Happy Birthday, FDR!

Posted on January 30th, 2013

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.

Don’t Know Much About® Edith Wharton

Posted on January 24th, 2013

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.

The Greatest Second Inaugural?

Posted on January 18th, 2013

Washington__

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.

Don’t Know Much About® Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on January 15th, 2013

Born January 15, 1929
Courtesy of the National Archives.

Thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr. –born Michael Luther King, Jr. on his actual birthday on January 15, 1929– I came across the presentation speech given when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In it, Gunnar Jahn, Chairman of the Nobel Committee, said of Dr, King:

He is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races.

Today we pay tribute to Martin Luther King, the man who has never abandoned his faith in the unarmed struggle he is waging, who has suffered for his faith, who has been imprisoned on many occasions, whose home has been subject to bomb attacks, whose life and the lives of his family have been threatened, and who nevertheless has never faltered.

On Monday January 21, 2013, Dr. King’s life will be marked by a federal holiday (3d Monday in January) celebrating his life and achievements. It is now a day that many try and set aside as a Day of Service in honor of Dr. King’s memory. That day will also see the public inauguration of Barack Obama for his second term. The Obama White House announced that the President would use Bibles belonging to Abraham Lincoln and Dr. King to take the oath of office.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and a new monument on the Mall in Washington honors Dr. King, the symbolism of America’s first black president using these Bibles is extraordinary.

Much attention will be paid on Monday to Dr. King’s most famous speech, the “I Have a Dream” oration given in Washington on August 23, 1963. Less familiar is his Nobel Peace Prize lecture which also deserves a reading. These words come from his Nobel lecture:

Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed. But in some substantial degree it has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we are a part. The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites. It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.

Citation: “Martin Luther King Jr. – Nobel Lecture: The Quest for Peace and Justice”. Nobelprize.org. 15 Jan 2013 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html

This New York Times obituary appeared a day after his death on April 4, 1968.

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers a wide range of resources on Dr. King’s life and legacy. Stanford University also maintains an extensive collection of material on Martin Luther King, Jr. at the King Institute.

The history of slavery, the Civil War and the civil rights movement are covered at length in Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents and Don’t Know Much About the Civil War.

presidents

Don’t Know Much About Benedict Arnold

Posted on January 14th, 2013

“Arnold’s Boot” (Source PBS. org)

Why is there a statue of Benedict Arnold’s boot?

Years ago, I was asked that question on a radio call-in show and honestly did not know the answer. Nor was I even aware at the time there was such a statue. But there it is — part of the Saratoga National Historical Park in Saratoga, New York. The “boot” is actually anonymous, citing the “most brilliant soldier in the Continental Army.” But there is no question it honors American history’s greatest villain, born this day in 1741.

History books like to make people into heroes or villains. And Benedict Arnold was easily characterized as a villain, the most notorious traitor in American History for his attempt to betray the patriot cause when he was in command of the strategic post at West Point, overlooking the Hudson River. But he might have been one of the nation’s greatest heroes. And that is what makes history so compelling. Not the black and white of dates and “facts,” but the more subtle gray complexities of ego, ambition and human frailty.

Born on January 14, 1741 in colonial Norwich, Connecticut, Arnold had a biography that reads like that of a character out of Dickens. The son of a wealthy, successful ship’s captain and merchant, young Benedict Arnold was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He was sent off to the best boarding school by his father, owner of the finest home in town. Then it fell apart. Yellow fever took his sisters while he was at school. Alcoholism then took his father. The fall was stunning as the elder Arnold became the town drunk and lost his fortune. At 14, young Benedict Arnold became an indentured servant. As a teenager, he ran away on several occasions to try and join the British-American forces then fighting France in the French and Indian War. Through pluck and generous relatives, Arnold eventually became a wealthy young merchant himself and was soon immersed in patriot politics, even traveling to Philadelphia to observe the First Continental Congress.

When the fighting began in 1775, he led Connecticut’s militia to Boston to join the rebel army gathering there. Arnold soon won honors for his role in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. With George Washington’s approval, he led a daring but disastrous march through Maine to unsuccessfully attack Quebec. Later, he built a small navy to battle the British on Lake Champlain, helping save the patriot cause. But it was at Saratoga in October 1777 that he made his greatest contribution, leading a charge that turned the tide in what would become the most important American victory of the Revolution to that point.

Admired by Washington, Arnold also made a great many enemies. Seeing others promoted and advanced before him made him bitter and ultimately led to his fateful decision to join the British side.

After his plot was uncovered, Arnold did join the British side, fighting against his onetime countrymen. He later moved to Canada and eventually to London where he died and was buried in June 1801 at the age of 60. His remains were accidentally –and fittingly?– moved to an unmarked grave.

New York Times Bestseller-America’s Hidden History

You can read more about Arnold and his exploits in the chapter called “Arnold’s Boot” in America’s Hidden History

Don’t Know Much About® Richard Nixon

Posted on January 9th, 2013

Richard M. Nixon (Source:National Archives)

Richard M. Nixon (Courtesy of National Archives)

When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal –Richard M. Nixon to interviewer David Frost (1974)

Born one hundred years ago on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California – Richard M. Nixon –37^th President

From Cold Warrior to vice president under Eisenhower, defeated candidate in the 1960 race with John F. Kennedy to his narrow 1968 election and 1972 landslide, Richard Nixon dominated the American scene as few other politicians have. Then came Watergate and his resignation in August 1974.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interests of America first…. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

—Richard M. Nixon, August 8, 1974

Son of a struggling storeowner in California, Nixon was raised a Quaker (the only other Quaker president was Herbert Hoover). He attended Whittier College and studied law at Duke. Nixon returned to California to practice, and served in the Navy during World War II. He was elected to the House of Representatives, making his name as a Communist fighter. He became Senator and then Eisenhower’s vice president, serving eight years (1953-1961). After his loss to Kennedy to 1960, he returned to California, lost a governor’s race and seemed finished in politics. But in 1968, Nixon mounted a comeback and won a close race over Hubert Humphrey.

There have arguably been better presidents and worse presidents. But there is probably no more complex president than Richard M. Nixon. For three decades Richard Nixon made decisions, especially in the arena of the war in Southeast Asia, relations with the Soviet Union, and by reaching out to Communist China as only a committed Cold Warrior could do, that altered the arc of history. His extraordinary career flamed out in the Watergate scandals that overshadowed all else that Richard Nixon did— or didn’t do.

Nixon died in New York City, aged eighty-one, on April 22, 1994. (Richard Nixon’s New York Times obituary.)

Read more about Nixon’s life and administration in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents

Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents-now available in hardcover and eBook and audiobook

The New Abolition of the “Execrable Commerce”

Posted on December 18th, 2012

Slaughter of the Innocents

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under….” (Matthew 1: 16-New Revised Standard Version)

December 15 –this past Saturday—marked the 221^st anniversary of ratification of the Bill of Rights. I had planned to use the occasion to write about the history of the Bill of Rights and the general public ignorance of what these 10 Amendments are and why they were created by the Founding Generation.

That plan was cut off by the events in Connecticut on Friday, December 14 when, like millions of others, I was caught up in the maelstrom of media reports –so many of them initially mistaken—coming out of a small community not far from New York City.

In the days since, the issue of controlling America’s epidemic of gun violence has been thrust to the center of attention in a way it has not before—even in the wake of other recent shootings whose names are now well-known: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora. The list is old and way too long.

On Sunday evening, following the slaughter of the innocents, the President made that reality perfectly clear at a prayer vigil after the terrible shootings in a bucolic small town in Connecticut. He said, “Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

As of today, it seems as though this horrific event has become what is called a ”tipping point.” Congress has begun to move itself. And the New York Times editorial page devoted its columns to the issue of Second Amendment rights and what it calls “the gun epidemic.”

I do not wish to use this space for yet another scholarly and historical debate about the origins and intent of the Second Amendment. Instead I urge people to read each of the related pieces. I especially want to encourage teachers – who have been thrust into the true front lines of this gun madness—to use this as a teaching moment, particularly with age-appropriate classes. This is a time for real “current events” in the Social Studies classroom. The following essays from the Times will provide some excellent talking points for classroom and community discussion.

•”Personal Guns and the Second Amendment”

•”In Other Countries, Laws Are Strict and Work”

•”Let’s Get M.A.D.D. About Guns” by columnist Joe Nocera

•”The Bullet’s Legacy” by columnist Frank Bruni

In thinking about this issue, I was reminded of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and the centuries of legal and political arguments over what Jefferson called “this execrable commerce” in his draft of the Declaration (deleted by Congress).

I believe that guns are our “execrable commerce.” And gun control is ultimately a moral issue, not a political one, just as the abolition of slavery was. It took far too many lives to get Abraham Lincoln to the point that he finally reached in calling for the abolition of slavery.

In the time of slavery, the voices calling for emancipation were drowned out by powerful political and economic forces. Men like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were dismissed as fanatics, with discussion of slavery even prohibited in Congress under its “gag rule.”

It is time to end America’s “gag rule” on serious discussion of rational, meaningful gun control. As William Lloyd Garrison wrote 30 years before the Civil War,

“On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation.” (The Liberator, No. 1 January 1, 1831)

Enough is enough.

Don’t Know Much About® the Real First Pilgrims

Posted on November 21st, 2012

As we cut through the myth and misconception surrounding the “first Thanksgiving,” it is easy to say that there was nothing new or novel about the October 1621 “harvest feast” celebrated in Massachusetts by the surviving Mayflower passengers. Certainly harvest festivals go back to the dawn of time. And in America, such “thanksgiving days” were surely celebrated by the Spanish in the Southwest and Englishmen in Virginia well before the Mayflower sailed.

But one group has been left out of the picture completely. And their story deserves to be part of the Thanksgiving conversation. They were French and had the good sense to settle in Florida in June instead of Massachusetts in December. They reached the future America in 1564, long before the Mayflower arrived in December 1620 carrying those “Pilgrims.” Like the storied English Separatists, these French Protestants, or Huguenots, came to America seeking religious freedom in the midst of France’s bloody religious civil wars. But they have been overlooked by most history books. Their plight — and tragic fate– is the subject of an article I wrote for the New York Times.

TO commemorate the arrival of the first pilgrims to America’s shores, a June date would be far more appropriate, accompanied perhaps by coq au vin and a nice Bordeaux. After all, the first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French. And they beat their English counterparts by 50 years. That French settlers bested the Mayflower Pilgrims may surprise Americans raised on our foundational myth, but the record is clear.

Here you can read the rest of this Op-Ed, A French Connection which first appeared in the New York Times on November 25, 2008.

New York Times Bestseller America’s Hidden History

The complete story of the French Huguenots who settled Fort Caroline in Florida is told in the first chapter of America’s Hidden History.

You can also learn more about the “first Pilgrims” at the Fort Caroline and Fort Matanzas National Park Service sites.

Don’t Know Much About Minute: More Pilgrims 101

Posted on November 20th, 2012

When Abraham Lincoln signed a Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 calling for a day of gratitude on the last Thursday in November, it began an unbroken string of presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations. In 1941, the FOURTH Thursday in November was set as a national holiday by Congress and signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In my previous video and quiz about Thanksgiving, I told you that there were no black hats with buckles, half of the “pilgrims” weren’t Pilgrims and that the first Thanksgiving was really in October. Here are a few more pieces of the picture.

And here is a link to a story I wrote for the New York Times about America’s real first Pilgrims, a group of French settlers in Florida who arrived 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.

A day of “Thanksgiving” was officially proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. It was the beginning of an unbroken string of Thanksgiving proclamation by American presidents. The last Thursday in November became an official national holiday in 1941, signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

THE PLIMOTH PLANTATION historical site also offers a good overview of the Pilgrim story:

Thanksgiving Pop Quiz- A Videoblog

Posted on November 19th, 2012

With Thanksgiving around the corner, cutouts of Pilgrims in black clothes and clunky shoes are sprouting all over the place. You may know that the Pilgrims sailed aboard the Mayflower and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. But did you know their first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three whole days? What else do you know about these early settlers of America? Don’t be a turkey. Try this True-False quiz.

True or False? (Answers below)
1. Pilgrims always wore stiff black clothes and shoes with silver buckles.
2. The Pilgrims came to America in search of religious freedom.
3. Everyone on the Mayflower was a Pilgrim.
4. The Pilgrims were saved from starvation by a native American friend named Squanto.
5. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America.

Read more about the Mayflower and its passengers with your children in Don’t Know Much About the Pilgrims.

Don’t Know Much About® the Pilgrims

And read about America’s real “first Pilgrims”–French Huguenots who landed in Florida more than fifty years before the Mayflower sailed– in America’s Hidden History
americas_hidden_history1

The site of Plimouth Plantation is definitely worth a visit.

The newly revised, updated and exapnded edition of the New York Times Bestseller now in hardcover from HarperCollins

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

Answers
1. False. Pilgrims wore blue, green, purple and brownish clothing for everyday. Those who had good black clothes saved them for the Sabbath. No Pilgrims had buckles– artists made that up later!
2. True. The Pilgrims were a group of radical Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England. After 11 years of “exile” in Holland, they decided to come to America.
3. False. Only about half of the 102 people on the Mayflower were what William Bradford later called “Pilgrims.” The others, called “Strangers” just wanted to come to the New World.
4. True. Squanto, or Tisquantum, helped teach the Pilgrims to hunt, farm and fish. He learned English after being taken as a slave aboard an English ship.
5. False. The Indians had been having similar harvest feasts for years. So did the English settlers in Virginia and Spanish settlers in the southwest before the Pilgrims even got to America. And the Mayflower Pilgrims weren’t even America’s “first Pilgrims.” That honor goes to French Huguenots who settled in Florida more than 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.