Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 283: Caroline Henderson, Letter from the Dust Bowl (#283)

Caroline Henderson, "Letter from the Dust Bowl" (1936) from American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau:

A first-person account from the Dust Bowl, by a farmer who kept up a little side-line in column writing for a while. Caroline Henderson actually chose to be a farmer, it seems, after a near-death experience convinced her to follow her girlhood dream. Which is a fascinating bit of backstory for a rather short and uncompelling account of the Dust Bowl.

Not a lot going on here, though there are one or two details that are interesting, mostly about her tone when it comes to government aid programs and how those who believe in refusing government dictates are actually damaging everyone. (In this case, the aid program involves plowing the soil along the contour, so as to lessen erosion; and those who continue to plow straight are making the airborne dust worse.)

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 282: Helen Keller, I Go Adventuring (#282)

Helen Keller, "I Go Adventuring" (1929) from Writing New York: A Literary Anthology:

It's rare that I put one of these out on time; or at least, for the past few months, it seems like I'm playing catchup, reading and writing about two or three Stories in a weekend. Often I find myself saying, "I've got a lot to do and what am I even doing these for anymore?"

It's true that this project began partly to give me something to do (and partly to give me something to blog about regularly).

But I'm reminded why by today's piece (which I'm really writing about a week after it was released). That is, the Story of the Week is best when either (a) I have something interesting to say about it, probably because it's a story or on a topic I've read before; or (b) I have never read the piece and probably wouldn't have come across it outside of this project.

I remember studying Helen Keller a little bit in elementary school. (Did everyone have to read The Miracle Worker? Is there a little bit of "if she can learn, why can't you?" in teaching about Helen Keller to sighted, hearing students?) But I'd never read her before. It was interesting to read this piece about her thoughts on New York and what it meant to her.

Tremulously I stand in the subways, absorbed into the terrible reverberations of exploding energy. Fearful, I touch the forest of steel girders loud with the thunder of oncoming trains that shoot past me like projectiles. Inert I stand, riveted in my place. 

Which is a strange mix of metaphors with a lot of feeling behind it. Forest of steel--thunder of trains--shooting like projectiles. And of course, I love how she starts out tremulous and ends up inert, riveted, almost a piece of the machinery of the city. It's an intensely felt section--but I'm not sure it's a good feeling. Keller celebrates the city, but it's so easy to imagine this turned into a Thoreauvian denunciation, like:

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man….

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 280: Frederick Douglass, Letter to His Old Master (#280)

Frederick Douglass, "Letter to His Old Master" (1848) from Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies:

In grad school, I took a class in the History Department called "Important Primary Sources in American History"--or something to that effect. So in one week, I devoured something like 1000 pages of slave narratives (the Library of America collection, actually).

But it never gets any easier. This short, humorous, cutting letter from Douglass to his former owner doesn't dwell on the horrors of slavery at any length. It mentions them in general (being robbed of education, etc.) or names particular events (being dragged to market, etc.) only sparingly; most of this letter is taken up by the joys of freedom.

And yet, those joys are so obviously contrasted to the crushing pains of slavery that this letter can get me teary eyed. Douglass's great skill here might be in how quickly he can veer from cutting and acid humor to straightforward pathos.

Edit: If you read this letter, make sure to read the LoA headnote, which tells the story of some strange meetings between Douglass and the family that formerly owned him. It's a great reminder of how strange and intimate the institution of slavery really was.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 278: Peggy Hull Deuell, Death of Carrier Described (#278)

Peggy Hull Deuell, "Death of Carrier Described" (1944) from Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1944–1946:

I know this is getting repetitious, but this is another example where I want to hear more about Peggy Hull Deuell: a war correspondent who started off by reporting on Pancho Villa, was rejected as correspondent during World War I because she was a woman, but who continued on.

Compared to her story, the story of the USS Princeton doesn't quite stand up. Or rather: we get to hear the story, both the objective what and the subjective POV of the captain telling the story of the day he lost his ship (with less than 10% loss of human life on his ship), along with Deuell's report on how the captain keeps almost being overwhelmed with emotion.

And what it leaves me with is a wish that she had interviewed everyone on that day, from the Japanese bomber whose single bomb started the fire, to the surgeon who had to amputate the scrap of a guy's leg with a sheath knife, to the guys who were just trying to put out the fire. That is, the death of a carrier sounds like a single event, with a single story; but we're so deeply in the POV of the captain that I can't help wondering what it looks like to everyone, all combined.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 277: Wong Chin Foo, Experience of a Chinese Journalist (#277)

Wong Chin Foo, "Experience of a Chinese Journalist" (1885) from Writing New York: A Literary Anthology:

A short and humorous take, reminiscent of the old joke about Hollywood:

Do you know how to make a million dollars making movies? Start with ten million dollars.

Wong Chin Foo sounds like an interesting guy, a sort of Chinese American Mark Twain, making enemies all around the world. This short piece from Puck doesn't really showcase that directly, though he does talk about how he was denounced by white Americans and Chinese Americans; how he made enemies of gambling den owners; etc. But it's all mixed in with jokes about treasurers walking off with the treasury, which is fun, but doesn't really get to the heart of who this guy is.

Also, the fact that this is from the Writing New York anthology seems extra bizarre, as there's nothing particularly New York-y about it.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 276: James Thurber, Lavender with a Difference (#276)

James Thurber, "Lavender with a Difference" (1951) from James Thurber: Writings & Drawings:

Maybe I oughtn't to call this "non-fiction" exactly. Or maybe I shouldn't call it "comedy": It's James Thurber's recollection of his funny mother and all the pranks she pulled. Well, judging from this piece, this is considerably less than "all" the pranks she pulled.

Mary Agnes (nee Fisher) Thurber was a frustrated actress, kept from the stage by her family's moral sentiments (in Thurber's telling); and that urge towards the dramatic and the outlandish and the fictional expressed itself in her pranks around town: throwing a carton of eggs (sans eggs) at a lady's luncheon; dressing up as an outlandish tycoon to buy a friend's house; cooping up all the neighborhood dogs in the cellar so that her dog-hating sister would face a tidal wave of them when she opened the cellar door, etc.

It's an incredibly warm and funny portrait of someone who wouldn't entirely let the social norms dictate her actions--even if she didn't follow her big dream of becoming an actress. It's a warm picture of the small rebellions of life, with no real trace of bitterness or tragedy.

Note: Yes, this is two week's late. No, I won't date it correctly, but use the scheduler to slip it in where it should've gone.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 274: W. C. Heinz, Death of a Race Horse (#274)

W. C. Heinz, "Death of a Race Horse" (1949) from The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz:

W. C. Heinz writes movingly--and briefly--about a horse with great prospects who breaks his leg on his first run. Heinz gets an effect by keeping things simple and repetitive, so that we hear Air Lift's lineage and family several times: in the title, in the opening, at the end. Air Lift was the full brother of Assault, but that's not going to save him.

Which seems a little odd to me: sure, if he never gets a race, he'll never prove his mettle, but with so much proof of his bloodline, you'd think they might keep him around as breeding stock.

There's very little here about racing and an awful lot about the trappings of the race track and the race industry. When Air Lift is hurt, he's not immediately put down; they've got to get word from his owner about that. And when he is put down, the veterinarians take his broken bones--for insurance purposes.

All in all, it's a strange and alternate view of a sport, a glimpse into a world from an angle not often used.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 266: Elizabeth Hardwick, Selma, Alabama: The Charms of Goodness (#266)

Elizabeth Hardwick, "Selma, Alabama: The Charms of Goodness" (1965) from Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941–1973:

As the LoA headnote puts it, "Kentucky native and New York Review of Books cofounder Elizabeth Hardwick" participated in the third march on Selma, which I love--not the march, but the description--because you can see them trying hard to capture some essence of her, her very literate style, her politics, and her POV.

And there is something interesting to all three of those areas: her writing style has a sort of baroque thousand-yard stare--

How do they see themselves, we wonder, these posse-men, Sheriff Clark’s volunteers, with their guns and sticks and helmets, nearly always squat, fair-faced, middle-aged delinquents and psychopaths?

--while her politics are exhausted--

The intellectual life in New York and the radical life of the Thirties are the worst possible preparation for Alabama at this stage of the Civil Rights movement.

--and her POV gets to mix disgust with annoyance at the downright cliche nature of it all--

Just as they use the Confederate flag, so they use themselves in the old pageantry. The tableau (it might have been thought up decades ago by one of the Hollywood Ten): the early morning fog is lifting and a little band of demonstrators stand at their post at the end of the dusty street.

All of which gives this piece an odd feeling for me: less out-and-out anger and more rage-fatigue. (Hey, I guess rage-fatigue predates the internet. Thanks for the discovery, LoA!)

Yet, though there's something kind of annoying about this writer parachuting in--for all that she is form Kentucky, whatever that means to the LoA headnote writer--there's also something sincerely angry and hopeful and pointed and beautiful here. For once, Hardwick says, the cliches seem to be working towards freedom. It's not radical people who are leading this change, but clean-cut, everyday folks--this is what revolution looks like: just good people, in glasses, and reasonable shoes. You'd need reasonable shoes for a march.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 265: Virgil Thomson, Taste in Music (#265)

Virgil Thomson, "Taste in Music" (1945) from Virgil Thomson: Music Chronicles 1940–1954:

Thomson was (I'm told by the LoA page) a composer and somewhat controversial music critic at the New York Herald Tribune.

This short (4-page) piece gives a taste of his writing style, which is heady--by which I mean, he sure does love to load up on clauses. There's a point to that, I think: it slows the reading down and makes one take time to absorb. The other way he does that is by some tiny differences that he draws attention to: the difference between a taste for and a taste in music; or how life need freedom of thought and responsibility of action (or something like that), but how intelligent criticism and consumption needs freedom of action and responsibility of thought.

For a dash of Thomson, try this, one of my favorite lines

You can always sell to the world of learning acquaintance with that which it does not know.

If that feels fussy--or fuzzy--to you, congrats! You've got some taste of Virgil Thomson. He says some interesting things about the difference between liking and admiration; and between professionals and laypeople. But... this seems of interest to people interested in the history of criticism, not to many other people.

(Also, I'll note that his comment about the "world of learning" is both true and false: people who are paid for knowing things (professors, computer programmers) may be very interested in knowing more things; but very often, they need to have some connection between the new knowledge and the old knowledge.)

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 261: W. C. Heinz, The Ghost of the Gridiron (#261)

W. C. Heinz, "The Ghost of the Gridiron" (1958) from The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz:

As someone who isn't very interested in football--not even with the current Deflategate going on, with the scandal about the Patriots using under-inflated balls for easy gripping--I still found this an interesting profile of Red Grange. Part of that is the easy conversationalism of W. C. Heinz.

For instance, check out that first page, that rocky shore upon which so many articles break. But here, Heinz has such a fluid control over the flow and the ultimate themes that he will hit on

1. I saw a film of Red when I was young.
2. I'm sure I saw lots of educational films.
3. I only remember Grange, looking huge.
4. Grange has no memory of that film, and finds the whole celebrity thing off-putting

It's pretty great in the way that Heinz makes himself a stand-in for all the spectators, allowing Grange to be great, but also allowing Grange to separate himself a bit from that greatness.

(It's the sort of control that allows Heinz to say in one chapter that lots of writers tried to figure out what made Grange so great, but never could--and then in the next, offer up some of the attributes that made him great.)

Which is kind of a big theme of the piece, and the other part that makes this essay so easy to read: Grange is an interesting guy, who talks about how what he did wasn't all that important. Sure, he popularized football and made a lot of money and stuff--but it's not like he had to work on it or could teach it or like he's a doctor or scientist. (After so many athletes thanking God for their win, it's nice to see a great athlete have some perspective on where his games fall in the greater scheme of things.) And it's not like he did it alone: he's the one who got attention, but he had blockers and a coach and a whole team behind him.

Which is why the end has a certain single melancholy turn, when we learn that Grange has let go of all his memorabilia--which isn't the melancholy turn. After all, he did all this great stuff, but it wasn't really all that much about him or reflective of his worth, so no wonder he doesn't care about a ball with his initials. But at the end, he lets a little glimmer of nostalgia come through with his desire for a shirt from the team. Or maybe it's not so melancholy, after all: after his greatness is gone, Grange doesn't want a reminder that he was once great, but that he was once part of something bigger than him.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 260: Fred Travis, "The Evicted" (#260)

Fred Travis, "The Evicted" (1961) from Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941–1973:

This is from 50+ years ago, but so much of it rings contemporary: black citizens, exercising their Constitutional right to vote, get blacklisted, evicted, and otherwise financially punished by the white people who are trying to keep things nice and white. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but it's just another example of a story that goes on today, with people saying that they have nothing against black people (several southern landowners here use other language than that), they're just trying to keep their own rights.

And the LoA headnote describes the outcome of this court case as bittersweet, but it mostly seems bitter: the white people who broke the law got off with a promise that they wouldn't, cross their heart, infringe on other people's rights again. And the black defendants got to exercise the vote, which should never have been put into jeopardy in the first place. (And might not have been if Hoover had been a little more pro-active with his FBI; instead, it took a DOJ investigator going out and doing fieldwork.)

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 253: Sheila Hibben, Eating American (#253) (Catching up)

Sheila Hibben, "Eating American" (1932) from American Food Writing: An Anthology With Classic Recipes:

Sheila Hibben was both food consultant to the Roosevelt White House (before the First Lady and Hibben parted ways) and a restaurant/food writer for the New Yorker. She was also (the LoA headnote tells us) an early proponent of local cuisine.

In this essay, "local" means American regional. As she says (paraphrased), we get all het up about the extinction of the grizzly but not about that other American classic: South Carolina Hoppin' John. She also takes aim at food corporatization, or at least at one radio skit advertising a non-bake pie.

It's a lot of fun to read this short and vivid essay, since Hibben really doesn't pull any punches or sugar-coat her feelings that, as Americans, we need to celebrate our American food. What a tragedy it would be to lose dumplings, she says, since this country was founded on and fueled by them.

As for the final page, a recipe for codfish cooked over salt pork, I don't really know what to say.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 251: Bryan Curtis, Friday Night Tykes (#251) (Catching up)

Bryan Curtis, "Friday Night Tykes" (2013) from Football: Great Writing about the National Sport:

I like to think of myself as an easy-going, live-and-let-live sort of person, but there are some substantial holes in that blanket statement. One of those holes is sports: I used to play and love soccer; I used to be a varsity fencer (foil); I loved playing ping pong at MakerSquare. (Check out my blog from then, which has a ping pong tag.)

And yet, reading Bryan Curtis's article about youth league football in Texas made my skin crawl. It's not that the youth league is committed to playing football, a sport that has a demonstrated negative effect on a statistically significant portion of pro athletes. (Although there is that.) It's not that the pretty conservative town/exurb of Allen raised taxes to build a large new stadium. (Although there is something there; would they have raised taxes to build something like a homeless or rape crisis shelter?)

It's really everything around the fetishization of football: the hero worship of little kids; the bleacher-parenting of adults pushing their kids--take this supplement, don't take no for an answer from the coach (or, presumably from anyone else); the toxic masculinity that makes parents upset to have a daughter (and then name her after a football coach).

See, here's the thing: I like competing in sports. I like pushing myself. I like playing in a team.

But when I'm not on the field, I get on with my life. Pushing kids into this world where this is the one thing that matters doesn't feel like the right way to build a sustainable society that values the right things.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 245: Truman Capote, On Richard Avedon (#245)

Truman Capote, On Richard Avedon (1959) from Art in America 1945–1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism:

If you're here, then there's a chance you'll know I went through a pretty hard-core photography phase. (I mean, if you're here, you're probably me in the future, trying to remember something I wrote in the past.) I never wanted to be a photographer, but I brought my (film) camera around just about everywhere. I had three nice lenses and a fair bit of dark-room experience, long before photoshop made photography a less chemical-filled experience. I also had access and flipped through a bunch of books on the great photographers and I loved to look at Steichen, Munkasci, and Man Ray's works.

And yet, four pages on Richard Avedon, and I feel my mind start to wander. Don't get me wrong: there is something thrilling about the master, the perfectionist, and their on-going quest for the perfect work of art. But that thrilling something isn't always enough to catch and keep one's interest, especially when there's not all that much else there besides "This guy is good at his job."

I'd much rather look at some of Avedon's work.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 242: Jerry Izenberg, A Whistle-Stop School with Big-Time Talent (#242)

Jerry Izenberg, "A Whistle-Stop School with Big-Time Talent" (1967) from Football: Great Writing about the National Sport:

It is college football season, which I know for two reasons: one, I'm living in a house in Austin with some people who are interested in college football; two, I'm living very close to the UT-Austin campus. So, yesterday I went out grocery shopping at 9--before it got too hot--and I passed a bunch of people who had set up in the stadium parking lot for some tail-gating. Think about that for a second: people set up to hang out at 9 for a game that starts at 6, knowing that it'll get up to 100 degrees around 2 or 3. That's dedication.

Which is one of the themes of today's LoA story, which is an article about how pro-football scouts discovered the talent pool available at all-black colleges, starting with Grambling State University--and starting because a series of men were dedicated to the work and to the people they served. First, there's Grambling's president, Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, who took a struggling college and made it into a successful institution; second, there's coach Eddie Robinson, who Jones brought on to coach football, and who believed in himself and in his players enough to make them work hard; third, there's the star running back; fourth, there's the black pro player who finds this news article on the college player and gives it to his scout; fifth, there's the preacher and coach who taught Eddie Robinson, etc.

(If you're wondering, women play an out-of-focus role here: they are the mothers who need to be convinced that Grambling is the place for their boys, they are Robinson's aunt who told Jones to go hire him, and so on. Their role is important, but not really what Izenberg is interested in.)

It's all set up almost perfectly for a sports movie: how the little (black) guys persevered and overcame the odds.

Underneath that, though, Izenberg is not shy about the racial angle and about what that means for these men. (Interesting to note that this story was written for but not run at the Saturday Evening Post.) When he notes that Jones and Robinson help their players with their contracts, he notes that many white players would go into those negotiations with a lawyer, but the black, low-income, and rural students of Grambling don't have that option. When he notes how much Robinson gets paid or how many people the stadium can hold--or even that Robinson, after his own graduation from college, could only find manual labor--Izenberg hits on the notion that America hasn't been the land of opportunity for all its children. Which, in 1967, might've been a radical tone for a sports column to take.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 241: George R. Gleig, Storming the Capital (#241)

George R. Gleig, "Storming the Capital" (1821) from The War of 1812: Writings from America’s War of Independence:

Last week, we read Dolley Madison's letters to her sister around the time of the British invasion of Washington, D.C.; this week, we get about the same time period from the POV of a triumphant British soldier.

First thing to note is that the young Gleig (18 at the time he joined the fight against Napoleon in 1813) is writing a memoir to be published; so if his writing seems a little more audience-friendly than Dolley's note to her sister, there's a reason for that.

(Still, quick lesson for writers: if you want to give a description--here, of the land--because it's necessary to understand some later issue, feel free to tell us that BEFORE you go on with your description. Gleig gives his reason after, which is no way to win friends.)

Second, while Dolley was writing from within the historical moment--and so limited in not knowing how that history would work out--Gleig is writing after the fact and writing a comprehensive note on the war. So, when he describes how strong the American position was, even before he says it, he knows the second part of that sentence: what a strong position those losers had. Similarly, when he's describing the destruction of Washington, D.C., it's interesting to note that the British army at that moment is split up into two groups--and he's never clear as to which group he personally was in.

Third and related, Gleig writes for posterity, so he explains pretty clearly how the British won the battle of Bladensburg even though they were outnumbered and the Americans were strongly positioned. (Answer: the Americans did a very poor job of soldiering. Though Gleig does take time to praise the American seamen who were on artillery duty.)

He also explains--with a mixture of righteousness and slight embarrassment--the aftermath of the battle: when a British detachment came into D.C. under flag of truce to negotiate the surrender of certain goods (plunder being an integral part of war at that time), they were fired upon, which is why the British decided to burn some government buildings. It's curious to me that I'd never heard about the envoys being fired on; and it's also curious how Gleig expresses some regret that the British army burned and destroyed the archives and some printing offices. Which, again, may be something he felt at the time, but is clearly something you might reconsider when looking at the battle as a historical event.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 240: Dolley Madison, “Dear sister, I must leave this house” (#240)

Dolley Madison, “Dear sister, I must leave this house” (1814) from The War of 1812: Writings from America’s War of Independence:

Today's entry is a letter from Dolley Madison to her sister before (and about) the British occupation of Washington during the War of 1812. It's interesting to read her letter next to the headnote that comments on how different versions of this story get told, another reminder that eyewitness accounts of history ain't always all their cracked up to be. (You'd think a private correspondence written soon after the fact might be trustworthy; but who knows Dolley's relationship with her sister? Do you tell your family the total truth? And let's add that this letter isn't even the original copy.)

The basic story is that the Americans didn't expect the British to take Washington. So Dolley Madison took some care to prepare for an evacuation--though it's clear that some of the evacuation was also done at last minute, when it was clear that the British were, ahem, coming. In her letter, she notes that she took papers of government, the valuables of the house (not her own private property), and a picture of George Washington (this famous one--which also has a weird story behind it). In the letter, they try to take the picture down, but end up having to break up the frame; in a later version, Dolley herself climbs up to cut the picture out of the frame; in a version written by a slave of theirs, Paul Jennings, Dolley only had time to take away the silver.

For me, there's a certain inevitability to the whole historical issue, something we've seen over and over: will we ever know what happened? Probably not. So what really interests me here is how Dolley represents her own feelings at the time. At one moment, she's declaring that she won't leave without her husband; at another, she's noting that a letter from him--in pencil!--gives her great anxiety about this war; and at another moment, she notes that a faithful servant called French John has a plan to blow up the White House and she can't make him understand why they can't take advantage of all the opportunities. Which seems the most interesting to me. Who is this French John? Why couldn't he understand? Is it because he's French (which I doubt) or because he's a black slave (which I strongly infer)? Is he, in fact, the same slave who later wrote his memoirs about his time in the White House?

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 238: Anonymous, No Room in the Cemetery (#238)

Anonymous, "No Room in the Cemetery" (1966) from Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959–1969:

Friends and neighbors of the 19-year-old youth, who was killed in Viet Nam May 19th when grenade fragments ripped into his body, crowded funeral rites at the Newton Church of Christ in Montgomery Sunday.

That's a hell of a sentence, and the whole of the paragraph. This short, anonymous article tends to move like this sentence, packing lots of information into spaces where you might not expect it. I can't help but think that the author threw in that bit about how Jimmy Williams died--and how visceral it was--to drive home the strangeness of this burial.

Because this piece may be in the book on Vietnam reportage, but this snapshot is of America with some deep racial problems. Jimmy was buried in Georgia because there was no room in the Alabama cemetery close to his family, a segregated cemetery.

It's curious to me that this story is written in a somewhat inflammatory style for a journalistic article. Against our current and terrible commitment to "balance" in the news, this article is pretty clear in taking a side, taking the controversial stand that a black soldier killed in an American war should be treated equally. I'm being a little facetious here--it's like when people today come out against slavery and the Holocaust--but I shouldn't be: back then, as this article makes clear, that was still an open issue. But what I'm really curious about here was the prospective audience and how they might've reacted to this piece, printed in the Baltimore Afro-American. The article's author is clearly upset by this, but how did everyone feel after reading the article? Did articles like this change people's minds or galvanize them into action and resistance?

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 236: James R. Gilmore [Edmund Kirke], Our Visit to Richmond (#236)

James R. Gilmore [Edmund Kirke], "Our Visit to Richmond" (1864) from The Civil War: The Final Year Told by Those Who Lived It:

Gilmore was one of two people who sent south to meet with the Confederates about a possible peace plan, a mission which was put in place (or expedited) by the fact that Horace Greeley was meeting in Canada with Confederates who had their own peace plan. In other words, the South looked like it was trying to make peace, which would make Lincoln look bad before the 1864 election; so this other mission went to make it clear that the South's--or at least Jefferson Davis's--idea of peace was nothing the north would want.

Again, it's always interesting, and sometimes a little sad, to read these stories from the past where we know how it all turns out. For instance, when Davis meets the two envoys and talks about how the Confederacy is not suffering and could still win--though is that (1) Davis not knowing the future or (2) Davis putting the best spin on things that he can?

There's also some material here that seems of its time: Gilmore paints Judah Benjamin as a slightly disreputable figure, with "a Jew face," and a noted lack of greatness; while Davis is clearly a great man who can sway his people. Though this is given a little tweak at the end when Gilmore seems to suggest that killing Davis would be one way to end the war.

Gilmore also has a little sense of humor, which is a nice bit of sugar to help this message go down: here's a joke about Georgia banks and mines and mosquitos--all of which bite--to soften you up for the real message of this piece, which is that the Union has to crush the Confederate government. It's a nice rhetorical move; and whether or not this piece had that much material effect on the war, we know how history turns out.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 235: Louisa May Alcott, How I Went Out to Service (#235)

Louisa May Alcott, "How I Went Out to Service" (1874) from Louisa May Alcott: Work, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Stories & Other Writings:

Louisa May Alcott is such an interesting person and writer. While we remember her today mostly for Little Women--and we remember Little Women primarily as a sentimental family story with some semi-typical romantic plots--she wrote a lot of other stuff, not all of which hits these sentimental notes.

(And really, is Little Women really unalloyed sentimentality? There's a lot of strangeness and darkness in that book. Though possibly nothing as weird/dark as her book Moods, from which I love to quote this climactic moment between two romantic rivals on a sinking ship (iirc): "In the black night with only Heaven to see them the men kissed tenderly as women, then hand in hand sprang out into the sea.")

"How I Went Out to Service" is much more in line with that dark and comic Alcott than the sentimental Alcott. It tells the story of how she, in real life, went out to "service" for a small and aging family: old father, nervous sister, reverend brother, and aged servant. That is, she was hired for light housework and to be a companion to the unwell sister of the house and to be one of the family. But it turns out that the situation is worse than that, since the reverend brother is a passive aggressive tyrant (who also, though its not explicit here, made the situation uncomfortable sexually).

Which is all pretty grim and uncomfortable; and though Alcott winds up the story with a silver lining (I learned a lot) and a moral (be nice to people), most of the story has that grimly comic and ridiculous tone, as the villainous reverend talks about how spiritual he is and then orders some heavy food in the same note. In some ways, his horribleness is the central idea here, and we only get a bit about how Alcott responded to it.

And one reason why I love Alcott is because she doesn't always hide the parts of herself that might seem less angelic or wonderful--the usual marks of 19th-century femininity. For instance, when she wants to leave this bad post, her mom

... advised me to be patient, to do the generous thing, and be sure I should not regret it in the end. I groaned, submitted, and did regret it all the days of my life.

Where most writers of the time might want to put a nice (Christian) gloss of working hard now and feeling better after, Louisa May Alcott the writer doesn't give in to the romantic and novelistic and sentimental ideas--the same ones that led Louisa May Alcott the young worker into this bad situation to begin with.