From the Archives: A Word with a Past: Kidnap
In the mid-seventeenth century, the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean were suffering from a labor shortage.
The colonies had originally attracted Britain’s surplus population: dreamers, fortune-hunters, religious nuts, younger sons, prisoners of war, political failures, vagrants, criminals, the homeless, and the desperate. Some came with a small financial stake. Many came as indentured servants. A few were physically coerced onto ships sailing west.*
In 1640s and 1650s, the population base in Britain took a hit. More than eleven per cent of the population died in the English Civil War. (In World War I, Britain’s second most devastating war, the loss was only three percent.) With so many young men killed, the birth rate went down. Consequently, wages went up. Plenty of people must have asked themselves, “Why leave civilization for the colonies?”
With voluntary immigration down, involuntary immigration became more important. The inmates of Britain’s prisons were given a chance at a new life–whether they wanted it or not. Grown men were “Barbadosed”–the seventeenth century equivalent of being shanghaied. (Another word with a past–and ugly imperialist/racist roots–now that I think about it).
Worst of all, children were snatched from their parents and sent to the colonies as indentured servants. As a result, a new word entered English:
Kidnap. .vt. To steal or carry off children or others in order to provide servants or laborers for the American plantations.
*Re-reading this fourteen years** after I originally wrote the post, I realized I slid right past the fact that thousands of Africans were being enslaved and sent to the New World at the same time. Perhaps I notice it now because I’ve been working hard at recognizing my historical blinders.
**Time passes when you’re reading and writing about history.
Charles Dana Gibson and the Great War
Seven days after the United States entered the Great War in April 1917, Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public information, a semi-official propaganda agency headed by journalist George Creel. The goal of the committee was to use mass communication to build support for the war effort.
While much of the committee’s work was aimed at placing articles in newspapers and magazines, Creel understood the power of visual arts. He later wrote:
“Even in the rush of the first days … I had the conviction that the poster must play a great role in the fight for public opinion. The printed word might not be read; people might choose not to attend meetings or to watch motion pictures, but the billboard was something that caught even the most indifferent eye …. What we wanted—what we had to have—was posters that represented the best work of the best artists—posters into which the masters of the pen and brush had poured heart and soul as well as genius.”
Creel appointed Charles Dana Gibson, then president of the Society of Illustrators and one of the best known and highest paid artists in the country, as the head of the Division of Pictorial Publicity. Gibson recruited more the 300 of the country’s top illustrators as unpaid volunteers, urging them to “Draw ’til it hurts.”* Over the course of two years, the division created more than 1400 pieces, including 700 posters for 58 government departments, exhorting Americans to enlist, buy liberty bonds, collect books for soldiers, and avoid waste.
In addition to leading the Division of Pictorial Publicity, Gibson also created satirical ant-German political cartoons for Life magazine. One of the most powerful was “And the Fool, He Called her His Lady Fair,”** which was published on May 7, 1917, only weeks after the United States entered the war. In it, Gibson presents war as a skeletal woman being wooed by a male figure who bears a clear resemblance to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wreathed with cigarette smoke, dripping with jewels, wine dripping in blood-like puddles at her feet, she is long way from the wholesome Gibson Girl.
*Gibson also selected eight artists to travel with the American Expeditionary Force and record scenes from the front lines. The eight, who all were successful commercial illustrators for major magazines. were commissioned as captains in the Army. It was same rank given to accredited war correspondents, and in fact their work can been seen as another type of war reporting. If you want to know more about their story, you can read an article I wrote about it here. But I digress.
**A line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Vampire.”
“When in the course of human events”–you know how it goes from here
Here in the United States, we are celebrating the 4th of July.
It’s a hot day in Chicago, where I live. The city is hosting a NASCAR race and Mensa’s Annual Gathering—two events that may never have been in such close proximity before. There will be official fireworks in suburbs throughout the area, though none in Chicago itself, and unofficial fireworks in the park across the street from my house and the alley behind it. (Well into the early hours. Ms. Whiskey and I will not be happy.) The city’s parks are full of families setting up canopies, lawn chairs, folding tables loaded with food, and charcoal grills.
Personally, I plan to attend my neighborhoods’ “everyone marches” parade.
I also plan to take a few moments to think about why we are celebrating. The promise that has not yet been completely fulfilled but which stands at the core of who we are as a nation:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is a promise worth remembering, and worth fighting for.