Tag:

Marian Anderson

A City Upon a Hill: JFK Cribs From John Winthrop

John Winthrop was not a minister, but he preached a sermon to his Puritan followers on July 2, 1630 that went down in history as the City Upon a Hill speech.

John Winthrop. American Antiquarian Society

Winthrop delivered his sermon on July 2, 1630. He was 43 years old and he had been in the New World 18 days. His second son, Henry, had just drowned, and another Puritan ship, the Talbot, had arrived after 14 passengers died during the voyage.

Winthrop hadn’t left the Arbella when he delivered his sermon. In it, he listed the qualities he hoped the Puritan colonists would show to the world: communal charity, affection and unity.

He called it ‘A Model of Christian Charity.’ He had no idea that another 43-year-old – a U.S. senator about to become president of the United States — would repeat his words. From on top of a hill.

City Upon a Hill

“For we must consider that we shall be as a City Upon a Hill,” Winthrop said. “The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Kennedy delivers the City Upon a Hill speech

Three hundred thirty one years would pass before President-elect John F. Kennedy climbed the Massachusetts Statehouse steps on top of Beacon Hill to deliver his farewell speech to the General Court.

He had flown into Boston the day before and spent the night in the small Beacon Hill apartment that had served as his official home since 1946.

In 11 days he would take the oath of office as president of the United States. He had already orchestrated the ceremony: Robert Frost would read a poem and Marian Anderson would sing the Star-Spangled Banner. He chose formalwear for men and the Fitzgerald family Bible for swearing the oath.

On January 9, 1961, Kennedy met with the Harvard Board of Overseers to banter with students. He then drove back to Boston to deliver his first speech since the election.

He entered the Massachusetts House of Representatives chamber to thunderous applause. And then he delivered his famous City Upon a Hill speech.

Too Good?

Kennedy said Massachusetts had always been his home, whether he’d been in Washington, London or the South Pacific (carefully omitting the years his family lived in New York). It wasn’t provincial pride, he said, that caused him to hope his grandchildren would be born in the commonwealth. It was the contribution Massachusetts made to the nation’s greatness.

“The enduring qualities of Massachusetts—the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant—will not be and could not be forgotten in this nation’s executive mansion,” he said.

“They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, and my hopes for the future.”

Kennedy reminded his audience that history would judge public servants on their courage, judgment, integrity and dedication.

“We must always consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us.”

Afterward, people compared the speech to Abraham Lincoln’s farewell to the citizens of Springfield, Ill. Kennedy fretted that it was too good, that it would overshadow his inaugural address.

It didn’t.

JFK inauguration

The inaugural speech included the famous line that every Baby Boomer knows by heart:

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

To read the whole City on a Hill speech, click here. To hear the speech, click here. And to watch part of the speech on youtube, click here.

With thanks to Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America By Thurston Clarke and John Winthrop: Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, by Michael Burgan. This story was updated in 2022.

3 comments 596 views

7 Fun Facts About the Camp Fire Girls

In 1910, with Boy Scouts barely a year old, Scouts in Thetford, Vt., were preparing for a part in the town’s 150th anniversary pageant when some of the girls raised a question. Why no scouting organization for them? And from that simple question, Camp Fire Girls was born.

Charlotte Gulick

The town’s school principal took the problem of no scouting organization for girls to two progressive reformers, Luther and Charlotte Gulick. The Gulicks, both born in 1865, firmly believed in physical fitness and the importance of play for children.

The couple believed people needed to tend to their bodies, minds and spirits to be happy and successful. Together they had already planned to establish two summer camps — one for boys and the other for girls — near Raymond, Maine.

Their camps would focus on outdoor training and education, as well as physical exercise.

And so Camp Fire Girls took shape in Thetford as a club and on Sebago Lake as a camp. The Thetford club and the Maine camp formed the nucleus of the national organization, officially incorporated in 1912.

Camp Fire Girls at Lake Sebago

Luther Gulick served as the organization’s first president until he died in 1918. By then, the organization had exploded in popularity. Charlotte Gulick, who would live until 1938, continued her work with Camp Fire Girls after Luther’s death. In the beginning, she had come up with the Camp Fire Girls’ watchword: WoHeLo, which stands for Work, Health, Love.

Here, then, are seven fun facts about the organization now known as Camp Fire.

1. Glady Knight Was a Camp Fire Girl

From the get-go, the Camp Fire Girls welcomed black and Hispanic members. The Gulicks believed in diversity, and they founded the Camp Fire Girls as the first nonsectarian, multicultural, multiracial organization for girls in America.

Well-known alumni include contralto Marian Anderson, Empress of Soul Glady Knight, Today show hostess Sheinelle Jones, actress Rita Moreno, blues singer Janis Joplin and Madonna.

In 1975 the organization diversified to include boys.

2. Youth Fiction

Camp Fire Girls not only appeared in Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys series, they had their own. From 1912 to 1936, authors churned out dozens and dozens of young-adult books about Camp Fire Girls.

Irene Ellion Benson wrote the first book in 1912, titled How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl.

The most prolific, Margaret Vandencook, began writing for the Camp Fire Girls series after her husband’s death. She wrote 21 of them, some under the pseudonym of Margaret Love Sanderson. She also wrote for the Ranch Girls, Red Cross Girls and Girl Scouts series.

In the books they solve mysteries, visit lakes and lagoons, test their friendship, fly around the globe have a weekend party. Aunt Madge makes frequent appearances.

3. Tried To Merge With Girl Scouts

The Camp Fire Girls grew rapidly from the beginning, and might have grown faster had several merger proposals worked. In 1911, they planned to join with the Iowa-based Girl Scouts of America and the Washington-based Girl Guides of America. Together they would call themselves the Girl Pioneers of America. The deal fell through, though, due to personality clashes.

Then in 1912, Juliette Gordon Low proposed merging her Girl Guides group. But the Camp Fire Girls numbered about 60,000 at the time, far larger than Low’s outfit. So that merger didn’t happen either.

4. Parker Brothers Gets Into the Game

In 1926, Salem-based Parker Brothers came up with a Camp Fire Girls board game. Everyone started playing at the same time. Players collected Honor Beads on the way around the board. The game ended when someone entered the “Log Cabin Council Fire,” and the person with the most beads won.

Camp Fire Girls actually used beads to complete projects. When they collected 10, they got a larger bead. Different bead colors meant different things: red for sports and science, green for creativity and orange for home craft, for example.

5. Basketball Hall of Fame

Luther Gulick, Jr., was a medical doctor who founded the physical education department of the YMCA Training School from 1887 to 1900. The training school became Springfield College. Gulick designed a triangular logo for the YMCA, with the sides of the triangle representing spirit, mind and body. That logo lives on as the triangle in the letter “Y” in the modern YMCA logo and in the Springfield College seal. The sides of the triangle represented spirit, mind and body.

Gulick helped inspire James Naismith to invent the game of basketball. He also helped Naismith promote the sport by chairing the Basketball Committee of the Amateur Athletic Union and serving on the U.S. Olympic Committee. For his contribution to the sport, the Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him in 1959.

6. What’s With the Native American Dress?

The Gulicks were influenced by ethnological scholarship on Native American rituals and symbolism. They decided to appropriate Native American dress, ceremonies and symbolism for the Camp Fire Girls. Not only did Native Americans respect nature, but adopting elements of their culture was a way to promote inclusiveness. Or so went the thinking.

Campers would wear clothing inspired by American Indians and learn basic survival skills. They would also adopt symbols and choose names to help “guide them on their journey to self discovery.”

Building a fire

7. World Wars

By 1917, the Camp Fire Girls came into their own. When World War I broke out in Europe, they created the first “Give Service” emblem. When the Send Bundles Overseas project asked for help from the Camp Fire Girls, they were overwhelmed by the response. The girls sold Liberty Bonds, bought and sold Thrift Stamps, helped support French and Belgian orphans, made clothes for soldiers and refugees and maintained Victory Gardens.

During World War II, the Camp Fire Girls ran a Pledge-a-Plane drive, selling war bonds to buy an ambulance airplane. They raised enough to buy such a plane as well as 1,250 Army field ambulances. The girls also collected fat, wastepaper and other salvageable material for the war effort.

This story last updated in 2022. Springfield College logo By Springfield College Brand Book, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20726271.

3 comments 1k views

Marian Anderson Sings at the Lincoln Memorial

It was one of the most extraordinary concerts in history. Marian Anderson sang before 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939. She did it because the Daughters of the American Revolution wouldn’t let her sing before an integrated audience at their Constitution Hall.

Marian Anderson’s rich contralto voice, said conductor Arturo Toscanini, was heard “once in a hundred years.” Her dignified stage manner “melted the hearts of music lovers around the world,” wrote the New York Times. “Her determination helped shatter racial barriers in the arts.”

The Lincoln Memorial concert became a touchstone for the civil rights movement, a poignant symbol of African Americans’ struggle for equality.

Marian Anderson

Born Feb. 27, 1897, she rose from a poor childhood in South Philadelphia to acquire international fame and the warmth of a community in Danbury, Conn.

Until the mid 1930s, she performed mostly in Europe. There, she encountered less racial prejudice than in the United States. She sang everything from classical music to traditional American songs and spirituals.

In the late 1930s, Marian Anderson began to tour the United States, giving about 70 recitals a year. Despite her growing celebrity, she was denied admission to some hotels and restaurants. Albert Einstein helped her out. She first stayed at his house in 1937 when denied a hotel room before she performed at Princeton University.

Marian Anderson, 1940, by Carl Van Vechten. Courtesy Library of Congress.

The DAR’s refusal to let her perform thrust her into the international spotlight as a champion of racial equality. It sparked a furor in Washington, D.C., and a mass protest was planned. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR. She wrote about it in her weekly column. “They have taken an action which has been widely criticized in the press,” she wrote. “To remain as a member implies approval of that action, and therefore I am resigning.”

Then Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to arrange the Lincoln Memorial concert.

The Concert

Anderson later admitted the prospect of that concert terrified her. But, she later wrote,” I could not run away from this situation. If I had anything to offer, I would have to do so now.”

Marian Anderson performed on Easter Sunday, not just to the 75,000 people standing before her, but to millions listening on the radio. Six microphones carried her voice for blocks.

Marian Anderson in front of the Lincoln Memorial..

The concert began at dusk. Ickes accompanied her to the stage under the statue of Abraham Lincoln.

“In this great auditorium under the sky all of us are free,” he said. “When God gave us this wonderful outdoors, He made no distinction of race or creed or color.”

She began with an emotional rendition of My Country ‘Tis of Thee. Then she sang she sang an aria from La favorite by Gaetano Donizetti. She followed that with Ave Maria by Franz Schubert and ended with the spirituals, Gospel Train, Trampin’ and My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord. At the end, the enthusiastic crowd insisted on an encore. She sang, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.

Mitchell Jameson mural, “An Incident in Contemporary American Life,” 1943, inside the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Reaction

The concert lasted only a half hour, but it created a sensation. (Watch newsreel footage of it here.) The crowd rushed the stage, and police had to hold it back.

“I am so overwhelmed, I just can’t talk,” said Anderson when it was over. Then she thanked the crowd “from the bottom of my heart.”

Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, had joined Marian Anderson on stage. As the crowd surged forward, a single figure caught his eye.

It was a slender black girl dressed in somewhat too garishly hued Easter finery. Hers was not the face of one who had been the beneficiary of much education or opportunity. Her hands were particularly noticeable as she thrust them forward and upward, trying desperately, though she was some distance away from Miss Anderson, to touch the singer. They were hands that despite their youth had known only the dreary work of manual labor. Tears streamed down the girl’s dark face. Her hat was askew, but in her eyes flamed hope bordering on ecstasy. Life which had been none too easy for her held out greater hope because one who was also colored and who, like herself, had known poverty, privation, and prejudice, had, by her genius, gone a long way toward conquering bigotry. If Marian Anderson could do it, the girl’s eyes seemed to say, then I can, too.

Danbury

The year after the historic concert, Marian Anderson and her husband, architect Orpheus Fisher, bought a 100-acre farm on Joe’s Hill Road in Danbury. She lived there for 50 years.

The couple built a music studio on the property, now preserved and open to the public in downtown Danbury. They involved themselves in Danbury’s civic life. She joined the Danbury Music Centre board of directors. She also supported the Charles Ives Center for the Arts and the Danbury Chapter of the NAACP. He designed Danbury’s New Hope Baptist Church.

Marian Anderson insisted on being treated like an ordinary person. She would wait in line like everyone else at shops and restaurants. She visited the Danbury State Fair, gave a concert at Danbury High School, and at Christmas she sang at Danbury City Hall for the lighting of the Christmas tree.

Anderson died on April 8, 1993, one day shy of the 54th anniversary of her historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial.

The DAR

The Daughters of the American Revolution have since come full circle. Four years after refusing to let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall, they invited her to perform at a benefit for the American Red Cross. She said she felt no sense of triumph.

When I finally walked onto the stage of Constitution Hall, I felt no different than I had in other halls… I felt that it was a beautiful concert hall and I was very happy to sing there.

The DAR’s Constitution Hall.

Seventy-five years after Marian Anderson’s historic performance, the DAR scheduled a concert to honor her. Then in 2014, the DAR issued a press release.

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is truly honored to celebrate the life, the talent and the legacy of world-renowned opera singer Marian Anderson on the upcoming 75th anniversary of her historic concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

With thanks to Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey by Alan Keiler. This story has been updated in 2022. Image: Constitution Hall By AgnosticPreachersKid at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17979389.

10 comments 574 views