Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

While most of us have heard of or are aware of the “Harlem Renaissance”, those outside the Black community are mostly unaware of the writers, photographers, and performing artists who made the renaissance happen. Among the photographers of that period was James Van Der Zee.

He was low-keyed and extremely proficient in his profession. He was as skilled as Edward Steichen or Lewis Hine but kept to himself and his community. He focused his photography on capturing the best of the Harlem community and was often busiest on Sundays, especially Easter Sunday, when the people would come to his studio after Church dressed in their Sunday finest.

He did capture numerous celebrities, athletes, and others in and about New York City. But he will be always remembered as the photographer of Harlem and one who always wanted to put something into each image beyond what the camera captured.

He remained relatively unknown outside of Harlem until 1967 when the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibited his work. After that he gained fame and recognition. Let us remember his contributions and body of works.  GLB

“Happiness is perfume, you can’t pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself.”
— James Van Der Zee

“…best known for his capturing and preserving the pictorial history of Harlem U.S.A. during the first half of the twentieth century.”
— Black Photographers Annual

“His works have brought a tremendous amount of warmth, pride, and true insight into the long neglected history of black Americans.”
— Reginald McGhee, Photographer

“…he was never completely satisfied with a print unless he did some ‘extra work outside of what the camera did.’ ”
— James Van Der Zee, as told to Black Photographers Annual

“[Van Der Zee] revealed the work of a man with an eye sensitive to composition, texture, and light.”
— Professor Regina A. Perry, in James VanDerZee

“Sometimes the photographs seemed to be more valuable to me than they did to the people I was photographing because I put my heart and soul into them.”
— James Van Der Zee

“For VanDerZee, … studio photography seems to have been a form of theater, an opportunity to ‘tell a story’ with deliberately fictionalized elements.”
— Deborah Willis-Braithwaite, in Emerge

“When he [Reginald McGhee] came by and saw the collection I had, he felt there was no need to go any further. I had pictures of every description.”
— James Van Der Zee

“…the largest body of VanDerZee’s photographs were ‘taken in Harlem during the period in which that community was the undisputed cultural capital of black America.’ ”
— Professor Regina A. Perry, in James VanDerZee

“…some pictures of women and children in the early Lenox family portraits and later studio work represent loving, gentle Madonna images.”
— Professor Regina A. Perry, in James VanDerZee

“I posed everybody according to their type and personality, and therefore almost every picture was different, says Van DerZee. ‘In the majority of studios, they just seem to pose everybody the same according to custom, according to fashion, and therefore the pictures seem to be mechanical looking to me.”
— James Van Der Zee

Black Photographers: James Van Der Zee

James Van Der Zee (1886 – 1983) was an African American photographer best known for his portraits of black New Yorkers. He was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Aside from the artistic merits of his work, Van Der Zee produced the most comprehensive documentation of the period. Among his most famous subjects during this time were Marcus Garvey, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Countee Cullen.

Biography

Van Der Zee was originally from Lenox, Massachusetts His parents were John and Elizabeth Van Der Zee. His parents worked for President Ulysses S. Grant in New York City. James was the second of six children and enjoyed a close-knit family. His best friend was Justin Moore. As a child he learned piano, violin, and art. Van Der Zee received his first camera at the age of 14. This was a life changing gift. He soon traveled to New York with his brother and father. He was a skilled pianist and an aspiring professional violinist, but hated painting.

The five-piece Harlem Orchestra was created by Van Der Zee, in which he also performed. He discovered photography as a hobby in his hometown of Lenox. At age fourteen he received his first camera from a magazine promotion. His interest with the toy camera led him to getting a slightly better camera with which he would take hundreds of photographs of the town and his family. He was only the second person in Lenox to own a camera, and he developed the images himself. This early start led him to a vast and prolific career documenting each decade in his unique style of photography.

Did you know … ?
• VanDerZee’s parents worked as the maid and butler for president Ulysses S. Grant.
• Marcus Garvey commissioned VanDerZee to capture the African-American experience for the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
• A 1967 NY Museum of Modern Art exhibit introduced VanDerZee’s photographs to the world.

Moving to New York, music lessons were a prime source of income for Van Der Zee. At age 29, he worked as a dark room technician at Gertz Department Store in Newark, New Jersey. He would substitute as a photographer when his employer was unavailable. Patrons enjoyed his creative manner of shooting subjects. This encouraged him to open his own studio, Guarantee Photography, within two years, and he was immediately successful. In 1932, he outgrew his first studio and went on to open the larger GGG Studio, with his second wife as his assistant (since closed, but the building with its original sign can still be seen on the east side of Lenox Avenue between 123rd and 124th Streets in Harlem). In these studios, many visual techniques were employed using props, architectural elements and costumes in the tradition of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. So much time was taken in posing his subjects that he often only could do three sittings a day.

During the Great Depression, and as the availability of personal cameras severely lessened the need of professional photography, the gap was filled by shooting passport photographs and miscellaneous photographic jobs to make a living. After World War II, he survived via commissions and in the field of photo restoration.

National recognition was given to him at age 82, when his collection of 75,000 photographs spanning a period of six decades of African-American life was discovered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His photos were featured in 1969 as part of the Harlem on my Mind exhibition. From the 1970s until his death in 1983, Van Der Zee photographed the many celebrities who had come across his work and promoted him throughout the country. He was known to have brought the spirit of Harlem to life.

Photographic Techniques and Artistry

The biggest day for studio photos was Sunday, especially Easter Sunday. The high class, the middle class, the poorer class all looked good on Sundays.” His carefully posed family portraits, including those of his own family, reveal that the family unit was an important aspect of VanDerZee’s life. Perry commented that he “was always astute about posing subjects and devoted so much time to it that he was frequently unable to complete more than three sittings a day.
— James Van Der Zee

Works by Van Der Zee are artistic as well as technically proficient. His work was in high demand in part due to his experimentation and skill in retouching negatives and in double exposures. One theme that recurs in his photographs was the emergent Black middle class, which he captured using traditional techniques in often idealistic images. Negatives were retouched to show the glamor and aura of perfection. This would affect the likeness of the person photographed, but he felt each photo should transcend beyond the subject. His carefully posed family portraits, reveal that the family unit was an important aspect of VanDerZee’s life.

Van Der Zee sometimes combined several photos in one image in order to present the scene as he thought it should have been. He did not limit himself to the studio, and photographed street scenes, funerals, parades, and children. In one case, he added a ghostly child to an image of a wedding to suggest the couple’s future. A funeral image was superimposed upon a photograph of a dead woman to give the feeling of her eerie presence.

Most Popular Images:
“Nude, Harlem”; “Wedding Couple”; “Christmas, 1930”; “My Corsage”. In addition, VanDerZee took famous shots of several boxers, including Joe Louis, heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, featherweight champion Kid Chocolate, and heavyweight Sam Langford. Religious leaders also played a very important role in Harlem, and VanDerZee photographed influential Baptist minister Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., his son, Adam, Jr., the engimatic cult leader Father Divine, and Daddy Grace, among others.

Van Der Zee was a working photographer who supported himself through portraiture, and who devoted time to his professional work before his more artistic compositions. Many famous residents of Harlem were included among his subjects. In addition to portraits, Van Der Zee photographed organizations, events, and other businesses.

A Tribute (from… Santa Barbara News and Review)

Into Van Der Zees World

EACH PICTURE WELCOMES US in a different manner. Some beckon us from the humorous angle. Some intrigue us psychologically. The majority lead us in by a visual-compositional course.

In one picture, a chubby, hardy woman hits by her piano next to a luscious box of candy that s open to our eyes. A progression of objects directs our eyes along a zig-zag route throughout the entire picture, cushioned at the sides by pleasant full-blossomed flowers. Before we leave the picture, we seem to have sampled the candy, sniffed the flowers and walked across the entire room.

Another photo brings us face to face with a tough little kid. He is sporting a top hat, black tails and is clinching a cigarette in his fingers. Standing next to a small girl who appears to be wearing a wedding dress, both he and his friend seem to be over-eager, precocious youths we can recognize from our own childhoods.

Several of the photographs are shot from eye level, giving us a high viewpoint to the seated figures and the floor planes. As in Van DerZee’s portrait of his cousin, Suzie Porter (see photo above), we’re quite literally invited into the laps of his sitters. From this standing point of view, the backgrounds rise around us and embrace us. There’s no doubt, Van DerZee’s camera sees and records from within each environment, rather than viewing them from the outside.

We see a wealth of textured surfaces and patterns in Suzie Porter’s portrait. Yet, even though Van DerZee emphasizes these qualities in all of his photographs, he blurs them out enough to keep the figures dominant. He works with large negatives so he can more easily edit the harsh details which might encumber the eye on its smooth journey. “I would retouch the pictures and take out the unnecessary lines and shadows so the pictures would always look a little better than they [the sitters] …. .” says Van DerZee in the book The World of James Van DerZee: A Visual Record of Black Americans.

“Shy James”

Until GROVE PRESS published The World of James VanZee in 1969, the photographer was relatively unknown his studio at 272 Lenox Ave. in Harlem. His career was quiet by his own choosing. Shy James he was called.

Isolated from most of his contemporaries, such as Edward Steichen or Lewis Hine, he perfected his art through a self-learning process. Van DerZee experimented with flash powder until he found his own formula, and by the time light  meters had arrived, he had already learned to judge light conditions by sight alone.

All of his compositional inroads were paralleled by Steichen  and the others. All of his explorations into retouching, superimposition and hand-coloring were likewise masteredd by these same photographers.

Van DerZee’s advantage was that he tackled photography on his own, unaware and uninfluenced by many outside sources. He had to bounce ideas off himself, and as a  result, his work has a constant striving quality and individualism rarely found.

Each photograph in this show was a fresh search for Van DerZee, chasing after new qualities both in his sitters and his materials. The 92-year-old Van DerZee is still shooting portraits with his antique Bellows camera.  As he says, “The body wears out, but the mind don’t need to.”

References:

Deborah Willis. (2002) Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. W.W. Norton & Co.

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: James Van Der Zee… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Van_Der_Zee

Web Sites and Blogs: 

Drop Me Off in Harlem: James Van Der Zee…
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/faces/vanderzee_text.html

Santa Barbara News and Review (via Dan Gheno’s Web Site):
Van DerZee’s Craft of Love…
http://www.dangheno.net/pwritingspg6.htm

by Gerald Boerner

Today we don’t use FTP programs like WS-FTP as much as we did in past years. Why not? We have moved away from the Internet, per se, to the use of the World Wide Web. Many of the major web page design programs, such as Dreamweaver, have built into their software an FTP client. Through this built-in client, we are able to upload our web pages, CSS style sheets, images and other elements to our web servers. Is there still a need for FTP? Yes, because FTP is the protocol used in the previous example and there are some circumstances, such as the archiving of our web sites, which are still best accomplished through the use of FTP. So expect FTP to be around for a while..  GLB

“Science fiction does not remain fiction for long. And certainly not on the Internet.”
— Vinton Cerf

“Nowadays, anyone who cannot speak English and is incapable of using the Internet is regarded as backward.”
— Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud

“They say a year in the Internet business is like a dog year.. equivalent to seven years in a regular person’s life. In other words, it’s evolving fast and faster.”
— Vinton Cerf

“In today’s knowledge-based economy, what you earn depends on what you learn. Jobs in the information technology sector, for example, pay 85 percent more than the private sector average.”
— Bill Clinton

“Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.”
— Sergey Brin

“The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation.”
— Vinton Cerf

“The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services.”
— Vinton Cerf

“I must confess that I’ve never trusted the Web. I’ve always seen it as a coward’s tool. Where does it live? How do you hold it personally responsible? Can you put a distributed network of fiber-optic cable "on notice"? And is it male or female? In other words, can I challenge it to a fight?”
— Stephen Colbert

Wizards of the Internet: FTP (File Transfers)

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to exchange and manipulate files over a TCP/IP based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications. Applications were originally interactive command-line tools with a standardized command syntax, but graphical user interfaces have been developed for all desktop operating systems in use today. FTP is also often used as an application component to automatically transfer files for program internal functions. FTP can be used with user-based password authentication or with anonymous user access. The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a similar, but simplified, not interoperable, and unauthenticated version of FTP.

RFC 114 was released on 16 April 1971 and was the original specification of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). It was obsoleted by RFC 765 on June 1980, which in turn was obsoleted by RFC 959 on October 1985, which is current specification. Several proposed standards amend that RFC, for example RFC 2228 of June 1997 proposes security extensions and RFC 2428 of September 1998 adds support for IPv6 and defines a new type of passive mode.

Use

FTP was a required service to allow computers connected to the original mainframes connected to the IMPs to send more than remote terminal (Telnet) messages. To be functional, these hosts needed to be able to exchange complete files. The problem addressed by FTP focuses on how to transfer the information from one machine to another without losing any data. This was complicated by the different form that the data on each host took. Some hosts, like DEC and HP, used ASCII while IBM mainframes used a different character encoding technique, EBCDIC. There were also other differences in how data were stored in each system to be considered. The initial RFC specified the beginning of this process.

As outlined by its RFC, FTP is used to:

• Promote sharing of files (computer programs and/or data).
• Encourage indirect or implicit use of remote computers.
• Shield a user from variations in file storage systems among different hosts. (The user does not need to know what the type of file system is.)
• Transfer data reliably, and efficiently.

Protocol overview

The FTP protocol committee was chaired by Abhay Bhushan, an MIT graduate student in the early 1970s. Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds added support for modem communication in the 1980s. The original committee, with representatives spread across the country at schools like Harvard, MIT, SRI, UCLA, Utah, and others used the newly available ARPANet to exchange messages using the original version of FTP on NCP (the predecessor to TCP/IP) to design the full specification for this process.

A client makes a connection to the server using TCP port 21. This connection, called the control connection, remains open for the duration of the session, with a second connection on port 20 opened as required to transfer file data. Commands are sent by the client over the control connection in ASCII and terminated by a carriage return and line feed. For example "RETR filename" would transfer the specified file from the server to the client.

The server responds on the control connection with three digit status codes in ASCII with an optional text message, for example "200" (or "200 OK.") means that the last command was successful. A file transfer in progress over the data connection can be aborted using an interrupt message sent over the control connection.

FTP can be run in active mode or passive mode, which control how the second connection is opened. In active mode the client sends the server the IP address port number that the client will use for the data connection, and the server opens the connection. Passive mode was devised for use where the client is behind a firewall and unable to accept incoming TCP connections. The server sends the client an IP address and port number and the client opens the connection to the server. Both modes were updated in September 1998 to add support for IPv6 and made some other changes to passive mode, making it extended passive mode.

While transferring data over the network, four data representations can be used, of which only two are common:

• ASCII mode:
  only for plain text. (Any other form of data will be corrupted)
• Binary mode:
  the sending machine sends each file byte for byte and as such the recipient stores the bytestream as it receives it. (The FTP standard calls this "IMAGE" or "I" mode)

The other two, EBCDIC and local file type are essentially obsolete. For text files, different format control and record structure can be selected, although these features are also rarely used now. One of three [ASCII, Byte, or Bytestream] file transfer modes can also be chosen, but the default of "stream" is invariably used now.

Security

The original FTP specification is an inherently unsecure method of transferring files because there is no method specified for transferring data in an encrypted fashion. This means that under most network configurations, user names, passwords, FTP commands and transferred files can be captured by anyone on the same network using a packet sniffer. This is a problem common to many Internet protocol specifications written prior to the creation of SSL, such as HTTP, SMTP and Telnet. The common solution to this problem is to use either SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol), or FTPS (FTP over SSL), which adds SSL or TLS encryption to FTP as specified in RFC 4217.

Anonymous FTP

A host that provides an FTP service may additionally provide anonymous FTP access. Users typically login to the service with an ‘anonymous’ account when prompted for user name. Although users are commonly asked to send their email address in lieu of a password, little to no verification is actually performed on the supplied data.

As modern FTP clients typically hide the anonymous login process from the user, the ftp client will supply dummy data as the password (since the user’s email address may not be known to the application).

The Gopher protocol has been suggested as an alternative to anonymous FTP, as well as Trivial File Transfer Protocol and File Service Protocol.

Remote FTP or FTPmail

Where FTP access is restricted, a remote FTP (or FTPmail) service can be used to circumvent the problem. An e-mail containing the FTP commands to be performed is sent to a remote FTP server, which is a mail server that parses the incoming e-mail, executes the FTP commands, and sends back an e-mail with any downloaded files as an attachment. Obviously this is less flexible than an ftp client, as it is not possible to view directories interactively or to modify commands, and there can also be problems with large file attachments in the response not getting through mail servers. As most internet users these days have ready access to FTP, this procedure is no longer in everyday use.

FTP and web browsers

Most recent web browsers and file managers can connect to FTP servers, although they may lack the support for protocol extensions such as FTPS. This allows manipulation of remote files over FTP through an interface similar to that used for local files. This is done via an FTP URL, which takes the form

ftp(s)://<ftpserveraddress>
(e.g., ftp://ftp.gimp.org/)

A password can optionally be given in the URL, e.g.:

ftp(s)://<login>:<password>@<ftpserveraddress>:<port>

Most web-browsers require the use of passive mode FTP, which not all FTP servers are capable of handling. Some browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Netscape, allow only the downloading of files, but offer no way to upload files to the server.

Summing it Up

Retrospective:

FTP was the primary way of transferring files between computers on a peer to peer basis. I overcame the differences between the format of a file on the origin (sending) and destination (receiving) computers. Most importantly, FTP accomplished this task in such a way that the file was transferred without ERROR! Originally, this used two separate ports for the computers to communicate through. The primary port, Port 21, was used to transfer the data while the secondary port, Port 20, was used to allow the machines to communicate information about whether the packets of data had been received correctly. If it was not, the receiving computer could send a message to the sending computer computer to resend a particular packet. Thus, the process was fast and accurate.

At a functional level, FTP served as the basis upon which Tomlinson developed his email sending and receiving programs for email. His original process actually used the FTP protocol itself. Later, as email gained status on its own, new protocols were introduced. But we can be thankful for FTP for accomplishing this task. In fact, email is often called the “killer” application for the Internet. If so, FTP was the enabling technology for that breakthrough.

As we continue to examine the technology contributors to the development computer networking, let us always be alert for the enabling technologies and “killer” applications that produced the advancement of networking.

References:

Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon. (1998) Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. Simon & Schuster

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: ARPANet… 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPAnet

Wikipedia: The Internet…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet

Wikipedia: File Transfer Protocol (FTP)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol

Web Sites and Blogs:

PhotoShelter: FTP Images…

http://www.photoshelter.com/help/tut/client/ftp

Google Merchant Center: Merchant Center Help…

http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160056

Woopidoo! Internet Quotes…

http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/internet-quotes.htm

by Gerald Boerner

Today we recognize the self-sacrificial behavior of four chaplains during World War II. Their transport ship, the USST Dorchester, was hit be a German torpedo while in the vicinity of Sicily. These four chaplains handed out life preservers to the men; when they ran out, they took their own preservers off and gave them to the troops. This helped to save many men, but cost the lives of the four chaplains. They have been honored by a postage stamp and a number of memorials. War brings out the best of men and this is another example of that valor.  GLB

“…without a Respectable Navy, Alas America!”
— Captain John Paul Jones

“I have not yet begun to fight!”
— Captain John Paul Jones

“Don’t give up the ship!”
— Captain James Lawrence

“We have met the enemy and they are ours…”
— Oliver Hazard Perry

“Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!”
— Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

“You may fire when you are ready Gridley.”
— Commodore George Dewey

“I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
— Captain John Paul Jones

“It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.”
— President George Washington

The Four Chaplains of World War II

The Four Chaplains were four United States Army chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the troop ship USAT Dorchester during World War II. They helped other soldiers board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out. The chaplains joined arms, said prayers, and sang hymns as they went down with the ship.

Sinking of the Dorchester

The chaplains, who all held the rank of lieutenant, were the Methodist Reverend George L. Fox, Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, the Roman Catholic Priest John P. Washington and the Reformed Church in America Reverend Clark V. Poling. They were sailing on the USAT Dorchester, a coastal liner that had been converted to a troop transport for World War II. On the night of February 3, 1943, the vessel, travelling in convoy, was torpedoed by the German submarine U-223 off Newfoundland in the North Atlantic.

The torpedo knocked out the Dorchester’s electrical system, leaving the ship dark. Panic set in among the men on board, many of them trapped below decks. The chaplains sought to calm the men and organize an orderly evacuation of the ship, and helped guide wounded men to safety. As life jackets were passed out to the men, the supply ran out before each man had one. The chaplains removed their own life jackets and gave them to others. They helped as many men as they could into lifeboats, and then linked arms and, saying prayers and singing hymns, went down with the ship.

As I swam away from the ship, I looked back. The flares had lighted everything. The bow came up high and she slid under. The last thing I saw, the Four Chaplains were up there praying for the safety of the men. They had done everything they could. I did not see them again. They themselves did not have a chance without their life jackets.
— Grady Clark, survivor

In all, 230 of the 904 men aboard the ship were rescued. Life jackets offered little protection from hypothermia which killed most men in the water. Water temperature was 34 °F (1 °C) and air temperature was 36 °F (2 °C). By the time additional rescue ships arrived “…hundreds of dead bodies were seen floating on the water, kept up by their life jackets.”

The chaplains were also honored
with a stamp, issued in 1948
and by an act of Congress
designating February 3
as “Four Chaplains Day.”

On December 19, 1944, all four chaplains were posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross.. The Four Chaplains’ Medal was established by act of Congress on July 14, 1960, and was presented posthumously to their next of kin by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker at Ft. Myer, Virginia on January 18, 1961.

The Chaplains

George L. Fox… George L. Fox (March 15, 1900 – February 3, 1943) was a Methodist minister and a lieutenant in the United States Army. He was one of the Four Chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during World War II.

George L. Fox was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania in 1900, one of five children. At 17 he ran away to join the army and served on the Western Front during World War I as a medical orderly, receiving the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Croix de Guerre for his meritorious service. Following the war, Fox completed high school and briefly worked for a Trust Company. Fox married in 1923 and his son, Wyatt Ray was born a year later. Fox studied at Moody Bible Institute and Illinois Wesleyan University, graduating in 1931. Following graduation, Fox became an itinerant Methodist preacher, holding posts in Downs, Illinois and Rye, New Hampshire before joining the Boston University School of Theology and becoming an ordained minister in 1934.

That same year, he took over the church in Waits River, Vermont, and his daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born. He remained in Vermont, moving church twice and becoming the state chaplain and historian for the American Legion. Fox joined the army again in 1942. His son enlisted in the Marine Corps on the same day. Fox was united with the other Four Chaplains for his voyage to Europe later that year following a position in the chaplain’s school in Harvard, and departed with over 900 soldiers on the Dorchester in January 1943.

Alexander D. Goode… Alexander D. Goode (May 10, 1911 – February 3, 1943) was a rabbi and a lieutenant in the United States Army. He was one of the Four Chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during World War II

Born in 1911, one of four children to a Brooklyn rabbi, Goode excelled at sports at high school in Washington, D.C. He became a rabbi after graduating from the University of Cincinnati and in 1937 Hebrew Union College. In 1940 he received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University. He was married in 1935 to Teresa Flax, niece of Al Jolson, with whom he had one daughter, Rosalie.

Goode served as a rabbi in Marion, Indiana and York, Pennsylvania.

In 1941, he applied to become a Navy chaplain but was turned down. The following year he was accepted into the Army, being posted to Harvard where he studied at the chaplain’s school in preparation for deployment to Europe followed by brief service at an airbase in Goldsboro, North Carolina. In October 1942 he joined the other members of the Four Chaplains and was detailed to embark on the Dorchester a few months later.

John P. Washington… John P. Washington (18 July 1908 – 3 February 1943) was a Roman Catholic priest and a lieutenant in the United States Army. He was one of the Four Chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during World War II.

Born as one of seven children to Irish immigrants Frank and Mary Washington, John was a religious boy from a young age, rapidly becoming an altar boy at his local church in Newark, New Jersey, where he grew up. A talented sportsman and intelligent and hard-working child, he performed well at school and was accepted into Seton Hall Preparatory School, then located in South Orange, New Jersey, where he completed high school and took courses designed to prepare him for the priesthood. Following his graduation he moved to the Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology and took minor orders in 1933, being ordained a priest in 1935.

He served at several New Jersey parishes over the next six years, before joining the Army upon hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. After brief periods in Indiana and Maryland, Washington was dispatched to Harvard University where he took a course preparing him for deployment for Europe and became acquainted with the others of the Four chaplains for the first time. In January 1943 he joined them on board the Dorchester for the trip to Europe via Greenland, and set off on the fatal journey.

Clark V. Poling… Clark V. Poling (August 7, 1910 – February 3, 1943) was a minister in the Reformed Church in America and a lieutenant in the United States Army. He was one of the Four Chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during World War II.

Poling was born in Columbus, Ohio to Daniel A. Poling, an Evangelical minister, and Susie Jane Vandersall. He was raised in Auburndale, Massachusetts where he attended Whitney Public School. His mother died in 1918; his father remarried in 1919 and converted to the Baptist faith, becoming an ordained minister. The family moved to Poughkeepsie, New York and Poling attended Oakwood High School where he excelled on the football team.

After graduation he attended Hope College in Michigan and then Rutgers University in New Jersey, graduating in 1933. He then attended Yale Divinity School, graduating in 1936. He then took up a position as pastor of the First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York where he settled with his wife Betty and their son Corky. A daughter, Susan Elizabeth, was born three months after his death.

At the outbreak of war in 1941, Poling immediately volunteered for service as an Army chaplain in the footsteps of his father, who had served as a chaplain during World War I. He initially served in Mississippi with a transport regiment.

Other Events on this Day

• In 1690…
  Massachusetts authorizes the first paper currency issued in America.
• In 1913…
  The Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing a federal income tax, is ratified.
• In 1917…
  The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany after a German submarine sinks the line Housatonic off the coast of Sicily.
• In 1943…
  The Army transport ship Dorchester sinks after being hit be a German torpedo.
• In 1949…
  Rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered plane crashes in Iowa.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: The Four Chaplains of World War II…  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Chaplains

Wikipedia: George L. Fox…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_L._Fox

Wikipedia: Alexander D. Goode…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_D._Goode

Wikipedia: John P. Washington…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Washington

Wikipedia: Clark V. Poling…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_V._Poling

Web Sites and Blogs:

History Navy Military: Famous Navy Quotes: Who Said Them…
http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/trivia02.htm