When Anne and I went to Springfield last month (and took a picture of the Capital Building which really wasn't the Capital Building), we made our usual purchases at the Abraham Lincoln Museum Gift Shop. This usually consists of some combination of books, doo-dads, and tee-shirts. With the 200th anniversary of Abe's birth coming up in February of 2009, there was a lot merchandise because of the bi-centennial. I purchased an enormous book that was first written during Abraham's life and presidency, revised after his death and again for the bi-centennial. It is a tough read as it is strictly a period piece written in the style of the time. People in the early 1800's wrote nothing like we do today. So it the Chaucer principle. You get into the flow and just go with it.
But I did get one little book written in a form I could understand quickly (no, it wasn't "Abraham Lincoln For Dummies"), but 101 Things You Didn't Know About Abe. In reviewing the book, there were only several that neither Anne nor myself knew. But here, for your reading and historical pleasure are a couple of things you might not have known about our 16th President.
1. Abraham Lincoln was named after his paternal grandfather who was a wealthy landowner in Virginia. He eventually moved his family to Kentucky and was killed by an Indian attack. Neither our president nor his paternal grandfather had a middle name.
2. Lincoln is the only U.S. President to be awarded a patent. It was for a manner of applying adjustable bouyant air chambers to stream boats so they could easily pass over shallow water or sand bars.
3. In a strange turn of events, Robert Lincoln was standing beside a railroad track when he was shoved downward onto the rails by the push of the crowd. A man behind him yanked him up by his coat collar and saved his life. The man's name was Edwin Booth. His brother, John Wilkes Booth, would kill Robert's father 2 years later.
And of course, #4 -- was Ann Rutledge the true love of Lincoln's life?
Yes. Absolutely. I don't know what the book says about it, but Ann and Abe were star-crossed lovers whose passion never came to fruition.
Like Abe, Anne (the other one) and I love a good story.
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Abe-ster
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Thursday Thirteen #29 1956
(Thank you Chaotic Home for the great graphic!)
The Year 1956...It Was A Very Good Year 
For my parents anyway -- they look happy (they have NO CLUE as to the headache I will be in about 13 years....) Anyway, I'm not too sure what I was thinking. Maybe I was worried my head would never pop out of that cone shape. But it did -- less than a year later! See?
The baby daughter of Frank and Rose appeared a month early in December of 1956. So without further baby pictures, here's 13 things about 1956!
#1. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon are President and Vice President.
#2. The minimum wage is $0.75/hour. Most Americans make about $1.00 per hour and the average yearly income hovers at $4,454.00.
#3. A new car will set you back about $2,100; a new home about $22,000.
#4. A gallon of milk is $0.97; a loaf of bread $0.18; a dozen eggs $.80.
#5. A first class postage stamp is $0.03 and a gallon of gas is (hold your breath here) $0.25.
#6. Zenith introduces the first wireless remote control for televisions and the first videotape recorder is demonstrated.
#7. Richard Doll, MD, 37, an Oxford physician presents research linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer. The London Times did not publish his research.
#8. The Andrea Doria, a luxurious Italian oceanliner, sinks off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts after colliding with the SS Stockholm. 52 lives are lost.
#9. Japan becomes a member of the United Nations.
#10. President Eisenhower signs the Joint Resolutions of the US Congress making "In God We Trust" the US National Motto. He also authorizes the phrase "One Nation Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
#11. Elvis Presley appears on Ed Sullivan on September 9, 1956 for the first time. His second album "Elvis Presley" goes gold.
#12 "The Wizard of Oz" is shown on TV for the first time. TV shows debuting in 1956 include: As the World Turns, Edge of Night, NFL on CBS, the Dinah Shore Show and the Steve Allen Show.
#13. John F. Kennedy publishes his Pulitizer Prize winning book, "Profiles in Courage", written the year before while he recuperates from an operation to repair a spinal problem. The book in part, is reportedly dictated to his wife, Jackie, who remained at his side.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thursday Thirteen #26 The Saga of Frederick and Georg
When we last left our couple, they had just met and while it seems that Georg was "warm for Chopin's form", he did not initially return the feeling. However, I need to back up the track a bit, to explain that when Chopin met Sand, he was already engaged to another woman.
13 More Things on the Life of Frederick Chopin (pictured here in 1833)
#1 -- In 1835, while in Dresden trying to find a cure or some relief for his "consumption", Chopin renews his acquaintence with the Wodzinski family, who had lived in his father's boarding house back in Poland years before. Their young daughter Maria is an accomplished pianist in her own right and Chopin falls in love with her. She is 17, he is 25.
#2 -- They maintain a strong relationship by letter and see each other periodically as Chopin criss-crosses Europe giving concerts and teaching the aristocracy. Not long after on September 9, 1936, Chopin proposes marriage during a holiday together, chaparoned by Marie's mother. Marie accepts.
#3 -- Marie's family tells the couple that the engagement will not be "official" until Chopin proves that he is gonna live long enough to take care of their daughter! He gets a one year trial period to improve his failing health or all bets are off. He also needs to prove that he can provide a stable home environment. Due to continual travelling and performing, he has not yet set up a permanent home.
#4 -- So into this milieu marches Georg Sand. They meet approximately October 24, 1836, a month or so after Chopin proposes to Marie. Chopin is ill and realizes he just may be rejected by Marie's family as decent husband material. Sand is separated and soon divorced from her Baron husband and has 2 children, a boy, Maurice and a girl, Solange.
#5 -- As luck would have it, Chopin cannot do what the Wodzinski family requires of him. He becomes very ill over the winter months and eventually meets Marie in Germany the early part of July, 1837 after a series of concerts in England and the Netherlands. Marie's family sees the state of his frail health and instructs her to reject his proposal....by letter....later. By the time he returns to Paris toward the end of July, he receives word of the broken "unofficial" engagement. He wraps Marie's correspondence and the rejection letter in a bundle and labels it "My Sorrow".
#6 -- From all accounts, Sand is a bold feminist, takes lovers of both sexes, and asserts herself as strongly as possible during the era she lived. She works around the prejudices against women by taking a man's name to publish her novels and write her plays. She divorces and is a directed, strong, single working mother. But she also has a very warm, maternal, loving side. And it is this side she presents to Chopin, who is physically and emotionally at one of the lowest points of his life.
#7 -- By the early part of 1838, Sand and Chopin begin attending parties together and their love affair blooms. By August of 1838, Sand wrote this of Chopin to friend and painter Eugene Delacroix: "If God were to ordain my death in an hour, I would not complain, because three months of undisturbed enchantment have passed." She also wrote to a friend: "He no longer expectorates blood, sleeps well, coughs little...He can sleep in a bed which shall not be burnt just because he used it."
#8 -- Even through illness, a broken love affair, traveling, teaching, performing and a terrible longing for his family and native Poland, Chopin manages to compose consistently. Mazurkas, Etudes, Polonaises, Sonatas, Ballades, Preludes, Nocturnes...often dedicated to those he loved -- Marie, various friends and teachers. These bars of music from his Nocturne in E flat Major were written down in an album of Marie's.
#9 -- From 1838 until approximately 1847, Sand and Chopin are together. By all accounts, they have a warm and loving relationship. Although they never marry, they are treated as a married couple. He gets along fairly well with Sand's son and very well with her daughter, Solange, whom he gives piano lessons to. They spend most of their time at Sand's home in Nohant (pictured here), in central France, returning to Paris only during the winter months. It is stated that Chopin is the happiest in Nohant he's ever been since leaving his family home in Poland. He is very busy composing, and while he has several near-death health scares, he is able to recover under Sand's watchful eye.
#10 -- During one of Chopin's seriously ill periods, Sand writes to a friend: "I know that many people accuse me; some say that I harmed him with my violent sensuality, others that I harmed him with my excesses."
#11 -- By 1845, Chopin's health is beginning to permanently deteriorate. His relationship with Sand is showing signs of strain, partially due to 2 other influences besides his health -- the fact that Chopin had sided with Sand's daughter Solange concerning a romantic involvement and the fact that Sand's son Maurice had begun taking a increasing hostile attitude toward Chopin and the time that Sand spent with him. The final break occurs in July 1847.
#12 -- The devasting blow compromises Chopin both physically and emotionally although he does maintain a close relationship with Sand's daughter Solange. He composes very little music after the break up and becomes increasingly ill. He gives his last public performance in London on November 16, 1848 and returns to Paris several days later. His pronounced tuberculosis makes tutoring impossible. Eventually, his sister comes from Poland to help nurse him as he is no longer able to care for or even support himself. Pictured is the last piano he used.
Frederick Chopin dies in Paris on October 17, 1849 at approximately 2am. It is rumored that Sand's daughter Solange is with him at the time of his death.
#13 -- Chopin's will is followed to the letter. He requested that after death, his heart be removed from his body and returned to Poland. His sister brings Frederick's heart back in an urn, where it is interred in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Krakowskie Przedmiescie. His body is buried in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Chopin's hand notation of the Sonata in G minor, Op 65: 
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Thursday Thirteen #25
We were big faves of Frederick Chopin as I was growing up and I've carried that love into my adult life. My mother and I would watch "A Song To Remember" (Cornel Wilde played a robust Frederick and Merle Oberon played a beautiful Georg Sand, which right there tells you it's a movie...because he wasn't robust and she wasn't THAT beautiful) but we'd get all weepy about his love for his native Poland, the gal he left behind (maybe fact, maybe fiction) and his slow, horrid death from tuberculosis at 39. The relationship between and Chopin and Georg Sand really is the stuff of romance novels...the tortured pianist and the feminist writer...and his short life was certainly filled with love and music, pain and loss.
So here are 13 Things About Frederick Chopin
#1 -- He was born here as Fryderyk [Franciszek] Chopin on March 1, 1810 in the village of Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw Poland. There is some confusion over when he was actually born. There is no known birth certificate, and his mother filled out the birth date on his baptismal certificate as February 22, 1810. So in other words, he was born March 1, give or take.
#2 -- His father Nicolas (translated into Polish as Mikołaj) was a French expatriot originally from Lorraine. He emigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of 16 and served in the Polish National Guard. He eventually went to Żelazowa Wola and secured a post as a tutor to some aristocratic families. He met and fell in love with Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska, whom he married.
#3 Fryderyk (Frederick) Chopin was the couple's third child, the first boy. He inherited his mother's blue eyes and fair hair and skin, but his small frame and frail health from his father.
#4 -- The Chopins were by no means destitute. In 1817 Mikołaj Chopin became a teacher of French at the Warsaw Lyceum, housed in Warsaw University. The family lived in a spacious second-floor apartment in an adjacent building. Even though Chopin's father was French and taught the language, Polish was spoken exclusively in the family home and Chopin never did master the French language, even after living in Paris for many years.
#5 -- Chopin's parents were both musical (his father played the flute and his mother taught piano) but Frederick showed remarkable ability and was known as a child prodigy. He did have formal piano training, but quickly outgrew his teachers. He composed his first works, 2 polonaises (which are basically Polish dances) at the age of 7 and began giving recitals in public. He remained fiercely loyal to his Polish heritage through music his entire life.
#6 -- Chopin had an incredibly stable home life and was reported to be extremely bright and funny. He studied piano with various teachers, most notably Jozef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory from the ages of 16-20 (and possibly even when Frederick was younger). From the age of 7 months until he left Warsaw at the age of 20 in 1830, Chopin always lived with his family in very comfortable surroundings.
#7 -- Notable before his leaving Warsaw was that his sister Emilia died from "consumption" or tuberculosis in 1827. Comments about Frederick's physical appearance before he left Poland suggest that he too had contracted the disease. His father died in 1844 from TB also.
#8 -- Chopin, now a seasoned pianist and composer, traveled to Paris by way of Vienna, arriving in 1831. He became an accomplished teacher and composed etudes for his students, which were melodies that taught specific fingering and positioning on the piano. It is rumored that Chopin's hand span on the piano was 2 octaves, or a full 16 keys. 
#9 -- The cast of his left hand.
#10 -- While Chopin enjoyed teaching (performing was becoming increasingly difficult for him because of his health. He needed to play small venues or salons because he frequently did not have the strength to play the piano forcefully enough to full a huge room with sound) he was also exceptionally proud. During a lesson, Chopin would reportedly stand after a time and walk to look out his window. That was the cue that the lesson was over and a "donation" was to be placed on the mantel. He maintained he never asked for money to teach his students.
#11 -- In Paris, Chopin met many other artists -- composers, painters, writers. He was extremely popular and was sought out as a teacher, composer, and salon pianist. It was there in 1836, at a party hosted by the mistress of fellow-composer and friend Franz Liszt, that Chopin met Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym, Georg(e) Sand. He was 26, she 32.
#12 -- Georg Sand was a French Romantic writer noted for her numerous love affairs, and the fact she dressed in men's clothing, which she found more comfortable than women's garb. She also chain smoked a pipe. As women were not allowed to be published, she took a man's name in order to do so. Her first published novel, Rose et Blanche (1831) was written in collaboration with one of her lovers, Jules Sandeau, from whom she allegedly took her pen name, Sand.
#13 -- It was not "love at first sight" for Frederick and Georg. "Something about her repels me," he wrote his family. Sand, however, in a letter to a friend in June, 1837, debated whether she should end a current affair to begin one with Chopin -- repelled be damned! -- even though she knew he was reportedly engaged to a woman named Maria Wodzińska. 
#14 -- Portait of Chopin by Georg Sand.
Now you say....what happened to Frederick and Georg? Did they have an affair or just stay mildly interested in each other's lives? And how did Sand's husband (the Baron) feel about all this? Or Sand's 2 children? What's the scoop on Georg and her affairs and her writing career? What happened to the woman Chopin was "engaged" to? Did he ever get back to Poland? How did he die? Is it true that Sand actually hastened his death? And what eventually happened to Georg Sand?
Well, 13 facts (plus Sand's portrait of Frederick) just weren't enough to tell the whole exciting, sad, painful, story of their love affair and his death. I guess I'll just have to finish next Thursday!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Thursday Thirteen #21
13 Things about Oscar Wilde. And boy was he ever!
1. Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.
2. His family consisted of his parents, Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Elgee and 5 siblings: Henry, Emily, Mary, William, Isola. His father was a well known and respected doctor, his mother was a writer, but because of the era she lived in, wrote under an alias.
3. Oscar attended college at Oxford and graduated with many prizes for his works. After graduation, Oscar moved to London to live with his friend Frank Miles, a popular high society portrait painter.
4. In 1881, Wilde published his first collection of poetry. It received mixed reviews by critics, but helped to move Oscar's writing career along and precipitated a trip to the United States in December, 1881. He delivered a series of lectures on aesthetics that was originally scheduled to last four months. It eventually stretched to nearly a year, with over 140 lectures given in 260 days. In between lectures he made time to meet with Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman. After returning to England, he then set off on a lecture tour of Britain and Ireland.
5. Wilde was popular on the lecture circuit and is regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era -- he wrote and produced nine plays, but only one novel -- "The Picture of Dorian Gray".
6. He was known for his sharp wit and many of his famous quotes still resonate today. For instance, On Men:
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
"I delight in men over seventy, they always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. "
-- “A Woman of No Importance”
"I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”
His quotes on Women:
"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood."
-- “The Sphinx Without a Secret”
"It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”
"My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”
"I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
"I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”
Quotes on People
"People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately."
-- Letter from Paris, dated May 1900
"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."
-- “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
"Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification."
-- “Lord Arthur Savile's Crime”
"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Quotes on Life
"Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."
-- “Vera, of The Nihilists”
"The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”
"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell."
-- “The Duchess of Padua”
"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."
-- “Lord Arthur Savile's Crime”
Quotes on Love
"Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman - or the want of it in the man."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”
"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”
"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
-- “An Ideal Husband”
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
"Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
7. Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884. She was well read, spoke several different languages and was very outspoken. They had 2 sons: Cyril in 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886.
8. With a family to support, Oscar worked at Woman's World magazine from 1887-1889. The next six years were to become the most creative period of his life. He published two collections of children's stories and his first and only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". It was published in 1890 originally as a short story in an American magazine to a storm of critical protest. This fueled him to expand the story and get it published -- which is was the following year. Its implied homoerotic theme was considered very immoral by the Victorians and played a considerable part in his later legal trials.
9. Oscar's first play, “Lady Windermere's Fan,” opened in February 1892. It was a financial and critical success and as a result, he focused on writing for theater. His subsequent plays included “A Woman of No Importance” (1893), “An Ideal Husband” (1895), and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895). These plays were all highly acclaimed and firmly established Oscar as a playwright. He was the delight of the stage......until:
10. In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Bosie was well acquainted with Oscar's novel “Dorian Gray” and was an undergraduate at Oxford. They soon became lovers and were inseparable until Wilde's arrest and conviction four years later of gross indecency. He was sentenced to two years hard labor. His wife Constance took the children to Switzerland and reverted to an old family name, “Holland.”
11. Upon his release from prison, he and Bosie were reunited for a time, but the relationship didn't last. He wrote a play about his experiences in prison, but it failed to rekindle interest in his works.
12. Oscar spent the last three years of his life wandering Europe, staying with friends and living in cheap hotels. When a recurrent ear infection became serious several years later, meningitis set in, and Oscar Wilde died on November 30, 1900 in Paris, France.
13. Numerous books and articles have been written on Oscar Wilde since his death, one of note by his grandson, Merlin Holland, in 1997.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #18
My girlfriend Anne and I went to Springfield Illinois to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. It was wonderful and we had a great time. Of course, both of us have always been "Abe-o-philes", but it really is a wonderful experience even if you aren't.
Anyway, I started reading this book about the women in Abe's life and the strong influence they had on him. So here, on this lovely Thursday, are 13 of "Abe's Babes" and who they were to him.
1. Mom. Nancy Hanks Lincoln. And yes, Tom Hanks IS a decendent. Died when Mr. L was a young lad. Although she was uneducated herself, she did encourage Abe in his academic (such as they were) pursuits, although there wasn't much she could do about Abe's Pa. Dad saw things differently and whipped Abe's ass for readin' when he shouldda been workin'. In dad's defense, memorizing the 23rd Psalm wasn't going to get a roof over their heads or food in their stomachs.
2. Stepmom. Sarah Johnston Lincoln. After Nancy's death, Thomas Lincoln left his 2 small kids to fend for themselves for about 6 months while he searched for a new wife. Shockingly, DCFS was not contacted, although Sarah found Abe and his sister cold, hungry and filthy when she came back with Thomas. She cleaned them up and brought books for the future President to mull over by firelight. She was notably one of the first to treat him with love and kindness.
3. Sis. Sarah. Died in childbirth at the age of 20 which sent him into a depressive tailspin. He blamed Sarah's husband for not caring for her properly when she went into labor.
4. Ann Rutledge. Do I need to explain? Is she a legend just in Illinois or does everyone know about her? You tell me. You need me to explain, I will. But get your kleenex ---- Lincoln depressive nosedive #2. Ann's grave is marked with these words: "Where Lincoln Wept". Need I say more?
5. Mary Owens. The New Salem storekeeper "proposed" to this Mary before she went away on a family trip to Kentucky. When she returned, she apparently had been eatin' pretty good and had beefed up to frightening proportions. He might have been worried that she could do some damage to his underweight frame in a moment of unbridled passion -- and ended it the way men have ended relationships for centuries. He manipulated the data so she had no other option but to end it herself.
6. Local Springfield working girl. (Oh, c'mon! -- really!) Story is he visited her after being told of her "services" by a mutual friend, Joshua Speed. The higher class "working girls" only accepted referrals from other clients, and Abe's friend gave him a note of introduction. The woman gave him the thumbs up, and she told him as he was unbuttoning his pants that the charge was $5.00 (quite a hefty sum considering the average person yanked in $2000 a year). He told her he only had $3.00. She laughed and said she knew who he was...a Springfield lawyer...and would trust him for the other 2 dollars. The story goes that Lincoln told her no, that he could not promise when he could pay her the other 2 dollars, so he buttoned up his trousers and started to leave. He tried to leave her the $3.00 for the time she spent with him, but she would not take it.
7. Mary Todd. I think she drove him crazy, but he seemed to remain crazy about her until the day he died. Anyway, they were introduced, then engaged, then sort of not engaged (depressive dive #3), then story says she used her wiles on him one dark and stormy night and they married within days. Robert Todd Lincoln was born 3 days short of their 9 month anniversary. Sure. She got pregnant on the honeymoon they didn't take. Happens ALL the time...but my guess is ol' Abe was smart enough to realize that once you "did it" before marriage with a society girl like Mary (not that I'm suggesting they DID, mind you...altho he did say Robert was "full of mischief that is the offspring of much animal spirits"), your ass better be at the justice of the peace ASAP before a piece of you was gunned down by her pa.
8. Matilda Edwards. During his "split" with Mary, he was introduced to her cousin, Matilda Edwards and fell in love with the 18 year old (as many 30 year old men do). Mary Todd's cousin was a beauty...she was young, pretty, quick witted and thin...and gave rise to his thinking that he did not really love Mary Todd. However, the future Mrs. Lincoln had other ideas...and I bet there was some tension over the family dinner table once Abe started courtin' Matilda. Mary managed to reem Abe a new one every time she saw him, knowing which buttons to push by telling him he was "honor bound" to marry her. He mulled this over for about 15 months until that one dark and stormy night.....and after Matilda turned down his marriage proposal.
9. Kate Chase. Mary hated her because she was like Matilda -- young, pretty, politically saavy and thin. Kate's dad was Salmon Chase, a presidential hopeful and part of the Lincoln administration. Abe admired her intelligence, her poise. His eyes adored her, but he never laid a hand on her. And if he had, Mary would have killed both of them.
10. Anna Ella Carroll. She wrote pamphlets that supported Lincoln's policies and singlehandedly helped to keep Maryland in the union. "I am writing to aid my country," she said. She was good at it and Lincoln knew it. While she did ask to be paid for her work and was refused, Lincoln did compliment her works to his cabinet members and acknowledged her talents to many.
11. Miss Grace Bedell, 11 years old. She wrote him a letter that changed how the world saw Mr. Abraham Lincoln, Springfield Lawyer, Presidential Elect, from that point forward. "Dear Mr. Lincoln", she wrote, "you ought to grow a beard. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you." He apparently listened.
12. Eliza Gurney. An amazing woman, they exchanged numerous letters over the course of his Presidency. She also visited him at the White house. She was the Quaker widow of a British banker who strengthened Lincoln's faith during the difficult years of war and personal loss. Some say she was one of the most important women in Lincoln's life and the topics they wrote and conversed about were imported into Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address.
13. Vinnie Ream. Mary hated her. She was young, beautiful and a talented sculptress. At 17, she eventually gained Lincoln's trust and started work on a bust of him, which continued throughout the winter of 1864-5. They became good friends and the finished bust was a hit with Lincoln, who was a noted supporter of woman suffrage. After Lincoln's assassination, Ream coveted the $10,000 commission to do a life-sized statue for the Capitol, although she met with alot of resistance, some from Mary. Vinnie eventually became the first woman, and at 19, the youngest artist, to ever get a federal commission for a work of art.
There were so many others: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, Lizzie Keckley, Dorothea Dix and finally, actress Laura Keene, who was in "Our American Cousin" at the Ford Theater and rushed to the presidential box after the shooting to cradle Lincoln's head in her lap.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #17!
As I am in incredible pain from an abscessed tooth, anesthesia and pain relief are utmost and foremost on my mind at this moment. Here are some facts about the history of pain relief:
1. The term anesthesia was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1846 and is defined as a reversible lack of awareness either total or specific to a certain part of the body.
2. The first recorded use of anesthesia was written on a papyrus dating back to 1500 BC. Then, opium poppy capsules were collected and a preparation was made to relieve pain.
3. Classic Greek and Roman medical texts discussed the use of opium and other herbal specimens, which proved a mainstay of pain relief until the 19th century.
4. Most anesthesia preparations were either ingested or smoked, but Incan shamans chewed coca leaves and spit into the wounds they were operating on to relieve the pain.
5. The crucial drawback to old methods were that there was no standarization and opiates, herbal remedies and even alcohol were "useless when too weak and deadly when too strong."
6. Even in ancient times, as often as possible, pain relievers were administered locally to reduce the risk of overdosing the patient.
7. A medicine containing willow leaves (a salicylate, the precursor of aspirin) was often applied to wounds to decrease inflammation.
8. In the late 1700's - early 1800's, doctors began experimenting with CO2 and nitrous oxide (laughing gas). It was mainly used by dentists to ease the pain of tooth extraction.
9. In January 1842, a dentist named William E. Clark used a compound called diethyl ether (originally discovered in 1510) to perform painless tooth extraction.
10. Ether and chloroform were used, but both are unstable and ether proved highly flammable. Because of this, cocaine was suggested as an alternate method of pain relief by Sigmund Freud. He originally suggested it to Dr. Karl Koller in 1884 to use during eye surgery on a patient.
11. The first public demonstration of the use of ether as an anesthetic agent was done at Massachusetts General Hospital by the dentist Dr. William Thomas Green Morton in October 1846. In a letter to Dr. Morton, Oliver Wendell Holmes sited the term anesthesia and Morton eventually patented the ether compound. which was still in use through the 1960's.
12. Eventually, a number of cocaine derivatives and safer replacements were soon produced, including procaine in 1905 and lidocaine in 1943.
13. Opiates continue to be used for pain relief, but are usually used with other agents such as intravenous non-opiate anesthetics or inhalants to produce unconsciousness for surgical patients.
Viva anesthesia!!!
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #8
13 Things That Happened Before The Forever Stamp
I believe you can see the post cards. The first one is dated Nov 23, 1909 and being sent to Master Harold Smith in Carroll, Ohio. (I guess Carroll, Ohio only had 1 Master Harold Smith) and the second was sent to Mr. Mike Knopinski of Chicago Illinois (he needed a full address) on June 13, 1912, almost 2 full months after the Titanic sank. Funny, but there's no mention of the sinking in Miss Mary Karpensky's very truly post. We probably think about it more today than they did on June 13, 1912.
But anyway, the sinking aside, how did Miss Mary's postcard from Stevens Point, Wisconsin get to her buddy Mike (in care of Mrs. Hallis) from Chicago, Illinois, you may ask. And I'll tell you, I answer.
1. In early America, people depended on friends, merchants, and Native Americans to carry messages between the colonies. However, most letters were exchanged between the colonists and England prompting the first official notice of a postal service in 1639. Richard Fairbanks' tavern in Boston was named the repository for overseas mail.
2. After the Boston riots in September 1774, the colonies began to separate from the mother country. A Continental Congress was organized at Philadelphia in May 1775 to establish an independent government. One of the first questions before the delegates was how to convey and deliver the mail. Benjamin Franklin was appointed chairman of the committee to establish a postal system and was then appointed the first Postmaster General under the Continental Congress. In 1789 Samuel Osgood becomes the first Postmaster General under our Constitution.
3. In 1823, navigable waters were designated post roads by Congress. Several years later, railroads were labeled post routes as well.
4. The dead letter office was created in 1825 and is still going strong, immortalized in more romance movies than the femme fatale.
5. And here, the news that you've been waiting for: (ta-dah!) The postage stamp was created in 1847, but there was still free local city delivery. As for across the country, you can see on the postcards, they cost 1 cent in 1909 and 1912.
6. They take to saddle to cross the country -- the pony express started in 1860.
7. That old standby, money orders were announced in the mid-late 1860's. Domestic money orders started about 1864 and international ones in 1869.
8. Special delivery was announced in 1885, which probably meant they used a fresh horse to carry your letter across country.
9. In 1893 the first commemorative stamps were issued. Mr. Webster then had to come up with a name for people who collected stamps: "Stamp collectors" People who STUDY stamps are called "Philatelists".
10. Carriage of mail by airplane is sanctioned between Garden City and Mineola, NY in 1911; Earle H. Ovington is the first U. S. mail pilot.
11. Mail Insurance and Collect-on-delivery (COD) are used beginning in 1913.
12. In 1916 the Postal Inspectors solve last known stagecoach robbery, putting an end to the glory days of Butch and Sundance.
13. The first bag of mail traveling across the ocean happened in 1920.
And here, just because I found it fascinating, the years we were introduced to:
1955- Certified mail
1960- Facsimile mail
1963- ZIP Code
1977- Final run of railroad post office on June 30
(precursors of e-mail:) 1980- INTELPOST (high-speed international electronic message service) and 1982- E-COM (Electronic Computer-Originated Mail, electronic message service with hard copy delivery
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Sunday, August 26, 2007
The State of Male
I have been reading that book about Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, “Team of Rivals”. Well, something struck a chord with me as I was reading.
Take this passage, written from one Senator to another: "your friendship crowds (my heart) producing a kind of girlish impatience which one can neither dispose of nor comfortably endure...every day and almost every hour since (leaving) I have suffered a womanish longing to see you. But all this is too ridiculous for the subject matter of a letter between two grave Senators and I'll leave unsaid three fourths of what I have been dreaming on since I left."
You would most likely never hear a heterosexual male speak or write to another heterosexual male in the 21st century in that fashion. Why? You tell me. Is it:
1. A newly ingrained, pervasive fear of intimacy
2. Concern for the appearance of their manhood with men and women
3. Fear of being labeled homosexual
4. Fear of their professed non-sexual love for another man being blasted on Jerry Springer by their significant other
5. A simple, natural progression of genetics
6. Fear of being the joke of the neighborhood when everyone finds out, which you know they will
7. Fear of being rejected by the other person
That letter was written only 150 years ago. Two generations. Could we have mutated that much in so little time? Maybe. Maybe not. So, it is genetics or fear or both?
Genetics gave us Gandhi and Adolf Hitler. Also allowed us to walk upright and have opposable thumbs, to be self aware and think outside our reality. It also produced cancer and AIDS. So is the "how 'bout those Bears?" males of the 21st century a good thing or a bad thing?
Is it fear? Well, fear is a universal. From animals to man. Fear is a probably the biggest motivator next to procreation. Fear has an incredible hold over people, from the sublime to the obvious. Since we now know what we can have, we also know what we can lose.
My friend Anne suggests that perhaps because these men sustained so many losses – the death of wives, children, parents -- they did not fear expressing their love for the people in their lives.
Maybe that has mutated into a 21st century fear of expressing yourself exactly for that reason. Why open your heart only to have them leave or reject you – or post your personal correspondence on the internet? Perhaps those men 150 years ago weren’t afraid of the pain of life – knew it was gonna happen one way or another – and why not just say what you want to say. You’re going to survive or not. Typhoid or tuberculosis killed at random – a simple cut could become infected and deadly. A sore throat could mean rheumatic fever and a shortened life span. I guess in the face of all that, saying “I love you” to your fellow man isn’t such a scary thing.
Of course, I could be full of shit, and men write to men like this all the time. And just like those gents 150 years ago, don't expect a Doris Kearns Goodwin to publish their intimate thoughts and letters for all to see and have some future blogger try to read more into it than is really there.
Thoughts?
