tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278259342025-10-04T09:23:39.990-04:00PostscriptsAn online magazine offering a pastiche of articles on current affairs, history, technics, opinion, writing, advice, humor and trivia.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger257125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-90278803217018111032013-05-21T08:00:00.001-04:002013-10-15T09:30:53.836-04:00The Demeaning of Memorial DayOP ED
This
year Memorial Day will be celebrated on Monday, May 27. With its roots deep in
the Civil War, for more than a century this solemn holiday was traditionally
observed on May 30. Ever since 1971, however, in a concession to expediency and
a rebuke to tradition, Congress shifted Memorial Day to the last Monday in May.
Thanks to the Uniform Holidays Act, the holiday Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-18007231477699169022013-03-17T21:45:00.000-04:002013-10-15T09:33:55.154-04:00The Mysterious Death of Actress Florence Deshon, 1CHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
"All great love affairs end in tragedy."
So wrote Ernest Hemingway, a 19-year-old volunteer ambulance driver wounded in Italy and recuperating at a Red Cross hospital in Milan in 1918. The young Hemingway fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, an American nurse seven years his senior.
Although she was Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-16406608719919847322013-03-16T08:00:00.000-04:002013-04-02T11:58:57.549-04:00Florence Deshon, 2: Charlie Chaplin or Max?CHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
The love affair between Max Eastman and Florence Deshon would set the pattern for his later romances.
Initially, he was completely head-over-heels in love. The time they spent together--stolen from two blossoming careers--was a storybook romance.
Max, an inveterate philanderer, wrote: "For the first time in my life I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-22317815891479418802013-03-15T08:00:00.000-04:002013-04-02T11:52:25.667-04:00Florence Deshon, 3: Suicide or Accident?CHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Together again in Croton, Florence Deshon and Max Eastman clashed frequently. Florence's continued outbursts of rage over Max's withdrawn moodiness were, by her own admission, "absolutely insane." The couple agreed that only a separation could end the self-destructive warfare their intense love sparked.
Florence returned Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-41352946759594855902013-02-18T09:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T11:10:15.052-04:00Dudley Field Malone, 1: The Courage of His ConvictionsCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
With the ratification of the 19th Amendment by the state of Tennessee on August 18, 1920, women gained the right to vote.
It was not only a right whose time had come; it was long overdue. Women could vote in elections in 27 other nations before suffrage became law in the United States.
Four Croton women profiled previously inUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-73774403261310955062013-02-18T08:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T11:09:25.098-04:00Dudley Field Malone, 2: From Croton to Paris to HollywoodCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Internationally famous lawyer Dudley
Field Malone played a prominent role in spectacular human rights causes early
in the 20th century.
When women whowere lawfully picketing the White House and Capitol were arrested and jailed
for obstructing the sidewalk, he defended them in court. And when the
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-62830582565171447832013-02-04T08:00:00.001-05:002013-03-28T11:17:43.695-04:00Doris Stevens: Jailed for FreedomCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
A militant feminist and leader in the women's suffrage movement, Doris Stevens was a keen eyewitness to the historic events that led up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. While the experiences were still fresh in her mind, she recorded them.
Her 1920 book, Jailed for Freedom, captures in minute detail the cruelties Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-77592510397681652212013-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T11:23:11.642-04:00Crystal Eastman, 1: Brains and BeautyCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Crystal Eastman was a pioneering feminist, an influential labor lawyer, a founder of the Woman’s Peace Party and the American Civil Liberties Union, a co-founder and co-editor of The Liberator, and one of the most beloved women of her generation.
Ironically, despite her distinguished record of accomplishments, Crystal Eastman is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-33238600262016904872013-01-28T08:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T11:28:43.706-04:00Crystal Eastman, 2: Taken Too SoonCHRONICLES OF
CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Crystal Eastman
was “a natural leader,” recalled Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with whom she
had many differences.
She was also “outspoken
(often tactless), determined, charming, beautiful and courageous.”
Crystal left her mark on the series of
organizations she Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-53633699766730864302013-01-14T08:00:00.000-05:002013-05-04T13:10:16.214-04:00Lillian Nordica, 1: Downeast DivaCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
As streets go in that part of Croton still called Harmon by some, Nordica Drive is unremarkable. Another quiet bucolic byway ending in a dead end--as many do in this former real estate development.
The name Nordica Drive is all that now recalls the area's association with the first and perhaps greatest American Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-17566851956371329752013-01-13T08:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T22:18:46.887-04:00Lillian Nordica, 2: Unlucky in LoveCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Lillian Nordica’s ambitious plan for a Westchester version of Germany’s Wagnerian opera festival was widely publicized. It quickly ran into trouble on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Well, I suppose she has a few acres of land somewhere or other," observed German-born operatic promoter Oscar Hammerstein, perhaps sensing a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-34923064121535149502012-12-31T08:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T11:50:52.753-04:00Inez Milholland: Beautiful Suffragist on a White ChargerCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
On March 3, 1913, a statuesque woman clad in a flowing
white cape and riding a white horse was the leader of a giant women's suffrage
parade down Washington’s Pennsylvania
Avenue.
She
carried a streaming banner reading, "Forward into light."
Not quite 27 years old, Inez Milholland already had an
impressive Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-77454804236148755292012-12-24T08:00:00.000-05:002013-03-28T12:05:06.371-04:00The Bitter Fight for Women's RightsCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
No one has yet discovered what caused a bohemian enclave to spring up in the northwestern corner of Westchester County in the first decade of the 20th century.
The seed may have been sown when the New York Central Railroad decided to completely electrify its 33-mile Hudson Division line all the way to the village Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-11446281370915476672012-12-17T08:00:00.001-05:002013-03-28T14:02:08.112-04:00Eliena Krylenko: 'Glad to Have Lived''CHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Readers for whom the name Eliena Krylenko is not immediately recognizable may recall that she was Mrs. Max Eastman. Their romantic story began in this fashion:
In 1922, abandoning his financially troubled magazine, The Liberator, Max left Croton to explore the changes wrought in Russia by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Instead of going Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-81412237832052355052012-12-03T09:00:00.000-05:002013-03-29T10:23:12.513-04:00Louise Bryant: Life Goes OnCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
After Jack Reed's death in 1920, Louise remained in Russia.
Traveling to the farthest corners of the new Soviet Union, and elsewhere in the Middle East, her bylined news stories were featured in the Hearst newspapers.
On a visit to New York in 1921, Louise tried to interest movie makers in Jack Reed’s book on Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-57379239805009685992012-11-19T11:55:00.000-05:002013-03-28T22:33:56.962-04:00Jack Reed and Louise Bryant, 3: A Fatal JourneyCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Before Jack Reed could undertake a return trip to Russia in 1919, there were several matters that needed attention. Back home, the Socialist Party he had joined upon his return from Russia in 1918 was riven by dissension.
A foreign-language-speaking, mostly immigrant group led by Louis Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-82101774577016599342012-11-19T11:41:00.000-05:002013-03-28T22:33:04.975-04:00Jack Reed and Louise Bryant, 2: A Senatorial InquisitionCHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
The year 1919 opened with American troops bogged down in Siberia as part of an Allied intervention during the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution.
The Senate announced that hearings would begin on February 11 to investigate Bolhevik propaganda. Sen. Lee S. Overman, a Democrat from North Carolina, headed the subcommittee of theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-80985665002643254002012-10-29T11:15:00.000-04:002013-03-28T22:32:10.912-04:00Jack Reed and Louise Bryant, 1: Star-Crossed LoversCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Wait for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Off somewhere a bell will toll mournfully with a low, cheerless sound. Outside all will be gloomy and sodden. Now begin reading this sad tale of love and loss a lifetime ago.
It opens in 1915 in Portland, Oregon. Louise Bryant, a bored homemaker with aspirations of becoming a poet and writer, is married toUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-60084731415840329102012-10-23T20:25:00.003-04:002013-04-25T07:23:00.818-04:00Floyd Dell: A Respectable Radical
CHRONICLES
OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Few read his books today. Once his novels
were immensely popular, not only for their literary merit but because they
treated love and marriage with perceptive candor. It was a time when many young
people rejected patriarchal family values and sought alternatives.
He
was self-taught writer Floyd Dell who had learned his craft Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-32227855255144137122012-10-06T09:57:00.006-04:002012-12-03T09:26:00.399-05:00Max Eastman: A Life of ParadoxesCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Mabel Dodge was one
of the first bohemians to venture north to Croton from Greenwich
Village. Next to arrive was Max Eastman, radical journalist,
prolific writer and romantic poet. Years later he would become the best known
American intellectual to move across the political spectrum from far left to
extreme right.
In 1915, Eastman
and his wife Ida Rauh were Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-2213220775755913202012-10-01T13:00:00.000-04:002013-06-21T03:16:50.494-04:00Postscripts IndexTHE ARNOLD-ANDRE AFFAIR
'How Hard Is My Fate': The Arnold-André Affair, 3
'Treason of the Blackest Dye': The Arnold-André Affair, 2
Ill Met by Moonlight: The Arnold-André Affair, 1
BIOGRAPHYLouis A. Brennan: A Life in Full Color
As I Remember Him: An Appreciation of Lou Brennan
The Short, Tragic Life of Robert Fulton, 1: The North River Steamboat
The Short, Tragic Life of Robert Fulton, 2: Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-88959068799238458612012-09-24T09:00:00.000-04:002013-08-16T18:10:23.169-04:00Mabel Dodge: The Power of MoneyCHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
Early in the 20th century, Greenwich Village was a heterogeneous community of
actors, anarchists, artists, editors, feminists, intellectuals, journalists,
poets, playwrights, progressives, radicals and writers.
One woman who burst on
the burgeoning bohemian scene belonged to none of these groups: Mabel Dodge.&Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-55728563133143003042012-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:002012-10-23T23:25:09.024-04:00Charlie Pfaff's Cellar: Setting the Stage
CHRONICLES OF CROTON'S BOHEMIA
In the early decades of the 20th
century, the sleepy northwestern corner of Westchester County
underwent a rapid transformation. After 13 years of construction, the
imposing New Croton Dam opened in 1905. It supplanted and submerged the former
Croton Dam dating from 1844 when the Croton Aqueduct first brought water to New York City. Actually located inUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-47649755417679197062012-09-04T09:00:00.000-04:002012-09-21T21:16:14.157-04:00Debunking Some Military Myths about the American Revolution
HISTORY
The heroes and events of our war for freedom can be
seen in one of two ways: the people as they were and the events as they
happened, or as romantically embroidered images of them.
Unless we see the past honestly and appreciate what it
can teach us about the present and the future, the painful sacrifices endured
in the cause of liberty will all have been for naught.
Great Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27825934.post-7496054201164137622012-08-28T09:00:00.000-04:002012-08-29T14:56:44.415-04:00Debunking a Few More Historical MythsHISTORY
The American Revolution was
unique in that many military actions took place in Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley.
Recent research in primary sources has revealed some versions of events here to
be myths.
The Myth that
Patriots Burned New York
Ironically, a week after their landing at Kip’s Bay,
on Sept. 21, 1776, the British were robbed of a portion of their prize by the
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0