Food in the Gilded Age: What Ordinary Americans Ate (History)

                                          by Robert Dirks

Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (April 14, 2016)

Hardcover, 226 pages

Amazon Listing

“Italians believed that the higher prices they paid were justified because of the superior quality of their diet. In their opinion, they ate better than members of other nationalities, and generally speaking newcomers from Italy expressed very little interest in trying other people’s foods. This created the impression that Italians disliked foreign dishes. Wood circulated that they dreaded going to the hospital for medical help and that they avoided seeking employment outside of their own neighborhoods because of the unfamiliar foods they might have to eat. Regardless of whether this was true, it seems fair to say that no nationality other than the Chinese clung with greater tenacity to their native cuisine.”

This is an academic text, so don’t expect a narrative or natural flow to the text. A good deal of it for the first several chapters is dry calculation, flooded with numbers and statistics, which I’m sure proves the author’s point, but it is similar to reading a textbook - narrative be damned. It isn’t until the later chapters, where the author begins breaking down dietary habits among various immigrant groups of the late 19th and early 20th century that the book perks up.

On the positive, all of the sources are well documented and impressive. Additionally, scattered throughout the book are old school recipes culled from the cookbooks of the Gilded Age. There are twelve of them ranging from all across the United States. Most are based on the dietary habits of poor immigrants, or poor Americans in the southern USA. The book ends oddly. It just sort of stops when it runs out of information. Usually there is some sort of conclusion. It’s almost as if he had written one, and it was pulled by the publishers to cut down on costs.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst

 

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (History)

 

by Daniel James Brown

Publisher : Penguin Books (January 1, 2014)

Softcover, 404 pages

Amazon Listing  

“By and large, every rower in the eight-oared shell does the same thing - pull an oar through the water as smoothly as possible, as hard and as frequently as the coxswain. But there are subtle differences in what is expected of individual rowers depending on which seat they occupy. Because the rest of the boat goes necessarily where the bow goes, any deflection or irregularity in the stroke of the oarsman in the bow seat has the greatest potential to disrupt the course, speed, and stability of the boat. So while the bow oarsman must be strong, like all the others, it’s most important that he or she be technically proficient: capable of pulling a perfect oar, stroke after stroke without fail.”

This novel is about the University of Washington crew team which represented the United States in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and by a hair's breadth, won the gold medal. Two stories are included. One illustrates how all of the Washington team came from depressed families and struggled to make their way through college during the height of the Great Depression.

Author Daniel James Brown

The second backstory deals with Hitler decreeing construction of the spectacular German venues at which the Games would take place. Along the way, the book also claims that the Nazis successfully covered up their treatment of the Jews so as to win widespread acclaim for the 1936 Olympic Games, deceiving the United States Olympic Committee among others.

All comes together with a description of the final race. During the 1930s, rowing was a popular sport with millions following the action on the radio. The winning Americans became national heroes for a brief time, then sank into obscurity like most amateur athletes. After their win, they would come together every few years to row again. The book gives an amazing amount of detail on the history of sport crew, its rise in popularity in the University set, and a structural analysis on the construction of their crew shells. A great resource for those interested.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson (History)

by Andro Linklater 

Publisher: Walker Books; 1 edition (September 29, 2009)

Softcover, 400 pages

Amazon Listing 

 “For his part, Wilkinson, who never remained faithful to any other superior, was always Jefferson’s man. He gave him the army’s loyalty, Burr’s conspiracy, Louisiana’s border. Long after he had damned every other statesman to perdition, he attempted to win Jefferson’s constantly withheld friendship. And the crux of his life proved to be the moment when he sacrificed a career of treachery to be steadfast not just to his nation but to his president.” 

Name one Revolutionary War hero who essentially betrayed everything for money whose name wasn't Benedict Arnold? Can't, can you? And why not? I have no idea. It wasn't until recently I came across the name James Wilkinson, General of the United States Army under the first four Presidents, and Agent 13 under pay to the Spanish Crown.

It's an interesting look at another side of American history. The same events occur, but the country looks so much more fragile than before. Wilkinson was a pompous, histrionic, arrogant man, but he knew his business. He first became a paid agent for the Spanish government in order to convince various peoples of Kentucky and various other territories to join allegiance to Spain, who still had sizeable holdings in North America at that time.

General James Wilkinson

The gambit failed and Wilkinson spent the rest of his life defending himself - successfully that is. He went up against three official court-martials and six inquiries, always getting away with it. The Presidents put up with him, because he knew how to handle an army and was, usually, victorious. The press eventually branded him a criminal and he published two books to defend himself - the cost of which are most of his savings.

Essentially this is a profile of an arrogant, but capable man, who lived well above his means, who believed in very little beyond his own glorification. A fascinating look at how fragile our country was at its beginnings and easily it could have gone another way.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

 

Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror (History)

by Jeffrey A. Sluka (Editor)

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (October 7, 1999)

Softcover, 264 pages

Amazon Listing

"In 1983, one year after the socialist electoral victory, the assassination of Basque radical nationalists began under the anagram of a new paramilitary organization that called itself GAL, or Antiterrorist Liberation Group. From 1983  to 1985, the new paramilitary squad claimed the assassinations of twenty five Basque people. Most of them were Basque refugees, active or retired members of the radical nationalist guerilla organization, ETA, who were living across the frontier in the French Basque Country".

This is an academic book, so it is written in such a way as to bore and exclude the average reader, so be warned. By academic, I mean they assume a certain level of knowledge is already possessed on the subject by the reader and that the reader is also willing to read above a twelfth grade level - which most people aren’t. So you’ve been warned twice.

While I found the individual chapters of the book to be interesting, the reader has to wade through forty some pages of an indulgent and idiotic introduction. Where the editor discusses the use of state-terror, but somehow never mentions its use in communist countries. Instead the author sucks the cock of Noam Chomsky and places all of the blame on Western Civilization in general and the USA in specific.

 

The introduction then discusses the use of anthropologist as activist to achieve "social justice" and point out wrongs in the world, stating that the world of anthropology needs to be "decolonized" - without explaining what that means. Then it justifies screwing the results to affect social change which invalidates most of the work everyone has done in the next several chapters. In my view, skip the introduction and dive into the meat of the matter.

The rest of the book however focuses on the meat of the matter without the interference of the editor. Each chapter discusses a different use of state terror in the Basque territories of post-Franco Spain; the Punjab and Kashmir regions of India; Argentina; Guatemala; Northern Ireland; The East Timor region within Indonesia; and against the Muslim separatist movements in the Philippians.

The variety of tactics are fascinating. Some operate openly, others “disappear” dissenters in the middle of the night. Many use “unofficial” paramilitary groups to do their dirty work, so that the respective governments can maintain plausible deniability while destroying their political enemies. The firsthand accounts and background material is first rate here, as is the research documentation. These chapters are what makes the book worthwhile. The introduction and conclusion can easily be excised.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

Looking Outward: The Federal Prison System from the Inside (History) (True Crime)

by Robert F. Stroud  
Publisher: Recipe Publishers; First edition (November 19, 2013)
Softcover, 286 pages
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“It is impossible to consider the problems involved in prison management without having some knowledge of the various elements entering into the prison population, and the population of Federal prisons has always borne a distinct relationship to the peculiar nature of Federal offences. Back at the turn of the century the principal Federal crimes were: counterfeiting; smuggling cloth, chinamen, and opium: robbery of Post Offices and mails in different forms, such as train robbery, Post Office burglary, and various forms of pilfering from the mails; mail fraud; violation of the National Banking Laws; dereliction in office, principally of postal employees; and violations of the liquor laws.”

This is the prison memoir of Robert F. Stroud, the famous Birdman of Alcatraz - probably the most famous prisoner in the history of the United States. Considering that Stroud died in 1963, this publication is long overdue.

For those who are unaware (and Stroud glosses over certain unflattering facts in his biography). Originally from Seattle, Stroud ran away from his abusive father at the age of 13, and by the time he was 18, he had become a pimp in the Alaska Territory. In January 1909, he shot and killed a bartender who attacked his mistress, a crime for which he was sentenced to 12 years. He gained a reputation as a dangerous inmate who frequently had confrontations with fellow inmates and staff, and in 1916, he stabbed and killed a guard. Sentenced to be executed, the verdict was commuted to life imprisonment by Woodrow Wilson.





Original Script for the novel in longhand

Imprisoned at Leavenworth, he began raising pigeons in order to keep his sanity. The prison was under the congregate system where prisoners worked during the day in groups and were kept in solitary confinement at night, with enforced silence at all times. He became famous for writing a book on the various diseases he discovered in birds and various cures he uncovered.

This book, however, is on the Federal prison system in the United States, its history and development, focusing specifically on his first two places of incarceration: Leavenworth and McNeil Island. He gives detailed accounts of their history, their policies, the type of men who ran them, food, work, and other daily routines. He also gives various anecdotes of things he witnessed while imprisoned. Violence and homosexuality are discussed in a matter of fact notion. His views on it are that if a man in confined to a place where there are nothing but men, it is a natural occurrence. He also mentions the practice was common enough in rural Alaska where the ratio of men to women was 25 to 1. All in all, it is an interesting first hand read of a prison system that has become defunct.

Author Robert F. Stroud

While many of the facts check out, Stroud himself is quite an unreliable narrator. First, as he readily admits, most of the information comes from memory, but he also admits when he cannot remember a fact or might be misremembering it. Secondly, he often recounts conversations to which he himself was not privy and relies on hearsay to fill in the gaps. Third, as many people around him have pointed out, Stroud was something of a sociopath and narcissist. He constantly refers to himself in the third person as “The Writer” and never admits to making a mistake. He doesn’t dispute his crimes, but only talks about them in flat factual statements. “This is what I did. I have no opinion on it.” In short, he comes across as one of those people who could only thrive in a heavily ordered and structured system like prison.

This was meant to be book one of four on the Federal penal system, however only this one has been published and since it came out in 2013, I don’t think the rest will be forthcoming. The only way to see them, as far as I know, is where they are warehoused- The Missouri State Special Collections archives. The reasons for why no more books have been forthcoming may be legal, but possibly financial.

The men who produced this book, obviously don’t have much experience in formatting, and didn’t bother to learn or correct their errors as this is one of the most inept book formatting jobs I’ve seen- even for independent publishers. There are numerous typos (but only in the first 20 pages to be fair), the type face is small, printed in single space with a blank line between paragraphs (almost military style) and often paragraphs would break up mid-sentence. Very poorly put together.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Robert Stroud when he first interred into Federal Prison

The True Death of Billy the Kid (History) (Graphic Novels)

by Rick Geary

Publisher: NBM Publishing (March 1, 2018)

Hardcover, 56 pages

Amazon Listing 

Normally I'm a big fan of Rick Geary's Treasuries of Victorian Murder series, I believe this is the 20th book, but this one comes in as a little light. Sixty pages, as opposed to the usual ninety. The usual attention to background detail is a little thin, but perhaps that’s because most of the narrative was limited to the actual killing of Billy the Kid. 

It could be that there just isn't much to tell about Billy the Kid, or that it's such familiar ground. In previous volumes many of the topics were obscure events or ones where new information had been uncovered, but with Billy the Kid new information will probably never come. 

 

Normally, Geary gives us a lot of detail about the history of the participants. We would get a whole chapter on Pat Garret and Henry McCarty (Billy the Kid’s real name), but there isn’t much here. Now, that is probably because not much information exists, thus leading this story to seem a little more superficial than I expected. 

Still it acts as a good primer to the mythology of Billy the Kid and gives a humanizing aspect to the legend. It also accurately points out that he gained his legend and reputation more for his daring escapes than his criminal activities. It is well done despite the lack of information. It just falls short of the other books in this series.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

 

 

The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (History) (Autobiography)

by Bela Zombory-Moldovan; Peter Zombory-Moldovan (Translation, Introduction)

Publisher: New York Review Books Classics (August 5, 2014).

Softcover, 184 pages

‘What are you up to, Drafi?’

He was about to jump to his feet to report, when the mate spoke up.

‘Sir, he’s found a potato. He wants to plant it in the ground.’

‘It’s got such good shoots. It wants to live. I’m going to plant it. It might live longer than me.’

Poor Drafi.

The potato did indeed outlive Drummer Janos Drafi of the Royal Hungarian Army.”

A brief moment of time with deals with the immediacy of death in World War I, though the author did not realize it at the time. In fact, in 1914 every side assumed the whole thing would be over in a few months with their glorious nation as the absolute victors. With hindsight, we all know that to be nonsense. The tactics of the time, somewhat left over from the 18th century, could not overcome advancements in technology. The machine gun overruled everything.

We see that idiocy in certain parts of the narrative. Hungarian soldiers were ordered by their generals not to dig foxholes to hide from incoming shell fire, because it “smacked of cowardice” and would destroy the discipline of the men. After a General is killed by a direct shell hit, it seems that the order was hastily reversed, but not enough entrenching tools were issued. The author recounts having to hastily dig a foxhole with the top of a biscuit tin. During this campaign, 80 percent of Hungarian officers were killed.

The author in his uniform

While firsthand accounts of life at the front of World War I (or the Great War as they called it at the time) are somewhat commonplace, ones about the Galician campaign are rare. In the course of the battle, the Austro-Hungarian armies were severely defeated and forced out of Galicia, while the Russians captured Lemberg and, for approximately nine months, ruled Eastern Galicia until their later defeat.

This was meant to be an autobiography covering the author’s entire life, but only the part dealing with 1914 was ever finished. The author died in the late 1940s when communism had claimed Hungary. The author, an artist, was ousted from having his work ever displayed again and retreated into solitude to paint by himself and write this unfinished memoir. It was finally published in 2014- one hundred years after the events of this book take place.

Hungarian soldiers at the front

However the actual events of battle is only covered in one chapter of the book, accounting for a total of 21 pages, where he suffers a near fatal head wound and spends the rest of the year recovering. The following six chapters show him traveling about the country, noting how even at the beginning of the war thing had notably changed, mostly for the worst.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others (History)

by Daniel P. Mannix 

Publisher: Juno Books, revised 2nd edition (February, 2000)

Paperback, 124 pages

“If you regard yourself as a normal, healthy-minded person, almost certainly the very idea of a freak is repugnant to you. Although you probably wouldn’t go as far as Hitler did and suggest they be killed in gas chambers, still you might very well feel they be shut up in institutions where no one could see them. After all, think of effect of seeing a freak could have on a child. Yet children are raised on stories of dwarfs, giants, and fairies (all of whom have counterparts and probably their origins in human freaks). It is also true that children, far from feeling an instinctive horror of freaks, are delighted with them.”

This is a banned book from the 1970s. It was first published in a small edition format then withdrawn by the publisher and destroyed, after only being out a month. Thus was done under pressure from blue-nosed authoritarian types sticking their noses up about the subject matter. It was out of print for twenty years, until RE-search press, a publisher who specializes in such subject matters, turned out a new edition in 1990.

The author is a long time is a former sword-swallower and fire-eater turned journalist who mostly wrote books on historical events, but is probably best known for The Fox and the Hound which was adapted into the Disney film. Another major contributor, one that the actual author interviewed for his opinion, was Anton La Vey, a long time circus performer and lion tamer who infamously created The Church of Satan and wrote the equally infamous Satanic Bible.

This book is a wonderful collection of material on various sideshow freak events from the lost days of carnivals and circuses. As the author rightly points out, back in the day, a good freak would be the highlight of a show and could pay the running costs of everything by themselves. Before they were shut down by do-gooders in Congress, the sideshow was the best way for a person deemed a “freak” to make a living. Many made fortunes well beyond what they would have made as normal people. Now because of “caring people” who just wanted to help, their livelihoods were destroyed.

I’ve always detested the word freaks, I prefer the one used by Robert Ripley (of Ripley's Believe It or Not fame), that of human oddities. There are a few other terms which may trigger people in this sensitive age, but back in the 70s, the carnival scene wasn’t a font of education or cultural sensitivity- Believe it or not!

The book is divided into chapters based on the various types of oddity: Dwarves and midgets (the difference between the two is that dwarves have short arms and legs, while their trunks and head are normal sized, and midgets are proportionally short all over); giants; those with extra limbs or parasite twins (usually one of the best attractions); hermaphrodites (strangely the author says female impersonators with some fake prosthetics were better than actual hermaphrodites, as they knew how to make a show out of it); fat people; human skeletons; rubber-skinned people; people born without arms or legs; the wild man act- this is broken into several parts- one being the pinheads or microcephalus, like the famous Schlitze-  people who have an overabundance of hair covering their whole body like a wookie- and straight up fake acts of men growling. The author rejects all of the old stories of children being found wild and raised by various animals. He states that in all such cases it usually comes down to the child have some sort of mental retardation and being abandoned by its parents. And on and on and on, there are many many unique acts- far too many to mention here.

The last chapter deals with man-made oddities, people who deliberately turned themselves into a sideshow attraction to make money. Examples include Omi the Great, a tattooed man- while these were common, Omi had zebra stripes tattoos all over him. Block heads, people who pounded nails into their heads to lay on beds of razors. Koo Koo the Bird Girl, whom Anton la Vey claimed was a normal woman, who just dressed weird and made odd bird noises. It ends with Mortado- The Crucified Man, who had holes drilled into his hands and feet. He would place blood capsules in the holes and then be crucified, or hit in a chair and have water hoses run up through them, become a human water fountain.

The book is filled with pictures, some disturbing, some fascinating, and lots of commentary from the author and La Vey about historical people deemed to be freaks and the life of an attraction in the modern (modern for 1974) sideshow. Mentioned quite often is Gibsonton which was formed and has unique zoning laws for carnies and sideshow folk. It boasts the only post office with a desk sized just for little people.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Cover from the original banned printing. 

Cortez: And the Fall of the Aztecs (History) (Graphic Novel)

by Brent Traux (Author), Mitch Waxman, Daniel Riveria, Russ Braun (Illustrators)

Publisher: Caliber Comics (December 31, 2016)

Softcover, 70 pages

“The Aztecs had little time to celebrate their victory. Military analysts agree that if the Aztecs had continued their pursuit of the Spanish, Cortez and his men would have been eradicated. But the Aztecs didn’t pursue, much to the surprise of Cortez. There was a new enemy that attacked Tenochtitlan and it was far more devastating than any weapon of Cortez...smallpox.”

It’s amazing how much interesting and good history is packed into such a small volume. This book describes in detail the history of the two peoples, Spain and the Aztecs, and both empire’s subsequent rise to power. These were both warrior cultures where the ability to destroy the enemy was a person’s highest prized trait. The Spanish domination eventually came down to superior firepower and armor, disease, and religion.

Primarily the background deals with the legend of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl. The coincidences between what the legend of the God’s return foretells and Cortez’s arrival are staggering. It’s almost enough to make one believe in time travel, and that someone from the future planted the seeds for Cortez’s arrival.

While the book primarily deals with Cortez and Montezuma, it also has a detailed list of other conquistadors who discovered for the Old World various parts of the now-well known world. From Amerigo Vespucci who discovered that South America was a separate landmass and not Asia, to Ferdinand Magellan, possibly the first European to sail on the Pacific Ocean. Additionally it gives a certain time to discussing the Olmecs, the first race to built the impressive ziggurats and buildings which every other South American empire copied.

The art is detailed, passionate, and bloody- without being too gory or exploitative. It accurately depicts the passion, the ferocity, the joy and sorrow, which must have been prevalent during that monumental time in history. An excellent primer for those unfamiliar with the era.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Jack the Ripper Suspect Dr. Francis Tumblety (True Crime) (History)

By Michael J. Hawley

Publisher: Sunbury Press (May 3, 2018)

Softcover, 296 pages

“Scotland Yard was convinced they had a single killer who murdered two or more victims in separate events in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts in late 1888, thus Jack the Ripper fits the modern definition of a serial killer. What was not a consensus in Scotland Yard was which victims were killed by one offender. All told, there were well over a dozen victims of violent crime in the East End in the period in question. As in any research discipline, there are groupers and splitters. Some see the slightest similarities as justification to group together, while others focus on differences and split the groups apart. There are even modern researchers who are convinced there was no Jack the Ripper, and all of the casual prostitutes were murdered by separate offenders. Most experts agree, however, that the number of Jack the Ripper victims is in the middle, between four and six.”

This is an academic book and assumes that the reader already has a certain amount of knowledge about the Jack the Ripper case, its victims, and the investigation around it. It is not for someone who is new to the case.

Perhaps it makes too much of an assumption of pre-knowledge from the reader, because very little of it deals with the infamous Dr Tumblety in London, except for the fact that he was there. The book is more of a justification as to why Tumbletly should be considered as a serious suspect, rather than hard facts around Jack the Ripper. In fact, it is more interesting if you forget about the Ripper at all and view it as a character study of a habitual, mentally ill, but very successful criminal.

"Doctor" Francis Tumbletly

Tumblety was an “herb doctor”, ie quack and abortionist in the 19th century with peripheral ties to the Lincoln and Garfield assassinations. He was a narcissist and we'll known woman hater- especially towards prostitutes. Many times he is quoted in official documents as having stated that all such women “should be disemboweled”, and he owned the surgical tools to do this. Many at Scotland Yard considered him a likely suspect, even going so far as to send detectives after him to New York when Tumbletly absconded from London.

The main reason he has been discounted by many as a credible Ripper suspect is due to his homosexuality. All homosexual serial killers in the past have mostly preyed upon young boys. However, the author points out that the Ripper victims (however many there actually were) are not the victims of a sexual crime. They were not raped and most of the damage to the bodies was post mortem. Usually the first thing done to them was to have their throats slit. This indicates there were not killed for a sexual thrill, but for some other purpose.

Author Michael J. Hawley

However, bizarre murder was not the standard for Tumblety actions and the author justifies his assertions with the following points. 1. Tumblety's lifelong hatred for prostitutes, whom he saw as his sexual rivals for young men.

2. Tumblety's behavior changed dramatically in the late 1880s. He began to dress like a homeless drifter and not bathe, despite being the olde-time equivalent to a millionaire. As his health later deteriorates, with visible facial lesions, the author speculates that Tumbletly suffered from tertiary stage syphilis. Violent actions are commonplace for those suffering from it. Look at some of the actions of Caesar Borgia.

3. The point of the murders may have been to harvest the organs of the woman in order to attempt to create the supposed “elixir of life”. There were many purported magical societies popping up at the time who were attempting to find this version of the philosopher's stone. As life comes from the vaginal organs, it was believed that said organs could prolong life.

Obviously Tumblety failed, his disease grew worse and eventually leading to his death in 1903, but he may have been desperate enough to try. He had the tools, it was towards a class of person he despised, and was non-sexual in nature. This is a fascinating book for someone already familiar with the multitude of details in the Jack the Ripper case.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Stairway of Empire: Lockport, the Erie Canal, and the Shaping of America (History)

by Patrick McGreevy

Publisher: State University of New York Press; Reprint edition (July 2nd, 2005).

Hardcover, 309 pages

“For many, Lockport clearly functioned as a symbol of art, a futuristic emblem of the amazing things being accomplished by human ingenuity. This was clear in the rhetoric surrounding the canal’s opening celebration, and we have already seen a number of travelers’ accounts that equate Lockport with art. Caroline Gilman wrote that ‘here, the great Erie Canal has defied nature and used it like a toy.’”

Much was said in the early 19th century of the little city that became known as Lockport. Once upon a time it was a bustling city, full of trade and industry. Now it is sinkhole of human trash and indolence. The once great aspirations and artifacts of their proud ancestors have been allowed to decay and rot away in a whirlwind of human waste, alcoholism, and drug abuse. The current population, a direct product of chemical abuse and inbreeding, are like Lovecraft characters from The Shadow over Innsmouth, barely recognizable as human and unable to communicate beyond one syllable words. And I should know, my mother is from there. I have a host of bizarre cousins, running about with deformities, nibbling like rats on the corner of papers, and infesting this ghost of greatness.

One of the locks in the city.

The development of the city Lockport is tied, like all of Western New York, to the construction of the Erie Canal. In fact, you might say that the entirety of that state, up to the present day was fundamentally shaped by this monumental construction. Both physically and ethnically, as many of the laboring races (primarily Irish and Welsh) settled down in the places created by the canal. The city of Lockport itself was founded around the creation a double row of locks (one set for raising and the other for lowering) on the waterway. For those who don’t know, a water lock is a method of raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on the canal. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be added to or removed from. This allows a boat to be moved up and down treacherous drops.

Essentially there isn’t much to this story. Not much drama, just men planning an audacious project, on which the city was one stop. The author lets a lot of other people’s work do the heavy lifting for him, and then stretches out the material as far as he could. The last fifty pages of text (not the appendixes) could easily be jettisoned. The reality is that there wasn’t much to talk about. Even the two workers riots just didn’t have enough documentation to add more beyond the fact that they occurred.

Opening of the Erie Canal

The author tries to hard to dredge up some social justice relevancy in his findings. It’s obvious he’s grasping desperately around looking from some emotional racial foothold on which he can make a grand statement. But he can’t find it, so he makes a lot of little snide remarks about the kind acts that other’s performed back during the time of the construction, implying that they could’ve done more. Overall, it comes across as a lazy work on a topic of minor interest (even the locals of the city didn’t care enough to buy the book).

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

The Art of the Affair (History)

by Catherine Lacey (author) & Forsyth Harmon (illustrator)

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (January 3, 2017)

Hardcover, 96 pages.
 

“Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe lived together in Brooklyn and later the Chelsea Hotel while the two were in their twenties. Robert told his conservative parents he had married Patti in a strawberry field in California so they would accept the living situation. In her memoir, Just Kids, Patti calls him the ‘artist of my life’ and after they parted ways as lovers, they still made art together. Robert took the cover portrait for her breakout album, Horses. When the pair met Andy Warhol he dismissed them as ‘horrible’ and ‘dirty’ Robert looked up to Andy, but Patti didn’t see the appeal. ‘I felt little for the can and didn’t like the soup,’ she said.”

The copy I have of this book is an advanced reading copy, a softcover one, so the material I read might be slightly different from the final version. I was given it as a Christmas present from an old friend of mine. She isn’t connected to the literary world, so I have no idea how she got her hands on it. She claims it was bought at a gift store (a cheap one), but I have my doubts.

Wherever the copy I have in my hands came from, this is a fun and expertly researched volume. It’s amazing how the sexual lives of various artists (of all stripes) collide together to create this web of debauchery. From the secret homosexual love of James Baldwin, to the constant adulteries of Ernest Hemingway, to the tempestuous drug fueled love life of Billy Holiday, to the long lasting (but forbidden love) between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. The six degrees of separation law never seemed to small after reading this book.

A fun easy read. It also gave me several suggestions for further readings in the autobiographies of the various artists mentioned.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.