InnerBrenner

The Church of England’s First Female Priests

March 12, 2024May 7, 202420th Century, European HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 12, 1994, The Church of England ordained female priests for the first time. The ordination of these 32 women was so controversial that hundreds of male priests and thousands of church members left the church in protest. Despite the exodus, today, approximately 30% of the clergy of the Church of England are women.

In 1992, the General Synod of the Church of England (their governing body), agreed to ordain women to the priesthood of the church for the first time since the church’s birth in the 16^th century. For some church members, the announcement was met with excitement, gratitude, and relief. Angela Berners-Wilson, the first woman ordained as a priest on March 12, 1994, said, “it [is] the greatest privilege to finally be able to live out my calling . . .” Christine Clarke, another woman ordained that day said, “It’s been a long wait, but now there is a sense of everything coming together. There is a feeling that for this I was born. Now we are walking right into the central structure of the church.” The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, George Carey, was known to have said, “It is the humanity of Christ which is important, not his maleness.” While those who attended the ordination at the Bristol cathedral applauded the 32 women who made such an historic leap, there were thousands who left the church over it.

As a result of this ordination, several bishops and approximately 700 priests left the Church of England in favor of the Catholic Church, which still doesn’t ordain women to their priesthood. Thousands of church members followed them feeling that the ordination of women was, as Reverend Malcolm Widdecombe said, “against the tradition of the church and the teaching of Scripture.” To appease those who were unhappy with the change, the Church of England put several restrictions in place. Women could be ordained priests but not bishops (though this changed in 2015). “Traditionalist” bishops were assigned to each area so that those opposed to the ordination of women could have access to them instead.

There are now approximately 6,000 women ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England. Between over the last decade, almost half of new bishops appointed in the church were women. Despite this, female members of clergy continue to face discrimination from other clergy members and parishioners alike. The Church of England has created a group that studies “how women and men experience ministry differently in a range of contexts.”

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Happy Birthday, Barbie!

March 8, 2024May 7, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 9, 1959, Barbara Millicent Roberts was introduced to the world. Arguably the most iconic children’s toy in history, Barbie was an instant success from the day of her release. To date, over one billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide, and Barbie has been featured in art, film, magazines, and television.

Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler, who owned the Mattel toy company with her husband, Elliott and friend, Harold Matson. Ruth’s own daughter, Barbara, enjoyed playing with baby dolls, but as Ruth observed Barbara playing intently with paper dolls featuring adult women, Ruth felt that little girls needed a three-dimensional doll with which they could act out their future dreams. Thus, Barbie was born and named after Ruth’s daughter.

Barbie’s form has been criticized throughout the years for being an unrealistic and inappropriate representation of the female form. Mattel has addressed those concerns over the years; however, Barbie was, from the beginning, a symbol of female empowerment. Barbie broke the mold created by doll manufacturers; she was a career woman. In fact, she has had over 250 careers, including doctor, teacher, ballerina, astronaut, pilot, architect, renewable energy engineer, presidential candidate, and Olympic athlete. Barbie does not have a husband (though since 1961, she’s had boyfriend Ken, except during their breakup from 2004-2011), nor does she have children. She allowed young girls to imagine their lives outside of the traditional role in the family.

Barbie has never left the zeitgeist in the 60 plus years she’s been around, but she was pushed into the global spotlight yet again in 2023 when the movie Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie was released. Barbie was the top grossing movie of 2023, making over $600 million.

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The Boston Massacre: A Step Toward Revolution

March 5, 2024March 5, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 5, 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts, a group of British soldiers fired into a rowdy crowd of colonists. Five men ended up dead, and rage and indignation filled the streets of Boston as rumors abounded and varied accounts of the event were swapped. To this day, historians are unsure of the exact order of events. No one ever did find out who ordered the British soldiers to fire. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the Boston massacre, it is universally agreed upon that this event was a critical step on the road to the American Revolution.

By 1770, tensions were already high in the city of Boston. In 1767, the British Parliament had passed the Townshend Acts, which meant that American colonists had to pay considerable taxes on British goods, such as tea, glass, paint, and paper. The people of Boston chose to protest the purchasing of British goods. Those stores that sold British imports were marked and their owners harassed. On February 22, 1770, during a confrontation with a customs informer, an 11-year-old boy, Christopher Snider, was killed. After his funeral, there were multiple reports of skirmishes between British soldiers and American colonists. These culminated in the Boston Massacre on the night of March 5.

That Monday night, in light of a rumor circulating that British soldiers intended to cut down the Liberty Tree, a Bostonian symbol of rebellion, a group of colonists took to the streets to defend themselves and their town. The group began harassing a soldier posted outside of the customs house. The soldier, Hugh White, struck a colonist with his bayonet, and the colonists responded by throwing rocks and ice at White. White called for reinforcements, and when they arrived, things escalated. British soldiers report having heard a command to “Fire!” though no one ever admitted to have given such an order. Five men were killed as a result: Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr.

In the aftermath, both sides hurried to pin the blame on the other. Revolutionaries took the opportunity to paint the British soldiers as bloodthirsty oppressors. Paul Revere himself engraved a scene that is now printed alongside the story in most history books (and in this post). The scene shows British soldiers instigating the fight and murdering the colonists. The event certainly curried plenty of anti-British sentiment in the city and was key in the organization of the American Revolution.

The British soldiers involved were arrested and stood trial for their part in the deaths of five men. Interestingly enough, the soldiers were represented in court by John Adams, who would go on to become the second president of the United States of America. While Adams didn’t support the British, he felt it important that the soldiers receive a fair trial so that the British government would have no further reason to shed blood in their cities. In the end, seven of the soldiers tried were acquitted and two were convicted of manslaughter, receiving a brand on their thumbs as punishment. One of the soldiers involved, Captain Thomas Preston, wrote of the event, “None of them was a hero. The victims were troublemakers who got more than they deserved. The soldiers were professionals . . . who shouldn’t have panicked. The whole thing shouldn’t have happened.”

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The Peace Corps: Kennedy’s Legacy of Service

March 1, 2024May 7, 20241960s, 20th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order that established the Peace Corps, an organization of volunteers that work in countries around the world addressing agricultural, economic, environmental, educational, and medical problems. Presented as an idea to university students in an impromptu speech, Kennedy formed the organization that would send over 240,000 Americans around the world as harbingers of peace and cooperation.

About six months before its official establishment, during his campaign for the presidency, then-Senator John F. Kennedy visited the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He arrived late, at 2 a.m., but with 10,000 students waiting to greet him, Kennedy gave a short, improvised speech on the steps of the Michigan Union. In it he said:

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend on the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the efforts must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”

In March of the next year, after winning the election and becoming president, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 and established the peace corps, asking his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver to be its first director. The first group of Peace Corps volunteers left in August 1961, headed to Ghana and Tanganyika (presently Tasmania) to provide service. The service was very popular among recent college graduates, and the program grew to 15,500 volunteers by 1966. Since then, over, 240,000 volunteers have served in 141 countries around the world. Today, around 2,400 volunteers are serving with the Peace Corps.

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“MAS*H:” “A Timely Satire”

February 27, 2024May 7, 202420th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 28, 1983, over 106 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch the series finale of the incredibly popular television show “M*A*S*H.” This episode remains the most-watched program (outside of the Super Bowl) of all time. The finale aired after 11 seasons of the show: a situational dramedy about a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. “M*A*S*H” not only broke the mold of television sitcoms, but also, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, addressed antiwar sentiment in a groundbreaking way.

The “M*A*S*H” storyline, based on a movie by the same name that had been released several years prior, featured two surgeons, Captain Benjamin Pierce, played by Alan Alda, and Captain John McIntyre, played by Wayne Rogers. The two, while talented doctors, are consistently caught up in silly hijinks, flirting with the nurses (though today we’d consider much of their flirting harassment), and drinking away the horror of war. The two are supported by a bevy of colorful characters, including the uptight nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan and her side-kick, Major Frank Burns, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, whose shocking death was one of the greatest television blindsides in history, the company clerk Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly, whose uncanny ability to anticipate needs earned him his nickname, and Corporal Max Klinger, who did anything he could think of to earn a medical discharge.

Though the characters were interesting and relatable, it was the commentary on war that captured the hearts and minds of the nation. At the time of the series’ first season in 1972, the U.S. was embroiled in the conflict of the Vietnam War. By this point, antiwar sentiment was high. As James Poniewozik of The New York Times wrote, “the covert operation ‘M*A*S*H*’ pulled off was to deliver a timely satire camouflaged as a period comedy.” The show looked like a sitcom and the laugh track could convince you that’s all it was, but “M*A*S*H’s” ability to lay sitcom lightness on a backdrop of dark, dark war. In doing so, according to Poniewozik, “even the sitcom-standard high jinks—dealing with the black market for medicine, inventing a fictional officer in order to donate his pay to an orphanage—were forms of protest.” CBS executives were unsure about this move. In fact, star Alan Alda remembers that after the season one episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,” in which a friend of Hawkeye’s turns up on the operating table and dies, the network was convinced the show was ruined. Someone from the network said, “What is this, a situation tragedy?” But America loved the drama. And so, the show went on. For ten more years. And, as Alda observed, “the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences . . . the crazy behavior wasn’t just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness.”

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The Vaccine that Eradicated Polio

February 23, 2024February 22, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 23, 1954, the first injections of the polio vaccine were given to a group of children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. The vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, has virtually eradicated polio worldwide over the last 70 years. In 1952, two years before the vaccine was introduced, the U.S. alone had an outbreak of over 58,000 polio cases, which killed 3,000 and paralyzed 21,000 Americans, mostly children. In 2021, only two cases of polio were recorded worldwide.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an extremely contagious virus that causes muscle deterioration and paralysis. In the early 20^th century, polio ran rampant around the world, posing great risk to school-age children, especially. Many who survived the disease were paralyzed, some even saw paralysis of the muscles needed to breathe, leaving them to live inside a large metal tube called an iron lung. In 1921, future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio, which left him paralyzed. While president in the 1940s, President Roosevelt founded an organization called March of Dimes that aimed to raise money to research a cure for polio. It was this organization that hired Dr. Jonas Salk to do research on the disease.

Salk’s research led him to a vaccine that built immunity to polio without actually infecting the patient with the disease. He tested it first on his own family before it was used to inoculate millions of children in the U.S. and Canada. In 1957, annual polio cases in the U.S. had dropped from 58,000 to 5,600. By 1961, there were 161 cases. The polio vaccine had about 90% efficacity against the poliomyelitis virus. Salk knew that with universal vaccination, polio could be completely eliminated from the world. In order to ensure that the vaccine would be available to everyone, Salk did not patent the vaccine nor did he collect money from the production. When asked about who owned the patent, he famously said, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Polio is one of many diseases that has been virtually eradicated thanks to the science of vaccines, including smallpox, measles, and diptheria. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of many of these diseases in the U.S. as anti-intellectualism rises, misinformation abounds, and parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

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Opening the Met

February 20, 2024February 19, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 20, 1872, The Metropolitan Museum of Art officially opened to the public for the first time. Its trustees had spent the last seven years conceptualizing the museum, obtaining funds and permits, and building a collection of interesting artifacts. When the museum opened in a small, leased building in 1872, it contained somewhere around 200 works of art. Now, the Met contains over 1.5 million significant artifacts and works of art. It is one of the most visited museums in the world.

In 1866, a group of American ex-patriates who were living in Paris decided they wanted to open an art gallery in New York. One among them, a lawyer named John Jay, approached the Union League Club of New York for help raising funds and applying for incorporation from the city. On April 13, 1870, the city of New York granted the fledgling enterprise an Act of Incorporation. According to an article published in The Art Journal in 1875, the incorporation was granted “under the title of ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Art,’ to be located in the city of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and Library of Art, for encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and practical life; of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular knowledge and instruction.” In November of that year, the museum purchased its first artifact: a Roman sarcophagus. It was the acquisition the next year that allowed the museum to have enough works to show to the public. In 1871, the museum purchased 174 European paintings whose artists included van Dyck and Tiepolo. In 1872, the museum trustees signed a lease on the Dodworth Building and built out their exhibits.

The opening, according to the museum’s president, John Taylor Johnston, was “a fine turnout of ladies and gentlemen and all were highly pleased. The pictures looked splendid, and compliments were so plenty and strong that I was afraid the mouths of the Trustees would become chronically and permanently fixed in a broad grin.” The museum ran in the Douglas Building until 1873, when a larger space became necessary. It remained opened to the public six days a week with an admission price of .25¢, though Mondays were free. In 1880, the museum moved to its current location in Central Park and there it remains, receiving about 7 million visitors each year.

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The Attempted Assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt

February 16, 2024February 15, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 15, 1933, President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (this was pre-20^th Amendment, so the inauguration would have been in March) was in Miami following a cruise vacation. While there, Roosevelt’s staff planned for him to give a short speech at Bayfront Park before boarding a train to head north. With him at this speech was Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. He intended to meet up with the President-Elect to discuss the possibility of an RFC loan to the city of Chicago. Despite the fact that this was supposed to be a short stop for both men, one of them would not walk away from the encounter.

Following Roosevelt’s speech, he and his security team started moving toward their vehicle. Mayor Cermak approached Roosevelt at this point for their discussion. In this moment, a man named Giuseppe Zangara pulled a pistol from his pocket, took aim at the President-Elect, and began shooting. Zangara didn’t expect that the woman sitting next to him, Mrs. W. H. Cross would grab his arm, deflecting his aim. Regardless, Zangara continued shooting until all six bullets had been spent. Five of the six bullets injured six people, including Mayor Cermak, Robert Clark (one of Roosevelt’s Secret Service agents,) a chauffeur, a retired policeman, Mrs. Joe Gill (there with her husband who was the president of Florida Power and Light Company,) and a night club entertainer.

As the shots rang out, Roosevelt’s security team pushed him into his car and ordered the driver to pull out. Roosevelt told the driver to stop until wounded Cermak could be loaded into his car. Roosevelt later recounted, “. . . we put him in our car. He was alive, but I was afraid he wouldn’t last. I held him all the way.” The car drove to Jackson Memorial Hospital, a place Cermak would never leave. He died from his injuries 19 days after the shooting.

Zangara said he decided to assassinate the president because he hated all people with wealth and power. He also cited a medical condition for his rage. He said that his stomach hurt all the time, and the pain and anger turned to hate, which turned to violence. Zangara was initially charged with attempted murder; however, after Cermak’s death, he was charged with murder and sentenced to death by electric chair.

It is reported that upon arriving at Jackson Memorial, Mayor Cermak said to President-Elect Roosevelt, “I am mighty glad it was me instead of you . . . the country needs you.” As Cermak pointed out, it’s hard to imagine what might have happened if Zangara had been successful that day and Roosevelt hadn’t served his four terms as president.

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“From Your Valentine”

February 13, 2024February 12, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

February 14 is celebrated around the world as Valentine’s Day. Contrary to what some may believe, Valentine’s Day was not invented by greeting card companies or chocolate manufacturers. Valentine’s Day has been celebrated in some form since the days of the Roman Empire.

In the days of the Romans, Valentine’s Day was celebrated as a festival called Lupercalia. It was a festival of fertility in which priests would sacrifice goats and bless both women and fields that they would be fertile that year. It was also a fête of matchmaking. Some historians suggest that the names of young women were put into an urn for eligible bachelors to pick out. The two were then often married. The name of the celebration wasn’t changed until the 5^th century when Pope Gelasius I was ridding the Catholic Church of pagan holidays. He named the day St. Valentine’s Day after the patron saint of lovers.

The namesake for the day was martyred around the year 270. Legend has it that St. Valentine was imprisoned for defying the orders of the emperor and marrying couples to save the husbands from military service. Thus, his holiday centers around a display of love. While imprisoned, St. Valentine fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and passed her a letter he signed “from your Valentine,” beginning the tradition of “Valentines” trading cards with one another. Printed cards began being sold sometime around 1500. Now, trading cards and sweets is incredibly popular in places like the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Korea.

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The Second Red Scare

February 9, 2024February 8, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 9, 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy stood before the Ohio County Republican Women’s Club at McClure Hotel in Wheeling, Ohio, and leveled an accusation at the federal government that led to five years of pointed fingers, paranoia, and ruined careers.

McCarthy began his speech by asserting: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down.” He went on to say, “The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation . . . This is glaringly true in the State Department . . . In my opinion the State Department, which is one of the most important government departments, is thoroughly infested with Communists . . . While I cannot take the time to name all of the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy . . .”

Though his hunt for communists in the federal government made him a controversial character, he was reelected to his seat in 1952 and made the Chair of the Committee on Government Operations. He used this position to investigate hundreds of government employees and their suspected ties to communism. In 1954, he even went so far as to have some of these investigations televised. These were referred to as the “McCarthy Hearings.” During these, McCarthy accused the U.S. Army of employing communists and committing espionage. It was this that finally ended McCarthy’s rampage. Upon accusing U.S. Army lawyer Joseph Welch of hiring communist attorneys, Welch responded, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness . . . Have you no sense of decency?” Upon the airing of this exchange, McCarthy’s support vanished. He was censured by the Senate and died a few years later, in 1957.

History now refers to this period of time as “The Second Red Scare,” (the first taking place in 1917) when McCarthy’s antics caused a surge of paranoia among Americans that caused neighbors and friends to turn against each other. Those who were accused had their lives and careers ruined. To this day, the term “McCarthyism” is used to describe accusations without evidence and unfair methods of investigation.

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