To Kate Smith Singing God Bless America?*
three parts, not necessarily in the order of importance.
1 -- As a child, the future webmaster of the Correction History site, grew up listening to Kate Smith on the radio during the WWII era. Yes, the family after dinner would gather around the Philco Tube Radio, a member of the wood console cabinet floor model
species that dominated the living room in our house and countless other homes all across the country. Chairs and the sofa were so situated that family members could face and make comments to each other during broadcasts since the radio projected no images on a screen monopolizing attention. The future webmaster usually played with his toys on the floor while listening and waiting for the show’s regular comedy team, Abbott & Costello, to do one of its funny skits like “Who’s on First?”
2 -- The link to a YouTube film clip depicting Kate debuting God Bless America came to CorrectionHistory.Org from its long-time friend and supporter Bill Twomey, historian, author of several books and Bronx Times Reporter columnist. His two-part mini-history of Hart Island appears elsewhere on our web site.
For health reasons, Bill in October 2012 stepped down as president of the East Bronx History Forum which he founded in the early 2000s and which continues its monthly lecture series in the Huntington Free Library and Reading Room at 9 Westchester Square, the Bronx, except during the summer months of July and August.
Originally the composer had written it for a WWI Army musical Yip Yip Yaphank he put together to raise funds to build a library for fellow soldiers at Camp Upton in Yaphank, Long Island. But eventually he dropped the patriotic hymn from the show.
It stayed shelved for two decades until Kate asked him for a special song to lift the spirit of Americans as they watched war clouds gathering over Europe. She introduced God Bless America on her radio show heard by millions of Americans. It became so popular that many wanted it to replace the more-difficult-to-sing Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem. All proceeds from the Yip Yip Yaphank-rejected song go to the Boy and Girls Scouts of America.
Eventually in the post-WWII era, the Atomic Energy Commission took over the Camp Upton site on which emerged Brookhaven National Laboratory. During the same period, Suffolk County placed many of its government facilities at nearby locations in Yaphank.
3 -- One of those facilities was (and still is) the Yaphank Correctional Facility. It was originally built in 1959 with an inmate capacity for 500-plus. Later housing additions (1982, 1986, and 1987) increased that capacity. In May 2013, the first of a projected 440 inmates were transferred to the newest expansion of the Yaphank jail which, since it cost about $185 million, has been dubbed the “Taj Mahol” by the county executive.
So, when next you hear the unofficial anthem for the “land that’s free” (except for those incarcerated), think of its connection to Yip Yip Yaphank, the town where Correction History is being made at one of the newest correctional buildings in New York State.
Below are some links to the YouTube film clip and even earlier radio versions of the patriotic hymm. Also below are its traditional lyrics in case you want to sing along, if only in your head:
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Arthur Field -
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Diana Shore: |