The Personal Navigator

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Marco Polo's Travels

History Book Club

Explorers and Adventurers in History

before the 20^th Century

Wednesday, February 28. 2018

Polo, Marco;. The Travels of Marco Polo, Edited and with an Introduction by Milton Rugoff. Signet, 2001

Map of Marco Polo’s travels

When Marco Polo published “Description of the World” people took it as fantastic fiction.

After all, his tales of Kings and Emperors with fabulous riches, clothed in bejeweled garments, with brigades of beautiful women all waiting to please his majesty; thousands of elephants, marching in formation, all wearing cloth of gold…mighty mountain ranges, so high that birds could not fly…deserts where dead bodies turned to dust…black stones (coal) that burned… pools of liquid (petroleum) that burned…a cloth that withstands fire (asbestos), natives that ate human flesh.. widows who were burned alive with their dead husbands…and paper money!

Who could believe such tales?

Nicolo and Maffeo Polo actually started all this with their travels in search of better products to sell. They spent a lot of time in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), but then they moved up to the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula, then on up into Muslim territory, avoiding troubles with one marauding band of Tartars after another.

In 1265 the two Polo brothers made it to the court of Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan was quite a genial leader who tolerated all kinds of religions in his midst, and, intrigued about Christianity, asked the two Polos to see the Pope when they returned home and ask that 100 teaching monks be sent to Cathay.

The Polos returned home to Venice, and while still near the Holy Land passed along Khan’s invitation to the Pope. The Pope managed to find two friars to send, but then one dropped out and the last one, when he saw how dangerous this mission could be, dropped out. However, this time the two Polos brought Nicolo’s 17-year-old son, Marco.

It was Marco who was alert enough to see the richness of each culture and each city and province, and to record it for all these centuries. It’s amazing that we had the Greeks and the Romans visiting the Far East, and bringing back exotic spices, food, fabrics, jewels and more… and then travel and trade between Europe and Asia became almost non-existent until the Portuguese and the Spaniards, Dutch and Englishmen began their sea voyages in the 15^th and 16th centuries.

Marco was born in 1254, and started on his first journey – to Persia, Tibet, Burma and China in 1271.

I had the privilege of visiting cities along the Silk Road in the 1960s through the 1980s--- Samarkand, Isfahan, Shiraz, Istanbul, Ashkhabad, Dushanbe, Bokhara (Marco spent three years here), Tbilisi, Beirut, and even up to the area around Lake Baikal. (Genghis Khan’s first capitol, in Karakorum). Often, we visited parts of those cities that had seen little change since Marco Polo.

Marco, his father and uncle arrived in Shangdu, the capital of Cathay, which had recently installed its first non-Chinese emperor, the Mongol Kublai Khan. The Song dynasty ended, and the Yuan dynasty began in 1264. This was good luck for Marco, because Kublai was an intelligent leader, very curious and interested in the rest of the world, and he took the Venetians under his wing. The fact that in all their travels in Asia minor they had learned the Turkic language, that of the Khan, was essential to their success.

Marco spent most of his time in Cathay, or China today, in Lanzhou, Peiping, Chengdu and Hangchow. He told about the marvelous riches, the elegant jewels and fabrics, and the flora and fauna in each place he visited or lived. He was most impressed with the Mongol horseman, who could stay on his horse over a day if required, sleeping in the saddle while the horse grazed. Horsemen and horses worked together seamlessly. Horsemen were trained to attack fiercely, to maneuver in groups of ten, one thousand or 100,000. Horsemen could get instant energy from tapping a vein on their horse and drinking the blood.

As the years wore on, and Kublai Khan, their sponsor was growing old, the three Polos asked to be released to return to Venice, but each time the Khan refused, telling them that they would surely be killed on the trip home. Finally, after 17 years on this trip, after the Polos had acquired great wealth, the Khan agreed for them to accompany a Mongol princess, on a sea journey to marry a Persian prince.

They departed on this trip in a four-masted ship with a crew of 600, bamboo sails, and oarsmen. The Khan gave Marco a gold “passport”, the size of one’s palm, which authorized the travelers free passage in bandit-ridden lands, food, lodging--- a 13^th century American Express Black Card.

The trip took the Polos two years, as they cruised down the coast from Cathay, past Zipango (Japan), the Philippines, Sumatra, into the Indian Ocean, landing at the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf with only 18 people remaining, including all three Polos and the Princess. By that time the Prince had died, so the Princess married his son.

The Polos traveled overland to Constantinople, and then by sea through the Aegean, Mediterranean and Adriatic, back to Venice.

Three years after his return, Marco commanded a Venetian warship in war with Genoa. He was captured and thrown in prison. During his one year there, he dictated his adventures to Rustichello of Pisa, and that account spread far and wide. Many doubted the tales he told, but Christopher Columbus took interest, and Marco’s tales of the richness of Asia doubtless attracted Columbus’ attention.

Imagine Christopher’s surprise when he sailed west to find all those riches and found a whole continent in between!

S.W. Coulbourn

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2018

Wednesday, February 28, 2018: Famous Travelers and Adventurers before the 20^th Century—their lives and stories. Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Stanley and Livingstone, more. [Suggested by Walt Frederick]

Wednesday, March 28, 2018: The U.S. Navy in Asia. The Asiatic Squadron. The Yangtze Patrol. Patrolling the Philippine Islands, “China Sailors”, World War II, The Seventh Fleet. [Suggested by Walt Frederick]

Wednesday, April 25, 2018: A look at the world and times of Jane Austen. Rockport Public Library is celebrating “Austen in April”. Read about the life of Austen, or focus upon England in the early 1800s, the Royal Navy at that time, the gentle English world Jane lived in. Feel free to read Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, or any of her novels to gather a sense of Jane and her world. [Suggested by Christiann Guibeau]

Wednesday, May 30, 2018: A History of Public Relations. Managing the news, propaganda, image-building. Hitler’s Joseph Goebbels. Ancient persuasive techniques. How information, false. Tainted or factual, can be used to elect leaders, start wars, and more. [Suggested by Sam Coulbourn]

Wednesday, June 27, 2018: The History of Language. Can you understand the English spoken by Chaucer? [WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote; The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour,] Choose any language and learn how it grew from its ancient roots, how it absorbed other languages, how it spread, and its variations in use in the world today. Did you know that only one in 40 Italians spoke Italian in 1861? What language is most widely spoken in the world today? How are languages changing in modern times? [Suggested by Sam Coulbourn]

Wednesday, July 25, 2018: Immigration to America. How did we all get here? Read about the history of immigration, at any stage – from first settlers to the great immigration waves of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries; victims of the Irish Potato famine, Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, Europeans suffering poverty in their countries, Africans brought here as slaves, Chinese brought here to build railroads; Fugitives of war everywhere; Mexicans and Central Americans coming to pick crops. Read about immigration policies and national drives to keep out or encourage immigration. [Suggested by Walt Frederick.]

Wednesday, August 29, 2018. Fighting the U.S. Constitution. Times and events when the Americans and even Presidents went against the freedoms in our Constitution. E, g, Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Indian Removal Act under Jackson, Mexican American War, suspension of Habeas Corpus under Lincoln, Red Scare in 1920, McCarthyism in 1950’s, and Patriot Act 2001. [Suggested by William Tobin]

Wednesday, September 26: Religion and Politics in America. Religious impact in American political events. E.g.: Puritan Exceptionalism, justification of Slavery through the Bible, Abolition Movement, treatment of Native American Christianization movement, Justification of Imperialism’s Christianization mission. [Suggested by William Tobin]

Massachusetts 54^th Infantry Regiment (Afro-American) at Fort Wagner

Wednesday, October 24, 2018. (vice Oct. 31): African American Warriors and their place in American History. From the American Revolution, during the Civil War to Korean War. E.g.: Contraband to Massachusetts 54th, Buffalo Soldiers and Native American Wars, Spanish American War and Truth about Battle of San Juan Hill, World War I and use of African American soldiers with French combat troops, World War II and Segregated all African American combat units: Armor, Transport, Tuskegee Airmen, Desegregation and Korean War. [Suggested by William Tobin]

Wednesday, November 28, 2018: Guns in American History. E.g. American Revolution and the Minutemen; Going West with new technology: six guns, repeating rifles, Twentieth Century automatic weapons after World War I, : pistols, rifles, Tommy guns, The St. Valentine’s Massacres of 1929 and 2018. Control vs. freedom of gun use. and Machine Gun laws, mass shootings in America: rifles, pistols, military style weapons, Guns laws in 21st century America. [Suggested by William Tobin]

December 2018: No meeting.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Manifest Destiny

History Book Club

Manifest Destiny:

The Presidency of James K. Polk

Wednesday, January 31. 2018

Wednesday, January 31, 2018: Manifest Destiny: The 19th century period of American expansion that the United States not only could, but was destined to, stretch from coast to coast. Western settlement, Native American removal and war with Mexico. Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark Expedition, Missouri Compromise, Oregon Territory, Indian Wars, Union Pacific Railway, Texas, California… [Suggested by Sam Coulbourn]

Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent. 2009, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 576 pp.

James Knox Polk, in just one term, from 1845 to 1849, made a huge impact upon the United States, expanding America with Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Arizona. He pledged to serve only one term, and that’s what he did, but in those four years, he really accomplished a few important things.

Polk was a chip off the old block of Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson. A Democrat from Tennessee, he served at a time when the pressure to end slavery, and the pressure to retain it, was reaching the breaking point. He was not a “people” person like Jackson. As a matter of fact, he didn’t really seem to like people. He was a “procedure” person. He was all about doing whatever it took to advance the goals of the Democratic Party.

Polk’s predecessor, the renegade Whig John Tyler, had set the stage for annexation of the Republic of Texas into the Union. The prospect of annexing Texas appeared as part of an overall scheme to extend the United States to the Pacific Ocean, at the same time cutting off a possible British scheme to connect Canada with their Oregon territory, and then perhaps take over California, and head the Americans off at the pass.

Slave states and Abolition states saw Texas differently. Southerners wanted Texas to join as a slave state, which would give them more votes, more political weight, and, if they should have to secede from the Northern states, more of a Slaveholding Confederacy. Northerners wanted no part of Texas if it meant another slave state.

Westward expansion

Texas joined the Union in Polk’s first year, 1845, and then the trouble began. At that time, the southern border between Texas and Mexico was in dispute, and Polk prepared to send his army south to straighten things out. His lead general was a crusty prima donna named Winfield Scott. Polk wanted Scott to marshal his troops and head down to Texas, but Scott dillied and dallied, and questioned whether he had the President’s backing.

Scott wrote letters to the Secretary of War and shot off his mouth as if he thought he was bulletproof, even though he himself was a Whig, working for a Democrat in the Executive Mansion. Scott was definitely a thorn in Polk’s hide.

However, Polk didn’t fire Scott—he simply elevated another general, Zachary Taylor, and sent him down to Texas.

Taylor led the American forces admirably in opposing the Mexicans at the Nueces River, the northern boundary, according to Mexico, and 150 miles north of the Rio Grande River, the boundary according to the

U.S.

Soon Taylor had the Mexicans on the run. They were in such a hurry to get back south across the Rio Grande that 300 drowned in the crossing.

There was a lot of opposition in the country to war with Mexico. Whigs claimed that Polk trampled the Constitution and deceived the electorate to manufacture an illegal war for shady purposes, without the support of the public. But indeed, Polk had much public support for war with Mexico. [It seems as if modern presidents have been accused of “manufacturing illegal wars” like Lyndon Johnson with the Tonkin Gulf incident, and G.W. Bush with Iraqi “nuclear weapons”.]

The War with Mexico lasted 17 months, and Scott did get back in Polk’s good graces and invaded and captured Mexico City.

At about the same time the Americans negotiated with the British and finally achieved a settlement that gave the U.S. the division with Canada around Vancouver Island that exists today.

Still more forces were at work in Alta California, now known as the State of California, and that became a State in 1849.

Perhaps no other president presents such a great difference between actual accomplishment and popular recognition. However, America’s eleventh president’s accomplishments included a tariff policy that led to prosperity; his ‘Polk Doctrine’ [expounding U.S. resistance to European meddling in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere] has been approved and extended; his expansion policy gave the

United States

free access to the Pacific.

America in 1849, when Polk left office, was a Country of Vast Designs, just as it is today.

S.W. Coulbourn

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2018

Hernan Cortes

USS Panay sinking after Japanese air attack, near Nanking, 1937

Wednesday, August 29, 2018. Let’s hear your suggestion for a history topic!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

The Fall of the Ottomans

History Book Club

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Fall of the Ottomans

British troops at Gallipoli, 1915

Wednesday, November 29, 2017: The Decline of Major Powers. How does it happen, that a nation that has been calling all the shots suddenly finds out that it’s not the Big Cheese any longer? Read about Athens and Sparta, or look at Rome, or the Arab Caliphate, Spain, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union. Do we see China coming to take the mace away from the United States of America? [Suggested by Beverly Verrengia]

Rogan, Eugene, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920,

New York: Basic Books, 2016. 485 pp.

This story of the fall of the Ottomans reveals a lot of things that have been obscured by traditional telling of the story of The Great War of 1914-1918. Eugene Rogan has produced an exciting, carefully researched book.

While we Americans focused upon U.S. involvement in the war, 1917-1918, and Europeans focused on the stalemate in France more war was raging in the Ottoman Empire, from Morocco in the west to Persia in the east, and including what are now called Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and more.

The Fall of the Ottomans, which began almost exactly a century ago, is so connected to the history we have experienced since World War II, from the creation of the State of Israel, the Baghdad Pact, the shattering of Yugoslavia, War between Iraq and Iran, the creation of a modern, secular Turkey, the alliances of Middle Eastern countries with the USSR or the United States, the Suez Crisis, all the wars between Arabs and Israelis, seizure of Kuwait and Desert Storm in Iraq, Al Qaeda attack on the U.S., U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, Arab Spring beginning in Tunisia in 2010, the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2012, and ISIS. If you pull out any of those events to examine them, you find connections to others that go back to 1920 and earlier.

Just in the last few days, President Trump has informed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the U.S. will no longer provide arms to Turkish Kurd troops. The Kurds have been enormously helpful in defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey fears Kurdish moves to form a new state of Kurdistan.

The Ottoman Empire. The organization of peoples which would someday be called an Empire began as a principality in Anatolia in 1299. It was Sultan Mehmed II (1451-1481) who began to accumulate power. In 1453 the Ottomans attacked Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and ended the Byzantine Empire. By taking over the remnants of the old Roman Empire, the Ottomans had arrived.

During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, under Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire rose to its high point, ruling over most of southeastern Europe, parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Imagine this collection of Arabs, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Serbians, Assyrians, Africans, Albanians, Hungarians, Macedonians, Jews, Catholics and Muslims all together in one empire!

A long period of peace n the 18^th brought about weaknesses and the Empire declined in strength, but then a modernization effort called the Tanzimat took place. Starting in 1839 and ending in 1876, the Ottoman Empire completely overhauled itself, creating a financial market and currency compatible with the European model, reorganization of the military services, inclusion of non-Muslims, creation of a civil and criminal code modeled on the Napoleonic code, creation of improved public education and universities and establishment of a Meclis, or parliament.

By the start of the 20^th century the modernized Ottoman Empire was a considerable power in the world, and this was before the automobile created a world demand for oil that would make the Middle East crucially important.

The Ottomans allied with Germany early in the 20^th Century and the Germans, who did not have many Muslims in their colonies, looked to the Ottoman Sultan to promote an Islamic holy war. However, as we see today, stirring up Muslims can work in many directions, as Shiites go against Sunni, and Sufis and Wahhabis get in the crossfire. At the time, Arabs in the Ottoman empire were promoting revolt against Constantinople.

As war broke out Turkey maintained quasi-neutrality, while allowing German warships to enter the Dardanelles. Then they mined both ends, and the Bosporus as well, to prevent Russians from leaving the Black Sea.

Ottoman forces were concentrated in the Straits, so the British attacked Turkish coastal cities in the Aegean Sea, and in the Mediterranean down to Syria.

The British determined to invade Constantinople by landing in Gallipoli in the straits. This was an idea strongly pushed by Britain’s Winston Churchill and resulted in British defeat by the Ottomans, and the killing of thousands on both sides. At the Naval Academy we studied this battle because it contained so many lessons of how not to fight.

The start of the Great War in 1914 meant the acceleration of troubles with Armenians. Armenians in Ottoman territory left for Russian territory en masse. Some 50,000 Armenians in the Ottoman army deserted to Russia. The Russians used their religious influence over Ottoman Christians, especially Armenians and Greeks. Russians were doing their best to stir up hatred between Ottomans and their Armenian subjects, and in 1915, led by the Committee of Union of Progress, the shadowy organization that was directing the Ottoman war effort, orders went out for the mass murder of Armenians.

Russian Troops in trench at Sarakamis

In December 1914 Ottoman leader Enver Pasha ordered Ottoman troops to attack Sarakamis, in northeastern Anatolia, in the province of Kars, once Ottoman, now in the hands of the Russians. Although the Turks outnumbered the Russians, Enver ordered his troops to pack light, assuming that they could get all the food and warm clothing they needed in Sarakamis. It was brutally cold, with much snow, and the Russians easily defeated the Ottomans, who lost 60,000 to 80,000 of a force of 90,000. The German general advising the Ottomans had advised against this mission.

When the British saw how badly the Ottomans had been defeated at Sarakamis, they rushed to prepare for what would be the greatest amphibious operation to date. Their preparations were incomplete and inaccurate and resulted in defeat for the British and French. There were many stories of heroism on both sides. A young leader of the Ottomans in that battle, who later became known as Kemal Ataturk, distinguished himself here.

The Ottomans, facing the Entente Powers at Gallipoli, and following defeat at Sarakamis and threats from all the edges of their empire, turned on the Armenians, long a despised people in their empire, and often supported in treasonous acts by the Russians. There were incidents of Armenians raiding Muslim villages and killing men, women and children and burning copies of the Quran.

However, the systematic annihilation of the Armenians was far beyond any reprisal. Rogan calls it what many have called it, Genocide. From 1 to 1.5 million Armenians were murdered by the Ottomans.

The Great War ended in 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. It was not until 1923 that the Ottoman Empire was eliminated, after wars with all the neighbors, defeat in Mesopotamia, Jerusalem, and partition at Versailles in which the Armenians, Arabs and Greeks won large parts, France was awarded supervision of Syria and Lebanon, the British Arab lands and Palestine, and Greeks western Turkey.

In July 1923 what remained became the Republic of Turkey, led by Kemal Ataturk, and the borders of Turkey that we see today became law.

And that was the end of the Ottoman Empire.

---

Eugene L. Rogan is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History; Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford University.

-end-

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2017-18

No meeting in December

Wednesday, August 29, 2018. Let’s hear your suggestion for a history topic!

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

The Mill Girls at Amoskeag

History Book Club

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Mill Girls in Amoskeag Mill, Manchester, NH, ca. 1880

The Industrial Revolution in New England

Wednesday, October 25, 2017: The Industrial Revolution in New England. Development of mills, the textile industry in Lowell, Lawrence, Manchester and elsewhere. Life in the mills, quality of life in the cities. Advent of the steam engine. Railroads. Banking and commerce in the Industrial age. Labor problems and unionization. Iron and steel production. Coal mining. Communications. [Suggested by Sam Coulbourn]

Amoskeag—Life and Work in an American Factory-City, Pantheon Village Series, by Tamara K. Hareven & Randolph Langenbach, 1978. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. 394 pp. Paper.

            Tamara Hareven, University of Delaware Professor of Family Studies and History, with a joint appointment in urban affairs and public policy, born in 1937 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, died in Newark, DE in 2002. A social historian, she was one of the foremost leaders in the field of family history.

            In the 1970s, Dr. Hareven began her studies of the families who had worked in the Amoskeag Mills in Manchester, N.H., resulting in “Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory City” (1978), followed by “Family Time and Industrial Time: The Relationship Between the Family and Work in a New England Industrial Community” (1982).

            Focusing on the family’s relationship to the process of industrialization, she interviewed generations of families about their work and family lives and about how events–such as the closing of the mills and World War II–and how personal responsibilities–such as caring for aged parents–affected their lives.

            Randolph Langenbach's educational background is in both Architecture and in Building Conservation. He received a Master's of Architecture from Harvard University, and a Diploma in Conservation Studies from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies in York, England.

            His professional experience includes working as an independent consultant in Historic Preservation Planning and Design for over 16 years and teaching as an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of California. He is currently employed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) where he works with technical analysis and cost estimation for the rehabilitation of significant historical buildings.

            This is the story of a city that began as a factory. The Amoskeag company founded the city of Manchester, NH and dominated it over the entire century of its existence, from beginning of construction in 1838 until 1936 when the mills shut down.

            This book is a collection of oral history interviews with the people who worked in Amoskeag mills, from the boss on down to many of the people who came here as youngsters from elsewhere in New England, and then from Ireland, Germany, Greece and Canada.

            We often have a romantic view of life in the old days on the farm, but the people who worked at Amoskeag came from farms. Life was brutal on those farms, with much starvation and deprivation.

            Later, the supply of American women was insufficient, and thousands of young women came from Canada, and then from Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. They were taking jobs that more established Americans wouldn’t take.      Because of this, these people could take a lot of punishment, and they worked long, hard hours in the mills, under sometimes miserable conditions.

            Contrary to the prevailing popular idea that large factories and the urban environment cause individual lack of moral standards and social fragmentation, most of these people had a highly developed sense of place and formed tightly knit societies around their kin and ethnic associations.

            Amoskeag was an exercise in social engineering that began at the mills in Lowell. Farmers sent their “excess” daughters down from New Hampshire and Vermont to the mills. If they didn’t marry, they were another mouth to feed, so onto the train they climbed, and went to the mills to work for one dollar a week.

Mill Girls had a hard life

            The mills were full of these young rural New England women, and the owners treated them as “the corporation’s children”, with dormitory doors locked at 10 p.m., and mandatory church attendance. Alcohol consumption was prohibited. These clean-cut young New England women were brought up in God-fearing families, they were usually far better educated than the average high school student today, and they made excellent employees.
            I had the privilege of buying a packet of letters written by a young woman working in the mills at Lowell in the mid-1840s, to her parents in northern New Hampshire. Those letters were a rich look into New England life in those days.
            Although they often lived in dormitories supervised by a stern older woman, the letters I read reported the occasional girl who would get snared by an old landlord, or a young dandy, and impregnated. In their religious culture, that sometimes meant that the girl felt so ashamed that she would take poison and end it all.
            Shortly before the Civil War Irish immigrants began to come in increasing numbers, and whole families would work for what the American girls were paid. The corporation built boardinghouses for these families, and speculators built more tenements. This marked the end of the so-called “utopian” period.
            You quickly get into the life in the mills, with words like bale breaker, breaker picker, carding, drawing, fine frame, jack frame, creel, warper, slasher, burling, burshing, singing and napping, doffing and dobby loom.
            Antonia Bergeron was 96 at the time of her interview in 1976. She came to Manchester from Quebec in 1885, at the age of 15, and got married in 1899. “Misery, you know, was made for people; it’s not for dogs. I had a dog, and he never had any misery. He’d lay down under the stove and he was fine.”
            Amoskeag during the Depression was forced to lay off workers and cut production. At the same time a labor strike shut down the looms; this was the last straw—the company was forced to close, beginning a long, sad period for Manchester.

-end-

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2017-18