Mary Musgrove, inspiration for Creek Mary
Creek Mary's Blood. Dee Brown. Henry Holt & Company, 1980. 401 pages.
Students of Georgia history learn the story of Mary Musgrove, a Creek Indian woman who was an important part of Georgia's founding. She served as an interpreter and intermediary between the local Creeks and Georgia's first colonists. Lovers of history, and western history in particular, recognize the name Dee Brown as one of the leading historians and writers specializing in America's western history, the author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a landmark re-interpretation. Published in 1970, Bury was at the forefront of the movement to end the romanticization of the Old West and Indian Wars to tell the real history of white-indigenous relations.
In 1980, Brown published Creek Mary's Blood, a highly fictionalized story obviously inspired by Mary Musgrove. It's also very reminiscent of the great 1964 novel Little Big Man because it's a sprawling, multi-generational novel that covers a long period of time in the lives of the main characters as their lives intersect with real historical figures, from James Oglethorpe (the founder of Georgia) to Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, I could easily see this novel as a movie like "Little Big Man" or a 1980s tv miniseries like "Centennial."
The story of Creek Mary and her progeny is told in the novel by Dane, her 91-year old grandson, speaking to a journalist in 1905. He recounts Mary's life in Georgia, the Trail of Tears and the violent division within the Cherokee tribe that resulted, his move west to live among the Cheyenne, and his children's and grandchildren's involvement in the Civil War, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the Wounded Knee Massacre. It's an epic story of five generations of a family that covers two centuries and serves as a crash course in Native American history. The novel may stretch credulity here and there, and a few elements make it a little awkward in terms of fiction quality, but it's entertaining.
Author podcast appearance
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I. Douglas Brunt. Atria Books, 2023. 384 pages.
Like the author, Douglas Brunt, I initially knew next to nothing about Rudolf Diesel, what a diesel engine actually is, or how the invention of the engine was really one of the greatest technological advances in human development. I also had no idea that Diesel's body was fished out of the North Sea in 1913. He was on a steamship headed from Belgium to the UK when he mysteriously disappeared. Was it an accident, suicide, or murder?
Diesel's engine was absolutely revolutionary. It was powerful and efficient. It cut down on noxious fumes and smoke created by burning coal and traditional petroleum products. It could power factories and vehicles. It allowed for immediate starts. It could be fueled by nut or vegetable oils. It transformed military and commercial navies, provided more power and speed, saved space once taken up by tons of coal, eliminated the need for many refueling stops and for the dozens of crewmen who were normally required to shovel coal, and making submarines more feasible. All of these factors made Rudolf Diesel the leading engineering superstar of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Did his engine also make him the target of a murder plot?
The chief suspects were very powerful men. John D. Rockefeller saw the diesel engine as an existential threat to his business and to his fortune. Kaiser Wilhelm II was determined to make Germany a world superpower, taking over the UK's supremacy. Although his ancestral home and home for much of his life was Germany, Diesel preferred to think of himself as a "citizen of the world" rather than a German. He worked to make his technology accessible in every country. He was on his way to the UK to offer support to that country's growing submarine development program. Did Rockefeller of Wilhelm decide to eliminate the engineer ?
Douglas Brunt's book is an excellent biography of Diesel, and it tells the story of the engine's development, both the science and the business, without bogging down into too much technical detail. He explains the significance of the engine and expertly puts it into the context of the age, the eve of WWI, with great insights into the lives and personalities of Rockefeller and Wilhelm, with sketches of Edison, Ford, Marconi and others along the way. Finally, he puts forward his own theory as to what happened. I highly recommend this book.
"But, Mr. Adams" 1776
Dr. Craig watches "Wheel of Fortune", "St. Elsewhere"
There I Go Again: How I Came to be Mr. Feeny, John Adams, Dr. Craig, KITT, and Many Others. William Daniels. Potomac Books, 2017. 240 pages.
William Daniels has had a long and distinguished career as an actor. I first became aware of him when I watched "St. Elsewhere" as a teen in the 1980s. It is still regarded as one of TV's greatest series and probably the best medical-themed series. The acting, writing, storylines, and technical innovations have influenced every single medical show that has aired since, from "ER" to "Scrubs." The show was the first big acting break for many including Ed Begley Jr, Mark Harmon, Howie Mandel, and Denzel Washington. William Daniels was at its center as Dr. Mark Craig.
But then, I discovered him in the greatest historically based musical ever produced in the history of man: "1776." Everyone knows I generally detest musicals, but this one grabbed me. Historically accurate, with great songs and lots of humor, I showed the entire movie to practically every American history class I taught. It was the basis of my teaching of the Declaration of independence. Daniels starred as John Adams. Later, he would also play John Quincy Adams, joining a select group of actors who have played more than one President.
And yes, he also was the only redeeming feature of a couple of garbage shows: "Boy Meets World" and "Knight Rider." But an actor's gotta act.
A couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled to meet the 96-year old William Daniels, and he graciously signed a copy of his autobiography and a "1776" poster for me.
His autobiography is a terrific read, full of his wit and memories from a decades long career that started when his mother forced him onto the stage as a small boy in Great Depression era Brooklyn. He and his younger sisters had a family act culminating in their own radio show. He started acting on Broadway at 15 in one of the longest-running Broadway plays ever even though he had never been in or even seen a play before being cast (as understudy originally). He writes about encounters with famous people like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Billie Holiday, Veronica Lake, and Marilyn Monroe, and in great detail about the roles for which he's most famous. It's fun and fast, especially for a fan.
Author podcast appearance
The Ghost Tattoo. Tony Bernard. Citadel, 2023. 336 pages.
Tony Bernard and his siblings grew up as typical Australian beach bums. Tony was an adult before he met somebody for whom surfing, sailing, and the ocean weren't all that important. They knew things about their father growing up, too. They knew that he was a successful and popular doctor and that he was a Holocaust survivor; he carried the tattooed number on his arm. They also knew that their mother divorced their father and had no contact with them for a decade. What they didn't know was that their father's Holocaust experiences were at the center of the failed marriage, and they didn't know just how deeply and profoundly his experiences had damaged him. He was that good at shielding his children, but the shields failed when it came to himself and his marriage.
Then, cracks in the shield started developing in 1970 when he, and Tony, flew to West Germany so that he could testify in the trial of a Holocaust murder case. Later, in the 1970s, Tony accompanied him to his Polish hometown, and he learned more of the story. Still, it took another few decades to pull the story out in its entirety. Henry, Tony's father, had not only seen most of his family killed while he himself survived concentration camps, but he had lived through another whole tragedy before being deported to the camps - the source of the majority of the anguish and torment that plagued the rest of his life. He had been a member of the Jewish Order Service in his hometown. Just as the name suggests, the JOS was created to serve the German occupiers by enforcing order among the Jewish population. Henry soon found himself facing seemingly impossible dilemmas and being forced to do terrible things in order to keep himself and his loved ones alive. As Tony Bernard writes in an upcoming 7 Questions with Histocrats (to be published October 13th), this story forces the reader to ask himself what he would have done.
This book is a unique twist on the usual Holocaust story and worth a read.
Author talk
The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story. Kermit Roosevelt III. University of Chicago Press, 2022, 256 pages.
If you are interested in reading a thoughtful and thought-provoking take on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the true character of the United States, The Nation That Never Was may be a book for you. It is challenging, but not in a difficult-to read, legal-ese, constitutional-theorists-having-a-scotch-in-a-wood-paneled-library-esoteric-debate kind of way. It challenges what Americans have been taught and think they know about the founding of America and its two most important founding documents, and it challenges our ideas about American ideals, but it's written in very accessible language.
Kermit Roosevelt III is an American author, lawyer, constitutional scholar, and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a great-great-grandson of United States President Theodore Roosevelt and a distant cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
From the beginning, Roosevelt describes the American dilemma: Do we acknowledge and address the shortcomings of America's history and move forward together from there? Or do we continue perpetuating the "standard" story of the founding, created as part of the effort to build a nation but not truthful and accurate, and simply erase the negative elements? In the book, he thoroughly examines the "standard" simplistic and sentimentalized story we've all learned (and taught) and breaks it down, pointing out exaggerations, truths, and untruths. Then he lays out a new way of looking at America's story. That new story is that we should define our national identity around the promises, challenges, and aspirations (some still unachieved) of Reconstruction instead of the founding period. Like Reconstruction historian Eric Foner, he lays out the case for 1865, rather than 1776 or 1619, as modern America's starting point. However, he also distinguishes and separates his argument from those, like Foner, who have called Reconstruction "the Second Founding."
I don't agree with everything Roosevelt wrote, but it was definitely worth reading and thinking about.
