Lunch Hour

Finished up the "Communities in a Changing Nation: The Promise of America in the 19th Century" at the American History Museum.  The content was interesting - America through the eyes of those trying to realize the American Dream in the 1800's.  However, the slant is far too current: it's a postmodern analysis of the mores and success of these dreamers from 150 years ago.  Postmodernism is, of course, a self-defeating value system.  For if you believe, as a consummate postmodernist should, that all is relative, and the experience and values of people are just as valid regardless of their circumstance, then you are in no position to condemn the obvious evils of the 19th century: slavery, child labor, discrimination, etc.  A good postmodernist discourse should simply tell the story of those who lived in certain times, in their own words and with their own perspective.  Instead, this exhibit inherited that feature of modernism that postmodernists cling to most dearly: the pompous right to judge all others according to postmodern standards, a phrase that in itself should be a contradiction in terms.   A few interesting facts from the exhibits:

• Almost 180,000 blacks enlisted for the Union in the Civil War.
• The Jewish community in Cincinnatti was one of the most influential in the U.S., and a Rabbi Wise, I think, there became the founder of Reform Judaism, an American innovation.
• Cincinnatti was the U.S.'s 7th-largest city in 1860, and the biggest West of the Alleghanies and only New York and Philly had more industrial output.
• New York had 400 Jews in 1825 and 40,000 by 1860.  In other words, it was a serious chore to get a decent bagel on the Lower East Side during the Jackson presidency.
• President Millard Fillmore (1850-52; never won an election) ran in 1856 as the candidate of the Know-Nothing Party, which was America's only real fling with virulent nationalism.

  In other news, kudos to Blogger for adding a bunch of shortcuts and hotkeys to their interface, making it look suspiciously like a dumbed-down version of Microsoft Word.  The improvements they've made in the last year to their hardware and software have changed me from a detractor to an exponent of their service.