Dr. Wendell A. Howe

Without Further Introduction

2012-01-20T16:47:00.000-08:00

20 January 1891 - Hartford, Connecticut

Today I visited 351 Farmington Avenue in hopes of interviewing (or at least glimpsing) one of the Victorian Ages greatest writers, Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain.

The cab dropped me off at a three-story Gothic-style mansion. Created by an imaginative architect for an imaginative man. I trudged through the snow up the driveway to the house.

Near the porch I found a chap in a fur coat and hat shoveling the walk. His back was to me as I approached him. “Excuse me, sir. Do you work for Mr. Clemens.”

He turned and twitched a lush dark mustache peppered with grey. “No, I work for Mrs. Clemens,” he drawled.

Samuel Clemens circa 1891

“Mr. Clemens?”

“It would appear the jig is up.” He chunked the shovel in the snow. “Are you here to sell me insurance or do you just want an autograph?”

“No, I’m a freelance journalist for the London Times.” That line usually worked.

Mr. Clemens looked even more irritated. “Reporters. Bad enough every reporter in New England pesters me. Now they are importing you scoundrels. I’m busy.” He went back to shoveling the snow.

I stepped up on his porch out of the snow. “I know this might not be the best time. If I could make an appointment for a more convenient day.”

He just grunted.

I felt something brush against my ankle. I looked down to see a tabby rubbing against me. “Why, hello there, little one.” I knelt down. “What are you doing out in the cold?” I scratched the moggy’s ear and she purred.

“You like cats?” Clemens asked.

“Yes, of course. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Dickens, my cat. I’m afraid I travel too much to have one now. Perhaps some day.”

Clemens broke out in a grin. “Sir, any man who loves cats, I count as my friend without further introduction.” He came up on the porch and leaned the shovel against the pillar. “Besides I need an excuse to stop this useless labor. It will probably just need shoveled again tomorrow. At least we aren’t having a blizzard like we did back in ‘88.”

Olivia "Livy" Clemens

Clemens scooped up the cat, and led me into the house. A middle-aged woman with a pleasant face came into the room. She was small and delicate lady. “Did you finish the walk, dear? Oh, we have company?”

“Just a reporter, Livy dear. I was going to take him up to the billiard room and see if I couldn’t bamboozle him out of some money.”

She turned to me. “Could I get you some coffee, sir.”

“Erm, no thank you.” I tried not to make a face.

She laughed. “By that look, I’d say you aren’t a coffee drinker. Would you prefer tea, Mr.--eh, what is your name?”

“Howe.” I stuck out my hand to her. “Mr. Wendell Howe. And tea would be delightful.”

Clemens steered me up the stairs to the third floor to a large attic room. In the middle of the was a large billiard table. At the far end was a desk. Apparently this was also his study where he wrote. He walked over to a whicker chair full of cats and dumped the cat he was holding among them. It curled up and joined them in a nap.

Clemens Billiard Room and Study

“Do you smoke?” He pulled a cigar out of a wooden box, offering it to me.

“No, but feel free to smoke. This is your home.”

“How about a shot of whiskey?”

“I do not wish to be rude, but I don’t drink, either.”

Clemens eyebrow raised as if his opinion of me was dropping. “I suppose you don’t cuss either.”

“Of course not. It sounds like bloody hell,” I said with a straight face.

Clemens laughed and slapped his thigh. “I like you Howe, even if you are straight-laced. At least you aren’t some self-righteous prig who tries to foist his bad habits on others.” He stuffed the cigar in his mouth and lit it. As he shook out the match, he gave me an odd stare. “Have we met before? You look familiar.”

Actually I had asked for his autograph at a lecture ten years from now, but he wouldn’t remember that since it hadn’t happened for him yet. I racked my brain. Yes, we had met before--more than once. “No,” I lied. “I just have one of those faces.”

Clemens studied me and nodded. “Yes I suppose you do at that. Do you play billiards?”

“In a manner. I am quite adept a losing graciously.”

“Then I might actually beat you. I usually lose to the cats.”

Twain's cats wide awake now

I had no idea what that meant until he setup the balls and began whacking them about the billiard table. The first “clink” woke up the cats. They jumped up on the sideboard of the table to watch, while a couple swatted at any ball that came close to them, destroying what might have been a not too horrible shot. I’m not at all sure how you keep score in cat billiards, but I found it the most amusing game of snookers I ever played.

A lovely girl in her late teens came into the room, carrying a tray with a tea set and a mug of coffee on it. “Papa? Can I come in?”

“You may enter.” Clemens bowed to her, dramatically. He came over and took her tray. “Mr Howe, I would like to introduce my eldest daughter, Olivia Susan Clemens. We just call her Susy.”

Susy Clemens

Susy gave a playful curtsy. “Charmed, Mr. Howe. Now I must leave. No women or children are allowed in the billiards room. It’s Papas one act of tyranny.”

“Men need a room they can drink, smoke, gamble and cuss in.” Clemens defended himself.

I bowed to Susy. “Very nice to meet you, Miss Clemens. Thank you for the tea. And thank your mother for me please. Tell her the game stakes are only twenty-five cents and we are both losing to the cats. Your home is safe...unless the cats collect.”

Susy giggled and left. Clemens watched her with fatherly pride. “My Susy is as smart as she is beautiful. She’s quite the writer. You just wait Mr. Howe. Long after the world has forgotten Mark Twain, they will remember Olivia Susan Clemens, the great author!” He looked over at me. “Are you all right, Howe? You look kind of haunted.”

I try to control my face and show no emotion, but sometimes my eyes betray me. “Sorry, sir. It’s just that I had a sister named Susan. Struck down by scarlet fever.”

I never had a sister. But I knew Susy’s future. She will die of spinal meningitis in five years. It’s a blow none of the Clement family will ever recover from. While Samuel Clemens loves his other two daughters dearly, Susy is his favorite.

I tried to change the subject. “This is a very lovely home you have, Mr. Clemens.”

“Built it myself. All right, contractors built it, but I designed it. Okay, that’s not entirely true either. Livy designed a lot of it. Probably would have looked like a farmhouse if I had designed it all. Livy has all the taste and style a boy from Missouri lacks. I have done many a foolish thing in my life. Marrying that woman was not one of them. I fell in love with her before we even met.”

Clemens then told me how in 1867 a paper paid him to go on a European tour on a decommissioned naval ship, “Quaker City.” He sent back letters to be published for the readership. These articles were so popular, they were published as a book titled Innocents Abroad, which became Clemens biggest seller during his lifetime. The trip not only made Mark Twain famous, it would change Clemens life in other ways.

Love at First Site

One of his fellow tourist was a gentleman named Charles Langdon, the son a wealthy coal merchant. He showed Clemens a photo of his sister, Olivia. It was love at first site. Even though she was ten years younger, Clemens had Charles introduce them. Clemens took Olivia to a lecture by Charles Dickens on their first date. She was frail, but she was college educated, spirited and down to earth. Clemens proposed. She rejected him, but gave in two months later. They were married in February 1870.

In November, their first child, Langdon Clemens was born premature. He died at nineteen months. Clemens paused a moment here. Then he brightened as he spoke of the three daughters that followed: Susy (1872), Clara (1874) and Jean (1880.) They were the joy of his life. Clemens went on and on about them. As he talked about the plays he wrote for them and the games they played, I was sure the girls would have gushed over their father.

Clara, Jean and Susy in 1881

I asked Clemens if he would mind autographing a copy of his last book for me. I pulled A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court out of my frock coat pocket.

“So you are an autograph hunter,” he sounded more amused then irritated. “Sure my good fellow.” He signed my book and handed it to me. “So, did you like it? I thought I would do something different.”

“It was--” I caught myself. I almost said he beat H.G. Wells time travel story by six years, or that the book had invented the science fiction genre of “alternative history.” “Erm, it was brilliant.”

“Didn’t care much for it, huh?”

“No, I loved it! I especially liked your observations that cats would make better monarchs. They would lay about, get into indelicate situations and act haughty like other crowned heads, but they would ingratiate themselves to their subjects by never having anyone beheaded, imprisoned or inflicting any other injustice. Cats would be far more loved than human kings and far more deserving of that love. I believe that was the gist of it.” I petted our closest billiard partner, who purred her approval. “I’m looking forward to your next book.”

Clemens shook his head. “No more books. No more lectures. I’m retiring. I am currently sitting on a big bonanza that will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams.”

“You bought into a gold mine?”

‘I did indeed, sir. A fellow by the name of James Paige showed me a contraption he is working on, the Paige Compositor. It is a typesetting machine that will replace humans. Being a former printer and typesetter myself, I knew the need for such a marvel. I’ve seen it work. Every time I see it in action my admiration for it towers. It will revolutionize the printing industry. All right it does have a few minor problems, but Paige is ironing those out. It will repay itself a hundred fold.”

The Paige Compositor

“I take it you invested money?”

“Most of the profits of my books and Livy’s inheritance. About $300,000.”

I’m afraid a snorted as I fought back a yelp. In 1891, $300,000 is a fortune! Enough to--well, build this mansion, travel around the world and retire very comfortably indeed.

“Yes, I know it’s a gamble.” Clemens shot a ball into a pocket without a cat. “But it is a sure deal.” He smiled, and took another shot. This time a cat whacked it right off the table.

The poor blighter. I force a smile and nodded at him. I can’t warn him and it would do no good if I could. The Paige Compositor is too complex and prone to breakdowns. Already Ottmar Mergenthaler is perfecting his Linotype typesetting machine which will be the industry standard until it is replaces by offset lithography in the 1960s and 70s. Clemens will learn soon enough what a mistake he made.

University of Connecticut wanted me to capture Mark Twain at the peak of his private life. This is the beginning of the end. From 1874 he and Livy have lived in this wonderful house, raising their three daughters and recreating many happy memories. During this time Clemens has written his most famous works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889.)

All too soon the debts will mount up and Clemens will realize the hot water he is in. This June he will close up their home and take the family to Europe to go on a speaking tour to make money. He will go back to his typewriter in between engagements. Although he will be forced to declare bankruptcy, Clemens will have all his creditors paid back by the beginning of the new century.

Clemens lectures are like no other. Instead of a dull speech or book reading, he gets up and tells funny stories and makes witty observations about life. Some day the likes of Will Rogers and Bill Cosby will steal his act. Clemens is in fact the world’s first stand-up comedian. That will be acknowledged later when in 1998 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will create an award for the top comedians and humorists in the country. They will name it the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

While Clemens is a big celebrity now, these coming tours will make him an international super-star, hob-knobbing with kings and giants, who are just more adoring fans. However his private world will unravel. Susy will die in 1896. Livy will be unable to return to their home here in Hartford. There are just too many memories. Then his editor, friend and soulmate will pass away in 1904. Jean, his youngest daughter, will have an epileptic seizure and drown while taking a bath, Christmas Eve 1909. Her father will be downstairs at the time, unaware anything is wrong. It is one more blow he will never recover from. Only Clara, the middle daughter, will live to a ripe old age.

After Livy’s death Clemens will take speaking engagements, not so much to make money (by then he was solvent again) but to alleviate his loneliness. He will “adopt” a bevy of little “granddaughters,” trying to recapture those happy days in 1880s Hartford. In 1910, at the age of seventy-five, he welcomed death. He said he had come in with Halley’s comet and he wished to go out with it. And he did.

Clemens waiting for Halley's Comet

I concentrated on my game, keeping my back to Clemens as these things went through my mind. The gruff curmudgeon was far more sensitive than he let on, and did not wish for him to read my emotions. First rule of Temporal Anthropology: Live in the present (whenever you are) and don’t think about the future. Right now Clemens is alive and happy. I had to concentrate on that.

At the end of the game we concluded that the cats were indeed the winners. I paid up “two bits” to buy the felines cream. Clemens laid a quarter on the table next to mine. I thanked him for the interview and wished him good luck in his endeavors. I told him the world needed a typesetting machine. (He could interpret that as encouragement if he wished.)

Clemens escorted me to the front door. I turned to him. “Thank you, sir for making me laugh.”

“You should thank the cats for that.”

“No, I mean thank you for making me laugh on those lonely nights when my only companion was one of your books.”

Samuel Clemens smiled at me. I’m not sure, but I think his eyes got misty.

1909 movie footage of Mark Twain
Taken at his estate “Stormfield” in Redding, Connecticut by Thomas Edison. The young women are his daughters, Clara and Jean (just months before her tragic death.)

Hal Holbrook recreation of Mark Twain’s standup comedian act
Holbrook’s one-man show called Mark Twain Tonight, won him an Emmy Award when broadcast on CBS. He ran it three times on Broadway (1966, 1977, and 2005), the first won him a Tony Award. Every line of the act is “stolen” from Mark Twain. So you could say Clemens won both an Emmy and Tony as the playwright.

The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

Steve Martin accepting The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
in pdf and ebook with original illustrations (free)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
read by John Greenman (also free)

The War Prayer
Mark Twain’s short anti-war tour-de-force. None dared to publish it until six years after his death.
“I have told the whole truth in [the War Prayer,] and only dead men can tell the truth in this world.”
Warning: May be disturbing to children or those with a soul.

Nikola Tesla (in background) with Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens made many friends in his travels. With his love of gadgets, it’s not surprising he found Nikola Tesla fascinating. As for Tesla’s attraction to Clemens, here is an excerpt from Tesla’s autobiography:

“I had hardly completed my course at the Real Gymnasium when I was prostrated with a dangerous illness or rather, a score of them, and my condition became so desperate that I was given up by physicians. During this period I was permitted to read constantly, obtaining books from the Public Library which had been neglected and entrusted to me for classification of the works and preparation of the catalogues. One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state. They were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed. Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship between us, I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that great man of laughter burst into tears.''

--from "My Inventions: the autobiography of Nikola Tesla", Hart Bros., 1982. Originally appeared in the Electrical Experimenter Magazine in 1919.

Apparently laughter IS the best medicine.

Chief of the Beautiful Towns

2012-01-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

17 January 1891 - Hartford, Connecticut

Downtown Hartford during bicycle parade

I am now in Hartford the capital of Connecticut in the New England section of the United States of America. The city’s current population is 53,230. Only one hundred years ago, in 1790, it was a mere 2,683. But do not think Hartford is a new city, for it is one of the oldest in the country. It is also one of the richest.

The first settlers (after the native Americans, of course) were the Dutch in 1623. I’m not sure if you can call them settlers, because they merely set up a trading post, Fort Goede Hoop (Fort Good Hope.) In 1654 they abandoned it, probably because of the “bad element” moving in--the English.

In 1635 Pastor Thomas Hooker and Governor John Haynes led 100 settlers and 130 cattle to this spot from Newtown, Massachusetts (later renamed Cambridge after Harvard University was founded there.) Originally these pioneers named their new settlement Newtown after the old Newtown, but two years later changed it to Hartford after Hertford, England. (People had problems spelling back then.) John Haynes would have the distinction of having been a Governor from both Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863)

Hartford sits on the Connecticut River which was deep enough for small 17th century ships, but not for later cargo ships. It is also quite a ways from the sea. Probably why Hartford never got too involved in the slave trade. If Providence was once the American center of the slave trade, Hartford was the center of the abolitionists movement. One of the countries major leaders were Hartford's Rev. Lyman Beecher and his many children.

When Abraham Lincoln showed up to Hartford to campaign, he was greeted with a torchlight parade by the abolitionist group, the Wide Awake Club. (I wonder if poor Lincoln first wondered if they had come to tar and feather him.) The idea of the torchlight parades caught on and became a staple in mid to late 19th century campaigning.

Wide Awake Club welcoming Lincoln

Hartford has many factories building everything from pistols to bicycles, but one of it’s leading industries is insurance. It will be my job to track down as many of these companies as I can. Some will be long gone in a hundred years, but others will be going strong. Probably why Connecticut’s nickname will one day be “the Insurance State.”

Hartford is prosperous and full of beautiful Victorian buildings. I know I will enjoy my stay. Is it any wonder Mark Twain remarked "Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief."

Hartford as it looked in 1890

Photos of Victorian Hartford

My Search for Hard Scrabble and Snow Town

2012-01-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

13 January 1891 - Providence, Rhode Island

If you will recall my last trip was to Liverpool, which had made its early fortune in the slave trade. Providence is its American counterpart, once being the center of North America’s African trade. And like Liverpool it acquired a large African population, first as slaves, then as freedmen.

Providence has one of the oldest black communities in America. In the 18th century they made up over 10% of the population. Now it’s down to 2%. Immigrants from Europe have skewed those numbers. However, there has been immigrants of African descent from the southern states and Cape Verde, hoping to find work in the factories, on the wharfs or as domestics servants.

I know it’s hard for you folks back in the 27th century to understand, but society in the 19th century was divided by class and “race.” Not only did the people of the 19th century believe there were multiple races, they believed some ethnic groups to be sub-human--a separate species! They judged a man by the color of his skin. My own theory is that Europeans knew it was evil to enslave their fellow man, so they convinced themselves that Africans somehow were not human and therefore exempt. Completely insane, I know. But then they believed people lived on Mars, too.

By the year 1824, there were about a thousand African-Americans living in Providence, mostly in an area of town called “Hard Scrabble.” It was the poorest neighborhood with the cheapest rent. Few African-Americans could get descent jobs then, but had to take those no one else wanted. Some would rent rooms, buy some rum, and set up temporary pubs or Bawdy Houses to entertain sailors in port. Things could get raucous at times in these establishments. Unfortunately, it was one of the only means of making any money with limited resources.

William Spears, editor and sole writer for a second-rate newspaper, the Providence Beacon, wrote an abusive editorial on the Hard Scrabble neighborhood 16 October 1824. Not the first people he had ever attacked. Spears was constantly getting into libel suits with his malicious gossip and fabricated stories. This time however he started a violent event.

Two days after the editorial, a race riot broke out. In the 19th century a “race riot” meant whites attacking blacks for no good reason. A mob descended on Hard Scramble and began tearing down 20 homes. Only four rioters were arrested and only one found guilty. Spears congratulated the vandals in his paper. The residents left and moved to a new neighborhood called Snow Town.

Reward Notice for Information on Snow Town Rioters

The victims had not run far enough. In 1831 white rioters again attacked the black neighborhood, destroying homes. This time, however, Providence did not applaud. The governor sent in the state militia, which shot into the white rabble, killing four. The town then created a police force to protect it’s citizens--ALL its citizens. The African-Americans might still be second class citizens, but they at least got some protection from brutality.

Shelter for Colored Children

Some of Providence’s people wanted to do more to help. In 1838, the Quakers created the Providence Shelter for Colored Children. (“Colored” was the polite term for people of African descent in the 19th century. Apparently people of European descent have no color and are transparent.) At first the shelter was a home for orphans, but it soon expanded its scope to include day care for working parents and vocational training for their children.

The Quakers also starterd a school for African-American children in the 1820s. Providence setup a public school system in 1828, for all children. However, they also created a separate school for “coloreds.” Thankfully in 1866 the city outlawed these silly segregation laws.

Both Hard Scramble and Snow Town are both gone, swallowed up by a rapidly growing city. Historians argue where those sites now are. I was asked to find them There are black neighborhoods in South Providence, West Elmwood and on the East Side. Only a few old people even remember Hard Scrabble and Snow Town. I am getting mixed reports from them. I think they have suppressed some of those memories, so I am having a very hard time pin-pointing the areas. Still the current neighborhoods will disappear in the 1960s so I am careful to at least record them.

Edward Bannister

Times are still hard for the African-Americans, but some are making great strides. Many are still factory workers and domestics, but some are successful businessmen (and women) as well as artists and teachers. In 1877, Inman Page and George Washington Milford became the first African Americans to graduate from Brown University. Another chap, Edward Bannister, is a landscape artist and winner of the bronze medal in the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia. He helped co-founded the Providence Art Club and took part in the founding of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Things are looking up in 1891, but Providence has a long way to go before there is any real equality. But African-Americans are a plucky lot. They are working hard so future generations can have what they were never allowed.

Rhode Island Black Heritage Society

African American Providence

Providence Newspapers and the Racist Riots of 1824 and 1831

"Driving Home the Cows" by Edward Bannister

Moses Brown's Dream

2012-01-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

12 January 1891 - Providence, Rhode Island

Campus of Friends School

Today I visited the Friends School here in Providence. It’s run by the Society of Friends or Quakers. Originally meant for the moral and mental training of Quaker youths, it was always open to all, no matter their religion, race or sex. Founded in the days before public schools, it allowed parents to educate their children who otherwise couldn’t afford it, since this is a day school instead of a boarding school.

Moses Brown

The school was founded by Moses Brown, the same chap that co-founded Brown University, along with several other family members. The Browns were descended from Chad Brown who helped Roger Williams start up Providence. The Browns are strict Baptists and were heavily involved in the slave trade. Moses however converted to the Quaker religion and became an abolitionist. However, he didn’t give up his factories with some of the country’s spinning machines, so Moses had plenty of money with which he could be benevolent.

In 1777 at the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, Moses Brown joined a committee dedicated to creating a school for young Quakers, to teach them of their faith and to give them an education to make a living. They finally opened the school in 1784 at the Yearly Meeting administration center located in the Portsmouth Friends Meeting House on Aquidnick Island. Problem was it a rather isolated location. After four years of trying to recruit students and teachers, they decided to close the school for one year. It turned into 31 years.

Moses Brown, however, never did not give up on the idea of a school. He was only able to convince the committee by donating 43 acres of his own farm in Providence in 1819. The New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School was opened. Three years later his son Obadiah, left $100,000 in his will to the school, assuring it’s success. This was the largest single contribution ever made to an American school at the time.

Alumni Hall and Drawing Room at Friends School

The school’s name was too long and has been shortened to Friends School. Since the Civil War, the curriculum has been expanded to include music, art and athletics. The school has evolved into a prep school, , teaching children from five to eighteen years old, many graduates going on to Brown University.

Friends School Scholars

In 1904 the board of trustees will change the name to Moses Brown School, a name it still retains in the 27th century. While it still remains a Quaker School, the teachers are of all denominations, even now in 1891.

I must say I enjoyed walking through the campus and watching all the eager faces of the children. The Quakers are teaching them to believe in peace, equality and tolerance--lessons I think we all need to learn.

Better Than a Drinking Fountain

2012-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

5 January 1891 - Providence, Rhode Island

If you will recall back in September of 2656, I visited the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in July 1876. All the states and territories had sent exhibitions for what is considered America’s first official World’s Fair. It was the first World’s Fair to have a Women’s Pavilion dedicated to the contributions of females to society. It’s theme would be “The New Century for Woman,” back when women were still fighting for the vote.

Women's Pavilion - Centennial Exhibition of 1876

The Rhode Island Women’s Centennial Commission did their part for the Women’s Pavilion. They did such a great job raising funds that they were left with a surplus of $1,675. The ladies came up with the grand plan of building a drinking fountain in Roger Williams Park with the left over money.

Then Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf came up with a daring proposal. Why not take the money and start a school of design? The city needed one. With all the jewelry, silverware and textile firms, it would be useful. Of course there would be classes in the fine arts, but School of Design sounded more serious. This was to be a college to train professional designers and artists and not an art school for mere hobbyists.

I’m sure the ladies thought her a bit mad. This was 1877. A bunch of women couldn’t start a college. It was a tempting prospect, though. One worth the gamble. So the 34 women of the committee voted to use the surplus money to start the Rhode Island School of Design.

Early photo of Rhode Island School of Design

Helen Metcalf was made head director, a capacity she held until her death in 1895. Despite its humble beginnings and because of Mrs. Metcalf’s influence and administrative skills, the School of Design has been admired from it’s inception, gaining the respect of even its giant neighbor, Brown University, one of the oldest college’s in the country. When Mrs. Metcalf passes away, her daughter, Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, will take over until her own death in 1931.

Needless to say, the college was co-ed from the beginning. Since many schools of higher education are closed to women, RISD has attracted many ladies from around the country. For that reason women students currently outnumber men. However male artists have not shunned the school, eagerly enrolling from the very first semester.

The School of Design not only trains artists, but also jewelry designers, fashion designers, graphic artists, architects, photographers, industrial designers and someday even digital designers and animators. It has a library devoted to books on art and design, one of the first of it’s kind in the country. There is also talk of creating a museum, so students and the public can study and admire great art. I believe that will come about in just two years. Eventually it will take up several buildings. Already the name Rhode Island School of Design looks impressive on any resume.

And all because a group of wise women decided Providence had need of something better than a drinking fountain to quench an even greater thirst.

Rhode Island School of Design (125 years later)

Arthur Douglas Collection
first term student of the Rhode Island School of Design

An Incomplete List of Notable Alumni
from the Rhode Island School of Design

A Short History of the Smallest U.S. State

2011-12-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

29 December 1890 - Providence, Rhode Island

American history teaches that the Puritans brought religious freedom to the New World. Pish-posh! That distinction goes to Rhode Island and not Massachusetts. Let me explain.

Cromwell Shilling

In an oversimplified nutshell, the Puritans were a sect of the Church of England who decided King Charles the First wasn’t holy enough to be the head of the Church and Parliament should rule England. They had a civil war, beheaded the king and put Oliver Cromwell in charge. Cromwell was a blood thirsty tyrant, but the English don’t remember that because he was too busy killing the Irish and Scottish to give them too much trouble.

Even so, the Puritans had a lot of silly laws trying to reform the morals of a lot of people who didn’t feel they needed reforming. After five years of rule, Cromwell died before he could be kicked out. King Charles’ son, King Charles II was brought out of exile and given back the throne. He was a silly fop, but he wasn’t a ruthless dictator, so everyone was much happier.

Everyone except the Puritans, who didn’t feel Cromwell went far enough. They decided the Church of England was beyond help and broke away. In fact they decided England was just too unholy and left to establish their own little piece of heaven in Massachusetts.

Puritan punishments for minor offenses

The Puritans were even more strict there and anyone caught celebrating or enjoying themselves were swiftly punished. The worse offense of all was not being a member of their church. If you were a Quaker, they would hang you. Dissenters, those who argued any point, were kicked out of the colony into the wilderness to fend for themselves.

One of these dissenters was a chap named Roger Williams. His argument was that there should be a separation of church and state and that there should be religious freedom. He also believed that Native Americans were people and should be dealt with fairly. For this blasphemy, he was put on trial in 1635 and convicted of sedition and heresy and banished. (This was later repealed by the Massachusetts courts in 1936--a bit too late to do Williams any good.)

Roger Williams with friends

Before Williams could be bodily removed, he slipped away, walking 105 miles through the snow to Narragansett Bay. There he was met by his friends, the Wampanoags, and taken to their winter camp. Williams got permission to set up a settlement on their land. He named it Providence. He helped found America’s first Baptist Church there. However all dissenters, whatever their beliefs, were welcomed, including Quakers and Jews. Probably a good thing the colony wasn’t strictly for Baptists, because Williams broke away to become unaffiliated with any religion.

Perhaps it’s this “dissenter” tradition that made Rhode Island the very first state to declare independence from England on 4 May 1776, two months before the Declaration of Independence. It also was the last state to ratify the Constitution of the United States. Rhode Island only agreed after the other states threatened to declare it a foreign nation and tax it’s exports.

Rhode Island is the smallest state, but it is in fact two even smaller colonies that agreed to merge in 1644. It’s official name is “Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations.” (In 2010, the populace voted 78% in favor to keep the name. Perhaps because Providence is not only the Capital, but the largest city in Rhode Island.)

1895 map of Rhode Island

Rhode Island has been nicknamed the Ocean State since Narragansett Bay takes up much of the state, reaching all the way to Providence in the north. The city has a long maritime tradition, including the slave trade, a fact which would have made Roger Williams and it’s other founders roll over in their graves. Rhode Island controlled 60% to 90% of the American trade in African slaves at one time. They also distilled rum from molasses to trade for more slaves. Rhode Island had the largest New England slave population--6.3%.

Ironically, in 1774, Rhode Island passed the first anti-slavery bill in the United States, making it illegal to import slaves into the state. In 1784 a bill was passed to gradually emancipate the state’s slaves. Many of the freed slaves stayed. Their descendants now are mostly domestics or factory workers, but some are successful merchants and artists.

The economy since mid-century, has shifted from maritime to manufacturing. Providence can boast some of the largest manufacturing plants in the country. The major industries are machinery, tools, silverware, costume jewelry and textiles. This has brought in a wave of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, England, Italy, Portugal, Cape Verde, French Canada, as well as other countries. The population in 1840 was 23,171. Now in 1890 it is 132,146.

Market Square looking east circa 1890 - Providence, R.I.

Providence is one of the oldest cities in America, but all this sudden growth makes it feel very new. I’m sure Roger Williams meant “God’s care and guidance” when he named his settlement “Providence.” However the other definition “good judgment and foresight in the management of affairs” would certainly fit this booming city.

I Meet Santa Claus

2011-12-20T18:19:00.000-08:00

20 December 1890 - Brockton, Massachusetts

Ad for James Edgar's new 1907 store

Yesterday I visited Edgar’s Department Store here on Main Street in Brockton, Massachusetts. It is one of the first department stores in the world with electric lights and cash registers thanks to Edison’s little experiment I spoke of in my last blog.

However, what Edgar’s Department Store is most famous for is having the world’s first department store Santa Claus. The idea did not come from an accountant with a brilliant promotional idea, but almost accidentally from a man who just liked children and wanted to have some fun. And who was going to tell the chap no--after all, he owned the store.

I had hoped to corner James Edgar yesterday for an interview but the man was besieged by children. In fact, I had to wait in line with them to get a word with “Santa Claus.” I think he mostly agreed to talk to me because I addressed him as Santa Claus, so as not to destroy the illusion for the children.

Mr. Edgar had agreed to meet me at his home today. It is Sunday here in 1890. I was surprised that he looked like Santa even without the suit. No fake beard or pillow had been used. Here are some exerts of our interview.

So tell me something about yourself, Mr. Edgar. Is that a bit of a Scottish brogue I hear?

Edgar as Scottish Chieftain

Yes, I immigrated from Edinburgh back in ‘78 when I was thirty-five. Brockton was a booming town, still is. Do you know the place has doubled in the last ten years? Anyway I worked in a dry goods store, learned the ropes, then saved up enough to start my own store. I tried to make it a place that welcomed families. I started a lay-away program for struggling families and I made children welcome by handing them pennies. I even dressed up as George Washington and a sea captain.

How did you come up with the idea of dressing like Santa Claus?

Edgar as clown

Last year I dressed as a clown and walked around the store. The children loved it! Recently I saw an illustration of Santa Claus by Thomas Nast.

Ah, the one he did for “The Night Before Christmas?”

Yes, that’s the one. I thought, “Ha, Santa looks like me!” Then I thought that would even be better than a clown. The children would love it! I have never been able to understand why the great gentleman lives at the North Pole. He is so far away...only able to see the children one day a year. He should live closer to them.

Thomas Nast's Santa

I tried to find a Santa Claus suit, but couldn’t find one. So I had one special made, based on Nast’s illustration. I was surprised by the reaction. The children had smiled at me when I dressed as a clown, but when I approached them as Santa, their eyes got big. They yelled, “Look! It’s Santa Claus!”

If you couldn’t find a suit, I’m assuming they had never seen anyone dressed as Santa before.

Yes, this fellow who brings children toys every Christmas and none of them had ever got to meet him. I hadn’t considered what that must mean to a child. I just wanted to make them smile. When I took the suit off to handle business, children came in wanting to know where Santa was. I knew I was going to have to spend most of my time in the suit so I didn’t disappoint any of them. In fact, I had another suit made for my brother-in-law, so he could spell me. I try to spend as much time as I can as Santa.

Yes, I noticed the huge crowd yesterday. How many children were there?

I lost count. I like to walk around the store talking to children, but when we get a huge mob I have to sit down and have them line up to see me. I knew Brockton had grown, but I never knew there were this many children. Then parents started telling me they had come by train from Boston so their child could see Santa. Boston is twenty miles away. Some even came from Providence, and that’s more than thirty miles away! Yesterday, being the last Saturday before Christmas, was the busiest day yet!

Oh, my word! You must be exhausted!

A bit. It’s worth it though to see those excited faces. Also sales have sky-rocketed. Apparently while the youngsters are waiting to talk to Santa, parents take the opportunity to shop. Nice added bonus, eh.

So next year you’ll hire someone else to play Santa?

Heavens, no! Why should they have the fun? I love kids, and they seem to love me. More than one calls me “Uncle Jim.”

James Edgar aka Uncle Jim

Uncle Jim indeed. James Edgar will be most remembered for the children he helped. He paid the medical expenses for children from poor families and gave jobs to youths in need. And Fourth-of-July he would rent trolleys to take thousands of children out into the country and meet them dressed as an Amerind, “Big Chief”.

Soon other department stores will hear of James Edgars brilliant idea and hire their own Santa Clauses. They will become a symbol of the crass commercialism of the holidays. But the best of them, like Edgar, will do it because they love kids. If anyone personified Santa Claus, it would be James Edgar.

I can honestly say, I met Santa Claus today.

Brockton’s official website for James Edgar

The Santa Claus Hall of Fame
James Edgar was one of the first inductees.

The Santa Claus Oath
Although this was not written until 2008, James Edgar lived up to the oath.

Santa Is Real
A short video of the dedicated men who carry on James Edgar's legacy.

I Get the Boot...And the Shoes

2011-12-16T16:52:00.000-08:00

16 December 1890 - Brockton, Massachusetts

You may have never heard of Brockton, Massachusetts, but if you sold shoes in 1890 you would certainly know of this place. One sixth of all the shoes made in 1890 America come from Brockton--nearly ten million pairs a year. Almost all of the residence (27,294) are involved in shoe making or supporting all those shoemakers.

W.L. Douglas Shoe Co. Factories in Brockton

The industry started out with cobblers and their apprentices making shoes and shipping them out to the surrounding rural communities. Mr. Micah Faxon was the first person in Brockton to begin wholesale shoe manufacturing in 1811. Then in the 1840s the railway between Boston and New York City went right through North Bridgetown as it was then called. Their market expanded tremendously.

It was in the 1860s two things happened that made the industry boom. The steam powered McKay Sewing Machine allowed one to stitch up a shoe in minutes instead of hours. And with the marching armies of the Civil War, there was a huge market for boots. North Bridgetown exploded.

By 1874 North Bridgetown decided they needed another name to set them apart from the local communities of West Bridgetown and East Bridgetown. One of the locals, coming back from Niagara Falls, told of a town he heard of in Ontario called Brockville. Everyone liked the name “Brock” and decided to add to equally strong sounding “ton” to it.

Unfortunately no one looked into who Brockville had been named after. Sir Isaac Brock was the British General who captured Detroit in the War of 1812. (Erm...that will just be our little secret, eh?)

W.L. Douglas Shoe Ad

Brockton is not the only small town in America which became an industrial giant almost overnight. It is however unusual in how workers are treated. So many industrialists of this era take advantage of their poor immigrant work force, treating them worse than slaves. (You have to at least keep slaves alive to protect your investment.) Here there is no squalor, no families shoved into tiny airless rooms. Conditions are not perfect, but compared to other factory towns, Brockton is a veritable Utopia.

Brockton’s “Shoe Barons” decided a healthy, educated and happy working class made more productive workers. The city opened a public high school in 1864 and a public library in 1867. The Brockton Street Railway Company started a horse-powered trolley service in 1881 so workers no longer had to walk to work. By 1880 Brockton was part of the first interstate telephone system in the country.

Which brings us to Thomas Edison. He had improved the light bulb to something more practical, but what good is it without electricity? He had managed to light up a few blocks in New York City, but he needed a system that could send electricity more than just a mile. He came up with the three-wire underground system, and chose the progressive city of Brockton as his experimental laboratory. So 1 October 1883, Edison threw the switch and Brockton became the second city in the world to have electric street lights. It also became the first city in the world with a theatre and fire station with electric lights. In 1888 it would become the second city in the country to have electric street cars. Currently Brockton is one of the most modern communities in the world. (Locals would argue, THE most modern community in the world.) Other cities from around the country and even Europe are visiting Brockton, wanting to copy them. 27th century Harvard has sent me to study it, too.

Brockton Electric Streetcar

I was also asked to visit all the shoe factories of Brockton. After looking them up I discovered that will be impossible. I found a list of the thirty-four most prominent shoe manufacturers. I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t close to one hundred factories.

President Benjamin Harrison

The real reason though that I picked December 1890 is because of another great first that Brockton is probably now most proud of, but I will talk about that in my next blog. A hint? He’s fat and jolly and has a white beard. (No, it’s not current President Benjamin Harrison.)

collection of postcards from Brockton’s heyday

And in case it ever comes up in a quiz show, here are Brockton's thirty-four most prominent shoe and boot manufacturers in 1890:
Church & Alden; Packard and Field; W. L. Douglas Shoe Co.; The Frank E. White Co.; George G. Snow; George E. Keith; Preston B. Keith; R. B. Grover & Co.; M.A. Packard & Co.; Stacy, Adams & Co.; Lilly, Bracket & Co.; Henry M. Kingman; S. Gardner Jones; Daniel Waldo Field; Thompson Brothers; Enos H. Reynolds; Emerson, Weeks & Co.; Perkins & Joyce; N.R. Packard & Co.; Howard T. Marshall; Bittenbender & Caverly; Ellis F. Coopeland; Myron F. Thomas; Terry, Ware & Alley; L.C. Bliss & Co.; T.D. Barry & Co.; Montello Shoe Company; Whitman & Keith; Walker & Whitman; James Means & Co.; L.M. Reynolds; McCarty, Sheehy & Kendrick Co.; Walker, Taylor & Co.; Bowe, Crawford & Co.

St. George's Hall

2011-12-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 21 October 1871 - Liverpool, England

St. George's Hall

Door plaque of Mercury,
Roman god of commerce

The most impressive structure in Liverpool is St. George’s Hall. It is possibly the finest neo-classical buildings in the world and one of the greatest buildings of the Victorian Age. It looks like a Greek temple. Perhaps it is a temple--to the God of Commerce who has smiled upon Liverpool. The city certainly used this edifice all to show off their wealth.

As impressive as St. George’s looks on the outside, the inside is breathtaking. There are mosaics on the walls, ceilings and floors. Sculptures in marble and bronze are everywhere. And all this for a meeting hall.

Liverpool had a music festival every three years, but no hall large enough to accommodate it. So in 1836 a group of civic minded citizens got together to raise money and draw up plans for a building to be used not only for the festivals but for meetings, dinners and concerts. They also decided to show the world how prosperous Liverpool had become. Construction started in 1841 and the hall was opened in 1854.

The Great Hall

The great hall is 169 feet long by 76 feet wide and 87 feet high. The floor holds 1400 spectators, while the galleries hold 600. Around the hall in niches are statues of local heroes: George Stephenson, who built the first railway; Sir William Brown, the banker who paid for the Brown Free Library and Museum; Joseph Mayer, the goldsmith that filled said museum; Rev. Hugh McNeile; Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby; Rev. Archdeacon Brooks, the late rector of Liverpool; Sir Robert Peel, former Prime Minister; and William Ewart Gladstone, the current Prime Minister. There will be more statues added in time, but those are the gentlemen that are here now.

Among all this opulence is St. George’s greatest attraction--their giant organ. It was built by Henry Willis, the greatest organ builder of the Victorian Era. The organ has 7,737 pipes ranging from one-half inch to thirty-two feet. The wind is supplied by a steam engine. The sound is amazing. It is the largest organ in Britain--well, it was until Albert Hall got a larger one just this year. (Not to worry. In 1910 Liverpool will beat London again when the Anglican Cathedral will have the largest organ in Britain.)

St. George's Hall's organ

W.T. Best gives organ concerts in the Great Hall every Thursday at 8:00 pm and Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00 pm. The admission is 6d. You can rent the hall for thirty-one pounds, ten shillings. The smaller concert room (which is 75 feet square) can be had for sixteen pounds. That is a lot of money in 1871, so there aren’t many performances here.

St. George's Hall is open free to the public to come an admire, or to show off to visiting relatives. This after all belongs to the citizens of Liverpool.

ceiling in the Great Hall

floor

exterior

Listen to Ian Tracey play the Great Organ of St. George's Hall

William Brown Free Library and Museum

2011-11-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 18 October 1871 - Liverpool, England

William Brown Free Library and Museum

Today I visited the William Brown Free Library and Museum. It was named for a local merchant who made a fortune in American trade and paid for this handsome building. Indeed Liverpool was so grateful they even renamed the road out front William Brown Street. (Formerly Shaw’s Brow for the owner of a nearby pottery factory.)

Liverpool is full of wealthy men leaving their rare collections of books, paintings and objects to the city. Indeed it had become so extensive that the city couldn’t afford to make a facility large enough. That’s when William Brown came to the rescue. He laid the corner stone himself in the spring of 1857. Three and half years later the Library and Museum opened, free to the public.

Newspaper clipping of opening in 1860

The library’s collection in 1871 is over 6,000 volumes of rare and costly works. None of these can be lent out, but anyone can borrow one book at a time to peruse if it stays in the library. Each book is to be checked out on a slip of paper, then returned before leaving the reading room. No one can hand over the book to another reader; they must check out the book for themselves. No one complains about the rules, for while they are strict, they are fair. Besides, there are two lending libraries connected with this library over on Great Nelson Street and on Parliament Street

Walking through the reading room I noticed not only the students I expected, but quite a few chaps that looked to be working class. This public library belongs to them as much as to the wealthy merchants. I also observed a section set aside just for the ladies. This might seem like segregation, but Victorian ladies are ill at ease sitting with strange men. Except for a bit of whispering, everyone is well behaved, whatever their social class.

Entrance Hall

The attached Museum has an impressive selection. The present Lord of Derby donated his late father’s countless natural history specimens. Here too is the “Jackson Collection” of rare British coins. There are several aquariums, an art gallery and plaster casts of famous statues.

The greatest contributor to date though has been Joseph Mayer, a very successful goldsmith. He was quite the collector of Ancient and Medieval Art. There are numerous ceramic pieces, from Wedgewood’s ware to Vauxhall, Staffordshire and Liverpool pottery. Also among the collection are medieval manuscripts, ivories and enamels; Egyptian, Roman and Etruscan artifacts; as well as jewelry, clocks, watches, bronze medals and armour.

Kingston Brooch

I was especially impressed by the Kingston Brooch. Dating from about 630 A.D. it was found last century by Reverend Bryan Faussett in a Saxon grave. It’s made of gold and set with red garnets, shells and blue glass--830 tiny pieces in all, carefully placed by an unknown master craftsman. This is one of the most valuable treasures of Anglo-Saxon England ever found. Thank heavens it finally fell into the hands of the generous Mr. Mayer.

Mayer’s entire collection is appraised at $100,000--a fortune in this day and age. His treasures could fill a museum and indeed did. In 1852 Mayer opened a museum in Colquitt Street. His aim wasn’t to make money, but to show off his collection. After all, what good was it if he was the only one who got to admire it? He freely gave it all to the Liverpool Museum here at Brown’s library in 1867. His dream was for Liverpool to have a great museum like London's British Museum.

Egyptian Hall after Blitz

As for the future of the Brown Free Library and Museum, in 1875-79 the Picton Reading Room will be added and in 1901 the College of Technology and Museum Extension will be opened. Sadly the building will not escape the Blitz. A German firebomb in World War II will gut the building. Luckily most of the collection will be hidden in a safer location and will survive. The Museum will be rebuilt and at the beginning of the 21st century it will be expanded and renamed the World Museum Liverpool.

Even in 1871 it is very impressive. Just don’t come on Tuesdays and Fridays because they close the museum for cleaning. That’s a lot of work for a custodian with a feather duster. (No janitor-bots in the Victorian Age, you know.) I came here when they opened at ten this morning and plan to stay until they close at ten tonight. So much to see.

Picton Reading Room (1879)

College of Technology and Museum Extension (1901)

Lord Derby's Natural History collection with additions

Video of dinosaur roaming future World Museum
(No children were eaten in the filming of this.)

free book: Liverpool’s Museum: First 150 Years
(takes a moment to download)

Edward Rushton's School

2011-11-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 11 October 1871 - Liverpool, England

Today I visited the Liverpool School for the Blind on Hope Street. This building was built in 1851, but the school itself dates back to 1791.

Liverpool School for the Blind built in 1851

This is the very first school for the blind in Great Britain and in the English speaking world. The only one older is the Institute for Blind Youth in Paris founded in 1784. However, Liverpool’s School for the blind is the first in the world to accept students of all ages.

Edward Rushton

The Liverpool school was founded by Edward Rushton, writer, poet and fighter for abolition. He knew that blind people could learn to work around their disability and become more than just beggars. After all, Rushton had.

Born in Liverpool in 1756, Edward Rushton enrolled in the Liverpool Free School when six years-old, until he was nine. At eleven he became a sailor with a local shipping firm. At 17 he found himself on a ship with a shocking cargo--slaves. Rushton was appalled at the conditions the poor captives were shackled in. He would sneak them down food and water. Unfortunately, opthalmia was running rampant through the prisoners. He caught it too and became blind.

Despite his disability, Rushton became a successful writer. Despite his abolitionist politics in a town that made money in the slave trade, he was able to collect enough to start the school for the blind.

Liverpool School for the Blind in 1812

The school now teaches everything from basic marketable skills like knitting, basket weaving and rope making, to classes on music, Braille and liberal arts. Many of the teachers are blind themselves. Perhaps the greatest thing taught here is confidence.

In 1807, a surgeon was able to return Edward Rushton’s sight to one eye. He was able to see Isabelle, his wife of twenty-three years, for the first time. She would die four years later. He would follow her three years later at the age of fifty-eight. Rushton’s school however outlived him and continued on for as long as it was needed, educating generations of blind people.

Before blind schools, the blind had to try to figure out how to manage in a sighted world all on their own. These schools taught them the skills they needed to make their own lives. I’m happy to say the Victorians have set up many more of these schools for both the blind and deaf, and are continually improving their teaching methods.

Victorian doctors are making strides in medicine to find cures to prevent these disabilities. It is thanks to the groundwork laid down by our 19th century ancestors, that blindness and deafness no longer exist in the 27th century. Just one more reason to love the Victorians.

Poems by Edward Rushton

Rushton’s letter to George Washington
criticizing him for owning slaves.

The Liverpool Royal School for the Blind

The Wandering Botanical Gardens of Liverpool

2011-11-14T20:21:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 2 October 1871

Wavetree Park with wall around the Botanical Gardens

Today I visited Wavetree Botanical Gardens and Park in what was once the village of Wavetree and is now a suburb in southeast Liverpool. Until recently, with the opening of Stanley Park and the near opening of Sefton, Wavetree was one of the few parks in an urban area desperate for open spaces.

William Roscoe

The Botanical Gardens themselves date way back to 1802 and another part of town. William Roscoe created the Liverpool Botanical Garden near Mount Pleasant on the then edge of town. This was not Britain’s first botanical garden but it was the first subscription one. Wealthy patrons not only contributed money, but more importantly many contributed new plants. Those that owned shipping firms instructed their captains to bring back interesting specimens they ran across from all around the world. Liverpool soon had a Botanical Garden envied by the rest of Europe.

Roscoea Purpurea

William Roscoe is an interesting chap in himself. Lawyer, banker, historian, writer, poet and philanthropist, he was elected Member of Parliament, despite his controversial abolitionist stand. After all, the slave trade was a huge chunk of the local economy. Roscoe collected Renaissance art, rare books and plants. Perhaps it was in his blood, being the son of a market gardener, but Roscoe’s biggest passion was botany. He was so well respected by other botanists that his great friend, Sir James Smith, the founder of The Linnean Society, didn’t just name a flower after him, but an entire genus--the Roscoea, from the ginger family.

Layout of new Garden

By 1836 the city had encroached, and the pollution was effecting the plants. Roscoe had already passed away five years earlier, so his friends, dug up every plant and moved them to the new edge of town at Edge Lane in Wavetree. The eleven acre garden, that included a large greenhouse, was enclosed by a brick wall.

By 1841 most of the subscribers had their own greenhouses. The Botanical Gardens were threatened with extinction when the Corporation of Liverpool bought it to make it a public garden. A large piece of land was bought next door and turned into Wavetree Park.

Wavetree Botanical Garden Greenhouse

Sadly the greenhouse was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. It wasn’t that Hitler hated orchids, but the Luftwaffe missed the nearby railway. The remains of the Botanical Gardens will be moved again in 1964 to Harthill at Calderstone Park only to be closed twenty years later.

Gardens look tough, but they are delicate things that can disappear when forgotten. I recorded these down to the last orchid and Roscoea. With my data, Liverpool will be able to reproduce a virtual Botanical Gardens. Or if the city gets really energetic, they could reproduce an exact replica with real flowers. That would be fantastic. Gardens are works of art that should be preserved.

Liverpool Sailors' Home

2011-11-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

Friday, 22 September 1871 - Liverpool, England

Liverpool Sailor's Home

Liverpool’s fortune is built on the back of sailors. It’s a dangerous life. Storms can sweep you overboard, accidents are common, disease and malnutrition a constant threat. However the perils of the sea are nothing compared to the hazards in port.

Everyone knows sailors get paid when they come into port, and everyone is ready to cheat them out of their money--or kill them for it. Alcohol is watered down with water if they are lucky, toxins if they are not. “Drunk for a penny, blind for two” as the old saying goes. “Judies” are there to take a lonely sailor home...or to an alley to get him rolled by her friends. Inns are dirty, expensive and often unsafe.

sailors near the docks

Authorities shrug their shoulders--they are sailors after all and we all know their reputation. Sailors often come from the desperate lower classes and therefore have no political clout and get no respect. Sailors are usually from somewhere else and don’t know anyone in town.

Inside of the Sailor's Home

Liverpool however knows what she owes these drudges of the sea. And so in 1844 the Mayor of Liverpool called a public meeting to help these exploited fellows. It was decided that a hostel should be built to help sailors. In 1846 Prince Albert himself laid the foundation stone and in 1852 the Liverpool Sailors Home was opened for business.

Railing inside

Now sailors have a clean, safe, and inexpensive place to stay and eat. Liverpool is not the only port to build a Sailors Home, but this city may have the grandest one. The outside is very palatial, but it is even fancier on the inside. The five stories of rooms are arranged around a courtyard under a skylight and ringed by cast iron columns and rails done in nautical themes of dolphins, mermaids and anchors.

There is also a very ornate iron gate out front. It closes promptly at ten every night and is meant to reinforce the curfew. No unruly behavior allowed. Gentlemen only--and that status is determined by conduct rather than social class. Despite the restrictions the sailors are only too happy to comply. There are often 200 guests here every night from all over the world.

Sailor's Home Gate out front

Another accidental service the Home provides is connections. Sober seamen can meet reputable ship captains and secure better and safer employment on seaworthy ships. The Home also offers sick sailors medical attention. And it has a bank for seaman to keep their money safe while in port.

Most importantly though the Sailors Home is just that--a home away from home--a safe port while in port.

A Picture Gallery of the Liverpool Sailors' Home

The Spirit of an Unconquered People

2011-10-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

Friday, 15 September 1871 - Liverpool, England

Liverpool Customs House

Today I visited largest building in Liverpool. In most cities that would be a cathedral or a castle or a palace. Here in Liverpool, a city that lives by trade, it’s the Customs House.

A Customs House is where the offices are located for the folks who handle all the paperwork for the goods coming in and going out of the country. The officials also collect taxes and regulate commerce. In most cities the customs house just an office building, but here in Liverpool it looks like a Greek temple to the god of commerce.

Built between 1828 and 1839 on the site of the original old dock, the Custom House overlooks the bay, greeting foreign ships coming in. She is one of the city’s great landmarks. The University of Liverpool especially wanted me to record as much of her as I could. In seventy years she will be gone.

We have all heard of the London Blitz in World War II, but London was not the only target. Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton, and Swansea were all hit. However the Luftwaffe’s second biggest target was the Liverpool area. If the London Blitz was a strike at the heart of Britain, then the Liverpool Blitz was a kidney punch. This was her major port for supplies from America and Canada. This was also where Britain’s Atlantic fleet was headquartered.

Liverpool after the Blitz

From 1940 and 1942, the folks of Liverpool slept lightly, poised to run for air-raid shelters. Even those were not safe in a direct hit. Between August and December of 1940 alone, .the Germans attacked fifty times. Most raids were only a few planes, but some had as many as 300 bombers. The RAF valiantly tried to stop the Luftwaffe, but could only slow them down. Thousands of homes were destroyed in Liverpool and the suburb towns of Bootle, Wirral and Birkenhead. 4,000 people lost their lives.

The docks were Germany’s main target, so was only a matter of time before the Customs House would be hit. It was completely gutted and the dome destroyed. What remains of the shell was demolished six years later. To this day there is still a debate as to whether or not the Customs Building could have been repaired or if it was a lost cause. No one wanted to see it go.

Bombed Out Customs House

The Customs House will by no means the only building destroyed in the Liverpool Blitz. I have been given a list of ones that are now here in 1871. This is my chance to save their memory for the folks back home.

Despite the great blow from the Blitz, Liverpool will carry on. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill came to survey the damage, he summed it up well: "I see the damage done by the enemy attacks, but I also see ... the spirit of an unconquered people."

Scousers Carrying On
(Like that twit Hitler could slow them down)

A Very Short History of Liverpool

2011-10-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Monday, 11 September 1871 - Liverpool, England

future Seaman's Orphan Institute

Today I was present for the laying of the foundation stone for the Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institution by Ralph Brocklebank. The Brocklebank family owns one of the oldest and largest shipping firms in Liverpool. Since the Seaman’s Orphan Institute’s founding in 1869, the orphans have been living in temporary quarters. Their permanent home won’t be finished until 1874.

You may wonder why the University of Liverpool wanted me to cover such a trivial event as the laying of a foundation stone for an orphange, but it is not trivial. This organization was more than overdue. The life of a sailor is a dangerous one and they have left plenty of orphans. Liverpool realized it had better do something to repay the sacrifices of these brave seaman. Without sailors and ships there would be no Liverpool. Well, maybe a tiny village with a couple of farms, but it would not be a city by any stretch of the imagination.

Liverpool was founded in 1207 with a Royal Charter from King John. Yes, that King John, villainized in all the Robin Hood movies. However King John was not the total idiot he is often portrayed as. He could see this spot would make an excellent port. Problem was it would take nearly five centuries for anyone else to see that.

map of Liverpool 1600

For a long time Liverpool was just a small fishing village. By the middle of the 16th century she had 600 souls. Then in 1648 Liverpool received it’s first cargo from America, starting a trans-Atlantic highway. By 1700 the city’s population was 7,000. She will swell to 75,000 by the end of the century, increasing more than ten fold.

map of Liverpool 1769

In the early eighteen century two things happened that would make Liverpool one of the biggest ports in the world. First she built the world’s first commercial enclosed wet dock, capable of holding 100 ships. Secondly she sent out her first slave ship. By the end of the century 40% of the world’s and 80% of Great Britain’s slave ships sailed from Liverpool. Slavery made a lot of people rich, and made a lot more people miserable. (To be fair to Liverpool, in 2007 she opened the International Slavery Museum, in the memory of all those victims, rather than pretending it never happened.)

Slavery was not the only commerce. From Liverpool products from Great Britain went over seas to the Americas. Returning ships were loaded down with products from the New World--sugar, tobacco, wheat, and most importantly, cotton. Cotton mills were opened in Liverpool but most of the cargo was shipped to Manchester. At first they went there by canal, but in 1830 Liverpool was linked to Manchester by way of the world’s very first commercial railway. Soon Britain would be crisscrossed with rail.

original Liverpool and Manchester Railway

Liverpool’s shipping industry just got bigger. Between 1824 and 1858 over 140 acres of new docks were built. Currently (1871), it’s estimated that 40% of all the shipping in the world goes through Liverpool. It is bringing sailors, merchants and workers from all over the world to this city.

During the Potato Famine, thousands of Irish migrated here--300,000 in 1847 alone. In the 1851 census, one in four people in Liverpool put down Ireland as their birthplace. In the second half of the 1800s, at least 120,000 Welsh also came. The two Celtic groups gave Liverpool it’s unique “Souser” accent.

Scandinavian Church

The name Souser comes from a Norwegian dish lapskaus. The Norwegian sailors introduced the stew to the locals and it has become a local favorite. Since the 1850s many Scandinavians have immigrated to Liverpool. By 1888 the community will be large and wealthy enough to build a huge church, the Gustaf Adolfs Kyrka.

The slave trade also gave Liverpool Britain’s first Black community. Freed slaves, runaway sailors from America and servants brought by captains, made the Black population 10,000 by 1720. They had to deal with racism, but they survived and flourished.

Liverpool has Europe’s oldest Chinatown. They have been coming in since the East India Company lost their monopoly on eastern trade. The massacre of Greeks by the Turks in 1821 will send a wave of Greek immigrants here. Italians have come here recently to escape poverty. There are some tradesmen and sailors from India. If you look hard enough you can find people from all over the world.

By 1871 all this immigration will make Liverpool’s population 493, 405. Apparently immigrants are also a great export for the city. Two-thirds of the immigrants to the United States and Canada will pass through Liverpool. (Remember my trip to Ellis Island in 1893 last year? I had to start in Liverpool.)

Dr. William Duncan

Unfortunately this rapid, unplanned growth made Liverpool Britain’s filthiest city in the first half of the century. This led to cholera, small pox, typhus and other outbreaks in the slums. Those outbreaks would spill into nicer neighborhoods. When other ports began to ban ships from Liverpool from docking, the city fathers decided to do something about it. The appointed Dr. William Duncan as the UK’s very first Medical Officer of Health in 1847. He seemed the perfect man since he had long been nagging them about the problem. And Liverpool listened. By 1871, one can already see a drastic change.

Besides having some of the worst slums, Liverpool also has some of the nicest neighborhoods in Great Britain. The only town with more millionaires is London. Most made their money in shipping.

Victorian Liverpool

There is almost nothing left of the medieval village that was Liverpool. It is a growing, modern city. All right, they are having problems with gangs of hoodlums in the slums now (that will get national attention in three years,) but Liverpool is working hard to solve her problems. She will just get better and better. Or in the words of her future poet laureates, the Beatles: “Getting so much better all the time.”

Liverpool's The Quarrymen in 1958 (future Beatles)

It's Here! (Almost)

2011-10-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

12 October 2658 - Cambridge, UK

At last! My book on tea is finally being released this Friday. I am very excited. Think I’ll have a cup of tea to celebrate. Here is the press release:

Harvesting Tea the Victorian Way

The Rise of Tea in Victorian Great Britain and Its Social Impact
by Dr. Wendell A. Howe
University of Cambridge Press
Release date: 14 October 2658

This book is the life’s work of Dr. Wendell A. Howe, the Temporal Anthropologist for the University of Cambridge and world renowned expert on Victorian culture. For nearly fifty years, Dr. Howe has been in the past studying the tea drinking habits of our ancestors.

At the beginning of the Victorian Age, tea was a luxury for the upper classes. By the end of the era it was drunk daily by even the poorest. Tea replaced beer as the most popular beverage in Great Britain and had become an intricate part of life.

When tea replaced beer, it gave Britain a sober workforce to develop the Industrial Age. It allowed for clear-headed scientist, doctors and inventors to create the unprecedented technological advances of that age.

Tea spurred the expansion of the British Empire, as Britain tried to find new territories that could support tea plantations. She fought wars over tea. The Opium Wars came about because Great Britain had been forced into becoming a drug dealer to support her tea habit. (Not our finest hour.)

Dr. Howe reports on the Victorian Cult of Tea in excruciating detail. This all encompassing collection includes:

16,500,399 3-D holographic photos of teapots, teacups, tea kettles, tea trolleys, tea caddies, tea balls, tea cozies, tea towels, tea gowns, tea spoons, tea trays, tea chests, tea tables, tea sets, tea sieves and other tea paraphernalia, all from the Victorian Age.

Special virtual sensory application will allow you to taste and smell hundreds of teas from around the world that were available in the Victorian Age.

Over 5000 hours of virtual reality video of tea parties of the social elite, working class high teas, tea cultivation in India, songs about tea in the music halls, visits to hundreds of tea gardens, tea shops, and tea rooms from 1837 to 1901.

English Tea Party in Victorian Singapore

Highlights include: A Japanese Tea Ceremony performed by Dr. Shiro Suzuki, temporal anthropologist for the University of Tokyo; the original uncut thirty-seven hour documentary on the history of tea; and a 45 minute video on how to make the perfect cup of tea by Dr. Howe himself.

You will never look at a “cuppa” the same way again!

All this and more for only £999,995!
To be released 14 October 2658 from University of Cambridge Press
Reserve you copy now!

This book is dedicated to The United Kingdom Tea Council, Ltd.

I guarantee no photos of stuffed dead kittens having tea parties.
Victorians seemed to love those.
(These are live kittens with bibs tied on them.)

Sometimes the Best Isn't Good Enough

2011-10-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 11 July 1896 - Galveston, Texas

Many have asked why no one was warned in time to flee the 1900 Hurricane that devastated Galveston. Had the U.S. Weather Bureau fallen down on the job? Were they not paying attention?

The U.S. Weather Bureau has a main outpost here on Galveston Island. I decided to visit it office. The weather service is in its infancy with new offices cropping up all the time. They government has a problem with some of them being run shoddily.

Dr. Isaac Cline

Not so with this office. It appeared very business-like with a flurry of activity. The place was full of equipment, desks and five chaps in suits. A very serious-looking man of about thirty-five with a dapper mustache greeted me and introduced himself as Dr. Isaac Cline. I told him I was a freelance journalist. I wanted to do an article on the U.S. Weather Service for the folks back in England.

“Certainly, sir, you may interview me if you do not mind constant interruptions.” As if on cue, the phone rang. He talked to the person on the other end while I sat there. When he hung up, he smiled at me. “Ah, I see you are still here. You are welcome to ask me questions, but I won’t stop working.”

I told him that was quite all right, if he didn’t mind I would follow him about, observing him, until he chased me off. I asked him how he ever got interested in weather.

Cline said there hadn't been a weather service when he was a boy. He was the oldest of eight children growing up on a farm in the Smokey Mountains. His folks weren’t rich and he knew he would have to make his own way. He left home at sixteen to attend Hiwassee College in Tennessee. He had to take odd jobs to pay for his tuition. “At first I studied to be a preacher, but decided I was too prone to tell big stories. Then I considered a degree in law, but learned I was not good at evading facts. I needed a career where I could tell big stories and tell the truth.”

General William Hazen

The US Weather Service started out as a part of the Army Signal Corp. The Chief Signal Officer General William Hazen envisioned a troop of college-trained personnel commissioned into the US Army. Hazen contacted college presidents, asking them to recommend likely candidates. J.H. Bruner asked Cline, who now had a Master’s degree but no real direction, if he would be interested. “I jumped at the chance!”

The Signal Corp was part of the Calvary, so Cline was taught horsemanship. Then he had to learn how to signal with flags, torches and heliographs. He not only had to study how to send a telegraph, but how to repair and setup one, too.

That was just the beginning. The recruits were taught everything then known about meteorology by the top experts of the day. The courses came at them so fast and furious that many could not keep up.

Weather stations were opening up faster than they could be filled. One day the recruits were all given a tough exam. The top sixteen, with the highest grades, would be sent out as assistants with high probability of advancement in the near future. Cline came out 16th highest and was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas.

“I had to take measurements and weather observations several times a day from five in the morning until eleven at night. I also had to decipher raw data telegraphed from Washington and write up bulletins for the farmers and businessmen. I also did a study on the local locust outbreak and how that might be affected by weather. Luckily for the farmers, the plague ended. Unlucky for me, because I then got bored.”

“Bored?” I asked. “I would think working eighteen hours a day would be exhausting.”

“It wasn’t hard labor. There was a lot of free time in between. I had heard stories of how some lads put that free time to shady endeavors. I wanted to do something that would be useful. The office was only three blocks from one of the best medical schools in the country. The effects of weather and climate on health and medicine had had very little research. I decided that would be a good avenue of pursuit. So I got a medical degree.”

Becoming a doctor seemed an extravagant hobby to me. “Have you been able to do much research?”

Cline then told me all about the course he taught on Medical Climatology at Texas Medical College here in Galveston. In 1893 he gave thirty lectures, the first fifteen being on the science of Meteorology since his class was medical students. The next fifteen being on how weather affects certain diseases and body functions. He was quite excited because he was preparing his lectures to be published as a textbook later this year. “When I was a boy a read Jules Verne. I decided someday I would write a book on a science subject that would help mankind.”

Checking my history files later I found out that this coming November his finished manuscript and his reference material will all be lost when his house burns down. Undaunted he will start over, just to have the second manuscript swept out to sea.

After Little Rock, Cline’s next assignment was in a tiny weather station in Concho, Texas, where he not only headed it, but was also the staff. The office was in a cottage that was also his living quarters. It was decided moving the office to the growing city of Abilene made more sense.

“That’s where I met Cora May. She is the most beautiful, brilliant and cultured woman I have ever known. She could have had any man, but she wanted me.” Cline pointed to a framed photo he had on his desk of a woman with three young girls. His serious expression softened as he picked it up. It was evident the man was madly in love with his wife.

In 1889 the Signal Corp decided to setup an office in the booming city of Galveston and make it the head of the Texas Section of the US Weather Service. In 1891 the Weather Service was switched from the Army to the Department of Agriculture, becoming the US Weather Bureau.

Cline said he liked Galveston. Besides teaching at the Texas Medical College, he also taught Sunday School and just this year got a Doctor of Philosophy degree from AddRan Male and Female College. His younger brother, Joseph, had come to join him as an assistant four years ago. He has been living with Cline and his family. He said his brother showed real promise and was a diligent worker.

A typical weather Bureau office in the 1890s

Cline then went into detail about what he and his assistants did to predict the weather. He showed me some of the instruments. He said one of their major duties is to predict storms coming into land. I asked him if he thought Galveston might be hit by a hurricane sometime in the future.

He laughed at the idea. “Galveston doesn’t get tropical cyclones. We get with high winds and rain, but no cyclones. Besides the Gulf has a long slope. Any incoming surf would be broken up and made less dangerous. Even if we did get a storm pushing a high surf or a storm tide, this water would simply flow past Galveston into the bay behind the island and into the Texas Prairie. I know a few years back there was a big discussion about whether or not to build a seawall. I wrote the editor of the Galveston News and assured him it would be a waste of money. Anyone who believes otherwise is the victim of an absurd delusion.”

I managed not to show any emotion at that statement. If I hadn’t known the future, I think his argument would have convinced me. The truth is he has never seen a hurricane or the destruction it is capable of. Few in Galveston have.

And that was the problem on 8 September 1900. According to all the reports Cline got, according to all his equipment, this squall was just a tropical storm. There would be some wind damage, but that was nothing new. By the time it became evident this was a hurricane bearing down on them, all the bridges had been washed away. So he hoisted the hurricane flags without Washington’s permission, an action that could have cost him his job.

It wasn’t the wind that destroyed Galveston, it was the storm surge. Water came rushing from the Gulf like an overflowing bathtub, flooding the entire island. Ironically the few buildings that survived were saved by the hurricane itself. Homes closer to shore were shoved inland forming their own sort of seawall for a lucky few. Even so, every building suffered some damage.

Cline will build his new home next year to survive any storm. What it won’t survive is the iron trestle that the waves will slam into it. His house, his family, and his fifty neighbors seeking refuge in his home will become part of the flotsam.

Cora May and the girls

The rushing water will nearly drown him. When he finds the surface he’ll discover his youngest daughter, then six, and save her. They will cling to debris until by a miracle he will find a makeshift raft with his brother and two other daughters on it. Joseph will have jumped out of the window of the house, but not without first grabbing his two eldest nieces, then 11 and 12. They never do find Cora May. She and her unborn child are swept out to sea to become one of the 6,000 to 12,000 fatalities.

Despite physical injury and emotional trauma, both Isaac and Joseph will show up for work on the 9th as soon as the water resides. They will finally give in to their injuries and be hospitalized. The Bureau will praise Isaac Cline for going against orders to hoist the hurricane flag which did save some lives. As a reward, Isaac Cline was sent to New Orleans to head the new regional office.

In 1903 he will get in trouble with his superiors by issuing a warning that the Mississippi River would rise 21 feet in the next few weeks. They told him it was nonsense. It rose 20.7 feet. The Bureau was livid, but Louisiana would not let them reassign him. After predicting another flood in 1912 and saving many lives, the new Bureau head told him to issue all the warnings he wanted.

Isaac M. Cline award

Cline made a study of hurricanes, accurately predicting the 1915 one that hit New Orleans, saving thousands of lives. He wrote a book in 1926 called Tropical Cyclones with all the research he had gathered. He even predicted the Great Flood of 1927 two weeks ahead of time. Dr. Isaac Cline is considered one of the great pioneers of Meteorology with 53 years of service. Starting in 1999 the US Weather Bureau will give out an annual award to employees for exceptional contributions. It is their highest honor. They will call it the Isaac M. Cline Award.

Few in Galveston blamed Isaac Cline for not warning them in time. It wasn’t like he was derelict in his duties. How many in Galveston would have taken a warning seriously if he had issued it? They might not have had Cline’s equipment, but they had eyes. At first it looked like any other tropical storm. No one remembered a hurricane hitting Galveston.

What if he had advocated a seawall before the storm? Would that have saved Galveston? Maybe not. I’m sure it would have been much lower than the 17 foot wall they built after the 1900 storm. And even that won’t be high enough to hold back Hurricane Ike in 2008.

Some call Isaac Cline a villain for having the hubris to trust science. Some call Isaac Cline a hero for doing what he could. The truth is Isaac Cline will be just another victim of the 1900 Storm. He will spend the rest of his life studying hurricanes so the Galceston tragedy would never be repeated.

And now I nurse a cup of tea, remembering that photo of Cora May. And remembering all the other lost souls yet to be.

The Galveston Giant

2011-10-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 7 July 1896 - Galveston, Texas

Today I met a chap who will become one of Galveston’s most famous sons, John Arthur Johnson., better known as Jack. Right now he is an unknown. I found him in a front yard using a gunny sack full of sand as a punching bag. He has a lot of power and speed, but he still needs to learn form. Right now he’s only eighteen.

Jack Johnson

I yelled over the fence that I was lost, and could he direct me to the train station. I think it pleased him that I called him “sir” instead of “boy.” Otherwise I think he might have ignored me. Johnson is over six foot tall and already muscular. No wonder his nickname will be “the Galveston Giant.” He’s not afraid of anyone.

He came over to the fence and gave me directions.

I introduced myself, hoping he would verify my suspicions of who he was. He introduced himself as Jack Johnson.

“Are you a boxer, sir?”

“Yes, I am. I’m a professional. Last year Bob Thompson came to town offering $25 to anyone who could last four rounds with him. I won it.” Then he frowned. “I don’t think I can get very far in Galveston. I’m thinking of going up north, maybe to Chicago. I’m going to be the heavy weight champion someday.”

“I understand America is rather racist. Will they let a colored man even try for the title?”

“George Dixon is the featherweight champion of the world right now, and he’s colored. I’m too big to be anything else but heavyweight champion.”

“Well sir, someone will have to be the first colored heavyweight champion some day.”

“Might as well be me.” Johnson hit his gloves together and grinned.

I wished him luck and went on my way. Johnson went back to slugging his punching bag.

Jack Johnson does have quite a fight ahead of him, the hardest one being outside of the ring. He will have to fight Jim Crow. It’s almost impossible to find a white boxer that will consent to fight him. He will finally find a white boxer who will agree, veteran Joe Choynski. He’ll come down to Galveston to meet Johnson in the ring.

Joe Choynski and Jack Johnson

Unfortunately boxing is illegal in Texas. After Choynski knocks out untrained Johnson, the two men will be arrested and tossed into jail together for 23 days. Probably the best thing that ever happened to Johnson. He and Choynski will talk about boxing and became good friends. Choynski will be impressed with Johnson’s talent, and became his sparring partner, teaching him everything he knows.

Johnson will rise through the heavy-weight ranks, until he is at the top by 1903. However the reigning champion, Jim Jeffries, will refuse to fight him because of his race. It won’t be until 1908, after Jeffries had retired, that Johnson got his shot--and won.

However, being heavyweight champion of the world did not ingratiate Johnson to the racists. They will complain he is too cocky, fights too aggressive and belittles of his opponents. Never mind that white boxers do the same thing at this time and are admired for it. To be honest he is only brutal to fighters who are racists.

Jack and his wife Etta

Even worse, Johnson liked white women and they really liked him. Jack Johnson was hated because he didn’t know his place. He knew his place. It was at the top.

Jack London cried for a “Great White Hope” to defeat this “uppity” fellow. One after another challenged him and were beaten. Johnson often had to hold them up after hitting them. The great Jim Jeffries agreed to come out of retirement and finally fought Johnson. He later reluctantly admitted he couldn’t have beat Johnson in his prime. Jeffries would not have retired undefeated if he had played fair and agreed to fight Johnson back in 1903.

Jim Jeffries getting knocked out by Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson will hold the title from 1908 to 1915. He will finally lose it at the age of thirty-seven to a younger man. Thirty-seven is ancient for a boxer. He will be considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. Not bad for the son of former slaves. He will inspire many. Maybe Jack Johnson should have been called “the Great Black Hope.”

film clips of Jack Johnson

The Man Who Put the Gilding on Galveston

2011-09-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Friday, 3 July 1896 - Galveston, Texas

Nicholas Clayton

You will probably notice that most of the buildings I show were designed by one architect: Nicholas J. Clayton. I decided to see if he was still alive. I looked in the City Directory and found a full page ad for his firm.

I hated to waste the man’s time, but I wanted to record him for the University of Texas back in the twenty-seventh century. So, I went to his office and told him I was interested in building a home. I wanted to know what his credentials were.

No time for modesty, Clayton gave me the full sales pitch. He told me he had come to this country as a poor immigrant from Ireland at the age of eight with his widowed mother. From these humble beginnings, he worked his way up. He had been a plasterer, a marble carver, and an architectural draftsman.

First Presbyterian Church

In 1872 the architectural firm Jones and Baldwin of Memphis, Tennessee sent Clayton to Galveston to supervise the building of the First Presbyterian Church. Clayton smelled opportunity, so he opened up his own architectural firm in Galveston in 1875. Galveston was the largest city in Texas and needed an architect. He bragged to me that he was one of the first professional architects in the whole state of Texas. Other cities like Houston, Austin and Dallas had come to him to design buildings for them.

Gresham's Castle (later called Bishop's Palace)

Clayton pointed around his office at the photos on the walls. The man does it all: homes, churches, businesses, hospitals--you name it. He can be conservative but I got the feeling he enjoyed most the flights of fancy the Victorians love so much. If any one man is responsible for making Galveston the beautiful city that it now is, it’s Nicholas J. Clayton.

Clayton will survive the 1900 Hurricane. Many of his buildings won’t. However he was responsible for so many structures in town, that several dozen will survive. Some will be lovingly rebuilt as close to the original as possible.

Nicholas Clayton will be sixty by then. The city finally recovered but his business will not. With all the cleanup, reconstruction and trying to make do, no one can afford a grand new structure that needs an architect. He will go bankrupt by 1903 and never recover financially. He will die in 1916 at the age of seventy-six.

His family will not be able to afford a proper headstone, but will be forced to use a block of marble he used as a sample to show customers. One could say that the historic parts of Galveston are the real memorial to one of the greatest Victorian architects of the South.

But it’s 1896 now, and Nicholas Clayton is at his peak. I thanked him for his time, and said I would be in touch. I wish I really could let him design a house for me.

Some of Nicholas Clayton’s buildings that survived into the 21st century
Another collection of Clayton’s surviving structures
Old Postcards showing off Nicholas Clayton’s buildings

Some of Nicholas Clayton's Galveston buildings lost to time

The Beach Hotel

The Ursuline Academy

Harmony Hall

John Sealy Hospital

Masonic Lodge

First Citizen of Texas

2011-09-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Friday, 26 June 1896 - Galveston, Texas

Today I ran into the man Woodrow Wilson would one day call “the First Citizen of Texas.” Perhaps more accurately he nearly ran into me. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention when I stepped of the curb. A bicyclist smoking a cigar and wearing a dark mustache, frock coat and fedora came around the corner and nearly ran over me!

Henry Cohen

The poor fellow swerved in time and missed me. He stopped, apologizing profusely. His accent was part Southern without out the slow drawl. He spoke so quickly his tongue tripped over it in a slight stutter. There was also something very familiar about his accent.

“No please,” I said. “It was all my fault. I do apologize, my good man.”

He peered at me with those bright eyes. “I-Is that an English accent?”

“Yes, Cambridge.” I stuck out my hand.

He took it and shook it. “London, myself. Born and raised there. Name is Henry Cohen.”

“Wait a tick!” I peered at him. “I thought you looked familiar. Aren’t you the Rabbi?”

“Yes, I am.”

Temple B'nai Israel in Galveston

“I attended your service at the synagogue about two weeks ago. Erm, where is your prayer shawl and kippah?”

“I’m not presiding over a service now, am I? I’m a Reform Jew.”

“How in the world did a London Jew wind up in Galveston, Texas?”

“Now that is a long story. What do you say I buy a fellow Englishman a spot of tea?”

I followed the friendly chap to a nearby café. He had to tip his hat and say hello to almost everyone we passed. Everyone seemed to know him.

“Is this the Jewish section of town?” I asked.

He gave me an odd look. “No, I don’t know if any group of folks dominates in this neighborhood.” He tipped his hat to an African-American gentleman. As we passed by, Cohen grinned at me. “Now, I know Reverend Jefferson is not Jewish.”

“Everyone seems to know you.”

“I am a Jewish Rabbi but first I’m a citizen of Galveston. I believe it’s my duty to help out anyone where I can. And everyone seems to bring their problems to me. I believe I am what you would call a Yenta.”

“Yenta?”

“Busybody.” He chuckled. “I’m sorry, but if I see someone in trouble I just feel obliged to help them.”

Benjamin Disraeli
1st Earl of Beaconsfield

We made it to the café. I got Cohen to tell me his life story, which was anything but dull. Born is London in 1863, he was the son immigrants from Poland. While only fifteen Cohen got a job with the Board of Guardians who administered relief to the poor. At night he attended Jews College. One chap who frequented the Board was so impressed with the boy’s hard work that he nicknamed him “Little Henry.” Needless to say, Cohen was awestruck that the former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli even noticed him.

“I grew up in a country where a Jewish boy could grow-up to become anything--even an English lord.”

“Why did you leave England?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sense of adventure maybe. I decided to become a Rabbi, but when I was 18, I decided to take a break from my studies. So I went to Kimberly, South Africa and got a job in a dry goods store to pay my expenses. I’ve always been good with languages, so I picked up Zulu. I got so good the British army hired be as a part-time interpreter. But they insisted I learn how to use a rifle.

“Once when they troops were gone, the Zulus attacked the town. I was handed a rifle and drafted as a defender to hold off the natives until the army could return. I made a terrible soldier. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot anyone. So a Zulu warrior grabbed my rifle out of my hands and hit me over the head with it. Left a scar--see?” He pulled back his hair to show me.

“I take it you survived.”

“Yes, but unfortunately I found out I was on the list of fatalities. My parents had given me a shivah--a mourning ceremony. Needless to say my parents were overjoyed to find out I was still alive.

“Exactly two years later I returned to London and finished out me studies. I graduated a year later and got my first assignment down in Jamaica.” He shook his head. “It was there I learned what anti-Semitism was.”

“Oh dear. Was it the folks of European or African descent that were anti-Semitic?”

“Neither. It was the Jews themselves.” Cohen looked disgusted. “Kingston had just had a terrible fire that had destroyed both of it’s synagogues. The two congregations decided to pool their resources. And I wound up in the middle.”

“Were they Reform and Orthodox?”

“I think that would have been easier. They would try to work out their differences and respect each other. No, this was Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. I would give a service in Sephardic one Sabbath and then Ashkenazi the next. That didn’t make them happy. They both wanted it their way all the time. When I told my landlady that my parents were from Poland, she said she would kill herself if she found out she had one drop of Ashkenazi in her.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yes, I couldn’t believe the stupidity. What is really strange it’s not religion they argued about, but slight variations in customs. I was so glad to get away from there. Problem was I really didn’t want to return home. My parents were Orthodox and I was leaning toward Reform. Then I heard a congregation in Woodville, Mississippi was looking for a rabbi--even one who was only a minister.”

“You’re not really a rabbi.”

“Not officially. England didn’t have any schools that could ordain a rabbi--a legal translator of the law. I couldn’t afford to go overseas to a school that could. In America in the South and out West, the Jewish communities are just so glad to have a teacher. Minister is close enough to a true Rabbi for them. However, they do call me rabbi anyway.”

“But Mississippi? Aren’t they prejudice there?”

“No. The Jews got along with each other and they got along with their Christian neighbors. In fact, the Christian businessmen wouldn’t open their shops on Saturday until after the Sabbath service. Some of them would even attend. They didn’t want to convert, they just liked my sermons. They were polite, so we welcomed them. I really liked Woodville, but it was a small town. They only had eighteen Jewish families. So in ‘88 when I got an offer from Congregation B’nai Israel here in Galveston, I would be a fool not to take it.

“Galveston is a very nice place, too. People accept Jews here. Did you know I was recently invited to a banquet for Cardinal Satelli to say the blessing? I did it in Latin. I think I was the only non-Catholic there. How many places would do that? I’m part of the community. They like me, I like them. I’ll probably stay here the rest of my life.”

Yes, Henry Cohen will. He will be very lucky in the 1900 hurricane. Not only will he and his wife and two children survive, but his home and synagogue will suffer minimal damage. In fact he will offer it to four ministers who had their churches destroyed, so they can have services on Sundays until they can rebuild. That will be the least of his help in rebuilding Galveston.

Galveston After the 1900 Hurricane

As soon as the storm let up, Henry Cohen was out to help the less fortunate. He found a wagon and mules and started scrounging for food and medical supplies, and headed for the hospitals. He helped Clara Barton and the Red Cross set up tents. When the Governor created an official Central Relief Committee several days later, he appointed Cohen the head. Why not? He was already the unofficial head.

As I mentioned before it will be estimated that 6,000 to 12,000 died in the 1900 hurricane. There was never an accurate count of the dead bodies. No one knows how many were swept out to sea. Also add to that those who just up and left, fleeing from the horror or just out of necessity, having lost their home and livelihood. Most buildings were smashed and the few standing were damaged. Galveston was quickly becoming a ghost town.

What Galveston needed was labor to clean up and rebuild. Poor Jews from Eastern Europe were pouring into New York, only to find crowded slums and no jobs. Cohen campaigned to bring them to Galveston. 10,000 came and he shook hands with everyone of them and helped them get settled. He helped other immigrants as well from Greece, Italy and Mexico.

Rabbi Cohen greeting immigrants
as they step off the ship
(that's him, second from the left)

Here is an example to give you an idea of the lengths Cohen would go to help out an immigrant. A ship came in from Russia full of Jews. However, they found a stow away onboard. Having no papers and coming into the country illegally, he faced immediate deportation. The poor fellow begged them not to. He was a political refuge. He would be shot for the crime of not agreeing with the government if they sent him back.

Cohen told the authorities to postpone deportation and he would get him amnesty. The rabbi, without stopping to pack, jumped on the first train to Washington, D.C. When he got there he jumped into a cab and went straight to the White House. At this point Henry Cohen was probably the most famous rabbi in America, so President Taft agreed to see him. Cohen pleaded the stowaway’s case. Taft shook his head. “If I make an exception for a Jew I will have to make it for everyone.” “Jew, hell,” Cohen responded. “The man is Greek Orthodox.” The amazed President Taft allowed the stowaway to stay in the country.

Henry Cohen
years from now

Cohen will go on to be appointed on the state commission for prisons, bringing about many reforms. He will help raise the State’s age of consent from ten years to eighteen, making seducing ten years old statutory rape. In World War One he will join the army as a lieutenant, and help convince them of the need for Jewish Chaplains. In the 1920’s he will take on the Klu Klux Klan. (They never had a chance.)

He will work on so many committees and organizations, both locally and nationally, that he will become the most famous rabbi in America. Indeed, the U.S. Post Office will reroute all overseas mail addressed to “Rabbi Henry Cohen--United States of America” directly to Galveston.

Meanwhile he will remain rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel for 64 years, until his death in 1952 at the age of 89. He will also remain a “busybody” helping anyone who needs it, no matter their religion, race, or social station.

Rabbi Henry Cohen pulled out his watch and shook his head. “I best be going. I have to a lot to do.” And he was off and running.

I watched him jump on his bicycle and speed away. I had to smile. Yes, he does have a lot to do--and somehow he will get it all done.

Here is a lecture Rabbi Henry Cohen gave at the Medical Department, University of Texas:
Hygiene and Medicine of the Talmud
(Did I mention Cohen took it upon himself to create the medical school’s first student loan fund?)

One of the many monographs Cohen wrote on the history of Jews in Texas: The Settlement of Jews in Texas

This plaque was erected in 1980 by the State of Texas in front of the Galveston Courthouse. It reads:
Rabbi Henry Cohen (1863-1952), called the "First Citizen of Texas" by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Rabbi Henry Cohen, an internationally known humanitarian, was born in London, England. He came to Galveston in 1888 as spiritual leader of Congregation B'Nai Israel and served for 64 years until his death.

In 1889 he married Mollie Levy (1862-1951) and they had two children. After the disastrous storm of 1900, Texas Governor Joseph D. Sayers appointed Rabbi Cohen to head the Central Relief Committee. From 1907 until World War I he helped shiploads of immigrants become settled in cities around the country. During World War I he was instrumental in influencing congress to provide Jewish Naval Chaplains. Appointed to the Texas Prison Board by Governor Dan Moody, Rabbi Cohen introduced measures for more humane treatment of prisoners. He assisted New York slum residents in Galveston today.

When Rabbi Cohen died, the Commissioners Court of Galveston County called him one of the country's greatest humanitarians and spiritual leaders.

America's Second Independence Day

2011-09-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Friday, 19 June 1896 - Galveston, Texas

Ashton Villa,
site of America's true Independence Day

Today is Juneteenth, the 19th of June. Some historians will tell you this is the day the Emancipation Proclamation was created and slavery ended. They are probably historians studying the Roman Period who know little about American history.

Trying to pin down the day slavery ended in the United States is a problem. On 22 September 1862 President Abraham Lincoln announced he was going to issue a formal emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves in all the Confederate states that refused to come back to the fold. He didn’t get around to actually signing it until 1 January 1863. None of the states returned. It did however make slavery a genuine issue of the war and kept Britain, who had long ago abolished slavery, from siding with the Confederacy.

If it only freed slaves in the states that were no longer in the Union, then no slaves were actually freed, right? Wrong. Any time the Union occupied Confederate lands, the slaves there were freed. As for the North, there was still slavery in the border states that stayed in the Union. They quietly, one by one, ended slavery in their state governments. Slavery wasn’t officially abolished until the 13th Amendment was ratified in all the states by December 1865. And of course there were those slaves who simply took matters into their own hands, and escaped from their masters.

Therefore the slaves were freed bit by bit, rather than all at once. So what one date would you celebrate the end to slavery?

General Gordon Granger

The African-Americans in Galveston know the exact date slavery ended. On 18 June 1865, General Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. Apparently Texas hadn’t heard (or simply ignored) that General Lee had already surrendered the Confederate Army two months before on 9 April 1865.

The next day, on the 19th of June, General Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa and read “General Order Number Three” which said:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Everyone is dressed up for Juneteenth

Not very poetic even rather demeaning in its content, but the slaves read between the lines. THEY WERE FREE! They no longer belonged to anyone but themselves. The now former slaves took to the streets in jubilation and had an impromptu party. They had so much fun they decided to do it again next year. Since that time, every 19th of June, they celebrate their freedom. Now the celebration is a little more organized with parades and picnics and performances. They also decided “June Nineteenth” was a mouthful and sort of scrunched it all together to create "Juneteenth."

Since that time Juneteenth has spread all over Texas and across the nation, giving all African-Americans one special day to celebrate the end of slavery. Sadly in the 20th century, when this generation who knew slavery dies out, Juneteenth will slowly fade away. Many African-Americans will be embarrassed by their slave ancestors. I know that seems odd. I would think being descended from a slave owner would be something to really be ashamed of.

Luckily a hundred years from now, the "Modern Juneteenth Movement" will begin, bringing the holiday back. State by state will make it an official holiday until it finally becomes a national holiday in the mid-21st century. It will become more of a celebration to honor and remember the victims of slavery.

One of the many Juneteenth bands

It also is a chance to celebrate African-American culture--especially music, whether jazz, gospel or blues. They are already doing that, although jazz hasn’t been invented yet. I heard a church choir singing “Let My People Go” today. If ever there was a protest song disguised as a spiritual, this is it!

the face of a former slave

It’s only been 31 years, so there are still folks alive who remember slavery all too well. They know what it was like to be whipped, or worse to watch your family being sold, never to see them again. You can see the pain etched in the faces of the older people here. But today there are smiles on those faces. Today is a day to rejoice, and even though I have never known their hardships, their joy is contagious.

Let My People Go as performed by the Harlem Gospel Singers

Isle of Doom

2011-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Friday, 12 June 1896 - Galveston, Texas, USA

For years the University of Texas has been begging me to go back and record the city of Galveston at it’s zenith. I didn’t feel I could put them off any longer. You may wonder why I balked at visiting this beautiful Victorian boomtown. I will explain, but first let me tell you something of this remarkable city.

Galveston Island is a barrier island off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. It is twenty-seven miles long and only three miles long at it’s widest spot. It is really little more than a sand bar.

Although discovered by Amerindians millennia ago, the Island was officially discovered by the Spanish explorer Juan de Grijalva, when he ran aground on it in 1528. He named it "Isla de Malhado" ("Isle of Doom").

Apparently, it wasn’t until 1785 that anyone looked behind the island and found a huge bay there. In a well thought out career move, José de Evia named it after the Count of Gálvez, the viceroy of New Spain.

Jean Lafitte the pirate & "founding father"
(at least historians think this is Lafitte)

The first European settlement here was built in 1816 by pirates. Jean Lafitte had been sent by the US military to Galveston to spy on the Spanish. Instead Lafitte started his own colony of 100 to 200 buccaneers, until the US Navy booted everyone off in 1821.

By 1825, the island was no longer Spain’s but Mexico’s, who established the Port of Galveston and built a custom’s house. Then Texas revolted against Mexico, taking over the island and making it the port of the Republic of Texas’s navy.

Finally in 1830, the city of modern Galveston was founded by Michael Menard, a Canadian. It started out as an international city. Galveston is known as the “Ellis Island of the West.” Most immigrants from Europe heading for the western states come here instead of New York City. Many go no further than Galveston, not because they are poor and can’t afford train fare, but because they smell opportunity. A large portion of the newcomers are middle class.

downtown Galveston in the 1890s

Galveston is currently the busiest port in the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing even New Orleans. Indeed the only port in the US bigger is New York City. It is one of the largest cotton processors and shippers. It is the largest city in Texas and it‘s cultural center. Texas’s first telephone, gas lights, electric lights, opera house, post office, orphanage, Masonic Lodge, medical college, cotton compress, naval base, etc. were all in Galveston.

The population in 1890 was 23,000. By 1900 it will be 37,789. Galveston is a booming commercial center where the future is limitless. There is a great optimism in the air. Victorian mansions are springing up all around, attesting to the city’s prosperity. And it will all be swept away in one night.

As I said, Galveston is little more than a sandbar. It’s highest point is only eight feet above sea level. There is currently no seawall. Even if they had built one, it would probably not be high enough.

On 8 September 1900, Galveston will hunker down for a tropical storm. Too late they learn it is in fact a category four hurricane with winds estimated at 125 miles per hour. (We don’t know the actual speed. The anemometer will be blown off the local U.S. Weather Bureau building.)

What the winds don’t knock down, the 15-foot-high storm-surge waves will. The entire city will be flooded, as people cling to floating debris. It is estimated that 6,000 to 12,000 people will die (8,000 is the official number), making it the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history!

Galveston after the 1900 hurricane

Why did it outdo stronger hurricanes? It’s 1900. There are no satellites to follow the storm. There isn’t even ship to shore radio for captains caught in hurricanes to warn those on land. Even though Isaac Cline, one of the top weathermen in the country, lives in Galveston, he only has Victorian technology to aid him. By the time Galveston realized what was coming, it was too late to evacuate the island. And outside of multi-story buildings that may or may not standup, there is no high ground to run to. Few buildings will even be left standing.

Despite this, Galveston will arise from the ashes, just as a much smaller phoenix. She will become a resort town, evoking her pirate roots during prohibition with boot-leg alcohol and prostitution. It won’t be until the 1950s before she gets cleaned up. Hardly the future her citizens now see for this shining city.

And that is why I have been putting off this project. It’s hard to look into the eyes of someone knowing they will die soon and not be able to warn them of the hurricane. It’s part of being a Temporal Anthropologist and knowing what the future brings. I will be walking about this city unable to warn anyone. Would they even listen to me if I was allowed to tell them?

University of Texas wanted me to come here in the summer of 1900, but that was too close. I gave myself a four year buffer. Instead of looking in every face and knowing that a horrible fate awaits him, I can console myself that he has at least four years of happiness and maybe won’t be here in 1900.

Still I will be looking up some of the more famous citizens, knowing their terrible future. This will not be an easy assignment.

Days after the event, Thomas Edison's film studio recorded some of the clean-up, making this some of the world's first "newsreels." video

An excellent documentary on the 1900 Galveston Hurricane:
Isaac's Storm
Although done in good taste, it is about a horrific event. You may not wish to watch.
(And yes, I know the last bit is missing on part 8.)

The Man Who Started a Movement

2011-08-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 10 December 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

William Alexander Smith

Today I had the honor of meeting William Alexander Smith. You may not know his name, but you know his legacy. Indeed you may have been part of it.

William Smith came to Glasgow 1869 when he was just fifteen to work in his uncle’s soft goods wholesale business. His young heart must have yearned for more adventure than selling shawls, but he could not shirk duty. So he compromised. He stayed with Alex. Fraser & Co. and joined the local Rifle Volunteers, rising to the rank of lieutenant by the time he was 19.

That same year he joined the Church of Scotland. Eventually he became a Sabbath School (Sunday School) teacher. They gave him the older boys, hoping he could manage the scamps. It slowly dawned on Smith that the boys were unruly because they were bored silly. They didn’t want to sing hymns. They wanted action!

Sabbath School was suppose to teach the boys Christian values. Surely there had to be another way, a manner that could keep their attention and even be fun. He remembered how the Rifle Volunteers had filled that need for action for him. Perhaps he could combine the two activities.

So on 4 October 1883, Smith invited fifty boys to the Free Church Mission Hall on North Woodside Road here in Glasgow to form the Boys Brigade. The objective was to be: “The advancement of Christ's kingdom among Boys and the promotion of habits of Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness.” They would use semi-military discipline and order, drilling with dummy rifles, dressing in military style uniforms. There would be Christian services and lessons but also sports and games.

The First Boys Brigade with William Smith (center)

Then Smith came up with a radical idea--camping! In the summer of 1886 he took the boys to the small town of Tighnabruaich in Argyll to camp out in tents. Their mothers were horrified. The only people who slept in tents were people who had no choice. They hadn’t worked hard to put a roof over their sons heads just to have them sleep in tents! Smith however finally convinced the parents. The boys loved it! They felt it was a grand adventure. Many grew up to become avid campers. Smith may well be most responsible for introducing camping to Great Britain.

Smith always acted like the best of commanders, putting his “men” first. “Put the Boy first” was his motto. No officer was to expect the boys to do anything he wasn’t willing to do, too. The adult leaders had to sleep in tents and eat in the mess hall. No sneaking off from camp to go to a hotel.

Smith had to break that rule once in 1909, when he left camp for a couple of days. You see, he had to go down to London to be knighted for his work with children. But he came back as soon as he could. Needless to say, the boys forgave him.

Smith quit his business last year (1887) to devote himself full time to the Boys Brigade. He has been writing a rule book, editing a newsletter and taking care of paperwork. He keeps tabs on all the branches, giving advice, encouragement and occasional correction. Already there are other Boys Brigades around Great Britain. In a little over a decade there will be over 2000 companies attached to various churches throughout the British Empire and the United States.

I asked Smith about copycat organizations popping up. He said he gave his officers strict orders not to try to convert the boys to their own form of religion, however some Catholics and Jews felt the Boys Brigade too Presbyterian. If others wanted to create organizations like his to teach boys virtues, he saw no real problem. He didn’t see these clubs as competitors but allies.

In 1914, William Smith’s funeral will not only be attended by 7,000 acting and former Boys Brigade members, but by representatives of The Church Lads' Brigade, The London Diocesan Church Lads' Brigade, The Catholic Boys' Brigade, The Jewish Lads' Brigade, The Boys' Life Brigade, and The Boy Scouts. All of them acknowledged William Smith as the founder of the movement.

Sir William Smith's funeral

Sir William D. Boyce

The Boy Scouts, for instance, was started by Smith’s old friend, Robert Baden-Powell, war hero. He became a Boys Brigade officer himself in 1903. When it was discovered Baden-Powell’s military training manual, Aids to Scouting, was being read by boys, William Smith encouraged him to rewrite it for younger readers. Not long after that, Baden-Powell found out boys were starting their own “scout troops.” He was practically drafted into becoming the head of the Boy Scouts.

A few years later William D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher, got lost in a London fog,. A lad helped him find his way back to his hotel and refused a tip. He told Boyce it was his duty as a Boy Scout to help those in need. Boyce went in search of their leader hoping for a good story, but instead got a mission from Baden-Powell and started the Boy Scouts of America.

In 1909 Baden-Powell discovered girls at a scout rally. He talked his sister, Agnes Baden-Powell, into starting the Girl Guides. He also encouraged his friend, Juliette Gordon Low, to return to America and start the Girl Scouts.

Just about every youth organization was either inspired by William Smith, or inspired by an organization he inspired. Sir William Smith is the granddaddy of them all whether they know it or not. The Boy’s Brigade was the first and it started here in Glasgow.

I think the generations of boys and girls whose lives he will inspire would mean more to William Smith than fame anyway.

Kelvin - More Than Just a Unit of Heat

2011-08-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 5 December 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

Sir William Thomson, soon to be Lord Kelvin

This afternoon I attended a lecture by Professor William Thomson--SIR William Thomson. He is now 64-years-old. Last time I saw Thomson was 32 years ago (my basetime) eight years from now in 1896 at the 50th Anniversary of his professorship here at the University of Glasgow.

2500 guest attended, many of them predominate scientists of the day. The university library was filled with his inventions and awards. The Eastern, the Anglo-American and the Commercial Cable companies united to send a telegraph message from the university to the major cities of America and back, traveling 20,000 miles in only seven and a half minutes! Why did they do this? Because Thomson had made it possible.

By then Sir William Thomson was Lord Kelvin, the first scientist to be made a Lord. He took the title 1st Baron Kelvin for the river Kelvin that flows by the University of Glasgow campus. He will teach here for 53 years, despite generous offers from other universities.

Thomson is considered the greatest chemist of the 19th century and the father of modern physics. (It was still called Natural Philosophy, in his day.) He was a scientist, who believed science was useless without practical application, so he was also an inventor. Watching him lecture to a hall full of students, hanging on his every word, I think his role as teacher has been downplayed. He will inspire many budding scientists.

I carefully recorded his lecture. Afterwards I went up to Thomson to get a closer scan of him. Thomson is a charming, humble man with twinkling eyes despite a painful limp. I approached him as he was cleaning off the chalkboard and was able to record this short interview.

Excuse me, Sir William. My name is Dr. Howe. I would like to say I enjoyed your lecture.
Why thank you, sir. Are you a scientist?

Only of anthropology.
Ah! Have you been following Max Muller’s lectures on Natural Religion? Quite brilliant.

James Thomson, Sr.

It’s why I’m in town. Lovely city.
I always thought so, ever since my family moved here when I was nine.

You weren’t born in Glasgow?
No, my family is from Belfast. My father, James Thomson, decided to become a Presbyterian minister and University of Glasgow was one of the few colleges open to a farmer‘s son. Father returned to Ireland after he graduated. It turned out he was really a mathematician and eventually was given the Chair of Mathematics here at Glasgow.

James Thomson, Jr.

So you are not the only professor in the family?
By no means. My eldest brother, James, Jr. is teaching here now as a professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics. However, his eyesight is failing him. I’m not sure how much longer he can teach. Pity. He is really quite a genius. He has done a lot to improve turbines, water wheels and water pumps. He’s also done research on glacier motion.

So you two attended Glasgow University?
Yes, I first enrolled when I was ten.

Ten?
It’s not that extraordinary. They had program at the time for able young students. However I tried to work as hard as the older students. My brother James also enrolled. He was then twelve. When I was 17 father sent me to Cambridge.

University of Cambridge? That’s my alma mater. How did you like it?
I enjoyed it. I was on the sculling team. We rowed our way to victory in the Colquhoun Sculls of 1843. The only disappointment was the science department. It really hadn’t developed past the teachings of Isaac Newton. There really weren’t any facilities for study of experimental science. So when Glasgow offered me a position as professor of Natural Philosophy, I jumped at it. They had a school of thermodynamics here, which by the way my father had helped form.

What did you do between your appointment to Glasgow and graduating from Cambridge?
I took the train to Glasgow.

They made you a professor of one of the oldest, most prestigious universities in Great Britain right after you graduated?
Yes, I was only 22. My class wasn’t much younger than myself. I think it was my work in the mathematical analysis of electricity that convinced the University. However my youth did work against me. The next year when I attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting at Oxford, the other scholars there saw me as a precocious child. I had ideas on heat and temperature they found radical.

Yes, the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and the absolute zero scale you invented.
Proposed. I was only able to calculate absolute zero. Some one else hopefully will fill in the rest.

[They will only be able to start on that in the mid-twentieth century. They will call the units “Kelvin” in honor of Lord Kelvin.]

Is that why they knighted you?
No, that was for my work on the Trans-Atlantic Cable. They said it couldn’t be done, and indeed it couldn’t with the current material. So I had to invent better cables and equipment. I started out as a scientific advisor and wound up as the head engineer. I never considered myself an engineer, but discovered I had a talent for it. I think I have my father and brother to thank for that. Apparently engineering runs in our blood.

So you made it possible for people in New World to communicate with those in the Old World almost instantaneously.
I wasn’t the only one who made that happen. Several of my colleagues were knighted after the completion of the project.

Are there any projects you are working on currently?
Yes, perfecting the marine compass. Since they started using so much iron in ships it has caused magnetic deviation in the old compasses. I think I‘ve solved the problem.

How did you get involved in that?
I’m quite the sailor, don’t you know. All right, I’m captain of a 126 foot schooner, the Lalla Rookh. I got interested in seafaring I think after laying all that cable in the Atlantic. When poor Margaret, my first wife, finally succumbed to her very long illness. I was quite distraught. So I took a mistress--the sea.

The Lalla Rookh

Seemed wiser than taking to the bottle, I must say. I do hope you have found another life mate.
Yes, Fanny. Lovely woman. I had become good friends with Mr. Charles Blandy and his three daughters. So one day as I approached there home by ship, I signaled “Will you marry me?” Fanny signaled back “Yes.” I figured any women that sea savvy and with a sense of humor was the woman for me.

That is a charming story. She sounds like a delightful woman.
She is indeed. Excuse me, for my rudeness but I have a meeting to attend to. It was very nice to meet you, Dr. Howe.

And very nice to meet you, too, Lord Kel--erm, I mean, Sir William Thomson.
[I nearly got in hot water that time--373.15 Kelvin!]

Future Monument to Lord Kelvin
erected by Glasgow right after his death in 1908

Mither Tongue (Mother Tongue)

2011-08-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 27 November 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

I haunted the bookstores today, taking a trip back in time from 1888 as it were. I have a long list of books to look for from the University of Glasgow and Strathclyde. Many are lost textbooks, but they also have me on the look out for first editions of classics by David Hume, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, George MacDonald and others. I found a copy of Study in Scarlett by Arthur Conan Doyle published last year. And of course anything by Robert Burns.

Robert Burns

I mentioned yesterday that Robert Burns has a statue in George Square with other illustrious Scots. It was only erected in 1877 I think as a reaction to his being censored by the Victorian English when they figured out what some of his poems actually meant. The Scots no doubt see it only as a slam against the Scots.

You see back in the 1700s, after the Union of Scotland and England and the creation of the Great Britain, the Scots decided to make the most of the situation. (I mentioned that in a previous blog The Industrial Age and Other Scottish Inventions.) Unfortunately trying to speak to the English proved to be a problem. While the Highlanders continued to speak Gaelic like their ancestors from Ireland, the Lowlanders had been speaking English for centuries--at least they thought it was English. Why did the people of London just stare at them confused when they talked?

True, the Scots spoke English with a Gaelic accent, and had borrowed many words not only from Gaelic, but from Norse, French and anyone else they came into contact with. Apparently the words that sounded oddest to the English were in fact English words--they were just words the folks down south no longer used.

Scot had become it’s own language. (Yes, some contend it’s only a dialect, but most agree it’s a bonified language.) The Scots had to learn modern English, which they did so well that many of the great “English” writers of the 1700s and 1800s are in fact Scottish. However, while they wrote impeccable English, they continued to speak Scots, or at least English with a thick Scottish borough. The Londoners looked down their noses at these “bumpkins” much like New Yorkers look down their noses at people speaking with an Appalachian accent (which by the way, has a strong Scottish influence from Scottish immigrants.)

Robert Burns also learned to write English well, but he preferred to write in his native tongue of Scots. He was a romantic who was proud of his roots and not afraid to thumb his nose at the people south of Hadrian‘s Wall. He was a rebel who stood up for the lower classes, which might be why he later became so popular in Soviet Russia.

Burns message was “you can be Brits if you want, but remember, you are Scots first!” Since 1803, only six years after his death, his countrymen have been celebrating Burns Night with a Burns Supper. On the twenty-fifth of January, people throw a birthday party for Robbie. They dress in kilts, play bagpipes, drink whisky, eat haggis and recite Burns, all the time speaking their native tongue. If anything it has only gotten stronger over the years, since it is still celebrated in the twenty-fifth century as an international day of Scottish pride.

Haggis - the star of the Burns Supper

Luckily people I’ve met have been tolerant of me when I stare at them uncomprehending. I tell them I’m just an ignorant foreigner from down south and to speak slowly like I’m an idiot. They find that amusing--until they have to repeat it slowly three times. I’ve had to look up more than a few words in my Scot Dictionary.

So cheery-bye the nou and mey the moose ne'er lea' yer girnal wi the tear drap in its ee. [Translation: So goodbye for now and may the mouse never leave your grain store with a tear drop in its eye.]

A handy collection of Scots phrases

A dictionary of Lowland Scotch, with an introductory chapter on the poetry, humour, and literary history of the Scottish language and an appendix of Scottish proverbs (1888)
I’ve been carrying this about in my pocket, and it’s quite useful.

Recipe for Haggis

The Man Who Poured the World a Cup of Tea

2011-08-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

Friday, 16 November 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

Today I was on a merry chase, but I managed to track down one of Glasgow’s favorite sons. Thomas Lipton was on his way to the train station, but I managed to have a short conversation with him which I recorded. The University of Glasgow back in the 27th century will be pleased, I’m sure.

Sir Thomas Lipton

Ask anyone--especially an American--who Thomas Lipton was and they will tell you he was a sea captain who invented tea bags and instant tea. Wrong on all three accounts. His contribution to the culture of tea is far more important than that. Lipton made tea available to all.

Sir Thomas Lipton is a true rags to riches story. He was born in Glasgow in 1848 to Ulster Scots who had immigrated back to the land of their ancestors. Poor but hard working, they struggled to keep open the small grocery shop they owned. Thomas quit school when he was thirteen to help in the store, then decided to make his own way in the world.

When he was fourteen he became a cabin boy on a line between Belfast and Glasgow. He took his money from this job to buy a ticket to America. Once there he took on several jobs and eventually ended up in A.T. Stewart's huge dry goods store in Manhattan. Stewart focused on presentation and variety and knew the importance of advertising. After five years, Thomas returned to Glasgow to show his parents everything he had learned in America.

In 1871 he opened his own store that offered good products at reasonable prices. The store was always clean, well stocked and well lit. He also wasn’t afraid to use any advertising scheme he could come up with. From his mother he learned to wisdom of buying eggs and milk directly from the farmers, rather than through a middleman. He worked hard, putting in 18 hour days, sleeping under the counter.

Soon Thomas had several stores in Glasgow. He branched out to the rest of Scotland and then the British Isles. I believe he currently has 300 stores! He is a very rich man. He will soon be even richer.

Thomas doesn’t just buy from local farmers. He bought a meat packing plant in Omaha, Nebraska in America, as well as several farms. This year he has decided to branch out into what he will be remembered for the most--tea.

Tea, once the luxury of the rich, is now drunk by the middle-class. But Thomas has not forgotten his working class roots and also sees an untapped market. By buying his own tea plantations in Ceylon, he can provide decent tea at ridiculously low prices. Thanks to him everyone will be able to afford to drink tea every day.

But he won’t stop there. He will also open a packaging plant in New Jersey to sell directly to the Americans, making tea popular again. (The barbarians had thrown the last batch in Boston Harbor back in 1773.) Lipton is will no longer just supply tea to his own stores; he will supply it to the world.

Perhaps Thomas Lipton’s greatest failure became his greatest advertising campaign. He had been in love with ships since boyhood and loved sailing. For thirty years he tried to win the America’s Cup in his yacht “Shamrock” and every time he failed. But he had fun and was such a good sport, America fell in love with him. They will present him with a specially designed cup for "the best of all losers". He will also be inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of fame in 1993. For decades “Captain Lipton” was featured on the Lipton tea packages in America.

Nurse on deck of Lipton's yacht
(This is no pleasure cruise.)

In World War I his yachts will be used to transport medical staff and supplies to Serbia to fight a typhus epidemic that killed thousands of civilians. Despite the danger, Thomas will go himself to lend aid. By now, Thomas was a celebrity, and he used that to bring Serbia’s plight to the attention of the world. Serbia loved him because he didn’t expect to be given red carpet treatment, which they were in no position to give. Modest lodgings and peasant food was good enough for him. This was just one of many charitable works he performed throughout his life. In 1897 he contributed £25,000 to provide dinners to the poor during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. He will be knighted in 1898 for his charitable works.

Next year Thomas will move his office to London, after his parents pass away. But he will never forget Glasgow that gave him his start. He will leave much of his fortune to her. when he dies at the ripe old age of 83 in 1931. He will be buried in Glasgow per his request.

Sir Thomas Lipton cheerfully losing yet
another America's Cup race

So let’s all raise a cup to the man who brought tea to the deprived working class and to foolish Americans who didn’t know what they were missing--to Sir Thomas Lipton!

Sir Thomas in a Lipton Tea commercial
(All right, Sir Thomas was never in a telly commercial, but he certainly would have if he could have.)

The Very First Gifford Lecture

2011-08-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

Monday, 12 November 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

I am quite excited. Today will be the very first Gifford Lecture and I will be there to witness it! The famous and illustrious Gifford Lectures, which every scholar and scientist dreams of being invited to, one of the greatest honors any person can hope to attain.

Adam Lord Gifford

The Gifford Lectures are the legacy of Adam Gifford, the son of an Edingurgh merchant. Adam went into law and made a fortune as an advocate (lawyer) and then as a judge. Judge’s are given the title “Lord” in this time and place, so Adam is remembered as Lord Gifford. As a judge he tried to make his rulings based on common sense and fairness.

Lord Gifford had another life though. By day he was a judge, and by night a student of philosophy and metaphysics. After he retired he gave popular lectures on such subjects as Ralph Waldo Emerson, St. Bernard and Hindu reincarnation. He was an advocate for Natural Religion--religion based on common sense rather than on miracles. It is a marriage of science and religion. The Scots don’t see them as opposites any more than they see industry and art as opposites.

University of Glasgow as it looks now in 1888

When Lord Gifford died in 1887 he left £80,000 to the four Scottish universities (Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrews) to establish a series of lectures on Natural Religion. The first will be given here at the University of Glasgow. Over the centuries, famous scientists, philosophers and theologians will address eager crowds on a multitude of subjects.

The first lecture will be given by Friedrich Max Müller, the famous philologist and Orientalist. His interests turned from poetry and music to philosophy early on. He did his doctoral dissertation on Spinoza’s Ethics. (Spinoza was a favorite of Lord Gifford’s, too.)

Müller always had a gift for languages, perhaps because his father was a poet. He learned Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. He left Leipzig University to go to Berlin to study with philosopher Friedrich Schelling and to translate the Upanishads for him.

From there he went to Paris to further his studies and then on the England to get access to the Sanskrit collection of the East India Company. (Learning French and English posed no problem for Müller.) He eventually became Oxford's first Professor of Comparative Theology and is considered one of the father’s of comparative religion. Müller is currently working as editor and one of the translators for Oxford University Press’ massive 50 volume Sacred Books of the East, a monument to Victorian scholarship.

Anthropology is in its infancy in the 19th century. Too many are using it to prove that their people are more civilized than everyone else who thinks differently. Personally I just find it fascinating that our species came up with so many ways to survive and to view the world. While Müller is a devout Lutheran, he respects the religions of others. For instance, he is a great admirer of Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1836-1886) and has authored several books and essays on the Indian Hindu mystic.

Friedrich Max Müller

Müller’s respect for others has earned him the condemnation of conservative ministers, who see him as attacking Christianity, which was never his intent. Even more disturbing to him are the racists using his research to “prove” their own distorted theories. If anything he felt that the Indo-European language roots proved that the “blackest Hindu and “fairest Scandinavian” were in fact descended from a common ancestor and thus an argument against racism.

And of course modern scholars could tear apart some of Müller’s theories--including ones he himself has long since abandoned by 1888. Others might find him a little too smug of his own culture. One must remember Müller was brought up in another time and didn’t have all the knowledge we now have. A thousand years from now, people will probably laugh at us, too, for being ignorant and too homo sapien-centric. Remember it was only in the 26th century that the study of sentient aliens was considered anthropology and not zoology.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Müller is how the Indians regard him. He is seen as an enlightened sage and his Oxford home is a place of pilgrimage for gurus traveling westward who want to meet the mahatman or “great soul.” While other Englishman belittle Indian traditions, Müller introduces them to the British and the rest of the English speaking world so they can really see India for the first time. The job of an anthropologist is not to pass judgment on another culture but to show it to the folks back home with all its beauty and ugliness. In other words, to show we are all human after all.

A list of Gifford Lectures speakers from 1888 to 2010
Sacred Books of the East for your perusal.

A Tour of the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art

2011-07-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

Friday, 9 November 1888 - Glasgow Scotland

This is the next to the last day of the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art here in Glasgow. It's been open since last May. Since the Great Exhibition in London on 1851, Victorians have fallen in love with these sort of affairs. They are part trade show, part culture exchange, part county fair and part shopping mall. So grab a guide book (they are only three pennies) and come along. Thought I would show you some photos of this particular Exhibit. (Click on any of them to enlarge and get a better look.)

This is the entrance to the main building

Interior showing the Main Avenue East
That's Osler's display of cut glass in front

Indian Court

Viennese bric-a-brac from Ernest Wahliss

the entrance of the Machinery Court
ornamental ironwork by Walter Macfarlane's Saracen Foundry at Possilpark

Sugar machinery from Mirrlees, Watson & Co., Glasgow

Nobel's Explosives Co. Ltd, Glasgow Branch
(no smoking please)

The Bodega Bar in the Main Building

Sporrans from Kirkwood of Edinburgh

Doulton's terracotta "Indian Pavilion"

Fairfield's stand showing 30 ship models
along with a model of a triple expansion engine

George Cradock of Wakefield
manufacturer of Lang's patent steel wire

Brown and Polson's cornflour and starch
The arches are made of corn cobs.

Robin and Houston, with soapworks at Paisley and candleworks in Glasgow

Andrew and James Stewart's Clyde Tube Works at Coatbridge
exhibit in the Machinery Section

Campbell Achnach & Co., rubber manufacturers

My thanks to the the Univeristy of Glasgow

The Industrial Age and Other Scottish Inventions

2011-07-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

tossing the old caber

Monday, 5 November 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

People nowadays think that while England was creating the British Empire and the Industrial Age, folks up in Scotland were running around in kilts, tossing cabers at each other. Nothing could be further from the truth! There is a reason it was called the British Empire and not the English Empire. So you can truly understand what I’m talking about, I will give a Short History of Scotland.

The glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age, taking most of the soil from the northern part of the British Isles with them. Add to that a cold climate where even wheat won’t grow, and you have a barren place where only the toughest can survive. The Romans called these folk the Picts. The Romans tried conquering them, too, as they had the Britons but gave up. The Romans believed good fences made good neighbors so built a very big one and called it Hadrian’s Wall.

The Dark Ages came and the Romans left. No sooner had the Picts gotten rid of them than the Scots started coming over from Scotia. The Picts and Scots fought each other for supremacy, with one side then the other coming out on top, until they were so intermarried, no one was sure who was what. So Pictland became Scotland and the original home of the Scots went with the name Eire or Ireland. Scotia was just a name Romans had tacked on them and they decided they didn’t really care for it much, anyway.

Meanwhile England kicked out the Danes (Norse) just in time to be invaded by the Normans (also Norse.) The Normans slowly made their way north and took over much of the Celtic clan system and turned everyone into feudal serfs while convincing them nothing had changed. Those who were not convinced were killed because they were after all feudal lords. These Normans, like the ones that invaded Ireland, decided they would pretend to be natives with no allegiance to the English crown. Of course, the English kings weren’t really English either but also Norman, but liked to pretend they were Anglo-Saxon. Before this the Normans liked to pretend they were really French. Not sure what the other Vikings thought of this.

I probably shouldn’t pick on the Normans since Howe is in fact a Norman name, but I consider myself Anglo-Saxon except for a distant Scottish relative from the Graham Clan. (Hmm, come to think of it, Graham is also a Norman name.) I suppose it doesn’t matter. After centuries of intermarriage, the Normans became who they pretended to be anyway.

The English crown kept trying to conquer Scotland, but to no avail. Then one of those bizarre twists of history happened. Queen Elizabeth the First died without issue. Her sister Mary had married the King of Scotland, so now their son was Elizabeth’s nearest living relative, so the King of Scotland now also became the King of England. Did this mean England was now part of Scotland? Hardly. Good King James packed up and moved to London and started the Stewart line of the British crown. Scotland and England were still separate and independent nations, but they both had the same king. Unfortunately this meant anytime Scotland and England had a dispute, which happened often since they were bordering each other, the crown ruled in favor of England.

Scotland was never wealthy, but things just got worse. England locked them out of trading with any of their colonies. (Some Scots did anyway as smugglers.) Scotland decided to start it’s own colony in Panama. No one was down in Panama, right? Known as the Darien Scheme, every patriotic Scot invested in it, sending 1,000 colonists and half the money in Scotland to Panama. They found out why no one bothered with this area when most of them died of malaria. After more ships, more brave (but foolhardy) colonists and money was sent, Darien began to get a foothold. Then Spain reminded the Scots they already had claim to the land and kicked them out.

If this wasn’t enough, Scotland had suffered several years of no summer and no crops. (It was freezing in August!) England could smell blood and was poised to invade. Then someone in Parliament got an brilliant idea that wouldn’t cost any lives. Why not unite Scotland and England and call it Great Britain? The Union of Two Nations. They would even combine their two flags to create the Union Jack.

Flag of Scotland + Flag of Englnad = Union Jack

Of course this meant Scotland would lose it’s own Parliament and independent status. At this point Scotland was so destitute and desperate that they buckled under. Could Union be any worse that what they had now? So in 1707 the Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence and went into hiding least they get lynched. (No one could know then that the Scottish Parliament would come back in 1998.)

An odd thing then happened. Or maybe it’s not that odd, for the Scots are a tough lot. The Scots decided to reinvent themselves and become Britons. One of the last acts of the Scottish Parliament was to create a public school system. The conservative hell-fire Presbyterians wanted everyone to read the Bible, but that can’t happen unless everyone can read--and that included women. Only recently (1880s) has England begun to catch-up with the learning system Scotland has had since the early 1700s. Scotland had Britain’s first lending library. Now even the most common people were reading more than just the Bible.

Scotland had the first college professor to teach classes in the vernacular instead of Latin. Colleges were now open to all. The middle-class were now making up most of the universities student body. That wouldn’t happen until the late 1800s in England. Scotland started the first High Schools.

The Scottish Enlightenment practically invented the social sciences, economics and the modern study of history. Unlike the French Enlightenment whose philosophers entertained the nobility, the Scottish philosophers educated the masses. Is it any wonder the Encyclopedia Britannica was a Scottish invention? Meant to be the last word on everything, it was setup to grow and adapt and so has survived into the 27th century.

The more practical Scots took their new knowledge out of the classroom and into the world. Many became wealthy as merchants, using new and more efficient systems for transacting business. They bought directly from the tobacco growers of Virginia and then sold it to the rest of Europe, controlling most of the market. They did the same with other commodities brought from all over the world.

In 1763 the Scotsman, James Watt, perfected the steam engine laying the foundation for the Industrial Age. Glasgow made good use of it, becoming one of the Victorian Age’s leading manufacturers. She is called the Second Great City of the Empire.

One could argue it was the Scots that built the British Empire, not only as merchants, exporters and soldiers, but also as settlers and explorers. Scottish names pop-up continually in the history of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, even Singapore and India. Rivers, mountains, cities, even the Antarctic’s Ross Ice Shelf, bear the name of Scottish explorers.

Sir John MacDonald

Canada’s first Prime Minister (Sir John MacDonald) was born in Scotland. Her first female Prime Minister (Kim Campbell) is also Scottish. New Zealand and Australia have also had Scottish Prime Ministers (not to mention the UK itself.). At least twenty-three of the American president’s are of Scottish descent--and even an Cherokee Indian Chief (John Ross)!

Francis Hutcheson

One could argue the Scots invented America! In 1740 Francis Hutcheson argued for a right of colonial resistance to tyranny. He wasn’t the only Scottish philosopher stating that people had the right to govern themselves. A large portion of Americans at that time were Scottish and more than willing to fight the House of Hanover that had replaced the Scottish House of Stewart.

Scottish?

Even Uncle Sam is of Scottish descent! Samuel Wilson, the son of Scottish immigrants, supplied meat to the American troops in the War of 1812. He stamped his barrels “U.S.” and the soldiers joked that U.S. stood for Uncle Sam. The joke stuck to anything marked U.S. and Uncle Sam evolved into an icon for America.

I could go on and on as to the inventors, writers, thinkers, leaders, etc. that are Scottish born or of Scottish descent. How could so many brilliant people come from this gloomy corner of the world? So forget the stereo-types of tight-fisted dour haggis eaters. Some could argue it was the Scots who invented the Victorian Age. They certainly had a strong hand in it.

List of Famous Scots

Scottish Americans
Scottish Canadians
Scottish Australians
Scottish New Zealanders

1890 map of Scotland, showing the railways
(click to enlarge)

The Men Who Really Built Singapore

2011-07-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

Friday, 8 July 1887 - Singapore

Rickshaws only came to Singapore recently, but they are everywhere. There are hundreds of them. Soon there will be thousands. All the tourists want to ride in them for they are so exotic. Locals use them because they are so cheap. For three cents per half mile, a rickshaw will take you anywhere in town at five miles an hour. That’s about a fifth of what a hackney cab costs.

Ricjkshaws seem very quaint until you take a closer look at the poor chap who is pulling you. Not only are they dragging a small carriage with one or two passengers, they are obliged to do this at a fast trot in sweltering heat.. Most rickshaw runners cover 20 to 30 miles a day. That’s the average endurance for a horse!

At night the runners go to a dark crowded tenements, eat a bowl of rice and try to get some sleep. Some just sleep in their rickshaws. Opium use is common to deaden the pain as the labor takes it’s toll on their bodies and souls. They look old beyond their years, dieing before their time.

Who would want a job like this? Only someone desperate enough. Almost all the rickshaw runners are Chinese coolies. These are poor peasants coming to Singapore to escape crushing poverty, only to find it has followed them. Many are indentured, having to pay back, with high interest, the recruiters that paid for their passage. Coolies work the hard jobs no one else wants. Besides pulling rickshaws, they work on plantations, carry bags on their backs to load ships, toll in mines or dig ditches.

The Chinese are the largest minority group in Singapore. In fact they are so large, they make up 70% of the population. I know, mathematically they are the majority, but socially they are treated as a minority. Some lucky ones are doing well, a few are quite wealthy with high standing in the city. Most are very poor.

For much of its history, China has been a wealthy and powerful nation. However the nineteenth century probably marked its lowest ebb. It is now a poor country racked with famine, plague, wars and rebellions. Things are so bad, it’s hard to believe it will be a world power again in a hundred years.

Singpore's Chinatown
(much nicer than the one currently in San Francisco)

And so the Chinese come to Singapore’s Chinatown and try to find people from their own districts. We think of China as a country, but it is really an Empire made up of many cultures, each with its own language. Looks can be deceiving. Chinese immigrants all look the same, because they are forced by the Qing Dynasty to wear the Manchu queue and dress in Manchu fashion. While the system of writing has been generalized, language has not. Right now Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese are the most common languages in Singapore. English is often a second language, not only so they can speak with the British in charge, but so they can talk with each other.

Add to this mix the Peranakan, the first Chinese to Singapore. They have been in this area since late 1400s. They intermarried with the native Malay and have a culture that mixes the two groups. Most of these are merchants and are doing well. They do try to help their brethren from a country they have long forgotten, but the need is too great for simple acts of charity.

William Pickering

Ten years ago the British Colonists set up William A. Pickering as the Chinese Protectorate in an effort to help these people. He has been fighting to stop the human rights violations of the coolie trade and to help the Chinese community. There are also missionaries trying to give aid to the poor. Even so, it’s not enough.

To their credit, the British have treated the Chinese workers better than most countries. The Chinese are allowed to manage affairs in Chinatown for the most part. Unlike San Francisco, that has confined thousands of Chinese into just a few blocks, this Chinatown is allowed to expand. And unlike Seattle, Singapore officials will not drive the Chinese out of town. Even in the next century when Singapore begins to chafe under Colonial Rule, Britain will be looked upon not as an evil tyrant, but more like an over-bearing patriarch who insists on running everything and is getting too senile to do so.

Soon the children’s children of these coolies will be the middle-class backbone of one of the wealthiest nations in the world. But that is not the reality now. Now life is one of unending drudgery and suffering for these people as they build Singapore.

I decided I would ride in the rickshaws. The runners beg passersby to allow them to drag them about, for no passengers means no dinner. I wish I could toss them a guinea, but I’m not allowed to give charity without risking losing my Time Travel License. Even a shilling could possibly change the life of a coolie and somehow change history. (Like some poor chap getting a foot up would set time on its ear.)

I was warned at the hotel to be careful that the rickshaw runners didn’t cheat me. They try to tell you it’s seven cents a mile instead of six, or tell you they took you over mile when it was only three-quarters. Like I’m going to worry about being cheated out of a couple of pennies.

So when I ride a rickshaw I try to act just haughty enough that they feel obligated to take the snooty elitist for a few cents, but not mean enough to ruin their day. It’s the least I’m allowed to do for these men treated as beasts of burden.

And more importantly I want to be able to show their descendants what their ancestors went through so their children could have a better life.

The Good Shepherd

2011-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 3 July 1887 - Singapore

Today I visited the Church of the Good Shepherd on Brass Bassa Road. Built in 1847 it was the first Catholic Church in Singapore, but is no longer the only one. I was here to record Good Shepherd while it is still a church. Next year it will be made a Cathedral.

Right now most Christians in Singapore are Catholics. That will change in the next century when most will be Protestant. I expected the church to be full of Europeans but was surprised to see mostly Asians. I assumed these were all new converts and that the missionaries had been very busy.

After the service I admired the lovely statue of Jesus with a shepherd’s crook and a lost lamb carried on his shoulders. I then noticed an elderly gentleman of Chinese descent in a suit beside me. Obviously one of the prosperous merchants.

“Very nice statue,” I said to be polite. I nodded and turned to leave.

“Yes, most don’t understand the significance of it.” Except for a slight accent, his English was as good as mine.

“It’s Jesus Christ as the savior of lost souls, isn’t it?”

“It’s shepherds laying down their lives for their flocks.”

“Then it’s a symbol of the Crucifixion?”

“It’s a symbol of the martyr Father Laurent-Marie-Joseph Imbert.” Tan said patiently.

“I never heard of that saint. Why did the church of Singapore pick this Imbert chap?”

“He was the first priest to give mass in Singapore.”

“This Father Imbert was martyred here?” I found that difficult to believe.

“No, if he had stayed here he could have died of old age. The British and the people of Singapore tolerate other faiths. We may not agree with each other, but we live and let live.”

I introduced myself to this gentleman who seemed quite interesting. He introduced himself as Tan Po Chan. “Please,” I said, “If you don’t mind, tell me about this Father Imbert.”

Mr. Tan sat down and proceeded to tell me about the history of the Catholics in this corner of the world. Tan’s own family was from the Peranakan, the Chinese merchants that settled along the Malaccan Straits centuries ago. His family had been Catholic for generations. The first missionary, St. Frances Xaviar, came here in the 1500s. Other missionaries followed over the years to continue Francis Xaviar’s work.

One of these was Laurent-Marie-Joseph Imbert who left France in 1820 to work in China. On his way he stopped in the newly founded city of Singapore to access the needs of the town and send back a report. He is believed to have also given the first mass here.

He reached China and did so well he was promoted to Vicar Apostolic of Korea and Titular Bishop of Capsa in 1836. The interesting thing about Korea is that the first missionaries were Koreans. They read a Catechism written by a Jesuit priest in Beijing and wanted to know more. One brave chap went to China to be baptized and came back to spread the faith. We may never know his name, because he had to do this all in secret.

Korea was a closed country and did not allow any contact with foreigners without the permission of the government. Alien ideas like Christianity were suspect and illegal. Despite that the Christian community was growing and needed a Bishop.

Imbert knew going in that this was dangerous work. Yet he felt he couldn’t ignore the Korean Christians. He had to sneak across the border and attend his flock in secret.

By 1839 the Korean authorities discovered Imbert’s work. He surrendered to them, not wanting to endanger any of his parishioners. He was taken to Seoul and tortured for the whereabouts of other foreign missionaries.

Believing that the converts would be spared if all the missionaries surrendered, Bishop Imbert sent Fathers Pierre-Philibert Maubant and Jacques-Honoré Chastan the following message: “In desperate circumstances, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” Maubant and Chastan did just that.

This time all three were tortured for three days for the whereabouts of their converts. They refused to break. and were beheaded. They were not the only ones. It is estimated 10,000 Christians were martyred in Korea this (the 19th) century. Luckily that has recently stopped.

When Singapore heard of the fate of Bishop Imbert, they resolved to name the church they were planning in his honor. Since he was not an official saint, they named the church “Good Shepherd” in reference to his message to the other missionaries.

I later checked my historic records and discovered that Laurent-Marie-Joseph Imbert would be made a saint in 1984, along with 103 other martyrs from these bloody persecutions. Although Imbert was canonized in Seoul, the church here in Singapore, named in his honor, will hold his relics.

I think any priest willing to die to try to protect his flock is indeed a saint by any definition.

Raffles' "Little Child"

2011-06-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 21 June 1887 - Singapore

Singapore has a unique history. It was a British Colony, but the majority of colonists were not Europeans, as in Australia or Canada, but Asians. It was from the start one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the world. And from its start it was also one of the fastest growing. It is a city that will become a nation because of its uniqueness.

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

In 1818, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Governor of Bencoolen on western Sumatra, convinced his bosses at the East Indian Company, that Britain needed a new base in the region. All the other ports were controlled by the Dutch, who levied high tariffs on the British, who were forced to sail through the Strait of Melaka to get from India to China.

After studying several maps, Raffles decided the island off the southern tip of Malaya would be perfect. Singapore Island was about half-way between India and China, and centrally located in Southeast Asia. Most importantly the Dutch had ignored it. For that matter so had the Sultan of Johar who supposedly owned it.

In 1819 Raffles landed on the southern end of Singapore Island to find a tiny fishing village at the mouth of a river. The rest was thick jungle. However he knew that there had once been a port here, named Singapura (Sanskrit for “Lion City.”) Nothing was left after the Portuguese had destroyed it two hundred years before. This was indeed the perfect site for a port.

Map of Singapore (sorry it's in German)

Raffles asked the Sultan of Johar, Tengku Rahman, for permission to settle on the island. The Sultan, not wanting to anger the Dutch, refused. Raffles knew all the local gossip. Tengku Rahman’s eldest brother, Tengku Hussein, was living in exile. Their father had died when the eldest brother was away, and the youngest took the opportunity to seize power. After all, daddy had failed to name his heir.

Raffles smuggled Tengku Hussein into Singapore and offered to recognize him as the true Sultan of Johar and ruler of Malay if he would give the British permission to set up a trading post. He would also pay him a yearly rent. Tengku Hussein signed the treaty and became Sultan of Johar. Better a puppet king, than no kingdom at all.

As for the natives, Temenggong Abdu'r Rahman, the local leader, had helped Raffles with his plan. He had heard tales of Singapore’s glorious past, and was not adverse to seeing it again. He had also been promised a yearly stipend.

Singapore was not to be some quick and dirty temporary outpost. Raffles had great plans for her. He envisioned a prosperous, modern city. His first order was that this was to be a free port--no tariffs, no taxes and open to all.

Raffles had to return to Bencoolen. He left Major William Farquhar in charge. Farquhar took the idea of free port a bit too far, ignoring slave markets, gambling, opium dens, cock fighting and brothels. He did however tax the illegal operations by having them buy “licenses.”

When Raffles returned in 1822 he was happy to see population was over 5,000. Merchants had flocked from all over with the promise of free trade. He was also unhappy to see the how wild and wooly the place had become. Stabbings in the street were common. The police could do little to stop it, since they were usually the first victims. Raffles fired Farquhar and set about cleaning up the place. He called Singapore his “Little Child” and took her best interests to heart.

From the very beginning Malay culture was to be respected as were those of any colonists as long as their customs "shall not be contrary to reason, justice or humanity." Just about every conceivable religion has had a place of worship here from early on. Tolerance is the key word.

I think if you walk around Singapore long enough, you will run into just about every nationality in the world. Malayans now come in third, out numbered by the Chinese and Indians. Even among them you have various cultures. But everyone buries their differences. The British cooperate with the “uncivilized,” the Chinese with the “barbarians,” the Muslims with the “infidels,” and the Hindus with the “casteless.” And all because tolerance and cooperation is good for commerce, and commerce is the foundation of Singapore.

In 1867 Singapore became unhappy with the East Indian Company, who was having problems running a city that had grown to over 82,000. So it became a Crown Colony. Instead of being run by accountants, graduates of Oxford and Cambridge now took the reins. They learned to read and write Chinese to better serve their wards.

Most civil service jobs are filled by Indians, already acquainted with the British way of doing things, or Peranakan Chinese. The Peranakans are merchants that have spent generations in Malay before Singapore was even a glimmer in Raffle’s eye. They are educated and adaptable, and seem to like the British way of doing things.

Raffles Square, Singapore

Then in 1869, things really took off. The Suez Canal was opened, taking 5,000 miles off the trip from Europe. Singapore became one of the largest ports in the world. I’m not sure what the population is in 1887, but I do know it will be 181,602 in 1891.

In 1963, Singapore will leave the British Empire, and again join with Malaya. Two years later they will separate. It will become evident Singapore is already becoming a totally separate culture that will have little in common with Malaya. In less than 30 years after Independence Singapore will go from being a third world country to becoming a modern, wealthy nation.

How did they do it? By following Raffles dream. Of course they updated it a bit but they stayed on the same path of tolerance and commerce.

Which is why the University of Singapore has sent me here. They are not ashamed of their colonial roots, but rather proud of them. Why not? The Asian colonists had as much a hand in building Singapore as the British, maybe more. Some of the colonial buildings will be saved even as the island will become covered with skyscrapers. And Raffles is still venerated as their Founding Father. I have been sent here to cover the unveiling of his statue, next Monday, the 27th of June, 1887. I came early to get a lay of the city.

If Raffles could jump ahead even the 200 years he had hoped his city would survive, he would be shocked by all the skyscrapers and the end of the British Empire. But I don’t think he would be disappointed with his “Little Child.” She grew up to do her “daddy” proud.

Singapore about 200 years after its founding

What I Had For Lunch

2011-06-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

20 June 2658

I am “over the pond” on my way to the Bohemia, New York and the Institute of Time Travel, mulling over today’s events. I don’t know if I should even put this on my blog--it’s all too embarrassing. But perhaps I should as a warning to all professionals who get caught up in their work too much.

I returned last Thursday from 1891 and the French Riviera, spent Friday at the University of Monaco, and then Saturday at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis. Sunday I got up early and went to my office at the History Faculty Building to do paperwork. I had to have the custodian let me in since the building was closed. I for once was grateful that my office did not have a window, for it was such a lovely day outside, perfect for punting on the Cam River that runs through the campus.

Punting on the Cam

I was in such a rush today because I had to give a lecture in the morning and then I was off to Long Island where I had a time machine to catch. The lecture went well. However, I got a real dressing down from one of the attendees afterwards.

Usually after a lecture, people will come up and ask me questions, or just want a closer look at my frock coat. It was after these curious folks had left that a menacing figure stepped from the shadows.

“Wendell Abercrombie Howe!” the irate tigress growled. “I have to attend one of your bloody lectures just to see you?”

“Mum?” I sometimes think mothers only give us middle names so they use them against us when they are mad.

She came at me shaking her finger like it was a pistol. “I swear Wendell, I wish I could toss you over my knee and give up a spanking, or at least make you go stand in the corner.”

I looked about nervously hoping no one was witnessing this. “W-w-what d-did I-I do?”

“Why didn’t you come visit us or at least call yesterday?”

“I’m sorry. I was just in a hurry to all my work done and get ready for my next project. I’m expected at the Institute this afternoon.”

“Expected by who? Queen Victoria the first?”

“Of course not. I would never be allowed in Her Majesty’s presence, although I have had tea with Queen Victoria the fifth not long ago.”

Mum did not look impressed. “But you couldn’t have tea with your own father? We waited all day for you.”

“You were expecting me? I didn’t say I was coming.”

“No, we just assumed you would at least call on Father’s Day.”

“Father’s Day? Yesterday was Father’s Day?” I felt sick.

“Yes, Wendell. You are usually in the past on Father’s Day, but this year you had no excuse.”

“No, I don’t, except I lose all track of time in this business. Last account I had it was early September 1891. No wonder you want to beat me. I am so sorry, Mum.”

“Your father didn’t say anything, but I know he was hurt. You are his only child after all. The old Wendell--our Wendell--would never forget Father’s Day.”

Poor Mum. She and the rest of the family never got over losing their Wendell to some stuffy Victorian caricature. Ingraining is always hard on the families of temporal anthropologists. Many families wash their hands of us and treat us as though we were dead. As for us, the person we once were feels more like a reincarnation from a previous life, rather than this one. With the carefully regulated low birthrate, and so many of us being only children, this has got to be hard on our families.

I felt the urge to throw myself at her feet and beat my head on the ground, but Victorian restrain would never allow it. I reached out and took her hand and held it in both of mine. “Dearest mother, please forgive me. I wish I had a time machine of my own, I would go back to yesterday and make this right.”

I felt especially guilty that I had taken a break and treated myself to a bicycle ride yesterday. I could have spent that time with my father. Truth was I rode about the oldest parts of the campus, pretending I was back in the 19th century.

“Why are you in such a hurry to get back into the past, Wendell? Can’t you take a couple of days off?”

“To be honest, Mother, I don’t feel comfortable in the 27th century anymore. I haven’t for a very, very long time. The 19th century is home now. It’s where I belong.”

“I know, and it scares me.” Then she forced a smile. “Your family has been history professors for generations now. Military families, back when they had wars, expected to lose sons to battles. The Howes have lost a son to History.”

I almost argued with her, then realized she was right. “Hopefully not completely. Please tell me how to make this right? Perhaps I could manage lunch today. I’ll send my luggage on ahead with the documentation.” The Institute of Time Travel insists on going through all our luggage to make sure we don’t take anything out of period. I try to buy as much as possible in the Field and keep careful records of the when and where I bought an item to prove to the twits at the Institute that they indeed had things like umbrellas and teapots in 1887.

Mum called Dad and made arrangements for lunch. We met at the local Curry Shop. They had vindaloo for lunch. I ate humble pie.

314 Asteroids as of Last Night

2011-06-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 2 September 1891 - Nice, France

Nice Observatory in Nice, France

Last night I visited the Nice Observatory high above the city atop Mount Gros. It is privately funded and was started by the banker Raphaël Bischoffsheim. Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame, designed the main dome. This is one of the highest observatories in the world and also has one of the largest telescopes.

Nice Observatory's very nice telescope

Henri Perrotin
also known as Joseph Perrotin

I really came to meet the astronomers here. Henri Joseph Anastase Perrotin, now the director, is famous for his observations of Mars, as well as discovering six asteroids. He has two assistants, both twenty-seven years old.

Stephanie Javelle he has been here since 1888 and will observe 1431 objects, 95% of which are new. He will also serve as inspiration for H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. In 1894 he will report seeing a strange light on Mars. We aren’t sure what it was, but it lit a fire under Wells imagination. He will name one of the characters in the novel “Lavelle” and no one believes that was a coincidence.

Perrotin’s six asteroids are impressive, but his second assistant has discovered six asteroids so far this year! In fact number six was last night--asteroid 314 Rosalia. That makes twenty-one asteroids for Auguste Charlois since he started working here in 1887. In 1893 he will discover a whopping twenty-four.

Just this year the observatory has started using astrophotograhy that allows more objects to be seen than could be found with the naked eye. (Sounds like Charlois was doing pretty well with just his naked eye.) It’s a technique perfected very recently by Max Wolf at the University of Heidelberg.

Charlois and Wolf are in competition to see who can find the most asteroids. Charlois is way ahead right now. He will eventually find ninety-nine asteroids in all. It would have been one hundred but 433 Eros was discovered the same night by Carl Gustave Witt who announced it to the press first. Hard to say who really found it first. But Witt only found two asteroids, so we will let him have Eros.

Eros

Wolf will eventually beat Charlois with two hundred finds, but Wolf will outlive him by twenty-two years. In 1910, when Charlois was only forty-six, he will be murdered by his former brother-in-law who was angry that he remarried. Odd thing to murder someone for, if you ask me. Murder seldom makes much sense. The scoundrel will be shipped off to New Caledonia for a life of hard labor.

But Charlois is only twenty-seven now, and a rising star among astronomers. (Erm, no pun intended.) I think Perrotin is maybe a smidge jealous (and who can blame him) but Charlois is doing hat tricks for the home team (that’s “hitting home-runs” for you Yanks.) I don’t think Perrotin would want to lose either of these sharp-eyed young men.

I know Charlois will discover four more asteroids this month, but it was still exciting to watch. I will always remember 314 Rosalia as “my” asteroid. All right, I was sitting quietly in the corner being careful not to bother anyone, but I suppose I did help in my small way. I did fetch coffee.

A list of asteroids found between 1801 and 1923.
Notice A. Charlois dominates the 1890s.

Photo of 298 Baptistina

298 Baptistina, discovered just last year, 9 September 1890, by Charlois, is believed to be the largest remnant of a much larger asteroid broken up when a smaller body hit it. One of these chunks fell to Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs! (At least that's the current theory. No temporal anthropologist wants to go back and check it out.)

The Man Who Opened Cannes

2011-06-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 19 August 1891 - Cannes, France

I believe I have mentioned all the British tourists on the French Riviera? The coastal towns are full of villas built by the wealthy of great Britain. Today I visited what was probably the first--villa Eleonore-Louise here in Cannes, France.

Lord Brougham

The villa was built by Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux. Lord Brougham was a prominent politician and served as Lord Chancellor 1830-34 under King William IV and Prime Minister Earl Grey. Lord Brougham supported education, abolition, legal reforms and made Great Britain a better place.

In 1834 he brought his daughter, Eleonore-Louise, to the Riviera after doctors told him to take her to warmer climes. The poor dear was suffering from “consumption,” as tuberculosis was called then. In the 19th century there was no known cure, save rest, fresh air, and sunshine--which occasionally worked.

In truth, Lord Brougham was actually trying to get to Nice, then part of the Italian Riviera. Unfortunately there was a cholera outbreak and his lordship was detained in Cannes, France waiting for the quarantine to be lifted. He fell in love with the little fishing village and decided to bring Italy to it. He bought a large piece of property on the edge of town and built an Italian villa which he named for his daughter.

Villa Eleonore-Louise

Sadly Eleonore died soon after in 1839. Still it is a lovely spot to spend ones last days. Lord Brougham spent the next 30 winters here at this estate. He died here in 1868 at the age of 89 and was buried at the local cemetery.

Now Lord Brougham did more than just build a nice villa. He wrote to the folks back home that he had been “enjoying the delightful climate of Provence, its clear skies and refreshing breezes, while the deep blue of the The Mediterranean stretched before us. The orange groves perfumed the air while the forest behind, ending in the Alps, protected us from the cold winds of the north."

Who could resist such a sales pitch? British aristocrats came to visit his villa. Soon aristocrats all across Europe, all the way to Moscow, began coming to Cannes and the surrounding towns.

Cannes Advertisement

At first people came for their health. I imagine more than one “consumption” victim had asthma rather than tuberculosis. Getting away from the cold, damp and very smoggy British cities would have “cured” them. Soon people were coming just for the pleasure of the area.

The railroad arrived in Cannes in 1863 and things really took off. Hotels sprang up like mushrooms. Wealthy aristocrats built winter villas in droves. Wanting to outdo their neighbors, some were built in the style of Russian Trianons and Indian palaces. Gardeners began to bring exotic foreign plants like mimosa and palm trees. The poor fishing villa was now a prosperous tourist destination.

Cannes Statue to Lord Brougham

Cannes knew who to thank. Soon after Lord Brougham’s death, they erected a statue in the center of town to him. He not only brought in tourists, but helped promote several building projects such as the harbor and the railroad. He is looked upon as a “founding father.” Well, he did “find” Cannes and helped the rest of Europe find her, too.

By the way, the Brougham Carriage was not named in Lord Brougham's honor, like Earl Grey tea was named after Earl Grey. Lord Brougham designed this popular carriage himself that became a model for some early horseless carriages. One of his minor accomplishments.

My Very First Time Trip

2011-05-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the 100th Temporal Tuesday. Hard to imagine. I had only planned on doing one. For this momentous occasion I decided to do something different and tell you about my very first time trip forty-eight years ago.

The year was 2610. I finally got my Time Travel License. I can honestly say it was harder to get than my doctoral degrees in history and anthropology. The Institute of Time Travel insists on both. I don’t know why one needs either. I think it’s just a weeding process so they will have fewer travelers to deal with.

I had already applied to the Association of Temporal Anthropologists. My membership would be official as soon as I made my first trip into the past. I asked University of Cambridge if they would like to sponsor me. To join the Association a Temporal Anthropologist, one must be attached to a university. Being a sentimental lot, we try to get picked up by our old alma maters. Having a T.A. on staff is as prestigious as having a Nobel Prize winner, so any university that can will snatch us up. Cambridge was very eager to have me, for not only was I an alumni, I was also a native of the town. I was the classic local boy makes good.

So, I was all ready for my first trip into the Victorian Age. Whenever possible the Institute likes our first trip to be with an experienced older Temporal Anthropologist to show us the ropes. It’s what we call a Mentor.

Not that I hadn’t been trained, heaven knows. I had spent countless hours being groomed by Victorian re-enactors. I had practically lived in holographic mock-ups from real footage from the past. And there were the “ingraining” sessions at the Institute that I don’t remember much about, which I’m sure is the way they want it. My own family no longer recognized me.

The only Temporal Anthropologist covering the 19th century at the time was Dr. Henry Darrel from the University of Wyoming. Problem was his persona was a working class cowboy, mine was a gentleman scholar. And he had only been a T.A. for five years. Not ideal, but he was better than going it alone.

Sir Albert Leach in his younger days
(Always envied that magnificent mustache!)

Then I got a call from Sir Albert Leach. THE Sir Albert Leach himself! Sir Albert was a pioneer temporal anthropologist back in the old days before one needed a time travel license. He was one of the founders of the Association of Temporal Anthropologists. He had been knighted for his service to historians. The man was a living legend, a national treasure. And Sir Albert Leach was calling me.

I felt like I was fourteen again, the first time I had seen Sir Albert. My Grams Julia, the Victorian literature professor, had taken me to a lecture on campus. Sir Albert Leach presented footage of 1870 Cambridge that he brought back for the University. I was completely enthralled and vowed I would one day be a Temporal Anthropologist just like Sir Albert.

And here I now stood talking to my childhood hero and inspiration like we were old friends. Well, he talked like I was his old friend. I just stammered. Sir Albert asked if I would like him to be my Mentor and take me out on my first outing. He was willing to come out of retirement for me.

I managed to mumble a “yes.” I’m sure the fellow felt he was dealing with an idiot. As I hung up I remembered Dr. Darrel had already promised to mentor me. I called him up and apologized profusely for my rudeness. He just laughed, “Wendell, who do you think called Leach and put the idea in his head?” That is one I still owe the man.

The day came. Sir Albert looked so noble in his black silk top hat and frock coat made by Victorian tailors. He also looked a little frail. He was ancient by that time. A few more years and he would not have been able to make the trip. I fought the urge to kneel and kiss his ring.

Sir Albert gave me an appraising eye, and then smiled. “All right, Dr. Howe--mind if I call you Wendell?--if anyone asks, you are my sister’s son, Wendell Howe, from Cambridge, and this is your first trip to the big city. You will call me 'Uncle Albert' in the field. Understood?”

I nodded nervously.

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, old boy. You will do just fine, even if you aren’t an Oxford man. Besides we will give the natives that story to explain any awkwardness on your part. London is full of gawking tourists.”

London in 1888

My word, did I ever gawk! The minute I stepped out of the time machine into 1888, I was staring about, open mouthed. Every passerby, every object, filled me with wonder. No amount a virtual reality programs can prepare you for the real thing. Here I was in another time with folks long dead.

Fortunately most people didn’t notice me, but one woman frowned back at me as I stared at her.

Sir Albert tipped his hat to her. “Please, excuse my nephew. He’s a little touched in the head.”

She gave him a sympathetic look, and moved on.

“Now my boy,” he said patiently. “It is very rude to stare at strangers in this period, especially at women. They take it as arrogance or even a threat. Next time you find yourself doing that, cast your eyes down and beg their pardon.”

“I already know that. I forgot.” I gave a defeated sigh. “How am I going to remember everything? It’s so overwhelming.”

“You will catch on quickly. A polite tip of the hat or a humble apology can get you out of a lot of social faux pas. ”

“I don’t think I can pass myself off as a gentleman like you, Sir--I mean, Uncle Albert.”

He studied me a moment. “Maybe in time. However, you are going with an upper middle class persona with a large enough inheritance to pursue a life of scholarly interests. Plenty of those now running about with butterfly nets or haunting libraries. I believe some day the term will be ‘geek.’ Yes, I think you can pull that off quite nicely.”

Nowadays I can pull off a “refined gentleman” when I need to, but it is hard work. Quirky bachelor is my forte, perhaps because that’s what I really am. I’ve never been able to match the smooth elegance and sophistication that Sir Albert had. He still is and will always be the greatest temporal anthropologist of all time.

We didn’t have any special project for that trip. This was to be an uneventful dry run. I had only the reproduction clothes I stood in, so we went shopping for a wardrobe and other essentials for me. No question as to whether or not they looked authentic since they were the real thing. I stared at the sleeve of my new suit realizing this had been hand sewn by Victorian tailors, from cloth woven in Victorian mills, from wool grown on Victorian sheep, that had eaten Victorian buttercups! It was all so amazing to me. Even after all these years it still fills me with wonder.

Traffic Jam on London Bridge in 1888

We only stayed a week, but Sir Albert showed me as much as he could. He taught me how to travel by train, what people to avoid, how to sew on a button, how to cross a street with heavy traffic without getting trampled by horses or stepping in something unpleasant--things the Institute had never thought about.

Sir Albert was always patient and kind to me. He also had quite a sense of humour. I began to feel like he really was my uncle. I always knew I could call him any time and ask his advice. I mourned him greatly when he passed away. After all these years I still miss the dear old chap. And I know I can never fill his shoes. Best I can aspire to is to one day fill the pinky of his glove.

On the Edge of the French Riviera

2011-05-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 8 August 1891 - Menton, France

Menton, France (unless you ask the Italians who call it Mentone)

Today I went about as far east you can go on the French Riviera before it becomes the Italian Riveria. Menton is almost on the border. In fact I was told there is a marker not far from here where one can stand so you can brag to the folks back home you were in France and Italy at the same time. One feels like they are already in both countries walking about the streets. The French town has a strong Italian flavor.

Until the 1860s Menton was a sleepy little fishing village surrounded by lemon, orange and olive orchards. Then the tourists discovered it. Now it is filling with villas for the wealthy and hotels for the not so wealthy. Unlike Nice, that is being turned into a poor imitation of Monte Carlo by gamblers, Menton is sticking to it’s tourist roots as a refuge for retirees and invalids sent forth by doctors in London.

Menton is mostly uphill

Menton is built mostly up the mountainside since there is little flat land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Maritime Alps. The town dates back to the middle ages, and I’m told there are prehistoric remains in the area.

I found a room on the west side of the bay at the Hotel des Isles Britanniques or Hotel of the British Isles. I wasn’t surprised to find the clerk spoke English. I have a room overlooking the garden. Sea views cost more. The staff is courteous and the place is clean. I would recommend it to any time travelers passing through.

Hotel of the British Isles

I’m looking forward to exploring this quaint town. I’m hoping to find the villa Queen Victoria stayed in.

The Heart of Monaco

2011-05-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 5 August 1891 - Monaco

I must apologize for being silent these last few days. TimeTweets was a bit dodgy. I think the good techs back home in the 27th cenutry have fixed it.

I have not been idle though. The last couple of days I have been recording Monaco as it looked in 1891. It now seems rather modest, knowing the tall buildings that will one day cover this tiny 3/4 mile nation.

Monaco is technically a city-state so the capital and nation are one and the same. The closest thing the principality has to a capital is the oldest section of the city known as the Rock of Monaco, or Monaco-Ville. It was the original medieval settlement and many of the walls are still here.

Rock of Monaco or Monaco-Ville

The most impressive building is the Prince’s Palace, which began as a fortress in 1191. In 1297 Francois Grimaldi captured it disguised as a monk. Doesn't sound cricket to me. Francois’s family still lives there.

Prince's Palace

In other countries when the royal family wishes to live in a nicer palace, they simply build a new one elsewhere. In Monaco, lacking space, they add a new wing. The resulting castle is a hodge-podge of various periods. They did whitewash the whole affair to give it a more homogenous look. Thanks to the money coming in from the casino across the bay, Charles III has been able to do restorations and a few additions to the ancient building.

On Tuesdays the Prince allows tours of part of the palace. There are frescos and paintings are everywhere. One room has rich red Damask material covers the furniture, as well as the walls.

The tour guide proudly pointed out the Duke of York room. I wondered why they had a room named after an English duke, then found out the poor chap had died there in 1767. No, nothing underhanded. Apparently the Duke was traveling by ship, fell ill and landed at the first port he came to. The Prince of Monaco put him in one of his best rooms, but despite Monaco’s best efforts, the Duke died. King George III of England was quite touched by the act of kindness toward his family. Not a bad ally for a tiny nation.

Close by is the palace is the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-Immaculée (Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.) It is better known as Saint Nicholas Cathedral. I not sure why it has two names. Although the church dates back to 1252, the current structure built on it’s foundations dates back to the late decade.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception
or St. Nicholas Cathedral

The streets in the old section are narrow lanes, the whole place keeping it’s medieval flavor, without the medieval filth. The place is very clean and well paved. Besides government buildings, like the post office, there are shops. I visited them all to get vid.

On the southern and eastern end, on the rocks overlooking the sea, is the Avenue and Garden de St. Martin. Prince Honore V (reigned 1819-1841) carved the road out of solid rock and designed the garden. (Well, actually he had some laborers carve out the road, but he paid for it.)

Avenue and Garden of St. Martin
in the distance Monte Carlo

If one looks over the edge you can see prickly pear cactus clinging to the rocks. It’s said Franciscan monks planted them there to help defend the city from invaders. Yes, I can see where anyone brave enough to scale the cliff would be put off by these vicious plants.

Overlooking the garden is the Convent and College of La Visitation founded in 1673. The sisters abandoned it during the French Revolution. After that it was used as barracks, until 1862 when it was placed at the disposal of the Jesuits. In 1872 they made it an educational establishment. Next century they will turn it into an art museum.

Across from it is an orphanage for a couple of dozen girls. The are no poor houses, though there is an asylum for foreign laborers down on their luck. Poverty seems non-existent in Monaco at this time save for a few unfortunates that fell through the cracks and are given aid.

This is the real Monaco, in contrast to the gaudy, noisy Monte Carlo filled with tourists. I’m glad I am able to show how it looked before the skyscrapers and landfills will change it all. I can see why so many have fallen in love with Monaco.

Monte Carlo Casino, in the distance the Rock of Monaco
(the gaudy part of Monaco overlooking the heart of Monaco)

The Man Who'll Break the Bank at Monte Carlo

2011-05-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

Friday, 31 July 1891 - Monte Carlo, Monaco

There is an ancient saying, “When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade.” So, what happens when they take away your lemons and leave you nothing? Then what do you do?

That is pretty much what happened to Monaco. Monaco was a principality along the Riviera that began in 1215 and has been ruled by the House of Grimaldi since 1297. In 1793 the French Revolutionary army, fighting for independence from the nobility, conquered and took Monaco. (I have absolutely no idea why. I suppose they were just on a roll.)

In 1814, with Emperor Napoleon defeated, Monaco went back to the Grimaldi family and became a protectorate of Sardinia. Remember in my last blog, when the King of Sardinia gave Nice and Savoy to France in 1860 in exchange for helping him become King of Italy? Somehow Monaco wound up as part of the deal, too. Some protector, eh?

France browbeat the House of Grimaldi into selling them 95% of their land, in exchange for which France allowed them to keep their independence. Now Monaco is nothing but a single town clinging to a cliff.

Bright blue shows what Monaco lost
Orange is what they have left

This is where Monaco lost it’s lemons. Most of it’s wealth came from the citrus orchards in it’s farmlands it no longer had. Not to mention Sardinia had been trying to destabilize the country for years, so they could annex it. Monaco found itself the poorest country in Europe.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Monte Carlo Casino was opened. They called it a spa, which did not fool the Pope, who had banned casinos. This made it Europe’s only casino at the time. Everyone from bored aristocrats to fortune hunters flocked into Monte Carlo. In a short time Monaco became so rich it did away with income tax in 1870!

Monte Carlo Casino

Of these fortune hunters, possibly the most famous, and least savory, is an Englishman named Charles Wells. That is why I am here today. Wells was here at the casino when they opened at noon, bragging to the rest of us waiting that he was “going to pull a Jagger.”

Wells was referring to Joseph Jagger. (I would say no relation to the later rock star, Mick Jagger, but apparently they are distant cousins.) Jagger, also English, was the first man to break the bank at Monte Carlo. “Breaking the bank” does not mean winning all the money at the casino, but rather winning all the chips on the table. A black cloth is draped over the table to show it is closed, until more chips can be brought in. Even so, it is no mean feat and almost never happens.

Jagger had a system. It did not involve a rabbit’s foot or not changing his lucky socks. Jagger was an engineer. He made a living knowing how things worked, and decided to figure out how the roulette wheels worked.

In 1873 Jagger went to Monte Carlo. He hired six clerks to watch the six roulette wheels at the Casino, and write down all the numbers. One of the wheels showed a bias for nine numbers, having a slight mechanical imbalance. Jagger put that knowledge to his advantage and bet those numbers on that wheel.

Customers playing roulette in Monte Carlo

After winning considerably over the next three days, the casino started to smell something fishy and began switching the wheels, and then moving the frets. Jagger knew he was beaten, took his £65,000 and went home, never to return. He quit his job at the cotton mill, invested his money in real estate and lived happily (or at least comfortably) ever after.

Now some might say Joseph Jagger cheated, but he was only using logic and did nothing illegal. The same can’t be said of Charles Wells. Rather than coming with his life savings, like Jagger, Wells has brought other folks life savings. He has gotten several chaps to invest in a bogus invention, and plans to invest that ill-gotten £4,000 in the roulette tables.

One of the waiting gamblers, listening to Wells brag, asked him how he planned to pull a Jagger. Wells winked and said he had a plan. He was going to use the Martingale System. I managed not to roll my eyes. This systems is just doubling your bets every time you lose. A rabbit’s foot works better!

No one took Wells seriously. The man is such an obvious loser. But I know for fact he is going to beat Jagger. He will be in the casino until it closes at 11:00 p.m. tonight and will somehow break the bank twelve times in those eleven hours, winning a million francs.

I’m here to record that event as best I can. I can’t hover over him that whole time least I be noticed, so I came yesterday and set up cameras around all the roulette tables. Hopefully no one will notice the “tacks” in the walls. I’m currently took a break for a cup of tea and to post this blog.

Charles Wells

Also unlike Jagger, Wells will return. He’ll come back this following November and repeat this feat, though it will take him three days next time. An army of detectives will be following him, trying to figure out how he is doing it. Turns out it was just one of the most incredible lucky streaks known to man.

The casino will lose a lot of money, but they’ll get it back when Wells comes back a third time next year and loses it all. Wells luck will really run out, for the police will also catch up with him. He will spend the rest of his life as a swindler, living in and out of prisons until he dies in poverty.

Monte Carlo will get something priceless from Wells--publicity! The number of patrons will rise as people pour in from England and elsewhere to repeat Charles Wells feat. He will start a “Gold Rush” for which Monaco will always be grateful.

Next year Fred Gilbert will write a song about Wells. “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” will be sung in Music Halls throughout England, and beyond. Everyone will want to be another Charles Wells.

No, I don’t think any of us really want to be another Charles Wells.

The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo sung by Maurice Peckman

Here’s a free online roulette game. This will show you how quickly you can go broke trying to win. (Don’t worry, it’s pretend money.)

What Does the Father of Italy Have to Do With Nice, France Anyway?

2011-05-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

Monday, 27 July 1891 - Nice, France

Today I visited Place Garibaldi (Garibaldi Square) named for Giuseppe Garibaldi. If you don’t know who Garibaldi is, ask any Italian. He is called the Father of Italy, the military commander most responsible for uniting Italy into one country from a collection of small states.

For that matter ask anyone in 19th century Europe or the New World who Garibaldi is. His life reads like a Victorian adventure novel. (I’m sure he was the model for more than one ripping-yarn hero.)

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Born 1807, the son of a fisherman, Giuseppe Garibaldi started out as a merchant marine captain. He then fell in with the Carbonari revolutionary association who wanted to unify Italy and get rid of Austrian dominance. In 1834, he participated in a failed Mazzinian insurrection in Piedmont, for which he was sentenced to death.

Garibaldi flees to South America and winds up playing a prominent role in the Uruguayan and Brazilian Civil Wars. While in Brazil he meets another brave revolutionary, a lady called Anita--a lioness for this lion. They fight side by side, while making babies on the side. (Yes, they were married.)

In 1848, events came to a boil back home. The First Italian War of Independence is about to start. Death sentence or no death sentence, Garibaldi had to return and join in the fight. While in retreat from one disastrous battle, ever by his side, Anita died carrying their fifth child.

Once again he flees to the New World only this time to Staten Island, New York. He finds it too boring. (Italian Americans will build him a memorial to commemorate his being there anyway.) He heads for Central America. From there he spends a few years sailing the Pacific as a merchant captain.

Victor Emmanual II - King of Italy

Things calmed down enough in Italy for him to return in 1854. He buys half a small island and farms. Then in 1859 The Second Italian War of Independence starts and Garibaldi gathers up a group of 800 volunteers and joins in to kick out the Austrians. His victories and fame were such the man could have taken over Italy himself. But he handed it all over to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont, Savoy, and Sardinia and now King of Italy. Garibaldi wished only to retire on his farm on the Island of Caprera.

Like that would last. One year later he heard about the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States of America and volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln, but only on the condition that the war’s objective be the abolishment of slavery. Lincoln was still waffling on that one.

Just as well. There were still the Papal States to conquer if Italy was to be completely unified. Garibaldi and his volunteers marched on Rome. Unfortunately he forgot to ask the King of Italy, if he was also on board on this one. Big misunderstanding. Garibaldi was captured when he refused to fire on fellow countrymen from the Kingdom of Italy. He was tossed in prison long enough for Italy to save face and to guarantee that Garibaldi would stay put long enough to receive medical attention for the wound in his foot. Victor Emmanuel owed the old boy far too much to really punish him.

Garibaldi was more than ready for the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. (Italy certainly has a lot of War of Independences.) Everyone else called it the Austro-Prussian War where Hanover and other Kingdoms lost their impendence. Italy was hoping to wrest Venice from Austria, so backed Prussia. Prussia won, despite the fact that Italy only won one battle--led by Garibaldi, of course.

The next year Garibaldi once again marched on Rome to wrest the Papal States from the Pope. Once again he forgot to ask the King of Italy for support. Once again he was wounded, this time in the leg. And once again he was imprisoned by the Italian Government long enough for things to die done and then released.

In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Garibaldi rushed to the aid of his Prussian allies. While he was gone, the Italian army captured Rome without him, unifying Italy at last. (You would think they could have waited for him.) After the Second French Empire fell from within, Garibaldi switched sides to back the Third French Republic. (I guess he just liked the new name better.) The Prussian never defeated his Army of Volunteers.

Retiring from the battlefield, Garibaldi fought politicians. In 1879 he founded the "League of Democracy," which advocated universal suffrage, abolition of ecclesiastical property and the emancipation of women. Oh, and somewhere in the midst of all these battles, he wrote at least two novels and an autobiography. I’m not sure if he really got a lot of farming done. He died in 1888, a national hero.

Statue at Place Garibaldi

Now, you are all scratching your heads and wondering what does Garibaldi have to do with the French Riviera? Why did Nice name this square after him in 1870? And why, at this moment, is Nice building a beautiful fountain with his statue on top in that square?

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Father of Italy, was in fact born in Nice. He was very upset to say the least, when Italian politicians traded Nice to France in 1861, for their aid against the Austrians. Other Italians were very upset, too. So upset they took Nice back for awhile in World War II.

The local Italians have a saying: “The Emperor Napoleon made Nice France, but God made it Italy.” It was the local Italians who insisted that the plaza the city kept renaming be named for Garibaldi. Since he was backing the French Republic at the time, the French went along and the name has stuck.

Alexandre Dumas

It’s probably not surprising that Alexandre Dumas, the novelist of The Three Musketeers, wanted to co-author his memoirs. If Giuseppe Garibaldi had never been born, Dumas would have had to invent him.

Women Heroes of World War II

2011-05-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 3 May 2658 - Cambridge, UK

This was a workday for me, doing all those tedious forms the Institute of Time Travel insists we do. I decided to take a Temporal Tuesday break, and go somewhen outside of the Victorian age.

So, I read the delightful book Rosie gave me. Dr. Rose Murphy, from the University of Ohio, is a Temporal Anthropologist studying mid-20th century America. Her first project was working in a ship-building plant during World War II just so she could call herself “Rosie the Riveter.”

The book is the 21st century classic Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue by Kathryn J. Atwood. Yes, I do read things other than Victorian, although not in the past, of course. Wouldn’t want anyone to find a history book of the future. Someone might be tempted to change history.

I must say, it is an brilliant book. In an era full of courageous women, Ms. Atwood tried to give a nice cross section, from movie stars to housewives. The book is divided up into countries, with an introduction telling the general experience of all women in each nation. She begins with Germany and explains how an advanced civilization could have sunk to such barbarism. It’s a warning to us all.

Among these amazing women are:

Marlene Dietrich: The German-born Hollywood actress who entertained in the USO on the front lines. (And found herself suddenly behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge.) What isn’t as well known is she worked with the OSS (predecessor to the CIA). She was America’s “Tokyo Rose” to the German Army, broadcasting to her countrymen, begging them to quit following a madman.

Marlene Dietrich, motion picture actress, autographs the cast on
the leg of Tec 4 Earl E. McFarland at a United States hospital
in Belgium, where she has been entertaining the GIs.
Tuttle, November 24, 1944

Josephine Baker: The poor African-American dancer who became the Toast of Paris. She repaid her adopted country by risking her life for France as a spy.

Maria von Maltzan: The German Countess who hid 60 Jews in Berlin under the very nose of Hitler and the German High Command.

Noor Inayat Khan: The delicate Indian princess who gave up a career as a children’s writer to live in occupied Paris, so she could operate a radio to transmit messages to London for the SOE resistance group.

Andree de Jongh: The Belgian nursing student who established the Comet Line, the escape route from Brussels, Belgium to a British pickup point in Spain. It was 1,200 miles long, mostly through German occupied country. She made the trip 32 times, escorting 118 Allied servicemen trapped behind enemy lines.

Irena Sendler: The Polish social worker who helped rescue 2,500 Jewish children from the infamous Warsaw ghetto.

Diet Eman: The 20-year-old Dutch bank employee who formed a resistance group with her fiancée, serving as a courier to help hide Jews and downed Allied pilots.

Nancy Wake: The New Zealand born journalist turned spy for the British, named “White Mouse” by the Gestapo who could never catch her.

This is only a sampling of these amazing ladies. Few of them were adventurers, just ordinary women thrust into extraordinary circumstances because they couldn't ignore their countrymen.

Nurses of a field hospital who arrived in France via England
and Egypt after three years service.
Parker, August 12, 1944

The book is not your normal dry as dust history book (even I find some of those boring.) The book reads like a series of adventure stories, since that is what they are. Fast paced and keeping you on the edge of your seat, Ms. Atwood gives our heroines the thrilling retelling they all deserve.

I would give anything to encounter any of these fine ladies. Pity the Institute of Time Travel will only allow me into the Victorian Age. Still Women Heroes of World War II made me feel like I had met them all.

Read excerpts from Women Heroes of World War II

Order the hard cover book from Amazon

Order the ebook from Booku

Training the Next Generation of Temporal Anthropologists

2011-05-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Monday, 2 May 2658 - Cambridge, UK

In my last blog I told you would be gone the next few days to take six students working toward becoming a temporal anthropologist into the wilderness to “live in the past” with no modern conveniences.

Now, I’m back from the Yukon. The long weekend went well. Everyone survived the “Deprivation Tank”. It’s what a student nicknamed the cabin years ago. I did not anticipate anyone throwing in the towel this time, but on occasion we have had medical emergencies.

You will remember the six I introduced you to in the last blog. They all showed up wearing clothes from the periods they will be studying. Since the ancient Nubians did not have winter gear, Taharqa Mayardit had to cheat a bit with a wool tunic and fur cape. Brigit Fitzpatrick teased him that he looked more Irish than Kushite since she was wearing a tunic and fur cape herself. Dawn Owhi wore a fringed deer hide dress with a buffalo robe. Ropata Hahona wore a woven Maori cape and Henri Luc Pétaintall cavalier boots and a broad brimmed hat with a plume. Archie Cocker rounded out the group in a Victorian sack suit, bowler and overcoat. I could tell they weren’t completely comfortable with their new outfits yet, but I told them they looked like proper Temporal Anthropologists.

There was still snow on the ground when the hovervan dropped us off in the mountains of the Yukon, so we had to dig our way into the cabin. It was nearly May so the snow was melting. Tarhaqa had not had much experience with snow, and was quite fascinated by the white stuff. It’s a pity the snow was too slushy for a good snowman. He tried making a snowball and only manage an iceball. Thankfully he threw it at a tree instead of my top hat.

I could not have asked for better guests. They were all polite and doing their best to make the most of what had to be to them an uncomfortable situation. My biggest problem was not finding volunteers for chores, but having to divide them up so everyone could get a chance to experience the joy of fetching water or doing dishes. This was all a new adventure for them.

We already had a good store of food and firewood, but everyone wanted to add to it so they could say they chopped wood. After the necessary tasks were done, we had a lot of time to talk. They each told about why they wanted to be temporal anthropologists and what they had already done to prepare. None of them have yet been subjected to the rigorist training the Institute of Time Travel will put them through.

Dawn said she built a real tule hut like her ancestors. She said on the Columbia Basin it got very hot in summer and very cold in winter. The vegetation is just bunch grass, sagebrush and brittle basalt, so the natives there had little to work with. They would make frames out of drift wood and then pile on mats made of tule reeds. In hot weather they would just put the mats on top to create an open sunshade. In the winter they would cover the frame with several layers of mats until it was nice and warm inside.

I pointed out to them all this was a good example of human ingenuity. Remember no matter how primitive people in the past might seem, we are really no more intelligent now, just more technologically advanced. It’s very likely this structure was invented by one woman who came up with this brilliant idea.

Dawn sighed ruefully. “My idea wasn’t so brilliant. I thought maybe I could make a hut to learn to live like my ancestors did. I picked a spot away from all the houses, made a teepee frame and covered it with mats. Of course I had to show it off. I told my family I was going to spend the summer there. All my cousins wanted to join me, and they brought their modern camping gear, their computers, their junk food--I might as well have been sitting in my living room!”

“Maybe when the novelty wears off they will let you have the place to yourself.” I tried to cheer her up.

Archie smiled at Dawn. “At least your family didn’t have a fit. I’ve been trying to learn to shave with a straight razor, but my mother always stops me. She’s afraid I’ll cut my throat.”

“Yes,“ I said. “My mum did the same thing. Wait until you show up one day on their doorstep, and they find their little boy is gone and all they have is a chap from the 19th century.” I looked around the room. “Or someone from the 17th, 8th or 2nd century B.C.”

“Isn’t that suppose to be BCE?” Ropata corrected me.

“They said BC in the 19th, so I do, too. I don’t even own modern clothes. I don’t feel right in anything but Victorian. I feel more at home in the past. You won’t be the same person after you are ingrained into your period of study. Well, deep inside you will be the same person, but your family is going to see this stranger from another time. My Dad’s family does their best to tolerate me, but they usually act a bit uncomfortable around me. As for my Mum’s side, they don’t even speak to me. I’m no longer their Wendell, and they see me as the man who done him in.”

All their eyes got big. They hadn’t considered this possibility.

Henri brought up another problem. “Is it true temporal anthropologists have to be celibate?”

“Only in the field. We aren’t allowed to get involved with anyone in the past, least we change their lives. You can’t even make friends. Think about it. All your close friends have probably left an impression on you. You can’t leave an impression on anyone in the past least you change their life and history.”

“But you can have girlfriends in the present, right?” Henri looked scared.

“Of course, but good luck. It’s hard to maintain a relationship if you are seldom home. I’ve heard of temporal anthropologists getting married and with the right person it can work. But it is never easy. They usually end in divorce.”

“And we can’t take anyone back with us.” Taharqa pointed out.

“No, unless they are licensed time travelers and you are all discovering how difficult that is to get. A few are lucky enough to find a time traveling partner. Once in a while I get to go back with another temporal anthropologist on certain projects. Let me tell you, those rare occasions are a treat, just to have someone you can talk to. It can get very lonely in this line of work. It’s the major cause of burnout.”

They all looked disheartened at that thought. Then Brigit spoke up. “In early Christian Ireland, there were few martyrs killed for the faith. The Irish called them “Red Martyrs” and actually felt jealous of them. So they invented other types of martyrdoms. The one considered the noblest of all was “White Martyrdom.” That meant you had to leave your family and your home to travel to a far away place never to return, all for the sake of God. Aren’t you a bit of a “White Martyr,” Dr. Howe? You’ve given up family and home to bring back the truth for the sake of all of us? Isn’t that what we all will become?”

I looked into those shining green eyes. “That was beautiful, my dear, although I don’t think I rate up their with the saints.” I looked around at all of them “There is one compensation, though. You look in the eyes of someone who has been ingrained to fit ancient Rome or the Aztecs and they should seem alien. But they don’t. Temporal anthropologists may all look so very different, but we aren’t inside. Few people will ever experience what we do--to travel back in time and gaze upon the faces of their ancestors. Temporal Anthropologists are a tight knit group, a brotherhood. You won’t truly be alone.”

They looked at each others clothes and then at their faces and smiled. They were already feeling that, and they weren’t even time travelers yet.

“Just remember, whether you can hang on for fifty year, or get burnt out after five, any information, any artifact, any video you can bring back is a priceless treasure for the entire world. It’s worth the sacrifice.”

I'm Off to the Yukon Again

2011-04-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 27 April 2658

I fear I will be unable to tweet anything for the next four days. I will be bereft of all outside contact with the world. I must apologize ahead of time for ignoring all of you, but it can’t be helped.

You will remember almost two years ago I took a handful of students to the Yukon to stay in a cabin owned by the Association of Temporal Anthropologists to see who could survive for a week living in primitive conditions. (See Annual Temporal Anthropologist Candidate Endurance Test) This year I’m going back with six students who made it past that first hurtle and are now committed to becoming licensed time travelers.

This trip isn’t so much a test as an exercise in living without modern conveniences. The trainees are as follows:

Archibald Cocker - University of Liverpool: You will remember Archie who was the only one who decided to become a Temporal Anthropologist after the Endurance Test I presided over. He wants to study Victorian Britain, too, but from the angle of his working class ancestors. People think I’m brave to go back and live in the 19th century, but you’ll never see me working in a factory or sweeping a chimney. Very brave lad!

Dawn Owhi - Central Washington University: Stella is a Yakama who wants to study the Plateau tribes in the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States of America.

Ropata Hahona - University of Auckland: Ropata wants to live among his Maori ancestors in New Zealand.

Taharqa Mayardit - University of Sudan: Taharqa is interested in the ancient Kush & Meroe Empires.

Henri Luc Pétain - University of Paris: Henri dreams of traveling to 17th century France and seeing “The Sun King.”

Brigit Fitzpatrick - University of Dublin: Brigit wants to carry on the work of the late Brendan MacDonnell, one of the founding members of Association of Temporal Anthropologists. Brendan was studying Dark Age Ireland, and making copies of the lost books of the monastic libraries.

I know none of these scholars will be living in a 19th century cabin when they go out into the Field. As I said this is just to get them use to living without computers and modern plumbing. We are also coming here in spring rather than summer. There will probably still be some snow on the ground, making the conditions even more uncomfortable for them. And we will all be crammed into two rooms with three bunk beds and a cot. Hardly a luxury holiday.

Still I enjoy these type of outings more than the endurance tests since the whiners have all been weeded out. However, it will not be easy for any of them. They are all products of the 27th century after all. This will be a culture shock for them.

The Association could have just as easily sent a historical recreationist along to show the students how to light a wood stove or chop wood, but we send them with an experienced temporal anthropologist. I’m sure they are all dieing to ask me what it’s like in the Field. I plan to have long group discussions so they can ask questions and air fears. I get to play the role of wise elder. (All right, I’ll have to fake the “wise” part.)

Tweet you all next month. I’ll let you know how things went.

Otto von Bismarck - Party Animal

2011-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

26 April 2658

I spent today at Göttingen University delivering all the data and video I collected on my trip back to their fair city in 1865 when they were still part of the Kingdom of Hanover.

Bismarck in soberer days

John Theibault, who follows me on Twitter as @jtheibault asked me if I had visited any sights associated with Otto Von Bismarck. I thought the fellow mad. When was Bismarck in Göttingen? In 1865 Bismarck was the Prime Minister of Prussia, whom Hanover is about to go to war with. All talk I heard of Bismarck back then was all negative.

However, when Dr. Karl Bosch, head of the history department, took me on a tour of modern 27th century Göttingen, he proudly pointed out a stone cottage built into the old city wall in 1459, that he called Bismarckhäuschen.

Bismarckhausen

“Bismarck House?”

“Yes. Otto von Bismarck lived here when he was a student in the 1832.”

“The Otto von Bismarck? The man said to be most responsible for unifying Germany into an empire and then becoming it’s first Chancellor?”

“The very one.”

“Wasn’t he Prussian? Why did he go to college here instead of Berlin?”

Bismarck in wilder days

“He eventually did, but he spent his first year here. Göttingen had such a reputation as a leading university, as it still does. Also I think Bismarck wanted to get away from home. He was seventeen.

“So why did he live here and not on campus?” I asked.

Bosch cleared his throat. “Well, he was seventeen and far from home. He got kicked out of the dorms for overzealous partying.”

“The Iron Chancellor?”

Corps Hannovera House

“He was a teenager then. I understand he was also placed under arrest for ten days in the university jail. That might have been for dueling. He was a indefatigable duelist. He was also a member of the Corps Hannovera Göttingen, a student club devoted the academic fencing. Bismarck was their wildest member.”

“So, there are dozens of memorials all over Germany to Bismarck the statesman and architect of a unified Germany, but you have the only one to Bismarck the party animal?”

Dr. Bosch chuckled at that. “Yes, I guess we do.”

I’m not sure what Otto von Bismarck would have thought of that. I’m sure this was an episode of his life he didn’t want anyone to remember. Perhaps Bismarckhäuschen is Göttingen’s final revenge against the man most responsible for the downfall of the Kingdom of Hanover.

Let that be a lesson to all you college students who spend your academic career partying.

My Night Among the Stars

2011-04-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

30 April 1865 - Göttingen, Hanover

Yesterday I explored Göttinger Wald or Göttingen Forest to the west of town. The spring flowers were everywhere. I got a bit carried away and spent more time than I had planned. The sun was creeping behind the hills, so I headed back to town before it got dark.

I made it out of the forest before nightfall, but not before reaching the Inn I was staying at. I was taking a shortcut across Göttingen University campus when I noticed lights in the window of one of the buildings. Bit odd for a Saturday night for anything other than a dorm. I then recognized the building as the Royal University Observatory.

Royal University Observatory

I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist going up and peering through the window. There was a chap with a teddy bear build dressed in a rumpled coat. He looked up and saw me, but instead of shooing me off, smiled and nodded. He then motioned for me to stay, and left the room.

The front door at the portico opened. “Hallo!” He called.

I went up and introduced myself. I told him I was an English visitor and my German was not “wunderbar.” He just grinned and said his English really “sticken” but I was welcome to butcher his language if I wasn’t opposed to him butchering mine.

Ernst Klinkerfues

He introduced himself as Dr. Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues and I was welcome into his observatory.

“So you are the director?”

Klinkerfues made a face. “No, I guess I’m the assistant. Back in '16 when they finished the observatory, Carl Friedrich Gauss was made the director. By '51, Gauss was getting on in years, so I was hired as his assistant. I had been studying mathematics and astronomy at the University of Marburg, but was able to get my PhD while I worked here.”

“I thought Gauss was an mathematician.”

“Yes, but what good is math if you don’t apply it. He was very interested in astronomy, geophysics, statistics, analysis, gravity, optics--I don’t know what all. A brilliant man. I was privileged to have worked with him. Pity our time together was short.”

“He left?”

“Passed away in ‘55. That’s when they made Weber the director of the observatory.”

“Wilhelm Eduard Weber, the physicist? Yes, I met him. I didn’t know he was an astronomer.”

“He’s not.”

“Then why did they make him Director of Astronomy?”

Klinkerfues shrugged. “University politics, I suppose. I’ve been told I don’t dress well enough. I see no reason to be uncomfortable. And I have a sense of humor they don’t appreciate. I just think a paper should be entertaining as well as informative, so students will read it.”

I looked down at my clothes. I dress more like an absent minded professor than a dandy. I have bachelor written all over me. “I’m a history researcher from Cambridge myself. I suppose if I tried to become Head of the History Department, I would get laughed out of the Board of Directors meeting.”

Klinkerfues nodded. “That’s what happens when you let people who aren’t really part of the academic life make decisions. I don’t think they ever talk to students and other faculty. They just judge you by your cover. Well, I suppose it’s just a title. Weber lets me run the observatory and I’m allowed to live in the east wing. I’m the real astronomer here. By the way, are you interested in astronomy, Dr. Howe?”

“I’m a historian by profession, but who isn’t interested in the stars?”

“Would you like to have a peek through my telescope?”

I spent a couple of hours peering at celestial bodies while my host gave me a lecture on astronomy. My later research on the man showed I was nothing special. Klinkerfues was known for giving lectures to any size audience, even if it was only one student. The man is mad about the stars, and eager to share his passion. He has already discovered six comets and will eventually catalogue 6900 stars.

It was getting late, and I had taken up far too much of Klinkerfues’s time. I thanked him and wished him luck.

I discovered later that he will be made “director of practical astronomy” in 1868. It will be a shallow victory. Director of Theoretical Astronomy will be Ernst Christian Julius Schering, again another mathematician and not an astronomer. He and Klinkerfues did not get along.

I found Klinkerfues to be a friendly and kind--and it breaks my heart to report the end of this wonderful man’s life. Ill-advised financial blunders, losing battles with university politics, failing health and other disappointments will drive the poor fellow to shoot himself in 1884. His memorial will be an asteroid and six comets named in his honor. Most fitting that his name be forever among the stars he loved.

Might Is Not Right

2011-04-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 20 April 1865 - Gottingen, Hanover

My last blog I spoke of the “Gottingen Seven.” These were seven professors here at Gottingen University who publicly protested King Ernestus Augustus’s rewriting the constitution without the approval of Parliament in 1837. All seven were sacked.

The public outcry must have had an effect, for ten years later His Majesty put the constitution back the way it was, and pardoned the Gottingen Seven. In the end I suppose they won. Two of them actually came back to Gottingen, Wilhelm Eduard Weber, the physicist; and George Heinrich August Ewald, orientalist and theologian.

I was able to corner the latter after one of his lectures. He prefers to go by Heinrich Ewald. In fact he introduced himself as Henry Ewald, when he noticed my English accent.

Heinrich Ewald

Ewald is considered one of the greatest Bible scholars of the nineteenth century. His eight volume History of Israel I think is already a classic. His writings are being translated into numerous languages, and he is famous throughout the world. One would never know that on meeting him. He is very down to earth chap.

Ewald is now sixty-one and shows no signs of slowing down. He told me he had visited England three years ago to copy Oxford’s collection of Hebrew manuscripts. He said he always enjoyed his visits to my country.

I asked if I would be too bold to ask about the Gottingen Seven. His soft eyes flashed. “I am not sorry I stood up to that tyrant. His father, King William, had signed the new constitution into law in 1833. Ernestus had no right to revoke it. My only regret was that I had to leave my beloved Gottingen.”

“You are fond of the University?”

“I was born in this town. My father was a weaver here and I was raised here, educated here, wooed and married my wife here. It was elated to teach at the University here. I hope to die here. It broke my heart that I had to leave.”

I can only imagine how he must have felt. I was born in Cambridge, where my family has always lived. Indeed, my DNA shows I had Bell Beaker Folk ancestors living in the Cambridge area.. For years, Harvard (the “other Cambridge” as I call it) has been wooing me to cross the pond, but I could never leave my Cambridge. To be booted from my alma mater would break my heart, too.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“I went to England and spent a year and a half gleaning your two biggest libraries: the Bodleian in Oxford, and the British Museum in London. A year and a half later, the King of Würtemberg invited me Tubingen University to teach. I was grateful to His Majesty but to be honest I was never happy there. Tubingen and I did not always see eye to eye.”

I’ve heard horror stories of college politics. Cambridge has always tried their best to work with me, so I’ve been lucky. Or maybe I’m never around on campus long enough to become a thorn in anyone’s side.

Ewald shrugged. “I will say one thing. I was so unhappy, I buried myself in my studies. I wrote a lot to escape. I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was when Gottingen asked me back in ‘48. I didn’t bear them any ill will. It was the King who fired me, not them, after all. I came back and have been teaching here ever since.”

“So you get along with the staff here?”

“Well, there was that incident in ’56.”

“Oh?”

“Minister von Borries’s policy was unconstitutional, so I protested publicly.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “Another Gottingen Seven?”

“More like Gottingen One. I was the only one that protested. I nearly got fired again. I suppose they didn’t want another incident, so they decided to ignore me.” Ewald looked rather disappointed.

“I’m glad to see you don’t ignore political injustice.”

Ewald smiled. “More than one Biblical prophet got in trouble doing just that. It’s hard to study them and not follow their example.”

King Wilhelm of Prussia
soon to be
Kaiser Wilhelm I, Emperor of Germany

I thanked Professor Ewald and wished him luck. The feisty gent has one last confrontation in him. Next year when Prussia conquers and annexes Hanover, King Wilhelm of Prussia will demand all government officials, including college professors, swear allegiance to him. Only one man will refuse, declaring “Might is not right.” A stronger country did not have the moral right to rule a weaker one by using force. Ewald had sworn allegiance to King George V of Hanover and will not forsake his king for another.

Ewald will be threatened with expulsion, but won’t back down. The Prussian Government will be stuck with a dilemma--how to punish the rebel without looking like the bad guys. They will deprive Ewald of the right to teach in any Prussian school. However, in acknowledgement of his years of service as a teacher and writer, they will give him a pension equal to his current salary--a very generous “punishment.”

Ewald will be allowed to live the rest of his life in his beloved Gottingen. Rather than retiring, he will use his time produce new books as well as revise old ones. He’ll die of a heart attack at 71, working up until the end. I can’t tell him his fate, but I think he would probably be pleased to know he will die in Gottingen doing what he loves.

History of Israel
Third Millennium Library website with links to all eight volumes.

More works by Heinrich Ewald at Internet Archive.

Two Members of the "Gottingen Seven"

2011-04-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 18 April 1865 - Gottingen, Hanover

Original Gottingen University Library

Today I visited the Gottingen University Library. Built in 1734, it predates the opening of the University by three years. It quickly became one of the leading libraries of the world. Currently it’s ranking has dropped due to under-funding. Fortunately the Prussian will rectify that next year when Gottingen University becomes their responsibility. It will again become one of the leading research libraries.

Its most famous librarians were a couple of brothers named Grimm. Jacob and Wilhelm were also professors at the university. They began work here back in 1834.

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm

We think of the Brothers Grimm as children’s writers, like Hans Christian Andersen, but that was hardly the case. They were in fact anthropologists, what we would today call folklorists. Jacob, the more robust one, would go into the countryside collecting folk tales, before the oral traditions disappeared. Little brother Wilhelm, more the story teller, would record them.

They called their collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales). Although Wilhelm, being a devout Christian, cleaned up the earthier elements, many complained the stories were too violent for children. The first edition to render a selection of the tales into something more suitable for youngsters, were the Grimm Brothers themselves, so in essence, they did become children’s writers.

The Brothers also studied linguistics. One of their forgotten works was the first German Dictionary. Unfortunately the chaps never got the chance to finish it, only getting as far a “F” before the Grim Reaper took them. (No pun intended.)

The Göttingen Seven.
Top row: Wilhelm Grimm, Jacob Grimm.
Middle Row: Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht, Friedrich
Christoph Dahlmann, Georg Gottfried Gervinus.
Bottom Row: Wilhelm Eduard Weber,
Heinrich Georg August Ewald.

Here is something else you probably did not know about the Brothers. They were members of a radical group called the “Gottingen Seven.” As I explained in my last blog, Hanover finally got a king of their own in 1837. Not everyone was thrilled with having an interfering king now underfoot. When King Ernest Augustus I came to power, he decided to rewrite the constitution to reflect his own personal values.

Seven Gottingen University professors publicly protested and refused to swear allegiance to the new king. The king fired all of them. Two of them, the Grimm brothers, were given three days to leave the country!

The Gottingen Seven were lauded as heroes by the public. Generations of college students would follow their example, protesting wars and social evils. The Grimms were invited to Berlin, by the King of Prussia, where they lived happily ever after.

Twenty seven years ago was able to meet the Grimm Brothers in 1851 before they died--Wilhelm in 1859 and Jacob in 1863. I needn’t tell you how excited I was to meet these pioneers of anthropology. It was like a fairy tale come true. (Erm--again, no pun intended.)

Download an English translation of the Original Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Volume I and Volume II
(May not be suitable for children)

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The Walt Disney Company currently has a trademark application pending with the US Patent and Trademark Office, for the name "Snow White.” Open letter to Disney

Snow White is an old German tale recorded by the Grimm Brothers in 1812. If they were alive today, would Disney Studios sue them for publishing the fairytale that Walt borrowed? And would these two members of the Gottingen Seven take it lying down?