Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things

by Charles Panati

  Borglum worked from a scale model. Critical “points” were measured on the model, then transferred to the mountain to indicate the depth of rock to be removed point by point.

  In 1941, fourteen years after construction began—and at a total cost of $990,000—a new world wonder was unveiled. There stood George Washington, whom Borglum selected because he was “Father of the Nation”; Abraham Lincoln, “Preserver of the Union”; Thomas Jefferson, “The Expansionist”; and Theodore Roosevelt, “Protector of the Working Man.”

  The figures measure sixty feet from chin to top of head. Each nose is twenty feet long, each mouth eighteen feet wide, and the eyes are eleven feet across. “A monument’s dimensions,” Borglum believed, “should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated.”

  Gutzon Borglum died on March 6, 1941, aged seventy-four. The monument was essentially completed. His son, also a sculptor, added the finishing touches.

  Boy Scouts of America: 1910, Chicago

  A good deed performed by an anonymous boy prompted a wealthy Chicago businessman to found the scouting movement in America. The boy was already a scout, a British scout, a member of an organization begun in England by Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. (The scouts’ motto, “Be Prepared,” is not only a forceful exhortation but also something of a tribute to Baden-Powell’s initials, a coincidence he enjoyed calling attention to, since practically no one else noticed.)

  While serving his country in Africa during the turn-of-the-century Boer War, Baden-Powell complained that young recruits from England lacked strength of character and resourcefulness. On returning home, he assembled twenty-two boys, to imbue them with the attributes of loyalty, courage, and leadership. And in 1908, he published Scouting for Boys, a stalking and survival manual, which formally marked the start of the British Boy Scouts.

  The social and political upheaval in Edwardian England provided a climate for scouting. Britons were anxious about their country’s national decline, the poor physical condition of large segments of the urban population, and the increasing vulnerability of British colonies abroad. The idea of training thousands of young boys to be loyal, resourceful, law-abiding citizens met with unanimous approval.

  A year after the British scouting movement had been launched, William Boyce, a Chicago publisher visiting London, found himself lost on a dark, foggy night. The youth who came to Boyce’s aid identified himself only as a “boy scout.” Boyce was impressed with the boy’s courtesy and resolve to be of assistance; and he was astonished by the boy’s refusal to accept a tip. Boyce would later comment that he had never met an American youth who’d decline an earned gratuity. He was sufficiently intrigued with the British scouting movement to meet with its master, Baden-Powell.

  On February 10, 1910, Boyce established the Boy Scouts of America, modeled on the British organization. Its immediate acceptance by parents, educators, and the young men who joined the movement in the tens of thousands guaranteed scouting’s success. Within a year, the scouts had their “On my honor” oath, a score of merit badges, and the scout’s law, comprising a string of twelve attributes to aspire to. By 1915, there were a half-million American boy scouts, with troops in every state.

  American Presidents were involved with scouting from the start. William Taft began the tradition that every President automatically becomes an honorary scout. Theodore Roosevelt went a step further after his presidency by becoming head scoutmaster of Troup 39, Oyster Bay, New York.

  And while all Presidents became scouts, some scouts became Presidents. The first one to do so had been a member of Troop 2 of Bronxville, New York, from 1929 to 1931—John F. Kennedy. And the first Eagle Scout to become President began his scouting career in 1924 as a member of Troup 15, Grand Rapids, Michigan—Gerald R. Ford.

  By the late 1920s, scouting was so popular throughout the country that parents began to inquire if their younger children might not be permitted to join the movement. To satisfy that request, early in 1930 the Cub Scout program was formally launched; by year’s end, its membership stood at 847,051 and climbing.

  Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.: 1912, Savannah, Georgia

  Born Juliette Daisy Gordon in Savannah in 1860, the founder of the Girl Scouts exhibited a flair for organization at an early age. As a teenager, she formed the Helpful Hands Club, a youth organization that made and repaired clothes for needy children. At age twenty-six, Juliette married a wealthy Englishman, William Mackay Low, and the couple took up residence in England. Undaunted by advancing deafness, Juliette Low established herself as a popular London party giver.

  It was at a party in 1911 that she was introduced to Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. The colonel’s enthusiasm for scouting must have been contagious. Three years earlier, he had inspired William Boyce to institute the American Boy Scouts. He had only recently encouraged his sister, Agnes, to launch an equivalent female movement, the British Girl Guides. At the party, Baden-Powell, accompanied by Agnes, imbued Juliette Low with the scouting zeal.

  So much so, in fact, that within weeks of the meeting, Juliette Low was a London Girl Guide leader. The following year, she brought the idea home to Savannah, Georgia. On March 12, 1912, eighteen young girls from a local school became America’s first Girl Guides. The next year, their name was formally changed to Girl Scouts.

  By the time of Juliette Low’s death, on January 17, 1927, there were more than 140,000 Girl Scouts, with troops in every state. And the tradition had been started that the wives of American Presidents automatically become honorary Girl Scouts.

  The British surrender at Yorktown as Washington’s band plays “Yankee Doodle.”

  “Yankee Doodle”: 1750s, England

  Yankee Doodle came to town,

  Riding on a pony;

  He stuck a feather in his cap

  And called it macaroni.

  Today this song is played as a short, incidental piece of music, and when sung, it’s mostly by a child as a nursery rhyme. But in the eighteenth century, “Yankee Doodle” was a full-fledged national air of many stanzas, a lively expression of American patriotism, usually played by a military band. This despite the fact that the melody and lyrics originated with the British as a derisive slur to colonists. In London, prior to the American Revolution, a version of “Yankee Doodle” expressed growing anti-American sentiment.

  Musicologists and historians have struggled with the origin and interpretation of the song. It’s known that British Redcoats prided themselves on always being dapperly and uniformly attired. Colonial soldiers were by comparison a ragamuffin lot, each dressing in whatever clothes he owned. An early version of “Yankee Doodle” clearly mocks Americans’ shabby dress, and the derision is carried into later versions in the term “macaroni.”

  In eighteenth-century England, “macaroni” ridiculed an English dandy who affected foreign mannerisms and fashions, particularly ones French or Italian. A “macaroni” believed he was stylishly attired when by the vogue of the day his outfit was outlandish. Thus, the archetype Yankee Doodle character, by sticking a feather in his cap, believes he has become fashionable when in fact his appearance is comical. In singing the song, the British poked fun at what they viewed as New England’s country bumpkins.

  The song’s authorship is clouded by at least a dozen vying claims. Many historians believe the original melody and lyrics were composed by a British surgeon, Dr. Richard Schuckburg, around 1758. Others maintain it was an impromptu composition on American soil by British soldiers, who then carried it home to England.

  Whoever the composer, in America the musical insult fell on deaf ears. The colonists warmly embraced the tune, many times modifying its lyrics, though never deleting “macaroni.” In April 1767, the melody was highlighted in an American comic opera composed by Andrew Barton and titled The Disappointment: or, The Force of Credulity. By the close of the Revolutionary War, George Washington’s troops had turned the once defiant insult into a rousing celebratory salute. At the surrender of the Brit
ish at Yorktown, Washington’s band struck up a chorus of “Yankee Doodle” to mortify the defeated British Lord Cornwallis and his men. Out of this sentiment, somewhat akin to “He who laughs last” or “They’ll eat their words,” the tune “Yankee Doodle” became for several decades a national air.

  “The Star-Spangled Banner”: 1814, Baltimore

  America acquired the song that is its national anthem about thirty-eight years after the country won its independence from England. It is somewhat ironic that the melody is British, and came from a song extolling the pleasures of wine and amours. The American lyrics were of course penned by lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key. But Key directed that his lines be sung to the British melody “To Anacreon in Heaven,” Anacreon being the sixth-century B.C. Greek poet known for his lyric love verse.

  Why did the patriotic Francis Scott Key choose a British melody?

  During Key’s time, “To Anacreon in Heaven” was one of the most popular songs in England and America. At least eighty-five American poems were fitted to the tune. And Key himself, in 1805—nine years before he’d write “The Star-Spangled Banner” —set a poem, “When the Warrior Returns,” to the British melody. (That poem, interestingly, contained an image that the poet would soon reshape and immortalize: “By the light of the star-spangled flag.”) Thus, Key was well acquainted with the melody, its popularity, and its musical cadence.

  During the War of 1812, Key was a Washington lawyer in his thirties. Under a brief truce, he was sent aboard a British vessel in Chesapeake Bay to acquire the release of a captured American physician. By the time the lengthy negotiations were completed, the truce had ceased and British ships were bombarding Fort McHenry, which guarded the city of Baltimore.

  Key witnessed the fiery battle. By morning, the American flag of fifteen stars and stripes was still flying over the fort. Inspired by the sights and sounds of that night of September 13, 1814, Key composed a poem, “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” which was published the following week.

  Americans almost immediately regarded the poem, sung to Key’s suggested melody, as their national anthem. But, surprisingly, the anthem was not officially adopted until March 3, 1931, by a presidential proclamation of Herbert Hoover. Today the Stars and Stripes flag that inspired Francis Scott Key is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution.

  “America the Beautiful”: 1895, Colorado

  It was a New Jersey church organist, a New England poet, and the breath-takingly beautiful vista of Colorado mountain peaks that combined to give America a song that could have been, and almost was, its national anthem.

  The poet, Katherine Lee Bates, was born in 1859 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and was a professor of English literature at Wellesley College. Visiting Colorado in the early 1890s, she was inspired by the majestic view from the summit of Pikes Peak to compose a poem opening with the line “O beautiful for spacious skies.” The completed work was printed in Boston on July 4, 1895.

  Popular poems were frequently set to existing melodies. Katherine Bates’s composition was fitted to a religious song, “Materna,” at the time already thirteen years old. It had been written by an organist, choirmaster, and Newark, New Jersey, music dealer, Samuel A. Ward. He composed the song in 1882 to be sung in his parish church. Its opening line was “O Mother dear, Jerusalem,” metrically identical to Katherine Bates’s “O beautiful for spacious skies.”

  Both Katherine Bates and Samuel Ward lived to see their creation achieve nationwide popularity. Throughout the 1920s, when the country still had no official national anthem, there were numerous attempts to persuade Congress to elevate “America the Beautiful” to that status. Not until 1931, when “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted, did the debate quiet down, and it still has not been totally silenced. The issue then and now is not with lyrics but with the higher tessitura of Francis Scott Key’s song. “America the Beautiful” is simply easier for most people to sing.

  “The Marines’ Hymn”: Pre-1920, Mexico and France

  There is some humorous incongruity in the fact that the hearty, forceful “Marines’ Hymn,” belted out vigorously by generations of America’s toughest fighters, derives from a frivolous, lighthearted comic opera by French composer Jacques Offenbach.

  How did opéra bouffe come to represent American military might?

  During the Mexican-American War, an anonymous member of the Marine Corps stationed in Mexico composed a historical poem (most likely in 1847). It opened with references to the glorious days of the last Aztec emperor, Montezuma, recounted his people’s demise, then proceeded to relate the Marine’s mission in Mexico to fight for “freedom and liberty.” The poem, somewhat altered, was eventually published in the Marines’ newspaper, The Quantico Leatherneck, and for several decades Marines sang the words to an old Spanish folk tune.

  During that period, Jacques Offenbach composed the comic opera Geneviève de Brabant. The lightweight, sentimental work contained one song, “Two Men in the Army,” which in melody, lyrics, and slapstick staging thrilled Parisian audiences, as well as American operagoers who heard it at the Metropolitan Opera House in October 1868. Excerpted from the opera, the song achieved independent popularity in France and America.

  What happened next was a combination of mental forgetting and musical fitting. In time, people simply forgot that the frequently sung “Two Men in the Army” had ever been an opera duet (certainly the opera itself was forgotten). New generations of Marines sang “Two Men,” and its robust marching rhythm was found to fit closely the meter of their popular military poem. Neither Marine nor music historians have successfully determined exactly when enlisted men dropped the old Spanish folk melody in favor of the more driving beat of the Offenbach tune.

  What is documented is that the now-familiar words and music were first published jointly in New York in August 1919. A year later, the United States Marine Corps copyrighted the song, titled “The Marines’ Hymn.” While several opera composers incorporated nationalistic melodies into their works (as did Donizetti in the overture to Roberto Devereux), Offenbach’s is the first opera melody to become a popular patriotic song.

  “Dixie”: 1859, New England

  It became the national anthem of the Confederacy, but “Dixie” was composed by a Northerner, Daniel Decatur Emmett, who specialized in writing songs for blackface minstrel shows. One of his shows, staged in New York’s Mechanic’s Hall on April 4, 1859, contained a number the playbill listed as “Mr. Dan Emmett’s original Plantation Song and Dance, Dixie’s Land.”

  A group of peripatetic musicians, Bryant’s Minstrels, carried the song to New Orleans in 1860. They introduced it to the South in their musical Pocahontas, based loosely on the relationship between the American Indian princess and Captain John Smith. The song’s immediate success led them to include it in all their shows, and it became the minstrels’ signature number.

  Eventually, the term “Dixie” became synonymous with the states below the Mason-Dixon line. When the song’s composer, a staunch Union sympathizer, learned that his tune “Dixie” was played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederate States of America, he said, “If I had known to what use they were going to put my song, I’ll be damned if I’d have written it.” For a number of years, people whistled “Dixie” only in the South.

  Abraham Lincoln attempted to change that. On April 10, 1865, the day following Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, President Lincoln delivered a speech outside the White House. He jokingly addressed the South’s monopoly of the song, saying, “I had heard that our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it.” Lincoln then suggested that the entire nation feel free to sing “Dixie,” and he instructed the military band on the White House lawn to strike up the melody to accompany his exit.

  West Point Military Academy: 1802, New York

  The origin of West Point Military Academy dates back to the Revolutionary War, when the colonists perceiv
ed the strategic significance of the Hudson River, particularly of an S-shaped curve along the bank in the region known as West Point.

  To control the Hudson was to command a major artery linking New England with the other colonies. General George Washington and his forces gained that control in 1778, occupying the high ground at the S-shaped bend in the river. Washington fortified the town of West Point that year, and in 1779 he established his headquarters there.

  During the war, Washington realized that a crash effort to train and outfit civilians every time a conflict arose could never guarantee America’s freedom. The country needed professional soldiers. At the end of the war, in 1783, he argued for the creation of an institution devoted exclusively to the military arts and the science of warfare.

  But in the atmosphere of confidence created by victory, no immediate action was taken. Washington came and went as President (1789–1797), as did John Adams (1797–1801). It was President Thomas Jefferson who signed legislation in 1802 establishing the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. With a class of only ten cadets, the academy opened its doors on Independence Day of that year—and none too soon.

  War broke out again, faster than anyone had imagined it would. The War of 1812 refocused attention on the country’s desperate need for trained officers. James Madison, then President, upped the size of the Corps of Cadets to 250, and he broadened the curriculum to include general scientific and engineering courses.

  The academy was girded for the next conflict, the Civil War of 1861. Tragically, and with poignant irony, the same officers who had trained diligently at West Point to defend America found themselves fighting against each other. During the Civil War, West Point graduates—Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, Lee, Jackson, and Jefferson Davis—dominated both sides of the conflict. In fact, of the war’s sixty major battles, West Pointers commanded both sides in fifty-five. Though the war was a tragedy for the country as a whole, it was particularly traumatic for the military academy.