Merry, Happy, Jolly, Blessed, etc
This year My Own True Love and I are heading off on a holiday adventure. Unless I stumble across a story that I need to tell you RIGHT NOW, I’ll be back on January 1st, or maybe the 2nd, with some great stories from the corners of history, some books you ought to read, some things I’ve been mulling over, and occasional news about MY BOOK, MY BOOK.* In other words, business as usual.
In the meantime, have a merry/jolly/happy/blessed time as you celebrate the victory of light over the darkness in the tradition of your choice.
*Speaking of which, I got an early Christmas present this week. I learned that Booklist, the review magazine put out by the American Library Association, is giving Women Warriors a starred review. This is a Big Deal in the book world. I am particularly pleased with this snippet:
“Cutting a broad swath across continents and conflicts, she provides one story after another of women who fought hard for their people, their tribes, and their countries. Her captivating writing style, which is marked by disarmingly cheeky footnotes, makes this trip through so much forgotten history an exceedingly pleasurable reading experience.”
1948: A Year in Review
1948 is not one of those years with a big anniversary that’s celebrated throughout Historyland.* That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few events worth some attention from the assembled Marginalia. More than I expected in fact.
The big stuff:
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30th by a Hindu fanatic who believed Gandhi offered too much support to India’s Muslim community.
Under the leadership of Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the European Recovery Program, commonly known as the Marshall Plan, went into effect in April, 1948. Marshall, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, described the goals of the plan in high-minded terms: “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.” Over the course of three years, the United States poured $12 billion into rebuilding Western Europe. The Marshall Plan is lauded as a great humanitarian effort, but not everyone who backed it brought the same altruism to the project as Marshall. Congress approved the plan in part because members feared that the rapid deterioration of European economies in the winter of 1946-1947 left European countries open to the lure of communism. Can you say Cold War? (Make sure you read the comments: reader and friend Iris Seefeldt has some personal reflections on the Marshall Plan that you don’t want to miss.)
It was a year of nation building—with complex, often violent, results. Israel declared itself an independent nation. Ceylon ( now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and South Africa all gained their independence from the British Empire. South and North Korea proclaimed themselves to be independent republics
And speaking of the Cold War:
- On June 24, the Soviets attempted to force the Western allies to abandon Berlin by blockading the city. For eleven months the Western powers airlifted supplies into the city: 277,000 flights carried 2.3 million tons of goods into the city.
- The House Un-American Activities Committee accused Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union
- Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia
Brrr!
President Harry S Truman ended racial segregation in the U.S. Military.
He also signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act into law on June 12, 1948. Intended to allow women to serve as permanent members of the armed services after the war, the bill met with serious opposition despite the support of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. The bill’s opponents were not able to stop its passage, but they were able to impose serious restrictions on women’s ability to serve. The final bill capped female enlistment at 2 percent of the total armed force of the United States and banned women having command authority over men.
Geologists working for Standard Oil discovered Al-Ghawar oil-field, the world’s largest conventional oilfield, in Saudi Arabia.
The United Nations created the World Health Organization and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The small stuff:
Peter Goldmark invented the long-playing phonograph album. His timing was good. That same year Leo Fender marketed the first solid-body electric guitar.
Bread rationing ended in Great Britain—three years after the end of WWII. (See Marshall Plan above)
Two steps forward: George de Mestral invented Velcro.
Two steps back: Food critic Duncan Hines founded a company to make cake mixes. (I didn’t even know he was a person.)
Anything you’d like to add? Tell us in the comments.
* Let’s face it, the 70th anniversary of anything other than a happy marriage doesn’t have the emotional oomph of the 50th or the 75th.
Looking for a few good people
Women Warriors comes out on February 26. From your perspective, that probably sounds like I still have a lot of time to get ready. From my perspective, it feels like next week.
One of the hard truths of publishing is that no one can buy a book she doesn’t know exists. I’m doing everything I can to be sure that people know about Women Warriors. But my reach only goes so far. I’m hoping some of you are willing to help me spread the word to people you think would be interested: on social media and in real life. And I want to make it as easy for you as possible.
If you’re interested in being on my “launch team,” let me know. I will send you a few emails during the weeks around the book launch with things you can share and some inside peeks into the process. I won’t bombard you—quite frankly, I won’t have time. I won’t share your email, ever. (That’s true for this newsletter too. Cross my heart.)
Many thanks.
Next week, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming here on the Margins. I’m thinking a peek at 1948.
(1) My apologies to those of you who already received this request in my newsletter on December 5. (2) And many thanks to those of you who already said yes. I don’t usually duplicate material from the newsletter on the blog, or vice versa. This is one of the few times when I want to be sure I reach everyone who reads my stuff.
(2) You didn’t know I have a newsletter? That’s probably because I do a lousy job of promoting it. Every two weeks, I send out a newsletter in which I talk about the process of writing and thinking about history–or at least my process. History is not a one size fits all proposition). I share news when I have it and give you a peek into the to-be-read shelves. What I don’t do in the newsletter is share the kind of historical stories I tell here on the margins.
If the newsletter sounds like something you’re interested in, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/dIft-b