tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post7981642315978306374..comments2024-03-28T15:48:11.151-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: THE COMMENT BY "SUPERFLUOUS MAN"Robert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84105384917177464802012-04-28T10:52:33.429-04:002012-04-28T10:52:33.429-04:00To follow up on Aaron Baker's comment, there&#...To follow up on Aaron Baker's comment, there's the Tamiment Library at NYU, which I don't know a whole lot about except that its focus is history of radical movements and the labor movement.LFChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-26139228661767963402012-04-27T21:18:38.684-04:002012-04-27T21:18:38.684-04:00I think you may be underestimating the capacity of...I think you may be underestimating the capacity of historians to find something, or someone, significant. A cache of documents illuminating the lives of "ordinary" socialists 100 years ago may be very interesting to some historians--and a university might be happy to have your archive. Don't sell it (or the historical imagination) short.Aaron Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03146735072488009653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-16393223724355849782012-04-27T21:18:21.027-04:002012-04-27T21:18:21.027-04:00I think you may be underestimating the capacity of...I think you may be underestimating the capacity of historians to find something, or someone, significant. A cache of documents illuminating the lives of "ordinary" socialists 100 years ago may be very interesting to some historians--and a university might be happy to have your archive. Don't sell it (or the historical imagination) short.Aaron Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03146735072488009653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31963324192167554522012-04-27T16:41:44.129-04:002012-04-27T16:41:44.129-04:00Based on his comments, I think Superfluous Man mig...Based on his comments, I think Superfluous Man might be interested in Scott Sandage's <i>Born Losers: A History of Failure in America</i>, which focuses on the 19th cent. and draws on personal letters, diaries etc. (I have not read it -- I'm just going by the description on Amazon.)LFChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-28147211435453894242012-04-26T16:29:07.810-04:002012-04-26T16:29:07.810-04:00Thanks for reading his story. I feel sure he was t...Thanks for reading his story. I feel sure he was the most honorable man among our family and it is sad his life had to end in tragedy. I used to get an elderly man to tell me stories about farm life in the South and he would just go on and on. And I kept it up by asking him questions. He had all kinds of interesting comments about his past, the German soldiers who were prisoners of war who worked on his farm, the SS men who you could identity because of those conspicuous tattoos and how he came to regard them as "mean", plowing with a mule, having to miss college and though he sister got to go, because of the "Hoover" days he got his learning at "Hutto college" (a neighboring farm where he worked) and how learned the business, dabbing molasses on each bowl of his cotton to keep the boll weevil off it. You are correct. Much of our history goes unrecorded. I would talk with the farmer at a country store and the store owner kept telling me to "use a tape recorder". And I just did it because it was interesting and I wanted to have stories to tell to others so I never got the recordings done. Yes, there are so many fascinating, rich stories from our past. I have a friend who says "you have more stories than anyone I've ever met". So I appreciate the compliment that you found that story with a sad ending interesting. But I know that many people have many more stories than I do. I know I should write them mine down for posterity. I have no children but I have many nieces and nephews Not doing so is in a way selfish I suppose. Humans often believe if the stories are theirs, no one else would be interested. <br /><br />And I understand what you mean about historically significant. Most of what we know about the distant past was not about the less privileged but of the privileged. Studs Terkel's people is who you are talking about, which means most of us.Superfluous Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14935534194246434873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-48801051078219598452012-04-26T12:23:56.862-04:002012-04-26T12:23:56.862-04:00Sure. The whole point of the post is that all tho...Sure. The whole point of the post is that all those lives are historically significant from one point of view. But I was obviously referring to the people whom historians consider significant. Also, some people's papers get kept and archived while other people's papers do not. I have an elaborately filed and organized archive of my family papers, but no university is going to want to accept it as a gift and put it in the library.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-67045842961956299002012-04-26T11:19:53.081-04:002012-04-26T11:19:53.081-04:00" . . . people who do not rise to the level o..." . . . people who do not rise to the level of historically significant actors, but who lived rich, complex, interesting lives nonetheless."<br /><br />Maybe how one defines "historically significant" needs tweaking. The miller Menocchio, in Carlo Ginzburg's excellent <i>The Cheese and the Worms</i>, was seen by Ginzburg as historically significant--and I found it easy to agree with him.Aaron Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03146735072488009653noreply@blogger.com