… Haddon Sundblom. It’s probably common knowledge to many in the Civil War blogosphere.
Personally, whenever I see a 
Haddon 
Sundblom Santa image adorning a Coca-Cola bottle or Coca-Cola advertising, I can’t help but recall my favorite image of Stonewall Jackson. It appeared on the cover of Civil War Times many, many moons ago (well, May of 1972 to be specific), but it captured the attention of a seven-year old boy (me!) when I got my copy (and I still have it, by the way). I often think it was the depth of color he used, combined with that green border the magazine used. I know, I know, there are a few things in the painting that are a little irksome, historically speaking, but it’s still an awesome piece. I also think Stonewall looks a lot taller in this piece than anything else I’ve seen… and he looks like he might be spending some time at the gym… lending yet more credibility to the buffed Stonewall statue on Henry House Hill at Manassas… 8)-
The Stonewall piece first appeared as a Coca-Cola advertising piece in the 1930s and was used as one of the images in the “Pause that Refreshens” slogan campaign. That slogan, by the way, was started in 1929, but it was used for several years thereafter, along with other slogans that weren’t quite as successful along the way. So, after being used in the 30s, it’s interesting that the image was put back in circulation years later, for use in CWTI. The ironic part of the appearance on the cover in May 1972 is that, well… another Sundblom image graced the front cover of yet another magazine later that year. In fact, his ties with Santa Claus imagery reached another level in December 1972, when a “special” Santa image appeared on the cover of… drum-roll please… Playboy (the “Enjoy our Cola Christmas Issue”). You can see an image of the cover of that issue of Playboy attached to Sundlom’s biography in Wikipedia.
Actually, Sundblom did a number of pin-up images. Most were rather mild by comparison to the piece for Playboy… excepting one other piece that can be found relatively easily on the Web.
Oh, now this is just great! It’s one thing to have a “hyperlinked memory” (the fact that when I see Sundblom’s Santa images, I think about Sundblom’s Stonewall), but not I’m starting to hear “Stonewall Baby” in lieu of “Santa Baby” … and I’m actually thinking about alternative lyrics to go along with it! 
Bottom line, Sundblom was talented in more than just Santa imagery, but here’s to him as I think about his Santa Claus art, raising a bottle of Coca-Cola on this fine Christmas Eve!
On that note… here’s hoping everyone has a pleasant Christmas Eve tonight…
Following-up from my post yesterday about Maryland’s independent efforts in emancipating slaves in Maryland… this is the piece that I promised would follow. The following is from the July 30, 1862 edition of the Hagerstown Herald of Freedom and Torch Light:
The President’s Appeal to the Border StatesThe Representatives and Senators of the Border Slaveholding States having, by special invitation of the President, been convened at the Executive Mansion on Saturday morning last Mr. Lincoln addressing them as follows from a written paper in his hands:
[Begin President Lincoln's address]
Gentlemen – After adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall have no opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of the Border States hold more power for good than any other equal number of numbers, I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably waive to make this approach to you.
I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of last march the war would now be substantially ended. And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. – Let the States that are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest. – But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution [slavery] within your own States. Beat them at elections,m as you have overwhelmingly done, and nothing ____ [illegible] they still claim you as their own. You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever before their face, and they can shake you no more forever.
Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration, and I trust you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own, when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask, ‘can you, for your States, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilia and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any possible event? – You prefer that the constitutional relation of the States to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbances of the institution; and, if this were done, my whole duty, in this respect, under the Constitution and my oath of office, would be performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war. The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. If the war continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion – by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war, and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event? How much better to thus save the money which else we sink forever in the war! How much better to do it while we can, lest the war are long render us peculiarily unable to do it! How much better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which the war could never have been, than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one another’s throats.
I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply, and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to go.
I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned – one which threatens division among those who united, are none too strong. An instance of it is known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men everywhere could be freed. He proclaimed [see General Order No. 11] all men free within certain states, and in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now ask you can relieve me, and, much more, can relive the country in this important point.
Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the message of march last. Before leaving the Capitol, consider ans discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such I pray you consider this proposition; and at the least commend it to the consideration of your States and people. As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in the world, I beseech you do in no wise omit this. Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once relived, its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you more than to any others, the privilege given to assure that happiness and swell that grandeur, and to link our own names therewith forever.
[End President Lincoln's address]
At the conclusion of these remarks some conversation was had between the President and several members of the delegation from the Border States, in which it was represented that these States could not be expected to move in so great a matter as that brought to their notice in the foregoing address while as yet the Congress had taken no step beyond the passage of a resolution expressive rather of sentiment than presenting a substantial and reliable basis of action.
The President acknowledge the force of this view, and admitted that the Border States wwere entitled to expect a substantial pledge of pecuniary aid as the condition of taking into consideration a proposition so important in its relations to their social system.
It was further represented in the conference that the people of the Border States were interested in knowing the great importance which the President attached to the policy in question, while it was equally due to the country, to the President, and to themselves that the Representatives of the Border Slaveholding States should publicly announce the motives under which they were called to act, and the considerations of public policy urged upon them and their constituents by the President.
With a view to such a statement of their position, the members thus addressed met in council to deliberate on the reply they should make to the President, and, as the result of a comparison of opinions among themselves, they determined upon the adoption of a majority and minority answer.
Those replies will be presented in a post to follow.
I’m somewhat embarrassed by it, but until late this past summer, I didn’t realize that Maryland took action to free slaves in the state… and yes, this happened before the end of the Civil War. I’ve been looking into this a bit more and mostly following the flow of thoughts and events through the wartime newspapers of western Maryland. What continually “pinged” on me in the course of my research is the way that some people (today) feel a need to believe that the Emancipation did nothing. The situation in Maryland becomes even more interesting when one considers how many of these same folks regularly bring up that the other slaveholding states that did not secede weren’t covered under the EP. Now, this Maryland thing aside, I would argue that they are wrong regarding the EP, but WITH the Maryland information before me now, I’m even more convinced that the EP did a great deal more than some seem to think. Now, don’t get me wrong. Maryland’s independent emancipation of slaves was not a smooth and easy process. It was excruciatingly painful to many slaveholders and slaves alike. In some ways, I think this is one of the very things that slaveholders in the seceding states feared rather intensely (a greater incentive to go to war in defense of “rights”, perhaps…). I can also see how the non-slaveholders were concerned about the impact of freeing slaves (not that I couldn’t see it before, but it became even more clear with my findings in Maryland). Nonetheless, the Maryland legislature made it happen and a reversal of the independent emancipation (in the event that the Union lost the war), wasn’t in the proposal that became law on 1 November 1864. Another thing that I found of interest was Lincoln’s appeal to the Maryland legislature to free slaves. I’ll have more on this later.
Yes, I’m not only developing elsewhere, but I’m tweaking here. I wanted to change my header to better reflect the diversity of my posts. I’m not sure this does everything that I want, but it’s close.
I’ll have something up soon that relates… again… to the Civil War.
A shot of my east orchard and blackberry bramble this morning… first measurable snowfall this fall.
I’ve been busy for the past few days in Photoshop CS3, developing a graphic that will serve as the entry portal to my website. I locked onto the domain about two years ago, but found that schoolwork just never gave me a chance to really sit down and work on making something with all the space on the domain. Now, seven months after graduating (and now that I have wireless broadband), I’m finally at the point where I can make something. As opposed to my Geocities days (which started about 12 years ago), Web development for me these days isn’t just a matter of jumping into a WYSIWYG environment and making a series of HTML pages. Yes, I well recall those days of Web 1.0… or was it really Web 0.5? Things are a lot more complex today, but more exciting. In the past two years, I have found myself referring to Web 1.0 webpages as “tombstones.” They deliver information, but aren’t truly dynamically interactive with the user/passerby.
One of the big things that has slowed me down is deciding how I want that initial page to appear. For a couple of reasons, I opted against a Flash splash page, and am leaning toward doing something a little more artsy (though not too artsy… after all, I’m much more of a process engineer than I am a “makes pretty things” person). I’m taking care when it comes to my selection of typography, colors, etc. I have to admit, I am rather partial to black or dark pages.
I also plan on including a few entry “portals” within the initial portal page. Since traditional narrative development was my starting point in developing historical content, I want to position a hot spot (in a mini-graphic) for that somewhere in a leading position on the page. After that, I plan on creating a transition of hot spots (through more mini-graphics) for other history-related projects that I have worked on, from “interactive”/user-experience-focused print works to different projects on the Web (including blogging and wikis).
All-in-all, I want this to be transparent when it comes to keeping readers mindful of how the Web continues to give us the opportunity to deliver educational content in innovative ways. I also want to shed more light on the dynamic means of historical content delivery made possible through the electronic environment of the Web. At the same time, I don’t want readers/users to lose focus on traditional narrative as the foundations upon which we step-off into the more dynamic environment. I’m also intent on bringing some form of awareness to the fact that digital literacy (writing AND reading for the Web) is a modification of the way that we have written and read in the world of traditional print.
In other areas of this site, I want to create space where a reader/user will become immersed in interactive historical content, focused less on transparency and more on reader/user-experience. Of course, “memory” of the Civil War and other aspects that I have remained devoted to in blogging, will remain in the spotlight of this developing site (though I’m not saying that other historical eras might not slip in, somewhere within the site) .
As far as a wireframe goes, I think it goes without saying that it is an open-ended affair. Throughout the initial development phase, I need to make sure I don’t close down potential pathways for future development. I think the initial work-up is always the most difficult part. After that, I think things will begin to flow a bit easier.
Between looking for a job, being sick, and my laptop biting the dust, I’ve had a lot of time to think about blogging and where I want this blog (and my smaller info blogs) to go. I’m not done with blogging (especially now, with a new laptop and a new mobile broadband service), but I do want to spend more time “building.” For those who have followed my posts about my thoughts in regard to digital history (and might actually remember some of them), I think you folks have a better grasp of what I’m talking about.
As a blogger and observer of blogging now for about two years… I’ve come to the conclusion that blogging has some interesting features, especially when we really think about the nature of social interaction design… and yes, there actually is methodology behind the electronic design of social interaction. Yet (and this is rather important in the bigger scheme of things when it comes to blogging history), it can be a hard methodology to follow, especially when the blogger and readers/writers of comments become engaged in emotionally charged exchanges (sort of like a newspaper columnist trying not to be a part of the story… it’s just not a good thing, all-in-all). In some instances, one side voices opinions, while the other side counters, but is something actually accomplished? Usually it ends in a stalemate, and sometimes it evolves into the one side (that can’t keep up with sufficient historically-supported facts) resorting to calling an idea (from the opposing side), “stupid.” It’s rather ridiculous and when it gets to that point, and if it gets to that point, nothing is provided to the bystander reader in regard to better “understanding” the approach taken by the other side in the arrangement of historical data in the development of an historical theory or thesis.
Speaking of the bystander reader, I suppose the true measure of effectiveness of history-related blogs is impossible to measure, especially when we consider the fact that we receive comments from but a fraction of those who visit (and sometimes frequent) our blogs. The bystander/silent readers (non-commenting writers) are out there, and they far outnumber those who comment. I’m sure they read blog posts and form their opinions based on the posts and (perhaps more importantly) the exchanges that they read… but we have no way to measure that… or prove it. Some of these readers who might actually comment once, come to a blog post with no real understanding of blogging (or the electronic environment of the Web, in some cases) or that there are actually a long line of blog posts (both in the past and in the “future” or since the date of the post at which they arrive courtesy of their favorite search engine). Sometimes these one-time commenting readers engage the blogger in a pleasant, perhaps even an agreeing tone, while others do their utmost to bash the blogger without understanding the complete line of posts that are strung together with the only post that they read in the entire blog. As a blogger, I’m glad to read those who make positive comments and offer thoughtful comments, but I’m frustrated with those who make a comment in passing, without, what seems to me, having taken the time to read the string of posts that are related to the single post (and usually tied together through a tag or two). There is something lacking in blogging, and I think it is a clear connection between the content (past and “future” posts). Tags and hyperlinks might seem intuitive features to the long-time surfer of the Web, but that isn’t the case with all of the readers… who are the users… and that matters when it comes to usability design on the Web. Soooo, this takes me to the urge to spend more time “building.”
When I speak of “building” I mean that I want to develop something even more interactive, engaging, and perhaps (hopefully) more immersive for the reader, but more importantly, with a clear connection between content. I’ve developed skills in a range of Web development tools, from using Dreamweaver, PHP, and even Flash, to understanding the theory behind interaction design and the development non-social interfaces. Yes, you read that right. I’m not so much looking for the social interaction design that comes with blogs, but more for the interaction design of non-social interfaces in Web projects. I still don’t believe that digital history has reached a point where it has tapped into the full potential of the Web, and by the full potential, I’m speaking of immersion in narrative, aesthetic design, and interfaces (strange, but I never really considered myself a public historian… but, in retrospect, that’s about the size of things now). I think there are better ways to deliver historical concepts and facts and I’m still of the opinion that it can be done through the electronic environment offered through the Web.
Yet, I dare not end this post on that note, mostly because I can hear some critics already. “Oh, he just wants to find another way to tell his perspective of an historical event and/or concept… and that equates to more ‘Confederate bashing.’” Anyone who knows the scope and depth of my writings in this blog knows me better than that…
I don’t believe that we are capable of totally objective history, but I do believe that electronic development of projects should make the “developer” far more aware of the elements in his/her work… far more than in the case with the development of traditional narrative in print form. In my opinion, that awareness in developing the delivery of historical content in electronic form is something that more frequently reminds the developers that they might be leaning too far in one direction or the other. From the development of the narrative on the screen to the colors, images, typography, etc. that are used, developers of digital history should be conscious of how all of this might impact the message. The developer, no doubt, has an opinion, but from the perspective of one who strives for objectivity, the neutrality of all of those other elements should keep the developer on his/her toes.
Ultimately, my interest within the last three years has shifted slightly, to looking for more dynamic ways to deliver history. In fact, I’m even at a strange crossroads as an historian, especially when it comes to writing books and articles. Simply put, I’m bored with the traditional delivery of history through print. It’s probably even worse knowing what “works” in engaging today’s (and tomorrow’s) youth. I’m not saying that history delivered through traditional print is going away any time soon, but I am saying that it isn’t reaching as far as it should be in a upcoming society that looks for more interaction with things that come their way. Frankly, I believe that traditional methods of delivery have failed those who think history is nothing more than memorization of names and dates… and it fails even more so today, in our “microwave society.”
I’ve rambled a lot here, and enough on this for now. We’ll see what comes of this urge to “build” in the coming months. I might be spending more time blogging about digital history in the coming months than about history itself, but we’ll see. I do still have a few loose ends around here, from wrapping up my Confederate ancestors analysis to revealing a few more details about Unionism in Maryland.
Coming off the flu, I had the bonus experience in the demise of my laptop’s motherboard, so… with my backup computer a rather antiquated piece of work, posts are at a standstill right now until I get another laptop. This post courtesy of my access to a computer in a public library!
For about the past six days, I’ve been dealing with one heck of a virus… and yesterday, I found out, courtesy of a professional diagnosis, that I’m battling the big “pig.” Fortunately, my battle with swine flu isn’t as tough as it could be. The doc says my immune system is apparently battling it rather well. Nonetheless, I’ve been on a roller coaster of viral symptoms. I think I’m feeling better for a while, then, usually sometime beginning in the afternoon, the battle becomes more “intense.” By far, this is the longest I have dealt with viral symptoms and usually see them moving along after about 24-48 hours.
So, not feeling much like posting anything too intense lately, I’ve fallen back a bit to some “casual work” on Wikipedia. What? You think blogging’s the only thing I do on the Web? History needs tweaking elsewhere as well… and there are also plenty of gaps to fill. For those interested in taking a peak at some of my casual work on Wikipedia, you can see it here. Though I’m about done with it, one of my largest projects there is making some major tweaks on the Bethany Veney entry. I’ve got to get some more stuff to post on HMDb sometime soon as well. Once I’m back to normal, I’ll be posting a few more items about the interesting and curious status of Unionism in western Maryland in 1861.
Sidetracking a bit (again) from the examination of western Maryland’s take on the “impending crisis” of 1861, I figured I’d post something else of interest from the Hagerstown Herald of Freedom and Torch Light. This comes from the February 8, 1860 issue. Nothing scary, just a touching 19th century “spirit story.” I always enjoy finding tales such as this. Regretfully, the type was misaligned in the printing, so I’m missing a few words from the article (indicated by “- – -“).
A BEAUTIFUL INCIDENT. – Some months ago, an amiable, beautiful and accomplished lady, the mother of three bright, interesting children, and the wife of a highly esteemed citizen, died suddenly and under peculiar and trying circumstances. – Her death was universally lamented, and her affected family has the deepest sympathies of the whole community. Among her children was a little angelic girl about five years old.
A lovely being, scarcely form’d or moulded.
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.The child often seemed to be thinking of her absent mother and frequently spoke of her, but she had not been more thoughtful or melancholy than many other children under similar circumstances. On a pleasant, balmy evening, just after the sun had set, the child with several other members of the family, including the father, were on the – - – of the house, enjoying the pleasant – - – when the child was observed to – - – gazing upwards, with her eyes upon some object, which seemed to – - – she continued in this for several moments when she clapped her hands gleefully, jumped upon the – - – and in an ecstacy of delight, and cried out, “papa, papa! There’s mother, there’s my mother! O! my dear beautiful mother, – do come home and live with us again!” The father with a melting heart spoke gently to the child and attempted to withdraw her attention; and told her that she was mistaken, her mother was not there. Yet the child continued to clap her hands joyfully, for some minutes, and declared it was her mother, she saw her “there, there!, there!” pointing with her finger – “I see her eyes!” All present were struck with amazement and awe, and none doubted that the spiritual little girl had really commuted with her mother. Peninsula News.
