July 20, 2007

Halls of Fame

A Google search for "Hall of Fame" brings up more than 63 million hits, with links to sites celebrating juggling and inventing and ukulele-playing. If there's an activity, no matter how obscure, in which humans are engaged, there is a hall of fame somewhere.

The halls range from grandiose marble buildings to cheesy web sites.

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College claims to the first such hall in the U.S. Founded in 1900, it consists of a very grand semi-circular colonnade with niches housing bronze busts of the honorees. Ninety-eight of the 102 niches are filled. Eight-eight of them are men. The women include such perennial favorites as Jane Addams, the celebrated social worker and pacifist who was finally elected 68 years after the Hall opened and 37 years after she received the Nobel Peace Prize. This hall is a tough fraternity to join.

One list that is not quite so exclusive is the Poison Ivy Hall of Fame (http://www.poison-ivy.org), To be inducted into this society, you don't have to win a Nobel Prize, invent anything, or benefit mankind in any way. Just go roll in some poison ivy and send in a photo of the resulting rash-the grosser, the better.

Some halls are very restrictive and draw from a narrow field. There is a Hall of Fame for Scottish Preachers, which contained not one familiar name. I thought I'd do better at recognizing members of the TV Dads Hall of Fame, but aside from Papa Smurf and Pa Cartwright, I bombed out there also. I had worse luck at the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame site, where all the members seemed to be named "Lefty" or "Shorty."

Minnesota Amateur Baseball is only one of thousands of sports organizations to establish Halls of Fame. In an industry that is all about keeping score, a Hall of Fame honoring the best of the best makes sense. Some are so famous that their location has become synonymous with the Hall of Fame. Cooperstown means baseball. Canton, Ohio, is all about football. But what about Commack, New York? It happens to be the home of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, with members like swimmer Mark Spitz and basketball coach Red Auerbach and dozens more sports figures who just happen to be Jewish.

Limiting Hall of Fame eligibility of nominees by where they live, where they went to school, or what religion they practice is a way groups have of honoring their own, I suppose. In some cases, a person with modest achievements would languish in obscurity except for the fact that he graduated from the University of Rochester or lived in Southeastern Missouri. In all cases, it provides inspiration to other members of that select group. I get it.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for the Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, which is celebrating its 28th anniversary tomorrow. The National Women's Hall of Fame honors American women whose contributions "have been of the greatest value in the development of their country." The honorees are a who's who of Literature, Humanitarianism, Politics, and Education.

I'm sad to think that girls need a Women's Hall of Fame to find role models, as if their numbers are as limited as, say, One-Armed Ukrainian Ballerinas. Young boys don't need a Men's Hall of Fame to inspire them. Do girls still need to be reminded that they can be great Americans despite the fact that they're female?