J.E.B. Stuart Conquered!

In 1855, J.E.B. Stuart met Flora Cooke, the daughter of the commander of the 2nd U.S. Dragoon regiment, Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke. They became engaged in September, less than two months after meeting. Stuart humorously wrote of his rapid courtship in Latin, "Veni, Vidi, Victus sum" (I came, I saw, I was conquered).

Amazon link to: The Civil War Wedding

American Culture at the Paris Exposition

The Cocktail is, perhaps, America’s mot important contribution to the culture of the world. The first cocktail known to history was described in an American periodical of 1816. The American display at the Paris Exposition of 1867 featured a genuine American bar dispensing New World concoctions. Two British critics, Henry Porter and George Roberts, deplored the, “…sensation drinks which have lately traveled across the Atlantic. We will pass the American bar, with its bad brandies and fiery wine, and express gratification at the slight success which, ‘Pick-Me-Up’, ‘Corpse-Reviver’, ‘Chain Lightning’, and the like have had in this country.”

Amazon link to: The Sherlock Holmes Book of Wines and Spirits

Income Tax by the Numbers

No one likes taxes (or death), but here is a little historical context when you are forced to listen to the political rhetoric:

Top income tax rates in the United States:

1913: 77 %

1932: 63 %

1945: 94 %

1963: 90 %

1964: 77 %

1988: 28 %

1991: 31 %

2009: 35 %

The First Woman POW/Medal of Honor Winner

The first woman POW was taken in the Civil War. Union army contract surgeon Dr. Mary E. Walker was captured on April 10, 1864. She was imprisoned in the military prison in Richmond, Virginia known as "Castle Thunder". She was released on August 12, 1864, in a prisoner exchange.

Dr. Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor for her service as a surgeon during the Civil War, “without regard to her own health and safety”. She is the only woman to have received the Medal of Honor. When the criteria for awarding the medal changed in 1917, Dr. Walker’s medal was rescinded along with 900 others. In 1977 the Army Board of Corrections reviewed the case and reversed the 1917 decision, restoring the Medal of Honor to Dr. Walker.

Automobiles by the Numbers

In September 1895, the Duryea brothers established the first American company to manufacture gasoline-driven cars, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. In 1904 the Ford Motor Company produced 1,695 cars, and by 1907 had increased its production to 14,887. America’s love affair with the automobile had begun in earnest and has never stopped, as demonstrated by the fact that by 2006 there were some 251 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S. owned by a population of 298 million. There is now a car for virtually every man, woman and child in America. Overall passenger vehicles have been outnumbering licensed drivers since 1972 at an ever increasing rate. New York City is the only place in the country where more than half of all houselholds do not own a car.

The Civil War “Marrying Craze”

The diaries of hundreds of women of the time attest to the “marrying craze” sweeping the South. "Every girl in Richmond is engaged or about to be”, wrote Phoebe Pember Yates in February 1864. Fear of spinsterhood and natural desire heightened by the immediacy of war led to many unconventional matches, many reflecting the truth of a phrase common to the time, “The blockade don’t keep out babies.”

Things in the North were somewhat better, but single men were still scarce. Mary Livermore wrote, "Wisconsin and Iowa are run by women". Women were doing jobs previously performed by men. Women were in the fields, behind store counters and manning factories. Recuperating soldiers were eagerly sought after.

Slave Weddings

In pre-Civil War America, slave marriages were not recognized in the state codes. No state legislature ever considered encroaching upon a master’s property rights by legalizing slave marriage. Marriage was, “voluntary on the part of the slaves and permissive on that of the master.”

Slave marriages were regulated by whatever laws the owners saw fit to enforce. Some masters arbitrarily assigned husbands to women who had reached the “breeding age”. Ordinarily slaves picked their own mates, but were required to ask the master for permission to marry. Most owners refused to allow slaves to marry away from home. Men who married away from home were frequently absent and thus exposed “to temptations”.

Having obtained the masters consent, the couple might begin living together without further formality, or their masters might pronounce vows. Ceremonies conducted by slave preachers or white clergymen, were not uncommon even for field hands and were customary for the domestic servants. No slave marriage, however, was ever safe from the caprice of the master who could end the marriage by selling one or both of the partners. Thus, a slave preacher in Kentucky united couples in wedlock, “until death or distance do you part.”

Senator Beaten on Floor of the Senate!

Today’s partisan bickering, even a Congressman hooting “You lie” at the President, seems mild compared to some of the political feuds of the past. In 1826, Virginia Senator John Randolph, a bitter opponent of President John Quincy Adams’ “creeping nationalism” made a fiery speech on the floor of the Senate denouncing the President’s foreign policy. Randolph insinuated the Secretary of State, Henry Clay, was a scoundrel. For this insinuation, Clay challenged Senator Randolph to a duel.

Duels among prickly partisan rivals were not unusual in the young republic. Andrew Jackson fought over one hundred duels before becoming President. In those days, if you called the President a liar you were likely to have to back up your words with a sword or a dueling pistol.

One of the most egregious cases of politician on politician violence was the severe beating of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in 1856 by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks on the floor of the Senate. It took Sumner years to fully recover from the beating.

The Confederacy and Inflation

The Confederate treasury could probably have raised more gold and silver from the population if it had embarked on a vigorous policy of taxation rather than trying to finance the war through the issuance of bonds. The Confederate treasury indulged, ultimately, in the perilous device of issuing unsupported paper money. In 1861 the treasury issued $100 million in paper Confederate notes and $100 million in 8 percent Confederate bonds. By 1863 the treasury was pumping out $50 million in notes a month. The Confederate public sensed that there was too much money being issued and that it was becoming progressively more worthless. Wits were soon saying, "An oak leaf will be worth just as much as the promise of the Confederate treasury to pay one dollar."

To increase its hard cash reserves, before loosing the flood of paper money on the country, the Confederate Congress made U.S. silver coins legal tender up to $10, and gave full standing, with fixed values stipulated, to English sovereigns, French Napoleons and Spanish and Mexican doubloons. This helped somewhat, and a small treasury shipment in 1862, for example, was made up of the following coins: 28 Spanish dollars, 24 Spanish quarter dollars, 8 Spanish half dollars, 8 English sovereigns, 3 Napoleons, 385 U.S. half dollars and 988 U.S. quarter dollars.

No halfway measures, however, could make up for the mismatch between revenue and the issuance of currency. Many people hoarded their hard money. Less than a month before the final collapse of the government, the Confederate Congress, seeming to believe that there was an abundance of hard money in private hands, passed a law trying to raise $30 million in gold and silver. Other estimates indicate that there may have been $20 million in U.S. coins remaining in the pockets of Confederate civilians. These coins were hoarded and did not come out except in rare instances. A Richmond editor in 1864 wondered why more copper and nickel coins did not make their appearance, "There must be any quantity of them stored away", he observed.

Alexandria, Virginia 1861-1865

Alexandria and Northern Virginia were the first areas to feel the fury of the Civil War. Alexandria, Virginia was the longest occupied Southern city during the Civil War. The New York Herald war correspondent observed, “Many hamlets and towns have been destroyed during the war, Alexandria has most suffered. It has been in the uninterrupted possession of the Federals. . . . Alexandria is filled with ruined people; they walk as strangers through their ancient streets, and their property is no longer theirs to possess. . . . these things ensued, as the natural results of civil war; and one's sympathies were everywhere enlisted for the poor, the exiled, and the bereaved.”


Amazon link to: Alexandria 1861-1865

Culture as a Social Bridge

The movies were an important cultural bridge, mediating the immigrant’s transition into broader American culture. The movies were a collective experience where diverse groups experienced the same public phenomenon. Going to the movies was a common bridging experience between groups. The movies also allowed immigrants (and especially immigrant women who were very limited in their interactions with people outside of the family and “neighborhood”) to broaden their experience outside of the family and immigrant group. The movies helped immigrants organize exposure to new cultural experiences in their own terms in a benign environment. The movies also served as the catalyst for breaking down traditional immigrant norms among the younger generation who were now exposed to a broader range of options.

Cinema and other forms of mass communications helped to define the public and public opinion. In an earlier time this had been the province of the written word, but emerging technologies made “public spaces” (opinions about common ideas) accessible to virtually everyone. To be a public figure was to be someone who was before the public in a mass communications format. The public person (movie star, commentator, politician) because of his public presence came to define the norms, symbols, and values of the society. The consumption of the products of the mass media constructed the mass public.

The Principles of Scientific Management

The Principles of Scientific Management
By Frederick W. Taylor

The so called notion of “Taylorism” underlined the clash between the norms of largely rural family and community based institutions, and the rigorous, impersonal demands of labor and social discipline imposed by an industrializing America.

Taylors’s work glorifies the notion of labor discipline in the cause of maximum productivity (which he justifies as economically good for both the worker and the employer). The three elements of scientific management are: (1) standardization of tools and processes, (2) selection of the most capable workers, and (3) close supervision of the worker to ensure that the worker executes the previously management approved “one best way” of doing the job. Taylor’s critics decried scientific management for de-humanizing workers, making them nothing more than interchangeable parts in a giant industrial machine.

The emergence of consumerism served to mask the transformation of the worker from person to commodity and tempered resistance to labor discipline.




Amazon link to: The Principles of Scientific Management

Beyond Ethnicity

Beyond Ethnicity
By Werner Solors

Sollors uses American literature/culture to explain the continuous process of revitalization of the concept of Americanism” as new ethnic groups are assimilated into the existing mainstream. As new groups are assimilated they simultaneously modify the very nature of Americanism.

Sollors argues that there are two legitimizing strains in the formation of “Americanism”, one being descent and the other being consent. There is (and always has been) a tension between Americans who feel that they are legitimate Americans by right of birth and descent and those who feel that they are equally legitimate because they have chosen (consented) to be Americans. This tension is reflected in literature and culture. Sollors argues that it is cultural medium that provide a place for mediation between group norms and the socialization of new groups into the codes of American-ness. Sollors argues that the sense of national kinship between Americans is created by a process of cultural mediation. Forms, symbols and language do much to forge national identity. Out of a shared symbolic language ( the acceptance of the symbolic meaning for events) emerges a middle ground for the immigrant between assimilation (complete surrender to the new culture) and ossification (refusal to abandon Old World identification).

Amazon link to: Beyond Ethnicity

Gender and the Politics of History

Gender and the Politics of History
By Joan Wallach Scott
Columbia University Press, 1999

Scott’s book on gender points out the very fragile nature of “how we know what we know.” Scott points to language as the way in which people represent and organize life. Language creates a cosmology upon which people build their values, order their priorities and take action. Napoleon once said that, “a man will die for a bit of ribbon” (a medal), this because he had internalized the symbology of the ribbon. Thus if you change the language (terms of debate) you begin to change the system of values.

Why would you need to change the terms of debate? Scott suggests that history, as it had traditionally been written by men, is a fiction created through implicit processes of differentiation, marginalization, and exclusion. Power relationships determine how the story is told. As new power centers emerge in a society (class, race, gender, ethnicity) alternative views of history emerge. Scott shows the underlying power structure behind the writing of history and implicitly raises the question, “Who owns’ history?” In a homogenous society you have “one” history. In a heterogeneous society you have multiple histories.


Amazon.com link to: Gender and the Politics of History

Cipher Book Reveals Location of Treasure

In the 1940s, Edward Rowe Snow of Marshfield, Massachusetts searched for the treasure of Captain James Turner, “The King of Calf Island”. He didn't have a treasure map, but by a stroke of extraordinary luck Snow came into possession of a 17th century book which proved to be the key to the treasure’s whereabouts. Upon examining the book he found that holes picked out certain letters which spelled out a message, “Gold is due east trees Strong Island Chatham Outer Bar.” When he searched the area, Snow discovered a small metal chest buried just above the high water mark. The chest contained 316 silver coins dating between 1799-1820.

Time Magazine Report of October 15, 1945:


Amazon.com link to: LEGENDS OF PIRATE GOLD