Hometown Money

I've always had a love of the past and one of my hobbies when I was younger was to collect coins.  Naturally, I didn't have enough money to collect anything expensive, so it was mostly pennies and some nickels.  Anything much larger was beyond my means.  Although I never bought anything from the coin shops, I did enjoy looking around and seeing all the items on display, so from those visits I have a little familiarity with currency also.

That's why it came as a surprise to me when I was doing an Internet search and I ran across reference to National Bank Notes.  This was American currency issued by local banks with a federal charter.  From 1863 to 1935, local banks could deposit bonds in the US Treasury and then they could issue currency up to 90% of the value of the bonds.  The banknotes were backed by the United States Government and often resembled United States Notes and later Federal Reserve Notes.

The cool thing about these National Bank Notes however, is that the name of the local bank is prominently displayed, meaning that your local town name was found on national currency.  I quickly did a look and found that a bank in my hometown of San Luis Obispo, California was one of the towns issuing currency.

$10 San Luis Obispo, California, National Bank Note

Since the program continued all the way until 1935, the later smaller notes closely resemble the money we still have in circulation today.

$10 Paso Robles, California, National Bank Note

The $10 bill above is from the town where I teach which at the time it was issued probably had less than 3,000 people!

Holland vs. Netherlands

I'm not always tracking visitors to this site, but when I do, I'm always a little surprised by the number of Dutch visitors we have.  Perhaps it's my last name (Maas), or maybe it's something else entirely, but either way, I'm always happy to have visitors from the Netherlands.  As I've noticed such a strong interest from that part of the world, tidbits of news pertaining to that nation now more frequently catch my eye.

That's why today, I'd like to share with you, the following video, produced by Grey Explains, that a fellow teacher recently shared with me.  It explains the difference between Holland and the Netherlands (terms that most here in the United States use interchangeably).

A quick warning though, I get the feeling that the producer, while trying to explain things, also likes a small amount of joy in making things seem a little more complicated than they really are by talking fast and quickly displaying pictures, so feel free to pause the video or rewind a time or two.

Also, for those who are interested, I would from time-to-time, show an earlier video he produced explaining the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom (a subject that more of my students have always had difficulty understanding).  A second warning: this one moves more quickly than the Dutch one:

Stand By Me

Many, if not most of you, are probably aware of the song from the 1960s, "Stand By Me," sung by Ben E. King.

There's an interesting viral video cover of the song from a music documentary that's been making the rounds for the last few years.  If you haven't seen it yet, you'll want to check it out...

One of the things that I think is most interesting about early rock music was its strong gospel roots with many of the biggest names getting their musical upbringing by singing in church.

Ben E. King

Ben E. King was no different, being a regular in his church choir as a boy.  Early on, King was picked up as a replacement member of the second iteration of the musical group, The Drifters.  King eventually started a solo career and was recording the song "Spanish Harlem" when the producers asked if he had any other songs.  King played the tune "Stand By Me" which he took from the spiritual "Oh Lord, Stand By Me."

Included in King's version were several additional lines from the Bible:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, thought the earth be removed,

and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

Psalm 46:1-2

I heard a radio interview the other day where someone was talking about the state of Christian music in the United States.  He said that he found it sad that many of the Christian songs now are just romantic love songs with the girl replaced by God.  I partly agree, but if you study music history, you'll find that it has happened the other way too.

If you haven't heard the original "Stand By Me" here it is too:

If We Could Send a Man to the Moon, Why Couldn't We Fake It?

When I was younger, I can't tell you the number of times someone started a gripe with the words, "If we could send a man to the moon, why can't we (insert gripe here)..."

I haven't heard that saying for quite some time now, but a few years ago, there were a few people who began claiming that we never even went to the Moon, but rather our government faked the whole thing to freak out the Russians with our superior technology.

I'm not going to repeat the claims of the "Moon Landing Hoaxers" or the hoax debunkers here, you can do a quick search and see what they're saying, but a friend sent me a link to this creative video where a photographic expert explores the issue from a unique perspective.  His basic premise is, we probably had the technology to go to the moon in 1969, but we certainly didn't have the technology to fake it.

Anyway, it's worth a watch.  I certainly enjoyed it.

Academic Schools and their Strange College Mascots

I've never really been in the habit of watching sports on television.  The closest major league team to our home is about a four hour drive and none of the local events are televised.  My wife, however, is from Wisconsin.  That state is crazy for their football and University of Wisconsin was playing Stanford in the Rose Bowl yesterday, so naturally my wife watched a few minutes of the game.  One of her first questions was, "If Stanford's mascot is a cardinal, why do they have a tree dancing around on the sidelines?"

The unofficial Stanford mascot – The Stanford Tree

So where did the tree come from?  Like many academic schools, Stanford has had trouble coming up with a good mascot.  Getting in the game late, it adopted the "Indian" as its mascot in 1930.  At first the school had a dignified looking Indian chief with a headdress, but as so often as these things go, they later adopted a more comical looking brave dubbed "Prince Lightfoot."

Old Stanford Mascot

Of course real American Indians were offended by the ignoble depiction and in 1972 were able to convince the school administration to drop the mascot.  However, instead of adopting a new mascot, the administration declared that the color "Cardinal" (singular) would be the new nickname of all the athletic teams and that El Palo Alto, the famous landmark tree, would replace the Indian on the helmets.  Not having a mascot and realizing that a color would be difficult to represent, some enterprising members of the band began dressing up in a makeshift tree costume.  The Tree has now become a regular fixture, testament to political administrators inability to pick good mascots.

John Harvard, mascot of Harvard University

Other more academic schools seem to have the same problem.  Take Harvard for example.  Their official administratively driven mascot is "John Harvard," a Puritan minister who came to America in 1637 and died the next year, leaving an endowment for a university.  Of course, John Harvard doesn't make for a very good mascot either as his surname is already the name of their university.  What would they all themselves, "The Harvard John Harvards?"  So instead, the popular name of their team is just Crimson for the school color.  Crimson, unlike cardinal is not regularly confused for a bird.  Although, when I was searching for images of John Harvard the mascot, I quickly realized that even a Harvard education cannot keep ivy leaguers from confusing Puritans and Pilgrims (for the record, John Harvard was a Puritan).

Perhaps it is not a characteristic of academic schools to know what to do with athletics.  When I was living in Chicago, I attended a Northwestern football game.  They were so used to losing that the crowd would break into the following chant after the game:

That's alright!  That's okay!  You're gonna work for us someday!

Northwestern was for years the odd academic school in the Big Ten Conference, having joined in 1896.  Then in 1995, they suddenly had a huge year, becoming conference champions for the first time since 1936.  The other schools were so used to a weak Northwestern Football team, they would purposely schedule their Homecoming game against that poor school (Northwestern won three homecoming games in a row in 1995).

One of the reasons I think this is all so funny is that one of the undergraduate colleges I attended, Moody Bible Institute, has the "Archers" as their team mascot.  Some of my classmates were eager to go support the athletic teams, not knowing what our mascot was, one of them asked one of the school administrators what  our mascot was.  He replied, "We are the Moody Archers."  He then asked if we had a mascot and was told, "Why yes, it's on our seal."

That's right, the mascot was not a bowman, but an architectural element!

For fun, Smedly and Nate made a large cardboard arch (one person on each side of the arch) and trotted out on the courts to rouse the crowds.  I can tell you by watching them that a two man mascot is harder to pilot than a single person mascot.  And of course, it didn't have a "fight song," but they did sing the school hymn, "The Christian Fellowship Song," on a regular basis, I'll reprint it below for your enjoyment:

Often only the fourth stanza was sung at school events.

Women's Suffrage - More Recent Than You Think

Being a history teacher, my head is filled with all kinds of useless knowledge.  A couple days ago, my fellow teachers and I were having a talk after school, when the subject of suffrage came up.  I mentioned that Switzerland was one of the last countries to grant women the vote and said that I thought it was 1976.  Samantha said it was 1971 and looked it up.  She was right and I was wrong.

Even though I already had this fuzzy fact in my head (picturing suffragettes as older ladies with large hats and ankle length dresses in our country), I knew Switzerland was late to the game.  After reading a little bit last night, I was even more surprised to uncover a few additional facts.

 

Two Swiss Anti-Suffrage Posters from the late 1950s

(left translation, "The mother works in politics! NO women's suffrage & voting)

(right translation, "Do you want those women? No women voting")

Although Switzerland held several national votes to grant women's suffrage, each was denied until 1971, but Switzerland is a confederation so each canton could grant suffrage and the first women voted at the local level in 1959.  At the time of the 1971 vote, the majority of cantons still denied votes to women.  Since that time, all but one had approved votes for women until 1990.  Appenzell Innerrhoden was the lone holdout, rejecting it in 1973, 1982, and 1990.  Following the 1990 vote, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court forced the canton to allow it, thereby making Switzerland the last country in Europe to allow full suffrage at all levels for women (the last to allow it nationally was tiny Lichtenstein in 1984).

So how could this small Swiss canton continue to reject votes for women despite overwhelming external pressure to adopt universal suffrage?  My guess is that it was the massive internal pressure to keep things the way they were.

Most of the worst case scenarios presented by the anti-sufferage movement had typically centered around the notion that if women were to get involved in politics, they would abandon domestic life or somehow reverse the social order and fall under the rule of domineering Amazonians.

Poor chap, he had it so good until his wife was able to cast a ballot!

Can't blame them, politics takes so much time, I'd abandon my children too!

Just like women, let them vote and then they want to put out fires!

Getting back to Appenzell Innerrhoden, the curious thing I discovered was that many Swiss cantons practice a rather unique forms of direct democracy – particularly so in Appenzell Innerrhoden, where they still hold something called Landsgemeinde, an open-air election assembly.  Each year on the last Sunday in April, all eligible voters gather in the village square for a cantonal assembly.

Landsgemeinde in Appenzell Innerrhoden

The Sunday morning begins with a church service followed by a parade at noontime to the village square.

Landsgemeinde Parade

Elected officials and members of the court wear their black robes and take their places on the platform in front of the assembly.  To gain admittance to the assembly, in the roped off center of the square, citizens must present their voters card (until 1991, when women first voted a family sword or bayonet was used as identification and men are still allowed to use this in place of a voting card).  After electing cantonal officials, anyone in the assembly is allowed to discuss any bill or make proposals and votes are conducted with a raising of the hand.

I think more than anything else, this public display of your voting was what kept women's suffrage from passing earlier.  With only men voting and looking around to see who would grant women the right to join them was probably too much pressure for some of these traditional men.

There may have also been a bit of the natural tendency for some of them to think about women who they didn't believe were thoughtful enough to vote.  I was surprised to learn, while listening to a radio show, that the early female British archaeologist and explorer, Gertrude Bell, was an anti-suffragist.  She believed that while she may have been intelligent enough to vote, the majority of her gender were not yet ready.  I must admit, sometimes I feel that way today, but about both genders.

Well, thanks for reading.  If you ask me, I believe that women in Switzerland would have gotten the vote far earlier if they had campaigned more like this:

Irene Woodward (AKA "La Belle Irene")

Well, I'm out on the trail again this weekend with a Boy Scout outing, so I didn't have time to prepare a Person-of-Mystery Contest for this weekend, but I did want to share with you what I was thinking about.  If we had done the contest, it would have been Irene Woodward (also known by her stage name "La Belle Irene."

Why would I have chosen her - and who was she?

Well, I was sitting at the dinner table with the family when the name Lydia came up.  Of course I immediately started singing "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," from the Marx Brothers movie At the Circus.

My boys were amused by the whimsical nature of the song and I was actually a little surprised they hadn't heard it before (growing up in our house).  After telling them about it, I was going to show them the YouTube clip of the original song from the movie, but I saw that there was a Muppet Show version where Kermit the Frog sings the song too, so I played that one for them instead.

I remember seeing this Muppets sketch when I was younger, but I didn't realize that Jim Henson was a big Marx Brothers fan.  This sketch ran on the first show and Henson drew all the illustrations on Lydia (the pig).  Of course, both are illusions to women with tattoos, a staple of sideshow performances at early circuses.  Two of the most famous were Irene Woodward and Nora Hildenbrandt.  Although, Irene was billed as the "Original Tattooed Lady."  Tattoos of the day were often patriotic in nature and this is revealed in the lyrics in the song.  Like any good sideshow, barkers would speak of Irene being captured by Indians and Chief Sitting Bull himself only releasing her after her father had tattooed her from head to toe - obvious lies, but adding to the overall mystique.

Irene is long gone, but I figured I'd save you the dime and reveal her in all her tattooed glory [warning NSF (circa 1900) W]:

Septentrion

One of the most enjoyable and unintentional things about blogging is all the interesting new knowledge I happen across as a result of meeting blog friends (there should be a more appropriate word for this) and exchanging knowledge.  Today, I would like to highlight a wonderful and unintentional find I made while perusing Rob from Amersfoort's delightful website, Robs Webstek.

Rob had written about an early North American map (shown below) by Dutch cartographer, Cornelius van Wytfliet.

Like Rob, I enjoy maps.  I love looking at every little detail and I enjoyed this one too.  One detail that caught my eye this time however, was the compass rose.  Van Wytfliet had labeled the map in the Latin language including the cardinal points:  Oriens, Occidens, Septentrio, and Meridies.  Most people are familiar with the English words Oriental and Occidental as somewhat archaic terms for Eastern and Western, but I became curious if these other Latin words had spawned equivalent terms for Northern and Southern.  As a matter of fact, the answer is yes, although the terms really never caught on.

It would seem as though all the terms are archaic, but some more so than others.  Orient is used most frequently and some people will still talk about the Orient in reference to China, but the term is dying out.  Most likely this is due to the slightly derisive connotation of using the term Oriental to describe people from East Asia.  Curiously enough, to orient a map comes from the time of the Middle Ages when most maps put east at the top of the map, so to orient a map would be to arrange it towards the east.

Pietro Visconte's map of the world from 1321

The term Occident is used significantly less frequently to describe the Western World.  Oftentimes this would be in reference to Europe instead of Asia.  Although this is a rarely heard term, it still comes up from time to time.  For example, President Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Until I had seen Van Wyfliet's map, I had only been familiar with Orient and Occident and I hadn't put much thought into why there were no comparable terms for Northern and Southern lands.  Checking the dictionary, I did see that there is a term for Northern lands, it's Septentrion.  What a wonderful word!

You might have noticed the Latin sept- prefix.  Septem is Latin for the number seven, just like September.  I can already hear some of you saying, "But September is the ninth month, not the seventh!"  Well, actually in the original Roman calendar September was the seventh month, followed by the rest of the numbered months up to the tenth month, December (e.g., septem, seven; octo, eight; novem, nine; decem, ten).  July and August were originally Quintilis and Sextilis (fifth and sixth respectively) until they were changed to honor Julius Caesar (July) and Augustus Caesar (August).  The Romans later added Ianuarius and Februarius to account for the previously unaccounted winter time period.

So how is something to do with seven related to the north?  Septentrion is a combination of the Latin septem (seven) and trion (plow oxen).  The group of stars that most of us recognize as the Big Dipper is a collection of seven stars in the northern sky.  These stars are today part of the Ursa Major constellation and the ladle of the dipper forms the bears tail.  However, in ancient times, this dipper was sometimes depicted as an ox plough.

The accompanying Latin term for things southern, "meridional," never really caught on and appears to have been eclipsed by its association with the sun's meridian or noontime.  Although I suppose for Europeans the sun was always a tad southernly.

So, thank you to Rob from Amersfoort!  But now that I'm thinking about words, shouldn't that be Rob van Amersfoort or Rob uit Amersfoort?  Either way, I always appreciate a good think.

Befreiungshalle (Liberation Hall) in Kelheim, Germany

A few weeks ago, I talked about the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, a grand monument in Leipzig, commemorating victory over Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations.  At the time of the Napoleonic wars, today's Germany was not yet unified and Leipzig was in Saxony.  Like Saxony, the Kingdom of Bavaria also sought to commemorate victory over France, and built the Befreiungshalle (or Liberation Hall) in Kelheim, Bavaria (about halfway between Nuremberg and Munich).

Befreiungshalle was built by decree of King Ludwig I on a picturesque hilltop above the Danube River.  Construction began in 1842, but it was not complete until it's opening on October 18, 1863 (the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations).  

The area hasn't really changed that much since it was built.

Post Card from 1900

After Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Russia, his humbled military faced the newly united armies of the Sixth Coalition at the Battle of Leipzig (or the Battle of the Nations).  As the Sixth Coalition seized the initiative on the battlefields of Central Europe, French forces were successively driven back towards France.  This series of setbacks for Napoleon would eventually culminate in the liberation of German states and the eventual French defeat at Waterloo.  So while the English speaking world saw this as the gradual undoing of Napoleon, those in Germany saw these series of battles from 1812 to 1814 as their liberation from France.  It's only fitting then that so many locales chose to commemorate their freedom.

The approximately 150 foot tall memorial is heavy with symbolism related to the number eighteen.  This is because the Battle of the Nations occurred on October 18, 1813, and the Battle of Waterloo was fought on June 18, 1815.  On the outside of Befreiungshalle, there are eighteen statues holding placards for each of the historic Germanic tribes:  Franconians, Bohemians, Tyroleans, Bavarians, Austrians, Prussians, Hanoverians, Moravians, Saxons, Silesians, Brandenburgers, Pomeranians, Mecklenburgers, Westphalians, Hessians, Thueringians, Rheinlaenders, and Swabians.

Exterior Balcony

Inside, the large domed hall is supported by 54 columns (3 times 18) and an equal number of pillars, and 36 columns (2 times 18) in the upper gallery.  Around the edge of first floor are eleven-foot tall winged Victories in a ringed circle representing the members of the German Confederation, alternatively holding hands and shields.  On the shields are displayed the battles in the liberation of Germany and above the upper gallery are inscriptions for key generals and recaptured strongholds.

In the center of the hall on the floor is inlaid the following:

Translated into English, it reads:

May

the Germans

never forget what

made necessary

the struggle for freedom

and by what means they

won.

Of course the Nazis were always up for a good monument to honor German struggle and unity and the site wasn't overlooked for their exploitive purposes.

But I have to wonder what Hitler thought of the gold six-pointed stars surrounding Ludwig's words in the center of the hall.

Hamilton Mausoleum – Home to the World's Longest Lasting Echo

Congratulations to Rob from Amersfoort, winner of yesterday's Place-of-Mystery Contest.  He correctly identified the Hamilton Mausoleum in Hamilton, Scotland, as the place in the image.

Hamilton Mausoleum

Recently, I was reading about acoustics for musical venues when I read a line about the Hamilton Mausoleum in Hamilton, Scotland.  The person was commenting about the lengthy echo of the chamber.  At a full 15 seconds, it's reportedly the longest echo in any man-made structure.

The Hamiltons were one of the most influential families in Scotland and the Duke of Hamilton is the senior dukedom in the Peerage of Scotland (excepting the Sovereign's eldest son).  At one time they had a grand estate esteemed to be the largest non-royal residence in the Western world.

Hamilton Palace

The main house was built on the site of a 13th century tower house having been continually enlarged over the years beginning with the South Front erected in 1695 for the 3rd Duke of Hamilton.  The North Front was planned by the 5th Duke in the 1730s, but not complete until the time of the 10th Duke in 1842.  The home contained a great deal of fine furniture and art including works by Rubens, Titian, and Van Dyck.  The 10th Duke in particular was an avid collector of fine art and travelers from afar came to the home to admire his home, grounds, collections, and historical treasures.

The Gallery at Hamilton Palace

Chimneypiece in Gallery

Stone Hall

Library

Ambassadorial Throne and Canopy

Dutchess' Bedroom

Classical Statues in Stone Hall

Great Dining-Room

North Front Vantage

North Front Portico

South Front Vantage

Detail of the Center of the South Front

While it may have been fashionable in the 1800s to publicly display your wealth, large and opulent homes fell out of fashion by the 1900s.  By the twentieth century, nearby mining (from the family's own coal mines) had created noticeable subsidence.  Increasing tax levies and the cost of upkeep necessitated the eventual sale of some of the Hamilton treasures.  The Palace was used as a military hospital during World War I, but after the war, the state of neglect was beyond repair and in 1921 the Hamilton Palace was demolished.

Châtelherault Hunting Lodge

Hamilton Palace lay at the center of extensive lands owned by the Hamiltons, that included a hunting lodge with kennels and stables, known as Châtelherault, completed in 1734.

Ruins of Cadzow Castle as seen in 1882

Included in the grounds were the ruins of Cadzow Castle (Hamilton was originally known as Cadzow), an occasional royal residence since the time of King David (1084-1153) and an earlier hunting lodge for the kings of Strathclyde before him.  It was destroyed in the late 1500s in retaliation for the Hamilton's support for Mary, Queen of Scots, who stayed at the castle following her escape from Loch Leven Castle.  To this day, the Hamilton family retains Mary's death mask, the famous silver casket where the damming letters were located, and her sapphire ring.

Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, the 10th Duke of Hamilton

It was during the time of the 10th Duke, the one responsible for the enlargement of Hamilton Palace, that he decided to replace the family burial vault at the local church with a mausoleum on his grand estate.  Construction on the 123 foot structure began in 1842 and was complete in 1858, five years after the death of the 10th Duke.  It was originally conceived that the upper story of the mausoleum would be a working chapel holding his remains in an Egyptian sarcophagus from the Ptolemaic period he had purchased for that purpose below the chapel lay the crypt where he had moved the bodies of 17 of his ancestors.

Hamilton Mausoleum

After its completion, the Hamilton Mausoleum revealed a remarkable but unintended acoustic quality of allowing complex and noisy reverberations throughout the structure including an echo of up to 15 seconds in length.  This echo made the chapel unusable for its intended use, but became the subject of intense curiosity by travelers and tourists.  The high stone vault with its Roman styled dome and marbled floors produce the world's longest lasting echo of any man made structure in the world.  Like many domed structures of stone, tourists have fun whispering from one side wall to a friend at the other side who may perfectly hear the quiet words.

Hamilton Mausoleum Chapel Interior

Stonework Detail on Vault

Looking Upwards Towards the Oculus

The same subsidence that had required the destruction of Hamilton Palace also threatened the hunting lodge and the mausoleum.  The structural danger required the removal once again of the Hamilton family including the 10th Duke to a new resting place in nearby Bent Cemetery, still in his Egyptian sarcophagus.  Although both structures have felt the effects, efforts have been made to save and right the remaining buildings.

Now Empty Crypt Below the Chapel

Engraving from the 1800s Showing Visitors at the Mausoleum

Sarcophagus Photographed in the Hamilton Mausoleum

Black Marble Pedestal Today without Sarcophagus

Now for those of you musically inclined, you may be wondering about the acoustics.  I used to play the cello and I tried to imagine what a 15 second echo would produce.  Since the grounds became a county park back in the 1970s, there have been a number of concerts with most saying that the echo produces a unique challenge to the musician.  Here is a short video of the Kronos Quartet performing in the Mausoleum:

Finally, I had no place to put another little bit of Hamilton trivia, so I'll place it here at the end.  In later years, the 14th Duke of Hamilton, an accomplished aviator and the first to fly over Mount Everest in 1933, became the subject of intense interest during World War II, when Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of Nazi Germany, flew a solo mission and parachuted into Scotland on May 10, 1941.  Upon landing he asked to see the Duke of Hamilton for the purpose of negotiating a peace treaty between Great Britain and Germany.  Although the Duke had visited Germany during the 1936 Olympic Games, it is not known how well the two knew each other.  After visiting Hess in prison, the Duke of Hamilton promptly reported the matter to Winston Churchill and Hess was imprisoned for the remainder of the war.

Rudolf Hess with Hitler in 1938

Hess' Airplane Wreckage in Scotland

After the war, Hess was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment for his position in the Nazi regime and although later efforts were made to secure his release from an Allied prison in East Germany, he mysteriously took his life or was killed in 1987.  Today there is a small memorial to Hess' quixotic peace attempt in Scotland.

Details of this curious episode will not be known for years as the British files on the episode are sealed by state order until 2041.