Better Late Than Never

My intellectual buddy, DT, and I agree on most things, but one place where we part company is on libraries. I think libraries are one of our greatest institutions while DT moved to his community because of the library (they don't have one!). I have to admit, however, that I came to the belief fairly late. In fact, I am sad to say that in the past ten years, I have spent far more time in the Alexander Library at Rutgers (pictured above left) than I ever did as an undergraduate in the 1960's.

Some of that time has been spent finding books on the different topics I have been working on, but literally hours have been spent in the microform department reading old newspapers on microfilm. The Alexander library has one of the best collections of newspapers in the state and, I would guess, also in the region. For example, they have full runs of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, a Chicago newspaper and the Washington Post which greatly facilitated our research on the 1916 baseball book. I have also made extensive use of this collection for every other topic I have researched, ranging from the Civil War to various topics in baseball history. If, and when, I ever stop working there, they should probably retire my copy card.

Today I made a relatively brief visit to the library and worked on the following:

1. Biographical information on Nathan Barnert for the biography project of the NJCW150 committee. Barnert was a Jewish immigrant from Germany who settled in Paterson during the Civil War period, made a fortune supplying uniforms to the Union army and then gave away a lot of that fortune to charities and religious causes in the Paterson area. For example, Barnert Hospital and Barnert Temple were both named after he and his wife.

2. Biographical information on Madaline Williams, the New Jersey state assembly woman who the organizers of a Civil War centennial commission meeting in Charleston, South Carolina tried to bar from the conference hotel because of her race.

3. Researching early base ball games in New Jersey as part of the nationwide Protoball project which has its goal to tabulate all base ball games played in 1860 or earlier. The earliest documented game in New Jersey was played in 1855 so the holy grail, so to speak, would be a game played before that. Today I looked through two months of the Newark Daily Advertiser from 1854, but found only a couple of cricket games.

4. Researching reunions of the 33rd New Jersey, someone gave me pictures of reunion medals for the regiment with dates on them so I looked for newspaper accounts. I didn't find too much, but did learn that they tried to have their initial reunions (1891-92) in early September which was the anniversary of both their troubled departure from Newark in September of 1863 and the fall of Atlanta a year later. Since my basic talk about the regiment focuses on those two events, it was interesting to see that they did much the same thing.

Of course, while there I also made a quick tour of the stacks picking up books on Shakespeare, Marlowe and Andrew Jackson's war against the 2nd Bank of the United States. Will I read all of them? Probably not, but since they are on loan at no cost, there is no real downside. And one thing is for sure, I will be back there often enough that it won't be inconvenient to return them!

The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare

My cultural buddy, DT, is always telling me that to fully appreciate Shakespeare, I need to study his work in context. Of course by context, DT means his opinion, but even considering the source the idea still has merit. For example, in the last two books, I have read about Shakespeare there has been several references to the idea that much of Shakespeare's early work was in response to the work of Christopher Marlowe (pictured above right). Shakespeare's need to respond to Marlowe ended when Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl - that's the kind of story that would appeal to DT.

In an effort to work on the whole context issue, I just finished reading Irving Ribner's book - "The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare." While written a long time ago, I found it very valuable in terms of understanding the whole genre of the the history play. Among other things the book helped me to understand how the history play evolved. I think there is a tendency to think of many things as just starting one day - that someone gets a brainstorm and just decides to start writing plays about English history or to invent baseball -things like that. My guess is that in reality that seldom happens, that almost everything evolves from something else - why, for example, would anyone believe that one person, like Abner Doubleday would one day just invent baseball. It is much more reasonable to believe that it evolved by people making adjustments with what they had to work with, in that case other bat and ball games.

In the case of the history play, Ribner shows how it is rooted in the different kinds of plays that preceded it such as morality plays or chronicle plays. Then the playwrights of the Elizabethan age took those forms and adapted them to meet their own needs and, one suspects, the demands of both the public and patrons. The plays of that time, or any time for that matter, were also influenced by the beliefs and norms of that time. For example, a primary purpose of history for the Elizabethans was to teach, especially to teach lessons relevant to the current time. This was a higher value than historical accuracy so the liberties that Shakespeare and others took with English history were completely reasonable if it was done to help teach an important lesson.

Reading this book is also leading me to think that my basic idea for a book about the history plays would probably not work. My thought had been a book looking at the plays in regnal order to try to analyze what Shakespeare believed about kingship or, in other words, leadership. While Ribner's book has another purpose, he also says much of what I was thinking and I am sure there are others who have done the same. Given the centuries of Shakespeare criticism, it is unlikely that I am going to come up with something new especially without the benefit of a graduate education.

While any such book was not imminent, I need to do some more thinking about this. One question is whether just because you are interested in something you need to write a book about it. Or perhaps the book needs to be different - less emphasis on academic scholarship and instead writing about the importance of these plays to me as sort of a combination memoir and book promoting their interest to others. In going through some of Paul's stuff from a college theater trip to England, I found the program from "Henry IV, Part I" from an RSC production in 2000. A lot of emphasis in the program is placed on the father and son aspect - I have written before about how that alone would make the play a good introduction to Shakespeare for high school students, especially in all male private schools.

As I said, nothing was imminent here so a change in direction is not necessarily a bad thing. I will continue to read about Shakespeare, his history plays as well as going to see them. In the latter regard I have pretty much decided to take a trip to the Blackfriars Theater in Staunton, Virginia this fall for a production of "Henry IV, Part I," possibly in conjunction with a visit to Harper's Ferry. In addition I plan to start learning more about Christopher Marlowe and his approach to the history plays as part of getting even a better sense of context.

Pomfret Towers

Many years ago, "Pomfret Towers" was my introduction to the Barsetshire novels of Angela Thirkell. I am now trying to read all of them in sequence and the end of "Summer Half" brought me to this one which I had read out of sequence. While I usually don't read many books more than once, I decided to do so in this case (and will do the same with "Before Lunch") because I didn't remember that much of the story.

I did remember that some of the action centered on a weekend house party given by Lord Pomfret at his ancestral home, but I had forgotten how much, indeed more than one half of the book. As usual there is a connection between the characters in this novel and Thirkell's other novels. In this case, Lord Pomfret's sister is the Lady Emily of "Wild Strawberries," an earlier novel in the series. In addition to being siblings, the Pomfrets have something tragic in common, both of them lost their eldest son to the carnage of World War I.

Obviously that is sad in both cases, but in the case of the Pomfrets it raises other issues as the Pomfrets have no other children so there is no immediate heir to the family's wealth and estates. The next in line is an elderly, unloved man in ill health so the real heir apparent is a young man named Gillie Foster. Most of the story in "Pomfret Towers" centers on who he will marry and unlike the 2/1 dynamics set up by many authors in these situations (including Thirkell), this time there is actually a 3-1 dynamic. Obviously there can only be one "winner," and not surprisingly, Foster makes the right decision which is confirmed by the lady's response.
Interestingly though at the end of the story, the two who weren't asked (and probably aren't disappointed by the fact) are in what are clearly "to be continued" situations. I think I know how one comes out, it will be interesting to see about the other.

As I got to the end of this book, I thought that this time Thirkell would not include the two things that I had seen in the last two novels, "August Folly" and "Summer Half" - unspoken masculine communication to resolve problems and a deeper issue somewhat below the surface. I was definitely wrong on the first one because at the very end there is a situation where one of the male characters expects a "homily" from another, but the issue is again dealt with in an unspoken way.

I am not sure about the deeper issue - in "Summer Half" at first I found Rose Birkett to be such a caricature that it was hard to take her seriously thus, I thought, weakening the book. The longer I thought about it, however, the more it seemed that she was presented in that way as a vehicle to present a deeper issue. In that case, the danger of unhealthy relationships. In "Pomfret Towers" I was put off by Alice Barton who's timidity and shyness seemed to be as much of a caricature as Rose Birkett. I did remember Alice from my first reading and for some reason, it didn't put me off that time. Thinking about it now, I wonder if the extreme shyness of Alice is again a vehicle for consideration of some deeper issue - if it is, the issue isn't clear to me at the moment. But it may be that part of Thirkell's skill as a writer is to portray these almost caricature characters to allow the reader to consider deeper issues - perhaps different issues depending on the reader and how he or she interprets the book. Something to think about as I move on to "The Brandons."

Making Sense of John Brown

While I prefer to make up my own titles for posts, in this case I am borrowing the title from the Virginia conference panel discussion because I think it best describes the issue. As I wrote in the last post, the second morning workshop was about Virginia and the south in 1859. About one-third of the discussion focused on the slave trade in Richmond and while the panelists eventually moved on to other topics, for me the morning ended with this sense of the omnipresence of slavery, and the perhaps even more depressing thought that few, if any, thought it was wrong. And that those who did think it was wrong couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it.

Enter then for the first afternoon session, a discussion about John Brown, someone, who has title suggests, we have a hard time understanding. On the one hand, Brown brutally murdered five slaveholders in Kansas during the struggles over whether that state would be slave or free. Then at Harper's Ferry in October of 1859, he launched a raid on the Federal Arsenal designed to free slaves and steal weapons and ammunition for further attacks. Apparently Brown's original plan was to stay at Harper's Ferry only long enough to accomplish those two objectives and then retreat back into the mountains to begin a series of terrorist attacks on slaveholders. For some reason, Brown did not follow his original plan and stayed long enough for Federal and state authorities to capture or kill the entire party.

Looked at from that perspective Brown was a cruel murderer as well as a traitor who took the law into his own hands. Yet at the same time, Brown was someone who had committed his life to do something about a monstrous evil, an evil that most people were willing to ignore or at the very least accept. Given that situation it is hard to understand how slavery could have been ended without violence or war. There was some speculation in the discussion that Brown decided to stay at Harper's Ferry because he felt that he could best serve the anti-slavery cause by being a martyr to it. Supposedly between the time of his capture and his execution, Brown wrote over 100 letters designed in large measure to bring attention to the evil of slavery and the need to do something about it. One question raised in the discussion that was never answered was why did the state of Virginia allow him to send all those letters that gave more ammunition to the abolitionist movement.

Perhaps the real difficulty in making sense of John Brown lies in the question of whether it is ever legitimate to use violence to fight evil. Some of Brown's contemporaries who usually thought otherwise seemed to think it was appropriate in this case. For example, Henry David Thoreau, one of the leading proponents of civil disobedience and pacifism supported Brown's actions. Still no matter, how great the evil, even if violence is the only solution, it seems hard to justify taking the law into one's own hands. And yet, it is hard to see how slavery would have been ended without war - certainly nothing in 1859 suggested there was any other alternative. It is a question that may very well be unanswerable suggesting why 150 years later, it is still so difficult to make sense of John Brown

"If Slavery isn't wrong, nothing is wrong"

The Virginia Sesquicentennial conference last week consisted of four panel discussions. I wasn't sure what to expect from the format, but this experience showed that when it is done well, it is a great approach, something that could be applied to almost any subject. In each case the President of the University of Richmond, Ed Ayers (himself a Civil War scholar) led a discussion among four panelists each of whom had a lengthy resume of Civil War scholarship.

The one topic that I thought would be of least interest to me was about Virginia in 1859, primarily because it would be of more local interest. Yet like the rest it turned out to be a fascinating discussion especially the 20 minutes or so that was devoted to the slave trade in Richmond (picture above in an 19th century drawing). Apparently the records of one slave trading company survive and one of the panelists had analyzed the figures. As I remember them, this one slave trader reported annual volume of about $2 million (about $40 million in today's money) and this was only one of four or five large slave trading operations in Richmond.

As the discussion went on, it made it clear how the slave trade permeated every aspect of Richmond both its economy and its society. No matter what aspect of life the panelists talked about it seemed clear that the slave trade was accepted as a normal business and there was no one who opposed it in any significant way. To me, at that point, the tone was almost one of despair when one of the panelists finally said that he had grown up in the segregated south which was another society that tolerated something that was morally wrong. This led to some discussion about the idea that there is something in human nature that allows us to accept or at least tolerate things that we know are wrong.

My immediate reaction when I heard this was to think of something that I read somewhere about Shakespeare's play, "Richard III." The critic, whoever, he or she was, said that one of the major points of the play is the importance of resisting evil. It just demonstrates once more the broad application of Shakespeare to almost every human situation.

This discussion brought home as clearly as anything I have heard heard or read about the horror of slavery. Thinking about it, my sense is that slavery was such a terrible institution because it draws on three of the worst human sins - racism, greed and lust - the latter because of the way black women were further exploited by white men. Each of these sins is powerful by itself, combined together they would have incredible power. For example, if blacks are inferior and worthy only to be slaves, then there is every reason to exploit them for both economic and sexual reasons. Seen like this, Abraham Lincoln's quote which is the title for this post seems even more accurate and appropriate.

This panel discussion was the second of the two morning sessions, the next immediately after lunch was entitled "Making Sense of John Brown." The discussion about slavery put the John Brown discussion in context and set the stage for that difficult issue - something that will be the subject of the next post.

A Quiet Saturday

A couple of months ago I was telling a friend of mine how I was going to manage all of the different things I am involved with. My final comment was that I would have to be careful not to take on too many things. That earned me a withering look of disbelief. I don't know why people complain about those who don't understand them, I have a lot more trouble with the people who do understand me.

My activities today gave plenty of support for that look of disbelief. The day began at 7:00 a.m. as I drove down to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the Connie Mack SABR chapter. I was there to give a brief talk called, "The best of times, the worst of times - the Phillies and the A's in the 1916 pennant races," and also to sell books - the goals were not necessarily in that order. This was the first time I have spoken about the 1916 book, it was well received with at least a half of a dozen people complimenting me on it. However, it was like the operation that succeeded, but the patient died - no one bought the book. This is the first time that I have tried to actively sell a book and I am realizing it is not a good idea - my job is to write them, it is the publisher's job to sell them. I do plan to continue to give talks about my books, but will be a lot more selective as to when and where - especially where.

From there I drove to Washington's Crossing State Park on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River for the annual Spirit of the Jerseys State History Fair. I had two purposes in going to this event, the first was to attend part of what was supposed to be a baseball game between the Neshanock and my beloved Eureka. Unfortunately once again, Eureka attendance was a problem and the game was basically a Neshanock inter-squad game. There are some real concerns about our ability to continue the Eureka which would be a real shame. Hopefully we will be able to keep it active to some level while we recruit more players.

Once that game was over, I went to the booth of the 12th New Jersey Civil War regiment to find one of my counter-parts on the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee - a film producer. He wanted to tape a public service announcement about the committee and its work with me as the spokesperson. It was interesting as he had me walk past a group of re-enactors talking about the upcoming anniversary and its importance. We did it in two takes so I guess it was all right - supposedly it will appear on Comcast in South Jersey and possibly on NJN as well.

All of this would have been a pretty busy day in its own right, but it followed a week where I went to a game at Citi Field with Paul, down to Elkton, Maryland for a vintage tournament followed by two days in Virginia for a sesquicentennial conference. At the moment I don't feel too tired from all of this, but the good news is that there is nothing of this magnitude on the calendar for a while - the challenge will be to make sure that it stays that way. Wait a minute, was that another withering look of disbelief?

Opening Shots of the Sesquicentennial

This past Wednesday, Carol and I attended the Virgina Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission's signature conference on America in 1859. It was stated frequently that this was the first event of the observation of the 150th anniversary, not just in Virginia, but nation wide. If so, it got off to a good start and I will write in more detail about the content of the program in future posts.

Today, however, I want to focus on the history not of the Civil War, but of Civil War anniversaries. While we were driving home, Carol wondered about what the Civil War Centennial observations were like. That led me to tell her one part of the story that I learned about in working on the New Jersey 150th, but which is probably not that well known.

For the centennial observations, New Jersey like other states appointed official government commissions that in addition to planning New Jersey observations represented New Jersey at the national level. In April of 1861, the national commission held its annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter. One member of the New Jersey commission was Ms. Madaline A. Williams, the first African-American woman elected to the New Jersey State Legislature as a member of the assembly. Because she was black, Ms. Williams was denied accommodations at the hotel that was to host the conference. Protests reached the White House where President John Kennedy intervened saying that the commission which was funded by the government had an obligation to be sure that every was treated equally. Incredibly (or perhaps not), the commission's executive committee initially refused to change its plans before ultimately moving the meeting to the Charleston Naval Base.

Thinking about that incident after attending this conference demonstrates that today we live in a very different country. The panels that discussed the issues at the conference were made up of very diverse voices especially from the African-American community. The topics did not dodge the tough issues especially the session that focused on Virginia in 1859, about 1/3 of that session was devoted to a discussion of the slave trade in Richmond. The discussion vividly illustrated how the slave trade was enmeshed with every aspect of Virginia society and that there were few if any voices raised in opposition. It couldn't have been an easy discussion for Virginia residents and all the more credit to those who planned and carried out the conference for their commitment to honesty and integrity.

Just the difference between how the country looked at the Civil War a 100 years later and how we look at it now 150 years later demonstrates how important the War remains today. More about this in future posts over the next week.