Meeting Minutes
Torch Club of the Fox Valley
13 September 2018
Atlas Coffee Mill & Café
Notes taken by: Mary Flanagan
Attendees: Sue Bennett, Brian Bushaw, Dave Debbink, Marcia Debbink, Mary Flanagan, Jean Hedges, Walt Hedges, Barbara Kelly, Bill Kelly, Cam Maurice, Mary Poulson, Richard Schoenbohm, Katie Shaw, Jan Smith, Kris Stahl, Bob Swain, Peter Thiel, Scott Valitchka, Donna Weis
Guests: Eric Hanson, Kathryn Gahl, Terri Daugherty
BUSINESS MEETING
Meeting called to order at 6:37 pm.
- Guest introductions: Jan introduced Kathryn Gahl. Peter introduced Eric Hanson. Barb introduced Terri Dougherty to her second meeting. All were welcomed to the evening.
- Meeting minutes from 5/10/18 were accepted, motioned, seconded, and approved.
- Treasurer’s report: The 9/6/18 balance was $2,436.77. Expenses included hosting three guests for dinner at May’s meeting, IATC dues payments of $35 each for Kris Stahl and Brian Bushaw, $100 summer party reimbursement to the Kellys, and $19.99 domain name registration payment. Receipts included $45 from Kris Stahl for ½ year dues and first time membership fee. The report was accepted, motioned, seconded, and approved.
- Unfinished business:
- Donna told us she was invited to join the International Torch Club foundation. In June Donna attended the Torch convention in San Antonio, where she met members from other areas and enjoyed interesting presentations and tours. Next year’s convention will be in Durham, NC. Barb noted that the club had not yet received the delegate reimbursement fee. Donna will look into that.
- Walt thanked Barb and Bill for once again hosting a wonderful summer party for the club.
- Mary Flanagan will be filling in as secretary for the rest of Sophia’s term.
- New Business:
- Barb asked that dues be paid by the November meeting: $70 for the first member of a household, $45 for the second members from the same household, and a one-time $10 fee for new members.
- Barb told new members and reminded others that they can send her a bio and photo to be posted on our website: http://torchfoxvalley.org. The website also has meeting dates, speaker’s topics, and meeting minutes. Barb updated links and other information on the site that afternoon.
- Announcements:
- Mary Paulson announced that Jeff Clark, Professor of Geology at Lawrence University, will be giving a Noon Hour Philosophers presentation on October 3 at noon at the First English Lutheran Church in Appleton. The presentation is titled, “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” Peter highly recommended the Noon Hour Philosopher presentations that Mary organizes and said, “You are missing something if you haven’t gone to these interesting and free presentations.”
Business segment adjourned for dinner at 6:56 pm.
Presentation by Walt Hedges: Busker Organ
This is a self-constructed street organ or busker organ. Very few have been recently been constructed in the U.S. Today street organ are a hobby mostly taken up by older people. Few young people are interested because there are better ways to produce portable music today, smart phones. These organs are truly an anachronism like many other hobbies, weaving, pottery, knitting, watching sports, but personally fulfilling.
Striking parallel exists in today’ society to the Nativist Movement of the 1890’s which persecuted the Irish and Italian immigrants. The Italian organ grinder were the lightning rods for the movement.
The first barrel organ was built in 1550 in a Dutch church. It was very large and run by a water wheel. In the early 1700’s the French used very small organs to teach canaries to sing. By the late 1700’s the barrel organs were used on the streets for popular tunes and became a fixture with the common people. Grinders spread the news as well as music as they traveled from place to place making them very unpopular with the establishment who were trying to control information. (Fake news?)
Although the same trends were seen around the world in most major cities New York City became the epitome of immigration, the Nativist movement, and busker organ history.
Busker organs played from one to eight tunes only and could not be easily changed. Repetition was the game so they had to move frequently. Many times they were not well tuned so they could quickly become irritating.
The phonograph was invented August 12, 1877 and wasn’t commonly available until after 1900. So the only cheap available recorded music for the lower classes were the street organs which became the popular music venues of the day.
Immigration of the Italians expanded greatly from 1861 to 1920. The street organ became an easy source of income for recent arrivals. In the Little Italy section of N.Y.C. The 1870 census shows of 50 men in one block 39 were organ grinders.
To complete the picture subsistent level immigrants on every other street corner playing the same top 8 hit tunes over and over became the lightning rods for the Nativist’s racist ire.
After many attempts busker organs were banned from 1935 until 1975 on N.Y.C. Streets. This resulted in the destruction of the organs and the only recorded music of the day.