Who was Dr. Grady Gammage?

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Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium
Credit: Wikipedia

ASU’s Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium was dedicated on September 16th, 1964. Though many now associate the name Gammage with only the performing arts venue or attorney Grady Gammage, Jr., the auditorium stands as a monument to a man who greatly impacted Arizona’s development – Dr. Grady Gammage, Sr. Here are a handful of Dr.Gammage’s many notable accomplishments:

– Arrived in Arizona just months after statehood. Though nearly broke when he set foot on Arizona soil, he managed to earn a degree from the University of Arizona in 1916.

– Led a successful 1916 initiative campaign expanding Arizona’s 1914 Prohibition law.

– Served as a high school principal in Winslow, AZ.

– Assumed the presidency of the Flagstaff teachers college, now Northern Arizona University, in 1926. Led the institution through the early years of the Great Depression.

– Named president of the Tempe teachers college, now Arizona State University, in 1933. Briefly served as president of both the Flagstaff and Tempe colleges.

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A bust of Frank Lloyd Wright on display at Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium

– Enlarged the Tempe campus, substantially grew enrollment figures, and presided over the creation of many academic programs critical to the Valley’s incredible post-World War II growth.

– Oversaw the effort to pass Proposition 200, a 1958 ballot initiative that elevated Arizona State to full university status.

– Championed the idea of building the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed auditorium that bears his name.

Should you wish to learn more about the auditorium or take part in its anniversary celebration, please consider attending an open house scheduled for September 28th, 2014. For more information, see: http://asugammage.com/openhouse

Arizona’s State Song – No, It’s Not That One by Mark Lindsay

Text of the 1919 bill naming "The Arizona March Song" our state anthem.

Text of the 1919 bill naming “The Arizona March Song” our state anthem.

200 years ago today, Francis Scott Key penned a four-stanza poem titled “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” a four-stanza poem that would later be set to music and retitled “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The first stanza of Key’s poem was quickly set to music using the tune of an eighteenth-century British number called “The Anacreontic Song,” and was renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution designating the song our nation anthem in 1931 — thus creating a challenge for all future amateur crooners selected to sing the musically complex song at baseball games and other public events.

While you’ll hear the national anthem at many types of public gatherings, you’re less likely to hear one of our two state songs. That’s right… two; one official state song and one alternate state song — neither of which are Mark Lindsay’s 1969 single.

Margaret Rowe Clifford wrote “The Arizona March Song” in 1915. The Arizona legislature selected Clifford’s prose, accompanied by the music of Maurice Blumenthal, as our state song in 1919. Not satisfied with just one state song, a legislature more than sixty years in the future chose Rex Allen, Jr.’s “Arizona” (often known as “I Love You, Arizona”) as our alternate state song. While Allen’s song is fairly well-known today, Clifford’s 1915 piece is rarely heard. Links to renditions of both songs can be found below.

Do you have a preference?

Arizona’s State Songs

“Arizona March Song,” sung by Hannes Kvaran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws5dbNx3EVU

“Arizona,” sung by Rex Allen, Jr.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7xedmvJTzk

Phoenicians Celebrated Their First Post-Statehood 4th of July with “One and a Half Beeves”

A 1957 stamp showing the 48-star U.S. flag in use from 1912 to 1959. For more information regarding Arizona’s star and its association with Independence Day, please see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=409877605794905&set=a.342266935889306.81247.221135871335747&type=1&theater.

A 1957 stamp showing the 48-star U.S. flag in use from 1912 to 1959. For more information regarding Arizona’s star and its association with Independence Day, please see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=409877605794905&set=a.342266935889306.81247.221135871335747&type=1&theater.

How are you celebrating Independence Day?

Phoenicians celebrated July 4th, 1912, Arizona’s first post-statehood Independence Day, with a parade, a feast, outdoor games, a concert, and a late-night dance. As reported in the July 5th, 1912 edition of the Arizona Republican newspaper, there was also a “patriotic talk,” but, “not maddening noise and wild and senseless hurrah.” The talk referenced was given by George P. Bullard, the state’s first attorney general. Bullard’s address, memorialized in full on page five of the following day’s Arizona Republican, began with a section reminding those listening, “This Fourth of July is of especial interest to Arizonians and every Arizonian’s heart should swell with pride because today [from] every national building, from every reservation, from every fort, from the mast of every American vessel in all the ports of the civilized world there will break to the breeze for the first time the beloved flag of our nation emblazoned upon its field of azure blue the forty-eighth star, the star of Arizona.” However, Bullard’s discussion of the Grand Canyon State’s symbolic presence on the American flag seems to have been trumped in importance — at least in the minds of the paper’s reporting staff — by the large feast made available to the many revelers in attendance.

As exclaimed by a front page newspaper headline the following day, “Phoenix Had Best Fourth.” Notably, the city’s first post-statehood 4th of July observance included a food spread of a size, “never before witnessed in [that] city.” Indeed, the gleeful and likely sated reporter proclaimed, “if the barbecue alone had been the sum and substance of the day’s events, the affair would have been a success.” What merits this praise, you ask? A feast consisting of “one and a half beeves, 547 loaves of bread, eight hams, two barrels of pickles and quantities of olives.” How does that compare to your planned menu?

Regardless of whether you’ll be sitting down to hot dogs and hamburgers or sharing a meal of “one and a half beeves” with a large group of friends and neighbors, Happy 4th of July!

Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” – Is There An Arizona Biltmore Connection?

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A vintage postcard showing the Arizona Biltmore pool alongside which Irving Berlin reputedly penned “White Christmas.”

Having sold more than 130 million copies since its initial release, Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is the best-selling Christmas song of all time, as well as one of the all-time best-selling songs of any genre. Was this holiday classic written poolside at the Arizona Biltmore, as claimed by the resort and several others who have looked into the matter? While Berlin was known to stay at the Biltmore, and, according to a January 27th, 1939 Arizona Republic article, drafted the music for “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Carefree,” and “Second Fiddle” (originally titled “When Winter Comes”) at the hotel, it’s unlikely that he composed the winter hit crooned by Crosby and others while vacationing at the “Jewel of the Desert.”

The relatively unknown first sixteen measures of “White Christmas” serve as evidence of the song’s probable origin outside of the Grand Canyon State. Referencing not the Valley of the Sun, but rather, the affluent California hamlet of Beverly Hills, the often-omitted introductory section sets the scene for the rest of the number. As detailed in Jody Rosen’s “White Christmas: The Story of an American Song,” Berlin likely penned – or at least conceptualized – the iconic holiday song during a 1937 Christmas stay at the famed Beverly Hills Hotel, a setting remarkably different from the many cold and dreary New York Christmases to which Berlin was accustomed. Later in life, Berlin offered several radically different stories as to when and where he authored “White Christmas,” arguably the best-known and most-loved song in his repertoire, although none of his recollections involve the Arizona Biltmore. That a book co-authored by his daughter raises the possibility of the tune having been first scrawled while Berlin enjoyed the hospitality of the Biltmore staff, even when paired with his fondness for the resort and his creative history while a Biltmore guest, is insufficient evidence. Rather, it seems that the tale of the nation’s Christmas standard having been inspired by a warm and sunny Phoenix Christmas is nothing more than an highly questionable and overly optimistic account repeated, and possibly wholeheartedly believed, by enthusiastic resort marketers and staffers.

Indeed, the lack of evidence relating specifically to the song and its supposed genesis at the Biltmore indicates that this widely-held belief is incorrect, just as the notion of Frank Lloyd Wright being the architect of the record for the grand hotel is erroneous. While the “White Christmas” story and the many accounts overplaying Wright’s role in designing the grand structure ought to be cast aside, the luxurious retreat can rightfully lay claim to one bit of popular culture – the tequila sunrise. Originally offered at the Biltmore in the 1930s or 1940s, albeit in a form somewhat varied from the version we know and love today, the colorful drink boasts well-documented Biltmore roots. That, however, is a post for another day.