One of the United States’ most important cities in its early history was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, located in the northeast part of the US.  Philadelphia was the site (location) of the first meetings of the Revolutionary War leaders in the late 1700s.  It was where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, announcing our independence from Great Britain.  It was where our Constitutional Convention took place, and was our nation’s first capital.  There’s a great deal (a lot) of history in Philadelphia, and today it continues to be a popular place for tourists visiting the United States.

Like many popular tourist locations, Philadelphia also has many private tour companies that will take you around to all of the important areas and explain the history behind the city and its historic buildings.  And like all tour companies with talkative (talking a lot) tour guides (people who lead or are in charge of the tours), sometimes not everything they say is 100% accurate.  In fact, sometimes they make things up (invent things, say things that are not true), which can be very confusing for a tourist who does not know the real story.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some of the tour guides in Philadelphia were telling tourists that one of the early, popular leaders of our country, Benjamin Franklin, had fathered more than 80 illegitimate children!  (An illegitimate child is one who is born to a woman not married, although this term is not used very much today, especially since there is such a high percentage of American children born to unmarried mothers.)  Ben Franklin had the reputation for being, well, a “lady’s man” (a man who is popular with women and tries to have many romantic relationships with them), but there is no evidence he had 80 children.   Another guide said that George Washington, our first president, once had lunch in Philadelphia with Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, which would have been rather (very) difficult, since Washington died 10 years before Lincoln was born.

Because of these distortions (half-truths, false ideas) by some tour guides, the city of Philadelphia decided to institute (begin, start) a mandatory (required, obligatory) history test that all the registered guides had to take and pass to get permission to be a tour guide.  This seems at first like a reasonable idea, but the tour guides disagreed.  They didn’t want to be forced to take an exam, and instead sued (took legal action against) the city to stop the test.  Their reason?  One of the freedoms that Americans are supposed to have is freedom of speech, the freedom to say what you want, whenever you want (with some restrictions, however).  Having to take an exam limited the freedom of speech of the tour guides, they said.  The city of Philadelphia responded by saying that no, they were not required to actually tell people the facts included on the test; they only had to pass the test.  After that, they could say whatever they wanted!

While I understand what the city of Philadelphia was trying to do here, it does seem like a rather difficult task to come up with (create) an “official” history that all guides must follow.  Part of the problem is that historians do not all agree on what the “true” history is of a place.  And I agree with the tour guides that the government cannot be in the business of regulating what someone can say in public, even if it isn’t true.  And if the guides are not required to actually use the information they learn from the test, why bother (why go to the trouble of) giving them a test at all?

But what about the poor tourist, who will get possibly false information?  I think that most tourists know enough not to believe everything they hear from a private tour guide.  I have been on many tours and I always keep in mind (try to remember) that at least some of the things they tell me are probably not true.  I myself was in Philadelphia back in 1976 for the bicentennial (200th anniversary) of the Declaration of Independence (I was a boy of 13 at the time), and while I remember visiting the famous historical sites, I also remember reading my own tour books to get the details on the places I was visiting.  Most Americans study about the Revolutionary War, so (I hope) they at least will know what is true and what is not.  For international tourists, it may be a good idea wherever you travel to read a little on your own rather than relying on your tour guide.

Here’s an interesting idea: Take a tour of your own city and see what the tour guides tell visitors about where you live.  You may be surprised by some of the things they tell you!

~Jeff

Today I want to look back (think or talk about something from my past, my personal history).   Back in the mid-1970s, at the age of 11 or 12, I worked as a paperboy for the evening newspaper in St. Paul, the St. Paul Dispatch.   A paperboy (or papergirl, although they were mostly young boys) is a child who sells newspapers on the street or (more commonly in the U.S.) delivers the newspaper to people’s houses.  It was very common for newspapers back in my youth (younger days) to have paperboys all throughout the city delivering newspapers.  The newspapers would be dropped off (left, transported to) on a street corner early in the morning (5:00 AM) and during the mid-afternoon (4:00 PM), and the paperboy had to walk to the corner, pick up his 40 or 50 newspapers, put them in a small bag, and walk from house to house delivering the newspapers.

Before we delivered them, we usually folded them so we could easily toss (throw) them at the houses as we walked by or rode by on a bicycle.  Nearly every house subscribed to a daily newspaper in my neighborhood, so there was always lots of work.  I had lots of friends who also had these paper routes (paper delivery jobs) when they were in elementary school in order to earn a little extra money for candy and soda and whatever kids spend money on. Being a paperboy was part of growing up for many young boys during the mid-20th century in large American cities.  (Newspapers in the 1990s began moving away from having young children work as paperboys, and now most newspapers are delivered by car.)

In the Twin Cities where I grew up (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota), each city had two daily newspapers – one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Before the age of cable and satellite television, and long before the Internet, the only way you could get your news was watching one of the three local television stations or reading a newspaper.  My parents received the daily paper, and I would always begin my day reading the paper as I ate breakfast (cold cereal, usually).  I remember watching my father read the paper every morning and every evening.  Like most children growing up, I wanted to act like the adults in my world, so I, too, read the newspaper every day.  In fact, when I got my paper route, I spent part of the money I earned (made) on a subscription to the Minneapolis Star.

Then, sometime in the 1980s, when cable television became more and more popular, people started reading the newspapers less, so many morning and evening papers combined into one, single morning paper.  The St. Paul Dispatch became the St. Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch; the Minneapolis Star became the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and so forth.   All across America, newspapers were closing or combining.

Then came the Internet.  Now, everyone could get almost all the news they wanted online – for free!  So the number of subscribers to the newspapers began to decline even more.  Combined with the current economic recession, many newspapers simply cannot survive.  Several newspapers have closed in the past few months, some of them 150 or more years old.  Some are moving to the Internet, such as this Seattle paper.

Many people welcome this change.  They like getting their news whenever they want and the freedom to read any newspaper in the world that is online.  But of course, newspapers need money to pay reporters who report the news.  With few subscribers and Internet advertising that does not pay them enough, some newspapers – many newspapers? – will simply disappear in the next few years because they don’t have the money to continue.  This is especially true of smaller, local papers.

Although I do read news stories online, I still prefer to read an actual, physical paper.   Every morning, just as I did when I was 11 years old, I get up and collect (pick up) my morning newspapers from my front steps, and sit down with a bowl of cold cereal to read the newspapers.  I love the physical paper in my hands, and I will miss it when it’s gone.

~Jeff