Photo cred: Histed, Ernest Walter, 1862-1947, photographer. Library of congress
Train wrecks
Laura Ingalls also had something to say about the danger of traveling by railroad: “Trains went faster than horses can run. They went so terribly fast that often they were wrecked. You never knew what might happen to you on a train.”
Her concern was not ill-founded. Causes of crashes included exploding boilers, improperly maintained bridges collapsing, flood waters undermining trestles, brakes overheating and failing, passenger cars catching fire from kerosene lamps or wood heating stoves. Brittle rails even cracked occasionally.
Signal systems were so far from effective, that two trains were often switched onto the same track–heading in opposite directions. “In 1875 alone, there were 104 head-on collisions in the United States.”
Newspapers discovered that train wrecks fascinated their readers, and took to covering them in gory detail, even giving sensational names to individual accidents. One accident involving the deaths of 42 people after a car fell off a bridge and caught fire was called the “Angola Horror.”
Naturally, many people found the frequent disasters unacceptable and weren’t afraid to say so pointedly. One commentator, George Templeton Strong, said of one accident, “Scores of people smashed, burned to death or maimed for life. We shall never travel safely till some pious, wealthy and much beloved railroad director has been hanged for murder.”
It wasn’t until the 1880s that laws were passed requiring better brakes and rails, and foolproof automatic signaling devices. These drastically decreased accidents, but people never lost their fascination with them. In the 1890s, one popular entertainment was staged train crashes where engines hit head-on at 60 miles per hour. Even staged, it was dangerous business. Thirty thousand spectators came to one event where flying debris from the collision killed a spectator three-quarters of a mile away, and the photographer of the event lost his eyesight.
Engine, tender with coal and water, mail cars, freight cars, baggage cars, passenger cars. Basic second-class cars might have slightly padded seats, windows at each seat that could open, fresh paint, monthly cleaning; passengers were usually local businessmen and middle-class families.
Laura Ingalls in her book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, wrote about her first time riding a train in 1879. She describes red velvet cushions on the seats, a water fountain, and a boy who walked the train selling candy and chewing gum to the passengers.
In cities, tracks intersected with streets used by horse-drawn vehicles and pedestrians. Signaling systems were unreliable, so travel through the maze of intersecting railroads in a city moved very slowly.
Outside the city, the train would stop at little “borderland” towns, which were communities that sprang up near the rail line, completely surrounded by farmland and forest. As people moved from the overcrowded cities, sometimes commuting back into the city daily by train to work, these communities expanded, becoming what we know as suburbs.
For the wealthy, travel was luxurious and fun aboard the Pullman Palace cars. For starters, first class trains had right of way; other trains had to pull onto side rails and wait for the first-class travelers to pass.
George Mortimer Pullman began designing his luxury cars in 1864. He added upper berths with hinges so they could be folded up during the day and reclining chairs which doubled as a bed. No sharing bunks required. He added the enclosed platforms at the end of the cars, so passengers could safely and comfortably move between cars without fear of falling or adverse weather.
By 1877, Pullman cars boasted large windows, plush cushioned seats, wide sofas that became roomy beds at night, and plenty of nice furnishings. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper wrote, “The six months’ journey [over the plains] is reduced to less than a week. The prairie schooner has passed away, and is replaced by the railway coach with all its modern comforts.”
With no shortage of first-class passengers clamoring for tickets, Pullman invented all sorts of specialty cars. Smoking cars, reading cars, cars for listening to music, or cars designed like parlors for relaxing. They featured carpeted floors, mirrors in gilded frames, marble and walnut washstands, colorfully frescoed ceilings, and silver-plated metal trappings. Dining cars, although introduced in 1867, only became regular features in the 1880s. You could even rent a mobile hunting lodge for your friends to take a hunting trip!
If you’re wondering about the price for this luxury, in a time when highly skilled Americans earned under $1200 dollars a year, a first-class ticket from New York to Chicago cost $100.
Today’s Pinch of the Past … started as a look at traditions in raising children and somehow morphed into the practices of children in relation to schools throughout history.
Firstly, the Puritans in America. Education was valued in Puritan society, especially since the religious studies enabled citizens to better participate in community meetings.
In 1647 Massachusetts, laws mandated that towns have an elementary school. These were called Grammar or Latin schools and mean to prepare them for higher education. Nearly all New England towns provided education for their children. They were taught to read, write, cipher and religion.
In 1743 Father Theodore Schneider opened the first Catholic school for boys and girls in the town of Goshenhoppen, PA (present day Bally). Coincidentally, this school is still in operation.
Jefferson wrote George Wythe in 1786 stating that “the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people.” He went on to say that “no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness.” he was not in favor of foreign education on families though is said it was “better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation [removal] and education of the infant against the will of the father.”
School discipline
From Come Give a Cheer! by Professor Peter L. Smith
A first-person account of a boy who attended public school in Victoria, BC.
From Some Reminiscences of Old Victoria by Edgar Fawcett. He attended what was called the Colonial School in 1859. He describes it as, “built of square logs and whitewashed, and was occupied by the master and his family. The school proper occupied only about a third of the building, and was a large room extending from the front to the back of the building. It was taught by an Irishman named W. H. Burr.
Fawcett says that,
“Burr’s temper was quick, like my own, and although he tried to make me a good scholar, I am afraid I did not do him or his teaching justice, and I remember two good beatings he gave me far better than the useful knowledge he tried to inculcate. It was thus: Our school might aptly be termed a mixed one, for it consisted of boys and girls who sat together. This arrangement just suited me, for I was fond of the girls. There were white boys and black boys, Hebrews and Gentiles, rich and poor, and we all sat close together to economize room.
Some Reminiscences of Old Victoria by Edgar Fawcett.
Playing hooky
Illustration from the book Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by Mark Twain & illustrated byTrueman W. Williams (1876)
“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”
Back to Edward who had this to say about complaints about boys swimming.
“We now and then hear complaints by prudish people of the boys bathing on Victoria Arm, on Deadman’s Island and elsewhere without a full bathing suit. What would they say to the boys of my time bathing in Nature’s suit only, and that on the waterfront from James Bay bridge all around to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s wharf? We bathed there at all times, and to our heart’s content, and never was exception taken to it by the authorities, or in fact by anyone. Use is second nature, and I suppose that accounted for it.”
This Pinch of the Past was first share in Episode 31: You can access it here. The idea of this Pinch of the Past developed in a rather curious way yesterday when I was wrapping up the final tests of the year for my second graders. One reading passage was a nonfiction piece on the origins of Peanut Butter. Did you know the inventor and developer of this great nutty paste was also responsible for a famous cereal brand? He developed the supplement not as a snack food but as a health product?
Peanut Butter
“It’s the Great Depression that makes the PB&J the core of childhood food,” food historian Andrew F. Smith has said. Buyenlarge / Getty Images
Peanuts originate to South America but their way to Europe and the Americas in the 1700s. Peanut farms developed in the 1700-1800s and prospered.
A lack of cooking oils During the American Civil war brought the peanut into even grater popularity as peanut oil was used in cooking and snacks like roast peanut developed.
Peanut butter it’s self-made its first appearance when John Harvey Kellogg filed a patent for a proto-peanut butter in 1895. He developed the peanut paste as a nutritional supplement for people who needed proteins but were unable to chew their food.
M & Ms are a popular candy in America and often the story behind these candies are told referencing rations for soldiers in WW2 but did you know that their roots go further back?
In 1932 Forrest Mars Sr. had a falling out with his dad and business partner and so he moved to England and began selling Mars Bars to the troops of the then Spanish Civil War. It was during his travels that he came across British volunteers eating chocolate beans covered in hard candy. at the time, chocolate sales plummeted during the summer months due to the lack of air conditioning and the inability to keep the desserts from melting. Thus the idea of the M & M was born.
Just after the second WW, two brothers F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg, owned a potato business in Ontario, Oregon. They had a large number of small chunks of potatoes that they didn’t know what to do with so they mixed flour and seasoning with them then sent them through a shredder to cut them into small pieces.
These were first cooked and then frozen in 1953.
For some time, the brothers didn’t know what to call them so they held a competition and a lady named Clora Lay Orton won. In 1956, they were official sold under the new name Tater Tots.
Statistics show that in the U.S. alone, Americans consume 70 million pounds of tots each year.
Cob Salad
Where did Cob salad get its name. In 1937, Bob Cobb the owner of the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood was throwing together a salad in the early morning hours and went to the refrigerator. There he found lettuce and eggs. He smelled Bacon cooking nearby and threw some on the salad. He then share this dish with Sid Grauman (of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre fame) and the next day Sid came into the restaurant and ordered a Cobb Salad, thus a culinary specially and American staple was born.
Macaroni and cheese
Kraft advertisement in the Ladies’ Home Journal, 1948 Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
This dish was popularized by non-other than Thomas Jefferson. In 1789, William Short wrote Thomas Jefferson telling him that per Jefferson’s request, he had procured a “mould for making macaroni” in Naples, and was forwarding it to his mentor in Paris. The mould was made it included in a list of Jefferson’s belonging which were shipped to Philadelphia in 1790.
Some say Jefferson himself invented the dish macaroni and cheese; however, this is likely untrue. He was, however, a huge fan of the dish.
A copy of the recipe for Macaroni pasta is written in Jefferson’s hand; yet, it is likely that he transcribed the recipe from one of his African cooks or butlers.
Original American Macaroni and Cheese recipe
6 eggs. yolks & whites.
2 wine glasses of milk
2 lb. of flour
a little salt
Work them together without water, and very well. Roll it then with a roller to a paper thickness. cut it into small pieces which roll again with the hand into long slips, & then cut them to a proper length. Put them into warm water a quarter of an hour. Drain them. dress them as maccaroni. But if they are intended for soups they are to be put in the soup & not into warm water.
It seems he introduced macaroni to Americans serving the dish with or without cheese.
Here is an account of one of Jefferson’s guests who tried his macaroni.
Well, there you have it. A little history on a few of the American Staples we have developed over time. Whether you opt for the processed tater tots of your super market or a healthy Cobb salad this weekend, I hope you’ve gained a little enjoyment at discovering how these dishes developed in our young country.
As we are recording today, KyLee isn’t feeling well, so I hope you won’t mind joining me as I try not to nerd out too much about one of the coolest places in the United States – the Castillo de San Marcos.
History and Construction
Photo by Darcy Fornier
In 1513, Ponce de Leon claimed the land he named Florida for Spain. It became an important holding to protect the Spanish ships bearing gold and silver from Central and South America back to Spain. As the French started encroaching on Florida, King Phillip II sent Pedro Menéndez in 1565 who founded the town of St. Augustine.
St. Augustine is the oldest continually occupied European settlement in North America. It was defended by nine wooden forts which either rotted away, or were burned down by attacking armies.
Coquina stone wall (photo by Darcy Fornier)
Finally, in 1672 – over 100 years after the founding of St. Augustine – construction began on a stone fort. It was built of locally quarried coquina stone and took 23 years to complete. Coquina is a sedimentary rock made of tiny shells that is actually soft and porous, but hardens when it’s exposed to air. So it’s easy to cut and shape.
Possibly the coolest thing about this stone is it maintains some of its flexibility after it hardens. When the British assaulted the fort with cannon fire, the stone didn’t crack and crumble. The cannonballs simply sank into the stone. During the night, Spanish soldiers would dig out the lodged cannonballs and patch the walls with fresh coquina. Next morning, the fort appeared to have suffered no damage at all.
Never Taken in Siege
The British besieged the Castillo two separate times in the early 1700’s, but in its entire history, the fort never fell to an enemy attack.
However, the fort did change hands many times. In 1763, when England defeated Spain in the Seven Years’ War, Florida transferred to British control. Twenty-one years later, Spain regained Florida when the Americans (who were aided by Spain) won the American Revolution.
Florida officially became U.S. territory with the Transcontinental Treaty of 1821, when Spain renounced its claims on the Northwest and the United States acknowledged Spanish rule in Texas. The Castillo de San Marcos was renamed Fort Marion after Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion.
Photo by Darcy Fornier
American Occupation
Fort Marion became a storehouse for cannons and munitions. In 1861, three days before Florida officially seceded from the Union, the Florida militia marched to seize the fort. The caretaker, Ordnance Sergeant Henry Douglas, was the only man stationed there, so he demanded the Florida militia sign a receipt for possession of the fort and its munitions. Pleased with his courage, the militia took up a collection to pay his passage home. Thus the Confederacy peacefully took control.
For about a year, St. Augustine was an important hub for blockade runners, but in 1862, the Confederacy decided to cut their losses with Florida. St. Augustine peacefully surrendered, and the Union allowed the city officials to continue with normal life, flying the Stars and Stripes once again. In 1863, with Union control well-established, Fort Marion became a convalescent camp for wounded and weary Union troops.
Following the wars with the Plains Indians in the late 1800s, when most of them were forced onto reservations, 72 young men from different tribes were transported to Fort Marion and held for months in shackles in the lower rooms, or casemates, of the fort. Conditions drastically changed when Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt arrived to take command in 1875. He unshackled the men, let them build living quarters on the fort’s gundeck, replaced the American guard with a guard comprised of the Indians themselves, and instituted English classes. He allowed a sun dance in the fort and encouraged the men to learn trades and make souvenirs they could sell to tourists.
Incarceration of various tribes at the fort, including women and children, ended after 12 years, in 1887. Today, you can still see etchings of the Sun Dance and other carefully preserved Native American drawings carved in the walls of some of the casemates.
In 1900, the fort was removed from active duty rolls, having served for 205 years under five different flags. In 1924, the fort was designated a historical monument, and in 1933, the National Park Service took over its management from the War Department. It quickly became a popular tourist destination.
In 1942, during World War II, the fort came out of retirement to serve as a Coast Guard barracks and training base. Its casemates became classrooms, and Coast Guard graduations were held inside the fort walls.
It was also 1942 when an Act of Congress restored the fort’s original name – the Castillo de San Marcos.
Today it still presides over the city of St. Augustine, sharing its centuries-long story with hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
It was also 1942 when an Act of Congress restored the fort’s original name – the Castillo de San Marcos. Today it still presides over the city of St. Augustine, sharing its centuries-long story with hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
If you ever watched National Treasure 2 you probably know that Great Britain was rumored to be sympathetic to the Confederate States of America. Canada did not exist as a federated nation at the time but was under British rule. Even though Canadians largely apposed slavery–with Canada serving as a terminus for the Underground Railroad–there was talk in London that the Union might move against the Crown and invade Canada.
The Trent Incident
In 1861 two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell evaded a Union stockade and boarded the RMS Trent to travel to London under a neutral flag. However, Captain Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto boarded the Trent and took Mason and Slidell captive.
Great Britain was not happy about having one of their ships boarded and their passengers taken captive. London demanded an apology as well as the freeing of the diplomats then sent 11,000 troops to Canada and put the Royal Navy on alert. France stated they would support Britain if war broke out.
Lincoln was recorded to have advised his cabinet that they should not be hastily to make enemies of Great Britain, telling them they should worry about, “One war at a time.” The cabinet unanimously voted to release Mason and Siddell one month after their capture.
Canadians who served in the Civil War
Recruitment poster. Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 513926.
In July 1861, a surveyor by the name of Arthur Rankin gathered Canadians to fight for the Union Army.
it is believed that a total of 40,000 Canadians fought during the Civil War, some serving the Confederacy but most the Union. Of these people, 29 had won the Congressional Medal of Honor by the end of the war.
Confederates in Canada
There were also both Union and Confederate spies in Canada at the time.
In March 1864, Confederate President Jefferson Davis sent lieutenant colonel Jacob Thompson to Canada to establish a second front. He organized missions to rescue prisoners of war from Union Prisons, sent raiders down into New York setting fires and wreaking havoc in the streets, and attacked Union ships on the Great Lakes.
The Union reacted and established their own embassy in Canada where Union spies could watch for Confederate spies.
The End of the War
Now to backtrack a little, at the beginning of the war men from both the North and the South immigrated to Canada to escape conscription into a war they, obviously did not want to fight. (this included aliens who intended to become citizens of the Union.)
Following the war, wealthy southerners including military officers, politicians, and even confederate President Jefferson Davis (after a two year imprisonment) moved to Canada.
Relations between the US and Canada remained strained after the war.
Britain had supplied the Confederacy with ships and after the war was over President Grant demanded an inordinate sum in reparation. There was even talk of cleaning the slate by ceding Canada to the US.
Many feared that the US would take their Manifest Destiny and turn north to try and conquer Canada. These threats helped to show Canada and British officials a need for Confederation. Canadians saw this finally happen in 1867, 2 years after the American Civil War ended.
While I enjoy reading Civil War fiction and researching the war, it can be a subject that is well talked-out in our day and age. This view of the Civil War in relation to Canada will, I hope, shed knew light on the subject and remind us that you never know what other countries are watching and including your story into their history.
The actual origin of April Fool’s Day is uncertain. Some speculate it dates back to 1582 when France switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. If you’d somehow missed the memo, you’d be celebrating New Year’s Day on April 1st rather than January 1st, making you an “April Fool.” Some think it might be tied to the Roman holiday Hilaria, during which participants dressed in disguise and went around mocking people. At any rate, it has survived in different parts of Europe for centuries, and television companies have often used it to pull pranks on their viewers!
Smell-O-Vision
In 1965, the British Broadcasting Company brought in a professor who claimed to have invented a device that allowed viewers to smell whatever was in the studio. The viewers at home needed no extra adapter on their TV; they could just breathe in whatever his Smell-O-Vision machine broadcasted.
The professor even chopped strong onions and brewed coffee in the studio to demonstrate his machine. Several viewers called in to report they could indeed smell his coffee and onions!
Interestingly, scent accompanying motion pictures wasn’t a new idea. In 1916, when films were still silent, the Family Theater in Forest City, Pennsylvania, fanned the scent of rose oil over an audience watching a newsreel of the Rose Bowl Game.
In 1959, a special scent release system called “AromaRama” used a theater’s air conditioning system to spread smells that coincided with scenes in the film, Behind the Great Wall. And just a month later in 1960, another system called “Smell-O-Vision” piped scents directly to openings beneath the viewer’s chairs.
Etc.
Color TV by Nylon Stocking
In 1962, color television sets weren’t widespread–that came a few years later. But on April Fool’s Day in 1962, Sveriges Television in Sweden brought on an “expert” who used plenty of technical jargon to explain how a thin nylon stocking stretched over the screen would bend the light waves and produce colored moving pictures.
It seems thousands of their viewers ruined a pair of stockings giving this hoax a try.
Etc.
Spaghetti Tree
However, the television hoax widely regarded as the best ever pulled off by a reputable broadcasting company was the BBC’s 1957 Panorama special on the Spaghetti Tree.
At this point, spaghetti wasn’t all that common in Britain, and their viewers didn’t necessarily realize pasta is made from wheat flour and water. The BBC filmed a family harvesting the long spaghetti noodles from their trees, drying them in the sun, and celebrating the harvest with a traditional spaghetti dish. They filmed a Swiss family, explaining that raising spaghetti in Switzerland is a family business, unlike the commercial scale of Italy. They even mentioned that the long, even strands were the result of careful breeding of spaghetti trees.
The usual news anchor, Richard Dimbleby, narrated the broadcast.
Many Britons called in either to complain it wasn’t true or to ask for information about growing their own spaghetti trees!
While we may not know the origin, the holiday’s popularity for hundreds of years indicates people love having an excuse to get a laugh at their friends’ expense. While I personally think some pranks go too far to be funny, I think April Fool’s Day could be a good reminder to not take ourselves too seriously. Life happens, and sometimes you end up looking a little foolish. It’s okay to laugh about it.
Women typically responded to advertisements for mail-order brides more out of necessity, and even desperation, than actual romance. Many women answered the call to marry men in different regions to escape hardship, emigrate to another country, and sometimes to seek adventure.
The imagined arrival of brides-to-be at Jamestown. New York Public Library
James Town
In the early colonial days, male settlers would return to England to marry or they would marry Native American women and leave the colony to live with their wives. In 1620 the Virginia Colony sponsored 140 brides for James town. The average age of these ladies was 20 years old. They were sometimes referred to as “tobacco wives” because the men who married them were required pay for their passage by way of reimbursing up to 120 lbs. of leave tobacco. These women had the right to choose who they married, even if that man was too poor to pay the full amount of the passage.
A romanticized depiction of the King’s daughters arriving at Quebec in the mid-seventeenth century. Before Louis XIV brought New France under direct control, it was a poorly administered commercial branch operation whose private interests preferred male indentured servants. National Archives of Canada / C-20126
The French
In the mid-1600s, 800 brides emigrated toNew France which is now a part of the United States and Canada. These mail-order brides were sponsored by the government and known as theKing’s Daughters. In addition to paying for the passage and recruitment of these wives, the government also paid each woman a dowry of at least 50livres.
When New France started their Louisiana Colony in 1699, they requested brides. However, this venture was less successful than the Kings’ Daughter. These women, called Pelican girls, were misled about the conditions of the colony and when word reached France, French ladies refused to go to the Louisiana Colony. At this time France resorted to raiding the streets for undesirables to send. Houses of correction were emptied, and in some instances, women who had been convicted with their debtor husbands were sent. In 1719, 209 women felons were sent to the colony.
These women were known as Correction Girls. Fortunately, this practice was discontinued in the mid-18th-century.
The visa and marriage documents of Tomeno Hamade. Intrigued with the possibility of living in North America, she consented to correspond with a young Japanese Canadian man, Risuke Hamade. They married by proxy on May 2,1927; she emigrated in October of that year, age nineteen. Photos and documents courtesy Tomeno Hamade
Picture Brides
Asian men working in America in the 1800s often worked with agencies to attain mail-order brides from home. Settlements were mostly male and so the demand for wives grew. A system of Picture Brides developed in the early 20th century with theJapanese-American Passport Agreement of 1907. The US barred unmarried Japanese ladies from immigrating. Working with a matchmaker, the men and women developed a system of communication that included the exchange of pictures and ended with a recommendation to marry or not.
These four men in Montana (near Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park) at the turn of the 20th century advertised their want for wives on the side of a cabin. From left-to-right they were: Bill Daucks, Frank Geduhn, Esli Apgar, and Dimon Apgar. Frank, and Dimon eventually married, but not mail-order brides. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Photo Archives)
Mail order Brides in American
In the 1800s many young men who traveled west found they were want for female companionship. After settling land and making homes, they didn’t have anyone to share them with. Many wrote home back east asking friends and family for help. Others advertised in newspapers and would then begin a correspondence with the intention of leading to an offer of marriage.
Some quotes from Mail order bride advertisements from woman to men and men to women.
Each edition of The Matrimonial News opened with the same positive affirmation for both sexes: “Women need a man’s strong arm to support her in life’s struggle, and men need a woman’s love.”
Here is are actual ads that ran in the paper:
282—A widower, merchant and stockman lives in Kansas, 46 years old, height 6 feet, weight 210 pounds, brunette, black hair and eyes, wishes to correspond with ladies of same age, without encumbrances and with means, must move in the best society and be fully qualified to help make a happy home: object, matrimony.
233—Answer to 82—There is a lad in Missouri with a foot that’s flat, with seeds in his pocket and a brick in his hat, with an eye that is blue and a No. 10 shoe—he’s the “Bull of the Woods” and the boy for you.
266—I want to know some pretty girl of 17 to 20 years. I am 29, 5 feet 9 inches tall, a blonde: I can laugh for 15 minutes, and I want some pretty girl to laugh with me.
214—Respectable young man, with good position in city, 20 years old, desires the acquaintance of a modest young lady, between the ages of 17 and 21, with home nearby. Object: to attend operas and church; perhaps more.
The mothod of connecting marital parties through mail correspondence of some fashion or other have been used throughout the centuries in many different countries. Australia, Belarus, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Japan, and the United States to name a few. While unconventional to a modern way of thinking, it this was an acceptable and popular method of connecting in the past. A modern study of French Canadians that shows that the King’s Daughters and their husbands were “responsible for two-thirds of the genetic makeup of over six million people”.
If you enjoy a good Mail Order Bride read, here are some Christian titles that might suit your fancy.
The Bride Ship Series byJody Hedlund is one of my favorites. In fact, Jody is a lead author for Sunrise Publishing with Suzy May Warren, so we can expect three more books in that series.
When I asked on our Facebook listeners group, one of our listeners, Christy said she just finished A Bride for Keeps and A Bride in Store, both by Melissa Jagears.
Do you enjoy a good spy thriller? I know I do, movie or book. We often see spy thrillers set in a modern-day, Cold War, and both World Wars. For this Pinch of the Past, we are going to look even further back into history, all the way back to the Revolutionary War.
Did you know that there were female spies for George Washington? Yep. One, in particular, is referred to so briefly in code that she is known simply as Agent 355.
Artist tribute to Agent 355
It is believed she was part of the Culper Spy Ring–a ring of spies established by General Washington and Major Benjamin Tallmadge. She was tasked with finding information about the British Army’s operations in New York City.
Likely, a lady of some class who had privy to the inner circles of British Military higher-ups.
Some believe Agent 355 was Ms. Anna Strong, a neighbor of Abraham Woodhull– a leading member of the Culper Spy Ring in New York during the American Revolutionary War.
According to oral history, Anna relayed messages regarding a whaleboat courier that smuggled across the Long Island Sound by hanging a black pettie coat and colored handkerchiefs on her clothesline, signaling which of the coves the boat would dock.
Lydia Darrah Giving Warning: From an engraving in Godey’s Lady’s Book, 1845
Another possible candidate for the role of this female spy is Lydia Darrah, a wife in Philadelphia who eavesdropped on a secret meeting while British soldiers met in her house.
She was able to warn George Washington about an impending attack, thereby preventing much blood shed.
Later when the chief of British Intelligence, Major John Andre investigated the leak, Lydia (whose husband had hosted the meeting) was never suspected since being a woman she would naturally have the same political views as her husband.
Another theory is that Agent 355 was a relative of Robert Townsend, an operative in the Culper spy.
Some believe she was arrested in 1780 when Benedict Arnold betrayed the Patriots. She was said to be imprisoned on the HMS Jersey where she gave birth to a boy, and then later died aboard a prison ship. However, there are no records to support the birth and women were also not held on prison ships at that time.
One truth that may have given birth to the alleged imprisonment of Agent 355 on a ship is that Anna Strong was said to bring her husband food while he was imprisoned on the Jersey.
Portion of the Cupler Spy Ring Code. Talmadge, 1793, Codes from George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-18-99. Library of congress.
We see remnants of Agent 355 in fiction today. In real life, the Culper Spy Ring was so secret, their existence to the public did not become known until the 1930s. That’s 150 years of anonymity.
One piece of evidence we do have is a message written by Abraham Woodhull which says he would be visiting New York again and, “by the assistance of a [lady] of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all.” In two months, a steady stream of headquarters-level intelligence on the British Army entail poured to Washington.
Agent 355, as depicted in an 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly
Some believe the code 355 which, when the cryptography system the Culper Ring used was decrypted meant simply “lady,” might have alluded to female spies that worked for the Patriots in the Culper Ring.
Well, there you have it–a tiny glimpse at espionage in the Revolutionary War.
We’ll follow the tradition of ladies first and start with Jane Austin. She was born in 1775 and lived with her family in a small parish house until she was 25 years old. It seems she led a quiet life visiting with friends and family of similar social class and attending local dances and parties.
Some quotes that reflect this are, “To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon the verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” and “My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
I always had this picture of Jane Austin pining away writing, but it does seem she had some social life.
So did Miss Austin ever have a negative comment about society? Here is a quote from her work Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Darcy says that “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.” and Elizabeth Bennet says “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?” Are these hints at what Ms. Austn herself might have experienced, being born of no special class and then growing into a speedster herself?
And what did she have to say about her statue as a female in the 19th century? one of her characters in Persuasion says that: “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
This reminds me of the idea that the victor writes the history and so we will always have the biased perspective of one opposing side.
Miss Norris from Austin’s novel Mansfield Park tells Fanny, “Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.”
Now we know Austin was educated to some degree, after all, she wrote some great novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion—but what did she do for society as a whole? In her writing, we see a comedy of manners of the middle-class life in England. Some believe her works provided the possibility of a “domestic” literature genre.
Mark Twain
For our next historical figure, we’re looking at another writer born into middle-class citizen; however, this one lived on a different continent than Austin.
Ever heard the name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens? Well, I suspect many of you are history lovers so if you guessed Mark Twain, you are correct. Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910 and had a colorful life.
Twain was known as “ the greatest humorist the United States has produced,” and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature”
His written works challenged the then-current ideas in America regarding racism, class barriers, education, and more. We see some of these issues addressed in his fictional novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and then in his memoir, Life on the Mississippi (1883).
He was also vocal on political issues of that day. he said that, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
One of his comments on the Spanish/American War include __ “We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . . It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
I love the imagery he uses in this metaphor of the Eagle putting its talons on another’s land.
Twain also said that “Doing the right things for the right reason in the right way is the key to Quality of Life!”
This is similar to a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. who said:
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
I always find courage when I look at brave people in History and the next historical person featured in today’s Pinch of the Past is a prime example.
This person was born into slavery so the date of his actual birth is unknown. Frederick Douglas is known as the most photographed American of the 19th century, having more portraits than president Abraham Lincoln.
in 1827, When he was approximately ten, – Sophia Auld ( a relation to his master) taught him the alphabet.
1831 – Frederick experienced a religious conversion and bought his first book, The Columbian Orator.
He published his biography, Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in 1845 – revealing his identity and presenting a picture of his early life in Talbot County slavery. Then he traveled to England, to avoid being sent back to slavery but also to spread the anti-slavery cause throughout the British Isles.
The following year, his legal master agreeed to sell Frederick’s manumission for 150 pounds sterling ($711.66 in American currency) this money was raised by British admirers, and in December 12, 1846 – Frederick became a free man in the United States.
Frederick Douglass was a charismatic speaker and a strong force in the anti-slavery movement. He also supported women’s rights, was an Underground Railroad conductor, and associate of John Browns’; although he refused to join in the attack on Harper’s Ferry shortly before the event. Before the Civil War, he was hired to speak for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
He delivered a speech to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852, in New York. This speech is now known as “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
In this speech he stated that to a slave the 4th of July “… celebration is a sham… [its] boasted liberty, an unholy license…[ the] sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless … [the] hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”
Talk about calling a sin a sin, and while this speech was delivered after his freedom, Frederick gave speeches like this while he was still a wanted man.
He said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” and “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
