Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 35

October 15, 2024: Famous Phone Calls: The Scream Films

[75 years ago this week,operator-assisted toll dialing was introduced to make long-distance phone callsmuch easier. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy some classic phone calls inAmerican culture, leading up to a special tribute to what phones mean in my own21st century life!]

On onething that’s really changed since the first Scream,and one that hasn’t.

I wroteabout the most important conceit of the Screamseries of horror films, their metatextual commentary on the tropes andtraditions of the horror genre, in this 2020post. I think that element relates closely to the way the films usephones, so I’ll ask you to check out that post and then come on back here forthis related topic.

Welcomeback! One of the many, many many many, horror movie tropes on which Scream (1996) was commenting was theexternal yet intimate threat posed by horror monsters and killers, a threatexemplified by Halloween’s Michael Myers looking into windows but alsocaptured quite nicely by a threatening phone call (whether or not it’s “coming from inside the house!”).There’s a reason, after all, why Scream begins with thesound of a phone ringing followed by a young woman’s screams, before theaudience even sees the specific, threatened young woman (Drew Barrymore) whowill unfortunately answer this call and provide her own screams. But it’spretty telling that that call comes in on a landline, and one without caller IDat that—if Barrymore’s Casey Becker and her family had that technology, and/orif she had a cell phone with caller ID as well, she’d likely not pickup a callfrom a strange number, eliminating the entire premise of the killers toyingwith her over the phone.

Yet evenas the Scream series has evolved intothe smartphone era (with both 2011’s Scream4 and, even more fully, 2022’s Screamand 2023’s Scream VI set in that brave new world), a time when virtuallyeveryone has both a cell phone and the ability to see and screen our calls, ithas apparently maintained this central trope of the killers calling on thephone (I haven’t seen any of those films, so as always I welcome correctionsand comments of all kinds!). I’m sure the filmmakers have found specific waysto explain how these smartphone-era killers are maintaining their anonymity(even in the original Scream there’s anelaborate plotline about a cloned cell phone, for example). Butto my mind, the more important point is that the scary phone call tropeendures, and perhaps has even deepened in the smartphone era—I know for me,almost every time my phone rings these days (unless it’s my kids calling to saygoodnight when they’re with their mom) it feels at best unnerving and at worstpotentially threatening. It doesn’t have to a psycho killer on the other end tomake the phone an external yet intimate and potentially invasive technology, itturns out.

Nextfamous phone calls tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Famous cultural phones you’d highlight?

October 14, 2024: Famous Phone Calls: The Great Gatsby

[75 years ago this week,operator-assisted toll dialing was introduced to make long-distance phone callsmuch easier. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy some classic phone calls inAmerican culture, leading up to a special tribute to what phones mean in my own21st century life!]

On threephone calls that illustrate the classic novel’s thoughtful portrayal of Moderntechnologies.

When youteach a book as often as I have F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925),you start to focus on different layers each time. Along with the dialogues withother authors/works like Nella Larsen’s Passingthat I talk about in that hyperlinked post, in my last couple times readingand teaching the novel I’ve thought a lot about just how many early 20thcentury technologies play central roles in its story. That’s especially true ofautomobiles, of course; not only in the book’s climactic events (which I won’tspoil here for the few people who managed not to read Fitzgerald’s novel inhigh school), but in the central presence (geographically as well assymbolically) of Wilson’sgas station and auto repair shop. It’s true of Hollywood film, both inpresences at Gatsby’s parties (andFitzgerald’s career) and in the novel’s underlying themes ofsurface and depth, illusion and reality. But it’s also certainly true of thestill relativelynew technology, particularly when it comes to the idea of every household havingone, that was the telephone.

As we meetthe novel’s main characters in the opening few chapters, Fitzgerald uses acouple key phone calls to present mysterious and ambiguous sides to them. InChapter 1, as Nick Carraway visits the beautiful home of his cousin Daisy andher husband Tom for a dinner party, Tom gets a mysterious phone call; Daisysuspects that it’s his mistress on the other end, but of course can’t know forcertain to whom he’s speaking. In Chapter 3, as Nick attends one of the lavishparties at his neighbor Jay Gatsby’s mansion, Gatsby gets a mysterious call;other partygoers suggest that it’s a criminal business partner of Gatsby’s onthe other end, but of course no one knows for certain to whom he’s speaking.These calls reveal both men as defined by secrets, dynamics that preciselybecause of their ambiguity are a source of intense speculation by those aroundthem. And those secrets can only be maintained in these scenes because of thetechnology of the phone, without which their conversants would have to visit inperson (or write a letter, which of course would be far less immediate).

[SeriousSPOILERS in this paragraph.] At the end of the novel, after all theaforementioned climactic events have unfolded, Nick has his own, quitedifferent phone call. He is trying to organize a funeral for Gatsby (or maybeJames Gatz, since his father who knows him by that name is one of the few whoattends that tragic event), and manages to speak with Gatsby’s elusive businesspartner Meyer Wolfshiem on the phone. In one of the novel’s onlymoments where a character says directly what he’s feeling and thinking, shareswhat seems at least to be the unvarnished truth (even when Gatsby and Nick havetheir heart-to-hearts, it’s always an open question whether Gatsby is tellingthe truth), Wolfshiem confesses to Nick that he can’t possibly be seen at thefuneral, that it would be far too destructive for his reputation andrelationships. This is the side of the telephone that allows us to be morehonest, more ourselves, in its conversations than we might manage to be if hadto face someone and something in the flesh. Just another layer to howFitzgerald’s novel reflects the technologies and contexts of its rapidlyevolving Modernist world.

Nextfamous phone call tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Famous cultural phones you’d highlight?

October 12-13, 2024: Contested Holidays: Columbus/Indigenous Peoples Day

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to this special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On one waymy thinking has significantly evolved in the last decade, and one thing I’dstill emphasize.

In all butone of the posts this week I started by asking you to check out a prior pieceof mine, and so it’s only fitting that in this weekend post I do the same. Backin October 2015 I wrote for myTalking Points Memo column about how we might reinvent Columbus Day, and I’dask you to check out that column if you would and then come on back here for acouple layers to where my thinking is nine years (!) after I wrote that.

Welcomeback! 2015 was right at the start of themovement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and nineyears later I have to admit I am thoroughly convinced that such a move (whichhas officially taken place in anumber of communities) is the right one. As I hope has been clear throughoutthe week, and hell throughout this blog’s nearly 14 years, I believe we can andmust remember as much of our history as possible. But commemoration is a verydifferent thing (as MichaelKammen knew well), and given the countless impressive and inspiringAmericans on whom a collective holiday might focus, I just can’t justifydedicating one of them to someone who never set foot on the continent and whowas apretty thoroughly despicable dude to boot (getting to talk Columbus Day forJunior Scholastic magazine remains a career highlight). In the TPMcolumn I noted the turn of the 20th century reasonswhy Columbus Day became a thing (make sure to check out that great GuestPost on th subject from my friend Nancy Caronia), and those are certainly stillworth remembering as well; but a holiday commemorating Columbus is, to my 2024mind, a no-go.

Anotherpart of my proposed solution back in 2015 was to add commemorations of a pair ofother Spanish arrivals to the Americas, Bartoloméde las Casas y AlvarNuñez Cabeza de Vaca. While I’m not sure we should try to commemorate themat the same time as Indigenous Peoples Day—one collective holiday dedicatedentirely to Native American histories seems quite literally the least we coulddo—I remain dedicated to adding both of those figures to our collectivememories in any and all ways. While there are various reasons for thatcommitment, at the top of the list is that these two figures, in very distinctbut complementary ways, exemplify my conceptof cross-cultural transformation, of perspectives and identities that entirelyand inspiringly shifted when these individuals from a particular culturalbackground came into contact with other communities and cultures. Perhaps noindividual holiday could quite capture that complicated process—but perhaps onecould, because as I hope this whole series has illustrated holidays can be (andhave always been) whatever we want them to be. And if we were to commemorate transformativeAmerican stories, we couldn’t do much better than las Casas & de Vaca.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 11, 2024: Contested Holidays: “The War on Christmas”

[Ahead of Columbus/IndigenousPeoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploring such contestedAmerican holidays and what they can help us think about. Leading up to aspecial post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

Threevoices who can together help us see through the “Waron Christmas” canard (which as of this writing DonaldTrump has recently resuscitated).

1)     StevenNissenbaum: That excellent hyperlinked book of Nissenbaum’s, The Battlefor Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday (1996),does a great deal of the work I was originally planning to do in this post,specifically in framing the fact that Christmas in America has always beencontested and even attacked, and indeed in places like Puritan New England was farmore so both of those things than it is in any aspect of our 21stcentury society. Moreover, Nissenbaum helps us understand that many of the elementsof the holiday we now too often take for granted (like the “fact” that it celebratesChrist and/or his birth) were likewise entirely contested throughout much ofAmerican history, indeed for far longer than they have been seen as settledparts of the holiday. Bottom line, if there’s any truth to the idea of a “Waron Christmas,” it’s a historical truth, not a contemporary one; feel free toshare that with your Fox News-watching relatives, and you’re welcome (fromNissenbaum and me).

2)     VaughnJoy: Among the many aspects of Joy’s excellent Film- and AmericanStudyingwork that I highlighted in that post, one of them in particular, her ComparativeAmerican Studies article on Miracle on34th Street, illustrates the ways in which she uses bothChristmas and cultural representations of it to make a number of thoughtful andsignificant analytical points. She does so precisely because, as she argues in thatarticle and a greatdeal of her other work as well, Christmas has always been one of the most contestedand evolving symbols of (among other things) American identity and ideals, ratherthan some fixed or consistent celebration that could reasonably come underattack. And as Joy’s work particularly exemplifies, those shifting andcompeting meanings have been frequently (if not indeed always) constructed andreconstructed through cultural works, adding one more layer to the fundamental sillinessof some overarching “Christmas” that could be warred upon.

3)     My Mom: That’s how a couple of the bestscholars of Christmas histories and culture can help us challenge the “War onChristmas” canard. But I’m not sure any challenge is more telling than areminder of what the holiday season meant in America just a few decades ago. MyMom has shared quite a bit with me about the experience of growing up Jewish in1950s and 60s America, and specifically about how openly and single-mindedlypublic schools celebrated Christmas, with nary the slightest reference tohanukkah or any other holiday or tradition (despite, again, the presence ofJewish kids like my Mom in those schools and classes). In those schools anderas, as I would argue for virtually all of our history (or at the very least allof our 20th century history), it was Christmas that waged war on fartoo many Americans—and if we’ve gotten slightly better at defending thoseindividuals and communities during the holiday season, that’s simply aninclusive way to live up to our ideals.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 10, 2024: Contested Holidays: Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning

[Ahead of Columbus/IndigenousPeoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploring such contestedAmerican holidays and what they can help us think about. Leading up to aspecial post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On twoways we can be thankful while mourning.

Gotta gofour for four with asking you to read other pieces at the start of this week’sposts: two years ago I wrote for my SaturdayEvening Post Considering History column on Wamsutta James and his lifelongefforts to reframe Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning. Once again I’llask you to check out that prior piece if you would, and then come on back forsome further thoughts on how we can put these two contrasting commemorations inconversation.

Welcomeback! I don’t want to minimize any of the specifics of the National Day ofMourning, which I think was and remains a vital addition to our collectivecalendar. But I do believe there’s value in an occasion which presents us withan opportunity to be thankful, and would say that the combination of these twocommemorations can add importantly to that perspective as well. For one thing,I’m hugely thankful for the activists who throughout our history have pushed usto better remember our hardest and most painful histories, a list that mostdefinitely includes countless indigenous activists, from WilliamApess and Zitkala-Ša to the AmericanIndian Movement and Wamsutta James and up to so many inour present moment. When I make the case, as I do frequently, that criticalpatriots embody the best of American ideals through their recognition of how we’vefar too often fallen short of them (and their concurrent desire to push uscloser to them), it’s precisely folks like these about whom I’m thinking, andremembering James on Thanksgiving would thus commemorate our best as well asrespect the legacy of his National Day of Mourning ideas.

That’s acollective point, and the more important of the two I’ll share here to be sure.But I have to add a more personal and I hope understandable complement: howthankful I am for the lifelong opportunity both to learn about such figures andcommunities and to do my part to help make them all more consistently and fullypart of our collective memories and conversations. I don’t want to pretend fora second that any aspect of my work equals or even parallels that of activistslike James—but the chance to help connect more of my fellow Americans to himand his voice and ideas and efforts and effects is not only not one I will evertake lightly, but also is genuinely one of the aspects of my work (in theclassroom, in writing and scholarship of all kinds, and in any and every otherway I can think of) for which I’m most thankful. I try to remember that as wellas Wamsutta James and the National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, and I hopeyou all will as well.

LastHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 9, 2024: Contested Holidays: Labor Day

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On thebare minimum for how we should celebrate Labor Day, and a couple important stepsbeyond.

To keepwith the trend in this week’s posts, I’ll start by asking you to check out aprior piece of mine—in this case, a TalkingPoints Memo column from 2015 in which I traced the radical origins andhistory of Labor Day. Take a look at that column if you would, and then come onback for some additional thoughts on a holiday that means a lot more than theend of summer.

Welcomeback! When I was growing up in Virginia, we didn’t have Labor Day off fromschool, nor did my Dad as a professor at the University of Virginia—Virginia wasand remains a “Rightto Work” state, which is a particularly Orwellian phrase for states (26 of them as of thiswriting; that’s from an overtly anti-union website, just FYI) that don’t recognizepublic employee unions and thus don’t celebrate Labor Day (among many, manyother effects of that status). The histories of how such legislation developed andwhich states have passed it are of course multi-layered and feature contextsbeyond this brief mention, but to my mind two things are not complicated atall: every state in the United States both should allow public employees tounionize and should celebrate this federal holiday dedicated to workers’ rightsand equality. I’m a big believer in conversation, so if you’re reading this anddisagree with either or both of those premises feel free to leave a comment andwe can chat further, but I gotta tell you I don’t think those should be (orare) controversial positions to take.

Whilecelebrating Labor Day is thus to my mind a default, I’d also argue that, aswith Memorial/Decoration Day with which I began the week’s series, this is aholiday that demands more thoughtful engagement with the histories that it commemorates.For one thing, I’d say it’s pretty important for us to remember the incrediblyaggressive and violent ways in which big business and its political and socialallies attacked the Labor Movement—from definingit as entirely un-American to imprisoningand executing its leaders to droppingactual bombs on its striking members. And for another thing, it’s equally importantfor us to remember the incredibly aggressive and violent ways in which too manylabor unions and organizations excluded non-white workers, as exemplified by theRock Springs massacre. Do those two points seem contrasting and even contradictory?Well welcome to the U.S. of A., and to Labor Day commemorations that can helpus engage with all our fraught and frustrating and vital histories while webbq.

NextHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 8, 2024: Contested Holidays: The 4th of July

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On whetherand how there’s a place for celebratory patriotism in our national commemorations.

For manyyears I’ve made the case that all Americans should read, hear, or at leastengage with Frederick Douglass’s “Whatto the Slave is the 4th of July?” on that holiday. I did soearlier this year in thispost, so will ask you to check that one out and then come on back here fora couple other ways to think about this contested holiday.

Welcomeback! Having written multiplebooks centered on the conceptof critical patriotism, I both believe Douglass’s speech embodies it aswell as any American text ever has and would argue that such patriotism has to occupya key place at our July 4th commemorations. For far too manyAmericans, past and present, the ideals celebrated on such occasions have neverbeen fully realized, or even extended to them at all, and any commemorationthat doesn’t acknowledge and grapple with those realities is ultimately ahollow one. But at the same time, as a Dad whose sons have long loved theannual 4th of July fireworks in their hometown (a traditionabout as old as the holiday itself), I would never argue that we should doaway with such communal celebrations entirely, nor that after every dazzlingdisplay of lights we have to stop the show to have an analytical conversationabout hard histories. If I ever become that much of an academic, please feelfree to slap me with a hot dog.

Moreover,I’d say that there’s a meaningful way that celebratory and critical patriotismscan and should be intertwined on occasions like this. As I trace throughout my patriotismbook, too often celebratory patriotism becomes so uncritical that it turns intomythic patriotism, the type that simplistically and fully idealizes the nationand sees anyone who disagrees as unpatriotic and even un-American. But just asI refuse to cede patriotism overall to that particular vision, I likewiserefuse to see that as the only outcome for celebratory patriotism specifically.There’s no reason why we couldn’t listen to some of Douglass’s speech at a 4thof July commemoration, consider both our foundational ideals, the ways we’vefallen short of them, and the continued collective goal of moving closer to them,and then watch a kickass fireworks show to drive home every bit of that.Indeed, I think such a multi-layered commemoration would have a far betterchance of including all Americans than do the simplistic and too often overtlyexclusionary versions of the holiday. Let’s celebrate our independence fromthose limited and limiting legacies!

NextHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 7, 2024: Contested Holidays: Memorial/Decoration Day

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

This pastMay, as I’ve done every year for quite a few now, I shared a specialMemorial/Decoration Day post making the case for an additive commemorationof that powerful but fraught occasion—and kicking off a weeklong series of DecorationDay histories as well. I’d ask you to check out at least that holiday post ifyou would, and then come on back for a couple additional reflections.

Welcomeback! As I’ll write in the upcoming Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day post, I’mno longer quite as convinced as I once was that adding to our collectivememories is always the right move, at least not when it comes tocommemorations. That is, while it’s certainly important that we remember asmuch of our history as possible, I definitely don’t believe we need to commemorateall of it with things like holidays or statues. Yet while the history of howMemorial Day came to replace Decoration Day is (as that hyperlink post aboveand the series that followed it hopefully made clear) a frustrating and toooften white supremacist one, there’s quite simply nothing about Memorial Dayitself that is problematic in the ways that Christopher Columbus was and is. Soin this particular case, I remain totally fine with the idea of commemoratingboth holidays at once, of an additive celebration that emphasizes the inspiringand too-often-overlooked Decoration Day origins but also extends those MemorialDay respectful remembrances to all those who have given their lives in our militaryconflicts.

But it’s importantto add that such Memorial Day remembrances have themselves been too often exclusionary,have focused on white casualties and veterans at the expense of thefoundational and consistent diversity of those who have served in our military.The overtexclusion of U.S. Colored Troops veterans from the May 1865 (right nearMemorial Day’s usual timing, actually, if years before that holiday had comeinto existence) Grand Review of the Armies in Washington is just one of so, somany examples of such racist commemorations—and while I know Memorial Day isdedicated to fallen servicepeople rather than living veterans, about 40,000Black soldiers died during the Civil War, a stunningly high percentage ofthose who served. So if we’re going to keep Memorial Day as part of our combinatorycommemorations of this holiday, we have to make sure that we’re likewise addinginto those memorials the full range of those who have given all for the UnitedStates.

Next HolidayStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

October 5-6, 2024: My New Podcast!

[200 yearsago this week, “Father ofBaseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ve AmericanStudiedChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up tothis special weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseballand much more!]

This SundayI’ll drop the sixth Inning (episode, but y’know) of my weekly narrative historypodcast, The Celestials’ LastGame: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. If you haven’t hada chance to listen yet, you can catch up on all the prior Innings at thathyperlink! Here I wanted to reflect on a few quick takeaways from my firstexperience with podcasting:

1)     Brevity: When I was initially planning thepodcast, I anticipated something like 45 minutes for each Inning, and honestlywas expecting that they might end up more like an hour long (as y’all know I’vegot a lot to say, and this is a story I really want to tell in full). But inwriting and especially in recording them, I found that about 25 minutes wasmuch more of a sweet spot, not only for me but also for my ideal audienceexperience. There’s always more to say, and I very much hope listeners willcontinue to research and read and learn about all the histories and issues thatI’m highlighting. But I also believe it’s far better to leave them wanting abit more than to overstay my welcome, and I hope I can keep applying thatlesson to all my public scholarly work, where I’d say it’s a universally goodgoal. Soul of wit and all!

2)     Honesty: There are various reasons why thebook project that was my longstanding expectation of how I’d tell this story neverquite came together, some of them entirely outside of my own control. But onesignificant factor is that there’s a dearth of information on some of its corehistories, including the details of the Celestials themselves (both in theirNew England semi-pro league and in their 1881 final game in San Francisco). Icouldn’t quite figure out how to frame that in a book manuscript, at least notwithout creating overtly fictionalized sections which just wasn’t how I wantedto approach it. But in a podcast, I could simply talk about those limitations,share how I was hoping to fill in some gaps with educated speculation, and hopethat listeners would appreciate my honesty and be willing to go on this journeywith me.

3)     Storytelling: That ability to share honestreflections was one nice effect of creating my first oral scholarly work, buteven more exciting was the way in which it felt like I could lean intostorytelling as a central goal. I’ve long argued that stories, narratives, offerus ways to learn about our histories, our communities, our identities that atthe very least complement, and in many ways transcend, more informational or pedanticmodes of communication. That’s why I wanted to create a narrative history projectfor my 7th book—and when that book transformed into a podcast, I wasable to lean into that emphasis on stories and storytelling even more fully andhappily. I hope the results speak to you as much as the process has to me!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Hopeyou’ll check out the podcast!

October 4, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: The Celestials

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

On two 19thcentury baseball contexts for an inspiring 1870s team.

I firstdeveloped the ideas that are at the heart of my new podcast in this2020 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column. That column providesa lot of contexts for the Celestials semi-pro baseball team, a team formed bystudents at the 1870s Chinese Educational Mission in Hartford, so I’d ask youto check it out and then come on back for a couple ways to link that inspiringsquad to 19th century baseball histories.

Welcomeback! In the 20th and 21st centuries, we’ve become usedto professional athletes being quite thoroughly distinct from amateur ones(especially in the major sports leagues—obviously things get a little trickierwhen it comes to the Olympics and the like). But in the 19thcentury, there was far more overlap between the two categories, and that’ssuccinctly illustrated by the fact that members of the Celestials were continuingto play for both high school and college teams while they were also part ofthis successful semi-pro squad. One of their founding members and best players,Liang Pi Yuk(also known as Liang Cheng), was still in high school at the PhilipsAndover Academy when the Celestials began in 1878, and famously led thatteam to a victory over its rival Philips Exeter Academy during the same periodwhen he was playing for the Celestials. Most of the other founding members wereplaying baseball for Yale University inthat period, and likewise continued to impress on the collegiate diamond whilethey were achieving their semi-pro victories. That’s an important and easilyforgotten layer to late 19th century baseball, professional and otherwise.

Playingamateur baseball might have been sufficient on its own to inspire the studentsto form their semi-pro team, but it just so happens that one of the most successfulearly majorleague teams was for a brief moment also located in their Connecticut hometownof Hartford. Known officially as the Hartfords and generally called the Dark Blues,this team was originally founded in 1874 and played for three very successful seasonsat the HartfordBall Club Grounds, widely considered one of the premiere stadiums in thisearly era of professional baseball. Ahead of the 1877 season the team waspoached by Brooklyn and became the Brooklyn Hartfords, and was disbanded afterjust season there; but the legacy in Hartford remained, exemplified by the team’smost famous fan, Mark Twain. Twain alsobefriended and supported the Chinese Educational Mission students, and it seemsundeniable to me that when they started their own semi-professional baseballteam in Hartford in 1878, it was likewise part of the legacy of this prominentand popular ball club in the city.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?