It amazes me...
It amazes me sometimes the things I can learn from reading old news papers, especially those from back in the civil war era of the United States. I was reading last night a news paper from March 7, 1861 that was published in Washington, DC. This was about a five weeks before the American civil war broke out and it was chock full of good information.
I know that here in Texas the history books play down the importance of slavery with relation to the civil war because my son went through the public education system recently and I looked at his books. Having read several news papers from back during that time I can say with great confidence it was the major dispute of the time back then.
King Cotton ...
King Cotton (aka: plantation owners) were heavily invested in slaves both from a capital standpoint and a labor standpoint to keep their plantations operating. The north was trying to unravel the Southern States over the cost of cotton being sold to the northern states garment industry. The biggest problem for the north was that King Cotton had a whole slew of customers in Europe that were more than glad to pay the price for bales of cotton.
That isn't what...
That isn’t what I want to discuss however; I really want to talk about Corvettes. I was born a couple years after the first Corvette was produced by Chevrolet so I’ve grown up around those cars and have watched the popularity of them grow in the last 60 years.
I’ve always wanted to own one but have never been in the position to do so. I have lots of friends that have them and even my younger sister has a ’62 Vette parked in their “barn”. Her and her husband have quite a nice collection of old cars & pick up trucks, the Vette being the nicest of them.
Old Corvettes are hard to come by in really good condition and it is real common that if you find one you’ll pay six figures for it without batting an eye lid. I thought I had a picture of one to put in this post belonged to a friend of mine and he paid over $100K for it and then totally restored it.
It was in decent shape when he got it but it was factory authentic when he finished and he ended up selling it for $240K when it was said and done, plus he got a ’66 Corvette in 'on trade' in the deal. I searched all my photo files but I'll be damned if I can find them, must still be on an old phone somewhere.
One thing I...
One thing I didn’t know about the Corvette was where it got its name from. I wouldn't even be writing about Corvettes today if it wasn’t that I read about one being ordered in the March 7, 1861 edition of the news paper I read last night.
“The United States corvette, Germantown, which returned from the East Indies last year will be ready for sea by the end of April” is what I read. Up until reading that, I had no guzbucking idea that the Chevrolet Corvette was named after a frigging type of ship or boat.
I had always figured that some marketing genius back in the ‘50’s dreamed up that name, “Corvette”, sort of like the way the word “guzbuck” came about. So naturally I had to look up the true meaning of corvette and when it came into existence.
Luckily for me (and you) I knew where to look, www.etymonline.com , that is where to go when you need to know the source of words. Here is what I found;
corvette (n.)
1630s, also corvet, "wooden ship of war, flush-decked, frigate-rigged, and having only one tier of guns," from French corvette "small, fast frigate" (15c.), perhaps from Middle Dutch korver "pursuit ship," or Middle Low German korf meaning both a kind of boat and a basket, or from Latin corbita (navis) "slow-sailing ship of burden, grain ship" from corbis "basket" (OED, but Gamillscheg is against this).
In late 19c. a class of cruiser-like ships in the British navy; in World War II a fast naval escort vessel used in convoy duty. The U.S. sports car was so named September 1952, after the type of warship, on a suggestion by Myron Scott, employee of Campbell-Ewald, Chevrolet's advertising agency. Italian corvetta, Spanish corbeta are French loan-words.
The word came into existence in the 1630’s like you read right there. Myron Scott with the advertising agency Chevrolet used back in the ‘50’s may not have been a genius in creating the word “corvette” but he made an excellent choice in my opinion.
The Corvette of Chevy’s making is definitely “small” and “fast” and has always stayed that way. Not having any background in ships I had no idea that the Corvette was named after a type of ship, did you?
I like when I learn something new each day, even if it isn’t something important. Now that I’ve got to share that with you I need to call my sister and share it with her. I guarantee you that neither her or husband know where that name came from but will shortly.
Until next time,
Sult
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Photo credits: Sult N Papper
I just want to sing “Push it” when I saw your name... carry on
Fair enough, thanks for stopping by and dropping a note (pun intended).
No worries I’ll happen again.
Matter of fact I did know that. Corvettes were widely used up through WWII in allied fleets though we called them Destroyer Escorts (DE). Modern day Coast Guard cutters are sometimes called Corvettes though the armament seems a little light for that designation.
I love that Chevy stayed true to their vision over all the years. Ford made some missteps with the Mustang (I owned two 'Fox Body' mustangs) but Corvette has always been new and exciting. Even today with the mid engine. I really need to go put hands on one of those...
Revisionist history. That the war was fought over states rights. It's sorta like celebrating the Confederate leaders instead of charging them with sedition. Or like saying that the casualties wouldn't have been all that heavy had we not dropped the bomb on Japan and invaded instead. One million was the DOD estimate. One million dead American soldiers. Probably 10x that Japanese casualties...
I was pretty certain in my mind knowing that you had the Navy background that you would know about the name Corvette. My father in law knew it when I mentioned it to him. he was in the Korean war serving in the Navy.
In talking to my sister she confirmed I was right about her and her husband, neither knew anything about the name and history of the name.
There is definitely a lot of revisionist history so it is always best when you can to go back and read what the media at the time had to say about it when it was actually happening. With that said, it might not serve the people 200 years from now knowing that media is all government controlled now through a handful of companies owning all the major media outlets.
Thanks for the great comment and ongoing support.
Sult
Ha. I have a good friend that joined the Marines due to Navy duty on a Corvette. When he got out of boot camp just after Korea he was assigned to a DE on picket duty in the Gulf of Alaska. After 6 months of that he took his first time on land to find a Marine recruiter and changed horses. He said he was so sick and battered by the North Pacific storms that getting shot at occasionally seemed a good trade!
Very interesting. In our textbooks in Columbus, OH public school system we were always taught the root cause of the civil war was ideological/humanitarian differences (slavery) between the North and the South but it sounds as if that was only part of the story. Money was the real reason, as it is in every war.
I'm a huge fan of the Corvette too and had no idea about the origins of the name. I remember when I was a boy it was a treat to see one around town. You would see lots of American muscle cars in the 70's but seeing a Corvette was a rarity. They always seemed to be in a class by themselves. The new mid-engine one is an incredible feat of engineering. I hear they're working on a hybrid version that will take advantage of the instant torque of electric motors for launching. Maybe it'll be a worthy contender for that new Tesla roadster with the cold gas thrusters, Tesla could use some competition right about now, it'll keep them honest and innovating.
I graduated hs in '74 and the history books back then also put slavery as the main cause but there was more to it. The history books have been rewritten since then and my oldest boy is just three years out of hs and his books barely mentioned slavery in them.
That news paper I was reading was four pages. Two of the four pages were nearly full with the slavery controversy and the state conventions going on at the time concerning the slavery debate & the impending civil war.
I haven't seen this new mid engine Corvette yet so I'll hold back on commenting on it.
I just hate that there could be an electric Vette in the future though, I love sound of good high performance gasoline engine with a big camshaft in them.
It's funny (more like frightening) how those text books keep changing to suit those in power. Do you have a good resource for looking at the old newspapers online? That stuff is fascinating to me. The attic of the first house I owned was insulated with newspapers from late 1930's/early 1940's and I would read them for hours. I do remember seeing less biased reporting and/or equal time for both sides of an argument. It was nothing like the way the media spins stories today. I remember seeing an article about how Hitler's troops were invading Poland at the time. You could tell from the tone of the article that this was well before the world learned what a monster he was, even though some of the atrocities were already beginning. The ads were also interesting. They made you realize how different the cost of living was back then. The salaries were considerably less by today's standards but the buying power those salaries provided was far better and people still knew what delayed gratification was.
Oh, have to check out the C8 Vette when you have a chance. There are lots of in depth YouTube videos about it. They managed to pack almost super car level performance into a car that costs 1/5th of a lot of the foreign competition, it's an amazing example of American ingenuity. I don't know if Chevy will ever make it a full EV but I think it's possible they'll release it with a hybrid drivetrain. Most of the foreign exotics are going that route, even Ferrari is toying with it I think.
I use the Library of Congress site for most of my old newspaper reading. Here is the link to the news paper mentioned in this post so you can see how it gives it to you. Also there is a search box at the top of the page and you can just type in a date or date range and it will give you list of what they have within the dates to click on look at it. It might not always be newspapers, it can be books, or declassified documents that are old.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82014760/1861-03-07/ed-1/?sp=2&r=0.175,0.309,0.95,0.472,0
Thank you so much for the link. This will be a fun rabbit hole to explore!
Wow! This was pretty interesting @sultnpapper! I would have never guessed that the word "corvette" came from a boat. Thank you also for the link to find the source of words. I've now bookmarked it should I need to look up a word. I can see where it would come in handy ("conveniently accessible") which I just looked up..lol. 😉
ps..did your sister or her husband know the origin? 🤔
Neither of them knew it, they had no clue (just like me).