Rare Color Footage of the 1939 World Series: Yankees v. Reds

in History | June 5th, 2012

The 1939 World Series was­n’t much of a con­test. The Yan­kees, led by Joltin’ Joe DiMag­gio in cen­ter field, had won the last three cham­pi­onships. And they won this con­test rather eas­i­ly too, sweep­ing the Cincin­nati Reds in four straight games. Yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the Red­dit com­mu­ni­ty unearthed some rare col­or footage of the ’39 Series. In it, we catch glimpses of the Old Yan­kee Sta­di­um, the actu­al House That Ruth Built; pitch­ers doing a dif­fer­ent kind of windup; and a reminder that you could once buy five razors for 25 cents. Find more infor­ma­tion on those at the Inter­net Muse­um of Safe­ty Razors.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Prince­ton v. Yale, 1903: The Old­est Col­lege Foot­ball Game on Film

Lou Gehrig, Yan­kee Leg­end, Stars in 1938 West­ern Rawhide

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Robert Penn Warren Archive Brings Early Civil Rights to Life

in Education, History, Law, Politics | June 5th, 2012

While an under­grad­u­ate at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty in Ten­nessee, writer Robert Penn War­ren began writ­ing about the south and its tur­bu­lent racial his­to­ry. He trav­eled through­out the Unit­ed States and inter­viewed men and women involved with the Civ­il Rights Move­ment, record­ing each con­ver­sa­tion on a reel-to-reel tape recorder—a project that result­ed in the 1965 book Who Speaks for the Negro? This month, Van­der­bilt University’s Robert Penn War­ren Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties makes a full dig­i­tal record avail­able of Warren’s research for the book—an impres­sive and well-con­struct­ed col­lec­tion of inter­views with his­tor­i­cal fig­ures includ­ing Ralph Elli­son, James Bald­win and Mal­colm X. The rich­ness of the site is its con­nec­tive design. Each inter­view is tagged by top­ic, includ­ing a subject’s link to broad­er issues or to oth­er inter­vie­wees, mak­ing evi­dent through user expe­ri­ence the com­plex nature of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment. A search for the NAACP, for exam­ple, yields mul­ti­ple inter­views fea­tur­ing dif­fer­ent points of view on the organization’s for­ma­tion along with PDFs of orig­i­nal let­ters and the search­able text of news­pa­per arti­cles about ear­ly NAACP demon­stra­tions. But the site’s audio offer­ings are its most pow­er­ful assets.

The mate­r­i­al offers a potent por­trait of a his­tor­i­cal moment and is rich with ref­er­ences to pol­i­tics, art and spe­cif­ic con­flicts over inte­gra­tion. The group inter­views with uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and pro­test­ers are worth a lis­ten, both for the con­tent and for the ear­ly 1960s group dynam­ics. When War­ren inter­views men and women togeth­er, men tend to speak first and at most length. But the views expressed are fas­ci­nat­ing, as in one case when a female sit-in par­tic­i­pant gives her opin­ion about assim­i­la­tion.

“My first reac­tion of course would be, think­ing of Socrates: Know thy­self. We do face the prob­lem of amal­ga­ma­tion into the whole of Amer­i­can life, being Amer­i­cans first, say, or being what I would like to term Negro Amer­i­cans or Black Amer­i­cans. I think that we as black men have an oblig­a­tion to know our­selves as black men and be proud of what we are, and con­tribute to Amer­i­ca what we could actu­al­ly offer to this cul­ture.”

Kate Rix is an Oak­land based writer. See more of her work at .

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Mal­colm X at Oxford, 1964

Great Cul­tur­al Icons Talk Civ­il Rights (1963)

MLK’s Omi­nous Final Speech

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This is Coffee!: A 1961 Tribute to Our Favorite Stimulant

in History, Life | June 5th, 2012

Water. Cof­fee. Time. It’s those three spe­cial ingre­di­ents that went into mak­ing the tra­di­tion­al cup of Amer­i­can cof­fee. In case you missed that, let me remind you: It’s water, cof­fee, and time. Don Drap­er had noth­ing to do with this 13-minute, nos­tal­gia-induc­ing infomer­cial from 1961. Rather, it’s the work of the Cof­fee Brew­ing Insti­tute, which turned the art of mak­ing cof­fee into a dis­mal sci­ence — that is, until glo­ri­ous Peet’s came around. This clip per­ma­nent­ly resides in the Prelinger Archive, and comes to us via The Atlantic.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

Jim Henson’s Vio­lent Wilkins Cof­fee Com­mer­cials (1957–1961)

A Rol­lick­ing French Ani­ma­tion on the Per­ils of Drink­ing a Lit­tle Too Much Cof­fee

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Dark Side of the Moon: A Mockumentary on Stanley Kubrick and the Moon Landing Hoax

in Film, History | June 4th, 2012

Poor moon-land­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists. Lack­ing the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al grav­i­tas of JFK assas­si­na­tion con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists or the brazen pseu­do-rel­e­vance of 9/11 con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists, those who believe the Apol­lo 11 mis­sion came out of a Hol­ly­wood back­lot must toil in deep­est obscu­ri­ty. Imag­ine suf­fer­ing from the aching con­vic­tion that the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment, in league with a respect­ed auteur or two, hood­winked the entire world with a few min­utes of blur­ry, ama­teur­ish video and gar­bled walkie-talkie speech — hood­winked the entire world except you, that is. Now imag­ine a Truther and a sec­ond-gun­man obses­sive shar­ing a laugh about all your impor­tant rev­e­la­tions. If indeed you do hold that mankind has nev­er vis­it­ed the moon, make sure you don’t watch usu­al­ly seri­ous doc­u­men­tar­i­an William Karel’s Dark Side of the Moon. In it, you’ll see your ideas fur­ther ridiculed, which would be unpleas­ant — or, even worse, you’ll see them vin­di­cat­ed.

These moon-land­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists offer many alter­na­tive his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives, and Karel picks a rich one. He pro­ceeds from the ques­tion of how, exact­ly, film­mak­er Stan­ley Kubrick came into pos­ses­sion of the advanced cam­era lens­es he used to shoot 1975’s can­dle-lit Bar­ry Lyn­don. Per­haps NASA, who had the lens­es in the first place, owed Kubrick for cer­tain ser­vices ren­dered six years ear­li­er? Cut­ting decon­tex­tu­al­ized file footage togeth­er with script­ed lines deliv­ered by actors, NASA staffers, and Kubrick­’s actu­al wid­ow, Karel tells an omi­nous­ly earnest sto­ry of how the CIA recruit­ed Kubrick and his 2001-test­ed cin­e­mat­ic crafts­man­ship to “win” the space race, at least on tele­vi­sion. Though lib­er­al­ly pep­pered with small false­hoods and inside jokes for film buffs, Dark Side of the Moon has nonethe­less inad­ver­tent­ly won its share of sin­cere adher­ents, includ­ing self-styled “Speak­er of Truth” Wayne Green. It’s been said many times, many ways: human­i­ty isn’t quite smart enough to effec­tive­ly con­spire, but we’re just smart enough to invent an infini­tude of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Very First Films: Three Short Doc­u­men­taries

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Building the Golden Gate Bridge: A Retro Film Featuring Original Archival Footage

in History | May 30th, 2012

This past week­end, San Fran­cis­co cel­e­brat­ed the 75th anniver­sary of the Gold­en Gate Bridge. And if Beth­le­hem Steel were still around, it would have been cel­e­brat­ing too. Once Amer­i­ca’s sec­ond-largest steel pro­duc­er, the now bank­rupt com­pa­ny fab­ri­cat­ed the steel used in the con­struc­tion of the icon­ic bridge — all 68,000 tons of it. Some­where dur­ing the 1950s, the Penn­syl­va­nia-based firm revis­it­ed the mak­ing of the Gold­en Gate Bridge, pro­duc­ing a 26 minute film that incor­po­rat­ed some amaz­ing archival footage. Every phase of con­struc­tion gets cov­ered, and the film ends with the bridge’s big open­ing day in 1937. It’s not to be missed.

via The Atlantic

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William F. Buckley Meets (Possibly Drunk) Jack Kerouac, Tries to Make Sense of Hippies, 1968

in History, Literature, Television | May 30th, 2012

The first mod­ern use of the word hip­pie can be traced back to 1965, when Michael Fal­lon, a San Fran­cis­co jour­nal­ist, used the word to refer to the bohemi­an lifestyle emerg­ing in the city’s Haight-Ash­bury dis­trict. (Appar­ent­ly, Fal­lon took the word hip­ster used by Nor­man Mail­er and then short­ened it into hip­pie.) By 1967, the mass media could­n’t stop talk­ing about hip­pies. It was the Sum­mer of Love in San Fran­cis­co, the defin­ing moment of the coun­ter­cul­ture, and the rest of the coun­try was scratch­ing its col­lec­tive head, try­ing to make sense of it all. Who bet­ter to do it than William F. Buck­ley, the emerg­ing voice of con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­ca?

In this clas­sic 1968 episode of Fir­ing Line, Buck­ley tries to demys­ti­fy the hip­pie move­ment with the help of three guests: Lewis Yablon­sky, a pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy at Cal State-North­ridge; Ed Sanders, the activist poet who helped form The Fugs; and then Jack Ker­ouac, author of the Beat clas­sic, On the Road. In many ways, Ker­ouac inspired the hip­pie move­ment. And he, him­self, acknowl­edges the rela­tion­ship between the Beats and the hip­pies. But, in watch­ing this clip, one thing becomes clear: in style and sub­stance, he and the hip­pies were also worlds apart.…

Don’t miss Yale’s lec­ture on Ker­ouac and On the Road here.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jack Ker­ouac Reads from On the Road (1959)

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

William F. Buck­ley Flogged Him­self to Get Through Atlas Shrugged

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Breaking News: Socrates Tried Again in Athens and Acquitted!

in History, Philosophy | May 29th, 2012



Note: the action starts at about the two minute mark, and the video is accom­pa­nied by an Eng­lish trans­la­tion.

The tri­al and exe­cu­tion of Socrates at Athens in 399 B.C.E. has come down to us as the arche­type of intel­lec­tu­al mar­tyr­dom. But the facts of the case, as fil­tered through the writ­ings of Socrates’ stu­dents Xenophon and Pla­to, are sketchy.  “Why,” asks Dou­glas Lin­der on the Famous Tri­als Web site, “in a soci­ety enjoy­ing more free­dom and democ­ra­cy than any the world had ever seen, would a sev­en­ty-year-old philoso­pher be put to death for what he was teach­ing?”

Last Fri­day the Onas­sis Cul­tur­al Cen­tre in Athens gave Socrates a new tri­al, assem­bling a pan­el of dis­tin­guished jurists from Europe and Amer­i­ca to reopen the case. As the Onas­sis Cen­tre’s Web site explains, the event was “not a re-enact­ment but a mod­ern per­spec­tive based on cur­rent legal frame­work sup­ple­ment­ed with ancient Greek ele­ments and com­i­cal the­atrics.” This time the ver­dict was different–but just bare­ly. The vote by the jury was a 5–5 tie, which meant Socrates was acquit­ted. The audi­ence’s vote was more deci­sive: 5 to con­vict, 584 to acquit. Of course, it was a lit­tle late for Socrates.

You can down­load The Apol­o­gy of Socrates from our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

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Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with a Free iPad App

in History, iPad | May 26th, 2012

When it opened to vehi­cle traf­fic in May, 1937 the Gold­en Gate Bridge was the longest sus­pen­sion bridge in the world. Since then eight bridges have sur­passed it in length, but the icon­ic inter­na­tion­al orange span is still the most pho­tographed bridge in the world. This month marks the Gold­en Gate’s 75th anniver­sary and the Cal­i­for­nia His­tor­i­cal Society’s exhib­it, A Wild Flight of the Imag­i­na­tion, cel­e­brates the event with a look at the bridge’s con­struc­tion. The exhib­it has also been made avail­able as a free eBook for the iPad, which includes his­toric pho­tographs by Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange as well as a short film of bridge design­er Joseph Strauss speak­ing to a reporter dur­ing the bridge’s con­struc­tion. At the time, experts said that the Gold­en Gate strait’s fero­cious winds and strong, swirling cur­rents would make con­struc­tion impos­si­ble. But the design intro­duced deflec­tion the­o­ry, which uti­lizes a thin, flex­i­ble road­way and long cables that reduce struc­tur­al stress.

The inter­ac­tive app is accom­pa­nied by a musi­cal score—the open­ing selec­tion from com­pos­er Rob Kapilow’s Chrysopy­lae, Greek for “Gold­en Gate.” Ear­ly users of the eBook report­ed glitch­es with the app’s audio. The cul­prit may have been the side mute switch, which must be flipped off for the audio to work. Also, make sure your iPad’s vol­ume is up. Like the exhib­it in the society’s San Fran­cis­co muse­um, the app includes access to images of some 350 objects and ephemera relat­ed to the span’s con­struc­tion. Almost as nice as a walk across the bridge’s 1.7 miles, and not near­ly as windy.

Kate Rix writes about k‑12 instruc­tion and high­er ed. 

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