Woody Guthrie & That Famous Song

Woody Guthrie 1943

Loretta reports:

Some years ago, I visited an exhibition about Woody Guthrie. I hadn't high expectations. My folk-singing days were (luckily for the listening public) centuries behind me, and I thought I knew as much about him as I needed to: He was a folk music hero, he was Arlo Guthrie’s father, he was a strong early influence on Bob Dylan, and he wrote “This Land Is Your Land.”

The show was an eye-opener. Woody Guthrie turned out to be vastly more interesting than I’d supposed. But I won’t attempt to summarize his short, extremely creative life in a blog post. There’s abundant material in this Wikipedia entry, and this New Yorker review offers some insights and anecdotes.

Today, on his birthday, I just want to talk about the famous song. If you don’t know it, you can find all kinds of versions on YouTube.

What you probably won’t find easily is a version of “This Land is Your Land”containing the lyrics he originally wrote. It wasn't quite the paean to the U.S.A most of us assume it is.

One version of the last stanza is:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.

Here’s an article on the subject. You can read other versions of the lyrics here, and here’s what seems to be the first draft.

As to the copyright, here's what he wrote: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do."

You can hear Woody Guthrie singing it here (minus that last stanza):

Image: Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, 1943 courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Dine Like George IV & Mrs. Fitzherbert

Isabella reporting,

As Nerdy History Girls, we're always on the search for historical this-and-that to share with you. Museums, historical societies, and other public collections are our favorite hunting grounds, but auction houses, too, can often provide unique things worth sharing. Auctions often feature fine art and other pieces that are only briefly in the public eye; they're put up for sale by one private collector, then bought by another, then disappear once again.

This fantastic centerpiece for a dining table may soon fall into that category. Currently owned by a private collector, it's part of a large assembled table service from the early 19thc. that will be auctioned this week by Skinner, Inc in Boston.

Standing an impressive 32 inches high (without candles!), the centerpiece is made of ormolu, a bronze alloy that was coated with a high-carat gold-mercury amalgam. Also known as gilt bronze, ormolu was popular in the 18th-19thc. for its opulence. It had all the flash of pure gold, but was less costly and substantial than all gold or gold over silver, and could be cast into all kinds of fanciful, showy shapes like this French tureen.

Opulence in dining was definitely on the upswing in the late 18thc. Most modern Americans eat at least one take-out meal a day, usually hastily consumed at the desk or in front of a TV or computer. To affluent Georgians, however, the last meal of the day was meant for lengthy display as well as lavish sustenance. Not only did the number of silver spoons, knives, and forks begin to increase, but decorative table pieces proliferated as well.  Everything was calculated to display the wealth and taste of the host and hostess, and impress their guests.

There was even a fashionable change in how food was served, moving away from à la française (similar to modern family style service), where all the meal's dishes appeared on the table at once, to à la russe, where food was brought to the table by servants in courses. Sevice à la russe offered more table-space for decorative pieces like this centerpiece, as well as more wealth on display in the form of additional liveried footmen hurrying back and forth from the kitchen.

The design of this centerpiece is in the latest fashion. Not only are the trio of bacchante with grapes in the best classical tradition, but the three sphinx supporting the base reflect the new popularity of Egyptian motifs, spurred on both by recent archaeological discoveries and by Napoleon's Egyptian campaigns.

This centerpiece has several important names associated to it that many Regency fans will recognize. The centerpiece was made by the London firm of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, the most celebrated jewelers and goldsmiths of the era. It's also inscribed with the Royal coat of arms.  The provenance provided to the current owner states in part that the centerpiece was "formerly the property of a Nobleman; given by George IV to Mrs. Fitzherbert." It's easy to imagine Prinny approving those three half-clad female figures holding the grapevine wreath and glass dish.

In addition to this centerpiece, the auction will include a pair of six-light candelabra, a pair of three-tier etageres,  a pair of brûle-parfums (incense burners), and a surtout de table, a long mirrored centerpiece to reflect everything else. But you'll need deep pockets to dine like Regency royalty: the total pre-sale estimates for these pieces is about $42,000, and they will likely go for much more.

Update: The centerpiece did in fact go for more than the starting estimate of $8,000 - much more. At auction on July 18, it fetched an impressive $38,130. Prinny would be proud.

Photograph courtesy of Skinner, Inc.

Breakfast Links: Week of July 6, 2015

• Fashion and consumption during the first World War: fascinating on-line exhibition.
• A complicated case of 18thc. bigamy.
• A pair of portraits of Waterloo veteran Sir Richard Hussey Vivian - and the very different statements they make.
• An incredible American genre: "Lost Friends" ads published by ex-slaves searching for families and friends.
• Image: Marie-Antoinette's private library at the Petit Trianon at Versailles.
• Remembrance of things lost: are we forgetting the important things of our personal pasts?
• When science and fiction collided: the great moon hoax of 1835.
• "Prick't by Benedictus": blessed thistle and Much Ado About Nothing.
• What are under-servants offices in an 18th-19thc. household?
• Image: Sir Briggs, horse of Lord Tredegar of the 17th Lancers, ridden at Balaklava, 1854; Briggs survived the Charge of the Light Brigade & was unofficially knighted for his bravery.
• Bringing Thomas Jefferson's battered tombstone back to life.
• Creepy caves: the mystery of Mortimer's Tunnel.
• An unusual source for fashion history: church monuments.
• London Particular: how a fog named after a soup became a soup named after a fog.
• Image: Rotten Row in the 1890s.
• The revolution has been digitized: explore the oldest archive of radical posters relating to labor, civil liberites, feminism, anarchism, and other political movements.
• Nineteenth century dog names.
• A unique embroidered folding fan, 1590-1630.
• Amasa Delano, the Tryal, and the problem of racism in the early American Republic.
• How the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, came to be in 1764.
• Alexander Burnes: diplomat, spy, charmer, deceiver.
• Splendid resource: an online historical thesaurus.
• Image: Now this is a book cover!
• Photographing the real bodies of incorrupt saints.
• The original Tiffany & Co. factory in NYC, an 1864 brick building on Prince Street that still survives.
• How a desert snail spent years in the 19thc. glued to a specimen card in the British Museum before anyone realized it was still alive.
• Image: Because Victorian children's books never tired of the notion of incinerating their target audience.
• Vita Sackville-West's erotic poetry to her lover emerges after an "intoxicating night."
• American girls in early 20thc. cigarette cards.
• Inside the remains of the 14thc. Charnel House, the oldest building in Spitalfields, London.
• "I am afraid you must stop writing these little love letters to my husband while he and I live together": Literary treasures from the Harry Ransom Center, TX.
• Image: Just for fun: who writes novels?
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.

Friday Video: How to Swear Like a Brit

Anacreonticks in Full Song

Loretta reports:

Turning to the wonderful world of words, and differences between American and British English, I present a short course in swearing.

Image: James Gillray, Anacreonticks in Full Song, courtesy Wikipedia.


Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to view it at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.
 
Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Two Ladies Visit Windsor Castle c.1775, and Facebook Takes Notice

Isabella reporting,

Social media has its faults, but it's also a wonderful boon to us Nerdy History folks. Not a day (ok, even an hour) goes by that I don't learn something new thanks to Twitter, FB, or Instagram.

This post will be the proof. Last night, I put a small detail shot, left, of one of my favorite paintings on my Instagram account, which then kicked over to my Facebook page, too. These two ladies and a child are from The North Terrace at Windsor Castle, Looking East, by Paul Sandby. I've stood before this painting many times at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's a sizable picture (see it here), nearly 40" x 50", and the figures - there are several more besides these three - are dwarfed by the castle's tower and the vast sky. But the figures are surprisingly detailed nonetheless, and I was able to take several close-up photos that could be enlarged for further study.

These close-ups offer some fascinating depictions of 1770s fashions, which is why I posted them for my costume-history friends. What I didn't expect was the wonderful online discussion that developed. I'm consolidating the results of this discussion here, to share it with our NHG readers as well. As always, click on the images to enlarge them.

The lady on the right is wearing a red gown with the skirts looped up over a matching petticoat. It's hard to tell if she's wearing a true polonaise gown, or simply copying the style. The white bands around her waist are the strings of her apron, tied in front. Aprons could be a high-fashion accessory, and though hers doesn't show, it's likely a fancy counterpart to her sheer white linen sleeve ruffs. Around her neck is a kerchief, probably linen or cotton, with a decorative edging (pleats?), and around her throat she's wearing a thin black ribbon that seems to have a white bow in the back.

But it's her bonnet, right, that makes the true fashion statement. Worn low over her eyes, it's probably made of white silk, and features a quarter-moon shaped bill with a full round caul and plenty of pleated ruffles. (Here's a similar modern replica via Colonial Williamsburg.) Her hair appears lightly powdered, too, to give it that dusty-grey look.

The second lady, lower left, is dressed for stylish sight-seeing. She is wearing a burnt-orange Jesuit, a long, hooded jacket with a hood folded back on her shoulders, and buttons up the front. Worn for travel, Jesuits (and their cousins, Brunswicks) were often made of light silk. She has a white kerchief around her neck, and her extravagant ruffled cap seems to have a loop of ruffles beneath the chin, over the black ribbon around her throat. Her green parasol has a carved knob at the end of the handle. It appears that she's carrying a similar hooded garment for the child over her arm.

And that child, lower right, attracted the most discussion last night. I'd assumed at first that because of the ruffled cap, the child was a girl, but others suggested that instead it's a young boy. Eighteenth century. boys wore long gowns much like girls until they were "breeched" (dressed in the same style breeches worn by adult men), usually between the ages of three and six; boys of higher rank were breeched later, sometimes being as old as eight. The close-fitting, collarless jacket that the child-who-may-be-a-boy is wearing would have been considered male. It's also vaguely like a 16th or 17thc. doublet, with a soft linen collar and what may be puffs of the shirt beneath pulled through the front opening, a romantic homage to the past that was very popular in the later 18thc. On the other hand, the child is tall to be an unbreeched boy, so she may instead be a girl, dressed in a 16thc. Mary Stuart-inspired jacket.

So that's what we decided about the dress of these "supporting" figures - but feel free to add any observations or thoughts of your own as a comment. I'd love to learn more!

Many thanks to all the contributors to this post: Angela Trowbridge Burnley, Sharon Burnston, Mark Hutter, Hallie Larkin, Samantha McCarty, Cassidy Percoco, Connie Bitz Unangst, Ruth Verbunt, Katy Werlin,  Chris Woodyard. 

The North Terrace at Windsor Castle, Looking East, by Paul Sandby, c. 1775-1780, Philadelphia Museum of Art.