What Did Tocqueville Really Say About American Women?
Mr. Richard Reeves alleges that Tocqueville “thought American women were docile” (“If Tocqueville Could See Us Now,” June/July issue). Tocqueville never used the word docile about American women, and he actually wrote the exact opposite about them.
Here is what he really wrote: “She thinks for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse. … She is full of reliance on her own strength. … It is rare that an American woman, at any age, displays childish timidity or ignorance. … I have been frequently surprised and almost frightened at the singular address and happy boldness [of] young women in America … an American woman is always mistress of herself”—quoted from the chapter “Education of Young Women in the United States” in Democracy in America.
John Maass Philadelphia
Tocqueville wasn’t very consistent in his observations about American women. He was impressed with the forthrightness of young single women, as Mr. Maass notes, which made him doubly surprised at the meekness and dependence that women readily adopted when they married. It was in a letter to his sister-in-law from America that Tocqueville specifically referred to the docility and placid subservience of American wives, but he mentioned this radical transformation from maid to matron in Democracy in America too.
What Did Tocqueville Really Say About American Women?
In the June/July edition, Richard Reeves is quoted by Ken Auletta as saying: “People like Maxine Waters, the majority leader of the California Assembly—she’s black—told me stories of how blacks are moved up and out …”
He’s right on two counts—she is female and black but he is dead wrong on the other two. She is not a member of the Assembly; she is a member of the State Senate. She is not majority leader of either but is a freshman member of the State Senate from the Watts district of Los Angeles.
Donald Page Placerville, Calif.
Case Closed
I am rereading the complete file of AMERICAN HERITAGE magazine. I have just finished your October 1973 issue, in which you state in “Postscripts” that you have no explanation for the mysterious Thing hovering over the dear ladies who are repairing the original Star-Spangled Banner in the August 1972 issue.
Although the information comes almost ten years late, you will be pleased to know that the Thing is a life-size model of the rare giant squid. This creature can measure up to sixty feet in length and weigh up to half a ton.
At the time or your photo the papier-mâche model was hanging in the Great Hall of the Smithsonian Castle. Mike Sweeny of the department of Cephalopods at the Smithsonian told me that the model is no longer in existence. I recall seeing a similar model, probably from the same mold, hanging from the ceiling of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum back in the 1920s.
S. Hoechstetter Seven Corners, Va.
Who Sat First?
I very much enjoyed Stephen Sears’s fine article in the April/May issue, “Shut the Goddam Plant!” There is, however, one minor point of contention. The strike is referred to as the “first sit-down strike.” A few early instances of sitting-in can be put aside as being unrelated to the modern labor movement, but the strike, in 1934, against the General Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, cannot be so easily dismissed. That dispute had two aims: to gain wage parity with the big three of rubber manufacturing—Firestone, Goodyear, and Goodrich—and to gain union recognition for the AFL local. The company refused both, arguing on the latter point that the workers already had an “Employees Representation Plan”—a euphemism for company union.
The sit-down was suggested by the union president, Rex Murray, as an alternative to conventional strike methods. The sit-down only lasted a few days, after which, assured of noninterference from the courts, the workers walked away from the plant and continued their strike outside. The sit-down became a viable tool in the CIO’s drive to organize the mass-production industries.
I realize that this is a rather trivial point, but I simply wanted to set the record straight. I think this article is especially poignant at a time when we may be on the verge of a new era in labor-management relations in the auto industry.
Hank Guzda Historian, U.S. Dept. of Labor
Family Portrait
It gave me a pleasant surprise, almost a shock, to see the picture at the bottom of page 67 in the April/May issue of AMERICAN HERITAGE showing the three children burying their pet rabbit. I knew that picture as a child and never before saw its duplicate.
Many years ago peddlers roamed the countryside with merchandise for sale or trade. My mother obtained a large, colored, framed copy of that picture from such a huckster. She traded two hens for it. That must have been about 1913.
My mother was attracted to this picture because her three children were the sizes of the ones in the picture. My brother, Harold, had a brown wool suit like the one in the picture. My younger brother, Marvin, wore a “Russian suit” and golden curls as the picture shows. I was the girl.
I still have the picture on a wall in my home. It gives me great pleasure to read the biography of the artist. You called this photograph one of his “more arresting failures.” We don’t think so—we always liked it!
Mrs. Cecil Flook Milford, Ind.
Tough Paper
As a student of and writer on hand-papermaking I was delighted with your article on the Japanese paper balloon-bombs of World War II (April/May 1982). I first ran across this story years ago in doing research on the subject of paper. If I remember rightly, one of the balloons drifted as far east as Michigan.
However, your readers who are acquainted only with machine-made paper and newsprint are going to be puzzled that a paper balloon could survive such a rigorous journey. Professor Prioli neglected the aspect that truly made these balloons possible: the quality of Japanese paper. In all probability the balloons were made in large part of sheets of handmade kozo paper, which has an exceptionally long, strong fiber. They may have been put together of the paper used then for shoji screens.
Historically Japan has used paper for many more purposes than Western culture, partly because of the strength and longevity of the various fibers used and the purity of the process. Actually, a paper balloon is one of the less exotic applications the Japanese have devised.
