Present at the creation

Political and Diplomatic Documents December 1947‐May 1948, Israel State Archives and Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem 1979, main volume 888 pp., index, 2 maps; companion volume 227 pp., index. General Editor: Gedalia Yogev     

Prelude to the plague: public health and politics at America's Pacific gateway, 1899

San Francisco played a crucial in the formulation of American immigration policy vis-à-vis Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, it was often difficult to differentiate political struggles over the exclusion of Asians from other conflicts. This article examines one such arena: an acrimonious, well-documented argument in 1899 between Federal and various State and local authorities over the arrival of a Japanese passenger liner that may--or may not--have been carrying bubonic plague. Six months later, the plague unquestionably arrived, resulting in the well-known San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900 in which more that 110 people died. Reviewing the 1899 prelude, the public attitudes of the various health authorities, and the way the press reported health issues, collectively give some sense of that historical space where the regulation of public health, politics, and the immigration industry intersected and were fiercely contested.     

Motel by the Roadside: America's Room for the Night

The origins of the American motel are rooted in the traveler's use of the automobile. After 1910 the need for inexpensive overnight facilities convenient to the roadside led to the establishment of auto camps in the United States, especially in the West. In the East, the tourist home served a similar function. The highway traveler's rejection of the hotel (most hotels were located in congested downtowns and lacked adequate parking facilities) prompted the rapid evolution of cabin camps, cottage courts, motor courts, motor inns, and, eventually, highway hotels. Standardizing influences were exerted first through trade associations and then through chain and franchise corporations. Changing motel morphology was characterized by evolution rather than revolution until the revised tax code of 1954 and the Highway Act of 1956 vastly accelerated motel construction attracting corporate investors. Hotels and today's larger motels are very similar with increased emphasis on public as opposed to private space and increased formality. Thus in fifty years the motel has come full cycle as an alternative to hotel accommodation.     

Strategies' R Us: America's Road to Suez

Peter L. Hahn. The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War .