Celebrations Today – December 27
Holidays and observances
- Christian feast day:
- Constitution Day (North Korea)
- Emergency Rescuer’s Day (Russia)
- St. Stephen’s Day (Eastern Orthodox Church; a public holiday in Romania)
- The third of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Western Christianity)
Celebrations Today – USA: December 27
National Fruitcake Day
National Make Cut Out Snowflakes Day
National Visit the Zoo Day
Today in US History: December 27
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932. Located in New York City’s Rockefeller Center, this fabulous Art Deco theater is home to the The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, a New York Christmas tradition since 1933, and to the women’s precision dance team known as the “Rockettes.”
International Music Hall, Radio City, New York. Upshot of Balcony III, International Music Hall,
Samuel H. Gottscho, photographer, December 9, 1932.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955
International Music Hall, Radio City, New York, New York, House with Curtain Down, from Main Orchestra,
Samuel H. Gottscho, photographer, December 7, 1932.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955
John D. Rockefeller Jr engaged New York theater and radio impresario Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel (1881-1936) to plan the theater. Designed by Donald Deskey (1894- 1989), the interior of the theater incorporates glass, aluminum, chrome, and geometric ornamentation. Deskey rejected the Rococo embellishment generally used for theaters at that time in favor of a contemporary Art Deco style.
The ceiling over the Great Stage resembles a setting sun. The immense theater was built to seat nearly 6,000 people. The stage contained built-in elevators to raise and lower scenery as well as the orchestra. Programming was a mix of films and live stage shows.
The twelve-acre complex in Midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center was developed between 1929 and 1940 by John D. Rockefeller Jr. [delete link here—moved forward], on land leased from Columbia University. Rockefeller initially planned an opera house on the site, but changed his mind after the stock market crash of 1929. One of the complex’s first tenants was The Radio Corporation of America (RCA), hence the names “Radio City” and “Radio City Music Hall.”
Rockefeller Center, Oblique Upshot of Five Buildings, New York, New York
Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., photographer, April 2, 1940.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955
- Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955: The Gottscho-Schleisner Collection contains more than 100 detailed architectural photographs of Rockefeller Center;. To find these, search the collection on the phrase Rockefeller Center.
- Search the Prints and Photographs Online catalog to find images of Radio City, Rockefeller Center, and John D. Rockefeller Jr.
- To find additional materials relating to John D. Rockefeller Jr., enter his name in the search box on the American Memory home page.
Temperance
Strike For The Cause Of Temp’rance,
Wield In Your Mightiest Blow…”Strike for the Cause of Temperance,”
Words by A.W. Carr, music by W. F. Heath, 1878.
Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885
On December 27, 1900, Carry Nation brought her campaign against alcohol to Wichita, Kansas, when she smashed the bar at the elegant Carey Hotel. Earlier that year, Nation had abandoned the nonviolent agitation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in favor of direct action that she called “hatchetation.” Since the Kansas Constitution prohibited alcohol, Nation argued that destroying saloons was an acceptable means of battling the state’s flourishing liquor trade.
Fred Sehick Co. Bar, Minneapolis, Minn.,
Between 1895 and 1910.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
Born in Kentucky in 1846, Carry Amelia Moore accompanied her family to Missouri in the 1850s. Her first husband, a physician, died of alcohol-related illness early in their marriage, leaving her to support herself, her young daughter, and her mother-in-law. Carry earned a teaching certificate and taught primary school for four years, before losing her position. At this point, according to her autobiography, she prayed that she would find a suitable husband. In 1877, she met and married David Nation–in just six weeks.
Arriving in Kansas in the 1890s, she became active in mainstream temperance organizations. The failure of Kansas authorities to enforce the ban on alcohol initially rallied some support for Nation’s attacks. However, her extreme methods and unladylike behavior ultimately distanced Nation from state and national temperance societies.
Eventually, state fairs and medicine show tours became Nation’s pulpit and source of financial security. Dressed in stark black and white, she promulgated her equally unambiguous views against liquor, tobacco, fraternal orders, and excessive fashion. Freeman Willis of New Hampshire encountered her on the state fair circuit. He later recalled the incident for a WPA interviewer:
The Belknap County Fair at Laconia was a great time for Dr. Greene. He had Carrie Nation…yes, hatchet and all…out there, once, for advertising. He spent a pile of money on advertising. And while Carrie was there the town was hers…as much of it as Dr. Greene’s money could buy.”An Old Yankee Innkeeper; His Story,” New Hampshire
Henry H. Pratt, interviewer, ca. 1938-39.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
Yet, Nation’s celebrity was based more on her notoriety as a hatchet-wielding saloon buster than for an appreciation of her cause. Willis recounts that he saw Nation a second time at the Buffalo State Fair. There, she complained, “they don’t believe…a lot of them don’t…that I’m the real Carrie Nation. They think I’m a fake…dressed up to imitate Carrie. I wish you’d tell them I am the real Carrie.”
Paul Wohlbruck Palm Garden Bar, Dayton, Ohio,
Between 1900 and 1910
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
Many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century reformers supported the prohibition of alcohol. Suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton often urged adoption of temperance legislation. Lacking legal rights to their property, their wages, and even their children, women’s lives in the nineteenth century were easily devastated if the men they depended on “took to drink.”
“The Wife’s Lament, a New Temperance Song,”
America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
Learn more about Carry Nation and the movement to prohibit alcohol in the United States:
- Read the Today in History feature on the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
- Visit the Kansas State Historical Society’s online presentation Carry Nation’s Hammer.
- Search across American Memory on temperance to retrieve a variety of resources on the movement to prohibit alcohol in America.
- The Nineteenth Century in Print collections of books and periodicals contain extensive documentation of the temperance and prohibition efforts in the political and educational arenas. From books such as the Text-book of Temperance and Ruined by Rum to articles reporting on legislative activities in the states, one can acquire a good overview of the strategies of those involved in these movements.
- An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera includes numerous items related to the temperance and prohibition efforts including a Family Temperance Pledge.
- Bands of singing temperance advocates often accompanied Nation on her visits to Kansas liquor “joints.” A few of the temperance songs featured in the American Memory collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 may have been in their repertoire. One popular theme concerned alcohol’s deleterious effect on the family: “Little Bessie,” “The Child’s Lament,” and “The Drunkard’s Child” are written in this vein. Hear one recorded version of “The Drunkard’s Child” from the collection California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
- Search on the term temperance in another sheet music collection, America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets. Among its many temperance tunes is “A Parody on ‘Uncle Sam’s Farm’” which puts forward the thought:
…water is much cheaper,
and much more healthy too,
And never makes a man a fool—
which liquors often do.…Cold water never caused man
in the gutter to be found,
And never, as I know of,
to feel upward for the ground.
Today in History – December 27-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia