Uncategorized – Page 2 – Sharing History

Opening the Met

February 20, 2024February 19, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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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January 20

February 6, 2024February 5, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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, 2024UncategorizedLeave 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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