Some Odds and Ends

This post is talk about some odds and ends, I want to thank everyone who has read my blog and continues to read it, to explain a comment I got and to shamelessly plug some other projects that I am working on.  First off "The Weaving Chronicle" has just reached over 2000 views! This may not seem like much, but it is a pretty big milestone for me as a young historian and writer.  So thank you to all of you read and support my blog. An equally big milestone, is that I had my first comment that challenged a statement I made in a post! I have had comments posted by friends who offered encouragement (very grateful for those too)!  When I saw that I had a comment, I had to check it right away!  And when I read it, my heart sank a little bit but then I reminded myself that criticism was better than silence and the author was not rude or abusive.  So I thanked the commenter and did a mental fist pump at actually having interest in my blog posts.  Here is the comment in full.

I have to say that, bearing in mind the examples that you gave, implying that "walls actually have a poor success rate throughout history" is not entirely substantiated. Walls are physical barriers intended to keep people (and other critters) out or in. The Great Wall of China did eventually fail, but it also held back scores of other previous invaders. The Maginot Line failed as a wall because it was not complete; the lack of end points and gaps made it more of nuisance than an actual physical barrier. The other examples (the Berlin Wall and the Korean Border) worked splendidly for their intended primary and secondary purposes: secondary to keep people out, primary to keep people IN. If their intent was solely political in nature, I would agree that they failed in compelling sympathy toward their respective causes, but as physical barriers they were quite effective.

The author makes some good points.  

Criticisms and rebuttals are important to the study of history, as a professor once said “History is a conversation.” History is not hear say, repeating whatever you have been told. It is a back and forth, trying to understand the past better.  Here are my reasons for maintaining my opinion:

The Great Wall of China did stand for many years before the Mongols conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty but the point is the wall did fail.

The Maginot Line did not fail because it was unfinished, it failed because it was an outdated stratagem against a superior form of warfare.

The Berlin Wall did its job very well however there are stories of people still getting passed that obstacle (see the link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/berlin-wall-escape-stories_n_6090602.html). That being said the reason it was so successful is the same reason why the 38th parallel is so successful because of men, mines (there were no mines in Berlin that I know of) and machine-guns. I for one would not want to see such a structure raised in Texas.  My point is that walls have failed over the years and will continue to fail. Those that have done their job well, is not because the wall was too high or thick but because of the threat of force against those who try to cross it. From ancient China around the globe and to modern Korea.  A wall will not protect the United States nor make it great.

I am very grateful to "unknown" for the comment and please continue to comment, let me know where I missed it, nailed it or if you have an idea for me to write about let me know.

Here is the shameless plug.  If you like what you see here, like me on face book https://www.facebook.com/Historianforeva/?view_public_for=299851710031447 and follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/Historianforeva

I and some friends of mine are working on a project called Popstorian! It talks about the history of film, music, comic books and all things pop-culture-ish. You can like the Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/PopStorian/?view_public_for=1423293254642909 and follow our twitter here, https://twitter.com/PopStorian!

A Brief History of the Wall

I don’t normally use this blog for political messages but this is the most biased piece I have ever written on this blog.  For the sake of full disclosure I am a Conservative Christian Republican.  And to be honest I don’t like Trump as a presidential candidate for a number of reasons.  The most hilarious of his tirades is probably how he is going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. What is even more hilarious (in a sad sort of way) is that people believe this could keep America safe or "Make America Great Again!"   Walls actually have a poor success rate throughout history. That being said how about a brief history of border walls!

The Walls of Jericho:

[About 1400 BC] the children of Israel have just finished wandering the wilderness for forty years and begin their invasion of the holy land. When they encounter Jericho.

“2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and it’s fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.” Joshua 6:2-5

Ok! I know someone is crying foul here, “that’s not history! That’s Bible stuff!” You’re right!  I did say I am a Christian. The debate of the historical validity of the Bible can wait. (God helped them anyway.)

The Great Wall of China:

From the 3rd century BC to the 17th century AD approximately 2000 years, a little project called the Great Wall of China was being built and rebuilt! Now that name may seem a little pretentious but here are a few facts curtesy of Wikipedia, the wall spans over 5,500 miles, about 40 feet thick and 30-40 ft. high. It was designed to keep out invaders, barbarians, bandits, you name it.  In about 1206 AD (when the wall was a mere 3,100 miles long) Genghis Khan invaded and sacked most of China.  His son Kublai came back finished the job by establishing the Yuan Dynasty. [http://www.history.com/topics/great-wall-of-china]

Maginot Line:

Fast forward to the twentieth century after the First World War the French built a network of forts and tunnels along the Rhine River all the way to the Italian border. This of course was stop any future incursions by the Germans.  In May 1940, the German army bypassed the Maginot Line in the famous blitzkrieg taking France in about a month.  To the line’s credit it would not be taken until June 1940 around the same time as when Paris fell. [http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/maginot-line]

The Berlin Wall:

In 1961, Germany was split into two countries. East Germany, which was communist and allied with the Soviet Union. Then there was West Germany who was allied to the western nations.  To stem the flow of emigration from East Germany to the West, the East German government began building a wall that literally cut Berlin in half. The wall was called, “Antifascistischer Schutzwall” meaning anti-fascist wall. Also known as the Berlin Wall.  The wall stood for 28 years and to this day it is seen as a symbol of repression. [http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall]

“Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” – Ronald Reagan (http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/speeches/speech-3415)

The Korean Border:

There is yet one more wall that makes this list.  A wall that is a left over an unresolved conflict, a symbol of a never ending war.  Along the thirty-eighth parallel that separates North and South Korea, the Korean Demilitarization Zone (DMZ). A border that is 2.5 miles long and is constantly guarded. As National Geographic stated “anyone trying to cross the MDL (Military Demarcation Line) would likely be shot.” (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/features/world/asia/north-korea/dmz-text/1)

Now most people probably have heard of at least one and probably all of these examples, what the study of history does is take that knowledge of a few facts and teaches us of building an argument.  A wall isn’t going to keep out terrorists or anyone who really wants to get into the United States.  Whenever I hear someone quote Mr. Trump about how he is going to build a wall on the Mexican border it reminds me just how much we need to teach history.  A wall won’t keep out terrorists, drugs, or even illegal immigrants.  Walls are inept at keeping out invaders, symbols of tyranny and represent unending war.

Day Three: Striking a Balance

On our third and final day in Washington DC my wife and I managed to find two extremes to a problem in the museum world.  We visited the National Archives! Yes, I finally was able to see the location of the presidential papers of Woodrow Wilson (although I did not actually see any of his papers).  Leah and I were awed to see the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and of course the Constitution. However, there was absolutely NO photography allowed.  Photography can be both the best friend to the museum and their greatest foe.  Particularly flash photography.

The National Archives had a no photography policy and in the rooms where the Constitution was held they had very soft lighting (just light enough so you wouldn’t trip).  This was explained by security guards and a number of signs that the bright lights of a camera’s flash or a few thousand flashes would damage the documents in question. If one doubted this all they would have to do is simply look at the Constitution and see the faded words that years of being proudly displayed in the sun.  As I started writing this post I wanted to submit some sources so people could see that the no photography rule was not a gimmick to get visitors to buy more post cards (actually I don’t remember seeing any post cards in the gift shop).  It was actually a little harder that I would have thought because google was full of blog posts that said such rules were just scams and it didn’t matter if you used flash or not (most of these posts were referring to art work and not historical documents).  In order to protect historical artifacts curators must control as many environmental factors as they can, that is why flash photography is often prohibited, why artifact cases have environmental controls to control the temperature are installed.  Simple things like heat, light and even air can damage a large array of items including paper, ink, paints, dyes, metals, fabrics and leather products (oxygen is super corrosive, if I were more science-y I would tell you how that works but I’m not).  These are some of the articles I looked up:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1783/why-isnt-flash-photography-permitted-in-museums

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/aging.pdf

http://www.artnews.com/2013/05/13/photography-in-art-museums/

http://www.ccaha.org/uploads/media_items/light-exposure-of-artifacts-on-exhibition.original.pdf

The Archives offered one extreme of the no photography rule while my and Leah’s next stop offered the exact opposite extreme. We visited Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Washington DC, where you are free take as many pictures as you like. The person who sold us our tickets actually told to "take lots of pictures."  I confess this was the best part for me because I got to be a little silly and then share all my pictures on social media.  Now, I know what you’re thinking "Madame Tussaud's is not a historical museum!"  Actually, it has a very long history of entertaining tourist with 23 locations all over the world and the 24th to open in New Delhi next year. But I'm more concerned about the Wax museum as an education tool for American History.  The Washington DC location contains wax figures of all 44 presidents as well as civil rights activists Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Rosa Parks. It also allowed for me and Leah to take pictures with a couple of our favorite musicians.

 It was about the time I was giving Leah a piece of presidential trivia about William Howard Taft that I realized that walking through a room with life sized models of these historical figures was just as educational as any of the museums we had visited previously.  I have been asked several times, “if I could have lunch with any historical figure who would that be?” Leah and I had the next best thing, “if you could take a selfie with a historical figure who would that be?”  History can be a lot of fun.

I'm a historian and a museum employee, so of course museums are fantastic to me but let’s face it there are those who are less nerdy than I, or at least nerdy in different ways.  Which means fun has to be in the equation, especially if a museum wants to stay open.  Part of the fun of any road trip is the pictures, for a museum this can become a conundrum, museums must protect artifacts like papers, photos, fabrics and leathers, all materials that can be damaged by flash photography over time.  But, in the world of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pics are a must for any trip. Museums today have to display a balance to stay relevant (open and operating), they must protect their artifacts and make it fun for visitors.