Author: Derek Dahlsad

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Forgotten Negro Books, Remembered Online

This advertisement appeared in the November 1968 issue of School Library Journal; I’d wager that “forgot” is in shock quotes because they weren’t truly forgotten (Sojourner Truth, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, etc), but for the most part the books in this collection were somewhat obscure, given the subject matter and the educational system at the time. Negros were barely considered second-class citizens even in 1968 (just a couple years before I was born), so “forgot” can also apply to schools who neglected to include Negro history on their bookshelves among the Anglo-centric histories that are our libraries are still overly heavy with. This expansive collection would definitely prove to be an encompassing addition to a library, giving the probably Negro-lax knowledge of the librarians a break, removing their need to research and compile a list. Here it was, all lumped together, ready to be purchased as a $485 chunk. It’d probably look good on the budget request; to the probably overly-white adminstrative groups overseeing library acquisitions at the time, one $485 one-time purchase would look better than 45 individual purchases spread out over months as the books are discovered.

Here’s why Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Print-On-Demand, and other electronic publishing services are instrumental in modern education: The list of “forgotten” books are hardly forgotten today. Where, forty years ago, a library had to find nearly $500 — probably a months’ salary for one good librarian, or a half-dozen part-timer circulation desk workers — nearly all of the books are available online today, most free to anyone with an internet connection…which, incidentally, is free in most libraries today.

Why did I mention Print-On-Demand? The 1968 editions advertised here from Arno Press, particularly the non-public-domain-editions, are still shown as available according to Amazon via Ayer Publishing with a 1-3 week wait. That sort of wait time, the type of business Ayer runs, and the existing 1968 publishing date means that this book, when ordered from Amazon, is printed in an instant on high-speed printers, bound and jacketed, and then shipped out in one constant motion. These modern technologies make available books that were once obscure and elusive. Once upon a time, you had to be a librarian with a big budget. Today, these books are available to anybody, in a comparative (or literal) instant, thanks to computers and publishing revolutions.

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San Francisco, via Gray Line

San Francisco still has Gray Line offering bus tours of their beautiful city, all these years later. The map above is from 1953, from a pamphlet called “Really See San Francisco.” I’m just including the map here, but the rest may follow someday. Nearly 60 years ago, here’s what the attractions via a bus tour were:

  • Deluxe 30-mile drive around San Francisco
  • Chinatown After Dark
  • La-Honda, Ocean shore, and Stanford University
  • Oakland, Berkeley, and U of Calif.
  • Santa Rosa, Petrified forest and geysers
  • Mt Tamalpais, Muir Woods, and Marin County
  • Del Monte, Santa Cruz
  • Stanford University and peninsula
  • Muir Woods, big trees, and Marin County
  • Yosemite Valley and Del Monte
  • Oakland, Berkeley, Muir Woods, big trees
  • San Francisco, Oakland, Bay Bridge, Lake Merritt
  • Golden Gate Bridge

All you had to do was dial Yukon 6-4000, and you could hit the road in style! I’m impressed that Del Monte was such a large part of the various tours — post WWII, it had mostly been taken over by the Navy School, although all the land around the hotel was full of gardens, woods, and golf courses, still accessible to tourists at the time. “Chinatown after dark” is an interesting name: while the tour, given the clientèle of city bus tourists, was probably quiet and unoffensive for the time, I wonder if it was tied-in to the movie of the same name from 1931.

As for the map itself: I’m a fan of purposeful maps, ones that don’t spare the information about what it feels relevant, but ignores the irrelevant whenever possible. This isometric view includes landmarks and gives a nice sensation of distance, which then also lets riders know how much time will be spent looking out the window at non-landmarks.

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The Red River Mall


I remember the “mall” from my youth, but it barely registers that it ever actually had a name. The Red River Mall was a misguided attempt to revitalize Fargo’s downtown, which (whether directly or indirectly) led to downtown Fargo’s near-collapse in the late 80s and early 90s, and forcing the renewal plans that threaten to cause another Red River Mall-like slump.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the nationwide Urban Renewal movement hit Fargo and Moorhead: Moorhead got an actual indoor mall to replace the dozens of retail stores and apartments downtown. Fargo got tall buildings, open spaces, and the Red River Mall. The Mall wasn’t a direct knee-jerk reaction to the creation of the West Acres Mall, but it was hoped to counter the movement of stores away from the downtown area. Fargo’s retail center stretched from around 8th Avenue north to 5th Avenue South, and extended east to around 2nd Street and west to 10th Street. Modern Fargoans may be wrinkling their brows at this range, wondering how downtown Fargo was ever that big: today, Downtown starts at 6th Avenue and stops at Main, and barely extends a block off Broadway. The rest of those buildings? They were replaced by modern office buildings, they burned and were paved over instead of rebuilding, they were sacrificed in favor of flood protection, they were demolished to create parking lots, and they got absorbed by their neighbors.

So, by the early 1970s, Downtown Fargo was in a poor position: it had a number of department stores, but its retail influence was shrinking. Small malls were popping up at the edges of town where new houses were being built. And then, West Acres gave the department stores the final boost to move out.

That left large, empty buildings, struggling locally-owned stores, and a loss of shoppers. The city, in its infinite wisdom, saw the possibility of turning Downtown Fargo into something akin to Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.

Here’s how the plan went: Broadway, formerly two lanes with parking along all sides, would be turned into a winding, parking-less, snake-like street emulating the curvy nature of the Red River. Keeping to the curvy road, large cement pylons would mark the borders. To appeal to pedestrians, at their appropriate places along the “river”, marble place-markers represented the border cities. To keep rain and snow off pedestrians, overhanging roofs would line the street close to the buildings. Trees remained, or were planted for aesthetic reasons, with nice sitting places scattered throughout.

As you might guess, with the loss of large stores shoppers weren’t going downtown much, and now that Broadway was difficult to navigate they were less likely to do so. Sidewalk ceilings helped some, but weren’t enough encouragement. The Red River Mall eliminated a lot of downtown parking, which caused more buildings to disappear from along the streets, further reducing retail spaces in exchange for mostly-empty parking lots.

In 1976, optimism was still high: the Red River Mall was still an attraction. It was only a year or two after West Acres’ debut, so there was less evidence of replacement, as opposed to an expansion of retail opportunities. Downtown stores hoped that regional events like the basketball tournament would draw shoppers to our repackaged ‘shopping mall’ and stop by. Eventually, it became clear that the Red River Mall was nothing more than shiny wrapping paper on an unwanted, regifted chotchke: even its name slowly dropped out of popular use, and Broadway’s retail influence all but stopped.

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Horsing Around in the 1930s

This image was poorly exposed and blurry; I had to squeek out as much as I could using Photoshop — I’ll bet the young lady being tortured in this photo was happy to see that this photo didn’t turn out originally…but she had no idea that 70 years later somebody on a computerized internet would blog about it (I’m not sure she could even parse that last phrase.) I personally love the unposed, candid photos like this one: look at what has been tossed out because it was unfit for photo albums; today is even worse, when you can completely delete an image, permanently, without thinking twice. People who stick to stiffly posed photos are missing out on the vibrant art that can come from an unplanned, quick and dirty photo. The photo above has so much going on in it — the wrestling in the foreground, and what are they stealing from her? The friendly grouping on the far right, who look like they might otherwise not be photographed as in that same grouping because there’s no logical reason to do so. The guy hunched over in the distance, leaning inside an open car door. When people are posed in a stiff, unlively manner, something is lost — I’ll bet Bertha was a far more fun person than this photo would lead the casual viewer to believe.

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Iron Horse Tour of the Railroad Club of Chicago, 1964

On July 19, 1964, a group of railroad aficionados piled aboard a 7900 series lounge car belonging to the Chicago and North Western Railway, en route to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Railroad Club of Chicago sponsored this ‘lounge car party,’ bringing along friends from Milwaukee along the way, and providing one free drink in the fare. I imagine that a car-full of railroad guys — at least 38 of them — in a moving bar for five hours straight were a mighty friendly bunch when they disembarked in Green Bay. I’m pleased to see that the club is still around. Too often, ‘archaic’ clubs like these dwindle in numbers as their members age and fall away, but railroad people are an odd bunch; the romance of the rails meets men’s natural affinity for huge, loud, mechanical machines, and you end up with some fun-loving guys who’ll pile on a train and road-trip to Green Bay to see more trains. Today, they promote rail travel, discuss community history revolving around trains, and remind everyone that, even though trains are disappearing, they meant a lot to the United States we live in.

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The Invisible Jet Fighter


No, we’re not talking about stealth fighters — Grumman’s invisible jet fighter was an example of a very early flight simulator. Using a Reeves analog computer, Grumman compiled test data using models and simulations to program the computer and ‘flight-test’ imaginary aircraft’s data against actual flight information. Analog simulators had been around for about a decade, and digital simulators were gaining a foothold (although, as the advertisement says, Grumman didn’t think much of digital simulation). Analog eventually gave way to real-time digital simulation with the Navy’s UDOFT, the Universal Digital Operational Flight Trainer, which started shortly before Grumman’s ad but wasn’t completed until 1960. As you might guess, these projects eventually spawned imitators in the private sector, resulting in grainy, wireframe simulators — that ran on small personal computers.

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Maggie Magner’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card

Oh, the title of this post is definitely an exaggeration: Catholicism has no ‘get out of jail free’ card, but the Plenary Indulgence is about as close as you can get. There’s two kinds of indulgences: partial and plenary. A partial indulgence isn’t much more than you get for going to confession regularly — it covers absolution of some sins at death, providing forgiveness for the sins was achieved. Plenary Indulgences are the whole kit and caboodle: You’ve confessed, completed acts proving your penitence, and you’ve been forgiven of your sins — mortal and venial — and you get all of your forgiven sins left at the door upon death. In usual Catholic strangeness, it won’t keep you from Hell, if you’ve been that bad — it just removes the purgatory step in removal of sin. If you’re that goody-goody you’ve qualified for a Plenary Indulgence, it’s unlikely you’ve ever been headed South.

Miss Maggie Magner, whomever she may be — and her brothers, whomever they might be — achieved the Plenary Indulgence on the 25th of September, 1959. I hope she wasn’t too young, what with the ‘Miss’ salutation, because indulgences only count for past transgressions, not future sins, or else you’ve got to earn a new indulgence for those ones. Earning the Plenary Indulgence means that she and the siblings get “the Apostolic Blessing and a Plenary Indulgence to be gained at the hour of death, on condition that, being truly sorry for their sins, but unable to confess them and to receive the Holy Viaticum they shall at least invoke with their lips or heat the Holy Name of Jesus.” This is where the traditional “death bed confession” comes in to play: people who want confession, communion (the ‘viaticum‘), and blessing at death are trying a last-minute end-around to cleanse them of sin. People obtaining the Plenary Indulgence are forward-thinkers: get the death-bed confession out of the way while you’re nice and healthy, and all you have to do at death is have Jesus in your heart.

The Plenary Indulgence has a rocky past: once upon a time, people with deep pockets would buy their salvation without having to meet the faith-based requirements. The church put a stop to that in the 16th century, but lots of people (devoted Catholics included) think indulgences were done away with at that time. Not so — you could have earned a Plenary Indulgence last month, thanks to our Lady of Lourdes turning 150. If you thought it was funny that the church offered an indulgence for a church’s anniversary in the Kevin Smith movie Dogma, don’t laugh, it’s completely possible — you can earn indulgences for all kinds of things still today if the empowered person decrees it so. The rules have done away with the financial aspect, but retain the penitence and forgiveness.

I was originally rather suspicious of Miss Magner’s indulgence: the forgiveness of unnamed brothers who get to piggyback on Maggie’s penitence (which is against the rules unless they’re already dead), the lack of explanation of how she earned the indulgence, the obviously boiler-plate text…I figured it was some scam artist preying on old Catholic ladies. There is a very official embossed seal on the indulgence, containing the seal of the Holy See — that’s gotta make it Pope-approved — from the office of “Magister Sacrarum Largitionum Pont. Max.” Uh, that roughly translates to the treasurer of the Pope’s income. Maybe monetary gifts do have something to do with it. I don’t mean to impugn Miss Magner’s intentions, but I’d hate to find out that God has a special Hell for people who try to buy a quick path to Heaven.

Miss Maggie Magner’s indulgence lives in a sacred place in our home: in the bathroom, above the toilet.

Oh, that smiley guy in the middle? That’s Pope John XXIII — he was pope just for a couple years, dying in office (or is in situ more appropriate?) . They must’ve been planning for his demise, because his photo isn’t printed on the Indulgence: it’s a cut-out photo glued over a blank circle.

Sidenote: In trying to figure out what popes occurred when, I discovered why Wikipedia is such an excellent resource: they have a list of sexually active popes. Sadly, there haven’t been any in a couple hundred years…but we can always hope!

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Fallout Protection for Homes With Basements


That swanky snack bar isn’t a weekend project from Handy Andy — it’s secret is that the instant the Emergency Broadcast System begins to pierce the air, the snack bar converts into a fallout shelter. The booklet “Fallout Protection for Homes with Basements” — available in online and hard-copy formats, was produced by Civil Defense and mailed out to homeowners who completed a questionnaire about their house’s construction. Based on those answers, using an ‘electronic computer‘, the CD calculated how much radiation protection your unshielded basement can provide…and offer a lot of advice on what to do if your basement comes up short. Unlike the traditional image of a fallout-shelter as an impenetrable fortress buried in the back yard, these fallout shelter suggestions are practical, cheap, simple…and aren’t a waste of space if nuclear war never happens (knock on wood). What surprised me is the fact that fallout doesn’t behave like a gas — it falls like snow, piles up on the ground, but it’s the radiation the fallout emits that is what will get you. The fallout shelters don’t have doors, and the booklet says several times that if you must go do important things (read: use the toilet), you can wander about for a few minutes at a time. If you’re hiding out under a converted snack bar, at least you won’t have to go far for a can of peanuts.

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In The Bath: November 1954


I know I’ve been heavy on the analysis lately, so in today’s post I have nothing to say about the sink; I can’t tell you about the toy the baby is playing with; I don’t know where the newspaper is from, or what its articles are about; I have nothing to say about asparagus ferns being grown in drinking glasses nor the appropriate use of a roasting pan to bathe small humans. All I know is there’s some 55-year-old man who probably doesn’t want the whole world to see him naked….yet here he is.

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20th Century Fox Money – Then And Now

On the left, a 20th Century Fox check from sixty years ago, purchased (along with 15 more pounds of 20th Century Fox ephemera from the early forties) by my wife and I for a lot of money, on the assumption we could re-sell it for a whole lot more than we paid. We’ve had an appraiser say it could have been worth more than a thousand dollars, were we to find the right buyer.

Before a buyer found us, 20th Century Fox’s legal department found us. See, the large book of Fox ephemera was lent by Fox to the University of Southern California…and was stolen from the university’s library. Allegedly, entirely according to what the Fox lawyer told us on the phone. Rather than calling the police and having us hauled in for trafficking stolen materials, one of Fox’s lawyers contacted us, asked us to take the paper off the market, and offered to pay us what we spent in acquiring it in the first place. A reasonable deal; we could have argued to keep it, we could have gone to court, Fox would have had to figure out how to prove that this book was the one stolen, we’d prove our ownership and the unlikeliness that it ever belonged to 20th Century Fox…but we thought it better to cut our losses.

In the mail today arrived the check on the right — a modern 20th Century Fox check reimbursing us for our expenses in holding on to this lot for Fox until UPS delivers it sometime next week. As the issue is ownership, and not protection of intellectual property, I took some scans of the cooler aspects of the lot before I ship it out in the next couple days. You’ll get to see some of it soon.