Transcript

10.2.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
0:04
I would be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated September October
0:08
twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a
0:12
reading service intended for people who are blind or have
0:16
other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
0:20
Please join me now for the first article, which is
0:23
part two of the underappreciated true story of the brash
0:27
Prussian military officer who whipped the Patriots into shape at
0:32
Valley Forged by Richard Bell. The first part of our
0:37
story delved into the pivotal role played by Friedrich von
0:41
Twiben during the American Revolutionary War. It began by setting
0:46
the scene at Valley Forge in the winter of seventeen
0:49
seventy seven, where the Continental Army, led by George Washington,
0:54
was in dire straits. The soldiers were poorly equipped, suffering
0:59
from disease, and demoralized after a series of defeats. The
1:04
arrival of von Steuben, a seasoned Prussian military officer, marked
1:09
a turning point. Despite initial skepticism about his credentials, Von
1:14
Steuben's rigorous training regimen and organizational skills transformed the ragtag
1:20
group of soldiers into a disciplined and effective fighting force.
1:25
His methods, which included standardized drills and strict discipline, were
1:30
instrumental in preparing the Continental Army for future battles. The
1:35
first part also explored von Steuben's background and the challenges
1:40
he faced before arriving in America. Born into Prussian nobility,
1:46
von Steuben had a distinguished military career in Europe, but
1:50
was forced to leave the Prussian Army under mysterious circumstances.
1:56
After a period of drifting and seeking employment. Was eventually
2:00
recruited by American envoys in Paris, who exaggerated his credentials
2:05
to secure his services. Despite these embellishments, von Steuben's impact
2:11
at Valley Forge was undeniable. His ability to instill discipline
2:16
and improve the soldier's morale was crucial in turning the
2:20
tide of the war. Although von Steuben's contributions have often
2:24
been overshadowed by other figures of the American Revolution, his
2:29
legacy as a key architect of the Continental Army's success
2:33
remains significant. Here now is part two. As Alexander Escammel,
2:40
a New Hampshire officer, wrote in a letter to the
2:42
Board of War Discipline, flourishes and daily improves under the
2:47
indefatigable efforts of Baron Steuben, who is much esteemed by
2:51
all of us. At the end of April, Washington made
2:55
Sduiben his permanent Inspector General. The designation came with an
3:00
official rank major general, and finally a substantial salary too.
3:06
On May fifth, the camp received the momentous news that
3:10
the baron's benefactors in France had finally persuaded King Louis
3:14
to join the war on the patriots side. In celebration,
3:19
Washington ordered a grand review of the troops. Steuben leaped
3:23
at the chance to show him what the men could do.
3:26
He choreographed their maneuvers down to the last theatrical detail.
3:31
After a cannon fired a thirteen gun salute in honor
3:35
of the thirteen rebel colonies, Steuben marched the entire infantry force,
3:40
passed their commander in chief to the sound of fife
3:43
and drum. Their uniforms were mismatched and haphazard, but their
3:48
movements were ordered and regimented. They formed a long battle line,
3:53
two ranks deep. Once in position, two men on the
3:57
far right flank raised their muskets and fire in the air.
4:01
Then the two men to their left did the same,
4:04
and onward down the line. It was an elaborate display
4:08
that in French military tradition is called a feu de
4:12
jois a fire of joy. When the muskets fell, silent
4:16
onlookers applauded as the troops shouted long Live the King
4:20
of France and saluted Washington as he rode along the line.
4:25
Writing to his father the next day, Lieutenant Colonel John
4:29
Laurens was giddy the order with which the whole was conducted.
4:34
He wrote, the beautiful effect of the running fire, which
4:37
was executed to perfection. The martial appearance of the troops
4:42
all gave sensible pleasure to every one present. The plan,
4:46
as formed by Baron von Steuben, succeeded in every particular.
4:50
Triumph beamed in every countenance. The training continued for the
4:55
rest of May. Strouben instructed the soldiers how to march
4:59
at quicki step one hundred and twenty paces per minute,
5:03
how to charge more effectively with their bayonets, how to
5:06
rapidly reload their single shot muskets, and how to cover
5:10
retreats with volleys of fire. The training remained basic, but
5:15
it was highly effective. In a matter of weeks, he
5:19
transformed a collection of minimally trained, discreet detachments into a
5:24
disciplined national army that might compete as equals with the British.
5:29
If some of his credentials were fraudulent, the Baron was
5:33
hardly a phony. The new pact with France would prove
5:37
to be decisive. After word of the alliance reached Philadelphia,
5:42
the British abandoned the city to rush to New York
5:45
to defend their coastal headquarters from an anticipated French naval attack.
5:51
In pursuit of the Red Coats, the Continental Army marched
5:54
out of Valley Forge on June nineteenth. The soldiers left
5:58
behind them a fouled and treeless landscape pock marked by
6:02
rows of fetid huts and by the refuse of a
6:06
community that had by then swollen to nearly twenty thousand people.
6:11
But in the context of this ongoing war, it was
6:14
what they took with them that mattered most. Many commentators
6:19
have claimed that Steuben's careful drilling made the difference when
6:23
the Continentals caught up with the Red Coats and engaged
6:27
them at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey on
6:30
June twenty eighth. That is correct, though perhaps not in
6:34
the way one might expect. In truth, the Battle of
6:39
Monmouth was an indecisive draw. The fighting itself was messy, confusing,
6:45
and improvisational. Still, the Continental soldiers stood their ground as
6:50
the British advanced, held their fire until the most effective moment,
6:54
and mounted a counter attack that drove the enemy from
6:58
the field. Monmouth turned out to be the last big
7:01
battle in the Northern theater. Once the French entered the war,
7:06
the fighting shifted largely to the coastal south, which meant
7:10
that Continental soldiers north of the Mason Dixon line found
7:14
few occasions to deploy the combat skills they learned at
7:17
Valley Forge. Yet, soldiering is also about what happens between battles,
7:23
and in that respect, Valley Forge was a watershed. The
7:27
proof of that came at the Northern Army's next major
7:30
winter encampment at Morristown, New Jersey. Morristown was the coldest
7:36
and bleakest encampment of the war, and the greatest threat
7:39
to the army's survival. About a third of the infantry died, deserted,
7:45
or had to be discharged, but the rest managed to
7:49
grit it out. Steuben's drills at Valley Forge had instilled
7:53
enough pride and prowess to give them a fighting chance
7:56
to see this war to its end. Shtouben X two
8:00
had more to give to the patriot cause. In the
8:03
fall of seventeen seventy eight, he and four aides sat
8:07
down to codify his Valley Forged training into a huge
8:11
drill manual, combining classic Prussian protocols with emerging French military
8:16
practice that he adapted for American conditions. He wrote about
8:21
speedy maneuvers, effective firepower tactics, infantry formation, record keeping, and
8:28
how to conduct a court martial. Having lived at Valley Forge,
8:32
he had a lot to say about camp organization, hygiene
8:36
and sanitation, where livestock should be slaughtered, where soldiers should
8:41
pitch tents, build huts, and dig latrines. He devoted the
8:46
last third of his little book to the duties of officers.
8:50
He argued that love, not fear, was the secret to
8:54
successful leadership. The ideal officer was stern, yet fair and compassionate.
9:00
The best officers, Shouyben explained, are those who attend to
9:05
the sick with kindness and humanity, who know their men
9:08
by name and by character, and who share in their hardships.
9:13
Once Washington approved the text, Congress sent it to be
9:17
printed between blue covers under the title Regulations the Order
9:22
and Discipline of the Troops of the United States. The
9:25
Baron's Little Blue Book gave the Continental Army its first
9:29
standardized military code, and it would remain the U. S.
9:33
Army's official source of training procedures for the next thirty years. Meanwhile,
9:39
Shuben kept working to supply needed clothes, wagons, and munitions
9:44
to Major General Greene and the Southern Department throughout seventeen
9:48
eighty and seventeen eighty one. In the summer of seventeen
9:53
eighty two, the Baron returned to the parade ground, this
9:57
time at Newburgh, New York, to lead the Continental Army
10:01
in a second round of large scale maneuvers to prepare
10:04
for a possible attack on British occupied New York City.
10:09
Though this second wave of training has received little scholarly attention,
10:14
evidence suggests that Stuben drilled the men into the best
10:18
shape of their lives. He even staged a mock amphibious
10:22
landing along the banks of the Hudson River that August,
10:26
a sort of mini d Day. When the British instead
10:30
evacuated New York in November seventeen eighty three, Washington rode
10:35
peacefully into the city with Steuben at his side. Then,
10:40
once the ink on the Treaty of Paris was finally dry,
10:43
the Continental Army began to disband, and the Baron became
10:47
a reluctant civilian. In one of Washington's last letters before
10:52
resigning his own commission, the General congratulated Steuben for your
10:57
great zeal, attention, and ability and performing the duties of
11:01
your office. Washington expressed his sense of the obligations that
11:07
the American public is under to you for your faithful
11:11
and meritorious services. Yet, if America owed this Prussian drill master,
11:18
its leaders were not ready to cough up. Rampant inflation
11:22
had decimated Stuben's pay, and Congress made no move to
11:26
make amends. In New York, where Stuben set up home
11:30
after the war, he spent lavishly piling up unpaid bills.
11:35
Had he shown any interest in marriage, he likely would
11:38
have proved too debt ridden to attract a wife. Instead,
11:43
he remained a lifelong bachelor. If Stuiben ever had a
11:47
romantic relationship with the woman, it is not recorded. Many
11:52
scholars believe that he was gay, though there remained more
11:55
questions than answers about the baron's sexuality and about what
11:59
purpose it serves to pry further Shtouben remained a well
12:04
known public figure for the rest of his life. On
12:08
July fourth, seventeen eighty six, at the age of fifty five,
12:12
the baron became a naturalized citizen of the newly created
12:16
United States, and a ceremony in New York that year,
12:21
the State of New York granted the baron a sixteen
12:24
thousand acre piece of land seized from British Allied Wadensawny
12:29
or Iroquois, as a token of gratitude for his work
12:32
at Valley Forge. He made grand plans to develop it
12:36
equipped with a luxurious manor house, but those plans fizzled
12:41
for lack of funds. Instead, he built a cramped log
12:45
hut on the fringes of that undeveloped wilderness, where he
12:49
died on November twenty eighth, seventeen ninety four. According to
12:54
some reports, he had spent his final days playing chess
12:58
and reading Don Quixote. He was buried on the property
13:02
in an unmarked grave, then disinterred and reburied a decade
13:07
later in the nearby grove of trees after a developer
13:11
tried to build a post road over the first spot.
13:14
To day, a massive monument marks his final resting place,
13:18
along with an impressive bronze plaque. Across the United States,
13:23
there are a dozen or so towns and counties named
13:26
after Friedrivingteuben. There are several statues, too, One of them
13:31
looks out over the grand parade at Valley Forge. Fact
13:36
for Suspicion, Separating Myths from Truth at Valley Forge. First,
13:42
the notorious winter at Valley Forge was not as harsh
13:45
as commonly believed. Second, there were just two short lived
13:50
periods of severe cold, and it rained far more than
13:54
it snowed four times the entire winter. And finally, not
13:58
a single soldier froze to death, though disease claimed nearly
14:02
two thousand lives. Next, the colorful, scandalous true history of
14:09
the machine that created American pop. The jukebox got its
14:14
start earlier than you might think, but it truly became
14:17
iconic when rock and roll took over in the nineteen
14:20
fifties by Stephen Melendez. In eighteen eighty nine, a San
14:27
Francisco tavern called the Palais Royal debuted a hot new attraction,
14:32
a modified Edison phonograph that, when a customer inserted a nickel,
14:37
played music from a single wax cylinder. Electrical sound amplification
14:43
was still years away, so customers had to insert stethoscope
14:48
type tubes into their ears to hear anything, ideally toweling
14:53
down the tubes afterward to remove earwax ahead of the
14:57
next listener. Despite this un wielde set up, the machine
15:02
reportedly brought in more than one thousand dollars some thirty
15:06
four thousand dollars to day in less than six months,
15:09
and coin operated music machines soon proliferated in bars, at
15:14
drug stores, and even in new listening parlors across the country. Alas,
15:20
poor sound quality meant selections couldn't be soft or subtle,
15:25
so popular offerings included such ear splitting numbers as John
15:29
Philip Sousa Marches and the novelty whistler John Yorick Attlee
15:34
performing popular ditties of the day. By the early nineteen hundreds,
15:39
the machines struggled to compete against player pianos and other
15:43
automated instruments that could entertain whole venues with higher quality
15:48
audio and without requiring patrons to stick foreign objects into
15:53
their delicate ear canals. But record players continued to improve
15:58
in quality and volume and paid to play. Phonographs made
16:02
a huge comeback in the nineteen twenties, paving the way
16:06
for the juke box era. In nineteen twenty seven, the
16:10
Automatic Musical Instrument Company unveiled the first amplified multi record
16:16
coin phonograph juke boxes. They took on this nickname in
16:20
the nineteen thirties in reference to African American juke joints
16:24
of the South, introduced the world to music on demand
16:28
for far less than buying a record, and on better
16:31
equipment than people had at home. The boxes also reshaped
16:36
the recording industry, as labels began releasing music specifically designed
16:41
for post prohibition bar rooms and cafes. Danceable big band
16:47
numbers and tunes like the beer Barrel PoCA were early hits,
16:51
and the irrepressible popularity of juke boxes soon rocketed artists
16:56
like swing and presario Glenn Miller to national fans, creating
17:01
an audience for loud, catchy, rollicking tunes often played on
17:05
newly electrified instruments, shaping what would become country, R and
17:10
B and rock and roll. Jukebox operators came to account
17:16
for a majority of record sales as they frequently changed
17:19
out selections to keep customers dropping nickels. Using meters within
17:24
the machines, operators could track which tunes were most popular
17:29
at which locations, and they programmed boxes accordingly, offering a
17:33
mix of national hits and more regionally specific selections. The
17:39
latter included many tunes by black and working class musicians
17:43
in folk genres such as country and blues that tended
17:47
to get scant airplay on the radio of the day,
17:50
but soon found appreciative listeners on jukeboxes. By the early
17:55
nineteen forties, about five hundred thousand jukeboxes dotted the country,
18:00
sometimes inspiring too much of a ruckus. Newspapers frequently reported
18:05
on bar fights over music selections and complaints about noise.
18:11
Snootier critics, meanwhile, voiced more petulant grievances. The contrivance is
18:17
everywhere and is always booming its inanities. One Los Angeles
18:21
Times writer lamented in nineteen forty one, But juke boxes
18:26
had a chance to provide their patriotic bonafides during World
18:30
War II, when they provided vital entertainment on military bases
18:35
and at troops canteens, sometimes on machines donated by public
18:40
spirited American operators. Not a single nickel required. Not even
18:46
the cacophony of war can dull the magic power of
18:49
Wurlitzer automatic phonograph music, boasted a nineteen forty four ad.
18:55
At the same time, a number of juke box manufacturers,
18:59
including war Horlitzer, retooled factories for weapons production. After the war,
19:05
Stylish and stream blind juke box cabinets at diners let
19:10
teenagers listen to rock and roll at volumes generally impossible
19:14
or at least inadvisable to achieve at home. Juke Boxes
19:19
became indelibly associated with nineteen fifty's youth culture, the songs
19:24
selected as easily as ordering a diner burger or milkshake.
19:29
Jukebox operators now furnished teenage canteens modeled after the military
19:34
rest spots where the boxes had helped entertain the youth
19:38
of the previous decade. The format of hit after hit
19:42
music cues also helped inspire teen friendly Top forty radio,
19:47
replacing older formats that defaulted to playing several songs in
19:51
a row by a single artist. Over the next couple
19:56
of decades, juke boxes would see their numbers dwindle as
20:00
fans turned to other sources of entertainment, including increasingly high
20:05
fidelity home stereos, television and the transistor radio. Where Top
20:10
forty countdowns now introduced listeners to hits. Sound of juke
20:15
box is fading melody, reported one Associated Press headline in
20:19
nineteen eighty two, estimating juke box numbers in the United
20:24
States had fallen by more than half since the nineteen fifties,
20:28
while video games became the main draw in coin operated entertainment.
20:34
Yet decades later, juke boxes, many now digital, continued to
20:38
ring out across the US, and the idea that public
20:42
establishments should offer a curated selection of recorded music, whether
20:47
individual patrons like it or not, has become nearly ubiquitous.
20:51
Where living and listening and a world These machines created
20:56
and accompanying this article, making a racket. While America thronged
21:02
to the juke box, mobsters often controlled the action by
21:06
Teddy Brokaw. Though the Mob had been involved with music
21:11
since at least the start of the jazz age, the jukebox,
21:14
with its all cash business model and fungible record keeping,
21:19
showed clear potential for tax evasion and money laundering operations
21:24
and quickly caught the attention of organized crime. By the
21:28
nineteen forties, mafiosi, foremost among them Meyer Lanski, had pioneered
21:34
the typical racket buy up all the juke boxes in
21:37
an area and leased them to businesses in exchange for
21:40
fifty percent or more of the take. But the scheme's
21:44
true brilliance was its scope. The Mob owned not only
21:48
the juke boxes, but also often the record companies supplying
21:52
the disks, and the contracts of the artists cutting the records.
21:56
It was a masterpiece of vertical integration, and when it worked, gangbusters.
22:02
By the mid nineteen fifties, one enterprising gangster Chicago Outfit
22:07
member Jake Greasy thumb Guzik, controlled one hundred thousand of
22:12
America's half million juke boxes and was raking in several
22:15
million dollars a year With made men at the helm.
22:20
The jukebox industry relied on hits of both kinds. Mobsters
22:25
could make or break an artist's career, threw their control
22:29
over what made it into the machines and thus climbed
22:32
the charts and beatings, bombings, and even murders were just
22:37
one of the liabilities of the business. As the Wurlitzer
22:41
sales executive testified to a Senate investigative committee in nineteen
22:45
fifty nine, jukebox owners who didn't play nice risked seeing
22:50
their machines destroyed, while rival jukebox distributors who refused to
22:55
cut the mob in on their operations were whacked on
22:59
more than one occasion. The jukebox may be a relic
23:03
of a bygone era, but the mob's influence in jukeboxes remains.
23:09
As recently as twenty eighteen. A reputed mobster was gunned
23:13
down on orders from his own son, then seeking to
23:17
take over his father's New York racket. The victim's funeral
23:21
procession was led by a car carrying what else a
23:25
juke box made of flowers. Next, how a deaf quarterback
23:31
changed sports forever by inventing the huddle. Paul Hubbard called
23:37
for the football team at Galadet University to circle around
23:41
him back in eighteen ninety four by Scott Nover. During
23:46
a tight game in the fall of eighteen ninety four,
23:49
Paul Hubbard, quarterback for the Galadet University Bison and known
23:54
as the Eel for his canny maneuvers, made a simple
23:58
move that changed sports forever. Concerned that his hand signs
24:02
were tipping off his plans to the opposing defense, Hubbard
24:06
summoned his offense and directed them to form a circle
24:10
around him, creating what many consider the first football huddle.
24:15
For the Bison, who have been fielding football teams since
24:19
the eighteen eighties, sight matters more than sound. Nestled in
24:23
northeast Washington, d C. Galliadet is the most famous and
24:28
prestigious deaf university in the world. It has been granting
24:32
degrees since eighteen sixty four. The Galliadet student newspaper, The
24:38
Buff and Blue, honoured Hubbard in nineteen forty one as
24:42
the Daddy of huddle, as did daily newspapers in Kansas,
24:46
where he coached at the Kansas School for the Deaf,
24:49
and Washington. When Hubbard died in nineteen forty six. As
24:54
with any world shifting innovation, competing claims emerge over the decades.
25:00
Herb mc cracken, the University of Pittsburgh player and college coach,
25:05
claimed that he'd invented the huddle in nineteen twenty four,
25:09
and some quarters credit University of Illinois football coach Robert Subkey,
25:14
also known for inventing the on side kick, the flea flicker,
25:19
and the screen pass. Still, the Gaaladet origin story pre
25:23
dates these accounts by decades and has a persuasive foundation.
25:28
Deaf players needed to hide their visual communication from opponents
25:33
even more than hearing teams. From Galadet's Washington campus, the
25:38
huddles spread fast across American football. By the nineteen twenties,
25:43
the formation had become common enough at college games that
25:47
it even drew complaints from some fans, who lamented that
25:51
it slowed play. But there was no denying the huddle,
25:55
which inevitably took over basketball, baseball, and other sports, offering
26:00
a universal protection for the devious language of athletic strategy.
26:06
Fun fact, who else attended Galadet. Other notable Galadet University
26:12
students and alumni include Academy Award winning actor Troy Kotzer.
26:18
Glenn Anderson, the first deaf African American to earn a
26:21
doctorate degree, and Wilma Neuhout Drutchen, the first deaf member
26:26
of parliament in South Africa. Finally, ask Smithsonian, you've got questions,
26:34
We've got experts From Darryl de Laney, Naples, Florida. When
26:40
and why did Americans start smiling in photos? The answer
26:45
is from Shannon Perrich, Curator of Photographic History, National Museum
26:50
of American History. In the early days of photography, when
26:54
pictures were expensive and exposures took more than a few seconds,
26:58
the results were generally formal and stiff. We see more
27:02
smiles with the arrival of cheaper ten types starting in
27:06
the late eighteen fifties and early eighteen sixties, when cameras
27:09
could leave the studio to capture casual fund at picnics
27:13
and fares. However, not all the smiles were authentic. As
27:17
early as the eighteen seventies, photographers began using birdies, small
27:22
bird shaped toys or whistles that tweeted with the squeeze
27:26
of a bulb to draw momentary smiles out of crying children.
27:30
After the stock market crashed in nineteen twenty nine, advertising
27:34
photos began using more color and smiles to appeal to
27:38
consumers in short while, smiles and photographs seemed to indicate
27:43
easygoing fun. The history may suggest otherwise. This concludes readings
27:48
from the Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your reader has
27:52
been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have a
27:55
great day.