Curio Cabinet

Floating over the ocean usually means getting on a ship, but not for these guys. On this day in 1978, the crew of the Double Eagle II helium gas balloon successfully completed the first ever transatlantic balloon flight. The Double Eagle II took off in Maine and landed near Paris after 3,233 miles and 137 hours, but the feat was in the making for far longer. In the late 1700s, the aviation pioneers the Montgolfier brothers made history by taking off in a hot air balloon and achieving human flight. Since then, there have been many developments in ballooning, including the use of lighter-than-air gas instead of hot air to achieve flight. However, while conventional ballooning is relatively safe, it was never viable for long-distance travel because it can’t really be steered. The pilot of a hot air or gas balloon, for instance, can rise or descend, but the balloon’s direction is largely dependent on the direction of the wind at a given altitude. Yet the three crew members of the Double Eagle II, Ben Abruzzo, Max Anderson and Larry Newman, managed to cross an entire ocean just by rising, falling, and riding the wind—and it wasn’t the first time it had been attempted.
 
At least 14 attempts had been made previously, with some of them resulting in fatalities. Abruzzo and Anderson had also tried it before in the ill-fated Double Eagle, and had ended up having to abandon the balloon over the Atlantic and be reduced by the Navy. Luckily, the Double Eagle II fared better. This time, Newman stayed on a radio communicating with ground crew, allowing them to navigate changing weather more efficiently. To deal with the high altitudes, they brought along oxygen and heated, battery-powered socks. Despite all this, there were some issues beyond their control. The balloon would freeze overnight, which made it descend. When the sun rose, the ice melted and the balloon warmed up, making it rise. These daily fluctuations were difficult to manage, and it nearly ended the flight once when the balloon descended rapidly, forcing the crew to throw much of their equipment overboard. But despite the odds, they managed to land safely in France to a crowd of thousands who had gathered to watch the historic crossing come to an end. They must have been floating on air after getting on the ground.

 
[Image description: An orange-and-white hot air balloon floats over water.] Credit & copyright: muratart, Pixabay

It’s not going too far to call it one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed. On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act (SSA), forever changing the financial landscape of the United States. The SSA established a tax-funded pension for every American over a certain age and a federal unemployment program. But it wasn’t done out of the goodness of the government’s heart. In fact, it was born out of hardship and nationwide economic desperation.
 
By the time the Great Depression began, in 1929, elderly Americans were already an impoverished demographic. With no national program to fund their retirement, most older Americans couldn’t afford to retire and had no way to make ends meet once old age forced them to stop working. While the Great Depression affected many industrialized nations, the United States was one of the only ones that had no nationalized insurance program of any kind.
 
Though Roosevelt’s legacy is forever entwined with the SSA, it wasn’t Roosevelt who originally thought up the idea. Rather, after watching two elderly women in tattered clothing picking through garbage cans in his neighborhood, physician and political activist Francis Townsend wrote a letter to the editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram detailing a plan for an old-age pension program. Townsend stated that anyone who was retired and over age 60 should be given $200 per month, as long as they didn’t have a long criminal history. Oddly, his plan also called for all recipients to spend their money within 30 days, to stimulate the economy. Even though Townsend wrote his letter in 1933, his plan quickly went as viral as anything could, at the time. Soon, Townsend Plan Clubs began popping up around the country. Made up of people who supported the growing “Townsend Movement”, the clubs became an influential political force, putting pressure on Congress to pass Townsend’s plan. Within two years of Townsend’s letter, 3,400 clubs existed, and the movement claimed to have at least five million members.
 
Congress realized that they needed to do something. But how would it look if the government allowed a private citizen to essentially draft their legislation for them? Rather than jump straight to using Townsend’s plan, the House of Representatives passed the Dill-Connery bill in 1934, which would have relegated more federal funding to dramatically underfunded state pension programs. Roosevelt likely knew that the bill wouldn’t be enough to satisfy most Americans, though. In fact, he secretly met with his supporters in the Senate and asked them to delay passing the bill until his administration could create legislation of their own. Then, with the help of various government agencies, he set about the task of creating a pension program, an unemployment program, and a national healthcare program. The SSA was unveiled in 1935. While similar to Townsend’s plan in many ways, its old-age pension would be funded by workers themselves via a pay-as-you-go tax. Unemployment benefits would be administered by individual states, but all states would be required to do so.
 
Congressional hearings and debates began immediately. The national healthcare portion of Roosevelt’s plan was quickly expunged. Other parts of the SSA were expanded, however. Congress decided that Social Security should be made available to widows and children, for example. The legislation was far from completely comprehensive, though. While it was decided that Social Security would be funded through a new payroll tax, many professions were outright excluded from the program. Agricultural laborers, nurses, social workers and many others were therefore not eligible for Social Security. Around 27 percent of white workers and a whopping 65 percent of Black workers were excluded, further deepening the racial wealth gap.
 
Luckily, the SSA was improved over time. In 1950, it was greatly expanded to include more qualifying jobs and to include workers in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The SSA was expanded again in 1960 to include Medicare, finally somewhat accomplishing Roosevelt’s vision of a national healthcare program. In 1972, a cost-of-living allowance was worked into Social Security, to help it keep up with inflation rates. Today, at least 69.1 million people receive benefits of some kind thanks to the Social Security Act. If only someone would name one of its amendments after Townsend!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act surrounded by government officials.] Credit & copyright: Wikimedia Commons, Library of Congress, Public Domain

It's Flashback Friday! As the summer heat continues, enjoy these curios all about weather. 
It was one of the fiercest hurricanes to ever strike the U.S.—and over 400 World War I veterans were caught in its path.

It turned out to be a perfect storm in the worst sort of way. In September 1935, at the height of hurricane season, few realized that a deadly hurricane was building off the coast of the Florida Keys. When the hurricane hit land, it created 20-foot waves, blew the clothes off of people's backs, and smashed a veterans' camp to smithereens.  

It was the Great Depression, and jobless World War I veterans were demanding help from Washington. To give the men work and to provide some much-needed infrastructure in the Florida Keys, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent approximately 400 veterans to the area to build roads and bridges. Flimsy shelters were hastily constructed near the beach to house the veterans, who were paid $30 a month plus room and board.  

In late August of 1935, a storm began developing east of the Bahamas; but it was weak at first and didn't seem to pose a threat. This was before the days of weather satellites, so tracking hurricanes was an extremely inexact science. Few realized that the storm was gathering strength until it hit the Florida Keys as a Category Five hurricane—the highest rating on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale.  

The administrators of the work camp had an emergency plan in place: in case of a hurricane, they would send for a train in Miami to evacuate the veterans. But as the hurricane was building, administrators held off ordering the train because the Weather Bureau predicted the storm was heading for Cuba. By the time administrators realized the predictions were wrong, it was too late. Precious time was lost as workers assembled the train; when it finally headed for the work camp, it was slammed by winds of 160 miles per hour and gusts up to 200 miles per hour. Train cars were tossed into the air, and only the engine was heavy enough to stay on the tracks.  

Meanwhile, the veterans at the work camp had little protection as the storm plowed through their camp. As shelters were blown apart, flying lumber speared and buried many of the men. Others were hit by raining coconuts; still others were swept away by the sea. When the storm retreated, an estimated 259 of the veterans had lost their lives.  

Many blamed camp administrators for the victims' fate, including the writer Ernest Hemingway, who wrote an article for New Masses titled, "Who Murdered the Vets?" published just a few weeks after the storm. Hemingway ended his angry piece with the question, "Who left you there? And what's the punishment for manslaughter now?" But a government investigation determined the deaths were "an act of God"—and no one was ever charged. A monument to the veterans, the Florida Keys Memorial (known locally as the "Hurricane Memorial"), was constructed to honor the victims, and ceremonies are held at the site every year on Labor Day and Memorial Day.  

Below: the relief train sent to rescue the veterans was derailed by the hurricane.
 

Image credit & copyright: Florida Keys--Public Libraries, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size