Yes, it is Special!

Christmas Day?

Last week I posted what I called "a special Christmas" blog, but one reader inquired on face book why I thought it was a special blog post for Christmas.  Here's my answer, and I consider it such an important Christmas reminder that I am keeping this week's post short to encourage readers to scroll down and read last week's post!

Christmas is a time when families often come together, young and old.  Because my father had inherited the family home built by his grandmother and his father, our home was the family gathering place, and I have wonderful memories of aunts, uncles, and cousins filling our home for the holidays.

How I wish that my memory contained all the family history shared during those holiday gatherings!  Last week's blog, which I hope you will scroll down to read if you missed it earlier, shares the importance of teaching young people their history--family and American.  I am fortunate that my mother chose a genealogy book with blank spaces to fill in family history as a shower gift for me when my husband and I married, and because of her unusual gift, I asked questions in order to fill in the spaces in that book.  (By the way, that was a wonderful gift for a young couple merging two families by their marriage.)  Yet, I wish my memory still contained all the family stories shared over the many holiday gatherings of my youth.

I suspect the picture above was taken on Christmas day when I was the little girl on the left and my cousin Anne was the taller girl with the hooded jacket.  The picture was taken in front of our farm house on an obviously cold day.  Anne's doll might have been a Christmas gift.  (The doll still had both shoes--and it seemed like doll shoes were often lost quickly.)  I appear to be holding something small that I cannot identify, and my guess is that we were told to select a favorite Christmas gift and to go outside to pose together.  Unfortunately, that is one of those family memories that I no longer remember. 

I hope all of you are having a wonderful winter holiday season, reminiscing and creating new memories!

Awareness of Our Past

Lest We Forget

Last week's post examined "What Makes America Great?" with the focus on our Constitution and the unique form of government our founding fathers created.  This week's post emphasizes the importance of the continuing need for Americans to know our history.  I have written in this blog just how difficult it is to interest young people in the importance of history, given their tendency to think that anything that happened a few years before they were born is ancient history and probably not worth knowing.

I just read a wonderful collection of speeches given at several universities by David McCullough in a book titled The American Spirit, Who We Are and What We Stand For.   One of those speeches, titled "Knowing Who We Are" given in 2005 speaks directly to the importance of knowing our past history.  McCullough writes:  "And it seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be made clear to a student or to a reader is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened.  History could have gone off in any number of different directions in any number of different ways at almost any point...  Actions have consequences.  These observations all sound self-evident.  But they're not--and particularly to a young person trying to understand life."

Visiting Historic Sites

McCullough offers several suggestions for making history more accessible to students, starting with doing a better job of making sure our teachers know history so that they can tell the stories of history in a more exciting way than by sticking closely to the dullness of textbooks.  His further suggestions for improved teaching of history include improving textbooks so that they are not so dreary, avoiding content that reads as if done by committee, and expanding the teaching of history to young children when they have a particularly facile ability to learn.  Beyond the classroom, encouraging parents to take children to historic sites, and to share with their children history and biography books they particularly enjoyed.  McCullough also urges parents to talk with their children "about what it was like when they were growing up in the olden days.  Children, particularly young children, love this." 

The last suggestion I referenced above had a particular resonance with me.  Recently, my husband and I were having a wonderful dinner with friends.  The father began sharing an interesting memory about his grandmother's brave immigration to America just in time to escape the Russian Revolution.  His story was filled with details that held the interest of everyone at the table.

Sharing ancestral history, in this case, my father's grade school

When he had finished, my husband spoke directly to the man's college-age children, urging them to find a way to record these family conversations, and urging them not to  delay too long.  Holidays are a perfect time to spend an evening with family, listening to and recording these wonderful  stories.  My husband asked if they had heard the stories their father had just shared, and when they replied that they had not, he emphasized that if these family stories were neglected, once their father was gone, the stories would be lost forever.  "If you wait too late," he warned them, "you would no longer be able to ask your dad to repeat them, would you?"

"No," both young people admitted, but the man's son added, "But, I could look the Russian Revolution up on my phone," pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Learning how choices make a difference

I confess.  These are good friends, and we are fond of their kids, but his flippant reply annoyed me, and I blurted out, "That sounds exactly like the smart-aleck reply a young man would make."  I probably should not have been so outspoken, and while I tried to make it a bit of a joke, I meant it.

Fortunately, our friendship is close enough that my comment did not end the discussion with hurt feelings, and everyone recognized the difference between imagining an ancestor in a historical moment and reading online a summary about immigrants leaving Russia for America.  It also sunk home with the young man that had his great-grandmother waited too late to leave, his ancestral line would have been interrupted and he would almost certainly not have been born.  That was a real opportunity for our young friend to recognize, as McCullough said, "that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened" in history.

To emphasize how stories can bring history alive, McCullough references E. M. Forster's definition:  "If I say to you the king died and then the queen died, that's a sequence of events.  If I say the king died and the queen died of grief, that's a story.  That's human.  That calls for empathy on the part of the teller of the story and of the reader or listener to the story."  Historian Barbara Tuchman understood that the secret to teaching history is simple:  "Tell stories."

Sharing my own  stories with high school graduates

American history is filled with compelling stories--exciting, tragic, triumphant--but we tend to teach them sequentially, like marking off years on an empty calendar, with the stories reduced to dates.  The more that family history is shared in stories the better their children will place themselves within historic events, and the more that teachers bring history to life with stories and biographies the more interesting and memorable history can be.

Our own lives, like the life of my young friend whose great-grandmother fled Russia, were shaped by our family history.  Collectively, our nation's past shaped the America in which we now live. How can we truly understand and appreciate what those generations before us did to shape this nation and give us the freedoms we enjoy if we are ignorant of our past? And, how can we recognize our own responsibilities if we ignore that inheritance from them?  As McCullough says:  "...we should never take for granted...all the work of others who went before us.  And to be indifferent to that isn't just to be ignorant, it's to be rude.  And ingratitude is a shabby failing."

Happy Holidays to all of you who have supported this blog.  Perhaps, if you gather with family during the holidays, you may find time to share family stories and create an awareness for the youngsters listening of their family's personal history and how the events and choices made by their ancestors brought them into existence.  As McCullough reminds us, nothing had to happen just the way it did.

Education in the Late 1800s, #4, History

Kansas State Capital staircase

The first posting for this blog begun in 2011 emphasized my belief that a knowledge of history is essential for helping us avoid the mistakes of the past, and subsequent posts have frequently repeated that theme.

This week's blog continues my series about the Final Examinations for 8th Graders given in Salina, Kansas in 1895 with a look at the test questions for History.  Remember as you consider the test questions below, this was U.S. History only up to 1895.  Nearly a century and a quarter have passed since then, including such significant events as  2 World Wars, shifts in national boundaries, and a more global economy.

U.S. History  (Time allowed for the examination is 45 minutes)

1.  Give the epochs into which  U.S. History is divided.

2.  Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

3.  Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

4.  Show the territorial growth of the United States.

5.  Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

6.  Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.

7.  Who were the following:  Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

8.  Name events connected with the following dates:  1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Currently, what is expected in Kansas for a standard diploma are the following:  "Must include world history, U.S. history, U.S. government, including the U.S. Constitution, 'concepts of economics and geography' and a 9-week course in Kansas history and government held sometime in grades 7-12."

Depiction of the Signing of the Constitution

While previous blogs have discussed the difficulty of teaching history to students still in their teens, for whom 20 years ago seems ancient, educators recognize the importance of giving students a thorough grounding in the past.  The challenges include prioritizing what is most important and presenting history in a way that seems relevant to young students.

The approach developed for the study of History for the California Department of Education in 2000 was not to isolate American History for one year's study, and World History for a separate year's study, as was common in the past and remains the practice in many schools, but rather to introduce the serious study of U.S. history in Grade 8 to lay the groundwork for deeper study in Grades 9-12.  The sophistication of the outline for Grade 8  is impressive.  Naturally, comparing the test questions for 8th graders in 1895 must omit any comparison of the years 1896 and since, but even ignoring that difference, the significance, from my perspective, is the emphasis that the California approach places on the broader consideration of ideas and issues beyond memorizing dates, names of battles, discoveries, and individual participants.

For example, the California program includes considering "...the shaping of the Constitution [by having] students trace the development of American politics, society, culture, and economy..."  As a part of that, students are expected to understand the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution by comparing the enumerated and implied powers of the federal government, as well as the influence that the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the Mayflower Compact  had on the drafters of our Constitution.  These examples combine only two of the programs study categories.

Clearly, that is an ambitious goal for 8th graders, but it offers an opportunity for better understanding and more than simple memorization.

Declaration of Independence

Frankly, a review of what California developed for 8th graders for understanding United States History and Geography, and our nation's growth and conflicts, might be a good review for all Americans, including those we elect to represent us.  I know I am tempted to buy that 8th grade study program to give myself a proper review of American History!

A glance forward to Grades 9-12 shows how the demanding study by 8th graders continues into high school by expecting students to show "intellectual reasoning, reflection, and research skills in such ways as distinguishing valid arguments from fallacious arguments in historical interpretations; identifying bias and prejudice in historical interpretations, and comparing the present with the past, evaluating the consequences of past events and decisions and determining the lessons that were learned."  An ambitious goal, of course, but definitely a plan to produce an informed and discerning citizenry.

Messages from History

Rock formations guided early settlers

I am fascinated by history.  It helps me evaluate the significance of current events and balance seeing those events as too impressive or too frightening.  As children we see the world as brand new, with each day seeming to have been born with us.  Life seems full of magic and monsters under our beds, because our personal history is only as long as our own tender lives.

With maturity, we lose some of the wonder but we gain greater knowledge of the world.  Part of that is simply experience.  The longer we live the more experiences we have to make us aware, and part of it is vicarious experience from education, reading, watching television, and picking up information helter-skelter--some of it valuable and some of it worthless or worse.  The formal teaching of history in schools is difficult and too often ineffective.  As adults most of us can still remember how ancient events only a decade or two in the past seemed.

Kansan John Brown's role in Civil War

As much as I appreciate an awareness of history now, I can't quite recall when it became important to me.  As a child I don't recall that I read much history, although I do remember seeing movies set in the past that intrigued me.

The thing that first intrigued me about Isaac Werner's journal was how many similarities I found in the late 1800s with current events.  When I first began working on the manuscript I was anxious to finish it and find a publisher as quickly as possible, because I thought it was so relevant to current events.  Yes, I do wish I had found that publisher more promptly, but what I have realized is that history doesn't go out of style.  Perhaps the things I initially found so relevant have subsided, but other current events have arisen that share common issues with the late 1800s when Isaac lived.

Another thing I have recognized is that in my youth I paid more attention to things that happened elsewhere than exploring the history of my own region.  I suspect that people fall into extremes, either overlooking the importance of things that happened in their own region or being too provincial in ignoring what happened elsewhere.  History gives us a broader view that helps us put things into perspective.

Beecher Bibles came to Kansas

I try with the blog to share overlooked sites and events of historical importance in Kansas.  I have certainly learned a great deal about my home state in the process of doing research, and I have  learned to be more observant.  Now, if we see a road sign pointing to some attraction a few miles off the highway, my husband and I are much more likely to take the time to explore.  How many times had we driven Interstate 70 without taking the time to visit the amazing rock formations nearby?  Why had we not discovered the church connected with Beecher Bibles.  Would we ever have bothered to see Dr. Higley's cabin?  I have shared those three experiences in this blog, as well as many others, and as one blog follower told me, "You have given me many new places to visit."

But what I also have tried to do is share ideas from the past that have relevance to today's events.  They are part of our heritage.  How many Kansans know that a significant reason that Kansas is a "red state" today is because so many Union soldiers staked homestead claims here after the Civil War.  They were soldiers from Lincoln's Army, they voted Republican, and many of their descendants still do.

We are losing voices from the past

My great-grandfather was one of those Union soldiers, but I had no idea his military history influenced the political conversations around the dinner table when I was growing up until I began during the research for my manuscript.  Soldiers were given a year's credit for each year they served as a Union soldier to apply toward satisfying the five years required to live on and improve their claim in order to acquire title.  Confederate soldiers received no such benefit.  Many of Isaac Werner's neighbors were former Union soldiers. I suspect there are historical explanations of all kinds lurking unknown in most families' histories.

I think it is interesting to discover those things.  The current popularity of genealogy research would seem to indicate that others agree.  Ancestry.com and other genealogy sites include ways to not only discover who your ancestors are but also what was happening in the times in which they lived.  I hope those of you who follow my blog find the the grab-bag of historical information I have shared on the blog to be of relevance and interest to you and your children.

Our community recently lost one of those people who could share first-hand accounts of World War II.  Emerson Shields spoke at the Veterans' ceremony at the Stafford School this past Veterans' Day, but now he is gone.  Isaac B. Werner left his daily journal, whose pages inspired me to write a manuscript about the struggles of the working class of farmers, miners, and factory workers in the late 1800s--a struggle that led to the creation of the People's Party that many people living today know little or nothing about.  Yet, many of the goals of those struggling workers are accepted realities today.  Our current lives are filled with whispered message from the past that we should pause to hear.

Rap and History

Used only to explain subject of blog.
Do not reproduce. 
May be subject to (c).



 

Before leaving the topic of teaching history to young people, I must mention Hamilton, the musical currently attracting sold-out crowds on Broadway.  Critics and ticket-buyers love it!

 

In an appearance on CBS Morning to introduce the new book about Hamilton, the musical, author Lin-Manuel Miranda described a program for young people that the musical is sponsoring, which challenges participants to produce works about Alexander Hamilton which cover events in Hamilton's life that are not included in the musical. 

 

Miranda has introduced a new way of sharing history with this Broadway production.  He read Ron Chernow's book, Alexander Hamilton, and it inspired him to envision the life of Hamilton as a musical.  In 1917 a play about Hamilton had appeared on Broadway, but Miranda had something different in mind.

 

He performed his idea at a workshop production in 2013, and the positive reaction encouraged him to continue working until he was ready to open off-Broadway at The Public Theater in early 2015, with such success there that Hamilton moved to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in August of 2015.

 

For two and a half hours audiences keep up with the rapid-fire lyrics sharing Hamilton's life.  Miranda has reached an audience that might never have otherwise heard of Alexander Hamilton!

 

The comment from one follower of my blog lamented that he did not believe his knowledge of history was adequate to qualify him as a teacher, (although I believe he is well qualified), yet Miranda admitted during the CBS interview that he had not been a good student of history, and reading Chernow's biography motivated him to do more research.  Surely many of those who saw the musical or heard the Grammy Award winning album were motivated to learn more about Hamilton and the history of that era because of Miranda's work.  It is impossible to know how many people one artist, regardless of his or her medium, may inspire.

G.L.W-T. complimented me for using popular song lyrics and the sports pages to introduce my students to poetry, and W.S. recalled his father's W.W. I letters as the source of his personal interest in that historic period.  Last week in "History & Young People," I described various 'triggers' that lead us to more and more information, and Miranda has used rap music to do exactly that.

There are many ways to make history come alive for young people, if we just open our minds to help us open theirs!

You might enjoy reading my earlier posts about Alexander Hamilton at "You Can't Please Everybody," 7-9-2015 and "Survey Results for $10 Bill Image, 7-16-2015 in the Blog Archives.

History and Young People

Making history relevant

Last week's blog, "The Historian's Responsibility," (Blog Archives 3-3-2016) dealt with the challenges of competing for attention in a world filled with distractions.  That blog generated some interesting replies from followers.  E.R. from Kansas recommended two books on the subject, Overload Syndrome and Digital Invasion and added from his own experience the value of his parents' having removed the television from their home environment, replacing it with "weekly trips to the library to load up on books."  

J.S., a small town librarian whose wisdom I have referenced in the past, shared a fun dialogue between herself and a young boy who had visited the library to use the computer.

J.S. (scooting a group of computer users out at closing time):  "Does anybody want to check out books before you leave?"

Boy:  "Yeah, but I didn't bring any money."

J.S.:  "You don't need money...you can take home library books for FREE!"

Boy (looking at me like I was Out of My Mind):  "Are you SERIOUS?!"

J.S.:  "Yes--Check them out; take them home; read them; then bring them back and get some more!"

Boy:  "ALRIGHT!!!  Where are the basketball books?!"

While that story might seem a bit discouraging with reference to what children choose "to attend to," she also shared a story about a young girl who asked for "animal books."  The girl explained, "I think I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up..."  J.S. added that the girl left with a dozen or so books about animals.

J.S. took particular pleasure when a 9-year-old dropped by to see her 5 years after his family had moved and told her "I sure miss coming to this library..."

Conversations like these should make all of us hopeful that children are still curious about ideas to be gained from books.  Unfortunately, L.K. from Missouri thought of an old rhyme as she read the blog:  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.  You can give a person information but you can't make him think.

Some of you may have read the comment left at last week's blog from an international follower, which concluded:  "How does one understand history without having read a great deal of it?" 

It seems that much of my own history reading is triggered by something, and I read voraciously about the subject because that random event or bit of information tweaked my curiosity.  Each thing I read prompts me toward further reading.  For example, studying the US Constitution in law school made me want to visit Philadelphia, and although it took me several decades to get there, the visit expanded my reading about the American Revolution, our Founding Fathers, military history, and other issues of the late 1700s.  

Titles Isaac Werner's Library Contained

Isaac's Journal has led me to read and research the early history of his (and my) community, the Progressive Movement of the late 1800s, early farming methods on the prairie, and other subjects that would not otherwise have attracted my attention, many of which I have blogged about.    

Finding the toy W.W. I soldier led to more intense reading about that historic time, including Churchill biographies, W.W. I war poets, soldiers from the English village of my ancestors, the influenza pandemic, and other topics about which I knew little or nothing, information I have also shared in my blog.

If you were to reflect on your own reading habits, you might also recognize triggers of your own.  So, how can a teacher of history create triggers for his or her students that will make history of interest to young people?  An interesting article written by Ann White, a teacher of European history in Washington, D.C. suggests that the key is for teachers to allow their own passions for what they are teaching to be the trigger for their students' interest.  

In her own case, she showed her class how she, as a history writer, proceeds once she has a thesis for a paper.  "...I taught by doing--writing, before their eyes, the same paper they were writing.  Why?  Because I myself write history.  It is my passion.  ...I want to show them how I weigh evidence in my mind and how I weigh words.  Does my tentative thesis genuinely express my understanding...Should I use a more vivid verb?"  White stopped giving tests and began requiring her students to write essays, and she discovered that they responded to her enthusiasm by mirroring her process.  "...they criticize each other's thesis statements.  They recognize statements that describe but do not assert, they find each other's lapses in historical reasoning.  Questions about thesis statements produce more intense classroom conversations than my test preparation ever evoked."

However, she also recognized that other teachers taught history in entirely different ways that also excited their students.  The common factor was "impassioned teachers."  She concluded that the teachers' "passionate involvement with history" is more important that methodology.  (You may read more at "Teaching High School History:  The Power of the Personal, Ann White, May 1998.)

Isaac's Journal

When I was teaching high school English before attending law school, my classes opened their minds to poetry when I used the lyrics of popular songs or assigned the sports section of the newspaper to search for similes, metaphors, and other poetry techniques.  Not by abandoning the text book but by opening their eyes to the poetry around them, I was able to awaken their interest.  Or, as William James said in last week's post, I was able to bring poetry into their own experience.

I hope more of you will share your comments this week about your own triggers for exploring subjects that had not previously been part of your experience, about teachers that shared their passions for subjects in a way that captured your interest, and about reading adventures you took after something triggered your curiosity.  I look forward to hearing from you!     

  

Early Kansas Schools

An early sod school house

In 1914 the textbook titled A History of Kansas was first published.  Written by Anna E. Arnold and revised and republished in 1919 and 1931, it was used to teach Kansas school children the history of their state.  The book began with these words:  No state has a history better calculated to inspire patriotism in its people than has Kansas.  In this fact lies the greatest reason for teaching Kansas History in the schools.  A knowledge of the difficulties that have been met and conquered in building the State will create in the minds of the boys and girls a greater respect for the sturdy qualities of the pioneers; it will give them a wholesome sense of the great cost at which the ease and comfort of to-day have been purchased; it will stimulate in them a desire to live up to the past.  Obviously I agree with that author and attempt to share the the importance of the role Kansas has played in the past through this blog.  (See "I Love History," 1/3/2012 in the Blog Archives.) 

The Emerson School Isaac helped build

As I have previously shared, the first school house in Isaac B. Werner's community was built of sod.  It was replaced by a wooden structure, with David Carnahan hired as the contractor, assisted by Isaac and William Goodwin in building that school.  (See other blogs in the archives about early schools:  "Isaac Builds a School House," 10/11/2012; "One Room Schoolhouse Surprise," 7/12/2012; "Once There was a Community," 3/5/2015; and "Back to School," 9/24/2015.)  While I have no image of the sod school in Isaac's community, it may have resembled the image above taken from A History of Kansas.  The wooden building shown at left in this blog is the structure Isaac helped build, taken several years after its original construction.

If you think school children in your own families might enjoy seeing pictures of the type of schools their ancestors attended, you could consider sharing this blog with them.  During spare moments of the holiday school vacation, perhaps you could scroll through the blog archives to explore other history they might enjoy.  Anna E. Arnold intended with her history book "...to show forth what manner of men and women were the builders of our State, what motives actuated them, what conditions surrounded them, how they lived, and what they accomplished."  I hope with my blog to do the same.    

Happy Thanksgiving

One Thanksgiving morning during the years of drought and low prices for crops, Isaac wrote in his journal that he didn't see many signs of celebration in his community, adding that 'people didn't have much to be thankful for' in those hard times.  As negative as that comment sounds, Isaac never lost his belief that conditions would improve, and he continued to work politically and agriculturally with his neighbors to make things better.  Despite his severe medical problems the last years of his life, by the time of his death he had managed to pay off his debts.  Things had improved for Isaac and his neighbors.

 

As I type this blog, I am sitting in a house built by one of the neighbors who went through those hard times with Isaac.  My great grandparents, Aaron and Susan Beck, raised their two children in this community.  Susan built this house with her son, Royal, who brought his bride, Lillian Hall, to this house when they married.  Six of their seven children were born in this house, including my father.  (Only their last child was born in a hospital.)  After my grandfather's stroke, my parents returned to spend the rest of their married life together in this house, where my brother and I were raised. 

 

When I began transcribing Isaac Werner's journal, I had no idea that he had known three sets of my great grandparents.  Because of the renaming of this township, I had mistakenly thought Isaac's claims were located in the present Clear Creek Township to the west of my ancestral home.  My interest in Isaac was strictly historical.  Only later did I learn of the personal links I share with Isaac.  However, I am especially thankful that Isaac has led me to discover so much about the history of my community and the significant role Kansas played in American history during the late 1800s.

 

It must be obvious to those of you who have followed my blog that I am a great believer in the importance of history and traditions in our culture, teaching each new generation respect for those who came before them and sharing the wisdom gained from the past.  I believe when modern generations are unaware of history and traditions there is not only educational ignorance but also character deficiency.  James Fennimore Cooper said:  "The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity."  Likewise, I would say that a society that ignores its past history and traditions through neglect or arrogance cheats itself of the benefits of its rich heritage.

 

I am particularly thankful for my roots in this community and for my awareness of people who struggled to build the world into which I was born.  Living in this ancestral house has made me sentimental about not only its history but also the flotsam of everyday things left behind by former residents.  (See "Isaac's Efforts...", 11/14/13; "Susan's Album," 3/21/13; "Disappearing Traces of the Past," 12/23/11).  I must constantly work to clear away, bit-by-bit, some of that memorabilia they have left behind.  This week's images are from a card and program saved by my mother-in-law, Irene.  She would be surprised to know that these images are being passed along for others to enjoy so many years later!

 

I want to close by thanking those who have followed my blog and who have supported and encouraged me throughout the researching and writing of my manuscript.  I am grateful for your interest and enthusiasm.  May you have a Happy Thanksgiving and a joyous holiday season in the coming weeks!

 

What is History? An Update on my Manuscript

Rossville, IL

My first blog at this site shared my love of history. (See "I Love History," reposted January 3, 2012, where it can now be read in the blog archives.)  My feeling that history has so many lessons for us, to make each generation wiser than their predecessors by learning from past experiences both good and bad, was a big part of why I wanted to share Isaac's story.  The late 1800s have much in common with the problems we face today, making Isaac's experiences not only interesting but also relevant.

Recently, an internet friend and I were exchanging face book posts about the challenges of teaching young people history.  I shared my opinion that for students who have celebrated no more than 18 birthdays, their frame of reference makes even 20 years seem like ancient times.  I liked his reply so much that I wrote it down.  He said he had learned to appreciate the importance of history from his parents.  He concluded:  "I loved history in high school and could not understand why the other kids...did not understand how important it was.  It [history] is where we came from and points in the direction we are likely to go.  It is a huge puzzle with many pieces which one cannot possibly learn in a lifetime."  For me, his description of viewing history as a giant puzzle, some of whose pieces can be fitted together over a lifetime, seemed a wonderful analogy.

Dressed for Victorian Tea 2010

I believe my appreciation resulted from a natural immersion in family history.  I was raised in the house built by my paternal grandfather and his mother.  We had my paternal great grandfather's Civil War journal, from which I remember my mother reading aloud.  On Memorial Day we put flowers on the graves of paternal and maternal grandparents of several generations, joined in doing the decorations by aunts and uncles whose shared memories made me feel as if I had known the people whose graves we visited.  History was something real for me, not just names and dates from textbooks.

My experience is not common in today's world.  I read somewhere that the average American family lives in a house only five years before moving elsewhere.  Doing genealogy research I discovered that many people do not know their grandmother's maiden name.  Follow the news on television and the internet and you will see how headline events are abandoned within days or hours to report the new headlines in the next news cycle.  Not only is history given little attention, but also current events are quickly treated as irrelevant and forgotten.  Today's children grow up in a very different environment. 

FDR's Museum & Library

Not many families make history an intriguing puzzle for their children like my friend's parents did for him, nor are many children today raised in a home and community where evidence of their ancestors' lives surround them.  How do we make history interesting enough that people want to read about the past?  How do we make the lessons of history more than dates and names, not only for school children but also for adult readers?  That has been the question I asked myself as I wrote Isaac's story.

David McCullough has said, "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."  I agree. I have had the benefit of Isaac's own words in his journal from which to tell his story, but my manuscript is not just Isaac's biography.  I researched his community, using ancestry.com, family documents, legal documents, old photographs, tomb stones, and personal interviews to get to know the people Isaac mentioned in his diary.  I also researched the history of that period, becoming familiar with the biographies of famous people in politics, religion, business, and the arts.  I learned about the events that shaped the times.  Only when I had spent incalculable hours of research to become familiar with all of this was I able to put Isaac's story in context.  The challenge was to make the history during Isaac's time "something someone would want to read," as David McCullough said.  I believed that writing the manuscript like a doctoral thesis or a text book was the wrong way to share history with the readers I wanted to reach.

Visit to Isaac's Hometown

My manuscript has an extensive bibliography with footnotes to document the research I have done.  However, I have chosen to bring Isaac and his friends and acquaintances to life, revealing this exciting time through them.  Occasionally, that means I imagined conversations to share important information that would be deadly dull to most readers if presented as text.  For example, the People's Party, which shaped not only the politics of Isaac's time but also laws and social programs years later when the People's Party itself had faded away, evolved from smaller political movements coming together to form a powerful movement.  I could have written a paragraph or a few pages describing each of these separate groups and how they united.  Instead, I imagined a conversation between Isaac and his friend, William Campbell, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives who was a delegate to the organizing convention at which the People's Party was formed.  I know from Isaac's journal the night Isaac went to visit Campbell to "talk politics."  I am confident that they discussed the convention, its leaders, and the mix of political groups that were represented there.  However, I do not have a transcript of their conversation.  Instead, I have my research from original documents, newspapers, and secondary books and articles, and I have my imagination to put that information in the form of a conversation between Isaac and William Campbell the night Isaac went for a visit.

In those few places in my manuscript where imagination joins research to make history more readable to those who are neither scholars nor researchers, I identify in a footnote the sources used to create the scene and indicate what has been imagined, making the content enjoyable to casual readers but also documenting sources for more serious historians.  These passages in the manuscript are limited, but they do raise objections by some who believe my decision takes my manuscript out of the strict definition of history and moves it to some realm between historical fiction and authentic history.

Victorian Tea 2011

I disagree.  History is defined as the study of past events; the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events.  Yet, Voltaire said:  "History is the lie commonly agreed upon."  Even the most thorough research about a person or event cannot establish each detail with certainty, and analysis unavoidably introduces the bias and experiences of the analyst.  If only two people are present in a conversation, they will take away from their meeting a different recollection of what was said.  We can try to capture history accurately, but an absolute record of events is nearly impossible.  I have researched the subjects of my manuscript thoroughly.  If I make that research more accessible to readers by occasionally using my imagination to present the facts, while warning them in a footnote what I have done, is it any less accurate than the scholar's text where gaps are filled with analysis and supposition?

History is so important that rulers, politicians, and historians have manipulated it for generations.  As George Orwell said, "Who controls the past controls the future:  who controls the present controls the past."  I believe in the manner in which I have documented the history of a period, most commonly known as the Gilded Age, but presented from the perspective of those farmers and other laborers who lived their lives covered in sweat, dirt, and tears rather than gilt. My efforts will serve no purpose if I fail to make history something someone would want to read.  One publisher did not feel that my method met their criteria for  presenting history.  I remain hopeful that I will find a publisher who shares my enthusiasm for telling Isaac's story and the exciting events of the late 1800s as I have done.