Our Hero, the Archivist

Indiana Jones
From: Wikipedia

"...an article by [J.] Buxton, which is primarily a review of Suzanne Keen's Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction, suggests that students may already be predisposed to archival research because they are familiar with works that glamourise the archivist's job. Buxton argues that Keen's study 'presents a compelling case for the fictional revitalization of the figure of the amateur scholar, and a corresponding focus on the archive as the site of romance quests that are as heroic... as those of earlier imperial adventure stories.' She notes that the novels featured in Keen's study 'unabashedly celebrate traditional scholarly methods and the researchers who engage them' and that in British fiction of the last two decades 'Edward Casaubon is reborn as Indiana Jones.' Thus, the archival assignment may build on student interest in solving problems as well as their knowledge of novels and films that feature archival detection." (304) --Carol A. Senf, (2005) "Using the University Archives to Demonstrate Real Research" Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, 12:2, 297-307.

Who knew there was and is a popular cultural trend in which the work of an archivist is glamourized?!? I am skeptical of Senf's claims here because I am not yet certain that a majority of the public could describe what the work of an archivist is, let alone think romantically about it. The running joke among archivists and archivists-in-training is that the the word "archivist" is often confused by the public with other words such as "activist" and "anarchist." This all of course illustrates the necessity for public outreach by archivists as well as their involvement in high school and college research classes and projects.

*The full reference on Buxton's article mentioned above:
Buxton, J. (2003) Casaubon revamped: contemporary adventures in the archive, Contemporary Literature, 44(2), 345-352.

Humans Evolving Into Dog-Fleas

Friedrich Nietzsche (From: Wikipedia)

"...[Friedrich] Nietzsche teasingly introduced a character called 'the last man,' a frightening (or flattering, depending on your point of view) possibility for the 'end' of evolution. The last man is the ultimate bourgeois, the satisfied utilitarian, the absolute couch potato. 'We have found happiness,' says the last man, and blinks in dull contentment. This, Neitzsche warns, is also one of our possibilities. We can continue to consume our comforts, minimize dangers, ignore the mysterious and unknown, and discourage creativity, until the world is so safe for us that we will become 'ineradicable, like the dog-flea.' Or, we might strive to become something more than 'human-all-too-human' and aspire to the Ubermensch [superman]." (232) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

I would add to the description of the "last man" an obsession with trivial entertainment--whether by television shows, best-selling novels, or sports. I might also add a "last child" for whom being entertained during school lessons is an absolute necessity without which learning simply cannot take place. Entertainment, not knowledge, is the chief priority. To the "last child", I'd also add of course the "last principal" and the "last school" to my description of human evolution gone bad.

On lighter note, if being a Ubermensch means having a mustache like the one above, then sign me up!

The Definition of "Charlatan"

Arthur Schopenhauer (From: Wikipedia)

"[Arthur] Schopenhauer is best known for his pessimism and his curmudgeonly style. His antipathy toward Hegel was so profound that he insisted on teaching courses in the same university at the same times that Hegel gave his lectures. Given Hegel's popularity, Schopenhauer's courses were little attended, and his teaching career came to a quick end. Fortunately, he was independently wealthy and thus able to devote himself to writing books in which he frequently alluded to 'charlatanism,' which, as he clearly explained in footnotes, meant Hegel." (223-224) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

It's All In Your Head

George Berkeley (From: Wikipedia)

"[George] Berkeley was quite happy to suppose that there was no substantial world apart from the world in our minds. The world was indeed composed of ideas--a position subsequently known as idealism... If there were no 'external' world to serve as cause of our sensations, where would our sensations and our ideas about the world come from? It is God who must provide them, Berkeley argues. 'To be is to be perceived,' he insists, but everything that exists must therefore be perceived, all the time, by God. (It was regarding Berkeley's philosophy that some wit formulated the old gambit, 'If a tree falls in the forest...') Perhaps what is most remarkable is the fact that Berkeley's philosophy, which denies the material existence of the world, held onto the Lockean claim to be merely a matter of 'common sense.' (How often, in philosophy, would the appeal to common sense end up in nonsense.) The English Doctor Johnson thought that Berkeley's idealism was hardly common sense at all, and kicking a stone he commented to a friend, 'Thus I refute him.'" (196) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

The Positives to Religious Proselytization and Amalgamation

"The process of religious synthesis has a philosophical significance larger than the merger of ideas and perspectives. As religions merge and cope with one another on the plane of beliefs and rituals, people are encouraged to deal with one another with increased understanding and tolerance. Indeed, while one might well bemoan the loss of 'pure' and 'original' religious ideas in the amalgamation of newer and more broadly based religious perspectives, one will probably not complain about the consequent lessening of conflict and sectarian hatred that might result." (154) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

I have often thought about the sadness of the fact that the religious variety in our world has decreased as Christianity and Islam engage in aggressive mission tactics in the non-Western world. This missionary activity is of course nothing new--it dates more than 500 years back to Columbus. What unique insights into the human condition could all of the now extinct small-scale cultures and religions have provided us with? This makes me sad.

But Solomon and Higgins have reminded us that there are some positive aspects to Christianity and Islam's aggressiveness and tendency to swallow, absorb, or amalgamate smaller cultures and religions. More uniformity of religion, as they point out, results in less conflict and hatred. However, Christianity and Western culture in particular are a double-edged sword. Western military technology has resulted in large-scale violence. (But is the march of progress in science and technology inevitable, such that if one society did not make such advances, another one would?) On the other hand, Christianity has brought with it a high respect for human rights and did not exist in many of the religions it overturned. The world is better without the cannibalism and human sacrifice that once prevailed in societies that are now Christian.

A larger point is that Christianity and Islam are hardly the only religions that have sought to proselytize the world. Buddhism has been spreading throughout the world for more than 2,500 years. Greek culture and religion expanded beyond Greece in the centuries before and after Christ. Manichaeism was a popular and growing religion during St. Augustine's time before it completely died out--have you met any Manichaeans lately? Religion and cultures come and go. Our world is constantly changing despite our sadness over losing interesting parts of our past and culture.

And who can blame Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists or anyone else for their proselytizing efforts to change other people? Would we still be humans without our efforts to convince others of a good idea or what we believe to be the truth? To be thoughtful and inquisitive is part of our nature. We want to believe what is true and we want others to believe the truth as well.

A Heated Debate, But Who Cares?

Bertrand Russell
(From: Wikipedia)

"What if realism were true, but everyone were a nominalist, or vice versa--would there be any difference whatever in the world?" (149) --Bertrand Russell quoted in Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

A little background here: Realism is a metaphysical theory that dates back to Plato. It holds that for all the particular things or attributes in the world with the same appellation (e.g., triangles, white-colored things), there is a corresponding Form or universal that exists in a higher, non-material reality. All of the particular examples of that thing or attribute in the material world exist by participation in the Formal or universal thing. The Form is the perfect ideal by which all instances of it are measured.

Nominalists maintain that there are no Forms or universals existing in a higher reality or anywhere at all. Nominalism dates to the medieval philosopher Peter Abelard, but has similarities with Aristotle's ideas on this matter as well. All that exist are particular, material things and their attributes. For example, there is no Form of a tree through which all trees acquire their essential existence. All that exists are particular trees, despite the fact that we have the same appellation (viz., "tree") for all of them.

This is a highly simplified summary of a fierce debate that has raged for well over 2000 years. But Russell has a point. Is it a major concern for most people how it is that we are capable of using the same adjective "white" to describe many different instances of things with that color? I think probably not.

Men Who Fear the Knife

"Saint Paul Writing His Epistles"
Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1632)
(From: Wikipedia)

"Were Christians still bound by the Law of Moses? Paul's universalism had considerable bearing on this question. As so often, the general question became heated because of a very particular issue. Circumcision was required by Jewish law, so some Christians insisted that Greeks should be circumcised if they wanted to become Christians. Others rejected this idea, considering the ritual unnecessary and cruel, especially for adults. Paul resolved that particular issue by declaring that circumcision was not required for Christians (no doubt evoking a sigh of relief from many male converts)." (120) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

The History of Metaphysics as a Footnote to Parmenides

Parmenides (ca. 515-450 B.C.E.)
(From: Wikipedia)

"Back we go to Parmenides and his argument to the effect that we can never know the world. What, then, can we know? And what can we do with philosophy if it brings us to that abrupt and final conclusion? One possibility: spend the next two thousand years attacking the premises, criticizing and refining the logic, clarifying and extrapolating the terms 'existence' and 'is,' reinterpreting the conclusion, reaffirming the conclusion, reconstructing the argument, translating the argument into theology, converting the theology into ontology, redefining ontology and reducing it to semantics, redefining and returning it to the language of common sense once again, then challenging or ridiculing common sense and turning it back into paradox, further refining the logic, generating new and even more puzzling paradoxes..." (39) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

Madness, no?

Philosophy on the Can

An ideal place to philosophize? Some might say so.
(From: Wikipedia)

"Long before the sixth century B.C.E., there were already flourishing civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The Greeks (or Hellenes) were a group of nomadic Indo-Europeans who came down from the north and replaced a people already settled by the Aegean Sea. (This displaced people moved and founded a great civilization on the island of Crete. We've completely lost their language, but it is hard to believe that they didn't have a profound and complex philosophy. After all, they even had indoor plumbing.) (7) --Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy

The question here is whether the fact of indoor plumbing serves as: 1) an indication of this civilization's engineering and intellectual prowess, or 2) as a facilitator for reaching higher levels of philosophical abstraction. In other words, does the availability of an indoor toilet as an ideal location to philosophize lead one to the conclusion that this civilization's philosophical complexity was probably high?

Bum Fodder

Continental paper money. (From: Wikipedia)

"While Connecticut struggled to cope with constant enemy harassment on the home front, she also took part in a national drama, the collapse of the [Continental] currency. We have seen how continued depreciation during 1779 helped to confirm the imbalance between the demand for grain and the demand for currency that had begun in 1778. Natural disasters and enemy action contributed to the problem, but the root of it lay in a currency which one disgruntled resident of the state described as 'no Better than oak leaves & fit for nothing But Bum Fodder.'" (199) --Richard Buel, Jr., Dear Liberty: Connecticut's Mobilization for the Revolutionary War

A Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima... and a Sunny Bank Holiday

On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by the United States. Here is the news reader's script from the first BBC report of the bomb:

"Monday,
August 6th, 1945
Six p.m.

HOME SERVICE:

Here is the News:

President Truman has announced a tremendous achievement by Allied scientists. They have produced the atomic bomb. One has already been dropped on a Japanese army base. It alone contained as much explosive power as two-thousand of our great ten-tonners. The President has also foreshadowed the enormous peace-time value of this harnessing of atomic energy.

At home, it's been a Bank holiday of thunderstorms as well as sunshine; a record crowd at Lord's has seen Australia make 265 for 5 wickets."
--reproduced in David Irving, The German Atomic Bomb: The History of Nuclear Research in Nazi Germany

Painless Modern Bombs?

Werner Heisenberg
(From Wikipedia.com)

"[Werner Heisenberg and German biochemist Adolf Butenandt] had just attended a [March 1, 1943] meeting of the Academy for Aeronautics in the Air Ministry, off the Potsdamer Platz [in Berlin]. Hubert Schardin had been lecturing on the physiological effects of modern bombs, mentioning, among other things, that the sudden build-up of air pressure due to an explosion in one's immediate vicinity might lead to a relatively painless death from an embolism. Toward the end of the meeting, the alert had been sounded and all of us had made for the Ministry shelter, fitted out with camp beds and paillasses. This was our first experience of very heavy bombing. Several bombs hit the building of the Ministry, we heard the collapse of walls and ceilings, and for a time we did not know whether the corridor between our shelter and the outside world was still open.

Otto Hahn (From www.biography.com)

The lights had gone out shortly after the start of the raid, and there were occasional gleams of a flashlight. A groaning woman was brought in and tended by two medical orderlies. At first we had all been talking and even laughing, but gradually we fell silent; the only sound then was the occasional thud as yet another bomb dropped nearby. After two particularly violent bursts, with pressure waves that shook the whole shelter, I heard [German nuclear physicist] Otto Hahn pipe up in a corner: 'I bet Schardin doesn't believe in his own theories right now.' With that, the atmosphere grew just a shade less somber." (183)
--Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond

A "Super" Atom Bomb

Hydrogen Bomb (From: www.xtimeline.com)

"For Super was a bomb which might well be a thousand times as powerful as that which had razed Hiroshima to the ground. Unlike the ordinary atomic bomb it was an 'open-ended weapon,' of unrestricted range.

Such a bomb could be constructed only if the powerful natural processes taking place in the interior of the sun were successfully reproduced on earth. Quantities of energy were perpetually being released in that flaming heavenly body by the fusion of hydrogen atoms. The forces liberated were incomparably more powerful than those let loose in uranium fission...

[A group of nuclear physicists meeting at UC Berkeley, lead by Robert Oppenheimer,] indicated the possibility of a fusion of this kind, the logical next step after the fission bomb...

One of the questions to be considered was peculiarly sinister. The possibility had been mentioned at Berkeley that once the thermonuclear processes had been set in motion by the explosion of a bomb, they might affect the atmosphere and the waters of the earth. An irresistible global chain reaction might be released by the Super, which would transform the entire planet in a short time into a flaming and dying star." (265-266) --Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists

Guess who?

Richard Feynman (From Wikipedia)

"The enfant terrible among the atomic scientists was the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, as young as he was gifted. To enrage the censors he instructed his wife to send him letters to Los Alamos which were torn into hundreds of small pieces. The officials charged with the checking of correspondence were obliged to fit all the fragments of this jigsaw puzzle together again. It also afforded Feynman great amusement to work out the combination numbers of the steel safes in which the most important data of research were kept. In one case he actually succeeded, after weeks of study, in opening the main file cupboard at the records center in Los Alamos while the officer in charge of it was absent for a few minutes. Feynman contented himself, in the brief period during which he had all the atomic secrets at his disposal, with placing in the safe a scrap of paper on which he had written, 'Guess who?' He was then able to feast his eyes on the horror of the security official as the latter perused the message which had found its way into the innermost sanctum of the Manhattan Project in some manner he was utterly unable to understand." (122) --Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists

"I want to do something risky."

Gottingen, Germany (From tripadvisor.com)

"From these [Gottingen, Germany host families] the foreign students often learned German very quickly. They frequently even wrote articles in German for scientific periodicals during the period of their studies. In conversation, however, they made amusing mistakes. The young English astrophysicist Robertson wanted one day to check the exact weight of a letter he was going to send abroad. He burst into a shop and breathlessly asked the girl behind the counter: 'Haben Sie eine Wiege? Ich mochte etwas wagen.' ('Have you a cradle? I want to do something risky.') The girl blushed and stared at him and he hastily corrected himself. 'I beg your pardon, I meant to say haben Sie eine Waage? Ich mochte etwas wiegen.' ('Have you a pair of scales? I want to weigh something.')" (22) --Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists

A Community of Atomic Physicists

"Young physicists from all over the world were studying [atomic physics] under Sommerfeld in Munich [in the early 1920s]. They even took their problems with them into the cafes.

This is a present-day cafe scene in the Hofgarten area of
Munich. (From Flickr: Maria Mia)

Marble-topped tables were covered with scribbled mathematical formulae. The waiters of the Cafe Lutz in the Hofgarten, regularly frequented by the Munich physicists, had strict instructions never to wipe the tables without special permission. For if a problem had not been solved by the time the cafe closed for the night, the further necessary calculations were carried out the following evening. It happened fairly often, moreover, that some unknown person would have the audacity to jot down the solution during the interval. Some young physicist would have been to too impatient to wait until the next meeting." (9) --Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists

American-Style Redistribution

"The idea of taking from the haves to give to the have-nots violates the ideal, or myth,

James Michael Curley
(Jamaica Plain Historical Society)

that any American can ascend to a much higher class by working with diligence and cunning. As James Michael Curley, the Boston Irishman who was one of the most successful local politicians in U.S. history, allegedly quipped, 'Redistribution of the wealth would be all right, but in America the best we can achieve is redistribution of the graft.'" (7) --Michael Kazin, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation

Spitting at the Russian Occupation of Poland

Maria Sklodowska, 16 years old.
From: Wikimedia

"Nowhere in Warsaw was the Russian military presence more palpable than in Saxon Square. The Saxon Palace, once a royal residence, was now a Russian military headquarters; low-lying buildings surrounding the square were given over to barracks. Sometimes there would have been military reviews in progress when Maria [Sklodowska, in her early teens in the early 1880s, later to become the scientist Marie Curie] and Kazia passed by. And always towering over the buildings and the people coming and going in the square was the graceless bronze obelisk, surrounded by horrific two-headed eagles, erected by the Tzar after the November uprising [1830].

"Bivouac of the Russian Army on the Saxon Square in 1861"
This picture was taken about twenty years before Marie and
her friend spit on the obelisk.
From: Wikimedia

The obelisk celebrated the bravery of those Poles who remained faithful to the Tzar during the uprising. To Poles, of course, these 'brave' men were traitors, and the monument was a provocation. Indeed, for some time after the January Uprising [1863] a sentinel protected the obelisk from vandals day and night. Kazia and Maria, for their part, made a point of spitting on the obelisk every time they passed by." --Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life

No Flag, No King

The tricolor flag of France since 1793.
From: WorldAtlas.com

In August 1873, French monarchists were shopping for a new king. The Third French Republic (i.e., no king) had been proclaimed in September 1870 following the capture of Emperor Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) by Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War. But by 1873, monarchists in the National Assembly had garnered sufficient power to end the Republic by naming a new king. Their choice? Henry, count of Chambord, from the royal Bourbon family. I'll let historian Norman Rich take the story from here.

Henry, Count of Chambord, of the
French royal Bourbon family.
From: Wikimedia

"As he was without heirs, he was to be succeeded by the Orleanist, the count of Paris (1838-1894). It was a sensible arrangement, but the count of Chambord was not a sensible man. He insisted on the restoration of the white fleur-de-lis flag of the Bourbons as the emblem of France in place of the tricolor, which had been the national flag since the revolution. 'Henry V cannot abandon the flag of Henry IV,' said the high-minded candidate, referring to his ancestor who had changed his religion three times in the process of becoming king. The flag issue proved to be insurmountable. The French national would not give up the banner that had flown at Austerlitz and Jena, at Sevastopol and Solferino. Even the loyal [Marshal] MacMahon admitted that if the white flag of the Bourbons were run up, the chassepots would go off of their own accord. In November, 1873, the monarchists in the assembly voted to give MacMahon the 'executive power' in France for seven years, in the hope that by that time the count of Chambord would be dead and the candidate succeeding him would be more reasonable." (189-190) --Norman Rich, The Age of Nationalism and Reform, 1850-1890

He turned down the offer to be king because of a damn flag!

Flag of the Bourbon family. 

Drinking with the Enemy at 6 AM on a Saturday

In 19th century France, the National Guard was a "people's army" that was composed entirely of volunteers. Although commanded by the national government, it's main objective since the French Revolution had been guarding the National Assembly and, when Republics were in place, defending them. Although commanded by the national government, it was really distinct from the army in terms of its raison d'etre; in revolutionary periods, the National Guard was an independent military power to be reckoned with.

In the summer of 1870, Prussia's Otto von Bismarck baited Emperor Louis Napoleon into declaring a nationalism-fueled war on Prussia. I say "baited" because Bismarck had a far more powerful army than France did, and he knew it. Prussia quickly manhandled France and took Louis Napoleon prisoner by the end of the summer. With Louis Napoleon out of power, moderate republicans in Paris declared a new French Republic and provisional government on September 4. But the problem was that the Prussians soon had Paris completely surrounded, cutting off all supplies from the city until January 28, 1871. This period was known as the Siege of Paris. The provisional government surrendered to the Prussians on January 28. This was a very unpopular move from the perspective of Paris's patriotism-crazed workers and artisans. They didn't want to give in to the Prussians. There were also a number of domestic economic measures that the government had taken against the interests of Parisians.

This is a picture of the French national army's attempt to seize
cannons at Montmartre in the early morning of
March 18, 1871. They were not so successful here as they
were at Rue des Rosiers. Dawn had arrived while soldiers
waited for horses to pull the cannons away. A crowd
surrounded the army soldiers. When General Lecomte
ordered them to fire on the unarmed crowd, the
soldiers refused and instead turned their
guns on him, taking him prisoner. Later that day, a
Parisian crowd broke into the prison, pulled Lecomte
out, stood against a wall and publicly executed him.
Picture from: Wikipedia

While the French army was disarmed by the Prussians according to treaty agreements, the National Guard in Paris took control of the situation in the city. The Prussian army declared a victory march on the Champs Elysees--Paris's main street for large public parades. The Paris National Guard was suspicious of Prussian intentions and acted to secure about 400 cannons that had been left behind when the French army earlier evacuated the city. The National Guardsmen took them to working class neighborhoods where they could be easily protected by both Guardsmen and the sympathetic Parisian working-class crowds. The provisional government of France took this action to be a challenge to their authority by the National Guard, mainly because after the January 28 surrender, the National Guard didn't trust the provisional government anymore. The National Guard in Paris had set up its own governing authority independent of the national government; this was called the Central Committee of the National Guard. But it wasn't just the National Guard who were upset with the provisional government for surrendering to the Prussians. The majority of Parisian civilians were as well. Many soldiers in the French army were also angry with their government--so angry that many were on the verge of siding with the rebellious Parisians and National Guard instead of the government.

On March 18, 1871, the national army was tasked with confiscating the 400 cannons from the Paris National Guard. This was essential to breaking the resistance of the Parisians to provisional government authority. Sorry for all the background information, but it all sets the scene of the early morning action of March 18. This quote describes just one instance of the army's attempt to take the cannons on that day. My explanatory brackets are inserted throughout the quote.

"Vassal's [a French army officer] men arrived just before dawn, taking the sentries by surprise. Shots were exchanged. The main body of National Guards at first mistook the police for their own men, the uniforms being similar, and shouted to Vassal to beat the generale (call to arms). Realizing their mistake, they opened fire, wounding a chasseur. A skirmish followed, 120 National Guards being surrounded in their headquarters, a house in the Rue des Rosiers, at the top of the hill, where they soon surrendered. By 5:45 a.m. the summit was firmly in the hands of the government forces. For several minutes shooting continued from the bottom of the hill, but without effect. The operation was quickly under way: the sappers began filling in the trenches surrounding the gun park [trenches had been dug by Guardsmen to prevent the easy removal of the cannons; so the army needed to fill them in to move the cannons away], and the accompanying artillery officer counted the guns and went to fetch the horses waiting in the Champs Elysees and Place de la Concorde. The gendarmes [Parisian police allied with the government] searched the house in the Rue des Rosiers, finding some interesting documents. A number of 'important leaders of the [National Guard] Federation' were arrested. [A total victory by the army, right?! Go, French army! But wait...] From the bottom of the hill, however came the disquieting report of men of the 88th drinking in a bar with National Guards." (44) --Robert Tombs, The War Against Paris 1871

While their comrades were subduing National Guardsmen on the Rue des Rosiers, some French army soldiers chose to sit down at a bar with National Guardsmen who they were supposed to be fighting against at 6 AM on March 18, a Saturday morning!

Gutter Rabbits & Other Parisian Delicacies

"By October [1870, during the Siege of Paris] whatever social stigmas previously inhibited the well-to-do from buying horsemeat were abandoned amid its packaging in the accouterments of haute cuisine. At the commencement of the siege, there were 100,000 horses at Paris; at the end only one-third of that number remained. Towards mid-November, signs began to appear advertising dog and cat butchers, with cats being advertised as 'gutter rabbits.' It has been estimated that over 25,000 cats were eaten during the siege, often boiled and seasoned with pistachios, olives, pimentos, and cornichons. During the second to last week of November, a rat market opened up at the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, with rats selling for 10-15 sous, or one-third to one-half of a National Guardsman's daily salary. The rats were almost assuredly destined for the infamous salami de rat." (49) --David A. Shafer, The Paris Commune

"Cantine municipale pendant le siege de Paris"
by Henri Pille

The Siege of Paris occurred during the Franco-Prussian War that began in 1870. As the Prussian army closed in on and surrounded Paris in September 1870, they cut off all supply lines to the city. Parisians were forced to survive on their existing food and other supplies until the end of January 1871. As you can see, the food situation became very difficult. Their situation became even more pathetic when the extremely cold winter of 1870-1871 began. It was one of the coldest winters of the 19th century in Europe, being more than 2 degrees Celsius colder than average. (Shafer, 50) This meant that fuel for fire to keep warm and cook food was scarce. Lower class Parisians were likely eating either raw or undercooked cats and rats part of the time. Shafer also describes how all the animals in the city zoo were slaughtered in late December because zookeepers could no longer sustain them. The meat was sold to wealthy Parisians.

Poles vs. Poles

"[Polish nationalists--who were mostly Polish nobles and exiles] decided that a new Polish nation-state would require a democratic revolution that would involve all social groups, including especially the serfs, and set about planning one. They tried their hand at it in 1846, only their conspiracy went wrong from the start when the Prussian police discovered their plan and arrested the group's leaders. Undaunted, the activists in the Austrian province of Galicia went ahead with the uprising, but their movement against the government was a signal to the serfs to move against them. Noble insurgents were captured by serfs and, spurred on by the rumor that the Austrian authorities were offering rewards for insurgents, living or dead (an official had actually offered payment for information about their whereabouts), peasants turned on and murdered over a thousand nobles, priests, and estate managers. One Habsburg official remembered what happened when peasants came to him with the corpse of a Polish noble estate-owner to get their reward.

"Galician Slaughter" ("Rzez galicyjska") by Jan Lewicki
From: Wikimedia Commons

"We have brought Poles."
"Poles, how could that be," I answered, "what are you?"
"We aren't Poles, we are the emperor's peasants."
"Who are the Poles then?"
"Oh--the Poles! They are the lords, their estate managers, their clerks, the learned men, the well-dressed gentlemen."

The peasants thus denounced the revolutionaries and proclaimed their loyalty to the [Austrian] Emperor and even refused to refer to themselves as 'Polish.' Poles were the feudal landlords. In response to the modern, democratic conception of the nation proposed by the radical insurgents from the nobility, the peasants reasserted the old, medieval concept of the natio: the nation was the nobility, their feudal overlords, and they would have nothing to do with them." --Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848-1851

"I am their leader; I must follow them."

"...another version of the 1848 [European] revolutions... views them primarily as farce, a revolution

Alphonse de Lamartine, poet and Minister of
Foreign Affairs in the Second Republic.

made by revolutionaries who were at best incompetent dilettantes, at worst cowards and blowhards who stole away from the scene when the going got rough. This version features the story of the Parisian revolutionary (most versions have him being Alphonse de Lamartine, the poet who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the provisional government of the French [Second] Republic) observing from his window a demonstrating crowd go by, springing up from his chair, and rushing out, proclaiming, "I am their leader; I must follow them." (1) --Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848-1851

Writing "Shit" On A Ballot

"In the run-up to the 8 May 1870 plebiscite on the liberal [French Second] Empire (increasingly appearing to be an oxymoron), orators addressed abstention from voting in terms of a strike.

Eugene Varlin, a workingclass activist,
advocated for the political application
of strikes, such as abstention from voting in a
8 May 1870 national plebiscite in France.
From: Eugene Varlin

Revolutionary republicans argued at the clubs that even the act of casting a 'no' vote was tantamount to both a validation of the Empire's legitimacy in fixing the parameters of political debate and cession to the leadership provided by liberal and moderate opponents of the regime. Instead, revolutionary republicans urged their audiences to spoil their ballots with expressions of protest (e.g., 'long live the '93 constitution,' 'long live the social and democratic republic,' or just simply, 'shit') and thereby engage in the equivalent of a strike against the extant political process." (25) --David A. Shafer, The Paris Commune

Peasants and Potatoes

"More efficient methods of land use [in 19th century Europe] were accompanied by the rapid development of improved strains of wheat and other traditional crops... Far and away the most important of the new crops, however, was the potato (also originally imported from America), which could be grown on poor soil, was comparatively insensitive to the vicissitudes of weather, and yielded from two to four times as much food as grain crops. Although cultivated throughout Europe, the potato became the staple diet of poorer peasants in the northern and central regions along a broad front from Ireland to Russia, a dependence which was to prove a disaster when the potato crop failed." (2)  --Norman Rich, The Age of Nationalism and Reform, 1850-1890

Potatoes originally came from South America. They were
brought by Spanish explorers to Spain in the mid-16th
century. From there, the crop gradually spread throughout
Europe. 

Having had plenty of exposure to Polish cuisine and its heavy reliance on potatoes, I am curious to discover what Polish and other peasants of northern Europe ate before the arrival of the potato around 1600!

Why I Cancelled My Facebook Account

"Professors can take comfort that those students surfing Facebook during class are simply demonstrating the skill of what Davidson calls 'continuous partial attention,' which is essential for thriving in today's world." --Rick Ostrander, "Learning to Surf: A College Provost Encounters the Digital Revolution" in Books and Culture (March/April 2013); Ostrander is reviewing Cathy Davidson's Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

I think Davidson is confused about "continuous partial attention." She has misconstrued an is with an ought. That students are coming to classrooms with this "skill" is undeniable. I see it in my elementary age students. Unfortunately, I see it in myself. I see it in myself as I have again walked into the university classroom in my mid-30s. Can I concentrate on my studies so well as I could fifteen years ago? I observe myself trying to write history papers on my laptop while the latest current events tempt me from a couple of clicks away. Are the Red Sox winning? Have they scored since I last checked fifteen minutes ago? Who's that singing on Pandora right now?

I seem to have developed the skill of "continuous partial attention" over the years as technology plays an ever more essential role in my everyday life. As a teacher of students with this skill already well-developed, I use the skill everyday. I teach a lesson, watch two students loudly talking in the corner and think about whether I should take away their computer game time yet for not paying attention, listen to a child on the other end of the room calling out to me that he has a bloody nose, and try to figure out why the projector isn't working properly--all at the same time! Students seem to have less ability to pay attention for any length of time. This leads them into a myriad of distractions for themselves, classmates, and teachers. Perhaps this skill is required in today's world after all... at least in some professions. But should it be? Is this the sort of society we want to create for ourselves?

After observation of both my students and myself, I can say that both the scholarly work I produce at the university while using "continuous partial attention" and the products of my students who extensively utilize this skill are much poorer as a result. It takes me longer to read a history article and I retain less content. It takes me longer to write a history paper and the quality is lower besides. I can say the same for the research products of my elementary students. I am certainly not qualified to answer this question, but I still wonder: is the human brain capable of producing high-level results when utilizing "continuous partial attention"? I've no doubt that the brain could adapt through evolution to new conditions that required such a skill over a span of, say, 10, 000 years... but the Internet technology that has spurred this whole discussion has been around for around twenty years.

Whatever evolution may yet do, my brain has not adapted well to the necessity for "continuous partial attention" in order to thrive in today's world. Furthermore, I want to accomplish more genuine experiences in my lifetime than the extensive use of this skill will permit. I want to read plenty of history, philosophy, and literature--and actually understand all that I read because I am able to focus my concentration on it. I want my scholarly work output to represent my mind working at its highest capabilities. This will mean bringing my fullest concentration to one task at a time--and going against the grain of technology in our culture. My brain now being reprogrammed.

I never used Facebook much while I had it. However, I see it as a major culprit--or perhaps more a symbolic culprit--in causing the spread of "continuous partial attention" in our society. I will, at least, be existentially carving out my own sphere in which I will be taking control of the technology in my life--before the technology takes control of me. Thus, Facebook has been excised.

Trade Is A "Nice and Delicate Lady"

"[Oxenbridge] Thacher compared trade to a 'nice and delicate lady; she must be courted and won by soft and fair addresses. She will not bear the rude hand of the ravisher.'" (276) --Margaret Ellen Newell, From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England

"L'incroyable et la merveilleuse" by
L. Massard and Theophile Fragonard.
Clearly this is a picture of neither
English or American lovers. However,
the period, 1790s, is somewhat close. And,
most of all, who knows romance better
than the French?
From: NYPL Picture Collection Online

Thacher wrote this in a 1764 pamphlet entitled Sentiments of a British American. It was written in response to the Revenue and Sugar Acts passed by the British Parliament in that year. Both laws established a long list of new import duties and trade restrictions for Americans. Like the Stamp Act of the following year, they were intended for the generation of revenue for the British government, which was in debt from its expenses incurred in the recent Seven Years War (i.e., the French and Indian War). They were also intended to curtail what Britain saw as a growing economic threat from New England. Shipping, especially to the West Indies, had become a major part of the New England economy. New Englanders had also taken up household industry and processing of agricultural and natural products as a way to build wealth. They turned to small scale industry such as wool hats and potash production as a way to supplement the meager wealth allowed by the rocky, poor soil on their farms. Many ironworks had also sprouted across New England. Britain saw all of this as a competitive threat to their own industry. With the new laws and regulations in 1764, Britain was restoring a proper mercantile relationship of dependency between America and Britain.

Before Thacher proposed the vivid metaphor quoted above for how to approach trade, he had explained in his pamphlet how a single duty on molasses would negatively impact many other areas of commercial activity. He explained how the molasses duty would adversely affect the rum distilling, whaling, fishing, shipbuilding, timber and provisions trades in New England. (Newell, 276) Thacher proposed a minimum of trade regulations and as much free trade as possible for New England merchants.

Thus, trade is a "nice and delicate lady" who won't tolerate any rough handling. You'd better keep an eye on her though, because she always wants to be free to consort with those offering the best terms. If you attempt to control her, you'd better watch out because she won't have any compunctions about sneaking out on you (i.e. smuggling). I have obviously extended Thacher's metaphor a little farther than he intended! But I would like to ask Oxenbridge just one question if I could: What does it mean for the government to make love to trade?

Paper Money Is Like A Good Wife

"[John] Wise [an Ipswich, MA minister] and other writers acknowledged that commodity prices had risen since paper money came into use and that some merchants occasionally discounted public bills slightly. But, Wise pointed out, these were minor faults that the advantages attending paper money more than made up for. 'Gentlemen! You must do by your bills, as all Wise Men do by their Wives,' he noted facetiously: 'Make the best of them.' Since paper money was integral to the colonial economy, Bay Colonists would do well to 'set them High in your Estimation,' since complaints about the bills' weakness would only serve to devalue them more. He predicted that public faith, consistent policy, and a committed provincial government would eventually stabilize paper money's value in related specie." (194) --Margaret Ellen Newell, From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England

In the first half of the 18th century in New England, one of the most contested political issues was whether and how much paper money should be issued by the colonial governments. Proponents of paper money argued that it facilitated internal trade within the colony by making assets more liquid. The consequently increased internal trade could create new wealth as well as develop and diversify the New England economy. They advocated free trade and few economic regulations. This would create a more robust and self-sufficient colonial economy. Paper money advocates included farmers, country traders, and large landowners.

A bill from 1690 in Massachusetts. This bill
was from one of the first emissions of paper
money by the General Court.
From: http://www.celebrateboston.com/

Opponents of paper money had a strict understanding of the value of money--the only money worthy of the name was specie--i.e., gold and silver. They argued that paper money allowed New England consumers of British goods to get into too much debt. They did not believe that an imbalance of trade between the colonies and Britain was economically healthy (throughout the colonial period, colonists' imports surpassed their natural resource exports in value). Anti-paper money figures tended to be wealthy merchants involved in the Atlantic trade. Therefore, they had plenty of access to specie and did not have to worry about the liquidity of their assets.

Massachusetts was compelled to finance a series of wars in the 1690s and early 1700s through issuing paper money. The way this worked was that the colonial government would print the money, then use it to pay soldiers and war suppliers. These people could in turn purchase goods from others with the paper. Its value was upheld by the fact that the colonial government made taxes payable with the paper money. However, if the war became expensive, it was very easy to print too much money--more money than could be taxed back into the government in any reasonable period of time. At this point, paper money would begin to depreciate--it was a fear that people would try to pay their creditors (who were often merchants) using depreciated paper money that added another argument against paper. But people like John Wise, an Ipswich minister, believed that, despite its potential failings, paper money had an overall positive effect on the New England economy. Kind of like a good wife... despite some downsides, you make the best of her. (I hope I don't get in big trouble with you-know-who for this!)

Hillsborough Paint (Bostonians' Solution for Smugglers)

"In 1769, when Boston merchants began to break ranks on non-importation, the resistance leaders began calling into action 'The Body of the People,' which included everyone, regardless of age, sex, rank, or voting status. Especially in policing the nonimportation agreement in 1768 and 1769, the people at large assumed the functions of civil government, ferreting out violators, fastening on them the opprobrium of the community, and coercing them to mend their ways. The humblest laborers on Boston's wharves, even adolescents and slaves, became part of the political community when they daubed the houses of importers with 'Hillsborough paint,' a peculiar recipe of body wastes, or pummeled zealous royal panjandrums who searched for smuggled goods." (231) --Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

"Landing of British Troops in Boston, 1768"
From: New York Public Library Picture Collection Online

Bostonians responded to oppressive British economic policies of the early 1770s such as the Tea Act (1773) with remarkable interclass unity, especially in comparison to New York and Philadelphia. "The Body of the People" mentioned above encompassed wealthy merchants such as John Hancock, radical, religious leaders such as Samuel Adams, and common laborers and artisans. It acted in unity to oppose British policies--and enforced unity when needed. Nash argues that two reasons for this unity were the British army's occupation of the city from 1768 and the ability of Samuel Adams to transform resistance into a kind of religious crusade that hearkened back to Puritan ideals of community and moral economy. The unity of Bostonians in opposition to British policy meant that if you were a merchant attempting to make some extra cash by smuggling in British tea, you might wake up one day to find "Hillsborough paint" on your door! Not a pleasant experience, I'm sure.

"Flatulent Preachments" and More Political Pamphlet Fun

"As the battle thickened, pamphleteers reached new pinnacles of abuse and scurrility. [Benjamin] Franklin was reviled as an intellectual charlatan who begged and bought honorary degrees in England, a corrupt politician, and a lecherous old man. His friends responded by labeling an opposition pamphleteer 'a Reptile' who 'like a Toad, by the pestilential Fumes of his virulent Slabber,' attempted 'to blast the fame of a PATRIOT.' William Smith, coordinator of the opposition [and an Anglican minister], was advertised to be a 'consumate Sycophant,' an 'indefatigable' liar, and an impudent knave with a heart 'bloated with infernal Malice' and a head full of 'flatulent Preachments.' As for the Presbyterians, a Franklinite pamphleteer renamed them 'Piss-Brute-tarians (a bigotted, cruel and revengeful sect).'

The more scabrous the literature became the more widely it was distributed, often gratis, to all who would accept it. Before the campaign was over, more than thirty-five broadsides and pamphlets, not to mention scores of newspaper fusillades, filled the streets. Chief Justice William Allen, a man who had risen from sugar boiler to wealthy merchant, found himself called 'Old Drip-pan,' an adulterer who had slept with his Negro slaves for twenty years, and 'a tricking Judge, and Presbyterian Jew.' The pamphleteer David Dove stood accused of sodomy, misogyny, miscegenation, concupiscence, and the almost unheard-of flaw of teratology. William Smith was charged with spreading venereal disease to his female slaves, and Franklin too was charged with sexual irregularities." (179-180) --Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

William Smith
From: University of Pennsylvania
Archives & Records Center

This all occurred in the months leading up to an October 1764 election in Pennsylvania. Franklin was allied with the Quaker elite in seeking to transfer Pennsylvania government from proprietary to royal control. Believe it or not, the Pennsylvania colony at this late date still existed for the personal profit of William Penn's descendants, including Thomas Penn. Penn insisted on his proprietary right to not pay property taxes on the large quantities of Pennsylvania land he owned--this at a time when the colony was having difficulty paying its debts from the French and Indian War. Franklin's solution to the problem of proprietary control was to transfer control of the colony's government to the king.

The early 1760s was a poor time for Franklin to attempt this as Pennsylvania colonists were suffering under the harsh economic effects of many imperial policies, not to mention of post-war depression. There was talk of a new stamp tax (the Stamp Act was passed in 1765); the Currency Act (1764) had just prohibited Pennsylvania from circulating paper money to help pay its war debts; violators of the Navigation Acts (viz., smugglers) were now being prosecuted from a distance by British judges, not local juries; and British battleships were stationed in the lower Delaware Bay tasked with searching for smuggled goods. All of these royal measures brought even more economic hardship to Philadelphia (described on p.179 of Nash's book). This was not the most ideal time for Franklin to propose a transfer of Pennsylvania government to royal control! But we can thank Franklin for inspiring some of the most entertaining political nastiness to ever exist (to my knowledge anyway; how could it get any worse?!).

*By the way, if you're wondering what "teratology" means, according to Dictionary.com: "the science or study of monstrosities or abnormal formations in organisms."

Ben Franklin's "Rottiness of Heart"

"...by 1754 the antiexcise pamphleteers in Boston were painting images of the opponents as 'Little pestilent Creature[s],' 'dirty miscreants,' and unspeakably horrible creatures ready to 'cram [their]... merciless and insatiable Maw[s] with our very Blood, and bones, and Vitals,' while making sexual advances on wives and daughters." (125)

"When the imperious Anglican clergyman William Smith attacked Benjamin Franklin, the artisans' hero, his opponents wrote that 'the Vomiting of this infamous Hireling... betoken[s] that Redundancy of Rancour, and Rottiness of Heart which render him the most despicable of his Species." (125)
--both quotes from Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

Benjamin Franklin
From: Wikimedia Commons, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nash describes the increasingly virulent, shrill political discourse that appeared in pamphlets and newspapers of the northern colonies in the 1750s. Regular newspapers had only existed for around half a century at this point. In the early 1700s, those who attacked political opponents in newspapers were more polite, using words like "intolerable," "unreasonable," and "strange." (Nash, 125) The shift in tone by political writers of the 1750s coincided with a shift in how explicit political factions and interests were viewed. Previously, the existence of groups unified by and advocating for a specific political interest was seen as destructive of the common good; a healthy state required more unity. However, in the mid-1700s a view that competing political factions could produce a healthy power balance in the state and that it was morally acceptable to act politically for one's self-interest had gained momentum. Once it became acceptable to identify oneself with a political interest group and oppose other such groups, a steady escalation in the intensity of public criticism occurred. The criticism was all the more severe as writers pitched their most convincing arguments to a slowly growing population of voters caused by widening suffrage laws. Given these circumstances, we should not be surprised to learn of Benjamin Franklin's "Rottiness of Heart."  

A Sow's Arse

"An anonymous [Philadelphia] pamphleteer, styling himself 'Roger Plowman' in a 'letter' to 'Mr. Robert Rich,' began to dig deeper into the economic motives of those who opposed paper money: 'the principal Reason why you are angry with Paper-money, is because People who are in your Debt can raise money to pay you, without surrendering up their Lands for one half of what they are worth.' [James] Logan [a leading Philadelphia conservative politician of the 1720s] had argued that without the rich, the poor would always be poor. 'Roger Plowman' reversed the proposition, suggesting that because of the rich, the poor would remain poor. 'It is an old Saying with us,' he wrote, 'that we must never grease the fat Sow in the Arse, and starve the Pigs.'" (94) --Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

"An Unpromising Drawing To Put a Joke To."
From: New York Public Library Picture Collection Online

In the 18th century before the Revolution, colonies would occasionally circulate fixed amounts of paper money. One of several ways that this could be done would be the exchange of paper money with landowners as a loan with the land serving as collateral. Having paper money made it easier for taxpayers to pay their taxes, debtors to pay their creditors, and generally exchange goods with one another. If you had only large value assets, then paper money could enable you to make small scale transactions for your necessities. But paper money was always accompanied by a fear among wealthy creditors of it becoming depreciated--and being forced to accept depreciated money from their debtors.

On the other hand, if a creditor sued a debtor for collection when paper money was scarce, a debtor's property would be auctioned off or transferred to the creditor at depreciated values. The reason for this was that an auction of debtor assets occurring in a situation of cash scarcity meant that there would be few bidders; and fewer bidders meant that the final bid would be for a lower amount. Consequently, it required more valuable assets to pay off a creditor when money was scarce. This explains Roger Plowman's assertion that without paper money, people would have to surrender "up their lands for one half of what they are worth." A wealthy creditor could get lots of money or valuable assets at bargain basement prices in a money-starved economy. Roger Plowman, of course, knew these facts well. He or his acquaintances must have been the pigs who were starved in order to grease the fat sow's (creditor) arse!

A Well-Dressed Cow

"Most [Boston] pamphleteers of the 1730s and early 1740s beamed their arguments at the middle and upper elements of society, focusing on the sufferings of those with fixed incomes, such as teachers, clergymen, and widows. These people were undoubtedly pinched by the adverse wage-price trends, and one of their kind may have been the wit who sent a cow draped in silks and laces meandering through the streets in 1735 to dramatize the high cost of meat." (72) --Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

"Cow"
From: New York Public Library Picture Collection Online

In the 1730s and 1740s, Boston continued to experience price inflation. Massachusetts's participation in Queen Anne's War in the first decade of the century caused severe economic disruption. The colony went into debt in paying for the war. To finance the debt, Massachusetts issued paper money. The colonial theory of paper money dictated that if paper money was issued, then it needed to be collected back through taxes in a timely manner. The timeliness of collection would preserve the value of the money. But if collection were delayed, the money would begin to lose value. Taxpayers had to have confidence that if they accepted paper money as payment for goods they were selling or labor they were performing, they could turn around and use it to pay their taxes. But Massachusetts dug itself into too deep of a debt hole during the war. We all know how taxpayers respond when asked to pay high taxes in a short period of time. Colonial officials knew this too, so they spread out the tax collection over a number of years; but this extension devalued the paper money and added extra interest costs for financing the debt.

Unfortunately, prices were inflated at a faster rate than laborers' wages. While Boston's population continued to grow, the agricultural production of its hinterland was beginning to reach capacity due to its poor soil. This had a depressing effect on the city's economy. There was no shortage of labor as population rose and production stagnated--thus the low laborer wages. Price inflation therefore impacted the laboring classes more severely than well-to-do people. An increasingly larger percentage of their income was taken up in purchasing basic necessities, such as meat. The rising price of meat unfortunately must have made it a luxury item for laboring class people. If so, why not protest this unwelcome change by dressing the meat with other luxury items such as silk and lace?

Election Trickery in New York

"On election day [late 1690s], orders were sent to the captains of English ships in the harbor to send their sailors to the polling place so that the Leislerians, who were heavily represented in the laboring class, would believe an impressment was imminent. This ruse proved successful, sending the Leislerian candidates down in defeat." (55) --Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution

"New Amsterdam, now called New York"
From: New York Public Library Picture Collection Online

New York politics in the 1690s was dominated by two political factions: the Leislerians and the anti-Leislerians. Although the two did not precisely divide along ethnic and class lines, Leislerians were highly representative of Dutch and laboring class New Yorkers while the anti-Leislerians were generally representative of socially and economically elite English and Dutch New Yorkers. The two parties were formed in reaction to Jacob Leisler, the self-proclaimed governor of New York from 1689 to 1691. Leisler had taken advantage of the change of royal power during the Glorious Revolution in England to seize political control of the New York colony. He remained in this position until 1691 when England sent a new royally appointed governor. Leisler did not relinquish power voluntarily; he was arrested, tried and found guilty of treason by an all-English jury, and executed. His Dutch and laboring class supporters remained politically active after Leisler's death.

The other background detail you need to know in order to understand this quote has to do with English impressments. In the colonial period, when the British navy was in need of new sailors during wartime, impressment gangs would come ashore in American cities and force able-bodied men into naval service. Therefore, able-bodied men had an incentive to steer clear of impressment gangs. In this case, the anti-Leislerians were able to discourage laboring class voters from being in the streets and voting simply by creating the appearance of an impressment. This was quite a trick!

Do you prefer bucks or dollars?

"The middle ground, it is true, had by the late eighteenth century operated to create a common system of exchange and even unit systems of values. Traders in the southern pays d'en haut [roughly, the Great Lakes region] had, for instance, instituted the buck--the hide of a large male white-tailed deer--as the standard unit in whose terms they calculated both the value of other furs and of European manufactures. The buck, in turn, became equated with an American silver dollar." (484) --Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815

White-tailed Deer
(From U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

A world of explanation: White defines the "middle ground" as the "place in between: in between cultures, peoples, and in between empires and the nonstate world of villages." In other words, the middle ground is not necessarily a geographic place. It was the "place" at which two completely different cultures, Indians and Europeans, could meet, understand each other, and establish trading relationships. As a general idea, this idea of a middle ground could apply to many different instances in history. White has chosen to apply the concept to the Great Lakes Region from the 17th to 19th centuries.

So a buck was a originally a real buckskin, not a paper dollar! Actually, almost anything can serve as money. Buckskins, paper, silver, gold, beads, tobacco, have all been used as money in the past. The major requirement is that when you receive money in exchange for your goods or services, you have confidence that you can turn around and use the money to purchase something you want to buy--in other words, that that person will accept your money.

Slaveholders for Natural Rights

"Consider, for example, the conduct of Richard Henry Lee, the Virginia leader who moved the formal congressional resolution declaring American independence in June 1776. There is no evidence that Virginians had thought it ridiculous for Lee to conduct a public parade in Virginia against the Stamp Act's 'chains of slavery' while literally using his slaves to hold his protest banners." (38)

"Anyone familiar with Samuel Johnson's famous gibe--'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of negroes?'--will appreciate that many Englishmen and contemporary Americans (Northern and Southern) thought that there was tension between American revolutionary principles and the institution of slavery." (42) --both quotes from George William Van Cleve's A SLAVEHOLDERS' UNION

Samuel Johnson
From: Wikipedia

Van Cleve argues that, despite the ideological advances made against the institution of slavery during the Revolutionary War, slavery was ultimately more strongly entrenched following that war than it was before the war. This was due to the political unity of the slave states around a single issue and the substantial (50%) portion of the new nation's overall wealth that was located in the South. The hypocrisy of Americans around slavery and individual liberty was the main reason that Charles Dickens so greatly disliked the United States. By the time he got to the U.S. in 1843, the nation billing itself as a beacon to the world of equality and liberty had been holding slaves for 60 years.

The Gentlemens' Gunfight

"In Philadelphia, class warfare nearly broke out as genteel men exchanged gunfire with crowds of the "lower sort." The most alarming incident was a 1779 showdown between the Philadelphia militia and a lawyer named James Wilson, who was suspected of wartime profiteering and aiding the British. Upon hearing a rumor that a scheduled march by the Philadelphia militia was actually a plot to arrest Wilson for treason, the lawyer assembled a group of armed gentlemen at his home. When the militia paraded by, someone inside fired a shot into the crowd. A gunfight ensued, and by the time the shooting had ended, several militiamen and a few gentlemen lay dead. (Wilson would survive to become one of the primary architects of the new federal Constitution designed to remove power from the hands of ordinary people such as these.)" --Terry Bouton, TAMING DEMOCRACY: "THE PEOPLE," THE FOUNDERS, AND THE TROUBLED ENDING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

In addition to his activity at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Wilson also later became a Supreme Court justice. Wilson was one of our Founding Fathers!

A Ruthless Landlord

"...in 1786, when a landlord in Cumberland County [Pennsylvania] had the local constable auction the cow and horse of a tenant farmer named William McKinney, who had fallen 10 [pounds] behind on his rent. McKinney had 'begged' his landlord to 'take hogs or grain in the ground and property of value or notes equal to cash, and spare my milch cow and my plow horse for the sake of my family.' But the landlord had refused, leaving McKinney in 'the utmost distress." Resigned to the sale of his property, McKinney hoped at least to keep court costs to a minimum. 'On the day of the sale the constable came for the property, I desired he would sell them on the premises as it was a public place,' McKinney remembered, 'but he refused to do it and drove them a mile further and sold them there, for which he charged me four shillings.' Having lost even this small concession, things looked bleak.

Then, at the auction site, a miracle seemed to happen. When the constable began the bidding, McKinney's landlord arrived and halted the auction. McKinney recalled that his landlord 'made a proposal before the public that he would buy all for me and return the goods (to me) which stopped the intended buyers from bidding.' It seemed that McKinney's landlord--the man whose lawsuit had brought matters to this disastrous end--had changed his mind and come to save the day for his tenant. Compelled by this emotional scene, the other potential buyers agreed to tender no bids so that the landlord could purchase McKinney's property at a bare minimum.

Not long after the crowd had dispersed, the miracle vanished. Despite the landlord's public promises, he kept the cow and the other possessions for himself. He had rigged the auction to keep others from bidding so he could obtain his tenant's belongings for virtually nothing. The landlord also refused to erase the 10 [pound] debt. The case continued, and on 'the orders of the landlord, the constable came eight or ten days after and sold a horse' of McKinney's." --Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution

There was a severe scarcity of money--either paper or specie--in American during the 1780s. Despite the fact that the British government had always ensured a trade deficit with America, such that more gold and silver left America than went into it, such trade ensured that Americans saw at least some money in their economy. After the war, there was very little specie to be had anywhere. Unfortunately, many states' taxes on their citizens were payable only in specie! There wasn't even much paper money in circulation. State governments were pressured by American creditors not to print any paper money because they didn't want their debtors to pay them in inflated money--which is what almost always happened to paper money throughout the war years. Many Americans, especially in the countryside, were therefore reduced to a primitive bartering system--except when it came time to pay creditors and the government. Poor McKinney!

King of the United States

"...Nathaniel Gorham, the president of the Continental Congress, even sounded out Prince Henry of Prussia on becoming king of America." (p179)

"Under [Alexander] Hamilton's plan of government, the president and the Senate would initially be elected, but they would then serve life terms. Thus the one popularly elected branch, the House of Representatives, would be balanced by what would essentially be an elective monarch and House of Lords." (p192)

--both quotes from Woody Holton, UNRULY AMERICANS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE CONSTITUTION

Holton's thesis is that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution were primarily wealthy men who wished to preserve their wealth and social position by creating as undemocratic a federal government as they could get away with. Actually, that statement of his position is a little too cynical for his taste. He writes that, apart from their personal interests, the Framers genuinely believed that government was best administered by wealthy men who had sufficient leisure time to study and understand public policy; such virtuous men in government would reduce the influence of immoral, irresponsible people like debtors or delinquent taxpayers.

The central issue at hand were the taxpayer and private debtor relief measures that the state assemblies took throughout the 1780s. This relief undermined the investment income of many Framers--they had major investments in interest-generating government bonds, mostly from the war. If the state assemblies decided to tax their citizens without relief, then the bond investors received a steady income of bond interest. If the state assemblies decided to give some relief to their beleaguered farmers by, say issuing legal tender paper money (that could be used to pay all debts and taxes), then the wealthy bond investors' income dropped. It was severe tax enforcement by a state assembly that produced popular violence such as Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786. Similar rebellions and threats of violences were happening all over the country during the 1780s. Fear of an "excess of democracy" and of losses in wealth motivated the Framers to create a federal government that would not be subject to the whims of the people. So Holton argues. There are, of course, a number of greater complexities surrounding these issues of relief and rebellions, but the statement above gets at the main idea.

I am enjoying this book quite a lot! I would like to read the Federalist Papers again now that I have read Holton's perspective.