Historic and Historical

We have an answer-guy in our local paper. Clay Thompson gets some very weird questions (some even from me) that he replies to in a sardonic way. Trust me. You want Clay to take your question and take you down, too. I know. That’s weird, too.

Recently someone wrote in wondering about the difference between the words “historic” and “historical.” I know. Don’t these people own a dictionary?

In his inimitable way, he succinctly answered that historic is an event worthy of noting, commemorating, or celebrating. Historical means something from the past, noteworthy or not. Simple, right?

Unless you’re an historical fiction writer. In that case, what is “historical” becomes quite important. Along those lines, one of my Facebook historical fiction pages had a thread going about just when is something historical?

When I attended the conference in Portland, Oregon last June, someone said if something is fifty years old or more, it’s historical. Uh. That’s my lifetime. I’m historical (though not historic). Sobering thought.

The Facebook thread wasn’t so definitive as the conference person. Still, fifty, sixty years--that works most of the time. But what about more recent events that are historic, if not historical? Could an historical fiction writer write it as historical fiction if it’s on the cusp of fifty years?

Someone suggested such writings be called “vintage”. I like that. The term vintage first came to my attention vis à vis clothing. Vintage is something high quality, denoting the best or most important of an era.

So if you were writing about an event in 1968, perhaps a novel about the integration fight in the south, maybe you could call it “historic fiction”, instead of “historical fiction”, or is that just adding layers of confusion? Maybe the answer is a category of “vintage fiction.”

I honestly don’t know that our readers care what label publishers and book sellers put on a novel. However, that labeling can make it easy or hard to locate the book.

When pondering this topic, I was reminded of university courses I taught in children’s literature. Contemporary fiction and historical fiction are easy designations, right? But what about the copyright date? When Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911) was published, it would have been considered contemporary fiction. But as we read it today, we call it historical fiction since it is over 100 years old.

Do you see the problem? When does contemporary fiction become historical fiction? And what is the definition of what makes it historical fiction? Does merely depicting an earlier era make it historical fiction or would The Secret Garden be better labeled as vintage fiction?

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Mrs. Ex-President Tyler

That’s what she called herself later in life. A secret admirer called her “The Rose of Long Island.” She branded herself as the first celebrity First Lady. Preliminary investigations show her to have had quite the life. Maybe even a sensational and sensationalized one. Some say Julia Gardiner Tyler was our most scandalous First Lady. And one of our most beautiful.

I happened quite coincidentally across an article about Julia, second wife of John Tyler, the 10^th President of the United States. The post purported to be little known facts about Julia. And, indeed, for me it was true. I, to tell the truth, didn’t know one piddly fact. But, oh, my. If true, she was “a piece of work,” as my grandmother would have said. I had to go searching out more. Could she be another Intrepid Woman for my middle grade biography series?

Here’s what I know from a brief search:

Julia Gardiner was born in 1820 and died in 1889 at age 69 having been First Lady for less than one year.

She was reared in wealth and status on Gardiner’s Island (Long Island area), one of the largest privately owned islands in the U.S. She was very close to her father.

At age 19, she posed (as “The Rose of Long Island”) for a department store handbag ad in a newspaper, scandalizing family and friends. Her family took her abroad for a year to avoid negative publicity.

She was known as a flirt and was sometimes considered bold, even brazen, for the era. She knew what she wanted and went after it.

At age 21, Julia met President John Tyler at a White House reception (January, 1842). His wife died eight months later (September), and he began to court her. She rejected his first proposal five months after his wife’s death, but finally accepted when he was there to comfort her after her father’s death in 1844.

Their Episcopal wedding was small and quiet, some say in deference to her father’s recent death, but others say it was because of the scandal of Tyler marrying a woman 30 years younger than him who was younger than one of his daughters. John Tyler was 54 years old; Julia was 24. Gossip surrounded them throughout his courtship.

John’s daughter’s hated Julia, but eventually all but one came around.

Julia loved running the White House and enjoyed being First Lady. She ordered that the sometimes-played “Hail to the Chief” always play to announce Tyler’s arrival at events. Mrs. Polk, the next First Lady, continued the tradition, and to this day the anthem is played.

Julia was the first photographed First Lady, though she didn’t care for the likeness. She made copies of more flattering images and sold them. She had dances named after her.

After John Tyler’s single term was up in 1845, John and Julia retired to a home he had bought in Virginia. They had seven children between 1846 and 1860.

The Civil War interrupted their quiet life. At age 72, John likely died of a stroke in 1862, and Julia lost her slaves and her land thorough the disruption of war. Even though she had wholly adopted the Southern Lady lifestyle and considered herself a Confederate, she had to move to Staten Island to live with children and eventually moved into her mother’s home.

Union veterans tried to burn down the home she got from her mother when they found she flew a Confederate flag on her property. Her estranged brother sued to keep her from getting the bulk of her mother’s estate claiming she had used undue influence to get a will favorable to her.

At age 52, Julia became a Roman Catholic. A year later she lost most of her money in the Panic of 1873, a major recession. She lobbied Congress for the first-ever pension for surviving First Ladies that continue to this day.

She died of a stroke at age 69 in 1889 and was buried next to her husband in Richmond, Virginia. Those are the facts we know. Other purported may or may not be true.

Rumors had her pursued, before her marriage, by Tyler’s married son. True? She instituted monarchical features (including ladies-in-waiting) into the White House protocols. Maybe? She danced too closely to other men. Could be? She made a deal with a reporter to only write positive things about her in his paper. Possible? She rode around in a coach pulled by eight Arabian horses as royalty might. Likely? There’s a lot more for me to find out about this controversial First Lady.

Was Julia merely a strong, independent woman out of her time or was she a self-centered, entitled woman who was in a state of arrested development? I think the question is worth looking into. Intrepid Woman for my series? I don’t think so. I’ve not yet discovered the hallmarks of selflessness and heroism which mark my other women.

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Book Review: Caleb's Crossing

Okay. Here’s an admission. I am a Geraldine Brooks groupie. She was a keynote speaker at this year’s Historical Novel Society Conference in Portland, Oregon. And I stood next to her in the buffet lunch line! I got up enough courage to speak to her. I told her that I loved all her works, but my favorite was Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. “That’s my husband’s favorite, too,” she replied. Yessss!

So here I am to share another of her works that I loved: Caleb’s Crossing.

First, to speak more generally across her various works, the aspects I value highly are her attention to historical accuracy and detail. That is paramount for historical fiction, but some write more historical FICTION than HISTORICAL fiction.

I wrote about this in movies in an earlier post, but it holds true for me for novels as well. I love to learn things when I read historical fiction. If I can trust the author’s research and interpretation, I enjoy the book more.

Brooks also has an eye for observation and writes spot-on characters. They leap off the page into your consciousness becoming as real as people you know in life. She also deals always with broader issues humans face such as faith, ethics, and responsibility to others. Oh, and she finds the most interesting, odd, little-known stories to shine her light on.

In Caleb’s Crossing, the recently-formed college that would later be named Harvard had a mission in its charter to not only educate settlers of the New World, but also to educate local indigenous peoples. Isn’t that remarkable? Caleb was the first Native American graduate in 1665. One of two graduates, actually, but the other was killed on his way to the graduation and Joel Iacommes didn’t get his degree awarded until 2011. At that same 2011 graduation, Tiffany Smalley, the first member of the Wampanoag tribe to attend Harvard since Caleb, received her diploma.

Caleb’s story is told through the journal of 12-year-old Bethia, a settler on Martha’s Vineyard, home to Caleb’s tribe. The fictional Bethia, daughter of the local minister, befriends Caleb and is drawn to the humanity, ethics, and spiritual practices of his people.

Cheeshahteaumuck, Caleb’s native name, was recognized early on as an intellect and was schooled by the white settlers. Their intent, of course, was not so pure as to educate for the sake of education. Thinking at the time included the implicit and explicit expectation that with the white man’s learning, the local indigenous people would no longer be “savages” and that they would embrace Protestantism resulting in peaceful cohabitation with “civilized” neighbors.

In her notes to readers, Brooks shares the little bit of known information about this young man and his educational journey. Then she creates a credible fictional world to place him in the values and conflicts and philosophical discussions of the era. What a remarkable thing, to be the only Native American in white institutions, and so brave for Caleb not only to have attempted Harvard, but to have graduated.

This is a wonderful book to reflect on the purpose of education and the colonization and absorption of local peoples. You will come away understanding better what early English settlers brought to the colony and how they changed the world around them.

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Irena Sendler-Intrepid Woman

Have you ever wondered what you would do if the Nazi’s had marched into your country and set up ghettos to contain “undesirables”? Would you have the courage to confront them for mistreatment of others even if it meant death? Would you find ways to subvert the Nazi agenda by working covertly? I’d like to think that I would, but no one really knows until one faces the actual situation.

Another Intrepid Woman in the series I am writing for middle grade readers is Irena Sendler (aka Irena Sendlerowa) who was part of the Polish Resistance during World War II. Irena, a Polish Catholic social worker, knew that her faith as well as her moral compass demanded she take action even in the face of a death sentence if discovered.

She was a woman in her late 20s when the Nazi’s absorbed Poland. The changes were swift and deep. One change was the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto to house 500,000 Jews. Such crowded conditions bred disease and starvation. Posing as a health care professional, she was able to obtain clearance to enter the Warsaw Ghetto regularly to attend to health needs.

The Germans were afraid of diseases, so they wouldn’t check the apartments she labeled as having typhus or some other contagion. In this way she was able to protect the identities of the children she and others smuggled out in tool boxes, gunny sacks, coffins, under produce, in ambulances and other ways. Irena herself got out 400 children, some infants. Twenty-five others in her network smuggled out an additional 2100 children.

Irena kept a list of all the children’s names and other details in the hope that she could reunite them with their families after the war. She wrote the names and stored them in a glass jar she buried under an apple tree in a neighbor’s backyard. After the war, she was saddened that most of the children’s families had been exterminated by the Nazi’s and she couldn’t bring them together. However, of the 2500 children, not one had been refused a home by sympathetic Poles, who placed the children in orphanages or reared the children as their own.

An informant told the Nazi’s of her work. They imprisoned her and tortured her, breaking both her feet and legs. Still she would not betray a single person in her network nor the names of the children she helped save. After the torture, she was sentenced to death. She was saved by the Resistance she had been part of when they bribed a guard who helped her escape. The German’s placed a price on her head, but she changed her name and was able to remain free until the war ended.

We only know of her story because a group of rural Kansas middle schoolers discovered her story and won a state history contest by retelling her tale. They wrote a play, “Life in a Jar”, that introduced this remarkable woman to the world.

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Elizabeth Jennings Graham-Intrepid Woman

One hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in the segregated Deep South, a young school teacher in New York City boarded a streetcar for whites-only and was forcibly removed from the streetcar by the conductor and a police officer.

She suffered injuries and indignities, and took her grievance to court. Like Rosa Parks, who was well-connected with blacks with power and influence, Elizabeth also had an advantage due to her family. Elizabeth’s family were part of the small but influential upper middle class black community in New York City. They were friends with Frederick Douglass, for example. Also, their church was peopled with blacks with influence.

Her own immediate family were remarkable as well. Her father held the first patent ever issued to an African-American for his early version of dry cleaning. Her father used some of his considerable wealth to buy out the indentured contract of her mother, a slave woman forced into indenture when New York state abolished slavery. Her mother went on to become a speaker to black women encouraging them to get education for themselves and their children.

Related to Elizabeth’s treatment, she was encouraged to sue the transit company for damages. Her father contacted a law firm known for handling cases of discrimination and abolitionist causes. The newest junior partner, a recently minted attorney, took her case. The attorney was Chester Alan Arthur who would go on to become President of the United States. They sued for $500. In 1855, the jury, however, only awarded her $225 plus 10% for expenses. The thinking is that blacks of the time didn’t need that kind of money.

The result of Elizabeth’s lawsuit was that the 3^rd Avenue Railroad Company had to integrate all its streetcars. So, another person from Elizabeth’s circle boarded a white’s only streetcar, was removed, sued, and also won his case. As a result, the New York Transit System in its entirety was ordered to be integrated.

Elizabeth married, and she and her husband lost their toddler, an adopted child, to illness during the draft riots in New York City in 1862. A white undertaker helped them smuggle the body through the crowds to burial in Brooklyn. Shortly thereafter, she, her husband, and her mother moved to New Jersey to be near Elizabeth’s sister.

When her husband died, Elizabeth moved back to Manhattan and started the first kindergarten for African-American children in New York. She taught them until her death at age 76.

An intrepid woman for sure. I am working on a series of biographies for middle-grade students to give these little known women the recognition they deserve