Culture

Steamtown National Historic Site

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Coal-burning transportation? What kind of site is this?!? Well, I rode a steam locomotive, and I liked it. Thankfully, this form of transportation is obsolete, replaced by the diesel-electric hybrid. So, I’m here to celebrate the demise of the historic steam engines, and I hope that coal-burning will soon go the way of the dinosaur. But I’m not driving to these sites by electric vehicle to skip the guided tours and lessons of history. If traveling 3 miles on a multi-million pound vehicle is the only way to learn the difference between local hard anthracite and common soft bituminous coal, then I’ll pay my $6 to get the full historic experience, 45 minutes of carbon fuel be damned. This is my favorite carbon-burning park.

Before visiting Scranton, I didn’t understand why President Joe Biden was such a fan of trains. Well, this place is a fascinating Mecca for rail-fans. The old trains were part of Blount’s Edaville RR amusement parks in New England, before being saved from the scrapyard through donations of train-spotters across the country. Here, our tax dollars are converted to educational opportunities for kids of all ages, to teach about the Gilded Age of RR Barons and the gritty roots of Pennsylvania. (A history echoed, perhaps, in the local Senate campaigns of Dr Oz v. Fetterman).

Scranton is also known as the Electric City, because they skipped the whole “horse-driven trolley” stage and started off first with all-electric trolleys. The best time to adopt future technology is always now. The county runs a museum right next door with electric trolley rides, but, since they’re not part of the National Park Service, I skipped it. (The whole ‘Zero Carbon Travel’ idea can be confusing at times).

This summer, I’ve had people try to tell me that Americans will never give up their loud smelly cars and that EV’s are somehow worse for the economy than gas cars. There’s a whole industry of anti-electric propaganda out there, doubtless funded by folks who would lose out if we all switched to electric vehicles. There’s actually no real economic argument for continuing heading for disaster. The Titanic received seven warnings about icebergs, but refused to either slow down or alter course. The loss of the ship disproved that brand of short-sighted “economics”. We can now see the beginnings of the carbon climate disaster unfolding, so there’s no excuse for inaction.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site

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Like the Oklahoma City Memorial and the Touro Synagogue, this is an affiliated site that’s run separately from the park service, so there’s a $15 fee for the house tour. I’m a fan of Cole’s The Course of Empire set of paintings, which depict the same landscape from Nature to height of civilization and to forgotten ruins. The reproduction in his old studio above is from another series called The Voyage of Life.

Cole immigrated from England in 1818 at 17 and settled in the Catskill area of the Hudson River Valley to become a painter in 1825. Witnessing both the natural beauty and its destruction due to rapidly growing industry, Cole created romantic and allegorical landscapes to convey both his love of nature and his sadness at its devastation. He was extremely influential, and there’s a whole Art Trail devoted to the landscape artists who followed his style.

“Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet.

Shall we turn from it?

We are still in Eden;

the wall that shuts us our of the garden

is our own ignorance and folly.”

Thomas Cole

Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

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Lindenwald is a country estate on the Old Post Road between New York and the state capital Albany. The Hudson River Valley was still Dutch-speaking when Van Buren was born in a local tavern (fyi, ‘kill’ is Dutch for ‘waterway’). President Van Buren bought it in anticipation of not winning re-election, after a financial crisis and not backing Texas statehood after the Alamo. Van Buren was a political tactician who helped form the Democratic Party, managed Andrew Jackson’s campaign and became his Vice President. He expanded the franchise for white males by reducing the property ownership burden, but he restricted the franchise for black males by raising the property ownership burden. He also opposed women having any rights and continued Jackson’s cruel Native American relocation policies. The house tour was very educational, especially since I knew almost nothing about him, and I was pleased that the ranger described our 8th President’s faults without hesitation, unlike Andrew Johnson‘s ridiculous site.

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site

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I think this is the living room downstairs, but the European Baroque extravagance made me dizzy. I’ve now been to four Vanderbilt mansions, so I’m halfway done. Fortunately, a combination of the Great Depression, regulation and taxation ended the Guilded Age, so the mansion spree ended. FDR convinced the last owner to donate this estate to the government, since she already had several other estates.

Today’s unregulated multi-billionaires fly rockets into space, while some regular citizens lack basic healthcare available for free in other countries. Corporations have more rights than pregnant women, but they pay little to zero taxes. I think individuals should be allowed to incorporate to get similar benefits. You would only owe tax on your savings, not your income, for example. Or maybe corporations should pay taxes like we do. Either way, we need to figure out a way to make things fairer, before everyone is broke except the one guy who owns all the corporations and robot workers. Maybe after AI puts the bankers, lawyers and doctors out of work, voters will decide that the system should work for people and not the other way around.

Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site

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I’m not sure why this site hasn’t been promoted to National Historical Park, since it is a presidential birthplace, childhood home, presidential home, library, and gravesite. There’s also the walled garden at Bellefield, the neighboring Eleanor Roosevelt site, and the neighboring Vanderbilt site.

These wonderful estates are a fine introduction to the historic Hudson River Valley. I enjoyed the Clinton written & narrated film in the museum, and thought $10 for the library worth it. Your park pass includes the house tour, and there’s even a cafe serving hot dogs (see ’Hyde Park on the Hudson’ with Bill Murray). I can’t complain about the three top notch tours today or anything else here. Simply superb!

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

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This is where a young nominee sought the critical endorsement of Eleanor Roosevelt. She thought him too wishy-washy on Civil Rights, and counseled him to be more assertive on the issue. JFK complied, she endorsed him, and he won by a hair. Without Eleanor, it also seems impossible to me that FDR could have overcome his crippling polio limitations and successfully campaigned for and won the Presidency. And of course, without Eleanor, it seems unlikely that the UN would have adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After her husband’s death, she was in many ways the moral leader of the Democratic Party. She stared down the Soviets at the UN. She wrote over a dozen books. And she spoke frequently to labor, Civil Rights, and other important leaders, as well as to the public.

Her home here was also where many of the most important acts of FDR’s diplomacy took place, including playing in the pool with Churchill and famously eating hot dogs with the King of England. The house is viewable by tour (frequent in summer) and the grounds are also lovely. The site was once part of FDR’s family estate, so there’s a hiking path linking them, if you have time. The archive library & museum at the FDR site contain useful exhibits of Eleanor, so it’s wise to visit both sites together.

Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

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Ranger Naomi, an artist, was kind enough to put up with my incessant, ignorant questions during the outside tour this morning. We discussed the stunning Robert Shaw memorial depicting the Massachusetts 54th volunteer regiment marching in Boston, the statue of Lincoln that drew Saint-Gaudens here to find lanky & tall models, how Daniel Chester French considered Saint-Gaudens his mentor although they were the same age, the collaboration evident in the Farragut monument, his nude model for the huntress Diana (his mistress), Victory on the Sherman monument, and more, including how “poor artists imitate, good artists copy and great artists steal”. All these glorious pieces can be seen around the country, or, better yet, all here in one beautiful garden, where the sculptor worked and led a colony of artists, below a lonely mountain and above a covered bridge. This is my favorite art site.

This piece, “Amor Caritas”, set in a lovely atrium, is also modeled by Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ mistress, whose love-child’s education was paid for by his wife. I often see the Latin mistranslated as “Angel of Charity” or “Love and Kindness”, but my seven years of Latin study says different. While in a church or graveyard setting for which the piece was created, it might be acceptable to translate it that way using church Latin, but that’s not what it originally meant, especially to someone as familiar with Greco-Roman themes as Saint-Gaudens. To the Romans, before their language was coopted by medieval Christians, I believe the phrase would have meant something more like “Oh the costly affair”. (Amor meaning physical love, and Caritas, “the expensiveness”, positioned after as vocative case to call out). At least, it was a double-entendre.

Minute Man National Historical Park

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OK. First thing you need to know is to avoid Lexington; nothing to see or do there. Sure, the first shot of the day (4/19/1775) may have been fired there (unknown who or why), but the untrained militia scattered immediately. Next, unless you’re interested in walking through the woods along the Battle Road and imagining the battle scenes, you can probably skip the Minute Man visitor center too. They have a film, in case you don’t know who the Minute Men were, but the action is all at the North Bridge in Concord.

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was standing at the Old North Bridge in Concord when he read that line to commemorate when the Minute Men (militia with extra training) were ordered to fire the first shots of what became the Revolutionary War. The British were thwarted from crossing the bridge and taking the arsenal on the hill behind the statue, and they were forced to retreat to Boston pursued by small groups of Minute Men engaging them in small skirmishes along the way. The quote is carved in the base of the famous Daniel Chester French statue across the bridge above.

Emerson’s grandfather witnessed the battle from The Old Manse, which is part of the site and later was home to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Emerson was also friends with the Alcott’s, and another part of the park is the Wayside where Louisa May Alcott lived. And, since you’re in Concord, you really should visit the Concord Museum, where you can see Paul Revere’s lantern, learn about Emerson’s other friend Henry David Thoreau, and see the excellent new exhibit that describes the battle in detail. All four literary luminaries are buried on Author’s Ridge in Concord.

Again, any propaganda you may have heard suggesting that Lexington was somehow historically important is nonsense. (And I should add that a group of cowardly Lexingtonians snuck into Concord to vandalize and destroy an early monument built around the 50th anniversary in a pique of petty jealousy). ‘The shot heard round the world’ was fired in Concord, likely by Minute Men from Acton, who were in the front and suffered the first casualties, because that order to fire on the British was understood to be an act of open rebellion that could lead to war. Soldiers on both sides blamed the other for firing first. There’s another visitor center over the bridge and past the statue that describes the day’s action. If you get a chance to hear the ranger talk “Monuments & Memories” about how the meaning of the battle has changed over time, I highly recommend it. Obviously, this is my favorite Revolutionary War site.

Lowell National Historical Park

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Some of the old factories are empty ruins, and many have been remodeled into chic housing or modern offices. Lowell followed on the success of the cotton spinning mills of the Blackstone River Valley, but many times larger in scale: all stages of production automated from spinning to cloth, cotton & wool, printed patterns & carpets, powered by two rivers, two layers of canals running 6 miles through the city, 10 multistory mill complexes, and 10,000 mill workers. 19th century visitors from Europe were astounded to see England’s Industrial Revolution expanded on American shores. Today, visitors walk the canals (or take a park tour boat or trolley), see the power looms in action, and take in the exhibits & public art in this university town. While there are paid parking spaces all around the historic district, the visitor center will validate free parking in the neighboring structure.

Since the factories sold “Lowell” brand cheap cloth to the plantations for slave clothing, this was not a city that attracted many ex-slaves for work. The owners who profited from their slave-labor suppliers did not support abolition, but many workers did. There was an active Underground Railroad site under the Second Universalist Church, attended by many workers and led for many years by a staunch critic of slavery. The minister also supported the “mill girls” who organized strikes and agitated for their rights 90 years before women won the right to vote. Many suffragettes began their struggle in Lowell’s mills.

Lowell also teaches important environmental lessons. The forests were cut down and burned to bake bricks, the river was polluted with heavy metal dyes and untreated sewage, and the air was polluted with coal to power the steam engines that replaced the greener hydropower. By 1970, the Merrimack River was declared a “non-river”, since it was essentially slow-moving toxic sludge. Lowell was not a pleasant place to live, and many good jobs had moved elsewhere. Citizens voted to clean up the environment, and gradually the environment has improved. The river is now passably clean, and there are green spaces amid the old industrial sites (see photo above). In the long run, polluting for profit is terribly destructive and often irreversible. We need to make better decisions to stop carbon pollution now, or we will regret our lazy, thoughtless inaction later.

Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site

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The stately home to the right should be the subject of my photo, or perhaps the meticulously preserved interior, but I’ve always loved the garden. Brattle is a quiet street off of Harvard Square, and the garden is a lovely little oasis for contemplation. George Washington doubtless had little free time after he set up his command here to build a revolutionary army. The British had retreated to Boston (along with the owner of this house) after the Minutemen forced them back in Concord. A siege ensued, and the British were unable to break out of the city, taking heavy losses at Bunker Hill. Then Washington arrived here, organized, trained, and motivated his troops for nine months. In the middle of an exceptionally cold winter, using oxen to drag sledges quickly over the ice, Henry Knox delivered cannon captured in New York to the hills surrounding Boston, and the British evacuated the city permanently.

Some sixty years later, a young literature professor named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arrived here to rent a room from the indebted landlord, and he was thrilled to stay in the famous headquarters of General Washington. His father in law bought the house for the young couple, and Longfellow wrote the poems that many of us memorized as children: A Psalm of Life, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Song of Hiawatha, the Courtship of Miles Standish, and Tales of a Wayside Inn. Fortunately for us, his family protected his legacy in exceptional detail, along with heirlooms from his colorful relatives, such that “if Longfellow returned, he would be able to find his books and most of his things exactly where he left them”. The tour explains the history of all kinds of people who lived here, from the first owner’s slaves to the flamboyant Longfellow descendant who both preserved the original artifacts and entertained here in style.

“All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1849