Air Conditioning: From Luxury to Necessity
For those of us born in the post-war years, the 1950s don’t seem so distant. We have a wealth of childhood memories, which are perennially refreshed by the sight of the old houses, schools, and churches we grew up with. We can remember how the ‘50s looked easily enough. It’s far more difficult to remember how they felt.
To do that, to recapture the sense of living in the “jet age,” we must recall life before a flood of new technologies. We must recall how we lived when television was limited to three channels on a small, grainy, black-and-white screen. But we should also recollect how it felt to live before air conditioning, when we longed to get outside to catch any tiny breeze, when we slept on fire escapes, or hammocks, or down at the beach — anywhere but in the oven that was our bedroom.
The Post was there at the start, as air conditioning grew from a luxury to a necessity for every American house, store, and office building. In “They’re Trying To Make Summer Extinct” [June 6, 1953, PDF download], Rufus Harman predicts the coming summer will mark the beginning of The Great Era of Air Conditioning, which could mean
anything from room coolers becoming as common in homes as refrigerators are now, to a fantastic future when practically all indoor spaces and limited parts of the great outdoors, including streets of cities, will be given year-round “perfect climate” by artificial means.
Financiers of the day predicted air conditioning was about to become “America’s next great industry.”
When the Carrier Corporation, largest in the field, announced last fall, gross business totaling $107,700,702 for twelve months, not only was Wall Street impressed but old-timers in the industry could scarcely believe it. Four years before, when President Cloud Wampler, of Carrier, had predicted a $100,000,000 gross by 1955, some company officials said such wild talk might cause him to lose the employees’ confidence.
Up to now, less than 1 per cent of United States homes have air conditioning in any form. No large New York hotel is fully air conditioned; few apartment buildings are, and only lately have office-building owners decided they must have it to keep tenants.
Two years earlier, Americans had purchased 237,000 single-room air conditioners. In 1951, sales reached 400,000 coolers, and would have sold more if the supply hadn’t run out. The success of these window-mounted, single-room coolers led the industry to think on a larger scale.
Some thinkers believe the important field in residential air conditioning is not room coolers, but central units providing year-long perfect climate for the whole house. A St. Louis builder has scheduled this year 400 such houses to sell at $12,000.
A recent poll, by the National Association of Home Builders, of 255 representative firms indicated that about 40 per cent of home-building companies will offer air conditioning in new houses this year. Last year almost none of the 104 companies in the poll that said they now plan to air-condition new homes were considering the matter seriously.
Many home-owners were early adopters of the new cooling technology, and paid to have central air conditioning installed. But most Americans were reluctant to go beyond one window-mounted, single-room cooler.
The industry expects that more than a quarter millions new car buyers will go for cooling this year [1956]. One hundred and eighty-four thousand did in 1955. By contrast, only 65,000 new homes equipped with central air conditioning were sold last year. An equal numbers of installations were made in old houses. This relatively meager acceptance of complete cooling homes puzzles a great many people. The builders, who turned out 1,330,000 houses last year, are particularly concerned.
“The air-condition equipment in an automobile,” they point out, “has more than enough capacity to cool a small house. The car needs this excess capacity because it soaks up heat through metal and glass. What we’d like to unravel, they say, is why the public will buy air-conditioned cars, patronize air-cooled theaters, restaurants and motels, invest in room air conditioners every time there’s a heat wave, but stay away in droves when a builder tries to sell a house with summer cooling to match winter warmth.” [“They Lock Hot Weather Out,” Arnold Nicolson, June 16, 1956]
One reason they hesitated was the cost. As long as whole-house air conditioning was viewed as a luxury, it would remain beyond the budget of most households. But in time, Americans began to regard the idea of being comfortable in summer as a justifiable necessity. By 1957, over half a million homes in America had central air conditioning.
Secretary of Commerce Frederick H. Mueller has said: “It’s hard to explain the wide acceptance of air conditioning on its money values alone, I think people have just decided that it’s part of the American standard of living, something we’re all entitled to, just as we’re entitled to heat in the winter and food on the table.”
Business owners realized that air conditioning might make their offices and factories more profitable. According to a 1960 article, researchers had been studying the effect of air conditioning on worker productivity.
In every case, output goes up—from 22 to 28 per cent for factory labor, and from 20 to 50 per cent for office help… An across-the-board rise of 10 per cent in productivity would be something of an industrial revolution, so it’s obvious that air conditioning is going to produce some amazing changes in our efficiency and work habits.
Sociologists are just beginning to appraise the effects that air conditioning may have on our civilization, but the omens are highly visible. Ten years from now [i.e., 1970], when all major office buildings and department stores, half of all factories, and around 30,000,000 dwelling units have “controlled summer environment” as the air-conditioning salesmen new call it, the American way of life may be quite different from what it is today.
Some rather remarkable modifications will be wrought in our home life, too, according to Professor Watt. He studied a community of twenty-two air-conditioned homes near Austin, Texas, comparing them with a similar but non-air-conditioned neighborhood of about the same size. In the air-conditioned homes the wives spent less time at housework because, with doors and windows closed, less dust and dirt got into the house. Colds decreased among the air-conditioned families. Family life — the total hours the family spent together at home — increased. And so, in a way, did family productivity. The rate of pregnancy in the air-conditioned homes showed a significant increase above that in the non air-conditioned. The professor can’t say whether this particular result was due to better health, more relaxed home atmosphere or what. “But it happened,” he declared.
There would be other effects, which would only become apparent over time. Some would be subtle, like the disappearance of distinctive smells inside stores. With their air continually filtered and re-filtered, grocery stores became as scentless as department stores. The unique aroma of the old-fashioned drug store — a rich bouquet of oils and ointments, lunch counter, soaps, and candy — was replaced with odorless, sanitized, empty air.
The Post observed another change: Air conditioning was eroding the sense of community. With Americans remaining close to their air vents, the streets of their neighborhood emptied. The only sound in the summer night was the hum of air conditioning compressors, crickets, and passing cars. Few people strolled the sidewalks at night to cool off before bed, and the front porch was disappearing from the American home.
This homely American institution—often more elegantly called “veranda” or “piazza”—belonged to a more expansive generation and had qualities that today’s “patios,” “breezeways,” “terraces” or back-yard “fireplace areas” can’t approach. For one thing, it was “out front” instead of “out back,” far enough removed from the social current that flowed along the sidewalk for privacy, but available for informal neighborhood sociability… There was a largeness and easiness around the old front porch. Times and tastes — and costs, of course — are bound to change, but older generations have a right to keep a warm spot in their hearts for this old-time summer haven. [“What Has Happened To The Front Porch?” Oct. 22, 1955]
Yes, television certainly changed our lives. But when your power fails on a hot summer night, what technology do you miss the most? It’s probably not your television.
Read “They’re Trying To Make Summer Extinct” [June 6, 1953, PDF download].
Classic Covers: Leading Ladies of the ’60s
This 1966 cover is one of several I’ve unearthed to answer the burning question: “Which celebrities appeared on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post?” Next week, great celebrity MEN like Newman, Redford, Connery… But this week it’s sizzling sixties sirens!
Elizabeth Taylor – December 3, 1966
Elizabeth Taylor may have been a shrew on the December 3, 1966 cover, but she was also a stunner. She and Richard Burton were starring in The Taming of the Shrew. The Paul Ronald photo gives credence to those who argue she was the most beautiful screen actress of all. To my surprise and delight, the cover folded out to show the man attempting to tame her (Burton as Petruchio). Well, it certainly never happened in real life.
Sophia Loren – October 21, 1967
Just when you stick your foot in it and assert that Liz was the greatest screen beauty ever, you run across a gorgeous cover of Sophia Loren from 1967. The battle rages on. The movie star had a rough beginning, “even for a poor Neapolitan,” wrote John Cheever in the accompanying article. “She was seven years old when the three-year of bombardment of Naples began during World War II, and she and her mother suffered the hazards of poverty and war.” Forty-three years later, she’s still gorgeous.
Ann-Margret – May 4, 1963
Looking sassy, sexy and joyful all at once is Ann-Margret, an “explosive new star.” Her rise to Hollywood fame was considered lightning fast. “At 22, having emerged from nowhere by way of Sweden and Illinois, Ann-Margret has worked the film town’s official chroniclers into a froth of admiration,” wrote Dean Jennings. As ingenuous as the young star was, she planned “to be the girl who sustains, year after year.” We’re delighted she succeeded.
Faye Dunaway – September 7, 1968
I have been known to rue the day photography replaced art and illustration on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, but a photo like this reminds even a curmudgeon like myself that photography is an art form, too. The beautiful star was nominated for Best Actress for Bonnie and Clyde from the year before.
Julie Andrews – January 29, 1966
I love the fresh-faced Julie Andrews of this 1966 cover. She was a long way from the Mary Poppins of only a couple of years before, starring in a cold-war themed Hitchcock movie. With her in “Torn Curtain” was Paul Newman (who’ll be one of our “leading men” next week). She was the first to make fun of her squeaky clean image. When Hitchcock complained during a scene, “That light is making a hell of a line over her head,” she responded with hands primly on hips, “That’s my halo.” Okay, no halo, but she certainly had a radiance.
Brigitte Bardot – May 8, 1965
“For people like me,” Bardot was quoted as saying, “there is no place left to hide.” The sex kitten was still a hot property at the ripe old age of thirty. According to the article, “police almost lost control of the mob when she got off the plane in Mexico City to assume her part in Viva Maria! Being hounded by the paparazzi isn’t a new thing—the alluring actress was brutally pursued by photographers. She retired less than ten years later and became an outspoken advocate for animal rights.
Next week: The masculine celebrities of the sixties and seventies
A Fiddler Keeps Hope Alive in 1920s Texas
In his 1960 article “My Dad’s Best Crop Was Music,” [PDF download] Lewis Nordyke told how his father, and his fiddle music, revived the flagging spirits of his hard-working family and neighbors.
When dad played his fiddle, the world became a bright and morning star. To him violin was an instrument of faith, hope and charity. Some of his neighbors deep in the heart of rural Texas at the turn of the century had been brought up to believe the fiddle was the devil’s music box.
But dad could tuck his old fiddle to his shoulder, wave his bow almost magically and then bring it down lovingly across the strings, and the agonies of plowing with diabolical mules, the catastrophe of burning drought, the mutilation of buffeting winds and pounding hailstones, the memories of all the ills that flesh is heir to—the harms and hurts of dirt farming—would disappear. It was as if dad in his old blue-billy overalls, but with his hair neatly combed and his hands as clean as homemade soap and well water could make them, had sat down square-dab on Pandora’s box and put the devil to shame.
Dad furnished music for school plays, picnics, Christmas programs and nearly every get-together at the schoolhouse. At home his fiddle never gathered dust. When the chores were done or when he needed to express his joy in life or play away the blues, down came the fiddle. And what dad could do for himself he could do for others. He applied the Golden Rule to music.
In the early years of the century, the boll weevil began devastating the cotton farm in the south. Like everyone else in his stretch of Texas, Charles Thaddeus Nordyke relied on cotton to keep the family farm solvent.
Everything on Nubbin Ridge—and on a majority of the small farms in Texas—was built around cotton as the money crop. A man could mortgage his first bale by the time the seeds that would produce it had sprouted and buy essential supplies at the store on fall credit. The weevil was changing this.
For years the bug had been creeping northward from Central America, devastating cotton in the Old South and in southern Texas. By the time it hit Nubbin Ridge the Government was estimating that the insect was causing an annual loss of $200,000,000 to cotton farmers in the South.
When the day came that Charley Nordyke found weevils in his cotton, he seemed to lose all hope.
Dad wandered around the yard as if lost. After a while he walked into the house and tuned his fiddle. He started playing sad pieces in tones that tore at the heart—Darling Nelly Gray, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, Little Old Cabin in the Lane, When You and I Were Young, Maggie.
Gradually the music quickened. Listen to the Mockingbird sounded a bit cheerful. Then came Little Brown Jug with considerable zip, and the same for Boom-ta-ra. Dad finally ended with a rousing rendition of Turkey in the Straw. When he came out of the house he was whistling the tune…
At least a thousand times, [my mother] said, “Your papa would play his fiddle if the world was about to blow up.”
And once dad came about as close to that as could ever be possible. In May of 1910 the folks at Turkey Creek, and all over the nation, were in a space-age state of turmoil over Halley’s comet. It had been predicted for seventy-five years, and it had appeared on schedule. There were all sorts of frightening stories about the comet, the main one being that the world would pass through its tail, said to be millions of miles long, or else the wavering, fiery plume would switch, like the tail of a milk cow at a fly, and swat the world, sending it winding and everybody with it.
Between the threats of comet and weevils, the farmers were running low on optimism. One night, they gathered at the Nordyke farm to discuss what to do.
When the some thirty neighbors had found seats on the front porch and in the yard, Will Bowen suggested, “Charley, how about getting down your fiddle and bow and giving us a little music?”
“Aw, I don’t think anybody’d want to hear me saw the gourd tonight,” dad replied.
“Come on, Mr. Nordyke,” one of the younger women urged, “why don’t you play for us.”
Dad had a knack for getting people in the mood for his music. Knowing of the scattered prejudice against the fiddle, he eased into a song titled Gloryland. It was a church song with church tones, but it was fairly fast with some good runs. He shifted from Gloryland to The Bonnie Blue Flag, a Confederate war song, which created a big stir — foot stamping, hand clapping and a few Rebel yells.
Dad was ready for his next move — an old familiar heart song, Nelly Gray. He started the tune a bit mournfully and gradually brightened it. Then he shifted to trilling The Mockingbird and went from that to My Old Kentucky Home. Almost before anyone realized what was happening to the music, dad was “eating up” Turkey in the Straw, and every foot was lapping and every body was swaying.
Will Bowen, apparently having forgotten Halley’s comet, shouted, “How about giving us Sally Goodin?” Dad played the old breakdown with vigor. Several men jumped up and jigged around.
The next tune was a novelty number called The Wild Indian, a fast one which raced up to a break — just long enough for a sustained yell, something like “Hooooo-ho!” Dad gave the yells. Pretty soon nearly everyone was joining in. Children gathered around and gazed wide-eyed at the performance.
All our neighbors went home whistling or humming. Very few remembered to look toward the northwest to see whether the comet and its wicked tail were still around…
One evening Will Bowen called dad on the telephone and said, “Charley, I’m downhearted and blue. I was out in the cotton patch today. Got a few little squares showing up. Every time a square forms, there are four boll weevils waiting there to pucncture it with their snouts. Just wondered if you could play a tune or two for me?”
“’I sure could, Will,” Dad said. “Could you come over?”
“No. I mean play on the phone box.”
“The phone box?”
“Sure,” Mr. Bowen said. “I can hear you talk. Why couldn’t I hear the fiddle?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” dad said, “but I can try anything at least once.”
Dad hurried to the mirror and combed his hair. He took the fiddle to the telephone and thumped the strings. Putting the receiver to his ear, he said, “Hear anything. Will?”
“Sure can,” Mr. Bowen said. “Just as plain as day. Now try a tune.”
“What would you like to hear?”
“Could you try Sally Goodin and play it just like you did the other night?” Dad handed the receiver to me. He stepped up to the mouthpiece on the wall box and cut loose on Sally Goodin. I could bear Mr. Bowen whistling and yelling.
By the time the tune was finished there were half a dozen neighbors on the line, and they talked about how wonderful the music sounded over the telephone. They made numerous requests; I relayed them to dad and he played the numbers.
The central girl at Cottonwood had a call for our line. She asked the caller if he’d like to hear music, and he was willing. Then she cranked a long ring on each of the party lines. That brought down nearly every receiver. With all the lines hooked up with our line, dad was playing for people as far as ten miles away. I don’t know whether this was the nation’s first broadcast of entertainment, but it was certainly one of the pioneers. Moreover, with all the lines linked, we had a network. And it lengthened.
Our party line broadcasts became regular features of community life. On rough-weather days of winter when farm folks were forced to remain in the house, someone would ring us and ask dad to play, and usually it developed into a network affair. At times, though, dad played over the telephone for an individual—someone who was ill or an old person who was shut in. Our phone kept ringing with requests for music until radio came in.
Read “My Dad’s Best Crop Was Music,” [PDF download].
Cardiac Test Basics
Q: Please explain the difference between an electrocardiogram and an echocardiogram. What exactly do these tests tell doctors about the heart?
A: An electrocardiogram (ECG) records the heart’s electrical activity (heartbeat) while the echocardiogram records the mechanical or muscular activity (heart contraction). The ECG tells doctors about electrical problems that can cause arrhythmias while the echo diagnoses abnormal contractions that can cause heart failure.
Give the Gift of Life
Q: My brother-in-law just turned 50 and needs a new heart. We sometimes hear that wealthy people get donor organs quicker than others. Is this true? How long is the usual wait for a new heart?
A: As you are well aware, there is an extreme shortage of organs, including hearts, suitable for transplantation. In 1982, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) was formed to provide equitable distribution of transplant organs. Located in Richmond, Virginia, UNOS is a nonprofit organization that administers the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to facilitate organ matching and placement according to equitable policies based on objective medical criteria such as blood and tissue type, medical urgency of the patient, time spent on the waiting list, distance between the donor and recipient, and so on. There are about 2,500 heart transplants yearly in the U.S., with many thousands more on the waiting list. The waiting time varies from several days to several months or longer.
Heart Defect Often Causes No Symptoms
Q: I had a stroke in 2003, and a diagnostic test showed a “hole” in my heart with no right-to-left shunt. The shunt didn’t show up on a different kind of test in 2009, either.
I came through the stroke fine because I went to the hospital right away and have been on warfarin ever since. My question is: If there’s no shunt, is the hole present?
A: The heart defect (or hole) responsible for a stroke is usually located in the top chambers of the heart, or atria. Diagnostic tests may detect an atrial septal defect (ASD) or a patent foramen ovale (PFO), both of which are “holes” in the tissue separating the right and left atria. A “shunt” is the term used to describe blood flow across such a defect. In your case, the concern is a right-to-left shunt, meaning that a blood clot could travel from the right to the left side of the heart, and then on to the brain and cause a stroke. Even if testing did not show a right-to-left shunt, it could still happen on occasion, such as after coughing or sneezing. Ask your cardiologist whether you indeed do or do not have a shunt. Treatments include closing the shunt via a device implanted during a heart catheterization (rather than open-heart surgery) or lifelong anti-coagulation with warfarin.
Low-Dose Aspirin for Heart Health
Q: What is the latest information about taking daily baby aspirin to help the heart? I stopped taking it when I got blotches on my arms from bleeding under the skin.
A: Aspirin inhibits blood clotting by reducing the “stickiness” of platelets. This helps lower the incidence of stroke and heart attacks, but may increase the risk of bleeding. In general, people at low risk of having a heart attack or stroke shouldn’t take daily aspirin because the chance of bleeding outweighs any potential benefit. In contrast, low-dose aspirin therapy is beneficial for those who carry an increased risk of heart attack or stroke, including people with the irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation.
Honey Vinaigrette Marinade
Use it for salad dressing or to marinate chicken, fish, or vegetables. It’s too easy not to try.
Honey Vinaigrette Marinade
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- Salt and pepper, to taste
In bowl, whisk ingredients together and that’s it!
The Post Discovers Country Music…in 1944
Country music — then called “mountain” or “hillbilly” music — must have been nearly unknown to the readers of The Saturday Evening Post in 1944. Maurice Zolotow, who usually covered Broadway and Hollywood, wrote about this new genre as if he was introducing a strange, incomprehensible new style to Post readers.
In “Hillbilly Boom,”[PDF download] Zolotow reports on the efforts of Art Satherley, who scouted country music for Columbia Records. In March of 1942, Satherley was auditioning potential recording artists in a Dallas hotel when he met Albert Poindexter.
On that historic morning in March, Satherley, a scholarly and dignified man who speaks with a British accent and looks somewhat like an Oxford professor of Greek history, placed his pince-nez on his nose and patiently listened as Poindexter and his companions dreamily strummed and thrummed and twanged their way through the thirty-five lays of despair. Finally, Satherley selected twelve to be recorded. The best of the twelve, thought Satherley, was a lilting love song called Rosalita. Another of the twelve was a ballad having to do with a husband who is having a wild time in a night club in the company of a blonde when his wife catches him in flagrante delicto, she forthwith drawing a revolver, shooting out the lights and beating him gently about the face. Although he was not particularly impressed by this saga of marital infidelity, Satherley recorded it because he liked its steady, insistent rhythm. He was otherwise unimpressed, however, because he says that in hillbilly circles it is very common to hear songs about men and women who are unfaithful to each other, and who are always shooting it out with guns.
“To be honest about it,” Satherley recently confided, “I never dreamed it would be the hit it turned out. We only released it because we needed a contrast to put on the other side of Rosalita.”
Released in March, 1943, Rosalita was promptly forgotten. Instead, millions of Americans began to walk around advising pistol-packin’ mama to lay that pistol down. By June it became one of the biggest selling records in the history of American recording and by December, 1943, it had sold 1,600,000 copies, and the manufacturer had orders on hand for 500,000 more which he could not fill because of the wartime shortages of labor and shellac…
The Hit Parade for a long time refused to recognize the existence of “Pistol-Packin’ Mama” because the opening line went “Drinkin’ beer in a cabaret,” and the radio networks are not permitted to publicize people who look upon the malt when it is amber. This is a ruling of the Federal Communications Commission. The publishers of Pistol-Packin’ Mama haled the Hit Parade into court, and finally the lyric was altered to read “Singin’ songs in a cabaret,” and Pistol-Packin’ Mama became No. 1 on the Hit Parade…
Satherley has a gloating air of triumph as he recites these and other statistics which prove that hillbilly music has come into its own. After “Pistol-Packin’ Mama,” among the biggest recordings of the past twelvemonth have been “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere,” by Elton Britt and his band, and “No Letter Today,” by Ted Daffan and his Texans, both of which have gone over the million mark. Six large radio stations now have gigantic programs devoted solely to hillbilly music, and WLS broadcasts five solid hours of the National Barn Dance every Saturday, In Nashville, Tennessee, the Grand Ole Op’ry [sic] is aired over WSM for four hours. NBC broadcasts portions of these two programs on a national hookup, and has a third sorghum show entitled The Hook ‘n’ Ladder Follies.
Almost as remarkable are the grosses amassed by hillbilly units which play one-night stands all over the country in county auditoriums, schools, barns and theaters. Obscure performers playing in hamlets like Reeds Ferry, New Hampshire, will draw $5600 in a single night. On the road, hillbilly troupes will consistently outdraw legitimate Broadway plays, symphony concerts, sophisticated comedians and beautiful dancing girls. When a unit, say, like Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys is scheduled to hit a town like Albany, Georgia, farmers will pour into Albany from a 200-mile radius, and night after night Acuff will play to audiences of 4000 in places where Betty Grable or Tommy Dorsey or Bob Hope would only succeed in drawing boll weevils…
It is no mystery to Satherley, who, for some twenty-five years, has been crusading for hillbilly music among his cynical Broadway friends, Satherley dislikes the term “hillbilly,” and he keeps talking about ” folk music,” “country rustic” or “mountain music.” He says that the explanation of the hillbilly phenomenon is quite simple. He explains that most Americans either live on farms today or came from farms, and that the strains of a hoedown fiddle or a cowboy plaint are their own native folk music and the one they will always respond to, no matter how far they have gone from the farm. He also believes that the congregation of groups of young men in Army camps has much to do with the boom in hillbilly music.
Because much of the hillbilly talent is employed in farming or ranching, Satherley must seek out his talent in the bayous, the canebrakes, the cotton plantations, the tobacco regions…
Although all hillbilly music sounds monotonously alike to the urban eardrum, it includes many types of music.
The qualities Satherley says must always be present in fine hillbilly music are simplicity of language, an emotional depth in the music, sincerity in the rendition, and an indigenous genuineness of dialect and twang, “I would never think of hiring a Mississippi boy to play in a Texas band,” he says, “Any Texan would know right off it was wrong.”
But, above all, sincerity, even if it is awkward unpolished sincerity, is the criterion used to judge the performer. “A true folk singer who is not synthetic can be recognized because he doesn’t ‘do’ a song; he cries it out with his heart and soul,” Satherley says.
After sincerity, Satherley strives to project the meaning of the lyrics. “The person who listens to mountain music wants to hear a story,” Satherley explains. “My singers must get the picture of the words. I’ve got to instill into them a picture of what they are singing about. If they’re singing about a dead person, I impress on them that their best friend is lying dead and ‘you’ll never see him again.’ I tell them, ‘Sing It in the extreme.’ In folk music, we don’t care about trick ways of phrasing or hot licks; we concentrate on the emotions. The country people — these so-called hillbillies — are tremendously sensitive people, with deep emotions. Whereas the sophisticated city person likes these humbug boy-girl love songs, with everything pretty-pretty, the mountaineer is a realist. His songs deal with loneliness, misery, death, murder.”
Read “Hillbilly Boom,”[PDF download].
Walk Your Way to Fitness
Kristin Davis, ACSM-certified fitness specialist, offers this commonsense game plan to walk your way to fitness:
“Use good S-E-N-S-E, an acronym for Start Exercise Nice and Slow, Every single time.
Step 1: Start easy. Walk a comfortable pace and time. Use a watch to time your walk. Work up to walking for ten minutes at a moderate pace, three times a week.
Step 2: Stick with it for one week.
Step 3: Now, walk for 11 minutes, 3 times a week.
Step 4: Continue increasing your walking time by 10 percent each week. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends getting 30 minutes of moderate exercise, five days a week. But the 30 minutes can be broken up into ten-minute segments.
Remember: Start Exercise Nice and Slow, Every single time. You can do it!”
Click here for information on finding shoes that make you want to walk!
“Talleyrand Penrod” by Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869 – May 19, 1946) was best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. Before publishing those works, he penned the comical Penrod stories, which would inspire many film adaptations in the 20s and 30s.
Read “Talleyrand Penrod” by Booth Tarkington. Originally published in June 21, 1913 [PDF download].
Putting America Back to Work
J. Mack Swigert remembers hunting for work in Chicago during the height of the Great Depression. Even his Harvard Law degree was no guarantee. “I had to hustle it by walking up and down LaSalle Street.”
Swigert, now 102, was pleased to be offered a $15-a-week job at a time when “there were men selling apples on the street corner.” His father, on the other hand, saw his own business falter in the harsh economic times, and ultimately went bankrupt.
It all has a familiar ring. What Swigert remembers from the ’30s echoes what millions of Americans are experiencing now. The economy has lost more than 8 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. As of March this year, the unemployment rate stood at 9.7 percent for the third consecutive month, edging up to 9.9 percent in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although there are signs the recession is lessening, a record 6.7 million Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.
The comparisons between the ’30s and today are both painful and inevitable, but it’s pretty obvious this hasn’t been our fathers’ (or grandfathers’) depression. No economist has suggested our predicament is anything close to what occurred in the 1930s, when the market collapsed and 15 million people, one-fourth of the work force, were unemployed.
Nor has the current crisis led to as much imagery associated with the Great Depression: bread lines, shantytowns, homeless men—called tramps then—wandering door to door in search of handouts and charity.
One reason, of course, is the New Deal itself. The Social Security Act of 1935 created, in addition to the retirement insurance for which it’s named, a federal and state system of unemployment compensation that provides temporary, partial wages to the newly out-of-work. It’s a cushion for families, and it helps stabilize the economy during recessions.
The safety net devised under Roosevelt protects the country today “from looking like it did in 1931 and 1932,” says Nick Taylor, whose book, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, analyzes the economic crisis that began under Herbert Hoover, brought FDR into office, and prompted creation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), among other economic reforms.
Perhaps more significant, the New Deal forever changed the public’s expectation of the government’s role in times of hardship. The pre-World War II generation hit bottom before government stepped in. Republican Herbert Hoover, who prematurely declared “The Depression is over” in June 1930, steadfastly opposed government action, which led to his lopsided loss to FDR. In 2008 presidential candidates Obama and McCain stood together against laissez faire banking; to have done otherwise could have been political suicide.
“The Roosevelt administration was the first one to recognize that the government was responsible for the welfare of the people,” Taylor says. “One of government’s purposes is to have a humanitarian side.”
Roosevelt’s program was controversial then. It still is igniting debate that rages among pundits and economists. Did the New Deal help end the Great Depression, or was it just a distraction until World War II provided the real economic stimulus?
Wake Forest University economist Robert Whaples conducted a survey of economists in 1995 and asked if they agreed with the following: “Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression.” Fifty-one percent disagreed and 49 percent agreed (many with provisions).
The most glowing analyses credit the New Deal for lifting the country out of the worst of the Depression and improving the mood of a panicked nation. The most critical suggest that Roosevelt’s fiscal policies not only aggravated the crisis but extended the Depression by as many as seven years. But on one aspect of the New Deal, its humanitarian impact on suffering individuals, almost everyone agrees: Government-sponsored jobs improved the economic circumstances of the people who held those jobs.
Roosevelt first proposed the idea of a permanent jobs program during his annual message to Congress on January 4, 1935. A variety of temporary relief measures had been implemented by then, but Roosevelt considered them handouts and demeaning to human dignity. At that time, 5 million people were receiving some form of government aid, 3.5 million of whom Roosevelt felt were able-bodied and could be working.
His proposal became the Works Progress Administration. At its peak in March 1938, the WPA rolls hit 3.4 million. By June 1943, when the program was ended because it was no longer needed—unemployment had fallen to 1.9 percent—the WPA had employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million different projects.
After that, Taylor writes, “No one would care to look at the WPA again for quite some time. In the heat of war, there was too much else to think about, and the agency closed its doors without fanfare. Two years later, when the war was ending and life slowly began to return to normal, Americans did not want to remember the Depression.”
Its legacy, Taylor says, is measured in statistics and still evident all around us. The WPA fought floods, hurricanes, and fires; recycled toys; inoculated the sick; and “created works that even without restoration have lasted for more than 70 years.”
President Barack Obama consistently invoked the New Deal as historic evidence to support his stimulus plan. “With the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs,” he said.
Many similarities can be found between the New Deal and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The most obvious is that both were designed to save or create about 3.5 million jobs.
Yet Roosevelt himself could not have imagined the size of the government’s commitment this time around. The Works Progress Administration, massive as it was, spent $11 billion during its eight-year tenure. Adjusted for inflation, that would be more than $130 billion today. That pales in comparison to the $787 billion in the stimulus package, which has gone to tax cuts; extended unemployment benefits; and government spending on education, health care, weatherization, and infrastructure. That was all on top of the $700 billion financial services bailout passed by Congress earlier.
The enormity of the investment may be what most distinguishes ARRA from the New Deal. Quoted in a report by Voice of America, historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University suggested that the weakness of the New Deal was that it wasn’t big enough to compensate for the loss of wealth of the Great Depression. “If you want to counteract a severe recession, you have to take big measures to generate economic activity. And I think that is what the stimulus package is designed to do,” he said.
In April, President Obama said the stimulus bill has succeeded and can be credited with helping business bounce back. Economic research firms Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Global Insight, and Moody’s Economy.com estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs to the economy so far.
Without question, opportunities for waste and corruption have occurred just as they did during the ’30s, when “stories were legion about people leaning on shovels,” Taylor says. Indeed, the government agency charged with keeping track of expenditures and job creation has found the task next to impossible, releasing data that indicates stimulus money has been distributed to 440 congressional districts that don’t even exist: the “phantom zip code scandal.”
The stimulus act also has piled debt on taxpayers that may not get paid off for decades. That’s a concern for many, including J. Mack Swigert, the pavement-pounding Harvard graduate who eventually became a labor and litigation attorney. “I don’t know whether a stimulus package is good or not,” Swigert says. “On the one hand, it puts us further in debt. On the other hand, it keeps businesses going and people at work.”
That’s a sentiment he’s held ever since the Depression and experienced the relief that came from getting any kind of job, even a $15-a-week one. “My feeling then was if you had a job, you ought to be happy. And I was.” And that’s good advice for every generation, not just in times of want, but times of plenty.
WPA by the NumbersBetween 1935 and 1943, workers in the Works Progress Administration:
- Created 651,087 miles of streets and highways
- Repaired or improved 124,031 bridges
- Built 125,110 public buildings
- 8,192 parks
- 853 airport landing fields.
- Served almost 900 million hot lunches to students
- Operated 1,500 nursery schools
- Presented 225,000 concerts
- Produced 475,000 works of art,
- Published 276 books and 701 pamphlets.
Hit the Road!
Much has been written about America’s love affair with the automobile; the very phrase has become a cliché. But the essential truth remains that Americans love to travel. Immigration, Manifest Destiny, the Great Migration—the instinct to light out for Somewhere Else seems coded into our national DNA. In honor of that ancestral urge, here are three road trips inspired by the pioneer routes and trails that opened up this country to expansion. Leave time for side trips along the way; the journey, in this case, really is as important—and as fun—as the destination.
History Highway
In 1806 Thomas Jefferson approved federal funding for one of the first interstate road projects. Known today as the Historic National Road, it stretches 824 miles through six states, from the East Coast nearly to the Mississippi, following the modern I-70 for much of its length.
As befits the route that made the westward migration possible for thousands of settlers, the Road is strewn with sites of historical interest. From the eastern terminus near Hollins Market, the oldest of Baltimore’s public markets and centerpiece of the artsy Union Square neighborhood (market open Tuesday-Saturday; www.union-square.us), you’ll pass Casselman River Bridge State Park, as well as historic inns and tollhouses. From Maryland, the Road swings west through southern Pennsylvania, with a stop at the Fort Necessity National Battlefield, site of the first battle of the French and Indian War. The Old Petersburg Tollhouse, built from native-cut stone, still stands along the roadside.
Passing through a corner of West Virginia, the Road continues into Ohio, where you can ponder the changes in American transportation at the Aviation Heritage National Historical Park in Dayton (www.aviationheritagearea.org). Cut across the entire breadth of Indiana, taking in the famous “Antique Alley”—an extensive loop encompassing more than 900 shops and dealers; it’s the ultimate destination for any fan of collectibles (www.visitrichmond.org). The Road ends in Illinois, the land of Lincoln. Leave time for visits to the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site (www.lincolnlogcabin.org) as well as the Lincoln School Museum in Martinsville (open Sunday afternoons through the summer, 217-382-6666).
Tracing a Path
Following what is perhaps the oldest continuously used travel route in the U.S., the Natchez Trace Parkway— a 444-mile stretch of two-lane blacktop running south- by-southwest from Nashville to the banks of the Mississippi—began as a dirt trail used by the earliest European traders and missionaries, and by local Native American tribes for centuries before that. Travel here was once so hazardous that the trail was called “The Devil’s Backbone.” Today, the Parkway offers the natural beauty and rich cultural heritage of the South. Note: Because it sits on mostly high ground, only a few areas of the Parkway were impacted by the flood waters that hit the Nashville area earlier this year. While the entire Parkway is expected to be passable by summer, it’s always a good idea to call ahead and confirm your itinerary.
On the Parkway, two wheels are as good as four, as the entire road is a designated bicycling area. Along the way, there’s boating and fishing at Laurel Hill Lake in Lawrenceville, Tennessee (931-762-7200), and hiking, camping, and nature trails at Tishomingo State Park in Mississippi (662-438-6914). Or simply stop to smell the wildflowers tracing the trail.
The Parkway is rich in Native American historical sites. In Tupelo you will find the ceremonial Emerald Mound, the Grand Village of the Natchez, and the Chickasaw Village and Fort. You can also pay homage to “the King” at the Elvis Presley Birthplace (www.elvispresleybirthplace.com).
At the Mississippi Crafts Center in Ridgeland, you’ll find artwork and housewares from regional crafters working in traditional and contemporary forms (www.mscrafts.org). Finally, surrender to the charms of old Natchez and view gracious antebellum homes in the city’s historic district (www.natchezms.com).
Rolling on the River
The mighty Mississippi is, in a way, the original interstate highway, used for ages to transport goods and passengers downriver. Trace that epic path on the Great River Road National Scenic Byway—a route following the course of the Mississippi through 10 states and over 2,000 miles, from the headwaters to the delta, from St. Paul to New Orleans, straight through the heart of America.
Spend a week or two following Old Man River downstream—through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and finally, Louisiana—and you’ll sample a great swathe of the American experience. Along with unparalleled views of the “Father of Waters,” there are ample stops for bird and wildlife watching, outdoor recreation, shopping, historical sightseeing, and more.
Music runs deep along the river, and many festivals and performance series are held along the route, from Wisconsin’s Riverfest (June 30-July 4, www.riverfestlacrosse.com), presenting dozens of musical groups on six stages, to the annual blues and jazz fests in Davenport, Iowa; from the St. Louis Municipal Opera—this year featuring live outdoor performances of Beauty and the Beast, The Sound of Music, Damn Yankees, and more—to the renowned jazz clubs of New Orleans (www.riverroads.com).
Investing in America
As the great stock market debacle of 2008 fades oh-so-thankfully into memory, the real takeaway message for investors is that diversification is crucial. More specifically, when stocks stumble—yes, that will happen again at some point—you want to be holding bonds. And the bonds most worth holding are those backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, otherwise known as Treasuries.
Susan Ellis, 78, a retired U.S. Department of State worker residing in Washington, D.C., lives partly on a pension and partly from her savings. Those savings are half in stocks and half in bonds, with the lion’s share of those bonds being Treasuries. While Ellis’ stocks sagged in the recent recession, her Treasuries more than held their own. “Having part of my portfolio in U.S. government bonds provides me with great comfort,” says Ellis. “It helps me to sleep at night.”
Treasuries give many investors similar peace of mind. “When there is fear and turmoil in the markets, people seek safety; Treasuries fulfill that role admirably—and they always have,” says Christopher Philips, a senior analyst with the Investment Strategy Group at Vanguard Investments. Indeed, during this past recession, Treasury bonds were the only place to seek safety, adds Philips. “U.S. stocks were down, so were foreign stocks, real estate, and corporate bonds … every kind of major investment lost value, except for Treasuries.”
According to data from Morningstar, while U.S. stocks fell in value 46 percent between October 2007 and March 2009, long-term Treasuries rose by 25 percent. In the recession prior, between March 2000 and September 2002, U.S. stocks fell by 38 percent, while long-term Treasuries soared 40 percent. This zigzagging pattern of returns between stocks and government bonds has existed for decades, which is why smart investors, wanting to dampen volatility in their portfolios, own Treasuries.
The “catch” with Treasuries—in fact, all bonds, but especially Treasuries—is that they produce modest returns over time. Since 1926, per Morningstar data, stocks have returned 9.8 percent a year, while long-term Treasuries have generated 5.4 percent. If you mixed-and-matched, combining 60 percent stocks with 40 percent Treasuries, the average yearly gain of your portfolio would have been 8.6 percent.
To make Treasuries a part of a balanced portfolio, consider this:
- The first step in constructing a portfolio is to determine what portion you want in stocks and what portion bonds. The higher the return you desire, and the more volatility you can stomach, the more you want in stocks. Important note: Bonds in the past 20 years have done exceptionally well (see chart on page TK), but the relative return on bonds to stocks may revert to long-term norms, says Philips. “Treasuries have done very well in the past 20 years because bonds tend to shine when interest rates fall … but when rates rise, bonds tend to not fare as well.”
- Whatever your allocation to bonds, consider putting roughly 40 percent of that into conventional Treasury bonds, recommends Philips. The rest could be in corporate bonds (which tend to return slightly more than Treasuries), municipal (tax-free) bonds, foreign bonds, or inflation-protected Treasury bonds (discussed below).
- Treasuries, like all bonds, may be purchased with various maturities: short-term, intermediate-term, or long-term. In general, the longer the maturity, the higher the return, but the greater the price swings. Philips recommends that you shoot for the middle—“intermediate-term” bonds that mature in about seven years.
- You can buy individual U.S. Treasuries, free of trading costs, by going to Treasurydirect.gov. Or, you can buy a fund of Treasuries, which allows for instant diversification of maturities and ease of management. Choose a fund with low costs. Options include the SPDR Barclays Capital Intermediate-Term Treasury fund (ticker symbol ITE) or the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury fund (VFITX).
- Add TIPS. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are a different breed of Treasury that offers little interest, but is adjusted for inflation twice a year. Consider allocating a part of your bond portfolio above and beyond conventional Treasuries to TIPS, suggests Philips. Like conventional bonds, TIPS can be purchased individually through Treasurydirect.gov or as a fund. Options include the Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities fund (VIPSX) or the iShares Barclays TIPS fund (TIP).
Whichever way you decide to go to buy Treasuries, once you do, your sleep, like Ellis’, will likely improve, too.
Working for Liberty
One of the things I’m proudest of about the United States is that we’ve always been a nation of dreamers and strivers. I spend a lot of time in France, and as much as I love it there—its gorgeous countryside, magnificent wines, haute cuisine, haute couture, and all things related to the enjoyment of life—the French do not seem as interested in striving as we are. In recent years, like the rest of Europe, the French are unwilling to let work be the focus of their lives. They want more benefits and time off, longer vacations, earlier retirement, and are willing to give the government whatever power it needs to make that happen. In other words, they’re willing to trade a little of their liberté in exchange for more égalité and joie de vivre.
Remember it was the French who gave us that wonderful statue celebrating liberté in New York Harbor, of the lady holding a torch, the one they so aptly named Liberty Enlightening the World.
Liberty is what America has been all about over the years. Most American families came from somewhere else. What all looked for in the United States has been freedom and independence. A meritocracy where anything is possible—a country where striving, regardless of race, creed, or color could pay off. A land where dreams come true. Is that so wild a dream? President Obama is living proof it isn’t. But the idea of “yes we can” did not start with him. Over the years, American inventors from Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, and Robert Fulton, to Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers confronted naysayers who told them it simply couldn’t be done. Of course, they proved otherwise, thanks to a combination of inspiration and perspiration—Edison claimed it was mostly perspiration. Thanks to their tireless efforts and vision, they made life better for themselves and everybody else, too.
And we Americans could not only dream, we could build as well. Not only do we create new machines, we make them run.
Today, we hear sophisticated people say that America can’t make what we create anymore, that we have to outsource manufacturing because Americans don’t want to get our fingers dirty. When I hear that statement, it makes me sad, even angry. And I don’t believe it for a minute. Given half a break and a level playing field, American workers today are still the most productive and efficient in the world. While far from perfect, we are still the nation of dreamers and strivers. And one thing we still dream of and strive for is freedom, not just for a chosen few, but for everyone in America.
Once when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was singing at Lincoln Center, they asked me to write a patriotic poem. The choir hummed “My Country ’Tis of Thee” in the background. Here’s what I wrote:
America, land of the free,
My home sweet home of liberty, of thee I sing;
Let freedom ring for everyone in America:
Freedom from want, freedom from fear,
Freedom to speak, freedom to hear.
And when we bow our heads to pray,
To worship God in our own way,
I have a dream, may it come true
For everyone in America.
(Still) Made in the USA
It may be hard to believe in an era of economic disarray and rampant overseas outsourcing, but in fact, the U.S. is the world’s leading manufacturer, producing goods valued in excess of $1.5 trillion. While it’s true that other countries like China and Japan may dominate the world stage in producing lots of everyday items—clothes, toys, personal electronics—the “Made in the USA” label still proudly applies to a significant array of goods. For more American made products, visit stillmadeinusa.com
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, California
A world leader in computer chip technology, the company recently unveiled plans to invest $7 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing facilities for its next generation of computer processors.
Caterpillar, Peoria, Illinois
Known the world over, the familiar yellow construction equipment manufacturer exports $16 billion worth of its earth-moving vehicles, from U.S.-based assembly plants.
K’NEX Brands, Hatfield, Pennsylvania
Kids around the world love the inventive sets of bricks, rods, and connectors—all made here by a family business.
Louisville Slugger, Louisville, Kentucky
For more than 120 years, the company has been making baseball history, as well as a line of bats that are the exact same as those used by Major League Baseball players.
Harley Davidson, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
With roots that date back to 1901 and the first motorcycles, a Harley has a distinctly American-made sound as it rolls down the road.
Viking Range Corp., Greenwood, Mississippi
Viking makes restaurant-quality kitchen appliances, including ovens, grills, and their signature ranges.
Jacob Bromwell, Michigan City, Indiana
Boasting that it’s the oldest 100 percent American-manufactured company, Bromwell started business in 1819 and sells kitchen utensils and houseware products, including their popular long-handled popcorn popper.
Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Shelburne, Vermont
This maker of cuddly stuffed bears is justifiably proud of its product. Each bear (like the one above) is handmade in the U.S. and comes with a lifetime guarantee.
New Balance Shoes, Boston, Massachusetts
The only athletic shoemaker whose products are still made in America, New Balance offers a wide range of high-performance footwear for men, women, and children.
Hershey’s, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Since its founding in 1894, the biggest name in milk-chocolate treats has been America-based, with most of its chocolate factories in Pennsylvania, near Hershey’s headquarters.
Gibson Guitar, Nashville, Tennessee
Defining the electric guitar market, the company has reissued this classically styled and sounding blues and jazz axe.