Author: JF Ptak

Living in Someone Else’s Hole

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2569

I came across this field drawing in the September 21, 1919 issue of Stars and Stripes. It is called “Home Again”, and depicts the conditions of the homeless in post-WWI Europe…unfortunately I cannot decipher the name of the town, though I suspect it is either Belgian or French (not too much of a leap of faith with that). For the dozens of millions of casualties in WWI, there were also many millions of people left destitute and homeless. This small illustration shows one case, the residents of this town forced to take shelter in the dugouts¹(see below for the OED definitions and history of the word) of an old U.S. Army trench.

Dugouts are more-or-less what the name implies, a shelter dug into the side of a trench to offer cover from shrapnel and the elements; these could be a hidey-hole the size of a soldier, or could be larger to house several soldiers at a time, though in general they were small, cramped affairs, meant to be sat rather than stood in. The design was also governed by the amount of trench depth that you had to work with. Sometimes the dugout would be attached to a tunnel leading deep under the trenches that would house headquarters and such and accompany man more men than the usual occupancy of, say, 1-4 soldiers. These seem to be more expansive than normal, being fully the height of a person, with more enclosure, and an awning.

This strikes me as a particularly difficult image of the post-war situation

The following images are found at the Imperial War Museum, here: http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/podcasts/voices-of-the-first-world-war/podcast-20-trench-life

A simple dugout, no doubt fashioned in necessity according to what was available:

Here’s an example of a more deeply dug dugout (“fifteen feet underground”):

Also, via a find by Public Domain Review, this 1916 soldier’s definition of “dugout”:

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/made-in-the-trenches-a-ww1-magazine-created-by-soldiers-1916/ Original source: Made in the Trenches, composed entirely from articles & sketches contributed by soldiers, edited by Sir Frederick Treves and George Goodchild; 1916; George Allen and Unwin , London.

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World War I
Sound Landscapes of Lost Acoustics

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

There’s a LOT of artistic license in this title, but I like the idea of these acoustical plans as containers of what things sounded like in the halls and auditoriums that no longer exist. This is a big leap of faith given that the work that went into these images was conducted before the first truly scientific/mathematically rigorous architectural acoustics existed. But I like tot think of them as reconstructions of sound in a particular environment. The drawings are also beautiful, inn their way.

Image source: Theodore Lachez, Acoustique et Optique des Salles de Reunions, printed in Paris in 1879. This is the second edition, with 116 text illustrations in the 518pp–these are almost entirely images of plans or elevations of music halls (for the study of seating and the room’s acoustics, etc.). This edition also contains sections on the acoustics of “sales de debats parlementaires” and an examination of the “singular and curious” acoustics of the new Paris opera house.

The book is for sale on the blog’s bookstore; and/or you can have a look at it in full text online, here, at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=MjoIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA315&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Architecture and Building — Calculating — History of Memory
Data Visualization of Surrendered German Arms, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

The 1919 Treaty of Versailles was the peace treaty ending WWI. The 440-clause treaty spent the first two dozen or so clauses discussing the creation of President Wilson’s League of Nations, while the rest was a distribution of punishment and reparations against/on Germany. The German military as directed by Versailles was limited to 100,000 soldiers, and had 1926 machine guns, and 2886 cannons. as stipulated Germany could have no tanks and no air force, and was limited to six ships and no subs, and had to keep the Rhineland free of all armed forces.

This infographic displayed some of what was given over by the Germans. Unfortunately I do not have the original source for this–it may have been from Punch in 1918, though I am not sure. In any event, it is interesting, and descriptive:

See another post (with other links) on this blog regarding German military strength in 1929:

https://historyofideasblog.com/thesciencebookstore/2015/01/interesting-graphic-german-military-forces-1929.html

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Information, Quantitative Display of — World War I
An A to Z-ery of Love and its Associative Bits: the Map of Matrimony, 1879

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2568

Rhinoceros nunquam victus ab hoste cedit–the rhino never turns away defeated from the enemy

And so we begin a look an an allegorical map¹ of matrimony with an allegorical statement comparing marriage to a rhino–this is a first for me, and it may also be an original application of the epigram to (human) marriage. I guess in the mind’s eye this looks as though it might be so, given there’s really no possibility of dealing with a charging rhino weather the Big Boy is charging in happiness or fear, anger or love–it is just going to get you.

The map has a little more guile than this, enumerating the good points of marriage along with some of the bad–surprisingly these states nearly fill an alphabet, which is pretty unusual given that there are only about 50 states and it covers 17 letters (with nothing at all for the last four letters).

And so the carto-geographical indulgence of the alphabet of marriage: Acceptance, Cape of; Brides Bay; Comfort, Cape of; Delight, Cape of; Envy Point; Fickelness, Shoals of; Hope, Cape of Good; Introduction, Bay of; Jealousy, Isle of; Lawyers, Land of; Observation Point; Paymoney Point; Reflection, Whirlpool of; Scandals, Sea of; Tattlers, Land of; Undercurrent Bay; Vanity, Mount of.

[This is clearer when expanded. Source: the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/resource/g9930.ct003856/]

And the full version:

Notes

1. Map of Matrimony on Mercators projection shewing to timid lovers the orbit of affection to the true haven of conjugal happiness. (In upper margin: Puzzle : the second expedition of the Vessel Pinta.)

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Alphabets — Maps, Cartography, History of Mapmaking — Maps/Diagrams of Imagination & Ideas
An Unusual Image Featuring a “Surrender” of London, 1917

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2567

I came upon this image unexpectedly with the sneaking realization that I have rarely (ever?) seen the words “London” and “Surrender” together. But there it was, in the high-end satirical and critical magazine, Punch, or the London Chiaravari, in the January 1917 “Almanack” section. WWI was a war of stunning adjectives, and in 1917 their brutal nature grew even greater. The aerial bombing raids which commenced in 1915 extended to London, thanks in large part to Ferdinand von Zeppelin. During the war there were 50-odd bombing raids to the U.K., causing 1900 casualties, the result of 5000 bombs dropped from airships. In 1917 the raids were more the result of airplane bombing, with 27 raids and 2700 casualties. So compared to WWII standards the damage and casualties inflicted on the population was not great–except of course these people weren’t living in their future, and the practice of dropping bombs from the sky was only a few years old (and the Wright brothers’ flight took place only 11 years before the start of the war) the idea of being blasted by Zeppelins and airplanes must have been a furious worry.

That’s what gives this cartoon such a poignancy, with the great newness of this new fear, the Brits displayed a characteristic “stiff upper lip” in the face of aerial attack–in this case perpetrated by the Count himself. Here is Zeppelin being lowered from one of his airships over a compliant and surrendering London populace–no doubt the “surrender” part being far from anyone’s mind. Zeppelin would be dead in two months, and his airship replaced by a newer adversary, but right here in January, 1917, the Count and the fear of his attacks were being deflated, somewhat, displayed in a ridiculous situation so far removed from reality that its impossible possibility is humorous.

The real thing caused a lot more damage via fear and trepidation than it did with actual casualties–unless you or your family were a casualty, and then it is a different story. But the fear was real, and it was used/displayed in a very provocative recruitment poster:

[Detail]

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Aviation & flight — World War I
Atomic Jello and Henry Darger
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2566

Jello is a powdered gelatin formed of collagen, a cocktail of peptides and proteins from pig skin and cow bones, and “ready to eat”.

It is also basically what glue is.

It is the “glue” part of this thing that brings us together here, to tell a story of atomic bomb secrets given to the Soviets and the U.S. traitors who made it happen.

The story of Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg has been told countless times, and in some of them the hook for the story was this box of Jello. The Jello box was cut in half, and used as an innocuous way for Gold and Greenglass–who each possessed one half of the box–to match up, signifying that each man was communicating with his proper counterpart. Why they thought it was innocuous to be walking around with Jello box parts in their wallets is not known, but they used it successfully, and under this cover of establishing their identities, they carried on their work.

As I said, it is an old story. Back in the mid 1980’s when I thought I wanted to be a journalist one of the stories I dredged up was this one, and I tracked down the Rosenberg kids and interviewed them, and the janitor who cleaned up after the Rosenberg’s deaths in their execution in Ossining, and even to the Rabbi who was probably the last person to see them alive. The story for them gets pretty weepy, and convoluted, but not so much anymore after you read the Venona transcripts regarding them. And that pretty much tells the story, I think.

Anyway, their stories are best told by others elsewhere.

All I wanted to do here was make the passing note that the girl on the Jello box has some resemblance to the girls populating the artwork of Henry Darger, the bleak, fabulous, impossibly-driven Outsider with what was probably a complicated and terribly unsavory fascination with young girls.

I don’t know if this is the exact type of Jello used by the conspirators, though this is what was entered into evidence at the trials of these people, a “replica” of what was believed to be the box, but it is good enough:

[Source: National Archives, here: http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=4655]

Here’s is an example of the (clothed) Darger Vivian girls. I know, I know, he is perhaps one of the great three/four great icons of Outsider art in the 20th century, but all I take away from him is a sense of very very complex creepiness:

[Source: http://www.chicagostagereview.com/the-most-conceptually-encompassing-production-of-2008-%E2%80%93-as-told-by-the-vivian-girls/]
- See an earlier post of mine on Henry Darger and the Campbell Soup Playhouse Schoolroom for Kids, here: https://historyofideasblog.com/thesciencebookstore/2012/09/henry-darger-and-campbell-soups-kids-playitme-schoolroom-1955.html
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Absurdist, Unintentional — Art History — Atomic and Nuclear weapons
The End is Near for You: Germany, May, 1945

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

This incredible map appeared in the May 19, 1945 issue of the Kolnischer Kurier, It was published in Koln, in German, for Germans, but was printed and distributed as news and propaganda by the advancing U.S. Army. It is remarkable that at the tail end of the final offensive there were such forward-thinking people planning in terms like this, dealing with a newly-conquered enemy and trying to organize the thoughts of the population.

[The first twelve issues of the Kolnischer Kurier were published by the Americans; the rest of the newspaper (issues 13-62, 1945-6) were published by the British.]

The map leaves little to the imagination except for what total defeat might bring:

[Kolnischer Kurier map, 19 May 1945, via Veri Josef Weber http://veriweber.de/der-pulverdampf-hat-sich-verzogen/]

The newspaper was extraordinarily, reporting on the Tötungsanstalt Hadamar/Hadamar Euthenasia Center in 1945, the Bergen-Belsen trials at Luneburg in September 1945, the Nuremberg trials (November 1945-September 1946), and much else. Deserving a separate mention is a piece by Thomas Mann on the German concentration camps published nearly on the day of German surrender–Mann makes explicit, personal claims that all Germans are responsible for the atrocities of the concentration camps. (Mann would make a radio address on May 8th exactly on the German soul and the concentration camps, and culpability, and blame, and the morality of the war.

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Maps, Cartography, History of Mapmaking — Maps/Diagrams of Imagination & Ideas
Found Poetry Going into Nothingness (Gestapo Prison, 1944)

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2565

“Everything is transient–even a life sentence.” [Image source: http://www.museenkoeln.de/ns-dokumentationszentrum/pages/764.aspx?s=764#!prettyPhoto ]

So reads the inscription on a wall in one of the cells in the former Gestapo “house prison” at the EL-DE House in Koln. There’s no real telling how many people the Gestapo brought to this place. There were 10 cells in the basement of the building seized of Leopold Dahmen (the “L.D.” of “EL-DE”), but they could be made to hold many people (some as many as thirty) for interrogation and torture. From there, people were sent off to other Gestapo prisons, or to the Buchenwald sub-camp nearby at the fairgrounds, or shot in the head, or executed right there in the basement on a mobile gallows built for seven that was stored next to the kitchen.

The Gestapo negotiated to use the building (Appellhofplatz 23-25, at the corner of Elisenstrasse) and put it to heavy use for the next ten years, arresting and kidnapping social agitators, anti-NSDAP, Communists, Democrats, Gypsies, gays, and others deemed to be detriments to society or threats to the government, where they were questioned, beaten, and then generally sent off to some fatal rendezvous.

The sizable EL-DE Haus survived the 262 air raids on Koln, including the massive (and first) 1000-bomber raid (May 30-31, 1942). The majority of its seized occupants did not survive EL-DE Haus.

Today the building is an historical landmark in the city, a museum of the Nazi era. Many of the inscriptions etched/drawn on the walls of the cells by their prisoners are still visible and have been preserved–some have been restored (in spite of some being painted over in 1979 in a decision no-doubt being either resistant to understanding and full of malicious thought or being entirely thoughtless).

The inscriptions are recorded at the museum’s website ( http://www.museenkoeln.de/ns-dokumentationszentrum/pages/764.aspx?s=764#!prettyPhoto) along with numerous photos of the cells and the structure.

One is particularly lonely, and fearful, and reads in a way like found-poetry of dread unknowing and anticipation:

“7/9/44 Thursday, 8/9/44 Friday;

9/9/44 alone

11/9/44 Monday, 2 Frenchwomen;

12/9/44 Tuesday, 13/9/44 Wednesday, one German woman;

14/9/44 Thursday 15/9/44 Friday

Wednesday 18th October 1044 Been here 26 days,

Thursday 19 October 27 days,

Friday 28th October 28 days,

Saturday 21 October 29 days,

Sunday 22 October 30 days.

So one month here.”

Someone was desperate. trying to capture time spent in the dank place, recording an existence, calling time by its full name, every day. And then off to nothing.

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History of Goodbye — History of Holes
Canary Girls & T.N.T.
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2565

One of the odd, interesting things that might not occur to the casual reader about the scope of the massiveness of WWI is, well, its massive newness in being massive. A significant measure of this is simply the number of people who served, compared to the number of people who served King and country at other times. For example, in 1905, at a high point of empire, there were approximately 450,000 serving; for the length of WWI, something on the order of 7 million men were in uniform. In the first few months of the beginning of the war in 1914, there was nearly this number who enlisted, and then another 300,000 in just another two months later.

Quickly put, this is a new and enormous army, and that means that with an army of millions there are hugely increased demands on keeping the army going–outfitted, fed, housed, equipped, moved, trained, and then, of course, led into battle.

The army needed an army, and in some cases, that army consisted of women, particularly in the munitions industry, where the increased need for a vastly articulated labor force was deeply felt, and which became much more apparent by the the middle of 1915, after the development of the shell shortage. The involvement of women grew greatly after the introduction of military conscription in 1916, and by 1917 something on the order of 80% of all munitions workers in the U.K. were women (according to Christopher Addison, the Minister of Munitions)–there were some 212,000 women in munitions at the end of 1914, by the end of the war there were nearly a million.

That said, these were paying positions, and though the women were in the majority of the workers and therefore of great importance to the production of munitions, they were paid fractionally what the men were being paid.¹

[Source: Horace Nicholls, British Official Photographer, Imperial War Museum IWMQ 30040, “Female munitions workers guide 6 inch howitzer shells being lowered to the floor at the Chilwell ammunition factory in Nottinghamshire, UK.”]

The work was dangerous not only for the obvious reasons, but also for the toxic side effects of working with the chemicals to produce the explosives. That’s where the “Canary² girls” comes in. The name comes from the side effects of workers handling the component chemicals in T.N.T., that would affect the color of the worker’s hair, and skin, and eyes–turning them yellow–and then eventually leading to liver failure. It could also be transmitted to the worker’s babies (known as “canary babies”). It was an issue that was known, and addressed in medical journals during the war; some of the issues in the danger of the toxic elements in creating the munitions were addressed, but certainly not fully, and the work went necessarily on.

Notes:

1. According to the website Spartacus Educational http://spartacus-educational.com/Wmunitions.html “…1918, whereas the average male wage in the munitions industry was £4 6s. 6d. for women it was only £2 2s. 4d” which is nowhere near equal pay.

Here’s a couple of references, the very tip of the tip, of work that has been done on the women munition workers, the first dealing with toxic exposure of the workers to T.N.T. and the second on the munitionettes in general:
- ‘Toxic Jaundice in Munition Workers’, Matthew J. Stewart, M.B.; The Lancet, Volume 189, Issue 4874, 27 January 1917, Pages 153–155
- Munitionettes, 1914-1918 (many links and references), https://munitionettesww1svhlf.wordpress.com/shaping-voices-volunteer-researchers/cherine-maskill/
- Another very good site for images of Munitionettes: Science and Society Picture,Library http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?txtkeys1=Munitionettes
- BBC News “World War One: The risks for women on the home front” http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-26225744
“July 22nd 1916 Today I was shown over the factory as a great favour. First I saw cordite made into charges. Each charge consists of five or six little bagsful and a core. Each little bag is shaped like a lifebelt. The quantity of cordite it contains has to be weighed to a pin’s head. Even the silk it is sewn up with is weighed. Each bag contains a different weight and the five or six are then threaded on the core. The core is made of a bundle of cordite like a faggot. The whole charge is then packed in a box with a detonator. Then I was shown the lyddite works. This is a bright canary yellow powder (picric acid) and comes to the factory in wooden tubs. It is then sifted. The house (windows, doors, floor and walls) is bright yellow, and so are the faces & hands of all the workers. As soon as you go in the powder in the air makes you sneeze and splutter and gives you a horrid bitter taste at the back of the throat. After sifting, the acid is put in cans and stood in tanks where it is boiled until it melts into a clear fluid like vinegar. Then it is poured into the shell case. But a mould is put in before it has time to solidify. This mould when drawn out leaves a space down the middle of the shell. Before it is drawn out beeswax is poured in, & then several cardboard washers put in. Then the mould is replaced by a candle shaped exploder of TNT or some other very high explosive is put in. After this the freeze cap is screwed in and then two screws have to be put in to hold it firm. The holes for these screws must not be drilled straight into the detonator. If they do the thing explodes.” – See more at: http://alphahistory….h.7vwIX7ui.dpuf

2. The canary was as we all know a symbol of life and death in the mines, used to detect carbon monoxide–if the canary in the cage in the mine died, then the miners knew it was time to hustle away. The idea was originated by the fabulously-mustached John Scott Haldane at the end of the 19th c–as it turns out Haldane was a very busy guy who in addition to much else pioneered the gas mask at the beginning of WWI
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Technology, History of — World War I
Is the Dust Jacket Art Better than the Book?

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

The Poison Plague was written by Will Levinrew (William Levine) and published in 1929, and by accounts that I have seen is the birthplace of an early and very competent scientist/detective, Prof. Herman Brierly. I don’t know much about detective fiction from this time period, but I do like this just jacket artwork, and from the little bits that I have been able to find of this novel online I can so far safely say that I like the dj image more than the text.

The stories for The Poison Plague were evidently serialized in Argosy–here’s an interesting ad for the story, set to appear just a week after the ad in 1922, though it took another seven years for the book form to be published);

Levine created an interesting character, though perhaps one of the reasons we don’t know of his prof-gumshoe was how his story was told: the writing seems unbroken in a broken way, waiting for someone to stop it with some good punctuation. Here’s a random sample from one of his other books (available in full online, here http://www.loyalbooks.com/download/text/Death-Points-a-Finger-by-Will-Levinrew.txt):

“Marie LaBelle was cursing fluently the luck that on that occasion had seemed to run all in one direction with Pop Fosdick. Marie hitched up the left half of his suspenders and began his old plaint…” —Death Points a Finger, 1933. Some of Levine’s other works include Murder on the Palisades (1930), Murder from the Grave (1930), and For Sale, Murder (1932).

Anyway, I wasn’t attracted to the book by the writing–it was for the dust jacket art, which is pretty good.

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Books–Great Cover Art