By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger. 2015 Re-post
Around 1912 Teddy Roosevelt was a hero in Ocean Grove. He had visited the Grove in 1899 and 1905. “He epitomized the ideal of muscular Christianity….someone who became a skilled leader and protector of the nation.” * As President he spoke in the Great Auditorium, and he appeared on parade with his Rough Riders on the Ocean Pathway.
There was a major youth movement in the Grove back then including a militaristic version for boys called the Young Rough Riders. Boys in the Grove received militaristic training from the age of eight.
Regarding the photograph above, Troy Messenger *said, “A boy innocently playing soldier on the beach actually represented an important performance of gender identity within the perfectionism of Ocean Grove.”
Many of those boys went on to serve in the US Army during WW I.
* From Troy Messenger’s book “Holy Leisure: Recreation and Religion in God’s Square Mile.” University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
JOSLIN GROVE CHORAL SOCIETY:
Roosevelt spoke twice in the Auditorium, one from the porch of the DeHaven family on Ocean Pathway after he dined with the family, then spoke to the public from his carriage on Ocean Avenue at the end of Ocean Pathway, and finally on Main Avenue from his carriage.
There is a small picture of Roosevelt in his carriage on Main Avenue in the OGHS.
Reblogged this on Blogfinger and commented:
Boys with toy guns are no longer politically correct on our beach. Click on the word Blogfinger below this sentence.