Category: History

P.T. Barnum Brings “The Swedish Nightingale” to New York

Swedish Nightengale On September 1, 1850, Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind — “The Swedish Nightingale” — arrived in New York City from Liverpool, creating a sensation. Showman P.T. Barnum negotiated to bring Lind to the states. His idea paid off, as the tour ended up netting him nearly half of a million dollars.

Barnum offered Lind a high price for the 150-date tour of the U.S. and Canada, an offer he increased after her first shows immediately made the tour a success. Lind agreed to the tour partly because the deal also required certain payments to charities. Her charm won over audiences, and it also helped bring opera to a wider U.S. audience.

This scene from 1934’s The Mighty Barnum captures Barnum negotiating for Jenny Lind as he hears her sing. The film stars Wallace Beery as P.T. Barnum and Virginia Bruce as Jenny Lind.

In the scene above, Virginia Bruce as Jenny Lind sings the Irish song “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” Unfortunately, the real Jenny Lind lived in the very early years of recording and no known recordings of her voice survive. But there are several things named after her, including streets in Arkansas, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

Lind did live on after her triumphant American tour. She spent most of the rest of her life in England with her husband and three children. She stopped doing opera, but she performed concerts until 1883. Starting in 1882, she became a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music. She died in 1887, and as she had done in her lifetime, she left much of her money to charity.

Photo: via public domain.

What is your favorite P.T. Barnum character? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 Appointment to the Supreme Court

    Justice Thurgood Marshall On August 30, 1967, the United States Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall for the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 69-11. Thus, after almost 200 years, the country had its first African-American Supreme Court Justice. It would be even longer until the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, joined the Court in 1981.

    Marshall, of course, made history in a number of ways. While on the Court, he sided with the rights of the oppressed, becoming a fighter for equal treatment of all Americans while leading on such issues as his opposition to the death penalty.

    The following newsreel footage covers President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Marshall to the Court.

    Regarding the 69-11 Senate vote, twenty Senators abstained and did not vote.  The vote took place after what has been called a “heated” debate for six hours, with conservative Senators concerned about Marshall’s “liberal” work for Civil Rights as a lawyer.  The eleven “Nay” votes came from southern states: both Alabama Senators, both South Carolina Senators, both Louisiana Senators, and one Senator each from North Carolina (other NC Senator abstaining), Florida (other Florida Senator abstaining), Georgia (other Georgia Senator abstaining), West Virginia, and Mississippi (other Mississippi Senator abstaining).

    This short video captures some images and a few short interview excerpts from Senators involved in the nomination process. Early on, you may see New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy next to Marshall, and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy speaks about the nomination.

    Marshall’s fight for equal rights went back long before President Johnson nominated him to the Supreme Court. After becoming chief counsel at the NAACP at the young age of 32, he oversaw many important cases. He also won 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, where the Court struck down “separate but equal” school segregation.

    By all accounts, Marshall also was a decent man and fun to be around, as he often regaled his colleagues with stories of his experiences. I have been reading Gilbert King’s Devil in the Grove, which recounts a fascinating period where Marshall was involved in a case helping defend four black men accused of a 1949 crime in Florida.

    In the following video, Mike Wallace interviews Thurgood Marshall on 60 Minutes. The video is undated, but the conversation and the reference to “President Eisenhower” (and apparently to his 1956 re-election) place it within several years after Brown. I like Marshall’s response to the question about who he voted for, as well as Wallace’s promotion of the game Jotto at the end. Check it out.

    A few years back, I caught the HBO one-man show Thurgood, where Laurence Fishburne portrayed the legendary lawyer and jurist. Fishburne does a very good job of capturing various sides of Marshall and his long career, and it is worth tracking down.

    Here is the trailer.

    Thurgood Marshall remains one of the giants of American history. Although I did not learn about him while I was in grade school or probably even high school, every school child should learn about his life.

    Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

    What is your favorite story about Thurgood Marshall? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Why Is There No Ballad of Frank James?

    Frank James 1898
    Frank James 1898

    On August 21 in 1883, Frank James went on trial in Gallatin, Missouri. In April 1882, Robert Ford had shot and killed Frank’s brother Jesse. Instead of waiting for someone to shoot him in the back, Frank James decided to turn himself in to authorities in October 1882.

    Despite the crimes committed by the Janes brothers, many Missourians thought highly of the two outlaws. Although the James-Younger Gang had killed many people during their robberies, many citizens saw them as heroes, taking money from the banks and railroads and giving it back to the poor.

    Post-Civil War sympathies also helped Frank James, who had fought for the South. So, the jury found him not guilty. Likewise, Alabama would fail to convict Frank James of armed robbery.

    After the Trial

    In late 1883, Missouri released James, and he went to live with his mother in Oklahoma for awhile. He lived within the law, doing a number of jobs including berry picker, shoe salesman, lecturer, Burlesque theater ticket taker and betting commissioner.

    Unlike his brother, Frank James died peacefully in Missouri on February 18, 1915 at the age of 72. He was cremated and his ashes were kept in a bank vault to avoid the risk of grave robbers. Eventually, his ashes were buried with his wife in Missouri.

    Popular Culture

    There is a very inaccurate Henry Fonda movie about Frank after Jesse’s death, called The Return of Frank James (1940). The film was a sequel to 1939’s Jesse James, starring Tyrone Power.

    Frank James is also portrayed as an older man, briefly, near the end of the 2010 version of True Grit. In the scene, where the James character remains sitting, Mattie Ross says, “Keep your seat, trash.”

    Perhaps, because Frank James died peacefully, he never became the subject of many songs like his brother did. The most famous song about Frank’s brother is the folk song “Jesse James,” which makes Jesse a hero and calls his killer a coward.

    “Jesse James” was first recorded in 1924, and it also appears in the excellent 2007 movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, where Sam Shepard played Frank James. Bruce Springsteen recorded a nice version as part of his Seeger Sessions.

    Below is a version of “Jesse James” by Van Morrison with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber from The Skiffle Sessions (2000).

    Although dying in a blaze of violence is more likely to be mythologized than a quiet death at old age, I suspect there is yet to be a great song written about Frank James.

    (Photo of Frank James via Library of Congress – Public Domain)

    What is your favorite version of “Jesse James”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Honored Dead and the Gettysburg Survivors

    On July 1-3, 1863, Union and Confederate soldiers fought on the fields near the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. During that time, between 46,000 and 51,000 men on both sides were injured or killed.

    Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

    The battle was a significant victory for the Union, having repelled General Lee’s entry into the North, but the Civil War was far from finished. The battle’s significance, and the war’s meaning, was further solidified several months later on November 19 when the Soldier’s National Cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated, featuring President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

    Of course, there are no survivors of Gettysburg on this anniversary. But on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle in 1913, some of the survivors of the war from both sides did attend a reunion. Ken Burns’s wonderful documentary The Civil War recounts that reunion as well as the seventy-fifth anniversary in 1938.



    Have you been to Gettysburg? Leave your two cents in the comments.  Painting of Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

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    Mickey Mouse Enlists in Viet Nam War

    Anti-War Mickey Mouse movie

    A 1968 silent anti-war film, “Mickey Mouse in Viet Nam,” has been circulating on the Internet recently. In the video, which runs not much more than a minute, Mickey heads off to war in Viet Nam, and the ending is not happy.

    Milton Glaser and Lee Savage created the very short film for an Angry Arts Festival. While there were rumors that a Disney lawsuit kept the film underground, the truth, as explained on Slate, was that Glaser and Savage just moved on to other things after creating the film for the festival. For example, Glaser created the “I ‘heart’ NY” logo and founded New York Magazine. And, there was no Internet in those days to keep videos circulating. Today, though, we do have the Internet, so check out “Mickey Mouse in Viet Nam.”

    What do you think of “Mickey Mouse in Viet Nam”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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