Category Archives: History

Questionable Things

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Due to my exposure to the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius at a formative age, I’ve always had a weakness for biographies of historical figures with a healthy amount of scandal. There is an admittedly voyeuristic pleasure at poking around the lives of others. Along with that goes a rather questionable, though undeniable, desire to judge the historical figure by your own standards: Are they guilty or innocent? Good or bad? Sympathetic or villainous?

Two biographies I recently read are great at taking this desire on the part of the reader and turning it on its head. Both introduce you to individuals who may have done “questionable things”. Instead of becoming an indictment or whitewash of their character, however, each author sketches a figure that is complex and hard to define. This ultimately frustrates the reader’s desire to judge, but leads to even more meaningful insights.

Vera GranVera Gran: the Accused by Agata Tuszynska.
We are first introduced to the subject of this biography, Vera Gran, as an elderly and paranoid woman who rarely leaves her small Paris apartment. The author must first interview her in the hallway since, according to Vera, spies are everywhere and the apartment is bugged. Eventually she is allowed inside the cramped and document filled space and Vera begins to tell her story.

And what a story it is. Vera Gran, the stage name she went by the most often, was a torch singer from Poland who established a career before the German occupation of her country during World War II.  It is her activities during the war that, for better or worse, defined her life in her own and many others eyes.  Vera and her family, being Jewish, were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto and in order to survive Vera, as well as many other Jewish entertainers, continued to perform.

Almost the entirety of the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto were murdered but Vera was one of the few to survive. The very act of survival, however, brought up questions after the war concerning complicity, culpability and possible collaboration. It is this struggle to defend her actions that becomes the focus of Vera’s life. Her relationship with Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist who also survived the Ghetto and whose life became an Oscar-winning film, eventually becomes the focus of this all-consuming need to clear her name.

Vera Gran: The Accused is a character study that delves into the ideas of guilt, survival and what it actually means to be an “honorable” person during horrific times. As a reader you start to question your own actions and begin to see society’s intense need to judge the past as inherently flawed.

Faithful ExecutionerThe Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century by Joel Harrington
Based on a personal journal from Renaissance Germany, this book is the story of Meister Franz Schmidt who was the executioner of Nuremberg from 1573 to 1618. As you can imagine, there are some pretty gruesome details involved in the telling of this story, execution by “the wheel” is not a pretty sight, but the author endeavors to fill out a full sketch of the man and his times and reserve judgment.

Franz Schmidt was actually born into a family of executioners, the odious profession was forced upon his father by an unscrupulous aristocrat, and he had few options to pursue other careers since the profession was considered unclean and inherited. In fact, his whole life’s goal was to ensure that his own family could somehow get out from under the social stigma and transition into a more respectable profession.

In addition to the personal drama of Schmidt’s life, the author paints a vivid portrait of his times describing how the executioner and the citizens of Nuremberg lived day-to-day. While death was all around, in the form of a high infant mortality rate and periodic deadly disease outbreaks, crime and punishment were considered issues of the utmost importance. In the end, the author finds more similarities than are comfortable to admit between our ideas and the attitudes of those who walked the streets of Meister Schmidt’s Nuremberg.

His final conclusion rings true as an assessment of the figures in both books:

Perhaps, in a cruel and capricious world, there is hope to be found in one man defying his fate, overcoming universal hostility, and simply persevering amid a series of personal tragedies.

Richard

Timothy Egan and Nancy Pearl at the Library!

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EganPearl

I hope you know that you’re invited to a free public literary event with Timothy Egan and Nancy Pearl on Saturday, April 6th at 7 PM at the Everett Performing Arts Center. This should be a great evening for lovers of both history and literature. Timothy Egan will read from his latest book, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, and then will be interviewed by legendary librarian Nancy Pearl, who is herself the author of Book Lust and its sequels and is a regular NPR commentator on books. There will be books and also wine available for purchase.  Sounds perfect!

Timothy Egan writes for the New York Times and we are lucky to have him in our backyard and yes, I do consider Seattle to be Everett’s backyard. In addition to his journalism, he has written a slew of non-fiction books which are mostly set in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s a quick rundown.

indexLet’s go chronologically through Egan’s books and start with The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest.  Atop Mount Rainier, Egan checked the map to see which glacier would best feed his grandfather’s ashes down into streams where the man loved to fish. A minor glacier called Winthrop looked best, and that’s where the ashes went. Egan’s research led to the writings of Theodore Winthrop who spent three months exploring Oregon and Washington in 1853. Egan retraced Winthrop’s route and we get fascinating comparisons between what the two men saw roughly 150 years apart. It is a great travel history of the Pacific Northwest and I highly recommend it as fascinating reading.

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Breaking Blue is the true-crime story of a Sheriff who worked through 54 years of police cover-ups and solved the oldest open murder case in the country. It is the chilling story of the abuses of the Spokane police department during the Great Depression. Egan unravels the story in engrossing detail, illuminating a host of horrible acts committed by the cops in that city, including robbery, murder and extorting sex from Dust Bowl refugees.

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Wild Seattle: A Celebration of the Natural Areas In and Around the City is a celebration of the wild lands, parks, preserves, and wildlife of the greater Seattle area and features more than 130 superb color images by renowned nature photographers. Egan wrote the engaging text for this beautiful coffee table book.

indexLasso the Wind is a look at the eleven states “on the sunset side of the 100th meridian” that Egan regards as the true West. Fishing rod and notebook in hand, he travels by car and foot, horseback and raft, through a region struggling to find its future direction under both the weight of the “Old West” and the commercial threats of the present. He covers the story of what he calls the New West in essays that choose a localized story. The stories are often about a controversy or a change that is happening in the area. Skip around and read an essay or two as time allows and you’ll be rewarded with funny and incisive writing.

indexMy first introduction to Egan’s writing came when I read the popular The Worst Hard Time which chronicles the hardships of those who endured the horrible dust storms of the Great Plains during the depression. Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region as they went from sod huts to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. Read this book to understand the devestation that these massive dust storms had on the high plains.

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We actually listened to The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire That Saved America while we were driving to Idaho, the site of the largest forest fire in America. It is an outstanding, highly readable history of the Great Fire of 1910 that burned 3.2 million acres in and around the Bitterroot National Forest in Idaho and Montana. Egan moves deftly between the immediacy of the fire and the experiences of people caught up in it, and the powerful business and political interests whose actions both contributed to, and were affected by, the disaster. In the end this book serves as a history not only of the biggest U.S. fire of the 20th century, but also as an examination of the national politics of the first dozen years of the century, and of the origins of the U.S. Forest Service.

And now we come to Egan’s most recent book, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. This biography of the famous photographer starts in Seattle and follows him through his obsessive quest to document all of the tribes of North America that were still intact. Curtis’ 20 volume The North American Indian was published between 1907 and 1930. We are all familiar with Curtis’ famous photographs. This book chronicles all of the sacrifices that Curtis made for his obsession. He was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave up his marriage, family and successful career in Seattle to pursue his great project. At once an incredible adventure and a fascinating biographical portrait, Egan’s book tells the remarkable untold story behind Curtis’ photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes.

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Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous effort (six years alone to convince the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony). The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. He would die penniless and unknown in Hollywood just a few years after publishing the last of his twenty volumes. But the charming rogue with the grade-school education had fulfilled his promise—his great adventure succeeded in creating one of America’s most stunning cultural achievements. I downloaded this book from the library and listened to it while painting our basement over the course of a rainy week-end. I always think of Curtis when passing through the basement. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to hang a few (reproduced) Curtis photos there?

I hope to see you April 6th when the Everett Public Library brings this accomplished author to town!

Leslie

It’s the Final Countdown

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The Order of DaysSo we’re finally there – the week of the alleged Maya apocalypse. For those of you who have managed to avoid the hype, the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012. At this point the coverage has become as corny, dramatic, and oddly-addictive as that Europe song – you know the one. Yet like the Europe song, while people may joke about the Maya apocalypse in public, many privately hold some pretty serious views about it. In an excellent interview with NASA astrobiologist David Morrison, listeners of the APM radio show The Story recently heard about the distraught emails that Morrison was receiving by the dozens seeking advice about when the cataclysm would start (not if), and what actions should be taken to minimize the suffering of family and friends.

I take the position that nothing of note will happen on the 21st of December, and I base this on my background in anthropology and Maya studies. Unfortunately there is currently a lot of fear and misinformation being spread about an event that is largely misunderstood, and the consequences are potentially serious. In order to combat this misinformation, it’s important to understand some basic things about Maya calendrics.

Look Close See FarThe ancient Maya were very accomplished astronomers who saw the movement of celestial bodies as supernatural patterns that gave insights into destiny (kind of like modern horoscopes, but much more specific). Through careful study of the movements in the sky, the Maya developed several different kinds of calendars, ranging from a 260-day tzolk’in that was used to name newborns and helped predict the paths their lives would take, to a ‘Long Count’ or b’ak’tun calendar that recorded a time span of about 394 years, to something called a piktun, which measured over 7,800 years (the current piktun doesn’t end until the year 4772).

It’s the Long Count calendar that is causing all the ruckus this month; we are reaching the end of the current cycle, counting down to 13.0.0.0.0 (dates actually get smaller as a cycle progresses), after which the 14th b’ak’tun begins. Cycle is the important word in that sentence. Just as we have days, weeks, months, decades, centuries, and millennia, the Maya  had (have, really – the Maya are still alive and well) k’in, uinal, tun, k’atun, b’ak’tun, piktun, and beyond. The ancient Maya placed no special emphasis on the end of the current b’ak’tun, and even created other calendars with dates that go centuries beyond 12/21/12. Amazingly, there is even a unit of time that stretches into the millions of years called the alautun, which lasts roughly 63,081,429 years!

code of kingsSo, if you must plan for anything on the 21st of December, plan on a big ol’ New Years Eve party of the 1999-2000 variety, because we’re just rolling over to the beginning of a new unit of time: 14th b’ak’tun of the Long Count calendar.  Once you’ve recovered sufficiently from your New B’ak’tun Eve (NBE) revelries, you might want to consider coming down to the library to check out some books about the Maya – they were and are a truly fascinating people who contributed much to the world.

Some titles of note:

The Order of the Days by David Stuart is a good place to start if you want to do some pre-NBE reading. Stuart has done a great job of explaining the different theories about December 2012, and then debunking them. Even better, Stuart goes on to talk about why the Maya, stripped of all their new-agey and other-worldly mystique, should be respected as an ancient culture that accomplished much in creative and enduring ways. I also like that Stuart takes the time to talk about all the positive things that the Maya contributed to the world, especially in the areas of agriculture. Did you know that without the Maya we wouldn’t have chocolate? No chocolate – now THAT is my idea of an apocalyptic scenario.

Daily Life in Maya CivilizationIf you happen to be interested in learning how the Maya developed and used their system of calendars (my explanation is extremely simplified) Daily Life in Maya Civilization by Robert J. Sharer is a great place to start. This very readable book has a great chapter on Maya calendrics and writing that is packed with interesting facts, one being that the Maya developed a system similar to our leap year in order to correct for flaws in the calendar caused by the manner in which the Earth travels around the sun.

The Code of Kings by Linda Schele and Peter Mathews tells the story of seven sacred Maya sites using translations of inscriptions found on temples and tombs. The Code of Kings includes some wonderful photographs of Maya sites, as well as a collection of highly-detailed illustrations of inscriptions. This fascinating account of Maya civilization and culture is written in a very accessible way that doesn’t cater only to those who study the Maya in-depth.

Chronicle of Maya Kings and QueensChronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube is just what it sounds like! Collected here are the stories of the 152 kings and 4 ruling queens in recorded Maya history. I love books like these because they take what is often a dry discussion of inanimate objects (sites, artifacts,  etc.) and introduces a human element. I think many of us tend to unconsciously imagine tombs, carvings, and statues when we think of ancient cultures, so it’s great to be reminded that there were real people behind those images of the past.  Sprinkled throughout this book are helpful discussions about basic aspects of Maya civilization (geography, historic timelines, cultural practices, deciphering the glyphs, etc.) that make the stories of the royals more understandable.

Look Close See Far by Bruce T. Martin is a beautiful collection of photographs that depict modern Maya, as well as significant ancient sites. These images are accompanied by explanations written by eminent scholars of Maya culture.

Four Creations: an Epic Story of the Chiapas Mayas edited and translated by Gary H. Gossen is by far my favorite book that I discovered while writing this post. IFour Creationsn order to truly understand Maya culture, it is important to learn more about how they believe the universe works. The best insights into these views usually come from storytelling and mythology. In Four Creations, the author gathered stories from modern Maya storytellers and historic texts, covering pre-contact origin myths all the way to newer mythologized accounts of modern events. This is a fascinating read, accompanied by the artwork of modern Maya. I love that each translation is printed next to the stories in their original Tzotzil-language form. A final plus is that this book treats the Maya as a living, breathing, very much in-the-present people, rather than a culture known for past glories and an early demise.

Lisa

What’s in a Name?

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When you order books for the library, a lot of different titles come to your attention. Many are straightforward (The Complete Guide to Roofing & Siding), some are brazen (F**k It Therapy : The Profane Way to Profound Happiness), and others are just bizarre (Fifty Shades of Chicken : A Parody in a Cookbook ). But every so often you come across a title that is so intriguing, you have to put down your copy of Library Journal and place a hold on it. Such a moment struck me when I came across The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore.

Even after reading a review or two I still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I got my hands on the book. What I found did not disappoint. Lepore has written a clever, funny and quirky series of essays that examines the peculiarly American take on what it means to be born, to live, and to die and how those ideas have changed throughout our history.

Now I know that the subtitle (A History of Life and Death) might make the book sound grandiose or way too general but it isn’t at all. As she states in her introduction: “To write history is to make an argument by telling a story. This is, above all, a book of stories.”  And luckily for the reader, the stories she tells are doozies.

The chapter “Baby Food” is a good example. The author examines the surprisingly contentious social history of the “proper” way for an infant to get nutrition. As the tale unfolds you are introduced to people such as Dr. Fritz Talbot who in 1910 started the Wet Nurse Directory, policy statements like the American Academy of Pediatrics position paper on breast feeding in 1997, and technology such as the Medela ‘Pump In Style’ breast pump. All of these elements are weaved together in an entertaining and insightful way.

Many of the chapters are gems but a few of the stand outs include:

“All About Erections”: Concerning Sylvester Graham’s crusade against ‘self-pollution’ and the curious history of sex education.

“Mr. Marriage”: Examining the disturbing connections between marriage counseling, founded by Paul Popenoe, and eugenics.

“Happiness Minutes”: Highlighting the lives of Lillian and Frank Gilberth and the attempt to run your life along scientific management principles.

My favorite though, is the final chapter “Resurrection”. Lepore interviews Robert Ettinger and tours the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan. The institute is really just a small warehouse that preserves the frozen remains of those who hope to one day be revived by future scientific methods. While the idea is clearly ludicrous, the essay isn’t cruel, though it is funny. Instead Lepore effectively highlights the strong pull of self-centered belief and how it often triumphs over reason.

Life is full of surprises. But one of the best is discovering a book that actually lives up to its intriguing title.

Richard

I Ain’t Got No Home

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A group of young men posing with bedrolls. Picture scanned from the Everett Public Library Archives

I ain’t got no home, I’m just a-roamin’ ’round,
Just a wandrin’ worker, I go from town to town.
And the police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.
-Woody Guthrie – I Ain’t Got No Home

Like the cowboy, the lumberjack, and the old prospector, the hobo is a figure from the American past that seems to have slipped into the realm of cartoons and folk heroes. What generally comes to mind when hobos are mentioned are sad clown paintings with patchy clothing, people cooking boot stew, and Charlie Chaplin playing a lovable tramp. Beneath the stereotypes and folklore is a more interesting story of a group of Americans who were vital to the expansion of non-Native settlement West, and the feeding of a young nation.

But first, a little lesson in classification. Hobo, tramp, and bum were originally not meant to be interchangeable terms; when the terms first became common, they had very different connotations. Hobos were people who generally lacked a permanent residence and traveled from town to town to work odd jobs. Tramps were individuals who lived on the road out of preference, and panhandled or stole to pay their way. Bums were folks who did not work, and stayed in one location. Today all three are generally referred to more politely as ‘homeless,’  though this term obscures the differences between the three social groups. If you are interested in learning some Depression-era hobo slang, Wikipedia actually has a pretty decent glossary.

The Everett Public Library’s collections have a lot of great resources that talk about the history and culture of American hobos. To learn more about this very fascinating chapter in American history, look up a couple of these titles:

Hoboing in the 1970’s: The Compleat Freighthopper’s Manual for North America by Daniel Leen
Hoboing in the 1970′s is an interesting combination of practical advice, photography, poetry, and ‘it ain’t like it used to be’ musings about the author’s experiences as a hobo. Anyone interested in trying to adopt the hobo lifestyle would be advised to read the author’s disclaimer entitled ‘Railroad Darwinism.’ A common theme in hobo memoirs is the recognition that conditions have drastically changed since the heyday of hobo living, and that traveling by hopping trains is no longer safe to attempt (not that it ever was, as you will see).

Yankee Hobo in the Orient by John Patric
This account details the travels of the sometimes controversial late Snohomish County eccentric John Patric as he moved through pre-World-War-II Japan. During his time in Japan Patric lived on a few cents a day, sleeping in his car and supporting his travels by selling rubber stamps and doing odd jobs. Patric also left a nearly complete manuscript of his time living as a hobo in the United States, called the Hobo Years, which can be viewed in the Northwest History Room.

Once a Hobo: The Autobiography of Monte holm by Monte Holm and Dennis L. Clay
Once a Hobo is the life story of a Moses Lake man who lived as a hobo to survive the Great Depression. This story follows Holm from birth, through his hobo years, and on to his reemergence into mainstream society. This book opens with a full-page disclaimer not to ride trains, explaining that conditions are drastically different from what they were in the early years of freighthopping.

Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West by Mark Wyman
If you were to read one book about the history of the American hobo, this would probably be your best pick. Wyman has done an exhaustive amount of research into the history of the American hobo and how he or she (men, women, and children lived as hobos during the Depression) had an important function in American society. Initially the territory of Americans of European origin, the hobo scene quickly became multicultural. During the early years of Western farming, hobos were vital to successfully bringing in the harvest because large farms were isolated operations that didn’t have enough manpower to bring in the crop before it spoiled. Despite the West’s reliance on hobo labor at harvest time, these itinerant workers were run out of town for being an ‘undesirable element’ as soon as the work was done. Far from being a romantic portrait of a drifter lifestyle, Hoboes details the brutality and hardship that hobos encountered as they moved from job to job.

Wanted: Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane! Fighting for Free Speech with the Hobo Agitators of the I.W.W. edited by John Duda
This book was compiled from firsthand accounts, speeches, and newspaper stories. Wanted isn’t strictly about hobos, but it includes the stories of people who lived a hobo lifestyle to travel from battleground to battleground in the I.W.W. free speech fight.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild is the biography of a man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. In 1990 McCandless disappeared shortly after graduating from college. Years later his body, journal, and some undeveloped film were found in an abandoned bus in rural Alaska. Over time it was pieced together that he had traveled across the United States living and working as a hobo, and eventually made his way to Alaska to attempt to live off the land. This book was also recently made into a motion picture.

Four on a Flatcar by G.D. Jacobson
Set in the 1940′s, Four on a Flatcar tells the true story of four Seattle boys who choose to hop freight trains to travel across the country in search of a missing father.

Hard Traveling: A Portrait of Work Life in the New Northwest by Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes
While Hard Traveling isn’t exclusively about hobos  there is a lot of really interesting information about itinerant workers and how they traveled in the early days of Northwestern industrialization. Readers can get an idea of the kinds of jobs that hobos worked as they traveled through the region, and have the chance to look at some great historic pictures.

Harvest Gypsies by John Steinbeck
In 1936, Steinbeck was commissioned by the San Francisco News to write a series of articles about farmers that had been forced into a life of itinerant labor by the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck’s research laid the groundwork for his landmark work of fiction, The Grapes of Wrath, which also discusses the hardships of living and working as a hobo.

Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac
Lonesome Traveler is part autobiographical sketch, part lament for the death of the American hobo lifestyle as it was in the Great Depression. Kerouac tells a series of stories about periods of his life that inspired his more famous works, and ends with a piece that discusses how changes in the American economy and culture have transformed the hobo from migrant laborer to homeless criminal.

The Road by Jack London
London wrote The Road about a period of his life, in the 1890′s, when he lived as a hobo. This is a collection of short stories, sketches really, about what life as a hobo was like before the Dust Bowl turned being a hobo from a choice to a necessity.

Riding the Rails 
Riding the Rails is a PBS documentary that tells the story of teenage hobos during the Great Depression. 

The Great Machines: Poems and Songs of the American Railroad edited by Robert Hedin
The Great Machines has a small collection of songs and poems written about hobo life. While some of these paint a more pop-culture ‘charming tramp’ picture of the lifestyle, others describe the brutality and struggle involved with a life lived on the rails.

Various Bits and Pieces of Hobo Culture

It All Starts with World War Z

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I’m not really into zombies. I generally confine my summer reads to mildly-embarrassing vampire fiction or binge-reading Game of Thrones books. I did not choose World War Z to fill the guilty pleasure niche as my summer came to a close. What attracted me to World War Z was the oral history angle. I have always loved oral histories and was curious to see how the author used that framework to tell a sci-fi story. I was not disappointed by what I found. Author Max Brooks did an amazing job adapting his subject matter to have the feel of a real collection of oral histories. In his credits at the end, Brooks cited the late, great oral historian Studs Terkel as one of his main influences. Those who are familiar with Terkel’s work can see why after a couple of chapters; the voice of Studs is continually present.

I would highly recommend this title to the average reader – not strictly those who are into sci-fi, zombies, gore, dystopian novels, or anything else you would assume that a book about zombies might represent (though readers looking for all the above will get hooked on this book just as quickly). By necessity there are some gruesome descriptions, but that’s not what dominates the stories told by the author. World War Z, above all, gives a human voice to a terrible (though fictitious) period of human history.

Once you’ve had the chance to check out a fictional oral history collection, you may want to branch out into the real thing. Oral histories are collected to tell a range of different stories about historic events, cultural phenomena, or just to record what life was like during a specific time period. The Everett Public Library has a lot of great oral histories in its collections – here are some voices from a few:

One of the boys in the show, Tony, said, ‘Don’t worry. All my uncles are stagehands and the rest of ‘em are bootleggers. Pick out a night club you want to work, we’ll work’. I looked at these freaks, with these little postage-stamp stages… Up to this time, the most sexy thing I’d ever done is Scheherazade in the ballet. I thought a girl who went on stage without stockings was a hussy (laughs). -Sally Rand, Dancer. Excerpt from Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, by Studs Terkel.

“Punk rock saved a lot of people’s sanity, emboldened the timid and gave countless youth all over the world a voice.” – Henry Rollins from the forward of Punk Rock: an Oral History, by John Robb

D-Day was not one day, but a composite of many days, experienced by each of those individuals who played a part on the Allied side – from the 120,000 men who landed during the initial action to the millions of personnel who supported them. […] The record, as offered in this volume, does indeed show that they didn’t just do their job “well” – they were magnificent. – prologue to Voices of Valor:  D-Day: June 6, 1944, by Douglas Brinkley and Ronald J. Drez

“But I love him! I love him! He’s sleeping, and I’m whispering: ‘I love you.’ Carrying his sanitary tray, ‘I love you.’ I remembered how we used to live at home. He only fell asleep at night after he’d taken my hand. That was a habit of his – to hold my hand while he slept. All night. So in the hospital I take his hand and don’t let go.” – Lyudmilla Ignatenko – widow of a first responder to the Chernobyl disaster. Excerpt from Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, by Svetlana Alexievich

I walked down the street, not knowing where to go, thinking that everybody I’d been with had died. I barely knew who I was, I was dizzy and disoriented, my speech was slurred. Looking back, it makes perfect sense: I’d been hit twice on the head, once in the office and once on the street. The wall of my office had knocked me on my right temple… All I wanted to do was get uptown and find my wife. I knew where she worked and I said to myself, I don’t care if I have to walk all the way, I’ll get there eventually, just go. So I started walking. – Tom Haddad, 31, escaped from the 89th floor of Tower I. Excerpt from Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11 ,by Damon DiMarco

 “We had a policy in place that was ridiculous. I had served for so many years with so many people that I knew were gay and were outstanding soldiers. Officers, enlisted-they ran the gamut. I mean, yes, there were some that I wasn’t fond of and would never want to be friends with, but in general most of the gays and lesbians that I served with in the military did a good job, and I would have been proud to call them a friend at any time. So I did want to do something to change the policy.” Brenda Vosbein, WAC Retired. -  excerpt from Ask and Tell: Gay and Lesbian Veterans Speak Out, by Steve Estes

“We received support from the most unusual places, like The Times. I hope they live forever. They saved my neck. A year making mailbags in prison was not on my itinerary [laughs].” -Keith Richards. Excerpt from The Rolling Stones: An Oral History, by Alan Lysaght.

Explore these other oral history titles for even more first-hand accounts of culture, history, and events that changed the world:

Culture

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, By Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey, by Studs Terkel
Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, by Mark Yarm
The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries, by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
Why? Because we Still Like You: an Oral History of the Mickey Mouse Club, by Jennifer Armstrong
Listening is an act of Love: a celebration of American life from the StoryCorps Project, by Dave Isay with StoryCorps
Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans, by Alison Owings
Nā Kua’āina: Living Hawaiian Culture, by Davianna Pōmaika’i McGregor

History

Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History , by Nick Barratt
Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words: Extraordinary Stories of Courage from World War II to Vietnam, by Larry Smith
48 Hours of Kristallnacht: Night of Destruction/Dawn of the Holocaust: An Oral History, by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph.D.
Reflections of Pearl Harbor: An Oral History of December 7, 1941, by K.D. Richardson
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South , edited by William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins, and Robert Rodgers Korstad
What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany: An Oral History, by Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband

Local Interest

River Pigs & Cayuses: Oral Histories from the Pacific Northwest, by Ron Strickland
Voices from Everett’s First Century
Riverside Remembers: Books I, II & III
Whistlepunks & Geoducks: Oral Histories of the Pacific Northwest, edited by Ron Strickland
Everett Voices, by David Dilgard of the Everett Public Library
Upriver Voices: Tales of Skykomish, by Nancy Cleveland and Anne Sektor

Lisa

Wash Your Hands Thoroughly and Often

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Call me paranoid, or perhaps just realistic, but I think it is pretty clear that the end is always near. It could be an earthquake, catastrophic climate change, an asteroid or, what the heck, even a zombie outbreak that does us all in. One of the most feared, yet oddly fascinating, paths to destruction is an epidemic disease “event.” I think withering away from disease is so dreaded not only because it would be a horrific way to go, but it seems so plausible. You only have to look at the past, both recent and ancient, to find possible candidates for a disease to do us in.

Let’s start with some symptoms:

Severe headache, weakness, general malaise and pains of varying severity in the muscles and joints, especially in the back. The patient feels as though he had been beaten all over with a club.

This is how you would feel, at first, if you were unfortunate enough to contract a deadly strain of influenza as described in American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic by Nancy Bristow.  Bristow focuses on the American experience of the worst pandemic in recorded history which claimed 50 million lives worldwide and over half a million in the United States.  The author uses individual accounts and primary sources to paint an intimate and disturbing picture of the outbreak as it unfolds. She also brings to light the curious way society, once a pandemic is over, tries to forget it ever happened.

Almost all of Plasmodium’s maneuvers inside the body occur in utter secrecy. When it slips into the body, while it hides in the liver, and even after it emerges into the bloodstream and attacks blood cells, there is no itch, no rash, no sweaty forehead that belies the infestation roiling within.

This chilling description is from The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah. Shah is an investigative reporter who skillfully describes Malaria’s parasitic relationship with humanity and our catastrophic inability to control, let alone eradicate it. Her dogged examination reveals that it is not only the disease itself but the attitudes of those who do not live in tropical climates that allow the scourge to thrive.

Once inside the animal, pestis travels through the bloodstream to the lymph nodes, where it starts to replicate. Eventually the lymph nodes swell and become the huge, boggy, exquisitely painful mass we know as bubo.

Yes, it is the dreaded Plague, or Black Death, as described in Wendy Orent’s Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease. A truly apocalyptic disease, wiping out 40% of the European population during the Middle Ages, the plague has shaped human history and still inspires terror. Despite the advent of antibiotics, Orent tells us, the plague is far from a thing of the past and not only survives but thrives in many parts of the world as it continues to evolve. Worse yet, the weaponization of the disease is far from fiction.

To read the history of epidemics is to follow a long story of the fears that go beyond the dread of death, the anxieties that make us who we are.

This intriguing nugget is from Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu by Philip Alcabes. Through health statistics and a study of historical epidemics, Alcabes makes a persuasive argument that our fear of catastrophic disease far outweighs the reality. This fear whether real or imagined, not only reveals the mores of the time but can lead to destructive and counterproductive actions. Most disturbing of all, the author illustrates how individuals and institutions use the fear of epidemics to push their own agendas.

So maybe I am just being paranoid. But then again, why does everyone seem to be coughing?

Richard

Mr. Peabody’s Corner of Research and Revelation: Doc Holliday’s Wild West

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Today’s topic of interest is a steampunk novel of the Wild West by Michael D. Resnick titled The Doctor and the Kid: a Weird West Tale.  In Resnick’s steampunk universe, first described in The Buntline Special, the United States ends at the Mississippi River with territories further west controlled by magically powerful medicine men, most notably Geronimo and his ally/nemesis Hook Nose. In an effort to combat this magic and expand U.S. borders the government sends inventor Thomas Alva Edison to Tombstone, Arizona to work on magic-negating inventions with fabricator Ned Buntline. Also prevalent in the story are Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers who try to keep Edison and Buntline safe.

The Doctor and the Kid picks up one year later with the infamous Doc Holliday losing his life savings in a drunken poker game, money he’d earmarked for a comfortable room in a sanatorium to ease his inevitable demise from tuberculosis. In an effort to recoup his gambling losses Holliday decides to hunt down the outlaw with the largest bounty on his head, newcomer Billy the Kid. But in order to have a chance to defeat the Kid (who has magical protection provided by Hook Nose), Holliday has to make a reluctant deal with Geronimo and to enlist the inventorly genius of Edison and Buntline.

Most of Resnick’s characters are real historical figures, although he plays around with timelines and circumstances. Still, I yearn to learn more about the history of the story’s setting. Here are some questions that come to mind and some titles that might help provide answers.

 1) In Resnick’s book Doc Holliday is 32 and nearly dead from tuberculosis. Is this an accurate portrayal of his medical condition?

     
2) What is tuberculosis and how prevalent was it in the late 19th century?

3) What events led Billy the Kid to a life of crime and murder? How much of what we “know” about the Kid is factual rather than apocryphal?          

4) Were medicine men thought to have magical powers?

5) What are some of the important inventions that have forever changed Americans’ lifestyles?

 6) Were violence and corruption part of everyday life in the Wild West?

            
And if you’re interested in historical fiction revolving around these characters, take a look at the following titles:

Can’t talk, lots more to learn.

The Titanic Disaster in History, Fiction, and Film

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This month is the 100th anniversary of one of the most infamous tragedies in history – the sinking of the Titanic. On April 15th, 1912 the luxurious British ocean liner R.M.S. Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg, buckling a 300 foot span of the starboard hull. It took only two hours and 40 minutes for the ship to sink at 2:20 a.m. killing 1,503 of the 2,208 people on board.

The ship had 20 lifeboats with room for only half the passengers. At first people refused to believe the ship was sinking and wouldn’t board the lifeboats. Some boats left the ship with only 12 to 56 passengers on board. 705 people survived on those lifeboats while others wearing life jackets died of hypothermia floating on the waters frigid surface.

It was the maiden voyage of the largest ship afloat at the time. Set to sail from Southampton, England with a final destination of New York City it was built to be the epitome of luxury with a gymnasium, heated swimming pool for first-class passengers, libraries, restaurants, and staterooms with electric lighting and heating. Many rich and famous people were traveling on the ship. Their combined fortunes would be about $11 billion today.

The library has many of the new books that have been published to mark the 100th anniversary.

Historical accounts and nonfiction:

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: the Titanic, Her Passengers and Their World by Hugh Brewster focuses on the first-class passengers including artist Frank Millet, Major Archibald Butt President Taft’s closest aide, Margaret “Molly” Brown, Millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, and movie actress Dorothy Gibson.

Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From by Richard Davenport-Hines is a collective biography telling the stories of the most rich and famous but also of the third-class passengers emigrating to the U.S.

Shadow of the Titanic: the Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived by Andrew Wilson explores how the survivors lived with or repressed their memories and the social ostracism experienced by the men who escaped in lifeboats.

Titanic : the Last Night of a Small Town by John Welshman traces the stories of twelve eye-witnesses. He delves into their earlier histories, how they survived the disaster, and what happened to them in the following years.

Titanic, First Accounts is a compilation of historic firsthand accounts by survivors and eye-witnesses.

To experience exactly what the people of 1912 were reading at the time, Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic: the Ocean’s Greatest Disaster is a deluxe reproduction of the 1912 memorial edition published immediately after the disaster.

The Titanic tragedy is also a plot point in many fiction books:

In Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke, Michael Dunnagan survived the Titanic through the sacrifice of Owen Allen. He promised to care for Owen’s sister Annie still in England. As he works to save enough money to bring Annie to America, WWI erupts in Europe and Annie mysteriously disappears.

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe is set in 1915 when a young woman is still tormented by the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic. In a blend of mystery and romance she searches for answers from a medium’s crystal ball.

Echoes of Titanic by Mindy Starns Clark and John Campbell Clark is a mystery combining modern-day corporate intrigue with the uncertainty of what really happened to Kelsey Tate’s great-grandmother Adele on the Titanic’s last night.

There are plenty of representations of the Titanic disaster on film and television:

When I think of the Titanic the first thing that comes to mind is Leonardo DiCaprio shouting “I’m the King of the World” from the bow of the ship in James Cameron’s epic  movie Titanic. This winner of 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1997, is available at the library on DVD. Watch Jack and Rose meet and fall in love on the doomed luxury liner . To listen to the music from the movie you can check out the Titanic Anniversary Edition soundtrack featuring Celine Dion’s Titanic Love Theme “My Heart Will Go On“.

You can watch the 4-part BBC mini-series Titanic on DVD that was written by Julian Fellowes creator of Downton Abbey. Starring Toby Jones, Linus Roache, and Geraldine Somerville it will be shown on ABC starting on April 14, the 100th anniversary of the day that the ship hit the iceberg and released on DVD April 24th.

And whatever you do, don’t forget to view the Titanic up close by stopping by the Main Library lobby to see a 5 ½ foot long wooden replica of the ship made by Tim Anderson.

Kim

Mr. Peabody’s Corner of Research and Revelation: Marilyn

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A good book always makes me want to learn more about its contents, yet I seldom make the effort. But that will change with the advent of Mr. Peabody’s Corner of Research and Revelation. Here I will explore items related to a recent read, follow up on topics of interest and provide you, the blog reader, with the opportunity to do the same.
 

Today’s starting point is a historical mystery by Max Allan Collins titled Bye Bye, Baby.  In this story, PI Nathan Heller is hired by Marilyn Monroe to protect her from potential unknown threats. As the tale unfolds we learn of Monroe’s intimate relationships with both John and Robert Kennedy, JKF’s incessant womanizing and ties with the mob, and brother Robert’s infidelity and flexible morality. The author also provides plausible conspiracy theories which explain Marilyn’s death. Other characters of interest in this book include Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana.

As I read this piece of historical fiction, questions arise and I wonder how much of the writing is factual, how much is speculative, and how much is simply fabricated to make an interesting story. So here are some of my questions and some titles that might provide answers.

What is the generally accepted explanation for Marilyn Monroe’s death?

My Week with Marilyn
Marilyn Revealed:  The Ambitious Life of an American Icon
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
My Story
The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

 

 JFK is remembered as one of the greatest presidents, but what was the reality of his personal character?

The Kennedy Legacy: Jack, Bobby and Ted and a Family Dream Fulfilled
Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, The Castros, and the Politics of Murder
The John F. Kennedy Handbook
Forty Ways to Look at JFK
Private Lives/Public Consequences: Personality and Politics in Modern America

 

Robert Kennedy is known for his harsh stance against organized crime. Did this public persona hide an unrepentant womanizer who was willing to compromise his ideals?

Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J.
Edgar  Hoover that Transformed America
Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story
Bringing Down the Mob: The War Against the American Mafia

 

How did Marilyn die? Did she have affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy? Was JFK involved with organized crime?

That’s What They Want You to Think: Conspiracies Real, Possible and Paranoid
The Kennedy Detail:  JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence
The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia

 

What kind of a person was Frank Sinatra and what kind of involvement did he have with organized crime?

Sinatra in Hollywood
Sinatra: The Life
Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey & the Last Great Showbiz Party

 

Peter Lawford was a member of Sinatra’s rat pack, but was also JFK’s brother-in-law. What was his role in Marilyn’s death and in the Kennedy’s lives?

The Leading Men of MGM

 

Was Chicago crime lord Sam Giancana employed by JFK’s administration to assassinate Fidel Castro? Did Giancana and Kennedy share a mistress?

Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption and the Cop Who Was a Mobster

 
Can’t talk anymore, gotta research.

Ron