A holiday poem from Williams S. Burroughs: “Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons …”
(more…)
Posts Tagged ‘American History’
Thanksgiving Greetings from William S. Burroughs
November 23, 2017Thanksgiving Greetings from William S. Burroughs
November 24, 2016
A holiday poem from Williams S. Burroughs: “Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons …”
Slavery in America
February 19, 2016
The Whitney Plantation near Wallace, Louisiana, was founded by German émigré Ambroise Heidel and his family in 1722, and his son Jean Jacques Haydel Sr. converted it to sugar cultivation in the early 1800s. The property passed through several hands before it was purchased by New Orleans attorney John Cummings, who spent 16 years and $8 million of his own money transforming it into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery in America.
“The Whitney Plantation is not a place designed to make people feel guilt, or to make people feel shame. It is a site of memory, a place that exists to further the necessary dialogue about race in America.”
— “Telling the Story of Slavery,” Kalim Armstrong, The New Yorker
More:
“Harsh world of slavery focus of Louisiana plantation museum,” Jonathan Kaminsky, Reuters
Video produced by Kalim Armstrong
_____________
Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-nef
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Thanksgiving Greetings from William S. Burroughs
November 26, 2015
A holiday poem from Williams S. Burroughs: “Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons …”
July 5, 1852
July 5, 2015
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
— Frederick Douglass at Corinthian Hall, Rochester NY, on July 5, 1852.
Thanksgiving Greetings from William S. Burroughs
November 27, 2014
A holiday poem from Williams S. Burroughs: “Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons …”
Thanksgiving
November 28, 2013
Native Americans brought corn chips and guacamole dip. Pilgrims brought pizza and beer. It was the first “fun” Thanksgiving.
Immigration for Some
June 21, 2013Britannica Media Archivist Melinda Leonard found this 1946 short film on American Immigration. It boasts of diversity and openness but portrays results of a policy that excluded people from most parts of the world. All the newcomers you see are European.
More:
“Britannica Classic Videos: Immigration (1946),” Melinda Leonard, Britannica Blog
Related:
“Immigration,” NotionsCapital.com
“History of Immigration in America: A Turbulent Timeline,” Stephanie Vatz, KQED News
“Are You Smart Enough to Be a Citizen? Take Our Quiz,” Eric Liu, The Atlantic
_____________
Shortlink: http://wp.me/p6sb6-gSB
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Lobster
June 11, 2013
“Lobsters were so abundant in the early days—residents in the Massachusetts Bay Colony found they washed up on the beach in two-foot-high piles—that people thought of them as trash food. It was fit only for the poor and served to servants or prisoners. In 1622, the governor of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford, was embarrassed to admit to newly arrived colonists that the only food they ‘could presente their friends with was a lobster … without bread or anyhting else but a cupp of fair water’ (original spelling preserved). Later, rumor has it, some in Massachusetts revolted and the colony was forced to sign contracts promising that indentured servants wouldn’t be fed lobster more than three times a week.”
Iconic Skyscraper Photo: Staged Stunt
September 25, 2012
The iconic 1932 photo of construction workers eating lunch on a steel beam high above Rockefeller Center, attributed to Charles C. Ebbets, is considered a documentary classic. There are many tributes (like the Sergio Furnari sculpture above) and parodies. Corbus, which owns the photo rights to “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” says it’s licensed more often than any of the snaps in the firm’s 20-million-image catalog.
