"There are 200,000 reasons to close the Troy Library. They’re called books."

I love this story. In Troy, Michigan, a third library bond was about to fail and the library close--when library supporters launched a clever campaign to save it:

 

 I like the line "they needed something attention-getting, audacious, and maybe even vile." Here is the Facebook page for the campaign.

Nez Perce History presentation at Aunties

Spokane readers, have you bought a book from Auntie's lately? We are lucky to have a first-class independent bookstore in our community. In addition to selling books, Aunties regularly sponsors readings and literary gatherings. An upcoming author event may be of interest to readers of Northwest History:

William Craig

 Lin Tull Cannell, Author presentation

 Fri. Aug. 10, 7:00 pm
Auntie's Bookstore, 402 W. Main, Spokane WA 


Local author Lin Tull Cannell is a historian with expertise on William Craig, a native of Virginia who came out west in the mid-1800’s, became a mountain man, married into the Nez Perces tribe, and tried to mediate peace between the tribe and settlers from the east. Cannell visits Auntie’s to talk about her book. The Intermediary: William Craig among the Nez Perces. Please join us for this presentation, which is free and open to the public.

William Craig is fascinating figure in the very early white history of the region. A brief biography of him is here [PDF]. In 1918 an acquaintance of Craig gave a brief reminiscence to the Lewiston Morning Tribune. Cannell is the first person to write a full-length biography of this fascinating figure. Support your local bookstore and turn out for this presentation!

Northwest History Films from North of the Border

Voyageurs ,The, National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada has hundreds of movies online. You can stream them for free or pay for a download or DVD. The films are both historic and contemporary and cover an array of topics, including history (here is the history page). Above is a 1964 film, The Voyageurs.

There is a lot of northwest content here, with additional films on the fur trade, Red River, and native peoples of the Canadia northwest. Enjoy.

In Which Tracy Rebstock and I are Interviewed

Tracy Rebstock and I on Just a Theory

Just a Theory is a local public radio interview show, hosted by ridiculously entertaining EWU faculty member Tony Flinn. Each week Flinn interviews professors, either from EWU or a lesser institution, about their research. I have always wanted to be a guest on Just a Theory, but I am not accomplished enough. 

This week however I was able to ride the coattails of my superb former graduate student, Tracy Rebstock, and be on the program. Rebstock's MA project in lieu of thesis was to tell the history of Spokane's parks in a series of stops for the Spokane Historical mobile app. Flinn saw Rebstock present her work at the EWU Creative Works Symposium and asked her to appear on the radio program.

Flinn interviewed two student/professor teams, Rebstock and I begin at 15:06.

Just a Theory #88 - Student/teacher mentor teams

Download File

The Death of Cromwell Dixon, 1911

October 3rd, 1911 New York Times headline

Cromwell Dixon was an important early aviation pioneer. As a teenager he flew homemade dirigibles at airshows across the U.S. In 1911 at the age of 19 he was awarded the 43rd pilot licence in the country, and just months later became the first person to fly over the Rocky Mountains. He was fresh from that triumphs when he plunged to his death performing at the Spokane Fair later that year.

I learned of Dixon from Jon Gibbs, a user of Spokane Historical, the EWU smart phone app for exploring local history. From contemporary news stories Gibbs was able to find the precise location of the crash--it happened between two sets of railroad tracks near the intersection of Trent and North Fiske Avenues in the Valley.

Gibbs first learned about Dixon from this segment of  History Detectives (transcript here):

 

Watch Cromwell Dixon Plane Fragment on PBS. See more from History Detectives.

Thanks for the tip, Jon! This is the just the kind of great, forgotten local story that we are looking for to include in Spokane Historical.

Andrew Sullivan: We've Already Had a Gay President: Abraham Lincoln

So he does not have a PhD in American history--take a listen to my man Sullivan for a moment:



I think that Sullivan is almost certainly correct. Lincoln shared a bed with Joshua Speed for years, long after both me could have afforded beds and rooms of their own.You will often hear this explained away as a common practice back in the day, and at crowded roadhouses or in army barracks this was true, but it was absolutely not common with two rising professionals who could have easily afforded their own rooms. And Lincoln also shared a bed with a man, Captain David Derickson, in the White House when he was president. There were rumors of homosexuality (though the term did not yet exist) during Lincoln's life. If it were any other 19th-century figure, we would take the same set of evidence as at least indicating a strong possibility that the subject was gay. 


I am very much reminded of the sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Despite abundant evidence that the two had a long sexual relationship that produced children, the very idea was rejected outright by the Jefferson historical establishment until modern DNA analysis made it undeniable. Racism served as a historical blinder to seeing the truth that was right in front of us. The same is true of homophobia and Lincoln's gayness. 

Crash Course in World History

It is summer, I have a book manuscript to finish, so for the rest of the season I will be posting videos and silliness. Deep thinking will resume in the fall.

I had heard about the Crash Course in World History videos a ways back, but unthinkingly dismissed them as some cartoon-y gimmick. I got around to actually watching one yesterday, and it turns out they are really good. A little background here. Their YouTube channel features 24 world history videos, with topics from the Indus Valley Civilizations to the video below on the Columbian Exchange:

I

The videos are so much better than I expected, with up-to-date historical interpretations, good production values, and wit. They would be excellent in the high school or even college classroom as an activity to build student interest. I could do without the cinnamon challenge in the middle of the Columbian exchange, but then I am not the target audience. Enjoy.

Drunk History Vol. 1: Hamilton & Burr

Many of you will have seen this before, but what the hell:

Drunk History Vol. 1: Hamilton & Burr from Jeremy Konner on Vimeo.

Why Come There Ain't no black People in Mayberry?

[In honor of Andy Griffith (1926-2012) I am reposting this 2008 piece.]



There is a real historical point to be made here. The Andy Griffith Show ran from 1960 to 1968, at the very height of the Civil Rights movement. For millions of white Americans part of the appeal of the show was its nostalgic portrayal of an idyllic South, one without bus boycotts or sit-ins or indeed any black people at all.

How did I find this? Well, today Kevin Levin over at Civil War Memory posted a little clip from The Andy Griffin Show in which it is revealed that no one in the town of Mayberry seems to know what the Emancipation Proclamation might be. Well why should they, I thought, there were no blacks in Mayberry. Suddenly it occurred to me how strange it was that the most popular TV series ever set in the American south didn't have any black people. Or did it?

I Googled up this defensive fan FAQ: "There are MANY towns in the south without black people. Also, you are wrong that there were no blacks in Mayberry. If you watch the people in the background, you'll see several black townspeople walking down the sidewalk and being a part of town."

That FAQ included a link to the delightful African-Americans in Mayberry page, where some fellow posted a bunch of screen captures, mostly of street scenes in which some black person is walking past the main character. Red arrows helpfully point out the passing blacks, as we see below:

History for Sale--Exclusively!

For much of American history, the private papers of historically significant individuals usually found a home in a publicly accessible archive--when they were preserved at all. Government archives, historical societies, university archives, and sometimes libraries preserved the papers of the movers and shakers. Some few historically significant collections have found their way into private hands, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

So it is distressing to see the Elizabeth Bacon Custer manuscript collection going up for auction. From the description provided by the auction house, this is a huge and historically important collection, and one that has "never been scanned, copied or cataloged" according to the brochure from the auction house Williams & Williams. The collection includes three dozen binders of material, including letters between Libby and George Custer, her research notes and manuscripts for her books, transcripts of Custer's Civil War letters, and "the Custer's personal collection of stereoviews from the 1874 Black Hills expedition." Who even knew the latter existed?  The brochure gives tantalizing hints that there is blockbuster material in this collection as well:

• A pull-out quote, "For the love of heaven, burn this as soon as you read it," is attributed to "a love letter sent to Custer from another woman."
• The collection include a "spiral bound notebook" of 74 pages of transcripts of Custer letters, most in "old Pittman shorthand."

Libby Custer spent the long decades of her widowhood building up the myth of her late husband George Armstrong Custer, who was in truth something between a questionable officer and a genocidal maniac. Libby lived until 1933--six decades after the Battle of Little Big Horn--and devoted much of that time to writing, giving talks, and promoting a view of her late husband as an almost Christ-like figure who had given his life so that (white) others might live.

Stereoviews of the Black Hills Expedition.

However, there have always been signs that they were a much better couple after the General died than they were when he was alive. Rumor has it that this collection includes letters where George Custer threatens Libby with divorce on account of her alleged infidelity, among other items. A friend made inquiries and the starting price for the Libby Custer Collection is a quarter-of-a-million dollars. To even look at the collection you need to put down a $25,000 deposit and sign a non-disclosure agreement. Williams & Williams is marketing the material as not merely a collection but as a scoop.

What will happen next to the collection? If the historical community is fortunate, the buyer will be a well-funded private but publicly-accessible archive, and the Libby Custer Collection will become available to researches. At these prices, it seems more likely the collection will end up in private hands.

"Human Skulls Hurled Into Air"

Today's post is a bit macabre but intensely interesting:

Spokesman-Review, June 16, 1912,  p. 1

Our local newspaper does an excellent job with local history, including a This Day in History column by Jim Kershner in which he explores old news stories usually from 100 years ago. The other day he made reference to the above article, which interested me enough to wrestle with the Google News Archive to find the full story:

This sort of casual disrespect of native remains was too typical of that time (and of our own) and the case of the exploded graves is a snapshot of an era when Indians were being forced out of Spokane and onto diminishing reservations. What jumps out at me, however, are some of the details:

• The workers, led by Otto Hansen, did rebury the disturbed remains somewhere "nearby." This is admirable, though I wonder if this newspaper article did not serve as a notice to grave robbers who might have disturbed the reburials. 
• The reference to "brass bands" indicates that the graves were likely from the historic period, as natives on the Columbia Plateau did not possess brass before contact (thought they did have some sheet copper, so there is a possibility the graves were precontact).
• It might be worth carefully reading through the Spokesman, and other Spokane newspapers, for a week or two after this story to find further references. 

It is tough to wrestle with the Google News Archives. They are difficult to navigate, hard to read, and have surprisingly limited search features. And yet they are an incredible resources for just this sort of illuminating historical nugget. 

Hope Yet For Jensen-Byrd

There is a happy story in this morning's Spokesman-Review: Nonprofit delays demolition:

Jensen-Byrd building by Flickr user Terry Bain.
(Thank you Terry for choosing Creative Commons licensing.)

A Texas company cannot move forward with plans to demolish the 103-year-old Jensen-Byrd building in downtown Spokane until after a public hearing next month . . . Spokane Preservation Advocates, a nonprofit group, filed an appeal that prevents the company from moving forward.

The appeal argues that Spokane city officials wrongly concluded this spring that tearing down the building has no significant impact on historic resources the city and WSU have said they’re committed to protecting, attorney David Bricklin said.

The Spokane Preservation Advocates have done a wonderful job of raising awareness of the value and importance of this historic building. The SPA is no tea-and-crumpets social club, they are fighting preservationists willing to cause a fuss to help our town. What can you do to help?

1. Print off and sign this letter and submit it to the SPA, they will share with it with WSU and the city of Spokane.
2. Fire off an email to WSU President Elson Floyd (presidentsoffice@wsu.edu) and to Chair of the Board of Regents Theodor Baseler (hoytc@wsu.edu) and let them know what you think. Be sure to CC the SPA at spa@spokanepreservation.org. 
3. Become a member of the Spokane Preservation Advocates. Membership starts at just $25, and every member gives the SPA more credibility when they speak out in favor of historic preservation. If you are looking for a job in public history this is sort of thing that looks good on your resume, it shows a personal commitment to historic preservation. I am looking at you, EWU students!

We might win this one yet. Keep up the pressure!

No More Confederate Preschool!

I love this lesson on Reconstruction with toddlers. Via Civil War Memory .

Spokane Motel Blues, Part Two

Did Tom T. Hall sleep here? Maybe, Maybe not.

So whatever happened with my attempt to enlist the aid of local journalist Doug Clark to crowd-source the motel of origin for the classic Tom. T. Hall song, Spokane Motel Blues?

We failed to answer the question definitively, but came up with a strong hint that the motel in question was the downtown Holiday Inn (now the Quality Inn Downtown) at 110 East 4th Avenue. Maybe.

Clark summarizes his reader responses in this column: No clear inspiration for ‘Spokane Motel Blues.’ There were a lot of reader suggestions, including the Ridpath, the Davenport, and others. Clarked searched through the Spokesman newspaper files and came up empty handed. "A couple of depraved readers wanted to put Hall in a certain seedy motel that is known as a popular 'bed by the hour' for women of negotiable virtue," Clark wrote. Help an out-of-towner here, Doug, exactly which motel is that?

But the strongest suggestion came from reader Marion Anderson who worked at the Holiday Inn:

“I was a chef at the Holiday Inn downtown which is now a Quality Inn,” said the 81-year-old. “And I remember very distinctly that that’s where he wrote his song and that’s where he stayed because of the weather.” True, Anderson never actually laid eyes on Hall. But this was a year or two before Expo, she said, and “all the waitresses were talking about that’s where he was.”


Clark seems to doubt Anderson's story, but in the absence of any contradictory evidence I tend to believe her.

And Clark did more than just crowd-source my historical question. In our conversation he asked if I could use the Tom T. Hall song in the Spokane Historical smartphone app and I told him no, because of copyright. Clark is a musician and singer. "So on a lark, my buddy Joe Brasch and I decided to go into the studio and record our own rendition of it," Clark wrote.

So I guess that there will be a Spokane Historical stop about Tom T. Hall in Spokane, located at the Quality Inn. And the soundtrack will be this wonderful cover of the song by Doug Clark.

Deciphering a Mysterious Headstone

A couple of weekends ago I went for a walk in Greenwood Cemetery with my wife and son. Greenwood is Spokane's Victorian-era park cemetery, a gorgeous place of stately headstones, rolling manicured lawns, and soaring Ponderosa pines. After convincing my son that he could not, in fact, stay in the car, we all enjoyed a perfect spring day among the dead.

One of the spots that has always fascinated me at Greenwood is the Japanese section of the cemetery. Spokane had a prominent and successful Japanese community from the late 1800s to the present. The early Japanese headstones are shaped differently than other markers of that time period, most are small obelisks with vertical Kanji lettering: 

Japanese headstones at Greenwood Cemetery

One headstone, however, was different from the rest. Shaped more like a western headstone, it had a lot of writing. Clearly there is more than a name and some dates here, it appeared to be some kind of story. But what does it say?

Headstone of Tadajiro Muramatsu

Michael, one of my coworkers at the Washington State Archives speaks some Japanese. I showed him this picture. He could not make it out,but thought his wife Jun might be able to read it. According to her, the Kanji lettering is of a type that has not been used for a hundred years in Japan. Fortunately she had studied this style of lettering in college. She did a literal translation of the headstone, which her husband then rendered into something more like American English. Here is her translation:

His name was Tadajiro Muramatsu. He was born on September 24, 1875 in Ueno village, Nishi-Yatsusiro county, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. For generations, his family engaged in farming. He was easy-going, enjoyed drinking, and had many friends. He loved ancient poems and would recite them when he was drunk. He came to the United States in 1905, moved to S city in 1906, and started the laundry business. He was a pioneer in the business. He set an example by working hard and by serving the public through his 20 some years of career. He received a special award from the business club for his work. Unfortunately, he lost his life in fire in UNKNOWN town passing the train bridge on April 7, 1918. He was 43 years old. He married a woman from the Aoki family, and they had a boy named Tadao. This tomb was built in his memory and on it, his over all life story was told. January 7, 1919 Tadao built this


 Jun also noted: "--- S city probably refers to Spokane from the usage of the character. The third sentence from the last goes as follows, word-by-word: 'He met passing gate mansion town UNKNOWN skin railed road metal bridge pass touch fire ring not happy UNKNOWN.' Probably lose- life 'passing gate mansion town' is probably one word, referring a name of the town."

 Here is Michael's Americanization of the text:

Tadajiro Muramatsu was born on September 24, 1875 in Ueno village, Nishi-Yatsusiro county, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. For generations, his family engaged in farming. He was easy-going, enjoyed drinking, and had many friends. He loved ancient poems and would recite them when he had been drinking. He came to the United States in 1905, moved to S city (Spokane?) in 1906, and started a laundry business. He was a pioneer in the business. He set an example by working hard and by serving the public through his career of 20 some years. He received a special award from the business club for his work. Unfortunately, he lost his life in a fire in UNKNOWN town passing the train bridge on April 7, 1918. He was 43 years old. He married a woman from the Aoki family, and they had a boy named Tadao. This tomb was built in his memory and on it, his overall life story was told. January 7, 1919 Tadao built this tomb.


A 1913 Guide to the Spokane Japanese Business Men and their Enterprises Photograph Album lists  Muramatsu under the alternate spelling of Chujiro Muramatsu and tells us the name of his business: Oriental Baths and Laundry. According to the Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, Muramatsu died on April 7, 1918 in Spokane. He was 42.

Having the date give us a starting point for doing newspaper research. How exactly was Muramatsu killed? A search through the Spokesman Review for April 8 reveals the grisly truth--and explains what the Muramatsu's son was trying to describe when he carved "skin railed road metal bridge pass touch fire ring not happy" on his father's headstone:

Article on page 6, col. 5 of the The Spokesman-Review - Apr 8, 1918

Muramatsu's son Tadao would have been in his teens or twenties when his father was killed. Eight month later the bereaved young man carved his father's headstone.

I would love to follow this story further. The Japanese business directory almost certainly has a photograph of Muramatsu. City directories should pinpoint his address and the location of his Oriental Baths and Laundry, And finally a quick Google reveals a number of Muramatsus in Spokane still, I wonder if there are family stories about this ancestor of theirs, so lovingly memorialized in Greenwood Cemetery.