History Is Elementary

A Christian Nation? Be Careful What You Preach

2012-01-24T14:13:00.000-05:00

A good friend sent me this article theother night written by Rob Boston and published in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Myfriend wanted to know my thoughts about the article. He also wanted to know if the article wasfactual.

After reading the entire piece I advised my friend thearticle was indeed factual even though it was contrary to those who happen tothink certain members of the Founding Fathers were Christians in the same sensethe Religious Right profess to be.

For the mostpart while I tend to be a Conservative in political matters, I also tend topart ways with the Religious Right in this county who follow a hard-line stanceregarding their view concerning our nation was founded on Christian beliefs.

It reallycomes down to understanding what the Religious Right believes a Christian to beand how the majority of our Founding Fathers actually viewed Christianity whenyou place them under a microscope.

I advised myfriend, “We have to remember these were all educated men duringtheir time and as such their classical education included views of the Age of Enlightenment….science and fact took the lead. While they believed in God their views regarding Christianity don’texactly match up with the Christian Right today.

Bostonbrings up the issue of Deism when discussing George Washington. Deistsbelieved in God but didn't necessarily see him as active in human affairs. Heset things in motion and then stepped back.

Washington saw religion as necessary for goodmoral behavior but didn't accept all Christian dogma. He seemed to have aspecial gripe against communion and would usually leave services before it wasoffered.

Stories of Washington's deep religiosity, suchas tales of him praying in the snow at Valley Forge, are pious legends inventedafter his death.

Ihave to agree with Boston. Back in2007, I wrote about Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge hereand here. I’ve also examined the controversy aboutWashington’s inauguration and the fact that there really isn’t any true documentationregarding those little words, “So help me God!” here.

Bostondidn’t just pick on historical myths regarding Georgia Washington. He discussed John Adams, Thomas Jefferson,James Madison and Thomas Paine as well.

Boston states John Adams was Unitarian, although hewas raised a Congregationalist and never officially left that church. Adamsrejected belief in the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, core concepts ofChristian dogma. In his personal writings, Adams makes it clear that heconsidered some Christian dogma to be incomprehensible.

In February 1756, Adams wrote in his diary abouta discussion he had had with a conservative Christian named Major Greene. Thetwo argued over the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. Questioned on the matterof Jesus' divinity, Greene fell back on an old standby: some matters oftheology are too complex and mysterious for we puny humans to understand.

Adams was not impressed. In his diary he wrote,"Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

As president, Adams signed the famous Treaty ofTripoli, which boldly stated, "The government of the United States ofAmerica is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..."

Itis very well known among historians that Thomas Jefferson, our third president, did not believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth,the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, original sin and other core Christiandoctrines. He was hostile to many conservative Christian clerics, whom hebelieved had perverted the teachings of that faith.

Bostongoes on to discuss what is known as The JeffersonBible…..

Although not an orthodox Christian, Jeffersonadmired Jesus as a moral teacher. In one of his most unusual acts, Jeffersonedited the New Testament, cutting away the stories of miracles and divinity andleaving behind a very human Jesus, whose teachings Jefferson found "sublime."This "Jefferson Bible" is a remarkable document -- and it wouldensure his political defeat today. (Imagine the TV commercials the religiousright would run: Thomas Jefferson hates Jesus! He mutilates Bibles!)

WhileI have written about James Madison and his college days atJersey College….we know it today asPrinceton… I have left his religious beliefs alone until now. Boston doesn’t. He advises….Nominally Anglican, Madison, some of his biographers believe, wasreally a Deist. He went through a period of enthusiasm for Christianity as ayoung man, but this seems to have faded. Unlike many of today's politicians,who eagerly wear religion on their sleeves and brag about the ways their faithwill guide their policy decisions, Madison was notoriously reluctant to talkpublicly about his religious beliefs.

Madison was perhaps the strictest church-stateseparationist among the founders; taking stands that make the ACLU look like a bunchof pikers. He opposed government-paid chaplains in Congress and in themilitary. As president, Madison rejected a proposed census because it involvedcounting people by profession. For the government to count the clergy, Madisonsaid, would violate the First Amendment.

Madison, who wrote the Constitution and the Billof Rights, also opposed government prayer proclamations. He issued a few duringthe War of 1812 at the insistence of Congress but later concluded that hisactions had been unconstitutional. He vetoed legislation granting federal landto a church and a plan to have a church in Washington care for the poor througha largely symbolic charter. In both cases, he cited the First Amendment.

Finally,we come to Thomas Paine. The man whonever held office but wrote a little pamphlet we remember as “Common Sense.”

Boston advises he was also a radical Deist whoselater work, "The Age of Reason," still infuriates fundamentalists.

In the tome, Paine attacked institutionalizedreligion and all of the major tenets of Christianity. He rejected propheciesand miracles and called on readers to embrace reason. The Bible, Paineasserted, can in no way be infallible. He called the god of the Old Testament"wicked" and the entire Bible "the pretended word of God."(There go the Red States!)

Bostonstates, “There was a time when Americans voted forcandidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like theTrinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. The question is, could anyof them get elected today? The sad answer is probably not.

Basedon this knowledge, wouldn’t it would be interesting to see the founding of ournation played out in more contemporary times?

I havea feeling it would be as much of a circus as our primary and election seasonshave become today.

The Architect of the Capitol

2012-01-16T21:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, stick with me here. The architect of the U.S. Capitol doesn’t refer to the actual person whodesigned the U.S. Capitol who as it turns out wasn’t an actual architectanyway, but he was the first one to hold the “office”. Also, the title doesn’t refer to a persononly….it refers to a Federal agency, too.

Confused?

Let’s wade into this slowly….

The Architect of the U.S. Capital is an agency within theLegislative Branch responsible for the maintenance, operation, development andpreservation of the U.S. Capitol Complex. This means they are responsible for over 17.4 million square feet ofbuilding space and 450 acres including Congressional office buildings, the U.S.Supreme Court Building and the Library of Congress. The agency oversees any special ceremoniesthat take place within the complex including inaugural events.

The person in charge of the agency is referred to as “the”Architect, and since George Washington’s term in office there have been 11Architects of the Capitol.

Yes, it seems like there should be more, but in the pastthey served long terms and there have been periods when the position was vacant. Washington appointed William Thornton forthe position back in 1793, and yes…..he happens to be the one who won a designcompetition for the U.S. Capitol building meaning he really WAS the architectof the U.S. Capitol, but he wasn’t a trained architect. Thornton received a $500 prize and citylot. Eventually Thornton was appointedby Washington as supervisor or Architect of the Capitol. I’ve written about Thornton before here.

The ninth Architect, George M. White, was the very firstperson to serve in the office who was a trained architect. He was appointed by Richard Nixon and servedfrom 1971-1995. White was also the lastarchitect to serve who did not have to have Senate confirmation.

Most of his time in office was taken up with repairingthe damage that occurred when a bomb exploded in a first floor restroom. There were no injuries but several hundredthousand dollars worth of damages occurred. TheWeatherman took credit for the bomb as part of their ongoing opposition tothe Vietnam War.

Here’s a news report from ABC News at the time:

White is also responsible for the Visitor’s Center andrestoring the Old Supreme Court and Old Senate Chambers.

Until 1989, the Architect position was filled viaPresidential appointment and had an indefinite term.

The newlegislation calls for the position to have a term of ten years. The President must choose a candidate from alist of three names provided by a Congressional Commission. The candidate is then subject to Senate confirmation. After the Architect has served his or herten year term they can be re-appointed.

So…..why was the law changed?

Thisreport published by theCongressional Research Service states, “Theappointment of the Architect has been a subject of periodic consideration forat least 50 years. It is a topic that has received increased attention duringperiods in which there has been a vacancy in the position and periods ofcongressional dissatisfaction with either the work of the incumbent or theinvolvement of the President in what some Members view as an internallegislative branch matter. The 111^th Congress has considered changesto the appointment of the Architect, with one bill (H.R. 2843) reported andpassed in the House. These changes willconform the process of the appointment of the Architect more closely to theappointment procedure followed for other officers of similar stature. TheCommittee believes this will accord proper recognition to the importance of thefunctions of this office and help to promote greater accountability in theirperformance.”

Yep….apparently it would just make things smoother andgive Congress a little more input into the person in charge of the buildingthey work in. It would appear thechecks and balances thing is fluid….always changing.

The current Architect of the U.S. Capitol is Steven T.Ayers, and the official website for the Architect of the U.S. Capitol can befound here.

When Cross Curriculum Intentions Go Wrong

2012-01-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

So....little Johnny or Susie brings home a teacher prepared worksheet filled with several math problems for homework. At some point a parent decides to check the answers or at least review the sheet to see what type of assignment had been given.

Some of the problems are troubling:

1. "Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

2. "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"

Yes, I'm serious. This actually happened recently in a Georgia classroom per thislink.

I hope you have a problem with these questions. I certainly do, and I applaud the parents in this situation for complaining.

Why would teachers include such insensitive questions within a math assignment?

The spokesperson for Gwinnett County Schools advised the teachers were trying to provide students with a cross-curricular activity by incorporating social studies lessons into the math problems.

The school system agreed the questions were inappropriate. The assignments were gathered and shredded so they wouldn't resurface. The spokesperson was quoted as saying, "The problem with the question is there is no historical context."

True...there is NO context.

An article from the AtlantaJournal provides another quote from the system spokesperson..."It was just a poorly written question."

Poorly written? Seriously?

Teaching across the curriculum is a little more involvedthan taking one aspect of a historical event and throwing a question into aworksheet.These questions are more serious in my view than havingno historical context and being poorly written.

They are without question insensitive andindicate the teachers involved have no clue regarding what “teaching across thecurriculum” means.

Instead of focusing on the slavery issue the math questionscould have taken a look at the large numbers of soldiers killed on both sides ofthe war where students could work on determining the differences betweenbattles or averaging the numbers across a few battles similar to this lessonplan. This would open up discussion regarding the cost and benefits of war.

Here'sa lesson plan involving symmetry and the Civil War.

Another idea that would bring in the slavery issue butwould be more sensitive than the worksheet questions I mentioned above involvesfreedom quilts to teach geometry. Agreat book to introduce freedom quilts to students is….SweetClara and the Freedom Quilt (Reading Rainbow Books (Pb))

There are lots of great resources out there to helpteachers get on track with cross curriculum thinking....which is one of the reasons why I’m going to be shaking my head overthis situation for a long time.

War Horse

2011-12-27T23:48:00.001-05:00

Christmas Day I sat in a very full movie theater andexperienced a crowd so moved by what they had watched they cheered and clappedat the end of the movie. It’s such arare occurrence. I think I can count onone hand the times in my life where I’ve witnessed clapping after a movie, butthe particular movie I saw deserved it. Ijust have to wonder how many of those people realized theyenjoyed a story that was originally published as juvenile fiction.

Yes! The movie War Horsewas originally published as a book for young adults in 1982 by MichaelMorpungo.

The movie could be summed up by five words – a boy andhis horse – but it’s so much more than that. While the main storyline involves a very special horse and a young manwho owns him there are other story lines as well involving duty, responsibility,patriotism, etc. Morpungo expertlyweaves a tale about the horse and various people he meets before and during thecourse of World War I.

The horse ends up entering the war when he is sold to anEnglish cavalry officer. From there thehorse ends up pulling ambulance wagons for the Germans, living with a Frenchgirl and her grandfather, and then has the arduous task of pulling Germanartillery before miraculously meeting up with his owner again following theSecond Battle of the Somme in 1918.

Once the horse entered military service I couldn’t helpbut think with every new scene how great it would be to use the movie in theclassroom to enhance a World War I unit. The realism of no man’s land, the mud and muck of trench warfare, thegas, the barbed wire, the stories where men from both sides would meet up attimes under a flag of truce within no man’s land were all part of the real war. There are many facets of War Horse thatwould help students key in on content they have learned in the classroomregarding the Great War.

One aspect of the war I have never taught is the use ofhorses. One million horses died on theBritish side alone. Most folks learn WorldWar I was the first war with modern technology. This is true since it was the first war where the tank, motorizedvehicles, poison gas, etc., were used, but it was actually a war where warfarewas in transition. Cavalry units wereused as portrayed in the movie, and as more and more machine guns were utilizedthe cavalry units were phased out. In fact,trench warfare had made the cavalry superfluous. The Germans had disbanded theirs by the endof 1917.

One of the key scenes in the movie involves a disastrous cavalrycharge by the British which was filmed appropriately at Stratfield Saye Housein North Hampshire, the estate of the Duke of Wellington who along with hischarger, Copenhagen, became famous for their heroic exploits during the NapoleonicWars. This site indicates:

Copenhagenand the Duke became synonymous and even in retirement from war they remainedtogether. The Iron Duke, as he wasaffectionately known, become Prime Minister of Britain in 1828 and rodeCopenhagen up Downing Street to No. 10 to take up his new position ofleadership….When the great horse died in 1836, at the remarkable age of 29, hewas given a funeral with full military honors.

As technology took over therole of horses began to change. Sincehorses were better at traveling over mud and rough terrain many were used forlogistical support as many of the scenes in War Horse supported.

Artist Alfred Munnings is considered to be GreatBritain’s finest painter of horses, and during World War I he worked as a warartist where he painted many scenes and often worked a few thousand yards fromthe German lines.

One particular painting by Munnings is titled Charge ofFlowerdew’s Squadron 1918, seen below, which portrays what is described as “thelast great cavalry charge” during the Battle of Moreuil Wood.

Flowerdew’s squadron rode into the fire of fine infantrycompanies….more than half of the men in C Squadron were killed. Flowerdew was fatally wounded.

This link is about another horse and its rider during theBattle of Moreuil Wood. The article andthe recollections regarding the cavalry charge have many similarities to the cavalry charge in the movie War Horse.

I have a feeling War Horse will be receiving several awards over the next year, and I highly recommend the movie to everyone who wants to see an emotional and interesting movie regarding historical content.

The Official White House Christmas Card for 2011

2011-12-24T00:05:00.001-05:00

I've been writing about the official White House Christmas card here at History Is Elementary and American Presidents Blog since 2006. I love to look back at past administrations to see what design was chosen.

Unfortunately, over the last few years the card seems to cause some type of controversy...either it causes the politically correct leaning folks to be appalled because a Bible verse is on a card that happens to be recognizing a holiday which happens to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ OR the card happens to be too secular for the taste of Christians who get their feathers ruffled because there aren't enough details on the card to determine it is in fact a Christmas card.

Well, this year is no different.

Head on over to American Presidents Blog for the whole story and to get a glimpse of this year's official card.

13 Things About Flappers

2011-12-15T23:25:00.000-05:00

When we think of Flappers we think of women in the 1920s wearing dresses with low waistlines, with hemlines a little below the knee, long strands of beads, rolled stockings, cloche hats, bobbed hair and lots of dancing, right?

1. All of that is true and more including rather scandalous behavior for the times that had to do with smoking, wearing make-up and being sexually promiscuous. It has to be pointed out though some women took on the Flapper style, but they opted out regarding some of the more scandalous behaviors, but others took to some of the more tame activities which including driving a car.

2. The word "flapper" dates back as far as 1631 and meant "prostitute." Eventually, it came to be a slang term referring to a mid-teenage girl. In 1904, the novelist Desmond Coke used the term "flapper" in a sentence that read, "There's a stunning flapper."

3. Many think the Flapper Era began in the United States, but it can actually be traced to Great Britain via Germany. By 1910, there were a series of stories in a London magazine regarding a 15 year old girl and her Flapper adventures, and in 1912, John Tiller, a British dance troupe organizer who specialized in precision dance mentioned a Flapper was a girl who had "just come out." Tiller eventually brought his dance troupes to America and the "Tiller girls" eventually morphed into groups like The Rockettes.

4. Author, F. Scott Fitzgerald and artist, John Held, Jr. are credited with first using the term in the United States. Fitzgerald described the Flapper as "lovely, expensive, and about nineteen." Held drew young girls wearing unbuckled galoshes that would make flapping noises when walking. It is his illustrations that provide the idealized image we know today as the "The Flapper."

5. By 1920, the ideal image we have of a Flapper had evolved. CoCo Chanel introduced the "garconne" look which means "little boy". Women actually wound their chests with strips of cloth in order to flatten their breasts. Waistlines dropped to the hips.

6. The Flapper Era encouraged clothing that was lighter and more flexible. This encouraged women to be free and move around. The laces and stays that were the norm during the Victorian Era were gone. Many critics state the loose clothing led to independent thinking and of course, ended up with many having contempt for Victorian values. Flappers certainly had image AND attitude.

7. The type of "step-in" panties women wear today came into use during the Flapper Era replacing restrictive corsets and pantaloons.

8. Dances such as the Charleston, Black Bottom, and Shimmey were created during the Flapper Era. A quote from Atlantic Monthly dated May, 1920 states, "...trots like foxes, limp like a lame ducks, one-step like cripples and all to the barbaric yawp of strange instruments which transforms the whole scene into a moving-picture of a fancy ball in bedlam."

9. The concept of dating was born during the Flapper Era. Pre-arranged and chaperoned courting would soon become a thing of the past.

10. In an article during the decade titled, "Too Many Women", Dr. R. Murray-Leslie described Flappers as, "the social butterfly type...the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations."

11. However, many historians argue the Flapper Era had its start because "the fate of nations" referring to World War I. Many historians theorize the Flapper Era became so entrenched with society in the 1920s due to the loss of so many men in the Great War. By the time the war was in full swing young men were dying left and right which led many people to cling to the eat, drink and be merry attitude.

Men and women opted for extreme (considered then) life changes. Women had a very hard time...without possible suitors they didn't want to waste their life in spinsterhood.

12. Once the war was over it was hard to get back to normal. Folks wanted to enjoy life, and they did. They took risks.

13. The Flapper craze did not survive the Great Depression, but the new or modern woman had been created.

The President's Overdue Library Books

2011-12-14T17:58:00.000-05:00

I have toadmit that I have had my fair share of overdue library books before.

Stuffhappens, right?

We don’tmean to steal the book. We just get alittle sidetracked with our busy lives or the book ends up in a place where itis no longer in our line of sight and we forget all about it.

We’re human,right?

Why on Earthwould we think that the same thing couldn’t have happened to President GeorgeWashington?

(Head onover to American Presidents Blog herefor the rest of my story……)

Static History...It Doesn't Exist

2011-12-04T21:11:00.001-05:00

We would like to think that history is static meaning that it never changes.

We would like to think the history we learn in school will be the same history our children learn, but it can't be.

History does change.

Time marches on creating new history and existing history changes over time as well. Each new generation analyzes past events based on their context - what they are currently experiencing. The further we get away from a particular event points of view change, new variables come into play shaping the events, and attitudes shift over time.

New resources such as journals, letters, etc. come to light all the time to give new interpretations. New archaeological evidence is discovered that can change historical events dramatically.

Last year an interesting discovery was written regarding Africans and the Western Hemisphere. It seems 49 skeletal remains were found by archaeologist working at the colony of La Isabela in present-day Dominican Republic. The colony was founded by Columbus during his second voyage to the New World in 1493.

1700 souls helped settle the colony and when 300 remained due mainly to disease and starvation Columbus finally abandoned the place.

Last year the reports...this one included...advised two of the remains found were thought to be of African descent. If this is proven we could be teaching students within a few years that Africans reached the New World possibly 150 years before we previously thought, and it might possibly turn out they came here of their own free will since their arrival pre-dates known slavery. The last update regarding the testing and analysis of the situation is the one I linked to above. I haven't been able to find a new update.

When I was in elementary school Christopher Columbus had a very tall pedestal and went from THE man who discovered America to one of the men who discovered America. Then there was the discussion regarding how you can discover a place where folks were already living there, and the most important change in the story came about when we began teaching how natives were treated once Columbus arrived. Many educators were actually criticized for giving the Columbus myth a black eye, yet we cannot keep teaching the same story once new details are discovered.

Yes, history changes.

Sometimes history changes because corrections have to be made. The other day I was writing an installment of my local history column and discovered a slight error regarding the travels of Benjamin Hawkins, an Indian Agent, through the wilderness of Georgia and Alabama in the early 1800s.

You can find my post, Credit Where Credit Is Due here.

Polking....Yes, Polking the Liberty Bell

2011-11-13T17:46:00.001-05:00

I was taught early on in grammar school the Liberty Bell was one of our most important symbols. I'm certain that you were taught that as well since it is considered to be one of our most important symbols and represents what the United States is all about.

I really don't dispute the idea that the bell represents freedom, however, I do dispute how it became our symbol of liberty.

I would imagine if I sent out a quick little survey to folks nine out of ten would tell me the bell we refer to as the Liberty Bell became famous and became etched into our collective memory when it was rung to announce the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Nice story.

It does evoke certain patriotic stirrings, doesn't it?

The story is false.

It didn't happen.

While bells were used to mark the reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 there is no definitive proof the Liberty Bell rang. In fact, most historians today refute the claim mainly due to the fact that the Second Continental Congress made no such announcement or conducted a formal reading of the document on July 4th. They approved the document on July 2nd and sent it out for printing on July 4th. For more about this see my post from 2006 titled July 4, 1776, An Imagi-Holiday here.

The story that the bell and our independence went hand in hand stems from a fictional story that was published in January, 1847 and was written by George Lippard.

He once described his work as writing "historical fiction and legends." Lippard didn't deal with the facts. He wrote what HE thought should have happened.

Basically, he was one of the first American writer's who published his own form of history - a revisionist version.

The fictional story he wrote concerning one of our most precious symbols of freedom was known as The Fourth of July, 1776 or more commonly known as Ring, Grandfather, Ring. The story tells how once the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence our liberty was announced to the people of Philadelphia by ringing the bell in the State House know known as Independence Hall and during the process the bell cracked.

It is a great story.

It just never happened.

Bells tolled throughout the city on July 8th in recognition of independence, but historians doubt the bell hanging in the State House steeple was rung because at the time the steeple was in very poor shape. In fact, the town leaders knew the steeple was in need of repair as early as 1774.

Had you been in Philadelphia during the early days of the American Revolution and had asked about the Liberty Bell the citizens of Philadelphia would have given you a blank stare and a "Huh?".

They didn't refer to the bell as the Liberty Bell at all. It was just the town bell that hung in the State House steeple, but it WAS important to them. A town bell in Philadelphia dates back to 1682 with William Penn introducing the first town bell to citizens. Town bells served as the lifeline of communication back then. They announced proclamations and announced civic danger. In fact, during the months leading up to Lexington and Concord the State House bell rang several times. Some of the events that were announced by the bell were:

*In September, 1764 to announce the repeal of the Sugar Act

*In October, 1765 to announce ships carrying the tax stamps were sailing up the Delaware River. The bell was actually muffled for this announcement.

*In June, 1774 to announce the Introlerable Acts...again, the bell was muffled.

On September 11, 1777, Philadelphia was left defenseless after Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine. It was necessary for the city to prepare for the British since it was inevitable they would take the Continental seat of government and occupy it.

The Patriots knew they must strip the city bare of anything the British could use against them including the bells located throughout the city since they could be melted down and made into ammunition or cannons. A total of eleven bells including the State House bell, and the bells from Christ Church and St. Peter's Church were removed and prepared for travel. They were concealed in wagons filled with hay and manure.

Washington appointed Colonel Thomas Polk of North Carolina to move the State House bell and other items needed to be removed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, a 60-mile journey that would take seven days.

Polk commanded 200 North Carolina and Virginia militamen and used a fleet of 700 wagons to protect and move the bell along with the archives of the Continental government, army stores, and the town bell now known as the Liberty Bell.

This website advises on September 18, 1777....the entourage and armed escort arrive in Richland Township (Quakertown). The Bell is pulled to a small house, owned by Evan Foulke, at the crossroads (the building now known as "Liberty Hall", 1237 West Broad Street). The proprietor of McCoole's Tavern (Abel Robert's Tavern, currently the Red Lion Hotel) extends full support, Polk's horses are cared for and fed as the Cavalry bivouacs for the night, before continuing the journey. Seven days later, on September 24th, the long and arduous trip from Philadelphia to Allentown ends. The Bell is safely hidden in the basement of Zion Reformed Church, where it is to stay until the end of the Revolution.

The 84" x 240" acrylic on plaster mural [seen below....painted by James Mann] depicts the Liberty Bell, escorted by Col. Thomas Polk's cavalry of 200 troops, as it arrives from Philadelphia, late in the day, at the intersection of what is now, Broad and Main Streets in the Borough of Quakertown, Pennsylvania. Liberty Hall is on the right, the Red Lion Hotel, is in the foreground and part of the Thomas residence (demolished 1891), is visible behind it.

The British triumphantly marched into Philadelphia on September 26, 1777. Except for Tories and peaceful Quakers the town was all but abandoned and her belfries were empty.

It was not until the 1830s that the State House bell was referred to as the Liberty Bell. Abolitionists adopted it as the symbol for their cause, and called it the Liberty Bell. Once Lippard's story hit in the 1840s the Liberty Bell name stuck in the psyche of the American public.

Just a side note....Thomas Polk's Grandnephew was our 11th President, James K. Polk.

Claudius Smith and His Band of Cowboys

2011-11-07T22:55:00.000-05:00

Claudius Smith's exploits are the perfect subject matter for me to share here at History Is Elementary. He's a true figure in American history yet he is wrapped in many myths. For every story you find out about him there are naysayers. What most agree upon is he lived, he died and somewhere in the middle he robbed a few folks. Another reason why he's a perfect candidate for me to write about is he represents a segment of history that is mentioned but rarely examined closely.

Smith lived in Smith's Clove...an area of New York more than likely named for his family. The area is known for its ponds, streams and mountain gorges making up what is also referred to as the Ramapo Valley. Today the area falls under the jurisdiction of Orange County, New York and the county seat is Monroe - named for President Monroe. The area also has the distinction of being the birthplace of Velveeta cheese.

No joke.

During the American Revolution the Smith's Clove area was bisected by important trade routes. It was the perfect place for Claudius Smith to conduct guerilla warfare, but instead of helping the Patriots, Smith helped the British.

Yes, Claudius Smith was a Tory, and his actions built up quite a reputation stealing livestock and ambushing travelers on the Orange Turnpike between Canada and New York. His exploits earned him the nickname "Cowboy of the Ramapos" since he stole so many cattle. His band of men - including three of his four sons - were known as "The Cowboys."

To some, Smith was just a Robin Hood type targeting the wealthy while being generous to the poor, but it is documented he comitted acts of banditry, burglary, horse stealing and the murder of American Army major, Nathaniel Strong.

The governor of New York, George Clinton issued a warrant for his arrest. The wanted poster stated Claudius Smith was "accused of stealing money, pewter and silver plate, saddles, guns, oxen, cattle and horses."   Often these items and livestock were sold to the British.

The warrant went on to state Smith ambushed John McLean, a messenger being sent to George Washington along the road and stole his dispatch, beat him and tied him to a tree by the side of the road.

The murder charge arose when Major Nathaniel Strong was found lying dead with two projectiles in his neck and head on October 6, 1778. Witnesses including Strong's wife testified that Claudius Smith and his band of Cowboys broke into Strong's home to burglarize it and ended up killing the major in the process.

Smith was eventually captured on Long Island and hung in 1779 in Goshen, New York. His last request was to remove his boots because he wanted to prove his mother wrong. She had always told him his activities would cause him to die with his boots on.

Smith's son, James, was executed at Goshen soon after his father. It is also reported that a second son named William was killed prior to his father's hanging and the youngest son was actually able to escape with other members of the band to Nova Scotia after peace was finally declared.

Most of the booty Smith and his Cowboys stole were stored in various caves throughout Smith's Clove. One cave in particular has been identified as his hide-out and is known as "Claudius Smith's Den".   It's located in Harriman State Park and is pictured with this post. Legend has it that Smith's spirit guards the cave's entrance.

Claudius Smith was buried in what is now known as Presbyterian Church Park. Rumor has it that at some point in 1842 the church made some changes to the grade level in the cemetery and some graves were disturbed.   Because of his rumored height (some said he was nearly seven feet tall) Smith's bones were easily identified and certain members of the town took them as their own. Apparently his skull was treated as a trophy and stored in a meat market until the new courthouse was completed. The skull was filled with cement and walled up about the main entrance to the courthouse. The town's leading blacksmith also took Smith's wrist bone as a trophy.   Apparently it was passed down for years to other family members.

I'm thinking that would be an inheritance I would like to avoid. What about you?

The Boo: A Primer for Relationship Building

2011-10-30T13:33:00.000-04:00

I've had military memorials on the brain this week.

Perhaps it's because my high school Homecoming was this past weekend. My last three years of school was spent on a campus heavily laden with military memorials pointing back to the time my school, Woodward Academy, operated as a military school. Even today there are heavy auras of miltary attitude as you walk across the campus.

Most certainly my military mindset derives from a recent outpouring of support and grief for a local family who lost their son in Afghanistan. Many citizens of my small town turned out to support the Harper family as they brought their son home. During the last few days since the touching procession my thoughts turned to how we recognize fallen soldiers and my mind settled on a local park named for an Air Force pilot who lost his life during a bombing mission over Laos during the Vietnam War. That particular military man, Robert G. "Jerry" Hunter, was a graduate of The Citadel  in Charleston, South Carolina - a place that exudes tradition, responsibility, and most certainly excellence in teaching. I wrote about Jerry Hunter here.

You can't do any legitimate research concening The Citadel without running across reference after reference to Pat Conroy, the author and Citadel graduate, who at one time had a rocky relationship with the school due to books like The Lords of Discipline.

However, The Lords of Discipline was not Conroy's first stab at shedding light on The Citadel.   Conroy's very first book, The Boo, was written in the years immediately following his graduation and was actually self-published by Conroy in 1970.

The Boo peaked my interest for three reasons. Conroy self-published the book long before it became an accepted norm to get published writing into the hands of readers. Also, his first efforts for a published work weren't necessarily for monetary gain or recognition.   The Boo was written to shed light on what Conroy considered to be a miscarriage of justice regarding a beloved faculty member at The Citadel.   Finally, the proceeds from the book were to go towards a memorial for Citadel graduates killed in Vietnam.   I found that interesting since Conroy is a self-admitted draft dodger and protested the war.

After it's publication, The Boo, was banned from The Citadel on and off for six years. Once The Lords of Discipline was published the line was really drawn between Conroy and the school. Conroy was actually warned it might be dangerous for him if he returned to the campus.

It struck me as I read review after review of The Boo that the book might possibly be a great read for educators on their own or as a reading choice for group discussion.

Pat Conroy's website advises:

In 1961, Lt. Colonel Nugent Courvoisie accepted the job as assistant commandant of cadets at The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. During the next seven years, The Boo, as the cadets called him, was in charge of meting out punishment to those young men accused of breaking Citadel law. The Boo was a harsh guardian of justice, but he was also an extremely compassionate and sensitive individual who cared deeply about the young men placed under his jurisdiction. If he was often stern and uncompromising, he was also concerned and understanding. He possessed a special ability in dealing with the problem cadet; the boy who found The Citadel too difficult or too confining; the boy from the broken home, or the boy forced to go to a military college by parents who had failed him. He empathized with cadets who were stifled by the system and, in his own way, tried to guide them through the obstacles that inevitably littered the path to graduation.

The Boo was many things to many people. During the years as assistant commandant, he was part analyst, part confessor, part detective, part father, part son of a bitch, and all soldier. This is the story of Boo and they story of The Citadel from 1961-1968. It is the story of young men and the man they turned to for laughter, for help, and for inspiration.

The original preface [written by Conroy] read:

The book, in essence, is the love affair of Courvoisier (The Boo) for the cadets and his school. The stories within the book were not written maliciously or callously; they were written to show an inside view of the long gray line, an intimate view not often afforded to the general pubic. The Citadel is quirky, eccentric, and unforgettable. The Boo and I collaborated on this book to celebrate a school we both love - each in our different ways. Proceeds for the book will go to a gift fund honoring Citadel graduates killed in Viet Nam.

After reading through some of the stories surrounding Courvoisie including Conroy's Eulogy forThe Boo, I believe the book would be an interesting study for educators who are serious about building relationships with their students since relationships are key to success...for the student as well as their teachers since the literature states:

"We cannot teach students well if we do not know them well"...Hoffman and Leak

"A strong relationship with a caring adult enables at-risk youth to make life-altering changes"...Warner and Smith in Overcoming the Odds: High Risk Children from Birth to Adulthood

"The quality of teacher-student relationships is the keystone for all other aspects of classroom management"...Marzano and Marzano

I'm thinking Conroy's The Water is Wide is also a "must read" for serious educators.

Happy Reading!!

Cotton: The Long and Short of It

2011-10-17T11:20:00.003-04:00

Mammy's little baby loves shot'nin', short'nin',

Mammy's little baby loves short'nin' bread...

If those lyrics don't immediately bring the song to mind, you can here a version here. It's one of the first songs I learned to play on the piano many, many moons ago.

Most people believe this to be a song sung by slaves on the plantation, but it was actually first published with the lyrics I mention above in 1915. It is considered to be a folk song.

James Whitcomb Riley is credited with creating an even earlier version in 1900.

Shortening Bread is a wonderful mixture of cornmeal, flour, hot water, eggs, baking powder, milk and shortening and instead of baking it you serve it fried. Shortening is used to make various types of pastry and used for frying foods. One of my favorite uses that I try to stay away from as much as possible is frosting such as the type of frosting on wedding cakes.

Oh my! What a wicked little pleasure that stuff is....

Did you know shortening and cotton are connected?

Yes, they are...really.

Cotton begins showing up in my curriculum early on when we discuss the British Colonies - the Southern Colonies in particular - as we examine the plantation system and look at the various crops that were raised in the fields of Georgia and other southern colonies.

Around the 1840s and 1850s, the South heads to the front of the curriculum again as we explore the Missiouri Compromise and other events leading up to the Civil War.

Sometimes the continued importance of cotton as a staple in the southern economy is missed. Oh sure, students are taught cotton was king in the south, but I think we often help students overlook how integral the cotton crop was to the economy before the Civil War and afterwards by ending the cotton conversation after the war has been fought as we launch into Reconstruction.

The afterwards part is where I think the mark is missed in many classrooms. Cotton remained king in the South even after the Civil War - even after the emancipation of the slaves. For example, in 1919 in Laurens County, Georgia they ginned 37,323 bales of cotton which ended up weighing 18.7 million pounds. In 1912, the amount increased to 30 million pounds of cotton.

No, cotton didn't go away at all. Once cotton is ginned, and the fluffy white fibers are separated from the seeds the cotton farmer ends up with a lot of seeds, too.

The cotton gin owners were drowning in seeds and figured there had to be some uses of them...uses that might make a few extra dollars. They were right, of course.

The hull from a cottonseed can be fed to animals for roughage. Ground cottonseeds can be used for fertilizer, but they can also be crushed for cottonseed oil. 30 million pounds of cotton has the potential to produce tons of seeds and gallons of cottonseed oil.

Crude cottonseed oil is dark red in color and has a very distasteful flavor and odor, but several industrious people decided there had to be a use for the oil - there had to be a way to work around the color, flavor, and odor, and ....care had to be taken since left untreated cottonseed oil could become a paralytic pesticide.

Enter The Southern Oil Company formed in 1887 who took on the cottonseed oil in order to create viable consumer products. There had to be a way to make cottonseed oil more appetizing. They hired David Wesson, a food chemist who was a graduate as well as faculty member at MIT. It too Doc Wesson, as he was fondly called, 16 years to develop the process to deodorize cottonseed oil.

The process Doc Wesson finally hit upon involved a high-temperature vacuum process that became known as the Wesson Process.

If you haven't guessed by now...the resulting product of course, was Wesson Oil currently owned by ConAgra, but when it first hit the market Wesson Oil was created by The Southern Oil Company.

Several forms of Wesson Oil exist today, but in the earliest days of Wesson Oil was made from cottonseed oil only.

The company also wanted to develop a product that would be an alternative to hog lard. Doc Wesson used the process of hydrogenation with the cottonseed oil and created the product they marketed as Snowdrift Shortening.

Hydrogenation involves adding a little hydrogen to help make a solid fat from the liquid oil and then it is chilled.

But the marketing department at The Southern Oil Company had a problem. Cooks were used to using hog fat and were fairly stubborn regarding changing to an all vegetable shortening.

Housewives across America had to be persuaded to use products like Snowdrift. Hence the need for magazine ads posing as articles such as thisone that says at one point, "Snowdrift is made entirely of this pure vegetable oil - nothing else - hardened into a creamy looking fat by hydrogenating, because - frankly - the women of this country didn't want to cook with liquid fat, but wanted it to be white and solid and look like the old fashioned hog fat they were accustomed to."

Snowdrift was advertised all over the South. One such outdoor advertisement still exist including this one in Douglasville, Georgia where I happen to live.

Yes, the Wesson Process enabled shortening to be made as well as other products such as mayonnaise, margarine, and salad dressing.

The 50th anniversary of Snowdrift was celebrated in 1951. At that time the makers of Wesson Oil stated, "It is a story of how the crushing and refining industry made many products from cottonseed, once considered a useless part of the cotton industry, except for planting. It is a story of a development that brought more income to the farmer of the south."

Don't shortchange students regarding the life of cotton in the South. It continued to be a major crop that held an important role in the South on into the New South Era and the rise of the cotton mill economy.

Mussel Slough: Searching for the Gray Area

2011-10-03T13:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes historians can group together a series ofevents and tag them with an overall identifying name that connects all of theevents together such as the Civil War or the American Revolution, but certainevents just stand out and beg to be treated special because they serve as pivotpoints such as the firing on Ft. Sumter or the Battle of Saratoga.

Then there are certain events that might not bepivotal but shouldn’t be ignored in the classroom simply because they touchupon so many different instructional moments such as the Mussel Slough Tragedy.

Westward expansion, growth of the railroad includingthe impact on settlement, muckrakers and their role in the Progressive Era,perspective and accuracy regarding the historical record and even a bit ofvocabulary instruction regarding geographic landforms can be handled byexamining this little known event in California history.

First of all….what the heck is a slough? On the west coast of North America a sloughis defined as a treeless, secondary channel of a river delta. Mussel Slough is an area that runs from KingsRiver to Tulare Lake. After the CivilWar the marshes surrounding Tulare Lake were drained so by the late 1800s itwas a broad, dry plain that was suitable only for cattle ranches. By the turn of the century the lake wascompletely dry.

The Mussel Slough Tragedy occurred on May 11, 1888 ona homestead belonging to Henry D. Brewer northwest of Hanford, California. The timing of the tragedy was close to thebeginning of the Progressive Era. However,to get a full understanding we have to look back to 1866 when Congress beganauthorizing various railroad concerns in the United States to begin buildingtracks across the United States linking east and west. The Southern Pacific Railroad was contractedto lay the tracks through the Mussel Slough area after land lots containing 640acres each were set up. The railroad wasgiven control of the odd number lots while the even numbered lots were setaside for homesteading.

This meant the federal government controlled theprocess of getting the even number land lots into the hands of settlers whilethe odd number lots were under the control of the Southern Pacificrailroad. Once the rail route wasdetermined there was plenty of land left over for the railroad to sell tointerested homesteaders.

It is this point in the story where things began togo wrong. Southern Pacific began toadvertise land for sell to homesteaders stating the land would be $2.50 an acreand there would be no charge for improvements. In the meantime the railroad had deliberately avoided getting patentsfor its land grants which basically means in simplistic terms they didn’tlegally record a deed to deliberately avoid taxes on the land. This also meant homesteaders made deals withthe railroad to purchase land but the railroad would refuse to convey titles tothem. Even so the homesteaders settledinto life living along the slough and made improvements to their property such asbuilding irrigation systems. Naturallythese improvements increased the land’s value.

At some point the railroad decided they actuallywanted more than $2.50 an acre and in some cases when the ranchers balked theyput the land back on the open market. The dispute in land ownership grew even more tense when Congress failed topass a proposed a bill that would put the matter of the price for land torest.

The settlers formed a group called the Settler’sLeague in 1878 and made appeals to federal officials and the courts. They even made an appeal to PresidentRutherford B. Hayes during his visit to San Francisco in 1880 advising federaland court officials were being bribed by the railroad.

More settlers moved into the area thinking thelawsuit would favor the homesteaders, but this made the situation worse as therailroad termed them squatters and vowed to remove anyone who didn’t pay theirasking price.

On May 11, 1880 several members of the Settler’sLeague had met together for a picnic and all was well until they heard a groupof men backed by the railroad consisting of a U.S. Marshall, a Southern Pacificland appraiser and two locals was headed their way and in were in the processof evicting people from their land.

A group of homesteaders described as being lightlyarmed set out from the picnic to meet with the railroad party. It was reported their intention was to askthe group to delay any further evictions until the pending court case had beensettled.

Both groups met up at a homestead maintained byHenry D. Brewer. A gunfight between thetwo parties quickly ensued with most of the settlers being killed orwounded. Six of the victims werecarried to the porch of the Brewer house. A tall oak next to the porch became known as Tragedy Oak. In recent years when it blew down during astorm a piece of the tree was preserved and is displayed at a local elementaryschool.

Seventeen people were indicted by a federal grandjury with five being found guilty of willfully interfering with marshal inperformance of his duties. It has to benoted however the jail time was hardly what could be called hard time. Most of the men were allowed to have theirwives with them. The ranchers who livedwere heroes and those who died were remembered as martyrs.

Of course the journalist who got involved during theevents leading up to the lawsuit and the gunfight and subsequent deaths justfanned the flames. It was the perfectopportunity for muckraking.

While the Progressive Era muckrackers have beengiven the credit for many great things while they cried out to end corruptionand social injustice including fighting monopolies such as Standard Oil, theestablishment of the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the creation of child laborlaws their main tool of the trade was sensationalizing details to promote theemotional aspects of the event or actions they reported.

The exact history of the events leading up to thetragedy and the gunfight itself is muddled due to fabrications andexaggerations on each side.

The event was targeted by muckrackers including W.C.Morrow who wrote Blood Money (1882), C. C. (Charles Cyrel)Postwho wrote Driven From Sea to Sea or Just a Campin’ (1888), and TheOctopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris (1901). You can read Mr. Post’s novel herefrom Google Books.

Political cartoons were published as well like theone I’ve included with this post titled ‘The Retribution Comet’. It was published in The Wasp showing railroad tycoons Leland Stanford and Collis PotterHuntington robbing the graves of the victims.

Today, many historians argue the works of literatureexaggerated the fault of the railroad and romanticized the ranchers according tothe Jeffersonian agrarian ideal where Jefferson stated, “those who labor in theearth are the chosen people of God.”

There are some truths. The railroad did have their hand in thepocket of many politicians and court officials. Leland Stanford, the president of SouthernPacific had also been the governor of California. Even though the railroad argued they neverintended to keep the property at $2.50 an acre it was unclear to thesettlers. Many of the settlers whoflocked to Mussel Slough did so after the situation became inflamed and wereactually squatters who were hoping the case would go in their favor.

While the story did grow to what some sourcesdescribe as mythic proportions and turned out to be an archetypical story ofthe conflict between pioneer settlers and monopoly corporate greed many of thesources are second-hand and flawed. Thetrue story is a gray area somewhere in the middle.

In the end the case came down on the side of therailroad, but Southern Pacific did agree to lower the cost per acre slightly,and most people stayed on their land.

Thissite states, ““Historical accounts vary considerably and nearly all havepassed along from generation to generation errors of fact and substance,ranging from relatively minor mistakes in spelling the names of combatants andtabulating the body count to important errors of chronology and sequence ofsettlement, the legal issues involved, the character motivation, and behaviorof drama and the influence of the conflict on landholdings and errors ofchronology, legal issues, and the goals of the railroad and the Mussel Sloughsettlers, even dominates a leading California state-approved history textbookfor fourth grade public school classrooms.”

How would I use this event in the classroom? As I stated above I think this eventprovides the perfect opportunity to hit on so many issues – Westward expansion,growth of the railroad including the impact on settlement, muckrakers and theirrole in the Progressive Era, perspective and accuracy regarding the historicalrecord and even a bit of vocabulary instruction regarding geographic landformscan be handled by examining this little known event in California history.

Most certainly I think this event lends itself to adiscussion on historical accuracy and how myths are formed. I think it would be interesting to presentseveral forms of evidence such as railroad documents regarding advertising theland, newspaper accounts, political cartoons, and court documents to studentsand allow them to investigate the matter and decide for themselves where thetruth lies…..in that large and murky gray area.

Sanborn Maps

2011-09-14T10:16:00.002-04:00

I discoveredearly on in my teaching career that I couldn’t get my point across to studentswithout a map. I had pull-down maps in myclassroom, but I rarely used them because they were mounted over my whiteboards, and they would cover up other information students needed accessto The mounted maps rarely had theinformation I needed to show students at the time as well, so I would just drawa quick outline of the United States on the board, fill the map in withwhatever I was teaching at the time, and then move on.

Recently, Iran across a map source I was unaware of – a resource used by historicalresearchers, city planners, preservationist, genealogists, and evensociologists.

I’m speakingof Sanborn Maps – maps that were created from 1867 to 1970 detailing town andbuilding information for approximately 12,000 towns and cities in the UnitedStates.

The Sanborn Company was founded by Daniel A.Sanborn in 1867. The original purpose ofthe maps was for fire insurance assessment. Eventually, the Sanborn Company was the largest and most successfulAmerican map company with several regional offices including my favoritetown….Atlanta, Georgia.

In much thesame way as Google has sent out a legion of folks to gather data for GoogleEarth, the Sanborn Company used surveyors to visit each town where theydetailed every street and building periodically. Not only would the maps indicate where thebuildings were they also indicated the types of businesses that were in eachlocation.

Thoseinvolved with history research use the maps to look at how certain areas grewand later declined. I’ve used the mapsto determine how certain historic buildings in the town I live in have changedover time and confirm ownership since the early deed records burned in during acourthouse fire during the 1950s.

You can seeone of my weekly columns herewhere I used Sanborn data in my research. I’m able to research particular lots and can determine at what year thelocations go from vacant lots to structures. I can tell if the structure was wood or at what point the owner upgradedto brick or added an awning. The nameof the owner is usually listed as well as the types of businesses that could befound from year to year.

Genealogistcan use Sanborn maps to confirm ownership of homes and buildings since structuresare very detailed while city planners use the maps to study urban designs overtime. The maps also come in handy forhistoric preservationist and demographers.

….and whatabout the classroom….would I use them there?

You bet Iwould.

Tom Gates,Associate Professor at Kent State has an excellent online article regardingSanborn Maps herewhich includes a section on use in the classroom. Gates advises:

The Sanborn digital maps can be usedfor individual research and classroom instruction. The changes in a town and the builtenvironment are recorded in detail and can provide the basis for a number ofprojects, which can be visually presented in the classroom.

The study of American literature,based on novels and travel journals which describe typical Nineteenth CenturyAmerican towns, can be better understood by studying maps and their RecordDescriptions which contain references to places in terms that are now arcane inAmerican English usage.

Architectural design students can usethe Sanborn Maps to analyze various building types and functions exemplified bycathedrals, synagogues, theaters, hotels, residences, schools, laundries,bathhouse, department stores, factories, fire houses, etc.

I highlyadvise educators to read the entire article and decide for yourself how youcould use these resources in your classroom.

You can findSanborn maps at the following links….there are probably more, but this will getyou started! Enjoy!!!

Library of Congress

North Carolina,1884-1922

Missouri,1883-1951

Florida, 1860-1923

Utah,1884-1922

SouthCarolina, 1884-1960

Alabama,1884-1950

Hallowell, Maine,1890

Frankfort, Kentucky,1907

Indianapolis,Indiana, 1887-1941

Georgia, 1884-1922

Toledo, Ohio, 1902 –

Cincinnati,Ohio

Muncie,Indiana, 1883-1911

St. Louis, Missouri,1870-1904

SanFrancisco, 1900

Milwaukee, 1894 and1910

Colorado,1883-1922

Demolition by Neglect

2011-08-15T20:13:00.000-04:00

This past week I performed a little experiment. I threw the word “history” out to various people–friends, waitresses, store clerks, even a couple of surprised strangers–and asked them to tell me what immediately popped into their minds.

Various words were thrown back to me–events, dates, maps, wars, battles–and the list goes on.

None of the responses really surprised me, but there are other words to parallel with the word history. Words like preservation, remember, and trust come to mind and unfortunately, the words failure, greed, demolish, surrender, neglect, and ignore are on the flipside as I continue examining the winding path of history a cotton mill where I live has taken.

I shared the story over at Douglasville Patch last week where I have a weekly column regarding how Douglasville ended up with the cotton mill and how important the mill was to our economic health over most of the last century. You can see my column from last week here.

Now I want to share the rest of the story regarding how history can be neglected and forgotten by the very people we trust to preserve it. Sometimes in their attempts to improve the lives of citizens in the here and now they actually betray the trust handed to them by citizens who took their leave a long time ago. They also end up cheating future generations regarding our historical record.

History can also be used by folks who are just looking for easy outs in business in order to leverage property or satisfy some misguided need to collect historic properties, and then allow them to die a slow death of neglect for some strange reason I simply cannot fathom.

You can see the entire article here.

August History Carnival

2011-08-10T16:16:00.000-04:00

The History Carnival is up over at Culture and Stuff.

A blog carnival is a blog post with various links to other blogs that follow the same topic. In this case the topic is history. Think of it as the blogosphere’s version of Reader’s Digest with a different blog within the history community hosting each month.

It’s always a great read!!

I intend to enjoy it one little morsel at a time. J

Enjoy!!!!

Another Academic Year Begins

2011-08-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

So…in my neck of the woods many had the first day of school while other had their first day of pre-planning.

What was it for you?

A fellow teacher and friend of mine posted this last night on Facebook, and I felt I needed to share it here. You may have seen variations of this on the web or in one of those emails that tend to end up in your inbox that has been forwarded hither and yon.

My friend tells me she changed a few things here and there to match her own situation.

I say BRAVO!.....and may everyone involved in education from the board office to the bus drivers have a most wonderful year!!!

T'was the night before school starts

And all through the place,

Not a smile was seen

On any teacher’s face.

Our bags were all stuffed

With tea bags and glue,

And rulers and pencils

With erasers to chew.

Mournfully we

All crawled into bed to sleep tight,

But we know that the good life is way out of sight.

Then the hubby cames in whistling

And kissed me goodnight,

With a bright cheery voice

That didn't seem right.

The night dragged on slowly

I just couldn't sleep,

For fear that my students

Would all be real creeps.

Or maybe Principal Pollard

Would give me a shove,

Or even more evil things

Than I could think of.

When from in the next room

There arose such a clamber,

When my husband starts yelling,

"I'm free 'till next summer!"

This must be a plot

By conspiring foes,

Who just want a break

While they pamper their toes.

Oh, must I go through it?!

How can I go on?

I want to escape

Run off to Saigon!

Ten months is too long

To suffer through school

The class is so rough

And students so cruel.

"Come Donald! Come Conner!

Come Henry VanStation!

Come up to the board,

Do your multiplication!"

"And Julie, stop talking!

And Jimmy, wake up!

And Mary, right now,

Don't you make me say shut-up!

And so every year

About this same time,

I lie in bed sleepless

And just moan and whine.

Until morning comes,

And I hear my hubby say,

"Good luck with your school!

And have a nice day!"

The New South: Railroads and Mill Towns

2011-07-26T16:59:00.002-04:00

Lanett and Opelika in Alabama….Amity in Arkansas…..Hogansville, Canton, and Douglasville in Georgia….Concord and Carrboro in North Carolina and Cherokee Falls, Piedmont and Whitmire in South Carolina…..All of these places including many other cities and towns across the South were all major mill towns birthed during the New South era.

The New South Era has as many definitions as other historical periods such as the Gilded Age or the Progressive Era, but for my purposes here I’m going with Edward L. Ayers. In his book The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction he states the New South era began in the 1880s after the biracial and reformist experiment of Reconstruction had ended and the conservative white Democrats had taken power throughout the southern states.

A fellow Georgian, Henry W. Grady, is credited with the term “New South” which represents an ideology that emphasized a new reliance upon railroads and industrialization to modernize the South.

Many Southerners jumped on Grady’s bandwagon and became New South boosters. New South advocates espoused a renewal of the Southern economy, a bridge to reconcile differences with the North, racial harmony and a support of hard work.

The first area of focus for New South boosters were the existing railroads that had been damaged or neglected during the Civil War. They also wanted to extend new lines to criss-cross the South making important trade connections with cities and towns all across the country.

Ayers states between 1865 and the 1870s there were nearly 8,000 miles of track in the South. By 1880, the number of miles jumped to 20,000 and by the end of the decade the South boasted 40,000 miles of track carrying not only passengers but manufactured goods as well.

Henry W. Grady and other New South boosters worked tirelessly to engage investors from the South as well as the North. I’ve always felt it was important to make sure students understand the United States’ habit of rebuilding former enemy territory didn’t just begin after World War I or II – most of the money and resources used to revitalize the South following the Civil War came from northern investments.

Other than the railroads, New South boosters also focused on establishing cotton mills not only in the larger cities such as Atlanta or New Orleans but in smaller towns all across the South.

Cotton mills became a symbol of economic health, and every little town wanted one. When outside investors were slow to respond townspeople would scrimp and save to get a mill going. According to Ayers though, by 1870, the bulk of investment dollars came from northern and foreign investors.

Ayers further states in 1880 there were 160 cotton mills in the South. By 1890, there were 400.

In his book Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, Douglas Flamming advises the rise of southern railroad towns and the farmers’ shift to cash crop agriculture were mutually reinforcing trends that fostered a spirit of entrepreneurial boosterism among local businessmen and professionals.

Don Harrison Doyle author of Toward a New South Urbanization and Southern Culture Economic Elites in Four New South Cities agrees with Flamming stating most boosters worked in the most vigorous sections of the local economy such as trade and rail transportation and included doctors, lawyers, planters, and even clergymen.

This website states since New England already had a firmly established textile industry, southern businessmen benefitted from the most-up-to-date technologies and equipment from the start of their endeavors without wasting investments on outdated methods. These technological advancements meant that workers unschooled in the craft tradition could be recruited to perform jobs such as making cloth.

New South advocates espoused a renewal of the Southern economy, a bridge to reconcile differences with the North, racial harmony and a support of hard work to achieve the goals. Unfortunately, racial harmony proved to be the most difficult goal to achieve, and I assert here that even today it has not been achieved in many circles, but the New South Era did see tremendous positive changes regarding the Southern economy.

Looking back on the political and social events leading up to the Civil War and Reconstruction I still wonder why it had to take a war and terrible devastation to help people to understand there had to be a better way to grow the Southern economy

New South ideology has been my focus over the last two weeks regarding a column I write for a local website.

You can view my previous two columns focusing on the growth of the railroad in my little town during the New South Era here and here

Other articles focusing on mill towns can be found here and here.

U7NKM2CWEEMK

Identifying Andrew Jackson's Property

2011-07-07T17:54:00.000-04:00

Over the Fourth of July holiday I was fortunate enough to make a stop at Andrew Jackson’s home, Hermitage, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Unfortunately, President Jackson was out, but he had left behind all sorts of interesting things for me to look at.

I thought I’d post them for a quick little game. Don’t worry though…the answers are right here.

Go on and take a look and then at the bottom of the post you will find my link to more pictures from Jackson’s lovely home.

Okay…what’s this?

It looks like carved ivory, doesn’t it? It carried something both men and women used during Jackson’s time. Yes, this little crab-shaped item has a little box in it that carried snuff. You could slip it in your pocket. I can just imagine the conversations it would start when Jackson brought it out during a meeting.

Okay….what about this???? Forgive my fat fingers and the not-too-focused image. I never promised you that I was an expert at photography.

I had no idea what this was. I just admired the lovely green color.

It’s a cup plate.

Now don’t confuse this with a saucer….they are two totally different things.

Cup plates were used in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries. In those days tea was served in cups without handles. You would pour your tea into your saucer (yes, you are reading this right) and drink FROM YOUR SAUCER!

….and I just thought my Papa Blanton was a country bumpkin when he did it years and years ago at our breakfast table.

Anyway, while you were drinking from your saucer you had to rest your cup somewhere and that’s what the cup plate was for. It was used to protect the table from the tea.

Last, but not least do you know what this is?

Who said a pocket knife? Nope….that’s not what it is, but good guess.

It’s a lancet.

LANCET. They were used to open the veins during a blood-letting. See further explanation here.

You can find more of my pictures (one or two were made by Mr. EHT) over at American Presidents Blog here.

Great Britain's Write-Up Slip: The Declaration of Independence.

2011-07-02T08:26:00.000-04:00

One of the important lessons I teach each year is the Declaration of Independence. Over the years I’d bring up our nation’s important documents in adult conversations when people would ask what grade I taught. Sometimes it was very obvious from what was said that the adults I was conversing with didn’t have a clue regarding the difference between documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It’s was also very obvious those same adults had never actually read either document.

It’s very simple. The Declaration declares our independence from Great Britain while the U.S. Constitution serves as our plan of government – the rules regarding how our Federal government works.

It’s simple, right?

Try explaining it to nine and ten year olds when some of them still believe Pocahontas had little animal friends who talked and she frolicked in the forest breaking out into song when the notion hit her as Disney portrays.

Finally, I hit on an analogy students could grasp – the write-up slip. When they violated classroom and school rules I wrote them up. In order to properly fill the form out I have to identify each and every broken rule.

I have to make a record of the poor choices in order to institute correction.

The Declaration of Independence served as a write-up slip for Great Britain.

Since the Fourth of July is almost here I thought it appropriate to post the full text of the document we are celebration here.

Reading it from the perspective of a write-up slip might make it a little bit easier to grasp its full meaning.

The Declaration of Independence states:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Analyzing Tom Horn

2011-06-26T16:08:00.001-04:00

Tom Horn.

A simple name for a man yet it appears he lived a very complex life. In fact, Tom Horn himself said of his life, “I have lived about fifteen ordinary lives. I would like to have had somebody who saw my past and could picture it to the public. It would be the most interesting reading in the country.”

Once guilty, now innocent, but still dead – the description the New York Times gave Tom Horn in 1993.

A man Steve McQueen chose to portray in a movie – though historians have several issues with the treatment’s accuracy.

Tom Horn is an excellent historical figure for students to analyze while learning a little about the American Southwest during the late 19^th Century.   The details surrounding his life, the historical events swirling around him, and the issue of right and wrong regarding those events in relation to Mr. Horn’s actions could lead to a classroom of very engaged students on various levels.

Upon running away from home at the age of 16 Horn headed for the American Southwest. He became involved with the Apache Wars and was hired by the U.S. Cavalry as a civilian scout.   He was a member of the party who captured Geronimo.

He became a hired gunman and took part in the Pleasant Valley War between cattle ranchers and sheep men in.

He also took a position for a time as a deputy sheriff in Arizona and later in 1899 or 1890 was an employee of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.   However, he was a suspect in a couple of killings and Horn and the agency parted ways in 1894. Horn hired himself out as a range deputy and detective for various wealthy ranchers in Wyoming and Colorado mainly during the Johnson County War where he became involved with a few other questionable murders. Many sources regarding Horn’s life define Horn’s job as a range deputy essentially as a killer for hire.

During the Spanish American War he served as a soldier for a brief time before coming down with malaria and returned home.

In 1901 he began working for John C. Coble, a cattle baron. On July 18, 1901 Horn was working near Iron Mountain when a sheepherder’s son, 14-year-old Willie Nickell, was murdered. Horn was arrested, tried, and convicted. He was hanged for the crime in 1903 using “The Julian Gallows”, which made the condemned man actually hang himself. It is said that Horn made the rope that was used to hang him.

Following the Nickell murder and subsequent Horn trial the cattle barons in Wyoming had less influence legally and politically.

Two great sites to visit for more regarding Tom Horn can be found here and here.

The OTHER Greatest Generation

2011-06-23T15:12:00.012-04:00

Our greatest generation, those men and women who got us through World War II, keeps getting smaller as time marches on. In fact, it is estimated 1,000 to 1,200 men and women who lived through the Great Depression and volunteered to serve during the war are dying every day. In just a few short years we will see the sad story on the news telling us how the very last World War II soldier has passed on.

This really hits home with me since I firmly believe that one of the most important stories regarding World War II to get across to students has to be the various stories of the people who participated in the war effort. They volunteered, they participated, and they sacrificed. In today’s society of entitlement and sensationalism I think it’s important for students to see a different view regarding citizenship.

Sonlight Pictures Blog explains the importance of teaching about the greatest generation much more eloquently than I can stating, “They understood that the world doesn’t revolve around them, but instead they were simply a piece of the puzzle within it and it was up to them to determine how important of a piece they would become.”

Unfortunately, there isn’t just a generation of men and women rapidly leaving us.   Another generation is almost gone.

I’m talking about the generation of heavy bombers with four engines developed in the 1930s for the United Army Air Corp.

Yes, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress planes.

The B-17 could fly long range distances, was able to defend itself and could often withstand heavy damage in order to make its way home. Of the 1.5 million metric tons of bombs dropped on Germany approximately 640,000 tons were dropped from B-17s.

During the early 30s several companies were vying for the bomber contract from the U.S. government.  In 1934, there was a “fly-off” held where the prototypes were rolled out. Boeing’s model was quite impressive….so much so a reporter with the Seattle Times dubbed the plane a flying fortress due to the multiple machine-gun installations.   Boeing eventually trademarked the name, and it stuck.

Boeing got the contract nod, but in 1935, during a second test evaluation flight the crew forgot to engage the “gust lock”, a device that held the bomber’s moveable control surfaces in place while the aircraft was parked on the ground. Once airborne the plane went into a steep climb, but stalled. It then nosed over and crashed killing two crew members. Boeing was disqualified from the contract.

However, by January, 1936 a legal loophole was found and Boeing was considered once again. The B-17 Flying Fortress evolved as it underwent several design advances.

Discussing the use of B-17s in the war effort can bring up other interesting points for students to analyze.   There are several well documented missions and interesting pilots and crew members. It’s important to remember Lt. Col. Nancy Love and Betty Gillies as they were the first women to fly a B-17 in 1943.   Another interesting dynamic to examine has to do with families divided by the war. American born Captain Werner G. Goering flew B-17s. Ironically, his uncle was commander of the German Luftwaffe, Herman Goering. Hollywood and the world of sports had their presence in the B-17s as well. Clark Gable had five missions under his belt as a waist gunner while Tom Landry claimed 30 missions.   Norman Lear, Gene Roddenberry, and one of my personal favorites, Jimmy Stewart all served on B-17s as well as several others.

The main image at the top of this post is a drawing created by Lt. Col. C. Ross Greening who created many such drawings while being held a prisoner at Stalag Luft 1 in Bath, Germany during 1944-45. Greening had quite a distinguished career as a Doolittle Raider. As a POW he distinguished himself with his art as this article suggests.

Since the war many of the B-17s have been maintained and exhibited at museums and various air shows across the nation.   However, like the men and women who flew them they are becoming worn and parts are becoming harder to locate.   Wikipedia advises there are a total of 51 surviving airframes worldwide with only 10 actively flying.

Courtesy of

SmithImages

Just the other day we lost another one…..the Liberty Belle, when it burned after making a crash landing per this Chicago Tribune article found here. The Liberty Belle belonged to the Liberty Foundation. More information regarding the plane can be found here.

You can see a video here of the Liberty Belle taking off from Peachtree-Dekalb Airport in Georgia and this video is from Rocky Mountain Municipal Airport.

The crash scene can be seen here.

Even Harry Got to Go to the Beach....

2011-06-15T22:13:00.000-04:00

I love the beach. The sand, the sparkling water, the sound and smell of the pounding surf, walking the beach with my head down hoping….hoping…. hoping for the perfect shell find.

The beach at morning……the beach at night…….seafood…..even the sunburn…..I love it all.

I miss the beach, and the beach misses me. Seriously....

I hope we can reunite soon, until then I soothed my longing for the beach by doing a little research regarding Harry Truman’s White House at the beach.

Yes! Even Harry was able to have some beach time!

Read my post over at American Presidents here!

Is It Flag Day Already?!?

2011-06-14T09:12:00.001-04:00

We drove through a little town close to our house Sunday, and they had our nation’s flag everywhere - on buildings, houses and up and down the main street every few feet. Dear Son wondered aloud what was going on, and we immediately decided that it must be early decorations for the Fourth of July. It seemed a little early, but we had been to a family reunion all day and my mind was on other things.

I had forgotten. There IS an important holiday for our nation in June every year.

Flag Day…..

….and sadly, Flag Day is often rushed through or forgotten entirely.

We remember Flag Day to commemorate the day the Second Continental Congress adopted the U.S. Flag in 1777. It is also the date they adopted the Continental Army.

Perhaps the reason the date is often glossed over is the fact it’s not an official American holiday – government offices and banks don’t close. You still get your mail. President Woodrow Wilson declared June 14th Flag Day, but it has never been an official United States’ holiday and observances are at the President’s discretion.

It doesn’t matter to my family. Our flags are flying today at our house on the front and back porch.

Are yours?

Here are a few past postings here at History Is Elementary regarding the flag…..

13 Things Concerning the Display of the Flag

The Star Spangled Banner – Why It Should Be Our Anthem

The Red Skelton Pledge

Take a few minutes and think about that rectangle of cloth and what it means to you….

History Hodgepodge...A Little This and That

2011-06-01T19:51:00.001-04:00

Did you know…..32 years today CNN made its debut with a lead story regarding the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan.

New to my blogroll here at History Is Elementary is the blog Text Message, the blog of the textural archives services division of the National Archives. The most recent posting deals with the education program during World War II getting people to save their kitchen fat known as the Fat Salvage Campaign.

I wish my hometown of Atlanta would have its own free mobile app like Cleveland. The app, known as Cleveland Historical is free and developed by the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University. The app lets you explore the people, places, and monuments that shaped the city’s history per their website's “about” page.

Here’s another did you know…..a cold snap in Greenland in the 12th century may help explain why Viking settlers vanished from the islands, scientist said earlier this week in a Reuters report.

Five hundred eyes were on the President-elect as he lifted the top of the dish and gazed at the boast of Georgia……Find out what the boast of Georgia was in my most recent postings at American Presidents and Georgia on My Mind

and finally……This link will take you to my column Every Now and Then at Douglasville Patch where my very real and non-cartoon self writes every week about local history where I live. This week I write about the poor farm. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see links to past columns.

You didn’t really think I was a cartoon, did you?

Memorial Day and My 800th Post....

2011-05-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

I find it appropriate that this post is my 800th posting for History Is Elementary.

Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays, so it makes sense I’m writing about it again for post number 800. I knew the milestone post was coming up. I had thought about what I would write. I had even asked friends on Facebook what I should write about, and they came up with several interesting ideas. Then I realized Memorial Day was rapidly approaching…..and I couldn’t go without saying something.

What does Memorial Day mean to you? Cookouts, picnics, trips to the beach, perhaps a sale at the mall, time off from work, a cold beer or two, the Indianapolis 500, a slab of ribs on the grill……

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with any of those things, but I wouldn’t be the ElementaryHistoryTeacher that I am if I didn’t point out what the original intent behind Memorial Day is.

Yes! These sweet young ladies, two of which I have the pleasure of knowing, have the right idea. Hannah and Claire are the daughters of a couple who are great friends of mine. Paula and Scott felt it was important to teach their daughters the true meaning and intent of Memorial Day. Their family along with several other people decorated the graves at Marietta National Cemetery where there will be a ceremony today at noon.

I applaud them heartily!

Yes, Memorial Day is the official day to recognize men and women who have died while serving our country in the military.

Originally, Memorial Day morphed from a day that became popular soon after the end of the Civil War that was known as Decoration Day. Not only was it a day of remembrance, but it also served as a day for reconciliation as the North and South tried to heal.

The war dead was remembered by decorating their graves with flowers. On the very first Decoration Day, General James Garfield, future President of the United States, made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery where 5,000 people had gathered to decorate more than 20,000 Union and Confederate graves.

As there are with most things there are a few cities and/or groups who vie for the credit regarding who began the custom of decorating the graves of soldiers…..in the end it only matters that it’s done, right?

Over the years Decoration Day began to include soldiers from other wars and officially the day become Memorial Day when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the last Monday in May as an official holiday in 1966.

Here are a few more pictures depicting Decoration Day events.

And of course looking back on other Memorial Day postings here at History Is Elementary…..This post is from 2009 and discusses heroes and this post is from 2008 when I was fortunate enough to spend Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery.

Whatever you do today......take a few minutes to remember those brave men and women who answered the call gave their lives in the cause of freedom.

Signs of the Times

2011-05-07T16:30:00.002-04:00

I found out this morning in a roundabout way the high school I graduated from will be hiring an art teacher for grades 4, 5, and 6 for the fall. The teacher will be employed full-time and will teach darkroom photography and printmaking to elementary classes.

Yes, you read that right.

Students in upper elementary grades will be learning darkroom photography and printmaking.

First of all, I don’t have to tell you the economic climate of the United States over the last couple of years hasn’t exactly been agreeable to many in the teaching profession. Education has experienced delays with contracts, budge cutbacks, and programs have been pared down or cut out all together. Teachers have been required to take furlough days and in many instances positions have been deleted totally.

Art and music have been hit especially hard in public school systems. Unfortunately, they always seem to be the first programs to go when there are money issues.

I doubt there are very few public schools today teaching darkroom photography and printmaking to any class let alone a class of young children, and of course, one of the main reasons Woodward Academy can afford this “extra” for students is Woodward is one of the top private schools in the Atlanta area.

Still….

What a terrific opportunity to teach what may be a dying art. Bob Smith, a local photographer in my neck of the woods states, “This is interesting …I guess it’s great to expose them to the way [photography] used to be done, but in ten years, they may have to buy the chemicals themselves to do the developing. I wonder what types of film will still be sold in ten years. You have to go to professional photography shops……just to buy old 120 film that went in every camera since World War II…and they have to wait on the manufacturer to produce the next allotment.”

Think about the implications for teaching history by having a darkroom photography and printmaking class. Even our youngest students are familiar with digital cameras. Many are very savvy with the Internet, camera phones and Photoshop. They know modern photography, but by teaching older methods students can learn about the methods of Mathew Brady whose Civil War images still get history students involved directly in the war.

Students can view this image….a street scene by Nicephore Niepce, one of the earliest photographic images from 1826. The method used for this print is called Heliogrgraphy, which means ‘sun writing’. The process took eight hours of exposure time…..notice the light is on BOTH sides of the street.

This image is an iconic one showing the damage from the San Francisco Earthquake in April, 1906 by Arnold Genthe.

Young students can relate to this image since the age of these young boys is close to their own. The title of the photo is “Breaker Boys”. Lewis Hine used his photograph to change life for children all across the United States in 1910. Breaker boys were employed in coal mines to separate the coal from slate. Hine travelled the country taking images of child laborers. Soonafter, a law was passed outlawing child labor.

The next image is the most famous of the four I’m featuring here. Who hasn’t seen this haunting image of Florence Owens Thompson taken by Dorethea Lange in Oklahoma during the Great Depression in 1936? It's called "Migrant Mother."

Photography is a powerful way to study history. Images of the past are signs of the particular times we are viewing. We can see how things looked, how people dressed, and how they wished to portray their present for future generations to see.

Historical images are great hooks to draw students in, and what better way to draw them in further than by teaching photography methods that seem to have gone by the wayside in many circles.

In today’s digital world anyone can snap an image and manipulate any way they wish and in doing so they can call themselves a photographer. Mr. Smith states, “I have a pro version of Photoshop CS4 now, and I can take a DSLR color photo and make and make it look like an old fine art black and white print from 60s. I can burn and dodge the photo just like Ansel Adams except it is digital and not like taking your hands to block out the light when the print is being exposed to the negative like Adams did.”

I have to agree.

Where is the knowledge….the craft, and does it suffer at the hands of technology?

Signs of the time, indeed.

Change in an Instant!

2011-05-02T17:11:00.001-04:00

Without a question…..without a doubt history and time are inexplicably intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. During my 49 years riding around on this planet there have been events that serve as turning points in my life – meetings, births, marriages, deaths, reunions, actions that show strength and truthfulness and those that scream weakness and betrayal. Yes, we all have those moments in life….during our time here……embedded in each of our personal histories.

Collectively, historical events have their impact as well. We all have those, “Where were you?” moments such as JFK’s assassination, the Apollo Moon Landing, the Challenger Explosion, the Oklahoma Bombing, and of course…….the tragedy of September 11th, a date that needs no year to identify it because it was that terrible, that horrible, that defining in the psyche of each and every American who experienced it.

Last night was another one of those defining moments in our collective history. While it can be argued the death of Osama bin Laden is actually the closing act to the tragedy of September 11th it is yet another of those events which define our lives.

September 11th changed our lives in so many ways all in an instant just as last night changed it as well. Some of the changes are short term such as the elation, the relief, and the renewed anger as we remember what his policies and philosophy led others to do in the name of religion….of all things. Other changes will be long term. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall fifty or even one hundred years from now to see how September 11th and the death of bin Laden is treated in history classrooms.

Will the whole series of events be taught in a entire instructional unit lasting several days? Then again, it might just become a mere mention before launching into an even more important event….though now we can’t even fathom that. The worse thing that could happen is if future historians and educators decide the whole thing was much ado about nothing.

I doubt that will happen since these events did occur during the age of technology and instant news, and not just news of the collective kind but personal news. We all have Facebook pages, blogs, pictures on line, the ability to interact with newspapers and other columns leaving our comments to express our thoughts and feelings.

Yes, within the last decade our lives have been changed in an instant. Last night’s news made of all of us recall those events of September 11th – where we were, what we were doing and how we came to be where we were last night.

Over the last few years I’ve re-posted my September 11th story because it’s that important personally for me to remember. I’m re-posting it again below, and I ask you to remember and reflect how you came to where you were at when you heard the news last night……

However, this time I will use the young’s man real first name because he finally got the chance to read my recollection of that tragic day not too long ago, and gave me permission to use it.

September 11, 2001 began like any other September school day; however, it was abnormally quiet since Tyler’s seat was uncharacteristically empty. He had not missed a day of school since we had started around the first of August.

Tyler was my assigned rambunctious, outspoken, almost uncontrollable young man for the year. There is always at least one. He was a handsome ten year old who adored baseball, adored going to church, and was very in touch with his feelings. While his brain usually moved ahead of his feet by about ten steps he never intentionally meant to interrupt me for the five thousandth time in one class period, never meant to cause me frustration, and he never meant to get on my nerves. Tyler simply had no clue that a one-to-one ongoing conversation between a teacher and himself was not the proper procedure in a classroom with 24 other students.

He blurted out constantly attempting to finish my sentences, anticipate my questions, and interrupted his classmates every time the notion slapped him in the head. He also had a problem many young men do…..he couldn’t sit still. His parents had long since solved the energy problem by making sure Tyler was signed up for every sport that came along. Unfortunately we don’t run bases in my classroom.

After the second week of getting used to Tyler’s energy level he and I conferenced and we worked out a management plan for mysanity. He and I developed hand signals so that he would know when I had had my limit of interruptions. He honestly didn’t realize what he was doing. Sometimes kids have to be taught social limits regarding space and conversation limits. We worked out a plan where Tyler could stand at his seat every so often to ease any discomfort as he sat. I arranged for his seat to be towards the back of the group so he wouldn’t interfere with another student. Tyler seemed grateful for the strategies as he commented, “Gee, maybe this will work. Lord knows you were ready to strangle me yesterday.”

Tyler was right. So on that September morning his seat screamed at me in the quiet as the class proceeded through their morning work.

We were about to transition into Social Studies when Tyler suddenly burst through the door out of breath speaking as fast and as loud as he possibly could. “Oh my gosh, Mrs. Cooper, a plane crashed in New York City and the whole place is on fire.”

It was very confusing to say the least. I mean where had he suddenly come from? The classroom had gone from very orderly and quiet to some town crier bursting through the door screaming New York City was on fire. My mind was attempting to process all of this. Where had Tyler been? Why was he just now coming to me? What had he been doing? What is this about a plane?

Huh?

I grabbed Tyler by the shoulders. “Darlin’, what are you talking about?”

Tyler was still trying to speak between deep breaths. “I don’t…..know. The man…..said a plane……had crashed…….in New York.”

“What man?” I quizzed.

“The man…..on the radio,” Tyler gulped.

The room was totally disrupted by now with students watching my question and answer session with Tyler their heads bobbing back and forth like they were watching a tennis match.

“Back up, Tyler,” I lobbed, “Where have you been?”

Tyler fired back, “The dentist. By the way, Dr. C. says hello.” Dr. C. is a local dentist and I had taught his son a couple of years before. He was always sending my students back to school with a “Hey, how ya’ doing?” message.

I countered impatiently with, “Yes, yes, hey to Dr. C.” I waved my hand to the air. “Tyler, tell me what’s going on?”

I was getting exasperated. The rhythm of my class had been disrupted, precious instructional minutes were being lost, and I still didn’t know what was going on.

Finally, Tyler served up, “On the way over here from Dr. C’s office the guy on the radio said the World Tower or something has been hit by a plane.”

“The World Trade Center, is that what you mean?” I struck back.

“Yeah, I think so.”

I walked over to the television, hit the on button and switched the channel to CNN……the only twenty-four hour news channel our school could get at the time. The image hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Oh my gosh, Tyler. You’re right.” I said as I backed up from the screen. The room got very still and we listened to the announcer. It was still early enough that both towers were still standing. The announcer was still getting information in his earpiece so he could explain what was going on.

I offhandedly began telling students that many years before a small plane had hit the Empire State Building and the same thing had probably happened again. I told them that, but I wasn’t so sure.

I stepped into the hallway and got the attention of my teaching partner. I lovely woman who was still trying to figure this Southern gal out considering she grew up in New York. Her eyes immediately filled up with tears as she pulled her door behind her and mouthed the words, “Those bastards!” to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I guarantee you this is the same group who tried to take the towers down before.” We exchanged a few more words before she stepped back in her room to turn on her television as Tyler came to my classroom door.

“Mrs. Cooper,” he said. “The tower just fell.”

“Don’t be silly,” I told him as I reentered my room. A few of the girls had heard me and were agreeing with Tyler.

I looked at the screen and there was nothing there but one tower and smoke. It simply did not register with me the building were gone. The announcer was speaking about planes, large planes had done this. My mind screamed. Jetliners, how could two jetliners hit the towers on the same day?

Another student asked, “Mrs. Cooper, what’s the pentagram?”

A bossy little girl shot back at him, “Pentagon, pentagon.”

I didn’t take my eyes from the television as I said, “Ummm, it’s a building in Washington D.C. where all the branches of the armed forces have their offices including the Secretary of Defense. Why?”

“The guy on television said a plane crashed into it. It’s on fire too.”

I closed my eyes. I could not deny something was going on. We had to be under attack, but from who? I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. I wanted to get my purse and go get my kids. I wanted my husband. I wanted my mother and father. I couldn’t. I was the teacher. I was the adult in charge. I couldn’t let them see me upset. I had to turn off the television and get on with our day.

I walked over to the set at the same time my vice principal came into my room. She smiled and motioned to the television and said, “Turn it off.”

“I know,” I said. “I was about to.” We both knew this wasn’t the same thing as our first walk on the Moon or MLK’s funeral. Our students didn’t need to see anymore unfolding events. Luckily they didn’t see any bodies falling from the sky and they had not yet begun to show footage of the plane flying into the tower and the resulting explosion. It was bad enough they witnessed the fall of the building.

Some of the children, being children, went right back to what they were doing. Tyler walked over to me and said, “Mrs. Cooper, we need to pray for those people. There are people who died this morning. It’s so sad.”

“Yes, Tyler. It’s so sad. Tyler, you know I can’t ask you to pray.”

“I know, but I don’t think you’ll stop me. Will you?”

“No, I won’t. Do what you need to do.”

Tyler walked around the room to every student saying, “C’mon guys. We need to pray for those people. Let’s hold hands and get in a circle.”

Every boy and girl stood up, formed a circle and grabbed each other’s hands. No one argued about holding a girls hand or a boy’s hand. Boys didn’t balk at holding each other’s hands. They just did it. Once they were all were in place each one turned and looked my way as if to say, “C’mon!” I was sitting alone at a student’s desk confused and needing information so terribly. At this point all I knew was someone had an undetermined number of American planes, some were missing, some had crashed horribly, and my husband who works in the air freight industry had his office very near the Atlanta airport.

As the kids looked at me two students broke ranks and opened up a place for me. They just stood there looking at me. I just sat there looking at them. Finally, I got up and joined them in their prayer circle. I looked across the circle to Tyler and nodded at him. He began his very heartfelt, innocent prayer for the people in the buildings, the people in the planes, the people on the ground, our president and other government leaders and as he ended each child went around the circle and said something squeezing the next person’s hand as they were through. Finally, the prayers ended up at Tyler again and he finalized the prayer.

I don’t remember what we did that day. I don’t remember what I taught, or if I taught. An hour later the exodus started. Child after child was called for check-out until I only had three or four left.

Finally, the last student was on a bus and I was on my way home. Hubby had contacted me earlier in the afternoon to tell me he was ok and had gone to get both our kids. They were all at home waiting for me.

The ride home was so eerie. The message boards over the normally backed-up Atlanta interstates flashed the words NATIONAL EMERGENCY. The most surreal thing was there was no traffic on the streets or in the sky. The skies around Atlanta’s busy airport are always filled with planes. You can always look up and find at least one in any direction you gaze. Not that afternoon. It was so quiet. It was four p.m. before I really knew what had happened and saw the same footage that everyone else had seen over and over all afternoon.

I learned many things that day. I learned that my country was as vulnerable as any other. I learned that your life can change direction in one single instant. I learned that citizens can put politics aside and come together in one voice when they realize they have a common enemy. I learned the frantic fear of wondering where your family is and realized we would need an emergency game plan. I learned that people hate me just because I was born an American.

The most important thing I learned, however, was from a ten year old young man and his fellow classmates who did what they felt in their hearts and lived up to their convictions no matter the consequence.

What's Your Royal Title?

2011-04-28T18:27:00.001-04:00

Well, the Royal Wedding is almost upon us. Many of us wish we could be on the guest list to have one of the treasured seats in the congregation, but unfortunately, we don’t have the right kind of name – one containing a royal title.

Since it is the time for all the wedding hoopla to take place I decided to have some fun with my Facebook status by posting the following – “What is the name of your Royal Wedding Guest name? Start with Lord or Lady…Your first name is the first name of your grandparents….Surname is the name of your first pet….The name of the street you grew up on with “of”.”

Who knew I had such important friends? They came up with names like Lord Everett Pretzel of Viceroy, Lady Lilby Piper of Preakness, Lord Wilbur Smokey of Welcome Hill, Lady Elizabeth Pepe of Pullen, Lady Annie Bucky of Chapel Hill, Lady Sarah Tinkerbell of Valencia and last but not least Lord Charlie Hotdog of Windridge.

The made up names are rather comical, aren’t they?

However, real royal titles can be a little strange also and some are downright funny.

Take King Niall of the Nine Hostages, for example. You don’t know about him? He’s the one who kidnapped Saint Patrick.

Sir William Douglas the Hardy at Scone also known as Black Douglas fought alongside William Wallace.

The Marquess of Bute was create in 1796 and the title is still in use today by a British racecar driver. Dumfries House serves as their family seat.

Then , of course, we have the more familiar Earl of Sandwich. While he didn’t invent the sandwich the food is attributed to him. Seems he liked the gaming tables so much he would have servants bring him some meat between two slices of bread to eat. Hmmmm…..I wonder if he hung out with the Earl of Mayo or the Earl of Munster.

….and what about Baron Strange? Hmmm…..that’s just strange.

The Earl of Inchcape is a title that was created in 1929 for a shipping magnate, and one of the Earls of Jellico commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland.

Earl Nugent brings to mind Wango Tango Cat Scratchin' Ted.... and The Earl of Rocksavage sounds like a wrestler with the WWF, but it’s actually the courtesy title for the heir of the Marchess of Cholmondeley which is pronounced “Chumley”. Doesn’t that name make you think of Chumlee from the History Channel’s Pawn Stars.

What about the Earl of Camperdown as in “Did you take the camper down after our NASCAR weekend at Rockingham?”

The Duke of Atholl makes me think of “The Focker’s” series of movies for some reason.

Thankfully the title Earl of Wigtown was surrendered in 1372 because……well, seriously…..Wigtown????

And finally…..the Earl of Lovelace….when I mentioned this title to my husband he asked, “Is he kin to ‘Duke’ Throat?”

After this I doubt I will ever be invited to any royal parties.

Oh well…..

Many congrats to the Happy Couple!

An Interview With ElementaryHistoryTeacher

2011-04-03T22:30:00.002-04:00

Occasionally a former student or a young friend will contact me and want to interview me about my writing. Recently a young friend had an assignment to complete and during the process of answering his questions I decided I would share the answers here.

1. What stirred your ambition to be a writer, specifically non-fiction?

I always enjoyed writing essays, research reports, and term papers in school. I know that is very unusual, but the truth is the truth. I don’t write non-fiction the way most folks do. I have to infuse something of myself – my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions – into the piece. Many of my postings and articles contain bits and pieces from my personal life or real situations that have happened in the classroom. Relating a bunch of facts to people can be boring. Using facts and making a parallel to something personal seems to draw others in because the process enables them to open their own doors and make connections to the content.

I was fortunate to have a wonderful teacher by the name of Cleo Hudson at Woodward Academy in College Park, Georgia. While in her class I wrote all sorts of things including fiction. I still have all of my assignments and have looked at them from time to time. Let’s just say I have a formula that is comfortable for me now, and I’m smart enough to stick to it. Fiction is so foreign to me it would be like a right handed person trying to hold a fork with their left hand. Mrs. Hudson was very encouraging, however, and one piece of advice she gave me holds true now……write what you know.

2. Even though you write non-fiction, have you ever written fiction?

I wrote a terrible story of fiction in high school about a very wealthy family. The plot involved a drug overdose, and Mrs. Hudson had me conduct all sorts of research regarding drug interactions. I had to learn how to write exchanges during conversations in such a way the reader could keep up. Mrs. Hudson’s lessons have paid off sometimes at History Is Elementary when I have included a conversation between students and myself.

3. Have you ever sent any work to a publisher? If so, whom?

I sent a couple of short stories to a few magazines. It was required in the class I was taking, and I received the expected rejection notices. I still have them somewhere in a scrapbook.

I’m currently 75 percent complete with a book titled, 1620 Days: My Walk through an American Classroom regarding the nine years I taught fourth and fifth grades. Each chapter parallels a historical focus along with some sort of situation in my classroom. The book also hits on educational reform issues. The content is very similar to my postings at History Is Elementary.

I plan to publish the book myself first unless a publisher knocks on my door. Do you know one? :)

4. Even if you haven't sent anything to a publisher, surely someone has reviewed your work? How do you handle negative criticism?

My work is reviewed all the time online by readers who post comments. My post Oh, I love to Tell the Story is a good example regarding reader comments.

Recently my Patch column received a negative comment. Someone accused me of whitewashing history. Here is the link….you can see how I handed it.

I agonize most over historical accuracy. Do I have my facts straight? Are they clear to the reader? I have to have my facts straight or someone will let me know. When I’m wrong I admit it. I try to thank everyone for their comments, but there are many history bullies out there who like to throw their knowledge around and post a comment just to see their own writing online. Still, I love the blog process because you can have a conversation with so many people across the country and the world. As a teacher it helped me to see my issues in the classroom were the similar to other teachers.

5. How has being a writer affected aspects of your life, particularly social, spiritual, and familial?

Apparently when I’m in top form I can put a word or two together. I praise God for that gift, and I try to improve upon it when I can.

I find that people are usually interested to discover I’m a writer/educator even if history is not their thing. It’s a great conversation starter.

I believe my family is used to seeing stacks of research materials and things to do around my chair. They realize it is just something Mom has to do, and they like the fact that every now and then I include them in a particular piece, but only in a positive way.

6. Are you a writer who sets personal deadlines, or is your work "done when it's done?"

I’m terrible at deadlines. I let other things get in my way, and I don’t consistently work at it like a job. I know what I should be doing, but I don’t do it. My book should be finished, but it’s been a challenging year for my personal life. I’m paid to write my column for the Douglasville Patch page. So far, I’ve met every deadline, but I agonize over every submission.

I enjoy writing for my blogs because I’m in control. I can publish when I wish. I can write what I want when I want. I feel I have more creativity because I write when something moves me to write and update the site.

7. Is there anything that helps you concentrate on your work and get past writer's block (I.E. music, some idiosyncrasy, etc.)?

Since I stick mainly to history topics I do find that if I stay immersed in history publications online and off I stay motivated. Sometimes when I don’t like the way a piece is going I step away from it for a bit. I rest and read it with fresh eyes. Amazingly, I can see a conversation thread on Facebook or a friend’s link to something and that will inspire me in some way. My most recent piece at the history blog titled A Message to Garcia started with a friend’s posting on Facebook.

8. Who are you biggest inspirations and literary influences?

Mark Twain is a favorite and the historian, Shelby Foote. Winston Groom is a favorite. My best loved local writer is Ferrol Sams. I used to read his book Christmas Gift! aloud to my fifth graders. It’s a wonderful look at life in Georgia during the Depression…..and you can’t be an Atlanta gal without appreciating the work of Ludlow Porch, Lewis Grizzard, and Celestine Sibley.

9. Not every writer has a big break like J.K. Rowling or Christopher Paolini, and every writer at some point cannot make a living simply off writing alone. How do you compensate for this?

I take freelance assignments when I can. This summer I wrote a lesson plan for this website, and I am having such fun learning all about Douglasville history with my Patch column, Every Now and Then. I have a few advertisements on my blogs, but I’m far from supporting myself. I have a great family that lets me take a seat at the table, and my husband owns his own business. I admire anyone who can manage to make writing their sole income source.

10. I know from personal experience that every writer wants to give up at some point. What keeps you going?

Rabid determination is the only way I know how to describe it. I have had all sorts of challenges since I started History Is Elementary and Georgia on My Mind.

My mother passed away after a very lengthy illness, I had two major surgeries five months apart, a long recovery, and other issues that have challenged my love of writing. I think I keep going because I denied it for so long. It wasn’t until 2006 that I picked up my pen and started writing seriously. I simply feel the need to do it, and as an educator I feel I can reach a much broader audience online.

A Message to Garcia

2011-03-30T11:26:00.001-04:00

You reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office--six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio."

Will the clerk say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task? On your life he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

I was hired for that?

Don't you mean Bismarck?

What's the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Sha'n't I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him to try to find [Correggio]--and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course, I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average I will not. Now, if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under Cs, not in the Ks, but you will smile very sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.

Hmmm…..Integrity. Resourcefulness. Independent action.

They might as well be words from a dead language in today’s world.

However, the test situation posed above was not put forth recently but was asked on February 22, 1899. Yes, one hundred and twelve years ago it seems we had problems with folks not being able to carry out a mission. Apparently moral stupidity was rampant, and folks were unwilling to cheerfully catch hold and lift.

This situation was posed by Elbert Hubbard in a pamphlet he wrote titled, “A Letter to Garcia” in reaction to an observation his young son had made at the dinner table regarding the outcome of the Spanish American War. His son had remarked that the success the United States had experienced could all be boiled down to one man…..Andrew S. Rowan.

Never heard of him? I’m not surprised since most folks don’t know many details regarding the Spanish American War past the fact the USS Maine exploded in Havana’s harbor and one Theodore Roosevelt went up San Juan Hill.

Prior to the war the Cubans had attempted more than once to gain their independence from Spain. In May, 1898, the leader of the Cuban rebels, Garcia Y’iniguez Calixto, was hiding out in the jungles of Cuba. Once the United States became involved President McKinley knew it was imperative he get some sort of message to Garcia and knew that information was key regarding a successful U.S. operation there.

When the President asked, “Who can deliver a message to Garcia?” his advisors were quick to indicate Andrew S. Rowan was his man. This is certainly one situation where a president was advised correctly.

Later in his account of his mission Rowan wrote, “The President was anxious for information. He realized that success meant that the soldiers of the republic must co-operate with the insurgent forces of Cuba. He understood that it was essential to know how many Spanish troops there were on the island, their quality and condition, their morale, the character of their officers, especially those of the high command; the state of the roads in all seasons; the sanitary situation in both the Spanish and insurgent armies and the country in general; how well both sides were armed and what the Cuban forces would need in order to harass the enemy while American battalions were being mobilized; the topography of the country and many other important facts.”

Rowan was advised by his commanding officer, “Means will be found to identify you in Jamaica, where there is a Cuban junta. The rest depends on you……..After that, providing the United States declares war on Spain, further instructions will be based on cables received from you. Otherwise everything will be silence. You must plan and act for yourself. The task is yours and yours only. You must get a message to Garcia. Your train leaves at midnight. Good-bye and good luck!”

That was it. Those are the only instructions Rowan received. He did the rest on his own. His full account regarding his time in Cuba gathering information and delivering that all important letter to Garcia can be found here....just scroll down a bit.

Getting back to Hubbard he sat down after his dinner and wrote out a four page pamphlet titled, A Letter to Garcia” that within days would go viral in 1899 terms. Once it was published business people got hold of it and passed it along. Extra copies were ordered at twenty-five cents each. “A dozen, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, and yes, a hundred thousand. Then in half million lots until finally it was translated into nearly every language…..At one time during the 1920s more copies of “A Message to Garcia” were in print than any other publication except the Bible.”

The question, “Who can send a message to Garcia?” become synonymous with being resourceful and having integrity to do one’s job without dissolving into a puddle of helplessness. Hubbard stated later, “The hero is the man who does his work – who carries the Message to Garcia.”

I think the most powerful portion of Hubbard’s pamphlet is this……

THE WORLD BESTOWS ITS BIG PRIZES, both in money and honors, for but one thing, and that is Initiative. What is Initiative? I'll tell you. It is doing the right thing without being told. But next to doing the thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is to say, carry the Message to Garcia: those who can carry a message get high honors, but their pay is not always in proportion. Next there are those who never do a thing until they are told twice: such get no honors and small pay. Next, there are those who do the right thing only when Necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of honors, and a pittance for pay. This kind spends most of its time polishing a bench with a hard luck story. Then, still lower down in the scale than this, we have the fellow who will not do the right thing even when someone goes along to show him how and stays to see that he does it: he is always out of a job, and receives the contempt he deserves, unless he happens to have a rich Pa, in which case Destiny patiently awaits around the corner with a stuffed club.

To which class do you belong?

Chain...Chain....Chain..Chain of Fools

2011-03-10T20:29:00.002-05:00

I walk over to my laptop and make a quick “click”. The sounds of Aretha Franklin fill the classroom….

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chian
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I'm just a link in your chain....
found out I’m just a link in your chain….

Go ahead – click on the video and listen. I’ll wait.

I’m certain you are thinking I’ve lost it. Why is ElementaryHistoryTeacher playing this particular song for nine and ten year olds as the opening salvo to a lesson regarding an aspect of the American Revolution?

Don’t click off just yet. I have a connection.

Teaching history isn’t all about reading a lesson in a book or having a teacher tell a fascinating story for kids to take notes from.

Teaching history is all about making connections and visualizing the links – links in a chain of events that ebb and flow through history to the present day. In this particular exercise where I play the Queen of Soul’s famous song for my students I’m trying to allow them to own and claim the content and build some links of their own to the content.

I want them to listen to the song. I might even play it two or three times.

Okay, I might even play it a fourth time just for me.

I pop the lyrics up on my classroom screen and we read through them together. Some of my more talented students actually sing through them having already picked up the melody.

I pick up with the lyrics where I left off above….. (Read through them very carefully)

You got mw where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Every chain has a wink link
I might be a weak child, but I'll give you strength
You told me to leave you alone
My father said come on home
My doctor said take it easy
Whole bunch of lovin is much too strong
I'm added to your chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain of fools
One of these mornings the chain is gonna break
But up until then, yeah I'm gonna take all I can take
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Students are sitting in small groups, so I proceed to tell them to take another look at the lyrics and discuss how the situation between the British and the American colonies is similar to the lyrics of the song.

Seriously…….think about it. I’ll wait. They don’t tell you in teacher education school, but most of good teaching is knowing when to hush and let the student’s think.

So?????

What did YOU come up with?

My students don’t disappoint me. They make some great connections between the contemporary lyrics and the plight of the American colonists.

Students volunteer the following:

*The British government had the colonies where they wanted them. Taxing them, but not allowing them any representation in Parliament.
*The colonist felt they were being treated mean and cruel. Students cited situations like the Intolerable Acts as proof.
*The colonists were a chain of fools. They were being taken advantage of and needed to stand up for themselves.
*The weak links in the chain were Tories.
*Everyone has an opinion regarding what should be done…….the Sons of Liberty, Committees of Correspondence, newpapers, the members of the Continental Congress.
*The chain is finally broken with Lexington and Concord.

Yes, this lesson is a great way to review. It’s also a great way to bring up new content tying into the chain theme.

Let me throw a few names out to you…..Peter Townsend, Sterling Iron Works, Captain Thomas Machin, Colonel Timothy Pickering.

Do they ring a bell?

What about New York, West Point, the Hudson River? Those are more familiar, aren’t they?

They all have something to do with one another. Early on during the American Revolution the Patriots were concerned about the security of the Hudson River and the military outpost at West Point. To keep the British from advancing up the Hudson they installed a chain across the river from Constitution Island over to the west bank of the river. It wasn’t the only chain, but it is remembered as The Great Chain. It was an ideal place in the river since a heavy S-curve existed there. Ships had to slow down because of the curves and it was the perfect location for artillery to shoot at enemy ships.

Peter Townsend was the owner of Stirling Iron Works, the company hired to build the chain. The Stirling name hails from William Alexander, Lord Stirling – the one-time owner of the land where the ironworks was located and a Major General in the Continental Army. Captain Thomas Machin and Colonel Timothy Pickering oversaw the project.

The whole thing weighed around 65 tons and stretched out to 600 yards. Each link in the chain was two feet in length and weighed 114 pounds.

To compensate for the changing current and tide pulleys, rollers, ropes, and mid-stream anchors were used in tandem with the chain. The chain was supported by huge logs. To avoid damage by ice the chain was removed each winter during the war and replaced each spring.

One point of interest about the chain regards Benedict Arnold who informed the British it was possible to break the chain because he had actually weakened it. Arnold escaped to the British when he realized the Patriots knew he had been an informer.

The picture below shows 13 links of the chain that are on display at Trophy Point, West Point. Yes, 13 links for the 13 colonies.

History tells us the British fleet never attempted to break the chain.

You can find out more about the chain and Peter Townsend at this link.

This post from The New York Times dated February, 1895 provides more detail regarding how the chain was installed.

Scattering Seeds

2011-02-21T17:28:00.001-05:00

I visited my father a couple of weekends ago and walked over some of his property. Today, most of it is heavily wooded, but in the early days when my great grandfather and grandfather farmed for a living most of the land was covered in cultivated fields of some sort. My father left the land in the 50s to join the Army and later settled in Atlanta to raise my sister and me. He said he was done with farming, but……..

The land lured him back, and I’ve never known him to not have a tractor of some sort even when we lived in the suburbs. Eventually, he began to return to the farm on the weekends and helped his father with a huge garden. My father is a huge proponent of child labor, so my sister and I were schooled in the ways of plowing a field, scattering seeds, and my favorite farming activity…..picking up rocks. My grandmother and mother taught my sister and me the other side of farming – food preservation. You know…….canning and freezing.

During the work week Daddy would visit the local feed and seed place to gather up supplies for our weekend of farming. During those days since I pretty much took every step that Daddy took, I would go along. The feed and seed store was an interesting place…….hay was scattered about on the floor, there were interesting smells, at Easter there were always colored chicks and bunnies for sale, and there were always those racks of seed packets with the colorful pictures. While Daddy would conduct his business I would stand in front of the seed rack flipping through the packets looking at all of the colorful flowers and various vegetables that could be grown in our area. Occasionally, Daddy would allow me to purchase a packet or two of the precious seed……petunias or zinnias to plant in a bed along the side of our front porch.

So, I’ve been thinking which usually leads me to do a little investigating and I’ve come up with some interesting points that could infuse any course of study regarding the 1800s along the lines of agriculture, inventions, women’s rights and North-South relations during Civil War. The most important thing I discovered is it seems we have the Shakers to thank for those little seed packets.

Yes, that’s right. Those folks that followed the Shaker religion are more formally known as The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. They rejected sex and believed in social equality. In fact, instead of using the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and the work of Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott as the starting point for women’s rights in the United States it would be more correct to examine Ann Lee who led the Shakers and came to the colonies as early as 1747. She is the prime reason the Shakers practiced equality.

Most people today equate the Shakers with their music and furniture. The furniture was plain and functional, and today it is highly sought by collectors. Their songs and dances were very important to Shaker worship services and are very unique. In fact, their frenzied movements during worship earned the sect the Shaker name.

The Shakers had an excellent work ethic and were fond of saying, “Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow.”

The Shakers invented many items, but are rarely given credit since they did not patent their inventions. The rotary harrow, circular saw, clothes pin, the wheel driven washing machine and flat broom can all be traced back to Shaker communities.

In 1802 Brother Jefferson White founded the seed business at the Enfield Shaker Community.

As early as 1816 they were the first ones to place seeds in packets. Before the seeds were placed in packets they sold them via wooden boxes which can still be found today in antique stores.

They were sold to stores and individual farmers via Shaker Seed Wagons. Most farmers wanted to purchase the seeds because the Shaker Seed Company had a great reputation for great business ethics and quality seeds and herbs. Plus….there was over 100 varieties.

The Hancock Shaker Community had at one time over 10 acres devoted to the cultivation of seeds and herbs. Eventually the business grew and the Shakers had to contract local farmers to grow seeds under the Shaker label.

Another curriculum area where the Shaker Seed Company can be discussed is the Civil War. The company was Northern business concern…..one that had a large customer base in the South. Once the Civil War began the seed business began to decline since most of the customers were in hostile territory and the product could no longer be delivered to customers. The seed company never could recover from significant southern debts. By the 1870s the Shaker Seed Company had been discontinued.

PBS has an excellent site for Ken Burn's Shaker series here.

Remembering Old Weather

2011-02-02T15:36:00.000-05:00

I can remember how the painted wooden planks of our front porch felt on my bare feet during the hot and lazy days of July. I can remember the smell of the dirt in Pa Land’s garden after it had been churned up during a night of pelting rain. I can remember the delight of looking out my bedroom window and discovering a blanket of snow had fallen making even the ugliest parts of my yard beautiful. I can remember heading off to school on cool crisp mornings that gradually morphed into bitterly cold trips as October and November became December and January begging for coats, ear muffs and mittens. I can remember the beginning of Atlanta’s Great Ice Storm of 1973 – the clink, clink, clink of sleet as it began to coat every surface signaling we would be homebound for the next fifteen days or so.
Weather has an important role to play in our historical memory. It changes our picnic plans. Derails a lunch we might have planned with an old friend or hits us in the pocketbook. It does not matter if we are the farmer with a ruined crop or the grocery store customer having to pay a higher price for a scarce item.

Remember the Battle of the Bulge? What about the Challenger Explosion or the Dust Bowl? The outcomes of many important battles have been affected by weather as I recounted here. Hurricanes such as Katrina are remembered for their long-lasting effects on our lives. Television shows such as the Weather Channel’s When Weather Changed History and books like Laura Lee’s Blame It on the Rain (Harper, 2006) help us to see weather and history go hand in hand.

Yes, old weather data provides details to help us figure out why certain decisions were made, helps us to analyze various outcomes, and can help us make predictions regarding the future due to climate cycles.

The folks at OldWeather.org are doing what they can to fill in the gaps regarding the Earth’s observational weather record primarily for the years around World War I. The majority of the work is being done strictly by volunteers who are working from their own homes to pour over the scanned log books of over 250 Royal Navy ships. Even YOU can be a volunteer at OldWeather.org!

Each volunteer is assigned a ship and records the information from their home. They note the date, location or voyage, and the individual keeper’s weather records – wind direction and strength, cloud cover, and weather conditions. Barometric pressure is noted along with temperature observations, interesting events aboard ship and landmarks.

So why would this weather data be important?

This article from Science News states:

Some of the voyages are interesting to social sciences, too. The logbooks from the H.M.S. Beagle, which carried Charles Darwin around South America between 1831 and 1837, had careful weather observations…..and out of William [Edward] Parry’s three tries to reach the North Pole, he covered the most seas in 1819 – a surprisingly warm year in the Arctic…with very little floating ice.

The aim of the project is to predict how climate affects weather variability. But accumulating a massive bank of data won’t necessarily help weather stations make guesses about the weather more than 10 days in the future.

A person connected to the program is quoted saying, “It’s not possible to predict when it will start raining in Baltimore. But it is possible to predict how the chance of rain in Baltimore changes if there is a massive drought in California or a heat wave in New York City.”

Another long-term goal of the project is to mesh the data together in a user-friendly website where people could enter a date and location and find out what the weather was like for that day….

The blog for OldWeather.org provides further implications regarding how the project can impact historical information:

….quite a few people are getting interested in the sickness records in the logs, and their relationship to the well-known ‘spanish flu’ outbreak in 1918. Many of the logs contain a record of the ‘Number on Sick List’; we didn’t ask for this number to be recorded, but some people have decided to record it anyway, and so far the database has accumulated values from almost 10,000 log pages from 126 different ships.

The article goes on to state:

On September 2, 1918 the Spanish flu caught up with HMS Africa, and the cases mounted fast – reaching a peak with 476 people ill on the 9th. The Africa was a big ship, a King Edward VII-class battleship, but even so 476 people is nearly 2/3 of the crew; and it must have been a major challenge to keep her operational.

This project really excites me as a historian, writer, and educator. What a wonderful tool for reference and further analysis, and what a wonderful project a class could undertake! Younger classes could follow the actions of a volunteer as log pages are examined and digitized and make judgements based on the data. Older classes under the direction of their teacher could possibly volunteer and do the work themselves.

Bravo OldWeather.org!!!!

Sunday This and That

2011-01-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in a fog since Christmas. I know the New Year has come and gone. I know that I should have hit the ground running with resolutions, new schedules, and new habits, but the only thing I seem to have formed a habit with is meandering to and from one project to another.

Last week, while I was still trying to recover from being confined to quarters for an entire week while my beloved Atlanta dug out from the snow and ice I felt a little reprieve from the things I knew I must see to – the items I need to get to Goodwill, tax documents, receipts to enter, writing projects to work on and complete – but last week was different. Things were back to normal, and I was still wandering about bumping into thing after thing all needing more than a modicum of attention.

Then it hit me. January is always a foggy time for me. The let-down after the holidays, the starkness of the house after decorations have been put away, the damned cold cutting through me like a knife…..all of that and more just does me in.

I finally admitted to myself that I had failed once again to hit the ground running as the new year began, and I surrendered.

That’s when I decided to cut myself some slack and just get over myself. I’d pick up steam this week and by the time February gets here I’ll hit the ground walking at a brisk pace.

One of my New Year resolutions had to do with regular blogging….getting back to it….at least three times a week. We will see. Here is post number one….a little mish-mash of this and that.

Well, I’m counting it as number one at any rate.

Have you found the site Rating Historical Fiction yet? The tagline over there states “Reviews of social studies resources by teachers and librarians to help identify the best books for students”. Recent book reviews include Fever, 1793 and The Watsons Go to Birmingham.

How many of you saw the media blast regarding Fed Up With School Lunch? You can find out more about Mrs. Q and her efforts here at her FAQ page.

I continually get these emails letting me know History Is Elementary has been included on one list or another…..Seriously, I do appreciate the links and these lists always alert me to other blogs I might have missed.

History Is Elementary is listed 26 in Top 50 Blogs by Elementary Educators and in the list, 100 Seriously Cool Classroom Blogs for Teaching Ideas & Inspiration as well as Amazing Blogs for Elementary Educators.

Do you know about “Disunion”?   The New York Times is hosting the series in their online opinion section. “The series, which will have an open-ended run, tells the story of the Civil War using both historical perspectives and contemporary accounts. Rich in voices, themes, and appearance, the series makes use of maps, portraits, engravings, diaries, and timelines in its exploration of this important moment in American history. “

“The series is edited by George Kalogerakis and Clay Risen of The New York Times and will include weekly pieces written in the form of 1860-era blogs, along with several shorter posts on specific events, characters, and themes.”

Kevin Levin over at Civil War Memory has recently published a New York Times opinion piece regarding the recent black Confederate/4th grade history textbook controversy in Virginia.

You can access the piece following this link to Civil War Memory.  Make sure you read the comments at Kevin’s blog and at the New York Times site as well. Interesting stuff

And in case you missed it….

Here is a list of 25 Historic Technology Predictions from the past. Some of the entries might surprise you.

For example,

"In 1878 an Oxford professor by the name of Erasmus Wilson said, “When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” It’s also hard to believe in 1932 Albert Einstein said, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”

Well now. How about that?

Head on over and read through several more predictions.

Have a happy Monday!!!!

Be a Hero: Sink a U.S. Ship

2011-01-02T19:06:00.005-05:00

The Spanish American War tends to be the event where the term yellow journalism arises, and in my opinion it is an appropriate spot to discuss the role of media regarding war and foreign policy . There is no smoking gun, but it can be argued the headline wars between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal helped to fan the flames of war. Both papers sensationalized news events such as the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor in 1898. Even today after numerous investigations we still aren’t sure if the Maine exploded due to an accident on board or due to actions by the Spanish.

Both Pulitzer and Hearst told their readers the Spanish were responsible even through there was no proof. They hyped the story to feed a public hungry for revenge though some argue folks outside of New York did not see the sensationalistic reports, therefore the papers really didn’t really cause the war. I agree somewhat……there were other things happening behind the scenes, but my focus here is the gentleman in the picture I’ve posted…..not the causes of the Spanish American War.

Whether the Spanish were at fault for the Maine explosion or not, war was declared, and Rear Admiral William T. Sampson arrived off Santiago on June 1, 1898 for what would be remembered as the largest naval engagement of the Spanish-American War. A standoff had been underway since May between the Americans and Spanish Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete who had positioned himself and his squadron in Santiago Harbor. Rear Admiral Sampson ordered the collier USS Merrimac commanded by Lieut. Richmond Pearson Hobson (the handsome man in the picture I posted), to be sunk in order to block the harbor soon after he arrived on the scene. The crew of the Merrimac bravely attempted to carry out Sampson’s order under heavy Spanish fire which eventually disabled the Merrimac’s steering gear. The Merrimac sank mainly due to Spanish fire and unfortunately it didn’t exactly end up where Sampson ordered or Hobson intended. The Americans were eventually successful clearing the harbor, and the war continued on for approximately six months. Rear Admiral Sampson and another officer had a major disagreement over who the credit should go to regarding the overall actions at Santiago Harbor. I wrote about that here.

Now at this point some of you might be saying to yourself…..wait a minute……don’t I remember something about a vessel named Merrimac involved in the Civil War? Something about the Monitor and the Merrimac? How could the USS Merrimac sink during the Spanish-American War if it had already been sunk during the Civil War?

The answer is simple. There have been six different vessels named Merrimac throughout our history. The Merrimac Hobson scuttled was the fourth such vessel to bear the name, and it is not related to the Merrimac of Civil War fame. THAT one belonging to the United States burned and the Confederates took her hull and the rebuilt ship was then known as CSS Virginia, but we tend to remember the battle as the Monitor and the Merrimac, don’t we?

Another note I’d like to insert here is you see two spellings for the ship Hobson commanded……Merrimac and Merrimack. All six United States vessels were named for the Merrimac River running through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and for the most part both spellings are acceptable. No one is really sure when the “k” was omitted.

Getting back to Richmond Pearson Hobson…..He and his crew were taken prisoner by the Spanish and held for at least a month before being released during a prisoner exchange. Back in the states the crew of the Merrimac became national heroes. Newspapers ran with the story printing Hobson’s picture and created an enduring American hero. Every member of the Merrimac including Hobson was awarded Medals of Honor and Hobson set off on a cross country tour where he kissed the girls, spoke to crowds, and he even dined with President McKinley. He was so popular at the time he probably would have been People’s Sexiest Man Alive or Time’s Person of the Year.

Hobson became a US Congressman in 1933 and he became what is remembered today as the Father of Prohibition for his work after leaving Congress. He wrote three books on the effects of drug use, spoke on radio programs was founder of the International Narcotic Education Association and spoke extensively for the Anti-Saloon League as their highest paid speaker.

A full account of the Merrimac sinking can be found here.

An article written by Hobson for the New York Times regarding the ills of drugs he wrote in 1924 can be found here.

A Bo Type of Christmas

2010-12-22T18:55:00.000-05:00

The White House theme this year for Christmas decorations is “Simple Gifts”….emphasizing what Mrs. Obama says are the simple things at Christmas time, such as music, children, friends, and family, and gifts made from nature.

However, the Obama’s dog, Bo, has his stamp all over Christmas at the White House this year. A larger-than-life version of the Obama family pet, made of 40,000 twisted black and white pipe cleaners, is one of the first things tourists and other guests will see when they stroll through the White House all decked out for the holidays.

Bo also features prominently in a 350-pound, white chocolate-covered gingerbread White House. A tiny version of the family dog made from almond paste sits on the edible grounds near of replica of Mrs. Obama’s fruit and vegetable garden.

Bo’s signature….of sorts….is even found on the official White House Christmas card seen below:

Notice everyone in the Obama family signed the card including Bo. His little paw print is seen along with everyone else’s.

The cover of the card features a picture of the White House taken by Pete Souza following a snow storm on February 3, 2010.

Past articles of mine regarding the White House Christmas greetings can be found here, here, here, and here, and I’m still looking for that original Wyeth painting that was used for the Nixon Christmas card from 1971.

A Honey of A Christmas

2010-12-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

I love the premise behind the National Treasure movies where members of the Gates family feel compelled to solve a series of historical clues in order to find a treasure that will ultimately save the family reputation. Unfortunately, there are always a few bad men along the way and some of the clues and found artifacts end up painting the Gates family in a bad light. It must be difficult to have your family ridiculed and doubted because historians don’t believe your ancestor’s role in the American story. Luckily for the fictional Benjamin Gates he finds all the pieces of the historical puzzle and in the end he finds the treasure, saves a few lives, and even gets the girl.

Not so for the real-life family of John Honeyman, a spy for Washington and little known hero of the Battle of Trenton during Christmas, 1776. I’m not surprised if you have never heard of John Honeyman because most contemporary historians have relegated his story to the back burner and allowed the pot to simmer a bit because cold hard evidence is lacking.

I really can’t say I blame them because I like hard cold evidence, but the Honeyman tale, if it could be substantiated, makes for great history!

John Honeyman first came to the British colonies as a soldier for Great Britain in 1758 to fight in the French and Indian War. Having shared this war many times with my young students it’s very easy to allow them to be lulled into thinking the French and Indian War was fought only by colonists. They need to remember the war in the colonies were merely an offshoot of the Seven Years War in Europe. Honeyman is a great example to use with students to exhibit the French and Indian War was not only fought by colonist but British soldiers were sent to the colonies to assist them as well. Like many soldiers though at the time, Honeyman wasn’t exactly thrilled about having to fight. It’s also a great time to emphasize that men like George Washington also fought for the British during the conflict. Many British soldiers like Honeyman decided to stay in the colonies.

While serving in the British army Honeyman was noticed by Colonel James Wolfe and eventually served as his bodyguard. When Honeyman left the army he had his discharge papers as well as a letter from Wolfe confirming his position as bodyguard.

Fastforward a bit to 1776 and at some point so the story goes Honeyman meets up with General George Washington and the British paperwork Honeyman possesses is mentioned. Washington realizes the paperwork will be helpful to allow Honeyman access to British camps and Honeyman is asked to pose as a Tory to gather intelligence for the Patriots.

The first instance regarding John Honeyman’s involvement in the Battle of Trenton was published in 1873 in an article titled 'An Unwritten Account of a Spy of Washington' in Our Home magazine. The story was written by Judge John van Dyke, a grandson of John Honeyman, using oral accounts told to him by his Aunt Jane, the daughter of John Honeyman.

The article states Honeyman did pose as a Tory in Griggstown and Trenton and apparently he was so believable in the role, he made many Patriot neighbors mad at him to the point they would attack his house. The only thing that saved the family was the fact John Honeyman had a letter of protection from General George Washington. The letter identified Honeyman as a Tory, but also requested safety for the family. The British trusted Honeyman so much that he was given the freedom to walk about the British garrison at Trenton.

The story continues that just prior to the Battle of Trenton Honeyman was captured by the Patriots…..part of his plan….and he gave up his information he had gathered to Washington and his men. When a fire broke out close to where he was being held Honeyman escaped and made his way back to Trenton where he advised Colonel Johann Rall the Patriots wouldn’t attack even if they wanted to. They were demoralized and did not have the necessary equipment for an attack.

Honeyman knew better……his information was part of a great ruse since Washington was planning to attack during the Christmas holiday.

It was easy for George Washington to make the decision to attack on Christmas. While some Americans did celebrate the holiday by December, 1776, it was overlooked by many Patriots as they considered it a celebration for the British. While Christmas held more significance in 1776 than it did during the mid to late 1600s it wasn’t held in such high regard as it is today. Washington knew the British would celebrate, but knew the Hessians camped at Trenton would celebrate heartily with food, drink, and games as was the German custom. It would be the perfect time for a Patriot attack.

Washington planned Christmas surprise included taking 2400 men across the Delaware River in order to attack the Hessians camped at Trenton. One thousand enemy soldiers were taken prisoner within an hour, and the much needed victory spurred the Patriots on.

So, did John Honeyman really serve as Washington’s spy? There is no hard evidence even though many historians in the past have referred to him. Everything boils down to family lore and the Honeyman family have never produced the letter from George Washington giving the family protection. However, many in support of the story argue that Honeyman never left the colonies for Nova Scotia as most Tories did, and he was able to purchase three tracts of land following the American Revolution when most could not afford anything. Was this payment for his service?

This American Heritage article seems to support the Honeyman service while this article from the Central Intelligence Agency site does a fantastic job of negating the whole thing.

You can be the judge, but it is still a fascinating story either way.

I’ve written about Trenton and the crossing Washington and his men undertook before. You can find my articles here and here.

The Pilgrims and Christmas

2010-12-09T15:20:00.001-05:00

The Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock in November, 1620.

Can you imagine moving to a “New World”?

Can you imagine moving anywhere for that matter right before the rush of the Christmas season?

I can’t.

Maybe it’s just a woman thing, but I know what would have been on my mind had I been on the Mayflower. I would be thinking.......Here it is nearly the first of December, I have no home, and Christmas is just around the corner. I have shopping to do, the decorations need to be up (hope I remembered where I packed them), and then I have all the cooking to do. How am I going to fit 30 various parties, dinners, and gatherings into four weeks? When are the greeting cards going to get addressed? And.....how does one ship gifts back home from the “New World”?

By December, 1620 many of the Pilgrims were sick with scurvy and many more were suffering from wild coughing fits They hardly felt like celebrating, but the fact of the matter is any Pilgrims well enough spent their first December 25th in the New World by sending out scouting parties, building their first structures, and all of the other necessary tasks to build “New Plymouth”

The Pilgrims didn’t ignore Christmas because they had bigger fish to fry like securing shelter and gathering food. It was much more than that.

They didn’t celebrate Christmas….

…..at all.

Not a Christmas carol, a Christmas tree, or a Christmas meal. Nothing. Not even Santa.

The Grinch would have loved New Plymouth.

The Pilgrims were a very no nonsense, no frills type of people. If the Bible didn’t direct it, they didn’t do it. This means they didn’t buy into any additions made to Christianity especially church traditions.

Since Christmas was not mentioned in the Bible the Pilgrims ignored the holiday. They disapproved of the way their fellow Englishmen celebrated the day with parties, feasting, drinking, and bawdy behavior in some instances.

One year after the Pilgrims arrived in the New World on December 25, 1621, Governor William Bradford discovered a few recent arrivals to New Plymouth didn’t want to work on what the Pilgrims considered just another day. He made a notation in Of Plymouth Plantation:

“On the day called Christmas Day, the Governor called [the settlers] out to work as was usual. However, the most of this new company excused themselves and said it went against their consciences to work on that day. So the Governor told them that if they made it [a] matter of conscience he would spare them till they were better informed; so he led away the rest and left them.”

When the working party returned they found the men who had a conscience decided not only to refrain from working in recognition of the day they also decided to play games and shockingly they were having ……..FUN. The governor ordered them to stop making an exhibition in the streets for all to see. The men were told if they wanted to act like that to go to the privacy of their homes.

The Puritans who differed from the Pilgrims regarding the Anglican Church merely wanted to change certain practices of the church while the Pilgrims totally separated themselves from it, however they were on the same page regarding celebrating Christmas. They knew there was absolutely no Biblical proof regarding December as the birth month for Christ, and they knew history. They realized Christmas had roots in the pagan winter solstice festivals like the Roman Saturnalia. The argued the early Roman Catholic Church had taken a pagan holiday and merged it with Christian beliefs.

In the book The Battle for Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum sums it up this way:

“The Puritan knew what subsequent generations would forget; that when the Church, more than a millennium earlier, had placed Christmas Day in late December, the decision was part of what amounted to a compromise, and a compromise for which the church paid a high price. Late-December festivities were deeply rooted in popular culture, both in observance of the winter solstice and in celebration of the one brief period period of leisure and plenty in the agricultural year. In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been. From the beginning, the Church’s hold over Christmas was (and remains still) rather tenuous. There were always.people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival, but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult day to Christianize. Little wonder that the Puritans were willing to save themselves the trouble.”

For sure – the Puritans didn’t trouble themselves. They just outlawed the holiday.

In fact, by Christmas, 1659 the Five-Shilling Anti-Christmas Law was enacted by the General Court of Massachusetts. The law stated:

Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas, or the like, either by forebearing labor, feasting, or any other way upon such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for each offense five shillings as a fine to the country.

Boston actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas from 1659 to 1681.

Even after the law was set aside in 1681, New Englanders were slow to accept Christmas. The customs of gift giving and parties and even decorations were considered to be pagan customs. My research indicates even as late as 1870 Boston schools held classes on Christmas Day.

It’s interesting to note that today we still have the Christmas tug-of-war. The church is still fighing the masses over the Christmas issue. Christians fuss and fume because it seems everyone celebrates the holiday even if they don’t actually believe in the reason for the season. Folks are in it for the parties, the drinking, the gifts, the decorations, the food, the general falderal whether they believe in the divinity of Christ or not.

Heck, even Christians enjoy the falderal. I do.

I’m just glad I can celebrate how I wish, believe what I want to, and I don’t have to pay fine while doing it.

Slip of the Tongue

2010-11-29T18:08:00.000-05:00

Several months ago I was embroiled in an online conversation at a local forum I visit from time to time. The topic of discussion had twisted and turned until one of the participants…someone who normally makes it his job in life to rub everyone the wrong way…. made mention that there was no purpose for Latin.
He said, “Latin is a dead language.”

When I read what he had written I stared at my computer screen a little dumbfounded because in my eyes and in the eyes of several others Latin does live on since it is the root language for Italian, French, Spanish and English. It is also very much in use and spoken in the legal field, medical field, in academic circles, the Catholic church uses it for certain papal bulls and mass is often conducted in Latin, AND certain members of the clergy speak it very well, so it isn’t dead as a door nail, is it?

I had a little fun sparring with my online friend as I sought to educate him a little regarding Latin, but you know? There are just some people you can’t teach…..no matter what. I did have fun for several weeks posting comments to everything he wrote by writing my comments in Latin with a little English translation, just so he had an idea regarding what I was saying.

Languages can be extinct. Those are languages that are no longer spoken. There are approximately 82 known languages that can be termed recently extinct languages – like Arwi, Modern Gutnish, and Wappo. Yes, Wappo…..I kid you not.

Languages can also be dead. Those are languages that are no longer spoken by anyone as their main language. Therefore, using that distinction……I have to admit Latin is a dead language since there are no native speakers, but it does live on in so many arenas as I mentioned above. There are also several devotees to the Latin language. So much so they have even created a section of Wikipedia written in Latin with over 40,000 articles to date!

Recently, there was a new discovery regarding an extinct language……a very important discovery right here in what used to be termed the New World.

Archaeologists have been excavating the ruins of the Magdalena de Cao Viejo church at the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, just north of Trujillo, in northern Peru for some time now. El Brujo is actually an ancient monument of the Moche culture and dates back to some point between 1 and 600 A.D. but the church there dates to colonial times. Researchers believe indigenous people were forced to inhabit the area by Spaniards, probably for purposes of conversion to Christianity. At some point the roof of the church collapsed more than likely in the mid-to late 17th century, and papers kept in the library or church office were trapped staying buried until the last couple of years.

In fact, a very important letter was discovered in 2008 but was not divulged to the public until it could be examined. Recently the journal, American Anthropologist, published a piece concerning the letter.

Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology told Reuters, “Our investigations determined that this piece of paper records a number system in a language that has been lost for years…..the language appears to have been influenced by Quechua, an ancient tongue still spoken by millions of people across the Andes….the language in the letter could be the written version of a language colonial-era Spaniards referred to in historical writings as Pescadora, for the fishermen on Peru’s northern coast who spoke it.

Until the letter was found no other evidence of the Pescadora language has been found.

The letter is also important because it gives evidence of numbers being translated which clearly shows the lost language’s numerical system was a ten-based, or decimal system like English. An article at National Geographic advises while the Inca used a ten-based system, many other cultures did not: the Maya, for example, used a base of 20.

Gee, I can’t wait until an online translator for Pescadora is available, so I can have a little fun with my online friends!
IBM has a Virtual Archaeology site for the El Brujo Archaeological Complex here.

Veterans Day

2010-11-11T09:32:00.002-05:00

Isn’t this a great image for Veterans Day?

A very close childhood friend, Kim Rounseville Herrington, shared this image with me and many of her friends. My writer’s itch took hold when she advised the men in the picture were her father and son.

Grandfather and grandson never knew each other but years apart they both answered their country’s call and served proudly. The image seen here is one of Kim’s most favorite images of her father. It was the last picture taken of him blended with a picture of her son Timothy the day he came home from his first tour in Iraq. My friend received the picture as a gift from her daughter-in-law.

Kim tells me her father, Joseph W. Rounseville , was involved in the Tet Offensive in 1968 after enlisting in the Army at the age of 17. Unfortunately, he gave the ultimate sacrifice and was killed in action having attained the rank of First Sergeant in February, 1968. He was a "Master Blaster" in the Rangers, Airborne with the 82nd Division in Ft. Campbell, KY.

Kim advised me her father’s awards are too numerous for her to list, but in her possession she has a Bronze Star with four Oak Leaf Clusters (9th highest award given), Silver Star (third highest given), and one of his Purple Hearts and one of his Vietnam service medals.

In the last few years Kim has been able to make contact with her father’s relatives and has learned so much about him. She advises me he was a class act and many of the letters she has received from men that were under his command said he led by example, not by word. He was the one in FRONT of them to show the way, not behind them.

Kim son, Timothy Herrington is currently a Staff Sergeant in the Army with over five years of service.

Happy Veterans Day to all of those who have served……to all of those currently serving their county and our most reverent remembrance for our fallen heroes.

If you would like to read my other Veterans Day postings please follow the Veterans Day link found in the site index to your left.

Puerto Rico's Mark on the Truman Administration

2010-11-07T20:20:00.000-05:00

Puerto Rico is NOT a place you normally think about when you want to discuss violent uprisings, massacres, and plots to assassinate the president of the United States, but the Puerto Rico of the late 1940s and early 1950s was a much different place than it is today.

My latest post over at American Presidents gives you all the details. Click on through……

Mules and Marauders

2010-10-13T11:00:00.002-04:00

My niece and sister sent this link to me the other day. It is an obituary for the grandparent of one of my niece’s friends. This line caught my eye:

[Mr.] Max [Howard Medert] was a WWII Army veteran who proudly served as one of “Merrill’s Marauders” in China, Burma and India. Following his military career, he served on the city of Atlanta Police Force , retiring after 25 years of service.

Now, just the fact that Mr. Medert had 25 years of service with the Atlanta Police Force is commendable, but he also was a member of Merrill’s Marauders in China, Burma and India.

Wow!

What? You don’t know about Merrill’s Marauders?

I’m not surprised. You see, the China-India-Burma theater of war during World War II is basically forgotten by the history books mainly because it did not follow the standard American command structure, but it is key in studying the push toward VJ Day and in realizing some of the roots of today’s modern army.

It was during their Quebec meeting in August, 1943 when President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill decided there needed to be long range penetration groups that could infiltrate Japanese held territory.

President Roosevelt called for volunteers who were willing to take part in “dangerous and hazardous“ duty. The result was over 3,000 volunteers from across the military population…..some already battle hardened, some with no battle experience whatsoever, and even soldiers from the stockades turned in their “get out of jail” free card to become a member of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), code name Galahad aka Merrill’s Marauder’s after their leader Brigadier General Frank Merrill.

The Marauders trained in India before beginning a 750 mile march through the harsh jungles of Burma. The soldiers formed three battalions in six combat teams known by their colors – red, white blue, khaki, green, and orange. Their mission was to destroy Japanese supply lines and communication and to re-open the Burma Road. They engaged the Japanese at least thirty-two times and covered more jungle terrain than any other U.S. Army formation. They did this with no tank and no artillery support. All other supplies were carried by the men themselves or they received along the trail in air drops.

During the march the Marauders endured forced marches through monsoon season, hunger, malnutrition, amoebic dysentery, malaria, fever, snake bites, scrub typhus, and fungal skin disease. According to Colonel Charles N. Hunter in his book Galahad, of the 2,750 men who entered Burma only two were left alive who had NEVER been hospitalized with wounds or major illnesses.

Since the soldiers would be traversing heavy terrain they were not able to utilize mechanized vehicles so pack mules were employed to carry the heavy loads of radios, ammunition, and heavier support weapons. Over 360 pack mules were used and training commenced in India before the men began their arduous journey. Usually the pack mules would be “debrayed” for service so as not to alert the enemy of their presence, but Charles N. Hunter elected NOT to “debray” the Marauder mules stating it was one of the few pleasures a mule had……in making their distinctive noise and later advised there was never really an issue of the mules giving away their location in the jungle.

Mules weren’t the only animals used for transport. When a ship carrying some of the mules was lost in the Arabian Sea over 300 Waler Horses were brought in as well.

This Time Magazine article from August 7, 1944 relates:

Once, at Walawbum, when a Marauder unit was confronted by an overwhelming enemy force, the mules set up such a clamor that the Japs thought they must be outnumbered and withdrew……

The one fright the mules never got used to was the sight of an elephant. The fright was mutual. When elephant met mule there was pandemonium—trumpeting and braying, sometimes a hysterical stampede….

It took them four months to cover the 700 miles of pestilential jungle, but they made it. Last week many of the mules were still there in the interior of Burma, shuttling supplies around in the battle for Myitkyina. They will probably never bray in Missouri again. When the northern Burma campaign is finished, they will be turned over to the Chinese. Some day they may plod on east over the Burma Road into China.

The Hollywood film, Merrill’s Marauders, starring Jeff Chandler tells of some of the exploits. In fact, General Merrill’s atache in the film is played by Vaughn Wilson aka Lt. Colonel Samuel Vaughn Wilson an actual member of Merrill’s Marauders and the film’s technical advisor. The movie trailer can be seen here with Lt. Colonel Wilson narrating.

I think a mention of the Marauders is necessary with any decent coverage of World War II in the classroom, and I would devote at least one entire lesson to the topic. The movie I’ve published below is an excellent classroom resource, however, at 25 minutes I would show the clip whole group, and stop the video after each segment to discuss and make points of emphasis for students. The video is actual footage and is from the National Archives and Records Administration. The first few moments just show a camera image….keep it rolling.

Today’s modern 75th Ranger Regiment can trace its very beginnings to Merrill’s Marauders. In fact, the patch worn proudly by U.S. Rangers today incorporated the colors of the six fighting groups of the Marauders.

Thank you to Mr. Medert and to all of the other Marauders for their proud and valiant service.

Here are some other links for more information regarding Merrill’s Mauraders:

Stories from the Veteran’s History Project

Merrill’s Marauders Association Page

National World War II Museum Exhibit

Ti-Ti-Tightening Those Ropes

2010-10-09T12:30:00.001-04:00

When I was growing up the words said at bed time included ‘good night’ and ‘I love you’ along with the phrase ‘Tie-Tie’ and ‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”

‘Tie-Tie’ came from me because as a little girl I couldn’t pronounce the words ‘night-night’…..all that came out was ‘Tie-Tie ‘and the phrase entered our family lexicon. If I said ‘Tie-Tie’ to my father or my sister they would know exactly what I meant.

But what about that “sleep tight” thing? Where does that come from?

Recently I posted a picture of a rope tightening key for Wordless Wednesday. The key was used to tighten rope mattresses common in colonial and post-colonial America.

Here’s a video showing how the key was used to tighten the bed ropes.

When you tour old colonial locations docents love to share with you the phrase “Sleep tight” came from the fact that you would want the ropes tight in order to get a good night’s sleep.

It does make sense, doesn’t it?

But upon closer study there is no definitive proof the saying originated from tightening the ropes.

The Oxford English Dictionary states the phrase is fairly new and Michael Quinon at World Wide Words advises the phrase was used as late as 1916 in L Frank Baum’s Rinkitink In Oz, and Susan Eppes uses the phrase in Through Some Eventful Years dated 1866.

Most sources state ‘sleep tight’ refers to sleeping soundly or properly which dates back to Shakespeare.

The only thing we can be sure of is the tool I pictured here the other day is a device to tightening the ropes on a bed, and…….that’s about it.

Wordless FIVE

2010-10-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know this is a piano, but look at the two china looking objects on top of the piano......

What are they????? What are they used for????

Here’s a hint….Something was placed in them as people walked by.

Other bloggers post wordless images on Wednesday , too. Visit the main page HERE to find them.

Wordless: FOUR

2010-09-29T09:19:00.001-04:00

Hmmmm….Why is that hunk of wood placed next to the bed? What is it for?

Other bloggers post wordless images on Wednesday , too. Visit the main page HERE to find them.

Last week's mystery explanation can be found here.

Also YOU can become a fan of History Is Elementary on Facebook. Click the “like” button over in the right sidebar.

The Importance of Silver

2010-09-28T20:58:00.002-04:00

At some point in every young girl’s life she realizes the importance of silver.

Perhaps it is when she has a female relative who is getting married, and she overhears other female relatives and friends inquiring about the silver pattern she has registered for. Perhaps it is when she is old enough…..finally……to attend a wedding or baby shower with her mother and sees the array of silver trays, silver flatware, and silver coffee and tea services on display making the perfect refreshment table.

In my case…….it was when I was old enough to help my grandmother prepare the dining table for a family dinner…..more than likely Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can remember going to the drawer in the kitchen where the knives and forks were stored. My grandmother shooed me away and directed me in that constantly out-of-breath tone she had, “No, no…..go in the dining room and get the forks out of the box.”

The box? As I walked into the dining room I thought, “What box?

Then I saw the box where she had placed it on the buffet….a rectangular, wooden box with a hinged lid. As I got closer I saw it was pretty old and fairly beat up. There were scratches across the top and sides, but instead of repelling me the poor condition of the box made me want to open it all the more.

That was my first foray into someone’s silver box, and like many a young girl it made quite an impression on me. I walked over to the buffet and placed my hands on the wood feeling the uneven surface.

I was intrigued.

What would I find inside?

I lifted the top and discovered lovely and fairly heavy silver utensils encased in deep Columbia blue velvet. The knives were standing up along the inside cover of the box while the spoons and forks were stacked up and laying flat inside the box.

Now that I know better I realize the silver was not expensive, but for my hardworking farming and at one time mill employed grandmother the silver was her best, and she wanted to use it for a holiday dinner.

I thought it was simply lovely. I loved how it felt in my fingers and how the light reflected off it. During dinner I refrained from using my knife because I just couldn't bear sullying it with food. It was THAT beautiful to me.

Later I questioned my mom about the box and discovered she had a silver box as well. My mother was not prone to using her best items for meals, so realizing we had silver was quite a surprise for me. My sister and I finally convinced Mother to start using her silver for family dinners, and eventually she bought more of it to complete her set. Today the silver is a treasure for my sister and I.

Silver is special…..silver is family history…….silver is spectacular.

Silver had its heyday in the United States between 1870 and 1920 though silver was in existence in our earliest days dating back to Paul Revere and the Dutch colonies. No matter the time period in history though silver was a luxury item and only the wealthiest homes had silver.

It was during the Victorian Age where silver flatware was its most decadent with some flatware lines having over 100 different types of pieces from a regular spoon, demitasse spoon, and a bouillon spoon. Then there’s the regular fork. Don’t get it confused with the pastry fork. Knives were in multiples as well with each flatware line having a knife for “place”, “dinner”, and one for “fruit” as well.

No wonder Victorian dining tables were so long.

This was also the time period where formal dinners went from three or four courses to ten or more including a course just for fruit and one for cheese.

Last week I posted a picture of a mahogany box and asked readers to identify what it was. I had no takers here but someone on Facebook correctly identified the box as a silver chest…..and that is exactly correct.

Here is a picture showing the box with a couple of silver pieces inside it. Notice this box is a little different from the silver box your family might own. The silver is stored upright in the little holes. It does not lay flat.

You can find out all sorts of information at the Silver Chatter blog…..a site headquartered in my neck of the woods…..Atlanta, Georgia with Silver Jim at the helm.

Odds and Ends From My InBox

2010-09-27T10:10:00.005-04:00

I have several things I want to share this morning, so……….hang on.

First is The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era…….it’s published quarterly and the website advises each issue is packed with original essays, including on-line projects and reviews of scholarly books. The focus, of course, is all aspects of U.S. History from 1865-1920. I have a few articles here at History Is Elementary regarding the Gilded Age. You can access all of them here…..Just scroll through to find them all.

Then there’s the website, Mission U.S. This is a site for for older elementary and middle school students and provides an innovative way for sharing social studies content. The first game, “For Crown or Colony?” has already launched. The setting for the game is Boston in 1770 and students actually role-play taking on the identity of a publisher’s apprentice. Students will interact with such real figures in history as Phillis Wheatley and Paul Revere. I've included an image from the game below.....

The development team for Mission U.S. includes historians from the American Social History Project and Center for Children and Technology. The game developers on the project are from Electric Funstuff.

…..and then there’s PhillyHistory.org……a geographic photo search website. There are over 87,000 images and maps from five Philadelphia organizations you can search, research, share with friends or purchase. Some of the images you can view include the one below of Civil War soldiers camping outside of Independence Hall. It can be accessed here at the website.

History Is Elementary has been included in a Top 50 List for blogs with teaching tips, ideas and inspiration over at Masters in Teaching…..you can find the list here.