Person, Place, and Thing: January 1 - 7

 

Persons.

On January 1, 1892, the Ellis Island immigration center in New York harbor opened its doors, replacing the Castle Clinton facility as the major east coast gateway into America. Between 1892 and 1954, 12 million people arrived in America to begin new lives.

Many of them settled in New York's lower Eastside, at least temporarily, making that area of the city a crowded, bustling, active neighborhood for people of dozens of languages and cultures. It's still a contender for one of the most ethnically diverse areas on earth.

The Tenement Museum opened in 1988 to tell the story of the area in the actual tenements that served as homes and livelihoods for the immigrants. 97 Orchard Street is a great social history of the building at that address, through the lives and foods of five different families that lived there at the turn of the 20th century. Containing 40 recipes, it is a fun and fascinating social history of their shopping, cooking, and eating.

97 Orchard was home to families like the Schneiderswho ran a German beer saloon there and lived in the building, the Moores who faced the anti-Irish prejudice at the time and lived in the heart of "Little Germany," Nathalie Gumpertz whose husband abandoned her at 97 Orchard with four small children, and the Lustgartens who opened a kosher butcher shop there as eastern European Jews moved into the former Little Germany.

Place.

On January 1, 1892, the Ellis Island immigration center in New York harbor opened its doors, replacing the Castle Clinton facility as the major east coast gateway into America. Between 1892 and 1954, 12 million people arrived in America to begin new lives.

The Tenement Museum on New York's Lower Eastside was established in 1988, in actual tenement buildings that housed so many of the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. The exhibits are first rate, and the guided tours of the buildings and the neighborhood are terrific experiences. @thetenementmuseum And the store is full of great books like 97 Orchard Street, a food history of tenement life at the turn of the 20th century.

If you're in the area, it's a must-visit. Then, take some time on your own and wander around the streets of one of the most diverse areas on the planet, stop in and tour one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen, @museumateldridgestreet - a former synagogue,cand then explore Chinatown and maybe eat at the city's oldest dim sum restaurant @nomwah .

Things

On January 1, 1892, the Ellis Island immigration center in New York harbor opened its doors, replacing the Castle Clinton facility as the major east coast gateway into America. Between 1892 and 1954, 12 million people arrived in America to begin new lives.

When you enter the building at Ellis Island today, one of the first things you see is a large array of luggage, trunks, and baskets, actual pieces donated by descendants of immigrants who passed through the facility. Visitors can imagine the lives of the people who brought all their belongings in those containers to a whole new country where they knew nothing and nobody, maybe not even the language. They had no idea how their lives would go, and yet they gave up all to make the trip, searching for a new life.

The book 97 Orchard Street takes readers deeper into the lives of five such families, through their food ways, and food is always an important part of social history.

Persons.

From January 1 through 7, 1923, the small black community of Rosewood Florida was burned down by a white mob. Officially, six blacks and two whites were killed, but unofficial counts range from 27 to 150 dead. Survivors spent days hiding in the woods or being hidden by sympathetic whites until they could leave the area. For decades after, there were no black residents in the area.

It started when Fannie Taylor, a white woman, claimed a black man had beaten her. She never mentioned rape, but, as often happened at the time, word was spread in the nearby white community that she was raped. The woman in the photograph was Sarah Carrier, with her son Sylvester and daughter Willie, taken in 1910. She did laundry for Taylor. She and her granddaughter reported that they had seen a white man leaving Taylor's house that day and that they had seen him there before. Meanwhile a black prisoner had escaped from a chain gang nearby.

Soon as many as 400 white men from the surrounding area arrived. Sylvester Carrier was tortured and lynched because they believed he he had helped the escapee. His mother Sarah was killed in her home. As violence escalated, all the homes and businesses in Rosewood were burned down, and blacks fled into the woods. Some women and children were hidden by the white family who ran the general store ( Their house is the only building remaining in Rosewood today.) and other whites in the area. Two white train conductors stopped on their route to pick up women and children and take them away from the area.

Although the incident received much press attention at the time, it was purposely forgotten and covered up, eve survivors refused to say anything, until 1982 when a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, Gary Moore, began investigating and asking why there were no black residents in the area. Reporters and researchers digging into the story and legislators who pushed for state recognition and compensation to survivors received death threats through the 1990s.

Place.

From January 1 through 7, 1923, the small black community of Rosewood Florida was burned down by a white mob. Officially, six blacks and two whites were killed, but unofficial counts range from 27 to 150 dead. Survivors spent days hiding in the woods or being hidden by sympathetic whites until they could leave the area. For decades after, there were no black residents in the area.

Wikipedia:
Rosewood was settled in 1847, nine miles (14 km) east of Cedar Key, near the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the local economy drew on the timber industry; the name Rosewood refers to the reddish color of cut cedar wood. Two pencil mills were founded nearby in Cedar Key; local residents also worked in several turpentine mills and a sawmill three miles (4.8 km) away in Sumner, in addition to farming of citrus and cotton. The hamlet grew enough to warrant the construction of a post office and train depot on the Florida Railroad in 1870, but it was never incorporated as a town.

As was common in the late 19th century South, Florida had imposed legal racial segregation under Jim Crow laws requiring separate black and white public facilities and transportation. Black and white residents created their own community centers: by 1920, the residents of Rosewood were mostly self-sufficient. They had three churches, a school, a large Masonic Hall, a turpentine mill, a sugarcane mill, a baseball team named the Rosewood Stars, and two general stores, one of which was white-owned. The village had about a dozen two-story wooden plank homes, other small two-room houses, and several small unoccupied plank farm and storage structures. Some families owned pianos, organs, and other symbols of middle-class prosperity. Survivors of Rosewood remember it as a happy place. In 1995, survivor Robie Mortin recalled at age 79 that when she was a child there, that "Rosewood was a town where everyone's house was painted. There were roses everywhere you walked. Lovely."

Thing

From January 1 through 7, 1923, the small black community of Rosewood Florida was burned down by a white mob. Officially, six blacks and two whites were killed, but unofficial counts range from 27 to 150 dead. Survivors spent days hiding in the woods or being hidden by sympathetic whites until they could leave the area. For decades after, there were no black residents in the area.

There is a permanent exhibit of Rosewood artifacts at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona. There just aren't that many artifacts that weren't destroyed, or perhaps there are some artifacts yet to be found. The survivors ran into their woods with nothing, many in their nightclothes, all but one of the buildings was destroyed,band there may be some people who have family artifacts but who are still reluctant to share. As far as I can ascertain today, the Bethune-Cookman exhibit is the only permanent Rosewood exhibit. Another exhibit is opening at Florida International University in Miami in a few days. As we enter the centennial year of the massacre, there may be other events in planning.

Person.

On January 3, 1853, Solomon Northrup was freed after illegal kidnapping and enslavement, with the aid of New York governor Washington Hunt. He went on to write his memoir of the events, Twelve Years a Slave, published later that year.

Northrup was a free man in Saratoga Springs New York who made his living as a carpenter and a violinist. In 1841, he was approached by two circus promoters who offered him a musician's job with their circus. He traveled with them to Washington DC, where he awoke to find himself drugged, bound, and in a slave pen. He was transported to New Orleans from there by ship. He was sold and leased to several men during his twelve years of enslavement, and he was assigned to various roles from field hand to carpenter. After brutal beatings suffered each time he protested about his free status, he kept quiet until he met a Canadian abolitionist carpenter named Samuel Bass, who was building his owner's house. Bass agreed to mail letters to Northrup's family and friends in New York. One letter reached Henry Northrup, the white politician who had freed Solomon's father, and he had connections to the governor of New York. Gov. Hunt appointed Northrup as a state agent to travel to Louisiana and secure Solomon's freedom. Working with a local attorney, he found Solomon, a difficult task because Solomon and Bass had both used false names and omissions of locations in the letters just in case they fell into the wrong hands.

Solomon Northrup filed charges and lawsuits against his kidnappers, but the cases went nowhere because of legal technicalities in DC and in New York. He resumed carpentry, published his story, and became an active abolitionist. After 1857, however, he disappeared from all historical records and there is no evidence of what happened to him.

Place.

On January 3, 1853, Solomon Northrup was freed after illegal kidnapping and enslavement, with the aid of New York governor Washington Hunt. He went on to write his memoir of the events, Twelve Years a Slave, published later that year.

Northrup was a free man in Saratoga Springs New York who made his living as a carpenter and a violinist. In 1841, he was approached by two circus promoters who offered him a musician's job with their circus. He traveled with them to Washington DC, where he awoke to find himself drugged, bound, and in a slave pen. He was transported to New Orleans from there by ship.

In Washington DC, slavery and the slave trade were legal until the Compromise of 1850 made the slave trade, but not slavery, illegal in the district. Contemporary accounts often speak of numerous slave pens and slave auction houses located within blocks of the Capitol and the White House, where enslaved people were housed until purchase. It was one of these establishments at which Northrup awoke.

The most famous photographs of a slave auction house and slave pens were taken by Matthew Brady of the Price, Birch, & Co. in Alexandria Virginia, in operation from 1858 to 1861.

Thing

On January 3, 1853, Solomon Northrup was freed after illegal kidnapping and enslavement, with the aid of New York governor Washington Hunt. He went on to write his memoir of the events, Twelve Years a Slave, published later that year.

Northrup was a free man in Saratoga Springs New York who made his living as a carpenter and a violinist. In 1841, he was approached by two circus promoters who offered him a musician's job with their circus. He traveled with them to Washington DC, where he awoke to find himself drugged, bound, and in a slave pen. He was transported to New Orleans from there by ship.

While enslaved, he worked at various jobs on the various plantations, from field hand to carpenter to driver (drivers were enslaved supervisors of other enslaved workers). He also worked as a musician. There was a big demand for fiddlers and other musicians to play at social gatherings,band he was, by all accounts, extremely talented. Enslaved musicians were often paid in easier hours or jobs or even cash. On at least one occasion, Northrup was tipped $17, an exceptional account.

Northrup included some sheet music in his memoir, like the song pictured here.

Person

If you were alive in the 1970s, you saw Hollywood's hardest working American Indian, Iron Eyes Cody in a series of anti-littering tv commercials. Born in Louisiana in 1904, Cody died on January 4, 1999. With a career starting in the late 1920s, he appeared in over 200 films and over 100 television shows. For 70 years, he was Hollywood's go-to Indian. Only after his death did the world learn the truth: Cody was not an Indian at all, despite the fact that he claimed several tribes as his own, lobbied for numerous American Indian causes, and he was only ever photographed wearing Indian regalia.

In fact, Cody was of Sicilian ancestry. He had convinced the whole country, including himself, that he was Native American. When a sister told the truth in the press in 1996, he vehemently denied it.

His story is unique mostly because of the massive body of work and the level of fame that he attained. Until the 1970s, very few American Indians had speaking roles in Hollywood westerns. Jay Silverheels (Tonto on The Lone Ranger), a Canadian Native American, was the most notable exception. Most Hollywood Indians, speaking roles and extras, were Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Jewish, or some other eastern or southern European ethnicity. Ricardo Montalban and Leonard Nimoy played many Indians in their early days.

Cody recounted many stories of his Hollywood career and the stars he worked with in his 1982 autobiography, My Life As A Hollywood Indian, but maintained his ethnicity deception/delusion.

Place.

If you were alive in the 1970s, you saw Hollywood's hardest working American Indian, Iron Eyes Cody in a series of anti-littering tv commercials. Born in Louisiana in 1904, Cody died on January 4, 1999. With a career starting in the late 1920s, he appeared in over 200 films and over 100 television shows. For 70 years, he was Hollywood's go-to Indian. Only after his death did the world learn the truth: Cody was not an Indian at all, despite the fact that he claimed several tribes as his own, lobbied for numerous American Indian causes, and he was only ever photographed wearing Indian regalia.

Wikipedia:
"Cody was born Espera Oscar de Corti on April 3, 1904, in Kaplan in Vermilion Parish, in southwestern Louisiana, a second son of Francesca Salpietra from Sicily and her husband, Antonio de Corti from southern Italy. He had two brothers, Joseph and Frank, and a sister, Victoria. His parents had a local grocery store in Gueydan, Louisiana, where he grew up. His father left the family and moved to Texas, where he took the name Tony Corti. His mother married Alton Abshire and had five more children with him.

When the three de Corti brothers were teenagers, they joined their father in Texas and shortened their last name from de Corti to Corti. Cody's father, Tony Corti, died in Texas in 1924. The brothers moved on to California, where they were acting in movies, and changed their surname to Cody. Joseph William and Frank Henry Cody worked as extras, then moved on to other work. Frank was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1949."

Cody recounted many stories of his Hollywood career and the stars he worked with in his 1982 autobiography, My Life As A Hollywood Indian, but maintained his ethnicity deception/delusion.

Thing.

If you were alive in the 1970s, you saw Hollywood's hardest working American Indian, Iron Eyes Cody in a series of anti-littering tv commercials. Born in Louisiana in 1904, Cody died on January 4, 1999. With a career starting in the late 1920s, he appeared in over 200 films and over 100 television shows. For 70 years, he was Hollywood's go-to Indian. Only after his death did the world learn the truth: Cody was not an Indian at all, despite the fact that he claimed several tribes as his own, lobbied for numerous American Indian causes, and he was only ever photographed wearing Indian regalia.

Cody's movie credits cover 60 years. His first appearance, uncredited, was in the silent film, Back to God's Country, in 1927. His last appearance, as Chief St. Cloud, was in Ernest Goes to Camp in 1987.

Persons.

On the 5th of January 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," considered a defining book of the gothic horror genre, was first published.

Stevenson had long been intrigued by the interplay of good and evil within a person. As a teen, he had written a play about William Brodie or Deacon Brodie, who maintained a reputation as an unassailably upright and solid citizen by day, but was a thief and burglar by night who used the funds from thefts to finance a major gambling habit. He and his accomplices were caught and hanged for serial theft in 1788.

As an adult, Stevenson became friends with with a French teacher in Edinburgh, Eugene Chantrelle, who was convicted of murdering his wife with opium in 1878. In the trial, which Stevenson attended, evidence was presented that potentially linked Chantrelle with other murders in France and Britain.

Stories like these inspired the story of Dr. Jekyll, an erudite gentleman ( Stevenson borrowed the name Jekyll from a friend, the Reverend Walter Jekyll, who, as far as we know, was a good citizen. I wonder how he felt about the name borrowing.) Jekyll concocts a potion that transforms him into a sinister murderer named Hyde who rampages through the city.

Place.

On the 5th of January 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," considered a defining book of the gothic horror genre, was first published.

Stevenson, born in Edinburgh Scotland, decided to move his family to the South Pacific in 1888. After spending time in Hawaii, Tahiti, and various other islands, they decided to make their home in Samoa. There he became an important advocate for Polynesians in general, and Samoans in particular, as the European and American imperialists greedily eyed the islands as possessions.

"On 3 December 1894, Stevenson was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine when he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that?", then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?", and collapsed. He died within a few hours, at the age of 44, due to a stroke. The Samoans insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night and on bearing him on their shoulders to nearby Mount Vaea, where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea on land donated by the British Acting Vice Consul." (Wikipedia)

Things.

On the 5th of January 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," considered a defining book of the gothic horror genre, was first published.

I found it interesting to read about the different themes that literary critics and literature professors have ascribed to the work. Literature majors have to come up with something to give themselves something to do, right?

1. The most common is the duality of good and evil or civility versus barbarism, even Freudian conscious versus unconscious.

2. Speaking of Freud: Id, Ego, Super-Ego. Hyde represents the primal Id, Jekyll is the Ego, and the straight-laced morals and expectations of Victorian society make up the Super-Ego.

3. Public vs Private: kind of a duality, kind of back to rigid Victorian rules of society. The conflict is the conflict between one's public face and private face and what happens when the line blurs.

4. Another interpretation forwarded is more political. Hyde represents Scotland's national and linguistic separation from the more respectable and conservative England imposed on it.

5. Some readers have suggested that addiction is the major theme of the story, particularly the effects of alcohol and drugs.

6. Finally, one theory proposes that the story is a commentary on Darwin's theory of evolution, with Jekyll representing the evolved, civilized man and Hyde representing the less evolved man.

Person.

E.L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 and died in 2015. He is best known for his works of historical fiction like Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. Several of his works were adapted into movies. He was known for his historical settings and for creating fictional characters and stories that involved real historical figures.

He was born in the Bronx to second generation Russian Jewish parents who named him after Edgar Allan Poe. He joined the school literary magazine of the Bronx High School of Science and took journalism courses. In college, he majored in philosophy and took part in theater productions. After military service, he worked as a reader for a motion picture company and published his first novel in 1960.He then became an editor before turning to writing full time in 1969.

Ragtime has been named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century by the Modern Library. Doctorow's works have been awarded national accolades multiple times.

Place.

E.L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 and died in 2015. He is best known for his works of historical fiction like Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. Several of his works were adapted into movies. He was known for his historical settings and for creating fictional characters and stories that involved real historical figures.

"To support his family, Doctorow spent nine years as a book editor, first at New American Library working with Ian Fleming and Any Rand among others; and from 1964, as editor-in-chief at Dial Press, publishing work by James Baldwin,  Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines, and William Kennedy, among others." (Wikipedia)

Ragtime has been named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century by the Modern Library. Doctorow's works have been awarded national accolades multiple times.

Thing.

E.L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 and died in 2015. He is best known for his works of historical fiction like Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. Several of his works were adapted into movies. He was known for his historical settings and for creating fictional characters and stories that involved real historical figures.

Ragtime the musical with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Terence McNally opened in Toronto in 1997 before moving to Broadway in 1998. Although it received mixed reviews, it led the field in 1998 Tony nominations with 13. It won four Tonys, losing Best Musical to The Lion King. It closed on Broadway in 2000 after nearly 850 performances.

Ragtime has been named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century by the Modern Library. Doctorow's works have been awarded national accolades multiple times.

Person.

Fannie Farmer published her first cookbook, The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, on January 7 1896. It eventually contained 1,850 recipes plus essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning, drying fruits and vegetables, and nutrition. It introduced the concept of standardized spoons and cups and level measurement, and is considered a major milestone in outlining the science of cooking. It is still in print today.

Farmer was born in Boston in 1857 to a family of four daughters and parents who believed in the value of education for girls, but she suffered a paralytic stroke high school, blocking her formal education aspirations. Even while suffering the effects of the stroke, she turned her family home into a boarding house which acquired a reputation for delicious food.

At age 30, she was able to walk, with a persistent lifelong limp, and she became a star student at the Boston Cooking School. In 1891, she became the school's principal. In 1902, she created her own cookery school. She also worked closely with physicians and lectured at medical schools about the importance of nutrition in health. She was wheelchair bound the last 7 years of her life but continued writing, lecturing, and developing recipes until her death, due to a stroke, in 1915.

Place.

Fannie Farmer published her first cookbook, The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, on January 7 1896. It eventually contained 1,850 recipes plus essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning, drying fruits and vegetables, and nutrition. It introduced the concept of standardized spoons and cups and level measurement, and is considered a major milestone in outlining the science of cooking. It is still in print today.

According to Wikipedia, The Boston Cooking School was founded in 1879 by the Women's Education Association  of Boston "to offer instruction in cooking to those who wished to earn their livelihood as cooks, or who would make practical use of such information in their families."

The idea for the school was first proposed by Association member Mrs. Sarah E. Hooper, who had observed the teaching of cookery at London's National School of Cookery, while passing through that city on her return from an extended trip to Australia. She persuaded the Association to authorize $100 to launch a similar school in Boston; The Boston Cooking School opened on March 10, 1879, at 158½ Tremont Street. In 1902, it became part of Simmons College.

Thing.

Fannie Farmer published her first cookbook, The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, on January 7 1896. It eventually contained 1,850 recipes plus essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning, drying fruits and vegetables, and nutrition.

The revolutionary thing about Farmer's book is the scientific method that she introduced in her recipes. "Farmer provided scientific explanations of the chemical processes that occur in food during cooking, and also helped to standardize the system of measurements used in cooking in the USA. Before the Cookbook's publication, other American recipes frequently called for amounts such as "a piece of butter the size of an egg" or "a teacup of milk." Farmer's systematic discussion of measurement —"A cupful is measured level ... A tablespoonful is measured level. A teaspoonful is measured level."—led to her being named "the mother of level measurements." " (Wikipedia)