the Yates

Cup, to the top college or univer-sity team in Ontario and Quebec.The winner would advance to theCRU playoffs for the DominionChampionship against the seniorwinner of the rugby union play-offs. In 1909, Governor-GeneralLord Grey donated the Grey Cupas an award for the winner of theDominion Championship. The tro-phy was coveted by all teams andserved to increase the professional-ism in the Canadian game, as wellas to finally attract western teamsto the competition in 1921, givingit a national identity. Universityteams finally quit the competitionin 1934, as the proliferation ofAmerican professionals into Cana-dian clubs had been increasing.The Canadian Football League wasfinally formed in 1958. It still existstoday after much turmoil over theyears, including the allowance ofAmerican teams for a few shortyears in the 1990s.

The origins of North Americanfootball and its successive devel-opment into a popular profes-sional sport is a path thatencompasses two nations, whoeach developed their own take onthe popular 19th-century Britishsports of rugby and AssociationFootball. It is the variations thatemerged during those formativeyears which explain the differ-ences in the Canadian and Ameri-can games played today.


From left: Coach Vince Lombardi on the sidelines with Forrest Gregg of the Green Bay Packers during a National Foot-ball League (NFL) game from the 1960s. The league’s championship trophy would later be named the Vince LombardiTrophy. Right: The “Tigers” of Hamilton, Ontario c.1906. Founded in 1869 as the Hamilton Foot Ball Club, they eventu-

ally merged with the Hamilton Flying Wildcats to form the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League (CFL).

HM

Steve Banois, All-American football center, in 1941.


The History of Death: Burial Cus-toms and Funeral Rites, from theAncient World to Modern Timeslooks at the social history of

death.AuthorMichael Ker-rigan playsVirgil to ourDante as hetakes us on atour of howwe handledeath, fromburial cus-toms of early

civilizations to the Victorian’scult-like devotion towards mourn-ing, from how Europeans handledthe deaths of thousands duringthe Black Plague to how peoplecommemorate death today. Withblack and white illustrations onnearly every page, this will makefor an interesting read. However,perhaps not before bedtime. FromThe Lyons Press, 192 pagesincluding bibliography and anindex. Priced at about $20 US or$25 CDN for the paperback. ISBN:978-1-59921-201-2.

The World Encyclopedia ofArchaeology is an over-sized bookfeaturing the work of more than40 archaeologists, historians andcultural anthropologists. The vari-ous archaeological sites profiledhere aregrouped the-matically,from thedawn ofhumans tothe collapseof society onEaster Islandin c.1500,with mostsites cover-ing facingpages, featuring multiple colorillustrations and aerial pho-tographs. Sites and discoveriessuch as Troy, Tikal, the Great Wallof China and the Iceman are fea-tured. From Firefly Books Ltd.,400 pages including a glossary

and an index. Priced at about $60US/CDN for the hard cover. ISBN:978-155407-311-5.

The Whiskey Merchant’s Diary:An Urban Life in the EmergingMidwest tells the story of Germanimmigrant Joseph J. Mersman,who lived in Cincinnati and St.Louis, then the frontier of America. Edited by Linda A. Fish-

er, the diarycovers theperiod from1847 to 1853and chroni-cles the successesand failuresof a man inthe 19th century. Ofinterest arethe descrip-tions of

Victorian etiquette, his views ongender, entertainment and his suffering due to his “confoundedcomplaint” of syphilis. The workalso features illustrations andmaps of the period. From OhioUniversity Press, 432 pagesincluding an index. Priced atabout $49 US/CDN for the hardcover or $25 US/CDN for thepaperback. ISBN: 978-0-8214-17452 (hard cover)/978- 08214-17460 (paperback).

The annual Frankfurt Book Fair isan event of interest to book loversaround the world and continues atradition that dates back morethan 500 years. A History of theFrankfurtBook Fair byPeter Weidhaas,the directorof the FrankfurtBook Fair,and translated by CarolynGossage and WendyWright,

looks at the history of the eventfrom its early days as a marketselling printed and hand-copiedbooks to being the most importantbook fair for international dealsand trading, with a strong focuson the 20th century. From Dun-durn Press, 280 pages includingseveral black and white illustra-tions and an index. Priced atabout $40 US/CDN for the hardcover. ISBN: 978-1-55002-744-0.

The 19th-century authorsCatharine Parr Traill and SusannaMoodie are famous for theirworks about pioneer life in earlyCanada. Sisters in Two Worlds: AVisual Biography of Susanna

Moodie andCatharineParr Traillchroniclesthe women’searly life inEngland andwhat theyexperiencedonce they

came to the backwoods of UpperCanada, a far cry from theirmanor home as children. Full ofcolorful illustrations from theauthors themselves and photo-graphs of the places they knew,author Michael Peterman has created a delightful book. FromDundurn Press, 280 pages includ-ing an index. Priced at about $45US/CDN for the hard cover. ISBN:978-0-385-66288-8.

REVIEWS

Hindsight A selection of new books and products we believe may be of interest to History Magazine readers.


History Magazine will consider any history book,

publication, product, website,etc., for inclusion in Hindsight.

This is an editorial service;items are chosen solely on

merit and there is no charge forinclusion. Send information to: Hindsight, History Magazine,

505 Consumers Road, Suite500, Toronto, ON M2J 4V8,

Canada, or e-mail [email protected].

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New! History Magazine Volume EightHistory Magazine Volume EightThe eighth year of History Magazine contains the entirecontents of the October 2006 to September 2007 issuesbound together in book format.

Special Bundle OfferVolumes Four, Five, Six and Seven arere-issues of the corresponding years.We usually sell these books for $25,but now you can have all four PLUSVolume Eight for the special price of$65. That’s all the editorial fromHistory Magazine from October 2002to September 2007.

Call toll-free 1-888-326-2476 or visit www.history-magazine.com/hmbooks.htm, or fill out the form below to place your order.

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Huck DeVenzio tracks the change to ourmodern-day calendar


CALENDAR CORRECTION

WE EXPERIENCE ENOUGH clock con-fusion when we cross time zones,recite “Thirty days hath Septem-ber…” and semi-annually springahead or fall back an hour. What ifwe had to spring ahead a weekand a half? That’s what Americancolonists, and all subjects of theBritish Empire, did in 1752 whenthey replaced the Julian calendarwith the Gregorian calendar andskipped 11 days.

Check your favorite 1752 cal-endar. The day after Wednesday,September 2, was Thursday, September 14. In 1752, Septemberhath 19 days.

The Julian calendar, intro-duced under Julius Caesar in46BC and implemented the fol-lowing year, served well for cen-turies until its slightly overstatedyear of 365.35 days became out ofsync with the seasons. Pope Gre-gory XIII decreed in 1582 that arevised calendar would be used,keeping Easter where it belongedin the spring.The new tropi-cal year (fromone veneralequinox to thenext) was365.2422 dayslong. Italy,Spain and several otherEuropean coun-tries adopted itimmediately as their official calen-dar, but most non-Catholic nationstook longer. The British Empirewaited 170 years, but was not thelast. Russia and Greece, among afew others, did not accept the Gre-gorian calendar until the 1900s.

The year of acceptanceaffected the number of days to beskipped. Early adopters skipped10. By 1752, it was necessary toleapfrog 11 days. Russia missed 13days, jumping from 31 January1918 to 14 February 1918.

In England, the jump was said

to causeprotests bypeople whofeared thatthe govern-ment wasstealing days from their lives. Thistale has been refuted, but anti-reform candidates used the slogan,“Give us our Eleven Days”. Such acorrection today would likely gen-

erate untold concern over workschedules, interest charges, rentpayments and getting reservationsat restaurants when 12 days ofbirthdays were being celebratedon the same afternoon. (At leastthe colonists did not have toworry about planes falling out ofthe sky because of Y2K computerglitches.)

The calendar change createddating problems that still linger.One week before 16 September1752 (in what was called the NewStyle) was 29 August (in the Old

Style). What should people do?Should they back-convert all theOld Style dates to New Style? Ifyour ninth birthday had been 10July 1752, did it make sense foryour birthday to fall on 21 July inthe future?

Another issue caused furtherconfusion. It seems natural nowthat December 31 marks the endof one year and New Year’s Dayis January 1. But that was not theuniversal practice. Depending onwhere you were, the new yearbegan on different days, such asDecember 25 (Christmas), March25 (the Annunciation) or, in East-ern European countries, Septem-ber 1 (beginning of the taxationcycle). In England, the stroke ofmidnight was all that separated24 March 1745, from 25 March1746.

When the New Style calendarwas adopted, the British alsochose to adopt January 1 as thefirst day of the year.

Thus, some historical datestook a second bewildering punch,which includes the birthday ofGeorge Washington. He was bornon 11 February 1731, by the calen-dar then in effect. Under the New

Style calendar, his birth date wasFebruary 22. Furthermore, since hewas born between January 1 andMarch 25, even the year of hisbirth changed under the NewStyle — to 1732. This presents abirthday/math/calendar problem:If Washington was born on 11 Feb-ruary 1731 (Old Style), how oldwas he on 11 February 1761? Hewas not 30 but, time zones aside,he was 11 days shy of 29.

The Lost Days of

Above: Pope Gregory XIII issued the papal bull Intergravissimas to promulgate thenew calendar on 24 February1582. Right: Thomas Jefferson’sbirthday was 2 April under theOld Style calendar (as noted onhis tombstone), but is now celebrated on April 13 under the New Style calendar.

HM

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Features We Are Working on forFuture Issues of

The features mentioned here are in preparation and are planned for future issues. However, circumstances may affect the final content.

HOW THE GREAT DEPRESSIONGAVE AMERICA THE BLUES:Heath Lowrance looks at

early American music andhow it reflected what was

happening at home andbeyond.

HOCKEY:It’s played by boys and girls, men andwomen of all ages —as passionately inPorkalompolo, Sweden,as in Podunkville, US.Author Al Hendersontakes to the ice in searchof hockey’s storied past.

PANORAMAS, DIORAMASAND CYCLORAMAS:David Norris looks atthis now forgotten entertainment whichonce enthralled millions.

BRITAIN’S ROYAL CORPS OFENGINEERS IN CANADA:

The Quebec Citadel, theRideau Canal and the CaribooRoad have all contributed sig-nificantly to the establishmentof Canadian sovereignty. Theywere also all built by Britain’sRoyal Corps of Engineers. Art

Montague investigates.

THE TEDDY BEAR:Hero of childhood adventures,

beloved bedtime companionand one of the most popular

toys in history, the teddy bearis cherished by millions, both

young and old. Phill Joneslooks at the international history of the teddy bear.

THE CARNATIC WARS:Pamela D. Toler detailsthe Anglo-Francostruggle for control ofIndia during the 18thcentury.

THE STORY OF RUBBER: Few products have impacted the

modern world more than rubber. Edward E. Deckert and

Constance R. Cherba bouncearound the history of this

ancient space-age material.

TITANIC: David Norris takes us on a first-class tour of the ill-fated ship, which now rests at the bottom of theAtlantic. See who was on the ship’s first — and last— voyage and what happened to its crew and passengers after it hit that infamous iceberg.

THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC: THE GREAT ILLUSIONISTSDoug Elliott conjures up the history of a world

where anything was possible.

Goo

gle

Ear

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