Bannerman: Merchant of Death

[O' Be Joyful]

Frank Bannerman saw himself as a sincere Christian. Critics branded him a secondhand merchant of death. Whatever else, he was a paragon of nineteenth-century capitalism.

The Great Gun Merchant

www.americanheritage.com

 

[5fish]

He made history but his legacy faded away... I think may have been fooling himself about doing God's work by collecting weapons for the they would be turned into plows...

Shortly before he died, Frank Bannerman had rewritten the preface to his catalogue, again expressing his ultimate faith in peace: “We believe the millenium will come. For years we have been preparing for it collecting the weapons now known as Bannerman’s Military Museum.” His great hope, he said, was the day when this pavilion of destruction could be renamed the “Museum of Lost Arts.”

 

[O' Be Joyful]

The Merchant of Death — City of Smoke

Twenty-five years ago, I was traveling by train up the Hudson's east shore. About an hour out of Manhattan, I glanced up from my book. We were about four miles

www.cityofsmoke.com