Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 5, 1961
A Common World Civilization
Each generation should become aware of the most pressing problems it has to solve. For our generation, it seems to me, there is no other problem as important as creating a common world civilization that comprises mankind as a whole.
Harvard Impressions
The American university has become a crossroad of young people from the Occident and the Orient.
Hardly anything is so reminiscent of the Old World as the chimes of a carillon on a college campus.
Philadelphia, July 9, 1961
The way north or south from Washington leads into two worlds that are still very different from each other.
The American big city has at night a unique glamour and splendour all its own. This is especially true of the New York skyline and of Time Square.
[For the summer I had been accepted as Reader by the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. That gave me on the one hand the opportunity to use the source materials for the California author Frank Norris (1870-1902), and on the other hand it fulfilled a long intended wish of mine to once cross the continent from coast to coast, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by railroad.]
Altoona, Pennsylvania, July 15, 1961
Left North Philadelphia Station at 9 a.m. today on a westbound trip from coast to coast.
Indianapolis, July 16, 1961
Indiana gives for the first time the impression of continental space. Here one is accustomed to orient oneself following the cardinal points. Here, it is also possible that someone gets off the train and starts a conversation about the Church of Nazareth.
St. Louis, Missouri, July 17, 1961
St. Louis the Gateway to the West
Here, the traces of the French settlement of the Mississippi region are still visible: An excellent cuisine and decorative wrought ironwork. Also, the missionary work of the Jesuits has left its mark. With the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 the West was opened to the throng of new settlers.
The ride through the Midwest gives the impression of the enormous agricultural abundance of this country. But because of the short time of settlement, no village culture has developed. Instead of “village” the word “township” is used. It is more of a small town environment that has developed on the countryside with single homesteads in-between.
Grainfield, Kansas, July 18, 1961
From horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can see, nothing but grainfields, that’s Kansas.
Denver, Colorado, July 19, 1961
Denver is a modern booming city with a steadily growing skyline. The romance of the former Wild West continues, however, to lurk in the background, best visible in the frontier shop on the corner and the rodeo show for tourists.
The diorama exhibitions in the State Museum depict beautifully how this area developed from a frontier settlement of a hundred years ago to the jet age metropolis of today.
The river namers, audacious trail blazers, fur traders and prospectors opened the path for settlement. The gold rush of 1859 at Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs unleashed a great migration from the East to this primarily mining area.
The pioneers set out in covered wagons on a six week journey across the Great Plains. They usually moved in teams with a government of their own, rules written down, and elected officers. For their collective protection against Indian raids, the nightly wagon camps were arranged in elephant corrals. In the beginning, the contact with the Indians in this area was carefree. Fur traders, mountain men, beaver trappers adopted the Indian way of life; they were dressed in deerskin, or buckskin leggings, traded with the Indians and married squaws.
From here to the South and Southwest, the impact of the early Spanish settlements becomes visible. One becomes aware of the effects of Coronado’s expedition into the Northern parts of Mexico, the hacienda culture and large Spanish land grants. The influence of the Indian culture of the pueblos and Navajos of the Mesa Verde region also becomes very obvious. The Indian folklore attraction and handicrafts stand out from the otherwise drab souvenir displays.
Denver is the gateway to a mountainous area of great natural beauty. The nearby Rocky Mountains rise to altitudes of 12 to 14 thousand feet. Mount Evans, Andrews Peak and Snowdrift Peak in the Arapaho National Forest form a panorama of impressive magnitude. The scenic view is different from that of the Central Alps. For the most part, it is still untouched wilderness.
Salt Lake City, Utah, July 21, 1961
Seen from the Train
From Denver over Cheyenne, Laramie to Ogden in Utah, a grassland of about 1,000 km (625 miles) stretches across the plains. The high plains along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains are a unique pasture which gradually turns into a semiarid steppe. The entire area is very sparsely settled. Except for widespread ranges, some coal strip mining and oil drilling stations, nothing else was to be seen that showed signs of human habitation. The ride through Wyoming from Laramie over Rawlins to Rock Spring made a deserted impression. It led over the high plains of the Continental Divide, the watershed between the Atlantic and the Pacific, an arid plateau covered by sagebrush, through which occasionally a few antelopes were jumping.
Comment
[The exceptionally beautiful natural sites of Wyoming are located in the northwest corner of the state - in the Grand Teton National Park and the Yellowstone National Park. Each year these world-famous National Parks attract hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world.]
Salt Lake City, July 21, 1961
Notes on Utah and Salt Lake City
Father Escalante discovered Utah Lake in 1776.
Comment
[In his effort to find a connecting passage from Santa Fe in New Mexico to the missions in California, the Franciscan missionary Father Silvestre Valez de Escalante undertook an expedition in 1776 through the unknown territory of the Ute Indians. He thereby reached the Great Salt Lake.]
The name Utah is of Indian origin and means “high in the mountains.”
Trappers and Fur Traders
Peter Skene Ogden, a trapper in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, came to the Salt Lake area in the 1820s. He explored the territory between the Great Salt Lake Basin and the Sierras along the river route. The river named after him was later changed to Humboldt River, but Ogden, the second largest city of Utah, retained his name. John C. Fremont from the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers surveyed the Great Lake Basin in1843-44.
The Mormons
The history of the present state of Utah and the development of Salt Lake City are invariably linked to the Mormons and their historic migration.
The Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have their own Bible, The Book of Mormon, which is the word of the Prophet Mormon. Although the members of this sectarian group provoked controversy wherever they settled and were thus persecuted for their beliefs, the Mormons attracted many followers throughout the nineteenth century. In their search for religious freedom and the Kingdom of God, these people demonstrated unbelievable endurance in the face of sheer insurmountable hardships.
Brigham Young (1801-1877)
In 1847 Brigham Young, the resourceful Head of the Church, led the great Mormon exodus of 20,000 people from Nauvoo, Illinois [situated in the western part of the state near the Mississippi River], across Iowa, the Nebraska Territory and along the North Platte River to the Great Salt Lake valley where he founded Salt Lake City.
The Mormon migration to Utah continued during the second half of the nineteenth century. Altogether about 80,000 people crossed the plains to settle there. A few of the pioneers of the late nineteenth century are still alive. In 1947 they were able to participate in the “Centennial Celebration of the Days of ‘47.”
By Handcarts across the Plains
Mormon families who had no oxen or horses banded together in groups and pulled their few possessions and children on handcarts across the plains. On the way, hundreds of them died of exhaustion and starvation.
The covered wagon on which Brigham Young came to Salt Lake City can still be seen in the Pioneer Museum.
It should be remembered that in their covered wagons the pioneers carried into the wilderness the full load of the civilization of their times: Furniture, books, utensils of all kinds, anvils, and surveyor’s instruments. They also brought with them the contemporary expertise in agriculture and craftsmanship.
The early pioneer period ended with the arrival of the transcontinental railroad. The driving of the golden spike at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, connected the Union Pacific from the East with the Central Pacific from the West.
Salt Lake City, July 21, 1961
The Capitol of Utah in Salt Lake City is one of the most attractive sights in the country; the view from its hilltop site across the valley is especially impressive.
I had been looking for California and in my search discovered Utah.
Utah is a peculiar cultural achievement of the American West. This is an example how the desert can be turned into a blooming garden.
[With the Winter Olympics of 2002 Utah and Salt Lake City attracted the world’s attention as never before.]
[Over the night of July 21/22 a ride on a Greyhound Bus brought me from Salt Lake City through the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles.]
San Bernardino, California, July 22, 1961
The states in the Rocky Mountains are still a very thinly populated region. Irrigation is the question of survival in the desert areas. Coming from Salt Lake City, San Bernardino offers the first contact with the Spanish missionary culture in California.
Los Angeles, July 23, 1961
The size of Los Angeles is no tall tale: The diagonal distance of the city is almost 70 miles, the circumferal distance 265 miles.
The first impression of Los Angeles is that of a hustle and bustle, of aimless motion and exuberance, as well as of a jumble of different architectural styles.
Santa Monica Beach, California, July 23, 1961
The First Time on the Pacific
Reached the Pacific today at Santa Monica. It is a curious feeling to think now of home through the back door. [Looking to the West and not to the East.]
Precious moments
There are a few moments in life which one will never forget, like seeing the Pacific for the first time.
Note
Cabrillo discovered Santa Monica Bay in 1542. There was a quadricentennial celebration of this historic event. This part of America is not young anymore.
Pasadena, California, July 25, 1961
The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery
[Upon my arrival I was completely surprised by the Huntington Library. Located in San Marino, a small township south of Pasadena, it offered all the benefits which one could only have hoped for in a research stay. The neo-classical building with the Library and the Art Gallery stands in the midst of a botanical garden. Room and board were provided in the nearby Atheneum, the guest house for visiting scholars. The Huntington Library and Art Gallery was founded by Henry Edwards Huntington (1850-1927) in 1919. The Library, one of the leading research institutions for the humanities in North America, excels by its rich holdings of manuscripts in the areas of English and American literatures as well as documents of California history. Among the special treasures of the Huntington Library are the Ellesmere Ms. of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the manuscript of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, and in the Art Gallery “The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough.]
The Berlin Crisis
The current unanimous opinion from coast to coast, to stay firm in the Berlin crisis, is indeed remarkable.
Pasadena, July 30, 1961
The European University Crisis
The crisis of the Humboldtian university ideal is not just a phenomenon of the present time or the result of the post-war era, but has been long in coming. Humboldt’s ideal suited the central European university of the 19th century, but has become woefully inadequate in fulfilling the needs of higher education in the 20th century. The European university today finds itself in a profound crisis, which can only be overcome by modernization and a structural reform.
[Transl: Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), the brother of the world-famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt, reorganized the educational system in Prussia. In 1810 he founded the Humboldt University in Berlin. He advocated a research university that served a small group of scholars, but which did not take into account the needs for higher education of the growing population of an industrial state.]
Pasadena, July 30, 1961
The Mission San Gabriel Archangel
The Mission San Gabriel Archangel was founded September 8, 1771. The original main entrance of the Mission opened out on the Camino Real, the King’s Highway, the artery connecting the twenty-one Missions of California.
In the Camposanto, the graveyard of San Gabriel, a commemorative tablet records that between 1778-1865 about 6,000 Indians were buried there. The largest number of them had been carried away by the smallpox and cholera epidemics of 1820.
[The Mission is located in the town of San Gabriel near Pasadena.]
Junipero Serra (1713-1784)
Friar Junipero Serra, the founder of the twenty-one missions in California, succeeded in creating a unique missionary work.
[The Franciscan missionary Father Junipero Serra is also called “Apostle of California.” In 1988 he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.]