Month: June 2019

Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Henchman, used the confiscation of Jewish property to amass a fortune, seizing art and other valuables for himself, and collecting bribes that allowed others to do so. Born to a wealthy father and peasant mother, he exulted in aristocratic trappings such as a coat of arms and ceremonial swords and daggers. He designed an elaborate personal flag that was carried at public events, and was known for his extravagant taste and garish clothing, including a medieval hunting costume and a russet toga fastened with a golden clasp. His car, a Mercedes 540K Special Cabriolet, nicknamed “The Blue Goose,” had special features such as bullet-proof glass and bomb-resistant armor, and was modified to fit his girth behind the wheel. Dubbed “The Iron Man,” he didn’t mind jokes about his corpulence, taking them as a sign of his popularity. Read more about Nazi Germany and Hitler’s inner circle in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, two elevator operators, Joe Zitto and Joe Gaspar, each made 15-20 trips rescuing workers, nearly all of them immigrants. The elevators were meant to hold 15 passengers, but 30 or more piled inside. When workers on the 8th floor saw the elevator descend from the 10th floor without stopping for them, they broke the elevator’s glass door and jumped on top of the car. After the last descent, some desperate workers plunged down the empty shaft to their death. Read more about the fire and one immigrant survivor in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The task of assembling little people to act in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz fell to Baron Leopold von Singer. In Germany, he had put together a troupe of touring “midgets” who took part in vaudeville shows all over Europe. He had bought some of them as children from their parents, who wanted to get rid of them. By 1938, he had gathered a stable of 100 tiny performers and was based in America. Singer was put in charge of all the Munchkins, looking after lodging, food, and attendance on set. Managing them was never easy. Many did not speak English and sang in thick German accents. The little people had no affection for him either. They claimed Singer stole a big percentage of their wages. Read more about the Munchkins and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the Depression, the San Diego Naval Base used money from the federal Public Works Administration to expand the Pacific Fleet to 48 warships, 400 naval aircraft, 55,000 sailors and 3,000 officers. The goal was to demonstrate U.S. sea power and show Japan and the rest of world that the country was interested in and ready to defend the Pacific. Today the U.S. Navy has over 400,000 active personnel (nearly one-fifth women), 490 ships, 41 aircraft carriers, nearly 4,000 aircraft, and 135 bases in the U.S. and abroad. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

While researching a story about a (fictional) 1910 poetry class at the Bronx branch of the Henry Street Settlement, I remembered the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage that I used to pass when, as a child in the 1950s, I rode the bus to Fordham Road. The simple, white house had a raven painted outside one window. As I looked into the background of the cottage for the short story, I discovered that Poe did not actually write “The Raven” while living there. He wrote that poem earlier, when he lived in Manhattan. However, during the years (1846-1849) that he, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria, lived at the house, Poe wrote “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume.” They loved the small, rustic place, of which a friend wrote, “The cottage had an air of taste and gentility… So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never saw.” The Bronx was still quite rural at the time and the family is said to have kept songbirds in cages on the porch. Virginia died there of tuberculosis in 1847 in her first-floor bedroom, and Poe died in 1849 while visiting Baltimore. Maria moved out shortly thereafter. Poe Cottage was recognized as a landmark in the 1960s. Presumably (I have not been back to look), fact checkers at the Bronx Historical Society have removed the raven, nevermore to be seen at the cottage window. Read more about my SHORT STORIES and interesting background details in BEHIND THE STORY.

Judy Garland, who played Dorothy Gale in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. One-half inch shy of 5′ tall, the 17-year-old actress had to have her budding breasts strapped down to make her look like a 13-year-old in the movie. Not only was she a film heroine to the Munchkins, in later life Garland became an enduring icon in the gay community. In the decades before the LGBTQ movement, gay men referred to themselves as “Friends of Dorothy.” Read more about the movie and Judy Garland in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

A 1911 study of Armour Meats in Chicago (five years after Upton Sinclair’s exposé The Jungle was published) found that the average weekly pay for 10 hours a day, six days a week, was $9.50, whereas the living wage for a family of five, the average size at the time, was $15.40. But Armour swore it would pay whatever it wanted or close its factory doors. Armour successfully broke three strikes and blacklisted union leaders. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).