54light15 Regarding steelworkers, I've seen in movies how workers didn't have lockers for thier street clothes but would hook them onto a chain thing and hoist them upwards to hang. Was that for real? Are there any places like that? Maybe it was in "The Deer Hunter" I saw that, I don't really recall but I did see more than once the chain arrangement. In the movie, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang," near the end, Paul Muni is not just playing a criminal bum, but a tie-wearing criminal bum.
Regarding steelworkers, I've seen in movies how workers didn't have lockers for thier street clothes but would hook them onto a chain thing and hoist them upwards to hang. Was that for real? Are there any places like that? Maybe it was in "The Deer Hunter" I saw that, I don't really recall but I did see more than once the chain arrangement.
In the movie, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang," near the end, Paul Muni is not just playing a criminal bum, but a tie-wearing criminal bum.
Quite true, about those hanging "lockers," at least in one case.
Several years back "Weird New Jersey" magazine published an "urban explorer-industrial archeology" photo essay of the abandoned Bethlehem Steel works in Bethlehem PA, and sure enough in the men's locker room there were steel "cauldrons," for lack of a better term, suspended on chains from the ceiling. And that was the drill, street clothes went into the cauldrons and were hoisted up out of the way. Remarkable.
Continuing with the personal hygene thoughts...
One of the things we like to do while traveling is pick up local real estate brocures, you know, the ones they give out at supermarkets? It's a fun thing to see what homes are selling for in the vicinity.
A while back we were looking at some brochures in the southeast Pennsylvania region, and in the town of Phoenixville there were a number of homes for sale built in the 1910-1920 era. Nice houses too, well-built and substantial, and going for VERY reasonable prices, much less than you'd think. We wondered why until we saw the specs, most of which were "Four bedrooms, one bath," or "Five bedrooms, one bath."
"Aha!" we thought, "No wonder they're so cheap!" Then we realised that even though one bathroom for a house that size would be unacceptable nowadays, when those homes were built the original owners were probably thrilled to have a complete indoor bathroom, many probably had first-hand experience with a washtub in the kitchen and an outhouse or a chamber pot and were ecstatic to be through with that way of life!
Five bedrooms and one bath? No big deal to those folks 100 years ago. They probably thought it was heaven on earth.
Let's not forget that change is often evolutionary, not revolutionary. Somewhere between that little shack out back, and indoor plumbing, was a wooden base cabinet called a "commode" that typically had a tight fitting door to put that chamber pot inside of, and which typically sported a pitcher of water, a wash bowl, and a towel rack on the top side.
And of course the well-to-do victorian ladies had servants to service their commode. Talk about your "dirty jobs".
Running an image search for "antique wooden commode" will produce a bounty of creative thinking once employed towards that "end"...ahem!
Question, the OP mentions the crude conditions imposed upon rail travelers back in the day, but what options for bathing exist today for someone traveling coach long distance via Amtrak?
In London across the pond there is a museum at Kew Bridge that is all about water and sewerage. It well describes what life was like in the early 19th century and in previous years. You've heard the expression, "I ain't got a pot to p*** in or a window the throw it out of." That was the usual way of disposing of what was in the chamber pot and makes you realise just what a benefit indoor plumbing and flush toilets are. It also make you realise that if you ever travel back in time to that era, make sure you have all your vaccinations. And wear a wide-brimmed hat.
And don't drink the water!
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
54light15 In London across the pond there is a museum at Kew Bridge that is all about water and sewerage. It well describes what life was like in the early 19th century and in previous years. You've heard the expression, "I ain't got a pot to p*** in or a window the throw it out of." That was the usual way of disposing of what was in the chamber pot and makes you realise just what a benefit indoor plumbing and flush toilets are. It also make you realise that if you ever travel back in time to that era, make sure you have all your vaccinations. And wear a wide-brimmed hat.
True as well, although as a matter of courtesy and good form you were supposed to shout a warning to the street below before the toss!
SD70Dude And don't drink the water!
And THAT reminds me of something they left out of the movie from General Patton's address to the troops...
"When we get to Europe DON'T drink any water unless you get it from our engineer water points! ALL the water in Europe is p***! You wouldn't drink p***, would you? Of course not!"
54light45 -- " Regarding steelworkers, I've seen in movies how workers didn't have lockers for thier street clothes but would hook them onto a chain thing and hoist them upwards to hang. Was that for real? Are there any places like that?
What you are describing is a 'dry' and they are very much still around. All Mines with no exceptions have drys for your work clothes. They are hoisted high up into the heat, usually heat fans up there that blow the air around and dry out your work clothes,socks, boots, underwear, the works. Also cakes all the mud and dirt and it flakes off real easy. Steel mills have the as well.
There are still lockers for your street clothes and valuables and usually a large shower for multiple people in between the two areas.
BaltACD Flintlock76 Interestingly, many college dormitorys were set up the same way until fairly recently. Sink in the room, maybe, full facilities down the hall. My dorm at Purdue in 1964-66 had a single bath/shower/toilet area for each floor of the building. Just a desk, book case, closet and bed in the rooms - two persons to a room, with each having the same set up. 'Housekeeping' provided one sheet a week for bed making.
Flintlock76 Interestingly, many college dormitorys were set up the same way until fairly recently. Sink in the room, maybe, full facilities down the hall.
My dorm at Purdue in 1964-66 had a single bath/shower/toilet area for each floor of the building. Just a desk, book case, closet and bed in the rooms - two persons to a room, with each having the same set up. 'Housekeeping' provided one sheet a week for bed making.
At the older dorms of MSU in East Lansing, all facilities down the hall is still standard.
Those spartan dorm rooms of the 1950's & 1960's helped keep the price of a college education down.
But college kids could be spoiled all through history. I once read of a rich businessman from the South who had two sons attending Yale University around 1900. He had his private car sent up to New Haven, presumably fully staffed, because he "wanted his sons to have Thanksgiving dinner under (their) own roof" and not in some hotel or stranger's house.
NKP guy But college kids could be spoiled all through history. I once read of a rich businessman from the South who had two sons attending Yale University around 1900. He had his private car sent up to New Haven, presumably fully staffed, because he "wanted his sons to have Thanksgiving dinner under (their) own roof" and not in some hotel or stranger's house.
Wonder if someone at Yale was bribed to permit the kids to enrole.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD NKP guy But college kids could be spoiled all through history. I once read of a rich businessman from the South who had two sons attending Yale University around 1900. He had his private car sent up to New Haven, presumably fully staffed, because he "wanted his sons to have Thanksgiving dinner under (their) own roof" and not in some hotel or stranger's house. Wonder if someone at Yale was bribed to permit the kids to enrole.
Maybe, maybe not.
But the old saying "Money talks" was just as true back then as it is now. And why is everyone so shocked and "outraged" by this?
What General Patton said is sure true-when I made my four Med cruises in the 1970s, the water in the various ports was undrinkable. Barcelona, especially. But there, if you want water to drink, you buy it at the store. Tap water was for washing and flushing. And Barcelona water sure stunk. I wonder if it's still like that.
Flintlock76 BaltACD NKP guy But college kids could be spoiled all through history. I once read of a rich businessman from the South who had two sons attending Yale University around 1900. He had his private car sent up to New Haven, presumably fully staffed, because he "wanted his sons to have Thanksgiving dinner under (their) own roof" and not in some hotel or stranger's house. Wonder if someone at Yale was bribed to permit the kids to enrole. Maybe, maybe not. But the old saying "Money talks" was just as true back then as it is now. And why is everyone so shocked and "outraged" by this?
Perhaps the word is "angry"? Many of us want to see merit be the defining characteristic, not deep pockets.
charlie hebdoPerhaps the word is "angry"? Many of us want to see merit be the defining characteristic, not deep pockets.
And I'm angry, enough I find to be almost furious, at even the implication that merit wasn't the defining characteristic for those two boys.
It might even be easy enough to consult Yale alumni records to find the last names of two boys attending at the same time, in those years, coming from the South. See if both of them graduated in four years. See what both of them did subsequent to their time at Yale. Might even be possible to see what they studied, and how they did.
But before you've done that, there's no reason to even consider them 'slacker' 'gentleman's-C' students just because their father can send up a private car for holiday dinner.
Flintlock76 SD70Dude And don't drink the water! And THAT reminds me of something they left out of the movie from General Patton's address to the troops... "When we get to Europe DON'T drink any water unless you get it from our engineer water points! ALL the water in Europe is p***! You wouldn't drink p***, would you? Of course not!"
C'mon guys, be realisatic..... this is America we are talking about. Since when is money (truly) second to merit? Oh,..it would be nice to suppose otherwise...'knights in white satin' and all that.....but I'd never underestimate the "ambitions" of the Bursars office, either.
After all, you remember the old manifesto: "if ya don't work, then ya don't eat"
wjstix Flintlock76 SD70Dude And don't drink the water! And THAT reminds me of something they left out of the movie from General Patton's address to the troops... "When we get to Europe DON'T drink any water unless you get it from our engineer water points! ALL the water in Europe is p***! You wouldn't drink p***, would you? Of course not!" My dad served in the 30th infantry div. in Europe during the war. He said they had pills issued to them that they dropped into their canteen after filling it with water, and it disinfected the water. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to drink the water. He noted that the food was horrible, as he was in a front line unit they had a hard time getting supplies up to them. He said the guys who complained after the war about eating spam were guys who spent the war in the states. At the front, a can of spam was a welcome change.
Those sound like Halazone tablets. They were still available in outdoor sports stores into the 1970's, and may still be, I'm not sure, I haven't looked in a while.
"The food was horrible..." reminds me of something Bill Mauldin said in his book "Up Front..."
"Ads in magazines back in the US show guys at the front wallowing in goodies. Only the rear-echelon troops wallow in goodies, all the guys at the front wallow in is mud! There's always plenty of that."
I never cared for those Halazone tablets ... nor did I really think they posed a relative health risk of their own if you had to use them on any sort of regular basis!
Interestingly, some Scandinavians seem to have found out that using a simple filter on the 'ambient' water, then putting it in used PET plastic bottles and exposing it to bright sunlight for a surprisingly short time, provides just as potable a water with no terrible 'side effects'. Certainly gets it to a state where much less heroic chemical treatment would be needed for safety...
Incidentally, when I was at college between the late '70s and early '80s the bathroom facilities were not 'at the end of the hall' ... they were down up to three flights of stairs in the basement, and the school arranged dormitory 'entries' by sex so they only needed one kind for everyone on a given stairwell.
Convicted OneSince when is money (truly) second to merit?
Stop with the red herrings.
The issue here isn't even whether Yale might be tempted ... as Harvard was with J.F.Kennedy after he flunked rather spectacularly out of Princeton ... to take the money and carefully skirt the academics as far as possible.
I knew quite a number of people from 'wealthier families' at the schools I attended. At least one, whose last name you'd quickly recognize, was in agony one night because he'd made a B+ in one of his classes and he was mortally terrified that his father would take him out of school as a 'failure'. Perhaps my experience was more than a little non-typical, but I knew very few students from 'non-financial-aid' backgrounds who did not work hard in all respects, certainly up to their intellectual capacity.
The issue is whether two kids with a rich father were, or weren't, good Yalies. And that is not something anyone has established here. Even if, as I might add...
Convicted OneAfter all, you remember the old manifesto: "if ya don't work, then ya don't eat"
... that is, unless ya own.
OvermodAnd I'm angry, enough I find to be almost furious, at even the implication that merit wasn't the defining characteristic for those two boys. It might even be easy enough to consult Yale alumni records to find the last names of two boys attending at the same time, in those years, coming from the South. See if both of them graduated in four years. See what both of them did subsequent to their time at Yale. Might even be possible to see what they studied, and how they did. But before you've done that, there's no reason to even consider them 'slacker' 'gentleman's-C' students just because their father can send up a private car for holiday dinner.
I had a good friend who graduated from Yale in '09...that's 1909. In his memoirs he wrote, "Yale and other Ivy League colleges required one to pass the College Board Examinations, or their equivalent: Yale's own examinations. My classmates planning to apply to Yale were permitted to divide these 24 exams over the last three years of (preperatory school)."
"Yale required passing Latin grammar, Julius Caesar and Cicero." I surmise that these were 3 of the required 24 examinations; one may guess the 21 others were on equally esoteric or difficult subjects.
My point is this: Whatever those college boys with the private car did with their educations or careers, there was a time in their young lives when they were most definitely not slackers. They had to hustle to get into college. See for reference Theodore Roosevelt at Harvard.
Once into college, however, things were different. College courses became much more rigorous by the time of the First World War; before then, "gentlemen C's" were quite acceptable. See for reference FDR at Harvard.
I like the following aphorism as it applies to our elites:
"From those to whom much is given, much is expected."
That's probably from Beebe's "Mansions on Rails". Don't have my copy with me, but seem to recall that the businessman was named in the book.
It may have been in Bill Mauldin's magnum opus that I read that the German solldiers were provided with better food than what was available to those in the rear--and they were appalled at what was given them to eat after being captured.
Johnny
Yes, warn before emptying, just as we were invited to warn before flushing if someone were taking a shower at the same time--I can still see one of my classmates leaping out of the shower because no warning was given.
However, when "Picayune" Butler brought his army into New Orleans, the ladies in the houses would give no warning if a soldier should be below her window. General Butler issued an order promising punishment if the practice continued.
Sorry, maybe you are sensitive on this but my Ivy friends have some stories to tell of how privilege, i.e., an elitism based on prep schools, family and wealth, was very evident in the 1960s, not only at Yale and less so at Harvard, but also at Princeton, mirabile dictu!!
The stories of W. Bush are hilarious. He got in as a legacy case and was a pretty mediocre student who would have probably failed at other institutions where his name carried no weight.
Once they became co-ed, perhaps this pernicious influence lessened.
Deggesty It may have been in Bill Mauldin's magnum opus that I read that the German solldiers were provided with better food than what was available to those in the rear--and they were appalled at what was given them to eat after being captured.
Even more true in WWI.
charlie hebdoThe stories of W. Bush are hilarious. He got in as a legacy case and was a pretty mediocre student who would have probably failed at other institutions where his name carried no weight.
And Bush's 2004 opponent, John Kerry, had a lower grade average at Yale than Bush.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4684384
York1 John
Flintlock76"The food was horrible..." reminds me of something Bill Mauldin said in his book "Up Front..." "Ads in magazines back in the US show guys at the front wallowing in goodies. Only the rear-echelon troops wallow in goodies, all the guys at the front wallow in is mud! There's always plenty of that."
When my dad got back to the states - as it happens, he arrived in New York harbor on V-J Day, and on the Queen Mary to boot - the soldiers were all given two tickets and told to get in line. One ticket got them a bunch of goodies: a carton of cigarettes, a big Hershey bar, a new shaving kit, a roll of 35mm film etc. The other ticket got them into a big warehouse-turned-messhall for a steak dinner. When my dad came out, a sargeant asked him if he wanted the film. My dad said no and gave him the film. The sarge had a big roll of the tickets and gave two more to my dad. He went through the line again and got the stuff, gave the sargeant the film - and went and had another steak dinner. He said it was the first really good food he'd had since leaving home.
charlie hebdo Deggesty It may have been in Bill Mauldin's magnum opus that I read that the German solldiers were provided with better food than what was available to those in the rear--and they were appalled at what was given them to eat after being captured. Even more true in WWI.
Certainly true in World War Two, but not necessarily so in World War One. Erich Maria Remarque in "All Quiet On The Western Front" speaks of "short rations" on the German side on more than one occasion. And by the autumn of 1918 many German troops were, if not on the point of starvation, pretty close to it. In his history of WW1 S.L.A. Marshall mentions German POW's bolting down their food like any half-starved man would. He should have known, he was there.
The British blockade (which lasted into 1919) caused mass starvation and deaths in the German civilian population (524000 to 783000). The military lost 1.8 to 2 million. Remember, Remarque's great novel was anti-war, so may not tell the tale accurately of back home. Also the myth "Dolchstoßlegende" that the war was lost because of the home populace, socialists and Jews, not the collapse of the military, was a favorite theme of rightist and militarists postwar.
I think the Germans in 1918 just ran out of soldiers and when there were 1 million (so I've heard) Americans in the field, it was time to give up. We all know about the big lies told by you-know-who who said that they were stabbed in the back. Yeah, right. Plus the Spanish Flu may have had an influence.
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