It was late
one night and I was killing time after deadline reading the many newspaper
websites that are part of my daily reading.
Some nights
I go off on these tangents, reading articles and commentaries that are far
removed from that day’s events. It was on one of these meandering searches I
ran across a discussion about the importance of encyclopedias. The New York Times had a roundtable discussion about the fact Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer publish a print edition after 244 years. Titled “Britannica: Define Outdated” it featured researchers, novelists and others to discuss whether the announcement, which was made earlier this year, was some substantial loss to our collective knowledge.
I was hooked. Not because the lower two levels of my bookshelf are filled with a complete Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia from 1993, but because I occasionally get lost on a website, or Wikipedia or that complete encyclopedia set at my apartment.
Admittedly, I am a nerd. Owning an encyclopedia set should have been enough to charge me of that. Admitting to opening it is sufficient evidence for a conviction.
One of the arguments of the discussion is that knowledge and information has become more democratic in the information age. It is easier for people to disseminate or receive information.
That is undeniable.
However, the reason I never trashed my archaic collection of books was because there was something permanent about the words being collated into books. Once something is printed it’s tougher to confiscate than words written electronically.
Maybe that is the newspaper man in me thinking.
The elimination of the Britannica came to mind this week when I heard about the origins of Memorial Day.
Two different people told me the holiday to honor the millions of American soldiers that gave their lives fighting in wars — under real and perceived threats — began in 1865 in Charleston, S.C. … by black people.
The first person to tell me is a decorated American veteran who has seen time in combat. The other is a colleague. The former was even invited to speak about Memorial Day at a church over the weekend.
After digging through the democratic wellspring of information called the Internet I found an article by David W. Blight, a Yale history professor who is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Civil War.
Blight writes “thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865.”
Funnily enough, my Funk & Wagnalls omitted the dark origins of the most somber of American holidays.
“The
holiday, originally called Decoration Day, is traditionally marked by parades,
memorial speeches and ceremonies and the decoration of graves with flowers and
flags, hence the original name. Memorial Day was first observed on May 30,
1868, on the order of Gen. John Alexander Logan for the purpose of decorating
the graves of the American Civil War dead.”
It’s
possible, even probable; this information was not available in 19 years ago. Or
maybe the omission was as honest as the 19th century argument among
Southerners that the war was about state’s rights.
This weekend
once again reaffirmed my belief that “he who wins writes the history, whether
it’s true or not.” Perhaps its best that line of thinking becomes outdated.
Laughs and
liveliness,
-Wb
