"Conversations With the Past: The West Cemetery Walk"

The dead rose from their graves to speak with visitors to Amherst's historic 1730 West Cemetery in one of the most successful events of the 250th anniversary celebrations.

The 250th Anniversary Historical Subcommittee, drawing upon the success of similar endeavors elsewhere, decided that one of the best ways to communicate and popularize the broad sweep of Amherst history would be to have ordinary citizens act out the roles of historical character at the sites of their graves in West Cemetery. One advantage here was that many of the figures were already portrayed on the Community History Mural by artist David Fichter (2005) and thus documented and in some sense familar. Although the Historical Commission and Town Planning Department assisted in some of the early phases of the project, all credit belongs to the Subcommittee and the citizen-volunteers.

Herewith a few scenes:

Mike Haley as David Parsons (1712-81), Amherst's first minister

Michael Coblyn, as Sanford Jackson (1831-63), member of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, America's first all-Black fighting regiment, who died of wounds suffered in the assault on Fort Wagner (as depicted in the film, "Glory"). Jackson was buried near the site of the battle, but the historic African-American section of the Cemetery, where Coblyn is standing, is home to the graves of several African-American Amherst Civil War veterans, as the GAR marker next to the tombstone indicates.

Reynolds Winslow, as teamster Henry Jackson (1817-1902), who helped to rescue Angeline Palmer

when her employers tried to sell her into slavery.

Brenda Thomas as Anna Reed Goodwin (1869-1943), matriarch of Amherst's Black community

Meg Gage as Lavinia Dickinson (1833-99), younger sister of Emily; with Mary Ellen Sailer,

as Margaret "Maggie" Maher (1841-1924), Emily's maid and confidante

Trish Farrington as Orra Hitchcock (1796-1863), landscape artist, scientific illustrator,

and wife of Amherst College President Edward Hitchcock

Mary Hocken as Mary Dickinson Mattoon (1758-1835), wife of General Ebeneezer Mattoon (1755-1843)

Town Planning Director Jonathan Tucker as the anonymous gravedigger of Amherst—a designation

that many local political activists would undoubtedly find appropriate.

It has been an extraordinarily successful event from the perspective of both organizers and visitors. I can attest to the fact that I heard from the latter things similar to what participants in the TMCC Warrant Article Tour said when I brought them to the Cemetery to explain our Historic Preservation proposals: typically, "I've lived here 'x' number of years, and yet I've never been here," or "I had no idea about x or y," or "this really made history come alive for me."

The comments from the reenactors were equally encouraging.

Some, such as Michael Coblyn, had long been involved in similar events—in this case, Civil War reenactments, with particular reference to the Mass 54th.

By contrast, for Brenda Thomas, who played Anna Reed Goodwin, the anniversary was a first and vital opportunity to learn more about the community to which she had moved. She immersed herself in the history as she prepared for her role, and found herself being drawn ever more deeply into the details of "Ma" Goodwin as well as Amherst itself.

Visitors on the first day (on which these photographs, with the exception of that of the gravedigger, who appeared only the next day) were enthusiastic and voluble. Given both the quality and short duration of this program, many expressed the wish for a repeat performance in the fall.

Resources:

• Cast and Crew with Timeline (from Amherst 250th)

• overview of characters and events: Mary Carey, "Amherst breathes life into history," Hampshire Gazette, 1 May

[updated images and links]

Historic Preservation: No Joke

Recently shared by a preservation professional:

Poet and Professor--and Prague

In my eagerness to announce to the world that the Hampshire College campus had earned the rating of "moderate dinginess," I somehow neglected to post mention of yet another laudatory news report* on a colleague.

Kristin Palpini, "From Russia with love: Renowned poet brings her passion for literature to Hampshire College," Amherst Bulletin, 10 April:

Hampshire College professor Polina Barskova discovered poetry at age 8 while waiting for her mother in a grocery store parking lot in Russia's Leningrad.

The words poured from her - a poem about fairy tales that came to the child from the "magic voices of the night itself," Barskova recalls.

And the words kept coming.

At age 9, Barskova had a poem, "Young Children of Lenin," published in the Leningrad newspaper.

. . . .

Some called her a prodigy.

Standing in her office in Amherst one day last month, pulling off layers of winter outerwear, Barskova, now 33, reflected on that. "Prodigy is more of an ironic title, right? I began writing early, so some people thought I am some kind of circus freak,' like a talking seal," she said, "but it's still my craft and my vocation." (read the rest)

Polina and I share an interest in the literature, history, and politics of Central and Eastern Europe, and supervise student examinations together. We are about to embark on a new collaboration, leading a study trip to Prague and Kraków from late May through mid-June. The course enrolled students from Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Emerson Colleges, and is being offered in collaboration with the Dartmore Institute for Central European Studies, a leader in study-abroad programs in that part of the world (and one of the best-kept secrets in the field).

I plan to report regularly here about our activities, and we expect that our students will also be blogging from Prague.

(* see also the reports on recent accomplishments by Rachel Rubinstein, Salman Hameed, and the team working on the Darwin anniversary celebrations)

And that sure as hell ain't socialism

Close tie for strangest remark in Town Meeting this past week.

Part of what we do when it comes to housekeeping articles is fill in gaps that we missed in past local legislation or bring our local laws into line with required state practice.

• Select Board member Gerry Weiss caught our attention when he suddenly referred to his having bought a lawn tractor with which to mow his grass, only to find that it did not come with the necessary cutting deck. It was a bit surreal, because you had to put two and two together for yourself, so most people were simply confused.

One such instance of housekeeping--Article 10--involved our formally rescinding a rent control bylaw dating from the mists of political antiquity (which is to say, the 1980s) because such measures had been outlawed by the Commonwealth in the 1990s.

Now you would think that simply doing what the law requires--and in this case, only the wording, and no longer the practice, was out of whack--would not be controversial, or at least require extended commentary. Well, not in Amherst.

• Local blogger and political gadfly Larry Kelley felt impelled to speak. After referring to the hoary date of the bylaw--passed in 1986, and amended on May 1, 1989--and denouncing the power of subpoena accorded the Housing Review Board, he reminded us that we needed to remember another date, November 1989:

"The Wall came down. Socialism don't work. Get used to it."

In case that wasn't harsh enough, he later added on his blog that we had "experimented (in a Nazi sort of way) with "Rent Control" back in the 1980's."

(I don't recall seeing the concentration camps, minefields, and free-fire zones of either Hitler or Stalin, but I'm just a historian.)

• Harry Brooks then took the microphone and led us on a rather bizarre walk down memory lane, in which he, by contrast, extolled the Review Board's power to intimidate witnesses and extract truthful statements, which so concerned Larry. No one had a clue what he was talking about, because, as Moderator Harrison Gregg reminded both speakers, the issue under discussion was the rescinding of an antiquated law, not the resurrection of the Review Board.

And people wonder why neighboring Pelham and Hadley can hold their annual Town Meetings over only one to two days, whereas ours extends through both May and June. Still, it occasionally makes for good television.

8-9 May 1945: V-E Day. Victory Over Fascism

Czechoslovak liberation medal

On this day in 1945—midnight on 8 May in the west, thus a day later in the USSR—the unconditional surrender of the forces of the Third Reich to the victorious allies went into effect.

Winston Churchill told Parliament:

Yesterday morning, at 2.41, at General Eisenhower's headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command and of Grand Admiral Doenitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force, and, simultaneously, to the Soviet High Command.
. . . . . . . . . .
The German war, Mr. Speaker, is therefore at an end. After years of intense preparation Germany hurled herself on Poland at the beginning of September, 1939, and in pursuance of our guarantee to Poland, and in common action with the French Republic, Great Britain and the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations declared war against this foul aggression. After gallant France had been struck down we from this Island and from our united Empire maintained the struggle single-handed for a whole year until we were joined by the military might of Soviet Russia and later by the overwhelming power and resources of the United States of America. Finally almost the whole world was combined against the evildoers, who are now prostrate before us. Sir, our gratitude to our splendid Allies goes forth from all our hearts. We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injuries she has inflicted upon Great Britain, the United States and other countries and her detestable cruelties call forth justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our tasks both at home and abroad.

The fascist German response managed to be characteristically both ingratiating and self-pitying. The New York Times report concluded:

After having signed the full surrender, General Jodl said he wanted to speak and received leave to do so.

"With this signature," he said in soft-spoken German, "the German people and armed forces are for better or worse delivered into the victors' hands.

"In this war, which has lasted more than five years, both have achieved and suffered more than five years, both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps an[y] other people in the world."

Some might beg to differ.

Nonetheless, it's worth remembering a time when wars had a clear moral purpose and clear conclusions, and re-education and "nation-building" actually meant something and succeeded.

resources:

• New York Times front page

• President Truman's Broadcast

• Winston Churchill's speech

• Marshal Stalin's V-E Order of the Day

• Marshal Stalin's Victory Address

• General De Gaulle's Broadcast

Historical Preservation Proposals: Site Visits and Warrant Review

In the course of the past few weeks, I presented the Historical Commission's Community Preservation Act (CPA) project proposals in a variety of settings:

1. at the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee (TMCC) bus tour (19 April).
2. at the League of Women Voters/Town Meeting Warrant review (21 April)
3. at the Select Board consideration of CPA articles (22 April)

• TMCC Bus Tour: The best efforts of Carol Gray and other valiant organizers notwithstanding, we were hampered in our efforts by the failure of the bus driver to show up (an omen, or just par for the course in Amherst?). As a result, we formed a caravan or carpool and managed to see most of the relevant sites, though with some omissions and compression.

The video--most of which actually deals with the Historic Preservation portions of the CPA articles--shows (1) me explaining the proposed restoration and display of the Civil War tablets currently stored at the DPW facility in Ruxton (Art. 18 J); (2) Survival Center Director (and my predecessor as Vice Chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee) Cheryl Zoll, giving a tour of the Center and explaining the services that it provides (Art. 23); (3) Jones Library Director Bonnie Isman describing needed roof repairs (Article 18H) and the closely related Archival Material Conservation and Special Collections Climate Control (Art. 18 I & G); (4) Carol Gray at West Cemetery explaining Art. 7 (municipal parking district); (5) me explaining West Cemetery projects: landscape restoration (Art. 18 E), ironwork restoration (Art. 18 C), and Town Tomb reconstructi0n (Art. 18 D). After the end of the tour, I described the West Cemetery Mural (a Historical Commission project completed in 2005), which provided an opportunity to talk about the Writer's Walk markers (Art. 18 L), and, more briefly, the Dickinson District expansion and depot District nomination (Art. 18 M).

• Warrant Review (21 April)

(watch on demand from ACTV: the Historical Commission Articles are discussed between about 8:27 and 8:50 p.m.)

• Select Board, 22 April

See other entries at this site for details on Historical Commission projects:

• Warrant Review presentation and Bus Tour
• Historical Commission Project Overview and Rationale
• Kimball House Historic Preservation (Art. 18 F)
• West Cemetery Projects Overview
• West Cemetery Restoration: Iron Work and Town Tomb (Art. 18 C, D)
• West Cemetery Landscape Restoration (Art. 18 E)
• Civil War Tablet Conservation and Installation (Art. 18 J)
• Jones Library Preservation Projects (Art. 18 G, H, I)
• North Church Roof Repairs (Art. 18 K)
• Amherst Writer's Walk (Literary Landmarks) (Art. 18 L)
• National Historic Register Nominations: Dickinson Expansion; new Depot District (Art. 18 M)
• Historic Resource Inventory, Phase II: Historic Barns and Outbuildings (Art. 18 N)

[* links updated]

Historical Commission Brings Ambitious Project Proposals to Town Meeting for 250th Anniversary

AMHERST HISTORICAL COMMISSION PRESERVATION PROJECTS, FY10

PRESERVING THE PAST, ENRICHING THE FUTURE

• Mission

A local Historical Commission in Massachusetts (M.G.L. 40 § 8d) is charged with responsibility for "for the preservation, protection and development of the historical or archeological assets" of the city or town. Our duties include researching and identifying historic sites, establishing and maintaining inventories of same (available in the Planning Department and Jones Library Special Collections), producing maps and informational publications, holding demolition delay hearings, obtaining preservation restrictions, and coordinating "the activities of unofficial bodies organized for similar purposes."

According to M.G.L. 40 § 8d, "For the purpose of protecting and preserving such places, [a Historical Commission] may make such recommendations as it deems necessary to the city council or the selectmen . . . ." These include funding proposals as well as legislative measures. As Town Meeting members will know, there is no budget line for our work, so implementation of our projects largely depends largely on CPA funds (see below, end of entry).

• Definitions: What is historic preservation--and why spend CPA funds on it?

Many people are surprised or irritated to learn that historic preservation is one of the legally mandated categories for CPA expenditures (the others are affordable housing and open space and recreation). It seems to them a luxury. By contrast, I myself have always been struck by the profound wisdom that the Commonwealth displayed in creating the CPA: It’s not about the life-or-death necessities that keep body and soul together. Towns will always find a way to fix the sewers and pay the police. It’s about the things that make life worth living. They are usually the first to go when budget crises force agonizing choices. The CPA is nothing less than a safety net for our quality of life. We need it now more than ever.

Public community resources, no less than public schools, are a foundation of democracy and diversity. The CPA supports crucial elements of the Master Plan. It preserves nature and culture for all: the forests and marshes, farmland and historic sites, which benefit residents and attract visitors. It provides recreational opportunities—parks, nature trails, playing fields—for all, young and old, homeowner and renter. It ensures access to housing for all, regardless of class and wealth.

The quality of life that keeps us here in turn attracts the clean economic development—in the form of cultural tourism and innovative new businesses—essential to funding the basic services to which we are so committed.

So, just what role does historic preservation play here?

Historic preservation embraces landscapes as well as buildings, whole neighborhoods as well as individual structures, the surroundings of the common people as well as the elite, the vernacular as well as the spectacular. It is about maintaining the physical connections to our heritage, and thereby our own identities: the sites, structures, objects, and aesthetics that have become important parts of our contemporary existence. It educates us about our past, it beautifies our present.

Fundamentally, it is also about a mature perspective on life. As Cicero said, to be ignorant of history is to remain always a child. By teaching us to live humbly and lightly, historic preservation is very much akin to environmentalism. Just as we would no longer countenance the destruction of a species, so too, we pause at the thought of wholesale destruction of types of landscapes or built environment. We realize that no single generation should be entitled to make such choices for all time. Tastes change. (The Renaissance scorned the “Gothic,” yet today we are glad that medieval buildings survive.) Historical preservation thus reminds us that we are but one link in a chain of generations. By showing respect for what came before us, we affirm both our humility and the hope that part of what we live and create will likewise become a part of the common human heritage.

The modern theory and practice of historic preservation are intimately linked to ideas of sustainability. Contrary to what one might expect, older buildings actually tend to be "greener" than recent ones. Renovation or adaptive reuse of older structures, by conserving resources and energy and preventing sprawl, makes the most economic and environmental sense. As the National Trust for Historic Preservation declares: historic preservation is green building. A sound historic preservation policy can thus support affordable housing and the preservation of open space.

• Strategy and Program

In our work, we are guided by the the standards of historic preservation as defined by current scholarship and professional practice, the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Our specific projects emerge from the priorities set forth in the Amherst Preservation Plan (2005) and draft Master Plan, both funded by Town Meeting.

It has therefore been the policy of the Historical Commission to operate according to a comprehensive system of action steps and implementation priorities. It divides undertakings into physical preservation, documentation, regulation, and outreach and advocacy, which are further distributed over a ten-year schedule, divided into near-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.

As our last Report to the Town explains, the approaching fifth anniversary of the Preservation Plan was a welcome occasion for the sort of review and updating that the document mandates. Recognizing that, as a citizen committee operating with limited resources and staff support, we could not hope to accomplish the full range of action items on the original timetable, we undertook a a fundamental reappraisal and recalibration—the most radical overhauling of our agenda to date, and one that will shape our policy in the years to come. We eliminated or downgraded both overly ambitious and simply desirable rather than pressing measures.

The proposals that you see before you are the product of this refined prioritization and implementation strategy. In this, our 250th anniversary year, we propose a broad but assuredly feasible range of projects intended to highlight the full scope of Amherst's diverse historic heritage. They continue long-term existing initiatives and begin new ones. They include capital projects and inventories. They support preservation of public and private properties. They call attention to periods ranging from the Colonial to the contemporary, to our industrial as well as cultural heritage, to our famous and unsung citizens alike, to the full range of our social and ethnic profile.

Isn't that a lot of money?

Many citizens raise an eyebrow at the cost of some historic preservation projects. The fact is, good work takes time and costs good money. Botched preservation or restoration efforts are actually more expensive in all senses of the word: They damage or jeopardize the resources and often therefore necessitate repeat work, which entails greater costs in the long run.

When dealing with threatened resources, careful assessment and planning are of the essence, and even the preparation of bid specifications requires the input of specialists. Many projects require materials and techniques no longer in common use, which can be far more expensive than comparable contemporary methods. Even "ordinary" projects such as signs and plantings cost far more than most of us realize, as our examples will demonstrate.

Although our preservation projects are in round figures, all cost estimates are prepared on the basis of consultation with experts in the relevant areas. And, as with all CPA appropriations: in the event that a project costs less than anticipated, any surplus funds return to the pool for the next year.

Ultimately, of course, the issue is value rather than cost alone, and one gets what one pays for.

Michael Morissey summarizes:

Historic preservation is nothing short of the continuation and enhancement of everything important in modern society. It is growth in the local economy, it is a strong advocate for ecology, it is a living display of local or national history, it is proof of all residents' common heritage. It is, in a word, the ultimate in city planning.

• Warrant Review presentation and Bus Tour
• Historical Commission Project Overview and Rationale
• Kimball House Historic Preservation (Art. 18 F)
• West Cemetery Projects Overview
• West Cemetery Restoration: Iron Work and Town Tomb (Art. 18 C, D)
• West Cemetery Landscape Restoration (Art. 18 E)
• Civil War Tablet Conservation and Installation (Art. 18 J)
• Jones Library Preservation Projects (Art. 18 G, H, I)
• North Church Roof Repairs (Art. 18 K)
• Amherst Writer's Walk (Literary Landmarks) (Art. 18 L)
• National Historic Register Nominations: Dickinson Expansion; new Depot District (Art. 18 M)
• Historic Resource Inventory, Phase II: Historic Barns & Outbuildings (Art. 18 N)

* * *

• *) CPA Background:

The Community Preservation Act (2000) provides Massachusetts locales that adopt it with support for Open Space and Recreation, Historic Preservation, and Affordable Housing. Funds come from a progressive surcharge ranging from one to three percent, based on local property tax assessments but exempting the first $ 100,000 of assessed valuation. Participation has moreover traditionally earned communities state matching funds, derived from property transfers. Home committees, such as the Historical Commission, generate funding proposals, which are then reviewed by the local Community Preservation Act Committee (CPAC). Only proposals that pass both screenings are sent to Town Meeting in the form of a warrant article or articles for final approval (by a simple majority in the case of most proposals, by a two-thirds majority--aking to a zoning article--in cases where actual purchases of property are involved).

Initially, all communities could earn a 100-percent match. However, as the number of participating locales increased and property values decreased, the Commonwealth determined that, as of autumn 2008, only communities whose surcharge lay at the upper end of the scale would be eligible for matching funds. Amherst initially (2001) adopted the minimum one-percent rate, and cautiously increased the rate only to 1.5 percent in 2006. A measure on the November 2008 ballot proposed to increase our surcharge to the maximum three percent, in order to increase amounts available from local resources and to ensure that we continue to receive matching funds. (Many of our neighboring communities, including Northampton, Hadley, and Leverett, already have three-percent surcharges in place, so we have in effect been subsidizing their expenditures.) Although adopting the measure in Amherst would have meant an additional surcharge of only $ 55.87--or around 15 cents a day--for the average single-family house with an assessed value of $ 332,500, the measure was narrowly defeated. Resistance came from divergent sectors of the political spectrum. Many critics, including leading centrist advocates of fiscal responsibility, and the local newspaper editorial page, criticized the measure as the wrong action at the wrong time. Some did so on strategic grounds, reasoning that taxpayers, unable to fathom the subtleties of the aforementioned financial calculation, might revolt against even so modest a measure bearing the name, "tax," or "surcharge," which would thus jeopardize prospects for a general tax override deemed necessary in order to meet the looming budget crisis. In the event, there was no move for an override. In the meantime, Boston informs us that the state match this year will be only 29 percent.

First Flowering of the West Cemetery Landscape Restoration

Last fall, the Historical Commission launched the landscape restoration phase of the West Cemetery Preservation Plan (1999), as members of the Stockbridge School fraternity Alpha Tau Gamma donated and planted grape hyacinth bulbs, barrenwort, and other spring-flowering perennials.

A month ago, the new growth appeared--about the same time as the first daffodil shoots broke the soil next to Emily Dickinson's gravestone (below)

and 23,000 new daffodil bulbs sprouted on public and private properties all over town. The bulb planting, a project of the 250th Anniversary Committee, was the brainchild of Dolly Jolly. Students from the Stockbridge School were likewise involved in this planting project last fall. (Here, a planting by Bev Ziomek, down the street from us on Route 63 this week.)

And this weekend, the warm weather finally brought out the first flowers, just in time for the West Cemetery Walk (coverage to follow), organized in conjunction with the town's 250th anniversary celebrations.

The planting was a pilot project, intended to give visitors a taste of what the full meadow restoration might look like, and to add one more festive touch to the 250th events. This month, the Historical Commission will bring a proposal for funding of the first full phase of the restoration effort to Annual Town Meeting. (Detailed coverage of all of our proposals on the warrant will follow on these pages. Selecting the rubrics ("labels") of this posting will bring up all the relevant pieces.)

Who's Trying to Strangle Obama? (Introducing Cultural Literacy Check)

No, that's not a question about his political enemies, but instead, a question about the representation of the question.

When I came across this cover on The New Republic, I was both amused and intrigued. To me, the point of reference was obvious because it's drawn from my field, namely European cultural history: the famous Hellenistic sculpture of Laocoön, priest of Neptune, and his sons, being strangled by serpents, as described in literary accounts of the Trojan War (notably the Aeneid).

For the pioneering aesthete and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, writing in his immensely influential treatise of 1755, its "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" epitomized the spirit of Classical Greek art. The sculpture entered still more deeply into the realm of aesthetic theory when Gotthold Ephraim Lessing employed it as the centerpiece of his famous critique of Winckelmann, Laokoon: oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (Laocoon. An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry; 1766). Since Lessing's time, other critics have appropriated the title for aesthetic treatises of their own.

Once among the most famous works of art in the world—at any rate, among the cultural elites—the sculpture may not be anything like a common reference anymore.

Fortunately, in the case of the TNR cover, one doesn't really have to understand the allusion in order to get the point (though if one did, one might ponder the appropriateness of the analogy): It looks as if Obama is in trouble, and to help you out, there's a caption.

In other cases, knowing the reference may matter more.

This got me to thinking about the larger issue of cultural literacy: not in the sense of defending or opposing canons, but simply as a practical matter. It can have some import. For example, in the classroom, I cannot assume that the historical allusions I make—even if they deal, say, with the comparatively recent era of the 1960s and —will be readily understood.

This was brought home in striking fashion when Sam Wineburg, a noted scholar of historical pedagogy from Stanford, gave a series of workshops here earlier this semester. One of his fundamental points is that historical thinking is a skill that is anything but natural and has to be learned. In order for it to be learned, however, historians have to teach it. In order to be able to teach it, historians have to remind themselves that they cannot take what they do or say for granted. All too often, they approach a history class with the tacit assumption that students may lack historical knowledge but at least understand how to think historically. On the contrary, since no one has ever told the students that they have to do this, much less taught them how, the results are often disastrous or at the least unnecessarily but unavoidably frustrating.

One of Wineburg's noted techniques is therefore to watch how people teach and learn, film the process, and show it to them and others. He will ask scholars and students alike, for example, to read a passage of a historical document, but not in the ordinary way. Rather, he forces them to pause repeatedly to reflect on what they are doing as they are doing it: to state out loud how they are approaching the text, to explain their reaction—their assumptions and questions alike—as they encounter a given fact, formulation, or idea.

On other occasions, he will ask a diverse group to respond to an image. In one example, he showed us how a student and her parents offered their off-the-cuff interpretations of a photograph. This one happened to be a Vietnam-era demonstration by "hard hat" construction workers calling for support of the government and military. To any of us who are of a certain age (I am getting disturbingly familiar with that phrase) or have studied any recent history, the interpretation was obvious. It seemed equally obvious to the student, but it turned out she was dead wrong. She could could not conceive of such a thing as a pro-war demonstration (though they have occurred even in recent years), and believed that the workers were therefore demonstrating against the war. Accordingly, to the extent that their signs backed the President, she could only assume that he was an advocate of peace and withdrawal. Unfamiliar with the then-prevalent denunciation of soldiers as "baby-killers," she knew only the modern left's vapid and rather disingenuous call to "support our troops by bringing them home." Even the American flags were not a tipoff, because she had been raised in the era after liberals and leftists decided to reappropriate the flag rather than cede the symbol to the Republican right. To an older or historically literate audience, as I said, the message was all too clear: these were reactionaries whose idea of patriotism was not "dissent," but "America, love it or leave it!" and whose idea of a good time was breaking a few "hippie" or "pinko" skulls. All of that was completely unfamiliar to her.

A sobering lesson.

What do we talk about when we make cultural and historical allusions? Can we really be certain that we fully understand one another?

I'll return to the larger theme of cultural as well as the example of Laocoön here and elsewhere. In the meantime, let the quest begin.

1 May: International Working-Class Holiday

From Historein

For most Americans, May Day conjures up images of rigidly orchestrated military parades on Red Square. Well, actually, maybe just for Americans of a certain age (never thought I would utter that phrase) and political awareness, and maybe not even them anymore. Most of us probably think of maypoles and spring festivities. Can Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the "summer" recreational--and advertising--season (this, although the astronomical summer still lies almost a month ahead) be far off?

Our relationship to, or better put, ignorance of, May Day, reminds us of our peculiar and fraught collective attitudes toward class, politics, and history. Judging from conversations and coverage in the American media, one could remain completely unaware that it is the international holiday of labor, for participants ranging from strict leftist political parties the likes of which we do not have, to trade unions scarcely distinguishable from our own.

That Americans, ever the exceptionalists, celebrate their Labor Day--now generally reduced to serving as the symbolic end of the summer vacation, the return of the school year, and yet another excuse for capitalist advertising and sales--in September is a story in itself.

It was actually American workers who in many ways took the lead in celebrating the traditional holiday of May 1 as the occasion to honor labor and mark the struggle for the eight-hour day. The target date for achieving that then-radical goal was May 1, 1886. It was in pursuit of that goal in the course of a strike in Chicago that both police and workers died in the notorious Haymarket Affair of May 4. In 1888, the American Federation of Labor renewed its push for the eight-hour day and a celebration on that date, in part as an hommage to the Haymarket martyrs. The Second International adopted May 1 as its common holiday in 1889 (and went on to create International Women's Day in 1910):

There shall be organized a great international demonstration on a fixed date, so that in every country and every town on the given day, the workers shall formally summon the public authorities to reduce the working day by law, and apply the other resolutions of the international congress of Paris.

Seeing that such a demonstration has already been decided on for 1 May 1890 by the American Federation of Labor during its congress held at St Louis in December 1888, this same date has been retained for the international demonstration.

As influential German socialist Wilhelm Liebknecht--one of the institutors of the May holiday--observed, there had been some debate within the working-class movement over celebrating May 1 or the first Sunday in May, in part over the question of whether it was wise or even possible for workers to absent themselves from work. The point was to make manifest the discipline and resolve of the working-class movement, not to give the impression of shirking obligations.

The discipline and quiet dignity of the workers impressed even many of the most skeptical or scared among the bourgeoisie. Stefan Zweig wrote in his elegiacal memoir, The World of Yesterday (1943):

I can still recall from my earliest childhood the day which marked the turning point in the the rise of the Socialist Party in Austria. The workers, in order to demonstrate visibly for the first time their strength and numbers, had given out the word that the first of May was to be declared the working people's holiday, and they had decided to march in closed ranks in the Prater, in whose main avenue, a lovely, broad, chestnut-lined boulevard, usually only the carriages of the aristocracy and the wealthy middle classes appeared. This announcement paralyzed the good liberal middle classes with fright. Socialists! The word had a peculiar taste of blood and terror in the Germany and Austria of those days, like 'Jacobin' before and 'Bolshevik' since. At first it was thought impossible for this rabble of the faubourgs to carry out its march without setting houses on fire, plundering shops, and committing every sort of atrocity imaginable. A kind of panic set in. The police of the entire city and the surroundings were posted in the Prater, and the military were held in reserve, ready to shoot. Not a carriage, not a cab, dared to come near the Prater; the merchants let down the iron shutters in front of their shops, and I can remember that our parents strictly forbade us children to go out on the streets on this day of terror which might see Vienna in flames. But nothing happened. The workers marched in the Prater with their wives and children in closed ranks, four abreast, with exemplary discipline, each one wearing a red carnation in his buttonhole as a party emblem. While marching they sang the 'Internationale,' and the children, who trod on the lovely green of the Nobelallée for the first time, chanted their carefree songs. No one was insulted, no one was struck, no fists were clenched; and the police and the soldiers smiled at them like comrades. Thanks to this circumspect conduct, the middle classes were no longer able to brand the workers as 'revolutionary rabble' and they came to mutual concessions, as always in wise old Austria. The present-day system of suppression and extirpation had not yet been discovered, and the ideal of humanity (although it had already begun to fade) was alive even among political leaders.

The United States establishment made every possible effort to separate the American celebration of a day of labor from the generally accepted socialist date and goals. Although New York unions celebrated a labor day in September in the early 1880s, the subsequent Haymarket affair is generally regarded as having spurred the choice of a September rather than May Labor Day as the national norm on the part of both more cautious unions and the government. If the message needed to be made any clearer, May 1, marked as "Americanization Day" since 1921, became the date for the federal holidays of "Loyalty Day" and "Law Day" during the Cold War.

Today, as the Employee Free Choice Act is debated, a supportive petition circulated by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts reads, in part:

As historians, we understand the contribution of the labor movement to the well-being and quality of life of America’s workers, union and non-union alike. Unions and collective bargaining are essential to workplace democracy and justice on the job. Unions truly are the people who “brought you the weekend”— and contributed to the creation of Social Security, free and universal public education, equal rights, and much else. We are keenly aware that the majority sign-up route to union recognition provided by the Employee Free Choice Act has a long history and is in widespread use today in the U.S. and many other countries.

The history of May Day is a part of the history behind that history.