9/11

(LoC) - Within hours of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Library of Congress staff began to call for and collect a vast array of original materials concerning the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and the fate of United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed into the earth at Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Library staff worked in concert with many others to chronicle the events and to collect related material in a wide variety of formats related to 9/11—for example, photographs, comic book illustrations, magazines, posters, and fine art. Continued

Photo: Pentagon lit up for 9/11 anniversary, September 2007 (Aude).

Father Divine

(Wikipedia) - George Baker Jr. (c. 1876 – September 10, 1965), also known as Father Divine, was an African American spiritual leader from about 1907 until his death. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger" and George Baker early in his life. He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formulated its doctrine, and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly black congregation into a multiracial and international church.

... His childhood remains a contentious point. Some, especially earlier researchers, suppose that Father Divine was born in the Deep South, most likely in Georgia as the son of sharecroppers. Newer research by Jill Watts, based on census data, finds evidence for a George Baker Jr. of appropriate age born in an African American ghetto of Rockville, Maryland called Monkey Run. If this theory is correct, his mother was a former slave called Nancy Baker who died in May 1897. Continued

Photo: rockvillemd.gov

Jane Greer

(Wikipedia) - Jane Greer (September 9, 1924 – August 24, 2001) was a film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past.
The five-foot five Greer began life as Bettejane Greer in Washington, D.C. A beauty-contest winner and professional model from her teens, Greer began her show business career as a big band singer. Continued

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

Trailer for the film William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, a feature-length independent documentary by Chicago Director Yony Leyser, in collaboration with BulletProof Film, Inc. The film features never before seen footage of William S. Burroughs, as well as exclusive interviews with his closest friends and colleagues including John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Anne Waldman, George Condo, Hal Willner, James Grauerholz, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, V. Vale, David Ohle, Wayne Propst, Dr. William Ayers, Diane DiPrima, Donovan, Dean Ripa (the world's largest poisonous snake collector), and many others, with narration by actor Peter Weller, and soundtrack by Sonic Youth.

Unclogging the Patapsco

(Baltimore Sun) - Since Tropical Storm Agnes ended its working life abruptly in 1972, Union Dam has stood in the Patapsco River as a broken monument to a bygone industrial era, but it's also an obstacle to migrating fish, a swimming hazard and a potential threat to a large sewer pipe.
Its remaining time can now probably be measured in months. Fueled by federal stimulus money, efforts of state and federal officials and river advocates are expected to be realized in the coming weeks with a demolition crew rumbling into Patapsco Valley State Park on the Baltimore- Howard County line to begin dismantling the 209-foot-long concrete hulk. Continued

Photo: Union Dam (B&O RR Photo Tours)

A Clash of Polar Frauds and Those Who Believe

(NYTimes) - In September 1909, Dr. Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary each returned from the Arctic with a tale of having reached the North Pole. Neither provided any solid proof or corroborating testimony; both told vague stories with large gaps. They couldn’t even convincingly explain how they had plotted their routes across the polar ice.
Yet each explorer’s claim immediately attracted its supporters, and no amount of contradictory evidence in the ensuing years would be enough to dissuade the faithful.
A century later, the “discovery” of the North Pole may qualify as the most successful fraud in modern science, as well as the longest-running case study of a psychological phenomenon called “motivated reasoning.” Continued

Photos: Cook expedition, Robert E. Perry (Library of Congress).

On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes

(HistoryNet) - One hundred and fifty years after Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was born, the workaholic, hawk-faced “consulting detective” with a penchant for violins, morphine and cocaine, remains an icon of English literature. (Fervent Sherlockians insist that Doyle was merely the literary agent in the set-up, while the slightly dim-witted Watson played Boswell to Holmes’ Johnson.) Doyle’s tales were not the first modern detective stories, but they helped to pioneer an infant genre and set a benchmark for so many colorful English detectives that followed, from Agatha Christie’s Poirot to Ian Rankin’s Rebus. Continued

The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989

(NYTBR) - ... Reagan would doubtless have appreciated the way his legacy has turned liberal against liberal, but he’d probably welcome a more spirited conversation within his own coalition. Especially lately, because in the post-Bush era of conservative retrenchment, there has often been more sloganeering than substance in the way the Gipper’s would-be heirs remember him. He’s become a plaster saint rather than a living, breathing politician. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Station Number 68: Red Lion

(Redlionpa.org) - The original 1874 station on this site was privately built by Mrs. Catherine Meyer and served as a general store, bar, post office and railroad station for the Peach Bottom Railway Company (one of the many predecessors of the Maryland & Pennsylvania RR). When the original station was destroyed by fire in 1895, a second station was rebuilt to the original plans. For 106 years this site had served as an active train station, finally closing on November 1, 1980. It was the only all brick station ever built by this railroad.
... A typical example of freight shipments forwarded by 40 local firms from the Red Lion Station on the Ma & Pa RR during the month of October 1929 included approximately 15,000,000 cigars, 1633 cases of tobacco, 10,321 radio cabinets, 5033 crates of furniture, 11 carloads of canned goods, 2 cars of wheat flour, 3 cars of tobacco stems, 2 cars of hay, and 50,000 pounds of miscellaneous freight. Inbound freight received at the Red Lion Station during the same time period was 12,617,315 pounds. Continued

Photos: MDRails

Louisa Ann Swain

(Wikipedia) - Louisa Ann Swain (1801, Norfolk, Virginia – January 25, 1880, Lutherville, Maryland) was the first woman to vote in a general election in the United States. She voted on September 6, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming.
Born Louisa Gardner, she was the daughter of a sea captain who was lost at sea while she was a child. She and her mother moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where her mother died. Orphaned, Louisa went to Baltimore to live with an uncle, Ephraim Gardner. While in Baltimore, she met and, in 1821, married Stephen Swain, who operated a chair factory. Continued

New York’s Coldest Case: A Murder 400 Years Old

(NYTimes) - ... It was on Sept. 6, 1609 — 400 years ago Sunday — when this, the first recorded murder in what became metropolitan New York, was committed. Colman was killed only four days after the first Dutch and English sailors arrived. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

Man fires cannon, hits neighbor's house

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home.
Fifty-four-year-old William Maser fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. Continued

Photo: Nightening

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching

This is a great song, which has taken several forms over the years. It was first a Civil War song written by George F. Root. It has also taken the form of an Irish anthem (God Save Ireland), a labor song by Joe Hill (Tramp tramp tramp keep on a tramping), and a Sunday school song (Jesus Loves the Little Children), which is where I first learned it. It's also one of the increasingly few tunes my elderly mother recognizes, so I whistle it for her often. That and the Elephant Song, which I sing for her 6 or 8 times a day. It's very short and goes like this:

The elephant carries a great big trunk

He never packs it with clothes

It has no lock and it has no key

But he takes it wherever he goes.

"The Un-greatest Generation"

(Huffington Post) ... But we never could escape the warm bath of encomium flowing from a media machine designed not just to chronicle but glorify the Boomers as they made their way through life -- from their self-reflective 30s (the tedious navel-gazing of Thirtysomething and The Big Chill), through their ascendancy to their rightful place at the very pinnacle of American society (the too-much-is-never-enough Clinton presidency), now into their autumnal years (story upon story devoted to how they're "redefining" retirement -- bringing the same level of self-indulgence to it that they've brought to every other period in their lives). To drop a phrase from a generation that existed long before theirs, the more things change the more they stay the same. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Search begins for Camp Security artifacts

(InYork) - Archeologist Steve Warfel examined fragments of window glass, ceramics and bone that high-school student Dante Boemio found Tuesday during a dig outside the Schultz House in Springettsbury Township.
"This is a pearlware, which is early 19th century," Warfel said. ". . . It's an English ceramic type that dates from 1790s to about 1840." ... The 19th century has been well-expressed so far in the dig, Warfel said, but he and the volunteers haven't found any pieces yet reminiscent of Camp Security, a Revolutionary War prison camp. Continued