Sleeth Again

This Sleeth project is becoming more and more like a logic puzzle. I've finally started in on the dreaded newspaper clippings. Thousands upon thousands (and that's no exaggeration) of Dana's newspaper column, all undated, from at least five different newspapers (also unknown).
And now it's my job to sort them all out. I'm not going for total chronology--that would just be crazy and impossible. Instead, I'm shooting for a date range of about a year. I'm basing my conjecture on a few different things:
1) dates found on the opposite side of the paper-- Luckily for me, the Spokane Press ran Dana's column with the legal notices on the reverse of the paper.
2) dates sometimes copyrighted for advertisements
3) dates occasionally included in the clipping, along with the name of the paper
4) dates from advertisements for movies. Oh International Movie Database, how you've helped me out. Sometimes the only way I can even come close to guessing a date is from the advertisement for the Saturday matinee.

I'm also getting quite good at matching typeface, different pictures of Dana, boxes and formats, all which indicate which newspaper carried the column. It will never be perfect, and I'm sure that they're hopelessly out of order, but the important thing is the content, not the date. For now, circa is as good as I can hope for.

Eugenia

I've moved past Mattie Sleeth, and moved on to Dana's wife, Eugenia. She only has a few things, tossed in the back of the box, all in a mess. Clearly, she was not seen as the important figure of the family. But for me, this has been a fascinating afternoon. There are several gaps in her folder, and her life seems to jump from her high school report cards, to letters from her son Marshall, to letters of condolence. Eugenia's papers illustrate, better than anything I could ever write, the extraordinary difficulty historians have studying women's history. People often choose to keep things based on what they consider to be "history." And for the majority of American history, that definition hasn't included women's history. Unlike Dana, whose every scrap of paper was carefully preserved, Eugenia's noteworthy information included report cards, a few scraps of paper from her husband and son (not her daughter, notably), and letters from people on the death of her husband. Undoubtedly, she wrote letters back to her husband and her son, and her daughter. Undoubtedly, there was an obituary upon her death. But no one thought to keep it, like they did with Dana.

So when reconstructing her past, it's incredibly difficult, and usually done in the relief of her husband and son's past. It's what we historians call "oblique" history-- looking for a story, not by looking at your subject, but looking past it, looking around it, looking at the shadow it casts on the wall of the cave.

So in shifting through what was kept,it's a bleak picture that's painted. Hidden amongst the letters of condolences from a senator from Washington, the Scripps family, and old friends, was a newspaper clipping, advocating a new way of treating burns using tannic acid. And thinking about Eugenia, who just lost her husband far too young of extensive burns, clipping out that article, leaves the impression of a grieving woman, whose voice has been lost in history.

Back on the History Track

So travel blogging has taken a break for the moment in favor of my current hopelessness.
I finished the Dana Sleeth collection earlier today, and boy does that feel good. In some strange way, putting all our hard work into one easy to access finding aid feels as though we have put Dana into an easy to access, easy to understand format.
This couldn't be further from the truth of course, but it's a nice thought. Here's what I wrote about Dana in the biographical sketch for the aid:

"Dana Sleeth was a fiery, polemical muckraker of the early 20th century. He was on February 22, 1878 in Boonesborough, Iowa. As the son of two fire and brimstone Methodists, he left home at a young age to become one of the most progressive newspaper editors in the country, presiding over a domain from Los Angeles to Seattle. He was editor of the Peoples Press and the Portland News from 1906 to 1915. While at the Portland News, he brought to light a homosexual sex scandal at the YMCA involving some of Portland’s most important political leaders. He was soon approached by E.W. Scripps to edit the Los Angeles Record, where, by 1916, he successfully agitated for the resignation of Mayor Charles Sebastian and the city council of Los Angeles.

From the hills of Scappoose, Oregon, Sleeth, writing under the pseudonym of Hill Billy, brought a well-articulated workingman’s opinion to an increasingly capitalistic society. Sleeth wrote on subjects both pedestrian and philosophical and gained the loyalty of readers across the West. Along with letters from hundreds of fans, Sleeth garnered the attention of such notables as Upton Sinclair, Margaret Sanger and even Eleanor Roosevelt. He was consistently engaged in local and national politics and kept up a steady correspondence with some of the West Coast’s most prominent politicians. His untimely death, at the age of 56, marked the end of an generation of newsmen unafraid to relentlessly champion the values of the common man."

And yet there is so much more that I want to mention and discuss. Though there is never enough space to talk about what an interesting man he is.

But that's not why I'm hopeless. The finishing of the Dana project means moving on to his mother, Mattie. From a feminist point of view, she's the far more interesting character. Here's some of her firsts: She was a Methodist preacher before they had forms for female preachers, and had to cross out "he" and write "she".
She was the president of the Oregon WCTU. She was the first female juror in Oregon.
And her collection is significantly smaller than her son's.
And yet.
All of her stuff has been pre "oreganized" by someone. I put organized in quotes, because it's not a system I understand or care for. And there are photocopies of everything! Multiples! Unlike Dana, some one's already been here, and I feel odd throwing that all out the window, but I need to buck up and do it. It's hard to assert your historical authority (to a dead woman, to boot) when you are going up against some one who has a personal understanding of the whole collection. It's funny how I have no problem arguing my point amongst my fellow student historians, but now, I can't seem to take charge.
Or maybe it's just kinda dull and gray outside, and I really just don't have much motivation.

Delayed Schedule

Blogging will resume once I'm finished with finals. I'll probably double post...so make sure you scroll down!

April 20-21 Barcelona

Cristóbal Colón


Sagrada Família (Sacred Family?)

We had little time in Barcelona. We left Dublin at 5 in the morning, but the bus never came, so we had to call a cab to get to the airport. It all worked out though, and we ended up costing less the the bus!

So our first day in Barcelona, we walked down Las Ramblas to the Mediterranean (!), stopping to admire the column of Christopher Colombus. If I remember correctly, we ate some delicious cheese and bread under that column. It's funny, we walked through this awesome food market, and some one wanted to go the super market! I was like heck no. Molly helped me order bread and cheese, because she speaks Spanish really well.
Anyway, we walked along the Quay for a while, and then split up for a while. Again, traveling with four is pretty difficult. I don't recommend it.

On the 21st, we went to the Sangrada Familia. It's a cathedral designed by Gaudi, about 120 years ago, and it's still not finished. But boy is it beautiful and trippy. It's inspired by the natural world, and every new architect brings something new to the project. The stained glass is amazing, and I would love to go back once it's finished. The gargoyles were lizards and turtles and other animals. The columns were tree trunks, the windows looked like honey comb. The most interesting cathedral I saw my whole trip.

I also went to the Picasso museum, though it was so well hidden, you'd have no idea it was there unless you were looking for it. If there hadn't been a school group entering at the time, I think we would have walked right past it.
This museum was founded by Picasso's personal secretary, so it has a lot of art work. It has most of his early work, which is my favorite period. I like Cubist still life, but not portraits, so it worked out perfectly. Picasso is sometimes too artistic for me, because I just don't understand it? I appreciate him more after my art history class, but sometimes I just want to make sense of art, and Picasso is all about looking at things in a way that doesn't make literal sense.

Then we ate falafel. Past me tells present me that it was awesome. Present me has no recollection of the event.

April 19- Belfast

=
The Peace Wall

The Whole Group


(We left at five in the morning... but the bus never came)

Belfast was crazy, man.
We were only there for a day, because it was a stop over on the way to Barcelona. But boy did we all wish we had stayed for longer.
We took the train up from Dublin, and met our couch surfing host at the train station. Mike was super nice, sounded Australian, but don't tell him I said that.
Molly and I got to sleep in beds to make up for our two nights in the entry way of the cottage. Sweet deal!
We went to the Festival of India, where we met up with another couch surfer, Tobias. I've never met a Tobias that I didn't like. He was awesome. He was Cornish, and had only recently moved to Belfast. But we ate tasty Indian food, watched Indian dancing, and had a great time. Then we went on a three hour walking tour of the city, with Tobias as our guide. Belfast is still really religiously segregated. There's even a wall running down the middle of the city that's been up for longer than the Berlin Wall. Wikipedia tells me that there is a movement in the city to bring down the 'peace walls'. But if I were Catholic, I'm not so sure I'd happy about that. Both Catholic and Protestant sides have builds completely covered in murals. And I was just struck by how militant the Protestant ones were. There was one that was an Ulsterman decked out in black, pointing a gun that seemed to follow you. And there was another one that quoted Oliver Cromwell who declared that peace in Britain would not be achieved until all the Catholics were dead.
And yeah, the Catholics were memorializing the IRA and Bobby Sands, but it didn't seem to be glorifying violence in the same way.
That is one conflict that I will never tire of learning about.

So after that intense afternoon, we went and got a pint. And then made dinner as a whole big group and drank cider and danced the electric slide with a Minnesotan boy who was staying with Tobias.
Also, I had the best shower I had had (or would have) in four months.

Dublin Part Two

Ok! It's only five days in, and I've already fallen behind. You'll shortly see how quickly we made our way across Europe. Thankfully, we're not doing the trip this year, or else we'd still be stuck in England!

So Dublin:
On the 18th, we went to a park and enjoyed the sunshine. There were some amazing tulips, and at one point I was caught in a rather...compromising position with a statue of Oscar Wilde that happened to be on top of a large boulder.

Then we went to Saint Patrick's Cathedral. St. Patrick (who drove the snakes out of Ireland, though wikipedia just informed me that 'post-glacial Ireland never had snakes', way to go wikipedia) was actually from Roman Britain, in a strange kind of irony. Anyway, St Partick's Cathedral was built on the spot where St.Patrick apparently baptized his followers, way back in the 4th century AD. Or CE. Which ever you want. It's a really interesting building, because it looks like it was built in about 1900. The rock is really smooth and uniform gray. Cathedrals like St. Patrick's, that obviously get a lot of tourism are some times hard to deal with because a lot of the literature talks about how the Catholic church came to 'save' the heathens and drive out their wicked ways.
Whatever man, I'm just here for the architecture. (And now after a seminar on popular religion before the Reformation, I would be even more combative about it.)

Next, we went to the National Museum of Ireland, Art+Design, and History. This was one of the best museums of the whole trip. I think that Molly actually went to the Guinness factory, the other two went off...somewhere, and I just stayed in one room, reading every scrap of paper. There was an exhibit on the 1916 Easter Rising, and though it was tiny, I spent a lot of time in there. There were hand written letters from all the major players--Thomas Clarke, Eamon DeValera, Micheal Collins,etc. They even had DeValera's original, handwritten Declaration of Irish Independence.
And in the aftermath of the rebellion, they even had a "wee little note of good bye" to John Daly by one of the conspirators. It gave me chills to read a letter asking Daly to tell his wife good bye from a man who wanted freedom so badly that he was willing to risk his life.

The thing that made this exhibit so amazing was that Easter Rebellion was less than 100 years ago. I feel like who ever was in charge at the time was actually self-conscious--perhaps aware is a better word-- of what they saved and preserved in terms of documents. Maybe it's just the nature of bureaucracy, but *everything* was preserved, which really lets future generations construct a better picture of what exactly was going on. That's why this gave be chills, because you could almost feel the desperation weighing down the room as these people fought and died and argued right in front of you in a flurry of correspondence.

And then I went outside to collect myself and gather my thoughts, and got hit on by two museum guards. Go figure.

We left Dublin the 19th, with a brief stop in the morning to the General Post Office, one of the headquarters of Easter Rising. There are still bullet holes in the columns that you can stick your fingers in. It gave me chills. I remember that it had rained early in the morning, but that the sun was out, and shining across the pavement in front of the Post Office. We were the only ones around because it was about 7 in the morning, and the silence just pressed on you and the glare made it hard to see, until you were right in front of the Post Office. They still have a memorial there, and there were fresh flowers. It's startling to think that all this violence happened with in a generation and it still affects so much today.

On To Belfast. In another post.

April 16-17 2009

Trinity College, home to the Book of Kells.


We started our trip in Dublin, Ireland. In the beginning, there were four of us, which, I've decided is about as big as a group should get. On the plus side, it's easy to break off into groups if different people want to see different things, but is also really hard to decide on where to eat, what to eat, or change your travel plans in the slightest.

So Dublin! We were couch-surfing for Ireland, which I promise isn't the least been sketchy, if you do it right. Basically, there is a website where people post if they have a free couch or bed or floor space, and how many people can fit. Then you look for people that have a lot of reviews, email them to see if you can stay at their place. It can be a really good place to meet locals who know a lot about the city your staying in. At the same time, it can be really hard to get into contact with good people. We had a rule that we would only contact people with a certain number of ratings. I would never do it by myself, but even with two people, it's okay as long as you pay attention and use common sense.

Our host in Dublin was named Derek, and he was kinda crazy. There were four of us, and he owned half of a cottage. Molly and I ended up sleeping in the entry way. He was also about a mile from town, and walking in the cold was not fun.

But Dublin made up for it. On Day 2 (the 17th), we walked into town, and stumbled across Oscar Wilde's house. Then we went to the National Gallery, where we saw a lot of cool paintings by Irish painters who I've never heard of before. Thomas Roberts was my favorite, because he painted a lot like Constable. It seemed as though many of the paintings were tinged with an inherent tiredness from so many years of war and heartbreak. Everywhere in Ireland there were reminders of a history of violence and conflict. At points, the bleakness was so overwhelming it was almost suffocating.
We also went to the Ireland National Museum, which is split into two buildings. We planned to go to the Modern museum, but ended up at the pre-modern one instead. It was certainly interesting, especially the shriveled-up bog people (that's a direct quote from my journal...)

We also saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College. There was an exhibit about the church monopolized publishing industry in the Medieval Ages, and it showed how books were made at the time. Right up my alley. The Book of Kells is a Bible I think? Or at least some of the Gospels, from 800 AD. It's in a really dark room, and they show a different page every day to minimize the exposure to light. There were lots of mistakes, which made me laugh, because everything was so intricately done, there was no way to go back and fix it. You wonder if some congregation ever had a widely different understanding of Christianity because the priest had a Bible with a critical word left out or something. Not that there was too much interpretation going on back in the day, but all the way out in Ireland, with Rome so far away? Who knows what might have happened!

The most exciting part of the exhibit was the Long Room, which was full of old books.They were constantly rotating the books, laying them flat on the shelves one row at a time to preserve them, because having them vertical is bad for the bindings. Oh the things you learn while traveling! It also housed one of sixtenn remaining copies of the Declaration of the Irish Republic, which was awesome.

As you can see, we packed a lot into our days. This eventually led to sickness and melt downs among all. Molly and I learned our lesson, and slowed down considerably. But at the time, we were so! excited! to be traveling.
I really hope to go back and actually see Ireland, the country. I'm sure it's beautiful, and I know that one day I'll get back there.
Next Time: Dublin continues!

One Year Ago Today

... I was tying up loose ends, and catching a plane to Dublin, Ireland.
I know I didn't blog about it at the time, but since it's the one year anniversary, I figure it'd be a good idea to do so. Right now I have a familiar itch in my foot, and spent time on the internet trying to teach myself Welsh or plan trips throughout the UK. Perhaps this reenactment will calm the itch, or make it much, much worse. We'll see!

This archives work certainly has helped to temper some of my more grandiose visions of history. A lot of it has been slogging through pages and pages of business related correspondence that all says pretty much the same thing. Not really historically important, but we're keeping it anyway. Actually, the information we've gained would further flesh out the historical narrative of Progressive Era newspaper business. But, as you can guess, that's sort of a niche market.
For example, EW Scripps, of newspaper fame, went into business with his brother James. EW also had a son named James, and James the Younger had a son, named EW. All of them, at one time or another, were involved with the Scripps newspaper business and Dana Sleeth.
However, we were quite unaware that, instead of just the two Scripps brothers, we were dealing with four men from three generations. It was until I was idly looking up James Scripps that I realized that I had letters signed by 'Jim' from years after he died. But no book or website notes this complicated series of events, despite the fact that the James the Elder's widow (still unnamed) founded a newspaper partnership with one of Dana Sleeth's editors shortly after James' death. This Scripps-Canfield newspaper association was important in the history of Northwestern newspapers, but it remains pretty much unknown. In the meantime, historians like me are left scratching their heads as to how on earth James could be writing letters from beyond the grave and why EW goes from being a total hard ass to being friendly enough with Dana to visit him on the farm.
But then you have to step back and realize that it's not actually *that* important. Yeah it took me a week to sort this all out, but I don't think that this new understanding will dramatically change anything or better the world.
That's the key issue with history. It's often easy to get wrapped up in your research, turning molehills into mountains and deciding that your interpretation will change the whole understanding of history. In reality, it may complicate the narrative (as one of my professors is very fond of saying), but ultimately, it won't change anything. Sometimes I feel like studying history is futile at best. What's the point? How can my knowledge of the past change anything? It seems a vocation fit for professors and not much else.
I suppose that's why I'm drawn to things like historic preservation-- in preserving houses, buildings, and documents, I'll be making a physical impact on the world. I'll be able to step back from a project and have something to show for it. Many people are drawn to the past because they like to trace where we've come from, finding similarities and differences with our ancestors, seeing where we've progressed and where we've regressed (not that many people view history as anything but progress--but that's a post for another day). I'm like that, too. I like knowing why we think the way we do, how societal norms are shaped, how they change, and how they stay the same. Sure it's not going to change the world, but it does offer some insight into the hows and whys of society, and I like knowing those answers.

The Untimely Death of Dana Sleeth

Dana Sleeth died on April 6, 1936. He was 50 some years old. Bizarre, eh? For the 1930s, 50 seems like a young time to die. His father and mother lived into their 70s. Strangely enough, they all died with in three years of each other-- his dad Asa died in 1935, Dana died in 1936, and his mother Mattie died in 1937.
The other strange thing about this kind of historical work is that it's easy to create situations in your head that fully explain the data you have on hand. But then if you add just one more variable, your explanation is so far off, it's almost laughable.
This is how our explanation of Dana's death played out:
First, we had the young age and no explanation.
Then we found a page or two written by his daughter talking about Dana's love to drink. She said that he drank often, occasionally over-doing it. (which, given that it was Prohibition era, makes sense.)
Aha! we though. He was an alcoholic, and probably shot his liver. Death=explained.
But how boring. Entirely pedestrian.
And then we found a letter from his friend, Homer Bone, asking why he was in the Portland sanitarium, dated the day before he died. This was shortly followed by a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt, thanking him for the nice things he wrote about her in his recent column. This was dated a day or two after he died. So he never received the letter. Isn't that awful? I would be so bummed if Eleanor Roosevelt wrote me a letter that I never received. I mean, along with being bummed about being dead.
And then we found his obituary. Turns out, he was drawing a bath of (scalding) hot water, fell in, and was burned so badly, he died a few days later.
So now these questions remain:
Could you really get bath water that hot back in the 1930s?
How on earth do you fall into the bath? Was he drunk at the time?
How did they treat burns like that back then? How bad were the burns?
Unless we come across more letters from his kids or wife, I doubt we'll ever know the answer.
What a bizarre way to die. At least it's more interesting that liver failure or something.
Edited to add: We've now found that Dana had written several newspaper columns discussing the danger of slipping in hot baths. Poor guy! He didn't even take his own advice!

"I am on a still hunt for a sugar daddy that has some dough for hell-raising purposes" Homer T Bone

Alright! Today was an awesome day in the archives. We dealt entirely with correspondence between Dana and his friends and family. He was an active letter writer, and his editorials often attracted responses from across the nation. Conveniently, he saved most of it, including the envelopes (which are surprisingly helpful to connect names to places and dates.) So even though we've barely scratched the surface of Dana's personal writing, we already know his opinions on birth control (good), big business (bad) and socialism (good). Margaret Sanger, pioneer of birth control in the early 20th century, wrote him a letter, expressing her thanks for his latest newspaper column. Upton Sinclair (he of The Jungle fame) addressed him by his nom de plume "The Hill Billy" and offered to send Dana any of his books that he found interesting.

Perhaps the most intriguing though, is his six years of correspondence with Mr. Homer T.Bone, future senator from Washington. We first have letters from Bone from 1930, when he decided that he had no money to run for Senate, and no one had enough money to fund him. By 1931, he had decided to go for it, and in 1932, he was elected to the Senate. He was a firm socialist, and was appalled at the apathy of the lower classes (whom he called 'serfs'.) It's surprising to me that he could ever get elected. In his letters, he rails against private corporations and profits which undercut the common man. He sends Dana lists of organizations that are considered "communist." The League of Women Voters and the Society for Safer Schools among them. It's also interesting to read the subtext of the letters. Beyond the indignant cries against capitalism, there's a sense of loneliness and isolation. He often hopes to come down to Portland to share some crayfish and a (then illegal) drink, or urges Dana to come up, offering up his best room (complete with Gideon Bible!). And then there's a man named Tom Burns. Bone often mentions how he'd like to clasp hands with Burns again.

And this is why history is awesome on two fronts:
1) I get to learn all the gossip about people, but because they're dead, no one cares, and I still get all the guilty pleasure of knowing these people's secrets.
2) People back in the 1930s were struggling with the exact same issues that we are today. You could have changed the date on Bone's letter, and I would have thought that it was written by some Tacoma hipster who liked type writers. There was almost no difference between the issues being discussed then and now. While it's disconcerting on one hand to see that we are, in some respects, grappling with the same issues 80 years later, it's also reassuring to know that the world hasn't really gone to hell in that time. No matter what the pundits like to tell us, there was never a magical "better" time when business and individual worked together in harmony or the two political parties got together and sung Kumbaya across the aisle (the Era of Good Feelings aside).

Also, Bone was a very eloquent and quite snarky writer. But between pot-shots at newspaper editors and Prohibitionists, some times he was just ridiculous. I really wish we could read what Dana wrote back. I'm sure that he was just as good.
Here's another one of his gems (regarding his desire to get into politics): "I neigh like an old war horse when I smell the smoke of battle, and long to set my manly brisket against the cold steel of the enemy, but dammit, I want some shock troops and latrine cleaners to go along on this gory path to Glory."

Next time: Dana's untimely and totally bizarre death and letter he never received that he really should have.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

So I think I'm going to start posting again. Unfortunately, I'm not going on some crazy adventure in Europe or South America or anything. No, the most exciting part of my life is my new practicum in the archives of Lewis and Clark.
Yeah, I'm that cool.
Along with my roommate, I'm processing a collection from a local Portland family active from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century. We have Bibles, school books, letters, more Bibles, periodicals, photographs, more Bibles, a bonnet, and other stuff we don't even know about yet.
I'd like to begin to articulate what I think about history and how even this kind of history is important. And it will be good practice for my thesis! (Ah my thesis, ever looming like a frightening spectre in the dark, waiting to swallow me whole.)
So stay tuned, and I'll walk you through our awesome special collections archives and the cool things that I get to work with three times a week! I promise I'll try and make it interesting! If I can't see it to the internet, how will I ever make it in the big leagues?