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Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

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Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#31

Post by WalterBright »

dylan604 wrote: post #8
GCA10 wrote: post #5

The timeline doesn't match up here. We're told that historian Stefan Lorant was doing his research in the 1950s. Then we're told that he checked with Teddy Roosevelt's wife and got her confirmation that one of the children in the window was Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was married twice, and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, died in 1884, so it's not her. But his second wife, Edith Carow, died in 1948, at age 87. So…

> But she would have been just three years old at the time of Lincoln's funeral, and while her family and the Roosevelt's family socialized together, even her quoted reminiscence is less than definitive about whether that's actually TR. While she might not have direct memory of the event, it would not be unheard of for older relatives to explain the picture to her when she was older. Just because she doesn't remember…

I have a few vague memories of being 3. I expect if something dramatic had happened, I'd remember that.

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#32

Post by WalterBright »

ramesh31 wrote: post #9

The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living children of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.

The last Civil War soldier died in 1956.

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#33

Post by cindyllm »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #29
lukan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our descendants are going to enjoy an enormous wealth of imagery and videos for events that will to them otherwise be just something from a history book. " The question will be at some point, will they be able to tell it apart from AI generated fake ones? (and will they care?) Already now youtube recommends me some obvious AI generated garbage as WW2 documentations. And that was just garbage generated for attention…

It's the "if you think the news is all lies, bullshit and agendas you should see the history books" meme. Lord knows what falsehoods of today will become the official record of tomorrow never mind what lies of the past we just repeat because they're what got written down.

[dead]

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#35

Post by rootusrootus »

lukan wrote: post #28
rootusrootus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed this is one of the things I most enjoyed when I first visited DC, the realization of just how recent these historical events really were. Standing on a battlefield in Gettysburg and thinking "This all happened in the 1860s, barely more than 100 years before I was born. I have relatives who lived in this area at that time, and only a few generations back." When I talk to young people today, and realize how litt…

"Our descendants are going to enjoy an enormous wealth of imagery and videos for events that will to them otherwise be just something from a history book. " The question will be at some point, will they be able to tell it apart from AI generated fake ones? (and will they care?) Already now youtube recommends me some obvious AI generated garbage as WW2 documentations. And that was just garbage generated for attention…

That's a good point. When I wrote my comment only my optimistic side was engaged ;-). The pessimistic side shares your concerns. I hope that we develop some technologically diffult-to-overcome solutions for preserving the integrity of media. Like methods for cryptographically signing raw content from a digital camera that guarantees it was produced by that hardware. Not a panacea, but a step in the right direction I think.

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#36

Post by ButlerianJihad »

rootusrootus wrote: post #15
ramesh31 wrote: post #9

The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living children of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.

Indeed this is one of the things I most enjoyed when I first visited DC, the realization of just how recent these historical events really were. Standing on a battlefield in Gettysburg and thinking "This all happened in the 1860s, barely more than 100 years before I was born. I have relatives who lived in this area at that time, and only a few generations back." When I talk to young people today, and realize how litt…

Digital Data https://m.xkcd.com/1683/

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#37

Post by qingcharles »

hyperpape wrote: post #26
Mordisquitos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blog article links Stefan Lorant's own recollection of the event, but the link is broken (fair enough, the blog entry is from 2010). Fortunately though, the link is archived on the Wayback Machine [0], where we can see it is an article from American Heritage, June 1955. In the linked article Lorent does not specify when exactly he interviewed Edith Carrow Roosevelt, but I think it is fair to assume that the refer…

His book appears to have been published in 1942 or earlier: https://time.com/archive/6786636/books-biography-in-pictures... .

I uploaded the book here, I can't find that quote or the photo in it, though:

https://transfer.it/t/wCLoeh9XEZrZ

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#38

Post by qingcharles »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ramesh31 wrote: post #9

The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living children of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.

The last Civil War soldier died in 1956.

Last Civil War died in 2020:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_...

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#39

Post by bmitc »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #30
ramesh31 wrote: post #9

The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living children of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.

Jason Kottke occasionally uses the term The Great Span over at his blog on similar musings: https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span I think his post that really got me was the 2021 headline, The Last Documented Widow of a Civil War Veteran Has Died: https://kottke.org/21/01/the-last-documented-widow-of-a-civi...

That's a pretty extreme case that shifts the data by 70 years.

Re: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo (2010)

#40

Post by fortran77 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #9

The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living children of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.

I've had conversations with people born in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries!
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