The Athenaeum

Nautical Archaeology: The Wreck Of The Evelyn (Norcom)

Using LIDAR (light detection and ranging), INA researchers were able to obtain more than 160 million data points on the 1908 sternwheeler Evelyn.

 

The Evelyn (renamed Norcom) was originally a U.S. registered, wooden-hulled stern wheel steamboat built at St. Michael, Alaska in 1908 by Bratnobar for the Upper Tanana Trading Company. Her hull measured 39.6 meters by 8.7 meters with a depth of 1.28 meters. The vessel was powered by two horizontal, high pressure cylinders. At some point the ship was sold to the Northern Navigation Company- it wrecked in the Tanana River. Her machinery was removed & taken to St. Michael where a new hull was built.  She was converted to Canadian registry in 1913, & then owned by the British Yukon Navigation Co. in 1919. She was beached on Shipyard Island & her engines installed in the Steamer Keno in 1922. Registration was  cancelled in 1931.

The ship now lies on blocks at a once important (now abandoned) shipyard & wintering area between Dawson City & Whitehorse, at the base of the Thirty Mile Section of the Yukon River. One boiler & smokestack remain- the rest of the machinery has been removed. The paddlewheel axle, flanges, & crank lie near the ship. While the upper superstructure is largely collapsed, the hull & freight deck are intact. The three tiller-rudder assemblies are complete- they still work.

The LIDAR Survey

The mission of the Yukon River Survey was to locate/document historic Yukon River shipwrecks & hulls. Canada's Yukon Territories contains more accessible early sternwheelers than anywhere else in North America. Approximately 290 sternwheelers once plied the Yukon River, of which 110 were built in 1898 in response to the Klondike Gold Rush. Unlike broken fragments found in the Mississippi or Columbia River systems, the Yukon's steamer wrecks are intact to the point you can walk their decks, swing their tillers, watch their rudders turn. A July 2007 project marked the beginning of detailed documentation in the Yukon. In the first phase, an INA team & EPICSCAN staff spent five days at Shipyard Island, 60 km from the nearest road, & LIDAR-surveyed the 39.6 meter 1908 wooden-hulled sternwheeler Evelyn. The result was a data "cloud" of millions of highly accurate survey shots inside & outside of the vessel, such that features down to 3 mm in width were recorded. The 3-D model shows all timbers & planking.  It can be cross-sectioned as required.

The image quality of the animation below has been reduced for online viewing.

Reduction was done by EPICSCAN:

 

(courtesy of inadiscover.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Undated photograph of the Evelyn (Norcom)

 

 

-Maureen Lang

 

 

Cajun Mardi Gras

Tee Mamou Mardi Gras- print from a colored pencil sketch by Floyd Sonnier

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbIAi0j5kqs

(The youtube is a musical tribute by Gus Gravot to rural Mardis Gras in French Louisiana.  The photos are of the communities of LeJeune Cove, T-Mamou, Iota, Egan, Church Point, Big Mamou, Eunice, Pointe Noire, and Marais Bouleur.)

Traditional Cajun Mardi Gras Costumes

La Vieille Chanson de Mardi Gras- Les Mardi Gras vient de tout partout, tout le tour du moyeu. Vient une fois par an pour demander la charité. Une vieille patate, une patate et des gratons. Les Mardi Gras vient de tout partout, tout le tour du moyeu. Vient une par an pour demander la charité. Une vieille patate, une patate et des gratons. Capitaine, capitaine voyage ton flag, tout le tour du moyeu. Une fois par an pour demander la charité. Et des patates, des patates et des gratons. Les Mardi Gras vient de l’Angleterre, tout le tour du moyeu. Vient une fois par an pour demander la charité. Une vieille patate, une patate et des gratons.   Shirley Poirier Bolton's Unity Gumbo is pictured below.  Recipe available upon request... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2B1DlaE1AU   Have a lovely time on Fat Tuesday, everyone!   -Maureen Lang

Veterans Day 2012

(originally published here on 11/11/10)

Dreamers    

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,

Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.   

In the great hour of destiny they stand,

Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.   

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win   

Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin

They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,

And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,   

Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,

And mocked by hopeless longing to regain   

Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,

And going to the office in the train.

-Siegfried Sassoon, 1918

         

         

                                

Joseph Ambrose, an 86-year-old World War I veteran, attends the dedication day parade for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982. He is holding the flag that covered the casket of his son, who was killed in the Korean War.

Photo credit: U.S. Census Bureau.

 

 -Maureen Lang

A Bit of Halloween History, Poetry, Music, & Ephemera

(Originally published here on 10/17/09)

Halloween is commonly thought to have pagan origins, even though its etymology is Christian.  Halloween is, quite literally, the popular derivative of All Hallow Even, or the eve of All Saints’ Day (1 November).  Taken together with All Souls’ Day, which falls on 2 November, it is a time

       

assigned in the Christian calendar for honoring the saints and the newly departed.  In past centuries, it was also the occasion for praying for souls in purgatory.  Yet because Halloween is popularly associated with the supernatural, it is often believed to have strong pagan roots that were never eliminated by the holiday’s subsequent Christianization. 

Some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia.  More typically, it has been linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain or Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in) meaning summer’s end.  

(excerpt from Halloween- From Pagan Ritual to Party Night by Nicholas Rogers)

 

      

 

All Souls by Edith Wharton (published in Scribner’s Magazine 1909)

A thin moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

And now they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!"
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!--
"Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed--
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart--
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."

And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
"One more, one more, ere we go their way"?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .

       

           

Classics From The Crypt- A Halloween Play List:

Night on Bald Mountain- Mussorgsky (superb 1940 Disney animated version)

Danse Macabre- Saint-Saens

Mephisto Waltz- Liszt

The Sorcerer's Apprentice- Dukas (also from Disney's Fantasia)

Funeral March of a Marionette- Gounod (interesting stop-motion playlet)

The Witches' Ride from Hansel & Gretel- Humperdinck

Have a Happy Halloween, everyone!

-Maureen Lang

 

Horst Faas VN pictures

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2012/05/15/photographer-collection-horst-faas-vietnam/5689/#more-5689

 

pl

What will befall Carter's Grove?

"Before the house, the land was the site of Martin’s Hundred plantation and Wolstenholme Towne, an ill-fated English settlement founded in 1620, just a few years after the establishment of Jamestown five miles upriver. Wolstenholme was destroyed during a native Powhatan massacre of English settlers in 1622.

But Carter’s Grove had better luck. For 260 years, it steadfastly survived looting, flood, hurricane, earthquake, a Hollywood crew filming a now-forgotten Cary Grant movie, and a marauding Revolutionary War colonel who billeted his Redcoats there and, legend has it, rode a horse up the main staircase, hacking the grand railing with his sword along the way. A 1928 renovation diminished the Palladian perfection of its exterior, but still, it endured.

Carter’s Grove may have finally met its ruin, however, in the unlikely form of Halsey Minor, a brash 40-something technology investor living in San Francisco."  Washpost

----------------------------------------------------------

My.  My.  It appears that some FFV families have their own share of "brash irresponsible punks."

I have visited Carter's Grove a couple of times, always a little unwillingly, but visitors want to go to Colonial Williamsburg and Carter's Grove used to be part of the show.

The last time was in the '80s.  I had some French friends in tow.  It was a week day and a glorious Virginia display of fine weather was underway.  I had gotten tired of the damned syllabub and other treacle in Williamsburg itself.  At Carter's Grove the historical enactors both in the house and in the painstakingly created slave quarter were relentless.  Their mission, whether dictated or self assigned, was clearly to revile Carter Burwell, the Carters in general and anyone who had ever lived in the house as other than a servant.  In the house, one wizened creature announced himself to be a Ph. D. in history from a private university of note in the Deep North.  He took our group around the house in a constant enthusiasm for the business of mocking the Carters, the history of the house and particularly the lady whose husband bought the place in 1928 so that she could play the role in society that she thought befit her.  To that end she spent vast amounts of her Northern businessman's money on a restoration that made the place comfortable and made it look good.  She lived there for about 35 years and was evidently an adornment to the neighborhood and a pillar of local charity, but to this fellow she was just another phantom from the "Lost Cause."

The "slave quarter" was similarly manned and womaned with a variety of Black Studies and history doctors costumed as 18th Century agricultural workers.  They were engaged in whittling, making soap, stirring pots of smoking liquids, etc.   The group of visitors I was following with my puzzled French guests was a tour group from Georgia.  Some were white, some were black.  The assigned woman "instructor" got underway in her task of convincing us that Carter's Grove had been a premonition of 20th Century European horrors unnamed.  The audience grew increasingly restive under instruction and sensing their inattention she told us that the slaves had been forced to eat hominy, field greens and fat back.  There was no reaction and she asked "how many of you would want to eat hominy?"  All the hands went up, white and black, including mine but not the French, who knew not.  Frustrated, she pressed them to know if that was the truth.  The response was that a number of people offered recipes for these ingredients.  She was unhappy.  I asked if any of the re-enactors were from the South.  There were none.

Am I surprised that Colonial Williamsburg sold Carter's Grove to this spoiled wretch?  No.  At the time, I wote a long note to the adminstration in which I gave my view that perhaps SOME FEW people friendly to Carter's Grove might be included in the staff.

The reply told me that their interpretation was one that they were going to stay with. 

Attendance fell off?  My. My.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/the-sorry-fate-of-a-tech-pioneer-halsey-minor-and-historic-virginia-estate-carters-grove/2012/05/30/gJQAwdJG4U_story_4.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter%27s_Grove

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin%27s_Hundred

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Williamsburg

 

Memorial Day 2012: "This Story Shall The Good Man Teach His Son"

Re-posted from 2009 for this Memorial Day:

"This Story Shall The Good Man Teach His Son" 

  

  

(Enter the KING)

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here 
    But one ten thousand of those men in England 
    That do no work to-day! 
  
KING. What's he that wishes so? 
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; 
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow 
    To do our country loss; and if to live, 
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour. 
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, 
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; 
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear; 
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires. 
    But if it be a sin to covet honour, 
    I am the most offending soul alive. 
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. 
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour 
    As one man more methinks would share from me 
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! 
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse; 
    We would not die in that man's company 
    That fears his fellowship to die with us. 
    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. 
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, 
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 
    He that shall live this day, and see old age, 
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' 
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' 
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, 
    But he'll remember, with advantages, 
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, 
    Familiar in his mouth as household words- 
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- 
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. 
    This story shall the good man teach his son; 
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 
    From this day to the ending of the world, 
    But we in it shall be remembered- 
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 
    This day shall gentle his condition; 
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed 
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Henry V | Act IV, Scene 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM

 

-Maureen Lang

 

Archaeology News- February/March 2012

ALASKA: In a pit house dating to around A.D. 1200, archaeologists uncovered a cast-bronze buckle that appears to be East Asian in origin and older than the house in which it was found. The oldest known cast bronze in Alaska, the artifact may have been part of a horse fitting, perhaps traded in from as far away as Manchuria. It was probably used as a charm or noisemaker by a local Inupiat shaman.  (Courtesy Jeremy Foin, University of California, Davis) TEXAS: The last issue of Archaeology detailed sites at risk (Top Ten Discoveries of 2011"), including those exposed by the drought in Texas. In addition to wrecks and human remains, receding waterlines revealed a mysterious 4-foot aluminum sphere. NASA officials confirmed that it was a fuel-cell tank from the space shuttle Columbia, which was destroyed during reentry in 2003. Along with other remains from the shuttle, it can teach us something about the effects of high-speed atmospheric reentry.  (Courtesy Nacogdoches, Texas, Police Department) GRENADA: People on the tiny island of Carriacou may have feasted on animals imported from South America over 1,000 years ago. Remains of South American animals, including piglike peccaries, armadillos, and guinea pigs—none of which are native to the island today—were excavated from prehistoric middens. The find suggests regular contact between natives and people on other islands and the mainland, but because the bones are scarce, archaeologists think only a select, high-status few got to eat these exotic treats.  (Wikimedia Commons) ENGLAND: Using stable isotope analysis, researchers examined remains of infants from the crypt at Christ Church in Spitalfields, London, to study breastfeeding in the 18th and 19th centuries. They found that prolonged breastfeeding was common in the 19th century among this relatively well-off population, which does not necessarily agree with the idea that more women were entering the workforce at the time as a result of industrialization. The breastfeeding mothers of these infants may have had the means to hire wet nurses—or they may have been homebound due to an economic downturn.  (Wikimedia Commons) SWITZERLAND: High-end Swiss watchmaker Hublot has created a wrist-mounted version of the Antikythera Mechanism, the mysterious 2,000-yearold astronomical machine recovered from a Greek shipwreck in 1901. It contains 495 precision elements in a 3x4-centimeter package. The manufacturers claim that it is the first watch inspired by an archaeological finding. Would a wrist-mounted sundial count?  (Courtesy Hublot)

CHINA: A cracked skull may be the oldest known evidence of interpersonal aggression among modern humans. A CT scan of the skull, which is around 130,000 years old and known as Maba Man, revealed evidence of severe blunt force trauma, possibly from a clubbing. Remodeling of the bone around the injury, however, shows that he survived the blow and possibly was well cared for after his injury—for months or even years.  (Courtesy Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Science) JAPAN: An excavation at a train yard in Dazaifu has revealed the remains of two large, prestigious buildings, as well as expensive eating utensils and pottery. The finds, including tin and copper alloy spoons, Chinese and Korean pots, and Nara tricolored ware (the finest tableware in Japan at the time), date to the 8th and 9th centuries. The assemblage appears to identify the site as a diplomatic facility, mentioned in ancient documents, that housed and fed envoys from China and Korea.  (Courtesy Nobumasa Inoue, Board of Education of Dazaifu, Japan) PAKISTAN: 4,500-year-old Indus city of Harappa is thought to have been relatively peaceful. A new analysis of human remains excavated at the site found that while the overall level of violence in the city was on the low side for a statelevel society, it was not evenly distributed. Some communities endured much higher levels of trauma, inflicted on women in particular, suggesting a potentially brutal social hierarchy.  (Images of Asia) PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The seafaring Lapita, who settled the South Pacific more than 3,000 years ago, were not thought to have lived in Papua New Guinea. Findings from a new dig there have overturned that idea. The remains of several villages, including stone tools, shell ornaments, and thousands of pottery fragments have been discovered. The site is both unusually deep—including pre- and post-Lapita sequences—and perhaps the largest Lapita landscape yet discovered. According to researchers, the site opens a whole new chapter in Pacific history.  (Courtesy Steve Mortin, Monash University) OMAN: It's often thought that modern humans emerged from Africa through the Arabian Peninsula by hugging its shores, which may have protected them from swings in climate. However, 100,000-year-old stone tools found in the Dhofar Mountains suggest that some people traveled over the now arid—though once wet—interior. The find adds another layer of complexity and understanding to the path that modern humans took on their way around the world.  (Courtesy Jeffrey Rose, University of Birmingham)

(courtesy of www.archaeology.org)

-Maureen Lang

Archaeology News- January 2012

Starting in 2012, at the end of each month, I will be posting world archaeology news here at The Athenaeum.  Also plan to participate in digs on the West Coast of CA & will periodically post journal entries from that as well.

-Maureen Lang

 

CALIFORNIA: Over 7,500 years, the skulls of the Chumash people and those of their ancestors gradually shrank. Scientists think that these people, who inhabited coastal California for over 10,000 years, might have suffered a long-term health decline and growth impairment from exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common pollutants found in oil and coal. The Chumash had extensive and increasing exposure to PAHs through tar, which they used to seal baskets and canoes, applied to the body as medicine, and even chewed like gum.  (Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History) NEW YORK:During demolition at what was once Bellevue Hospital Medical College, a 15-pound metal box, sealed on November 14, 1897, was discovered. Among student registries and notebooks found in the time capsule was a vial containing spores of Clostridium perfringens, bacteria that live in the intestine. Bacteriologist Edward Dunham included them so future generations could check if they were still viable. They weren't, but doctors today might be able to observe how bacteria have changed since the introduction of antibiotics in the late 1920s.  (Courtesy New York University Langone Medical Center) LOUISIANA: In the time before bridges made the bayou more accessible, small rafts and cable ferries were the only path into the swamps and between plantations. Now, in a few tarred wooden platforms and some rusted gearwork, a river guide might have located the remains of Vester's Crossing, one of the last cable ferries—a boat pulled back and forth via cable—in the area. The site may become part of a heritage paddle trail.  (Courtesy Web Helbling, Bastrop Daily Enterprise) NORWAY: As glaciers recede, hundreds of artifacts are discovered each year. One of the latest finds was a men's tunic or coat that emerged from a glacier in Breheimen National Park. Dating to the 4th century A.D., the wool garment—made with an advanced technique called diamond twill—is one of very few known from this period in Europe. Without close attention, many of the artifacts that emerge from melting ice will be lost—decomposed or washed away—before they can be studied.  (Vivian Wangen, Museum of Cultural History, UiO) SPACE: One of the next frontiers for archaeology is out of this world. Scientists in England are attempting to contact Prospero, a satellite launched in 1971, to see how its circuits have held up. First, they have had to rummage for the satellite's communications codes and build custom equipment, and now they are attempting to make contact by sending a simple signal. NASA has also begun drafting guidelines to protect three dozen lunar sites, including the Apollo 11 and 17 landing sites. The guidelines could include ground-level boundaries and no-fly zones—for when private spaceships (and even tourists) start arriving.  (NASA/Wikimedia Commons)

AUSTRALIA: Hanged for the murder of three policemen 131 years ago, Ned Kelly—the country's most notorious bushranger and outlaw—is considered both folk hero and killer. He robbed banks, wore homemade armor to his final confrontation with police, and reflected the tension between poor Irish settlers and the wealthy Anglo elite. Following his execution, Kelly was buried in a mass grave. Forensic scientists, ending decades of speculation, have identified his bones by comparing DNA with a descendant's. But his skull, perhaps separated as a souvenir, remains at large.  (Damien Plemming, The Age, Courtesy Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine) TURKEY: On the Gallipoli battlefield of World War I, where Allied armies, including soldiers from Australia and New Zealand called Anzacs, were defeated by Ottoman forces, archaeological surveys have revealed some of the battlefield conditions, which historical sources state were quite dreadful. In particular, it appears the Anzacs were eating canned or stale food, while the Turkish forces had frontline kitchens, suggesting they had access to hot meals. Other artifacts found include water bottles with bullet holes in them, fragments of barbed wire, and expended ammunition.  (Courtesy Antonio Sagona, University of Melbourne) KENYA: From the banks of Lake Turkana archaeologists have excavated what they believe are the oldest "advanced" stone tools yet discovered. At 1.78 million years old, the handaxes are the oldest known examples of Acheulean tools, probably made by Homo erectus, and predate other examples by 300,000 years. Compared with older, cruder stone tools, the handaxes are heavier and have sharp edges for butchering, scraping, and smashing. The find raises interesting questions about which early humans first left Africa and what tool technologies they took with them.  (Courtesy Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, France) EGYPT: An analysis of 15 mummy hair samples shows just how important styling was more than 2,000 years ago. To understand how the complex hairdos were achieved and maintained after death, scientists studied coatings on the hair with electron microscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. They found that the ancient Egyptians used a kind of fatty hair gel to keep their hair coiffed in both life and the afterlife. The absence of embalming materials in the hair suggests that it was covered during mummification.  (A. Aufderheide, Courtesy Natalie McCreesh, University of Manchester) EL SALVADOR:Under 17 feet of volcanic ash at the ancient Maya city of Ceren, archaeologists have discovered a raised road called a sacbe. Usually these roads, connecting temples, plazas, or towns, were lined with stone, but this one, which probably led to two ceremonial buildings nearby, was not. In the absence of the stones, the rapid burial by the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano helped keep it intact for identification.  (Courtesy Payson Sheets, University of Colorado)

www.archaeology.org/1201/world/clostridium_gallipoli_acheulean_tools_nasa_prospero.html

Veterans Day- 2011

During the First World War, Ernest Hemingway volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. In June 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire. "Then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red," he recalled in a letter home.

Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored.

Hemingway in Italy, 1918.

Commenting on this experience years later in Men at War, Hemingway wrote: "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it."

Recuperating for six months in a Milan hospital, Hemingway fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, an American Red Cross nurse. At war's end, he returned to his home in Oak Park, Illinois, a different man. His experience of travel, combat, and love had broadened his outlook. Yet while his war experience had changed him dramatically, the town he returned to remained very much the same.

Two short stories (written years later) offer insights into his homecoming and his understanding of the dilemmas of the returned war veteran. In "Soldier's Home" Howard Krebs returns home from Europe later than many of his peers. Having missed the victory parades, he is unable to reconnect with those he left behind—especially his mother, who cannot understand how her son has been changed by the war.

"Hemingway's great war work deals with aftermath," stated author Tobias Wolff at the Hemingway centennial celebration. "It deals with what happens to the soul in war and how people deal with that afterward. The problem that Hemingway set for himself in stories like 'Soldier's Home' is the difficulty of telling the truth about what one has been through. He knew about his own difficulty in doing that."

After living for months with his parents, during which time he learned from Agnes that she had fallen in love with another man, he decamped with two friends to his family's Michigan summer cottage, where he had learned to hunt and fish as a young boy. The trip would be the genesis of Big Two-Hearted River—a story that follows one of Hemingway's best known fictional characters, Nick Adams, recently returned from war, on a fishing trip in northern Michigan.

Hemingway in Oak Park IL, 1919.

In the story, Hemingway never actually mentions the war and the injuries Nick has sustained in it—they simply loom below the surface. In this and other stories in his first major collection, In Our Time, Hemingway does more than advance a narrative; he also debuts a new style of writing fiction.

"The way we write about war or even think about war was affected fundamentally by Hemingway," stated Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., another speaker at the Hemingway centennial. In the early 1920s, in reaction to their experience of world war, Hemingway and other modernists lost faith in the central institutions of Western civilization. One of those institutions was literature itself. Nineteenth-century novelists were prone to a florid and elaborate style of writing. Hemingway, using a distinctly American vernacular, created a new style of fiction "in which meaning is established through dialogue, through action, and silences—a fiction in which nothing crucial—or at least very little—is stated explicitly."

"Hemingway was at the crest of a wave of modernists," noted fellow centennial panelist and book critic Gail Caldwell, "that were rebelling against the excesses and hypocrisy of Victorian prose. The First World War is the watershed event that changes world literature as well as how Hemingway responded to it."

(Courtesy of the National Archives)

 

 

-Maureen Lang