ma Mmms^m^^^m tiff AUTUMN 2002 •Hi U^' New' laiits' &47 Frederick Jackson Turner Leaves Wisconsin Building the World Trsiid^ Center: L^TT^tLi L-lT storicaLSo •l(i:tV r, ^ B^# ^^• 1' / ^B^Wji^ [^Hk^ ^^'^^ i£ ^K^ ^ffw^ *'-'• ^^& -•'••<^'^'- j I^^^H^^-i.^ ^^HK ^ 'it,,J||i j^^^H^ -,i..|^^. II^^HI —^' '-. '• ^' • '"• ' '^>%,;»^ ' ^^E^^PH ^^ ^ ""^^l I. * x' . -Ct '*"•• ^1« ;••• \ The Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama ainted in 1853, Asher B. Durand's Progress provided a visual rep­ resentation of the process Frederick Jackson Turner described in his now famous essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in Ameri­ can History," delivered in 1893. In the essay Turner defined the frontiePr as "the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization," and Durand's idealized landscape captures that wave as progress moves inexorably westward, supplanting the darkness of savagery with the light of civilization. Turner's biographer Allan G. Bogue has called this essay "the most celebrated scholarly paper ever presented by an Ameri­ can historian or social scientist," and in this issue Bogue uses a recently dis­ covered letter from Turner to help us understand why the University of Wisconsin's most popular historian left the state in 1909. m Editor J. KentCalder Managing Editor Kathryn A. Thompson Associate Editor Margaret T. Dwyer Production Manager Deborah T. Johnson Reviews Editor Masarah Van Eyck Research and Editorial Assistants Brett Barker Joel Heiman Catherine Johnson Tim Thering Designer Kenneth A. Miller 110 Stories 2 THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, published quarterly, is one of the many benefits of membership in the Photographs of the World Trade Center Wisconsin Historical Society. Individual memberships are $37.50 per year; senior citizen individual, $27.50; family, Construction $47.50; senior citizen family, $37.50; institutional, $55; Text and Photos by Richard Quinney supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500; life (one person), $1,000. To receive the Wisconsin Magazine of History, join the Society! To join or to give a gift membership, send a check "Not by Bread Alone" 10 to Membership, Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State The Emergence of the Wisconsin Idea and Street, Madison, Wl 53706-1482, or call the Membership Office at 888-748-7479. You can also join via e-mail, the Departure of Frederick Jackson Turner [email protected], or at the Society's Web site, www.wisconsinhistory.org (click on "Become a Member"). By Allan G. Bogue The WMH has been published quarterly since 1917 by the Wisconsin Historical Society (Phone 608-264-6400). Copyright © 2002 by the State Historical Society of Wis­ A Superior Season Z4 consin. Permission to quote or otherwise reproduce por­ A New York Giant tions of this copyrighted work may be sought in writing from the publisher at the address above. Communication, Remembers His Rookie Year inquiries, and manuscript submissions may also be addressed to [email protected]. Information about the By William A. Hachten magazine, including contributor's guidelines, sample arti­ cles, and an index of volume 84 can also be found at the Society's Web site by following the "Publications" link from After Slavery 40 the home page. Photographs identified with PH, WHi, or WHS are from The Milwaukee Years of Louis Hughes the Society's collections; address inquiries about such By Michael E. Stevens photos to the Visual Materials Archivist, 816 State Street, Madison, Wl 53706-1482. Many WHS photos are available through the Wisconsin Historical Images digital service available on the Web site. (From the home page, click The Crisis Years 52 "Archives.") An Excerpt from Young Bob: A The Wisconsin Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. ISSN Biography of Robert M. La Follette,Jr 0043-6543. Periodicals postage paid at Madison, Wl 53706-1482. Back issues, if available, are $10 plus By Patrick]. Maney postage (888-748-7479). On the front cover: In August 1947 dozens of men arrived in Superior, Wisconsin, with one goal in mind: to Editors' Choice 58 play football for the New York Giants. In this issue William Hachten, seen in the photo in profile at right, recounts his Letters from Our Readers 62 rookie season with the team. (Saturday Evening Post) Back Matters 64 VOLUME 86, NUMBER 1 / AUTUMN 2002 mm ^^r mil w, ^\\ ' 1 110 stories Photographs of the World Trade Center Construction Text and Photos by Richard Quinney hat a difference a day makes—in a photo­ graph as well as in a life. You can view a W photograph in one way for a number of years, and then with the occurrence of a single event, the photograph takes on new meaning. AUTUMN 2002 World Trade Center l^rPE STRENGTHENING YOUR ElectricalGas and Steam Faciimes ^ 1i l^p ^ iiSJB %, r^ ^^^ / y/ ^^ _ '^ t. ! f'« For over thirty years, I kept trays of color All things of the city During the many years required for the slides of the photographs that I had taken in project's construction, I was living in New the spring of 1969. As I moved from one were new and exciting York city and teaching sociology at New place to another, the trays of slides relocated 1 r- York University. The spring semester of with me, closet to closet. Someday, I to me, worthy OJ a ^ggg^ j enrolled in a photography course believed, the documentation might serve a photograph. and roamed the streets and edges of Man­ purpose beyond the satisfaction that I expe­ hattan, photographing the sights that rienced as I was committing the images to film. If nothing caught my eye. I was the classic migrant from the Midwest else, the photographs would show the passing of time and the (from a farm in Walworth County), and all things of the city changing of the landscape. I did not know, until September were new and exciting to me, worthy of a photograph. 11, 2001, that the photographs would take on a meaning and With color film loaded in my camera, I walked from my significance beyond anything I could imagine. apartment in Greenwich Village to the construction site of the That spring of 1969, construction on the sixteen-acre site emerging World Trade Center. On the days that I did not that would house the World Trade Center was progressing, teach or have other duties at the university, I would spend the with the two 110-story towers beginning to dominate the cen­ day at the site. I also carried a tape recorder to capture the tral plaza. The trade center's mission was the advancement of sounds of construction and to conduct brief interviews. For international trade, and it had the financial backing of the the final presentation to the class at semester's end, I planned world's largest corporations. As the "United Nations of Com­ to synchronize the slides with construction sounds, interviews, merce," the center was to become the central market of world and the music of the Beatles, Bach organ fugues, and Harry trade. When you flew to New York City, the sight of the two Nilsson singing "I Guess the Tord Must Be in New York rising towers heralded your arrival. City." AUTUMN 2002 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Gonstruction of the World Trade Center was taking place in the larger contemporary context. Lyndon Johnson had been elected president in 1964 to deliver the programs of the Great Society and to solve—or at least improve upon—the nation's problems of poverty, inequality, education, and urban decay. Yet the escalation of U.S. military intervention in southeast Asia—half a million troops in Vietnam by the end of 1967—caused cutbacks to domestic programs. Opposition to the war increased, and there were protest marches down Fifth Avenue and bus rides to Washington for the huge anti­ war demonstrations. At NYU, students and faculty were questioning not only the war, but also the role of the university in these times. In EXCA^TdftS Washington Square and over in the East Village, along First and Second Avenue and in Tompkins Square Park, another form of resistance was taking place. Hippies and flower chil­ dren, as they were called by the media, were on the streets and in the lofts. Abbie Hoffman came to talk in my sociology class, and Hair was opening at the Public Theater on Astor Place. By the end of 1968, the nation had been shocked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April and Robert Kennedy in June. Exhausted by the resistance to his Vietnam policies, LBJ announced he would not run for reelection, and Richard Nixon was inaugurated president in January of 1969. A few months later, as I wandered with my camera along IfELTIC U AUTUMN 2002 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OE HISTORY My selfproclaimed project was to document what could he seen as one world comes down and another goes up. AUTUMN 2002 The surrounding sound was ofjackhammers, pile drivers, the grind and roar of heavy equipment, and the voices of the workers. And there were the moments ofrepose-of workers lunching and taking breaks, talking patiently to each other Business men and women stood quietly and viewed the site. Vendors sold their wares from the street WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OE HISTORY the streets of lower Manhattan at the trade center construc­ building project among those who approached the construction tion site, I observed the times in a microcosm. My self-pro­ site. The surrounding sound was ofjackhammers, pile drivers, claimed project, as a sociologist and student of photography, the grind and roar of heavy equipment, and the voices of the was to document what could be seen as one world comes workers.