Sorry, Jesse, the Afterlife is Integrated

Like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Monroe and Eva Gabor, Senator Jesse Helms has died on the Fourth of July. I have to say that I was shocked and saddened to learn that he hadn't died years ago.

From Wikipedia:

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker noted in his memoirs that Helms had "the 'humorous habit'" of calling all black people "Fred".

A MeFi commenter compares this to the demeaning practice of calling all Pullman porters "George":

In 1916 the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters “George” (SPCSCPG) was founded by a wealthy Chicagoan, George William Dulany, Jr. Over the following two decades the society’s ranks swelled to over 30,000 people, all named George and including French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, and King George II of Greece. The SPCSCPG was partly a half-joking expression of the annoyance the Georges felt at sharing a nickname with the African-Americans who staffed the Pullman Company’s sleeping cars. However, there were those among the society’s Georges who saw and objected to the racism involved in the practice; in the antebellum South slaves were often called by their masters’ first names, and the Pullman Porters were viewed as something like the slaves of George Pullman. [Link]

Me, I call all the bigots I meet "A**hole."

You Must Be Wrecked to Join

Unique among American veterans organizations is La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux—The Forty & Eight. The name dates to World War I, when American servicemen were transported to French battlefields in cramped and often odorous boxcars.

Each French boxcar was stenciled with a “40/8”, denoting its capacity to hold either forty men or eight horses. This ignominious and uncomfortable mode of transportation was familiar to all who traveled from the coast to the trenches; a common small misery among American soldiers who thereafter found “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the deeper service, sacrifice and unspoken horrors of war that truly bind those who have borne the battle.

Candidates for membership are called Prisonniers de Guerre (Prisoners of War). Once "wrecked" (initiated), they become Voyageurs Militaire (military travelers). The head of the organization is the Chef de Chemin de Fer (President of the Railroad).

They Didn't Have a Ticket to Ride

Tom Kemp at Genealogy Library News has gathered some stories of people born on trains. Here are some famous, and almost famous, people who came aboard between stations:

• Rudolf Nureyev was born somewhere on the Siberian Railway, as was fellow dancer Tamara Toumanova.
• Professional bowler June Courington came into the world on a train carrying her father's baseball team on a barnstorming tour through the South.
• Marlon Brando's second wife, Maria "Movita" Castaneda, was born aboard a train in Arizona.
• Maria von Trapp of Sound of Music fame was born on a train en route to Vienna.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew was born on a train in the Panama Canal Zone. He was named for Dr. Rodney Cline, a passenger in the whites-only section who assisted in the delivery.

[Hat tip: Genealogy Blog]

Two Days to Change the Gauge

In 1871, railroad tracks in the United States had 23 different gauges, ranging from three to six feet. Railroads in the South used a standard gauge of five feet—three inches wider than the standard adopted by a convention in 1886. So, on May 31st and June 1st of 1886, 11,000 miles of tracks were nudged a little closer together.

A few days before May 31, all roads began clearing cars from their lines and reducing the gauge of all areas of track that could be freed of cars and engines.

Finally, in the early morning hours of May 31, the concentrated work began. Men worked in crews of various sizes charged with various goa[l]s—some given specific mileages to cover, others under instructions to begin at a specified point and work in a specified direction until they met another crew working toward them.

In less than three days, standard-gauge trains were serving the South. "The work was done economically," an article in the Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies pointed out, "and so quietly that the public hardly realized it was in progress. To the casual observer it was an every-day transaction." [Link, via MetaFilter]

This reminds me of another great moment in standardization, also prompted by the railroads: November 18, 1883, The Day of Two Noons.

Train Truthiness vs. Train Truth

From The Kansas City (Mo.) Star of Jan. 1, 2006:

History of Cape's first train is mostly myth

SCOTT MOYERS
Southeast Missourian

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Cape Girardeau's first train rolled into town in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 125 years ago to much fanfare boisterous bands, cheering crowds and a huge celebration.

At least that's the way Louis Houck, the man who had the railroad built, told the story for years.

Except that's not exactly the way it happened.

William Penny, the train's chief engineer that night, summed it up years later with a less triumphant version.

He said there were no people in sight, the saloons were all closed and there certainly was no band or cheering crowds.

In fact, the train would operate only in reverse, so it had to come into town backward, Rhodes said.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree