Myths of the Golden Era -- Exploded!

[1961MJS]

...
Ah! Here's a major myth: The Hindenburg was destroyed by the hydrogen blowing up. In actual fact, it was the incorrectly formulated dope (i.e. paint) on the surface of the ship that caused the conflagration. There was an excellent documantary on the subject a few years ago that proved it beyond any doubt. And they made a convincing case that the Graf Zeppelin Company knew it was the cause from day one, but kept it hush hush to avoid liability.

Hi, well the doping was bad, but no Hydrogen, no huge fireball.

Later

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I read the local paper and have little interest beyond that.

The news? Are you kidding? I haven't watch the "news" in years either. I get a few highlights of what's going on and all from the Internet. I'm not going to sit in front of the TV all day, griping about the news and be boiling mad over things that are really beyond our control. I'd rather live life to its fullest. It's too bad people can't do that.

-Kristi

 

[Shangas]

One thing I'll never believe is that Chamberlain wasn't an appeaser. He kept giving into Hitler and Hitler steamrollered him. Chamberlain couldn't see what people like Churchill and Eden could, that Hitler was never going to stop until someone stopped him by force. For years, Churchill was trying to convince the people that Hitler was up to no good, but nobody listened to him. Chamberlain was a fool in my book.

MYTH: During the Era, contraceptives were illegal in the United States.

Contraceptives WERE legal...they were just harder to get a hold of, back then, than they are today.

 

[Edward]

Oh now, there is a myth: Churchill the universally popular hero. This something that seems to have become considered unshakable truth in recent decades, to the point that any criticism of the man is often met with a charge of Nazi sympathies. Yet he was ejected from office as soon as ever the people had the opportunity post-war, and remained unpopular across much of the UK thereafter (in some Welsh valleys, his death was cheered). Outside of certain big houses and Mosely's Blackshirts you'd have found precious little support for fascism in the UK, but you'd find people who dislike Churchill a lot faster.

 

[Shangas]

That is indeed a huge myth. Contrary to what a lot of people think, Churchill was not as popular as..um...popular culture...would have us believe.

Before the War, he was a lone dog barking at a brick wall. People saw him as a rabble-rouser and a warmonger and paid him no attention. His standing had slipped considerably since WWI (especially after a little incident in Turkey in 1915).

While he was popular during the War, he was indeed kicked out of office the moment the war ended. He came back to power in the 1950s, but by then he was already in his eighties. He was PM for another four years, and then finally died in...1965, I believe, at the age of 90.

 

[Edward]

I wonder where the whole "Greatest Briton" mythology came from - Sixties war movies, probably. If memory serves, the day of his funeral was declared a public holiday. He was the first (and only) Prime Minister since Gladstone to have a State Funeral; the only one in the Twentieth Century. None have had one since (though there are, inevitably rather controversial, plans apparently afoot for one on the looming expiry of one of his successors). Certainly one of the most significant British leaders of the twentieth century, I'll give him that. Interesting the difference between now and then.... These days I doubt something like Gallipoli would ever have been forgiven, or, indeed, forgotten, sufficiently for him to have the subsequent career he did.

 

[scottyrocks]

It's romanticism. Things like that are influenced as much, if not more, by feelings, than facts. We have it here, to a certain extent, with John F. Kennedy. Given what he actually accomplished, which was not a whole lot more than many other presidents, he is a national hero here. Obviously something to do with the fact that he was taken out at such a young age, and the first (and only) in modern times. The mythology was building around him while he was alive. The youth, the family, the money, Camelot, it all plays in.

I will not minimize his role in the Cuban missile crisis. That was a major accomplishment that showed true leadership. The point is that romantic visions of people often outweigh the reality.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always thought that in terms of sheer accomplishment, Nixon was a far more effective, far more progressive president than Kennedy. What he didn't have was the dynamic personality to go with it -- which is 90 percent of the game in determining whether a president is a beloved figure or not. It's the same with Churchill, I'd think -- he looked and sounded like John Bull come to life, unlike someone like Atlee, who was a brilliant progressive man with the personality of a moldy dishtowel.

 

[Flicka]

I've always thought that in terms of sheer accomplishment, Nixon was a far more effective, far more progressive president than Kennedy. What he didn't have was the dynamic personality to go with it -- which is 90 percent of the game in determining whether a president is a beloved figure or not. It's the same with Churchill, I'd think -- he looked and sounded like John Bull come to life, unlike someone like Atlee, who was a brilliant progressive man with the personality of a moldy dishtowel.

Isn't that why Churchill was right for that precise time? It's not really that Churchill was remarkable as much as him being the right person at the place and time. I don't think he'd been considered very remarkable without the war. For a country at peace, other qualities than those Churchill had (like a way with words, courage and stubborness) are more important. But I do think few other PMs would have been better suited for Britain during the sort of war WWII turned out to be.

 

[dhermann1]

To me, Churchill was bigger than all his accomplishments and failures put together. When he failed, he failed big. And he had all sorts of blind spots (e.g. India). He should not have borne the onus of Gallipoli alone by a long shot. And he had a progressive phase, around 1906, in which he pioneered a whole raft of social legislation into Britain.
It has been said that Nixon was the last New Deal president. Many of our social programs as we know them today were put into place by Nixon (and LBJ). But there was a cynicism about everything her did that compromised almost everything. The Space Shuttle was a great example. A bad compromise that would up killing an appalling number of people and costing way more than it should have. In spite of appearances a catastrophic failure as a program.

 

[Edward]

It's romanticism. Things like that are influenced as much, if not more, by feelings, than facts. We have it here, to a certain extent, with John F. Kennedy. Given what he actually accomplished, which was not a whole lot more than many other presidents, he is a national hero here. Obviously something to do with the fact that he was taken out at such a young age, and the first (and only) in modern times. The mythology was building around him while he was alive. The youth, the family, the money, Camelot, it all plays in.

I will not minimize his role in the Cuban missile crisis. That was a major accomplishment that showed true leadership. The point is that romantic visions of people often outweigh the reality.

Jinkies, aye... I found a lot of things about Arlington culturally alien, but the reverence for the Kennedy grave despite what we know of the man (nothing political, purely personal) rather took me aback.

I've always thought that in terms of sheer accomplishment, Nixon was a far more effective, far more progressive president than Kennedy. What he didn't have was the dynamic personality to go with it -- which is 90 percent of the game in determining whether a president is a beloved figure or not. It's the same with Churchill, I'd think -- he looked and sounded like John Bull come to life, unlike someone like Atlee, who was a brilliant progressive man with the personality of a moldy dishtowel.

Alas, the era of charisma over content started long before Blair, even if he is often blamed for it now.

Isn't that why Churchill was right for that precise time? It's not really that Churchill was remarkable as much as him being the right person at the place and time. I don't think he'd been considered very remarkable without the war. For a country at peace, other qualities than those Churchill had (like a way with words, courage and stubborness) are more important. But I do think few other PMs would have been better suited for Britain during the sort of war WWII turned out to be.

He was certainly a warmonger, but in a time of war maybe that was necessary... I can't claim to know enough about his contemporaries to say whether any other could have done better.

 

[dhermann1]

Churchill may have been a war lover, but by the time he was about 27, he was no war monger. He's the one who said, "There was never a good war, or a bad peace."
But he was an unabashed imperialist. He never got past that.

 

[Treetopflyer]

This topic intrigues me, especially since I have my degree in history, with an emphasis on American history. I am often dumbfounded at the amount of people that believe some of the wildest unsubstantiated “facts” about history because they read it on the internet or it was in an e-mail sent to them with interesting “facts” about history.

When I hear some of them I often think about a line from the end of the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

 

[KayEn78]

This topic intrigues me, especially since I have my degree in history, with an emphasis on American history. I am often dumbfounded at the amount of people that believe some of the wildest unsubstantiated “facts” about history because they read it on the internet or it was in an e-mail sent to them with interesting “facts” about history.

When I hear some of them I often think about a line from the end of the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

I too, majored in History (20th Century) and it amazes me how ignorant and dumb people really are.

-Kristi

 

[LizzieMaine]

The supreme irony of it all is that this is the best-educated generation the world has ever known -- and yet also the most bone-dumb. It's not that they're just ignorant, they just don't see why they should care.

 

[Sharpsburg]

Sad, but so true Lizzie. It is frightening how downright uninterested most people i know are (even well educated people) to talk about anything but the latest game and what they had for dinner last night!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Ain't it awful? Lately, it's nice just to have someone mention something that happened in pop culture before Nixon was president.

Sad, but so true Lizzie. It is frightening how downright uninterested most people i know are (even well educated people) to talk about anything but the latest game and what they had for dinner last night!

 

[Shangas]

I also majored in History in university. It is amazing how many people believe things from history that just aren't true.

Returning to myths of the Golden Era, one particular myth, if I may call it such, that I've found, one perpetuated on movie forums such as IMDB.com, is that history was perfectly clean. Nobody swore. Everyone was straight and drug-free and that nobody drank a drop of alcohol.

I constantly see threads with titles like:"Did people really swear like that in the 30s?" or "Did **** really exist back then? Or is that wrong?" and "That doesn't sound right. Why is it in there?"

I find this stuff hilarious because it's all false. Of COURSE people swore and drank and shot drugs and had gay sex and all the other stuff. The 20s weren't 'Roaring' for nothing, you know! There was HUGE drug and sex experiementation during the 20s. Cross-dressing was a huge fad, especially, I understand, on the Continent, in countries such as Germany.

And swearing is as old as talking. People always seem to be shocked by this fact, and I don't understand why. For the people who really don't believe that such things happened, I point them towards the diary of Samuel Pepys (who lived in the 17th century) where he mentions words like "bitch" all the time. And he's not talking about dogs, either.

 

[Stearmen]

Robert Heinlein said that "every generation thinks they invented sex."

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I constantly see threads with titles like:"Did people really swear like that in the 30s?" or "Did **** really exist back then? Or is that wrong?" and "That doesn't sound right. Why is it in there?"

I find this stuff hilarious because it's all false. Of COURSE people swore and drank and shot drugs and had gay sex and all the other stuff. The 20s weren't 'Roaring' for nothing, you know! There was HUGE drug and sex experiementation during the 20s. Cross-dressing was a huge fad, especially, I understand, on the Continent, in countries such as Germany.

And swearing is as old as talking. People always seem to be shocked by this fact, and I don't understand why. For the people who really don't believe that such things happened, I point them towards the diary of Samuel Pepys (who lived in the 17th century) where he mentions words like "bitch" all the time. And he's not talking about dogs, either.

The 1929 recording of Butterbeans & Susie's Just Like You Walked In, You Can Walk Out is probably the earliest known recording containing the F-word. I have it on one of my cassette tapes.