Yes, I've Published a Book!

I've written and published a book!

Of course, that was my intention when I began this blog way back in 2006 when I was still in the classroom, but the book I've published isn't exactly the book I had planned.

The planned project - a teaching memoir - will still be published along with a few other projects, but the book you see to the left is what fell in my lap along the way.

It needed to be done.

History education is my prime focus along with writing curriculum. Over the last couple of years I've written a few college courses used by teacher candidates at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and I have some other curriculum ideas up my sleeve, but local history has taken a front-burner position over the last year.

I've been researching and writing the local history of Douglas County for the past four years, and have had a weekly column the Douglas County Sentinel for a year and a half.

I've been a longtime fan of the Images of America series of books from Arcadia Publishing. Several towns across the nation are included including several in Georgia, but my town of Douglasville was missing.

When Arcadia contacted me last year, there was no other alternative than to sign the contract and get busy. The book was released on July 14th, and I'm very proud of it. 

The book contains 200 vintage images depicting the history of Douglasville, Georgia some dating back to the 1870s and covering the next one hundred years. 

As far as southern towns go, Douglasville is a bit unique as it IS the quintessential New South town having been birthed in 1875 during Reconstruction

You can Google a preview of the book HERE, and you can purchase it via Amazon HERE.

Using Memoirs to Strengthen Curriculum

In my opinion the least taught war in United States classrooms has to be the Korean War.

The U.S never declared war on North Korea because we weren’t there on our own. Our involvement was a result of the United Nations aiding South Korea with the United States supplying 88% of the forces. The People’s Republic of China entered the war helping North Korea. Officially the Soviet Union provided material aid as well for the North Koreans, but talk to anyone involved, and they firmly believe the Soviet involvement included men on the ground and in the air.

I feel that events in Korea during the 1950s have a real place in the classroom, but ignorance keeps it from being fully explored in the curriculum.

We don’t take the time to fully explore all the possibilities the content of the Korean War could have in our classrooms. Take any history textbook and thumb through pages and you see that very little is given about the Korean War. Most of the time it’s treated as a “breather” of sorts between the end of World War II and the startup of the Vietnam War. It was done that way when I was in school, and in most classrooms it’s still treated that way. 

I don’t blame teachers for not diving deep into the war. Our teaching standards barely touch on it, but aren’t we cheating students regarding an important chunk of American History? 

Aren’t we throwing the service of the men who served during the Korean War away by not covering the war as best we can?

The Korean War is just another example why teachers cannot rely on the textbook as a complete tool to help them frame standards into a viable curriculum. You have to go outside of the textbook for content and a complete picture of the events in Korea.

My favorite source happens to be memoirs – first-hand accounts of the events from those who were there. In the case of Korea I had a memoir fall into my lap through my local history project regarding Douglas County and Douglasville, Georgia where I live. 

One of our former editors for our local paper has written a memoir which covers many of his life experiences, but mainly his exploits in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Sicily during the Korean Conflict. The book is called Excitement!! In War and Peace by W. Harris Dalton. It can be purchased on Amazon by clicking on the title or through Yawn’s Books in Canton, Georgia. The cover of the book features a picture of the author (extreme left standing) with some of his buddies.

While there are numerous snippets of information in Mr. Dalton’s book that could be extracted and infused into a teacher’s Korean War curriculum here are five things I found extremely interesting: 

1. Mr. Dalton spent three years aboard the USS Sicily described in Collier’s magazine as “the phantom ship” due to the fact it was always on the move and the enemy didn’t know where they would be next.  Mr. Dalton states, “To her credit ‘the Queen’ was victorious in two of the bloodiest battles – Pusan and Hungnam – in American history. She was also there providing close air support for the marine’s historic landing on Inchon that turned the tide of the battle on the peninsula and forced the fight for the Yalu River."

 

I don’t know about you, but just from that snippet from Mr. Dalton’s book I want to Google a few key words for more information.

2. The Black Sheep Squadron was re-commissioned during the Korean War and flew Corsairs off the Sicily.  As Dalton states, “Navy and Marine Corsair pilots were available and they made perfect sense for the Korean conflict against North Korea which had no air force and navy.”  

I know what you are thinking, and yes....it's the same Black Sheep Squadron that gained a reputation during World War II. The picture below shows some of their planes on the deck of the Sicily. 

3. Mr. Dalton gives great insight to a Black Sheep Squadron mission on Christmas Eve, 1950 where they had been sent out to check on what was reported to be a group of guerillas heading towards American troops.  The Black Sheep Squadron planes found the suspected guerillas and completed a fly-over. They found the group contained a large concentration of women and children. As they flew over the women held their babies up in what was interpreted as a friendly gesture. The group seemed like friendly refugees.

There was no danger, right?  

Later these same friendly refugees wiped out a whole Marine group. Members of the squadron were sent out immediately on a search and destroy mission.

One of the squadron members told to Mr. Dalton, “I circled around, and when I was directly over them, I dropped a napalm bomb right in the center of the marauders. We then circled the scene until we had established there were no survivors. I knew they had killed my fellow marines, and it wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been Christmas Eve.”

4. The book discusses operations involving Chinese and Russian forces stating, “What had begun as a mission to drive North Korea out of South Korea escalated into an overt fight against North Korean and Chinese forces when we moved up the Yalu River and the surreptitious aggression by the Soviet Union, the bully in the neighborhood.”

Mr. Dalton tells of an incident that was wiped from the books regarding a supposed Russian submarine that was headed towards U.S. forces and wouldn’t identify itself. For two hours Mr. Dalton, as radar man, personally filled three pages of his log book regarding messages concerning the location and actions of the sub which culminated in sightings of an oil slick.

Later when he checked the pages of the logbook, they had been removed with the explanation that the action HAD NEVER TAKEN PLACE. The event never made the news, of course.

5. During a portion of the time Mr. Dalton was assigned to the Sicily his captain was John S. “Jimmy” Thach, made famous for his World War II flying exploits, and for his invention of the "Thach Weave", a tactic that enabled U.S. fliers to hold their own against the Japanese Zeroes. He is also given credit regarding another tactic referred to as the "big blue blanket".

In the picture above Thach is on the right.

So, before you head off to Google all the key words I’ve thrown at you regarding the Korean War, check out Mr. Dalton’s book for even more first-hand war experiences aboard the USS Sicily.

The Boo: A Primer for Relationship Building

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 for The 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!!

Book Review: A Nation Rising

Several weeks ago the book A Nation Rising by Kenneth C. Davis was sent to me for review. If you don’t recognize the name you should…..Mr. Davis writes the Don’t Know Much About® series and other works such as America’s Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims.

The complete title of A Nation Rising includes the sub-title Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, Fallen Heroes and Forgotten Fighters from America’s Hidden History. Hmmm…the flawed, the forgotten, and the fallen – sounds like MY kind of history. Curing the myths, making connections that are rarely taught in the classroom and giving credit….the good and bad…where it is due – that’s MY style!

Mr. Davis certainly comes through on his promises and more….

The premise of the book seeks to explore the ideals that birthed our nation – All men are created equal and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and parallel them with the knowledge that so many Founders owned slaves and condoned the systematic removal and murder of Native Americans from their homelands. Mr. Davis contends his book examines…..”the stunning gap between America’s ideals and its realities….For all the distance that America has traveled as a nation since 1776, the country still needs to reconcile the glorious dream with the dark nightmare that haunts America’s past.”

The time period A Nation Rising examines is one of my favorites – the fifty year span from 1800 to 1850. During this time America became a nation ‘ from sea to shining sea’. The population increased from 5.3 million with nearly 900,000 of that number in slavery in 1800 to over 3.2 million slaves based on a 23 million population number in 1850. Kenneth C. Davis takes those figures and uses them along with little taught history to show how a nation went from the ideals of their forefathers and in less than one hundred years was in the midst of the Civil War.

How on earth did that happen?

He advises, and I agree that to truly understand how our nation was shaped we need to take a serious look at the fifty year period from 1800-1850. Unfortunately, those years are often rushed through and not taught as well as they could be in a mad dash to get all those standards in leaving events like the election of 1800, the War of 1812, and the Seminole Indian Wars on the curriculum cutting room floor.

If you are clueless concerning William Weatherford, Francis Dade, or Madison Washington you need to read this book. Ever hear of the ‘Bible Riots’? Sounds like something that took place in the Bible Belt of the South, but actually they occurred in the City of Brotherly Love – Philadelphia. The Massacre of Fort Mims is discussed as the most popular couple of the time period – John Charles Fremont and Jessie Benton Fremont.

If you are a little sketchy regarding the Seminole Wars and the role runaway slaves and free blacks played in the process you need to read this book. Many of the chapters also deal with events surrounding the role Andrew Jackson played prior to becoming president. While lionized as the quintessential American hero there are Americans to this day who refuse to buy or sell using twenty dollar bills because they contain his image. Why is this?

Kenneth C. Davis ends his introduction piece to the book with this quote from JFK that hits home with me and reminds me why I do what do as an educator and writer who focuses on history:

“For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold to the clichés of our forebears….We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

Education should do both…..provide opportunities for the comfort of opinion and the discomfort of thought.

Kenneth C. Davis’ book, A Nation Rising, opens the dialogue.

Parallel

Out of all the historical content I have shared with students over the years the content that I find most satisfying to share with them is the information and activities I present regarding how our government came to be and how it works.

As citizens we are all about our rights….in fact, these days it seems we all overdose a little about what government should be doing for us. We often forget that an important aspect of being a citizen of the United States involves not just having a laundry list of rights….that list includes responsibilities as well.

YES! There are things that WE….we the people are supposed to do in order for our government to work right.

One of our primary responsibilities as a citizen is not just to know our rights, but to know how our government works….not how we think it works, not how politicians tell us it works, not how the media wants us to perceive how it works, but really KNOW how it works.

A few years ago I was required to not only teach a few social studies classes I was also slated to teach two science classes. It was a change of pace, and I really ended up enjoying overseeing units regarding sound, small machines, and space. I infused each unit with lots of hands-on opportunities including plenty of chances for movement. One of the lessons that I loved the most was where students actually took the job of a planet or other heavenly body and formed a human universe. Anyone visiting our back parking lot that day would have seen total chaos as a group of students whirled around another student in the middle of the group as he moved his arms to mimic radiating the light of the sun out towards Earth and beyond. Every planet-person revolved around the sun and every planet had a moon or moons revolving around it as well while some students observed the action. Then of course, we had fruit basket turn over as some students came out of the mix to observe or changed jobs to get a different perspective.

We created a parallel universe….a model….so students could experience a little part of it.

My handy on-line dictionary tells me that the word parallel can mean anything having the same direction, course, nature, or tendency….it can be something identical or similar in nature.
I have come to find that parallels in content delivery are key to provide those hands-on opportunities that students need to experience content and to develop a true grasp of the concepts we are attempting to teach.

So, I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be if I could develop a parallel-type government project to help students grasp American government, but how to do it? How to manage it?… and basically as the adult in the room…..how to control it?

Well, great things come to those who wait. I’ve come across a wonderful little book titled Parallel.

Parallel.

Of course, I’m looking for a parallel activity, so what else would it be????

Parallel is a book written by an author from my neck of the woods by the name of RaeMichael. It is a book of fiction regarding a group of college students who are handed an extra credit project by their political science professor.

The group decides to set up a parallel government of the United States using the U.S. Constitution as their guide. Imagine that!

As the project….named the “New” United States of America….begins the first order of business for “Congress” is to pass a resolution to Reaffirm the Superiority of the Constitution requiring all laws and resolutions must be reconciled with the U.S. Constitution prior to consideration. Other actions of the “New” United States of America include holding politicians accountable for the promises they make, and campaign reform and the lobby process are also addressed.

I’m excited about the book because I can see the value of using it with upper elementary, middle, and high school students to interject another source into a teaching unit for government. I can see myself using the fictional book as a read aloud to serve as a springboard to ask students to set up a similar experiment…..allowing students to set up their own living, breathing, working “new” American government. Parallel provides opportunities for analysis and great pro/con discussions regarding such innovations in government as banning all lawyers from political service….yes, I know….a highly controversial subject.

The preview blurb on the back of the book advises the parallel government project was meant to be small….a small manageable version…[it] seemed the right thing to do. But what they didn’t understand was, government is never small nor manageable, and is often not the right thing to do.

Rightly so….government is meant to do some things while it is also meant to stay out of other areas. This book takes an honest look at all aspects of government, and I recommend it highly.

You can visit the author’s website and purchase the book here.

Putting the EZ into Easing Into America

You know it’s very easy to teach children about our known history – the collective history we, as Americans, share. There are certain members of our American family that we should recognize and know how they fit into the fabric of our American quilt….folks such as Thomas Jefferson, Jane Addams, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But what about historical figures that aren’t so well known to everyone – everyday folks who do great things that don’t get into the history books?

A friend of mine sent me an email awhile back that sent me off on one of those searches I dearly love and with this search I hit pay dirt.

Do you know who Elizabeth Zimmermann is?

Well, if you knit or you know anyone who does then she is your girl.

Elizabeth Zimmermann, or EZ, as her devoted followers call her, is the undisputed knitting queen for the knitters of the world. EZ is famous for reintroducing German or continental knitting to people in the United States and Great Britain after it fell out of favor due to its association with Germany during World War II. She is also famous for many other knitting innovations.

My friend had read Mrs. Zimmermann’s book, The Opinionated Knitter, and a certain remark by the knitting guru gave her pause. Zimmermann states, “I am a full-blown U.S. citizen and achieved this honour during World War Two when I was – having married a citizen of Munich – actually German. (Generous people, the Americans.)”

My friend was inquiring about Zimmermann’s citizenship status. You see, Zimmermann was actually born in Great Britain. She was a British citizen. So how on earth did she become a citizen of Germany and then of the United States????? My friend stated, “She seems to say that marrying a German automatically granted her German citizenship, and then later U.S. citizenship. “

I have to admit my friend’s inquiry made me want to know the chain of citizenship for Mrs. Zimmermann and how it all went down especially during a time period when relations between Germany and Great Britain (along with her U.S. ally) were so strained. Yet Germans did immigrate….one of the most famous being Albert Einstein. It does seem like they just "eased" on into America.

I wrote back to friend after an initial search that I wasn’t really sure what EZ meant by being German….she was English and married a German. Perhaps she meant since she was married to a German she felt German as well. I really don’t know and haven’t discovered what their laws were at the time, but here is a paragraph from her obituary that was published in the New York Times. It does explain the situation a bit more….

Miss Lloyd-Jones [aka Elizabeth Zimmermann] attended art schools in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Munich, where she sold sweaters of her own design to a local shop for pocket money. She also met Arnold Zimmermann, a brewer. He had to flee Hitler's Germany because an SS agent overheard him making a snide remark about Hitler. They married in England, immigrated to New York and moved several times before settling in Wisconsin.

Upon discovering this I wrote to my friend, “I’m thinking they were able to get out prior to Hitler closing the borders. Many Germans did this and went to England or America. We weren’t yet involved that early in the war, so there wasn’t really an issue regarding allowing Germans into the country if they were fleeing Hitler. Later everyone was suspect of having Nazi ties and things were more difficult to become a citizen.

I have wondered what sort of “snide” remark Mr. Zimmermann made concerning Hitler. I would imagine things were a bit tense for the couple until they could make their way to Great Britain.
I also wondered about anti-German feelings as war was about to reach the United States.

This website states, “Anti-German feelings rose again during World War II, but they were not as powerful as they had been during the first World War. The loyalty of German Americans were not questioned as virulently. Dwight Eisenhower, a descendant of the Pennsylvania Dutch and future president of the United States, commanded U.S. troops in Europe. Two other German Americans, Admiral Chester Nimitz of the United States Navy and General Carl Spaatz of the Army Air Corps, were by Eisenhower’s side and played key roles in the struggle against Nazi Germany."

But on the other hand, after we were involved in the war things changed drastically. Americans with German ties were actually placed in camps much like the Japanese were as this article and this article attest to. I have to wonder how the Zimmermann’s escaped this.

In a tribute to Mr. Zimmermann following his death another writer explained how the couple met:

“He was born in a family of considerable culture and had a good German education in proper schools and the University. “He can carpenter, plumb, read, paint, write, brew beer, shoot, and fish.”

Now, clue in on all of the things Mr. Zimmermann could do…..one in particular caught my eye. He could write.

Yes, Yes, he could.

You see, Arnold Zimmermann wrote children’s books


In the Lonely Lake/Der Einsame See Mr. Zimmermann not only wrote the text he also illustrated the work with pen and ink drawings, and he provided a wonderful nature study as well as a study of language as English and the German language are both experienced together on the book’s pages.

The Tale of Alain is a fascinating coming to America tale with a mouse as main charactercharacter. The book includes instructions for erecting a tipi; a glossary of nautical terms and complete instructions for knitting Alain’s striped sweater, courtesy of Elizabeth Zimmermann, [of course].

Both books can be purchased at Zimmermann’s company site……her daughter now runs Schoolhouse Press.

The books along with additional information can also be found here and here.

I think the books would make a terrific addition to a unit regarding World War II no matter the age of the students. The Zimmermann’s wartime experience would be one I wouldn’t mind analyzing a bit with students. Some situations I might pose to students would be:

After examining various German-American experiences during World War II regarding those who ended up in the camps, students could surmise reasons why the Zimmermann’s escaped the internment.

Students could read the books written by Arnold Zimmermann and learn more online about him and Elizabeth Zimmermann. They could then discuss how the Zimmermann’s seemed to adopt their new country, the United States, but they both seemed to want to keep their German culture alive.

Students could also research the stories of other Germans who fled Hitler and compare and contrast the various stories looking for common threads.

Students could also research and debate the proposed Wartime Treatment Study Act.

Moving History Along....Queenie's Coin

What makes a good plot line for a story?

First I think you need interesting characters….people you can care about….people you are willing to invest a few minutes of your time with. Second, you need an interesting backstory…something going on in the background to move the story along …throw in a little true life to the characters and to the events of the back story and gee, you’ve got a genuine blockbuster.

That’s what I look for when I teach history standards. In and of themselves the standards can be a little boring. Teaching in a “just the facts ma’m” kind of format will more often than not lead to a room full of students with glazed over eyes and off task behaviors…doodling, throwing spit balls, reading ahead in the text, repairing make-up, etc.

I look for the details of history that will enthrall others, old and young alike, the quirkiness of history, the stuff of history that make it alive and worth remembering.

The Civil War is a historical topic full of facts and my Georgia teaching standards are quite clear as to what students should know when they tackle that test each April. The Civil War is also a historical topic that is jam packed with great backstories and wonderful, real characters that can be used to motivate students to delve deeper into the content and analyze the context of the times and the motivation behind all of the parties involved.

The story of the CSS Hunley is interesting not just from a naval and technological viewpoint, but since I have to consider my audience and what will drag them kicking and screaming to the historical roundtable, the story of the Hunley is a gem for any serious teacher of history.

Last week for my wordless post I presented the front view of a gold coins that seem simple enough at first glance, but oh….what a story these gold coins have to tell. Homeschooling Granny made a correct assumption that the coins I pictured were indeed the coins given to George Dixon by his sweetheart Queenie Bennett as he left for war.

Highlighting literature is an important part of my teaching style and the book The Story of the H.L. Hunley and Queenie's Coin Edition 1. (True Story) by Fran Hawke and illustrated by Dan Nance (2004) is a wonderful story to share with history students from 9 to 90.

Throughout our great history men have gone off to serve our country and have received parting gifts from their loved ones. George Dixon was no different.

During the Civil War many soldiers received miniature paintings or photographs of their sweethearts, a handkerchief, scarf, or a tender love letter.

As he left in 1862 to join the 21st Alabama Regiment to serve under General P.G.T. Beauregard George Dixon’s sweetheart, Queenie Bennett, handed him a $20 gold coin. George instantly placed the coin in his pocket where he carried it into war. Can’t you see him sitting around a campfire at night pulling out the coin, turning it over and over in his fingers, thinking of Queenie….thinking of home?

What was given as a token of love actually served many more purposes. On April 6, 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh the coin actually stopped a bullet from injuring his leg. Dixon would have a lasting limp from the injury, but he survived because of the coin.

When he returned to Mobile he had the coin inscribed….Shiloh, April 6, 1862 My life preserver GED…and he continued to carry the coin in his pocket as a symbol of his love and devotion to Queenie as well as to commemorate his experience at Shiloh.

Dixon was unable to return to the battlefield, but continued to serve the Confederacy. He volunteered for another duty working with a new type of weapon the Confederacy was investigating….a new type of boat called a submarine. The Confederates hoped the submarines would allow them to bust the blockade that had blocked Charleston’s harbor as well as several other Confederate harbors.

At this point Fran Hawke’s book takes the interesting love story of Queenie and George and moves it to the sidelines a bit to tell the story of the Hunley. The text explains:

Learning and experimenting as they worked, the men molded iron plates into a sleek shape.

There would barely be room for eight or nine men, sitting on a wooden bench, turning the shaft that moved the propeller.

A long pole was affixed to the front of the submarine. It would hold an explosive, which would be jammed into the hull of an enemy ship.

Then, of course, as stories often do the plot returns to love. After a couple of disasterous tests George shared with Queenie that he was going to request command of the Hunley. He felt certain that the South should use submarines. He stifled any fear Queenie might have regarding his safety by reminding her he carried her gold coin.

George convinced Gen. Beauregard by telling him, “Sir, the Hunley is still in perfect working order. It only sank because the other crews made mistakes…The submarine is temperamental, but she is not a death trap.”

Under George Dixon’s command the Hunley was finally ready to attack Union ships in Charleston Harbor on February 17, 1864.

The book continues with a discussion regarding how the Hunley attacked the 200-foot-long USS Husatonic, and how the Hunley tore a hole in the side of the Union ship and sank her.

Sadly, however, the Hunley never returned to port.

The Confederacy tried to keep the loss of the Hunley secret, hoping that the Union would fear more attacks. Any hope of ending the Union blockade ended with the missing submarine and Queenie’s George.

Over the years quite a few myths surrounded the Hunley and her disappearance.

PT Barnum, a late nineteenth-century circus owner, offered a reward of $100,000 to anyone who could find the Hunley for him to display in his traveling show.

More than 100 years after the Hunley disappeared, famed author, Clive Cussler, arrived in Charleston to begin his search for the submarine. He was a Civil War expert, an underwater archaeologist, and an author. “Shipwrecks,“ he liked to say, “are never where they are supposed to be.” Cussler and his team kept looking, on an off for 15 years.

The Hunley was finally located on May 3, 1995 but it was not raised until August 8, 2000.

The book goes on to detail the painstaking efforts the folks at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina made to excavate the Hunley’s secrets…the propeller shaft, the crew’s bench, the men’s clothes, pipes, pocketknives, canteens, a wallet, a brooch, and a corked bottle. The remains of the crew members were also gathered for a proper buriel.

But what of Queenie’s gold coin?

Maria Jacobsen, the chief archaeologist sifted through the area where Lt. George Dixon would have sat. Through the mud she saw the glint of the lucky gold piece.

The coin is displayed today at the Hunley Exhibit at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center.

Fran Hawke’s book is a perfect addition to any history classroom and can be used with any age group. The story motivates students to learn more about the submarine by drawing them into the tragic love story of Queenie and George, by strategically interchanging the back story and the historical record back and forth in such a way you are totally unaware that you are learning something.

You can see both sides of the coin here.

The website for Friends of the Hunley can be found here

A picture of Queenie and more information can be found here

The Gift

Back during another lifetime in the 1970s you would have found me on Friday night sitting in front of our family television….the one where the knob had fallen off and we had to resort to using needle-nosed pliers to change it…patiently waiting for my favorite television show to air. There I was – gazing up at the screen – watching a parade of commercials and happily munching on taco-flavored Doritos – then I would hear the theme song I can sing to this day and even if you won’t admit it, you can as well.

Here’s the story…of a lovely lady…who was bringing up three very lovely girls…All of them had hair of gold like their mother’s…the youngest one in curls.

Here’s the story…of a man named Brady…who was busy with three boys of his own…They were four men…living all together…yes, they were all alone.

I loved the Brady Bunch. They were different. They were not a cookie-cutter version of my very average family. Not everyone was related by blood, not everyone got along all the time, but there was a lot of love and acceptance. Take two families with former tragedy and throw in a dash of Alice and presto! An Instant American family I would have loved to be a part of.

Look around your classroom or neighborhood. We have more families with steps and halves and live-ins than ever before, and if you are like me you have often side-stepped an important facet of American History….our family history.

It’s easy to ignore these days, isn’t it?

We have students who have their fair share of tragedy….parents on drugs, in jail, molestations, mental illness, a different uncle in the house every week or so, physical violence…a plethora of mixed families that make the Brady Bunch-type family impossible to achieve, so I can understand why educators might be leery of asking children to examine their families, to answer the question why their families are important, and to decide how their family fits into the American quilt even with all the baggage that sometimes accompanies family life these days.

But, how can we ask students to connect to a bunch of folks discussed in the study of history that they’ve never heard of and will never meet unless they can connect to how they fit in….how their family fits into our society no matter the baggage and no matter the circumstances?

A brand new book has dropped into my lap that I think would serve as a great reminder that families come in all shapes and forms. A family doesn’t necessary have to be a group of people all related by biology….they have to have things in common and those things bind us together in love.

The book I’m talking about is called The Gift. Its author and illustrator, Karen Craft, just happens to be my dear sister. In The Gift she tells the true story of Baby Boy who came to live with a family who wanted a little boy very much. The book covers numerous themes from family love, overcoming tragedy, and even an honest look at what makes the concept of family what it is and to be more precise what makes the concept of a mother….a mother.

As the first page of the book states, “A Mama isn’t just someone that gives birth to you. She’s someone that sits with you when you’re sick, and doesn’t mind. She’s the one who bakes you cookies late into the night, when you forgot to tell her earlier. She will clap louder than anyone at your piano recital. She reads your favorite book to you over and over. And over. She really listens to you when you need to talk and when you’re scared she makes you feel safe. She teaches you to be polite and chew with your mouth closed. She’s the last person you see when she kisses you good night, and the first person you want to see in the morning. You know in your heart that she’s your Mother, you Mom, your Mama. She’s your gift and you are hers. Sometimes biology just isn’t so important after all.”

The Gift is a great book to open the door to discuss adoption with students of all ages, to discuss blended families, to discuss losing a family member, and to discuss how non-family members….our friends and neighbors….are important parts of our families as well.

Children will love the story details regarding Da, Mama, Sister Dear, and Baby Girl. The story even has its own version of Alice in the guise of Nanni-K who in reality happens to be my dear niece.

It is a great resource for your classroom library, a media center, or a home library. Students, young and old, will love The Gift as a read aloud as they make Mother’s Day cards and presents, and the book lends itself well to small group reading activities for older students.

Karen Craft’s illustrations are brought to life even in more exact detail by artist Meghan Branscomb from Mornin’ Glory Studios. As you can see from the story illustrations I’ve scattered through this post they are exceptional and make the story even more entertaining. I’m already thinking about making a few slides of the illustrations in enlarged detail to show to students as the book is read.

It’s a great book to purchase for your child or another child you know. With Mother’s Day around the corner it is also a perfect gift for your mother, mothers you know young and old, and even those motherly-types you have in your life. I have a few of those….and I know you do too.

Visit Karen Craft's website, Just Sharing a Story , to purchase your copy of The Gift.

13 Things Concerning Isaias Hellman

I recently finished reading Towers of Gold: How One Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California by Frances Dinkelspiel, and I have to say I’m a bit jealous. Isaias Hellman is the great-great grandfather of Ms. Dinkelspiel. It’s not just anyone who can claim ancestory to a man who almost single-handedly birthed the state of California. While I’ll admit that it took many, many people to birth the great state of California….Isaias Hellman’s contributions cannot be denied.

The book is well written. It kept my interest with stagecoach robberies, an assassination attempt, bank runs, the 1906 earthquake, and is the final product of eight years of research during which Ms. Dinkelspiel poured over more than 50,000 archival documents.

Isaias Hellman isn’t just an American who should be taught about in a course including California history, but he should be included in courses that include early immigration, growth of the west, growth of early cities and towns, Jewish contributions to the making of America, and 19th century financial American History.

So, just who was Isaias Hellman? Well, you really need to read the book for a clear picture, but here are a few facts:

1. Isaias Hellman was a Jewish immigrant from Reckendorf, Bavaria. He immigrated to Los Angeles in 1859, a few years after California being admitted to the Union.

2. In fact, at the time Hellman reached California the U.S. territory was still heavily entrenched in Mexican culture…..Pueblo type buildings and the rules of Spanish society were the norm.

3. Today, Hellman is thought to be one of the greatest Pacific Coast financiers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Library Journal advises [Hellman] is attributed with stabilizing the financial panic of 1893 in Los Angeles by stacking $500,000 worth of gold coins on the counter of the Farmers and Merchants Bank in plain public view, hence the title of [Ms. Dinkelspiel’s] book.

4. He founded one of the territory’s first banks which later became the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank. Ms. Dinkelspiel advises at the height of his power in the early 20th century, he controlled more than $100 million in capital and served as president of 14 other banks.
5. Because of his financial backing Hellman was instrumental in developing at least seven other industries that shaped California: transportation, oil, electricity, land development, water, wine, and education.
6. He controlled the California wine industry for almost twenty years, and helped develop the famous Pacific Electric red cars that crisscrossed the Los Angeles region. Hellman was also involved in agriculture raising oranges, walnuts, and lemons at Rosemeade…the Hellman Ranch.

7. Hellman was the president of the first synogogue in Los Angeles.

8. He was very involved in the founding of the University of Southern California by donating land the college sits on today, and he served as Regent for many years for the University of California.

9. Following a move to San Francisco, Hellman opened Union Trust Company, the first trust company in California. He also was involved with the Nevada Bank which later became Wells Fargo Bank.

10. During tough times it was Hellman that kept Californians moving ahead. Following the 1906 earthquake Hellman ran the Wells Fargo Bank out of home when the building that housed the bank was damaged.

11. Sugar Pine Point State Park at Lake Tahoe was originally a Hellman home before it was donated to the state.

12. San Francisco Magazine states visionary financier Isaias Hellman was the Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan of early California rolled into one. He arrived in Los Angeles as a practically penniless, 16-year-old German Jew when there were only 300 other Europeans in town. Three decades later, he controlled much of the booming city’s capital, land, and public works….Hellman starred in so many aspects of the state’s phoenixlike rise between the Civil War and the Depression that he became our Zelig, only with a really thick portfolio.
13. The San Francisco Gate states the book is a carefully researched and superbly written memoir…Dinkelspiel’s biography not only brings to life the transformation of California into the state with the strongest economy in the nation, and the outside personalities that forged it, but rescues from the proverbial dustbin of history the remarkable life and achievements of a man whose energy, creativity, resourcefulness and love for his adopted country had been all but forgotten.
If you are looking for a great biography to read then I suggest you give Towers of Gold a try.

Other bloggers are posting their 13 lists today as well. You can locate them here.

A Wordless of Sorts: Negro with a Hat

Last Fall I posted an image of finely dressed men and allowed readers to guess who the man on right was. Later I posted an explantion regarding the very flamboyant Marcus Garvey and the UNIA.

The image posted above is one I did not use in the original postings.

Recently I became aware of a new book called Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey by Colin Grant.

A review at The New Yorker states, In 1914, on a ship between Jamaica and England, an impoverished twenty-six-year-old named Marcus Garvey had what he later called a vision of "a new world of black men." Six years later, he rode through Harlem in regal robes and a plumed bicorne, and was proclaimed the Provisional President of Africa before a crowd of twenty-five thousand in Madison Square Garden. For a short, spectacular time, before his movement collapsed under the weight of its ambitions and schemes (a mail-fraud conviction resulted in exile in London), Garvey’s call for a transnational union of black people electrified crowds around the world—alarming J. Edgar Hoover and maddening W. E. B. Du Bois, who recoiled at Garvey’s separatism and his theatrics, wondering if he was "a lunatic or a traitor." (Garvey called Du Bois a "lazy dependant mulatto.") Grant’s biography ably captures the Garvey moment, although, perhaps wisely, he leaves the many contradictions in Garvey’s character unresolved.

Another review from The New York Times can be found here.

Garvey is an interesting character in Black history many students never, NEVER hear about, and I’m not really sure why not…..I mean look at the cover of Mr. Grant’s book. How intriguing!

What student wouldn’t want to know more about the guy in the Captain Crunch hat?

Run…don’t walk to pick up a copy of Colin Grant’s book so you too can add Marcus Garvey to your parade of interesting historical figures.

And don’t forget to visit other blogs participating in Wordless Wednesday

Washington: The Making of The American Capital

The first and last time I visited Washington D.C. I was in the seventh grade. The trip served as a reward for participating as a member of the school patrol. Some of us had served alongside our school crossing guard, along the car rider lane, on our school bus, or many, like me, took up a post in the hallway or cycled in and out of the restrooms during our daily 15-20 minute tour of duty. Quite simply we told kids to stop rough-housing, to move along, and to slow----it---down. For the most part we were listened to and respected. Today….I’m sure a fight would break out because someone would think they were being disrespected.

The trip to our nation’s capital was amazing. What struck me the most was the awesome size of our nation’s marble monuments that symbolize our republic – the Supreme Court building, the Capitol, the National Archives, the Washington Monument – everywhere I looked I saw Greek and Roman facades and columns, and marble…..marble everywhere. The dazzling whiteness, the chisled columns, the carved pediments, imposing wide steps, the wide avenues, and statuary everywhere the eye looked…all designed to impress, inspire, and illustrate the greatness and power of the United States.

Pictures and video simply do not express the beauty, the grandeur, and the promise of power that seeps from every famed building, fountain, and park. Every year I attempt to do our nation’s capital justice by attempting to convey what is it like, but it’s hard. Many of my students have never even been to Atlanta, even though it is a mere 25 miles away and others, if they have gotten that far from home have only been through Atlanta, not “to” it. During all of my years of teaching I’ve only run across a handful of kids who have visited and toured Washington D.C.

Usually we discuss the creation and building of our nation’s capital soon after we have ended our look at the American Revolution and discovered how the Constitution was written. While I often feel inadequate relying on my feeble attempts to describe the nation’s city through images and my memories, I also feel our texts do a poor job as well.

If ever there was a spot in the curriculum road to go four-wheeling, it’s at this point. Texts rarely provide enough data to get across the powerful images Washington D.C. conveys and many of the most interesting details are often left out of the story.

For example, in the text published by Scott Foresman titled Building a Nation my students can learn that Congress argued for over 10 years regarding the site of our nation’s capital. They learn what the D.C. stands for. They learn the land is not far from Mt. Vernon, and in 1799 the capital was referred to as Washington D.C. rather than Federal City in honor of our first president. L’Enfant is described as the city’s designer, and Benjamin Banneker is identified as the an inventor, mathematician, astronomer, and the son of a freed slave. The text simply states that Banneker was asked to help with the project. More information is given about Banneker on another page in the textbook.

That’s it. If I was a teacher who just relied on a textbook to teach American History to students the above is all they would know. It’s not much.

Enter a new book by Fergus M. Bordewich titled Washington: The Making of The American Capital. This is the book to read if you like to know all the backstories to the larger story. This is the book to read if you like to add to your bag of tricks when teaching about a certain event or place. Bordewich provides rich detail regarding the why, the how, and the who behind the making of the U.S. capital we enjoy and should cherish today.

With over thirty pages of notes regarding references used in his research I’m confident that Mr. Bordewich is a reliable source for use by history teachers, history students, and lovers of history in general.

The thorough history Mr. Bordewich provides engaged me with every turn of the page, and I couldn’t help but mark certain things that spoke to me in some way, or things that I wanted to make sure I added to my teaching unit regarding Washington D.C.

Here are just a few of the items I marked:

*the site that exists today came about during a dinner between James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, but it was not the original choice. Bordewich goes into great detail regarding all of the events and all of the various involved parties prior to and after Jefferson’s dinner party.

*Bordewich explains in great detail why Major L’Enfant soon faded from the story, and how Andrew Ellicott became a rising star in the planning and building process.

*I found Bordewich’s section regarding the involvement of Benjamin Banneker to be one of the most well written and detail ridden accounts I’ve seen to date. In fact, I’m planning on figuring out how I can share these pages with students either by simply reading them aloud and stopping every so often to discuss main points, or by reading a more juvenile account of Mr. Banneker’s life and have students compare it to the account given in Bordewich’s book.

*The issue of slavery is dealt with heavily in the book as it should be. It was an issue in the final location choice, and it was an issue with the labor that built the city.

*And where did the money come from to pay for the land and the buildings? Again, Bordewich lays it all out…the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Oh, those backstories I love so much!

I’ve only related a smidge of the story Bordewich relates concerning the founding and building of our nation’s capital. It’s an entertaining read and I highly recommend it.

New Views of the Founding Fathers

In the June 12th online issue of U.S. News and World Report Alex Kingsbury interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood regarding his newest book, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. The interview is rather short and lukewarm, however, it did entice me to click over to Amazon and check the book out. This could be a good choice for pool side reading over the next few days…..See the article here and click on the link below to see the Amazon reviews.