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Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We still have time to mess this up!

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

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People are weird.

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Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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When I was faster i was always behind.

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Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

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You are here: Home / Politics / America / One Hundred and Fifty-Four Years Ago: The Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

One Hundred and Fifty-Four Years Ago: The Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

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(Lincoln Address Memorial, US National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA)

One hundred and fifty-four years ago today Abraham Lincoln gave an address to dedicate the national cemetery. He did so about 300 yards from where the memorial in the picture above stands, hence the explanatory marker in the lower left. Lincoln’s address, now known as the Gettysburg Address, was written in DC and revised upon his arrival in Gettysburg.

As is often the case with historic documents before the advent of carbon paper, let alone photocopying, word processors, and computers, there are multiple surviving versions of Lincoln’s dedicatory remarks. This includes two copies written before the speech, including the actual reading copy, and three others prepared for specific individuals after the speech. You can read all five versions here. The Nicolay copy, which was written on White House stationery also includes Lincoln’s revisions and additions after his arrival in Gettysburg on a second page of foolscap, is the reading copy he delivered at Gettysburg on 19 November 1863.

The Nicolay Copy (2nd and Reading Draft) of the Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow, this ground—The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us —that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

(Nicolay Copy of the Gettysburg Address)

And here is what I always think of as the definitive documentation of how President Lincoln drafted his remarks.

 

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    And here is what I always think of as the definitive documentation of how President Lincoln drafted his remarks.

    This explains much.

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    I was just looking at one of those. His writing is so clear and concise yet poetical. Is it true that the speaker before him talked for two hours?

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    Remember reading that one of Trump’s tacky properties has a historical marker for a Civil War battle that never actually took place.

  10. 10.

    BBA

    @Baud: I put it earlier, during the Grant administration, when they turned their backs on the freedmen and lost Reconstruction to the Klan.

  14. 14.

    PhoenixRising

    As I texted my kid, who is touring MA colleges this weekend and near the memorial to the 54th Massachusetts:

    154 years ago today, the home schooled autodictact president, whose mom taught him to read then let him figure out everything else for himself, gave this speech. It’s pretty good. In fact, it’s one of the 2 speeches he gave that are carved in stone at his monument in DC. The other one is probably stronger but this one is better known.

    Abe Lincoln is crying over today’s Republicans, not just our current POTUS. He taught himself everything he knew and kept learning throughout his life.

  16. 16.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Baud: There was a shift then, but the Republican Party was not a stable grouping to begin with, and Lincoln’s death and Andrew Johnson’s presidency tilted things in the wrong way for Reconstruction.

    The Republicans included people who opposed slavery for various reasons and in various degrees. The Radical Republicans wanted to end slavery in all forms and places RIGHT NOW. On the other end of the spectrum were Northern businessmen who opposed slavery because it hurt their business. Lincoln tried to find a middle way. Johnson was much more sympathetic to the South and gave them a lot of leeway in recovering from the Civil War. That led to the insurgency typified by the Ku Klux Klan, the failure of Reconstruction, and Jim Crow.

  17. 17.

    Felonius Monk

    @Mike in NC:

    one of Trump’s tacky properties has a historical marker for a Civil War battle that never actually took place.

    And someday it will have an historical marker for a presidency that never actually took place.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer: Sometimes I feel like the period between the Civil War and Teddy Roosevelt are a lost period of American history. I’m trying to finish a Truman book right now. But after that, I hope to find something covering that time period.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    @Cheryl Rofer

    the Republican Party was not a stable grouping to begin with

    Oft forgotten is the schism which occurred during Lincoln’s first term, resulting in him not being listed on the ballot as the Republican nominee when elected to his second term (party re-unification occurred not long after).

  23. 23.

    CaseyL

    @Baud: That “in between” era fascinates me.

    On the one hand, it was probably the “free-est” time in US history, as people moved west and experimented with different economic-political structures. There was always more room to go to. A lot of freed slaves went west as well. And women. Anyone who was courageous and adventurous could try to make a new life in the West – didn’t mean you’d succeed, or even survive, but you could try.

    On the other hand, that mobility and freedom was only possible because the “Indian Wars” intensified, and finished off the task of dispossessing an entire people of their country, killing off entire nations in the process.

  24. 24.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Baud:
    It very much so is. The South should have been occupied far more longer than it was and the Freedmen’s Bureau given more teeth. The plantations should have been confiscated by the Union Federal gov, portions preserved like the Nazi death camps and the rest of the lands redistributed to former slaves if they wanted to farm or form communities. Educational and employment opportunities should have been expanded. Every 15 years or so the president would decide if the former Confederate states were ready for readmittance. Most importantly, a new and formal public school system would be set up to teach children about equality and racial along with the normal school subjects.

    A lot of that wasn’t politically possible, but should have happened.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Johnson was much more sympathetic to the South and gave them a lot of leeway in recovering from the Civil War.

    The Republicans explicitly gave up on Reconstruction to buy the disputed 1876 election for Rutherford B. Hayes. Wikipedia:

    An informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute: the Compromise of 1877, which awarded all 20 electoral votes to Hayes. In return for the Democrats’ acquiescence to Hayes’s election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South to end the Reconstruction Era of the United States. The compromise effectively ceded power in the Southern states to the Democratic Redeemers, who went on to pursue their agenda of returning the South to a political economy resembling that of its pre-war condition, including the disenfranchisement of black voters.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    There’s a biography of Rutherford B. Hayes by Ari Hoogenboom that’s pretty good.

    Full disclosure: Am acquainted with the author.

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    It is one of the greatest speeches ever given. Lincoln was a genius, weaving biblical imagery with American history, hopes and dreams and attaching all of that to the effort to make this nation more like its promise. It is impossible to overestimate those words and the weight they carried not just at the time (when public opinion was not solidly in favor of the war) but as a light to guide us toward a future with the chance to be the nation we promised to be.

    @Mary G: YES! Everett Horton was the greatest oritor of his time & he followed the style of the time which dictated excessive time be spent on important events. Never seen a copy of his talk though.

  31. 31.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @JPL:
    Unless they’re absolutely forced to, nothing. The GOP is all in on authoritarianism and wants to turn America into a one-party dictatorship while pretending we’re a true representative democracy. At least other authoritarian states are more open about being police states. Lincoln would be appalled.

  36. 36.

    The Lodger

    @Schlemazel: You’re thinking of the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.
    ETA: I’m talking about Edward Everett Horton.

  37. 37.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Steeplejack: Thanks. I’m not all that well acquainted with that era, either.

    What I do know about is the origin of the Republican Party and its early days, having gone to college in the Birthplace of the Republican Party.

    The Democrats were the bad guys then and continued their flirtation with the Confederacy up through the days of Bobby Bird and Strom Thurmond. It’s only since Nixon and since those guys died that all the racists moved over to the Republican Party.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think the GOP left the field of civil rights almost completely between Roosevelt and LBJ.* All the action was between Dem liberals and Southern Dems.

    * No Fuck LBJ because the topic is civil rights.

  43. 43.

    Schlemazel

    @NotMax:
    I was thinking more world history but really how much do we really know about what caused Prohibition and the depression?

  44. 44.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Baud: Well, the Republicans had their thing going with the John Birchers and Taftites against the Northeastern Internationalists. The latter were actually quite reasonable in some ways, and often good at diplomacy. GHW Bush did a good job of handling the breakup of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany.

    The Republican Party is now in the hands of the Birchers and worse. The Northeastern Internationalists, with the exception of maybe Max Boot, have become Democrats.

    ETA Poor old Robert Taft has been forgotten.

  45. 45.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud: No Fuck LBJ because the topic is civil rights.

    What? Did I miss something because LBJ did more for civil rights than any President has done since the unpleasantness at Ford Theater

  46. 46.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Schlemazel:
    True. Television was invented then. Modern rocketry was being born around that era. Car ownership was slowly increasing and commercial flight arose during that time.

    OT: For the past few weeks, I’ve been listening to the old Superman radio show that started in 1940 in podcast form. The writing has holes in it and unpleasant racial/gender stereotypes but at times can seem oddly progressive re: Lois Lane punching a guy out and escaping. What keeps me listening I guess is the simplicity of the stories. There are no supervillains yet so contrivances have to be made up to stop Superman from stomping the bad guys. The other thing I don’t like is that Clark Kent is treated as the “mask”.

    It’s a minor thing but I always liked the idea that Superman and Clark Kent are just different parts of him.

  48. 48.

    Ladyraxterinok

    Anyone here read any of John Ringo’s science fiction books? A small number aren’t tooo bad, but all are filled with an incredible amount of killing. In some, a strong view of women as sexual beings for men.

    He’s fixated on Nathan Bedford Forrest (confed general who founded the KKK). In several of his series, the statue of Forrest is a rallying point.

    Ringo’s admiration for Forrest led me to look him up. That’s when I learned he founded the KKK. Ringo praises F’s military skill…never mentions KKK role. I assume he’s well aware of it.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @Mike J: We’ve been talking a lot about Bill Clinton lately, but I believe it was during his administration (and during the Gingrich period) where that transformation really became complete. The Clinton period is really when white male political hegemony started to corrode.

  50. 50.

    Schlemazel

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I’d disagree with your take on pappy grab ass. The US allowed the SOviet Union to fester & fall into the hands of the Russian mob because the GOP badly needed an enemy & had not yet invented Iraq

  55. 55.

    dm

    Garry Wills’ Lincoln at Gettysburg is an excellent read, with a close examination of the words of the speech, and a discussion of how it came to be written and delivered, situating the speech in its time and in history.

    There is also a chapter on how it was that Edward Everett ended up talking for two hours.

    Buy it through the Balloon Juice Amazon link, maybe?

  59. 59.

    Schlemazel

    @Ladyraxterinok:
    Forrest was something of a military genius but an inflamed asshole who made his money selling humans & after the war a bitter deadender. I believe from the way he is worshiped in those books that that John is sympathetic to ‘the cause’. I refuse to buy or even check them out at the library, fuck him

  61. 61.

    laura

    @Baud: it’s an interesting, yet under-covered period of time. Industrialization, tremendous labor strife, waves of immigration on both coasts, wealth generation, transcontinental rail, and the gold rush which funded tremendous scientific advances via exploration and the Panama Canal.
    There’s many ways to approach this period including the literature of the time.

  65. 65.

    raven

    Report from Alabama. We saw one Roy Moore sign way out in the boonies and, while hitting a BBQ in Eufala we saw 4 Doug Jones signs. Also, I’m glad I bought and iPhone 7 Plus with the new double lens camera. Here’s the first sunset.

  67. 67.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Schlemazel: It’s absurd to say that the US “allowed” a major nation to do anything. We have never had that sort of power and never will. It was internal dynamics and the good sense of the US to follow George Kennan’s advice in his long telegram (mostly) for 40+ years that brought down the Soviet Union. Kennan’s advice was mainly “Let their internal contradictions take them down.”

    When the Soviet Union started to come apart, the big worry for us was whether Gorbachev would feel it necessary to use force to try to reverse the movements for independence in the satellites and republics. Gorbachev’s basic approach was nonviolent, and GHW helped support that by a unilateral drawdown of nuclear weapons. What happened after 1991 is on Clinton’s watch if you want to go that way. I disagreed with the privatization schemes and would have preferred to see a Marshall Plan offered. But Russia’s own structures and expectations contributed the most to the rise of the oligarchs. Looking back, I’m not sure Russia would have accepted a Marshall Plan or would have made good use of it.

    There were indeed some who wanted the BIG ENEMY to continue being our enemy, and I encountered some of that. But I think your characterization is much too simplistic.

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    that started in 1940 in podcast form

    For want of a comma….   ;)

    Trivia: Bud Collyer, the voice of Supes, had an artificial leg. Kryptonite was created for and introduced into the Superman canon by the radio show writers.

    If you fancy Old Time Radio and have the patience to work through a few episodes (around 10 minutes each) to get into its rhythm, recommend Vic and Sade. Gentle surrealism is an apt description.

  69. 69.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Baud: Actually the episode in question with Lois Lane aired in 1940 before American involvement. Interestingly, in 1946, the “Clan of the Fiery Cross” story series was broadcast and allegedly did a ton of damage to the KKK’s prospects in the North.

  71. 71.

    bemused senior

    @Cheryl Rofer: Eric Foner Reconstruction. TNCoates recommended it to the Hoard when he was studying slavery an the civil war before writing his reparations article.

  77. 77.

    Mary G

    @Aleta: That was an excellent article about Edward Everett.

    The next day, he wrote to Lincoln: “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

    A good sport!

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe)

    IIRC, that KKK episode aired concurrently with publication of an interview Collyer did with Time magazine in which he spoke positively about civil rights. (He was a far rightist on other issues over the span of his life, however.) Also might have been the first time a name was publicly attached to the voice of Supes/Clark.

  79. 79.

    PJ

    @Schlemazel: The Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. GW Bush was President for less than two years during that time. He bears his share of blame, but the bulk of it needs to be placed on Clinton and Congress during the rest of the 90s, which propped up Yeltsin and sent in people like Jeffrey Sachs to encourage the wholesale dismantling of the remnants of the Soviet economy and transferring it to the future oligarchs, without any economic or legal protections for ordinary citizens. We should have had the equivalent of the Marshall Plan, helping the former Communist countries transition to the rule of law, democracy, and a balanced market economy, but instead it was lots of foam-fingering “We won the Cold War!” and making sure US investment banks collected their obscene fees on all the privatization deals.

  81. 81.

    Gin & Tonic

    The Gettysburg PowerPoint is perfectly brutal. Can’t link now, you’ll have to look it up yourselves.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @Aleta:

    That he was able to speak for two hours, without notes, was all the more impressive for a kidney ailment that often required him to urinate (a small tent had been placed discreetly nearby, and what he called a “pot-de-chambre” placed inside).

    Oh God, Trump’s going to do this at the next SOTU, isn’t he?

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: What’s it going to take to slide you into one? We’ve got five models, from the base Nicolay model to the Hays, to three beefed up models for the aftermarket! With the holidays we can do a really good financing package for you…

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: Also, they’d spent the past four months doing nothing but cleaning all the dead horses and dead Soldiers and all the other crap off their fields and out of their orchards. So…

  91. 91.

    frosty

    @Schlemazel: There’s a recent history of that era in Eastern Europe (ex-Austria Hungary) called The Vanquished. The war didn’t end for everyone on Armistice Day.

  92. 92.

    PhoenixRising

    @SFAW:
    Wellesley, Mt Holyoke, Smith, MIT

    in order of her level of interest at the end of Sunday. I used to work in the Hub but she and my wife had never been, so they took a 5 day whirlwind. She liked the professors at Wellesley the most, the coach at Holyoke was great, and MIT…is full of nerdy boys who astonished her by blurting out wrong answers and then talking more when informed that they were incorrect instead of shutting up and taking notes. So 2 more of the 7 sisters are still on her list, but MIT and Cal Poly are off.

  97. 97.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Miss Bianca:
    I think that was a common portrayal of Lois beginning in the Golden Age. That ended in the Silver Age and didn’t return until the Bronze Age in the 70s and early 80s. In 50s and 60s she was obsessed with marrying Superman, apparently.
    @NotMax:

    Yeah I read that Kryptonite was introduced by the show and so was the character of Jimmy Olsen into the comics. I’ll have to check that show out.

  98. 98.

    Duane

    There’s a book called “The Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln”. A collection of writings by and about Lincoln. It’s a huge book, but easy to read.

  99. 99.

    raven

    @Baud: If you are thinking Apple don’t forget to check their reforms. The really go over the device and you get the same guarantee as a new one. I saved $50 on the iPad 2017 and it’s already quite affordable.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: @Miss Bianca: Not only that, he was fighting the KKK:
    https://io9.gizmodo.com/superman-will-fight-the-ku-klux-klan-in-a-new-movie-bas-1794798677

    In 1946, Stetson Kennedy approached the producers of the popular The Adventures of Superman radio drama series with a novel idea: the Man of Steel should take on the KKK as a response to the organization’s post-WWII rise in popularity. Stetson, who had recently infiltrated the Klan in an effort to learn about their secrets, suggested crafting a story in filled with codewords and rituals the group used so as to expose some of their practices to the public.

    Stetson’s collaboration with the producers led to the ratings giant Clan of the Fiery Cross arc for the show and now Lotus Entertainment and Paperchase Films are adapting the story of Stetson’s work into a film.

    “Fighting the forces of evil with brain over brawn, artists taking down bullies and the power of a good piece of content, it’s a real case of truth being cooler than fiction,” producer Marc Rosen told Deadline. “We’re excited to develop the thriller elements of the film in the vein of The Departed and Mississippi Burning.”

    The film’s being adapted from author Rick Bowers’ novelization of Stetson’s story and doesn’t have a release date as of yet.

  102. 102.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    For what it’s worth, Ta-Nehisi Coates also recommends Foner’s book Reconstruction. (No link; I’m going by a note in my “books to read” file.)

  103. 103.

    Schlemazel

    @NotMax:
    The orator at Gettysburg was Everett Horton, the cartoon guy was Evert Edward Horton. My comment labeled Everett Horton correctly/

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @raven: I recently bought an iPad. Probably won’t get an iPhone. They don’t really go on sale, and I don’t want to spend a lot of money on my phone.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: That’s probably my first choice. Depends on how good the sales are. I’m already seeing them for $300 off. I’m hoping the holiday sales will do a little better than that.

  108. 108.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    I didn’t learn about Reconstruction until college. The public school textbooks always stopped around 1877 and we never talked about it.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    In his book on the speech, Garry Wills notes the Bible and Pericles Funeral Oration as inspiration.

    Predictably, reaction was partisan. From the Wiki

    Other public reaction to the speech was divided along partisan lines. The Democratic-leaning Chicago Times observed, “The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.” In contrast, the Republican-leaning New York Times was complimentary and printed the speech.

    In Massachusetts, the Springfield Republican also printed the entire speech, calling it “a perfect gem” that was “deep in feeling, compact in thought and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma”. The Republican predicted that Lincoln’s brief remarks would “repay further study as the model speech”.

    On the sesquicentennial of the address, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, formerly the Patriot & Union, retracted its original reaction (“silly remarks” deserving “the veil of oblivion”)

    The foreign press was also split, with negative reaction from the Times of London.

  111. 111.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Baud: Walmart has some relatively recent iPhones that run Straighttalk. Got my daughter an iPhone SE for about $150. The SE has the same guts as the iPhone 6/6S, but the smaller form factor. You pay about $40 to $45 per month for the service, and you can stop at any time if you find some better service.

  112. 112.

    Schlemazel

    @PJ:
    That is the official end date but they were floundering before that & could have used a hand instead of a shove. Other than thoat though, yeat, it was the neo-cons in the 90s that finished the job

  113. 113.

    TenguPhule

    @Miss Bianca: Only by becoming the “stupid brave woman who gets herself into needless danger by not having any common sense or awareness of her surroundings”.

    Frankly, eyecandy at least didn’t have the audience cheering for the villains to just shoot her already.

  114. 114.

    Baud

    @Brachiator:

    In contrast, the Republican-leaning New York Times was complimentary and printed the speech.

    Probably the last time they weren’t garbage.

  115. 115.

    TenguPhule

    @Ladyraxterinok: He’s a shitty Scifi writer and a KKK sympathist.

    Frankly, the only use his books have is to serve as emergency firestarters.

    Only his collaberations with other writers are readable and only because they are usually doing all the work.

  117. 117.

    Baud

    @Jerzy Russian: That’s a good price. I’ve tried the SE, but it’s too small for my taste, and I’m hoping for a newer model. The SE is like 2-3 years old now.

  118. 118.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @PhoenixRising: I worked at Wellesley back when the world was young. A beautiful campus and great school. There’s a lot to be said for attending a strong women’s college.

    Regarding your observation about the MIT boys, my engineering niece experienced a lot of that macho crap when she was looking at colleges. Being a “mere” female, she was often ignored at college open houses in favor of the loudmouth guys. She was recently awarded a National Science Fellowship for her Ph.D. studies in chemical engineering. I’m so proud of her.

  124. 124.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud: @JPL: Thank you! She’s incredibly bright and hardworking. Now she’s having to navigate the misogynist snakepit that is academia, but she’s doing much better than I did at her age. She keeps on discovering inner strength she didn’t know she had, which I deeply admire.

  125. 125.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @PJ:
    The Soviet Union was doomed from the late 60s/early 70s on. Maybe if Khrushchev had been in power a little longer did some economic reforms they would be still be around today.

  126. 126.

    Mary G

    AL.com sent a great response to the cease and desist letter Roy Moore’s dumb attorney sent them. I can only find jpegs of it, but it has some great lines, like “any damage to Mr. Moore’s reputation was self-inflicted” and demands that he preserve info on “Mr. Moore’s history of romantic relationships and physical encounters (whether consensual or not)”.

    Major shade. Then all three big newspapers in Alabama came out and endorsed Doug Jones by way of saying Roy Moore doesn’t deserve your vote.

  127. 127.

    MoxieM

    @NotMax: Edward Everett was known as “Old Granny” to the undergraduates at Harvard while he was President there (1845-48). Also, he was a native of Dorchester (Dot!), and Everett Sq is marked by a statue of a giant Clapp’s Favorite Pear, developed there, and still in production now.

    This is your Sunday portion of fun irrelevant facts to know and share.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    The other thing I don’t like is that Clark Kent is treated as the “mask”.

    It’s a minor thing but I always liked the idea that Superman and Clark Kent are just different parts of him.

    I like the explanation of Superman from the movie Kill Bill.

    Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.

  129. 129.

    Jim Parish

    @Baud: A bit late in that time period, covering the 1890s, is H. W. Brands’ The Reckless Decade. I found it fascinating; a disturbing amount of it felt very familiar.

  131. 131.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    Me too. Learned it in seventh grade, along with the first several sentences of the Declaration, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the names and titles of Eisenhower’s entire Cabinet!

  134. 134.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Brachiator:
    Yes and no. Clumsy dorky Clark is the Clark we see at the Daily Planet to throw off suspicion. At home with his folks, he acts differently. There he’s also Clark,just not a klutz and more comfortable using his powers. He acts at home like he acts as Superman when alone as well. In public as Superman he acts, to me, larger than life and like a god to again throw off suspicion of him having a secret identity. Clark uses the Superman persona when he wants to save people. Post-crisis, he was raised believing he was human, as Clark Kent. I’ve always found Superman’s humanity the most compelling thing about him, which comes from his upbringing in Kansas. Otherwise, he’s a boring OP character.

  137. 137.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Schlemazel:The US did offer financial and political aid. Some of it, like the nuclear materials security initiatives I was involved in, were well received and did a lot of good. Some others, not so much.

    But the US didn’t just stand aside.

  144. 144.

    Bruuuuce

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: That’s his given name. And may not be canon in the DCCU. This clip is from Batman Beyond, part of the DCAU in which Bruce Wayne has aged out of being Batman actively, and the other chap, Terry, is his replacement. I like the opinion in the clip, because it fits the character, while Superman/Clark has a much more balanced self-perception (largely, IMO, due to his excellent upbringing at the hands of the Kents, other than in Zack “I Know Nothing About Superheros” Snyder’s hands).

  146. 146.

    Brachiator

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    I’ve always found Superman’s humanity the most compelling thing about him, which comes from his upbringing in Kansas. Otherwise, he’s a boring OP character.

    Superman was a confident smartass in the original comics, and the weakling Clark Kent clearly a mask. Lois Lane despised the meek Kent. The original comics have him raised in an orphanage. The Kent Kansas stuff came later.

    I like an alien Superman. I don’t think he needs to be a faux Earthman to be interesting. As always, your mileage may vary.

    ETA. I saw Justice League this afternoon. It was not as bad as I feared it might be.

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: @hueyplong: @mike in dc:

  151. 151.

    Citizen Alan

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Looking back, I’m not sure Russia would have accepted a Marshall Plan or would have made good use of it.

    It’s even more doubtful that the Republicans would have gone alone with a Marshall Plan for the former Soviet Union proposed by a Democrat. Can you imagine the optics of Clinton and the Democrats passing a major tax increase in 1993 and then spending billions on the Evil Empire? These were the people who thought it was suspicious that Bill simply went to Moscow for a few days on a school trip while he was at Cambridge.

  152. 152.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Citizen Alan: Well, that was the central problem with a Marshall Plan ever being passed. Newt Gingrich was coming to power, and the persistence of the belief in the Evil Empire, even when that Empire was fracturing in a new way every week before our very eyes, made a Marshall Plan impossible.

    I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about that period lately, and just looking at the nuclear programs, which were relatively successful as judged by both sides, suggests to me that a broader Marshall Plan wouldn’t have been a panacea. The Russian agencies were suspicious of each other as well as of the Americans, the US bureaucracy was clumsy and conflicted within itself, and the Russians began to tire of US “interference” by the end of the 1990s. A Marshall Plan would probably have done some good, and it would have been better than the economic advisors we sent over, but it’s not clear to me that Russia wouldn’t have gone approximately the way it did. Maybe the oligarchs wouldn’t have gotten so much power so quickly, but by now I suspect that there would have been, on that alternate timeline, a great deal of consolidation, perhaps even to many of the same individuals. And the Russians would have wanted a strong hand at the helm, perhaps a deputy mayor from St. Petersburg who had proved his abilities.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Dear Cheryl,

    Regarding your remark about Bobby Bird:

    The Democrats were the bad guys then and continued their flirtation with the Confederacy up through the days of Bobby Bird and Strom Thurmond.

    And here I’m assuming you mean Robert C Byrd, and your implication that Bob Byrd was a racist equal to Strom Thurmond is flat wrong. It is true that Robert C Byrd was a member of the KKK in the long ago and far away. My uncle published a letter with Byrd’s handwriting to prove he was a Klan member on the front page of the newspaper he edited at the time – a Democratic paper, actually; so I’m aware that he was once a KKK member. After that he never tried to deny it.

    But that was long before his distinguished career in the U. S Senate. Senator Byrd carried his lunch to work in the Senate in a brown paper bag, a lunch his wife prepared for him. He went to law school at night in DC until he got his law degree, which knowledge guided his legislative career.

    In his later years Senator Byrd freely admitted his Klan membership as a young man, and also admitted that it was wrong for him to have been a Klan member. He supported civil rights for the vast majority of his political career in Washington. He supported the safety net FDR and LBJ wove for the people of his nation. He believed in equality for all, the Voting Rights Act, school integration, and all the bellwether parts of the foundation of progressive modern Democratic politics.

    It is unfair for you to paint Bob Byrd with the same paint Strom Thurmond deserved, because Thurmond was against all those progressive acts, and was a stone cold racist his whole life in the most established Southern racist rapist manner, as we all know. The best we can say is that he helped his victims survive by continuing the employment of his primary victim as a servant, which is damn faint praise if you ask me.

    Comparing Bob Byrd to Strom Thurmond is like comparing Al Franken to Donald J Trump, only worse. Senator Byrd served his nation and never used his office to become mysteriously wealthy. He lived on his salary and raised his kids to be hard working people.

    No offense, but you are wrong about Senator Byrd.

  156. 156.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @J R in WV: Byrd eventually came around to supporting civil rights, but he was indeed a racist for part of his career.

    I was not referring to his budget nor his education, just the fact that racism persisted for a very, very long time after Reconstruction. And he was part of it.

  158. 158.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not suggesting parallels beyond the persistence of racism. I may be misremembering Byrd, although I do recall he came around to civil rights.

    The former Warsaw Pact states and the former republics have done reasonably well, at least those on the European side of things. The EU did a lot to help, which was in some ways better than the US doing it. For example, Sweden was very active in the Baltic states with regard to economics, governance, and the environment.

    There was even some thought to bringing Russia into NATO, or close coordination. A NATO-Russia council still exists but isn’t doing much. Whether the fault lies with the Americans who continued to want the Big Enemy or the Russians who felt that the West was being unfair is something for the historians to sort out. I can make an argument in either direction. Both contributed.

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think you are misremembering Byrd.

    How is Romania doing today? It is a country that has the size and resources to do well, but following the revolution, they let the security forces become mini-oligarchs.

  160. 160.

    normal liberal

    @PhoenixRising:
    With a slight caveat regarding her academic interests, may I offer an alumnae’s thumbs-up for Mount Holyoke? It’s good for everything, but is especially strong in STEM. Maybe not so dominant for, say, philosophy.
    With some recent investment, the campus is spectacular, and the five-college links (Smith, Amherst, UMass Amherst and Hampshire) offer choices when MHC gets that Brigadoon feel. The college is also benefiting from a serious and long-term push for greater diversity.
    And yes, it’s the end of the thread and you probably won’t see this…

  161. 161.

    Vhh

    @PJ: I agree. When I last was in Russia circa 1994, Russian friends were mainly concerned about being paid and the survival of pensioner parents living on nearly nothing. Later Putin was cheered for bring back some sense of normalcy. It should be noted, however, that it would have tough for Russia to accept a Marshall Plan, either in 1948 or the 1990s. Profoundly suspicious of foreign influence. …..

  162. 162.

    Tehanu

    @Schlemazel:

    Couldn’t agree with you more about either Forrest or Ringo. I actually first learned about Forrest reading one of Anthony Price’s British spy novels — I forget which one — in which his military brilliance is lauded but the rest of his career is more or less ignored except for somebody saying, approximately, that it was too bad he was on the wrong side. My hero, General Sherman, said he was the most dangerous opponent in the whole war. If Ringo had stuck to a strictly military assessment, I wouldn’t fault him, but his adulation for Forrest goes way beyond that — so you’re quite right: the proper reaction to his books is, don’t read ’em.

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    How wonderful. Please give her our congratulations!

  163. 163.

    SFAW

    @PhoenixRising:
    All good schools. Part of MIT’s problem is that a significant number of the undergrad males (used to) have no concept of “social graces.” And a lot of them were/are accustomed to being right all the time — or at least almost all the time — so being wrong is alien to a lot of them, and thus not handled as well as would be the case for mere mortals.

    Simmons is also a good Seven Sisters-like place, but no engineering to speak of (which is what it sounds like she’s gravitating toward). I think Simmons students can take engineering classes at Wentworth, but Wentworth is not MIT, and she should go for the best edumacation she can, if that’s her desired major. [Simmons has pretty good nursing and social work schools, I think, but it sounds like she’s going in neither of those direction. Not sure how their management school is.]

    But Boston is a great place to be a student.

    Best of luck to her! Sorry her experience at MIT was “sub-optimal.”

  164. 164.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Omnes Omnibus: I haven’t heard much about Romania lately. They have a Russian-inspired mini-insurgency next door, like the business in the Donbas, but not the same degree of shooting. Not hearing about anything happening there is usually a good thing but I will keep my eyes open.

  165. 165.

    Millard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Hi Adam, I am posting this on a stale thread in the hopes that this mostly off-topic message will be forwarded to you by the B-J blog software. It only slightly relates to Gettysburg. A few years ago for the 70th anneversary of World War II Brad DeLong was “live blogging” the war. He took things out of the archives every day for the events that happened exactly 70 years ago. Then came the day of the Soviet counter offensive at Stalingrad. One reply comment that was made has stuck with me. From memory …

    We Americans think that our Civil War was a grand struggle, with armies that majestically swept across the land of half the continent. There were massive battles with huge casulties. Tales of heroism both big and small. Now take the entirety of the Civil War and compress it into one tenth the time, do it all in one city … and you still won’t have even HALF the battle of Stalingrad.

    Ah! This is the original:
    http://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/10/stalingrad-at-70.html#comment-6a00e551f080038834017d3cfb01b1970c

    Here it is 5 years later, and I am still stunned speechless at this. I don’t know what to say or even think.

  166. 166.

    MoxieM

    @normal liberal: I’m a 7-sisters grad, daughter, niece, and mom. (Wellesley, Radcliffe, Radcliffe, and Smith, respectively) … I saw your post (it must be spidey-sense. And I heartily endorse it! The Mt. Holyoke library is spectacular! And the German program is terrific. And they pair with Simmons to offer Library Science (Information Science nowadays). And of course it’s gorgeous.

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