Towson High School classmate, friend, extraordinary human Chris Beutler was diagnosed in 2019 with ALS and is spearheading this fantastic way of gathering friends and people that he’s worked with in the creative world to help raise money and awareness for other folks and their families coping with ALS. There will also be a live streaming component for those that cannot attend in person. Here’s more information. I’ll post links and updates as we get closer to date of show.
Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum / Studio Zhu Pe (CHINA)
This is an interesting museum, as only the Imperial Kiln porcelain relics are displayed in a section of the interior, the rest is borderless. With the help of information technology, it links the imperial kiln porcelain collected by major museums around the world, highlighting the significance of Chinese porcelain culture in the history of human civilization. Read more.
Off Grid House by Anderson Architecture (Australia)
This is one of those projects where the more you learn about it the more interesting it becomes (e.g. the way it opens up, the zero energy pieces, material choices, etc.) More here.
Heather Cox Richardson Writing about Frances Perkins
On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and people screaming. They rushed out to the street to see what the trouble was. A fire had broken out in a garment factory on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square, and the blaze ripped through the lint in the air. The only way out was down the elevator, which had been abandoned at the base of its shaft, or through an exit to the roof. But the factory owner had locked the roof exit that day because, he later testified, he was worried some of his workers might steal some of the blouses they were making.
“The people had just begun to jump when we got there,” Perkins later recalled. “They had been holding until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer. Finally the men were trying to get out this thing that the firemen carry with them, a net to catch people if they do jump, the[y] were trying to get that out and they couldn’t wait any longer. They began to jump. The… weight of the bodies was so great, at the speed at which they were traveling that they broke through the net. Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.”
By the time the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was out, 147 young people were dead, either from their fall from the factory windows or from smoke inhalation.
Perkins had few illusions about industrial America: she had worked in a settlement house in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood in Chicago and was the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for workers. But even she was shocked by the scene she witnessed on March 25.
By the next day, New Yorkers were gathering to talk about what had happened on their watch. “I can't begin to tell you how disturbed the people were everywhere,” Perkins said. “It was as though we had all done something wrong. It shouldn't have been. We were sorry…. We didn't want it that way. We hadn’t intended to have 147 girls and boys killed in a factory. It was a terrible thing for the people of the City of New York and the State of New York to face.”
The Democratic majority leader in the New York legislature, Al Smith—who would a few years later go on to four terms as New York governor and become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928—went to visit the families of the dead to express his sympathy and his grief. “It was a human, decent, natural thing to do,” Perkins said, “and it was a sight he never forgot. It burned it into his mind. He also got to the morgue, I remember, at just the time when the survivors were being allowed to sort out the dead and see who was theirs and who could be recognized. He went along with a number of others to the morgue to support and help, you know, the old father or the sorrowing sister, do her terrible picking out.”
“This was the kind of shock that we all had,” Perkins remembered.
The next Sunday, concerned New Yorkers met at the Metropolitan Opera House with the conviction that “something must be done. We've got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action….” One man contributed $25,000 to fund citizens’ action to “make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.”
The gathering appointed a committee, which asked the legislature to create a bipartisan commission to figure out how to improve fire safety in factories. For four years, Frances Perkins was their chief investigator.
She later explained that although their mission was to stop factory fires, “we went on and kept expanding the function of the commission 'till it came to be the report on sanitary conditions and to provide for their removal and to report all kinds of unsafe conditions and then to report all kinds of human conditions that were unfavorable to the employees, including long hours, including low wages, including the labor of children, including the overwork of women, including homework put out by the factories to be taken home by the women. It included almost everything you could think of that had been in agitation for years. We were authorized to investigate and report and recommend action on all these subjects.”
And they did. Al Smith was the speaker of the house when they published their report, and soon would become governor. Much of what the commission recommended became law.
Perkins later mused that perhaps the new legislation to protect workers had in some way paid the debt society owed to the young people, dead at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. “The extent to which this legislation in New York marked a change in American political attitudes and policies toward social responsibility can scarcely be overrated,” she said. “It was, I am convinced, a turning point.”
But she was not done. In 1919, over the fervent objections of men, Governor Smith appointed Perkins to the New York State Industrial Commission to help weed out the corruption that was weakening the new laws. She continued to be one of his closest advisers on labor issues. In 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced Smith as New York governor, he appointed Perkins to oversee the state’s labor department as the Depression worsened. When President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending, Perkins made national news when she repeatedly called him out with figures proving the opposite and said his “misleading statements” were “cruel and irresponsible.” She began to work with leaders from other states to figure out how to protect workers and promote employment by working together.
In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover’s plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”
She promised to find out.
Once in office, Perkins was a driving force behind the administration’s massive investment in public works projects to get people back to work. She urged the government to spend $3.3 billion on schools, roads, housing, and post offices. Those projects employed more than a million people in 1934.
In 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act, providing ordinary Americans with unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.
In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage and maximum hours. It banned child labor.
Frances Perkins, and all those who worked with her, transformed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire into the heart of our nation’s basic social safety net.
“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
Happy Labor Day, everyone.
Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian and professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Here is her daily blog if you are interested in following her posts that connect past events and people to today.
Frances Perkins
Texas 50’s modern
Love this, makes me think of The Incredibles.
Bee Artwork by Ava Roth
I love the idea of this - making artwork with the help of little insects. The hoop in the middle of this piece has porcupine quills, thread and seed beads too. Visit Ava Roth’s site here.
Note: Emily, the girls and I took turns taking the kayak on a few spins this morning at Berkley Lake (Denver). Super fun and can’t wait to make some more fine tunings.
Tom Sachs - Always Be Knolling
I’ve been doing a version of this since I was a kid. Tom Sachs put this together a while ago, it’s very Wes Anderson watch video.
Maiden Voyage! (with nylon skin)
Big Day. Friends/Industrial Designers, Scott Mourer and Hayden Schramm helped me launch the USS Intention at Rocky Mt Lake Park (Denver) earlier today and the little boat performed great. It felt balanced and went straight, after a few spins it took on about 2 qts of water (I’ll add some sealant to the seams tomorrow) but otherwise, a sweet ride. Emily, the girls and I will take it out this weekend to test it some more. For some extra R&D, I’d like to take it to a pool and flip it, as well as, practice getting back in after a capsize, will see if that’s possible.
Big shout out to Brian Schulz at Cape Falcon Kayaks (OR) for all the exceptional videos, support and inspiration + Skin Boat Store for all the supplies. Reach out if you’d like any add’l info. on the process, materials or if you’d just care to chat about boats.
Making a small sail for it is next!
Sacred Spaces by Photographer THIBAUD POIRIER
Richard Neutra (April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970)
Primarily known for his residential projects in Southern California, he would shepherd in over 100 modern structures, mostly homes, between the late thirties to the mid sixties. He, like Alvar Aalto, would heavily rely on his landscape background to create an inside-outside blur. “He was known for the attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients, regardless of the size of the project, in contrast to other architects eager to impose their artistic vision on a client. Neutra sometimes used detailed questionnaires to discover his client's needs, much to their surprise. His domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape, and practical comfort.”
NOTE: Images below are from a comprehensive coffee table book entitled Neutra that Emily just brought back from BookGive, mostly because late Uncle Les (who was also an architect) when asked 7-8yrs ago who his favorite designer or architect was, said, Neutra.
Taketa History and Culture Museum - Kengo Kuma (Japan)
Elegant use of bamboo and other local materials. A theme of Kuma’s work is learning to live with less. Read more.
HOW TO TRAVEL by School of Life
Emily found this little gem at BookGive (a friend’s non-profit which gets books into the right hands) where Emily volunteers 1-2x/mo. The book is more of a self-reflection on the art of living through journeying throughout our curious world. It’s my favorite way of traveling, which sometimes I forget. I highly recommend.
Note: kayak is fully ready for water testing (hopefully this coming week or weekend)
Peaches!
Piper picked this batch earlier from our dwarf peach tree (which is presenting more as a 3/4). Likely 7-10 more rounds of harvests this size - if we can stay ahead of the squirrels and birds.
Bionic Limbs - MIT
These prothetics use magnets and sensors to pick-up on the slightest cues from muscle tissues to manipulate artificial limbs. Read more and/or watch the 2 min. animated video showing how this could work with feet, hands and spinal injuries.
U-Build by Studio Bark
Interesting flat pack houses out of the UK. Perfect DIY-ish cabin project. Visit their site here.
Charlie Watts (June 2, 1941 - August 24, 2021) UK
The drummer for the Rolling Stones, a band I would not fall in love with until college when I stumbled upon a studio version of Sympathy for the Devil that was from a Jean-Luc Godard documentary. Seth Bossung and John Cooper had the tape lying around in their vast and eclectic music array - from which, I made a mixed tape and it was one of my favorites for many years. Watts by all accounts was not only the steady and reliable background percussionist for the Stones but also the sweetest and loveliest of the bunch. A friend who was lucky enough to spend the day with him said he could not be more kind and in fact inspired him to not give up on drums, which he did not give up on.
Site Specific Graffiti
The Roadrunner and/or Coyote would be proud of this one.
Milking Stool
Out of context these seats look ridiculous, but in the realm of a dairy farm, a hyper-practical and simple solution. Notice the strap that secures the stool to the seat of the pants. The milker sits or stands without having to put the buckets down and grab the stool, also, one-legged saved on weight. This insight was pointed out:
“….a farmer told us that a seat like this was great in case the cow fell over or started walking sideways onto the milker. All they had to do was spin on the one point and could quickly stand up and move away, taking the seat with them (w/o hands), possibly avoiding injury from the cow tipping over, or stomping on them, as well as leaving the ground clear for the cow's safety."
Iceland Visitor Centre by Andersen & Sigurdsson Architects
Iceland’s been popping up on my radar a bit lately and if/when I make it there, this place could be an interesting visit. Read more.
NOTE: Piper and I added 2nd coat of the 2 part urethane to the kayak this morning, hoping we got all of the thin spots. Good Sunday to all.
