InnerBrenner

January 20

February 6, 2024February 5, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 6, 1933, the 20^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed. The amendment set the date of any Presidential Inauguration to January 20. Previously, new presidents were sworn in on March 4. The amendment is commonly referred to as the “Lame Duck Amendment” because it shortened the time a “lame duck” president (or one who had already lost reelection) would continue serving in office. It reads, “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20^th day of January,” and that has held until today. The only time the inauguration was moved was in 1957, 1985, and 2013, when January 20 fell on a Sunday. In those cases, the oath of office was administered on January 20, and the inauguration ceremony took place on the 21^st.

During the January 20^th inauguration ceremony, the new president addresses the nation for the first time. Below are listed some famous quotes from presidential inaugurations. Do you recognize any of them?

“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

President Abraham Lincoln

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of Liberty. This much we pledge and more.”

President John F. Kennedy

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

President Bill Clinton

“Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.”

President Barack Obama

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What to Read in February

February 2, 2024February 1, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

February saw the births of many an eloquent writer throughout history, including James Joyce, Sinclair Lewis, Kate Chopin, and Toni Morrison. If you’re looking for a classic to read this month, consider the following options from these February-born literary icons:

Dubliners

James Joyce’s Dubliners is an extremely influential collection of short stories, with its final story, “The Dead,” being one of the most famous short stories in history. The collection, as its name suggests, is united by its setting: Dublin, Ireland. Joyce wrote of his collection: “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country, and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life.” The theme of paralysis is central to every story. We watch as characters are blocked by duty, by religious responsibility, and by the burdens of life from obtaining their true desires.

It Can’t Happen Here

The inspiration for Sinclair Lewis’ dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here came from his wife, journalist Dorothy Thompson’s, interview with Adolf Hitler. As Lewis watched Hitler come to power across the Atlantic, he began to ask himself, “what would happen if a Fascist takeover occurred in the U.S.?” As Lewis writes it, in the 1936 election, populist candidate Berzelius Windrip promises to be the champion of the “Forgotten Men,” or working-class white men (sound familiar?). Upon his election, Windrip seizes control of Congress and the Supreme Court. If you’re looking for a novel to heighten your anxiety in an election year, this is it.

The Awakening

Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is an essential text in the study of 19^th-century feminism. It follows a young woman, Edna Pontellier, as she travels with her husband and children for the summer. On her vacation, she meets a host of characters who force her to question her identity as wife and mother. The novel follows Edna’s quest to become free by taking full ownership of her own body and identity.

Sula

Sula is Toni Morrison’s second novel. It is a coming-of-age story that features two girls: Sula, and Nel. The two girls are best friends though their personalities are completely opposite. The reader watches as the girls mature and have experiences with family, tragedy, sexuality, and racism that indelibly change them. As in all of Morrison’s novels, Sula and Nel’s experiences are a portrait of Black Americans trying to find their place in a society that is determined not to make space for them.

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Andrew Jackson: Saved By Divine Providence?

January 30, 2024January 29, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On January 30, 1835, President Andrew Jackson visited the Capitol building in Washington D.C. to attend the funeral of Warren Davis, a member of the House of Representatives. As he exited the building, a man stepped from behind a column, pulled a pistol from his jacket, pointed it at the president, and fired. This was the first assassination attempt of a U.S. President in history.

Luckily for Andrew Jackson, the pistol pulled by Richard Lawrence, his would-be assassin, misfired. Jackson, in a fit of rage, charged Lawrence, hitting him several times with his cane. Lawrence proceeded to pull a second pistol from his jacket and shot at the president. The second gun also misfired. Experts later reported that the chance of both of Lawrence’s pistols misfiring was 1 in 125,000. Many Americans at the time, including President Jackson himself, thought the president must have been saved by divine providence.

However, conspiracy theories also abounded. Jackson was sure that it was his political opposition, headed up by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. While this proved to be untrue, some have suggested that it was Calhoun’s statement to the press several days before that prompted Lawrence to make an attempt on the president’s life. Calhoun said that the president was “a Caesar who ought to have a Brutus.” In any case, during Lawrence’s trial, which interestingly enough was prosecuted by Francis Scott Key of Star-Spangled Banner fame, it became very clear that Lawrence was mentally instable. Lawrence was convinced that he was King Richard III, the rightful monarch of England. He was sentenced not guilty by reason of insanity and was placed in a home for the mentally ill.

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Anne Boleyn and the English Reformation

January 26, 2024January 25, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On January 25, 1533, King Henry VIII of England married his second wife, Anne Boleyn. This marriage ushered in the English Reformation, an act that would dramatically affect the future of the country. How did Anne Boleyn so capture the attention of the King that he was willing to alter the course of history to be married to her? How did she so quickly fall from favor that the King had her beheaded for treason only three years later? And, most importantly, how is it that we know so much about Anne Boleyn when the King ensured that all mentions of her were wiped from court history after her death?

Anne Boleyn was born somewhere around the year 1501. She spent her teenage years as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of France. Her knowledge of French fashion, dancing, and language made her an interesting novelty when she returned home to England, and she, alongside her sister, Mary, became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon, wife of King Henry VIII. The King had already taken Anne’s sister, Mary, as a mistress, and he soon became besotted with Anne as well. While she certainly encouraged the King’s affections, Anne refused to be his mistress, insisting that she would accept nothing short of marriage. The King began looking for a way out of his marriage to Catherine. Besides the fact of his obsession with Anne, the King was unhappy that Catherine had not provided him with a male heir. The two had one daughter: Mary I. He wrote to the Pope requesting an annulment of his marriage to Catherine on the grounds that it was an illegitimate marriage to begin with, as she was the widow of his brother (something expressly forbidden in certain verses of the Bible). The annulment was denied for a myriad of political reasons.

Anne was intrigued by the Protestant Reformation and encouraged the King to break with the Catholic Church. She encouraged him to appoint a Protestant, Thomas Cranmer to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. He annulled the marriage between King Henry and Queen Catherine and married Henry and Anne a few days later. Anne Boleyn was coronated as Queen of England on May 31, 1533. Soon after, King Henry VIII and Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, which made him the King the head of the Church of England. He wouldn’t need permission to divorce ever again.

Unfortunately for Anne, the child she bore first was a girl, Elizabeth I. She suffered miscarriages and stillbirths afterward. She never did have a male heir. Anne was, to the King, a shiny toy that had lost its luster. By 1535, King Henry VIII’s love had shifted from Anne to her lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. The King conspired with Thomas Cromwell to try Anne Boleyn for adultery. On May 19, 1536, just three years after her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was beheaded at the Tower of London. She maintained her innocence to the end. The King married Jane Seymour 11 days later. King Henry had any mention of Anne Boleyn struck from the record.

In 1547, King Henry VIII died, and his nine-year-old son, Edward VI became king. He passed in 1553, which left the throne to Queen Mary I, the first female monarch of England. She passed in 1558, and the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I, became ruler. While Elizabeth sat on the throne, she reintroduced Anne into the history books, having portraits done of her and celebrating her as a religious reformer. Thanks to her daughter, Anne Boleyn lives on.

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The California ’49ers

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

In January 1848, Swiss immigrant, John Sutter, was in the process of building a water-powered sawmill near present-day Sacramento, California. On January 24, the carpenter on the project, James Marshall, discovered flecks of gold in a diverted streambed at the mill. The two men tried to keep the discovery a secret, but once word got out, men rushed to California in their hundreds of thousands, looking to make their fortune in the gold mines. This gold rush ultimately changed the demographics of the territory-turned-state of California and the economy of the United States of America.

The news of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill reached San Francisco first, where merchant Sam Brannan marched through the town with a vial of gold. By that summer, most of the men in San Francisco had left for the mines. Men also began to arrive from places that could easily access California’s coast, including Hawaii, Mexico, and China. In 1848, the population of California consisted of approximately 7,000 Californios (people mostly of Mexican descent), 150,000 Native Americans, and 700 Americans. By the end of 1949, the non-native population had ballooned to approximately 100,000. By 1855, the number reached 300,000. During these years, the Native American population was decimated due to disease and attack by foreigners entering Native American land to mine.

Word of the gold rush didn’t reach the East Coast of the U.S. until the summer of 1848. Americans were skeptical until the end of the year when President Polk talked about it in his State of the Union address. At that point, thousands of American men left their homes, business, and farms to be run by their wives and children to seek fortune in California. In 1849, $10 million worth of gold was pulled from the California mines. The price peaked in 1852, when $81 million worth of gold was mined, and then declined until it settled at about $45 million per year. By this time, mining was no longer done on an individual basis, but as a paid job for large mining companies who had better equipment. This money was a boon to the U.S. government and certainly played a part in earning California a spot as a state in 1850.

Long term, the gold rush destroyed much of the California landscape and caused endless problems for farmers. In 1884, a law was made banning hydraulic mining, and most Californians returned to jobs in agriculture, firmly ending the era of the gold rush.

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The Father of Detective Fiction

January 19, 2024January 18, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

It’s no secret that the crime fiction genre is wildly popular across the world. There are hundreds of award-winning television shows and movies and entire sections in bookstores dedicated to the subject. It’s not a new obsession, though. People enjoyed this genre from the moment of its conception—the 1840s. Who do we have to thank for the genre that brought us CSI, Law and Order, Longmire, Psych, and Only Murders in the Building and inspired writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Agatha Christie, and Stephen King? Often referred to as the Father of Detective Fiction, it’s Edgar Allen Poe.

Poe was academically gifted from a young age. At 15, he attended the University of Virginia, and at 18, he published his first book of poetry: Tamerlane, and Other Poems. The collection was not well received, and Poe spent the next decade of his life editing magazines and writing short stories and poetry. From 1838-1841, Poe wrote some of the most impactful pieces of literature in history, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” These stories are some of the pioneering works in the field of psychological horror.

In 1841, Poe published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” a short story about a grisly double murder that baffles police but is solved by amateur detective Auguste Dupin. The story was immediately popular and introduced tropes seen in crime fiction since, including the inept police, the sidekick narrator, and the final act revealing the perpetrator of the crime and then walking through the detective’s process of reasoning. Poe called the story a tale of “ratiocination,” which is defined as an extremely deliberate process of reasoning through a problem, something used widely in crime fiction to this day. Arthur Conan Doyle referenced Dupin and his process of crime solving as the inspiration for his character Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional detective of all time. Poe went on to write two more stories featuring Dupin, one based on a crime that had actually taken place. It looks like we have to credit Poe with the advent of true crime as well. Poe’s detective stories were immediately popular, but certainly their legacy is their true success.

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Michelin: The Brothers, the Tires, the Restaurants

January 16, 2024January 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On January 16, 1853, André Michelin was born in Paris. Six years later, his brother Édouard was born. The two brothers would go on to run the company Michelin and Co., inventing the modern pneumatic tire and becoming one of the largest purveyors of tires in the world. The Michelin brothers are also responsible for creating the Michelin Guide, which has gone on to become of the most prestigious awards given to restaurants around the world. How does a tire company relate to fine cuisine? We’re glad you asked.

Michelin and Co. began long before André and Édouard were born. Their great-aunt and uncle, Elisabeth Pugh-Barker and Édouard Daubrée began making rubber bouncy balls in their Clermont Ferrand home in 1829. Daubrée realized that rubber had a more practical application in the production of farm machinery. He joined forces with his cousin, Aristide Barbier, and the two started a successful company selling farm machinery equipped with rubber hoses and valves. When Barbier died, the company fell on hard times. Her grandsons, André and Édouard Michelin took over the company and looked for ways to bolster the company’s portfolio. In 1889, a cyclist approached the brothers and asked them to look into creating a bicycle tire that was easier to replace than the tires of the time, which were glued to the rim. In 1891, the Michelin brothers filed a patent for their detachable pneumatic bicycle tire. It wasn’t long before they had applied the same concept to automobile tires.

At this point, cars were not very widely used in France. In order to drum up business for their tire company, the Michelin brothers needed to convince more people to purchase cars and use them for travel. In pursuit of this, the brothers created the Michelin Guide. Published for the first time in 1900, the guide listed French towns alphabetically and gave suggestions for lodging, restaurants, car repair shops, museums, and other points of interest. In 1926, the Michelin guide began putting a single star next to restaurants considered “fine-dining” establishments. In 1931, the three-star system that exists today was created. In 1936, the official judging criteria for the system was released. Today, the Michelin star is one of the most impressive designations a restaurant can receive. The Michelin Guide today covers 37 countries and there are approximately 2,800 Michelin Star restaurants worldwide.

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“Smoking and Health:” America’s Fight Against Cigarettes

January 12, 2024January 11, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

60 years ago, on January 11, 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office released a report entitled “Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General.” It reported that smoking was a direct cause of lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. It stated that people who smoked had a 70% increase in mortality rate over those who did not smoke. This report led directly to public policy put in place to reduce smoking. It also had an enormous impact on Americans’ perspective on smoking.

For 30 years before the report on smoking and health was issued, physicians, scientists, and researchers were gathering evidence of the ill effects smoking had on health. In 1961, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association banded together and wrote a letter to President Kennedy asking him to form a national commission to research the effects of smoking on Americans. In 1962, the government responded, and Surgeon General Luther Terry put together a committee to research and put together a report on their findings. The committee chosen included members of the four organization who had sent the letter as well as members of the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the American Medical Association, and the Tobacco Institute. The final committee of ten members reviewed over 7,000 scientific articles before writing the report that was released in 1964.

As a direct result of these findings, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. The Labeling and Advertising Act required cigarette manufacturers to include a health warning on packages of cigarettes and banned cigarette companies from advertising on television and radio. The Smoking Act required an annual report to be written on the negative consequences of smoking cigarettes. California was the first state to ban smoking indoors, and many have followed suit.

In addition to prompting public policy, the report changed the way Americans viewed smoking. At the time of the report, it was estimated that approximately 52% of men and 35% of women in the U.S. were regular smokers. Surveys taken in 1958 showed that only 44% of Americans believed that smoking could cause cancer. In 1968, that number rose to 78%. Thanks to this shift, adult smoking rates have decreased from 43% in 1965 to 18% in 2014. Unfortunately, thanks to the advent of e-cigarettes and the branding around them, youth smoking rates have increased 900% from 2011 to 2015. This is, perhaps, the next hurdle in this long campaign begun over 60 years ago.

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The Queen of Existentialism

January 9, 2024January 8, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On January 9, 1908, Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris. de Beauvoir would go on to become an award-winning author, a feminist icon, and a prolific existentialist philosopher. She lived her life by the philosophy she espoused: “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.” She remains a significant influence in the feminist and philosophic spheres.

From an early age, de Beauvoir was interested in in education, philosophy, and writing. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, becoming the youngest person to pass the extremely competitive agrégation exam, a series of test and interviews to become a teacher. Her score was second only to that of classmate Jean-Paul Sartre, who became de Beauvoir’s lifelong intellectual companion and lover. For many years, de Beauvoir was a philosophy teacher, but she lost her job upon the occupation of Paris by the Nazis in 1940. It was then that she began writing. Over the next 10 years, de Beauvoir penned a number of influential works, including The Ethics of Ambiguity, America Day by Day, and perhaps her most notable work, The Second Sex.

The Second Sex has been named one of the most important works of literature of the 20^th century. It was a major influence of the Second Wave Feminist movement in the U.S., and many notable feminists, including Betty Friedan, were inspired by de Beauvoir’s work. It was, in fact, de Beauvoir’s studies in philosophy that led her to assert that women owed it to themselves to transcend the limits that the world placed on them and become what their hearts led them to be. This individualism is a main tenant of existentialism. Existentialists believe that every individual’s purpose is created by themselves rather than by the societal structures around them. As a philosopher, de Beauvoir was often written off as merely Sartre’s disciple. However, after her death, studies of her personal journals and correspondences with Sartre prove that the two exchanges ideas equally, de Beauvoir’s as original as those of Sartre. de Beauvoir is admired worldwide for those contributions and her writings are still incredibly popular.

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The First Female Governor

January 5, 2024January 4, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On January 5, 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross was inaugurated as the Governor of Wyoming, making her the first female to hold the office in the history of the United States. After her term as Governor, Ross spent the rest of her career in politics, becoming a director for the National Democratic Committee and the Director of the U.S. Mint. Her ambition and desire to do good is still an inspiration for women in politics today.

Nellie Tayloe Ross was born and raised in Missouri and attended a teaching college before teaching kindergarten. She met William Ross, a lawyer, and after their marriage, the two moved to Cheyenne. William ran for Governor of Wyoming in 1922 and won. The two moved into the Governor’s Mansion with their three sons. Almost two years later, two months before William was slated to run for reelection, he passed away suddenly from appendicitis.

Upon his death, the Democratic Party of Wyoming approached Nellie about running in her husband’s place. She did so, won, and was inaugurated in January 1925. For her first term, Nellie outlined 11 proposals she wanted the state legislature to pass, including giving state loans to farmers and ranchers, requiring budgets for cities and counties, designating more funds to the state university, and earmarking industrial jobs for women. She was able to get five of her 11 proposals passed. Ross ran for reelection in 1926 but did not win.

In 1932, Ross was given the job as Director of the Women’s Division of the National Democratic Committee. As such, she had a major hand in the campaign of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected that year. Shortly after his election, Roosevelt gave Nellie the job as Director of the U.S. Mint. She served as director for 20 years. Her outlook on politics throughout her career is perhaps best summarized in a quote she gave to the New York Times in 1925: “Men and women, we are all alike citizens, moved by the same love of country and entertaining the hopes and fears for its future. Conditions that affect one, affect all. Just as in the family the prosperity of the group is reflected upon each of its members, so it is in the State, and in so far as our activities promote the general welfare, in exactly so far do they promote that of both men and women. Both have the same responsibilities, and there is no plea for good citizenship that cannot and should not be made to both alike.”

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