Many Halls From One
Henry Mitchell MacCracken had not been wrong. Like our predecessors of old we too needed a national memorial. Once the name of the Hall caught the imagination, the idea of it spread like grass upon the earth or, as some would say, the plague. We now speak not of The Hall of Fame, but of halls of fame.
Lying flat in U.S. libraries is a Big Book of Halls of Fame. Volume one lists about 8,500 people and animals in 171 Halls of Fame, in 31 categories of sports alone. A Committee of the ALA cited it as an outstanding reference book of 1978.
Some years ago the Los Angeles Times listed a few other Halls. Among them there existed, a:
— Hall of Fame of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
— Hall of Fame for Accountants. Maurice Stans, Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon, was admitted.
— Franchise Industry Hall of Fame, whose first inductee was Howard Johnson, of ice cream and motels.
— Newspaper Carriers Hall of Fame, great men who had once been newsboys. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was a member.
— Water Utility Hall of Fame, for those ” . . . who have made significant contribution to Community Water Supply.” (As did Noah Webster when he told us in more than one writing that all waste water should be flushed from city streets by fresh running water as a preventive against pestilence.)
There are said to be Halls of Fame for circus performers, country music, cowboys, senior citizens, tractors, police, thespians, lesbians, trees and grungy sneakers. A Hall of Fame for just about every profession except “the oldest,” which enjoys its fame in open secrecy. Some Halls are not halls at all, but rooms here and there, or a plaque in a gymnasium. Until its closing in 1936, the first Vanity Fair magazine had its own Hall of Fame. New Members were introduced annually. Regulars were domiciled in back issues. Wall Street Week Hall of Fame is open to all in transcript.
The publisher of the “Big Book” had announced in the Introduction to Volume I that Volumes II and III on other Halls of Fame were anticipated. They have not appeared, possibly because collection of lower-case halls of fame is an endless task. Some day, said Andy Warhol, everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes.
Yes, the singular identity of the Hall of Fame is gone; and in recent years it has been nothing so much as an old stone object, largely ignored, sitting almost in isolation on the edge of a campus alive with youth. After a walkthrough on a cold dreary day, it is tempting to agree with the unkind: “Fame is a bust.”