The end of summer, a three-day weekend, burgers on the grill, and a back-to-school shopping spree, right? And the most important question, “Can I still wear white?”

But very few people associate Labor Day with a turbulent time in American History. That’s what Labor Day is really about. The holiday was born during the violent union-busting days of the late 19th century, when sweat shop conditions killed children, when there was no minimum wage and when going on vacation meant you were out of work.

If you like holidays, benefits and a five-day, 40-hour work week, you need to know about Labor Day.

When Labor Day was signed into law by Grover Cleveland in 1894, it was a bone tossed to the labor movement. And it was deliberately placed in September to ensure that it would not recall the memory of the deadly rioting at Chicago’s Haymarket Square in May 1886. Europe’s workers, and later the Communist Party, adopted May Day as a worker’s holiday to commemorate the deadly Haymarket Sqaure Riot which came about during a strike against thee McCormack Reaper Company.

Although Labor Day did become federal law in 1894, most of labor’s successes –the minimum wage, overtime, the end of child labor – did not come about until the Depression-era reforms of the New Deal.

Labor Day was created to celebrate the “strength and spirit of the American worker.” But this holiday should remind us that — like so many things we take for granted — those victories for working people came at great cost, in blood, sweat and tears.

For more on the history of Haymarket Square, here is a link to the Chicago Historical Society’s web project.

“American Experience,” the PBS documentary series, produced a Homestead Strike piece as part of its film about Andrew Carnegie.

You can read more about the history of the trade union movement in Don’t Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

Don't Know Much About@ History: Anniversary Edition

The Bible Riots

In a column written for CNN.com entitled “Why U.S. is Not a Christian Nation” that appeared on July 4th, I wrote about the history of early America as a secular republic.

Today, a few days after marking Independence Day and celebrating the events of 1776 in Philadelphia, I want to highlight a piece of “America’s Hidden History” that underscores the dangers of an “official” religion and the irony of calling America a “Christian Nation.”  The story is of a time when Christian sectarian violence led to bloodshed in the streets of Philadelphia.

Starting in n May 1844 and then again for several days following the 1844 Independence Day Parade, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of deadly riots. Known as the “Bible Riots,” the bloody street fighting and violence grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in early American History. This video offer an overview of the “Bible Riots.”

The story of the “Bible Riots” is another untold tale that I explore in greater in A NATION RISING, now available in paperback.

A NATION RISING -National Bestseller now in paperback

You will see plenty of red, white and blue bunting around as the Fourth of July approaches. The American flag inspires patriotism and pride. But a lot of legends too.

With its thirteen red and white stripes in honor of the original states, the U.S. flag has has changed a lot since 1777, when the “Stars and Stripes” became the official American flag. Now there are 50 stars representing the states. But the familiar symbol of America has a surprisingly obscure history. How much do you know about “Old Glory?”

True or False? (Answers below)
1. The original design, with 13 stars in a circle, was the handiwork of seamstress Betsy Ross.
2. The American flag is never lowered to honor visiting heads of state.
3. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, composed in 1776, always included the words “one nation under God.”
4. It is legal to burn the flag as a form of protest.

FLAG DAY is celebrated on June 14 in honor of the adoption of the American flag by the Second Continental Congress in 1777. In 1877, Congress ordered the flag to be flown from every government building on June 14 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the official birth of the American flag.

You can find a good source of flag history and tradition at this website, US Flag.org:
http://www.usflag.org/history/flagevolution.html

Answers
1. False, probably. The Betsy Ross legend has largely been discredited. The likely father of the flag design was Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration from Pennsylvania and a member of the Continental Navy Board.
2. True. In a long-standing tradition, the flag is never dipped to any other nation’s, including during the Olympics.
3. Double False. The Pledge was composed in 1892 and the words “under God” were added in 1953.
4. True. The Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag in protest is speech protected under the Fifth Amendment.

People ask me two questions all the time: Why don’t we know much about History?
And why is so much of America’s History Hidden?
To the first the answer is simple. It was boring.
And to the second, we lie.
Sometimes these lies are little white lies –like Washington and the Cherry Tree. But sometimes they are Big Lies.
Let me give you an example of a BIG LIE. I was in a wonderful historical village in Florida, doing some research. A Spanish mission, with a neighboring Indian village, it featured an enthusiastic, well-versed staff in period costume. It was exactly the kind of place I like to suggest to parents and teachers to take their kids to get them excited about history.
Then I went into their “educational center.” On the wall was a time chart of Florida’s history and under the date 1565, I saw this legend: “The French are banished from Florida.”

Not so fast… The French Protestants, or Huguenots who were America’s real first pilgrims, were not “banished.” They were massacred by the Spanish. And not because they were French but because they were Protestants–”heretics.” It happened in September and October 1565.

October is also the month in which those folks who brought you the Salem Witch Trials executed a couple of Quakers –who had been banned from Boston and the Bay Colony in October 1656. A year later, another Quaker named Mary Dyer was executed and a fourth was hung in 1661 –simply for the crime of being a Quaker.
They left that part out of the Thanksgiving Story, didn’t they? These are some of the “hidden history” moments that we don’t talk about when we discuss America as a so-called “Christian nation” and the Puritans coming for freedom of religion. That meant their religion not anyone else’s.
We hide our history when the truth is ugly. We like to paint a picture of that that makes history tidy and acceptable. But our history isn’t tidy or bloodless. And it certainly isn’t boring as these stories prove.

You can read more about the French Pilgrims and the Quakers in America’s Hidden History

Here is a link the national monument at Fort Matanzas, site of the Massacre:
http://www.nps.gov/foma/index.htm
This is a brief biography of Mary Dyer from the Massachusetts state website:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=mg2terminal&L=6&L0=Home&L1=State+Government&L2=About+Massachusetts&L3=Interactive+State+House&L4=Inside+the+State+House&L5=Statues+in+Bronze&sid=massgov2&b=terminalcontent&f=interactive_statehouse_statue_dyer&csid=massgov2

It has been butchered at baseball games and Super Bowls. But today is the day our national anthem was written in 1814 and later set to an old drinking song.

It was September 13, 1814. America was at war with England for the second time since 1776. Francis Scott Key was an attorney attempting to negotiate the return of a civilian prisoner held by the British who had just burned Washington DC and had set their sights on Baltimore. As the British attacked the city, Key watched the naval bombardment from a ship in Baltimore’s harbor. In the morning, he could see that the Stars and Stripes still flew over Fort McHenry. Inspired, he wrote the lyrics that we all know –well some of you know some of them.

But here’s what they didn’t tell you:

Yes, Washington, D.C. was burned in 1814, including the President’s Home which would later get a fresh coat of paint and be called the “White House.” But Washington was torched in retaliation for the burning of York –now Toronto—in Canada earlier in the war.

Yes, Key wrote words. But the music comes from an old English drinking song. Good thing it wasn’t 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.
Here’s a link to the original lyrics of the Drinking song via Poem of the Week
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw234.html
The Star Spangled Banner did not become the national anthem until 1916 when President Wilson declared it by Executive Order. But that didn’t really count. In 1931, it became the National Anthem by Congressional resolution signed by President Herbert Hoover.,

Now, here are a couple of footnotes to the Francis Scott Key story—his son, Philip Barton Key, was a District attorney in Washington. DC. He was shot and killed by Congressman Daniel Sickles. Sickles was acquitted with the first use of the defense of temporary insanity in 1859. And went on to serve as a Civil War general –and not a very good one.

And speaking of the Civil War, Key’s grandson was later imprisoned in Fort McHenry along wit Baltimore’s Mayor and other pro-Confederate sympathizers.

Here are some places to learn more about Fort McHenry, Key and the Flag that inspired the National Anthem.
http://www.nps.gov/archive/fomc/home.htm
The images and music in this video are courtesy of the Smithsonian Museum of American History: http://americanhistory.si.ed/starspangledbanner/

This version of the anthem is on 19th century instruments:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/mp3/song.ssb.dsl.mp3

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger informed slaves in the area from the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston, Texas, that they were free. Lincoln had officially issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but it had taken two more years of Union victories to end the war and for this news to reach slaves in remote sections of the country. According to folk traditions, many of the newly freed slaves celebrated the news with ecstasy. Many of them began to travel to other states in search of family members who had been separated from them by slave sales.

That spontaneous celebration—commonly called Juneteenth— became prominent in many African-American communities, but never gained any official recognition. Recently it has been recognized by several states as a day celebrating emancipation. There is a movement to gain national recognition of “Juneteenth” as a way of marking the end of slavery in America.

Here is a link to the National Archives site about the Emancipation Proclamation, formally announced by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/index.html

FLAG DAY is celebrated on June 14 in honor of the adoption of the American flag by the Second Continental Congress in 1777.

In 1877, Congress ordered the flag to be flown from every government building on June 14 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the official birth of the American flag. With its thirteen red and white stripes in honor of the original states, the U.S. flag has has changed a lot since 1777, with 50 stars now representing the states. But the familiar symbol of America has a surprisingly obscure history. How much do you know about the “stars and stripes”?

True or False? (Answers below)
1. The original design, with 13 stars in a circle, was the handiwork of seamstress Betsy Ross.
2. The American flag is never lowered to honor visiting heads of state.
3. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, composed in 1776, always included the words “one nation under God.”
4. It is legal to burn the flag as a form of protest.

You can find a good source of flag history and tradition at this website, US Flag.org:
http://www.usflag.org/history/flagevolution.html

You can also find more information about the National Anthem and the flag that inspired it in this videoblog:

http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2010/03/today-in-history-birth-of-an-anthem/

Answers
1. False, probably. The Betsy Ross legend has largely been discredited. The likely father of the flag design was Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration from Pennsylvania and a member of the Continental Navy Board.
2. True. In a long-standing tradition, the flag is never dipped to any other nation’s, including during the Olympics.
3. Double False. The Pledge was composed in 1892 and the words “under God” were added in 1953.
4. True. The Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag in protest is speech protected under the Fifth Amendment.

(Images Courtesy of the Library of Congress and Flanders Cemetery image Courtesy of the American Battle Monuments Commission)

It’s not about the barbecue or the Mattress Sales. Obscured by the holiday atmosphere around Memorial Day is the fact that it is the most solemn day on the national calendar. This video tells a bit about the history behind the holiday.

You can read more about Memorial Day in my Huffington Post piece, Memorial Day and our “Hidden Wars”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenneth-c-davis/memorial-day-and-our-hidd_b_582222.html

One way to mark Memorial Day is by simply reading the Gettysburg Address. Here is a link to the Library of Congress and its page on the Address:
http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/gettysburgaddress/Pages/default.aspx

I also discussed Memorial day in a previous post:
http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2009/05/memorial-day-a-history-lesson/

In my previous videopost, I told you that there were no black hats with buckles, half of the “pilgrims” weren’t Pilgrims and that the first Thanksgiving was really  in October. Here are a few more pieces of the picture.
And here is a link to a story I wrote for the New York Times about America’s real first Pilgrims, a group of French settlers in Florida who arrived 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.

THE PLIMOTH PLANTATION historical site also offers a good overview of the Pilgrim story:

For the past 33 years, I have lived in New York’s West Village where the streets are filled with literary “ghosts” –reminders of the great writers who lived and worked in this historic district of New York. Every day that I walk around the neighborhood, is like getting a literary education. It’s one of reasons I love to live here.

Nearby is Grove Street, which is where Tom Paine once lived. They say the locals called it “Raisin Street” back then because Paine had recently written the Age of Reason –its French raison sounded like “raisin.”
And around the corner from Grove is winding, narrow Commerce Street and the Cherry Lane Theater, where Waiting for Godot had its premiere.

But one of my favorites is Herman Melville, who worked in the Customs House on Gansevoort Street –in what is now the white hot center of the “Meatpacking District.”

Think you know your Melville?