Interesting to see that today is the anniversary of Devil's Tower as a national monument. Seems like it is mostly an attraction for rock climbers, judging from the NPS site. I have this stamp in my collection.
Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
Beautiful stamp.
ReplyDeleteBrinkley said that while TR never visited Devils Tower he may have seen it since he visited Gillette and another Wyoming town Brinkley lists. I've driven through Gillette many times and have never seen the Tower -- I'm wondering if this is another one of Brinkley's weird assumptions or if it's really that big and I just wasn't looking for it. I'll have to check it out next time....
I imagine tourism peaked back in the late 70s when Spielberg made Devil's Tower the centerpiece of his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
ReplyDelete