Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 96

Don’t Know Much About® George Washington

Yes, I cannot tell a lie. The day we celebrate  on the third Monday in February is really called “George Washington’s Birthday.” Ask the National Archives.

Want to learn a little more?

Here is the website for the National Park Service’s Birthplace of Washington site.

And here is the National Park Service website for Fort Necessity, scene of Washington’s surrender and “confession.”

It is NOT Presidents Day. Or President’s Day. Or Even Presidents’ Day.

So What Day Is it After All?

Okay. We all do it. It’s printed on calendars and posted in bank windows. We mistakenly call the third Monday in February Presidents Day, in part because of all those commercials in which George Washington swings his legendary ax and “Rail-splitter” Abe Lincoln hoists his ax to chop down prices on everything from mattresses and linens to SUVs.

But, really it is George Washington’s Birthday –federally speaking that is.

The official designation of the federal holiday observed on the third Monday of February was, and still is, Washington’s Birthday.

I wrote My Project About Presidents in 3rd Grade when I was 9. Even then I was asking questions about history and presidents

You can also check out my videoblog on George Washington.

But Washington’s Birthday has become widely known as Presidents Day (or President’s Day, or even Presidents’  Day). The popular usage and confusion resulted from the merging of what had been two widely celebrated Presidential birthdays in February –Lincoln’s on February 12th, which was never a federal holiday– and Washington’s on February 22.

Created under the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which gave us three-day weekend Monday holidays, the federal holiday on the third Monday in February is technically still Washington’s Birthday. But here’s the rub: the holiday can never land on Washington’s true birthday because the latest date it can fall is February 21, as it did in 2011.

There is a wealth of information the First President at Mount Vernon.

Washington’s Tomb — Mt. Vernon (Photo credit Kenneth C. Davis 2010)

 

 

Who Said it 2/12/13

Abraham Lincoln, “Second Annual Message” (“State of the Union”) December 1, 1862

The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace, insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the country. With these we should pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it. …

I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.

 

A month before he formally issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln made this proposal for gradual, compensated emancipation, with his stated preference for resettling freed slaves in another country (“Colonization.”). The plan, of course, was never realized.

[image error]

Citation: Abraham Lincoln: “Second Annual Message,” December 1, 1862. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....

Don’t Know Much About® Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday

February 12 used to mean something — Lincoln’s Birthday. It was never a national holiday but it was pretty important when I was a kid and we got the day off from school in my  hometown.

The Uniform Holidays Act in 1971 changed that by creating Washington’s Birthday as a federal holiday on the third Monday in February. It is NOT officially “Presidents Day.”

But it is still a good excuse to talk about Abraham Lincoln. especially since his real birthday is on the calendar. And this year marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863. And it looks like President Lincoln may have a good night at the Oscars, thanks to Steven Spielbrg’s film Lincoln.

“Honest Abe.” “The Railsplitter.” “The Great Emancipator.” You know some of the basics and the legends. But check out this video to learn some of things you may not know, but should, about the 16th President.

Here’s a link to the Lincoln Birthplace National Park

This link is to the Emancipation Proclamation page at the National Archives.

And you can read much more about Lincoln in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents, Don’t Know Much About History and Don’t Know Much About the Civil War.

Don’t Know Much About@ History (2011 Revised and Updated Edition)

[image error]

The paperback edition had been released witha new cover to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil war.

who said it 2/6/13

Ronald Reagan (born on February 6, 1911) in the State of the Union Address (January 25, 1983)

When the Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, and I performed the bipartisan—or formed the bipartisan Commission on Social Security, pundits and experts predicted that party divisions and conflicting interests would prevent the Commission from agreeing on a plan to save social security. Well, sometimes, even here in Washington, the cynics are wrong. Through compromise and cooperation, the members of the Commission overcame their differences and achieved a fair, workable plan. They proved that, when it comes to the national welfare, Americans can still pull together for the common good.

Tonight, I’m especially pleased to join with the Speaker and the Senate majority leader in urging the Congress to enact this plan by Easter.

There are elements in it, of course, that none of us prefers, but taken together it performs a package that all of us can support. It asks for some sacrifice by all—the self-employed, beneficiaries, workers, government employees, and the better-off among the retired—but it imposes an undue burden on none. And, in supporting it, we keep an important pledge to the American people: The integrity of the social security system will be preserved, and no one’s payments will be reduced.

In this Annual Message to Congress, Reagan announced a bipartisan compromise plan to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund, The plan included raising taxes.

Source: Ronald Reagan: “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union ,” January 25, 1983. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....

Happy Birthday, FDR!

 

[image error]

Franklin D. Roosevelt, born January 30, 1882
Photo Courtesy of FDR Library and Museum 

“Who was the most influential President?”

That was the question posed by a tenth grader during a Skype session I had this morning with a classroom in rural Pennsylvania.

This is a twist on the “greatest President?” query often asked during these visits. My answer usually involves the four men I graded with an A+ in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents –Washington, Lincoln and the two Roosevelts.

But today my answer focused on Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially fitting as he was born on this day: January 30, 1882.

While the other three are among the greatest of Presidential greats, I believe that FDR left the greatest impact on contemporary America. His “New Deal” legacy transformed the country, whether you like it or not. It is a permanent influence best exemplified by a State of the Union address given in January 1941, usually known as the “Four Freedoms” speech.

In it, FDR called for many of the basic elements of the “social safety net” that remains at the heart of political controversy today.

For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:



Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.



Jobs for those who can work. 



Security for those who need it.



The ending of special privilege for the few.



The preservation of civil liberties for all.



The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.



These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world.  

In a country still limping out the Great Depression and facing the prospect of the growing war in Europe, FDR also said something else rarely heard from politicians today:

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

State of the Union (January 6, 1941)

Learn more about FDR and his life and times at The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, his birthplace.

You can also read more about Franklin D. Roosevelt in Don’t Know Much About History  and in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents.

[image error]

 

 

 

Who Said It?

 

Ronald Reagan, in a January 28, 1986 speech to the nation after the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger

Source: NASA History Office

Don’t Know Much About® Edith Wharton

 

[image error]

A plaque honoring Edith Wharton in Paris (Photo: Courtesy of Radio France International) 

 

Born today in New York City in 1862: Edith Newbold Jones, who achieved fame as Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921 (for The Age of Innocence).

Romance, scandal and ruin among New York socialites—long before this was the stuff of People, and “Gossip Girl,” it was the subject matter for Edith Wharton’s most famous works. In such novels as The Age of Innocence (1920) and The House of Mirth (1905), Wharton painted detailed, acid portraits of high society life. In doing so, she created heartbreaking conflicts beneath the façade of wealth and manners. Again and again, characters like Newland Archer and Lily Bart were forced to choose between conforming to social expectations and pursuing true love and happiness. Her most famous work set outside the realm of high-tone New York was Ethan Frome (1911), set in wintry, rural Massachusetts. Know your Wharton? Try this quick quiz–

TRUE or FALSE (Quiz adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature, written with Jenny Davis-Answers below)

1. Edith Wharton wrote about wealthy New Yorkers to escape the poverty of her own upbringing.

2. Though Edith Wharton was unhappily married, she could not get divorced because it was socially unacceptable.

3. In addition to her fiction, Wharton published several books on interior decorating and landscaping.

The other lesser-known aspect of Wharton’s life is her experience in France during World War I, where she founded hospitals and refugee centers for women and children. She also wrote urging the United States to join the war.

 American novelist Edith Wharton set up workshops for women all over Paris, making clothes for hospitals as well as lingerie for a fashionable clientele. She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for refugees and tuberculosis sufferers and ran a rescue committee for the children of Flanders, whose towns were bombarded by the Germans. Her friend and fellow author Henry James called her the “great generalissima”.

Source: Radio France International: “Edith Wharton-The American novelist who joined France’s WWI effort”

 

The Mount is Wharton’s restored home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts:

The National Portrait Gallery’s online exhibit depicts “Edith Wharton’s World” and includes a brief biography and selected art from Wharton’s “Gilded Age” America.

The Edith Wharton Collection of manuscripts, correspondence and photographs is housed at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Edith Wharton died in France in August 1937. Here is her New York Times: obituary.

Answers

1. FALSE. Wharton was born to wealthy New Yorkers, and summered in Newport, Rhode Island. She grew up traveling through Europe, and was educated by private tutors. After an official debut into society, she married a rich banker twelve years her senior.

2. FALSE. She divorced Teddy Wharton in 1913.

3. TRUE. Her first book was The Decoration of Houses, establishing her fame as a writer. She also wrote about Italian landscaping and architecture in Italian Villas and Their Gardens, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.

Who Said It? 1/21/13

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt “Second Inaugural Address” (January 20, 1937)

 

This was the first inaugural on January 20th under the  20th Amendment (Ratified on January 23, 1933)

 

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Inaugural Address.,” January 20, 1937. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi...

The Greatest Second Inaugural?

In reflecting on the history of the Inauguration I have been re-reading many of the inaugural addresses.

It is safe to say that few of these speeches rise to the level of true greatness.  My choices for best inaugurals are Lincoln’s first in 1861 (“mystic chords of memory”) and second in 1865 (“with malice toward none”) which both rise to the level of American poetry; and FDR’s first in 1933 (“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”).

But second inaugurals often have a “Been there, done that” quality. Finding second inaugural speeches that reach  greatness is even tougher. George Washington’s second was the shortest ever– a mere 135 words long. In it, he basically said,  “I’m going to take the oath again and if I break any laws, you can come after me.”

Lincoln’s second, as mentioned above, is among the greatest American speeches. He showed how he had moved from preserving the Union to ending slavery:

Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

My other favorite is Franklin D Roosevelt’s second inaugural address in 1937.  Like Lincoln assaulting slaveholders, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not shy away from taking on the powerful interests that he felt had brought the nation into the Great Depression:

We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.

And the speech includes one of his most memorable phrases as FDR spoke of  the great inequity that still existed in America:

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

FDR’s idea of government being able to protect the people has fallen out of fashion in many circles, But President Obama, or anyone else who wants a good example, might look at how Franklin D. Roosevelt set the bar for a second inaugural address.