Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)

Subject: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: kendall
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 06:57 PM

Well known historian Shelby Foote has died at the age of 88. He was featured in Ken Burn's The Civil War. I always enjoy listening to someone who knows what they are talking about, and he certainly did.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: JedMarum
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 07:08 PM

We'll have his books and his image on the Ken Burns videos to treasure. He was a gift to our century!

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: GUEST,Jim the Filker
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 07:13 PM

His "Narrative History of the Civil War" is perhaps the most readable detailed history that I've ever read. Far more than being the talking head we remember from the Ken Burns series, the man could write.

RIP. Can someone play that traditional instrumental, "Ashokan Farewell" in memoriem?

/I am so going to hell for that one./

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: Micca
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 07:37 PM

A sad loss indeed, I only know Mr Foote from the above mentioned Civil War series of Ken Burns, which they showed on the BBc a few years ago and was very impressed with Mr Footes erudite but Non-pofaced exposition of the material, I especially remember his contributions to the Wilderness and Gettysburg programsm RIP Mr Foote a Scholar and ,to all appearences, a Gentleman

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 07:54 PM

Very sad indeed. Foote was an excellent writer of both fiction and nonfiction about the Civil War, and his commentaries on the Ken Burns film were wonderful. He seemed the perfect southern gentleman, with that marvelous genteel southern accent. May he rest in peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 08:18 PM

He also did some great stuff about falkener for the National geographical. as you say the Civil war stuff was fascinating. he spoke about the characters involved as though he knew them.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: sixtieschick
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 09:33 PM

Shelby Foote wrote in longhand with a dip pen and a bottle of ink (probably many bottles, given the volume of his output). That alone is worth honoring in this hyperactive age.

Well done, Mr. Foote!

Miriam

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: Cruiser
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 09:51 PM

I will miss his fine sugh-thurn' accent. I have Ken Burn's epic Civil War Series on DVD so I can review it often.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 10:08 PM

Jazus they're dropping like flies out there.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 12:54 AM

I don't remember that he used a "dip pen," but he did write in long-hand, though he usually typed his manuscripts for his publisher once it was written out. He said it made him slow down and think a bit more as he worked. I heard him in various interviews over the years, in addition to his contributions to documentaries such as Burns' The Civil War. He was a delight to listen to, and I daresay, for many Americans who are not from the South, he went a long way toward reforming the dismissive attitude some hold toward Southern accents.

His cousin is Horton Foote, who wrote, among other things, the screenplay to To Kill A Mockingbird. A talented family! IMDb information about Shelby Foote is a bit out of date. They missed a third marriage, I think an obit said in 1955. That one lasted.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: sixtieschick
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 01:22 AM

Re the dip pen:

"I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper. I use an old-fashioned dip pen like you used to see in post offices. It makes me take my time, and I feel comfortable doing it, whereas the clatter of a typewriter or to turn the drum backward to make a correction, all that's a kind of interruption I can't stand."

                                                                               --Shelby Foote

You can listen to a tape of him saying the above at:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/foo0int-4

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: ard mhacha
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 02:52 AM

He has left behind a treasure of history, his US Civil War books are a must read, also came across as a modest man in Ken Burns Civil War series.
May he rest in peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: GUEST,Melani
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 06:35 PM

This has been a very bad month for Civil War buffs, as Shelby Foote was closely preceded by another noted and much-loved historian, Brian Pohanka

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 07:04 PM

The old "dip pen" ~ now, that's old-fashioned!

I have a little bit of experience using that ancient implement. In Catholic elementary school in New Jersey, in the 1950s, we had to use those nasty things (with removeable nibs), but only during "Palmer Method" penmanship class. We used pencils and/or ballpoints most of the time. Our desks had inkwells built into them, by the way.

I realize that the average age among the Mudcat population is pretty close to my own advanced number of years, but I doubt if many have ever written with a nib "dip" pen. (Not in America, anyway ~ maybe the practice lasted longer in Europe.) I know that my peers in public school did not have to cope with such an already-obsolete item, even in 1955-56-57...

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 08:41 PM

it was a proud day when you got your first dip pen and the teacher came round and filled the inkwells. a first step towards adulthood.

probably a bit like when you get your first piercing nowadays

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Cruiser
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 09:39 PM

I still use dip pens with exchangeable nibs for calligraphy.

I also used dip pens with a lever to pull ink into the barrel from desk ink wells holding glass bottles of ink in the early 50s.

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: ad1943
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 10:49 PM

Vale Shelby Foote. Incidentally, "dip pens' were used until the late 1950s in primary (or junior) school in Australia. We also made the ink by adding water to a black powder.Ah halcyon days !

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 11:54 PM

Today on Fresh Air Terry Gross replayed a 1994 interview with Foote. It was very nice to hear his voice. He will be missed.

When I was in elementary school in West Seattle in the 1960s we still had holes for inkwells in our school desks, though we used pencils and crayons. The desks were the attached variety so your seat was on the front of the desk behind you. Noreen Woolf sat behind me in the fourth grade and all she seemed to do was erase, erase, erase, her sheets of paper, and it drove me nuts! When I turned around and told her to knock it off, who got in trouble? You betcha. Not miss goodie-two-shoes with the pink pearl.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 09:42 AM

Time to let it go SRS....statute of limitations and everything!

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: GUEST,Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 11:05 AM

WLD--I hadn't thought of that girl in years, until I looked at the photo of the desk. Simply a storyteller's vivid flashback, no baggage weight to that story, I assure you! Now the kid who sat behind me and stabbed me in the arm with his sharped pencil, he left marks. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 11:51 AM

Shelby?

"Yes?"

Come to the light.

"What kind of nonsense is this?"

I want to show you something.

"Why don't you bring it ova here?"

Umm, I suppose I could do that...poof... Behold, it is Gettysburg.

"My oh my I can see everythin and everyone everywhere in the battle!"

Look closer, you can even read their thoughts.

"Its a sight more painful than what I read."

OK Shelby, I'd like to show you Gettysburg 2005, what do you see?

"Its a Park Ranger tellin people about the battle of Gettysburg."

What is he saying?

"A park ranger is kinda haranguing a crowd of visitors about the Gettysburg Address, and he sounds like a preacher with a George W. Bush twang: the men who died at Gettysburg, says the ranger, were all fighting for 'freedom and democracy,' so the United States could spread those ideals around the world."

Is that history as you know it?

"Hell no, but I ain't surprised neither. Thats the nature of government owned history."

Well don't let me hold you up, you belong to the ages now.

"Well thanks, in a way I never felt better about my life's work now that I got a chance to see what its up against. Say what's your name?

Clarence.

"You take care cheer?"

I will, and we'll take care of your books too!

"G'bye"


http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1094

Subject: RE: Obit: Shelby Foote, historian (June 2005)
From: van lingle
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 07:30 AM

"Run old hare."