Category: America

Godmother of Banjo Research: Dena Epstein

7/27/2022

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New York, 1952
The smell of books lingered in the air as card catalog drawers clinked closed and creaked open. Dena Epstein walked through the golden light bouncing off the stone walls. She might have felt at home in any library, even if she had never been there before. On this day in 1952, she found herself in the New York Public Library, a monument to curiosity and learning in the heart of Manhattan. Dena had studied music and library science, and had worked as a music librarian. At thirty-six years old, her career as a librarian was temporarily on hold as her husband worked a government job and she took care of their children.
Not working in a library didn’t seem to suit Dena, though. She wanted to engage her mind, she wanted to have interesting things to think about. Unanswered research questions nagged her. One of those questions made her come to the library from her home in New Jersey.

"Lorena" sheet music cover by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. Lith. Cincinnati (no date). Courtesy Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Public Domain.

More than ten years earlier as a graduate student, Dena had written an essay on music publishing in Chicago from 1858 to 1871. Even though the Music Library Association published the essay, she’d come across a song during her research that piqued her interest. Her essay covered songs published during the Civil War, songs that became popular in the Union and the Confederacy, even if they were written by northerners and published in Chicago. She wanted to know more about “Lorena,” one of the most popular songs in the Confederacy, a fact that she found curious, since it was published in Chicago. She could never find much about the song’s author Henry D. L. Webster, and thought she might have a mystery worth pursuing.

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The Golden Age of Our Country

7/4/2019

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Side portrait engraving of man from the late 1700s.

St. George Tucker, engraved by Saint-Mémin, Harvard Law School Library collection.

This February while at the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, I came across St. George Tucker's A Dissertation on Slavery with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It, in the State of Virginia. I received the William Reese Company Fellowship to research the papers of Captain John Gabriel Stedman, and other collections related to Suriname and the Americas before 1810. In a search for documents on slavery in Virginia, which I thought had the possibility to reveal more about early music and dance in the colonies and early Republic, I found Tucker's Dissertation.

Although it didn't end up helping me with that research, Tucker's opinions about the abolition of slavery struck me. Here was a man, standing up in front of the Virginia legislature, calling out Thomas Jefferson specifically and calling the United States more or less a bunch of hypocrites.

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Views of the Creole Bania

2/28/2019

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I spent February at the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a William Reese Company Fellowship, looking at the papers of Captain John Gabriel Stedman and investigating the banjo's early history in Suriname and the Caribbean.

This is a banjo, one of the earliest images of a banjo. This engraving is only one of four pre-1800s images of the banjo, taken from Stedman's memoir Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Suriname. The special collections at the Bell Library have Stedman's diaries from Suriname, notes and journals from after his time in Europe, the original 1790 manuscript, and many different versions of the published memoir. To the left is a hand-colored plate from the English first edition, while below are versions from the German, French, and Dutch editions.

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The Women of the Hull-House

3/20/2018

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Inspiring women, innovative approaches to living and learning, and pioneering social justice work: sound like something from the #metoo or #TimesUp movements? Maybe, but it was also how women at the Hull-House in Chicago lived and worked over 100 years ago.

Smith Hall of the Hull House, 1910.

While I was in Chicago in February, I had a chance to visit the Hull-House and be totally amazed by these women, who I already knew a little bit about. Here is a tour and brief history of the settlement house.

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The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes

3/7/2018

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Think hockey is a white sport? The fast-paced action and some signature moves are thanks to a pioneering Black Hockey League that changed the game forever.

Read my piece on OZY.

The Africville Sea-Sides, c. 1922. Team members include: Aaron 'Pa' Carvery, Frederick Carvery, James Carvery, Richard Carvery, William Carvery, Jr., James E. Dixon, William Carvery Sr., T.G. MacDonald, Richard Dixon, James Paris, Jr., and Mantley. Photo from the Public Archives of Nova Scotia.

The Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes was truly innovative in so many ways, and I'm glad that George and Darril Fosty researched the story in their book Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895–1925. I can't remember where I first heard about the anecdote that led me to the Fostys' book, and I didn't know much about the history of Black Canadians in Nova Scotia or the Maritimes, but I've found some cool research of which I hope to share more.

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A Skimmington Shaming

3/2/2018

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Is your neighbor being annoying? Too loud? Coveting another neighbor's wife? What do you do about it?
In early America, the answer would have been skimmington.

Metropolitan Museum of Art / The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1966

Read my piece on skimmington in OZY.

If you want to read even more about skimmington and the European traditions it evolved from, check out Riot and Revelry in Early America, a collection of essays about protest and celebration in the United States from the colonial period to the Civil War.

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Mother of Monsters

1/29/2018

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In 1954, a make-up artist named Milicent Patrick drew the costume for an iconic monster. She never received credit, and may have even quit the industry after her boss, Bud Westmore, gave her a hard time about taking credit for the Creature from the Black Lagoon's creation. She really was the beauty behind the beast.

Read my full story about Milicent Patrick on OZY.

By Source, Fair use, Link

Universal International made sure to take glamour shots of Patrick working on the Creature and other monsters to include in her promotional tour for the movie.

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To read more about Milicent Patrick and the history of the Creature from the Black Lagoon films, check out Tom Weaver's The Creature Chronicles.

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'Communist' Legionnaires Take Over a Town

1/8/2018

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On May 1, 1950, Communists took over a small town in Wisconsin. Except that every part of it was totally fake, a stunt meant to scare and warn Americans about what communism was really like. Newspapers, photographers, and newsreels (like the video below) captured the day and make the story a nation-wide news phenomenon.

Read the full story at OZY.

Communist Party USA booklet, available via the National Archives.

The Communist Party USA called out the stunt for being a total misrepresentation of what communism was, but the Legionnaires thought it was successful.

June 1950 article in The American Legion Magazine about the stunt.

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The Proto-Feminists of Early America

11/11/2017

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Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, Vice President John Adams about the 1793 Valmy Celebrations, where women marched in the streets with men in support of the French Revolution.

Read my new piece on OZY!

Just in time for election day, OZY published my piece on how early feminists in the U.S. got inspiration from women participating in the French Revolution. This story was inspired by an essay in Riot and Revelry in Early America, a book that explores the celebrations, parades, and traditions that helped create American culture, even if they have been forgotten.

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Pumpkins & Parties!

10/13/2017

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Friday the 13th has enough scary stuff, so here are some cute photos of kids celebrating Halloween festivities!

This whole post was inspired by this one photo, from the Upshur County Historical Society in Buckhannon, West Virginia. In a collection of thousands of glass plate negatives, this gem appeared. The photographer Fred Brooks was a naturalist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so many of the photos in the collection are of diseased trees or insects. But since he had the camera, he also took photos of his children (like this one) and the travels he took around the United States. (I'm pretty sure this is his daughter Dorothy and the photo is from 1920-22.)

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<<Previous

Come in, the stacks are open.

Godmother of Banjo Research: Dena Epstein

The Golden Age of Our Country

Views of the Creole Bania

The Women of the Hull-House

The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes

Think hockey is a white sport? The fast-paced action and some signature moves are thanks to a pioneering Black Hockey League that changed the game forever.

Read my piece on OZY.

A Skimmington Shaming

Is your neighbor being annoying? Too loud? Coveting another neighbor's wife? What do you do about it?
In early America, the answer would have been skimmington.

Read my piece on skimmington in OZY.

Mother of Monsters

Read my full story about Milicent Patrick on OZY.

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'Communist' Legionnaires Take Over a Town

Read the full story at OZY.

The Proto-Feminists of Early America

Read my new piece on OZY!

Pumpkins & Parties!

Friday the 13th has enough scary stuff, so here are some cute photos of kids celebrating Halloween festivities!

Come in, the stacks are open.

Archives

Categories

Come in, the stacks are open.

Think hockey is a white sport? The fast-paced action and some signature moves are thanks to a pioneering Black Hockey League that changed the game forever. Read my piece on OZY.

Is your neighbor being annoying? Too loud? Coveting another neighbor's wife? What do you do about it? ​In early America, the answer would have been skimmington.

Friday the 13th has enough scary stuff, so here are some cute photos of kids celebrating Halloween festivities!

Come in, the stacks are open.

Archives

Categories

Think hockey is a white sport? The fast-paced action and some signature moves are thanks to a pioneering Black Hockey League that changed the game forever.

Read my piece on OZY.

Is your neighbor being annoying? Too loud? Coveting another neighbor's wife? What do you do about it?
In early America, the answer would have been skimmington.