The British Invasion and Early Modern History Online!

Hi! I’m the newest addition to Fun With History. I am a early modern Europeanist with a research focus on print culture in the British Isles, and a minor field in World History. On this American History blog I’m “one of those things that’s not like the other”, although in the period of my own research the American colonies were still part of the Commonwealth.

One of the topics I will focus on is the relationship between history, research, scholarship, and the Digital Humanities or the web at large. The basis of all historical research, especially on the PhD level and beyond, is the scholar’s time spent in the archives with (hopefully) original sources. In the last five years, digitization projects and the spread of the idea of the “digital humanities” has revolutionized the way historical research is conducted. In my case, the sources I work with are old, fragile, and generally housed in the UK. Even when I was in London doing dissertation work at the British Library, the archivists had me working with facsimiles and microfilmed copies a lot of the time out of concern for the fragility of the original documents. In recent years, archives, universities, libraries, and educational publishers such as GALE have moved away from microfilm and towards digital collections. Digitization allows for better copies of originals, can easily duplicate color, and provide access (sometimes free, sometimes via subscription) anywhere in the world. No more waiting for microfilm and getting dizzy while zipping through reels. And as any consumer of digital media knows, the ability to conduct a full-text search is invaluable for research.

The problem has been one of access. Digitization and maintenance of digital archives cost money and not all institutions, much less individuals, can afford it. Fortunately, this is changing. Starting today, Eighteenth Century Collections Online has partnered  up with TCP to create 18th Century Connect. For those who don’t know, ECCO is one of Gale’s database that includes searchable digitized original documents. Want to read an original copy of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels? You can find almost every copy that was printed available here. It’s like GoogleBooks for historians. They’ve teamed up to release “The roughly 2,000 texts released by Gale Cengage Learning and the Text Creation Partnership (see the News tab) are available for full-text searching here. ” This means that you can do full-text searches of these original sources! Not only do they have texts,they also have prints (browse the “marriage” tag for examples).

Harmony before Matrimony * Digital ID: (color film copy transparency) cph 3g08786 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g08786 * Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-8786 (color film copy transparency) * Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Once you create an account, you can collect items (save them in a folder), add a private annotation (note-taking for each source, great for research), or open a public discussion. The purpose of the project is to be both a research tool and an interactive, on-going, scholar discussion regarding sources. Best of all, it’s already Zotero-compatible (don’t know Zotero? You will in a post or two).

This and other publicly-accessible databases continue to revolutionize the historical field. They make research less expensive and more accessible. Because you can do your preliminary work in your pjs, on your couch, it allows for shorter more target archive trips – a necessity in the current budget crisis. They will never replace the dusty box experience – for example. with my work what you see on the back side of the document and the feel of the paper tells me as valuable information as the words on the page – but they can 1) help streamline research and 2) allow you to re-access sources once you’ve returned home.

The second impact of projects like this and others I will highlight in the coming months is that they provide students – elementary through the PhD- the opportunity to explore primary source material they would otherwise never get their hands on. Can’t get to DC but have internet? You can access impressions from the Library of Congress. As an instructor – set your students free and see what they find on their own. Or use the database as an introduction to using archives and doing historical research. Or create primary source assignments via 18thConnect.org instead of asking them to buy hard copies of the same books. For the book historians among us, ask students to do a project comparing the different editions – and take that print-is-fixed narrative and blow it right out the window.

For now, have fun, find me in the discussions and stay tuned for more introductions to some really incredible historical sources and databases that are at your fingertips (and where PJs are an acceptable dress code).

I Still Have a Dream

Today in 1963, 200,000 people joined together for a civil rights rally on the steps of Lincoln Memorial and spilling out into the Washington Mall in the peaceful March on Washington. There Martin Luther King, Jr. gave perhaps one of the most recognized speeches of American history, “I Have a Dream.” He called for a time when equality in the U.S. would finally be a reality. We still struggle to meet that goal. King dreamt of a beautiful future:

“Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

And he ended his speech with the beautiful sentiment: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

While his wishes became the national message and understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, many others spoke that day. Another speaker, John Lewis, asked the protesters, “Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington?” The speakers and attendees disagreed on tactics and immediate goals. Some looked to King as a savior to their cause while others saw him as Uncle Tom. Either way, they all agreed that while Lincoln and the Radical Republicans had promised them equality in the 1860s, they had not yet received it. Now, the felt, equality should finally be theirs.

I cannot write about this historic and iconic event without mentioning what is happening on those same steps of the Lincoln Memorial today. As readers of this blog may know, Tea Party activist Glenn Beck is holding his Restoring America rally. Of course, he has the right to speak there, to hold a rally there. Glenn Beck has also used racist language and dared to call our president a racist – an outlandish and incendiary statement. Yet, he has began to co-opt the Civil Rights Movement into the Tea Party Movement. Using the language of an oppressed people, a people who had endured hundreds of years of inequality, violence, racism, and who continue to suffer today is disrespectful and wrong. In both respect to King and the thousands who stood with him and to his own party’s legacy (whatever that might be), today should be held in memory to a unique and powerful moment in the early 1960s.

(Here are some links to articles in today’s New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle discussing both the 1963 March on Washington and Beck’s rally: Glenn Beck’s Nightmare, America is Better Than This, Where Dr. King Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle, Thousands Hear Beck and Palin at Washington Rally, and Dueling Rallies in DC Mark King Speech Anniversary.)

Today We Celebrate Our Independence

Hello fellow history lovers. Instead of a usual today in history type blog, since you all know what happened today, I thought instead I would share some of my favorite links to historical sites & articles relevant to Independence Day, including former posts here. Enjoy & have a Happy 4th of July!!

Read the Declaration or listen to it here, The Declaration of Independence Read Aloud.

Learn about the process of independence on former Fun with History posts, Moving Toward Independence, and the declaration of independence here, Declaring Independence.

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson apparently wrote subjects instead of citizens when writing the Declaration? The AP had a recent article about it: Thomas Jefferson made slip in Declaration.

A piece on how far we’ve come and how far we have to go to achieve a nation that is truly racially independent, Fourth of July, 1776, 1964, 2010.

Myths about the Fourth of July: The Fourth of July and Other Myths of Independence.

Adrian Tinniswood’s piece on the impact of the English Civil War on its American colonies and how it shaped a people that 130 years later fought for independence here, America’s Revolution: The Prequel.

NPR’s suggestions to create the perfect music list to celebrate our independence, A Mix for America.

We are a nation of immigrants and the NY Times has a great Room for Debate blog post on how immigrants proclaim their love of the US in How We Adopted the Fourth of July.

How could we forget about Betsy Ross today, when we hold our flag most dear? The Historiann writes about her in Stars & Stripes Forever.

The History Channel has a video today-in-history about our independence, This Day in History.

How about some fun facts about the Fourth of July? These are great to share while waiting for the fireworks to start:  Facts for Features: The Fourth of July.

And finally, a historical round up of America’s Independence, July 4th.

An Act to Protect Your Stomach

The Progressive Era serves as one of my favorite historical periods in the 20th century. From efforts to improve society to President Theodore Roosevelt, I find it to be an inspirational moment in American history. Yes, I know the Progressives had their faults, they couldn’t decide if behavior was learned or innate, they often acted in terribly racist ways, and no one loved a war more than Teddy Roosevelt. However, they also made huge strides in regulating business and attempting to make our country a safer one.

This leads me to the Food and Drug Act, passed today in 1906. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, receives the most credit for the passage of the act. He had intended to horrify its readers about the treatment of workers but instead horrified his readers about the quality of their food. Sinclair later famously claimed, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

But Sinclair was not the only champion of this act. Social activist Florence Kelley, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and Roosevelt himself worked hard for the act’s passage. The hard work of all these convinced Americans that Congress needed to protect them through regulation of their food.

The initial Pure Food and Drug Act required that certain specified drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis, be labeled accurately with ingredients and instructions for use. It also went hand-in-hand with other acts, namely the Meat Inspection Act. Later, these acts provided the precedent to create the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Never perfect, the FDA continues to work tirelessly to protect our stomachs.

The Freedom Summer Lynching

Today in 1964,  three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The three men, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James E. Cheney (all in their 20s) had been in Mississippi for a Civil Rights training session. Both Schwerner and Cheney (the only African American of the three) belong to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a leading Civil Rights organization of the early 1960s.

During the six weeks it took to find the bodies (buried in a dam), local authorities remained skeptical that anything had happened to the young men. Sheriff L.A. Rainey (later found to be a part of the lynching) told the New York Times “If they’re missing, they just hid somewhere, trying to get a lot of publicity out of it, I figure.” His quote reflected the attitude of many in the town. The local police virtually ignored the missing men. However, national outrage prompted President Johnson to force the FBI to investigate.

The three men had been arrested earlier on the day of their disappearance for allegedly speeding. Upon their release the Ku Klux Klan had set up an ambush, knowing which way the three men would be heading from the jail. The mob beat Cheney and shot and killed all three men. Part of the outrage helped create national support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1967, 16 men were charged with conspiracy, all members of the KKK. Eight went to prison (including Sheriff Rainey), but none served more than six years.  For the next 40 years, the case lived on. In 2005, a jury convicted Edgar Ray Killen (one of the KKK members involved in the lynching) of three counts of manslaughter. Killen, 80 years old, received three consecutive terms of 20 years in prison.

In 1988, the film Mississippi Burning provided a fictionalized account of the events.