http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/home Today's post is an admission of ignorance, prompted by the resurgence of interest in the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, with its bicentennial commemorations (check the PBS link above, plus this great Navy/Marine/Coast Guard site, "Our Flag Was Still There"). With the resources at hand (8,000 volume library, JSTOR database … Read more Moroccan Questions for War of 1812 Experts
On this Fourth of July, when across the United States, and in those places overseas where Americans meet, the red, white and blue decorates many a barbecue and picnic, we display this gift of Moroccans to Americans, dating back to the late 1950s. American flags haven't flown over the Legation in, what, more than 50 … Read more Consul, Wrapped In Flag: Odd Legation Tales
This week marked the 70th anniversary of the creation of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, barely six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. OSS Society President Charles Pinck has penned this article in the Tampa Tribune, "General Donovan's Glorious Amateurs," whose title provides a glimpse of the kind of recruits Donovan gathered … Read more OSS Diplomatic Courier Gordon Browne’s Fateful Pouch Run
Dorothy Weems as her mother, Ruth Wolfe Weems “I was the youngest member of the Legation, the one most newly arrived from America…” There’s a touch of Isak Dinesen’s wistful remembrance of Africa in Ruth Wolfe Weems’ writing on her years in Tangier. A bit of the postwar sense of loss after the adventures, the … Read more Reliving Forties Tangier with Ruth Wolfe Weems
This November will mark the 70th anniversary of Operation Torch, when Allied forces converged on North Africa and eventually drove Axis forces from the continent. US Army Photograph by Sgt. Robert A. Edwards, Signal Corps, week of January 17, 1943. From the papers of OSS officer Gordon Browne, Tangier American Legation The barely … Read more On Memorial Day, Reminders of 1942 Allied Landings
Dorothy Weems (left) as her mother, Ruth Wolfe Weems (right) It started with a simple sentence, a comment on a TALIMblog post about the Legation during the Second World War: My mother worked at the US Legation in the early 1940's. That one-liner from Dorothy Weems blossomed into several months' correspondence, where it emerged … Read more Miss Weems & Miss Wolfe: Tangier Stories from the ’40s
"La Chasse aux Sangliers dans la Plaine de Sahara," Horace Vernet, hand-colored lithograph by Gautier, France circa 1860, Donald Angus Collection, Tangier American Legation Yesterday's jaunt in the Perdicaris Forest west of Tangier brought us more than one reminder of Tangier's heyday as an international city. There was the ruin of Perdicaris' home itself, … Read more The Powers Go Pigsticking: Tangier Tent Club
John Carter Vincent, Tangier 1967, by Marguerite McBey You never know what you're going to find in those cryptically marked boxes. I recently came across a treasure trove of sketch books left to the Legation by Marguerite McBey, Tangier American artist, 1905 – 1999. Though her husband James was a better known artist (his portrait … Read more John Carter Vincent by Marguerite McBey
Tangier American Legation circa 1910 Over 100 years ago, in 1910, an organization called the American Embassy Association published an illustrated book entitled American Embassies, Legations, and Consulates Mean Better Foreign Business. You can leaf through the book here, courtesy Cornell University Library. The above photo – which we have in our collection of … Read more Better Legations Mean Better Image Abroad
Jesse McMath, US Consul Tangier, 1862-1869 Those shoe boxes full of old photos keep on producing historic gems. Thanks to Parisian pediatrician, author, and Tangerine transplant Philip Abensur – who had already provided us a rare image of Civil War era US Consul in Tangier James DeLong from the archives of his great great-uncle, … Read more Consul McMath’s Sentence to Tangier
