Paul Luvera Journal

Marian Meade has written a book Bobbed Hair and Bath Tub Gin about Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber and their activities during the "roaring twenties." These women were unique. Their life stories are entertaining and unlike any I’m familiar with. I was particularly amused by one of Dorothy Parker’s comments about her relationship with Charles MacArthur. She said to her friends that her poor treatment at his hands was her own fault for "putting…

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The RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner was owned by the Cunard Steamship Line Shipping Company. It was a competitor of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, commonly known as the White Star Line. White Star was famous for it’s luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic. The Cunard ships were not as fast as the White Star ships which could make a transatlantic trip fast enough to provide weekly service between Liverpool & New York. As a result, Cunard had three ships…

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Have you ever heard of Fred Korematsu? I confess that while I should have, I had never heard of him until I recently came across an account of this Japanese American hero. He was born in Oakland, California in 1919 to a Japanese American family who operated a nursery in California. On December 7, 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Two months later President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which authorized the Army…

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In her book Elements of Italy Lisa St Aubin De Teran devotes a short chapter to two Italian’s, Givovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and their contribution to ending Mafia control in Sicily. The facts are worth repeating. The history of the Mafia probably dates to Giuseppe Garibaldi’s efforts to unite Italy when his red shirts arrived in Palermo in 1860. Young peasant supporters hid in caves called "maha" in Arabic which is believed to be the source of the name…

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I’ve just started reading Alan Axelrod’s biography Patton in which he points out General George S. Patton, Jr was known among his men, in the 3rd Army, as "Old blood and guts" but, they were quick to add: "his guts- our blood." He was also known as the "master of the sword" who said to his men "we fight where we are told and we win where we fight." This complex man was an outspoken racist who also was a…

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One of the accounts in Tony Horwitrz’s book, The Devil May Care, is about a sailor with connections to Seattle. Joshua Slocum (1844 – 1909) was born in Nova Scotia and left home at age sixteen to work on sailing ships. Through years of experience, he became a captain of cargo ships and ran a schooner between Seattle and San Francisco in 1869. He also was the captain on cargo ships running to Australia and the Philippines. In 1882 he…

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Discrimination over race is nothing new for America. David Pietrusza describes the "Jim Crow" situation of the 1900’s in his book 1920 The Year of Six Presidents. As an illustration of the strong bias against blacks in the United States, he points out that in October of 1901 Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for a private dinner. The white South was enraged. The Memphis Scimitar fumed that the President had committed "the most damnable outrage…

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In The Devil May Care Tony Horwitz describes fifty Americans, as he puts it, "and their quest for the unknown." One of the accounts involves George Catlin, 1796 – 1872, who entered law school in Connecticut and was admitted the bar the following year. But, within a few years he gave up the law and decided to become a painter. At first he specialized in miniatures, but seeing a delegation of American Native Indians in Philadelphia, he decided to make…

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In his book, 1920 The Year of Six Presidents, David Pietrusza recounts the struggle to obtain the right of women to vote. He describes Alice Stokes Paul who dedicated herself to the cause, even picketing the White House in 1913. Marching on the way, some ten thousand suffragettes were set upon by thugs who slapped them, spit on them and knocked them down, tearing banners out of their hands. Over the next several years, Paul and thousands of other women…

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The history of the labor movement in the United States is one of the most violent of any other industrialized nation. On the other hand, labor conditions were oppressive and cruel. The working person was at the mercy of the employer. The story is one of bravery and violence. This entry is much longer then normal, but is only a tiny summary of a long history. In the 1900’s a sixteen hour six day work week was common. Across the…

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