The Shadow Still Knows - July 31, 2007

July 31, 1930. A hot, muggy summer night. New Yorkers who could afford to do nothing else because of the Great Depression stayed home and listened to the radio. 

Those who tuned in to the new Detective Story Hour on station WABC at 9:30 that evening heard a startling and mysterious voice telling thrilling detective stories. 

Manhattanites stormed their newsstands demanding more -- but they didn't want just any stories, they wanted to read about the narrator: The Shadow. 

The only problem was, those stories didn't exist. Pulp magazine publisher Street & Smith hired writer Walter Gibson to create the Shadow's adventures. The stories proved so popular that Gibson soon had to write two Shadow novels a month to keep up with popular demand. 

While the literary Shadow defeated criminals by shooting them, the radio Shadow took a less physical approach and "clouded their minds." 

The radio program lasted until 1954 and spawned more than a dozen movies and a couple of television pilots in the 1950s. It's been almost three-quarters of a century, but to this day, there is only one man who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men -- The Shadow!

Suggested Sites...

• ThePulp.net: The Shadow - the history of The Shadow, his agents, and the chroniclers of his many adventures.
• Wikipedia: The Shadow - history of the Master of Darkness in all media.
• The Shadow's Sanctum - adventures of the Shadow and Doc Savage, as well as video interviews with Walter Gibson.
• Walter B. Gibson - Wizard of Words - personal memories of The Shadow's creator. 
• Old Radio Programs: The Shadow - listen to some of The Shadow's radio adventures.

I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday ... - July 28, 2009

 

On July 28, 1900, a hungry customer rushed into Louis Lassen's luncheonette in New Haven, CT, and asked for something that he could eat on the run. Lassen slapped a broiled beef patty between two slices of bread and invented the hamburger.

Or did he? There's an old saying that "success has a hundred fathers, while failure is an orphan," and nowhere is that adage truer than in the question of exactly who invented the hamburger. Given its phenomenal success (Americans alone consume some forty billion per year), it's not surprising that there are at least three other claimants to the title "Father of the Hamburger."

The earliest contenders seem to be the Menches brothers (Frank and Charles), itinerant sandwich vendors who traveled the state- and county-fair circuit at the end of the 19th century. In 1895, they ended up at the Buffalo Fair at the Hamburg Fairgrounds. Local butchers were unable to provide the boys with their usual pork sausages, so they substituted ground beef flavored with "coffee beans and brown sugar, and other ingredients that remain a secret" (yum!). The sandwich became a hit and took its name from the venue, which would seem to end the controversy.

Except that, also in 1895, Charlie Nagreen was trying to sell meatballs at the Seymour Fair in Seymour, WI. The fair was a hit, but Nagreen was not. Meatballs are tasty, but aren't necessarily easy to eat while walking through a fair. Charlie was seized with the idea of making them more portable by smashing them between, yes, two slices of bread, and they immediately became a hit. Since loaves with ground beef, known as "Hamburg steaks," (named after the city in Germany) were a popular meal, Nagreen named his invention the "Hamburger sandwich," which was soon shortened to "hamburger."

The least-likely innovator was Fletcher Davis, who owned a lunch counter in Athens, TX (the self-proclaimed "Black-Eyed Pea Capital of the World"). Davis, according to oral reports, had been serving a ground-beef sandwich as early as the 1880s. He claimed to have sold the sandwich at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis (where the sandwich was undoubtedly served -- the New York Tribune wrote about the sensation it caused), but unfortunately, there’s no hard evidence to prove that Davis was the man serving them. (Though McDonald's does give the St. Louis credit for serving the burger, in spite of the earlier documented examples.)

Regardless of who invented the hamburger, it's become as much a part of American culture as, well, apple pies and the hot dog (and don’t get us started on who invented that) -- from backyard cookouts and drive-ins to such noted fanciers as J. Wellington Wimpy and Forsthye P. (Jughead) Jones. The sandwiches range in size from normal to large to beyond jumbo to ridiculous, and while some of us are satisfied with just one, there are some folks who can finish off 103 sliders (in eight minutes!) or a 9-pound giant in less than half an hour.

But if you don't mind, all this burger talk has made us hungry. We'll take ours medium with ketchup, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, pickles, and a touch of mustard, please.

Suggested Sites...

• Louis' Lunch - where the hamburger was invented.
• Menches Brothers - news about the other inventors of the hamburger.
• Home of the Hamburger - another place where the hamburger was invented.
• Inventor of the Original Hamburger - and yet one more. 
• Hamburger America - burger blog with ketchup, mustard -- and opinions.