Georgene Hopf and her Dolls Achieved National Fame

AC Gilbert gets all the attention here because of the Erector Set's success and the physical locus of the house and museum at Riverfront Park. But an important ingredient in that is the fact that he's a man and made a toy for boys.

Another Salemite, Georgene Hopf, later Georgene Averill (and Hendren sometimes also), achieved national prominence for dolls, but she is not known at all outside of very niche conversation. 

It might be true that the scale of the Erector Set's sales dwarf those of Hopf's dolls, and that the Erector Set originated a new category of toy, and so the cultural significance of Gilbert might yet be greater, but it's also certain in our histories that playing with dolls is slighted in favor of that proto-engineering play. Gilbert is scientist and inventor. The attention, like the toy, has been gendered. Hopf certainly deserves more notice.

January 30th, 1921

A century ago, in January of 1921 Hopf appeared a couple of times in the Society column of the morning paper here. The angle was the status conferred by the Fifth Avenue location of her shop in New York City and by recent magazine articles. It was the story of a local girl made good, "the most inventive and original designer in her line."

Circuit Rider and Lumber King: Two Generations of Robert Booth at the Capitol

Early in January of 1921, R. A. Booth of Eugene proposed a statue to honor his father, Robert Booth, a minister who started preaching here as a Circuit Rider in 1855. Later in January on the 26th, the Legislature and Governor accepted the gift and started looking for a site.

Circuit Rider and old Capitol
April 1924 dedication program

You might recall Burt Brown Barker and his gift of the Pioneer Mother statue to the University of Oregon. The Circuit Rider is another instance of a benefactor using the personal story of a parent to figure myth as part of a more general origin story for the state. Even if it is not exactly a deliberate conflation of genealogy and history, it still valorizes one part of the story at the expense of others. It's not necessarily wrong, but it is one-sided.

R. A. Booth in Looters of the Public Domain, 1908
(composite image: page 237 and title page)

Robert A. Booth was a lumberman and civic leader with a large complex right on the edge of downtown Springfield.

City Council, January 25th - Pringle Creek Path to Riverfront Park

Council convenes on Monday and the application for the path along Pringle Creek between Mirror Pond and Riverfront Park is the main item of interest. (See "Pringle Creek Path Grant Application Shows Boise Project Heading Toward Completion" from earlier this month for more on it.)

The retaining wall, cap, and fish ladder are all gone

It will complete a vision started two generations ago with the 1970s urban renewal area along the mill race. 

One important link is a little newer, only about a generation-and-a-half ago. The path system near the Hospital dates from 1984. And they were clear it was primarily a walk, and not a bike path.

Silent on bicycles - it's clearly a "walk"

Because we have lumped walking and biking together as the greater "alternative modes," we do not always attend to their different needs, and the path segment between Mirror Pond and Riverfront Park will, like the other segments, be much better for walking than for biking. 

Traffic Modeling and Studies Ignoring Climate: At the MPO

The Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 26th and they'll hear an information report on the Keizer Growth Transportation Impacts Study.

Nothing about climate and emissions here

We haven't followed the City of Keizer much here. A couple of items here and there, but it has also been clear that even with an immediate next door neighbor, there was a body of hyperlocal knowledge, history, and politics that made it difficult to follow things meaningfully without a full commitment to follow things closely. Dipping in and out necessarily meant shallow. Hence, little discussion of Keizer here, and the development of this plan has not been remarked on.

But as the City of Salem finally begins to grapple with a Climate Action Plan, and the State also begins to work out climate policy, there are these local initiatives proceeding blithely and seemingly unawares of the need to reduce emissions and reduce driving.

On the agenda at SKATS is an informational presentation on the Keizer study. The summary describes it as evaluating "the expected magnitude of added vehicular traffic" associated with the "planned expansion of the City's Urban Growth Boundary." (See the Oct 2020 Keizer Planning Commission packet.)

1921 Legislative Session Starts with Idolatry for Pioneers, Animus for Japanese

The 1921 Legislative Session started 100 years ago and the afternoon paper led with some humor.

Senator LaFollette Wakes Ups

State Senator Alec LaFollette, in his 70s and a member of the extended family of "Fighting" Bob LaFolette of Wisconsin, though considerably more conservative, was apparently a little notorious for nodding off in his later years. (He died in 1927.)

Full strip opens Legislative coverage
January 17th, 1921

But the underlying mood was considerably less humorous, nothing like any exuberant "roaring 20s," but defensive and nativist.

In his opening address to the Legislature, Governor Olcott called for legislation against Japanese residents and immigrants. "Keep Oregon's Pioneer Blood Pure," ran the subhead, and Olcott is directly quoted saying, "Here in Oregon the pioneer blood flows purely and in more undiluted stream than in any other state of the union."

Nativism, January 11th, 1921

The papers are full of nativist sentiment.

City Council, January 19th - Strategic Plan

Council convenes on Tuesday with the holiday for a formal Work Session on the Strategic Plan and its activities for 2021.

Six main areas for action

It remains hard to comment on the plan process in any detail at this moment. The Pandemic's exigencies just swamp everything still. And if there had been any uncertainty, now the threat from fascism and white supremacy must be clear. In fundamental ways Council has to be reactive and less strategic, and what is there really to comment on in that?

Transportation and climate

In areas of particular interest here, transportation and climate, the concepts for "year one" are not very detailed. The Climate Action Plan and by Our Salem will drive them, and as a separate process the Strategic Plan can just follow and execute on those other two big processes and plans.

Maybe you will have other thoughts and want to advocate for some particular thing, but it has seemed here that emphasizing Our Salem and the Climate Action Plan was much more important than drilling into this Strategic Plan and advocating for some new initiatives.

City Publishes Slightly Different Take on Emissions

Last week the City and consultant team published a new pass at a greenhouse gas inventory.

Summary on a consumption-based GHG
It's still the cars

Nearly two years ago, the City published a "sector-based" analysis, and this is a "consumption-based" analysis.

The City's release is hard to parse. 

While it is a fine thing to keep iterating and improving our understanding of emissions as technical matters, the big picture with this new analysis is essentially unchanged. On this new analysis transportation is still the biggest source of emissions. If we thought that a different analysis was going to give us a pass on driving, we were wrong. 

It's not clear why this new analysis was necessary at this point in the process. Differing analyses might help us make decisions on the margins, or prioritize details. But different analyses aren't going to change anything in the big picture and larger strategy.