PERMISSION TO COME ABOARD?: THE BOAT SHOW, AND WAVES OF VIP VISITORS TO THE WOLFSONIAN LIBRARY

Every year, traffic on Miami Beach increases exponentially in mid-February as yacht and sailing and power boat enthusiasts from around the world surge into Florida’s “cruise capital” for the annual Boat Show. This year was no exception, and as the boat aficionados poured into town, The Wolfsonian-FIU librarians were pleased to be able to usher a number of prominent VIP visitors around the “dazzle”-painted exterior walls of the museum and into the library for a private tour.

Thomas Ragan, an ocean liner aficionado who has donated hundreds of steamship and ocean liner books and an archive of the Moore McCormack’s “Good Neighbor Fleet”  to The Wolfsonian library, arranged a visit and luncheon reception for Cunard Commodore Ron Warwick and his charming wife, Kim. Also in attendance was Dr. Laurence Miller, former director of libraries at Florida International University, and an avid collector of ocean liner promotional literature. In preparation for our guests’ visit, Dr. Miller had laid out a display of Cunard and Cunard White Star Line materials from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Wolfsonian-FIU library aims to be one of the great repositories of ocean liner materials, including books, brochures, deck plans, and other print media.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

THOMAS C. RAGAN COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

Below is a small sampling of historic items from our holdings for Cunard and Cunard White Star Lines, some of which provide color illustrations of the exotic ports of call and luxurious public spaces aboard ships like the R.M.S. Carinthia.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

As Commodore Warwick had captained the Queen Elizabeth 2 (christened in 1969) and the Queen Mary 2 (launched in 2003), Dr. Miller also laid out some materials from the original R.M.S. Queens.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

Some of the early brochures offered comparisons between gigantic liners like the first Queen Mary—(launched in 1934) and other monumental structures.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

Others detailed the construction of the great luxury liner, named the R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth and launched on September 27, 1938.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

Other items documenting the original Queens (and the successor ships that Commodore Warwick captained), were drawn from the extensive collection of Cunard transatlantic and cruise ship materials that Dr. Miller had donated to The Wolfsonian-FIU library some years back.

 

LAURENCE MILLER COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

The Laurence Miller Collection at The Wolfsonian-FIU also includes ephemeral items such as menus and baggage labels.

LAURENCE MILLER COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

Rather than return these items to their archival boxes immediately following the commodore’s visit, we added to the mix some ocean liner materials from other steamship lines for a presentation later in the week for another VIP visitor.

On Thursday, the prolific ocean liner author and guest lecturer popularly known as “Mr. Ocean Liner,” William (“Bill”) Miller came up to the library to see a sampling of our holdings.

LAURENCE MILLER AND BILL MILLER

LAURENCE MILLER COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

In addition to some of the Cunard Line materials already laid out on the tables, we added a sprinkling of other printed matter. Some, like the Compagnie Maritime Belge document the old colonial  steamship line routes.

Others, like this brochure for the Nippon Yusen Kaish (or N.Y.K.) Line, used expensive printing and die-cut techniques to allow potential passengers to peel away the layers of the Asama Maru to see the ship’s interior.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

LAURENCE MILLER COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

THOMAS C. RAGAN COLLECTION, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU

The brochure above sought to capitalize on the popularity of Audrey Hepburn’s role in the 1953 film Roman Holiday in promoting the Italian Line; the S.S. Andrea Doria listed on the cover became infamous for her sinking off the coast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts on July 25, 1956 after a collision with another ocean liner, the M.S. Stockholm. Fifty-two persons died in the accident, while the other 1,660 passengers and crew were rescued.

Before we had the chance to reshelve the ocean liner materials, we received a request from Wolfsonian Development Associate, Andrew Nelson, to leave them out another day as he planned on conducting the free weekly Friday night tour of the museum, and thought that the visitors in town for the Boat Show might enjoy a glimpse of these treasures and some recent arrivals.

MITCHELL WOLFSON, JR. PROMISED GIFTS

One item that I had not laid out, but which would have been appropriate given the West Coast ports labor dispute and “slow down” is a rare illustrated periodical documenting the great strike of 1936 to 1937.

Happily it appears that the West Coast ports and the labor unions, under the threat of federal arbitration) have negotiated a tentative deal, avoiding the violence that characterized the twentieth century repression of striking dock workers.

THE FALSE PROMISES OF PROPAGANDA: AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND THE GREAT WAR IN THE WOLFSONIAN LIBRARY COLLECTION

This past Friday, Professor Monika Pobog-Weckert and sixteen Miami Ad School/FIU students came to The Wolfsonian for an orientation and lecture-presentation on the topic of propaganda art of the First World War. On an earlier visit, the students had been guided through a tour of the museum’s current installation, Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture; yesterday’s visit focused on The Children’s Crusade, an exhibition of rare children’s propaganda books, puzzles, games, and postcards from World War I curated by half a dozen Florida International University History undergraduates last semester.

Before coming upstairs to review the exhibit, I guided the class through our library and digital image catalogs to show the students how to access some of our war propaganda materials virtually, and to deconstruct and critically analyze visual evidence.

As it is Black History Month, I thought that for the purposes of this post I would focus on some materials in the collection that provide insight into the experiences of African-Americans during the Great War, beginning with a couple of posters designed to recruit persons of color into the Armed Services. Given that African-Americans were relegated to second class citizenship, were frequently prevented from participating in elections, and were subjected to residential segregation and innumerable forms of prejudice in the United States, propagandists designing posters aimed at recruiting them in the fight to “make the world safe for democracy” overseas had real challenges to address to overcome “Negro” skepticism. A couple of posters printed by E. G. Renesch used a number of subtle techniques to imply that this was a war worth fighting.

The first poster, titled True Blue depicts a Middle Class African-American mother and her three children: two young girls in white nightgowns, and an older boy wearing a military-style jacket. The family is pictured gathered around the hearth fire with the wholesomeness and romanticism of a Norman Rockwell painting. Three presidential portraits adorn the wall above the mantel: the nation’s first president, George Washington; the “Great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln; and the current president, Woodrow Wilson. While the “head” of the household is missing, his image appears in a flag-draped framed picture wearing a military uniform and cap; his physical absence is explained by the placement of a service flag in the window intended to let their neighbors know that the man of the family was doing his patriotic duty overseas.

Another recruiting poster printed by E. G. Renesch in The Wolfsonian collection is titled: Colored Man Is No Slacker. Although we most commonly associate the last word in the title with someone who is lazy, during the “Great War,” calling someone a “slacker” was the equivalent of calling that person a “draft-dodger.” In the foreground of the poster, a young African-American couple say their goodbyes as a column of uniformed Black soldiers march in the background. The poster primarily uses earth tone shades of tan and olive-green colors, making the red, white, and blue American flag stand out all the more. Although slightly muted, the colors of “Old Glory” are replicated in the blue dress with white trim worn by the African-American woman, and the rose bushes to her left and right—equating love of a good woman with love of country.

The facial features of the couple appear to have been rendered in such a manner as to deliberately obscure their racial identity, as was the color used for their skin tone. The printer matched their skin to the khaki color of the uniforms worn by the soldiers as if to imply that if they donned the uniform of the United States, they would be seen (and be respected) as soldiers rather than degraded as “Negroes.” Seemingly confirming this interpretation, I was able to locate another recruiting poster by the same printer that employs virtually the same subtle strategies, but makes no attempt to blur the racial identity of the Caucasian soldiers and couple depicted.

If such propaganda was designed to imply that patriotic African-Americans could expect better treatment during and after the war, it was a false promise. Racial prejudice in the United States was so powerful as to dictate and demand that the prevailing social norms in America be extended to the American Expeditionary Forces serving overseas.

The vast majority of African-American enlistees were relegated to support service, working long and burdensome shifts as stevedores, cooks, and in other non-combative roles. While General Pershing actively promoted Lieutenant James Reese Europe’s “Harlem Hellfighters” Jazz band as “good will ambassadors” in France, the commander of the AEF was loath to deploy African-Americans in combat missions. He did, however, loan out the 371^st Infantry to his French allies. Equipped, armed, and led by French (white) commanders, these African-American troops demonstrated their courage under fire.

Another “colored” regiment led by its white commanding officer, Colonel Thomas A. Roberts was brigaded with the 59^th Division of the Tenth French Army under General Vincendon. The French artist Joseph-Félix Boucher (1853-1937) memorialized the colonel and his French liaison officers in a painting reproduced in The American Army in France (1917-1919). The accompanying text written for an American audience claimed that “while the colored infantrymen were usually good, their colored officers were usually incompetent, and lacked the quality of leadership.”

The French, at least, recognized the heroism of a number of African-American troops with the distinguished “Croix de Guerre” medal.

Private Henry Johnson was the first African-American trooper to be awarded the Croix de Guerre for his heroic actions in hand-to-hand combat with a superior force of Germans.

African-American women also did their part in the Great War. The Wolfsonian library holds a copy of Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces, a rare book published just after the war. It documents the services rendered (and prejudices endured) by patriotic African-American women serving overseas with the YMCA.

 

Sadly, the implicit “promises” of the recruiting posters were not fulfilled in the aftermath of the Great War. Although the African-American troops who fought so bravely to safeguard democracy abroad were initially greeted with a celebratory parade, serious racial strife, numerous race-riots, and lynchings dogged the returning “colored” veterans soon after their arrival back in the United States.

FROM THE BOROUGH TO THE BEACH, OR, THE LIFE OF LINDA THE INTERN AT THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU LIBRARY

This semester, The Wolfsonian-FIU library is proud to be hosting three library interns: Jonathan Sanabria, Isabel Brador, and Linda Hernandez. Ms. Hernandez has been working under the supervision and tutelage of Sharf Associate Librarian Rochelle Pienn. In that capacity, she has been cataloging some of the hundreds of reference books donated to the library collection by Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf. Today’s post (contributed by Rochelle Pienn) discusses Ms. Hernandez’ internship experience with that collection.  Stay tuned for updates on the work and experiences of our other interns.

Why are we here? Of course human beings have been asking this broad philosophical question throughout the ages. As a writer and a special collections librarian, however, I tend to be more interested in individual experiences that give each of us our unique life stories. It would be these personal points of view, in context with time and place, which result in the historical records of society (and fill our amazing special collections shelves with rare books, original photograph albums, correspondence, and other primary resources). What is it about the past that contributes to the present?

 LINDA HERNANDEZ, LIBRARY INTERN. PHOTO BY DAVID ALMEIDA

Part of being the Sharf Associate Librarian involves passing the rare book cataloging torch, as it were, to future librarians. This semester I was pleased to collaborate with the University of South Florida’s graduate program in library studies to administer course credit for work at The Wolfsonian-FIU Library. Linda H., our new intern, hails from Queens, New York, just like yours truly. Curious about her career choice, I asked Linda why she wanted to be a librarian. She seemed surprised. “Oh, I always knew I wanted to do this,” she said. “When I was a little girl, I lived in the Queensbridge projects. They had a tiny room for the library. I remember going there and knowing it was where I wanted to be.” Both Linda and I cherish fond memories of family trips to the New York Public Library, a practically sacred landmark in an asphalt jungle, flanked by its guardian lions, Patience and Fortitude.

 “FORTITUDE,” MARBLE, 1911. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

I started Linda’s rare book cataloging training by teaching her the basics. To do this, she would pick recently published books from our generous donation from Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf. Then she would search the Library of Congress catalog to find what we call in the trade “good copy” for entry into our public online, searchable database.

For example, current scholars in women’s studies find the stories of Japan’s turn-of-the-century society historically significant. These heavily researched volumes pay particular attention to prostitution in those times.

In this 1906 period imprint, a Christian traveler from the West recounts her journey in Japan. Upon attending a crowded street parade featuring a public procession of prostitutes, the author lamented, “Closely I looked for the hidden history in the face of each courtesan. I never saw pleasure, not a vestige of joy. If the face were not a blank, it stood for stony indifference, as if the girl were driven blindly on through empty space. Sometimes there were pathos and sadness, a hunger and longing in the eyes which might never again be lighted by hope … Not once did a girl show consciousness of the staring crowds.”

As a result of British colonialism, interest in all things Oriental became the rage in the Western world at the turn of the twentieth century. Japan, the Middle East, China, and India posed new and exotic sources of exploration for curious Europeans and Americans. Linda discovered this 1999 Sotheby’s auction catalog filled with archival treasures that had been for sale.

 

This 1886 image comes from a magnificent, one-of-a-kind photo album in the Sharf Collection. It documents Mr. H. W. Benson’s peacetime service with the 1st Battalion East Surrey Regiment of Great Britain, which surveyed the Northwest Passage of India.

Another photograph album from the 1880s contains hand-colored albumen prints of Burmese and Indian natives. Handwritten captions document the travels of Frederic Houlton Summers, who was employed by Gillander & Co. (mercantile) in its Calcutta and Rangoon branches.

 

This spectacular shot shows Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, which opened in 1881.

The popular “before and after” theme in contemporary pictorial works is exemplified in this book on Shanghai, China. New color photographs of landmarks are juxtaposed with antique prints and accompanied by descriptive narrative.

James Harrison Wilson’s 1888 book, China travels and investigations in the “Middle Kingdom,” covers everything from social customs in Shanghai to the highly profitable opium trade.

In an album called Le Tour du Monde, or, Trip around the World, well-to-do ladies and gentlemen cruised around Japan, China, the Philippines and India circa 1900. Part of their itinerary included visiting this five-story pagoda in China, seen here perched dramatically at the top of a hill, behind a perimeter wall.

Passengers also took their own snapshots of natives, temples, and other sites. On this page of the album in the bottom right-hand photo, a “lyon” sculpture defends a doorway.

This period photograph shows the interior of China’s Temple of the 500 Genii.

My three wishes for the genii are: 1. for Linda to enjoy her experience with the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection at the Wolfsonian-FIU Library; 2. for Linda to have a fruitful career as a future librarian; and finally, 3. for the library lions to bring Linda good luck on her journey.

LION HEADS, BRONZE, 1901, THE WOLFSONIAN-FIU ELEVATOR.

PHOTO BY DAVID ALMEIDA

THE OLD KING COLE AND OTHER “LOST” MIAMI BEACH HOTELS: SOME WOLFSONIAN HIGHLIGHTS

This past Saturday, January 17^th, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by local historian Carolyn Klepser held at the Art Deco Museum as part of the Art Deco Weekend festivities. Although many of Miami Beach’s Art Deco architectural treasures were saved through the efforts of Barbara Baer Capitman (1920-1990) and other like-minded preservationists, Ms. Klepser has recently published with The History Press a book titled: Lost Miami Beach. This book, and her slide show lecture-presentation on the 17^th, focus on the earlier mansions, houses, hotels, and other Beaux Arts, Spanish-influence, and Mediterranean style buildings that were not so fortunate in ducking the wrecking ball.

One of the hotels briefly mentioned in the lecture was the King Cole. As we have a rare publicity photograph album of that amazing hotel, I thought that I would devote today’s post to disseminating a few more images of it, and a few of the other grand hotels that, alas, are no longer with us….

Although John Stiles Collins (1837-1928) had already cleared some of the mangrove swamps originally covering the barrier island in developing its agricultural potential, the island that was to become Miami Beach was  undergoing another transformation in the nineteen-teens and -twenties.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MIAMI BEACH CITY HALL ARCHIVE

Carl G. Fisher (1874-1939), the real estate developer who helped finance Collin’s stalled bridge to connect the island to mainland Miami, had by this time bought up a great deal of property and begun to plant polo fields, clay tennis courts, and golf courses adjacent to a menagerie of new luxury hotels as part of his plan to re-envision Miami Beach as a winter playground for the well-to-do.

Between 1916 and 1919, Fisher had financed the construction of the Lincoln Hotel, and in January 1921 had opened the grand Flamingo Hotel and even managed to woo President Coolidge to stay there overnight.

Fisher had afterwards commissioned the architectural firm of Schultze & Weaver to build in 1924 the Nautilus Hotel.

This luxurious hotel was designed in the Mediterranean style, and included a number of Spanish decorative elements, including a baroque entrance, a curved parapet, and twin towers.

Never one to rest on his laurels, the following year Fisher hired architects Kiehnel & Elliott to build another Mediterranean-style resort hotel on the barrier island.

Completed in 1925, the three-story, 60 guest room King Cole hotel was built on the southern bank of Lake Surprise midway between Biscayne Bay and the Ocean.

An advertisement dating from the year it opened boasted that the hotel afforded “the finest of accommodations to a select clientele of approximately one hundred and fifty guests,” during the January to April winter season.

Another brochure from the period described the newest Fisher hotel as: “A distinctively superior hotel in the Spanish mode…on the edge of the new 18-hole La Gorce golf course and Nautilus polo fields…convenient contact beaches, hotels, clubs and sport centers…every room with bath…delightful roof garden, spacious verandas, beautiful dining room and lounge…clay tennis courts…making The King Cole a most popular winter home.”

Although the architecture was decidedly Spanish in influence, the interior paid tribute to the legend of Old King Cole with large oil paintings by Howard Hilder adorning the lounge.

The “rustic” dining room, was designed to evoke a nostalgia for the Middle Ages with its eleventh-century heraldic decoration.

Medieval motifs were also in evidence in other public spaces, while the guest bedrooms were tastefully decorated in a more modern style.

As noted in Carolyn Klepser’s lecture and book, during the Second World War, both the Nautilus and the King Cole hotels were temporarily converted into military hospitals; while the King Cole housed the Miami Heart Institute, the original building was torn down in August 1965.

CHARLIE, OR NOT CHARLIE: A WOLFSONIAN REFLECTION ON ATHEISM, RELIGIOUS SATIRE, AND TOLERANCE IN THE WAKE OF THE CHARLIE HEBDO MASSACRE

All this week there has been a flurry of news coverage focusing on the aftermath of the horrific massacre by two French Muslim gunmen of cartoonists and staff working for the controversial and avowedly atheistic Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly newspaper. The terrorists who perpetrated the murders claimed to have been moved to the most extreme violence by the magazine’s publication of irreverent depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.

Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy or to the violence its cartoons can provoke. The weekly’s origins stretch back to 1960, when Georges Bernier and François Cavanna first began a leftist, anti-religious, political satirical monthly magazine under the title Hara-Kiri, adding a weekly (“hebdo”) edition in 1969. After making a rather tasteless lampoon on the occasion of the death of former president Charles de Gaulle in November 1970, L’Hebdo Hara-Kiri was banned. The editors changed the title to Charlie Hebdo to sidestep the ban, and as an homage to the Peanuts character Charlie Brown.

Over the years, Charlie Hebdo has continued to publish irreverent (and some might say provocative and inflammatory) satires targeting religious hypocrisy and Christian, Jewish, and Islamic fundamentalism. When in February 2006, the editors published a front page titled “Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists” accompanied by a cartoon depicting a weeping Prophet with the caption “It’s hard being loved by jerks,” French politicians were divided in their response. French President Jacques Chirac condemned such “overt provocations” that attacked others’ “religious convictions.” But when the Grand Mosque filed a lawsuit against the editors alleging racism, future presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande made statements coming down on the side of freedom of expression. In 2007, the courts sided with and acquitted the editors. Other irreligious Charlie Hebdo cartoons have been met with peaceful street demonstrations, while a satire of Sharia law in 2011 provoked a fire-bomb attack on the newspaper’s offices. The most recent (and deadly) attack on the satirical magazine’s headquarters in Paris ultimately resulted in the murder of the magazine’s editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, five cartoonists, five other staffers, two police officers, and the wounding of eleven others; a co-conspirator took hostages and the lives of four persons in a Jewish supermarket.

In the aftermath of the bloody attacks, forty world leaders and two million Parisians took to the streets, many under the banner, “Je suis Charlie” or, “I am Charlie.” Circulation of Charlie Hebdo jumped from a normal run of 60,000 issues to the sale of seven million copies of the “survivors’ issue” printed in six languages with a defiant cover cartoon of a tearful Prophet taking up the slogan of the demonstrators. Perhaps this proves that the pen yet remains mightier than the sword (or assault rifle).

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PHILIPPE WOJAZER, REUTERS

The issues of religion, freedom of speech, and tolerance are all issues France has historically had to wrestle with. During the era of “Enlightenment,” French philosophers and satirical polemicists such as François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778)—more popularly known by his nom de plume, Voltaire—were using their pens to stir up controversy. Voltaire, for example, used his satirical wit to attack religious superstition and the power wielded by the established Catholic Church, to criticize intolerance, to advocate for free speech, freedom of (and freedom from) religion, and to call for the separation of church and state. Not surprisingly Voltaire’s radical ideas and writings caught the attention of censors, landed him in prison, or forced him into exile. Whatever his own religious views, (still the subject of heated debate), Voltaire remained a passionate advocate for religious tolerance. He argued that “It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?”

Sadly, such laudable sentiments were forgotten in the wake of the French Revolution, the “Reign of Terror,” and counter-revolutionary violence of the late eighteenth century. Anticlericalism and opposition to established religion was part of the very fabric of the French Revolution and integral to the formation of the secular values of the French Republic.

The tragic and dramatic events surrounding the controversial weekly got me to thinking about the larger historical context of religious satire, censorship, free-speech, and hate speech, and representations of the same in The Wolfsonian library collection. Also no stranger to controversial materials and topics, the museum and research library hold a wide variety of politically, racially, and religiously provocative items.

Not unlike the early French Republic’s experiments with dechristianization and the establishment of a nationwide Fête de la Raison aimed at promoting republican secular values, the early revolutionaries in Russia also satirized religion in general, and specifically ridiculed Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in their bid to make Communism the new faith. The Wolfsonian library holds a decent run of the periodical Bezbozhnik u stanka, or, Atheist at the Lathe, published in Moscow between 1923 and 1931.

Edited by M. Kostelovskaia and featuring the work of illustrators such Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Deineka (1899-1969) and Dmitrii Stakheivich Moor (1883-1946), the Atheist at the Lathe spared no religion as it dedicated itself to rooting out “superstition” and promoting Communism.

One illustration even depicts an Orthodox priest assisting a Cossack sniper and Royalist machine-gunner shooting down upon mass demonstrators from the vantage point of a church bell tower.

I find the illustration especially ironic given that it was a Russian Orthodox priest and populist leader, Father Georgy Gapon (1870-1906) who led the unarmed demonstrators in a march to present a petition to the Czar at his Winter Palace, where they were shot down by the Imperial Guard on “Bloody Sunday,” January 22, 1905.

The Supreme Deity is frequently lampooned in the color cover and interior illustrations, invariably depicted as an ancient, diminutive, bespectacled, bald man with a snow-white beard. In one full-page illustration, the biblical story of Genesis is satirized with God playing surgeon and removing one of Adam’s ribs, while on another cover, the ridiculous deity angrily races with a ladder to punish Adam and Eve, who are out on a limb eating the forbidden red fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Other cartoon illustrations make satirical attacks on the Christian faith by picturing foxes in the role of preachers, deceiving and bleeding poor working class yokels.

Jesus Christ and Russian Orthodox priests are often depicted in the periodical as being used by or in cohorts with the forces of reaction and capitalist “fat cats” in top hats.

GIFT OF STEVEN HELLER

Devout Russian Orthodox Christians must have cringed at depictions of their Savior loaded down with bombs and under the command of the counterrevolutionary Capitalist enemies of the Communist regime, much as Muslims may have been offended by Charlie Hebdo cartoons picturing the Prophet as a terrorist hiding bombs under his turban.

As Muslims and Jews made up important and influential religious minorities in the new Soviet State, their faiths and traditions were also subjected to ridicule in the Atheist at the Lathe.

One cartoon encouraged Muslim women to take down their veils, transform them into babushkas, and sweep away the vestiges of repressive religious patriarchy.

Of course, such religiously charged cartoons were rendered all the more powerful by virtue of the Communist regime’s stamp of approval for attacking the religious enemies of the Soviet state.

GIFT OF STEVEN HELLER

Cultural values had so shifted in Putin’s Russia that in 2012 feminist punk rock performers from Pussy Riot were arrested and convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for staging a forty-second nonviolent protest in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

IMAGE COURTESY OF INNOKENTY GREKOV’S BLOG POST “PUSSY RIOT DAY OF SOLIDARITY” DATED AUGUST 16, 2013

As a historian and librarian dedicated to the principles of free speech and opposition to censorship, I can only hope that we can consider more carefully Voltaire’s example: neither to give in to fear of reprisal, repression, or self-censorship, but also to consider how our words and actions might impact persons of other faiths and views. Above all, we must urge tolerance and remind ourselves that others are free to print and perform as they will, just as we are free to read or ignore such expressions as might offend our own sensibilities.

MIAMI BEACH’S FLAMINGO HOTEL: A PRESIDENT, A PACHYDERM, AND A PUBLICITY HOUND: PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS FROM THE WOLFSONIAN LIBRARY COLLECTION

It was New Jersey nursery owners and farm machinery suppliers, John Stiles Collins (1837-1928) and his son-in-law Thomas J. Pancoast who first began to clear the mosquito-infested mangrove swamp covering much of the desolate barrier island within sight of the burgeoning town of mainland Miami. But in beginning this transformation, Collins and Pancoast aimed to transform the wilderness into a garden of sorts, an agriculturally productive farming community. It was left to automobile aficionado and promoter, Carl G. Fisher (1874-1939) to envision and create a very different future for the island of Miami Beach—a playground for the rich and famous.

Having made a fortune in the automobile business, Fisher had promoted the first trans-continental highway, and then used his considerable influence to promote the Dixie Highway from Indiana in the North and ending in Miami Beach in the South. Snubbed as “nouveau riche” by the wealthy elites that wintered in Palm Beach, Carl Fisher and his young bride, Jane, sought to establish their own winter refuge for others like themselves. Fisher immediately recognized the island’s potential as a billion-dollar sandbar. After investing in John Collins’ bridge project, Fisher began buying up lots, dredging and pumping in tons of sand, and working to attract his rich associates down to Miami Beach by building a swimming pool casino, tennis courts, tea gardens, golf courses, and polo fields.

Fisher also organized sailing and speed boat regattas and races.

While local ministers expressed shock over the scandalous bathing suit of his young bride—(immodestly bereft of stockings and sporting a skirt hiked up to her knees!)—Fisher unabashedly used such images of “scantily-clad” bathing beauties to promote his properties (including The Flamingo Hotel) in Miami Beach.

 

Fisher also used a rather full-figured gal as a publicity gimmick to promote his real estate schemes. Having received an elephant named Rosie from a former circus owner, Fisher shamelessly had the pachyderm photographed by the press clearing land, helping in construction projects, pulling kiddie carts, and otherwise promoting his real estate ventures. (Much like television’s Lassie, there was more than one elephant in Carl Fisher’s stables, including one named Carl II !)

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF: THE MIAMI BEACH CITY HALL ARCHIVE

When Fisher learned that President-elect Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) was contemplating a trip to Florida in the winter season of 1920/1, “Mr. Miami Beach” made it his personal crusade to entice the chief executive to his own luxurious Flamingo Hotel, scheduled to open for the New Year holiday, 1921.

Fisher lobbied some friendly senators to put in a good word for him with the president, offered a free suite of rooms in a couple of the Flamingo Hotel’s cottages (for security and privacy), talked up the opportunities for golf and deep-sea fishing, and even dispatched Ann Rossiter, his attractive secretary (and mistress) armed with drawings and blueprints for her personal pitch. Apparently Fisher’s persistence paid off. Not only did President Harding make a stop at Fisher’s Lincoln Hotel for lunch and a round of golf that January, but Carl prevailed upon him to stay overnight in one of the Flamingo Hotel’s bungalows.

Fisher rarely left the president’s side as flash bulbs popped throughout the presidential visit. Fisher took Harding for a dip in the Roman Pools, for drinks at the Cocolobo Club, and even took him aboard his yacht Shadow VI for a couple of days of sport fishing. The good-natured president even agreed to be photographed with Rosie the elephant as his caddy on the golf course!

COURTESY OF: http://www.miamibeach411.com/History/photo_rosie_the_elephant_5.html

COURTESY OF: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/25664

President Harding was quoted in the press as praising the “attractiveness of Miami and Miami Beach,” and expressing his desire to “come here again” as the “beach is wonderful” and “developing like magic.” The positive press that followed Harding’s glowing endorsement generated great publicity for the Flamingo Hotel and Miami Beach as a winter resort. As Fisher had hoped, in the wake of the presidential visit, Miami Beach property prices and sales soared, souring only after the great hurricane of 1926 brought a swift end to the Florida land boom.

SOME MEDITERRANEAN EXOTICS AND SHIPS AS WAR REFUGEES: NEW ARRIVALS AT THE WOLFSONIAN LIBRARY

As Miami and Fort Lauderdale have become important hubs of the cruise line industry, our museum library has become one of the more important repositories of print materials documenting oceanic travel from the interwar and post-Second World War periods. Former Florida International University Director of Libraries, Dr. Laurence Miller has been volunteering in the Wolfsonian-FIU library for several years now, lending his expertise on the subject and helping us to catalog these materials and prepare for their digitization. A life-long ocean liner aficionado and avid collector of cruise industry promotional materials, Dr. Miller donated his substantial collection to The Wolfsonian library. That collection includes tens of thousands of passenger ship brochures, deck plans, menus, and other items in the printed format. Most recently he has been cataloging some promised gifts of museum founder, Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Here is his report:

Mitchell Wolfson recently returned from Europe with some new brochures featuring a number of exotic and long-forgotten liners of the past. Most of the ships depicted in these advertising pamphlets and deck plans were from the Mediterranean area. Those of us working with the museum’s ocean liner collection, and those who accessing it virtually via the web, greatly appreciate Mr. Wolfson’s generosity. These newly acquired promised gifts contribute a refreshing perspective to the collections we are developing.

Just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, America was in the process of replacing its large fleet of First World War standard vessels with new ships, the product of such renowned American designers as Gibbs & Cox and George Sharp. As the new ships were completed, the older vessels were sometimes sold or leased to neutral European countries–this in spite of their potential wartime use. Two vessels put on the market were the Dollar Liner ships, President Wilson and President Lincoln.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION OF ONE OF THE DOLLAR LINE “535”

One excellent market for this tonnage was Franco’s “neutral” Spain. It is not, therefore, surprising that in 1940, these two vessels were sold to Ibarra, a private Spanish company. They were renamed Cabo de Buena Esperanza and Cabo de Hornos. Throughout the years of the Second World War, these ships, dating from 1921-22, were almost the only passenger vessels still providing regular service between Europe and South America–and available to carry Jewish and other political refugees looking to escape persecution in Europe.

Below is an artist’s impression of ships in Ybarra colors:

As an avenue of escape, these ships did not elude the notice of the Nazis, aided by the Spanish–friends, if not formal allies.  Among the documents in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is a typed list dated May 21, 1941 of 45 passengers on board Cabo de Buena Esperanza sailing from Bilbao, Spain heading for South America. The German-language document included, among other data, detailed information including: passenger destination, former address, citizenship, maiden name, and travel expenses. All of this was useful information as the Nazis had imposed restrictions on Jews taking currency out of the country.

Still sailing in the late 1950’s and still displaying their American colonial décor, the two Cabos were by then the sole survivors of a large class of sixteen World War One era American standard ships known according to their length simply as 535’s. Weighing 14,100 gross tons, they accommodated 260 first and 300 third class passengers and carried a great deal of cargo.

Below are some photographs of the ship interior under Spanish flag:

Mr. Wolfson also brought with him a commemorative brochure issued when the replacement ships, Cabo San Roque and Cabo San Vincente were brought into service in 1957 and 1959 respectively. The article pays tribute to the two earlier ships, Cabo de Hornos and Buena Esperanza and the sentimental attachment to them on the part of many past passengers.

Also in his baggage was a brochure from the late 1940s advertising Home Line’s Brasil, then offering basic accommodation for Italian emigrants headed for new homes in South America. Completed in 1907 as the Virginian of Britain’s Allan Line and the first liner powered by steam turbines, her long career included World War I service as a troop ship for Great Britain; and as Drottingholm under the Swedish flag, in transatlantic service for the Swedish American Line. Greta Garbo was a frequent passenger for her trips home to Sweden. During the Second World War, Drottingholm was chartered by the Red Cross and served belligerents during hostilities in the repatriation of captured servicemen, notably including British airmen from Germany and German soldiers from Britain.

In common with almost anything that would float, she served postwar as an emigrant ship. In this case, she sailed for Home Lines carrying refugees first to South America; then as Homeland, with Europeans migrating to North America.

Among the other rare items Mr. Wolfson brought to the library was a deck plan, yellowed by age, of the Reina Victoria Eugenia. This little-known ship belonged to Spain’s La Compania Transatlantica. The vessel was bombed and sunk at Barcelona in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War by Franco’s forces. By then, she bore what was the more politically correct name of Argentina.

On a more aesthetic note, there was a brochure on Gydnia America Line’s Sobieski, a lovely ship sailing for a then well-known Polish company. The brochure publicizes her postwar service between Italy and New York. Peter Kohler, an authority on Italian ships and designers, noted that much of her furniture came from the Oceania and Neptunia. These prewar Italian ships were the work of Gustavo Pulitzer Finali, who was involved in Sobieski’s postwar refurbishment. The fittings had been placed in storage before both ships were sunk September 18, 1941 by a British submarine. The liners had been carrying Italian troops to Libya.

Note the chairs with holes in back–a Gustave Pulitzer Finali trademark–probably from Oceania and Neptunia.

During the era of Soviet expansion, few tourists visited Poland and so, displaced from the run for which she had been designed, Sobieski was also a war refugee after a fashion. Finally, and perhaps inevitably, the ship was sold to the Soviet Union in 1950.

Supplementing these Mediterranean items was a truly beautiful Canadian Pacific brochure advertising their service from Canada to Europe via the St. Lawrence River. The piece is notable for the rich texture of its paper, and its fine b&w photographic illustrations of the ships and their interiors, complete with stylishly dressed models from the late 1920s. The vessels included the Empress of France and the Empress of Australia. The latter ship had been built in Germany, but was turned over to Great Britain as a prize in the aftermath of the Great War.