Alberta Martin

As pointed out by an anonymous commenter, Alberta Martin, the last living widow of a Civil War Veteran died today. Martin suffered a heart attack several weeks ago. She was 97.

It seems fitting, somehow, that the last such personal connection to the American Civil War drifted away on Memorial Day.

Be back soon

My apologies for the lack of recent posts. It's been a hectic few weeks (think: graduation in two days) and my internet access has been intermittent. Come Monday, I should have lots more time for blogging. That's the plan, at least.

Civil War widow suffers heart attack

Yes, you read that right. The widow of a Confederate veteran recently suffered a heart attack. Never mind that the Civil War ended 139 years ago last month.

How is this possible, you ask? Alberta Martin, 97, married William Jasper Martin in 1927. Alberta was 21 at the time. William Martin was 82 at the time and had served in the Confederate Army.

This is one of those weird quirks of fate where personal connections somehow manage to extend over what seem to be absurdly long periods of time. Another one that comes to mind is how Wagner's grandson is still alive and only recently relinquished the directorship of the Bayreuth festival.

Tony Horwitz devotes a chapter of Confederates in the Attic (see previous thoughts here) to Alberta Martin. Horwitz comes across as rather disappointed upon meeting Martin. She doesn't have much to say about her husband's service in the Civil War; it seems he never talked of it much.

This brings up an important point. The fact that there are moments and events that we currently consider historically significant (for whatever reason) does not guarantee that those moments and events have always been seen as important. Nowadays, the prospect of talking to someone who was married to someone who fought in the Civil War is exhilirating, providing as close a link to a crucial moment in American history as currently seems possible. But Alberta didn't marry William because he had served in the Civil War and she valued that potential connection to the past. There were, no doubt, a bunch of Civil War veterans still floating around southern Alabama in the 1920s. The significance of her marriage has only emerged in recent years as other Civil War widows have passed away and Alberta has emerged as the personal link to the Civil War.

The lesson here is that historical significance comes not from the past but from the present. We determine what events in the past matter to us now and invest them with meaning. To be sure, this is far from a conscious or deliberate activity, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Nor is the fact that historical significance is as much a function of the present as the past diminish the very real consequences of past events. Rather, we should be wary of those who suggest that anything is ever timeless. Alberta Martin provides a unique connection to the American Civil War. But that connection hasn't always been unique, and that connection is as haphazard as it is significant.

Honors at Swarthmore (or, more academic solipsism)

Swarthmore is an intense academic environment. Don't take my word for it... witness these shirts (ego-stroking at its best) and the history department's senior gift: a gym bag that says, in simple block letters, VARSITY HISTORY.

Nothing, perhaps, is more intense (read: intimidating) at Swarthmore than the Honors Program. You can read all about it in this press release. Students (like me) have the opportunity to discuss their coursework with scholars in their field as a culminating experience to their Swarthmore career (read: students stress out while being tested by people a whole lot smarter than them to see whether they get to graduate).

I will spend the next week preparing as best as I can to make positive impressions on the following external examiners:

Carol Bresnahan, who will be testing my knowledge of the Italian Renaissance.

Ioana Chitoran, with whom I will be discussing the sound changes that took place in the development of Gascon from Latin.

Larry Horn, who will grill me on my thesis.

Pauline Jacobson, with whom I'll talk about the semantics and distribution of relative clauses.

Another paper

Here's a recent paper of mine: Historians and Popular Historical Consciousness.

It's too long to post here as an entry, though I hope to distill it to its crucial elements and put it here. Until then, the gist, for those who don't feel like reading the 13 pages: historians have a responsibilty to help shape popular historical consciousness. Shocking conclusion, huh? Especially given that rather boring title...

On relief pitching

Piggybacking on a recent entry by Bill Liming of Phillies Fan and a "radical idea" of Eric Neel, I firmly believe that you bring in your best relief pitchers when you most need outs. If that means bringing in your "closer" in the 7th inning with one out, so be it.

Say you're up by one. The other team manages to load the bases, and they've got their 3 or 4 hitter at the plate. Managers will typically bring in the set-up man, or perhaps a mid-range reliever here. This makes no sense at all. If the guy at the plate gets a hit, you're suddenly down a run, there's still at least a runner in scoring position, and there's still a good hitter at the plate. You need outs in this situation.

For the Phillies, this would mean bringing in Billy Wagner. Wagner's fastball is in the high 90's (occasionally breaking 100) and he's a strikeout machine. He's not perfect, of course. He's going to give up some hits. But he's a whole lot less likely to give up hits than any of the other relievers the Phillies have. Eight times out of ten, he's going to get out of a jam like this. Strike out both, strike out the first and get the second to ground out, get the batter to ground into a double play, whatever. He's going to get outs.

Then going into the 8th, the opposition will have the bottom of the order coming up to bat, with no one on base. This situation is far less dangerous than the one just described, so it's not as crucial to have your top reliever in there.

Baseball's had a long time to develop conventional strategies. The one that says you save your closer 'til the 9th inning is crap. You save your closer for when your ass needs to get saved.

On a related note: how about the Phillies' Ryan Madson? The kid's got a 0.41 ERA. He gave a clutch performance today for his first career save. You need someone to get outs? Look Madson's way.

Revolutionary-era baseball

It turns out that baseball was played in Massachusetts as early as 1791. That's right. 1791. Almost fifty years before Abner Doubleday allegedly invented the game in 1839 (a claim long disproved). To give some perspective, they were playing baseball in Pittsfield, Massachusetts just 16 years after Lexington and Concord. Baseball as America's Pastime? Certainly looks that way.

I've got to point out, however, that claiming that "Pittsfield is baseball's Garden of Eden," as Pittsfield mayor James Ruberto did, is a bit ingenuous. The fact that people were playing baseball in western Massachusetts in 1791 doesn't prove that the good people of Pittsfield were the inventors of baseball. All it proves is that, well, people were playing baseball in western Massachusetts in 1791.

The precise origins of baseball are unclear. This discovery doesn't clear up baseball was invented. Instead, it pushes those origins back further than expected.

This isn't to diminish the sheer coolness of Americans playing baseball soon after the birth of the nation. Who knows? Maybe John Adams played some ball in his day. Any ideas on the current major leaguer most similar to our second president?

Talent versus hustle

Jim Caple of ESPN.com admits that, given a choice between the two, he'd rather see talented baseball players than ones who hustle on every play. Fair enough. I think most people would rather see Barry Bonds and Kerry Wood slack off than someone like me play his guts out.*

But Caple's missing an important fact here. Virtually everyone who plays in the major leagues has a considerable level of talent. So there's not really a trade-off between players who work hard and players who have innate ability.

I want to see players that hustle. Not because for a couple million dollars a year they can run out groundballs. If the money's what's motivating players to do anything, fine. It's rather sad if that's the case, but that's the way it goes. I want to see players hustle because it's an indication you care, you want to win, and are willing to put in the effort necessary to get it done.

Take tonight's Phillies game against the Cardinals. Albert Pujols, the best hitter this side of Barry Bonds, grounded out to the left side of the infield twice. Neither time did he run hard down to first base. Granted, Pujols doesn't have the best speed, and a ground ball to the shortstop is almost always going to be an out for him. But it's not always. Errors happen. A throw can go errant, the first baseman can bobble the ball. In close games like tonight's, the little things make a difference. And players who don't run out ground balls aren't doing the little things.

I watch baseball to see two teams go all out for the victory. When you don't give your full effort, you're cheating yourself and the fans out of a good, competitive game. Even if you're Albert Pujols. You're a professional athlete! You can run 90 feet.

*I played baseball from 2nd grade through 8th grade. I was awful. As in really really bad. As in gleeful-when-I-made-solid-contact-with-the-ball-even-if-I-got-out bad. My saving grace: I was small and had a small strike zone. I walked a lot. And since Little League catchers aren't all that adept at, er, catching,** that gave me plenty of opportunity to get into scoring position and score runs. Ah, Little League...

**I know. I played catcher.

Strom Thurmond was an old-fashioned Democrat, too!

After reading this brief interview with Samuel Huntingdon, I can't help but wonder if "old-fashioned Democrat" is a euphemism for "like the people who opposed the abolition of slavery and supported institutionalized racism for almost a century after emancipation."

Okay. I admit, that's going a bit too far. But if this off-the-cuff interview is any indication of Huntington's more developed thoughts, he doesn't fit well with any semblance of the Democratic Party of the past forty years, at least.

In a new book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, Huntington argues that the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants is undermining American greatness. What does he have to say to back this up?

Over 50 percent of the immigrants coming into the country are Hispanic, from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. And about half of the people coming into the country speak a single, non-English language. That is totally unprecedented.

Hmm. First of all, I'm not entirely sure that this is a "totally unprecedented" development. Huntington's conception of early America as nearly univerally English-speaking and Protestant notwithstanding, the colonies were pretty damn diverse.

But more importantly: what exactly is the problem here? An unprecedented development is not necessarily a bad one. All Americans having some form of health coverage would be unprecedented, but I can't imagine anyone decrying that.

Huntington seems to be arguing that bilingualism poses a danger to the United States. But he admits that, "There are perfectly decent, responsible, democratic countries, like Canada and Belgium, that are bilingual." Again, where's the problem?

The problem, as Huntington sees it, is that these new immigrants just aren't assimilating. He admits that immigrants have made plenty of contributions to the U.S. in the past.

Immigration has been central to American development, as well as my personal life. My wife is the daughter of an Armenian immigrant who assimilated totally and successfully, as immigrants should.

"Some of my best friends are..." anyone? And let's not even start with the shockingly ahistorical presumptions Huntington makes.

Everything Huntington says is either offensive or nonsensical. I really don't think people should be listening to this guy, even if he can come up with a good title for a book.