July 16, 2010

Time Travel: Indoor Plumbing

I don’t know about you, but I have often wondered what it would be like to travel back in time and live in a different technological era. See how each day was shaped and view the variety of daily activities.

Running water, electricity, public utilities, cars, and computers are merely a small sampling of things we take for granted, but which shape our day.

How often do we get up in the morning and use the fancy indoor plumbing that inhabits small rooms throughout our houses? Everyday, multiple times! But imagine how different the day would be if we didn’t have those small rooms!

Instead we would resort to a chamber pot or an outhouse, no plumbing. How about showering? Brushing teeth? No indoor running water – instead we would have a big tub, a stove to heat water on, and a pump outside that we would wrestle up and down whenever we needed H20.

You know the old phrase “draw me a bath?” Well, people literally drew the water up through the pump and lugged it to the tub. Life was work.

Here is the history lesson: don’t take anything for granted. Knowing the details of how our predecessors struggled to make a living keeps us grounded.

- Amanda Stiver

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July 12, 2010

Collecting History: Old Sayings

Some people collect antiques. Some collect old cars. Many collect old books. There are innumerable items to collect and most often we associate certain things with history, like antiquities.

As exciting as ancient pieces of statuary may be, they are expensive, often hard to move, and quite frequently illegal to gather. I have a solution. It requires no storage, no expense and is, as yet, quite legal. I urge you then to collect old sayings!

These are the short pieces of advice that have been around for centuries. Some are extremely useful and some are not.

Here are a few examples (taken from Wise Words and Country Ways: Traditional Advice and Whether It Works Today by Ruth Binney and Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish):

Weather -

“Ring round the moon, snow soon.”

“When swallows fly low, rain is on the way.”

“Rain before seven, fine by eleven.”

Health -

“Sit up straight.”

“Eat your crusts – they’ll make your hair curl.”

“Chew each mouthful twenty times.”

“Put vinegar on a wasp sting.”

“Eat a peck of dirt before you die.”

Education, gab and whatnot –

“Improve your mind each day.”

“What’s on her mind is on her tongue.”

“She’s got a tongue that’s loose at both ends and has a swivel in the middle.”

“I’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Kitchen –

“After melon, wine is a felon.”

“Don’t open an oven door while a cake is cooking.”

“Stew boiled is a stew spoiled.”

There you are. I’ve started you off with your own small collection. Add to it as you come by a funny old saying, factual or not. Listen for these from older family members and friends. If you don’t have access to these resources whose sayings will vary by region and nation, then look to books.

These sound bites are a direct link to history. They tell us how people thought in the past, what they believed, and how they acted. To keep the thread of history alive, start collecting today!

- Amanda Stiver

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July 8, 2010

Putting Up with Food: Canning

I remember jars of preserves on my grandma’s shelves. When I was little and my family would go on our annual cross-country visit to my grandparent’s home in Oregon, I always looked forward to a yummy dish of canned cherries or plums.

Not the kind from the grocery store that swims in high fructose corn syrup. Nope, the good old-fashioned home-canned variety in its own juices, some additional water and a bit of sugar. Best of all in a glass jar instead of a metal can sprayed with plastic.

In a dark, back corner of the house was the pantry in which the jars were stored. By the time I was a youngster grandma was putting up less home canned goods because the stores were filled with affordable options. However, in past years she and many like her put in a great deal of work each year to grow and put up produce.

Great pride was taken in one’s beans, tomatoes, peaches, berries, pickles, and mincemeat, etc. One scene in the movie State Fair typifies this domestic skill and pride. The main character and her mother, Mrs. Frake, are watching a contest at the state fair in which mother’s pickles and mincemeat are up for prizes. As the contestants anxiously wait, more than a few smug looks are shared by the previous year’s winner, until she finds out she lost to Mrs. Frake.

Producing the most delicious home canned goods from one’s own garden was a big deal. Much more of America farmed and lived off the land at that time. People were tied into the earth and very proud of what they could produce. Proud they were of the self-sufficiency of which they were capable.

The next time you reach for a can of peas think about the task of putting food up. Think about what kind of work went into growing, harvesting, cooking and canning those peas so you could buy them at the store. Now, imagine doing all that work yourself! That’s history!

- Amanda Stiver

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July 5, 2010

The Clive Cussler Effect: More Gateways to History

A while back I wrote a post about gateways to history. These are sneaky ways to get interested in history if you weren’t blessed with splendid history teachers.

It’s time to revisit. Specifically, fiction books.

How can fiction and history be mentioned in the same breath? Isn’t fiction more or less a mess of lies, accounts of things that never happened? And isn’t history, ideally, an account of things that did happen?

Yes, and yes, but fiction we are supposed to know is not true, and history, we are supposed to assume has been researched for veracity. So, how can the one be useful for exploring the other?

Fiction is fun and, for some, history is boring. Sad, but true, but if you use the fiction as a jumping off point, you get the benefit of the fun which will hopefully be carried along into the study of the history, thereby making it fun too!

The briny deep

Now for the Clive Cussler part. I just started reading Medusa, a mystery by Cussler and co-author Paul Kemprecos. The book is one of several in a series that feature the protagonist Kurt Austin, a tough, marine researcher and systems specialist.

As is often the case with Cussler books, the story begins with a flashback in history. In this case the whaling industry of the mid-19th century. Then in the present-day setting of the bulk of the book, reference is made to William Beebe and the bathysphere (submersible sphere) in which he launched himself in the 1930’s.

These are prime examples of history nuggets. They are the bits of accurate history that give a realistic touch to works of fiction. They are also history gateways.

I like to take these gateways when I’m working through a book like Medusa, do a little bit of my own research to further my store of historical knowledge. Sometimes I also want to make sure the author I’m reading is accurate, not all are as conscientious as Cussler and company.

So, the next time you pick up a piece of fiction, a favorite mystery or adventure, look for the history nuggets. If they strike your fancy, dig a little deeper, and as you travel to a different time and place in the past carry the fun with you and you’ll discover that history can be a blast!

- Amanda Stiver

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July 2, 2010

July the 4th: Illuminating Independence

The flag of the United States adorns a small flower arrangement in my dining room and bits of red, white, and blue are to be seen inside and outside my house. I may even have an illumination or two. But these things are only the outward symbol of 200+ years of American history and the quest for freedom that began when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776.

We celebrate the 4th day of July and not the 2nd, but as you’ll read in the following quote* written by John Adams (yes, him again) to his wife Abigail the vision for an expansive future was there from the earliest days of the Republic:

“But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. — I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in the Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

The line, “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty,” always stands out in my mind. How often do we hear the words “solemnity” and “God Almighty” attached to 4th of July celebrations? Fireworks, yes, solemnity, not so much.

But think about the cost of human lives it has taken to maintain this country and its freedoms from the first days of the Revolution to the lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan just recently. Not to mention the support crews on the home soil that built the boats, planes, jeeps, tanks, weapons, and other ordnance that saw us through WWII as well as every other major war? Their memory deserves more than a few moments of solemnity in the presence of God Almighty.

“Rays of Ravishing Light and Glory,” – I love these words because not only to they refer to the illuminations that we are so used to seeing on Independence Day, but they also describe the hope of opportunity, freedom of religion, and peaceful existence that America has promised to generations of immigrants from the earliest English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French settlers to those who still, with patience, go through all the red tape and hassle it takes to become a legally invested American citizen.

Happy 4th of July! May you see the Rays of Ravishing Light and Glory and may your 4th be solemnized by acts of Devotion to God Almighty!

- Amanda Stiver

*All quotes from Our Sacred Honor: Words of Advice from the Founders in Stories, Letters, Poems, and Speeches edited by William J. Bennett

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June 30, 2010

Ignorance Is Disaster: Why It Pays To Know History

“Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.” – variation of a quote by George Santayana

Those ignorant of this quote are doomed to hear it repeated also. I’ve heard history professionals praise and condemn this concept. Those who praise it (I am one) revel in its quality of just comeuppance. They like to think that their superior knowledge will avail them in the future when others are forced to replay some rather nasty bits of history. This is the ego in human nature, but that doesn’t make the quote untrue.

Those that condemn this idea of ignorance breeding repetition are either fans of experiential history where each generation must make its way on its own instincts, or they simply don’t want to face the fact that this particular quote is true, painfully true. Ignorance is only bliss for a while.

The truth is that the ones who are ignorant of history usually trump the ones that have studied it in that so many people are ignorant of history in general – the odds are in their favor. Bad ideas have a greater chance of being replayed because of this. Each succeeding generation, ignorant of the pain and suffering an idea or course of action caused those who came before, get a flash of brilliance and think, hey, this might work after all – let’s try it again.

Socialist hiccups

Communism is like this. Even among historically educated people, often in academic circles, is a day-dream like coma to the realities of applied Communism in history, past and present. Life in the Soviet union was terrible, especially if you got on the wrong side of the firing squad. Life in communist Cambodia was horrible, especially if you lived long enough. Castro’s Communist Cuba is not a land of a thousand delights. Communism and it’s relatives, Socialism, dictatorship, and Fascism have led to the most wholesale genocide in virtually the entirety of history. It is insanity to think it will work again (and yet, people want to try)!

A connoisseur of irony, my favorite response from academic types trying to make excuses for violent Communist excess was, “Well, it wasn’t Communism that was the problem, it was the Russians/Slavs/Cambodians/Cubans/Vietnamese/Koreans/Chinese, etc… that messed it up. Now, if we would try it, it would be different!” If you keep trying the same thing and expect a different result each time, is that not the definition of insanity?

My plea to you – pick up a book and learn about history – the true kind. Don’t be one of the many who are fooled into thinking that a bad idea (any bad idea not just Communism) the first time, might become a good idea if we simply try it again!

- Amanda Stiver

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June 28, 2010

And I quote… Paine, A. Adams, and Longfellow

A web-log on history has many avenues available to the author and as I explore them I find that sometimes the thoughtful exploration of a quote* from an historical document can give enlightenment to history as a whole. A few lines of prose or poetry, short and succinct, allows time for analysis when hundreds of pages of reading is too demanding.

Ideas are carried in words and none more so than those of Revolutionary era America. I find myself, during times of upheaval, turning to the words of the men and women who influenced the founding of the  United States or later recorded their stories. Ironically, those individuals saw the dangers that faced the generations to come after them. Over two hundred years later, we are witnesses to the dangers they foresaw.

`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`

Freedom

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.“

- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1776

Sacrifice

“I will take praise to myself. I feel that it is my due, for having sacrificed so large a portion of my peace and happiness to promote the welfare of my country which I hope for many years to come will reap the benifit, tho it is more than probable unmindfull of the hand that blessed them.“

- Abigail Adams to John Adams, June 17, 1782

Watchfulness and Courage

“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm -
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore.
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.“

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” last stanza

* All quotes from Our Sacred Honor: Words of Advice from the Founders in Stories, Letters, Poems, and Speeches edited by William J. Bennett

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