Category: Uncategorized Page 5 of 6

By Cole Pellicano

“The 1950s were the heyday of the modern corporation. Detroit’s Big Three- General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler- were models of stability and steady growth.”- (H.W. Brands, American Dreams, p. 71)

“Manufacturing, having supplanted farming as the signature occupation of the American people around the turn of the century, remained the beating heart of the economy, but a growing segment of the workforce provided services.” – (H.W. Brands, American Dreams, p. 72)

Jerry Emerson was just like every other baby boomer of his time, a young adolescent trying to find work in the postwar era. Emerson recalled, “On the farm you could never get more than thirty hours a week. Our Chrysler factory opened in fifty-five and offered the most pay in the area.”[1] H.W. Brands expresses the idea that the “Big Three” automotive makers of Detroit were symbols of stability and growth. However, after conducting research and interviewing Emerson, there is evidence that challenges Brands’ claim and portrays a different angle of the automotive industry throughout the postwar era. Through the descriptions of the earliest Chrysler factories, the bailout the company faced in 1979 and the foreign production that would cripple the company completely. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the Chrysler Corporation was anything other than stable.

Chrysler Rotterdam Plant 1970. (Courtesy of Allpar)

When World War II ended, a wave of domesticity crashed over America, and with this wave came a surge in the demand for automobiles. The “Big Three” companies, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler received this wave with open arms.[2] Facing high demand, the assembly line was vital to the manufacturing of cars at this time. The increase of demand for Chrysler’s cars led to a much tougher life for the men and women on the assembly line. Low level workers were starting to become severely mistreated across the entire auto industry. It was this mistreatment of employees that would eventually lead to the formation of the Union of Automotive Workers (UAW).[3] The UAW was formed to eliminate the mistreatment of assembly line workers and relieve some of the pressure on lower level managers. In 1937, the UAW had their first organizational drive, it ended up being a major success.[4] The drive won the Union recognition from General Motors and the Chrysler Corporation. By bringing Chrysler and General Motors to terms, the UAW was able to put itself on the map.[5] Since it’s recognition, the UAW has won privileges for assembly line workers that would have never been gained had the workers fought alone. These privileges could consist of anything between lengthening lunch breaks to a bump up in pay. When WWII ended, the baby boom spiked America’s population and eventually created a working class larger than any before.[6] It was within this group of baby boomers that Emerson found himself applying to the Chrysler Corporation. Although the Union had gained national recognition, the fight for automotive workers was not over. There still remained a shortage of breaks, poor factory quality, and workers were not given the proper safety equipment. However, people of the post war era needed to find jobs and the automotive industry was notorious for providing a large amount jobs and good pay. This is what attracted Emerson to work for Chrysler in 1966.[7] Emerson claimed that everyone was interested by the Chrysler Corporation after the war, “People were constantly asking me what it was like to work there and if there was any availability.”[8]

UAW Workers Striking Against Chrysler Bailout 1979 (Courtesy of World Socialist Web Site)

Although Brands described the “Big Three” as stable, Emerson’s experience with the company was quite unstable. Emerson worked for Chrysler from 1966-2000 and speaks very highly of the work that the UAW did during his time on the line. When first asked about his experience with the UAW, Emerson said, “If it wasn’t for the UAW we wouldn’t have gotten a decent wage, safety improvements, any type of job security, or a decent retirement plan.”[9] However, it seemed that during his time at Chrysler, there still had not been any major changes to how workers were treated or the quality of the factories. Emerson described the factories as, “horrible…hot, dusty, and dirty,” and later saying that they were treated as disposable by management.[10] Managers were also distanced from the workers, they were given a number of cars to produce and would meet that quota by any means necessary.[11] Safety was never a priority and workers were never standing still, Emerson explained, “We used to joke around by calling ourselves the hourly dogs.”[12] Throughout his career, Emerson eventually became a Union official for the UAW and was able to have a first hand vote in some of the negotiations for better work quality and help be a voice for his fellow employees. Emerson encountered many experiences in his time at the Chrysler Corporation that were not astray from the trends of general history. Every three years the UAW would do a progress evaluation at various plants across the country. If it had been a good three years the union would make a push for more rights, if it had been a bad three years, the union would struggle to even keep previous rights.[13] Emerson was able to recall vivid memories of some of these three year evaluation meetings. Emerson commented “You never wanted to be a part of one of those negotiations after a bad three year mark, I only sat in on one evaluation in my time, but I was one of the lucky ones that got an evaluation after three positive years.”[14] Emerson also was a part of the Chrysler Corporation during the Chrysler Bailout of 1979. The Chrysler Bailout of 1979 was the first major hit Chrysler took in its tenure.[15] Out of fear of being overrun by foreign importers, Chrysler attempted to take its operation overseas.[16] Unfortunately, the Chrysler European division failed miserably, Europeans did not share the same love that Americans had for Chrysler’s American muscle look.[17] Chrysler was forced to ask the government for a loan, the government granted the loan, but not without requiring major federal involvement. Emerson recalled his experience of the bailout, “They kept us in the dark, especially us UAW workers, they didn’t want us asking questions, the worst part was that the only thing that wasn’t in the dark was the dollar and a half that came off of our hourly pay, that definitely hurt.”[18] At the end of his career at the Chrysler Corporation, the company had begun a steep downhill decline. The 1980’s and the turn of the twenty-first century brought with it an oil crisis that would allow foreign car companies with incredible gas mileage to dominate the market.[19] This was the last hit Chrysler could withstand, they simply could not keep up with the foreign importers that were now the new American favorite. Emerson claimed, “People wanted better gas mileage which allowed the Japanese to market how great their gas mileage was, by the time we caught on to that it was too late, the Japanese were very smart for that.”[20]

Chrysler Pay Stub 1976 Right before the Bailout. (Courtesy of Jerry Emerson)

There are many major events that happened over the course of Emerson’s time at Chrysler that enable a transparent look into what life truly was like on the assembly line at one of the “Big Three” corporations. Emerson’s memories are so important due to the fact that he had a first person experience as an employee and labor union official in the postwar era. Emerson was a part of a Union that gained national recognition in 1937, almost thirty years before he joined the work force. Even in today’s society, the UAW is still relevant and fights for assembly line workers’ rights in the auto industry. This allows for a different perspective of history that Brands is unable to truly capture. In today’s society, when people recall the “Big Three,” the idea of three corporate giants that are rooted in American culture is conceived. What people don’t get to see is the true practices that these corporations used to achieve their wealth, or eventual downfall in the case of Chrysler. The transcripts also give insight for people to see the undercover horror that these assembly line workers had to go through on a day to day basis. Emerson’s experiences can also be correlated with literary works. In Kevin Boyles novel The UAW and the Heyday of Liberalism, Boyle discusses functions of the UAW in the postwar era that are reflected by Emerson’s personal experience as a UAW official. Emerson’s memories allow for insight into a lifestyle that was not irregular for the postwar time period and is why it challenges Brands’ claim.

H.W. Brands claims that corporations such as the “Big Three” of Detroit were symbols of the modern corporation due to their stability and growth. After closer research and analyzing the transcripts provided by Emerson, it can be argued that corporations such as Chrysler were not as modern and stable as Brands claims. Emerson offers a closer look into the Chrysler Corporation that Brands would never be able to attain. The auto industry’s poor treatment of employees and lack of rights was far from how a modern corporation in today’s society would treat its employees. If it had not been for the UAW and its officials like Emerson, the workers would have been treated even worse.[21] Along with a lack of modernistic ideas, Chrysler was unable to make it to the twenty-first century without being merged with Mercedes Benz and eventually Fiat.[22] These facets joined together challenge Brands’ portrayal of the “Big Three” as being signs of stability and growth.

[1] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson, November 7, 2017.

[2] Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism 1945-1968 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) [Dickinson Library]

[3] Kevin Boyle, Rite of Passage (Labor History 27 no. 2) [Google Books]

[4] Kevin Boyle, Rite of Passage (Labor History 27 no. 2) [Google Books]

[5] Kevin Boyle, Rite of Passage (Labor History 27 no. 2) [Google Books]

[6] Ronald Freeman on American Population Growth: A View from 1957 (Population and Development Review) [Ebsco}

[7] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson, November 7, 2017.

[8] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson November 7, 2017.

[9] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson November 7, 2017.

[10] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson November 7, 2017.

[11] Kevin Boyle, Rite of Passage (Labor History 27 no. 2) [Google Books]

[12] Audio interview with Jerry Emerson December 4, 2017.

[13] Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism 1945-1968 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) [Dickinson Library]

[14] Audio interview with Jerry Emerson December 4, 2017.

[15] James M. Bickley Chrysler Corporation Guarantee Act of 1979: Background, Provisions, and Cost (Ithaca NY: Cornell University, 2008) [Digital Common]

[16] Charles K Hyde Riding the Rollercoaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003) [Google Books]

[17] Charles K Hyde Riding the Rollercoaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003) [Google Books]

[18] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson December 4^th 2017

[19] Charles K Hyde Riding the Rollercoaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003) [Google Books]

[20] Audio Interview with Jerry Emerson December 4^th 2017

[21] Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism 1945-1968 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) [Dickinson Library]

[22] Charles K Hyde Riding the Rollercoaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003) [Google Books]

Timeline

Selected Transcript

From Phone call on November 7, 2017

Q. Can you describe for me what the factory was like?

A. In one word, horrible, we were treated as disposable by the management, but we needed the money. You typically worked five eight-hour days and you were constantly moving. It was hot, dusty, dirty. There was no such thing as ergonomics. The safety was non-existent, we were at risk every day. I’ll give you an example, one of my good buddies Mel Underwood went to work every day and sprayed the carriages under the cars with this lubricant. They never gave Mel respiratory gear to keep the harmful fumes out of his lungs. He was forced to wrap his face with old towels and t-shirts. In the end, the damn stuff ended up being what killed him. Same thing with my good buddies that worked in the tire durability station of the line. They would spin the wheels and burn rubber and I swear these rooms would fill with smoke you couldn’t even see into them. They never got any safety gear for that, not until a few years down the road they added some ventilation. However, that didn’t come until Nixon signed OSHA into law. OSHA definitely helped a decent amount with safety inspections, but like I said that wasn’t until the seventies. If you saw a problem, management didn’t want to hear about it, all they wanted was to see sixty cars roll out the door every hour.

Q. What do you remember about the UAW(United Automobile Workers)?

A. What don’t I remember would be a better question. If it wasn’t for the UAW we wouldn’t have gotten a decent Wage, not as many safety improvements, any type of job security, or a decent retirement plan. By the way, I was an appointed Union official in the joint union and management division of the quality program. That was designed to give the hourly employees some input to help ensure quality.

From Phone call on December 4, 2017

Q. What do you recall about the Chrysler bailout of 1979?

A. We took a big hit, they kept us in the dark, especially us UAW workers, they didn’t want us asking questions, the worst part was that the only thing that wasn’t in the dark was the dollar and a half that came off of our hourly pay, that definitely hurt.

Q. What were labor management relations like during your years at Chrysler?

A.You never had a relationship with your manager, they were the bosses we were the workers. We used to joke that we were the hourly dogs, you may have liked the guy but never had a great relationship. It wasn’t until after the bailout that we as workers were able to have a say in the quality of car parts. It was a part of the product quality improvement program, which was used as more of a marketing strategy. Besides making sure you had the right tools, you would do what they say and sometimes make a suggestion.

By Dane Huber 

“One day, I was just like you, walking down the street. I had a brand new car and everything and a beautiful girlfriend…24 hours later I was down in Fort Dix sleeping in the parking lot because they didn’t have enough room for us. They had boarded so many people at once, [I would] spends nights in the parking lot on the asphalt before they could even give us a bed” recalls Sargent Lawrence Galiano on his first moments as a solider preparing for the Vietnam War. [1] His plans to attend architectural school following his graduation from Barringer high school in downtown Newark, New Jersey would now be forfeited to fight for his country. Drafted on July 10^th, 1966, Sargent Galiano would go onto serve in Vietnam from February 5^th, 1967 to February 1^st, 1968 with Company C of the 1^st Battalion 12^th Infantry Regiment 4^th Infantry Division, also known as the Red Warriors. [2]

Lawrence Galiano in Vietnam

H.W. Brands, the author of American Dreams, provides a memoir of Marine Corps second lieutenant Philip Caputo, as he “and his fellow junior officers frequented the Officer’s Club in Okinawa, waiting and doing what off-duty officers do while waiting: drinking.” And “for seven weeks Caputo’s battalion saw no action,” when finally sent out into the jungle. [3] Sergeant Galiano’s experience does not deny Brands depiction of the battle in Vietnam, but offers a typically overlooked perspective of a drafted soldier fighting in the central highlands of Vietnam.

February 5^th, 1967, Galiano was headed to Saigon, Vietnam with 90 fellow Americans on an Air Force c-131, but orders were quickly altered following a pit stop “in Wake Island to refuel for about an hour…they recut our orders and sent us to a 4^th division in Pleiku, [Vietnam].” [4] Pleiku was the location of Camp Enari, the 4^th division headquarters. [5]

Once arriving in Vietnam, preparation for battle consisted of “a little bit of training, [a] little country orientation, a couple Vietnamese words, and we had a chance to zero in our m16s.” [6] The zeroing of his m16 was a first, as Galiano was trained on an m14 prior to the war. However, there was little time to adjust to the environment of war Galiano recalls, as on “the morning of the 12^th of February, [the United States] put us on helicopters and sent us out into the field.” [7]

Galiano’s first day in the jungle transpired so quickly, he didn’t even have a moment to touch ground before under attack. He remembers “everything was under fire…when we land, we cover about ten feet out of the helicopter; we got thrown out.” [8] But the next moment his luck would change along with his role in the war. After his ejection, he jumps into a “foxhole where one of the guys was dead; he was the gunner…So, because the gunner was dead, the assistant gunner had [to] take his place, the ammo baron became the assistant gunner, and I became the ammo baron.” [9] The gunner squad gave Galiano protection and comfort in a war that provided little. Unlike other members of the infantry, the machine gun squad had to stay together at all times.

The Red Warriors spent time along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an area where all three boarders of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia meet. Galiano’s regiment’s main objective was to protect the area and conduct bomb assessment. [10] Between August and December of 1967, it was an intense period as the “Americans bombed almost every target of military and economic importance in North Vietnam, flying 55,000 sorties and dropping 100,000 tons of ordnance.” [11] The intensity of the bombs imposed on the enemy could be heard and felt by the soldiers themselves. Galiano states they would wait “to hear the bombs fly over [and] the Bombay doors open” to then “feel the jungle bounce” as they hit the ground. [12] Following the bombings, the regiment would enter the area under attack, to conduct analysis on accuracy of the bombings and gather death intelligence information. Galiano can remember going in to “dig up bodies and see what rank [the soldiers] were” because the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) would hide the bodies. [13]

Dak To, a village in the central highlands, was home to a US Special Forces Camp “composed then of mountain tribal mercenaries led by experienced and canny Army noncommissioned officers.” [14] The US learned of NVA development and preparation of attack in the area. [15] Early in November of 1967, the US decided to bring in the 173^rd airborne Brigade and battalions of 4^th infantry under Major General William R. Peers. [16] Though not directly involved from the beginning, Galiano and the 12^th regiment were called in for backup during the final battle of Hill 875 after many casualties. He recalls the 173^rd airborne, “was on guard duty…and a couple of their guys…fell asleep and the NVA came through the wire, cut their throats, and started blowing up anything they could find.” [17] The US army finally forced the NVA out and decided they must follow them up Hill 875. Galiano states this was a costly mistake because the “army did exactly what the NVA wanted them to do. They chased them up the hill. And when they chased them up the hill, they ran into a whole regiment of NVA’s.“ [18] Leadership is key to success in the military, and on Hill 875, those leaders failed their soldiers.

The lack of leadership was not only issue during Galiano’s time in Vietnam. According to Brands, the US was far superior in every category of firepower and logistics compared to the NVA. [19] However, Galiano’s experience does not reflect Brand’s opinion. The weapon given to Galiano and his fellow soldiers was an m16, while the NVA were provided AK47’s. The AK47 was a far superior weapon to the M16 rifle because “[an AK47] didn’t jam [and] you could hold it under water and it would fire.” [20] The enemy was not only better equipped, but often outnumbered the United States military. Galiano, as sergeant, had a platoon that “fluctuated, sometimes it was 12 guys, maybe there [were] 15” and his infantry company was “supposed to have 120 members and at best we had maybe 70.” [21] As stated earlier, The United States felt no need to better equip or reinforce their troops because they believed their airstrike capabilities were plenty to support the troops. Galiano and his regiment would be sent out into battle with a 9 enemy to 1 soldier disadvantage in hope of support through the air. However, Galiano explains that the “operations were up in the high canopy jungle, sometimes 3 [level] canopies…and when they fired artillery, [the soldiers] would get airbursts” as backup. [22] And the environment not only affected airstrikes, but resupply of replenishments. There were days, Galiano says, “we were on our own, and we would have to fight our way in and fight our way out” of the jungle. [23] 

Home was the jungle for Galiano in Vietnam. Following his departure from base on February 12th, Galiano would only return “three times because [he] had malaria…and once to go to Hawaii.” [24] His infantry was resupplied every six days if conditions permitted and received one hot meal throughout his whole tour on Thanksgiving. He can recall, “everyone got sick because no one was used to eating hot food, we were used to C-rations.” [25] As a member of the 4^th infantry division, the war took a burden on your body.

The bodies of the soldiers would eventually recover; it was the mind that suffered lasting impacts. When Galiano finally returned home February 1^st, 1968, he states his “head was so messed up, I really didn’t want to think about [war]…I just couldn’t sit in chair.” [26] However, his time as a solider for the United States was not complete, as he had to return to Fort Campbell in Kentucky for 3 months. This was a difficult time for Galiano, as his mother was recovering from breast cancer and he was newly engaged to his girlfriend. He often flew back and forth from Fort Campbell to his hometown of Newark to see his family. [27] His treatment from people at the airport was disturbing, as he states “they used to curse me, spit at me, if I had my uniform on. And that was the only way I could afford to fly because I used to fly military standby.” [28] Many disputed the acts of disgust towards returning veterans, such as professor Jerry Lembcke in his book The Spitting Image. [29] However, employees of the airport understood how people treated the veterans. A stewardess approached Galiano in the airport and handed him a student standby pass. He recalls her saying, “it’s breaking my heart to tell you this, but from now on you fly student standby and this card will say that you are a student. Please take your uniform off.” [30]

Galiano’s life was put on hold for his country, fighting a war that lacked direction and leadership. However, no matter how much harm, mentally and physically, was inflicted on him during and post war, Galiano states, “I love this country. That is one thing. I have learned from being in Vietnam there is no country like this country.” [31]

[1] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[2] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[3] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States since 1945 (New York: Penguins, 2010), 143.

[4] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[5] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[6] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[7] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[8] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[9] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[10] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[11] Buzzanco, Bob. “The American Military’s Rationale Against the Vietnam War.” Academy of Political Science 101, no. 4 (1986): 559-76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2150794.pdf.

[12] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[13] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[14] Sheehan, Neil. “David and Goliath in Vietnam.” The New York Times , May 26, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/sunday/david-and-goliath-in-vietnam.html.

[15] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[16] Sheehan, Neil. “David and Goliath in Vietnam.” The New York Times , May 26, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/sunday/david-and-goliath-in-vietnam.html.

[17] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[18] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[19] Brands, 137

[20] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[21] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[22] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[23] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, December 5^th, 2017

[24] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[25] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[26] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[27] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[28] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[29] Sirota, David. “The myth of the spat-upon war veteran.” Star Tribune, June 7, 2012. http://www.startribune.com/the-myth-of-the-spat-upon-war-veteran/157945515/.

[30] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

[31] Interview with Lawrence Galiano, November 6^th, 2017

Interviews 

-Audio Recording, Carlisle, PA, November 6th, 2017

-Audio Recording, Carlisle, PA, December 5th, 2017

Selected Transcript

Q. Where did you first land in Vietnam?

A. “Well, from Texas, we went to Oakland, California. And then from Oakland, California we flew over to Vietnam. We stopped at Wake Island to refuel. When we stopped at Wake Island to refuel my original orders from Oakland California were to go into south, south Vietnam below Saigon because I was originally trained as an army personal carrier driver. And that was the only place they used them, the APCs. All right, so once we landed in Wake Island to refuel for about an hour, they recut us. There was 90 of us onboard the air force C1 31 and they recut our orders and sent us to a 4th division in Pleiku. When we landed, we landed at Pleiku airstrip in central Vietnam, in the central highlands. We stayed over there for a couple nights and they moved us into camp Enari, which was the fourth division headquarters.

At that point, so say we landed on the fifth, they gave us a little bit of training, little country orientation, a couple of Vietnamese words, and we had a chance to zero in our m16s. Prior to that, I have never shot an m16. I was trained on an m14. The morning of the 12^th of February, they put us on helicopters and sent us out into the field. That morning was a good morning for me and a bad morning. Because during that time, the day before that, my infantry company, which was C company of the 1^st and 12^th infantry of the 4^th division, came under heavy heavy attack on hill 501. And I never even been in a helicopter before, but there was six of us as replacements. We were thrown in early in the morning on the 12^th. The place was like flying into hell. It was, everything was under fire. We were trying to overthrow the perimeter. When we land, we cover about ten feet out of the helicopter; we got thrown out. And when we got to the ground, I looked around and there was one helicopter on the other side of the delzida. They had cut through the jungle mountaintop and that was on fire and I jumped into this foxhole and that’s where my luck changed.

So the foxhole I jumped into was part of an m16 machine gun in place. Now, I landed in the foxhole where one of the guys was dead; he was the gunner. The they way they run a machine gun slide, you have a gunner, assistant gunner, and an ammo baron. So, because the gunner was dead, the assistant gunner had take his place, the ammo baron became the assistant gunner, and I became the ammo baron. Which was a lot better than being just a regular infantry simply because the machine squad, the machine-gun squad had to stay together at all times. So when they sent other troops out for ambushes and mission posts, we did not. Only a few times was I sent out away from the machine gun squad. So I was protected from that. And I ended up become a machine gunner for six months. And I eventually moved up the rank of sergeant and then I became a sergeant in charge of a platoon.

And that about, I don’t know, fluctuated, sometimes it was 12 guys, maybe there 15. We were always under strengthened because the infantry company is supposed to have 120 members and at best we had maybe 70. So, and basically that was it. The other thing I wanted to tell you, which was important, when we landed, or first came into Vietnam, we landed in Pleiku airstrip. We stayed overnight there one or two nights at a reception center. We were called on guard duty and I happen to look around and I saw these two big build boards. They were basically two pieces of 4 by 8 plywood and they were painted over and they had a sign on it. One was the 25^th division, with its emblems and all the other stuff that go along with the 25^th, and the other sign was the 4^th division along with all its emblems and everything that went along with the 4^th. And they were having a contest, who can stay out in the field the longest. And when I got there, the 4^th tact was beating the 25^th by 20 days. Both divisions were in the field for over a year. So that meant when we went, unlike a lot of these what I’ve seen on TV and and when I came back and talked other guys, when my company and my regiment went out, we stayed out in the jungle.

We were supplied every 6 days with food. The only time we came back, and you know I came back three times because I had malaria three times and I came back once to go to Hawaii. But other than that, once I left that division headquarters on February 12^th, I didn’t come back out of a jungle. You know like other people, I’ve seen marines on TV. They would go out for two weeks, come back for two weeks. Go for a week, go out for 3 days, come back get some hot meals. We got one hot meal and that was on thanksgiving. Everyone got sick because no one was used to eating hot food, we were used to C-rations”

This was how the statue of Roger Brooke Taney looked on the grounds of the Maryland State House in Annapolis until about midnight, August 17, 2017.  Then it looked this:

It was a metaphorical hanging for a man whose legacy has come to be defined by the worst Supreme Court decision in American history –the Dred Scott case (1857), which denied blacks any rights as citizens, attempted to preserve the institution of slavery, and arguably contributed as much as any other single event to the coming of the Civil War.

Yet Taney was also a complicated figure.  His statue was removed in the wake of the 2017 tragedy at Charlottesville, but in ways that raise important questions, especially for graduates of Dickinson College.  Taney (Class of 1795) was a slaveholder who voluntarily freed his own slaves, defended a noted abolitionist in court and once called slavery “a blot on our national character.”  He was the country’s second longest serving chief justice (1835-1864) and widely respected as a jurist in his own era.  He was also a Unionist, who never joined the Confederacy, and tried, in his own cantankerous and polarizing way, to rein in President Abraham Lincoln’s aggressive use of presidential war powers.

But there is little doubt that Taney was an incredibly controversial figure whose memorials, like the one in Annapolis authorized in 1867 and erected in 1872, were designed to make post-war political statements.  That is why figures like former University of Maryland college student Colin Byrd have been lobbying since 2015 to have the Taney statue either removed or supplemented with other memorials to African Americans (like Harriet Tubman, also from Maryland) or with contextual wayside markers that could explain his troubled legacy.  In 2015, Maryland governor Larry Hogan called such efforts “political correctness run amok,” but in 2017, he suddenly changed his mind, and voted along with a majority of the State House Trust Board to have Taney’s 13-foot bronze memorial carted away and stored out of sight.

Here are some additional resources for those who want to understand this surprisingly complex and fast-changing debate over history and memory:

• Corey Brooks (York College) op-ed on Roger Taney statue (2015)
• Video profile of Colin Byrd, student activist from University of Maryland
• Economist magazine blog post on Taney statue removal

Technology in Wall Street Leading up to the 1987 Market Crash

by Alex Glonti

Beyond the scope of socializing and personal entertainment, technology helps entire industries thrive. In the world of finances in October of 1986, the Stock Exchange Automated Quotation system was introduced to the London stock exchange. New tech created new possibilities and progress in the field of finances in Britain[1]. This progress in tech was felt on the other side of the pond as well. The mid-1970’s turned the American Stock Exchange into a different beast – computers and programs began to be at play and younger, bright, more equipped people were gunning for the jobs[2]. One can argue that technology almost always pushes us a step forward, however if not mitigated and controlled it is capable of inflicting enormous damage. The “Black Monday” incident of October 19, 1987 serves as a good example of how innovation and progress can be dangerous even though it’s often a necessity.

The couple of decades leading up to “Black Monday” and to the 1980’s computer infused stock trading had been starkly different from the way things were run on Wall Street during and since the stock market crash of 1987. The 1960’s on wall street were scarce of tech and machinery. Nobody seemed to like technology and in fact abhorred the thought of these machines being involved in their work[3]. People that worked on the Street thought they would get replaced by these new gadgets[4]. Things were picking up for the stock exchange during this period and in a major way. Between 1965 and 1968, the number of shares of stock that was traded had gone from 5 million to approximately 12 million. There was a reduction in the stock’s price that one needed to pay to acquire it. This brought numerous problems for the traders because now paperwork clogged the back offices on Wall Street and clerks were being pushed to the breaking point[5]. This was dubbed the “paperwork crisis” as nobody used computer programs to record transactions and trades – all the work was simply too overwhelming[6]. The beginning of the 1970’s was like how everything operated in the 60’s, acquiring computers for most companies was a long stretch as the ones available at the time were quite expensive[7]. Wall Street still generally stuck to adding machines and simple calculators for some time before the mid 70’s[8]. But a lesson was learned, Wall Street now geared towards a new age of efficiency.

By the mid to late 1970’s Wall Street had fully turned towards technological advancement. Apple and IBM were at odds with each other for the title of the best option for offices[9]. Computer companies such as IBM, Tandem, DEC were used on Wall Street for several purposes – ranging from security trade recording to communications[10]. Technology had permeated work spaces throughout America. This change was necessary and served the purpose of aiding in the field of finances. In 1972 the American stock exchange and the New York stock exchange had been in joint collaboration to create a company called SIAC, otherwise known as Securities Industry Automation Corporation[11]. SIAC was tasked with managing the trading and communication operations that were made by the two largest stock exchanges in the nation. SIAC helped Wall Street process transactions at a much faster rate[12]. Soon after, in 1973 the Depository Trust Company was established creating an electronic database of stock information – trading, ownership and transactions data. In 1975, consolidated tape was used on Wall Street. This tape would allow for the public to look at up-to-date information about stocks and securities[13]. These changes brought new players as well, pitting the old timers against the new blood[14]. Soon the technological boom stopped and Wall Street headed towards the 1980’s fully primed and operational.

The 1980’s were turbulent times on Wall Street. Trading volume had increased more than ever before. Large investments and company appropriations started to take hold as the Street was more opulent and money filled than ever. Wall Street was even showcased in the movie “Wall Street”, released December, 1987. “Greed… is good”, in the words of the film character Gordon Gecko[15], was a poignant slogan for the era. People had used technology to manage their securities and trades in the past, but now it was different. Floor-based trading was beginning to wane as technology introduced itself more and more on Wall Street. Fully electronic stock markets replaced floor trading for the most part and a new way of selling and buying was in action – program trading. Still used today, program trading’s simple explanation would be that it can buy or sell 15 or more stocks valued at over $1 million total. This program was pre-programmed by traders to automatically enter the number of stocks to buy/sell into the New York Stock Exchange electronic system based on the calculated index prices[16]. This has later been called stock index arbitrage and is widely linked to the stock market crash of 1987[17].

Technology has been kind so far to the workers and traders of Wall Street. Unprecedented efficiency levels were being reached as the volume of trade increased. Fate proved to be cruel to these businessmen however. There was an insider rumor that the stock market was going to drop. This rumor led to the banks raising interest rates, resulting in some company’s stock prices going down. Program traders had picked these signals up and automatically started to sell these stocks. Because of it being automated, these programs began to sell stocks of random companies and soon the stock exchange ran out of control[18], culminating with the market crash – Black Monday. “A lot of programs crashed because they weren’t used to handling such a large lion. The numbers were much higher, the loses were much higher. The programs didn’t work that night…”[19], there was no contingency plan that prepared the brokers for a tech malfunction, (‘Lion’ means number of trades). The Dow Jones value dropped a never witnessed 508 points[20]. The technology that was used had been trusted too much for someone to believe it going bad.

Nobody knew why the market crashed on the October Monday of 1987, every finance expert said it wasn’t natural[21]. “People that were rich became poor and a lot of people committed suicide, lost all their money. They jumped off buildings, bridges…[22]”, says Thomas Guardino who was a manager at the world trade center at the time. Indeed, there were two reported suicides during the market crash[23].

If Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board at the time, did not react as fast as he did – using the Fed money supply to keep the Nation’s economy afloat as everybody was losing money; the results would have been devastating[24]. Failure of Program Trading would collapse the entire economic structure of the U.S. More so the failure of oversight by the tradesmen of Wall Street. Technology has proved an invaluable ally to Wall Street, but in a matter of hours it could have been a cause of ruin. Progress is inevitable and needed, yet one should be ever-weary of progress and be able to control it in order to ensure a safe future.

Citations:

[1] Flinders, Karl. “The evolution of stock market technology.” Http://www.computerweekly.com. November 02, 2007. http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240083742/The-evolution-of-stock-market-technology.

[2] Schwartz, Robert A., John Aidan. Byrne, and Gretchen Schnee. Rethinking Regulatory Structure. New York, NY: Springer New York, 2013. 99-100

[3] Schwartz, Robert A., John Aidan. Byrne, and Gretchen Schnee. Rethinking Regulatory Structure. New York, NY: Springer New York, 2013. 99-100

[4] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[5] Jones, Capers. The technical and social history of software engineering. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2014. 117

[6] Gomstyn, Alice. “Remembering the 1960s Paperwork Crisis.” The Alert Investor. August 31, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017. https://www.thealertinvestor.com/when-paper-paralyzed-wall-street-remembering-the-1960s-paperwork-crisis/.

[7] Gomstyn, Alice.”Remembering the 1960s Paperwork Crisis.” The Alert Investor. August 31, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017. https://www.thealertinvestor.com/when-paper-paralyzed-wall-street-remembering-the-1960s-paperwork-crisis/.

[8] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[9]Jack Doyle, “Apple, Rising:1976-1985,”
PopHistoryDig.com, May 10, 2010.

[10] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, April 20, 2017

[11] Shaw, Meredith. “Technological Advancements on Wall Street.” The History of Wall Street — The evolution of financial markets of the United States since 1865. April 24, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017. http://meredithshaw.web.unc.edu/2015/04/24/72/.

[12] Shaw, Meredith. “Technological Advancements on Wall Street.” The History of Wall Street — The evolution of financial markets of the United States since 1865. April 24, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017. http://meredithshaw.web.unc.edu/2015/04/24/72/.

[13] Shaw, Meredith. “Technological Advancements on Wall Street.” The History of Wall Street — The evolution of financial markets of the United States since 1865. April 24, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017. http://meredithshaw.web.unc.edu/2015/04/24/72/.

[14] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[15] Kulikowski, Laurie. “Wall Street, Then and Now.” TheStreet. September 24, 2010. Accessed April 30, 2017. https://www.thestreet.com/story/10870384/2/wall-street-then-and-now.html.

[16] Michael J. McGowan, The Rise of Computerized High Frequency Trading: Use and Controversy (Duke Law & Technology Review, 2010) 5

[17] Michael J. McGowan, The Rise of Computerized High Frequency Trading: Use and Controversy (Duke Law & Technology Review, 2010) 5

[18] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[19] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[20] Brands, H. W. American dreams: the United States since 1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. 265-266

[21] Brands, H. W. American dreams: the United States since 1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. 265-266

[22] Interview with Thomas Guardino, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

[23] Rastogi, Nina. “Why aren’t we seeing any suicides on Wall Street?” Slate Magazine. September 22, 2008. Accessed May 01, 2017. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/09/wall_street_suicides.html.

[24] Brands, H. W. American dreams: the United States since 1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. 265-266

SELECTIONS FROM INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS

Interviews with Thomas Guardino:

• Audio Recording, Staten Island, NY, March 25, 2017

Q. How did you start of your career on wall street, where did it all start for you?

A. ” Well to make it short, when I came out of high school I made a couple of bucks but I really didn’t have enough money to go to college because my parents were divorced and it would have been hard. So when I got out of school I went to work at an office job for a couple of months… There [Chester-Blackburn and Roder/Atlantic Lines – steam-ship company] gave an IQ test and I ended up with the best mark in the company… They sent me to school and taught me programming, but offices didn’t have any computers most of the time… This was in the beginning 70’s. The companies back then had adding machines, calculators, typewriters. but they wanted to get computers and [Atlantic Lines] wanted me to learn programming so I could set up the accounting systems… at the time I had no idea what the test was for… but later the boss came back to me and said, “you have the best mark here, were taking you to learn the business, to learn the computer, write the software and partner together”. At the time I was 19 years old… I had two private tutors in IBM at the time and that’s how I got into the computer business in the beginning. The interesting thing is… we had an office at Whitehall street which was downtown Manhattan near the ferry and they wanted to put their computer into the world trade center; we were moved there but it was being built then, the building. So my company got special permission to set up a room, there was just one door with no walls set up, just wires everywhere… they wanted to put the computer in there and I was working there by myself, nobody worked in the trade center then… But I got permission to go into the trade center, go to the test floor and to work in a building that wasn’t even fully constructed… I was the first to work there, not counting the port authority people… I worked on the [their] floor for a couple of months before they actually had the office ready; the tutors came there to show me how to work… All the people in the company resented me because they thought that the computers around would take away their jobs at the time, so nobody liked me… what happened actually was the computer was so much work in the beginning that it actually created many jobs – it wasn’t like today… you needed people to run the programs. You needed people for a lot of manual parts, like sorting the cards… so no one really lost their jobs at the time. Anyway, I worked there for about 8 years, since 1970. I worked in [Atlantic Lines] Miami office too… But the work became hard eventually, [Atlantic Lines] kept wanting more programs but they were too cheap to upgrade the computers so I had to constantly rewrite the programs and break them up. It became so hard that I was leaving work in the middle of the night… in 1978 me and my wife were going to have a baby but only the job was on my mind, so I told my wife that I had to get out of there because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was good at it but it was too much work…

So I got an interview for this company called SIAC[Securities Industry Automation Corporation] but I didn’t know that it was related to the stock market, in fact it was owned by two stock market companies and SIAC was the company that did all their computer work. So the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange made this company called SIAC, but nobody knew that this company did all the trading and controlled everything that the stock market did on the trading floor…”

Q. How were things run at the job?

A. “At first we would come in at 4 AM and leave at 6 or 7, in 3 hours, but as the years went more people came for work and they added another shift… I eventually managed 3 shifts at SIAC. The place grew… A lot of people thought the stock market was wall street… but nobody knew SIAC did a lot of trading work for the companies, it was a part of the stock market… we did a lot of work for the stock market, but did work for big companies that were involved in the industry… we didn’t have a lot of work at the time, but everything was critical because if something didn’t work we had to escalate… the newspapers would actually wait for us to send the information out, we were the only source for the prices of the stocks they could put into their papers.”

Q. How did you make deals, sell/buy stocks and operate?

A. “Well back in the day everything was done by pencil… but in our time we used computers and thought the computers were the greatest thing ever, they weren’t powerful at all compared to today; they took up half the room… The memory, the processing speed was very slow and it cosst $20,000 to $30,000… The computers had all the opening and closing prices, all the trading information of the different stocks, we had to run programs and update the prices on the computers by the end of the day for the following day. There were a lot of print outs, we had to send reports to different trading offices… everything was done through big floppy cards and everything was put onto tape to save the information. But I saw that transition as I was working in the business – when they started eliminating the tapes.”

Q. What position did you hold in 1987?

A. “I was a manager at the American Stock Exchange which was the second biggest exchange in the country, New York was first…”

Q. Could you describe the trading process during that time?

A. “There wasn’t a trading floor, the banks would send their representatives to the trading floor and buy seats there to be able to trade. The prices for the seats were pretty high and there were about a thousand seats, the companies even traded each other for the seats… the trading floor had different levels like balconies, it looked like a movie theater. The big shots were on the higher levels and they had their clerks on the trading floor who they talked to with walkie talkies. They signaled for the people on the trading floor what they wanted to do, to buy or sell a stock… These clerks had cards they would mark up by pen and take them to the card readers on the floor and everything on the cards, the trading decisions and information was sent to SIAC. But these clerks didn’t get paid as the top guys did… in 1970’s they were doing the same thing, but they didn’t have all the computer programs so it had to be done with pen and pencil, but they had what they needed.”

Q. What was the reason the 1987 stock market crashed?

A. “Not too long before the crash, they introduced program trading… It became popular in the 80’s because if the stocks were going down or up the program trading would automatically sell or buy people stocks. This was being done through certain programs and they say these programs caused the market crash. Before that the stock market was doing pretty good… There were rumors the stock market was going to drop so the banks raised the interest rates because of the rumor. Some of the companies’ stocks started to go down because of the higher interest rates, the program traders they had automatically started to trade these stocks, keep selling… Soon program trading started selling stocks of all different companies, it was out of control. Then all the people that wanted to sell the stocks, they couldn’t do anything… nobody wanted to buy… But program trading, if id didn’t get out of control was very helpful, it just needed something to stop it. The market went down 20%… That’s why later they installed circuit breakers on every system. If percentages fell by a certain percent within a specific time, everything would shut down. But this was after the crash.”

Q. Who did the people blame, what were the repercussions?

A. “People that were rich became poor and a lot of people committed suicide, lost all their money. They jumped off buildings, bridges – they had families but committed suicide cause they lost everything they had in one day… They said there were a couple of murders, some brokers got murdered by people in the same industry.

It was the fault of panic and the automatic program trading. That’s what actually caused it.”

Q. What happened to you during the crash?

A. “They called me early that day because the “lion” was too high. The lion’s the number of trades… the amount of trading and selling of stocks was too high and prices went down too much. Everybody was selling. My shift was usually at 3 AM, but I came in at midnight – they called us early to come up with some strategy cause they knew a lot of the programs that ran in the night time that sent the data to the newspapers didn’t work… A lot of programs crashed because they weren’t used to handling such a large lion. The numbers were much higher, the loses were much higher. The programs didn’t work that night… We had to be on the phone all night with people, we stayed there all night because everything had to be done until the next day or the stock market couldn’t open. The press was waiting… This was “black monday”. I don’t think I left home that night… The programs took so long to run, everybody was worried we wouldn’t make the opening for the next day… That whole week programs were crashing, but we had ways to go around it, program substitutions…”

Q. Who did this affect mostly?

A. “The rich people were really affected, but normal people weren’t affected. We didn’t have a 401K and didn’t own stocks and bonds… For the most part rich people were affected and a lot of them committed suicide because of the crash. A lot of people took their money out, but the middle class wasn’t touched. I didn’t take out my money, because I knew things would come around, they always do…”

• Audio Recording, Staten Island, NY, April 20, 2017

Q. What kind of computers did you use in the stock exchange?

A. “…We were using IBM 3, a lot of banks had that… Everything related to the hardware was duplicated, so if one part went down they had spare parts… We had two computer systems – one was for production and we had one for testing…

When I first started, the system that was really popular then, it’s company was called DEC (Digital Equipment Company)… We used PVP-1145 and then it was upgraded to a PVP-1170… There was another system also that was very popular called Tandem… This was in the late 70’s to the early 90’s… Now we probably got phones more powerful than those systems…”

Q. What was the situation around you on the floor during the crash?

A. “They (programmers/stock brokers) used to check the information on cards and give it to people on the trading floor, and then they would have to input that data into systems. So of course they had a tremendous amount of work, because the ‘lion’ was crazy… There was a lot of panic on the floor, but I didn’t see that for the most part. We were the operations department and we saw the systems and programs crashing because the ‘lion’ was too big. We had a lot of problems through the day because too much information was coming in and the systems would crash. We worked I don’t know how many hours that week because there was so much work to do…”

Q. Would you say technology and program trading in particular was the biggest reason for the crash?

A. “Actually it was one of the main reasons because when the markets started doing bad, program trading assumed that other things would happen and it automatically made people want to sell more… Automatic trading was a big problem with that because the technology at the time wasn’t able to stop this from happening…

Also even after that (market crash) we had lots of hardware and software problems… I remember one time the NYSE was down for almost the whole day and lost millions of dollars because of hardware issues…”

“I came kicking and screaming. I was saying, “Rural area? No way!”[1]  Susan Witt remembers protesting her move from lively and diverse Cambridge, Massachusetts to a cottage overlooking rolling hills. “I had no connection or experience with place before moving to the Berkshires, and then it kind of hit me full tilt.”[2]

Susan Witt and her husband, Bob Swann at their Berkshires home, 1981.
Courtesy of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics

In 1980, Witt founded the E.F. Schumacher Society (now the Schumacher Center for a New Economics) in rural Massachusetts with her husband, land reform pioneer Robert Swann.[3] Today, the think-tank implements the economic vision of Ernst Friedrich Schumacher in the Berkshires area. Schumacher, a German-born economist “who for years had preached the virtues of a more modest lifestyle,” has faded from national name recognition.[4] Yet, the ideas in Schumacher’s seminal collection of essays, Small is Beautiful influenced a generation of activists in an economy based on institutions that are “too big to fail.” For a moment in the late 1970s, Schumacher’s ideas polarized national attention. Today, the legacy of their is still contested between conservatives and progressives.

In a chapter called “Days of Malaise” in a post-1945 American history book, American Dreams, H.W. Brands described a bleak climax to the oil crisis in the 1970s: “’[t]he party is over,’ Schumacher declared, and millions of Americans nodded in sad agreement.”[5] Schumacher steps into Brands’ history to pull the curtain closed on a dream of growth and consumption. In his preface, Brands observes that at certain points in American history, “the dreams weren’t always sunny and hopeful…[they] began to waver and lose focus”.[6]  Was the emergence of Schumacher and the movements he inspired the end of a dream as Brands frames, or an opportunity for rebalancing in American values?

Schumacher on “Buddhist Economics” (Courtesy of the Schumacher Center, YouTube)

Brands and other survey historians highlight Schumacher’s role in an anti-consumerist counterculture but “Schumacherism” was claimed by groups across the ideological spectrum. Looking back from a festival in 2011 honoring Schumacher’s 100^th birthday and legacy, Green Party politicians, activists, and academics echoed a sentiment that economic crises are an opportunity for radical change.[7] For radicals, “the worse things got, the better for their cause”.[8] Celebrating the same occasion, a conservative commentator contrasts the image of a hippy Schumacher with the economist’s background in Catholic social teaching: “[Schumacher] pleaded that in dealing with the contradictions and tensions of the world we needed wisdom that only the traditional virtues, such as prudence and temperance, can furnish.”[9] These virtues excluded women who “do not need an outside job” in Schumacher’s economy.[10] Small is Beautiful has been interpreted as vindication for both the conservative values of individuality and tradition and the progressive values of collective action and equity. These apparent contradictions break up a familiar understanding of the “Schumacher moment” as a reactive, lifestyle counterculture (see transcript excerpt below). Brands fairly displays what Schumacher was against but a diversity of groups and individuals involved in this period better discuss what the movement stood for.

“My entry was a pretty personal approach but I entered right into…the beginnings of a national movemen, so I’ll describe my personal entry but that’s not as important as the work I moved into,” prefaces Witt.[11] She remembers when the impact and collective identity of the “Baby Boomer” generation was recognized as TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1966. She felt that she could go anywhere in the world and feel safe amongst peers – a global citizen.[12] A cosmopolitan identity contrasted with a rejection of urban life for members of the “back to the land” movement. Witt’s generation, who “sought fulfillment in personal reconstruction” over materialism, added momentum to Schumacher’s message.[13]

A generational feeling of fellowship complemented Witt’s specific education. A literature teacher, Witt found appreciation for the communal in her reading of “great books,” from Beowulf to Dostoyevsky.[14] The economy tells a story but Witt wasn’t convinced by its abstraction during a time when “the American economy seemed to have careened right off the curve into uncharted territory.”[15] Brands is referring to the Philips curve, an economic narrative which reassured policymakers that high unemployment would balance with low inflation and vice versa. Stagflation, when inflation and unemployment increased together, broke the logic of this story. Schumacher’s proposal for economic development centered on labor rather than capital-intensive “appropriate technologies” appealed to an economy looking for new answers in uncharted territory.

Witt turned on the radio, heard this message, and her life changed. In 1976, Witt’s grandfather passed away, leaving an inheritance which allowed her to take time off from teaching to explore where heroism exists in American society. She identified alternative economists as agents for social change because “the element America swims in is the economic.”[16] So, when Witt heard Bob Swann speaking about Schumacher’s vision for development, she drove to Swann’s Institute for Community Economics in Cambridge. Here, she staffed a Community Investment Fund, which stands as a rejection of Brands’ negative depiction of “sad agreement.”

Socially responsible investing coordinated post-war wealth with community projects. Witt makes an important distinction between the Community Investment Fund and screened investment funds – the Cambridge project made positive investments in renewable energy, cooperative experiments, and local businesses. Far from shaking her head, Witt remembers “a bubbling up of enthusiasm” for these Projects. [17] Although the Fund folded in 1979, departing board members “encouraged efforts…that became major vehicles that started the movement around social investing.”[17] Yet like other experimental projects, critics point out that this model for change was driven primarily by wealthy donors. Witt remembers a generation of new wealth, twenty-somethings who would come to the Cambridge office and whisper, “I just inherited a lot of money and I don’t want to use it like my parents did. Do you have some place to invest?”[18]

“Guilt money” does not fully illuminate the momentum behind Schumacher’s impact. Interest rates peaked again in the 1980s, approaching 20 percent.[19] Witt and Swann had just moved to the Berkshires and found local businesses crippled by an inability to get low-cost bank loans. The fledgling Schumacher Center implemented a micro-credit program, Self-Help Association for Regional Economy (SHARE), in which “citizens in the region contributed to a community savings account that stood as collaborative collateral for small loans the bank wouldn’t normally make.”[20] Witt was astonished when she reviewed the account to find micro-contributions from poor members of the community eager to help borrowers like them. The revelation follows a similar logic to inner city immigrant communities or rural African-American cooperatives lending amongst themselves, Witt observes. This history of communal, low-income involvement complicates a narrative that Schumacher’s ideas have been primarily implemented by a new middle-class.

Witt (left) at the SHARE office (date unknown)

Schumacher’s impact was not limited to popular movements and start-ups – for a time these ideas drove national dialogue. Swann helped coordinate the Small is Beautiful book tour which brought Schumacher to America. Despite high-level endorsements, concert hall audiences, and best-seller status, however, his ideas did not drive national action. President Carter, (in)famous for his condemnation of consumerism, was well aware of the limits to growth as articulated by Schumacher and the Club of Rome.[21] Brands focuses on Carter’s critics but sociologist Amitai Etzoni identified the president’s mandate: at this time “31 percent of Americans were “anti-growth” and 39 percent were highly uncertain.”[22] On March 22, 1976, President Jimmy Carter hosted Schumacher in the Oval Office. Democratic Senators Lee Metcalf and James Abourzek followed up with the president, urging that “the government should instead be encouraging the development of those approaches that offer real long-term solutions to our environmental, social and energy problems.”[23] One year later, California Governor Jerry Brown spoke at the economist’s funeral. Schumacher’s legacy seemed secured when Ronald Reagan railed against inappropriate scale. “Bigness robs the average citizen of his rightful voice,” Reagan claimed as a radio commentator in 1976.[24] Despite cuts within the government, the pendulum swung back toward consumerism and unrestricted capital during the Reagan administration.[25] As Schumacher faded from national attention, critics and supporters alike wondered if his call to “put our inner house in order” was enough for radical change.[26]

President Carter on consumerism (Courtesy of YouTube)

From Todd Gitlin’s “Small is Beautiful: Brown’s Economic Guru” 1976

The Trump brand gained prominence during the pendulum swing toward consumerism and bigness during the 1980s. The introductions of “bigly” and “yuge” into presidential vocabulary could not be further from Carter’s recognition of limits. President Trump’s victory was driven in part by malaise in manufacturing communities with a lack of community development that Schumacher would have likely decried. Grassroots trends toward localism have restored Schumacher’s vision but his impact is felt beyond the activist left.

Click here for information about Dickinson College’s socially responsible investment strategy.

Timeline:

[1] Phone interview with Susan Witt, April 14, 2017

[2] Phone interview with Susan Witt, April 14, 2017

[3] Biography of Susan Witt, Schumacher Center for a New Economics [WEB]

[4] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 197

[5] Brands, 197

[6] Brands, ix

[7] Jonathan Watts, “Mood of possibility defines E F Schumacher centenary festival” (The Guardian, 2010) [WEB]

[8] Brands, 228

[9] Joseph R. Wood, “Retroview: A Countercultural Conservative” (The American Interest, Volume 6, Number 6, 2011) [WEB]

[10] E.F. Schumacher, “Buddhist Economics” Small is Beautiful (Harper & Row, 1975), 57

[11] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017.

[12] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017.

[13] Robert M. Collins, More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2000) [GOOGLE BOOKS]

[14] Phone interview with Susan Witt, April 14, 2017

[15] Brands, 197

[16] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017

[17] Phone interview with Susan Witt, April 14, 2017

[18] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017

[19] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017

[20] PBS Business Desk interview with Paul Solmon, “What Led to the High Interest Rates of the 1980s?” (PBS News Hour, 2009) [WEB]

[21] Phone interview with Susan Witt, March 29, 2017

[22] W. Carl Biven, Jimmy Carter’s Economy: Policy in an Age of Limits (University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 257

[23] Bill McKibben, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (Macmillan, 2010), 93

[24] Lee Metcalf and James Abrozek, “Letter to President Jimmy Carter” (United States Senate, 1976) [WEB]

[25] William Greider, “Ronald Reagan: The Giantism Killer” (The Washington Post, 1981) [WEB]

[26] Greider

[27] E.F Schumacher, 297

Todd Giltin, “Small is Beautiful: Brown’s Economic Guru” (Mother Jones Magazine, 1976) [GOOGLE BOOKS]

Selected Transcript: Who was Schumacher?

Susan: [Schumacher] was an economist – what motivated him was economic thinking. He once said that he was in London watching lorries with Scottish biscuits being delivered at the same time watching lorries leaving London for Scotland with English biscuits. He said, “that’s just not economically sound.” We should be producing locally for local consumption as much as possible. So that’s the kind of thing that motivated him. At the same time, he called himself an energy economist because he worked for the English Coal Board and headed it. He realized that fossil fuels were disappearing and an economic system dependent on them would also disappear. It’s more the economist in him that came to that [conclusion] rather than simple living prophet which suggests more from a more lifestyle concern. It was this economic awareness permeating his thinking and his actions.

Sam: Where are the trends that mobilize Schumacher’s way of thinking today? Some of his work has been marginalized, Schumacher is no longer a household name. How would you explain the movement to a new audience?

Susan: Well, the “buy local” movement isn’t marginalized, that’s huge. While originally someone like Schumacher had deep philosophical and economic reasons or analysis that brought him to this, often the “buy-local” movement has become just a quality of life movement. So, [the attitude is that] the local beer is better rather than it creating a broader intention of serving all people – the overarching vision of the brotherhood of all mankind. We do our work hoping all people will have a better life [but that] has not quite gotten there. It’s still my quality of life, my personal quality of life. So I think that’s up to all of us who work in this movement, if you will, to make the broader connections, to bring in the responsibility again to all humankind. The responsibility to all places, not just our place. That’s up to us to tease that out of the simply “buy local movement” …we blame ourselves or see it as our responsibility to bring that out.

Sam: The popular image is that lifestyle argument but you’re saying it’s about something bigger.

Susan: Right, and it’s also about the consumer taking responsibility to help the producer… Instead of just sitting back and saying “if they produced it locally, I’d buy it.” Instead, it’s actually creating the conditions where the producer can thrive – the land, the legal permits, the technology, the marketing – how can we help make that happen? So citizens as active members and engagers in the economic system rather than as passive consumers.

By Amy Sparer

When Harlan Sparer was a high-schooler in Bellmore, Long Island in the early 1970’s, his mother had come up with a plan, as many mothers of soon-to-be –draft- eligible young men in the midst of the Vietnam War draft era might have done. She had begun thinking it up in the sixties, when the war began. The plan? “… for me to go to medical school in Canada when I got drafted, so that I would instantly become a Canadian citizen (…).” Sparer explained. [1] Upon noticing this, Sparer began to think about himself in relation to the conflict.  “I was coming to an age where they would actually want to include me in their lovely war and I realized I really kind of didn’t want to die,” he explained “As I’m watching the Vietnam War unfold I realize there’s really no logical reason for us to be there,” Sparer remembers [2], echoing the thoughts of many Americans at the time. In his historical review, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945, H.W. Brands explains that even members of “the establishment” began to question US involvement in Vietnam, including J. William Fullbright, a Democratic senator from Arkansas, who conceded “We just don’t belong there”. [3]

Long hair and facial hair were popular for those in the countercultural movement, as shown by Harlan Sparer (left) next to his younger brothers.

The persistence of this possibly useless war led to growing sentiment against the war – notably from a growing group of people who, as Brands describes, “embraced a lifestyle as far at odds with the prevailing middle-class culture as they could make it” complete with long hair, groovy music, unkempt clothing, and a particular proclivity for illicit substances. [4] Sparer cites such substances as his introduction into the hippie lifestyle: “When I started to actually buy and sell drugs, which is the best way, I figured out, to have them on hand whenever I wanted, I began getting involved with the counterculture,” he explained. “… after I started smoking marijuana, you know, everyone that I hung out with was against the war pretty much.” [5] He and his friends, who proclaimed themselves “United Mutations”, hung out in the band room, smoked, discussed the war, and associated with “various other sort of little gangs of itinerant, strange, hippie-type people that were countercultural in nature (…).” [6] This lifestyle was often recorded at college campuses, but Sparer’s experiences were strongly associated with his high school years. This was not necessarily uncommon either – high schoolers’ association with the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s is documented – particularly in terms of activism. [7] It took a specific turn, though, especially due to the age and place in society of the individuals involved. According to Dionne Dann’s review of Gael Graham’s Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protest, “the internal structure of high schools, along with the movements within the larger society, shaped the opportunity for high school students to scrutinize their place in society (…) despite the lack of a centrally organized movement, high school student activism was a “rights revolution” (p. 9) in which the students demanded increased rights within the framework of the high school.” [8]

Harlan Sparer representing his group: “United Mutations”

“Demanding increased rights within the framework of the high school” [9] is exactly what Sparer did. He and his friends’ first protest was against the decision of the school to limit access to the band room – “they didn’t want to let us go hang out in the music room after we were done eating lunch. (…) We got a bunch of people together and we just stared down the lunch ladies – we just stood around them and surround them and just gaped and stared. (…) After a while, with 30 kids surrounding them, they got uncomfortable and walked away and we went to the band room and that was the end of that rebellion, it worked pretty well.” [10] From here, Sparer’s high school activism continued, and became more political.  As Brands asserted, “The counterculture, as the phenomenon was called, wouldn’t have been so much of a counterculture if it meekly bowed to the opposition.” [11] True to this, Sparer and his friends founded an underground newspaper entitled “The Daily Mutation” with the help of their acquaintance, Irma, a young woman who belonged to Women Strike for Peace (WSP) and who had access to a Gestetner printing machine. [12] The paper, distributed mostly without school approval much to the chagrin of the Mepham High School administration, was “kind of goofy and kind of silly and kind of absurd” but was decidedly anti-war, even including advertisements for draft counseling in each issue. [13]

“The Daily Mutation” : Note the lower left hand section about Draft Counseling

Meanwhile, the war in east was looking dire once again. In 1970, Nixon expanded war activities into Laos and Cambodia in an attempt to carve into where the North Vietnamese troops had been taking shelter. [14] This decision was met with spectacular outrage. Brands asserts, “these efforts (…) got the attention of the antiwar movement in America. The Cambodian invasion sparked the largest protests of the war.” [15] Student protesting reached a new and terrifying high: violence broke out with student casualties occurring at both Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi. [16] By 1972, things were not looking up. The North Vietnamese launched the “Easter Offensive” that spring. [17] According to the Office of The Historian, Nixon’s response was to send “massive air force and naval reinforcements to bases in Indochina and Guam.” [18] The combination of these activities resonated with Sparer and his activist friends.

The gears began to turn.  “…we decided kind of had enough of Mr. Nixon and we kind of had enough of all this BS,” Sparer explained. [19] “…with proper lubrication with the correct amount of marijuana, we decided we were going to have a protest. We were going to organize a protest for the next week and we were going to have seven converging marches. So, we got people in each of three high schools and four junior high schools and we got them all to plan this march with us (…) we ended up meeting at Wellington C. Mepham High School, which was the most centrally located school – so all these different marches converging”, Sparer elaborated. [20] On the day of the protest, Wednesday, April 19^th 1972, [21] the student protesters marched to Mepham High prepared for police intervention. Sparer recounted the event: “We went in a single file, a thousand of us and we surround the grassy field on the sidewalk and then when we gave the word (…) everyone rushed the grass and there were only 20 cops to try and stop us. Needless to say, they couldn’t physically stop the rush of a thousand high school and junior high school kids. So, we all sat on the lawn and the cops took out their bullhorn and said “You must disperse immediately, you’re all going to be arrested!” and a thousand kids, in unison, just broke into spontaneously “Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t go!” (…)  The cops took us aside – they said “you’re obviously the leader of this group, come over here, we want to have a talk with you.” And so this cop paternalistically says to me and my friend Mark and my friend Jeff – “you guys! You can’t be on this school, we’re going to have to arrest all of you! Why don’t you just gather at the end of that cul-de-sac over there and we won’t bother you and you can have your demonstration over there.” [22] Sparer recalls his reply: “I said “what jail are you gonna put a thousand high school students in and how is that gonna look for you? You’re gonna have to book a bunch of underage kids, you know, you’ll have to deal with all the laws around arresting a minor. Where are you gonna put minors? You can’t put them in the jail. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you can’t incarcerate us. Now, we’re gonna go back to our demonstration. Have a great day.”[23] The protest made the front page of Long Island, New York’s local paper, Newsday, where they described the Mepham protest and local college protests in response to the renewed bombing campaign of Indochina. [24]

Newsday, April 20th 1972 : The Mepham High protest made the headlines

While the countercultural and activist mindset followed Harlan Sparer past his high school years, he conceded that the political aspect of the movement largely dissolved soon after the Mepham High protest when the war ended in ’73. [25] “I think generally speaking, somewhere between ’69 and ’70, there was a very big countercultural revolution that took place with anyone that was junior high school age or older where people kind of changed over and shifted over. By the mid-70s, I think, that effect was complete. The Vietnam War, when it ended, changed things a bit but it had already taken hold, and it slowly petered out in terms of the politics of it (…) by the late 70s, early 80’s it had pretty been done as far as it being a movement. There were people, you know, thinking it was groovy to do this or do that, but it wasn’t the same as when there was a political ideology attached to the marijuana smoking, to the wearing the jeans, to the wearing the t-shirt.” [26] It’s hard to say whether high school student activism had very direct influence on the Vietnam War or it’s ending. It can be hypothesized that protests in general influenced the decision making process of attempts to get out of the war. Either way, it’s clear that the work and attitudes of the counterculture population along with other anti-war activists in general impacted perceptions of the era of a whole.

Footnotes

[1] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[2] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[3] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 153.

[4] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 146.

[5] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[6] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[7] Dann, Dionne. Review: Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protests by Gael Graham. History of Education Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2007): 510

[8] Dann, Dionne. Review: Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protests by Gael Graham. History of Education Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2007): 510

[9] Dann, Dionne. Review: Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protests by Gael Graham. History of Education Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2007): 510

[10] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[11] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 147.

[12] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[13] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 29, 2017

[14] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 170.

[15] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 170.

[16] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 170.

[17] Office of The Historian. “Ending the Vietnam War, 1969-1973.” (Last Modified????) https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/ending-vietnam

[18] Office of The Historian. “Ending the Vietnam War, 1969-1973.” (Last Modified????) https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/ending-vietnam

[19] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[20] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[21] “War Protests, Student Strikes Spread.” Newsday, April 20, 1972, 17.

[22] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[23] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

[24] “War Protests, Student Strikes Spread.” Newsday, April 20, 1972, 17.

[25] Office of The Historian. “Ending the Vietnam War, 1969-1973.” (Last Modified????) https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/ending-vietnam

[26] Phone Interview with Harlan Sparer, April 22, 2017

Selected Transcript:

INTERVIEW 1: 4/22/2017

Now, I know that you were involved in sort of the countercultural movement in your high school years – can you just tell me more about what you were involved with?

“… my involvement with the counterculture began when I started smoking pot…when I started to actually buy and sell drugs, which is the best way, I figured out, to have them on hand whenever I wanted, I began getting involved with the counterculture. At that point, I started hanging out with my friends, who we later called ourselves “United Mutations” unlike all the other kids in high school back then who were all really interested in the grateful dead, or were interested in cars- those were the greasers, the hippies were involved with the grateful dead – and then the jocks were involved with athletics, of course, and the geeks were the ones that persisted – all they did was do math basically and hang out. And of course, I used to do some interesting stuff. We would get together periodically and get together in the band room- that was kind of a fun thing I would do (…) we would invent songs, and write and have lots of fun- playing music and inventing music and jamming (…) In the lunch room, I met my friends Mark and Scott and later Jeff and we ended up finding out that we each liked Frank Zappa (…) we started a garage band. This is because, in the 1970s, everyone had a garage band. And one of the things you did in the 70s was you’d get together with your friends and the notable time we’d get together with our friends was, of course, when our parents weren’t home, and then we’d have everyone leave just as the parents, just before the parents would arrive, hopefully, although in some cases that didn’t happen. So, we used to hang out with a group of people, we used to hang out, alternatively, at Jones Beach in the summer and at this park called Eisenhower Park, which used to be called Salisbury Park. This is in Nassau County, of course. And we would get together with these people, and, you know, we’d gradually got involved with both our rock band and our friends which were called the “Jones Beach Bums” which were a combination of groups like “the wheat chips” and “united mutations” and various other sort of little gangs of itinerant, strange, hippie-type people that were countercultural in nature (…).

Later on in school, we had the infamous lunch protest – that was the first protest we did. What they decided was that they didn’t want to let us go hang out in the music room after we were done eating lunch. (…) We got a bunch of people together and we just stared down the lunch ladies – we just stood around them and surround them and just gaped and stared. (…) After a while, with 30 kids surrounding them, they got uncomfortable and walked away and we went to the band room and that was the end of that rebellion, it worked pretty well. Drunk with our power, of course, later on, something else happened – Kent State happened, and, you know, four college students got shot by national guardsman in Ohio and Nixon announced that he was going to Bomb Cambodia. This is during the Vietnam War, and we decided kind of had enough of Mr. Nixon and we kind of had enough of all this BS, so we got together at this guy John’s house (…) of course with proper lubrication with the correct amount of marijuana, we decided we were going to have a protest. We were going to organize a protest for the next week and we were going to have seven converging marches. So, we got people in each of three high schools and four junior high schools and we got them all to plan this march with us. And of course one high school we’d march to, so they just were involved with shutting down the school (…) we ended up meeting at (…) Wellington C Mepham High School, which was the most centrally located school – so all these different marches converging. Now, we knew, as we were getting high, that the cops didn’t want us to close down the school and they were gonna try and stop us. So, we devised a plan: what we were gonna do was surround them, ‘cause we figured there was going to be around a thousand of us at least and they would only be around 10 or 20 cops. Well, we weren’t surprised: turns out there were about 20 or 30 cops and of course they bravely stood by the lawn in front of the school -We were all gathered kind of in a loosely aggregated group in the street – saying “you can’t get on the lawn, you have to go back”. We, of course, had our plan, so we did with this particular school (…) an old 1940’s built school – it had this big sidewalk surrounding the school and then it had these grassy fields surrounded by sidewalk (…). We went in a single file, a thousand of us and we surround the grassy field on the sidewalk and then when we gave the word (…) everyone rushed the grass and there were only 20 cops to try and stop us. Needless to say, they couldn’t physically stop the rush of a thousand high school and junior high school kids. So, we all sat on the lawn and the cops took out their bullhorn and said “You must disperse immediately, you’re all going to be arrested!” and a thousand kids, in unison, just broke into spontaneously “hell no, we won’t go, hell no, we won’t go.” And we kept saying that, of course. Needless to say, our disruption in the high school worked and everyone started hanging out the windows wondering what the heck was going on, because they knew what was going on, because they had been told – they’re like “Oh cool! It’s a demonstration!” and the cops took us aside – they said “you’re obviously the leader of this group, come over here, we want to have a talk with you.” And so this cop paternalistically says to me and my friend Mark and my friend Jeff – “you guys! You can’t be on this school, we’re going to have to arrest all of you! Why don’t you just gather at the end of that cul-de-sac over there and we won’t bother you and you can have your demonstration over there.” It’s a dead-end street, they wanted to let us sit on the concrete. And I said to the cop, I said “listen”, I said “what jail are you gonna put a thousand high school students in and how is that gonna look for you? You’re gonna have to book a bunch of underage kids, you know, you’ll have to deal with all the laws around arresting a minor. Where are you gonna put minors? You can’t put them in the jail. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you can’t incarcerate us. Now, we’re gonna go back to our demonstration. Have a great day.” And we walked back over and sat we down. We had our demonstration and we closed down the school.

Would you say the main motivation for that was the Kent State shooting?

Yeah, it was that and the Cambodia bombing.

What were your opinions, specifically, about the Vietnam War at that point?

Well, you know, it started a while back when they first started the Vietnam war in the 60s and I noticed that my mother had a plan – she had this plan for me to go to medical school in Canada when I got drafted, so that I would instantly become a Canadian citizen (…). As I’m watching the Vietnam War unfold I realize there’s really no logical reason for us to be there – and this was before I had become politically active in any way at all. And as time went on it became more of a focal point as I realized I was coming to an age where they would actually want to include me in their lovely war and I realized I really kind of didn’t want to die. Dying wasn’t me, as Woody Allen would say. That’s just not me. And so, I realized that I didn’t like this idea of a war and as time went on and I became a little more politically astute – although in 1968 in the student election I had voted for Richard Nixon, by the time 1969 came around, I started listening to what was happening with Eugene McCarthy and with the countercultural movement and I became infinitely more sympathetic as I titled more in that direction from just the media, my surroundings, my peers and it moved me to the point where after I started smoking marijuana, you know, everyone that I hung out with was against the war pretty much. Everyone pretty much came of a political nature. We all wanted to wear t-shirts and blue jeans and, you know, not be dressed up and, you know, not be like everybody else was. We wanted to be countercultural and I think generally speaking, somewhere between ’69 and ’70, there was a very big countercultural revolution that took place with anyone that was junior high school age or older where people kind of changed over and shifted over. By the mid-70s, I think, that effect was complete. The Vietnam War, when it ended, changed things a bit but it had already taken hold, and it slowly petered out in terms of the politics of it. The marijuana smoking, of course, continued for a while afterwards. But by the late 70s, early 80’s it had pretty been done as far as it being a movement. There were people, you know, thinking it was groovy to do this or do that, but it wasn’t the same as when there was a political ideology attached to the marijuana smoking, to the wearing the jeans, to the wearing the t-shirt.

(… )the war pretty much wound down and ended. Pretty much as that went on. It wound down… basically it wound down because we lost. So, people didn’t make as big a deal out of it because they realized it was gonna end anyway. But it was upsetting to everybody because there were all these people getting killed and why? What were we gaining out of that?

(…) There was a special handshake we had. Oh yeah, if you were in the counterculture, you gripped the other person’s thumb. It was a different handshake, and you knew someone was cool when they gave someone that handshake. So there was that. Clothing was really important too. There was a dress code. It was funny because Burnt Weenie Sandwich, that first album I had? This guy is screaming at this cop and says “you’re wearing a uniform, take off your uniform!” and Zappa makes fun of the guy. He says, “everyone in this room is wearing a uniform and don’t kid yourself.” Because it was the uniform at the time was a t-shirt and a pair of jeans – and the jeans had to be kind of raggedy- like not new. Worn jeans and a t-shirt – that was the uniform. Or a pair of cutoff shorts, it had to be denim. So that was the uniform. There were bellbottoms too. But see, the thing is that everyone wore bellbottoms after the fact. But in 1970 and 71 it was a statement to wear bellbottoms.

(…)It was all nonviolent protests. No one was hurting anyone no one was advocating hurting anyone we were just expressing ourselves in a nonviolent fashion. (…) I think we should all be able to express our opinion no matter what it is. As long as we’re not advocating harming another person. Now, when you wanna advocate harming somebody, its no longer non-violent protest. But, you know, we took a page out of Gandhi’s work and later Martin Luther King’s work by what we did and I think that nonviolent protest to this day is a very effective means of protest. (…) So, yeah, there’s nothing wrong with nonviolent protest. We did a lot of that. And that was a hallmark of the countercultural movement. It was that, it was marijuana and it was music. Those were the three big things that happened together, along with our dress code – and free love. (…) no harm to anybody – just fun and enjoyment and pleasure.

INTERVIEW 2: 4/29/17

I know that you had organized an underground newspaper. Can you tell me a little more about that?

“We had this band at the time, and we had just started, it was a little garage band called ‘The Magic Lepers”. And we were really enjoying having the band. And we decided one day that it would be fun to have an underground newspaper (…) and we wanted it to be political, too – against the war. So we got a hold of this woman, Irma Zeigus (spelling?), who we had run into from our anti-war activities, from my political activities. And Irma Zeigus was the local head of this organization called Women Strike For Peace, which was an antiwar organization of adults. And they happened to have a Gestetner stencil machine (…) and that’s how you printed things back then. (…) and so we seriously began writing, and we had several of us all writing together and having a good time with it. (…). We got the copies fresh off the presses from Irma, and it had dried out properly and we went right to the parking lot where all the students at the high school were and everyone knew it was coming and they were all anxious to read it. And in the morning, right before school, we just started giving it out to everybody. (…) At one point, I had built up enough of a reputation at Mepham High School that the vice principle there, who wasn’t the tall, broad shouldered type, but he was kind of a hatchet guy – his name was Thomas McQuillan and he was their enforcer – so we went to some program and I went there with my cabbie’s cap and my long pigtails to “Rap ‘n’ Rec” it was called – it was like, you know, for teenagers to hang out, it was an anti-drug thing. So of course we would all smoke lots of pot and then go to Rap ‘n’ Rec. It wasn’t exactly working as they thought. Bu, anyway, so I go in there and McQuillan says to me, “take your hat off!” and I said “no”. He said “I want you to take your hat off! You’re in a public place, take your hat off!” and I said “ No! I don’t have to take my hat off, it’s a free country.” And I proceed to walk. So he calls over his janitor – his name was Bumpy. Bumpy got a hold of me and started beating up on me, threw me out of the Rap ‘n’ Rec and threw my hat, which fell off, after me. Needless to say, we had the power of the press. So the next day I wrote an article called “Hats off to you, McQuillan!” (…).  We had a good time with the underground newspaper and people enjoyed reading it and it was kind of goofy and kind of silly and kind of absurd. And there was always something about draft counseling and anti-war in it. So, that’s kind of how we rolled back then in the underground newspaper world.

(…) “My mother got a phone call (…) he said “you realize your son organized this demonstration! And he’s a communist!” She said “I’m proud of what my son did and I support what he did! So, you know what? I don’t care! And she smashed down the phone on “The Cobe”. And “The Cobe” probably didn’t know what to do at that point, because his terror program was not going to succeed.”

 Do you think that there was a cultural gap there generationally generally?

I think there was one of them with the hippie movement (…) that was a massive generational change. (…) I think you see the very beginning of that change in the 60s when, you know, people were watching TV a lot and TV started to influence them. Music started to influence them and you know music was a massive influence in the late 60s. The use of marijuana also had a very very significant effect, in my opinion because I know for me, culturally, when I started smoking pot with everybody, that’s when I started to change my attitude. And it wasn’t the marijuana itself that was doing it, frankly, because if it were, it would continue to make changes. But it was the coupling of the countercultural movement with that and the fact that it was illegal. And you know even though we were protesting against the marijuana laws in the 1970s, you don’t really see the impact of those protests in the 1970s. but when those people grew up now you start to see the impact of those people. Those people now are in a position where there are a lot more of us and we’re more in a position of influence.

What actually happened to the American Medicial Students?

By: Dana Marecheau

Dr. Merle Collins, now a professor at the University of Maryland, was heavily involved in the Grenadian Revolution. She is most known for working within the Grenadian Government as the Coordinator of Research on Latin America and the Caribbean. She later left Grenada in 1983, the same year of the American Intervention.[1] During our interview, Dr. Collins mentions, “People [general public of Grenada] were less concerned with ideological discussions [by the Coard / Bishop factions] than with the everyday rewards they could see – more access to education, more scholarships for their children, whether those scholarships were in Cuba, Britain, India or the Soviet Union. Today there are many excellent doctors and civil service personnel in Grenada, trained in Cuba during that period of radicalization”.[2] This sparked my interest considering that H.W. Brands in his book, American Dreams, mentions that the U.S feared the growing relationship between Grenada, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. This was triggered by the construction of an “unusually long runway, one suitable for heavy Soviet transport or tourist-filled airliners [as Bishop rejoined]”.[3] Brands provides the reader with minimal details about the events prior to and after the American Invasion. Further intrigued by lack of details H.W. Brands provides and Dr. Collins’ comment, I went on to interview Rubert Bishop. His memories of the American Intervention, provides additional information that challenges the accounts publicized by the American government.

Rubert Bishop worked at the Grenada Prison Service as a prison guard. During his time as a prison guard, Maurice Bishop was the prime mister. Rubert recalled his rise to political power; to him the most memorable televised speech made by Maurice Bishop was one regarding education reform. Rubert describes Maurice Bishop as a “dynamic speaker”, then he exclaimed, “The tone of speech, and so on, the fluency in speech, and the knowledge of the topics were remarkable! He was one of the best I have ever heard”.[4] On March 13, 1979, Maurice Bishop seized power with the support of the New Jewel Movement.[5] When the U.S. refused to provide aid for military defense and offered only limited economic assistance, Maurice Bishop sought out help from other countries, Cuba being one of them. [6] The U.S. viewed this act as threatening, but to Rubert, Maurice Bishop was concerned about developing his country and would take assistance from anyone to do just that.[7]

Brands mentions that “Maurice Bishop had cultivated warm relations with Cuba”,[8] but the objective of this relationship was misconstrued. Maurice Bishop and his party implemented socialist programs on the island, and he continued to receive support from Cuba. One result of this program included the increase in the literacy rate, which went from 85%, to about 98%.[9] While working at the prison, Rubert facilitated a literacy program for prisoners that aided in the increase of literacy rates in Grenada. The supplies utilized in this literacy program, which consisted of books and other education tools, were provided by Cuba. Rubert remembers how impressed he was by one prisoner who took advantage of the opportunity to receive his “old levels”- an equivalate to a high school degree. Rubert said, “We were able to get the papers for him to study, and take the test, and so on”. [10] Cuba’s generosity did not stop there, they contributed about 500 Cuban airport workers, advisors on every aspect of society, culture and technology, doctors who treated about half of the Grenadian population and trained Grenadians to become doctors, and over 200 scholarships to Grenadians to study in Cuba.[11] Rubert Bishop felt the direct impact of this because he accepted a scholarship to study prison administration in Cuba. [12]

Comic Propaganda spread by the CIA about the American Intervention in Grenada (front cover)

The construction of a new airport caught the U. S’s attention as Ronald Reagan cited an extra-long, military-aircraft-friendly runway. This was later used to justify the American Intervention.[13] Rubert strongly disagreed with the U. S’s assumption; “they [the U.S.] also were saying they [Grenada] was building a military base… this was not true at all! Grenadians were excited to have a new airport because we didn’t have an international airport. At the time, we only had this small airport in Grenville… it was called Pearls Airport. I remember Maurice Bishop use to speak about wanting bigger planes to come. That was one of his primary goals to get that airport, and he did get assistance from the Cubans to come build that airport. The air strip was completed at the time of the intervention”. [14] Rubert’s account of this highlights the how the U.S misinterprets Cuba’s assistance. Overall, the U.S thought that Cuba was assisting Grenada in developing and increasing its militarization, but this was not the case.

Then, on October 19, 1983, Bernard Coard, placed Maurice Bishop and other moderates under arrest. During a protest by people who supported Maurice Bishop, army troops massacred dozens of protesters, executed Bishop and two other cabinet members.[15] On the day of Maurice Bishop’s assignation, Rubert Bishop recalls working in the prison. Since the prison, he worked at was located on a high hill, he could look down at Fort Rupert. Hearing all the commotion from the prison, Rubert grabbed a binocular to see soldiers shooting through the crowd; “I remember seeing a gap between the crowd indicating that bullets were going through that area”. [16] Reagan administration feared that the chaos, threatened the medical students studying at a university in St. Georges.[17] But again Rubert claimed the U.S. exaggerated this; “The truth is the whole thing was distorted…at no time were the students at risk. Matter of fact there had soldiers ensuring their safety… yes, they had Grenadian soldiers ensuring their safety. We were surprised that American said that they were at risk… no one was attacking them there was nothing like that… that was definitely a lie!”[18]

US 82nd Airborne Division soldiers during the Invasion of Grenada, code named Operation Urgent Fury October 25, 1983 in St Georges, Grenada

Lastly, on November 25^th, 1983, Coard’s government collapsed and was replaced by one the U.S. deemed as acceptable[19], Additional Brands supports this notion as he says, “the White House claimed a victory for freedom and helped a conservative successor government clean up the mess the invasion cause”. [21] But according to Bishop, the successor that was put into power did the opposite, and  Rubert Bishop did not anticipate the long-term repercussions that were to come. Rubert Bishop recounts, “Right after the intervention what the American did … they [United States] put the GMP in place to run the country. He was not progressive, neither was he interested in the development of the country. They were actual installed after the Intervention and they actually brought down the country!… a lot of people did not like them”[20].

Overall, Rubert Bishop’s accounts of events before and after the American Intervention adds to the narrative Brands creates in his book, American Dreams. In addition, both Brands and Rubert distinctive perceptions, create a well-rounded remembrance of the American Intervention in Grenada. From Rubert Bishop’s point of view, as a citizen of Grenada, the American Intervention further perpetuated the decline of the country economically, especially as the U.S. appointed a political figure that did not have the countries’ interest in mind. One the other hand, the U.S. views the Grenadian Intervention as victory in their attempts to fight against communism. In fear that communist countries like the Soviet Union and Cuba were trying to expand and manifest their power, the U.S. was trying to prevent this.

Works Cited:

[1]Peepal Tree Press. “Merle Collins.” Merle Collins | Peepal Tree Press. Accessed April 23, 2017. http://www.peepaltreepress.com/authors/merle-collins.

[2] Interview with Professor Merle Collins (email), April 1^st, 2017

[3] Brands, H. W. American Dreams: The United States since 1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. (247)

[4] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[5] Zunes, Stephen. “Global Policy Forum.” The US Invasion of Grenada. October 2003. Accessed April 26, 2017. https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/25966.html.

[6] Zunes, Stephen. The US Invasion of Grenada

[7] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[8] Brands, H. W. American Dreams: The United States since 1945 (247)

[9] Zunes, Stephen. The US Invasion of Grenada

[10] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[11] Puri, Shalini. Grenada revolution in the Caribbean Present. Place of publication not identified: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. (177)

[12] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[13] “1943 Pearls Airport: Grenada’s First Airport.” Caribbean Aviation. November 19, 2016. Accessed April 26, 2017. https://caribaviation.net/2016/07/22/1943-pearls-airport/.

[14] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[15] Zunes, Stephen. The US Invasion of Grenada. October 2003

[16] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[17] Zunes, Stephen. The US Invasion of Grenada. October 2003

[18] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[19] “United States invades Grenada.” History.com. Accessed April 26, 2017. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-invades-grenada.

[20] Interview with Rubert Bishop (phone conversation), April 18^th, 2017

[21] Brands, H. W. American Dreams: The United States since 1945 (247)

1950s Hospitality and Hurricane Season

By: Ashlyn B. Buffum

Sydney Hinkle Buffum and her parents got a lot of questions about what she was doing with her life. Her parents would often say, “Oh she is married to a hotel man. They summer up in Rhode Island and winter down in Florida.”[1] Sydney and Robert C. Buffum helped Robert’s father, Frederick C. Buffum, run the family hotel, the Weekapaug Inn, until they took full ownership around 1965. During the era when they were apprenticed to the family hotel business, the 1950s became another boom for the hotel business, the middle class, and tourism. Despite this boom, during the1954 hurricane season the prosperity came to a screeching halt.

During the 1950s, the country was just coming off World War II and the Great Depression. The U.S. was experiencing a time of return to an emphasis on domestic life, a baby boom, and another technological revolution. Modern highways helped promote tourism, but older modes of transportation still mattered.  Buffum recalls, “people drove from the Midwest to come here [Rhode Island], but they also took the train”.[2]  She notes that many visitors arrived in this more traditional fashion from states “in the middle of the country,” like Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. [3] The ease of travel which was helped by the highway system resulted in more travelers.

A 1950s tourism add for Rhode Island (1955)

With this rise in highway systems and cars, the roadside motel became popular. “Families of the broad middle class took vacations, usually by car. They stayed at motor hotels—“motels”—located on highways rather than near downtown rail depots”.[4] Not only does car travel evolve, but also jet and planes. Spending money on ones children and vacations became the norm especially with the opening of Disneyland.[5] The 1950s were a “golden age” for tourism and the resort businesses around the country.[6] Vacationing families sought freedom from care, a complete rest, relief and recuperation.

Other new technologies evolved as well to help make the guests experience easier and more enjoyable. For example, in the Weekapaug Inn of the 1950s, there was a communication device called “an enunciator”.[7] Buffum recollects the many uses for the machine and says “ people that were in the hotel room had a wire that came and they had a box in the back office. If somebody rang the buzzer for ice or something like that the little arrow would flip up to the room number and then the bellhop would run down the hall and would get to the door and ask what he or she wanted. If they said they wanted ice, then he would take their ice bucket and go down and bring it back. He would get a tip on that. That would go on every single night”.[8]

It was a time for the hotels to be family run and “interactive” for guests. One of the rising inventions of the 1950s was the TV. Despite the rise of TV, there still might not be a TV in every room. Instead there was a singular room with a common TV which guests could use collectively. This results in televised events being shared by the guests as a collective body. Televised sporting events also rose in popularity during the 1950s. “Many sports events during the decade of the 1950’s were telecast during the day on weekends”.[9] The hotels would also have events like, “Saturday dances”.[10] Buffum remembers “ We would have a funny little band. They would clear all the tables and chairs out of the Sea Room and people would all dance Saturday night”.[11]

Another aspect of 1950s hotels that adds to the “interactive” experience for guests are communal bathrooms that are sometimes within hotels or motels. An example of this room set up can be seen on top floor of the Weekapaug Inn. This floor was known as the Bridge.[12] Though Sydney and Robert soon found a fatal flaw with the Bridge bathrooms when, “One very naughty boy and most rowdy was a minister’s son and he went in one time to the ladies’ room and he went under the stall doors. He locked all the doors. Then in the morning when all the women woke up and went to the bathroom they found all of the doors locked. All the old ladies didn’t think to crawl underneath the stall doors”. [13]

Vacationists coming to New England are primarily coming for “the peace and quiet of the ocean, bathing, mountain scenery, or rolling meadowland”, but during the 1954 summer season for hotels was anything but.[14] The first sign of trouble happened during June of the 1954 hurricane season. “A tropical storm developed rapidly in the west Gulf of Mexico on the 24^th of June and by early on the 25^th was of hurricane force. It moved inland south of Brownsville, Tex., early on the morning of the 25^th”. [15] This storm would be called Alice.[16] Next came hurricane Barbara, which hit the coast of Louisiana.[17] Another storm started to brew in the Atlantic Ocean, but no one knew how dangerous it would become. “The system developed from a tropical wave over the northeast Bahamas on August 25, 1954”. [18] The New England resort community and residents had been lulled into a sense of security during the rising prosperity of the 1950s. The residents of New England had forgotten the devastation of the 1938 hurricane. “No one had experienced that before. Of course ships had went down before, but nothing had really destroyed the land”.[19] Hurricane Carol hit the coast of New England on August 31, 1954. [20]

Photograph of Hurricane Carol
hitting the Coast of New England

As recounted in Robert Buffum’s book, a guest named Micky McQueenie Mathews recalls her experience in the hurricane, “That first summer I was to fall in love with this place of sunshine and the occasional storm. Along with my parents and four siblings we were spending a months vacation at the Inn when hurricane Carol hit with her fury. Upon arising I remember a few families packing their cars and heading for higher ground. I thought, “what sissies they are”—there is such excitement about a hurricane, especially when you are 14”. [21]

Robert Buffum, himself, recalls looking at the Weekapaug Inn during the storm, “The Inn was like a ship in deep water—pointing the way! There she is with guests aboard, pointing her bow into the sea and wind. Almost it appears looking toward the beach where the first inn was born and destroyed, saying, ‘I’m here, staying strong to protect those aboard’”.[22]

Hurricane Carol ripped through New England with force, “highest winds were at Block Island, RI where 130 mph was measured in gusts” and up into Canada [23]. The damage from the 1954 hurricane was tremendous. “The storm left 60 dead and over 460 million dollars of damage to property and crops in the North Atlantic States”. [24] Sydney remembers the damage that her little family endured during a storm and the damage that a hurricane can swiftly cause. Their 38-foot trimaran, Wings. “It was in the Stonington Harbor, but it dragged because it flipped over on one hull and then of course the trampoline and stuff in between acted like a sail. She had two hulls and one hull was up in the air and the trampoline between the two acted like a sail. The wind was coming down the Stonington Harbor so it just blew the boat right a shore and the water pushed the boat up onto the railroad tracks. We didn’t see the boat until the next day. We went to go look at it and someone came and said, “What is this boat doing on the railroad tracks” and of course Grand Bob [Robert C. Buffum] with his great sense of humor says, “Oh she was trying to get a ride on the train [down to New York]”.[25]

The day after newspapers began to report the damage of Hurricane Carol. Some of the numbers are too large to even comprehend. The front page of a paper later reads, “By states the number of affected families was given as 6,000 in Rhode Island, 3,760 in Massachusetts, 1,200 on Long Island in New York and 825 in Connecticut” [26]

Finally, Eisenhower calls a relief effort for the victims of the hurricanes. One newspaper reports, “President Eisenhower today ordered the federal civil defense administration “cut through any red tape” to provide aid for victims of the hurricane which hit the northeaster section of the United states [27]

New England Historical Society
Photograph of the aftermath

Finally when all the rain, wind, dust, and debris settled, there were 7 hurricanes that hit the Americas in the 1954 hurricane season. Hurricane Carol and Hurricane Hazel were so bad that their names were retired from further use.[28] The 1954 Hurricane season was one of the worst that ever hit the coasts of the United States. The 1950s was a time of both prosperity and destruction.

[1] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 80.

[5] Ibid, 73.

[6] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Keller, Richard. “Sport and Television in the 1950’s: A Preliminary Survey,”29

[10] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] “Tranquility of New England Vacation.” New York Times, 10 May 1959, 33. [ProQuest]

[15] Walter R. Davis, “Hurricanes of 1954”, Monthly Weather Review (1954):370

[16]Ibid.

[17]Ibid.

[18] “1954-Hurricane Carol,” Hurricanes: Science and Society, accessed April 23, 2017, http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1950s/carol/

[19] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.

[20]Davis, 370.

[21] Robert C. Buffum, The Weekapaug Inn: The Best of All Possible Worlds (Robert C. Buffum, 1999), 123.

[22] Ibid, 123.

[23] Davis, 372.

[24] Ibid, 372.

[25] Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, March 22, 2017.

[26] “11,785 Families Hit By Hurricane,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal September 9, 1954, 22.

[27] “Ike Tells CD Chief to Cut Through Red Tape” Spokane Daily Chronicle September 1, 1954, 1.

[28] “Retired Hurricane Names Since 1954,” NOAA, accessed April 27, 2017, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml#retired

Selections from Interview Transcripts

-Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, March 22, 2017

Transcript

Q: Where were you when you heard that the Hurricane was coming?

A: We heard that the hurricane was coming and from Goshen, CT we drove down. We wanted to help since it was the first time they had gone through the hurricane since 1938.

Q: Were any of your possessions lost or damaged during the 1954 Hurricane season?

A: We did lose a bout up in Stonington it went up on the tracks. It tipped over. It was our Trimaran, Wings . We were not on the boat at the time it was broken. We took it out and tied it off as well as we could in the harbor over in Stonington. It was in the Stonington Harbor, but it dragged because it flipped over on one hull and then of course the trampoline and stuff in between acted like a sail. She had two hulls and one hull was up in the air and the trampoline between the two acted like a sail. The wind was coming down the Stonington Harbor so it just blew the boat right a shore and the water pushed the boat up onto the railroad tracks. We didn’t see the boat until the next day. We went to go look at it and Someone came and said, “What is this boat doing on the railroad tracks” and of course Grand Bob with his great sense of humor says, “Oh he was trying to get a ride on the train [down to New York]” We came by and picked it up and took it back to Cape Cod where it was rebuilt.

Q: Did the Weekapaug inn receive any insurance money for damages?

A: The insurance claimed that they wouldn’t pay. After the 1938 Hurricane he made sure to insure the new one [Weekapaug Inn] so that if anything would happen the insurance would cover the cost the repairs. Well they read the contract and it said if the occurrence or problem is off premises then the insurance statement does not have to cover the thing and the insurance salesmen didn’t tell him.. Of course the electricity went off from the wire that came down from Westerly and the town water didn’t work either, but that wasn’t on premises so they wouldn’t pay. So Grand Bob lost a whole weekend and then the people that piled out of there afterwards that didn’t come back for the last weekend of the season. So he lost quite a bit of money, but he didn’t lose a single shingle off the inn. So he actually the only thing he wanted was to get some restitution from money fast. Actually the insurance man was very upset because he didn’t realize that that was really a possibility. That he was only insured if the damage happened on premises. He didn’t read his own insurance policy. You have to read those things yourself sometimes. He [the insurance salesmen] felt very badly about it and he tried to do as much as he could, but it still didn’t help at all. I think they gave him a little bit more money then they ordinarily would have, but they didn’t have to pay the full amount that he lost.

Selections from Interview Transcripts

-Phone Interview with Sydney Hinkle Buffum, April 24, 2017.

Transcripts

Q: Was anything done to prevent this from happening again?

A: A westerly family had lots going down the beach and those that bought them. Bob went around and tried to get everyone to give back their beach area and create an association that they have now. And that’s why they own the beach because people gave them their land, which was no good to them really. The water washed over the whole bank along there. So nobody ever built out there. Bob said “no one is going to be allowed to build out here again” because lives were lost. He went around and got people to sign petitions that the land would never be built upon.

Q: What was the travel experience like in the 1950s?

A: People drove from the Midwest to come here, but they also took the train. There was a lot of people that came from the middle of the country, Illinois, Idiana, Ohio. It was a lot easier for people to travel. It was a golden age…No one had experienced that before. Of course ships and had went down before, but nothing had really destroyed the land

Q: What did people say about what you were doing?

A: What is Sydney doing? Oh she is married to a hotel man they summer in up in Rhode Island and winter down in Florida.

Q: Did you and Grandfather do anything special while you were running the Inn?

A: We carried on the traditions of the Inn. They always had Saturday dances at the Inn. We would have a funny little band. They would clear all the tables and chairs out of the Searoom and people would all dance Saturday night.

Q: Are there any differences in the hospitality business now vs. then?

A: there was a buzzer system. It’s called an enunciator. The people that were in the hotel room they had a wire that came and they had a box in the back office. If somebody rang the buzzer for ice or something like that. The little arrow would flip up to the room number and then the bell hop would run down the hall and would get to the door and ask what they wanted. If they said they wanted ice so then he would take their ice bucket and go down and bring it back. He would get a tip on that. That would go on every single night… The bridge (the third floor) of the inn had communal bathrooms down the hall. One very naughty boy and most rowdy was a minister’s son and he went in one time to the ladies’ room and he went under the stall doors. He locked all the doors. Then in the morning when all the women woke up and went to the bathroom they found all of the doors locked. All the old ladies didn’t think to crawl underneath the stall doors.