Southern Skeptic

Woo-wee! I do believe Doctor Ferris and Professor Morris (“The Water in Which You Swim,” July/August) are running the best scam in the Lower Mississippi since the Duke and the Dauphin worked those parts. But at least they’re homeboys, and they give new luster to the term professional Southerner. And they give new hope to misplaced compatriots: If you don’t get treated right in New York City or London, England, you can always come home and start up a center for the study of Southern culture and rake in Yankee dollars, yen, francs, and deutschemarks from strangers shopping for the kind of wisdom the Doctor’s 101-year-old grandmomma used to give away free. Well, my grandmomma only lived to be 99, but she was more original and always used to tell me that blood was thinner than turpentine. Which means that a respectable magazine like American Heritage ought to post a warning when it opens its pages to hucksters—even if they’re family.

The Integrated South the Doctor and the Professor are peddling is as phony as the Cavaliers of Dixie or Henry Grady’s New South. Racial separatism is rampant in the real South, and there’s less social integration now than there was under legal segregation. The Doctor is indulging in willful ignorance of Southern history, if not folklore, when he brags about his daughter “going to a school with not only black children but children from Chinese and Lebanese backgrounds.” When I went to public school in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1940s, I had no Chinese schoolmates, but there were some Japanese and enough Lebanese to staff sixteen oriental-rug bazaars—not to mention Greeks, Portuguese, and Italians. And I’ll guarantee you there was more racial integration back then at a Wynonie Harris dance in Myrtle Beach than at any function at the Doctor’s academic theme park. Wynonie isn’t even mentioned in that humongous Encyclopedia of Southern Culture the Doctor edited.

Another thing my little old grandmomma used to say: Everybody’s got to make a living.

Neill Macaulay
Micanopy, Fla.

The Lincoln Ear

I was fascinated to read the account of the 1843 Lincoln daguerreotype in the February/March issue (“Is This the First Photograph of Abraham Lincoln?”). I’m afraid I don’t see the resemblance, even to the 1846 Lincoln daguerreotype taken only a few years later—although the asymmetrical droop of the eyelids, also seen in other photographs, is intriguing.

The convolutions of the human outer ear show considerable anatomical variation, and were used for personal identification before the adoption of fingerprinting. The left ear visible in 1843 does resemble the 1846 ear. The sculptors Leonard Wells Volk and Clark Mills made plaster life masks of Lincoln, and Mills made a bronze casting of his mask. These casts could also provide detailed models of the ear for comparison.

Alan Wachtel
Palo Alto, Calif.

The Lincoln Ear

Beyond question, the subject in the 1843 daguerreotype is not Abraham Lincoln, and the photos accompanying your article provide irrefutable proof of this. Please refer to the computer-generated transition from the 1843 daguerreotype to the well-known 1846 daguerreotype of Lincoln, shown on page 40 of your article, and compare the ear of the subject of the 1843 daguerreotype to that of Lincoln in the 1846 daguerreotype, noting that:

1. Lincoln’s ear protrudes more than that of the unidentified subject.

2. The external contours of the ears are different.

3. The configuration of the “antihelix” (the area of the external ear where the cartilage bends backward) is totally different.

While the ears do change shape somewhat with age, the basic configurations do not. There would certainly not be perceptible change in these specific anatomical characteristics during the short span of time between age thirty-four and age thirtyseven.

Gary Bartlett
Adrian, Mich.

Outdoor Only

Thanks for the vision of summer placidity in the “Sitting Pretty” photo from 1912 (“Readers’ Album,” July/August). This glimpse at back-yard contentment, featuring a double-benched device known as the Meisner Rocker Swing, afforded me some spiritual succor through this summer’s contemporary swelter.

I was mildly surprised, though, that the wooden swing was described as “a beautiful outdoor and indoor piece of furniture.” So massive an article presupposes an enormous parlor to contain it, and the head of the household would have been thought eccentric to have the thing inside.

Nevertheless, the real beauty of the scene is that the family members are poised to look at and converse with one another. Nowadays, the television set draws the household’s undivided attention.

William Dauenhauer
Wickliffe, Ohio

Guideless

The April article “Tales of a Gettysburg Guide” makes things there sound better than they are. I visited Gettysburg on a Sunday (March 27) and asked for a guide—even hoped for Mr. Wensyel.

Lo and behold! At 11:00 A.M. only two guides had reported in and no more were expected. Your readers should know that guides come and go as they please, when they please. Further, there seems to be no attempt to have a reasonable number of guides on hand. None responded to calls that were made for them: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” was the attitude.

I wonder, would a privately run business operate this way?

Mike Tomknith
Hopewell Junction, N.Y.

Guideless

Colonel Wensyel replies: I’m sorry Mr. Tomknith was unable to find a guide at the battlefield on Sunday, March 27. We had 5,827 visitors that day (up from 3,073 the year before). Twentyfour guides (myself among them) were present, however, and accommodated most of the visitors who wished them. It’s impossible to predict the number of visitors we may get on a given day, particularly in the spring of a new season. Guides really don’t come and go as they please, and are required to do at least a specified minimum number of tours each season. But it’s true that no privately run business could operate this way; nor could it offer the quality provided by the Licensed Battlefield Guides, who spend at least two hours with the visitor. We added more guides this spring, but it’s always a good idea to come early—8:00 to 10:00 A.M.—when one is always available, or to consider reserving a guide for his second or third tour. I hope Mr. Tomknith may visit us again; if he will contact me through the Park, I’ll be glad to spend as long with him as he wishes.

James W. Wensyel
Colonel, U.S.A. (Ret.)
Newville, Pa.

Grand Again

Thank you for the beautiful article on America’s grand hotels (“Palaces of the People”) by J. M. Fenster in your April issue.

In Spokane, Washington, we also have a “grande dame” in the Davenport Hotel built in 1914 by Louis Davenport—a friend of Louis Comfort Tiffany. During the 1920s mail addressed simply “c/o The Davenport, U.S.A.” promptly found its destination. The Davenport has a proud heritage, having entertained every U.S. President from William Howard Taft to William Jefferson Clinton except Elsenhower, as well as Will Rogers, John Philip Sousa, Charles Lindbergh, Mary Pickford, Clark Gable, and Queen Marie of Romania.

Closed for eight years, it has been purchased by Hong Kong’s Sun International company; they’ve already restored the Grand Lobby and plan to open to the public early in 1995. The Davenport will be marketed worldwide as a “destination” for those who enjoy this ambiance and all the outdoor activities available in this beautiful inland area of the Northwest. It’s a dream that three thousand local, fiercely loyal citizens—“Friends of the Davenport”—kept alive during those grim years. Please visit us—and bring J. M. Fenster!

Norma Stejer
Spokane, Wash.