"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
Most years, I've offered some little posts about Thanksgiving and history. This year, rather than scribbling together a new one, I'll just offer a roundup of past musings and amusements.
• from 2009: "Thanksgiving Day": brief note on teaching students about Thanksgiving, and how to contextualize the original event in the larger flow of Colonial history. Plus: links! on holiday traditions, myth and fact.
• from 2008: "The Inevitable Thanksgiving Piece": food, facts, myths. "The only demonstrably present meats . . .were 'ducks, geese, and venison.'" What Europeans called cranberries were pregnant insects. A shot and a brew: Pilgrims and Native Americans drank a lot and fired guns (not recommended today).
[this one somehow got put back in the drafts folder]
The traditional tale of the Pilgrims (a name by which they did not refer to themselves) and their arrival in America was a simple one. Nowadays, we would probably start by asking, "what were they thinking?!" i.e. what made them think that they could sail across the ocean and just establish themselves on a distant land to which they had no historical connection and that was already inhabited by others? The answer from their point of view was at the time just as simple and self-evident as ours. The historian's craft (to cite the title of Marc Bloch's classic work) consists in attempting to bring the two together.
Since the issue of immigration and immigration reform remains topical (not least in light of the apparent coalescence of a new Democratic coalition), here is a selection of cartoons chronicling the appearance of this theme in Thanksgiving and related humor of recent years.
The eternal question: what to write about for this year's Thanksgiving piece?
I haven't systematically scanned the news yet, but so far, no distinctive stories or memes seem to be rising to the surface: just the perennial banalities, with the admixture of the topical pieties, from surviving Hurricane Sandy to the welcome end of fighting between Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza. The ever sardonic former-punk-turned-White-House-reporter Julie Mason wisely called for a moratorium on such crap (at least on social media) but she knew she was just spitting in the wind. (This embarrassing piece of pablum by Jody Rudoren of the New York Times can serve as a cautionary example to those who refuse to heed Julie's sage advice.)
President Obama duly pardoned the White House Turkey (after predictably making social-media history in a predictably trivial way by allowing the public to decide—by means of a Facebook poll—which turkey to save); yes, apparently that's what all the new media are good for. As Mason observed on satellite radio a few days ago, the President is not really a man of the people, and has little sense of humor and much less interest in the turkey pardon than his dim-witted but more jocular predecessor. Can't believe that anyone thought this was worth six minutes' of the President's or the nation's time. It's just painful to watch. Do so at your peril: You'd be better off smoking a cigarette.
Given that TV and video watching shortens your life more than smoking does: For sheer perverse delight, I far prefer this infamous train wreck of a ritual from 2008 involving the inimitable Sarah Palin. There are some surprises for her. Just watch. Slate has the backgrounder. Their video source has vanished, but you can see the footage here. Now there's a turkey.
And finally, there is this "Hipster Thanksgiving." It seems disturbingly realistic in many ways. In fact, only the urban architectural setting in the outdoor shot convinced me that it had not been shot right here in the Happy Valley.
Enjoy.
If all this drives you to drink as well as overeat, I note that the neo-cocktail craze, which shows no signs of abating, has answers. Along with the usual advice—which can be summarized as: drink what you like rather than what you think you are supposed to drink, and remembering that some white wines, such as Rieslings, go with everything, and, given the robustness of the overall Thanksgiving menu, a hearty archetypically American red Zinfandel is perfectly appropriate with the "white meat" of a turkey—we thus find interesting suggestions for mixed drinks appropriate to the season.
This year, some holiday cocktail recipes go fairly far toward not just matching tastes of drink and food, but actually incorporating elements of the food into the drink mixture. "Pilgrim Punch" includes honey, spices, cranberries, and Belgian wheat beer. "Pilgrim's Pumpkin," as the name implies, contains pumpkin purée, along with the liquors, spices, and fruit juices. "Cranberry Thanksgiving Pie" mixes Cruzan rum, Curaçao, and egg white along with spices, maple syrup, and juices (including cranberry; but no whole berries). Another selection of American inventions recommended by our Canadian neighbors includes "Pumpkin Egg Nog" and "Pumpkin Spice Margarita."
Like President Obama's turkey ceremony: not my taste, but if you enjoy it, more power to you. I'll stick with a basic couple of wines and a re-viewing of that Palin video.
Our presidential vote was very similar to that of Northampton (82-14) and Pelham (82-15), though noticeably more lopsided than Hadley's (69-29). All of these western Massachusetts towns, though, tilted more decisively toward the President than did the Commonwealth as a whole (61-38).
It was a similar story in the Senate race, in which we opted for Elizabeth Warren over Scott Brown (80-20 % vs. statewide: 54-46).
Indeed, the presidential results were similar to those of 2008, when Amherst tilted for Obama vs. McCain by 87 to 10 percent.
All this would seem to fit our image (caricature?) and self-understanding as the hyperliberal "People's Republic of Amherst." It is true that we, like many of our neighboring towns, opposed the War of 1812, whose 200th anniversary we are (sort of) marking this year. Governor Strong (a Northampton man) rejected the initial presidential request for troops to serve outside the boundaries of the Commonwealth and called up the militia only in 1814, when the threat of British invasion became acute. Indeed, there was fear that New England might secede over the War (sort of puts our current radical activism to shame, doesn't it?).
However, this antiwar movement had little if anything in common with the modern spirit of pacifism, protest, and resistance that prompts residents to proffer resolutions on world affairs at Town Meeting. Rather, although the Governor's reluctance derived at least in part from a constitutional argument about war-making powers, the heart of the issue was material interest. New Englanders were not enthusiastic about British policy, but they soon proved to be even less enthusiastic about President Jefferson's anti-British embargo on foreign trade, which, as they saw it, threatened to devastate their businesses. Economic interests diverged along lines of region as well as class. (Then, as later, it was "the economy, stupid!")
It is thus easy to forget that our reputation as a bastion of leftist "progressivism" is, historically speaking, a rather recent phenomenon, which began only with the massive growth of the University in the 1960s. In 1956, we liked Ike much better than Stevenson (3154 to 1071 votes). And during roughly the first half of the century, when even local candidates ran as representatives of formal political parties rather than as individuals, Democrats were a distinct minority. The 1958 rolls listed:
Independents 2091
Republicans 1753
Democrats 642
In the 1960 presidential election, in which turnout reached 92 percent, Nixon bested Kennedy by 2716 to 1789 votes. All members of the Select Board belonged to the Republican Party. Clearly, it's not your grandfather's Select Board anymore.
When, soon after this year's presidential election, a spoof Twitter account referencing President Bartlet of the "West Wing" television series, suggested sending a "big block of cheese" to President Obama and his staff, I could not help but think of the historical antecedents.
As MassMoments, the daily historical feature of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, reminds us, back in July 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. 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.
In 1800, it seemed, Jefferson, the advocate of a traditional economy and small government, was the favorite of western Massachusetts. The Embargo and War of 1812 made some rethink that choice. In 2012, Barack Obama, the advocate of a more robust and activist government, won the votes of the Commonwealth. In 2012 as in 1800, however, Massachusetts residents rejected their (in the present case: quasi- or pseudo-) native son and voted for the presidential candidate who, they thought, best represented their interests.
The recent campaign was singularly unedifying on an intellectual, moral, and political level, the more so when one considers how the six billion dollars spent to sway, in essence, a handful of cantankerous, self-absorbed, passive-aggressive voters in a handful of swing states, could have been better spent. And so we have come full circle. It seems safe to conclude: Politics in America has long been and
probably always will be (sorry, can't help myself) irredeemably cheesy.
I was going to mention the following item earlier anyway, but now I have a new and unwelcome reason to do so. While sorting through some of my old Select Board papers this summer, I came across the October 2011 issue of The Beacon, the monthly publication of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
A piece by Robert Marinelli of the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association warning of "Dangers associated with storm cleanup" began: "Massachusetts has endured a number of significant storms in 2011 and will certainly see more adverse weather conditions before the year is over. "
Little did we know.
The piece was of course
published in September, as a guide to the coming month. The destruction
it referred to was thus from the summer tornadoes and Hurricane Irene.
Little did we know what we would experience when "Snowtober" hit and crippled the region, leaving many of us without utilities for a week.
At the end of September 2011, I myself was still looking backward (particularly from the standpoint of historic preservation) to the summer emergencies, as well as to the so-called Great Hurricane of '38, the first major tropical cyclone to strike New England since 1869. It even (somewhat perversely, it always seemed to me) lent its name to our local high school sports teams. (I don't think we'll find any Louisiana, New York, or New Jersey varsity teams calling themselves "The Katrinas" or "The Sandys.")
But there was an earlier and even closer precedent. On 10 October 1804, a so-called "Snow Hurricane"
struck the Commonwealth. It caused such widespread damage that it
rendered parts of the landscape unrecognizable and, by destroying the
forests, set back the shipbuilding industry by decades.)
I thought it would be interesting to mention the Beacon piece this year as a way of recalling last year's experience, but as warnings of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy mounted, it came to seem even more eerily and ironically prophetic.
Fortunately, we in the event dodged a bullet. Damage and disruption from the storm in the town, and in our area in general (vs. even other parts of Massachusetts or Connecticut), were minimal. Still, the fact that my fellow Select Board member Diana Stein lost a tree, which, in falling, in turn caused her to lose a car, reminds us that it doesn't take much to shatter our world of comfort and complacency. And it was in large measure luck as well as geography that spared us from the fate of New York and New Jersey.
The other good news was that the Town demonstrated it had learned from last year's experience. We handled last year's emergencies relatively well but in the process also discovered areas for possible improvement. To be sure, we were not ready to install a new generator at Town Hall this October, but the emergency response team was otherwise fully prepared. Communication, including use of social media and cell phone alerts, was improved. The Department of Public Works promptly cleared roads of fallen trees. And although over 1000 customers lost power, Western Massachusetts Electric Company restored it in all cases by the next morning.
Disaster preparedness remains among the highest priorities for Town administration and government, and we were glad to be able to use this year's scare as a chance to improve response techniques in principle without having to test them in practice as people suffered.
As last spring: lame name, decent content. The Amherst Historical Society and Museum (full disclosure: I am a member of the Board) offers a lecture series on topics of local and other historical interest. All talks take place in the Museum (Strong House, 67Amity Street, Amherst).
From the official announcement:
The Amherst History Museum presents “History Bites”, a brown bag lecture series at the Simeon Strong House, 67 Amity Street.
Short, informative and entertaining–these lunchtime presentations will provide just the break you need. These lectures are scheduled every other Friday at 12:15 throughout the fall. Mark your calendars for these upcoming “History Bites” presentations:
Sept. 21, 2012 – James Freeman: “Clarence Hawkes (1869-1954), the Most Widely Read Author from the Pioneer Valley”
Oct. 5, 2012 – Marla Miller: “My Part Alone: The World of Hatfield’s Rebecca Dickinson”
Oct. 19, 2012 – Alice Nash: “Thinking About ‘Indian Deeds’ in Local History”
Nov. 2, 2012 – Cliff McCarthy: “The Amherst Area and the California Gold Rush”
Nov. 16, 2012 – Else Hambleton: “The Puritans and Sex”
Nov. 30, 2012 – Arthur Kinney: “Taking Renaissance Plays on the Road”
Join us with your lunch in hand. We will provide coffee, tea or cider
for you as you listen to the presentations. The 30-minute program will
begin promptly at 12:15 with seating and beverages ready just before
noon. The lectures are free and everyone is welcome to attend.
Although we here in Amherst love to complain about the complexities of our laws and political process (how often do we hear that this or that proposed measure is "too difficult to understand"?), well, things could always be worse.
Just consider these bizarre Scottish laws:
In Scotland, it is illegal for a boy under the age of 10 to see a naked mannequin
In Scotland the law obliges citizens to allow whoever knocks on their door to use their toilet
The head of any dead whale found on the Scottish coast automatically becomes the property of the king, and the tail of the queen
Any Scotsman found to be wearing underwear beneath his kilt can be fined two cans of beer
It is illegal in Scotland to be drunk and in charge of a cow
In York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow
In Carlisle, any Scot found wandering around may be whipped or jailed
With dignified officials, sober matrons, gay belles and their beaux came also horse jockeys, wrestlers, snake charmers, gamblers, and vendors of every sort. The college yard was dotted with booths, where were sold ginger-bread, pies, eggnog, long cigars, beers small, and alas! too often for the good order, beers large. While seniors were discussing Immortality, jockeys outside were driving sharp trades and over-convivial visitors were enjoying fist fights.
— cited in Herbert G. Jones, The Amazing Mr. Longfellow: Little Known Facts About a Well-Known Poet (Portland, ME: The Longfellow Press, 1957), 19
In other words, the proverbial good time was had by all, but not all were happy about it.
This year, the United States celebrated the legal Columbus Day (Monday) holiday on October 8, but the historical date of the holiday—corresponding to the explorer's first sighting of land in the "New World"—occurred on October 12, an occasion first marked in 1792.
It's the familiar Romantic scene from old engravings and textbooks (perhaps no longer familiar to the current generation), based on the 1847 "Landing of Columbus" in the US Capitol by John Vanderlyn: European arrivistes (illegal immigrants?) variously grateful or militant, kneel or exult, as indigenous Caribbean Americans (left foreground; background) are torn between cowering and curiosity. And the small crosses on the banners in the center have vanished (though the coat of arms on Columbus's remains). Whether reflecting the pragmatic needs of the engraver's burin or some more deliberate decision, the resultant horizontal lines at least implicitly suggest the flag of the new American nation.
This postage stamp, retrieved from my childhood collection, has had a rough time of things since it was first issued. Thankfully, though, what is a bane to the collector can be grist for the mill of the cultural historian. As if an omen, a seemingly unnecessary and heavy, cloud-like blot of ink from the cancellation (could the letters at left represent Springfield, betokening my future New England life?) neatly and nearly obliterates the figure of the heroic explorer. At some point (presumably since then), the stamp acquired a crease and tear that cut him in half and seem, like a lightning bolt, to pierce his vitals. Today, that stamp looks fussy and outdated, in more ways than one.
It could all be a metaphor for the fate of poor Cristoforo Colombo himself since that apogee of his reputation.
Pity him—and the hapless Italian-Americans, too. Already back at the time of the great Columbian Exposition of 1893, the assault of the Scandinavian-Americans from my native Midwest had begun, for the latter provocatively sailed a replica Viking ship up to the fairgrounds in Chicago. (In our day, it poses a challenging problem of historic preservation. 1, 2.) 75 years later, as chance would have it, Leif Erikson had earned his own postage stamp, after it became clear that Columbus had not been the first European to reach the New World. (And he in any case of course never set foot on the North American continent, whose existence he was not even aware of.)
For a while, the theory that Columbus was a Jew was in vogue in some circles, but by the time the 500th anniversary of his first voyage rolled around, in 1992, when he was increasingly associated only with conquest, forced conversion, enslavement and genocide, rather than "discovery" and heroism, no one in America of any ethnicity seemed particularly eager to claim him. He had become, in the phrase just coming (back) into vogue in that decade, "politically incorrect." (1, 2, 3, 4)
from my office door: humorous take on Columbus as villain, 1992
Anyway, as Newsweek noted in its coverage of the non-celebration in that anniversary year, the fellow who popularized the original "Jewish" theory was a Spanish fascist of the Franco era, and among the "evidence" he cited was Columbus's love of gold. Nuff said. A far more sophisticated variant of that theory (which has its own more respectable antecedents) based on putative further evidence has resurfaced in the last few years, but emphasizing Columbus's alleged desire to find a refuge for "his" persecuted "people," and thus giving his ventures a political-moral motive in keeping with modern sensibilities rather than emphasizing the traditional "discovery" in the service of empire. (e.g. 1, 2, 3)..
It is always fascinating to sit on the elevated shores of historical scholarship and watch the shifting tides of opinion ebb and flow. As I teach my students, history, like literary criticism, is a science of evolving interpretation. And because so many individuals and communities have a stake in it, the historical discipline tells us as much about ourselves as about the past. History, as we nowadays understand it, is about scholarship (as objective as we can make it, though recognizing the unavoidable limits of our necessarily limited perspectives), but also about public consciousness and the inevitable appropriation of the past for present purposes. Thus the rise of fashionable "memory" studies alongside history as such. Not surprisingly, Columbus looked very different to the Americans of 1492, 1792, 1892, and 1992.
Regardless of political persuasion, most historians nowadays would
agree: whereas previous generations tended to venerate Columbus by
accentuating the "modern" as well as the positive (and we do not wish to
take away from his navigational skill and courage), we nowadays tend to
see him (like some other figures of that "Renaissance"—or as we more
commonly say in the profession—"early modern era") as more complex: more
medieval and more transitional, less "modern": less the bold
rationalist admiral of the ocean sea, and more the mystic and crusader.
I'll list just one example from this year's more substantive political controversies:
This past January, almost exactly 20 years after its publication, Tucson schools banned the book I co-edited with Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus.
It was one of a number of books adopted by Tucson's celebrated Mexican
American Studies program—a program long targeted by conservative Arizona
politicians.
The school district sought to crush the Mexican
American Studies program; our book itself was not the target, it just
got caught in the crushing. Nonetheless, Tucson's—and Arizona's—attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.
For years, I opened my 11th grade U.S. history classes by asking
students, "What's the name of that guy they say discovered America?" A
few students might object to the word "discover," but they all knew the
fellow I was talking about. "Christopher Columbus!" several called out
in unison.
"Right. So who did he find when he came here?" I
asked. Usually, a few students would say "Indians," but I asked them to
be specific: "Which nationality? What are their names?"
Silence.
In more than 30 years of teaching U.S. history and guest teaching in
others' classes, I've never had a single student say "Taínos." So I ask
them to think about that fact. "How do we explain that? We all know the
name of the man who came here from Europe, but none of us knows the name
of the people who were here first—and there were hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of them. Why haven't you heard of them?"
This
ignorance is an artifact of historical silencing—rendering invisible the
lives and stories of entire peoples. It's what educators began
addressing in earnest 20 years ago, during plans for the 500th
anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which at the time the
Chicago Tribune boasted would be "the most stupendous
international celebration in the history of notable celebrations."
Native American and social justice activists, along with educators of
conscience, pledged to interrupt the festivities.
In an interview with Barbara Miner, included in Rethinking Columbus,
Suzan Shown Harjo of the Morning Star Institute, who is Creek and
Cheyenne, said: "As Native American peoples in this red quarter of
Mother Earth, we have no reason to celebrate an invasion that caused the
demise of so many of our people, and is still causing destruction
today." After all, Columbus did not merely "discover," he took over. He
kidnapped Taínos, enslaved them—"Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity
go on sending all the slaves that can be sold," Columbus wrote—and
"punished" them by ordering that their hands be cut off or that they be
chased down by vicious attack dogs, if they failed to deliver the quota
of gold that Columbus demanded. One eyewitness accompanying Columbus
wrote that it "did them great damage, for a dog is the equal of 10 men
against the Indians."
(Arizona's policies in areas ranging from border enforcement to education have raised charges of bias against legal immigrants and other members of the Latino@ population. The Amherst Select Board in 2010 approved a boycott of Arizona based on its in our view discriminatory immigration law.)
As in past years, students at Hampshire College vented their rage against Columbus by reducing the above argument to provocative but ultimately simplistic (and of course harmless) denunciations:
Fuck Columbus, Celebrate Indigenous Resistance
Columbus Slavery
Columbus Genocide
(and once more, for good measure) Fuck Columbus, Celebrate Indigenous Resistance
Bill Bigelow's point is well taken, but the reductionist chalk slogans on sidewalks cannot capture the complexity of either his critique or Columbus's achievement and legacy, which were necessarily more mixed and nuanced. The so-called "discovery" was fraught with moral shortcomings and consequences, short-term and long-term, of which we are nowadays all too aware. At the same time, it was of epochal significance on a historical, cultural, and even biological level. It is not simple to separate the two categories.
Already back in the 1970s, for example, in the great novel, Terra Nostra, the celebrated Mexican author and diplomat Carlos Fuentes argued that Latin America could not be made whole until it fully acknowledged its Spanish as well as indigenous roots: or, as he put it, erected a monument to Cortes as well as Montezuma. He and Octavio Paz managed, controversially, to come together on that general point on the occasion of the 1992 anniversary.
Visitors who ascend the scaffolding enclosing the monument can thus behold it at eye-level rather than from 70 feet below. (The scaffolding also serves a practical purpose: when the exhibit
closes, conservation of the monument, at a cost of one million dollars,
will begin.) Nishi's purpose, he said, involved art, as such, rather than history and politics:
"It's not my intention to say something about Columbus; rather, I want
to change the sculpture from public sculpture into a completely
different thing," Nishi said.
Others saw it differently. I was surprised (though perhaps I should not have been) to see that an Italian-American organization, rather than applauding the attention (not to mention, the originality of the artistic conception), chose to criticize the installation:
Rosario Iaconis, chairman of the Italic Institute of America, commented on the project before it opened.
"Columbus was a man of
the Renaissance, an exemplar of that civilization. This, is foolishness.
This is not art. If it's his particular vision, it's a skewed vision,
so I, again with due respect to Mr. Nishi, I think he stumbled on his
project.
“Why did they have to choose such a beautiful and symbolic landmark
for such a trivializing display and then obfuscate its absurdity by
calling it 'art'?” asked Andre’ DiMino, president of the One Voice Coalition, an Italian-American non-profit dedicated to combating discrimination within the community.
“It just adds insult to injury to cover it up on Columbus Day – a day of national pride,” he said.
While the Consul General of Italy is personally interested in this
exhibition, she understands that some people won’t embrace it.
“It's normal,” said Natalia Quintavalle. “It happens every time when
you have a sort of expression of contemporary art like that which
intervenes on something old which represents much for Italians and
Italian Americans in New York."
Others argue that from a civic participation point of view the exhibit is out of character artistically with the area.
“Covering it up entirely obscures it from people walking by who wish
to see it on the street,” said Frank Vernuccio, a board member of the
Enrico Fermi Cultural Committee, a Bronx non-profit that promotes
Italian culture. Vernuccio does not intend to visit the exhibit and he
encourages the city to take it down as soon as possible.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg disagrees with the objections. “You can't see
it from the street and here you can get your eyes 10 inches away,” he
said at the opening preview in September. “We would have had to cover it
to do the restoration anyways.”
It's somehow fitting: even on a purely aesthetic plane, a reminder of the earlier veneration of Columbus cannot escape controversy—even if it now comes from his admirers.
* * *
Resources
The result of the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of the Americas, as brutal and thorough as they were, was not a matter of the mere obliteration of one culture and "imposition" of another. One way to experience and understand the resultant fusion of indigenous and European cultures is through the music. Herewith a small selection:
Western Massachusetts towns and organizations recently made several lists, not all of which you'd want to be on.
To begin with an older item in the good news/bad news mode: although three New England locales made the list of drunkest cities in America in 2011, we can take solace in the knowledge that, despite all the complaints about students' problem drinking here in Amherst, we don't even rate on the national scale: Boston was #1 in the nation, and the Springfield-Holyoke area was # 2. (Yikes.) By contrast, Las Vegas was only #14, easily eclipsed by the hardy Midwesterners of Chicago and Milwaukee (#6 and # 3, respectively). New York didn't even make the cut. Clearly, it's serious business.
What's in a name?
What's in a name? Plenty, apparently. Just ask our poor friends in neighboring Belchertown:
Genealogy web site FindMyPast.com recently polled thousands of users
across seven countries, and Belchertown came in at No. 6 out of the Top
10 most oddly named places in the United States.
For some, the beauty (or ugliness) of the town's name is all in the eye of the beholder.
"A gentleman from France was here and he had a different attitude. He being French, looked upon it as possibly a French name: 'bel' meaning beautiful, and 'cher' meaning dear," says Belchertown town clerk William Barnett.
Sorry: it's a burp. Hard to think of a better example of wishful thinking and dubious logic (though there was that "Wacky Iraqi" Information Minister). Especially because that "oddly named" in the above story is a euphemism or at best a paraphrase (somebody call a media watchdog group).
Belchertown has, however, made it onto more innocuous-sounding lists. "Unusual, bizarre or humorous names of towns in the U.S."
includes Belcher, LA among "Imaginative or fun town names in
Louisiana," whereas our own Belchertown shows up among "Delightful or
unusual town and city names in Massachusetts."
I do recall that, when we first moved here, my reaction to the name tended toward "embarrassing or unfortunate" rather than "delightful." I was reluctant to live in Belchertown, in part because of the rather unappetizing name as well as the decaying infrastructure and substandard schools. In the meantime, I've gotten used to the name, and the town itself has become a fashionable location for new homes, in part because of larger lots and lower land prices. Things change.
Of course, plenty of people think Amherst an odd or inappropriate name, too. You know: that little plan to use germ warfare against Native Americans and all that. Some loon almost managed to prove the idiotic theory that the extremes of right and left meet when, in the course of the recent flag controversy, he linked our supposed lack of patriotism to the fact that our locale is named after a "genocidal maniac." In at least that one infamous regard, Jeffery Amherst was a morally problematic character, to be sure, though he never set foot in this town. It was named after him as a tribute to a military hero of the Seven Years War, akin to naming a town "Eisenhower" (also, by the way, a master of military logistics) after World War II. Amherst College historian of early America and Native America Kevin Sweeney took care of that issue when he wrote about Jeffery Amherst's career and gave the annual Mabel Loomis Todd lecture for the Amherst Historical Society on the occasion of the Town's 250th anniversary.
None of our honored institutions made it onto "Mashable's List of "Most Social Colleges." Just as well, for it turns out that that the story's content is as inane as the title is misleading. The piece is not about the sociability of college communities, and rather, about social media, but it can't get even that right. The study does not ask how (or how intelligently) colleges and universities use social media, and rather, looks only at meaningless numerical rankings. Shocker: Harvard has the most likes on Facebook and highest Klout score (though it was somewhat surprising that it came in second in number of Twitter followers, behind: University of Phoenix.)
Strategies for Sustainability highlighted Hampshire College's own list of "10 Green Things." Hampshire also made it onto the list of "10 Colleges for Free Spirits," defined as those displaying a "creative atmosphere, flexibility, unusual programs and outdoor living," often emphasizing "social service and environmental responsibility" and "in-depth, independent thinking":
Hampshire College:
(Amherst, Mass.) Learning builds on civic involvement,
multidisciplinary studies and original research driven by student
curiosity. Create an individual program of study working with faculty
mentors. Discussion topics could range from mind, brain and information
to power, community and social justice. The school offers activities
like outdoor leadership, martial arts and yoga, as well as green
initiatives like a solar canopy and sustainable farming. You can also
take classes at other nearby colleges. About 1,500 students are
enrolled, and more than half of all graduating students have completed
advanced degrees.
And last, as well as least, Hampshire came out about midway, at #6, on the list of the Top 10 Hipster Colleges (spoiler: Bard was #1). Take that, Amherst. Pretty respectable (or is that a contradiction in terms?) Sometimes, maybe it's square to be too hip.
Massholes
And finally, "Massshole"
has become a term of derision for residents of our Commonwealth, based
on our general rudeness and, in particular, our bad driving habits, which also bring out the other ones, such as arrogance and, well, rudeness and foul language. (Does that have anything to do with our colleges and heavy drinking?)
Still, in the information age, one is constantly seeking a more fine-grained analysis. One of my academic urban studies and preservation tweeps (by chance, also a transplanted Midwesterner, from my home town, no less) spotted a t-shirt that did just that. Couched in the language of the Department of Homeland Security alerts, it categorizes the danger level of "Masshole" tourists from highest to lowest:
