Established in 1982 at LaGuardia Community College/ CUNY with a mission to collect, preserve, and make available primary materials documenting the social and political history of New York City. We hold nearly 5,000 cubic feet of archival records and 3,200 reels of microfilm with almost 100,000 photographs and 2,000,000 documents available on our website.
Here's a link to our work on the history of science, technology, engineering and math in America
On
October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union set a new trajectory for education in
America. Before the launch of Sputnik (the
first satellite ever to achieve Earth orbit), American education had been a
local matter, focused on community and citizenship. After Sputnik, the security
and future of democracy seemed to hinge instead on winning a global battle with
communism for domination of the world. As Marion B. Folsom, Secretary of HEW
put it in his speech to the AFL/CIO
two months after the Sputnik launch, “Whether we like it or not…[o]ne of the fundamental facts of our times is that America is a leader among the forces of
freedom against the forces of tyranny in a contest which extends around the world. And
education will play a crucial role in determining which system triumphs in the
end.” On this anniversary of the Sputnik launch, let’s take a look
together at three documents from our collection to examine the historical shift
in American education at the Sputnik moment, and perhaps also for how we might
think about science, math and technology in American education today. (1) A November 11,
1957 press statement announcing therelease of “Education in the USSR,” a study completed by the Department of
Health Education and Welfare (HEW) shortly after the Sputnik launch;
(2) “The Challenge in Education,”a speech by
Marion B. Folsom, Secretary of HEW, to the AFL/CIO on December 5, 1957; and (3) “Education and Industry,” a speech to
the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce by John A. Perkins,
Under-Secretary of HEW on October 10, 1957. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) released
“Education in the USSR” a month
after the Sputnik launch. They had been
working on it for two years.
It is truly remarkable
that Pope Francis will speak before Congress this week. Democrats and Republicans alike may hope that
the pontiff supports their positions on topics ranging from the environment to
Planned Parenthood, but no one fears a papal conspiracy to control America. As recently
as Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States in 1979, newscasters focused
their analysis on the separation of church and state, and concerns about papal
influence over the White House. Even as
the newscaster in this video
suggests that concern over these issues were in the past, the fact that they
are the sole content of his report suggests otherwise. John Paul II himself was sensitive to the
political implications of his visit. We have in our
collection a 1979 confidential internal State Department memo stating that “The Pope stressed…that his visit would
be pastoral and not political.” “If
the Pope does not come this year, he will not visit until after 1980, since he
wishes to be totally uninvolved in our election process.”
For most of
American history, such fears of papal influence were palpable and often at the
center of politics. Samuel F. B. Morse
(the inventor of the telegraph) wrote in 1835, “…emigrant Catholics…confine
themselves simply and wholly to increasing the number of their sect, and the
influence of the Pope in this country. The
American Party (a.k.a. the Know-Nothings) swept to election victories in the 1850s
on the fear of Catholic immigrants and papal control.
It wasn’t
until 1928 that any major party even considered a Catholic presidential
candidate. Alfred E. Smith, a popular
and progressive governor of New York lost to Herbert Hoover, in large part
because he was a Catholic. Many believed
the rumor that he had wired the pope after losing the election with the message,
“Unpack!”
In 1960, John
F. Kennedy’s Catholicism was a big issue in the presidential campaign. Pope John XXIII reportedly joked, “do not
expect me to run a country with a language as difficult as yours,” when he
heard Kennedy might win. Many Americans sincerely
feared that Kennedy would take orders from the pope, undermining American
sovereignty. To establish his
independence from the Vatican, Kennedy made it a point to say, “I did not, would
not, nor have I accepted that kind of dictation.” He went on to establish definitively
that allowing the pope to dictate American policy would be grounds for
impeachment of any president.
No pope even
visited the United States until 1965. That
year, President Johnson met with Pope Paul VI at a hotel room in New York,
notably avoiding a visit to the White House.
Magazine inserts and commemorative books, like the selected pages from this one, were titled “Fourteen Hours,”
highlighting the brevity of the pope’s visit.
And Paul VI’s main reason for coming to the United States in 1965 was to
address the United Nations, a clearly international institution. Had the pope gone to Washington at all on
that historic visit, he would have certainly been accused of meddling in
American politics.
It is truly remarkable
that Pope Francis will speak before Congress this week. It will be interesting to hear this first
papal speech before the American government, ever.
Mayor Bill de Blasio,
like Wagner 50 years earlier, cannot raise the city’s minimum wage without the
approval of the Legislature and Governor Cuomo.
This is now a possibility since Governor Cuomo agreed to increase the
minimum wage in return for the endorsement of the Working Families Party. If Cuomo follows through on this agreement,
New York State will increase its minimum wage from $8 an hour (75 cents over the
federal minimum) to $10.10 an hour indexed to inflation, and New York City and
other localities will be able to raise their minimum wages 30% over the state
minimum. The issue of leadership has also not changed in the 50 years since
Wagner chastised leaders in Albany.“New York used to set the pace for
the rest of the nation and the federal government as well. Today our state, at best, is a reluctant follower.” Let us hope in 2014 that New York will stop
following and take the lead on increasing the minimum wage.
Bedlam
at Shea Stadium when the Mets win the 1969
World Series
Baseball is in the air at Citifield, Yankee Stadium, and the
La Guardia and Wagner Archives. Check out our new videos narrated by Stephen
Weinstein, the Archives' baseball expert extraordinaire :
You can also view the Archives' slide show,
Baseball in New York, on
the La Guardia and Wagner Archives computer screens located on the
1st floor of the walkway between the M and E buildings by the La
Guardia Welcome Center, and the 2nd and 4th floors of the lounge areas of the
C-building. You can also view them online at : http://tinyurl.com/dxalkg7
On
Sunday April 30, 1939, the New York World’s Fair officially opened with a formal
ceremony that included a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.The Fair’s opening was selected to coincide
with the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration as the first
president of the United States in New York
City.
In
commemoration of the Fair’s opening, the La Guardia and Wagner Archives has
posted on its YouTube channel a video containing footage of the Fair and the
memories of La Guardia Community College Professor Emerita Janet Lieberman
visiting the Fair. The video was
compiled and edited by Sandy Chase.
The
1939 New York World’s Fair offered a vision of a utopian city of tomorrow—one in
which life was going to be easy thanks to new technology that would
revolutionize transportation, home economics and daily life. Yet, the Fair made no mention of war, no
sense of a troubled present, in spite of the looming world
nightmare.
