Honest Abe. The Railsplitter. The Great Emancipator. You know some of the basics and the legends. But check out this video to learn some of things you may not know, but should, about the 16th President.

Here’s a link to the Lincoln Birthplace National Park
http://www.nps.gov/ABLI/index.htm

This link is to the Emancipation Proclamation page at the National Archives:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/

Never underestimate the power of four teenagers.
Fifty years ago, a deliberate act of disobedience by four college kids shook America.
On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service. Ordering coffee at an all-whites lunch counter was an incredible act of courage. This was a time when young black men were lynched for supposedly looking the wrong way at a white woman.

Here is the original NYTimes story about that protest and what it started.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0201.html#article

Howell Raines, who covered the civil rights movement for the Times wrote an op-ed on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/opinion/01greensboro.html

The act of ordering coffee at a Woolworth’s lunch counter was not a “random act of kindness,” that clichéd panacea for the world’s ills. It was a deliberate act of defiance. and that got me thinking about deliberate defiance today.
What should we be defying?
The two wars?
The discrimination against Americans who want to marry or serve in the military?
Hope is a nice word. So is Change. But if we really hope to change anything, what should we be doing that would be as earth-shaking as ordering a cup of coffee?

“I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

While contemplating the death of J.D. Salinger, it is worth remembering that another New England transplant, Robert Frost , died on this date January 29 in 1963. He had written his own epitaph, the words above, etched on his headstone in a church cemetery in Bennington, VT.

Apples, birches, hayfields and stone walls; simple features like these make up the landscape of four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost’s poetry. Known as a poet of New England, Frost (1874-1963) spent much of his life working and wandering the woods and farmland of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. As a young man, he dropped out of Dartmouth and then Harvard, then drifted from job to job: teacher, newspaper editor, cobbler. His poetry career took off during a three-year trip to England with his wife Elinor where Ezra Pound aided the young poet. Frost’s language is plain and straightforward, his lines inspired by the laconic speech of his Yankee neighbors. But while poems like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” are accessible enough to make Frost a grammar-school favorite, his poetry is contemplative and sometimes dark—concerned with themes like growing old and facing death. Stop here a moment and take this Frost quiz.

1. In what city was Robert Frost born?
2. What Yankee saying does Frost’s neighbor repeat in the poem, “Mending Wall”?
3. Which President chose Frost to read a poem at his inauguration?
4. At that inauguration, why did Frost recite “The Gift Outright”?

Quiz adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature

Here is the NYTimes obituary published after his death.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0129.html#article

And this is a videoblog I made at Frost’s gravesite last August:
http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2009/08/touch-of-frost-a-videoblog/

Answers
1. San Francisco, California.
2. “Good fences make good neighbors.”
3. John F. Kennedy, in 1961.
4. He had written a new poem called “Dedication,” but couldn’t read it in the January glare; instead, he recited the 1942 poem, which he knew by heart.

A news report that a “Tea Party” convention planned for February shows signs of unraveling reminds me of another group of “tea baggers” from American History. They also came undone in late January. But the year was 1778.

[The news story about the Tea Party Convention: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/politics/26teaparty.html?src=tptw]

It began as a populist uprising against –surprise, surprise—the bankers and lawyers who were making the rules back in Boston, men derided as “thieves, knaves and robbers” by the average people of Massachusetts. During the first economic crisis in a nation then ruled by the Articles of Confederation, sweeping foreclosures threatened farms and businesses, unfair tax systems were crushing American families, and there was no credit to be had. Sound familiar? Plus ça change…

Fighting back, hundreds of these average men came together under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays and came to be called Shays’s Army. The politicians called them “insurgents.”

Many of the men, like Shays, were veterans of the Revolution and had fought in every battle from Bunker Hill to Yorktown. Some had suffered through the winter at Valley Forge. Now some of them had been told they couldn’t vote. So they began their second American Revolution in the winter of 1786 and the early winter of 1778. On January 25th, after a raging storm left four feet foot of fresh snow in the Berkshire hills, more than a thousand of these men – farmers, tradesmen, shopkeepers – marched on the federal arsenal in Springfield, hoping to take the artillery and muskets stored inside, and continue on to Boston to overthrow the state government.

Apparently, they believed these words from the Declaration of Independence:

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it . . .”

Lightly armed and poorly organized, the “Shaysites” were repulsed by a small militia army, bought and paid for by the power brokers of Massachusetts. Among those in power was patriot icon Samuel Adams, who said of the rebellious farmers,

“In monarchies, the crime of treason and rebellion may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death..”

Indeed a few of the rebels did die that day in Springfield. Several volleys of grapeshot killed a handful of men; the others scattered in panic. More federal troops eventually rounded them up. Daniel Shays, an outlaw, made his way to the “Republic of Vermont,” not yet a state. (Eventually pardoned, he lived out the rest of his life as a struggling farmer in upstate New York.)

The “horrid and unnatural Rebellion and War,” as the Massachusetts legislature called the uprising, ended with a few small bangs and a whimper. And Americans killing each other.
Thomas Jefferson, hearing the news in Paris, wrote back to America,

“What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

George Washington was not so philosophical. “Are your people mad?” an incredulous Washington wrote to one of his former aides in New England. The prospect of more Shays Rebellions provided the urgency for Washington, James Madison, and other “Framers” to collect in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution. The angry “teabaggers” of western Massachusetts had pressed America to become “a more perfect Union.”

“Shays’s Rebellion” was far from the first time populist anger boiled over violently in America. There had been numerous uprisings throughout colonial America in which the poor and powerless struck out at the earliest generation of American “Elites.” And populist anger has remained a constant throughout our history. It is anger born of economic dislocation, but is often fueled by darker streaks — race and religion have frequently stoked the coals of populist rage. And these tales are usually untold in our schoolbooks. They don’t fit the tidy picture of American History.

In the past, populist movements like the “Tea baggers” have usually flamed hot before burning out –co-opted or absorbed by the major parties. Whether the fractious and increasingly fractured “Tea Party” is one more of these flameouts remains to be seen. But the history of populist anger is a real one. And as the Senate race results in Massachusetts –scene of Shays’s Rebellion– recently proved, people are mad. The bloodletting may be symbolic this time. But Jefferson’s “Tree of Liberty” may be refreshed with more political bloodshed before too long.

You can read more about Shays’s Rebellion and its impact in America’s Hidden History

Born today in New York City in 1862: Edith Newbold Jones, who achieved fame as Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921 (for The Age of Innocence).

Romance, scandal and ruin among New York socialites—long before this was the stuff of People, and “Gossip Girl,” it was the subject matter for Edith Wharton’s most famous works. In such novels as The Age of Innocence (1920) and The House of Mirth (1905), Wharton painted detailed, acid portraits of high society life. In doing so, she created heartbreaking conflicts beneath the façade of wealth and manners. Again and again, characters like Newland Archer and Lily Bart were forced to choose between conforming to social expectations and pursuing true love and happiness. Her most famous work set outside the realm of high-tone New York was Ethan Frome (1911), set in wintry, rural Massachusetts. Know your Wharton? Try this quick quiz–

TRUE or FALSE (Quiz adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature. Answers below)

1. Edith Wharton wrote about wealthy New Yorkers to escape the poverty of her own upbringing.
2. Though Edith Wharton was unhappily married, she could not get divorced because it was socially unacceptable.
3. In addition to her fiction, Wharton published several books on interior decorating and landscaping.

Here is a link to The Mount, Wharton’s restored home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts:
http://www.edithwharton.org/

Edith Wharton died in France in 1937. Here is her obituary from theNew York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0124.html

Answers
1. FALSE. Wharton was born to wealthy New Yorkers, and summered in Newport, Rhode Island. She grew up traveling through Europe, and was educated by private tutors. After an official debut into society, she married a rich banker twelve years her senior.
2. FALSE. She divorced Teddy Wharton in 1913.
3. TRUE. Her first book was The Decoration of Houses. She also wrote about Italian landscaping and architecture in Italian Villas and Their Gardens, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.

On January 22, 1973 –37 years ago– the Supreme Court handed down its historic 7-2 decision in the Roe v Wade case, But the arguments have never stopped.

Coincidentally, President Lyndon B. Johnson died the same day. Here is the New York Times front page reports of both stories, with the text of the Roe v Wade story below.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0122.html#article

Why did “Jane Roe” sue Wade? (Adapted from Don’t Know Much About History)
There are few issues more emotionally, politically, or legally divisive in modern America than the future of abortion rights.

Many Americans thought the question was settled on January 22, 1973. That was the day the Supreme Court decided, by a seven-to-two margin, that it was unconstitutional for states to prohibit voluntary abortions before the third month of pregnancy; the decision also limited prohibitions that states might set during the second three months.

The decision grew out of a Texas case involving a woman who, out of desire to protect her privacy, was called Jane Roe in court papers. “Roe” was Norma McCorvey, a single woman living in Texas who became pregnant. She desired an abortion, but was unable to obtain one legally in her home state of Texas, and so she gave birth to a child she put up for adoption. Nonetheless, she brought suit against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade in an attempt to overturn the restrictive Texas abortion codes. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which made the decision in the case known as Roe v. Wade.

For sixteen years the Roe precedent influenced a series of rulings that liberalized abortion in America. To many Americans, the right to an abortion was a basic matter of private choice, a decision for the woman to make. But to millions of Americans, Roe was simply government-sanctioned murder.

The mostly conservative foes of legal abortion—who call their movement “pro-life”—gained strength in the 1980s, coalescing behind Ronald Reagan and contributing to his election. And it may ultimately be the conservative legacy of his and the appointments of George Bush and his son George W. Bush to the Supreme Court who determine the future of Roe v. Wade. In the summer of 1989, the Supreme Court decided five to four, in the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, to give states expanded authority to limit abortion rights. The Court also announced that it would hear a series of cases that would give it the opportunity to completely overturn the Roe decision.

In 1998, McCorvey announced a conversion to Christianity and a complete break with the pro-choice movement. Henry Wade, the Dallas prosecutor she had sued and who also prosecuted Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died in 2001.

From Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority decision in Roe v. Wade:

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. . . . They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage; procreation; contraception; family relationships; and child rearing and education.
The right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. . . . We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

When I was a kid, we got two holidays: one for Lincoln’s Birthday and another for Washington’s. Now, we have to make do with a three day weekend in February for Presidents Day.
Think you know about the Father of Our Country?
This video contains a few things that might surprise you.

Want to learn a little more?
Here is the website for the National Park Service’s Birthplace of Washington site:
http://www.nps.gov/gewa/index.htm

And here is the National Park Service website for Fort Necessity, scene of Washington’s surrender and “confession.”
http://www.nps.gov/fone/index.htm

Today is the birthday of America’s first international celebrity and most consistently interesting Founding Father. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706.

With little formal education, he became a writer, printer, philanthropist, philosopher, political leader and scientist. Franklin, alongside Thomas Jefferson, was probably the best example of the American Enlightenment Man. And, like Jefferson and other men of his times, Benjamin Franklin was skeptical of organized religion.

But proponents of America as a “Christian nation” and those who favor public prayer often cite Benjamin Franklin’s entreaty that the Constitutional Convention –then seemingly at an unbreakable impasse– open its daily debates with a prayer. What they conveniently leave out is what actually happened following that suggestion.

Alexander Hamilton first argued that if the people knew that the Convention was resorting to prayer at such a late date, it might be viewed as an act of desperation. Nonetheless, Franklin’s motion was seconded. But then Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked funds to pay a chaplain, and there the proposition died. Franklin later noted,

The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.

Late in his life, Franklin wrote what could almost pass for a modern New Age statement of faith:

“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe.
That he governs it by his Providence. . . . That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. . . . As to Jesus of Nazareth. I think the system of morals and his religion . . . the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have . . . some doubts as to his divinity.”

He added, “I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments. . . . I hope to go out of the world in peace with all of them.”

Franklin died on April 17, 1790.
Here’s a link to a Library of Congress website celebrating Franklin on his 300th birthday in 2006.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/franklin/introduction.html

You can read more about Franklin and his accomplishments and impact in Don’t Know Much About History and America’s Hidden History

Why is there a statue of Benedict Arnold’s boot?

Years ago, I was asked that question on a radio call-in show and honestly did not know the answer. Nor was I even aware at the time there was such a statue. But there it is — part of the Saratoga National Park in Saratoga, New York. The “boot” is actually anonymous, citing the “most brilliant soldier in the Continental Army.” But there is no question it honors American history’s greatest villain, born this day in 1741.

The “Boot Monument” is part of the park tour:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/sara/tour-7.htm
http://www.nps.gov/sara/index.htm

History books like to make people into heroes or villains. Benedict Arnold was easily characterized as a villain, the most notorious traitor in American History for his attempt to betray the patriot cause when he was in command of the strategic post at West Point, overlooking the Hudson River. But he might have been one of the nation’s greatest heroes. And that is what makes history so compelling. Not the black and white of dates and “facts,” but the more subtle gray complexities of ego, ambition and human frailty.

Born on January 14, 1741 in colonial Norwich, Connecticut, Arnold had a biography that reads like that of a character out of Dickens. The son of a wealthy, successful ship’s captain and merchant, young Benedict Arnold was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He was sent off to the best boarding school by his father, owner of the finest home in town. Then it fell apart. Yellow fever took his sisters while he was at school. Alcoholism then took his father. The fall was stunning as the elder Arnold became the town drunk and lost his fortune. At 14, young Benedict Arnold became an indentured servant. As a teenager, he ran away on several occasions to try and join the British-American forces then fighting France in the French and Indian War. Through pluck and generous relatives, Arnold eventually became a wealthy young merchant himself and was soon immersed in patriot politics, even traveling to Philadelphia to observe the First Continental Congress.

When the fighting began in 1775, he led Connecticut’s militia to Boston to join the rebel army gathering there. Arnold soon won honors for his role in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. With George Washington’s approval, he led a daring but disastrous march through Maine to unsuccessfully attack Quebec. Later, he built a small navy to battle the British on Lake Champlain, helping save the patriot cause. But it was at Saratoga in October 1777 that he made his greatest contribution, leading a charge that turned the tide in what would become the most important American victory of the Revolution to that point.

Admired by Washington, Arnold also made a great many enemies. Seeing others promoted and advanced before him made him bitter and ultimately led to his fateful decision to join the British side.

After his plot was uncovered, Arnold did join the British side, fighting against his onetime countrymen. He later moved to Canada and eventually to London where he died and was buried in June 1801 at the age of 60. His remains were accidentally –and fittingly?– moved to an unmarked grave.

You can read more about Arnold and his exploits in the chapter called “Arnold’s Boot” in America’s Hidden History

In the appropriate chill of the day, it is worth noting that Jack London, a man who knew cold and wrote about it memorably, was born on this date in 1876. London was certainly one of the writers who got me hooked on books as a young reader.

In fact, in the early 20th century, many American readers went wild for a pair of books by Jack London (1876-1916). First, The Call of the Wild (1903) told the story of Buck, a dog who returns to the ways of his wolf ancestors. Then, London published the mirror image of that tale with White Fang (1906), about a half-wolf, half-dog’s journey to a loving human family. If you’ve heard the call of Jack London, howl at this quiz. (Adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature)

TRUE or FALSE (Answers below)

1. London based Buck, the canine hero of The Call of the Wild, on a dog named “Jack” that he’d met in the Klondike.
2. The epigraph London uses to begin in The Call of the Wild is a fragment of Yukon writer Robert Service’s poem, “The Call of the Wild.”
3. London developed a personal philosophy that combined individualism and socialism while serving time in jail for vagrancy.
4. London spent the last twenty years of his life writing in Alaska after making a small fortune as a gold prospector.
5. London’s “To Build a Fire” was a popular how-to book about wilderness survival.

Sonoma State University maintains an extensive online collection about London and his work:
http://london.sonoma.edu/

Answers
1. TRUE. Other “characters” were based on dogs London had read about in Reverend Egerton Young’s My Dogs in the Northland.
2. FALSE. These four lines—“Old longings nomadic leap,/ Chafing at custom’s chain;/ Again from its brumal sleep/ Wakens the ferine strain”—come from John M. O’Hara’s poem “Atavism.” As a biological term, “atavism” refers to the reappearance of an ancestral trait that had disappeared from a line of organisms.
3. TRUE. In 1894, London spent a month mulling over the writings of Marx and Nietzsche in New York’s Erie County Penitentiary. He was arrested after he abandoned a protest march of unemployed men, called “Coxey’s Army.”
4. FALSE. London went north in search of gold in the Klondike (in the Yukon Territory) in 1897, but stayed for one year. Like most, he never struck it rich.
5. FALSE. “To Build a Fire” (1908) is one of London’s most famous short stories, about a man and a dog traveling on the Yukon Trail in extreme cold.