Read Beat (...and repeat)

"Launching Liberty" by Doug Most

When it comes to World War II, you often hear about "the arsenal of democracy," a characterization of U.S. factories that produced all the food, medical supplies, tanks, planes, and tractors that helped win the war.In Launching Liberty, Doug Most writes about the U.S. effort required to build the ships needed to transport those goods overseas.The Liberty Ships were 440-foot cargo ships built to the same exact specifications. Over 2,700 were built between 1941 and 1945. When packed full of cargo, one ship could hold the equivalent of 300 railroad boxcars. That might be 2,800 jeeps or 430,000 K-rations.Most chronicles how American shipyards — and their workers — rose to the wartime challenge. There were 228,000 workers in U.S. shipyards in December 1940. Less than two years later, 2.2 million worked on constructing ships.There was a reason for that build-up. The United States was engaged in a two-front war that included both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.Forgotten, perhaps, is that in the spring of 1942, just a few months after entering the war, the Allies lost 397 ships. Eighty-two of those ships were sunk off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia.The heat was on. Along with the increase in manpower--and woman power--came new ideas on setting up shipyards and on building cargo ships fast.Henry Kaiser, described by Most as "a dynamic builder of highways, dams, and bridges," turned his attention to shipbuilding, having never built a ship in his life before the war. Kaiser and others brought about "the greatest emergency shipbuilding program the world has ever seen," noted Most.The shipyard brought "poor housewives, farmers, plumbers and Phds, inventors and patriotic handymen, brilliant engineers, hard-driving politicians, and billionaire businessmen" together to build giant steel cargo ships faster than the Germans could sink them," stated Most.The author humanizes the Liberty Ship story with accounts of individuals like Wilmer Patrick Shea, the Marine corporal who lost an arm in battle but returned to the states to become a one-armed welder in the shipyard along with becoming an advocate of the healthcare program that Kaiser offered workers.But it wasn't all smooth sailing. Most talks about a blended workforce required for the construction of so many ships. "But it didn't blend easily," he said.Women and African Americans had to deal with resistance when they joined the shipyard workforce. "Unions were initially dismissive but the barriers did eventually come down," said Most.Most doesn't gloss over the fact that there were problems in the construction of some of the ships. "The Liberty Ships were a critical component of the war program, but they weren't perfect. They had to be done quickly. They had flaws," he said.Yet the fact that the S.S. Robert E. Peary, the Liberty Ship constructed in a record four days, carried supplies as the Allied troops were landing on the beaches of Normandy served as inspiration to all Americans, said Most.

"Wisdom of the Marsh" by Clare Howard (Photographs by David Zalaznik)

If draining the swamp strikes you as a good idea, you're not listening to Clare Howard and David Zalaznik.The pair, former journalists with the Peoria Journal Star, have just written their second book extolling the benefits of wetlands.Their first, In the Spirit of Wetlands (2022), captured the beauty and importance of wetlands in Illinois. This time, Wisdom of the Marsh (Syracuse University Press) focuses on the Montezuma Wetlands Complex in central New York."Wetlands are much more than swamps, bogs, fens, marshes, and moors," noted Howard in the book's introduction. "Wetlands help us change the way we think."The benefits of wetlands have become more pronounced in recent years. Wetlands filter impurities and pollutants from water, protect against wildfires and flooding, and provide a habitat for wildlife.The National Park Service reports that by the mid-1980s, the United States had lost more than half of its original wetlands to development and agriculture. Additionally, a 2023 Supreme Court ruling has removed environmental protections from nearly half of the country's wetlands, according to Howard.The New York complex that's the focus of Wisdom of the Marsh supports more than 368 species of fish and wildlife, as well as 242 species of migrating birds, half of which are endangered or threatened. It was in the Montezuma Wetlands area where the bald eagle was successfully reintroduced in the United States after almost being wiped out.Once home to the Cayuga Nation, where People of the Great Swamp lived in harmony with plants and wildlife, the area changed once settlers moved in. The native people were forced out, and the great swamp was reduced by diking, farming, and the construction of canals, said Howard.But Howard and Zalaznik's focus on the Montezuma complex shows how wetlands are now being embraced and expanded. Cornell University professor Eric Cheyfitz and the late William Mitsch of Ohio State University are among the many interviewed for the book who cite the challenges--and benefits--in advocating for wetlands.Zalaznik's picture of the Northern Harrier Hawk, otherwise known as the gray ghost, flying through the Montezuma complex, is a vivid example of the importance of wetlands."Combating climate change is not all about Spartan sacrifice, scarcity, discomfort, and duplicative layers of government oversight," said Howard.It also involves listening--and understanding--the wisdom of the marsh.

"Hollywood and Hitler: 1933-1939" by Thomas Doherty

Hollywood came under scrutiny after World War II as the fear of Communism gripped the country.The Cold War came to Hollywood in 1947 when the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings over possible Communist infiltration in the movie industry.Films were analyzed for messages that might be interpreted as promoting Communist views, such as Song of Russia, a wartime musical released when the Soviet Union was a U.S. ally.No pre-war congressional investigation ever called film executives on the carpet for failing to identify the threat to this country in the 1930s, an era when “Nazis were all but invisible in American movies at a time when depicting their savagery might have done the most good,” noted the New York Times.In his book, Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, Thomas Doherty, a film historian and Brandeis University professor, explains that there were several reasons for U.S. moviemakers to avoid the issue before Warner Brothers released Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939.Americans were suffering through the depths of the Depression in the 1930s. Jobs were hard to find. People went to the movies to forget their troubles, watching fare like The Wizard of Oz or Fred and Ginger dancing in art-deco apartments, said Doherty.MGM boss Sam Goldwyn said if you want to send a message, use Western Union, emphasizing Hollywood’s overriding mission was to provide entertainment, Doherty noted.Other factors impeding a flow of message movies included the film industry’s production code that restricted movies from reflecting unfairly on any foreign country, he said. The Third Reich wasn’t above exerting pressure on Hollywood, itself, with German consul Georg Gyssling lobbying hard to keep Nazi references off the big screen.Studios also did business overseas, and Germany represented a big European market for U.S. films, said Doherty.But Doherty said there some outliers, films that did address the dangers that Nazi aggression presented before the mainstream studios finally got around to the subject.The first film to do so was Hitler’s Reign of Terror, “an oddball quasi-documentary” made by Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. that was released in 1934, said Doherty, noting that the film contains some striking footage of Vanderbilt on the streets of Vienna and Berlin amid Nazi brownshirts.A member of one of America’s wealthiest families, Vanderbilt was a globetrotting raconteur who included “a truly bizarre sequence” with the reenactment of an interview between Vanderbilt and someone posing as Hitler. Vanderbilt asks “the money question,” said Doherty: “What about the Jews, your Excellency?”“The film gets a limited release in 1934. It’s controversial. The German embassy wants to censor it. It doesn’t have much impact. But whatever you say about Vanderbilt, the film is very prophetic,” said Doherty, noting that Vanderbilt points to the militaristic path that Germany was on, predicting war in Europe “in five or six years.”Hitler’s Reign of Terror gets an exclusive screening at the Peoria Women’s Club, 301 NE Madison Ave., on Oct. 16 in conjunction with the Peoria Area World Affairs Council. The film will be part of a program commemorating Vanderbilt’s speech at the club in 1939.Doherty cited another independent film, I Am a Captive of Nazi Germany, released in 1936. Isobel Steele, an American journalist and “party girl,” was imprisoned by the Nazis for espionage in 1934. Steele was released, returning to the United States to star in a film of her experience, the first anti-Nazi motion picture to get a production code seal of approval, he said.The film studios finally weighed in when Confessions of a Nazi Spy was released by Warner Brothers in the spring of 1939, a few months before war broke out in Europe. 

"Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life"

Tiffany Jenkins takes a look at privacy in her new book, Strangers and Intimates. As Jenkins points out, the whole concept of privacy is a relatively recent development. She points to an article published in 1890 by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, who finished one-two in their graduating class from Harvard Law School in 1875. Brandeis went on to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.The two legal scholars asserted that people without a public role had “a right to be left alone,” embracing the public’s right “to control how their thoughts, sentiments, and emotions were published.”When Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive officer, offered up his own view of privacy in 2009 by saying, “If you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” he was simply channeling an old belief that the devil might call on you when you were on your own. But Jenkins doesn’t single out the internet as the lone reason privacy may be under attack in the 21st century.Reality television has a lot to answer for, she said. Starting back in the 1970s when TV’s Loud family aired their dirty laundry on the air, viewers have seen plenty of petty squabbles and bad behavior over a 50-year period, said Jenkins.Writing from her home in England, a country with a love of security cameras, as any fan of modern British TV crime shows will attest, Jenkins said privacy concerns over having so many cameras to capture public activity have diminished over the years in the interests of public safety.Strangers and Intimates is sweetly reasonable and pleasantly readable, noted reviewer Rupert Christiansen in the British paper, The Telegraph. “Jenkins respects all sides of an argument or situation without tub-thumping or special pleading. Her conclusion that 'the private realm must be validated and respected as equal to the public' may seem tame and question-begging, but the evidence she offers should set alarm bells ringing, “ he wrote.

"Eating Up Route 66" by T. Lindsay Baker

T. Lindsay Baker’s Eating Up Route 66 is not your typical Mother Road guidebook. It’s a history—with business notes, photographs, and recipes.Baker, a retired history professor from Texas has written plenty about the American West. Twelve years of research went into his latest effort, and not just in libraries and museums. An antique-car enthusiast, Baker traveled the road in a 1930 Ford station wagon in 2017. Not just a day trip, mind you, but the length of the route--and back. In a few weeks, he’ll leave Chicago to be part of a nine-car convoy of classic cars to cover the route—to L.A. and back—at an average of 35 miles per hour, the typical speed attained on pre-WWII highways, he noted.The history that Baker provides isn’t just a nostalgic account of a bygone era. Starting in Chicago, the book outlines places of interest, explains how they came to be, as well as how they came to an end. But all is not lost. Some 30 percent of the places Baker describes in the book are still serving food, he said.Some of the traditions created for travelers on Route 66 carry on. Baker loves the horseshoe sandwich made famous by Joe Schweska in 1928 at the Leland Hotel in Springfield, Illinois. The secret was the sauce, said Baker. “While one cook is engaged in making the sauce, it is helpful for a second person to prepare ham steak, French fries, and toast,” he wrote.Schweska has long left the scene, but the horseshoe sandwich is very much alive in Springfield today. Yes, the Cozy Dog Drive-in is also included among Baker's Springfield highlights.Of the 20 recipes that Baker includes, his favorite is the old-fashioned navy bean soup originally prepared at the Bowl and Bottle Restaurant in Chicago, an eating place originally operated by the Fred Harvey Co., the firm that ran restaurants and hotels usually associated with railway travel in the West.Baker’s listings tend to whet your appetite. Whether it’s the glazed strawberry pie served at Miss Hulling’s Cafeteria in St. Louis or the onion-fried hamburger at Johnnie’s Grill in El Reno, Okla., you want to settle into a booth and wave down a waitress. It’s not always fancy. Baker includes a recipe from the Old Riverton Store in Riverton, Kansas, for a baloney and cheese sandwich, for example.You learn things in this book, such as the fact that the Black Cat Café in Commerce, Okla., was where New York Yankee star Mickey Mantle hung out as a teen. “It was the only joint in town that had a neon sign,” Mantle recalled.While California summoned up images of sand and surf, the first encounter inbound Route 66 travelers had with the state was having to traverse a stretch of the Mojave Desert, no simple trek in the days when radiators often overheated and tires were susceptible to the sharp lava rock found in some places, noted Baker, adding that when Glen Campbell drove a 1957 Chevy across the desert in 1960, he tied water bottles to the car’s grill to refill the radiator.If you’re looking for evidence of Route 66’s legacy when it comes to dining, consider the fact that two of our best-known fast-food operations—McDonald’s and Taco Bell—sprang up on the Mother Road in San Bernardino. Baker provides the details of the early days of both establishments.Baker doesn’t shy away from identifying the double standard that existed along the road. “You can’t talk about cross-country travel without talking about racism,” he said. Baker points out that African Americans were often denied service at many of the businesses along Route 66 for decades. He mentions places that didn’t discriminate, as well as citing outlets like Alberta’s Hotel & Snack Bar in Springfield, Mo. where Margie Alberta Northcutt Ellis was “always looking for avenues to meet the needs of her African American customers.”