The Feedsack Dress

Reviewing the big events of 1949

For me, the big events of 1949 were breaking my right arm by falling out of a tree and extending the Rural Electric Association’s lines to give our farm electricity. The broken arm proved a minor inconvenience and the electricity a life changer. That’s why I chose to set The Feedsack Dress in 1949.

For others, the big events included good and bad news:

• The end of the Berlin airlift,
• The Soviet Union’s first test of an atomic bomb,
• The signing of the Geneva Convention,
• The institutionalization of apartheid in South Africa,
• The perfection of a system for broadcasting color television,
• The release of the first commercially available computer.

Joseph Stalin, one of history’s most vicious dictators, ruled the Soviet Union. He faced off against Harry Truman, a self-educated man who understood history.

Among the cultural landmarks were George Orwell’s intellectually terrifying 1984, the classic noir film The Third Man (starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, among others), and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, a musical with a message.

None of these meant anything to my young self, but I loved one of the year’s most popular songs, Frankie Laine’s version of  “Mule Train.”

The country had made the transition from war- to peace-time production, with Detroit selling more than 6 million cars. After a series of old cars and pickups, we had our first new car ever.

Looking back, I see 1949 as a year of good and bad news. We enjoyed higher living standards and feared mass destruction.

—Carolyn Mulford

Saving a city under siege

Yesterday, November 9, 2009, Germany celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a concrete barrier that separated West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The communists built the wall to prevent their own people from “voting with their feet.”

The Allies divided Germany at the end of World War II, with the Soviet Union taking control of eastern Germany, except for a section of Berlin, Germany’s greatest city. June 24,1948, the communist government closed off West Berlin, attempting to force its 2 million residents to its will by stopping the flow of food, fuel, and other essential goods.

The United States responded two days later with an airlift of supplies. For more than a year that airlift remained one of the most dramatic ongoing stories in the Weekly Reader. Even when the communist government gave up and lifted the siege, it maintained a strict control over who and what went into and out of West Berlin. In 1961, it began enclosing West Berlin in a high concrete wall.

I remembered reading the dramatic stories about the Berlin Airlift in the Weekly Reader when I visited West Germany in October 1964. Two friends and I traveled across East Germany to West Berlin by train. Apparently the government limited the number of trains, for it was so crowded that we stood much of the way. Scowling conductors and guards checked and rechecked our papers.

We heard wonderful music and saw the exquisite bust of Nefertiti, but West Berlin—perhaps because a chilling rain fell almost constantly—seemed gray and bulky and self-obsessed. The fabled pre-war charm had vanished amid new buildings and heavy traffic and busy people. 

Then we took a bus tour of East Berlin, going through the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. East Berlin made West Berlin look great. On the communist side we saw some bleak new Soviet-style cement apartment buildings, many blocks of unmaintained old buildings, rubble from buildings bombed during World War II, and little activity on the streets. The people looked drab, depressed, destitute. We were relieved to return West Berlin.

I hope there’s still a Weekly Reader to tell kids why everyone should celebrate the collapse of the Berlin Wall and of Soviet-imposed tyranny.

 —Carolyn Mulford 

Inaugurating a new era

Today, with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, we entered a new era in American history. We face many challenges, but that’s nothing new. What’s new is the generation, race, and outlook of our new leader.

When he spoke, hope resounded from the Capitol to the Lincoln Monument today, and all around the world.

Sixty years ago today the inauguration of President Harry Truman also marked a new period. The high school graduate, machine politician, and student of history had already made visionary decisions, including dropping a bomb terrible beyond imagination, desegregating the armed services, and initiating the Marshall Plan (officially known as the European Recovery Plan).

I can’t say I remember the speech given January 20, 1949. We didn’t have a radio at the school to listen to the speech or a television at home to watch the first inauguration ever televised. Reading about Truman’s administration now, I can see actions that helped lead us, three generations later, to the election of a man elected because of the content of his character rather than the color of his skin.

Some of what the blunt and belligerent Truman, one of our most effective presidents, had to say was echoed in content three generations later by the eloquent and cool Obama.

Here’s a bit of what Truman said.

“Each period of our national history has had its special challenges. Those that confront us now are as momentous as any in the past. Today marks the beginning not only of a new administration, but of a period that will be eventful, perhaps decisive, for us and for the world.

“It may be our lot to experience, and in a large measure bring about, a major turning point in the long history of the human race. The first half of this century has been marked by unprecedented and brutal attacks on the rights of man, and by the two most frightful wars in history. The supreme need of our time is for men to learn to live together in peace and harmony.

“The peoples of the earth face the future with grave uncertainty, composed almost equally of great hopes and great fears. In this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership.” 

Plain Harry and exotic Barack—so different and so alike.

—Carolyn Mulford

Joining the Reading Circle

Each year the Missouri State Teacher’s Association selects new books for the Reading Circle Program. This year The Feedsack Dress is one of the books recommended for grades five through eight.

Children taking part in the program keep a record of the books they read. Those who read a minimum number (20 in grade five and 25 in grade eight) receive a certificate of membership at the end of the year. Anyone who earns certificates five years in a row receives a Certificate of Life Membership.

M.S.T.A. founded the program more than 100 years ago to “encourage an interest in and enjoyment of reading.”  A Reading Circle committee reads and evaluates books to choose those that they believe will help meet that goal.

I hope getting recognition for reading will increase students’ enjoyment of my book and of other books.

—Carolyn Mulford 

Detonating an atomic bomb

During World War II the Soviet Union fought with the United States. By 1949, the Soviet Union had become the major threat to peace. 

The American public became aware of how serious a threat on September 23, 1949. That day President Harry S. Truman announced that the Soviets had exploded an atomic bomb.

Fear of an attack grew and grew. Some people built their own bomb shelters and stocked them with food, water, blankets, and other basic supplies. Across the country school children learned to duck under their desks at the threat of an attack. 

The Cold War continued for most of the rest of the century—until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

No one teaches students to duck under their desks anymore. But once again Russia, the dominant force in the Soviet Union, seems headed for a new period of confrontation. Vladimir Putin hasn’t renewed the Cold War, but he’s put a chill in the air. 

—Carolyn Mulford

President Truman's 1949 State of the Union

Harry S Truman was an out-of-the-loop vice president when the revered and reviled Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945. The self-educated man from Missouri faced the challenge of ending World War II and leading the nation into prosperity and into greater economic and social equality.

When he ran for president in 1948, few thought he could win. But he did. His State of the Union address, given at 1 p.m. January 5 and broadcast on the radio, capsulized progress and laid out goals for his new term.

His opening words included this statement of principles: “We have rejected the discredited theory that the fortunes of the Nation should be in the hands of a privileged few. We have abandoned the ‘trickledown’ concept of national prosperity. Instead, we believe that our economic system should rest on a democratic foundation and that wealth should be created for the benefit of all.”

Speaking of progress, he pointed out: “Since the boom year of 1929, while our population has increased by only 20 percent, our agricultural production has increased by 45 percent, and our industrial production has increased by 75 percent. We are turning out far more goods and more wealth per worker than we have ever done before.”

He also spoke of “shortcomings,” including
* excessively high prices,
* low minimum wages (he proposed raising them to at least 75 cents),
* small business losing ground to monopoly,
* waste of natural resources,
* 5 million families living in slums and firetraps,
* average Social Security payments of only $25 a month,
* medical care too expensive for the majority,
* utterly inadequate schools,
* prejudice and intolerance.

In 2009, the new president may have a similar list.

From 1949 to now

Several international events in 1949 affect us even today.

For example, in January 1949 the newly created nation of Israel held its first national election. Americans love elections, and Israel’s election gave hope for stability in an unsettled Middle East.

The election came as war ended between Israel and its Arab neighbors who opposed yielding part of Palestine to the Jewish state. In the coming months Israel would sign separate armistices with Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria.

Since then war, declared and undeclared, has broken out several times between Israel and its neighbors. Those remaining in the area once known as Palestine live with the fear of rocket attacks, suicide bombers, border shootings, and another outbreak of war.

In 1949 Americans knew about the bitter fighting from their newspapers, the radio, and black-and-white movie newsreels. To many, perhaps most, Americans the events seemed far away and of little relevance to their lives. Today news comes in full color from many sources, and few can shut out what’s happening in the Middle East.

Carolyn Mulford