Ships, Champagne, and Superstition
If the christening bottle didn’t break, the ship would be unlucky
Launching of USS Maine, Brooklyn Navy Yard, November 1890
US Navy Historical Center
The ceremony of christening new ships began in the distant past, and we know that Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians all held ceremonies to ask the gods to protect sailors.
By the 1800s the christenings of ships began to follow a familiar pattern. A “christening fluid” would be poured against the bow of the ship, though it was not necessarily wine or champagne. There are accounts in the US Navy records of 19th century warships being christened with water from significant American rivers.
The christening of ships became great public events, with large crowds assembled to witness the ceremony. And it became standard for champagne, as the most elite of wines, to be used for the christening. The tradition developed that a female would do the honors and be named the sponsor of the ship.
And maritime superstition held that a ship that wasn’t properly christened would be considered unlucky. A champagne bottle that didn’t break was a particularly bad omen.
The Christening of the Maine
When the US Navy’s new battle cruiser, the Maine, was christened at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1890, enormous crowds turned out. An article in the New York Times on November 18, 1890, the morning of the ship’s launching, described what was to happen. And it stressed the responsibility weighing on 16-year-old Alice Tracy Wilmerding, the granddaughter of the secretary of the Navy:
Miss Wilmerding will have the precious quart bottle secured to her wrist by a short bunch of ribbons, which will serve the same purpose as a sword knot. It is of the utmost importance that the bottle be broken on the first throw, for the bluejackets will declare the vessel is unmanageable if she is permitted to get into the water without first being christened. It is consequently a matter of deep interest to the old “shellbacks” to learn that Miss Wilmerding has performed her task successfully.
An Elaborate Public Ceremony
The next day’s edition provided surprisingly detailed coverage of the christening ceremony:
Fifteen thousand people – on the word of the watchman at the gate – swarmed about the red hull of the giant battle ship, on the decks of all the assembled vessels, in the upper stories and on the roofs of all the adjacent buildings.The raised platform at the point of the Maine’s ram bow was prettily draped with flags and flowers and upon it with Gen. Tracy and Mr. Whitney stood a party of ladies. Prominent among them was the Secretary’s granddaughter, Miss Alice Wilmerding, with her mother.
It was upon Miss Wilmerding that all eyes centred. That young lady, clad in a cream white skirt, a warm black jacket, and a big dark hat with light feathers, wore her honors with a very modest dignity, being fully sensible of the importance of her position.
She is scarcely sixteen years old. Her hair in a long braid fell gracefully down her back, and she chatted with her more elderly companions with perfect ease, as though entirely ignorant of the fact that 10,000 pairs of eyes were looking toward her.
The bottle of wine which her hands were to break over the formidable bow was a pretty thing indeed – quite too pretty, she said, to be offered up on the shrine of so unfeeling a monster. It was a pint bottle, covered with a network of fine cord.
Wound around its full length was a ribbon bearing a picture of the Maine in gold, and from its base hung a knot of varicolored silk pennants ending in a gold tassel. Around its neck were two long ribbons bound in gold lace, one white and one blue. At the ends of the white ribbon were the words, “Alice Tracy Wilmerding, November 18, 1890,” and at the ends of the blue were the words, “U.S.S. Maine.”
The Maine Enters the Water
When the ship was released from restraints, the crowd erupted.
Brooklyn Man Upcycles a Dumpster, Beats the System
Posted by Yasha Wallin on August 15, 2013 at 3:00 AM
In New York City, if your apartment is larger than 300 square feet, then you’ve made it. The city is notorious for big rents and small spaces. That may be precisely why Brooklyn-based artist Gregory Kloehn took matters into his own hands when he purchased a dumpster for $2,000, and turned it into the most creative garbage container you’ve ever seen. The green-hued living space took Kloehn six months to trick out with a toilet, stove, sink, and a roof that can double as a deck for seating. It also has a barbecue, a mini bar, and a shower that sticks off the side of the dumpster and gives outdoor showering a whole new meaning.
Not only does this self-contained green living space have all the amenities of a regular apartment, but it’s also mobile, allowing Kloehn to roll it to new locations around Brooklyn when he needs a change of scenery. The whole thing is pretty quirky, yes, but as rents continue to rise in Brooklyn and Manhattan, kudos to Kloehn for finding a creative way to beat the system.
Where Did The Term “Happy Hour” Come From?
There’s nothing better after a hard day’s work than kicking back with some friends and downing a few cocktails. For bars, pubs, and restaurants, the practice of happy hour specials—typically held between the hours of 4pm and 8pm—has become a commonplace way to boost sales on slow weekdays and to let their customers relax to make them “happy” before dinner. But the concept of the “Happy Hour” isn’t merely a marketing strategy, and the history of hitting the sauce at half price has a surprisingly strong—if not varied—connection to American history.
Happy hour these days is clearly linked to getting slightly intoxicated without making too big a dent in your wallet, but the term itself comes from American Naval slang in the 1920s following the First World War. A “Happy Hour” was an allotted period of time on a ship where sailors engaged in various forms of entertainment to relieve the monotonies of the seafaring life. Most of the time, this meant wrestling or boxing matches, but it still could include other athletic activities intending to boost morale.
At the same time, the U.S. was going through the darkest—not to mention driest—period in the history of getting hammered: Prohibition, the failed experiment given legal standing by the infamous Volstead Act. From 1920 to 1933, the manufacture, transport, and sale of certain intoxicating beverages was prohibited. (Sacramental wines and cider fermented by farmers were given exemptions.)
But instead of abiding by the newly enacted teetotal tenet, Americans became as alcoholic as ever, and would gather together in secret speakeasies or at home to consume some tantalizingly illegal cocktails to wet their whistle before dinner. “Happy Hour” as an expression was soon picked up, either directly or secondhand, from the Naval slang and merged to describe these outlawed gatherings.
Though Prohibition was later repealed, the concept stuck around. Some think that aSaturday Evening Post article from 1959 that mentioned the happy hour in regards to military life introduced the expression to the public, but other sources, like the OED, cite later examples—such as a 1961 Providence Journal article referencing Newport policemen “deprived of their happy hour at the cocktail bar”—as informally spreading it into the general vernacular over time. Eventually, in the ’70s and ’80s, it was co-opted by the service industry as the food and drink specials we know today.
The happy hour isn’t a universal concept, however. Currently, 23 states have banned restaurants and bars from selling “alcoholic beverages during a fixed period of time for a fixed price,” including Massachusetts, which was the first state to do so, in 1984—no small feat when you consider that Boston was recently named the drunkest city in America. Yet some states, like Pennsylvania—which extended the minimum happy hour period to four hours in 2011—encourage a restaurant’s ability to schedule their specials however they please. Internationally, the happy hour was banned in Ireland and very specific restrictions were put in place in the rest of the UK in an effort to curb culturally acceptable binge drinking, while in Canada the term “Happy Hour” in regards to drink specials is banned inOntario [PDF], and in Alberta regulations strictly limit drink prices and happy hours until 8pm.
December 6, 2013 – 9:30am
–brought to you by mental_floss!