Posts Tagged ‘America’
“the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting”*…
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’s rendering of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. Each person to hold this quill would have done so in a way suited to their gender, occupation, and maybe even their hometown.
In colonial America, “the very style in which one formed letters was determined by one’s place in society,” writes historian Tamara Thornton in Handwriting in America: A Cultural History. Thanks to the rigorous teachings of professionals called “penmen,” merchants wrote strong, loopy logbooks, women’s words were intricate and shaded, and upper-class men did whatever they felt like. So different were the results, says Thornton, that “a fully literate stranger could evaluate the social significance of a letter… simply by noting what hand it had been written in.”
Understanding how colonists put pen to paper means understanding why they wanted to write in the first place…
More on the semiotics of script at “The Hidden Messages of Colonial Handwriting.”
* George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
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As we consider cursive, we might recall that it was on this date in 1780 that New Englanders awoke to find a murky haze drifting over the morning sun. An early twilight descended over the next few hours, and by noon, the skies had turned as black as midnight. Night birds sang and confused chickens retired to their roosts. People were forced to light candles to see.
More on the infamous “Dark Day” of 1780 here.
One of the only artist’s depictions of the Dark Day
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing”*…
What did the United States look like to Ottoman observers in 1803? In this map, the newly independent U.S. is labeled “The Country of the English People” (“İngliz Cumhurunun Ülkesi”). The Iroquois Confederacy shows up as well, labeled the “Government of the Six Indian Nations.” Other tribes shown on the map include the Algonquin, Chippewa, Western Sioux (Siyu-yu Garbî), Eastern Sioux (Siyu-yu Şarkî), Black Pawnees (Kara Panis), and White Pawnees (Ak Panis)….
See a larger version of the map and learn more about it and about the history of Turkish maps of North America at “The Ottoman Empire’s First Map of the Newly Minted United States.”
* C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
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As we ponder perspective, we might recall that it was on this date in 1918– four years and a day after joining World War I as allies of Germany– that the Ottoman Empire surrendered and signed an armistice with the Allies at Mudros, ending the war in the Middle Eastern Theatre.
Re-building America…
A map puzzle that should be simple (for U.S. readers, at least), but may be even more chastening than last Thursday’s…
Click here to play on Jim’s Pages.
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As we get our bearings, we might recall that it was on this day in 1845 that a majority of the citizens of the independent Republic of Texas approved a proposed constitution, that when accepted by the U.S. Congress and approved by President James Polk later that year, made Texas the 28th puzzle piece– that is, the 28th American state.
The Annexation of Texas to the Union, by Donald M. Yena, 1986. Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Comrade Pac-Man…
Morskoi Boi
As kids, who among us never dreamed of growing up to be a sailor? After we go to space, naturally. This arcade game was created for those who never forgot their childhood dreams. And so, you are now looking through the periscope of a submarine and the enemy ships are sailing audaciously across the horizon, back and forth. Press “Start” and the green point representing a moving torpedo rushes towards the enemy vessel. The rest depends on the accuracy of the player-sniper.
From the collection of Moscow’s Museum of Soviet Arcade Games— over 40 units, and growing– a sample that one can play online.
[ToTH to Jesse Dylan]
As we limber up our firing fingers, we might recall that it was on this date that the first elephant arrived in America, from India, aboard the ship America. The pachyderm, called “Old Bet,” was paraded around the Northeast for a few years, exhibited to curious punters, until she was acquired by Hackaliah Bailey– the organizer of the first American circus and the “Bailey” in “Barnum and Bailey.”
An advertisement for Old Bet in Boston, 1797
source: Natural History
Nathaniel Hawthorne's father (also "Nathaniel"), an officer aboard the ship America, wrote this entry in the ship’s logbook. His handwriting grew large when he referred to the first elephant ever to come to America.
source: Natural History
It’s turtles all the way up…
If it can be stacked, piled, or otherwise placed one piece atop another, you’ll find it at MMMMound.
As we work against wobble, we might recall that it was on this date, in 1927 that Luigi Pirandello’s Sei Personaggi in Cerca d’Autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author) premiered… 430 years to the day after his countryman Amerigo Vespucci may have set sail the first time in search of the New World (1497)… historians disagree on whether or not Vespucci actually made that voyage; but they concur that he introduced the European public to the existence of a new land– via widely-circulated letters expressing his belief that the New World was in fact a New World: a new continent (contrary to the beliefs of Columbus and other early sailors West, who believed they were sailing to the far side of the East)… letters that led Martin Waldseemüller to name the new continent “America” on his world map of 1507…
Waldseemüller’s “Universalis Cosmographia,” 1507
the first map to use the name “America”
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