Postblogging Technology, March 1956, I: Italy Didn't Have Income Tax Until 1973? Seriously?

R_.C_.,

Nakusp,
British Columbia,
Canada

Dear Father:

I hope that this letter finds you well and in full recovery. Do not worry about me just because Aviation Week (and Flight) are lacking this week. I won't regale you with the sordid details of the logistical issues that got in the way, but I will say that when it comes time to bind the current numbers of Aviation Week, they'd better have a January/February volume, or the librarians won't be able to lift it! 

At the very least, focusing on Fortune and The Economist instead of the trade press lets us hear the voices (on the right) calling for cuts in defence expenditure. Yes, I know that I am sounding shrill and partisan and womanly this week, but I hear far too much from James' friends about "pacifists and socialists" when these discussions come up! (Remember when Bevan was drummed out of the cabinet for saying that the emergency defence budget called for more spending than British output could support, and how Winston Churchill was allowed to announce spending cuts on the same argument just a few months later?) I am just glad to see Ike and Eden (or Rab, really) owning the cuts this time.

Oops. Sorry, politics! To compensate you, charming pictures of grandchildren under separate cover.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Gathering the Bones XXIV: Ohio or Bust!

 

California, Pennsylvania, is in the heart of Pennsyltucky, with all that goes with it, mainly closed coal mines. (Wikipedia reports that the local Vigilant Mine once produced the largest lump of coal in the world.) It is, however, the home of Pennsylvania Western University, which is, I am devastated to report, the new name since 2022 of the California University of Pennsylvania. First they renamed the Rough Riders, and now this! At least we still have the Miami University of Ohio, right? (Right.) The United States is just so darned big that these obscure schools can be real things, although clicking through to the Wiki suggests that  PennWest is on the bubble these days. Can't imagine why people in Pennsyltucky might be disgruntled about stuff. 

Anyway, it's probably called "California" on the basis of a joke about how once you've made the climb out of Brownsville you're practically in California. I don't know that. I made it up, in fact. But now it's a joke on a Blogger page, so real enough for me! Actually it isn't even halfway to Wheeling, West Virginia, where the National Road reaches the Ohio. 

You had to figure that a group of winsome lasses would do a version of Clementine as a slice of Americana. It's regrettably not Lana Del Ray, but check out the costuming!

Missile Gap? A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, February 1956

 

Long time readers will be tired of me bleating about how I was sold a bill of goods in high school about how "we," meaning of course the United States --and, by the way, those Latin American whiners complaining about how "America" has been recently appropriated to mean just the U.S. are 100% correct, to my surprise, but it was the British press that led the pack-- were surprised by the unexpected space technology gap signaled by the shocking surprise of Sputnik. (That was as shocking surprise.) For me, the takeaway point, twenty-four years later, was that it was still necessary for every bright child in a provincial high school to major in the physical sciences if "we" were to have any chance to catch up. 

And you will of course heard from me that this is not true, that the satellite launches undertaken for the International Geophysical Year were scheduled years in advance. Sputnik was no more of a surprise than the T-34's appearance on the battlefield, the first Soviet atomic test in 1949, or the defection of Kim Philby, to name three. It turns out that our received history of the Fifties has been sucked of nuance and detail for any number of reasons. In the case of Sputnik, and the missile gap in general, we can even see the explanation. The Eisenhower Administration's attempt to rein in military spending in the 1956-57 fiscal year led to an industry response that was coordinated with congressional Democratic majorities to produce an  airpower-centred arms race. (Much to the disappointment of those wanting an infantry-centred arms race.) 

But that isn't the limit of my disillusionment. Missile programs might be a silly starting point, but I am, er, beginning to doubt the value of the American experiment.

 

Postblogging Technology, February 1956, II: Working Class Atoms

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada


Dear Father:

A typically foggy winter here in San Francisco sees me with my magazines almost all sorted out just in time to celebrate the atomic age, held back in Britain by its obsolete industry and the stifling weight of atomic tradition. That's not how our distant forefathers gathered plutonium! Seriously, it's what the Americans are saying now that it is clear that Calder Hall will beat American commercial atomic power generation into service by a year or several. Unfortunately, the printer's dispute has kept The Engineer from going on and on about it, as it would surely love to do. I, on the other hand, will not go on and on, as I have documents to review. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, February 1956, I: The Work of a Dozen Engineers

R_., C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

The February blues are upon the city by the bay. Yours truly is coping with consent decrees and the many ways of turning germanium and silicon into husband replacements, as I pointed out to James when we discussed the many traumas of kindergarten. (He'll be on leave at the end of the month, and it's poor May-May who has to deal with the storms and gales of the pint-sized social life.) But it is never untimely to point out to your hubby how he is on the verge of being replaced by a pile of wires. 

Oh. Oh. At work. Never  mind, then!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Supplementary Postblogging: What Did Happen in Late January 1953?

 To Whom It May Concern:

The total archive of these papers, in their tiny parchment and cribbed family code, covers almost a hundred years and five correspondents, is packed in two-and-a-half steamer trunks, and has been moved back to Arcadia now that the roof is fixed. They would not fit in even that much if the scheme of writing monthly, semi-monthly, or sometimes even weekly letters had been carried on continuously, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of myself for getting mixed up last month, but I do. At some point we will know just how important the last two weeks have been, perhaps once the Fourth Republic has fallen or Dwight Eisenhower, or, any of Adlai Stevenson or Estes Kefauver or Richard Nixon or Joe McCarthy (I refuse to believe that the American electorate will pull the lever for Bill Knowland after a full campaign) are elected President. On the other hand, I'm not sure the reader will care. This is supposed to be a kind of investor's newsletter, highlighting the Progress of Science, as our first correspondent was wont to capitalise.  Well, some of the most important technology of the last ten years has involved the projection of motion pictures and the recording of music, and the most important technology news has pertained to Air Force budgets, so it is hard to set hard and fast limits.

On the other hand, now I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what was in Newsweek, because it's the weekly with the best pictures. (Which will go into the trunks as photographic flimsies bleached of all interest for the future reader, but at least you, the reader of 1956, if any, will see the clipped originals, or, better yet, get your own copy.)

Postblogging Technology, January 1956, I-And-A-Half: A Peaceful Year to Come

 

1:39, though the talking heads do manage some explanation for why  you're listening to this. 

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father: 

I see as I put this in the packet that I have mixed up my notes and sent in the wrong issues. What can I say? It's been a busy week, with a flying trip to L.A. and back. In way of apology, all that I can say is that you're not paying for this, and you're not getting your news from me. I always like to read Uncle George's old letters, especially from the old days, before the war, and I'm always upset when he misses a month (or a year --what was going on in 1931?) and so by extension I am mad at me. There was quite a bit of news at the end of the month, and I will catch you up briefly next week. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie