Irving Berlin (אירווינג
ברלין) was born Israel Isidore Baline (Израиль Бейлин in
Russian; יִשְׂרָאֵל
בײלינ in Hebrew) in 1888 in Russia. After his family
home was burned to the ground in a pogrom, he came with his
family to the United States at age 5. They settled in New York
City, on the Lower East Side in the Yiddish Theater district. He
wrote his first big hit song, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, in
1912. Not only was it a big hit in the United States, but in
Europe as well. He continued to write hit songs, including the
songs for several editions of the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1938,
Kate Smith’s manager asked him to write a song for the 20th
anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. He brought
out a song he had written 20 years earlier as a personal
expression of gratitude to his adopted country, “God Bless
America”. He donated all royalties to the Boy Scouts and Girl
Scouts. It quickly became a second national anthem. In 1946 he
was asked to write the songs for Annie Get Your Gun.
Dorothy Fields was one of the first popular female
songwriters to rise to prominence in America. In addition to her
many collaborations with Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, and brother
Herbert Fields, she co-authored the book for Irving Berlin’s Annie
Get Your Gun. Originally, Dorothy was going to write the
lyrics for the show and Jerome Kern the music. But when Kern
died, they asked Irving Berlin. Since Berlin wrote both music
and lyrics, Dorothy agreed to write only the book.
Herbert Fields, Dorothy’s brother, collaborated with
her to write the book for the musicals Annie Get Your Gun
and A Connecticut Yankee.
Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun had its
premiere on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on May 16,
1946 and ran for 1,147 performances. Directed by Joshua Logan,
the show starred Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley and Ray Middleton
as Frank Butler.
The show opened on June 7, 1947 at the London Coliseum with
Dolores Gray as Annie with Bill Johnson as Frank.
In 1949, Annie du Far West, a French language
production of Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun,
opened at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
The 1950 film version of Annie Get Your Gun
eliminated the songs “I’m
a Bad, Bad Man”,
“Moonshine Lullaby”, and “I Got Lost in His Arms”, but added a
new song “Let’s Go West Again”, which was deleted before the
film’s release. The film featured Betty Hutton as Annie Oakley
and Howard Keel as Frank Butler. Judy Garland had originally
been cast to play Annie, but MGM found her impossible to work
with and fired her. The rest of the cast resented Betty.
In 1966, the first Broadway revival of Annie Get
Your Gun opened at the Broadway Theatre where it played
for 78 performances and received two Tony nominations. The 1966
revival eliminated the romance between Tommy Keeler and Winnie
Tate, including the songs “I’ll Share It All With You” and “Who
Do You Love, I Hope?” but added the song “An Old Fashioned
Wedding,” written especially for this revival. Ethel Merman
reprised her role as Annie with Bruce Yarnell as Frank.
In 1999, the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your
Gun opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1,045
performances and won two Tony Awards, including Best Revival of
a Musical. It eliminated the songs “Colonel Buffalo Bill”, “I’m
a Bad, Bad Man”, and “I’m an Indian Too” but restored the songs
“I’ll Share It All with You” and “Who Do You Love, I Hope?” and
restored the romance between Tommy Keeler and Winnie Tate.
Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Mosey (or Moses,
according to some sources), August 13, 1860, in Patterson
Township, Darke County, Ohio. Her
father died when she was six, and she began hunting at the age
nine to support her six brothers and sisters and
her widowed mother, and later, to supply game to
restaurants and hotels as far away as Cincinnati. By age 15, she had paid off
their farm’s mortgage. She became well known as a
sharpshooter. When Frank Butler was in Cincinnati in 1875 with
his sharpshooting show, he challenged any local marksman to a
shooting contest. When hotel owner Jack Frost heard about this,
he arranged a shooting match between Frank and Annie. She not only won the match but
also Frank’s heart. They soon were married and Annie became
Frank’s assistant in his traveling shooting act. She
took the name Oakley, perhaps from the suburb, now neighborhood,
of Cincinnati where she and Frank were living. (The village of
Oakley was incorporated in 1898 and was annexed to the city of
Cincinnati in 1913. Today, the Oakley area has become a yuppie
neighborhood.) In 1885, they joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West show. Fellow performer Sitting Bull gave her the name
“Watanya Cicilla”, translated as “Little Sure Shot.” Annie was
modest and somewhat demure, not like the character portrayed in
the show. However, she promoted the idea of women in combat, and
in 1898 wrote a letter to President McKinley “offering the
government the services of a company of 50 ‘lady
sharpshooters’
who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S.
go to war with Spain.” The Spanish-American war soon broke out,
but her proposal was not accepted. However, Theodore Roosevelt
named his regiment the Rough Riders, after the current name of
the show: “Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World”, of which
Annie was now a major star. In 1901, while traveling with the
Buffalo Bill show, she was badly injured in a rail accident, but
she recovered. She left the Buffalo Bill show, and her
reputation only grew. Throughout her career, she promoted use of
guns by women, not only for protection, but also as a means of
promoting self-confidence. She reportedly taught around 15,000
women how to use a gun. She died in Greenville, Darke County,
Ohio, in 1926. [Here is another biography
of Annie Oakley.]
In theater parlance, an Annie Oakley is a free
admission to a show. When tickets were punched, as is the
case today with bus transfers, the ticket would have a hole
in it, which looked like a small piece of paper that a sure
shot like Annie Oakley had shot a hole in it!
Frank Butler was born Francis E. Butler in County
Longford, Ireland. Records in Ireland give the date of his
baptism of January 30, 1847, but his U. S. passport application
had his birthday as February 25, 1852. He came to the United
States at the age of 13. He worked a series of odd jobs,
married, had two children, and divorced. He developed a shooting
act, and then met Annie Mosey in Cincinnati in 1876 (?) and
married her within a year. They developed a joint shooting act
when Butler’s partner was sick. They toured with the circus, and
then joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1885. Recognizing
her superior shooting, Butler became Annie’s manager. After
Annie’s death in 1926, Butler became so distraught that,
according to one report, he stopped eating and starved to death.
Buffalo Bill was born William Frederick Cody in Iowa
Territory, 1846. At age 11, after the death of his father, he
began working. He became a Pony Express rider at age 14. During
the Civil War, he served in the Union army from 1863 to 1865,
then as a civilian scout to the army. After the war, he was
hired to supply bison meat for the Kansas Pacific Railway. Cody
and hunter William Comstock competed in an eight-hour
buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name
“Buffalo Bill”, in which Cody won by killing 68 bison to
Comstock’s 48. He started “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show in
1883. The show had several successful tours of Europe. Cody died
in Denver in 1917.
Pawnee Bill was born Gordon William Lillie in 1860. In
1888 Bill and his wife May started Pawnee Bill’s Historic Wild
West show, which was a financial disaster. They reorganized as a
smaller show called “Pawnee Bill’s Historical Wild West Indian
Museum and Encampment Show.” This was a success. Then it became
“Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East Show,” which included Mexican
cowboys, Pawnee, Japanese performers, and Arab jugglers. In
1908, Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the
“Two Bills” show, but the show was foreclosed when performing in
Denver.
Sitting Bull was a Lakota
Sioux tribal chief and holy man. He was born sometime around
1831 in unorganized Missouri Territory, now in South Dakota. He
inspired the Sioux to resistance to the 7th Cavalry at the
Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. After the battle, he fled to
Canada, but returned in 1881. In 1884 he saw Annie Oakley in
Minnesota, and was so impressed with her he adopted her as his
daughter and gave her the name “Watanya Cicilla”, translated as
“Little Sure Shot.” He joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for
four months. In 1890 the government feared he was planning to
join the Ghost Dance movement, and attempted to arrest him.
During the struggle, he was killed. He is buried in South
Dakota, near his birthplace.
ACT I
Scene 1
The Ohio State Fair was held in Cincinnati in 1856,
1863, and 1864. It has been held in various locations around the
state. But since 1874 it has been held in Columbus
The song Colonel Buffalo Bill was cut from the 1999
revival.
The term squaw is derived from a term in various
Algonquin languages and means woman. Beginning in
the 19th century, many have taken offense at the word,
seeing it as degrading, similar to the use of such words as
Negress or Jewess.
A steer is a castrated male of the species Bos
taurus; an uncastrated male is known as a bull;
a female that has had a calf is a cow; a female
under three years old that has not had a calf is a heifer.
A stage coach is a covered wagon used to transport
passengers and mail, as well as other goods. Stage coaches
began in Scotland or England around 1600, and traveled about
five to ten miles per hour. They required coach inns, where
horses could be watered or changed, and passengers could be
fed and could spend the night. (Thus it is unlikely that the
sage robbery described in the song would occur at midnight!)
Vaudeville is a type of entertainment popular
mainly between the 1880s and about 1930. It featured a
variety of entertainments, from circus acts, song and dance,
and drama (sometimes whole plays and sometimes a single act
of a play). It was usually family entertainment, which meant
it did not include risqué content popular in earlier
entertainments catering mainly to men. Wild west shows would
be included: they presented a romantic version of the west
that no longer existed.
A veranda (also spelled verandah) is a large
covered porch. In the days before air conditioning, most houses
in the South had a veranda.
A salt cellar is a bowl of variable size used to
dispense salt at the table. They have been made of various
materials, including glass, ceramic, metals, ivory, wood, and
even plastic. With the invention of free-flowing salt in 1911,
by the addition of anticaking agents such as sodium
aluminosilicate or magnesium carbonate, salt cellars were
gradually replaced with salt shakers. Today, salt cellars are
collectors’ items.
A grouse is a game bird of the arctic or subarctic
regions, vaguely similar to the chicken.
I’m a Bad, Bad Man: although Frank Butler had been
married and divorced before he met Annie, it is not clear if he
was the kind of womanizer portrayed in this song.
The Territory of Arkansaw was created by Congress
in 1819, from a portion of the Missouri Territory, which was
formerly that part of the Louisiana Purchase that did not
become the state of Louisiana. Western portions of the
territory were detached to form what was called Indian
Territory. In 1836, the eastern portion that remained to the
territory was admitted as the State of Arkansas. (The name
has been spelled both Arkansaw and Arkansas,
and pronounced /ˈɑrkənsɔː/, /ɑrˈkænzəs/, and other ways. In
1881 the Arkansas General Assembly [legislature] passed a
resolution giving the official spelling and pronunciation of
the name.) (In 1907 all the detached western portions were
admitted as the State of Oklahoma.)
Darke County, Ohio, Annie’s
birthplace, is in western Ohio on the Indiana border. It was
named for William Darke (1736-1801), an officer in the
Revolutionary War. (The rumor that it was named for John Darke,
the French national hero, is false.)
Doin what comes Natchurly
The lines Sister Sal who’s musical / Has never had a
lesson, / Still she’s learned to sing off key /
Doin’ what comes natur’lly are suggestive of the life
of Florence
Foster Jenkins, the wealthy heiress and socialite who
became an opera singer notorious for her bad singing skills.
Audiences would come to see her for the sheer novelty of
hearing one so bad. A biopic
of her life was made in 2016 which starred Meryl Streep and
Hugh Grant.
A sou is a small French coin, formerly also a unit
of account, worth 1/20 of a livre, or pound; it was
divided into 12 deniers, or denarii. The
word sou is derived from Latin solidus,
which was eventually shortened to sol, and finally sou.
(In England and Scotland, the equivalent term is shilling,
worth 1/20 of a pound, and the shilling was divided into 12
pence [denarii].) In 1795, when the French money was
decimalized, the livre was replaced with the franc,
which was divided into 100 centimes. There was a 5 centime
coin, colloquially called a sou. Today, France uses
the Euro, and so the sou is discontinued. But the
French still speak of a sou, meaning a coin of
little value, and use the phrase sans le sou,
meaning “without a sou”, hence “broke”, “without
money”.
The parlor was in the 18th and 19th centuries the
main entertaining room in a middle-class home. Originally,
the term was used for two rooms in a cloister (monastery or
nunnery). In the outer parlor, the monks (nuns) met with
outsiders, and in the inner parlor, talked only among
themselves, so as not to disturb the rest of the community.
The middle class could afford a large enough house to have
one (or more) rooms for entertaining. The parlor was a
semi-public room, where a man could meet his sweetheart, but
there would be no suspicion of indiscretion. In the 20th
century, with the telephone and the automobile, there was
less need for such a meeting room. The entertainment
functions of the parlor were continued in the living room
(in the United States) and the drawing room (in Britain).
(The drawing room was originally the withdrawing
room, which had more privacy than the parlor. In the
19th century, after a formal dinner, the men would remain in
the dining room for cigars and brandy, while the women would
withdraw to the drawing room. After they finished their
cigars, the men would rejoin the ladies in the drawing
room.) The term parlor survives mostly in such forms
as “billiard parlor”, “funeral parlor”, and “pizza parlor”.
Holy Jumpin’ Jehosaphat is a minced oath, referencing
King Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat being used instead of Jesus or
Jehovah. King Jehoshaphat reigned over the Kingdom of
Judea from about 873 to 849 BC. According to 1 Kings
22:41-43,
Jehoshaphat the son of Asa
began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king
of Israel. Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned twenty-five years in
Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of
Shilhi. He walked in all the way of Asa his father; he did
not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight
of the Lord.
Oh! Susanna is a minstrel song written by Stephen
Foster, first published in 1848. It is one of the most popular
songs ever written. It
is popularly associated with the California gold rush, but with altered
words. It was appropriated by Edwin Pearce Christy, the founder of Christy’s
Minstrels, who came to specialize in Foster’s songs. Foster wrote “Old Folks at Home” for their exclusive use.
The Girl That I Marry
Cologne is the usual English form for eau de
Cologne, or Cologne water, a perfume with a base of
ethanol, containing mixture of citrus oils including oils of
lemon, orange, tangerine, bergamot, lime, grapefruit and
neroli. It can also contain oils of lavender, rosemary,
thyme, petitgrain (orange leaf), jasmine, and tobacco.
Gardenia is a genus of 150 species of flowering
plants of the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to
tropical regions.
You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun
A broncobuster is a cowboy who rides a bronco,
or bronc, an untrained horse. The silhouette of a
cowboy riding a bucking bronco is the official symbol for
the State of Wyoming.
The Remington Arms Company, LLC., is the oldest
manufacturer of firearms in the United States.
Pistol Packin’ Mama is a 1943 song by Al Dexter that
became the number one folk recording (in the sense of most played on juke
boxes).
Ohio is the Buckeye State, named for the fruit of the
buckeye tree, Aesculus glabra. The fruit, called a
buckeye, resembles an acorn, but is toxic. The native Indians
used the fruit to extract tannic acid, and also used the
toxicity to stun fish, and then blanched them to remove toxins.
Annie says she and her siblings have a long walk home.
From Cincinnati to Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio is about 100
miles! (pretty much due north).
There’s No Business Like Show Business was originally a
knockoff number that Irving Berlin composed hastily to cover a scene
change. But it was almost cut
from the show because Irving Berlin thought that Rodgers and
Hammerstein didn’t like it! It has become “Broadway’s Anthem.”
Dough and Jack are slang for money.
Scene 2
The emergency cord does not operate the brakes on a
train, as is commonly believed, but is for the crew (trainmen)
to communicate with the engineer (driver). The driver then
decides if the train needs to stop. A long pull on the cord
usually indicates that the crewman believes that the train must
stop. Emergency brake valves would be installed on trains that
had air brakes, which the train in our story may not have had:
they were mandated by Congress in 1893. On trains with air
brakes, the emergency brake valves are located on the bulkheads
(end walls), inside the body of the car next to its end doors.
The emergency brake valve is covered by a metal or clear plastic
shield labeled “emergency only.” On episode 5 of I Love Lucy
from season 5, “The Great Train Robbery”, Lucy, Ricky, Ethel,
and Fred took the eastbound Union Pacific train The City of
Los Angeles, and several times Lucy pulled the emergency
brake valve. Because of possible serious problems, severe fines
and imprisonment penalties are in place to stop people from
activating the brake without good reason.
The baggage car on a passenger train is usually part
of the head-end equipment; that is, it is placed between the
locomotives and the cars where the passengers ride (Pullman cars
and coaches). Thus it is unlikely that Little Jake and
the girls could uncouple (“unhitch”) the baggage
car without uncoupling the rest of the train! In the 19th
century, American railroads used the link-and-pin couplers.
These led to many injuries, because the brakeman had to slip
the pin in at just the right moment as the cars were moving
together, and sometimes his hand was crushed as the cars
collided. If the train had air brakes, if a car is uncoupled
from the train, the car’s brakes would
engage, and would not be able to move. Congress mandated both
the Janney automatic coupler and air brakes in 1893, which
greatly reduced the number of injuries and deaths due to
couplers, although the number of railroad employees had been
increasing.
St Paul and Minneapolis are known as the Twin
Cities because they are of comparable size and have grown
together so that there is no buffer zone between them. (There
are other cities similarly situated that are known as twin
cities, but in the United States when one speaks of “The Twin
Cites”, one usually means Minneapolis and St Paul.) Furthermore,
Minneapolis is the largest city in Minnesota, and St Paul is the
state capital. Minneapolis is the home city of the Minnesota
Twins, the American League baseball team, which was originally
the Washington Senators (or Nationals), from 1901 to 1961, when
they moved to Minnesota. From 1902 to 1960, Minneapolis was home
to the Minneapolis Millers, which was part of the American
Association, a Triple-A minor league.
Before the internet, to communicate with someone riding a
train, one sent a telegram. (I once had a secretary’s
style manual that had a section on how to send a telegram to a
passenger on a train.) But with the internet has nearly made
telegrams obsolete.
Moonshine Lullaby
Moonshine refers to whiskey made illegally, usually
made at night to avoid detection, usually by residents of
Appalachia. Most moonshine was not aged, so it was also
known as white whiskey. Today, some legally produced and
sold whiskey is called moonshine, to imitate the taste of
the illegal variety. Most illegal moonshine is made from
corn, but in the 18th century it was more often made from rye.
This led to the whiskey rebellion, which was put down, and
then led to the Internal Revenue Service.
A still is an apparatus used to distill liquids
by heating to boil and then cooling to condense the vapor,
usually to produce ethyl alcohol. The earliest stills were
pot stills, where the liquid was boiled and then condensed,
the first ounces of condensate, which contains methyl
alcohol (called the foreshot) being discarded, then
the distillate contains water and ethyl alcohol. Later in
the process, the distillate contains higher amounts of
higher alcohols (called fusel, from the German for
“rotgut”), and is usually discarded. Scotch Whisky is
usually distilled using pot stills. A newer kind of still is
the column still, which runs continuously, and the various
distillates are taken from a particular height in the
column, the lighter methyl alcohol at the top, ethyl alcohol
in the middle, and heavier substances further down.
Rye refers to rye whiskey, which in the United
States, must be made from a mash that is at least 51% rye
(the rest is usually corn and malted barley), must be
distilled to at most 80% abv (alcohol by volume), aged in
charred, new oak barrels at no more than 62.5% abv, and
usually diluted with pure water to 40% abv. In Canada,
however, there is no requirement that rye whisky contain any
rye at all, so that most Canadian “rye whisky” cannot
legally be sold in the United States as “rye whisky”.
Scene 3
Great White Father: The term “Great Father” has been
used by Indian peoples to refer to the king of Great Britain,
and later, to the President of the United States. In 1791, for
instance, Henry Knox greeted the Miami on behalf of “General
Washington, the Great Chief of the Thirteen Fires,” while John
Adams would come to be known to the same tribe as the “Great
Chief of the Seventeen Fires.”
Indian Territory had various meanings in United States
history from 1820 to 1907. After Missouri became a state, Indian
territory was a vague term, referring to the remainder of the
vast Missouri Territory (which was most of the Louisiana
purchase). In 1824 and 1828, western parts of Arkansas Territory
were detached and included with Indian Territory. In 1834,
Congress authorized the removal of Indians from east of the
Mississippi River to Indian Territory, and the Five Civilized
Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) were
forcibly relocated. After 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska
territories were created, Indian Territory referred to what is
now Oklahoma, but not including the panhandle. The government
resettled many plains Indians there after the Civil War. Indian
Territory was always an informal term, and was never organized.
In 1890, Oklahoma Territory was organized in the western part,
and the rest of Indian Territory was included in the State of
Oklahoma when it was admitted in 1907. There is oil in Oklahoma,
particularly in the Tulsa area, which is far from the Sioux
lands in the Dakotas. The Great
Sioux Reservation was established by the Fort Laramie
Treaty of 1868. It consisted of all of present-day South Dakota
west of the Missouri River, and parts of North Dakota and
Nebraska. The reservation was reduced in 1877, 1889, and 1910.
Considering that their land was illegally taken, the Lakota
Sioux sued the federal government, and in 1980, the Supreme
Court ruled in favor of the Sioux. The government offered
monetary compensation, but the Sioux refused: they want the land
back, so there is an account set up that has been accumulating
interest.
My
Defenses Are Down
Samson without his hair: The story of Samson is
told in the Biblical book of Judges, chapters 13-16. Samson
was under vows of a Nazirite, which did not allow him to cut
his hair. But he could not resist seductive women. When he
fell for the Philistine woman Delilah, she got him to tell
her the secret of his great strength, which he revealed to
her: There hath not come a
razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God
from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength
will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any
other man.--Judges
16:17. Delilah then told her countrymen, the
Philistines, who bound Samson and put out his eyes.
A barker is a person employed to solicit customers by
calling out to passersby, for example, at a carnival. In the
Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, Billy Bigelow
is a carnival barker.
Ragweed is a plant of genus Ambrosia of the
daisy family (Compositae, or Asteraceae). Ragweed pollen causes
allergic reactions in humans, specifically allergic rhinitis, or
hay fever.
Scene 4
The song I’m An Indian Too may be considered as
typical of mid-20th century views of American Indians, and some
consider it offensive. Others, however, see it as a mild satire
of racial stereotyping.
The Seminole are an Indian people originally from
Florida and the American southeast. They are closely related
to the Creek, but gradually separated themselves from them.
They were joined in Florida by many free blacks and escaped
slaves, who became known as the Black Seminole. After the
United States acquired Florida (1819), they were confined to
a reservation in central Florida. But increasing pressure
from white settlers led to the Seminole Wars (1818-1846).
Most of the Seminole were forced to leave Florida and move
to Indian Territory by 1842. During the Civil War, the
Seminole sided with the South, and after the war were forced
to sign a new treaty with the United States. Today, there
are about 18,000 Seminole, most of whom live in Oklahoma,
with a minority in Florida.
The Navajo
Nation is the largest American Indian tribe in the United
States, according to the 2010 census. (Some lists give the
Cherokee as the largest.) There are about 300,000 Navajos on
a reservation covering over 27,000 square miles, which
extends over three states: Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
The Kickapoo are an American Indian people. They
are recognized as three tribes in the United States, one
each in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and there is a fourth
band living in Coahuila, Mexico. There are about 5000
Kickapoo in the United States.
The Sioux are a collection of related bands of
American Indians from the Great Plains. They are divided
into three major divisions: the Santee (or Eastern Dakota),
the Yankton-Yanktonai (or Western Dakota), and the Lakota
(or the Teton). Sitting Bull
was a Lakota chief and holy man.
Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry
weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in the Northern
Hemisphere. The US National Weather Service defines this as
weather conditions that are sunny and clear with above
normal temperatures, occurring late-September to
mid-November. It is usually described as occurring after a
killing frost. (Source: Deedler, William (Fall 1996). “Just
What Is Indian Summer And Did Indians Really Have Anything
To Do With It?”. Detroit/Pontiac, MI: National Weather
Service Weather Forecast Office. Retrieved from Wikipedia.)
Totem Poles are sculptures carved on large trees by
Indians of the northwestern United States and western
Canada. They are not religious objects, as is sometimes
assumed, but tell a genealogy or family history. Notable
totem poles can be seen in Stanley Park in Vancouver,
British Columbia, and in Thunderbird Park, Victoria, B. C.
A tomahawk is a single-handed axe resembling a
hatchet. The word comes from a Powhatan (Virginian
Algonquin) word. The early tomahawks had stone blades, but
when Europeans arrived, they introduced the Indians to the
metal blade, which made a superior tool (or weapon).
A papoose is a word used to mean “an Indian
child”. The word comes from Roger Williams, who learned the
word from the Narragansett tribe.
A tepee (also spelled tipi and teepee)
is a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins upon
wooden poles. They are traditionally used by the Indians of
the Great Plains (Prairies in Canada), and incorrectly
assumed to be used by all American Indians. Today tepees are
used by Indians primarily for ceremonial purposes, typically
at powwows, but they are also used by historical
re-enactors, back-to-the-land activists, and hippies.
The Chippewa (or more correctly Ojibwe;
also Ojibwa or Ojibway: the name Chippewa
is more common in the United States, Ojibwa in
Canada) are an Indian people who live in the area around
Lake Superior. Their name may have come from the Cree people
from a word that means something like, “Those who talk
funny”, because the Ojibwe language was different from the
Cree. The Ojibwe are known for, among other things, birch
bark canoes, growing of wild rice, and using copper
arrowheads. There are about 200,000 Ojibwe people, the
majority of whom live in Canada, where they are the second
largest Indian nation, surpassed only by the Cree. In the
United States, they are the fourth largest Indian nation,
surpassed by the Navajo, Cherokee, and Lakota Sioux.
The Iroquois are a historically powerful
confederacy of American Indian tribes. They were originally
known as the Five Nations by the English, and after 1722 as
the Six Nations. They comprise the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida,
Cayuga, and Seneca, and (after 1722) the Tuscarora nations.
They were fewer in number than many of their rivals, such as
the Huron, but their martial tactics made them feared. First
the Dutch, then the English, allied with them, and they were
the key to English penetration to the interior of North
America. The confederacy fell apart in the American
Revolutionary War, dividing on which side to support, and
that broke their power. The majority of the Mohawk thus
moved to Canada. Today there are about 80,000 Iroquois in
the U.S. and 45,000 in Canada.
The Omaha are an American Indian tribe now living
on a reservation in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. They
are closely related to the Ponca. Originally they lived in
the Ohio valley until forced out by the Iroquois. The Omaha
are never known to have taken up arms against the United
States, and assisted the U. S. during the Civil War. The
city of Omaha, Nebraska, is named for them.
A moccasin is a shoe made of soft leather,
originally worn by American Indians. The word comes from a
Powhatan word. But moccasins were worn by Indians all over
North America, and by white hunters, traders, and settlers
as well.
Wampum are the traditional shell beads of the
Eastern Woodland tribes of American Indians. The term wampum
is a shortening of the earlier word wampumpeag,
which is derived from the Massachusett or Narragansett word
meaning “white strings [of shell beads]”. They were used by
Indians for storytelling and for gift exchange. But early
colonists assumed they were used for money, and began to use
them as such. But when the colonists began to make their own
wampum, it caused inflation, and then wampum became useless
as currency.
By feather hats, I assume Annie (or rather Irving
Berlin) means Indian war bonnets. Feathers in one’s bonnet
have been worn by plains Indians as a sign of great respect
an honor. Usually eagle feathers are worn, and today
American law prohibits anyone except members of enrolled
tribes from wearing them. Wearing a war bonnet by
non-Indians is considered offensive by some, and showing
disrespect for Indian tradition.
Madison Square Garden,
also known as “MSG” or “The Garden” [or “Da Gahden”] is an
indoor arena in Manhattan for sports, particularly basketball
and ice hockey, but also for boxing, concerts, ice shows,
circuses, wrestling, and other events. The current Garden is the
fourth venue to bear that name, located atop Penn Station
between 7th and 8th Avenues, and between 31st and 33rd Streets.
The first two were located on Madison Square, 26th Street at
Madison Avenue. The third (1925-1968) was located on 8th Avenue
between 49th and 50th Streets. The Garden in this story would
probably be the second (1890-1925); the first stood from
1875-1890.
ACT II
Scene 1
A command performance is the performance of a show or
play or other entertainment before a monarch or head of state,
where the ruler has requested the performance. In earlier times,
a monarch could order such a performance.
Champagne is a sparkling wine produced in the Champagne
region of France according to specific rules, including the
types of grapes used (Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, or Chardonnay),
and secondary fermentation in the bottle. In most countries, it
is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it conforms to
these rules. Many people, however, use the term champagne to
refer to any sparkling wine. Starting in the 17th century,
champagne was associated with royalty, which the producers used
in advertising, making it popular with the middle classes,
especially from the 19th century. The name champagne is
restricted under a treaty signed in 1891, to which the United
States is not a party. The French even had the restriction
included in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which the United
States signed, but did not ratify. However, since 2006 the
United States has banned the name Champagne on all new brands,
but preexisting brands may continue to use the name, but only if
preceded by the place of origin, for example “California
Champagne” (At present, I think the only California producer
still making sparkling wines in the traditional manner
with the name California Champagne is Korbel.) But many
sparkling wines produced in California and elsewhere now have
their own reputation, and do not need the extra caché from the
name Champagne.
Traditionally, caviar refers to roe from wild sturgeon
in the Caspian Sear or Black Sea (Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga
caviars). Depending on the country, caviar may also be used to
describe the roe of other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout,
lumpfish, whitefish, and other species of sturgeon. Caviar is
considered a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or a spread.
Scene 2
The Hotel
Brevoort was located on Fifth Avenue stretching
between Eighth and Ninth Street, in West Greenwich Village, New
York. It was a luxury hotel that hosted royalty and many famous
visitors. The hotel stood from 1845 to 1954, when it was torn
down to build a large apartment building. The apartments were
converted to co-ops in 1981.
The Gibson Girl was the portrait of the ideal of
feminine beauty in the United States as drawn by cartoonist
Charles Dana Gibson beginning in the 1890s until the outbreak of
World War I.
An Old-Fashioned Wedding
If Annie wants ushers in tail coats, she must be
hoping for an evening wedding: tail coats, with white bow
tie is considered formal evening wear for men. (Tuxedos and
black ties is considered semi-formal.)
Love and honor, but not obey: the word obey
was in the vows spoken by the wife in Book of Common Prayer
of the Episcopal Church until the 1928 revision. Although
Frank and Annie were probably not Episcopalians, the
marriage promises have been used by other churches as well.
Below is a selection of the vows used by the Episcopal
church.
In the 1662 English book, the vows are as follows, the
man’s and then the wife’s:
I, N.
take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish, till death us do
part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and
thereto I plight thee my troth.
I, N.
take thee N. to my wedded husband, to
have and to hold from this day forward, for better
for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and
in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till
death us do part, according to God’s holy
ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.
The vows remained as above in the first American Book,
issued in 1789, and in its revision of 1892. In 1922,
the Episcopal Church discontinued use of obey,
and this is reflected in the 1928 revision, where the
word obey was dropped. Note, however, the
husband plights his troth, but the wife gives
her troth.
I, N.
take thee N. to my wedded Wife, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish, till death us do
part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and
thereto I plight thee my troth.
I, N.
take thee N. to my wedded Husband, to
have and to hold from this day forward, for better
for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and
in health, to love and to cherish, till death us
do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and
thereto I give thee my troth.
In 1979, the American Book was substantially revised, including
the wedding promises.
In the Name of God, I, N.,
take you, N., to be my wife, to have and
to hold from this day forward, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish, until we are
parted by death. This is my solemn vow.
In the Name of God, I, N.,
take you, N., to be my husband, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish, until we are
parted by death. This is my solemn vow.
The Waldorf refers to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Originally, it was two hotels. The Waldorf opened in 1893 at
Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street in Manhattan. A rival member of
the Astor family built the Astoria Hotel across 34th Street
in 1897. The two hotels were united in 1897, and renamed the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It was the largest hotel in the world
at one time, and became a major social center in New York.
This hotel was demolished in 1928, to build the Empire State
Building on the site, and a new hotel, the Waldorf=Astoria
Hotel [with a double hyphen] was opened in 1931 at 301 Park
Avenue. Conrad Hilton acquired management of the hotel in
1949. In 2008, the double hyphen was dropped, and the hotel
became the Waldorf Astoria New York. The hotel contains the
United States Embassy to the United Nations. Hilton built
the Beverly Hilton hotel in 1959. It is now being renovated,
and next to it is being built the new Waldorf Astoria
Beverly Hills hotel, which plans to open in 2017.
Scene 3
Governor’s
Island is a small island in Upper New York Bay,
closer to Brooklyn than to Manhattan, but it is part of the
Borough of Manhattan. It was known as “Nut Island” to the native
Indians, but renamed Governor’s Island in the 18th century, and
reserved exclusively for New York’s royal governors; the name
officially became Governor’s Island in 1784. It was fortified by
the Continental Army in 1776, until taken by the British the
same year. It served as a U. S. Army post from 1783 to 1966,
and U. S. Coast Guard installation from 1966 to 1996.
Confederate POWs were kept on the island during the Civil War.
The island more than doubled in size in 1912 when fill for the
excavation of the IRT subway under Lexington Avenue was dumped
in the bay. The Smothers Brothers, Tom and Dick, were born on
Governor’s Island: their father was stationed there at the time.
Scene 4
The skyline of New York City around 1886 from
Governor’s Island would include the Brooklyn Bridge (completed
1883), but none of the tall buildings we see today. In fact,
Trinity Church on Wall Street was the tallest building in New
York (284 feet). It was surpassed in height (309 feet) by the
New York World Building in 1890 (demolished 1955). After that,
there were many more skyscrapers built in lower Manhattan. The
Williamsburg Bridge opened in 1903, and the Manhattan Bridge in
1912.