Dago dazzler

Last updated

A dago dazzler is an elaborately decorated document used to identify its bearer, usually an academic, as someone with an official association with an institution, usually a university or college, with the purpose of impressing low-level bureaucrats, usually of a foreign nation, so that they will allow the bearer to gain access to archived material or to perform some other action.

Contents

The document is given more than the usual amount of decoration—often with colored ribbons and shiny seals—solely for the purpose of impressing bureaucrats. The term, used by academics and sometimes by government officials, is meant to disparage the bureaucrats, who are usually located in another country. The first word (dago) is an ethnic slur for Italians (and sometimes Spaniards and Latin Americans), but dago dazzlers have been used in other countries, including China.

Dago dazzlers were created as early as the late 19th century in the United States, but examples have been referred to in recent decades. Published references nowadays are often accompanied by a statement by the writer that the word "dago" in the term is an ethnic slur.

History

19th to early 20th century

In 1898, when United States Department of Agriculture scientist David Fairchild left the United States for a plant-collecting expedition in Europe and Asia, he was equipped with letters of introduction and enormous certificates of identification. "The papers," Fairchild recalled, "were wonderful creations, hand-printed on parchment, bedecked with ribbons, and emblazoned with the gold seal of the Department of Agriculture. Nothing the Department of State ever produced could compare with them, and they soon became affectionately known as 'Dago Dazzlers.'" [1]

A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, in 1920 gave a minor university official, Reginald Coggeshall, a dago dazzler "with a great gold seal of the University", according to the recipient. [2]

In August 1929, an associate of Lincoln Kirstein had "what she called her 'Dago Dazzler'. Bearing the gold stamp of Harvard, this official looking piece of paper identified its bearer as a worthy and accredited scholar of art history who should be permitted to see any and all artworks, whether they were sequestered in private houses, or locked in minor chapels." In that situation, the bearer presented her document to a doorman at a private villa in Venice, and the villa's owner soon let her and her two companions inside to inspect frescos. [3]

In 1940, Thomas Barbour, an official at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, sent biologist Archie Carr, then planning an expedition to Mexico, a dago dazzler, in this case a letter on Harvard stationery that he hoped would facilitate Carr's collecting activities in Mexico. He wrote facetiously: "I send you herewith a dago dazzler which may help." "Dazzlers" are any official looking document on impressive stationery, [...] In effect, a dazzler legitimizes a scholar's efforts by association. The term is still in use today.

The dazzler was meant to help with "bureaucrats or border guards who could impede the collection and export of scientific specimens". [4]

In 1937, Lawrence Griswold described dago dazzlers in Tombs, Travel and Trouble, his book of anecdotes about his travels in Latin America and Southeast Asia: [5]

"When posed with an obdurate official whose ignorance is his best armor, the Dago Dazzler is called into play. With great dignity, the tube is brought forth and opened in the presence of the official. The Dazzler is then withdrawn carefully and unrolled slowly with impressive reverence. When the officer, who has been watching all this with increasing apprehension, finally sees the iridescent and beribboned prodigy, awe overcomes him. Sometimes he faints."

In his book Panamexico,also published in 1937, Carveth Wells mentioned that the Geographic Society of Chicago issued him a dago dazzler. [6]

Mid to late 20th century

Fernando Belaúnde Terry, president of Peru from 1963 to 1968 and again from 1980 to 1985, at some point gave Everett Ellin, an art expert, a dago dazzler to help Ellin with bureaucrats in that country. Ellin later described the document this way: [7]

[H]e gave me a proclamation with his seal and a red sash on it that said that the president endorsed this, and that it'd been taken up with the legislature and had the full blessings of the country; and it was good for the nation; and anybody who sees this, I ask to be very cooperative with these people. And we took this document with us whenever we called on people, and we would bring it out. [Laughs.]
Belaúnde himself "called it a 'dago dazzler' [...] which I thought was a very vulgar—because I couldn't think of calling a Latino a dago, but—but he called it a 'dago dazzler.' And, boy, it opened every door. [Laughs.] And that's how we got everywhere. If we ever needed anything—if we needed a helicopter to go to some remote village, the army sent a helicopter, and we were taken care of.

Journalists have also been known to use dago dazzlers. The National Geographic magazine's art department created "dazzlers" for use by its roving correspondents, including one which seemed to help get a photographer past customs officials in India in one incident in the early 1970s, when a clerk: [8]

studies Steve's passport and Geographic ID card. he studies another document Steve has slipped before him — a letter addressed 'To Whom It Might Concern', explaining in ornate calligraphy the benevolent purposes of our mission, embossed with the seal of the National Geographic Society, and adorned with a blob of sealing wax holding a blue-and-white ribbon. This masterwork of pomposity, contrived by the magazine's art staff and designed to overwhelm the most paranoid official, is known in-house as a 'dazzler'. it is the ultimate weapon in the stalled staffer's arsenal.

An anonymous writer for The Weekly Standard in 2004 recalled use of a dago dazzler at some point in the past when the writer was a student. In this case, the document was part of correspondence between university officials, not taken with the individual on a trip abroad. The writer [9]

was enrolled in the junior-year-abroad program of a school that shall remain nameless. But before our year-long scholarly pub-crawl across Europe could begin, a bureaucratic correspondence had to be carried on between the American university and its European counterpart. We noticed that, instead of using our university's usual, tasteful red-on-buff official stationery, these letters went out sporting a gaudy, saw-toothed gold seal, with red and blue ribbons affixed. One day a secretary, pointing to the decoration, whispered to us, "We call this the dago dazzler."

The document, according to the writer, was "calculated to impress the rubes". [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

Seal (emblem) Device for making an impression in wax or other medium

A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, a wrapper for one such as a modern envelope, or the cover of a container or package holding valuables or other objects.

Tony Conrad

Anthony Schmalz "Tony" Conrad was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both drone music and structural film. As a musician, he was an important figure in the New York minimalist scene of the early 1960s, during which time he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He became recognized as a filmmaker for his 1966 film The Flicker. He performed and collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career.

Postal stationery Stationery item with imprinted stamp

A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid. It does not, however, include any postcard without a pre-printed stamp.

Loaded language is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations associated with them in order to invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes. Loaded words and phrases have significant emotional implications and involve strongly positive or negative reactions beyond their literal meaning.

Stephen Vincent Benét Poet, short story writer, novelist

Stephen Vincent Benét was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, The Library of America selected his story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub.

Great Seal of the Irish Free State

The Great Seal of the Irish Free State is either of two seals affixed to certain classes of official documents of the Irish Free State :

Fernando Belaúnde President of Peru

Fernando Belaúnde Terry was a Peruvian politician who twice served as President of Peru. Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after twelve years of military rule.

Rufus Wilmot Griswold American editor, literary critic, anthologist, and writer

Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842 collection The Poets and Poetry of America. This anthology, the most comprehensive of its time, included what he deemed the best examples of American poetry. He produced revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life, although many of the poets he promoted have since faded into obscurity. Many writers hoped to have their work included in one of these editions, although they commented harshly on Griswold's abrasive character. Griswold was married three times: his first wife died young, his second marriage ended in a public and controversial divorce, and his third wife left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed.

Seal of the President of Ireland

The presidential seal is a seal used by the President of Ireland to authenticate his signature on official documents. The Constitution of Ireland requires certain documents to be issued under the president's "hand and seal", and in other cases the seal is mandated by act of the Oireachtas. It is a single-sided "dry seal" impressed directly onto the fabric of the document, leaving a relief of its design without sealing wax or ink.

Adoption of the Constitution of Ireland

The current Constitution of Ireland came into effect on 29 December 1937, repealing and replacing the Constitution of the Irish Free State, having been approved in a national plebiscite on 1 July 1937 with the support of 56.5% of voters in the then Irish Free State. The Constitution was closely associated with Éamon de Valera, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State at the time of its approval.

Alexander Hill Everett

Alexander Hill Everett was an American diplomatist, politician, and Boston man of letters. Everett held diplomatic posts in the Netherlands, Spain, Cuba, and China. His translations of European literature, published in the North American Review, were influential for the Transcendentalism movement.

Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writing.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich American author

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, better known under his pseudonym Peter Parley, was an American author.

Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

Mariana Alley Griswold Van Rensselaer, usually known as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer or M. G. Van Rensselaer, was an American author focusing on architectural criticism.

Emblem of Thailand National Emblem of Thailand

The national emblem of Thailand is called the Phra Khrut Pha. The Garuda was officially adopted as the national emblem by Vajiravudh in 1911. However, the mythical creature had been used as a symbol of royalty in Thailand for centuries. The Garuda is depicted on seals, which are used by the King and the Government of Thailand to authenticate official documents and as its primary emblem.

Everett Warner American painter

Everett Longley Warner was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker, as well as a leading contributor to US Navy camouflage during both World Wars.

Erwin Griswold

Erwin Nathaniel Griswold was an appellate attorney who argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Griswold served as Solicitor General of the United States (1967–1973) under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. He also served as Dean of Harvard Law School for 21 years. Several times he was considered for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. During a career that spanned more than six decades, he served as member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and as President of the American Bar Foundation.

Eliza Griswold

Eliza Griswold is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and poet. Griswold is currently a contributing writer to The New Yorker and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. She is the author of “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” a 2018 New York Times Notable Book and a Times Critics’ Pick, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Ridenhour Book Prize in 2019. Griswold was a fellow at the New America Foundation from 2008 to 2010 and won a 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a former Nieman Fellow, a current Berggruen Fellow at Harvard Divinity School, and has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine.

Everett Bernard Ellin (1928–2011) was an American museum official, art dealer, engineer, lawyer, and talent agent. As the first Executive Director of the Museum Computer Network, he played a key role in museums' adoption of computer technology to catalog their holdings.

Carveth Wells British adventurer and writer (1887-1957)

Grant Carveth Wells was a British adventurer, travel writer, and television personality in the mid-twentieth century.

References

  1. ↑ Stross, Randall E. (1986). The Stubborn Earth: American Agriculturalists on Chinese Soil, 1898-1937. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 21–22.
  2. ↑ Blanchard, Wells, ed. (1922). Harvard College Class of 1916: Secretary's Third Report (published June 1922). p. 74.
  3. ↑ Weber, Nicholas Fox (1995). Patron Saints: Five Rebels who Opened America to a New Art, 1928-1943. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 74. ISBN   9780300064483 . Retrieved 2010-09-06.
  4. ↑ Davis, Frederick (2007-07-02). The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation Biology. Oxford University Press. pp. 39–40. ISBN   9780198042471.
  5. ↑ Griswold, Lawrence (1937). Tombs, Travel and Trouble. Hillman-Curl, Inc. p. 119.
  6. ↑ Wells, Carveth (1937). Panamexico. R. M. McBride. p. 25. ISBN   9781258410193.
  7. ↑ Ellin, Everett (2004-04-27). "Oral history interview with Everett Ellin, 2004 April 27-28" (transcript of audio recording). Interviewed by Liza Kirwin. Washington, D.C.: Archives of American Art. Archived from the original on 2011-11-03. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  8. ↑ Canby, Thomas Y. (1998). From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years with National Geographic. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. p.  87. ISBN   1559635177. OCLC   191951246.
  9. 1 2 "Iraqi documents, direct-mail excesses, more". The Weekly Standard . 2006-03-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.