Tag Archives: Fourth of July

July 3, 2019

Striking Fourths

By daseger

No heavy lifting/posting for me this week, although I did want to offer up something celebratory for the Fourth, so I went through some of my digital files and favorite pictorial resources (MagazineArt.org and the Magazine Rack at the Internet Archive) to come up with a portfolio of July covers from the “Golden Age” of American illustration. It’s interesting to me how different types of magazines use patriotic themes and tropes to fashion images for their particular audiences: just the colors and perhaps a few artfully-placed stars and stripes can be evocative of the holiday without adding Uncle Sam and George Washington. For the most part, I’ve avoided the very literal in favor of the suggestive, although I can’t resist some of the “playing with fire” images which are pretty striking before World War One: the Comfort lady below looks quite uncomfortable, and like she is quite literally blowing off her hand with firecrackers, but the Puck lady seems quite happy to be ablaze. Some of the most illustrative Fourth of July images from this era can be found in children’s magazines (Harper’s Round Table and John Martin’s Book), but women’s and shelter magazines also signaled the holiday in style.

July magazine covers 1896-1937: from the Digital Commonwealth (Harper’s Round Table), the Library of Congress (Lippincott’s and Puck), CuriousBookShop@Etsy (House Beautiful , 1933) and the great site MagazineArt.org.

5 Comments | tags: Art, ephemera, Fourth of July, Golden Age of Illustration, Graphic Design, holidays, Independence Day | posted in Art, Culture

July 5, 2017

A Perfect Fourth

By daseger

I had a wonderful Fourth of July yesterday: pretty much perfect in every way. The weather was wonderful (not-too-hot, sunny, low humidity), the company charming, the events engaging, the food was great, the fireworks AMAZING, and I got to take an afternoon nap in the midst of it all. Just a perfect day. It started out with the traditional reading of the Declaration of Independence on Salem Common, then it was off to the Willows for the (again, traditional) Horribles Parade (rather tame this year in terms of political satire but I appreciated the historical perspective), then back home for lunch, and an hour or so of one of my favorite classic Revolutionary War-era films, The Devil’s Disciple (1959), followed by the aforementioned blissful nap, during which my husband and stepson were out checking our traps for a bounty of HUGE lobsters. Drinks in the garden, then off to Salem’s newest restaurant, Ledger, for the best burger I’ve ever had. We then made our way along Derby Street through huge crowds assembling for the fireworks to a friends’ harborside house, where we watched the most amazing fireworks display I’ve ever seen. Really. Across the harbor, Marblehead and more distant Nahant were setting off their tiny little displays and the BOOM, Salem blew them out of the water! I’m just exhausted in the best way possible (despite the nap) so the photographs will have to tell the story, although they can’t capture the full-blown experience of the fireworks, of course.

July 4th: our house festooned, the reading of the Declaration of Independence, Willows cottages ready for the parade and the Horribles Parade, The Devil’s Disciple (very clever script by George Bernard Shaw and wonderful performance by Laurence Olivier), just one day’s lobster harvest, Ledger, so-named because it is situated in the former Salem Savings Bank, the Custom House morning and night. Below: FIREWORKS.

5 Comments | tags: Architecture, Commemorations, Community, Fireworks, Food and drink, Fourth of July, great houses, holidays, Local Events | posted in Current Events, Salem

July 4, 2015

Red, White, Blue & Calico

By daseger

We are sticking very close to home this July Fourth weekend as we have welcomed a new cat only two weeks after losing Moneypenny and there are lots of adjustments to be made on the part of said new cat (Trinity), our older resident cat (Darcy), and ourselves. I wasn’t quite ready for a new cat, but I am a sucker for a calico and this one almost magically appeared at our local shelter after a rough start in life. So I find myself cleaning out closets and other mundane house chores in between hissing standoffs and prepping my upholstered furniture for the coming attack by a new young cat. Yesterday was actually a much more beautiful day than today, which is cloudy with incoming rain. I hope it holds off until after the fireworks tonight, because Salem‘s are always spectacular: bigger and better every year. So I did leave the separated cats for a long walk, a long bike ride on my (also new) bike, the adorable Spokes and Stripes parade sponsored by Parents United and dinner at the Willows–under a bright red full moon which I couldn’t capture on camera. It looked briefly like Mars before disappearing behind a cloud bank. Most of the pictures below are from this sunny July 3rd: home, Chestnut Street, some sights and scenes around Salem including the Willows–all prepped for the big Horribles Parade this morning (which I missed, but I am sure there will be some great photographs at the Creative Salem site soon). My closet cleaning has uncovered lots of discoveries, including my favorite vintage dress which I purchased DECADES ago in Saratoga Springs, NY (and it was vintage then): I’m going to put in on in a few hours and go out to a fireworks barbecue on the water, mindless of clashing cats and impending rain. A happy, safe, carefree Fourth (and Fifth) to all.

Salem on July 3 and 4: Trinity (who did not come in a bag or a box but seldom leaves the latter), the house and garden (with daneberry–the only red on display), and a shadow silhouette against Hamilton Hall, the Hall and Chestnut Street, a patriotically-painted house on Essex, the Spokes and Stripes parade on Salem Common, the Willows, my newly-rediscovered old dress.

6 Comments | tags: Architecture, Cats, Chestnut Street, Fashion, Fourth of July, Garden, Hamilton Hall, holidays, Home, Local Events | posted in Home, Salem

July 2, 2015

Flagg-Waving

By daseger

The prolific illustrator James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960) is responsible for some of our most iconic patriotic images, crafted to bolster support for World Wars I and II on both the home and battle fronts. These images are only a small part of his vast body of work–and a career that was well on its way by age 15 when he was appointed staff artist at Life and Judge magazines–but are nonetheless illustrative of his creativity and his tendency to focus the visual message on people rather than objects or events: he personified patriotism. Even though it is clearly based on the equally-iconic Lord Kitchener poster by Alfred Leete, his Uncle Sam (literally–he served as his own model) will forever be our Uncle Sam and though Miss Columbia looks a bit more ephemeral she certainly served her time in the first decades of the twentieth century. My favorites are the more whimsical, pre-war “Flagg girls” dressed up in red, white and blue, but all make for a patriotic display as we head into this July 4th weekend.

Flagg’s cover for the July 3, 1915 edition of Judge magazine; original Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster from 1917 and its reissue in 1941 (see a short article here); a collage of Columbias, 1917-1918; “Tell that to the Marines!”, 1917-1918; and Flagg (left) & FDR with his anti-Forest Fire poster, 1937, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Library of Congress. Just a few years ago, the owner of Flagg’s 1910 summer house in Biddeford Pool, Maine, received permission to demolish it, but somehow save the land- and seascape murals he had painted on its interior walls. I think it’s gone now.

4 Comments | tags: Art, ephemera, Fourth of July, Graphic Design, Historic Preservation, holidays, illustration, World War I | posted in Culture, History

July 4, 2014

Fabric for the Fouth

By daseger

I’ve been rather casually researching how the Fourth of July was commemorated on its Centennial in 1876, and while all the attention is generally focused on the great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, I have come to appreciate all the special fabrics that were produced that year, material girl that I am. Textiles are key to this celebration: as the United States was in the midst of its industrial revolution, machine-made fabrics were featured prominently in the Exposition’s displays, and it also had a special focus on the “women’s sphere” and the domestic arts. Of course textiles are always a central feature of Independence Day celebrations: even more than fireworks, the Fourth is all about flags, swags, and bunting. As I write, I’m looking at the flag runner on my dining room table, a flag pillow on a nearby chair, and flags flying outside. In 1876, I think they were much more lavish–and much more creative–with patriotic displays of fabric. On the way home from my recent road trip, I passed through the northwest corner of Connecticut and the pretty town of Litchfield, where the Historical Society was featuring an exhibition on the Colonial Revival called “The Lure of the Litchfield Hills”. I enjoyed seeing all the items in the exhibition immensely, but was particularly taken by a child’s drummer costume for the Litchfield Centennial parade. So this would be the first item in my own little collection of Centennial textiles, followed by a banner made for Salem’s 1876 celebrations, a beautiful Centennial coverlet from the amazing inventory of Jeff. R. Bridgman, Antiques, and two Centennial quilts from the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. You can see the centrality of the Philadelphia Exposition; the custom of the time was to incorporate souvenir handkerchiefs into memento quilts, as Mary Stow and Esther Cooley evidently did. To round out my collection I must have one of these very handkerchiefs (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and of course, a Centennial Flag (from the New York Historical Society).