JF Ptak Science Books

A History of Blank, Missing, and Empty Things, Part 42: the Dirt-Filled Tunnel (1895)

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Sometimes things are very obvious--so obvious that they hide in themselves, in plain sight. That was sort of what happened here, with these cutaways of subway tunnel construction in France in 1895. When I'm reading something to figure out what it is in order to place it in the Books for Sale section of this blog, trying to determine what it was beyond the thing that looked so obvious, it only takes one short sentence or fragment to wrap the whole thing up, and to validate the achingly obvious thing to be exactly what it seemed to be. Such is the case here, with the construction of the extension of the Paris-Sceaux railway (as reported in the Scientific American Supplement for May 11, 1895). Now it seems that in the four-section cutaway showing the progress of work that the workers first dig a deep trench and then construct a masonry "archbutment", taking most of the sidewalk but not the street during the construction process. Once this is finished, part of the street is closed and the construction of the tunnel ceiling is built for the arch. That done, the work gets flipped to the other side of the street and repeated, though from this end the arch of the tunnel is joined, and the whole of it covered by earth and roadway, again.

[This small 2x4" image is a detail from the front page of Scientific American Supplement, May 11, 1895.]

Then the magic sentence appears:

• "(F)inally a tunnel filled with earth was obtained".

How lovely! And of course, how obvious it is, in spite of looking at the procedure and thinking it somehow 'backwards".  Then:

• "It was only necessary to clear this and establish a floor, and then the thing was finished."

There was still track and stations and electricity and ventilation and all of the rest to be installed, but once there was a place to put those things that was not simply dirt, it would be much easier.

As they say here in the South, "It is what it is". 

 

 

The Beauty of Contour Lines and on Missing Importance (1893)

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I found magnificent and early contour image of Ben Franklin in a tweet from Tim Wallace (@wallaectim) who found it in Appleton's Cyclopedia of Technical Drawing (1893). (The full text of Appleton's is here: https://archive.org/stream/appletonscyclopd01wort#page/100/mode/2up/search/franklin and a larger image of Franklin is located below.)

While checking out the fascinating Franklin in the text, I found an interesting graphic that locates a certain History of Importance in one tidy display. The graphic is in the section on topological drawing, and contains "conventional signs for the more important objects that are likely to be represented on a map", at least for 1893:

 

All of this makes sense, of course, except perhaps for the surprise of locating taverns, which I think I've not noticed before in 19th map legends--it does make sense though, especially for more regional maps, as the tavern would be a central force for a small town, as well as operating as a possible hotel.  Many of the rest of the important things for a late 19th century map have slipped into obstructed memory, if not further. 

A Not-Very-Ornamental Notice for the First Lecture Given by the First Female Professor at the Sorbonne--Mme. Curie, 1906

JF Ptak Science Books     Post 2705 (slightly expanded)

The poetry and moment of the auspicious occasion of Marie Curie's first lecture¹ at the Sorbonne passed without notice in the page of the Revue Scientifique, which published the lecture a week later. Curie was the lead paper in the 15 November issue of the journal, though there was nothing to mark its historic nature--only a footnote at the bottom of the page referring to the Sorbonne lecture a week earlier. 

This was the first lecture Curie delivered as the first woman to have a teaching position (the first lecturer and first professor) at the Sorbonne  She took the chair in May 1906, just a month after her husband Pierre was accidentally and tragically killed in a freak accident, being crushed by a street carriage. All of this came only a year after the Curies received their Nobel Prize (delayed due to their illnesses from the award year of 1903 to 1905, Curie being the first woman to receive the award).  The teaching chair Curie occupied was that of her late husband, who had only recently (and finally) been appointed to it. With such a history, Curie in her new position began the lecture with the final words that her husband used teaching in that same room.

I've read that the impact may have been loosened somewhat given Curie's methodical, removed, and monotonic delivery, which left many in the large crowd (attendance thrown open for the occasion) feeling underwhelmed. The Dictionary of Scientific Biography carries a contemporary description of the event so: "Mme. Curie compelled recognition from her first lecture (5 November 1906), despite her timidity, the emotion she was concealing, her weak voice, and her monotone delivery. She made no introductory remarks, took no notice of the sightseers mingling with the students, and began her lecture with the last sentence that Pierre had spoken in that very place. In every demonstration experiment she watched the result with as much interest as if she did not already know it..."²

And Dirac and many others wound up being not-engaged lecturers. So be it. But starting her lecture with the last words her dead husband spoke from the same spot is very powerful stuff, but evidently not powerful enough to move many people. 

Notes:

1. Curie, Marie. "Les Theories Modernes Relatives a l'electricite et a la matiere", in Revue Scientifique (Revue Rose), 5th series, volume VI, #29, 17 November 1906, pp 606-612, and in the next issue, #21, 24 November 1906, pp 650-654. Offered in the full volume for the second half of 1906. Bound in a very stout red buckram with reinforced hinges. The volume contains 26 weekly issues, each title page having the former owner's round rubber stamp

2.  Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol 3, p 501. 

Also see Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, 1901-1992, by James K. Laylin, pg 92./

Here's a contemporary and congratulatory review of the event: 

"MME. PIERRE CURIE THE FIRST WOMAN PROFESSOR IN THE SORBONNE. The academic year of the University of France may be said to have opened to day November 5 with the lecture by Madame Curie on electricity. The occasion was entirely unique in the history of the Sorbonne and was one of great interest. Never before has a woman had such an appointment at the Sorbonne and no other woman or man living has such a claim as Madame Curie to be heard on her special subject. The rector of the university and other prominent officials were present. The minister of public instruction M Briand who appointed Madame Curie to this professorship made vacant a few months ago by the accidental death of her husband had promised to be present but his presence was required at the opening of the parliament at the same hour. Madame Curie's course of lectures is one of the so called open courses to which admission may be gained without fees or formal matriculation long before the lecture began the outer gates were closed against those seeking admission. Several hundred of those who filled the corridors were unable to get into the hall of physics in which the lecture was to be given. I almost despaired of getting in and was one of the last who succeeded I was well rewarded for my patience in waiting. Standing behind the last and highest tier of seats in the hall I looked down on three or four hundred people of both sexes and of all ages above twenty. Back of the long table at the opposite end of the room stood the modest self possessed woman who has made the civilized world her debtor by her discoveries..."--Journal of Education, December 6, 1906, p 611. 

A Visionary and Somewhat Contradictory Peace Plan for Humanity (1927)

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"All [people] dream, but not equally."--T.E. Lawrence

Although this tall (13")0 pamphlet is rather short, it is a potential toothache to read. To that end I am not reporting on the contents, just the cover, which tells its own story.  This was printed in 1927, and was once owned by H.L. Mencken.  

On the Registration of All "Mental Defectives" (1931)

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2702

Here's a title that should stop you: 

How very special.

Of course, it was 1931, and the Eugenicists were running free and easy, the stiff wind of their convictions running freely through their imaginary hair...and what would we all do with this gathering of information on mental defectives¹ once that was done? And what was the definition of mental defective, anyway? thirdly of course--what do we do with the mental defectives once this energy of definition and collection had been done?  well, a new group would come to power in two years' time from the publication of this article, and in their own right they did these things and then decided to kill many of the people that they cataloged. That's one example. I'm not saying that the well-meaning people like the author of this paper would be anywhere near this horrible, not at all; I just don't know why they would want to gather this information.  There wasn't a discussion of collection of treatment of these people, just their registration in one large database. Every time I see in this pamphlet the statement on the need for such a registry, I expect to see why--but that never comes, only the repetition of a phrase like "that a central registry for mental defectives is desirable, and that it should be organized and operated by an established state department" and its variations.

Finally, at the end of the short 14-page pamphlet, in the final paragraph, something appears close to explaining the "why" issue--but it winds up being a little tautological, stating that the need for gathering the names of all mental defectives is "to make available authorized agencies and individuals definite information on known mental defectives"

Basically--at least so far as this pamphlet explains--the reason for gathering all of these names into a system of state-wide databases is to have the names in state-wide databases. 

Notes:

1. Mental defective seems to make its first appearance in English in 1899, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: 

A Detail of the Something in the Nothing ("Concerning the Deluge, and the Dissolution of the Earth.")

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There is a great and powerful image of nothing in Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of its Original Creation, And of all the General Changes which it hath undergone, or is to undergo, until the Consumption of all Things...printed in London ca. 1759, a hundred years after its first printing, in the glory and the magnificence of some very wide and biblical Bible thinking that was still in demand. I'm visiting the "dissolution of the Earth" section, here, showing the results of a very judgmental Creator taking aim at the whole of the Earth for its foul play, drowning everything and everyone for a lesson that could be learned only by the dead--save for a small group of related people and a bunch of animals in a wooden boat the size of which could not possibly have been built during this time period. I have pulled out this image of the ark, guided or protected or righted by a pair of faceless angels, keeping the ship steady on the top of Mt. Ararat. All around this boat are the peaks of other mountains, which for some reason are depleted of all living things, unless of course the image shows the waters receding, which is the route I would take if it were up to me to explain this. 

This is a detail from the full engraving, below, which show the Earth completely covered by water--it would be an interesting thing to imagine as an actual physical process and what exactly would have to happen in order for such a thing to occur (and when you start to think of how, outside belief, this could come to happen, you have the makings of an interesting class):

If you expand the image the nearly-invisible continents shine through ever so slightly. I imagine that this would be a pretty scary image to show a kid, or to a believer who had doubts about the possibilities of a wrathful creator. In any event, this fits beautifully as a short post into this blog's "History of Nothing" series, as we see a big image of near-nothing--just water.  (Did the fish drown?) Anyway, nothing was left except the boat. And landforms. And water, which evidently went somewhere. 

This image was found at the wonderful and extraordinary P.J. Mode Collection "Persuasive Maps" hosted by Cornell University, here: https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:19343661   There are 800+ maps like this there--do not hesitate to visit and visit often--it is a fantastic place.  

Definitely Not Your (Modern) Weekly "People Magazine"

JF Ptak Science Books  

I have developed a sort-of  collection in the History of Blank and Empty Things series of not-filled-in applications and diaries and questionnaires and such, from Hitler Jugend diaries to notebooks for Nazi Warsaw telephone directories to applications for membership in the Women's KKK, and so on.  This small installment comes on the back inside cover of Labor Conscription, What Does it Mean...Involuntary Servitude!, a hopeful ad for the reader who might be interested in Socialism and receive the magazine People Weekly, as this far Left pamphlet was after all published by the New York Labor News Company on behalf of the Socialist Labor Party U.S.A. This of course in no way bears any resemblance to the modern People Magazine, the fruits and labor of that periodical being sweets and fats.

 

Some Blank and Empty Baroque Design Bits, ca. 1700

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I saved this image many years ago, and unfortunately I do not have a year/location/maker, nothing at all, just the print. I reckon that the print is in a Baroque style, I think, highly manner and ornate and detailed, and quite empty where there should be obvious detail, as these are the spaces that the eye is directed to by the other elements of the design, except that there is nothing there.  No doubt this was designed for an identifying purpose, though that perhaps had not yet been determined. 

It is a little curious that the frieze shows a merry peasant party; curiouser still are the three people and a dog on the upper balcony--the middle person seems otherwise engaged in who-knows-what. 

As it stands, this is a good candidate for the Blank, Empty, and Missing Things series.  

 

[Detail from the full image, below.]

An Empty Notebook for Hitler Youth, with Map (1941)

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post   A History of Blank, Empty, and Missing Things series 

Hans Trzebiatowsky & Karl Spaethe--two engineers turned propagandists--wrote the study/notebook for "students" working through modern German history, Merk- und Arbeitsblatter fuer Reichskunde, which was published in Magdeburg in 1941. It was very successful, as the title page states that this edition ("18...23 Auflage") was the "1058 ,,, 1035, Thausend" which seems to put the print run over one million. Given that there were 66 million people in Germany in 1940, and that 6.6 million were soldiers, this may mean that just about every child between the ages of 12-17 had one of these--in any event, if those publication numbers were accurate, then the publication must have been ubiquitous. 

The paperback publication is tall (about 12") and densely written, and for all of that is only 24 pages long.  It is designed with perforation along the left-hand edge of the sheets so that the page could be removed and gathered in a two-ring binder. After dealing with the first and second Reichs in pages 1 and 2, the rest of the issue is a history and philosophy lesson on the Third Reich, presented for the Hitler Jugend in the best interests of the Nationalsozialistche Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. 

The images in the publication were striking, and even for a bored general student or Hitler Youth could have lazily flipped through these pages without noticing them and having soem sort of message delivered. For example, this map that shows the state of the alliances in WWI and how the rest of the world outside of these allies stood against Germany:

(Map is about 100% larger than the original)

It should be understood though that the booklet was most definitely not a picture book for kids, as it was detail-heavy and brimming with Nazi needs:

The book was definitely intended for instruction, as the back of every sheet of text is a 40-line ruled notebook page, ready for note--my copy hasn't a word in it.  

 

A Superior Musical Review Hidden inside a Superior and Obscure Journal, 1923

JF Ptak  Science Books  Post 2630

Manuscripts (MSS), edited by Paul Rosenfeld in New  York, 1922-23, was a Small Magazine, a wonderful Dadaist publication with contributions from the leading artisitc/intellectual community including Georgia O'Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, John Marin, Charles Demuth, and many others. What I'm writing about right now is issue #5--appearing in March 1923--of the six (total) issues that were printed of this short-lived and very highly spirited magazine--the issue shockingly emerged from a box in the studio last night. The striking cover was designed by Georgia O'Keefe, and underneath the cover for issue #5 "one of the most remarkable issues" (according to the Dada Once and For All catalog by Ex Libris in 1983), was the work of the critic and Stieglitz-supporter Herbert Seligmann. 

All this aside, what really struck me was the broadside "review" tucked into the twelve-page publication--a very segmented, highly typefaced and fonted (sorry!), very creative look at the composer Edgard Varese's Hyperprism, a very adventurous work for wind, brass, and percussion instruments was completed in 1922 and revised in 1923, and then obviously reviewed by Seligmann in this issue of MSS in 1923.  Varese (1887-1965) was a very-modern modernist whose reference to his music as "sound-mass" (among many other things of course) that was in a way similar to the process of crystallization/chemical crystallography gives an insight into the name of the piece to be performed. The review admonished "This is a Serious Work, Those Who Don't Like It PLEASE GO" among other such tidy phraselets.  I reproduce this fantastic little gem below:

Also if you'd like to listen to it:

 

By the way Music and Modern Art by James Leggio  reproduces (on page 141) the Varese review as a full-page illustration. 

See also Herbert  Seligmann, Alfred Stieglitz Talking: Notes on Some of his Conversation, 1925- 1931, New Haven: Yale University Library 1966, for more on MSS. 

For more on MSS:

 

• All six issues reproduced at Monoskop, here: https://monoskop.org/MSS
• Full text of the MSS Number 5 https://monoskop.org/images/3/3d/MSS_5_Mar_1923.pdf

And this from issue #5 on the previous issue of the magazine:  "MSS. Number One contained writings by Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Burke, Waldo Frank, Paul Rosenfeld, Herbert J. Seligmann, William Carlos Williams. MSS. Number 2 contained writings by John Marin, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Charles Duncan. MSS. Number 3 was entitled "What Is True Art?" by J. B. Kerfoot and W. Rhea Moreau. MSS. Number 4 was entitled "Can A Photograph Have The Significance Of Art?" by Sherwood Anderson, Thomas H. Benton, Ernest Bloch, Oscar Bluemner, Stephan Bourgeois, Gilbert Cannan, Charles Chaplin, Thomas J. Craven, Elizabeth Davidson, Charles Demuth, Marius De Zayas, Arthur G. Dove, Marcel Duchamp, Alfeo Faggi, Waldo Frank, Hutchins Hapgood, J. B. Kerfoot, Gaston Lachaise, Walter Lippmann, John Marin, Kenneth Hayes Miller, George F. Of, Georgia O'Keeffe, Leo Ornstein, Joseph Pennell, Carl Sandburg, Evelyn Scott, Charles Sheeler, Leo Stein, S. Macdonald Wright, Carl Zigrosser, Bibliography. The price of MSS. Number 5 is 15 cents. Subscription to 10 numbers one dollar. The entire cost of this MSS. Number 5 is the printing bill of $130.00 for the present edition of 1,000 copies, presented by Clarence S. Nathan, Inc., and paid by the Tin Whistle Fund. Each author is solely responsible for what appears over his signature. Complaints should be sent to individual authors. Subscriptions will be received by Herbert J. Seligmann, 129 East 10th Street, New York City. Donations of money will be received with thanks by the same. For the cover design: apologies to "Dada" (American), Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and acknowledgment to "Anonymous." Copyright, 1923, by Herbert J. Seligmann."--from page 2 of MSS Number 5. 

"Why Must the Agony of the Jewish People be Prolonged?" (1944) Another Episode in the Abandonment of the Jews in WWII

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2627

This quote is from (Rabi) Israel Goldstein as head of the Zionist Organization of America appeal and addresses the British White Paper of 1939 on Palestine and allowing Jews to immigrate to escape "the hands of the Nazi executioner" in Europe, which amongst many other things  limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 for 5 years (1939-1944) with limits of further immigration to be determined by the Arab majority. "Were our pleas for the opening of the doors of Palestine headed in the past few years, at least 300,000 lives would have been saved. Unfortunately, even the immigration of Jews within the limited quota of the White Paper was not facilitated as it might have been" wrote Goldstein in this address.  

There is a long and complicated history to the White Paper but suffice to say that while millions of Jews were being slaughtered in Europe the restrictive White Paper remained in place, which meant that the haven for escape to Palestine was largely closed relative to the numbers of people needing to be saved, and that at the end of the war there were still 3000+ visas that hadn't yet been granted. Goldstein makes the case for the extreme peripheral usefulness of the Paper in 1939, but in 1944 when the Axis influence in the Middle East was  extremely minor adhering to the white Paper was a tragedy: "if the White Paper was unwise and unworthy then, it is more shameful and baseless now" he wrote.¹ ("The Provisional Council of Israel's first constitutional act [in 1948] was a Proclamation that "All legislation resulting from the British Government's White Paper of May, 1939, will at midnight tonight become null and void."--Wiki on the White Paper of 1939.) 

Goldstein hoped for a change in the policy--there would be none.

• Israel Goldstein (June 18, 1896 – 1986) was an influential Jewish leader in the U.S. and worldwide as a Rabi (and head of the New York Board of Rabis), head of the Jewish National Fund (elected in 1933), head of the Zionist Organization of America (elected 1943), and one of the founders of Brandeis University.  The full text of the publication--which was printed sometime between March 30, 1944 and May 30, 1944--is included below.  I can find no mention of the communication online.  

Notes

1. Goldstein wrote in his memoirs that the rules and restrictions of the White Paper on Jewish immigration were being "rigidly and brutally enforced". --My World as a Jew: The Memoirs of Israel Goldstein, Volume 2, pg 47.

[“Like another black curtain about to be rolled down upon the last hope of escape, the White Paper of 1939 ominously threatens to close all further migration to Palestine,”--Judge Morris Rothenburg, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, http://www.jta.org/1943/09/13/archive/dr-israel-goldstein-elected-president-of-zionist-organization-of-america]

Mustachioed Number People in the History of Blank and Missing Things

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I have been surprised by the strength and endurance of this series on blank and missing people--astonished, really, that there would be so much that would present itself in such incidental ways.  I do not go out of my way to find these things, they just come to me in the course of daily living; perhaps if I looked for them I would see them less frequently.

Mr. 52 and Mr. 53 are part of a group picture of Esteemed British Yachtsmen in the 24 August 1884 issue of The Graphic magazine--it is actually a smartly-conceived thumbnail image index of a double-page photo, an easily-readable key to a complex photo.  The effect of taking it out of context, though, is remarkable, turning the index into a wood engraving of number-only-blank-faced people with facial hair attributes. 

I have been surprised by the strength and endurance of this series on blank and missing people--astonished, really, that there would be so much that would present itself in such incidental ways.  I do not go out of my way to find these things, they just come to me in the course of daily living; perhaps if I looked for them I would see them less frequently.

Mr. 52 and Mr. 53 are part of a group picture of Esteemed British Yachtsmen in the 24 August 1884 issue of The Graphic magazine--it is actually a smartly-conceived thumbnail image index of a double-page photo, an easily-readable key to a complex photo.  The effect of taking it out of context, though, is remarkable, turning the index into a wood engraving of number-only-blank-faced people with facial hair attributes. 

When There is More Text on the Cover Than in the Text--and the End Result is Nothing (1877)

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It happens now and then that I unearth interesting bits from the pamphlet collection here that instantly create their own categorization--this in spite of already having a hundred sculpted categories. Works like this demand a deeper inspection to sustain their uncommon non-bond with other similar but not-so works. On the face of it, Fairchild's Nature's Laws... looks like just another quack medical remedy/cure/belief system (or suspension thereof), except that on closer inspection there is more text regarding the product on the pamphlet's covers than in the work itself.  The thing does wind up being 36pp long, but it is most testimonial and promise--after all, you can't say all that much abut secret ingredients for the "liver patch" that you were supposed to wear, and you couldn't say much about the medical inventiveness and foundation behind it because there wasn't any. So I guess you fill space with words that aren't necessarily connected to anything and that collectively had no value, much like a year's worth of Trumpian nothingness. Anyway, there's a lot going on on teh covers of this pamphlet, and much like what is going on inside of it, it all adds up to chicken scratches. 

D.W. Fairchild. Nature's Laws; New Ideas Concerning Them. A Medical Lecture Delivered in Wesleyan Hall, Boston, on Friday Evening, March 30, 1877...Illustrating the Principles of Absorption, as Developed in the Holman Liver Pad...copied from the Boston Daily Globe of Saturday, March 31st, 1877. 22x14.5cm, 36pp. Printed by the Holman Liver Pad Company, 1877.  WorldCat/OCLC locates only two print copies and many others in microform.  

Punctuation and its Elimination: Spongebobian Sentence-Enhancers and a Pickle for the Knowing Ones (1847)

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(This is an expanded version of an earlier post from 2008, more than 4000 posts ago. I'm reposting it here on the top of the heap today because no doubt the only person who would see the revised version left under the burden of a million other words would be me, so here it is, new-ish and fresh.)

I’ve made several posts about Blank and Missing People which seem to me—having had long exposure to images over the last 30 years—to be quite unusual in the history of popular-published prints.  This may actually be a simple corollary to a wider category of Blank Things, or Missing Things.  Like Dark Matter.  Or white, open, blank spaces on early, honest, maps. (And this may be part of another larger story on The  Spaces in Between, (a concept in German known as Zwischenraum), but that’s another story, identifying where the missing stuff might actually “be”. 

Right now though I’d like to address blank spaces in literature.  It is surprising to me that in Google searches that “blank books” and “blank literature” and “books without words” (once you remove all of the hits for new diaries and new artists’ notepads and such) direct you to graphic novels.  This category hardly strikes me as being “blank” as the art and action more than accommodate the absence of written words.  (And by the way the graphic novel seems to be a fairly new invention—perhaps the work of Frans Masereel and Rockwell Kent in producing sequential, worldess books were among the first of their genre when they were published in the mid-1920’s?)

Blank literature doesn't mean hollow literature.  In one skinny example James Fenimore Cooper's writings may be a little translucent and a little empty, but they aren't blank. (Twain ripped Cooper on this point, cursing Cooper for using a bagful of woodsy woodsmen tricks to drive his story when he should’ve been writing, and not waiting for them to fill up the spaces of his missing narrative: "in his little box of stage properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go...(another) favorite stage property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his broken twig.  He prized his broken twig above all the rest of hi effects, and worked it hardest..."

An excruciatingly direct example of the worldess book  is a remarkable, hoaxing or perhaps just simply demented set (!) of books by Timothy Dexter (Newburyport, Massachusetts).   Dexter wrote a semi-incompressible work called A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, which followed his own logic, sentence structure, vocabulary and spelling. It was also printed and published without punctuation.  In one sentence. (A sample is found below in the continued reading section.)  I think that it is interesting in that someone did it and that it exists and that it was printed in 1802, but aside from that I find little comfort or twisty inspiration from it.  His second edition of that work though is much more interesting, not so much in that it continued ((?), I use that word loosely) the shredded intellectual threads laid out in the first edition; it also contains one page of what I think of as a blank book:  the missing punctuation marks from the first edition.   

Well, not ALL of the missing punctuation, but enough, in the mind of Dexter, to silence some of the complaints of the more faint-hearted readers of his one-sentence, non-punctuated, made-up vocabulary of the first edition.  He at least provides the punctuation--separately--in case a weak reader needed some: 

[Image from a good treatment of Dexter at http://northofboston.org/north-of-boston-historical-figures-a-pickle-for-your-thoughts/]

He writes “Fourder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put A nuf here and that may peper and solt as they please."

That's much in the spirit of Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star when they "discovered" the use of swear words and curses, which they figured had no meaning except as a sort of comfrot food to be sprinkled in conversation for flavoring--"sentence enhancers" they called them, without knowing (of course!) that their sounds were more than simple garnishes and intellectual punctuation.  

As follows (please consult http://www.lordtimothydexter.com/the_holl_pickle.htm for a full transcription of the Dexter work--the author of the site also transcribes the Dexterian-speak into plain English, which was no doubt a labor of love): 

 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

................ ................ ................. ................... .................

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..............................! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !.............................

................................... ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ................................

........................................ ! ! ! ! ! ! .....................................

.............................................!............................................

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

...............????????????????????????...............

And on page 32 more of the "missing" punctuation is provided:

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????!??????????????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... -------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- --------------------------------------

 

It is a brilliantly empty book, all of the characterization present and waiting for the last bit that would make this a book:  the words.

The depths or shallownesses of Dexter's private insight is a mystery to me, if that mystery extended beyond an elaborate and peculiar (and deep) sense of humor.  The man was a successful if not very odd businessman, after all, so he did have some sort of regulating principle in his life--its just that this sort of dark, removed humor is so incredibly pre-modern that I've gotten stuck thinking about Dexter being a little deranged rather than be prescient. 

On the History of Tenderness to Children

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 712 (from 2011, extended, with a full text scan of  Children Who Work in the Nation's Crops by Gertrude Folks Zimand, National Child Labor Committee,  1939.)

“The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken…” Lloyd Demause

"Give me other mothers and I will give you a better world." St. Augustine, (who does not mention fathers in this context). 

 

The history of kindness to children is a wicked road to tread—I’m not sure why I’m even thinking about it had I the subject not been awakened by bumping into the map seen below.  Without any real directed reading on the topic  I’ve intuitively felt that “childhood” as an idea, as a part of human development in the Western world, was a young, newish innovation.  The simplest way to perhaps measure this is looking for representations of children as children in Medieval and Renaissance art—that is to say children drawn not as little/miniature adults, but drawn as children actually appear.  This does not happen very much at all in the early Renaissance, and virtually never happens in the Medieval.  Even when looking for images of Christ as a baby in early art it is far more likely to find him depicted as a little man than it is to see him as a child.  Children certainly seem to make more appearances as themselves in book illustration (excepting the obvious works on anatomy and childbirth) beginning in the early 16^th century, and I’ve a number of reproductions here of children with learning-to-walk walkers and toys from this period. So at the very least the recognition of  the concept of difference in very very young adults as “children” in art took a much longer (and unexpected at least to me) time to develop as a concept.   And this is only the barest concept, at least recognizing childhood as a stage of development, which doesn’t necessarily say anything about the aspect of kindnesses expressed to them simply because of this stature.  That’s an entirely different story.

One way  to measure this aspect of childhood--the history of kindness towards children--is in terms of how much work society allowed them to perform in the adult world—and again, it would be shown that it was discovered only recently.  As an issue of moral and responsibility, child labor was regulated first in England in a long series of Factory Acts  (13 separate acts from 1819 to 1961, including 1819, 1831, 1833, 1844, 1847, 1850, 1874, 1878, 1891, 1901, 1937, 1959, 1961) .  That first breathe of morality and responsibility towards happiness (where happiness means not being exploited) codified that children younger than nine were not allowed to work,  and that kids between the ages of 9 and 18 could only work up to 72 hours in a six-day week¹.  Children were used freely and copiously for work in fields, in chimneys, in mines, and in tough bugger places that couldn’t be reached by full-grown adults, as well as in places that could use little hands, or suspended in places where a lightweight helper could be slung, and so on.

Historically speaking, controlling children seems to have been the major part of dealing with a child:  from controlling its body function (with enemas and such), to movement (swaddling to completely restrict motion), to crying (dunking a crying infant in a pail of ice cold water to stop it from crying),and to mood (feeding fussy children liquor and opiates to make it docile. ) The severe beating of children was the great "other" option in dealing with all manner of childhood issues, the thorny crown of behavior modification. On this point Lloyd Demause in his “The Evolution of Childhood” examines 2000 statements of advice on child rearing prior to the 18th century and found that most  advocated severe beatings.  He noted that the severity of the beatings was common and “a regular part of the child’s life.” The instruments of behavior advocacy here included “whips of all kinds, the cat o’nine tails, shovels, iron and wooden rods, bundles of sticks, the discipline—a whip made of small chains--, and special school instruments like the flapper, made to induce raising blisters.” (Demause, page 41.) Rousseau—hardly alone among the great philosophers—advocated whippings and beatings from infancy; plenty of the great social thinkers from this period and earlier had little use or accommodation for children, even their own. 

There’s also the controlling of the mind via images and fear and promise of retribution of hell, as well as the introduction of spooks, ghosts, goblins and other sorts of child-stealers and –eaters.  You’d think that the rough and tough and pretty scary stories of Brothers Grimm would be enough, but it doesn’t come close to the really scary guys:  Mormo, Canida, Poine, Sybaris, Acco, Empuss, Gorgon, Ephiatles and others were brought in to do the job of control that spanking and beating and hell couldn’t modify. 

Then there’s the sexual misconduct and abuse, which was evidently deep and well practiced for thousands of years, with older Roman men and Athenian rent-a-boy being famous examples of something wider and established.  Just from reading a bit through some of the standard histories of childhood it is very easy to see the vast amount of sanctioned abuse that seems to constitute one of society's many sorely soft and cancerous underbellies.

Returning to child labor, for most people in the United States the grotesque nature of this activity was finally revealed to the great masses through the work of the legendary photographer Lewis Hine, whose documentary images of the conditions of children and the laboring classes was an extraordinary dose of reality.  It took the unimpeachable foundation of the photograph to hammer home to people that children were being subjected to rigorous labor abuse. (The photo above shows children working in a glass factory at midnight.)

But Factory Acts and Lewis Hine et alia made only incremental change in the exploitation of the very young--evidently economies large and small were addicted to the idea.  Which brings us to the map that started this thought: it appeared on the back cover of Children Who Work in the Nation's Crops,  written by Gertrude Folks Zimand, and published by the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) in 1940.  The map on the back cover shows the migration routes of the young workers:

 

There's no surprise to what the map showed, though it was a surprise to see the map itself.  The NCLC is still around, and so are the children working in the fields.  The map has stayed pretty much the same. 

The rest of the pamphlet does not pamper the brittle semi-hidden world of the child laborer.  I've included the entire work, below.  

UNICEF states that there are still hundreds of millions of children being worked illegally throughout the world, and I can't help but wonder who it is that assembles those free Happy Meals toys (watch that copyright!) which are purchased in the millions for a penny or so apiece.  When things like that are as cheap as they are, as impossibly cheap as they are, there must be someone, somewhere, paying the price.

 

NOTES:

1. The high points (taken from Wiki) of the Factory Act of 1833 stated:

• Children (ages 14–18) must not work more than 12 hours a day with an hour lunch break. Note that this enabled employers to run two 'shifts' of child labour each working day in order to employ their adult male workers for longer.
• Children (ages 9–13) must not work more than 8 hours with an hour lunch break.
• Children (ages 9–13) must have two hours of education per day.
• Outlawed the employment of children under 9 in the textile industry.
• Children under 18 must not work at night.
• provided for routine inspections of factories.

Also, good reads on the history of childhood:

G. Rattray Taylor, The Angel Makers
David Hunt, Parents and Children in History
George Payne, The Child in Human Progress
Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood

and

Lloyd Demause,editor,  The History of Childhood.

 

Children Who Work in the Nation's Crops 

by Gertrude Folks Zimand, National Child Labor Committee, New York City  January 1942