"In the 1800s, a secretary was part aide-de-camp, part executive-in-training — someone who handled the boss’s correspondence and bookkeeping, but also learned the business..."

"... and would eventually ascend to a senior job. With the rise of the modern corporation around the turn of the 20th century, however, the secretary became more like a noncommissioned officer — a worker with real responsibility but little upward mobility. It was at this point that the position became mostly female. Companies then broke up and degraded the job further over the decades, replacing the secretary with pools of typists, receptionists and data entry personnel, almost all of them women, too. The final step, amid pressure from the feminist movement in the 1970s, was to allow a small number of college-educated women to ascend from these clerical jobs to the ranks of middle management. But even this came with a loss of status, as managers would have to do more of their own grunt work. 'They’re now being promoted, but the clerical tasks are promoted with them,' said Jason Resnikoff, a labor historian. 'The middle manager would do more typing, correspondence, more of their own filing.' These days, almost no one has an assistant...."

From "In Trump’s Economy, Job Gains Go to Women. That’s Not an Entirely Good Thing. Despite the administration’s best attempts, the diminishing status of many American jobs is driving a spike in women’s employment" (NYT gift link).

"Moko was asleep at the time. We decided we want to wake this thing back up again."

Said Mark Kopua, who "grew up in a Māori community that had lost all its tohunga tā moko, or ritual tattoo artists."

He is quoted in "A Once Outlawed Māori Art Form Is Alive and in the Flesh/Young Māori in New Zealand are embracing tā moko, the ritual tattoos that were banned under British colonial rule and became an act of protest in the 1970s" (NYT gift link).

Without forebears to teach them, Mr. Kopua — a tohunga whakairo, or a master woodcarver — learned tā moko from the patterns he used in carving and weaving. They studied moko kanohi patterns on decapitated heads that were under the care of New Zealand’s national museum. Māori warriors believed that decapitation severed their enemies’ connection to the gods. In the 19th century, British settlers collected the heads as curiosities and trophies and offered guns and gold in exchange — prompting some Māori people to hunt down those who wore mataora and moko kauae.

"Do you think that it's the goal of the Smithsonian Institution to promote white supremacy culture?"

Congressman Brandon Gill asks Smithsonian Museum director Anthea Hartig at the House Oversight Committee hearing today.

It's quite an exchange. Gill has a very well-planned set of question designed to destroy Hartig, and Hartig's defense is almost entirely restricted to long silences and diligent note-taking, as if she's endeavoring to learn from Gill:

 

GILL: "Director Hardig... would you say that that the goal of history, even if it's not properly carried out... is to be objective?... Doesn't that seem a little bit concerning? It it certainly does to me because as part of this white supremacy document that your organization has promoted, objectivity is a core and defining aspect of white supremacy culture. Do you think that it's the goal of the Smithsonian Institution to promote white supremacy culture?

"Given all the lovemaking, it’s remarkable any of them had time for painting or poetry. But each activity reinforced the next, sex flowing into art..."

"... art turning into sex, all of it transforming what was ostensibly a holiday by the sea among friends into a frenzy of erotic and creative expression — an outpouring that, as Europe girded for war, acquired a rebellious political charge. 'It’s as if the group were thumbing their noses at fascism,' Thomasson writes, their lives and work serving as a 'manifesto for an alternative world to the one that was coming into being.'"

From "Sex and Surrealism on the French Riviera/A group of artists gathered at a hotel on the Côte d’Azur in 1937. A new book by Anna Thomasson captures the art and escapades the holiday inspired" (NYT).

I'm skeptical... but envious.

Is the book readable? Sample text: "We get a powerful sense of physicality. Of bodies, of limbs and breasts and bottoms and penises, alone or entwined, still or in action. We feel the warm sun and salt water on bare skin and sand between toes, intimacy and proximity and responsiveness and desire." It's really hard to write about sex! Actually, that writing reminds me of a podcast I like: "Boring History for Sleep." It goes on and on about how everything looks and feels and smells and sounds. 

"I’m worried about Weimar America. That’s the title of the next book I’m working on. The first thing people say when they hear that is..."

"... 'Oh, is this a "Trump is Hitler" book?' No, Trump barely figures in this book. When we hear Weimar, we think of the film 'Cabaret' and corruption, and we think it all ended up in Nazism. But that is a superficial understanding of it. We have created in America today, perhaps throughout the West, the psychosocial conditions of Weimar without having suffered the traumas that Germany did — losing the First World War, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression. This also goes back to Hannah Arendt and her famous 1951 book, 'The Origins of Totalitarianism.' She tried to explain how it was that right-wing totalitarianism in Germany and a left-wing version in Russia rose, and she said social atomization is by far the most important factor...."

Says Rod Dreher, quoted in "'I'm Worried About Weimar America'/'It may not be Hitler 2.0. It may not be Stalin 2.0. It might be something all American, but it’s not going to be what we’re used to,' the author Rod Dreher argues" (NYT). This is Ross Douthat's podcast "Interesting Times," and you can listen to the whole thing and read the transcript here (and elsewhere).

Bonus: "What is fascism?" 

"These are very, very special times. And this is a very special place. You live in a very special place. Congratulations everybody."

Those were the very very very special words of our President, Donald J. Trump, speaking at Mount Rushmore, on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the 4th of July.

"And we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants. And that's not easy to do, but we're going to do it. These men could only have been made in the USA. Their faces are engraved on these bluffs, not only because of what they did, but to remind us forever who we are. These heroes exemplify what is timeless, enduring, and eternal about the American character. And in the end, it has always been that character, our distinct and unique identity. It is a truly unique identity and it'll never change.... Liberty has prevailed here because of the culture and character of the people who declared it, defended it, and preserved it.... The identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation. And America has a destiny like no other because we are a people like no other. For whatever reason, that's just the way it is.

"To feed its millions of troops in World War II, the military turns to food science. Orange juice is reduced to concentrate, potatoes are dried into easily reconstituted flakes..."

"... and Cheddar is dehydrated and pulverized. But the war’s end leaves mountains of surplus cheese powder. Charles Elmer Doolin, riding high on the success of the Fritos he created 16 years earlier, fries extruded puffs of cornmeal and coats them in the powder. Dozens of other food companies take advantage of food technology developed for the war effort, ringing in the heyday of ultraprocessed foods."

That's the NYT, selecting Cheetos to represent the 1940s, in "1776 – 2026/The Pursuit of Hungriness: 250 Years of American Food Innovation" (gift link).

"At a time of fierce debate over how to teach American history, particularly around issues of race, the Freedom Trucks weigh in squarely on one side of the argument..."

"... telling a patriotic, positive story of core American values and exceptionalism. They stand in sharp contrast to liberal efforts in recent years — in classrooms, museums, national parks and media — to lift up discussion of systemic racism and highlight chapters where America has failed to live up to its ideals."

From "Trump-backed ‘Freedom Trucks’ tell a sanitized story of the country’s founding/At a time of fierce debate over how to teach American history, the mobile exhibits weigh in squarely on one side of the argument." (WaPo)(gift link).

"And beneath the bluster, Trump’s limited view of the American Revolution is very familiar..."

"... it reflects, like so much else about him, the mainstream culture of the Cold War era, when museums and films did indeed tell a relentlessly upbeat story of American accomplishment — in vivid contrast to the plodding drudgery of communism. The leftist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s dissented noisily from this cosy view, but the majority accepted it unquestioningly. Since then a more extreme view has taken root: those who see the revolution not as the start of an unfinished project but as a fixed source of authority, a 250-year-old set of final answers. But as the US blows out its birthday candles, does it still have the capacity it once had for political renewal, while retaining its founding principles? It is always easier to start revolutions than to end them. This is why so many Americans have believed theirs was superior to others: it had been brought to an elegant conclusion by the constitution of 1787. Americans, it seemed, had escaped the spirals of radicalism and authoritarianism that beset France, or Latin American republics...."

From "Happy birthday USA. But is America’s revolution unravelling? When the USA turned 200, the nation came together as one. Fifty years on, what are the chances of the same thing happening under Donald Trump? A special series from The Sunday Times Magazine is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the USA."

That's the London Times. The view from the losing side.

"In an open schoolyard... the researchers instructed participants to roam at will.... Within seconds, 80 percent of people were moving in a counterclockwise direction."

"'It’s not a gradual drift but rather a bias that emerges almost immediately,' Dr. Echeverría-Huarte said. Dr. Echeverría-Huarte and his colleagues wondered if the behavior might be emerging collectively, similar to how pedestrians split into two opposite-moving lanes on crowded sidewalks. But when they tested participants alone, 75 percent still moved counterclockwise, suggesting that the tendency is individual."

From "Nearly Everyone, Everywhere, Veers Left When Walking/Researchers are at a loss for why people across cultures and ages, regardless of their dominant hand, have a natural bias toward wandering in a counterclockwise direction" (NYT).

The words "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" suggest that clockwise is the more natural tendency. "Counterclockwise" sounds like going backward. But the clock had to go to the right when it was a sundial (in the northern hemisphere), and that established the tradition. 

The words "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" did not emerge until the 19th century. What did people say before that? I think they used the strange word "deasil" (or "deiseal"), which the OED traces back to 1771 and defines as: "Righthandwise, towards the right; motion with continuous turning to the right, as in going round an object with the right hand towards it, or in the same direction as the hands of a clock, or the apparent course of the sun (a practice held auspicious by the Celts)."

If it is indeed auspicious to circle to the right, then why do we naturally circle left? One thinks of the etymology of "sinister."

Chris sends pictures from Teotihuacán.

It's quite the climb, and you have to get back down again. Or hang out in the blazing sun:

Chris sends this snippet from a book:

Here's the book: "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" (commission earned). I'm going to read that. I can't see me climbing those steep stairs in full sunlight, but I do want to read that book.

"Speaking just ahead of Trump, Xi... said a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the 'Thucydides Trap'...."

I'm reading "Xi asks Trump if U.S. and China can avoid 'Thucydides Trap' at high-stakes summit" (CNBC). (That's the original headline. The headline was rewritten, perhaps to avoid mystification, as "Xi warns Trump: Mishandling Taiwan will put U.S.-China relationship in 'great jeopardy.'")

You probably know Thucydides was a historian in ancient Greece, but is "Thucydides trap" a common term? It's pretty recent, according to Wikipedia, coined and popularized in the last 10 years, and used specifically in the context of the U.S. and China. 

You have to be very deeply into Democratic Party politics to write a blank-days-that-shook-the-blank headline about this.

"10 Days That Shook the House Map and Democratic Confidence."

That's the top headline at the NYT this morning. 

You know the story: "Just two weeks ago, Democrats felt increasingly emboldened about taking control of the House in November after seeming to fight the redistricting wars to a draw. But two court rulings — one by the Supreme Court and another by Virginia’s top court — and an aggressive new push by red states to carve up congressional maps have delivered the Republican Party its biggest burst of momentum in many months. Put bluntly, Republicans have roughly 10 more House seats that favor them than they did just 10 days ago, and Democrats are suddenly grappling with a new landscape."

This feels like one of those NYT articles that's mainly performing the service of tending to the readers' emotions. Let's all do panic together this morning. When I encounter that sort of thing, my natural instinct is to go somewhere else. If we're doing group emotion, I'm looking for the door.

So: I'm interested in the history of titles in the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank form. The original is "10 Days That Shook the World," the 1919 first-hand account of the Russian Revolution by John Reed. His editor described Reed's frenzy:

"The sense that the Dream is dying was reflected throughout the poll."

The London Times explains, in "The American Dream is dying, Times poll reveals."

Perhaps this graph will make the concept more concrete for you:

In case you're having trouble discerning the year when that peak of excellence occurred, the text pinpoints it at 1976. Perhaps you remember. It was 50 years ago. The Bicentennial. Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford. Karen Ann Quinlan was disconnected from her ventilator. A school bus full of children was buried in the ground but the kids dug themselves free, in 16 hours. Jenner won the Decathlon. Apple and Microsoft sprang into being. How could you not feel that happy days were here again?

"Nearly 48 hours since being appointed as the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic in Iran’s history, Mojtaba Khamenei is nowhere to be seen."

I'm reading "Iran's new supreme leader is still nowhere to be seen" (CNN).

No video message has been put out from him addressing the crowds of supporters that have gone onto the streets across Iran to pledge their allegiance to him, nor has a written statement been issued by him or his office. State media has relied on archive footage to introduce him to the audience, and state propaganda networks have heavily relied on AI video and stills to create an image of an all-wise leader who rightly inherits the mantle of leadership.... But even as the leader remains hidden from sight, it seems the wider body politic is still functioning with little suggestion of a change in the war posture....

I wonder when, in human history, has the news of the death of a leader been suppressed so that people would believe that he was continuing to govern?

I haven't studied this question in great depth, but I have formed the opinion that the best story — the story to beat — is that of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. As Wikipedia tells it:

"What is the approximate number of shipwrecks underwater on earth (from the entirety of human history)?"

My question to Grok today. Inspired by news reports.

Let me know what your answer was before you clicked for more.

"Historical Figures as Boring Modern People."

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"The Teddy [bear] craze was followed by a moral panic, as crazes involving kids inevitably are."

"Students in a New York University sewing class were forbidden to make Teddy bears, lest they 'breed idleness among children.' A Catholic priest in Michigan went further, preaching that if little white girls were allowed to play with 'the horrible monstrosity' instead of dolls, they would fail to develop their maternal instincts and doom the race to suicide...."

From "The Race to Give Every Child a Toy/For most of history, parents couldn’t buy their kids dolls, action figures, or the like. Then playtime became big business" (The New Yorker).

Before the Teddy bear, the toy market did not exist in the sense that it does now. For much of the nineteenth century, dolls were made at home from corn husks, clothing scraps, and the like, or produced from expensive, fragile bisque porcelain and kept high up on shelves to be admired by grownup collectors, not pawed by clumsy kids. Most children had marbles, hoops, balls, and little else. Few people bought toys from stores. The success of the Teddy bear changed that...

Here's the book under discussion: "Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America" (commission earned).

"But local civil rights leaders decided not to make Ms. Colvin their symbol of discrimination."

"She was, she later said, too dark-skinned and too poor to win the crucial support of Montgomery’s Black middle class. (She was not, as some later claimed, pregnant at the time, though she did become pregnant later that year.) Instead, the leaders waited...."

From "Claudette Colvin, Who Refused to Give Her Bus Seat to a White Woman, Dies at 86/Her defiance of Jim Crow laws in 1955 made her a star witness in a landmark segregation suit, but her act was overshadowed months later when Rosa Parks made history with a similar stand" (NYT).

A historian weighs in The chief executive of Ish Entertainment uses the work of a historian to comment on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution.

An excerpt from "The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV" by Michael Hirschorn in the NYT. 

The historian Robert Darnton described an uncannily similar moment in “The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748-1789,” his brilliant 2023 account of the decades leading up to the French Revolution. The preconditions were all there: suffocating top-down control of the media, rapid technological change, let-them-eat-cake behavior among the courtier class, weaponized religious bigotry, mansions with hideously de trop ballrooms. OK, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not quite Voltaire. But there was a pedophilia scandal involving Louis XV: Public obsession with the king’s many mistresses helped give rise to so-called libelles, cheaply printed, semi-factual pamphlets that speculated on, among other matters, the king’s supposed never-ending supply of teenage girls. It would have fit right in on TikTok. Reverence turned to mockery; mockery begot contempt; and then. …

Libelles ≈ social media. 

REVISION: The original headline was "A historian weighs in on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution," but the historian didn't comment on the similarity. The author of the article Michael Hirschorn, identified at the link as "the chief executive of Ish Entertainment," is the one who picked things out of the history and made the comparison. Thanks to commenter Narr for drawing attention to this.