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January
January
7, 1808: There have always been unscrupulous
businessmen who have been willing to take advantage of the
under-dog. In
trade with the Native American peoples it was no
different. A
continuing problem that plagued agents within the United
States Indian trade network (a factory system) was their
inability to obtain quality trade goods, and quality
firearms for trade were a particular problem.
John Mason, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, wrote
about this matter from his headquarters in
Georgetown
,
District of Columbia
. "…I
have examined more attentively a few of Mr. Goetz
guns…and have inspected the inside of the barrel by
throwing sun into the touch hole…I am sorry to say I
found the barrel rough and the rifles except near the
muzzle scarcely traced at all...the sticks I found some of
them made of worm wood and so badly got out that they work
with difficulty in the loops -- In short the fact
is…that the whole gun…exhibits evident marks of slight
and haste in execution.
How they shoot I know not."
January
11, 1943: Early on the morning of this date, Tom Sullivan was in the kitchen of
his Waterloo, Iowa home.
He was the only member of the family yet up that
day. When a
black sedan pulled up and three men wearing US Navy
uniforms got out, he knew he was due bad news.
His sons were serving in the Navy.
He welcomed the men into the house, and quietly
asked, “Which one?”
Lieutenant Commander Truman Jones, who later said
this was “the most disagreeable task of his Navy
career,” responded, “I’m sorry.
All five.” The
loss of the Sullivan Brothers in the sinking of the
Atlanta-class light cruiser, USS
Juneau, constituted the worst single family loss of
life in U.S. Navy history.
At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Navy
had 325,095 personnel with some 70,000 more Marines.
Two years later the Navy ranks had swelled to more
than 2,250,000, with the Marines adding 391,000 more.
All the service branches grew likewise and competed
for recruits. Two
of the Sullivan brothers were veterans and had been
discharged before the Pearl Harbor attack.
After the attack they decided to reenlist, but they
wanted to serve with their three younger brothers.
They lobbied the Navy department to allow them to
serve together on the same ship.
George, the oldest brother, said, “…when we go
in, we want to go in together.
If the worst comes to worst, why we’ll all have
to go down together.”
When they walked into the recruiting station, a new
twenty-two year old ensign named Bob Hagen was in charge
– his commanding officer happened to be out of the
office. Hagen
had heard of the Sullivan brothers, but to him the idea of
five brothers serving together on the same ship sounded
awful. So, he
sent them away. Two
days later the commander told Hagen that the Navy was
going to honor the Sullivan brother’s request to serve
together. “This
doesn’t make very good sense to me,” Hagen responded.
The commander barked in return, “Hagen, do what
you are told to do in the Navy.
You are twenty-two years old and you don’t have
to think.” But
as George Sullivan had unintentionally predicted, on
November 12-13, 1942 the worst did come to worst in the
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
Hagan had been right, five brothers serving
together on the same ship was an awful idea.
January 28, 1908: On this date, eighty-nine year
old author and social activist, Julia
Ward Howe, becomes the first woman elected into the
American Academy of Arts and Letters.
During the Civil War, Howe experienced first-hand a
Confederate attack on Union troops in
Virginia
. This
inspired her to write one of the truly great songs of
Americana
, “The Battle
Hymn of the Republic.”
She matched the words to the tune of “John
Brown’s Body,” a popular marching song of the Union
Army, and when it was published in the February 1862 issue
of Atlantic Monthly, she received a royalty of five
dollars. Before
the Civil War Julia Howe was an abolitionist, and after
she worked constantly for social issues such as women’s
rights and prison reform.
She died in 1910.
The
American
Academy
of Arts and Letters was founded to recognize achievement
in the arts, and members are selected for the Academy by
their peers. Most
artists therefore consider admission one of the highest
honors they can achieve.
Among the members are such famous names as Duke
Ellington, William Faulkner, Dizzy Gillespie, Henry James,
John Steinbeck, Mark Twain and Frank Lloyd Wright.
February
February
6, 1843:
First on
de heel tap,
Den on the toe
Every time I wheel about
I jump Jim Crow.
Wheel about and turn about
En do j's so.
And every time I wheel about,
I jump Jim Crow.
Those lines come from the song
“Jump Jim Crow,” with a sheet music date of 1823, and
were apparently copied from an old
Black street
singer who used his own name in creating the lyrics.
The White entertainer who originally performed it
caused a sensation by coating his face with burnt cork,
but the term “Jim Crow”
has grown in history to represent much more than that old
singer or a racially slurred tune.
The term “Jim Crow” encompasses virtually every
part of American life from politics to education to
sports. It is
the complex story of the African-American experience from
the early days of slave importation to the modern struggle
for civil rights. In
1838, the term “Jim Crow” was a racial slur towards
Blacks – not as bad as some words, but certainly
offensive. Primarily,
the term relates to racism and segregation between the
Civil War and the 1960’s; Jim Crow laws prevented
African-Americans from voting, required segregated lunch
counters, “White-only” drinking
fountains, sitting in the back of the bus, and the Negro
Baseball League. But,
the term started with music, and on this date, “The
Virginia Minstrels”
put on their first show at the Bowery Amphitheater in
New York City
. The troupe
consisted of four White men who blackened their faces and
“imitated” the singing and dancing of Blacks.
Their show launched one of the most popular forms
or entertainment at the time, for which musical greats
such as Stephen Foster wrote some of the most popular
songs.
February 12, 1915: The 16th
President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was born
on February 12, 1809.
On this date, the 106th anniversary of
his birth, the nation celebrated the laying of the
cornerstone for the Lincoln
Memorial in
Washington
,
D.C.
Built to
resemble a Greek temple 204 feet long by 134 feet wide and
80 feet high, the construction took ten years.
It has 36 Doric columns surrounding the outside,
one for each state at the time of
Lincoln
’s death. (Do
you know which one represents your state?)
In the center of the memorial chamber is a
magnificent sculpture by Daniel Chester French of a seated
Lincoln looking out of the memorial at the length of the
Washington Mall. Inscribed in the marble of the Lincoln
Memorial’s south wall is the Gettysburg Address and on
the north wall is Lincoln’s second inaugural speech.
There are also two murals painted by Jules Guerin.
One depicts the angel of truth freeing a slave,
while the other portrays the new post-Civil War unity of
North and South.
The marble used in the structure (as well as the
Tomb of the Unknown and other
Washington
buildings) was quarried from a mine at Marble,
Colorado
. The mine,
closed for over fifty years, could/can still be visited
and its huge hollowed-out caverns with great marble
supporting pillars are impressive.
Within the last few years, work has again started
at the mine – one of the projects being a new
replacement stone for the presently cracking Tomb of the
Unknown.
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February
25, 1944: Ed Block, home on leave from the Air Force,
opens the Sunday paper and along with everyone in America,
sees for the first time the photo of U.S. Marines raising
the flag on Mt. Suribachi during the battle for Iwo Jima.
It is a moment that transfixes
America
, for everyone who sees that photograph that day remembers
just where and when they saw it.
As Ed looks at the photo, his mother, Belle,
glances over his shoulder and points at the Marine
thrusting the pole into the ground.
"Looky there, Junior!
There's your brother Harlon!"
Looking again at the photo, Ed sees only the back
of an unidentified Marine.
"Momma, there's no way you can know that's
Harlon. That's
just the back of a Marine.
And besides, we don't even know that Harlon is on
Iwo Jima
." Sliding
the paper out of Ed's hands, Belle responds, "Oh,
that's definitely Harlon.
I know my boy."
In fact, Harlon Block
was the Marine whose back shows in the photo.
He was killed on
Iwo Jima
, but instead of Harlon, the Marine in the photo was
misidentified as Henry Hansen, who was also killed.
It was months before Harlon Block was properly
identified, and through that period Belle stuck to her
story. "I've
changed too many diapers on that butt, not to know my
boy."
March
March 6, 1781: The early
1780’s were not good days for the settlers on the
Kentucky frontier. The
Revolutionary War was in progress, and Indians prompted by
British interests raided heavily below the
Ohio River
. On this date
occurred an example of the deadly threat under which the
settlers lived. McAfee’s
Station was a frontier outpost near the Salt River, and on
this date, Robert McAfee’s youngest brother-in-law,
eighteen-year-old Joseph McCoun, went to tend the family
cows and check some traps along the opposite side of
Salt River
. Discovering
a small war party of Shawnee moving through the woods,
Joseph took off running for the protection of the station.
The warriors, taking up the chase, managed to stay
between him and the station.
He crossed the river and raced for his father’s
cabin, but the warriors cut him off.
Ducking and dodging through the woods for another
mile or so, Joseph was finally surrounded and captured.
The warriors bound him with hickory bark and led
him quickly away. Eventually
McAfee’s Station noticed Joseph was missing, pieced
together what happened, and put together a rescue party,
which started out at dawn the following day.
After tracking the warriors to the
Ohio
, the rescue party returned with the hope that the
Shawnee
would take young Joseph into their society.
It was learned later, however, that Joseph was tied
to a tree in the
Shawnee
village and burned alive.
After that, Joseph’s mother, Mrs. James McCoun,
seldom smiled and soon “sank to her grave.”
March 15, 44 BC: Today is the “Ides of March,” the day Julius
Caesar was assassinated.
We know it as the Ides of March probably due to the
play, Julius Caesar, written by William
Shakespeare. In
the play, a soothsayer tells Caesar, who is on his way to
the Senate, “Beware the Ides of March.”
To which Caesar replies, “He is a dreamer, let us
leave him.” So,
if March 15 is the Ides of March, is the 15th
of any month the Ides of that month?
No. The
Romans read their calendar differently and did not count
the days as we do 1 through 30.
Three of the days had special names: Kalends fell
on the first day, Nones fell on either the 5th
or the 7th, and depending upon the month, the
Ides was either the 13th or the 15th.
The day before March 15th was not the 14th
of March, it was “the day before the Ides of March.”
March 6th was called, “The day before
the None of March” and, the 1st of April,
April Fool’s Day, fell “On the Kalends of April.”
Shakespeare referred to the person who warned
Caesar as an anonymous “soothsayer,” but according to
Plutarch’s account of the assassination, the man was an
astrologer named Spurinna.
Plutarch also said that Caesar wisely decided to
stay at home on March 15th.
However, a “friend” convinced him that
Spurinna’s warning was superstitious nonsense.
While going to Pompey’s theater in the
temple
of
Venus
, where the Roman Senate was meeting that day, Caesar saw
Spurinna and said, “The Ides of March are come.”
Spurinna replied, “Yes, they are come, but they
are not past.”
Later that day Caesar was stabbed 23 times.
March
28, 1869: In
a letter written on this date, Mary Lumpkin, (known
variably as Mary Jane Lumpkin and/or Mary F. Lumpkin)
asked in a neat cursive script for an advance on a
month’s rent. She
concluded with, “I hope that the school is getting on
very well.” Mary
Lumpkin was the ex-slave wife of Robert Lumpkin, a white
slave trader and owner of Lumpkin’s slave jail –called
“the devil’s half acre” - in Richmond, Virginia.
She is a perfect example of the complex issue that
was slavery; something we have a great deal of trouble
understanding today. In
New Orleans of the 1830’s, for example, there were some
10,689 free blacks, of which, more than 3,000 owned,
bought, and sold their own slaves.
In 1840 Charleston, South Carolina, there were 402
black slave owners with some 2,357 slaves.
While the Lumpkin slave jail was a virtual house of
horrors for re-captured slaves and slaves awaiting sale,
Robert Lumpkin sent two of his mulatto daughters to
finishing school in Massachusetts.
Worried that a “financial contingency might arise
where these, his own beautiful daughters, might be sold
into slavery to pay his debts,” he sent Mary and his
daughters to live in Pennsylvania.
In April, 1865, when Richmond fell to the Union
Army, he attempted to flee south with some 50 slaves –
men, women, and children – chained together.
Robert Lumpkin was a slave trader capable of the
most base brutality – his slave jail had a room set
aside for beatings and pit rooms where slaves “lived”
fettered to the floor in their own filth – yet he was
married to a black woman he once had purchased and was a
family man concerned about his “beautiful daughters.”
Like many slaves both male and female, the details
of Mary’s birth, life, and death are cloudy.
Yet, as evidenced by the above-mentioned letter,
she was literate. When
Robert died shortly after the war, his estate went to Mary
making her a woman of reasonable means.
The reference to the school in the letter is a
small window into her post-war life.
In 1867, an abolitionist minister from Boston,
Nathaniel Colver, came to burned-out Richmond intending to
found a school to educate black ministers.
Frustrated in trying to find appropriate property,
he ran into Mary Lumpkin among a group of people on the
street. “In
the midst of that group was a large, fair-faced
freedwoman, nearly white, who said she had a place.”
She took him to the site of Robert’s slave jail;
as a school for black ministers, “the devil’s half
acre” could become “God’s half acre.”
Mary and Colver agreed to a three-year lease at
$1000 per year. “With
unconcealed enthusiasm, black workers knocked out the
cells, removed the iron bars from windows, and refashioned
the old jail as a school for ministers and freedmen
alike.” That
school became Virginia Union University, which is still in
existence today.
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