I found a very cool permission slip allowing a student to the chemistry and pharmacy lectures of Benjamin Silliman, who was the first professor of chemistry (and science generally) at Yale College. I've read that Silliman allowed women into his lectures, so it would've been additionally cool if E. M. Beardley had been a "Miss."
Born March 26, 1904, Joseph Campbell taught comparative mythology and comparative religion, and wrote notable works like "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." George Lucas acknowledged the book's influence. When Campbell died in 1987, he had recently completed a series of interviews with Bill Moyers, "The Power of Myth." That was the year when Beth and I moved to Flagstaff to teach at Northern Arizona University. I was an all-but-dissertation instructor, teaching world religions for the first time. The interviews were so helpful as I got my bearings in the subject, which turned out to be a career-long specialty. https://odyssey.antiochsb.edu/literary/joseph-campbell-the-heros-journey/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJRcelleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHfXIe9YjM6TkkC95S74ShxubBKw9GEq3VAAY4Po4brTOf-F5iyFCxhsEFQ_aem_zJ6iCN12SQLOnoDWB_JkUg
Northern Arizona University
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Beethoven died on March 26, 1827. This was an interesting article. Beethoven's genetic profile from his hair shows a genetic predisposition to liver disease, which he did have. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/beethoven-hair-study-scn/index.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawJROaxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQaN4fOV14JU7lLiOV7OJCyqlIdqaRv5RP8hA7B44shJUTytVMj2MUvIIg_aem_90gCevGkhaA-9ONG8M95pw
Yesterday I learned that this was Beethoven's last major completed work. He also wrote a substitute finale for his Op. 130 string quartet, as the original finale ("the Great Fugue") was disproportionately long and difficulty. These were written In the fall of 1826.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxpIQ3XhXA
One of the major figures of post-war classical music, composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was born March 26, 1925! 100 years ago. He was known for (1) significant modernist compositions like Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli, and Répons; (2) polemical essays on modernism in music, e.g., the blunt "Schoenberg is Dead"; and (3) being one of the great 20th century conductors. Fun fact: at a party, Boulez kept calling Paul Simon "Al" and Simon's wife Peggy as "Betty." The mistakes inspired Simon to write the song, "You Can Call Me Al."
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Born August 15, 1917, St. Óscar Romero was the Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop assassinated on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass. He was declared a martyr of the church and then beatified in 2015. He was canonized in 2018. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24th as the "International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims." https://www.un.org/en/observances/right-to-truth-day
I've been on the board of the Yale Alumni Fund for a few years. The fund, which is he oldest annual giving program in the U.S, began 125 years ago today! On March 24, 1890, a group of alums met informally to figure out how to help build Yale's unrestricted funds.
I posted this on Facebook in 2019, but I don't seem to have shared it on this site.
"I took a drive this morning up Gravois Road in St Louis and took pictures of interesting signs, and the Bevo Mill. Then I went up Tucker to the ball park area and got a few more signs, plus the disused MacArthur Bridge auto ramps, from the years the bridge carried car traffic. Then I came back Chippewa and got the Donut Drive-In sign."
It's crazy that I first joined the Illinois State Historical Society fifty years ago, when I was first interested in Vandalia history. As the joke goes, I'm only 39. Friend Mary Burtschi had an article in the 1975 issue that was the first I received. Then I had an article in a 1987 issue.
Born March 22, 1783, Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton was the only daughter of a madeira merchant and his wife who were landowners of English background in Jamaica. One of Sarah's brothers became the father of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Sarah--known as Pinkie within her family--was sent to England for her education.. Her lonely grandmother in Jamaica commissioned a full-length portrait, "by one of the best Masters, in an easy Careless attitude". So Sarah was soon painted by renowned artist Thomas Lawrence. Lawrence placed the horizon low. (The painting is about 5 feet by 3 feet.) Sadly, Sarah died the following year, aged 12. "Pinkie" has become one of the world's most famous paintings. The painting has no relationship to Thomas Gainsborough's 1770 painting, "The Blue Boy," except that they hang in the same room in The Huntington. (I'd like to visit someday!). But the two paintings are sometimes associated, as if they were portraits of siblings. .... I have a wonderful old book of my mom's, "World Famous Paintings" ed. by Rockwell Kent (1939), that I liked to look through as a kid. The book features both of these paintings.
