Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 105
March 20, 2012
Don’t Know Much About® America’s Most Important Book?
On March 20, 1852, the completed version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly was published in book form. It had begun to appear in serialized form in June 1851 in the abolitionist weekly The National Era.
Since its first appearance in serial form and as a book 160 years ago, Stowe’s novel –and its author– have been celebrated, criticized, lauded and vilified. When Lincoln met the diminutive Stowe at the White House after the Civil War began, he supposedly told her, “So you’re the little lady who made this great war.”
Whether Lincoln said it or not, there is no question that the book helped galvanize public opposition to slavery in America and deepened the growing split that led to the Civil War. It may not be America’s greatest book. But few books have been as important in changing the course of America’s history.
Stowe began writing the book in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act, one of a group of laws enacted together and known as the Compromise of 1850. The law, which made the return of runaways a matter of federal policy and gave free rein to slave catchers to arbitrarily arrest any black person as a potential fugitive, stoked the fires of the Abolitionist movement in America.
What Harriet Beecher Stowe did with her book was put a human face on an issue that had been dominated by political catchwords and euphemisms like “servitude” and “states’ rights.” For the first time, she made Americans care about slaves as people with hopes, dreams, loves and loyalty.
Here are some resources for exploring Stowe, the book and its remarkable impact on American history.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford. Connecticut.
The Josiah Henson Historic site, home of the former slave and Underground Railroad organizer whose memoir Stowe credited as the source for the character of Uncle Tom, the hero of the novel.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture, a multimedia archive at the University of Virginia on the publication history of the book.
You can also read more about Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the approach of the Civil War in Don’t Know Much About® the Civil War
The paperback edition had been released with a new cover to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil war.
March 17, 2012
When Irish Eyes Were Not Smiling-The Bible Riots
It is the day for the "wearing of the green," parades and an unfortunate connection between being Irish and imbibing. For the day, everybody feels "a little Irish." But it was not always a happy go lucky virtue to be Irish in America. Once upon a time, the Irish –and specifically Irish Catholics– were considered the dregs by "Native" Americans who leveled at Irish immigrants all of the insults and charges typical of every hated immigrant group: they were lazy, uneducated, dirty, disease-ridden, stealing jobs from Americans and dangerous.
One chapter in America's Hidden History left out of most textbooks, was the violently anti-Catholic "Bible Riots" of 1844.
In May 1844, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of bloody riots. Known as the "Bible Riots," they grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in American History.
The story of the "Bible Riots" is another untold tale that I explore in my book A NATION RISING
March 15, 2012
Andrew Jackson and an "American Braveheart" (A Don't Know Much About® Minute)
We don't celebrate Andrew Jackson's birthday today on March 15. But the ATMs we use spit out a lot of $20 bills with his portrait.
The question really is, does Andrew Jackson deserve his place on the twenty? Jackson was the dominant political force in American in the early 19th century. But he was also an unapologetic slaveholder and ruthless in his treatment of the Native American nations– both as a soldier and as president. Just ask William Weatherford.
Do you know the name William Weatherford? You should. He was a charismatic leader of his people who wanted freedom and to protect his land. Just like "Braveheart," or William Wallace of Mel Gibson fame.
Only William Weatherford, also known as Red Eagle, wasn't fighting a cruel King. He was at war with the United States government. And Andrew Jackson.
You can read more about William Weatherford, Andrew Jackson, and Jackson's role in American history in A NATION RISING
PBS also offers a good look at the different sides of Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson and an “American Braveheart” (A Don’t Know Much About® Minute)
We don’t celebrate Andrew Jackson’s birthday today on March 15. But the ATMs we use spit out a lot of $20 bills with his portrait.
The question really is, does Andrew Jackson deserve his place on the twenty? Jackson was the dominant political force in American in the early 19th century. But he was also an unapologetic slaveholder and ruthless in his treatment of the Native American nations– both as a soldier and as president. Just ask William Weatherford.
Do you know the name William Weatherford? You should. He was a charismatic leader of his people who wanted freedom and to protect his land. Just like “Braveheart,” or William Wallace of Mel Gibson fame.
Only William Weatherford, also known as Red Eagle, wasn’t fighting a cruel King. He was at war with the United States government. And Andrew Jackson.
You can read more about William Weatherford, Andrew Jackson, and Jackson’s role in American history in A NATION RISING
PBS also offers a good look at the different sides of Andrew Jackson
March 7, 2012
Touch of Frost: A Videoblog
On March 7, 1923, Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was published.
It is probably the first Frost poem you ever hear. But it shouldn't be the last.
When winter comes to New England, it is easy to bring to mind the name of Robert Frost. There is no more iconic winter New England poem that the one that begins,
Whose woods these are, I think I know.
And one of my favorite spots in Vermont is the Frost gravesite in the cemetery of the First Church in Old Bennington -just down the street from the Bennington Monument.
Apples, birches, hayfields and stone walls; simple features like these make up the landscape of four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost's poetry. Known as a poet of New England, Frost (1874-1963) spent much of his life working and wandering the woods and farmland of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. As a young man, he dropped out of Dartmouth and then Harvard, then drifted from job to job: teacher, newspaper editor, cobbler. His poetry career took off during a three-year trip to England with his wife Elinor where Ezra Pound aided the young poet. Frost's language is plain and straightforward, his lines inspired by the laconic speech of his Yankee neighbors.
But while poems like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" are accessible enough to make Frost a grammar-school favorite, his poetry is contemplative and sometimes dark—concerned with themes like growing old and facing death. Robert Frost –New England's poet of snowy woods, stone wall and apple trees.
I hope this "touch of Frost" will inspire you to read some of his work.
Here's a link to Robert Frost's page at Poets.org
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192
It includes an account of Frost and JFK
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20540
The first poet invited to speak at a Presidential inaugural, Frost told the new President:
"Be more Irish than Harvard. Poetry and power is the formula for another Augustan Age. Don't be afraid of power."
Hear Robert Frost for yourself at Poets Out Loud:
http://robertfrostoutloud.com
This link is to Middlebury College's online Frost exhibit
http://midddigital.middlebury.edu/local_files/robert_frost/index.html
This is the website of Frost House and Museum in Franconia, N.H. http://www.frostplace.org/html/museum.html
Robert Frost died on January 29, 1963. He had written his own epitaph, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world," etched on his headstone in a church cemetery in Bennington, VT.
Here is the NYTimes obituary published after his death.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0129.html#article
This material is adapted from Don't Know Much About Literature written in collaboration with Jenny Davis.
March 6, 2012
Libraries: A Necessity not a luxury
I am in Albany, New York today as part of Library Advocacy Day. Once again, libraries are the first on the chopping block and last to be restored come austerity time.
But choking off funding for libraries is like eating our "seed corn" –the thing that we need to grow and produce more.
As a writer, as a lover of books and reading, as a lover of learning, I know that the public library and school libraries in Mt. Vernon, New York where I grew up, shaped me. A trip to the public library was like a visit to a sacred shrine. We cannot afford to take that away.
So why, in a country that professes to value the importance of free education, free information, and free expression do we always look to destroy the best places to nurture those fundamental American necessities? Yes, Necessities. Public libraries, like schools or the fire department, are not luxuries. Politicians, who may have never darkened a library door, do not understand that basic fact of life. The public library is more than just our soul. It is our lifeblood too. And you can see that when you stop in any library where droves of people –more during the Great Recession — are not just checking out bestsellers, but clamoring for information, education, answers and direction.
What commodities, what resources, are more valuable? Libraries are a necessity not a luxury.
March 2, 2012
New Online Video Series With ABC News Debuts
In partnership with ABC News, I have begun a new series of videos that will explain presidential history and explore the presidents. The first explains the Electoral College.
225 Words that Changed the World: Happy Seuss Day
If your book was turned down 27 times, "what would you do?"
If you were Theodor S. Geisel, get a friend to publish the book. Thus was born Dr. Seuss. Actually born on this date, March 2, 1904, Theodore Seuss Geisel first turned his knack for words and pictures to advertising and editorial cartoons. But Dr. Seuss influenced entire generations of children with his nonsensical poems that put "See Spot run" on the endangered species list.
So what do you know about Seuss? Heaven Save Us/Try this quick quiz.
1. Inspired by the rhythmic sound of an ocean liner's engine, what was Seuss's first book?
2. Which Seuss classic used just 225 words?
3. Boris Karloff once made his voice rather scary/But in a remake, he was played by Jim Carey. Who is he?
4. Here is a clue/that may surprise you/What did Seuss do/in the War known as Two?
Dr. Seuss died on September 24, 1991. (New York Times obituary)
Here is a link to the informative and whimsical Dr. Seuss Memorial Sculpture Garden in his birthplace, Springfield, Mass.
Answers
1. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The idea came to Seuss on an ocean cruise.
2. The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957 in response to the 1954 reports of poor reading in America.
3. The Grinch.
4. He drew anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons, images sharply at odds with his whimsical drawings for children. They were published in a collection, Dr. Seuss Goes to War (2001).
February 27, 2012
The Bible Riots of 1844 (A Don't Know Much About® Minute)
I was on public radio's "The Takeaway" this morning, discussing Presidential candidate Rick Santorum's "nausea" over John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech about running for President as a Catholic. Santorum believes that Kennedy "threw faith under the bus."
Given that religion has once more been introduced into the campaign rhetoric, I thought it would be useful to revisit my editorial called "Why U.S. is NOT a Christian Nation" that appeared last summer on CNN.com
I thought it might also be useful to review a chapter in American History left out of most textbooks, the violently anti-Catholic "Bible Riots" of 1844.
In May 1844, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of bloody riots. Known as the "Bible Riots," they grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in American History.
The story of the "Bible Riots" is another untold tale that I explore in my book A NATION RISING
