Uncategorized

The Childhood of Meriwether Lewis

Posted by

4

Interesting facts about Meriwether Lewis’ Childhood

• Lewis was named after his mother, whose last name was Meriwether before she married William Lewis.

• A British prisoner of war camp surrounded the Lewis home in Albemarle County, Virginia during the Revolutionary War. Though widowed, Lewis’ mother Lucy knew how to shoot a gun, and she kept British soldiers away from the house.

• Lewis grew up close to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia. Later, the fact that they were neighbors and shared an interest in natural science led Jefferson to make Lewis his personal secretary when he became president.

• Both Lewis’ father and stepfather were officers in the Revolutionary War. After her first husband’s death, Lewis’ mother remarried and the family moved to Georgia. Georgia had even more wooded areas than Virginia. While living in Georgia, Lewis learned to perfect his hunting skills until his mother sent him back to Virginia for school.

• Lewis’ cousin had this to say about Lewis when they went to school together: “He was always remarkable for perseverance…of a martial temper and great steadiness of purpose, self-possession and undaunted courage.” Characteristics like perseverance and courage would later help Lewis when Jefferson sent him and William Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase.

• Because his father died when Lewis was very young, he had more responsibilities than other boys his age. Though he enjoyed school most of the time, he had to stop his formal education so he could take care of the property he inherited as the oldest son. This meant learning to farm from his uncles, and managing the family slaves. Lewis thought he would always be a farmer or maybe a military officer until Jefferson asked him to be his secretary in the Washington, D.C.

• Lewis was a devoted son who wrote often to his mother whenever they were apart. His writing skills would be important when describing plants and other new things he saw during the Lewis and Clark expedition. His later writings were remarkable because he could make really boring topics interesting.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Childhood and Education

Posted by

0

Surprising Facts about Martin Luther King Jr.’s Childhood
and Education

Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, 1964

Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, 1964

  • King’s birth name was not Martin Luther. When he was born in 1929, King was named after his father, Michael King. When King’s father attended a conference for Baptist ministers in Germany, he decided to legally change his name to Martin Luther, and his son’s name was changed to Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Despite growing up during the Depression, King said that his family had enough money. His father, Martin Luther King Sr. was a pastor and his congregation respected him so much that they refused to see their leader’s family go hungry.
  • Although he grew up in the South, King didn’t experience violent racial prejudice. Atlanta offered education for African Americans through black colleges. There were also social bonds formed at church where his father preached. Though blacks and whites didn’t attend the same schools or share seats on buses, Atlanta was one of the few places in the South where both blacks and whites could dream about a better life.
  • King’s father taught him to talk back to whites. One day when the two of them were walking in the street, a policeman called King’s father “boy.” His father turned to the policeman, pointed at his son and said “No, that’s a boy.”
  • Martin Luther King Jr. was smart but didn’t get good grades in school. Even in college, King preferred going parties and dances instead of doing homework.
  • King worried about what white people thought of him. When he decided to attend a seminary in the North, King had white classmates. King admitted that “I was well aware of the typical white stereotype, and for a while I was terribly conscious of trying to avoid identification with it.” The stereotype said that blacks were lazy, stupid, and unclean. At the seminary King’s grades improved and he dressed well. Some people said he was vain.
  • Though he was ahead of his time in other ways, King thought a woman’s place was in the home. When he met his future wife Coretta Scott at school, he made it clear that he wanted her to raise their kids and keep house even though she was smart and politically active in college.

Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

Posted by

0

One hundred and fifty years ago on New Years Day, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln never liked slavery, and he recognized that having slaves gave the southern states advantages in the Civil War. For example, southern slaves worked as cooks or nurses on the sidelines to save soldiers energy for fighting.

In the summer of 1862, Lincoln decided to write an emancipation proclamation. The document declared that any slave in a state that was fighting Union soldiers would be free on January 1, 1863.

Before issuing his proclamation, Lincoln asked his cabinet members to listen to a rough draft. He told them he would use his powers as president in wartime to free slaves who might otherwise help the Union cause. His Secretary of State, William Seward, supported the idea of freeing slaves, but warned Lincoln that the Union army’s losses during the year might influence the public’s opinion. He suggested that the president wait for a battle victory before announcing the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln agreed.

When the South’s General Lee retreated from the North after the battle at Antietam, Lincoln publicly announced his intention to sign the proclamation on January 1, 1863. Some people doubted that he would follow through on his promise, but they were wrong. On the morning of January 1, Lincoln made a major change in the proclamation. Though it still said that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebel southern states “are, and henceforth shall be free,” he added that African Americans could join the Union army. Lincoln knew the Union needed the manpower. In fact, though they served in all black units, between 180,000 and 200,000 black men fought for the Union during the war.

Before he could sign the document, Lincoln and his wife Mary hosted a New Years Day reception at the White House. First government officials mingled with the president, and then the public was invited to stand in a line to shake the president’s hand. Afterwards, Lincoln went back to his office to sign the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln said, “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.” His hands were so stiff after three hours of shaking hands that he waited before signing his name. He said, “If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, ‘He hesitated.’” After a few moments, Lincoln’s hand felt less numb and he put his signature on the historic document.

The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free any slaves right away. It only declared the slaves in the rebel states free—something Lincoln could not enforce in 1863. The document was important because it changed the way people thought about the war. Now soldiers in the Union army were fighting not only to bring the southern states back to the Union, but also to free the slaves.

Peggy Shippen: Benedict Arnold’s Wife

Posted by

0

Growing Up

Peggy Shippen grew up in an upper-middle class family in Philadelphia that didn’t support the American colonies’ complaints about Britain. Her father, Edward Shippen, believed that ordinary citizens could not govern without the upper classes telling them what to do. Her father found himself in a sticky situation when the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to discuss how the colonies should respond to Britain’s taxes on America. For a while, the Shippen family left their home for a place in the country. Peggy resented having to leave her fashionable lifestyle behind. By 1774 she was a teenage girl who was about to make her debut into Philadelphia society, but her father believed it was best to leave so he wouldn’t be forced to take sides in the debate.

The American Revolution

In 1777, the Shippens returned to their family home. The American Revolution had already started, and the British captured Philadelphia. Peggy and other young women flirted with the British officers and enjoyed dances and parties. One observer said, “all the young men are in love with Peggy.” Eventually the British left Philadelphia for New York, and American general Benedict Arnold was appointed as the city’s military governor. The ever-practical Edward Shippen welcomed him. Though he was twenty years older, Arnold soon fell in love with Peggy.

Arnold’s Troubles

Before their marriage, Benedict Arnold had career problems. He was charged with crimes against the army, including treating minor officials with disrespect, using public wagons for private property, and showing favor to Loyalists who disapproved of the revolution.  Arnold felt bitter that Americans did not appreciate his skills or the fact that he was lame as a result of fighting in battle. Though most of the charges were dropped and George Washington offered him a job as his number two general, it was too late. By then, Arnold and his wife were spying for the British.

Partners in Spying

No one knows whether Peggy suggested they hand over information about American troop positions and guns to the British, or whether Arnold was the first to bring it up. Regardless, Peggy and Arnold were complete partners once they committed to spying. In fact, one of Peggy’s former British acquaintances, Major Andre, became the recipient of Arnold’s letters in Britain. While Arnold supplied the military information, Peggy wrote and received the letters. She used a secret code and invisible ink to hide the contents of the letters. Major Andre held the letters up to a flame or poured lemon juice on them to read them. Using these methods, the Arnolds gave the British the information they needed to capture Charlestown, South Carolina.

Discovery of their Plans

As they gained success, Arnold negotiated a price the British were willing to pay for information about the New York fortress West Point. If the British had West Point, they could cut off communication between New England and the Congress at Philadelphia. Arnold asked to command West Point so he could tell the British when to strike. An unsuspecting George Washington gave him the job. In September 1780, a British warship was prepared to attack the fort. Unfortunately for the Arnolds, American soldiers ruined their plan with the capture of Major Andre. When the soldiers searched him, they found papers on him that revealed the plot, but did not mention Peggy’s involvement.

Arnold escaped on a British barge, leaving his wife behind to defend herself. She pretended to be shocked by her husband’s actions and acted hysterically. Luckily for Peggy, few men, including Washington, thought women were smart enough to be good spies. Washington and others also completely bought her act, and even felt sorry for her. Eventually, she rejoined Arnold in London, where she lived on money gained from her war activities.

The American Soldier in World War I

Posted by

0

When the U.S. joined forces with Britain and France against Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1917, it had a small army. Unable to get volunteers to fight in World War I, President Woodrow Wilson instituted the draft so that the army would have more soldiers. In July, a drawing was held to determine which men would go to the warfront. By the end of the day, over 1 million men were chosen to fight. Despite being the largest army in American history, the new recruits didn’t know much about twentieth century warfare.

MACHINE GUNS

New technology led to a new kind of warfare during World War I. During the Civil War, hundreds of men charged toward the enemy in battle. The invention of the quick firing machine gun made traditional warfare impossible. With the use of machine guns, the charging soldiers died within minutes. In order to defend themselves against these weapons, the European armies dug trenches, or holes in the ground, to defend the territory they gained. The trenches got so big that they accommodated both the armies and their supplies. When U.S. soldiers arrived, however, they quickly learned that the trenches and new equipment that were supposed to protect them from bullets also caused problems.

DISEASE

Living in the dirt of the trenches made it impossible for soldiers to keep clean. Without regular baths, disease spread through the army. Parasites, referred to as “the cootie” by soldiers, caused fevers. One soldier described the parasite, “The vermin were about the size and color of small grains until they would gorge themselves on the blood of their victims…It was a standing joke that there was no point in scratching since the little buggers had legs on both sides.” Unsurprisingly, seventy percent of the time that soldiers spent off duty was caused by illness.

POISON GAS

Another hazard for World War I soldiers on both sides was the invention of mustard gas, a poison chemical fired in a shell at the enemy. It was called mustard gas because of its scent. Exposure to mustard gas produced blisters on the skin and lungs. A nurse described the suffering of these soldiers, “[they were] burnt and blistered all over with great mustard-colored blisters, with blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath.” Soldiers exposed to mustard gas often became blind or died.

MUD

In addition to being shot at or gassed, soldiers also died by getting stuck in mud. Much of the western front in France was low-lying land, and rain turned the trenches into pools of mud. Wounded soldiers fell into the mud and drowned. Soldiers also got “trench foot” by standing in the water for hours or days. The soldier’s toes numbed and his foot rotted. To save the soldier’s life, medics amputated, meaning cut off, the foot.

One soldier tried to explain the hazards of World War I this way: “Have you ever fought half madly through days and nights and weeks unwashed, with feverish rests between long hours of agony, while the guns boom…and the bullets zip-zip-zip ceaselessly along the trench edge that is your skyline—and your deathline, too, if you stretch and stand upright?”

Animals in Ancient Egypt

Posted by

0

Maybe you have a pet at home, but did you know that the ancient Egyptians also had pets? Some of their pets were similar to those we have today, while others now live in the wild or in zoos.

Like families today, many ancient Egyptian families had a dog. Most ancient Egyptians owned mutts, but some of their dogs resemble breeds that still exist. On the walls of tombs, wealthier Egyptians sometimes included likenesses of their pets. Some of the dogs seen in tomb reliefs include a breed similar in size and shape to the greyhound, as well as a dog that resembled the dachshund. Ancient Egyptians named their dogs. In English, some of the names translate to “Ebony” or “Good Watcher.” One pharaoh’s dog was named “Cook-pot” because of the dog’s love of food!

Dogs provided loyal companionship and performed useful work like hunting and guarding. Owners with close bonds to their dogs had their bodies mummified after the pets died. The ancient Egyptians believed that by preserving the body of their beloved animal, it could join its owner in the afterlife.

Not all ancient Egyptians liked dogs, however. A dog’s loyalty and obedience was considered a sign of weakness. Cats got respect because they didn’t depend on humans like dogs did and they were more likely to ignore their owners. Like dogs, cats had multiple functions in ancient households. They served as pets but also kept mice and snakes away. Cats were most often portrayed in the tombs of women, though at least one Egyptian prince had a fondness for his cat, which he named “Miss Kitty.” In fact, the prince loved his pet so much that he commissioned an elaborate sarcophagus when she died. The images on the sides of the coffin showed Miss Kitty making offerings to the Egyptian gods.

Contrary to what some early historians believed, ancient Egyptians did not worship their pet cats. Some goddesses could take the shape of a cat, however. The goddess Bast, for example, had the head of a cat. Her cult became especially popular in during ancient Egypt’s decline. At Bast’s shrine, cats roamed freely.

Though they were not as common as cats and dogs, monkeys also became pets in ancient Egypt. Pictures in tombs show monkeys swinging from chairs and playing with children. On occasion, a monkey sat by his owner’s chair, but it’s doubtful that these creatures stayed still for long. Despite their mischievous nature, one pharaoh felt so attached to his pet monkeys that he mummified five of them so he would see them in the next life.

This post is not a complete list of pets of the ancient Egyptians. Some households also had geese as well as younger versions of larger animals such as gazelles. Young children probably played with a wide variety of baby animals until the animals got too large for them to handle.

Halloween and the History of Witches

Posted by

0

Modern depiction of a witch

Modern depiction of a witch

With Halloween approaching, you’ve probably seen witches decorating people’s houses and yards. Maybe you or a friend will dress up as a witch before going trick-or-treating. But do you know how witches became a symbol of Halloween?

In another blog post, I wrote about the festival of Samhain, which represented the start of winter and the New Year for the Celtic people. Celts believed that the dead roamed the earth on Samhain. The Celtic priests, called Druids, told the people that since spirits knew a great deal about the afterlife, predictions for the future would be more accurate on Samhain. The practices of Druid priests, such as predicting the health of the community or figuring out how to cure an illness, were associated with witchcraft.

The Celts did not view witchcraft or witches as evil. That idea came from the early Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Though the Church incorporated some elements of Samhain into a new holiday that honored the dead with prayers (All Saints’ Day), witches were excluded. The word witch meant “wise one,” and the male heads of the Church saw witches’ knowledge of the natural world as a threat to the Church’s authority. As one historian put it, women did not fit into the early Church hierarchy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God in all his forms was referred to as “He.”

To rid the communities of witches, the Church claimed that these women made a pact with the devil and wanted to bring harm to their neighbors. Witch-hunts became popular not only in the Middle Ages but also during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe. Most witch-hunts occurred in areas with political and religious turmoil. Accused witches were either burned at the stake or hanged.

Like their European counterparts, American colonists also viewed witches as evil. Colonists blamed witches for their problems, such as illness or poor a harvest. When teenaged girls in Salem, Massachusetts consulted an African slave to tell their futures, they became frightened and appeared possessed by an evil force. The town’s church leaders accused the slave woman of witchcraft, and other colonists used the hysteria to accuse neighbors they disliked of planting spells that caused illness or other problems. The witch trials in Salem sentenced twenty people to death in 1692.

Salem’s residents, along with most colonists, did not celebrate All Saints’ Day because they were Protestants who didn’t believe in saints. Some aspects of the holiday were preserved, however. For example, New England residents celebrated the harvest in late autumn. The Puritan beliefs in the magic of witches and fortunetelling eventually led to our modern day Halloween celebrations, which prominently feature witches.

Building the White House

Posted by

0

In 1790, the United States Congress decided that a new capital city should be built to accommodate the new federal government. Virginia and Maryland offered land along the Potomac River, but there were no buildings on the site. President George Washington took a personal interest in the planning for the Capital and the President’s House—the place where all future chief executives would live.

After firing the first architect hired to construct the house, Washington agreed to hold a contest for the best design. Ads in the major newspapers stated the requirements for the President’s home and promised payment of $500 to the winner. Though no architecture schools existed in America yet, the design of James Hoban, an Irish immigrant who already designed state buildings in South Carolina, caught Washington’s attention. The design called for a three- story house with stone columns in the front. Other features included large windows and high ceilings.

Washington wanted the home to be grand enough for European rulers to admire it, and he thought Hoban’s plan met that requirement. The President also believed the United States would become a great country, and its leader needed a house that could grow with the increasing power of the nation. “It was always my idea, that the building should be so arranged that only a part of it should be erected for the present, and…to admit of an addition in the future as circumstances might render proper,” Washington later wrote. Hoban’s box-like design with wings that could be expanded later was a perfect match.

The Modern White House

The Modern White House

Though Washington put Hoban in charge of the construction site, he remained so involved with the project that Hoban never made any changes without consulting him. One design element Washington insisted on was that the exterior of the house be made of stone. Though Hoban found just enough stone for a scaled down, two-story version of the original plan at Aquia Creek in Virginia, one problem remained. The sandstone from the creek absorbed water easily, which caused the stone to weaken. Hoban ordered his workers to apply a thick coat of white paint to the exterior walls. As work continued, people living in the area referred to the building as the White House—a nickname that eventually stuck.

By 1796, workers completed the interior walls of the White House. Stonemasons brought in from Scotland hand-carved flowers, medallions, and other decorations around the entrance and windows. Two years later, a roof was added.

The year 1800 was the deadline for the project’s completion. By then, John Adams was President and he moved in with his wife. Despite the grand exterior, the thirty inner rooms of the house were not complete. Abigail Adams wrote “Not one room or chamber is finished of the whole. It is habitable by fires in every part, thirteen of which we are obliged to keep daily, or sleep in wet and damp places.” In a few months, the Adams’ moved out when Thomas Jefferson became President. He and the next occupant, James Madison, made the inner rooms of the White House more comfortable.

Unfortunately, during the War of 1812 British soldiers burned the White House and everything inside was destroyed. A rainstorm helped preserve the exterior of the house, however. James Hoban was summoned to help with the rebuilding process so that the White House would look almost the same as when it was first constructed.

The Great Chicago Fire

Posted by

0

On the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871, a fire started in a barn owned by Chicago residents Patrick and Kate O’Leary. The fire became known as the Great Chicago Fire because of the destruction it caused. You may have heard the legend of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. According to the legend, the cow started the fire by kicking a lantern that Mrs. O’Leary left behind when she finished milking the cow. Yet Mrs. O’Leary claimed she was in bed when the barn caught fire, and even today no evidence exists to dispute her story. No matter how the fire started, in the nineteenth century the city of Chicago was almost destined to burn.

At the time, the city’s population was growing, and contractors built thousands of new buildings. They often put up wooden buildings, which were finished more quickly than those made of materials like stone. Unfortunately, wood also burned quickly—a fact that allowed the fire at the O’Leary barn to spread across the city.

To make matters worse, a fire watchman originally misidentified the fire’s location. Though he tried to correct the mistake, firefighters still went to the wrong place. By the time the firefighters arrived at the barn an hour and a half later, the fire was out of control. Though the fire started west of the Chicago River, winds sent burning debris flying over the river. The flames spread throughout the city.

When the roof of the city’s waterworks collapsed, the water supply was cut off and firefighters brought water in buckets from the river and Lake Michigan. Residents ran for their lives toward Lake Michigan or the prairie west of the city. Ten-year old Fannie Belle Becker remembered, “the heat was so intense that it drove us down to the water’s edge…we sat there until I was almost blind with the dirt and cinders that filled the air.”

Finally, on Monday night rain fell and by the next morning the fire finally stopped. Though grateful that the fire was over, residents who lived through the fire knew it would take time for the city to recover. Jonas Hutchinson, a lawyer, wrote to his mother: “We are in ruins. All the business portion of the city has fallen prey to the fiery fiend. Our magnificent streets for acres and acres lined with elegant structures are a heap of sightless rubbish.”

In addition to the destruction of buildings, the fire took the lives of about 300 people and left about 100,000 people homeless. Other cities sent food and clothing to the needy, though as one survivor noted, “the sufferers are so numerous it is hard to meet their wants.”

Yet the people of Chicago refused to give up on the city. They put up temporary shacks for shelter and set up soup kitchens with donations from other cities.

Chicago business owners like Marshall Field eventually replaced their destroyed buildings with grander and safer ones. Construction workers from across the country came to build new houses for residents. By the end of the century, Chicago hosted millions of visitors during the World’s Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.