Ferris: His Wonderland

Jul. 28, 2012 By Susan Barsy in History Tags: photography, innovation, steel, ferris wheel, marvels, aerial views, World's Columbian Exposition, amusements, fairs, Gilded Age, photographers, 1890s, old photographs, Chicago 6 Comments

Around this time of year in 1893, millions of people were flocking to Chicago to see the great world’s fair the city was hosting. Formally known as the World’s Columbian Exposition, the fair belatedly commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World.

In a bid for national and international celebrity, Chicagoans (whose young city had burned to the ground 22 years earlier) went all out in constructing the fair’s great White City: acres and acres of magnificent pavilions, illuminated at night by millions of dazzling electrical lights, and all organized around a network of waterways.

To make it even more special, the organizing committee hired a young engineer named George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., to dream up something similar to the amazing tower that George Eiffel had designed for the world’s fair in Paris in 1889. Similar to that tower, but better. Yet at first the organizers of Chicago’s fair were doubtful about the idea that Ferris came up with.

Ferris, 34 years old (and destined to die of typhoid fever just three years later), had already gained an impressive reputation as an engineer and bridge-builder, a reputation that sprang from his understanding of steel. The design that he proposed to the fair’s organizers was for a gargantuan wheel, that, if built, would tower above everything and lift passengers effortlessly, treating them to aerial views from astonishing heights.

Starks W. Lewis, an amateur photographer who managed to get his camera (it would have been pretty bulky) set up on the wheel, captured the wonder of it all. From his vantage, the intricate workmanship of the wheel itself, as well as size and design of the passenger cars, each of which was designed to hold 60 people, is clearly revealed.

Despite organizers’ fears, Ferris’s daring contraption worked perfectly. Rising to a height of 264 feet and measuring 825 feet around, the Wheel weighed more than 2.6 million pounds. It was powered by two 1,000-horsepower steam engines and operated reliably, unimpaired by lightning and gale-force winds. According to Judith Adams-Volpe, writing about Ferris in the American National Biography, the wheel became the Fair’s leading attraction, the first instance of “technology being harnessed purely as a pleasure machine.”

What steel gave society was the capacity to rise above the earth and gain an entirely new perspective on itself. The people who visited the Fair from all over the US could see their world as they had never seen it, from a perspective previously offered only by mountains or the occasional steeple. In the wondrous aerial vision Ferris gave the world came a hint of the built marvels that were still to come.

Images: Photographs of and from the first Ferris Wheel
by Starks W. Lewis, 1893, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum, from this source.

The Depths of a Mature Garden

Jul. 9, 2012 By Susan Barsy in Travels Tags: amusements, appreciation, beauty, Dunn Gardens, Olmsted Brothers, parks and gardens, Seattle, snaps 4 Comments

During our visit to Seattle last week, my friend Wendy offered to take us to Dunn Gardens, a little-known place in the Broadview neighborhood northeast of downtown. The gardens, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, were designed for the Dunn family in the 1910s. The landscape architecture firm Olmsted Brothers designed the grounds and selected all the original plants. Click on pictures to enlarge.

The gardens occupy a residential compound of some 10 acres, surrounding a main house and two other dwellings. The land offers a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, which the growth of vegetation is gradually obscuring. The gardens were designed around many second-growth firs standing on the property at the time of its purchase. The massive trees lend the garden an atmosphere of seclusion and repose.

While still faithful to their original design, the gardens have evolved under the stewardship of three generations. Some plants and plantings have been added, while others have been gradually allowed to fade away, as the owners have observed plants’ changing characteristics and needs.

Several thousand plant species, many in a state of perfect maturity, contributed to a varied woodland tapestry, whose patterns and textures were too complex to apprehend on a single visit. On this afternoon, we marveled at magnificent stands of Himalayan lilies foregrounded by wisteria and boughs of pink dogwood. Starbursts of alium punctuated beds layered with grasses, sedum, and small ruby-colored lilies. The woods teemed with ferns, oxalis, hellebore, and solomon seal.

Rare and one-of-a-kind rhododendrons bred by Edward Dunn studded the forest. There were many amazing plants, but they were harmoniously incorporated into a naturalistic design.

Even the most formal parts of the grounds, like this one formed around a rectangular lawn, had an appealingly off-hand quality. The stone stairs leading out of it were one of my favorite things.

The established structure of the place supported a riot of plant life that was visually intoxicating. A Chicagoan could only envy the lushness and vitality of it all,

the plants growing upon plants,

the petals and leaves.

A superabundance of plants dripping from every ledge,

and crowding every crevice.

The Political Animal at Rest #2

Apr. 19, 2012 By Susan Barsy in History Tags: 1970s, amusements, corruption, David Frost, film, Frost/Nixon, Michael Sheen, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, US presidency, video, Watergate 1 Comment

The other day I watched Frost/Nixon, the 2008 film adapted from the 2006 play adapted from, well, the 1977 bit of history. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprise their Broadway performances as David Frost and Richard Nixon, respectively, working out their divergent fates in the series of on-camera interviews that the British television personality set up with Nixon three years after he resigned from the presidency.

I wasn’t too blown away by the movie but think it’s worth seeing for several reasons. First, I’m in favor of anything that gets a person thinking about an important historical event or personality. This, the movie does. It suggests the complex emotional currents swirling around in the aftermath of Watergate, as a chain of ridiculous and unnecessary crimes brought down the entire inner circle of the White House and prompted the most powerful man in the nation to flee ignominiously rather than face impeachment or say what had happened—what he had done—while he was in office.

Yes, the ignominy of Richard Nixon’s end was astonishing. More to the point, his furtive escape from the machinery of justice left the American people full of frustration, disappointment, and hostility. They were entitled to something more and better from their leader. Nixon’s violation of their contract left them degraded and cheated. They watched powerlessly as Nixon climbed into his presidential helicopter (which belonged to them, by the way) and flew away from blame. The film doesn’t really do justice to these precipitating events and their effects on the public, but it channels enough of the flavor of this peculiar historical moment to give viewers the idea.

Second, Michael Sheen is brilliant as David Frost, depicted here as a benign, happy-go-lucky risk-taker. Now something of a British national treasure (the Australian-born Frost was knighted and is still working at age 73), he was then at risk (we are to believe) of becoming a nobody. Adrift professionally, Frost latches on to the desperate and expensive scheme of interviewing Nixon as a way to save himself from oblivion and irrelevance. Bleak prospects and a yen for respectability drive both characters into a wary relationship and a mediated struggle for supremacy. Will the seemingly careless Frost manage to wrest anything valuable from his cagey and formidable adversary? Frost’s success in doubling down at a critical juncture and exacting admissions from Nixon that ostensibly relieve a troubled nation makes this the ultimate Brit feel-good movie.

Frank Langella’s Nixon is evocative enough to send you off on a quest for vestiges of the real man, and this is the final reason this film is worth viewing. The question of Nixon’s role in history is essentially a question of personality, a topic this film treats inconclusively. Yet even its cursory sketch of Nixon’s discordant makeup raises questions that Americans will be debating for years to come. Curiosity sent me to YouTube, where footage from the original interviews is on view. Take a look at this clip of Nixon’s own assessment of his failings and decide what you think. It’s compelling stuff.

RELATED:
The Political Animal at Rest #1 (on the 1942 Capra film Meet John Doe)

The Forest in Spring

Apr. 11, 2012 By Susan Barsy in Travels Tags: amusements, Berrien County, blue-eyed mary, Cass County (MI), forests, nature, snaps, spring flowers, trillium 1 Comment

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If we can, my husband and I scoot out to Michigan each spring to see the woodlands in flower. The numerous nature preserves in Berrien County and neighboring Cass County are surprisingly unvisited, yet their display of blooms and foliage is spectacular. These pictures are from our various springtime visits.

The Political Animal at Rest

Mar. 14, 2012 By Susan Barsy in Protest & Tradition Tags: amusements, Aristotle, baseball, film, film stills, Frank Capra, Gary Cooper, Great Depression, joblessness, Meet John Doe, Occupy, political engagement, the common man, work and workers 3 Comments

Production still of Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, and James Gleason

Aristotle conceived of us as political animals, attaining complete fulfillment only through participation in political life. If true, this interminable campaign season should be one of our happiest times.

Thrilled as we may be with the eat-drink-politics character of the weeks unfolding, we must be on guard: some 235 days remain before the general election. Political animals are highly sensitive, and have been known to be susceptible to sudden mood swings. For such high-strung creatures, political engagement 24/7 simply isn’t healthy.

Happily, their forebears have created a magnificent canon of diverting novels and movies, whether about campaigning and the presidency, or about Washington, government, paranoia, political eras, or the political bug more generally. Just the other day, I saw a love story set against the unlikely backdrop of the G8. Pastimes for the political? There are endless possibilities. Not all are great works by any means: some are fantastic, some hard-hitting, others irreverent or downright silly. But they speak to a political animal’s recreational needs by furnishing an excuse to think about politics by other means.

Walter Brennan in Frank Capra's 1941 film, "Meet John Doe"

Today’s recommended diversion: Meet John Doe (1941), an old chestnut by Frank Capra that seems tailor-made for our times. With its Depression-crazed characters struggling in the grip of an all-destroying capitalism, the film reads like something straight out of Occupy. Gary Cooper is Long John Willoughby, a down-and-out ballplayer who, for the sake of 50 dollars, agrees to become “John Doe,” a symbolic everyman he knows to be a journalistic fraud. Barbara Stanwyck is journalist Ann Mitchell, scheming to make John Doe a sensation out of professional vanity and for the sake of keeping her job. Both become better humans as they struggle against D.B. Norton (is that D.B. for Dollar Bills?), an oil-turned-newspaper baron intent on controlling politics and public opinion. Walter Brennan nearly steals the show as Willoughby’s sidekick “the Colonel,” a fellow bum who is the moral center of the movie. His classic warning against “the heelots” is a must-see.

Meet John Doe is in the public domain. You can watch it immediately in its entirety via YouTube or the Internet Archive. Go for it. Because you know what? The real thing’ll still be there in a few hours’ time.

Image (top): Publicity still for Meet John Doe
with Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, and James Gleason,
from this source.

Image (bottom): Walter Brennan in Meet John Doe,
public domain.

Tracking the American

Feb. 7, 2012 By Susan Barsy in Travels Tags: Americanness, amusements, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, museums, snaps 2 Comments

I’ve been in Boston, attending the opera premiere of a friend and museum-hopping. The timing was good, because I was able to visit the newly reopened Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as well as the newish ‘Americas’ wing at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The American galleries at the MFA gave me a lot to ponder and even more to admire. I’d been wanting to see them ever since reading this review by Holland Cotter. The galleries themselves are sumptuous: beautifully colored, . . .

. . . some even brocaded.

They showcase one of the world’s strongest collections of American art–some four stories of it–, which has been beautifully arranged and curated.

Wandering the galleries is like skimming the entire span of our history, from Puritans to Pollock, and back centuries more. The extent and variety of the MFA’s holdings and the space now devoted to them avoids the conflation of eras so common to American exhibits in many museums. One has the sense of proceeding through distinct periods of time, each with its own styles and cultural preoccupations. The displays thoughtfully integrate a wide variety of objects–including architectural elements (such as house timbers), furnishings (such as Puritan dressers), and even ships’ models–which help to convey the openness and cosmopolitanism that have been part of the American aesthetic from an early time.

Much has been made of the way the Americas wing incorporates into its narrative artifacts from indigenous Latin and North American peoples. Yet what surprised me was how quickly, in a chronological viewing of the galleries, the impression of cultural diversity slips away. Once beyond the Revolutionary-era galleries, with their obligatory nod to rebellion, any hint of conflict or painful heterogeneity evaporates. The story remaining is the triumphal cultural progress of upper-class New England, a class eagerly absorbing, modifying, and mirroring the cultural practices of continental Europe, England, and Asia. Except for a few rooms of folk art, the lives of other Americans–whether black, red, or working-class white–are pretty much missing.

Museums have what their benefactors give them, so in that sense we can’t fault the Boston museum. But I wondered whether its holdings were really so lacking in any material depicting the lives of ordinary people. Many museums use smaller works on paper to round out grand canvases that skew social reality. Boston, in the nineteenth century particularly, was a center of social reform, political radicalism, and industrial innovation, where experience was reflected not just in sculpture and painting but in such new media as lithography and photography. Including more such works would have better represented the output of American artists and the totality of subjects that drew their concern. Doing so could only enhance the appeal of the Americas wing.

Free Folk

Feb. 4, 2012 By Susan Barsy in History Tags: Alan Lomax, Americana, Americanness, amusements, folk traditions, music, song 2 Comments

A mountain fiddler circa 1920.
Courtesy New York Public Library via Flickr Commons.

I’ve been wanting to add a few links to my website in connection with my recent posts about protest and song. Here’s a bit of what I’ve found.

The Smithsonian has long been a collector of American folk recordings. In addition to making rare old recordings available through its Smithsonian Folkways label, it has made an extensive series of podcasts (24 hours’ worth) about its collections available for free download. Permanent links to both are on my home page.

Turns out, last week was a big one for folk music, with the press reporting that an outfit called the Association for Cultural Equity was on the verge of releasing for free streaming some 17,000 recordings made by the late American folklorist Alan Lomax. Lomax was a colorful figure who spent his life traveling around the US and the world with a tape-recorder and a camera, documenting the music of the ordinary from the 1930s through the 80s. Some 170 of his videos are already available on the Alan Lomax channel on You Tube. A tiny sampling of the sounds and performers can also be heard here and throughout the Cultural Equity website.

Finally, East Village Radio hosts a weekly radio program of American vernacular music called ‘Root Hog or Die,’ put together by Nathan Salsburg, one of the curators of the Lomax archives. (An awful saying, but isn’t one of the things we like about folk music its frankness?) A complete archive of the show is available for free. Some of the show’s episodes are also available on SoundCloud, whose audio player you might find easier to work if you’re a Mac user like me.

Susan Barsy

Tag Archives: amusements