One side of the Rent program during its off-Broadway run with the New York Theatre Workshop. Photo courtesy of Marymount Manhattan College.
When Jonathan Larson’s musical Rent debuted in the 1990s, the small show quickly grew in popularity. Rent started as seven performances in late 1994 that led to an extended off-Broadway run, all presented by the New York Theatre Workshop (Heredia and Span 1996). It then spent over 5,000 performances between 1996 and 2008 at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater, telling its story of a diverse group of friends trying to live their lives while dealing with the horrors of AIDS (Grode 2015, 253).
Following F. Scott Fitzgerald’s two-year residency in Great Neck, Long island, this 1926 news article from “The Great Neck News” editorial references to the highly debated discussion as to which part of the North or South shore of Long Island, New York was loosely based on and inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s depiction of the infamous “West Egg”. This part of New York known as “West Egg” was mentioned in his famous modernist novel “The Great Gatsby,” which was released in 1925.
On March 13, 1926, the “Great Neck News” editorial first addressed the allegations present in Owen Davis’s playwright depiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” where critics surmised that the peninsula of Great Neck was loosely based on his fictionalized “West Egg” (Lanigan 1926, 18). Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece, not only sparked enlightenment in American culture and addressed the “American Dream” regarding cumulative wealth, but also sparked a debate amongst New Yorkers and Long Islanders as to whom was synonymously represented as the infamous “gaudy, West Egg” (Pumphrey 2011, 115-119). The presumptions of critics did not sit well with Great Neck residents, with feelings that the correlation to the novel would evoke preconceptions and undesirable impressions of Great Neck. Great Neck residents felt the “unfair” symposium by critics was presumptuous based on the lack of factual evidence present in the novel as well as the bias being reflected merely on Fitzgerald’s short-lived residency in Great Neck (Lanigan 1926, 18).
Image captured by Ernst Neibergall depicting Lake Erie ice harvesters using a horse and specialized plow to make the first cut in the ice for harvesting in 1913.
Prior to the invention of the electric refrigerator in 1912, people used an icebox that had to be stocked with ice that had been harvested from frozen bodies of fresh water in the winter and shipped to consumers (Hurt 1986). For most of the 19th century, Sandusky, Ohio was known as the “Ice Capital of the Great Lakes” with ice houses and transportation equipment all along the shores of Lake Erie (Kavanaugh 2003).
“Perhaps it is fitting if this illustrious commander had to die on the field of battle, that his final mission was to visit the wounded and hospitalized soldiers of his division. Such was the man, General George Casey.” Stated by General Lemnitzer during Major General George William Casey Senior’s eulogy at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. on July 23, 1970.
Texas is the second-largest state in the United States and is known for its independent status by the single star on its state flag (Migiro 2018). Nevertheless, from personal experience, it proves its dedication to the citizens through the pride it takes in how they support their citizens. Located in the center of Texas, Fort Hood, along with other cavalry units, in tribute to its long-ago history, soldiers can earn “spurs,” through deployments or successfully completed missions and tasks, that attach to their boots and have the option of wearing the “Cav Hat” that is not mandatory, but encouraged if considered a “trooper,” or a soldier in a cavalry unit (1st Cavalry Division Association 2020). Military members in the Army characterize “L-D-R-S-H-I-P, an acronym for the seven Army core values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage” (U.S. Army 2018, under “Lifestyles”). Fort Hood, known for its cavalry, originated for patrol of the Mexican border via horseback and rode into battle yelling “charge!” It “is the only post in the United States currently capable of stationing and training two full armored divisions, first and third, within its campus” (Williams 2017, para 4.1), hence the name, The Great Place.
An excerpt of page 95 of the captain’s log of the Honolulu Fire Department, from December of 1941, showing the captain’s handwritten notes from December 6 and December 7, 1941.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, shortly before 8:00 a.m., Imperial Japanese airplanes approached the island of Oʻahu and began their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field, two United States military installations on the island. The alarm sounded at 8:05 a.m., and Engines 4 and 6 were promptly dispatched to Hickam Field to respond to the blazes and medical emergencies caused by gunfire and bombs (Bowen 1979, 126). As part of a “mutual aid pact,” the Honolulu Fire Department, a civilian fire department, assisted the United States military, and vice versa (Bowen 1979, 127).
Taken during the Freedom Train Tour October 19, 1948, this photo illustrates anticipation to explore the traveling archival exhibit visiting their small community in Red Bank, NJ. The Freedom Train traveled from September 1947 to January 22, 1949 through many cities in 48 states to provide all people in the community the chance to view historical documents and artifacts.
The journey of the Freedom Train Tour started in Philadelphia on September 17, 1947, on the 160th signing anniversary of the United States Constitution. The seven-car train traveled thirty-seven thousand miles utilizing 52 different railroads with Presidential priority across the United States (Wines, n.d.). The initial tour consisted of 326 city stops (Wines, n.d.). The goal of the Freedom Train Tour was to bring historical documents to those not able to visit the National Archive in Washington DC. The funding for the Freedom Train could not be generated from Congress. The American Heritage Foundation was founded to garner financial and infrastructure support of the Freedom Tour (Wines, n.d.).
This Washington Observer Newsletter article, dated November 15, 1971, prints the affidavit of Haviv Scheiber. Claiming that Scheiber “is a man of courage,” the article depicts Scheiber’s case against deportation and sheds light on his years-long proceedings with the United States courts.
On November 15th, 1971, the Washington Observer Newsletter published an article titled Courageous Jew. Within the Center for Migration Studies of New York’s archives, various court proceedings accompany this article which documents Scheiber’s battle with the United States immigration courts. “The respondent is …last a citizen of Israel. On March 15, 1961 he was found deportable…[and] a warrant for his deportation…was issued November 19, 1964” (United States Department of Justice Board of Immigration Appeals 1970), one of those court proceedings states. Purely reading these sterile court proceedings, one is inclined to view Scheiber as an individual defiant of laws. However, Courageous Jew provides an opportunity for Scheiber to convey the context for his decades-long battle with the United States courts.
Taken circa 1950s, this photograph displays the end of William Floyd Parkway, named after the man who fought for the town of Brookhaven. This photograph was taken before the bridge connecting the town to Fire Island was built.
Between 1760 and 1800
occurred one of the most significant events in the history of the United
States; The American Revolution (Allison 2011). During this time, the American
people shook free of British control and started their own independent
government. Although much has changed since then, it was the start of what we
now call our nation.
This photograph was taken of The Union Specific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 in 1941 in Scranton, PA.
The Big Boy was the biggest locomotive in the world in 1940, weighing 560 tons and going up to 80 mph (“Big Boy No. 4014”, n.d.). Before the 1940’s the railroads in America were struggling to move large freights over the mountains and treacherous landscapes throughout the United States. Then in 1940, the Union Pacific gathered mechanical engineers and teamed them up with the American Locomotive Company to build one of the world’s largest steam locomotives. The name of this new locomotive was the Big Boy (Franz 2018). Providing jobs was one of the main benefits of the railroad. Jobs ranged from unskilled freight handlers to engineers. Unfortunately, the jobs tended to segregate the workers due to their ethnicity. The majority of the engineers were American or native-born men, while immigrants were used to build the trains and tracks. Even among the immigrants there were separations and classifications depending on where they came from. At first, Chinese, Irish and Italian immigrants were used for the most brutal work. Then in the 1900’s Romanian and Mexican immigrants as well as African Americans became the primary day laborers on the railroad (Thale 2005).
Newspaper clipping taken from the scrapbook of Mrs. William Grant Brown, in storage at the Schenectady County Historical Society.
Women, no matter where we are in
history, and how little agency we are given, will always find a way to drive
social reform, and in few places is this ability to persevere, to create agency
rather than to wait to be given it, shown as well as in the women’s clubs
movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Women’s
clubs, such as Jane Cunningham Croly’s Sorosis,
which formed the origin of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, were first borne
out of consternation at exclusion (Scheer, 2002). These clubs were originally
literary clubs, full of predominantly upper- and middle-class women, but as the
concept grew, and spread across the country, the purpose bloomed into a vehicle
for social reform. As well – as perhaps somewhat of an ironic legacy of Sorosis
– these clubs were often unpopular, or merely tolerated by men, while women
flocked to them in droves, driven by the prospect of social life and work.
(Savage 1916)
