"In fiction, the principles are given, to find the facts: in history, the facts are given, to find the principles; and the writer who does not explain the phenomena as well as state them performs only one half of his office."
Thomas Babington Macaulay, "History," Edinburgh Review, 1828
The Amherst Local Historic District Study Committee convened again on 8 September for a walking tour of the existing Dickinson National Historic Register District, which is the putative core area of the proposed local historic district.
Here, Committee members standing between the two Hills Mansions: the Leonard Hills House (now the Amherst Woman's Club; 35 Triangle Street), to the right, and the house of his son, the Henry F. Hills House (former Amherst Boys and Girls Club; 360 Main Street) on the left. Committee Chair Jerry Guidera (foreground), current owner of the Henry Hills House, points out the view from the two mansions across Main Street. At one time, Messrs. Hills, father and son, could look down (literally and figuratively) on their factories and workers below, with a view of the Holyoke Range in the background. In the mid-ground today: the Colonial Revival Baxter Marsh house (c. 1896-97), former home of the Amherst Record. Robert Frost had also lived there for a time. Formerly located at 109 Main Street, the house was moved to its current location at 401 Main St. to make room for the new Police Station in 1989. The current owner is architect Bill Gillen, another member of the Committee.
Now that the Committee has selected the existing Dickinson National Historic Register District as the point of departure for its work, the next step will be to determine what additional properties would be appropriate for inclusion in a local historic district. The practical task is thus to compile an inventory of historic resources in adjoining areas, which will move to the top of our agenda in October.
In part because I have just been reading Andrei Markovits's hard-hitting but judicious Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America, I am appropriately wary of making invidious comparisons between the continent and our compatriots, and yet the temptation remains.
Namely, I have been struck by the fact that, on Labor Day, we here do so little to commemorate labor and the labor movement—an omission all the more glaring and serious given that the public is so ignorant of this history. In an age of deindustrialization, when union membership has declined and supposedly serious commentators are allowed to characterize even the most timid public health care proposals as "socialism," perhaps it should be not surprising that many people dismiss unions and labor movements in general as yet another "special interest."
To be sure, we find the inevitable newspaper articles and television programs about the "state of the economy" and the like, but these treat labor only in passing and never deal with history in any serious way. And what did History (formerly: History Channel) offer us: not even a shallow or sentimentalized treatment, and instead sensationalism and superstition: "Gangland," "Manson," Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce. Of course, what can one expect of an organization that now considers "Ice Road Truckers" and pawnshop owners to be denizens of Clio's domain? But PBS was little better: "Antiques Roadshow" and "Wild Rivers." More serious, but not much better.
Ignorance may be an excuse, and it's the easiest one in the world because even those allegedly arch-liberal and leftist mainstream media are doing nothing to correct it.
Would it help to have a program or two about immigrant sweatshop workers? the history of the AFL-CIO? the Wobblies, or just the history of the holiday and the story of why Americans dedicate a day to labor in September, whereas most other developed countries do so on May 1? It couldn't hurt. Regardless of where they, as individuals, stand politically, Americans as a whole might just benefit from learning about the conflicts and accomplishments of the past. And then, rather than engaging in food fights about "socialism," they might talk in a more civil and nuanced way about the issues confronting us in the present and the future.
One doesn't wish to be too harsh, but one can't help feeling a certain sense of parochialism here. The Seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II does not seem to be generating the sort of coverage I would have expected or hoped for in the US. To be sure, there was the occasional piece, but the date is just not part of our collective consciousness in the way that it is part of the European one. By and large, we tend to think of the War as beginning when it began for us in 1941. Let us see what 2011 brings.
From among the various publications and postings, let me call attention to this one by Barry Rubin, who takes time out from his endless commentary on the Middle East to turn to the European past. Writing on the anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, he reminds us that World II began not only with a German attack on Poland from the west, but also with a Soviet attack from the east, supposedly in order to ensure order. (I wonder how many of my students know that—before I tell them, of course).
Rubin's aim is both to correct the popular historical view and to argue that the Russians are continuing a historically aggressive policy under a new government and a new guise:
Stalin says that the Germans desire peace and he offers a toast: “I know how much the German nation loves its Fuhrer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.” As the German foreign minister leaves, Stalin has some words of special importance for him: “The Soviet government takes the new pact very seriously. I guarantee on my word of honor that the Soviet Union would not betray its partner.” It was one of the few promises Stalin didn’t break. It was one of the many promises that Hitler did.
Today, 70 years later, the Russian government is trying to justify this terrible deed. Says military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, "This is not about history at all."
In effect, the Russian government is asserting its sphere of influence over all these and other independent states. The implications are frightening, most directly for Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and others in Central Europe but also for Georgia and Azerbaijan, and for anyone who treasures liberty.
Russia has been putting increasing pressure on its neighbors, sometimes using its energy exports for blackmail, sometimes using money or covert operations. One remembers what the American diplomatist George F. Kennan wrote at the onset of the Cold War: To be Russia's neighbor means either to submit or to be considered an enemy.
The basic Russian historical claim about 1939 is that by itself seizing these territories, the USSR prevented Germany from using them as a staging ground for an attack. In addition, efforts to work out a security alliance with Britain and France had failed.
This is profoundly misleading. The Soviets genuinely saw Nazi Germany as an ally. They helped the German army train, they sold it materials to build up its military, and even up to the moment the Germans attacked in 1941, Stalin insisted that Hitler would not betray him. Indeed, he ordered punishment for any Soviet agents who sent warnings of an imminent attack.
It may be even more complicated. The New York Times reports, "Russian Premier Calls Nazi-Soviet Pact Immoral." But Mr. Putin did so mainly by saying that other countries were just as bad: blaming the British and French for their earlier appeasement, and Poland for profiting from it:
The prime minister released his historical interpretation just before a scheduled visit to Poland on Tuesday for a commemoration of the start of World War II, 70 years ago this week.
The pact — which was followed by German and Soviet invasions of Poland — remains a source of anger there, and the article heightened expectations of what Mr. Putin would say during his visit.
Ria Novosti, an official Russian news agency, reported that Mr. Putin would use the trip to counter what the Russians call efforts by Eastern Europeans to recast the causes and lessons of World War II. Russia looks upon the war as a searing event in its history, one in which, by some estimates, 25 million Soviet citizens died. . . . . In his article, Mr. Putin wrote that he was compelled to discuss the pact, named Molotov-Ribbentrop for the Soviet and Nazi foreign ministers who negotiated the accord, because it was being cited today by countries who have traced their postwar Soviet occupation to this agreement.
“It is indicative that history is often slanted by those who actually apply double standards in modern politics,” he wrote.
The article, published in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and posted in Russian on the Russian government Web site, did not backtrack on earlier Russian condemnations of the pact or apologies for the subsequent massacre of Polish officers at Katyn Forest.
But it did highlight a theme that has played on Russian state television in recent weeks: that even Poland was complicit in making deals with the Nazis. The article notes that the Polish Army occupied two provinces of Czechoslovakia at the same time the German Army invaded that country following the Munich agreement with France and Britain in 1938.
Mr. Putin argues that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was inevitable after the Western Allies had acceded to the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He called that an effort by the West to “ ‘buy off’ Hitler and redirect his aggression to the east.”
Stalin’s government, Mr. Putin wrote, was impelled to sign the agreement because it was facing aggression in the east from Japan and did not want war on two fronts.
Mr. Putin did not mention that the Nazi-Soviet pact also restored a portion of the Russian empire lost after World War I and coveted by Stalin. (read the rest)
An interesting spectacle: military maneuvering, betrayals, opportunism, and aggression then, and their political equivalents today. Welcome to my world. In East Central Europe, nothing historical is forgotten (though it is often deliberately suppressed), everything has public symbolism or a hidden meaning (lying silent but threatening like a land mine). History there is never really dead; it just keeps resurfacing in new ways.
The release of the Lockerbie bomber has occasioned a good deal of controversy. Many of the discussions have featured interviews with friends and relatives of the victims, and so we are reminded that a Hampshire student, Denice O'Neill, was among the passengers who perished in that tragedy. The community mourns her absence and tries to foster the spirit that she brought to her studies and life.
We have become so fixated on the "Fall of the Wall"—whose twentieth anniversary we mark in a few months— that most of us downplay or forget altogether its creation, whose anniversary is today. Not only do most of us have little knowledge of the Wall: I would bet that most Americans think it ran down the middle of a city on a border, as did the pre-1967 "Green Line" in Jerusalem, rather than surrounding an enclave well inside the boundaries of a sovereign state. The geography helps to account for a reaction at the time by Der Spiegel that would nowadays qualify as one of our "nasty Nazi analogies." The liberal magazine said of the erection of the barrier, "the Soviet zone was transformed into a concentration camp."
This week's Spiegel cites that line and reminds us of other forgotten facts: e.g. that Berliners gathered to protest—but mainly against the Western powers, whom they accused of timidity and betrayal. Although no one anticipated that the Wall would become the permanent and symbolic structure that we all know, and rather, saw it is part of a chain of acts of repression and harassment of the Western zone by Soviet and GDR forces, there was some sense that this episode might nonetheless be different, as the aforementioned quote suggests.
See Andrew Curry, "The Day the Wall Was Born" The article included links to photos and related stories.
The Amherst Local Historic District Study Committee is now beginning its work in earnest. Below is the backgrounder from the Springfield Republican. Here, first, an update on our third meeting, which took place last week, on 4 August.
After reviewing the nine existing National Historic Register Districts (NHRs) and the general array of historic resources described in the Amherst Preservation Plan, we concluded that the Dickinson NHR, as a well-defined, central area containing the town's best-known historic sites, should indeed be the focus of our efforts. This does not mean that the LHR and NHR would be identical, and rather, only that the latter would serve as our point of departure. The two categories have different functions, and that of the LHD is to protect as well as to designate, so the issue comes down to what resources would most benefit from regulation.
As it happens, Town Meeting this spring approved Community Preservation Act funding for expansion of the Dickinson District and creation of a new nearby Depot district (the Dickinsons were instrumental in bringing the railroad to Amherst). That work will generate the inventories and other information that will help us to determine which resources exist and where the boundaries of an LHR should lie.
As we begin the work to determine the boundaries of the district, we will also consult with other communities regarding their experience and procedures.
* * *
Here, Diane Lederman's report from the Republican, with a reader comment and my response appended:
Amherst weighs creating its first historic district
Posted by lrivais August 03, 2009 14:03PM
By DIANE LEDERMAN dlederman@repub.com
AMHERST - A nascent group investigating the creation of a local historic district or districts is holding its third meeting Tuesday.
The meeting of the Local Historic District Study Committee is at 5 p.m. in Town Hall.
Members are trying to "educate themselves about the nature of historic districts .¤.¤. the successes, the pitfalls," said James J. Wald, a member of the group and chairman of the town's Historical Commission.
Wald first brought the proposal to create such a district to the Select Board last fall. Creating a district, which protects the town's historic buildings and landscapes, has been on the commission's priority list for some time.
He said Thursday he had hoped the committee would have been further along and have something in place this year for the town's 250th Anniversary Celebration. But it took longer than expected for a committee to be appointed and work to begin.
In its early meetings, the committee has talked about perhaps creating the area around the Emily Dickinson Homestead as a historic district.
A town can have as few as one or as many districts as it wants. He said the whole island of Nantucket is such a district. Northampton, Belchertown and Granby have local historic districts, he said.
The "desire is to protect our resources better," Wald said, adding that creating a district "gives us the tools to do that."
People "get scared (of regulations) .¤.¤. every community decides what it wants and how to protect it," he added.
There are many procedures the committee has to follow, including holding public hearings.
"The measure and the process are intended to reflect community desires rather than to impose something on them from outside or above," Wald said. He said communities decide exactly "how much or little they wish to protect and how."
The committee is comprised of a real estate agent and an architect, as well as residents and town officials. Ultimately, Town Meeting decides in a two-thirds vote to create such a district, he said.
Historic homes are beautiful, if the homeowner likes having to paint it constantly, have windows that are a pain to clean because the new tilt in windows are not allowed. Hopefully you already have regular storms, some don't, they have those big windows that are hooked on for storms. I just love the fireplaces, you'll need it because they are the biggest culprits for inefficient heating.
Wouldn't it be nice to have sliders and a deck, too bad you can't in historic homes. You could probably have awnings, you'll need it to block the sun, most historic houses don't have attic fans. Air conditioners are a great money pit with these homes. Don't forget, no siding, no larger garage than what you have, no nice tilt in windows etc.
Posted on 08/03/09 at 4:32PM CitizenWald says...
I am grateful to youareresp for posting these statements or concerns because they epitomize the most common misconceptions and needless fears regarding historic preservation in general and local historic districts in particular.
1) Local historic districts can protect modern architecture, historic ethnic neighborhoods, and other aspects of community character--not just, say, Colonial structures or Victorian mansions. Each town decides for itself.
2) Local historic districts do not prevent improvements or additions to homes. Rather, they simply require review of proposed major changes to architectural features visible from the public way.
3) Local historic district regulations do not pertain to interior features. So, do what you wish with that fireplace, and feel free to put in that attic fan if you need it.
4) Almost all local historic district regulations specifically exempt from review the features mentioned in the preceding comment: paint colors, air conditioning units, storm doors, storm windows.
So, if you don't want to live in a historic house, don't buy one. But regardless of where you live, relax and don't worry: local historic districts exist simply in order to help towns and neighborhoods preserve the character that they already have and value.
Medal by Duvivier, issued by the Commune of Paris:
Obverse: Liberty, bearing pike with Phrygian cap, and armed with thunderbolts, tramples the emblems of monarchy
Motto: "Example to the Peoples 10 August 1792"
Reverse: "To the Memory of the Glorious Battle of the French People Against Tyranny at the Tuileries"
The summer of 1792 was the culmination of months of crisis: domestic rebellion, military setbacks in the wake of the ill-advised declaration of war against Austria in April, and the threat by the Allied Commander, the Duke of Brunswick, to punish the people of Paris with "exemplary and forever memorable vengeance" if they harmed the King, who had been in effect a prisoner since his attempted flight from the country just over a year earlier. Calls for the deposition of the monarch increased, but when the National Assembly declined to indict the Marquis de Lafayette on the charge of leaving the front to pursue his political campaign against the radicals, it became clear that no action against the crown could be expected either.
On 10 August, the Sections (local political units) of Paris, armed in the wake of the Brunswick Manifesto, declared themselves to be in insurrection and marched on the Tuileries Palace. Although the Royal family had fled to the nearby Assembly and remained unharmed, the Swiss Guard in the Palace fired on the crowd, which prevailed and killed some 600 of the soldiers, some after their surrender. The crowd took spontaneous action against symbols of royalism throughout the city. The Assembly declared the monarchy suspended until a new legislative body could take up the issue, and in the meantime, the king became a prisoner in the old fortress, The Temple.
The Deputy Michel Azéma wrote:
Paris
August 10, midnight, in session
the 4th year of liberty, 1792
My prophecies are proving only too true; abuses can't last . . . The people are the same today as on July 14, 1789; the second Bastille, the Tuileries palace, was forced open and taken as promptly as the famous Bastille at Saint-Antoine. The Revolution's worst enemy . . . —the veto, using the Constitution as a pretext to destroy the Constitution—had long been a grievance; the evil was tolerated patiently as long as the majority of the National Assembly showed itself; but it was intolerable as soon as, in the La Fayette business, fear, etc., gave the black or vetoizing side a majority . . . .
The indignation was so general that it was breaking out with no fear or restraint; everyone was expecting a terrible explosion; day and night, the palace was filled with brave and valorous knights, was bristling with bayonets and cannon, etc. Yesterday the fears intensified; still, no reason for it appeared in actuality, so just after midnight we went to bed
. . . . . . . . . .
Someone came to announce to us that the cannon filling the Place du Carrousel were aimed against the Tuileries palace, which the people wanted to break down like the Bastille. After a short discussion, because time was pressing, it was decreed to send a deputation of twenty members of the Assembly to the people, to speak to them in the name of the law and to appease them by persuasion. . . . I had the honor, which at the same time almost a misfortune, to be in it; we had barely arrived at the door of the palace toward the Tuileries [gardens] when our eyes were dazzled by furious musket fire at the bottom of the stairway; at once, a second round; then a cannonade knocked down part of the façade. My word! Death was right before us. . . . a mass of sabers, pikes, and bayonets rushed from all sides, with indescribable rage, on our brave guards, who, angered by our obstinacy in advancing into the fire instead of retreating, finally grabbed us and swooped back with us into the National Assembly. . . .
Brave sans-culottes fortunately appeared at the rail; they got a very prompt hearing. They notified us that the sovereign people was using its sovereignty and had charged them to assure us of its respect, to affirm obedience to our decrees . . . and that we were the only constituted authority and there was no other in existence. They concluded, "Swear in the Nation's name to maintain liberty and equality with all your power or to die at your post."
. . . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, a great brawl was going on in the palace, in the Tuileries [gardens], and on the Champs Élysées, and the Swiss [Guards] who had been deceived by the aristocratic instigators in the palace and had fired on the people, especially on the brave Marseillais running to embrace them after false assurances of friendship and brotherhood, were being hotly pursued and were defending themselves in the same way, everywhere in the Tuileries gardens, in the palace, and around it; the ground is still to be seen covered with corpses. . . .
[from Philip Dawson, ed., The French Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1967), 103-8]
The events are generally taken as signifying a "Second" Revolution because they not only sealed the fate of the monarchy but also marked a shift of de facto power from the legislative body to the people and commune of Paris, a dynamic that would drive the Revolution in an ever more radical direction for nearly two more years. The so-called "September Massacres," in which radicals, with the acquiescence or encouragement of the Commune, massacred some 1,100-1,400 "counter-revolutionary" political prisoners at the start of that month, were one stark sign of the change.
On the night of 9 Thermidor of the Year II of the French Republic, a sordid alliance of convenience between conservatives and bloodthirsty ultraradicals arrested Maximilien Robespierre and his allies on the Committee of Public Safety. The next day the plotters had their victims summarily executed.
Introducing his fundamentally dishonest edition of Robespierre's papers, which deliberately falsified the record through selectivity and distortion, Edme-Bonaventure Courtois painted Robespierre as at once weak, vain, and sinister, willing to do anything to achieve his selfish ends:
Jeter dans les fers les talens, l'esprit, la vertu, la science et les richesses; imprimer la terreur à tous, au point que ceux qui n'étaient point incarcérés, n'osassent parler, de peur de l'être: et pour imprimer cette terreur, faire sortir de terre des guillotines, semer par-tout des tribunaux à la Fouquier, à la Dumas; enchaîner la plume des journalistes contraire à ses vues . . .
(Rapport fait au nom de la Commission chargée de l'examen des papiers trouvés chez Robespierre et ses complices . . . {Paris: Conventional Nationale, An 3}, 31)
For his opponents, it was the end of tyranny.
Seen from a more modern and sober perspective, it was the end of the socially most progressive phase of the French Revolution.
Robespierre, whose reputation has suffered for some two centuries from the blind hostility and tendentious distortions of his enemies, was in fact a far more complex and tragic figure than either they or most of us even today realize. Far from being a bloodthirsty monster, the man who had in his early career opposed the death penalty and later argued against attempting to promulgate political principles (we might call it regime change today) by military conquest, wrestled throughout his career with the problem of reconciling political reform and democracy when both concepts were new and untested, under crisis conditions:
It is the function of government to guide the moral and physical energies of the nation toward the purposes for which it was established.
The object of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; the object of revolutionary government is to establish it.
Revolution is the war waged by liberty against its enemies; a constitution is that which crowns the edifice of freedom once victory has been won and the nation is at peace.
The revolutionary government has to summon extraordinary activity to its aid precisely because it is at war. It is subjected to less binding and less uniform regulations, because the circumstances in which it finds itself are tempestuous and shifting, above all because it is compelled to deploy, swiftly and incessantly, new resources to meet new and pressing dangers.
The principal concern of constitutional government is civil liberty; that of revolutionary government, public liberty. Under a constitutional government little more is required than to protect the individual against abuses by the state, whereas revolutionary government is obliged to defend the state itself against the factions that assail it from every quarter.
On these pages, we mark 20 July above all as the anniversary of the failed assassination attempt against Hitler. However, it is also the anniversary of the first manned moon landing—this year, the fortieth. The anniversary brought forth a host of resources and documentation.
The New York Times, for example, devoted a special section of the "Science Times" section to the topic.
Most interesting, perhaps, the Kennedy Library created the project, "We Choose the Moon," which allowed individuals to relive the entire moon mission in real time, from launch to splashdown.
The anniversary of the moon landing has been occasion for much reflection on the fate and future of the space program, a good deal of it fanciful, much of it wrongheaded.
The prevalent tone in the US has been, understandably, justified celebration and less justified boosterism. In Europe, meanwhile, Louis Gallois, CEO of Europe's aerospace firm, EADS, writes in the Spiegel that Europeans need a new vision for their space program (no special pleading there, I'm sure). He's quite right, but the problem is that his vision is old rather than new: although he talks about the Galileo project, new Ariane boosters, and capsules that could undertake and return from interplanetary trips, he ends with "manned spaceflight." As so often, Europe seeks simultaneously to challenge and to imitate the US—and in the process gets things wrong both ways.
The most obvious truth is that we have by and large failed to capitalize on both the spirit and the practical gains of the space program. Where the opinions divide—or should—is over the course that we should have taken. To be sure, it is an embarrassment that we no longer have large booster rockets capable of carrying a heavy payload far into space (indeed, even the blueprints—though not all design records—for the Saturn V rockets went missing a good many years ago). But the real question is: What would we use those boosters for? We haven't established a permanent moon base in part because (aside from the practical challenges) no one could come up with a compelling intellectual and cost-effective reason to do so. The fixation on manned versus robotic space exploration has arguably been one of the biggest obstacles to learning more about our cosmic environment. As thrilling as the spectacle of early human space voyages was, the fact remains that a good deal of the program was driven by political and other motives that had little to do with the needs of hard science. This is not to say that we should not strive for a Mars mission at some point. In science as in warfare, there are times when there is a need for boots on the ground. But as we have seen all too recently in the military-political realm (does anyone really need to be reminded of this?), one needs to have clear goals and rationales. Ironically, the frustrated desires for manned exploration have prevented us from making full use of the tools that we already have at our disposal or could obtain at far less financial and other cost.
Science gadfly Bob Park makes the case more forcefully (some would say: fanatically) and humorously than almost anyone. Among his classic lines here: In response to a question about the "romance" of manned space flight: "There's romance there today. The toilets are backing up. And until you've seen a toilet back up in zero gravity, you don't know what ugly is." Q: "Why don't you think we should put men up there?" A: "Well, what are they going to do?!"
When one thinks of the moon, a joke about cheese is probably obligatory (or used to be; is that still a cultural reference?). And so, I cannot help think about the Wallace and Gromit animations of Nick Park.
Fortunately, the 20th has many connotations, and, via the miraculous topic of cheese, we can actually link back to New England history. The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities' "Mass Moments" program tells us that, on this date\
in 1801, the Berkshire County town of Cheshire made a 1235-pound ball of cheese and shipped it to Washington, D.C. as a gift for the newly-elected President, Thomas Jefferson, who was a popular figure in western Massachusetts. When news of the "mammoth cheese" reached the eastern part of the state, it caused consternation.
The "consternation" arose not from the massive size of the cheese-an-sich, but instead, what it symbolized:
Jefferson had won the presidency by defeating John Adams, Massachusetts' native son. Westerners were more in sympathy with Jefferson's vision of a nation of independent yeoman farmers than they were with the strong central government advocated by Adams and his supporters in the Federalist Party. Cheshire's cheese was a sign of the tensions over ideology, economics, and politics that long divided the state's eastern and western regions.
(read the rest)
Voilà: all connected. This is what historians do. (Do not attempt at home.)
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