Posted on by TracyC

Famous American Negros

Famous American Negroes by Langston Hughes, 1954.

I sought out an electronic copy of this book because I don’t own a physical one, and after I found out that it existed, I knew that I had to cover it at some point! The book is part of a series of biographies for children that I covered earlier, but what caught my attention was the author of the book, Langston Hughes, the famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. I mostly knew Langston Hughes for his poetry, and I wasn’t aware that he had written any children’s books until I found out that he had written several biography books for this series. When I found out that he specifically wrote books about African Americans and other notable black people from history, it occurred to me that he might have even written biographies of people he knew personally because of the circles he traveled in.

This book focuses on prominent African Americans through history. It contains a series of short biographies and profiles, beginning in the Colonial times and continuing into the mid-20th century, when the book was written. Some were contemporaries of Langston Hughes, but since the biographies are brief and focus only on providing an overview of the subjects’ lives, there is no indication whether Hughes ever met any of them himself. I was a little disappointed about that because I would have enjoyed hearing a personal perspective, but the personalities covered are still fascinating. I also enjoyed how some of the earliest biographies in the book relate to some of the later ones because of the influence some of the earlier people had on the lives of others.

If you’re wondering why he uses the term “Negro” instead of “African American”, it’s because that term was one of the more polite and acceptable terms during his youth and around the time when he wrote this book. (That’s why the UNCF, or United Negro College Fund uses it as well. It was one of the polite terms in use at the time of its founding.) It sounds a bit out of date to people of the 21st century because, around the time of the Civil Rights Movement, which began around the time this book was written, people began advocating for a shift in the words used to describe black people. They wanted to distance themselves from old attitudes about race by using newer terms that didn’t have as much emotional baggage attached to them. This is when terms like “colored” and “Negro” feel out of use and were replaced by “African American” as the correct, formal term to specifically describe an American with African ancestry and “black” (considered somewhat impolite a century earlier, as I understand it, see the Rainbow and Lucky series for an example – I discussed it in the historical description of the 1830s) as the generic term to describe a person with dark skin and African ancestry, regardless of their nationality.

Because this book was written in the mid-1950s, some of the information included is long out of date. People who were alive when Langston Hughes wrote the book are obviously not alive now, almost 70 years later. There are more recent books that cover the same topic and include information about late 20th century and early 21st century musicians Langston Hughes wouldn’t have known about. However, this vintage book is still interesting because of its famous author and because it was written at a turning point in American history, when society was changing and racial issues were being challenged.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

The biographies included in the book are:

Introduction

The book begins with a brief history of black people in America. Langston Hughes points out that histories of African Americans often begin with slavery, but there were people of African ancestry who came to the Americas before that, not as slaves. Some traveled with explorers from Europe as members of their crews and expeditions.

After the slave trade began, slavery affected the lives of black people throughout the American Colonies and, later, the United States. Some slaves managed to find ways to take their fate into their own hands by running away, and of those, some helped others to escape to freedom. Some slaves were able to hire themselves out for wages on the side and saved up enough money to purchase themselves and gain freedom in that way. Some slaves were even freed by the the people who owned them, although others simply lived and died in slavery.

After the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery, former slaves were free to pursue their own destiny, but they were in a precarious position because they had no resources from which to start building their independent lives. Slaves had work experience, but much of their experience was in unskilled labor, which brought low wages. Most slaves had no education. (In many places, it was illegal to teach slaves to read. There were a few exceptions, and some people skirted the law, but this was a major problem for many formerslaves once they were granted their freedom, lacking an essential skill.) They had no money or land of their own. Getting established in their new lives meant building something from nothing or almost nothing, and it was a long, uphill struggle.

Even generations later, racial discrimination added obstacles to the lives of African Americans. The biographies in this book are about people who triumphed over the obstacles in their lives to leave a lasting mark on society.

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) – Whose Poetry George Washington Praised

Phillis Wheatley was brought to the American colonies from Senegal as a slave when she was only a small child (approximately age 6 or 7 because she was still losing baby teeth when she arrived). Phillis was not her original name, but it is unknown what her original name was, exactly when she was born, how she became a slave, or what happened to her parents. She was purchased by a tailor named John Wheatley in Boston to be a servant for his family, and the Wheatley family gave her the name Phillis. When she first arrived in Boston, Phillis could not speak England and no one could speak Senegalese, so it was some time before anybody could truly communicate with her, which is part of why we know so little about her earliest years.

Fortunately, the Wheatley family was kind and even nurturing toward Phillis. Even though they purchased her to work for them, they cared about educating her. They taught her read and write, even though it was discouraged to teach slaves those skills and even illegal in some areas. When Phillis learned English and was able to read and write, it soon became apparent that she had a talent for poetry. The Wheatleys supported her poetry, and the granted Phillis her freedom in 1772. By the time she was about 21 years old, her poetry had been printed all over the colonies and in England. Although her poetry was successful, Phillis’s life took an unfortunate turn when she married a ne’er-do-well, and she died in poverty.

Richard Allen (c. 1760-1831)- Founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

Sometimes, slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for slavery, claiming that they were saving the souls of heathens. However, even though they converted slaves from Africa to Christianity, they didn’t provide much opportunity for their slaves to have religious worship. Richard Allen was born into a slave family in Philadelphia, and he was a child when he was sold to a farmer in Delaware. When he grew up, he became a Methodist preacher, and his owner let him perform religious services for the other slaves. He also became a wagon driver during the Revolutionary War and earned enough money to buy his freedom.

Once he was free, he returned to Philadelphia as a preacher. There was no Methodist congregation that was only for black people at that time, so he sometimes preached for a mixed congregation. However, some of the white members of the congregation protested to his presence as a black preacher, and some also objected to the presence of the other black parishioners as well. When Allen and a couple of friends were interrupted while praying one Sunday and told to leave the church, Allen realized that the only way any of them would be able to worship in peace would be to form their own group. The society he and his friends formed was the Free African Society, and that group went on to found the Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church. They were among those who helped to tend the sick and bury the dead during the yellow fever epidemic that struck the city in the 1790s.

Ira Aldridge (1807-1867) – A Star Who Never Came Home

Ira Aldridge was the son of a Presbyterian minister in New York. Aldridge started acting at a young age and became part of a black theater troupe, performing in a theater close to the African Free School he attended and the famous Fraunces’ Tavern (mentioned earlier in Phoebe the Spy, this book says that it was owned by a black family but other accounts say that the Fraunces family was mixed race – it has never been firmly established which is more accurate). His father wanted him to further his education, so he sent him to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, which accepted black students. It is unknown whether Ira Aldridge ever completed his degree there, but from there, he went to London to continue his acting career and won acclaim for his portrayal of Othello at the Royalty Theater. Ira Aldridge toured Europe and gathered a prominent following, even winning awards from some of the royal families of Europe. The reason why he never returned home was that he remained in Europe for the rest of his life, still touring as a successful actor up until his death at age 60.

Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895) – Fighter for Freedom

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, originally with the last name of Bailey. In most cases, we know very little about the early lives of individual slaves because few slaves could read and write and their owners didn’t think it was important to even record their birth dates. Frederick Douglass is an exception because he learned to read and write and later wrote his famous autobiography. (The autobiography is now public domain, and you can read it for free online in many places, including Documenting the American South, Project Gutenberg, and Internet Archive (multiple copies). The reading level isn’t difficult, although parts are emotionally wrenching.) His autobiography contains many details of his early life (although even he never knew his own birth date, which is why we can only estimate). The description that follows is a brief summary of both the chapter in this book and the contents of his autobiography:

Frederick’s mother was a slave, but his father was a white man (or in some sources I’ve seen, possibly mixed race). (The book doesn’t identify his father, and his identity has never been definitely established, although there are theories. According to the Library of Congress, Frederick’s “Mother is a slave, Harriet Bailey, and father is a white man, rumored to be his master, Aaron Anthony.”) Because his mother had to work in the fields all the time, he rarely saw her when he was a child. (This book doesn’t mention it, but Frederick’s mother died while he was still young.) He was raised by his grandmother during his earliest years and later by a woman who abused and neglected her young charges. Then, young Frederick was sent to live with and work for another part of the family who owned him in Baltimore. At first, the mother of family was nice to Frederick and gave him his first reading lessons, but her husband put a stop to that, telling his wife in Frederick’s presence that if a slave learns to read and write, they’ll probably run away. Frederick managed to continue his reading lessons in secret with the help of some of the white children in the neighborhood. His new skills did help him to learn more about human rights and what freedom meant, and he also learned about the existence of abolitionists. Newspapers in Baltimore called abolitionists anarchists and accused them of being in the service of the devil, but young Frederick began to see them as possible allies.

As a teenager, Frederick was sent to live with a different branch of the same family in a smaller town. This family became suspicious of him when they found out that he could read and write and that he had joined a Sunday school that was run by a free black man. They decided to send Frederick to a man named Covey who was a “Negro breaker“, which was someone who would “tame” slaves by “breaking” them physically, mentally, and spiritually. In his autobiography, Frederick states that Covey did break him and very nearly killed him, but after a particularly vicious beating at Covey’s hands, Frederick realized both that he couldn’t take anymore and that he wasn’t going to take any more. He fought back. That’s when he began planning to run away. Somehow, plans of his escape leaked out, and he was sent away to work in the shipyards in Baltimore. There, he disguised himself as a sailor, borrowed some papers belonging to a sailor, and sneaked onto a train headed for New York.

When he arrived in New York, he was free, but he wasn’t quite sure where to go or what to at first. He had no place to stay and didn’t know anybody he could trust. Fortunately, a real sailor gave him a place to stay and helped him to connect with a society that helped escaped slaves. He found a job on the wharves and gave himself the name surname Douglass.

What truly makes Frederick Douglass famous is not just that he escaped from slavery, but once he did so, he wanted to help others gain their freedom. He became an abolitionist and gave public talks about slavery alongside many other famous abolitionists. When he met with violence, he moved his family to Canada, but he returned when the Civil War broke out to meet with President Lincoln. His sons became Union soldiers, and after the war, Frederick Douglass held various government offices, including US Marshall, Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, and US Minister to the Republic of Haiti.

Harriet Tubman (c. 1823-1913) – The Moses of Her People

Like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman was born as a slave in Maryland, but unlike Frederick Douglass, she had no early education. From an early age, she had a willful and rebellious personality, which was part of the reason why she was assigned to work in the fields instead of the house. One day, another young slave had gone to a local store without permission, and the overseer decided to whip him. He told Harriet help him to tie up the young slave first. When she refused to do it, the young slave ran away. I’m not completely clear on whether what happened next was deliberately aimed at Harriet or whether she was just in the way when the overseer tried to vent his wrath, but what is known is that the overseer picked up an iron weight and threw it. The weight struck Harriet in the head, cracking her skull. Harriet almost died of the injury and spent days lying unconscious. She eventually recovered, but she never recovered completely. Throughout the whole rest of her life, she bore a scar from the injury and would suffer from periodic seizures and sudden loss of consciousness. Her owner thought that the head injury had left her with diminished intelligence, which wasn’t true, but Harriet realized that it was useful to let him think that.

A few years later, her owner died, and she found out that she and two of her brothers were going to be sold to someone else. At first, they planned to run away together, but her brothers backed out of the plan, and Harriet left by herself. She managed to make her way to Philadelphia, found a job there, and established a new life. However, she didn’t stay in Philadelphia. She returned many times to help other people escape as one of the “conductors” on the Underground Railroad. Her own parents were among the people she rescued, and she never lost any of her “passengers” (partly because if anybody started to panic or turn back, she’d threaten to shoot them, but it worked without her actually shooting anyone). When the Civil War began, she became a Union nurse. She lived a long life, and although her exact age was unknown, she was probably somewhere in her 90s when she passed away.

Booker T. Washington (c. 1858 -1915) – Founder of Tuskegee

Booker T. Washington was also born as a slave to a black mother and a white father. (His mother was a cook called Jane. The identity of his father is still unknown, although the popular belief was that his father was a plantation owner. His mother later married a man named Washington Ferguson, who became Booker’s stepfather.) During the Civil War, Booker’s stepfather was with the Union army, and after the war ended, he rejoined the family and took them to Malden, West Virginia, where he worked in the salt mines. Although Booker was still a child, he also had to work, tending a salt furnace, because his family was poor and needed the money. Both he and his mother wanted to learn to read, but they had to struggle to learn by themselves at first because there was no school for them. When a black man who was able to read moved to the community, the others in town paid him to open a school to teach them. Booker began to take lessons after work, and the school was where he gave himself his last name. In his early life, he had only been known by one name – Booker, but when all the students at the school introduced themselves, he realized that most had two names. Wanting a second name for himself, he called himself Booker Washington.

Wanting a better life than working in the salt mines, Booker decided to pursue an education. He had heard that there was a school in Virginia he could attend called Hampton and decided to go there. It was a difficult journey, and he had to work along the way for money, but he finally made it. When he arrived at Hampton, he was dirty, looked somewhat disreputable, and didn’t have much money, so the head teacher initially had some doubts about admitting him, but he was willing to work at the school as a janitor to pay for his education, so she accepted him. Booker made the most of the opportunity and eventually graduated with honors in 1875. After he graduated, he returned to Malden, West Virginia, as a teacher. Since the previous teacher had left, Booker T. Washington was the only teacher in town. He encouraged his students, including his own brother, to go on to Hampton for higher education, like he had. The founder of Hampton was so impressed with Booker’s students that he offered Booker a job as a teacher at Hampton and house father for a dormitory of Native American students. Booker accepted the job and did well. Then, he received a new offer to establish a school in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Establishing a school for black children in Tuskegee was no easy task. Between limited funds, poor facilities, and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, it was an uphill struggle all the way. However, Booker persevered, and his school became the Tuskegee Institute. One of the innovations that of the Tuskegee Institute that I particularly found interesting was that they had a “movable school”, meaning that they carried books and teachers to rural areas where people could not come to school, bringing school to them. It’s not quite the same as the bookmobiles I grew up with because these were more mobile schools than mobile libraries, but it seems like a kind of precursor. The Tuskegee Institute eventually became Tuskegee University, which still exists.

Daniel Hale Williams (1858-1931) – Great Physician

Daniel Hale Williams‘ early life was more peaceful than many black people of his time because his family was free, not slaves. His earliest years were spent in Pennsylvania, but after his father died, his mother moved the family to Wisconsin. Williams loved to read and received an education in his youth. At first, he thought that he might like to be a lawyer, but he soon learned that he didn’t like the constant arguing in presenting law cases. Instead, he developed an interest in medicine. He found a job working for the Surgeon General of the State and attended Northwestern University in Illinois. After obtaining his medical degree, he became a surgeon in Chicago. He helped other young black people who wanted to study medicine and were having difficulty finding training schools that would accept them and hospitals that would accept them as interns. Dr. Williams became famous for a successful operation on a man who had been stabbed in the heart, the first successful operation of its kind.

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) – Who Painting Hangs in the Luxembourg

Henry Ossawa Tanner was the son of a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was raised in Pennsylvania. When he was still a child, he saw a man painting a picture in a park, and it inspired him to become an artist himself. His father thought that his artistic ambitions were impractical, but Tanner began experimenting with different types of media, including paint and clay, and he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He began selling his paintings professionally while he was still a student. After he graduated, he found a job teaching art at Clark University. He continued to paint and opened a photography studio on the side. A generous churchman gave Tanner some money so he could study art in Europe, so Tanner lived and painted in Paris for several years. He found the artistic life of the city inspiring, and he did a series of paintings with religious themes. In particular, he is known for his painting of The Resurrection of Lazarus, which he painted in 1896. The French government purchased this painting to hang in the Luxembourg, a famous art gallery. Tanner did return to the United States for a time, but finding life in Europe easier because Europe did not practice racial segregation like the United States did at that time, he decided to return to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life.

George Washington Carver (c. 1864-1943) – Agricultural Chemist

George Washington Carver was born a slave, and his father died in an accident while he was still an infant (or shortly before his birth, according to other sources – since he was a slave and slave birthdays were not recorded, that might explain the differing accounts). In fact, while he was still an infant, he and his mother were abducted from the farm where they lived in Missouri by Night Riders, a gang of criminals who kidnapped slaves to sell to different owners in other states. The fate of his mother is unknown (according to the book, although other sources say that she and George’s sister, who was also abducted, were sold to someone in Kentucky), but little George was found because he was ill with whooping cough, so the Night Riders simply abandoned him by the road. George was returned to the people who owned him and his mother, the Carvers, who had offered a reward for his return. The Carvers had no other slaves beyond George and his family. George also had an older brother who managed to avoid being captured by the Night Riders and remained with the Carvers. The Carvers ended up raising George and his brother like adopted children after the loss of their parents and the end of slavery.

During his childhood, George liked to play in the woods and fields near the Carvers’ farm, and he developed a fascination for plants. He often brought samples of different plants to Mrs. Carver to ask her what they were. The Carvers didn’t have much education, but they told him what they knew and gave him his first lessons in reading. Later, George attended a school for black children in another town, Neosha, living with a black woman named Mariah Watkins. From there, he became an itinerant worker, finding jobs and continuing his education wherever he could. Eventually, he attended Iowa State College, studying agriculture. He graduated at the top of his class and wrote a thesis called “Plants as Modified by Man.” He stayed on at the college to get his Masters degree, working as an assistant botany instructor. After he got his MA, Booker T. Washington invited him to teach at Tuskegee as the head of the agriculture department. Carver’s work at Tuskegee made him famous. He ran experiments to determine new uses for agricultural products, devoting the rest of his life to agricultural research.

Robert S. Abbott (1870-1940) – A Crusading Journalist

Robert Sengstacke Abbott was the son of a minister in Georgia. He loved books since childhood and found a job as an apprentice printer after graduating from Hampton. Because his opportunities for advancement were limited in the South, he moved to Chicago, but he still met with discrimination and found it difficult to get work in the printing industry. Discouraged, he studied and practiced law for a time, but he missed his printing work. Instead, he decided to buy his own printing press and start his own newspaper. He knew that African Americans and their concerns weren’t being represented in existing newspapers, so he wanted to become their voice. The newspaper he started was called the Chicago Defender, which became a national newspaper (and which still exists in an online format), although some Southern communities outright banned the newspaper and even made it a crime for a black person to simply possess a copy under the claim that it would incite black people to riot.

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) – The Robert Burns of Negro Poetry

Paul Laurence Dunbar‘s father escape from slavery in his youth, returning to fight on the side of the Union during the Civil War. Paul was born after the war, and his father died when he was only twelve years old. His mother didn’t have much education, but she wanted him to be educated and worked hard to make it possible. Paul enjoyed writing poems since he was a child, and when he was in high school, he became the editor of the school paper. One of his English teachers was so impressed by his poetry that she arranged for him to write a poem and read it before a meeting of the Western Association of Writers. When Paul had enough poems to make a book, he had them published with the help of a publisher who loaned him money to cover the publishing costs. He sold enough copies of the book to cover the loan and make a nice profit.

After a stint working for Frederick Douglass at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Paul wrote a second book of poetry that made him nationally famous. He received many orders for copies of the book, and he was invited to give public readings of his poems. He even went to London to give readings during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. When he returned to the US, he got a job at the Library of Congress and got married, but unfortunately, his life was cut short by tuberculosis.

W. C. Handy (1873-(later D. 1958)) – Father of the Blues

W. C. Handy is mentioned in a later book by Langston Hughes in the same biography series, Famous Negro Music Makers, but his biography doesn’t appear in that book although he made his living in music.

William Christopher Handy was born in Alabama. When he started school, his favorite subject was music. His teacher was a graduate of Fisk University (an African American college with a strong musical tradition, which is also described in Famous Negro Music Makers), and he introduced his students to a variety of musical styles. Handy’s father was a Methodist minister, and he didn’t believe in music outside of church and school. Musicians had a bad reputation, so he didn’t support his son’s musical interests and wouldn’t let him have an instrument of his own. Handy often improvised instruments, and he was inspired by traveling musicians who came to town. In spite of his father’s opposition, Handy joined up with musical groups.

Handy’s father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and be a minister, but Handy told his father that he’d rather be a teacher. When he found out how bad teachers’ salaries were, he found a job in a foundry instead. In his free time, he continued to play music in his church and started an orchestra and brass band. When he lost his job at the foundry due to an economic depression, he formed a quartet with some other young men, and they headed off to the World’s Fair in Chicago. They sang for their food and transportation along the way, only to learn that the World’s Fair was postponed. Instead, they decided to go to St. Louis, but still unable to find singing jobs, the group broke up.

Handy was too proud to go home to his father and admit defeat, so he continued to travel around and pick up whatever odd jobs he could find. Eventually, he joined up with a minstrel group, and he began to make a career in music. He traveled all over the country, giving performances, but when he became a father, he decided that it was time to settle somewhere to give his child a stable life. He took a job teaching music and English in Alabama, but he didn’t like the job because he wasn’t allowed to teach popular music, only hymns and classics. He returned to playing minstrel shows and became the bandmaster for a Knights of Pythias band in Mississippi. He composed music, writing The Memphis Blues and The St. Louis Blues. These songs were big hits, and The St. Louis Blues made Handy a great deal of money. Handy became a music publisher on Broadway, and his company was the largest African American owned publishing company in the US.

Charles C. Spaulding (1874-1952) – Executive of World’s Largest Negro Business

In the years immediately following the end of the Civil War and the Emancipation of the slaves, things were very difficult for black people. The newly-freed slaves had no money or assets to help them establish their new lives or even to take care of their sick or bury their dead. To help each other, they banded together and formed benevolent societies and fraternal organizations to share the resources they had and support each other. Some organizations of this type already existed, but Emancipation led to the expansion of such groups and the formation of new ones.

Charles C. Spaulding was the first manager and later president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. He had grown up poor and only had an eighth grade education. He worked at various jobs until he was approached by the owner of a series of barber shops who was interested in starting an insurance company. Spaulding’s uncle was also interested in the venture, and they hired Spaulding to be the manager of this small company. At first, Spaulding didn’t know much about insurance, and he had to wear a lot of hats in the business, starting out as bookkeeper and janitor of the business as well as its manager. In fact, he was originally the only employee of the company. The very first customer of the insurance company died only a few days into his policy, putting the company into debt immediately, but the owners of the company dutifully paid what they owed to the man’s widow, giving the company a reputation for reliability and earning them more customers. As the business grew, the company also supported public projects of interest to the African Americans in their community, such as the formation of a new library and a new hospital. Spaulding inherited the company after his uncle’s death, and he continued supporting civic projects.

A. Philip Randolph (1889-(Later D. 1979)) – Distinguished Labor Leader

Asa Philip Randolph was born in Florida. His father was a Methodist preacher, and he grew up reading his father’s books of sermons and Shakespeare. After he graduated from high school, he decided to go to New York to look for work. He worked at various jobs, and he became interested in improving working conditions for black people. Randolph gave public talks on the subject in Harlem and helped to start a magazine called The Messenger to advocate for the rights of African Americans. He began to travel to other cities to give talks and fiery speeches, and at one point, he was called “the most dangerous Negro in America” because some people feared what he might stir up in discontented African Americans faced with discrimination and bad working conditions.

Randolph was invited to speak to the Pullman Porters Athletic Association about the importance of trade unions because the porters had unsuccessfully tried to unionize before. Their working conditions were harsh, their pay was low, and the porters hadn’t made any real progress toward improvement. Randolph hadn’t worked as a porter, but he was interested in unions and labor organizations. The porters in New York asked him to help them organize, and they formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. Some porters were reluctant to join at first because they were afraid of being fired, but Randolph continued to travel and speak about the importance of unions, recruiting new members. The Great Depression was hard on the porters, but the union managed to negotiate for better working conditions and pay.

Ralph Bunche (1903- (later D. 1971)) – Statesman and Political Scientist

This particular biography begins with a brief history of Israel and Palestine and the conflict between the two because of the aftermath of WWII, a conflict that has continued into the 21st century.

Ralph Bunche was the son of a barber in Detroit, Michigan. While he was still young, his parents suffered health problems and were advised to go to a drier climate, so the entire family moved to New Mexico. Ralph enjoyed living in the Southwest, but unfortunately, his parents died, leaving him and his sister with their grandmother. Ralph’s grandmother insisted on him continuing his education, and he also worked part time. After he graduated from high school, his grandmother insisted that he go on to college. He got a scholarship for the University of California, and from there, he got another scholarship to attend Harvard. At Harvard, Ralph studied political science, and after he graduated, he accepted a job from Howard University in Washington DC which wanted to set up a political science department of its own. Washington DC was more segregated than other places Ralph had lived, and he turned his attention to seriously studying racial relations. In 1936, he became one of the co-directors of the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College.

During WWII, Dr. Bunche could not serve in the armed forces because he was deaf in one ear. However, he served the Office of Strategic Services, researching cultural and political attitudes in Africa where the US had strategic interests and wanted to establish military bases. Because he performed this job well, he was chosen to be the Associate Chief of the Division of Dependent Territories in the State Department, making him the first black person to be in charge of a State Department office. After the war, he became one of the consultants in the drafting of the charter of the United Nations, which is how he became involved with the conflict in Israel. Dr. Bunche attended session of the UN, and in 1947, he became part of a UN Special Committee sent to Palestine to negotiate peace. It was a dangerous mission, and other members of the committee were actually assassinated. While the situation in Israel and Palestine has yet to be completely resolved, Dr. Bunche made more progress than the rest of the committee in the 1940s, getting the two sides to agree to an armistice. At the end of the tense negotiations, he had the respect of both sides, and his work earned him a Nobel Peace Prize is 1950.

Marian Anderson (1897-(Later D. 1993)) – Famous Concert Singer

Marian Anderson was a famous singer who became the first black person to sing for the Metropolitan Opera Company the year after this book was written. A later book by Langston Hughes in the same biography series, Famous Negro Music Makers, describes this achievement and other details of her life and work.

Jackie Robinson (1919-(Later D. 1972)) – First Negro in Big League Baseball

Jackie Robinson was the youngest of a family of five children. His father died when he was still an infant, and his mother moved the family from Georgia to California to live with her half brother and find non-segregated schools for the children. Jackie was young during the Great Depression, and times were hard for his family. He sometimes had little to eat. However, he excelled at athletics in school, which helped him to get into Pasadena Junior College and the University of California. He played football for UCLA, but he left college in his final year to find a job and help his family financially. He got a job as an athletic director for a Civilian Conservation Corp camp. When the US joined WWII, Jackie Robinson joined the army, but he was honorably discharged before the end of the war due to an old football injury that began troubling him again. After that, he took a job as an athletic director at a small college, and then, he joined a baseball team called the Kansas City Monarchs.

During the 1940s, black people were barred from joining major league teams, so at first, Jackie Robinson didn’t take it seriously when he was approached by a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, WWII had brought about changes in racial attitudes and new opportunities for black people. After a stint with the Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson did join the Dodgers and became famous as a baseball player.

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Famous Negro Music Makers

Famous Biographies for Young People

Famous Negro Music Makers by Langston Hughes, 1955.

I sought out an electronic copy of this book because I don’t own a physical one, and after I found out that it existed, I knew that I had to cover it at some point! The book is part of a series of biographies for children that I covered earlier, but what caught my attention was the author of the book, Langston Hughes, the famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. I mostly knew Langston Hughes for his poetry, and I wasn’t aware that he had written any children’s books until I found out that he had written several biography books for this children’s biography series. When I found out that he specifically wrote books about African Americans and other notable black people from history, it occurred to me that he might have even written biographies of people he knew personally because of the circles he traveled in.

This book focuses on prominent African American musicians. It contains a series of short biographies and profiles, beginning with musicians from the 19th century and continuing into the mid-20th century. Most of the musicians described in the book were contemporaries of Langston Hughes, but since the biographies are brief and focus only on providing an overview of the subjects’ lives, there is no indication whether Hughes ever met any of them himself. I was a little disappointed about that because I would have enjoyed hearing a personal perspective, but the personalities covered are still fascinating.

If you’re wondering why he uses the term “Negro” instead of “African American”, it’s because that term was one of the more polite and acceptable terms during his youth and around the time when he wrote this book. (That’s why the UNCF, or United Negro College Fund uses it as well. It was one of the polite terms in use at the time of its founding.) It sounds a bit out of date to people of the 21st century because, around the time of the Civil Rights Movement, which began around the time this book was written, people began advocating for a shift in the words used to describe black people. They wanted to distance themselves from old attitudes about race by using newer terms that didn’t have as much emotional baggage attached to them. This is when terms like “colored” and “Negro” feel out of use and were replaced by “African American” as the correct, formal term to specifically describe an American with African ancestry and “black” (considered somewhat impolite a century earlier, as I understand it, see the Rainbow and Lucky series for an example – I discussed it in the historical description of the 1830s) as the generic term to describe a person with dark skin and African ancestry, regardless of their nationality.

I enjoyed the range of different styles of music covered in the book. Recognized some of the most famous singers in the book by name alone, before I even started reading, but this book also introduced me to some musicians I hadn’t known about before. I knew about Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Marian Anderson, but I hadn’t heard of Lena Horne or Roland Hayes and some of the others. I’m sure that modern children would also be unfamiliar with some of the musicians included in the book. The biographies begin with musicians from the 19th century and end with musicians who were contemporaries of Langston Hughes in the 1950s.

Because this book was written in the mid-1950s, some of the information included is long out of date. People who were alive when Langston Hughes wrote the book are obviously not alive now, almost 70 years later. There are more recent books that cover the same topic and include information about late 20th century and early 21st century musicians Langston Hughes wouldn’t have known about. However, this vintage book is still interesting because of its famous author and because it was written at a turning point in American history, when society was changing and racial issues were being challenged.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

The biographies included in the book are:

The Fisk Jubilee Singers, The Story of the Spirituals

This musical group began touring and singing spirituals in 1871. Some of the first members of this group had been born in slavery. After the end of the Civil War, the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church established the Fisk School in abandoned army barracks in Nashville to teach black children at the high school level. However, it attracted a much larger student body than high school students. Many of the students had grown up in slavery and never learned to read, so that was the first skill they had to master. In addition to children of all ages, the school attracted older adults who wanted to learn enough to read Bible stories before they died. There was local opposition to a school for black people, and a lack of funding endangered the school’s existence. The school’s treasurer came up with the idea of holding musical performances to raise money. At first, the performers weren’t sure they wanted to sing their spirituals in front of white audiences, but they turned out to be very successful. They even did a European tour and sang before Queen Victoria. The Fisk School continued to grow and later became Fisk University, which still exists in Nashville and is considered one of the top historically black colleges in the US.

James A. Bland (1854-1911), Minstrel Composer

This section begins with an explanation of the creation of the banjo as an American instrument by slaves. People have negative associations with the term “minstrel show” in modern times, but the book explains that the first minstrel shows were performed by black slaves who had a talent for music. They were allowed to travel between plantations to perform their musical shows. Later, white actors and musicians adopted the style of these performances and started wearing blackface to perform their own minstrel shows.

However, James Bland fell in love with banjo music and the style of minstrel performances from a young age. Although minstrel music had a poor reputation, and his parents disapproved of his interest in this style of music, Bland earned extra money by giving street performances while he was in college. Although most theaters only wanted to book all-white minstrel groups in blackface as opposed to all-black minstrel groups, Bland managed to join an all-black group and make a name for himself as both a performer and composer.

Bert Williams (1875-1922), Artist of Comedy Song

In his youth, Bert Williams helped earn money for his family by singing in the street. Later, he formed a partnership with George Walker, and the two of them developed a musical comedy act. Bert Williams became famous for his act, but it also troubled him because he weirdly had to use blackface, even as a black person, because that’s what audiences expected, and he also had to act dumb when he was actually very smart. He wanted to move on to more serious roles as an actor, but people didn’t think he could play anything other than comedic roles. Also, in spite of his fame, he was treated as a second-class citizen everywhere outside of the theater because of Jim Crow laws. He was quoted describing the situation, “It is no disgrace to be a Negro, but it is very inconvenient.”

Bill Robinson (1878-1949), Music with His Feet

Bill Robinson was a famous tap dancer, often credited under his nickname, Bojangles. He was orphaned at a young age and partially raised by his grandmother, who was a former slave. He left school at the age of eight and got a job in a riding stable because he loved horses. He also earned extra money by dancing on street corners and ended up joining a traveling show. He became famous for his dancing and had dancing roles in movies. He is particularly remembered for his appearances in Shirley Temple movies in the 1930s.

(Note: He and Shirley Temple are regarded as the first interracial dance team in movies. While people of the time might have been scandalized by an interracial adult dancing team, it was acceptable for little Shirley Temple to dance with Bill Robinson because of her youth and innocence. Basically, because she was a young child, and he was in his 50s, it was obvious that there could be no romantic relationship between the two of them. Segregationists of the early 20th century feared interracial marriages and created laws to prevent them, which is why they feared any suggestion of romance between a black person and a white person. Shirley Temple was a safe person for Robinson to dance with because she was just a cute little girl dancing with her “Uncle Billy”, not a potential romantic partner.)

Leadbelly (1880s-1949), The Essence of Folk Song

His original name was Huddie Leadbetter, and he had a wild youth. He was a rough fighter who was even charged with murder and assault and sent to prison and escaped multiple times. (The book notes that he may not have actually killed anybody. The book explains that he was involved in brawls with other local people at Saturday night dances, where he was in demand as a musician. During one of these fights, in which a large number of people were involved, a man was killed, and Leadbelly, as he came to be called, was the one who was apprehended and charged for his death. However, in this type of free-for-all fight, it’s difficult to tell who did what, so it isn’t definite that he was responsible for the man’s death. I’m not completely sure whether the description of the fight in the book is fully accurate, though, because I saw it described differently elsewhere. It’s enough for readers to know that he had a rough youth, that he got in trouble for a fight in which someone was killed, and that he was in and out of prison for a time.) However, he had a natural talent for music and a love of folk songs that helped him to build a better life. His performances and recordings are credited for preserving songs that might otherwise have been lost to time.

Jelly Roll Morton (1885-1941), From Ragtime to Jazz

His original name was Ferdinand Joseph Le Menthe, and he grew up in a mixed race family in New Orleans. New Orleans was an exciting city with many different types of music, and Morton (as he later called himself) discovered his love of music early in life. He worked a variety of jobs in his youth, but through it all, he continued to play his music. He traveled the country, learning and playing ragtime and jazz music, eventually composing his own songs.

Roland Hayes (1887-(later D. 1977)), Famous Concert Artist

Roland Hayes was a student at Fisk University (whose origins were described in the first chapter of this book) in his youth. However, while the Fisk Jubilee Singers had popularized Negro spirituals and helped make it acceptable for theaters to book black people to sing these songs, Hayes was in love with classical music from Europe, the style of Beethoven and Brahms and classical opera, and theaters would not book a black performer to perform that style of music. Still, Hayes was determined to find a way to perform the music he loved. Strangely, motion pictures helped him to get his start. Because movies were silent then, all music had to be provided by live musicians in the theater. Hayes got his start singing behind the screens of movie theaters, where no one could tell that the performer was a black man. He also toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and made a name for himself in London, where he even sang before King George V.

William Grant Still (1895-(later D. 1978)), Distinguished Composer

In his day, William Grant Still was considered “the most prolific of American Negro composers.” He was raised to have a love of learning and music, although his mother and stepfather thought that music would be an unreliable career, unless he was teaching. For a while, he studied science at Wilberforce University, but he later attended Oberlin College to learn musical composition. He also worked for W. C. Handy’s music publishing company. He later moved to California and composed and arranged music for movies in Hollywood. However, his work extended beyond movies, and he is mainly remembered as a symphony composer.

Bessie Smith (1896-1937), “The Empress of the Blues”

Bessie Smith is described as being a large and tall woman with a powerful voice. She was a blues singer who mainly performed before black vaudeville audiences. The blues style of music had its roots in folk music, and it was considered lowbrow in the early 1900s. Gradually, it began to enter the wider culture and helped to form the style of popular jazz, but at the time, Bessie Smith’s style wasn’t taken seriously by Broadway. Bessie Smith was well-loved in her performances and may have gone on to be a bigger star, but unfortunately, she died from injuries in a car accident. According to the book,she might have survived, but the nearest hospital was for white people only and refused to take her. She died on the way to a hospital that would accept black people. This was just one of the harsh realities of life and death in the segregated South. However, the story about the whites-only hospital appears to have been discredited since this book was written. It seems that she did reach a hospital that accepted black people and lived to have her badly-damaged arm amputated, but she was too badly injured to survive.

Duke Ellington (1899-(later D. 1974)), Composer and Band Leader

Duke Ellington‘s birth name was Edward Kennedy Ellington. His father worked for the Navy Department of the Government, and he was born in Washington, DC. His early interests in life were art and baseball, but his mother had him take piano lessons. In high school, he and some friends started a ragtime band. The band was successful, and they moved to New York. After a few years, they began recording for Columbia Records and other recording companies. He composed music throughout his career, jazz and symphony orchestra.

Ethel Waters was born into a poor family in Pennsylvania and had a hard childhood. She started working as a hotel maid in her early teenage years, and she worked her way up through adversity in the theatrical world. She became a vaudeville singer and actress, eventually going on to make Hollywood movies.

Louis Armstrong (1900-(later D. 1971)), King of the Trumpet Players

Louis Armstrong began his musical education in a very odd way. When he was twelve years old, he was apprehend on the streets of New Orleans for firing a gun in the air on New Year’s Eve. Firing a gun in the air is a dangerous thing to do (people are sometimes killed by celebratory fire), and the authorities decided that he was he was a young hoodlum for running around, firing a gun in the streets. The sent him to the Colored Waif’s Home, which was being used as a youth reformatory as well as an orphanage. As a younger child, he had played music on street corners with some of his friends and had admired musicians who played horns, but he had never had a horn of his own. At the reform school, he was given a coronet and music lessons. Louis loved it, and he loved playing in the reform school’s band when it marched in local parades. He was disappointed when he didn’t get to keep the coronet when he left the reform school. However, his talent had become known. The owner of a local restaurant bought him a horn from a pawnshop so he could play in some of the local bands. At first, he had trouble adjusting to playing again because it had been so long since he had played regularly at the school, and his lip got sore. When that happened, he would fill in the trumpet part by singing in his gravelly voice. It was such a unique sound that word of it spread, and soon, he was getting attention from audiences and other musicians. Early on, he found it difficult to read music, so he learned to play by ear, and he had a talent for adding his own embellishments and variations to songs. He became famous for his scat singing.

Marian Anderson (early 1900s-(later D. 1993)), Metropolitan Opera Star

Marian Anderson began singing in the church choir as a child, and she was so talented that her church raised money to pay for her musical education. Later, she was also sponsored by the Philadelphia Choral Society. In 1925, she entered the New York Philharmonic Competitions and won first place. She did a singing tour of Europe, where she made a name for herself, and when she returned to the US, she became an acclaimed concert artist. In January 1955, she became the first black performer to sing for the Metropolitan Opera Company. (That was the year this book was written, and it discusses this event as a landmark for black musicians.)

Bennie Benjamin (1907-(later D. 1989)), Broadway Song Writer

I couldn’t remember having heard of Bennie Benjamin before, but I had heard of one of his songs, I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire. It was his first big success, and he became a famous Broadway song writer. Something that made his music different from other black song writers of his day was that his music wasn’t inspired by spirituals, blues, or jazz. He was originally from the West Indies, and he moved to New York as a young man, so he was always more interested in Broadway styles of music than Southern music. At the time this book was written, he was still alive and writing songs.

Mahalia Jackson (1911-(later D. 1972)), Singer of Gospel Songs

As a child in New Orleans, Mahalia Jackson listened to Bessie Smith’s records and was inspired by her singing style. Mahalia’s specialty was gospel music. She never wanted to perform secular songs, but her music wasn’t the same as spirituals. Gospel music is different from spirituals because spirituals evolved from folk music with no known composer, and gospel music is more modern with known professional composers.

Dean Dixon (1915-(later D. 1976)), Symphony Conductor

Dean Dixon‘s mother was a music lover, and when he was a young child, she would take him to symphonies at Carnegie Hall. She had him learn to play the violin, and he played in his high school orchestra. He developed an interest in orchestration, and he formed a small chamber orchestra at the local YMCA, where he acted as the conductor. After high school, he attended the Julliard School of Music and did graduate work at Columbia University. While he was studying, he also led a mixed race symphony of children and adults in Harlem. He went on to become the first black person to conduct the New York Philharmonic Symphony.

Lena Horne (1917-(later D. 2010)), Singing Star of Hollywood

Lena Horne was an actress and singer. In 1942, she became the first black female singer to appear in a Hollywood move as a featured star in a film with white actors. At that time, typical movie roles for black people were minor comedic parts and servants. Even though black people in American society were educated and held professions like doctor or lawyer, movies typically showed them in more menial jobs, like chauffeur or maid. Lena Horne’s role in the movie Panama Hattie, in which she played a singer, helped to set a new precedent. During WWII she toured with the USO. After she became famous, she was known to turn down singing engagements in places that practiced segregation.

Famous Jazz Musicians (1800-1955), Congo Square to Carnegie Hall

This chapter explains the history and evolution of jazz music and discusses some prominent musicians from the early to mid-20th century who have not been discussed earlier in the book. Toward the end of the chapter, the author discusses a particularly interesting point that the National Association of Music Therapy was researching therapeutic uses for jazz music in the 1950s. Langston Hughes was also pleased that jazz could be used to encourage people to take an interest in other aspects of African American culture, like poetry, and how this style of music has spread all over the world.

Posted on by TracyC

Tools of Native Americans

Tools of Native Americans by Kim Kavin, 2006.

This nonfiction book is part of a series recommended for kids ages 9 to 12. It provides insights into the daily lives of Native Americans of the past by explaining their tools and inventions. I was intrigued by the idea immediately because I love books that give insights into history through the lives of ordinary people.

The book is divided into time periods and geographic areas of North America. At the beginning of the book, there is a timeline of important events in the history of North America and Native American culture, beginning c. 20,000 to 8000 BCE, when the ancestors of Native Americans are believed to have migrated to the continent and ending in 2006, the year the book was published. There is also a map showing major geographic regions of North America and the Native American tribes that live there. The chapters of the book are mostly grouped by region, except for the first two, which are about the First Americans and Archaic and Formative Periods.

The first chapter, called The First Americans, discusses theories about how the ancestors of Native Americans first arrived on the continent from Asia. The exact circumstances of their arrival are unknown, but there are some possible migration paths that they could have taken. The chapter discusses the Ice Age that existed when this migration took place, how people found food, and Clovis culture, one of the earliest known civilizations in the Americas. One of the activities from this section is about archaeology, which is what we use to learn more about ancient civilizations that did not leave written records, and how to create an archaeological site of your own.

The next chapter is about the Archaic and Formative Periods, which were characterized by climate change as the Ice Age came to an end and many plants and animals that had thrived in the colder climate died off. The changes in the environment cause Native American groups to make changes in their own lifestyles. Rather than relying on herds of large animals for food, they began cultivating crops. They made pottery and developed new cooking techniques. They still hunted, using a device called an atlatl to throw their spears further and with more power. Civilizations like the Maya flourished.

After the second chapter, the other chapters discuss tribes by region:

The Northeast Woodland and Great Lakes Tribes – The Algonquian and Iroquois

This chapter discusses Native American tribes from the East Coast to the Midwest, around the Great Lakes, who primarily lived in woodland areas. The Iroquois and the Algonquian were both collections confederated tribes. There is information about the Algonquian language, which contributed some words to English, including moccasin, succotash, hominy, hickory, and moose. There is also an activity about creating Algonquian style pictographs and petroglyphs.

The Southeast Tribes – The Cherokee, Catawba, Creeks, and Seminoles

The tribes in this chapter lived in and around the Appalachian Mountains. It explains about Sequoyah, who developed a system of writing for the Cherokee language.

The Great Plains Tribes – The Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, and Comanche

The tribes of the Great Plains were migratory, following herds of buffalo, which were a primary source of food. Because they moved often, everything they owned, from the tepees where they lived to the tools and other objects they used, had to be easily portable. The Comanche were particularly known for being expert horsemen. This chapter also discusses the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Sacagawea, who was part of the Shoshone tribe from the Rocky Mountains. She had been abducted when she was young, and when she joined the Expedition, she was able to guide Lewis and Clark and their men back to the territory she had known when she was a child and to the Pacific Ocean. Activities for this chapter include making a rattle of the kind children used as toys, making a miniature bullboat, and making a war bonnet (using pieces of poster board instead of feathers).

The Southwest and Mesoamerican Tribes – The Hohokam, Mogollon, Anasazi, Maya, Aztec, Hopi, Apache, and Navajo

I know this area because this is where I grew up. Much of it is desert, and the book is correct that there can be sharp differences in temperature between day and night. In modern Southwestern cities, buildings and pavement can hold in heat even at night, but there isn’t much to hold in heat in the open countryside, not even much humidity in the air to hold heat once the sun goes down. There is an abundance of clay in the soil in this region which local tribes used to make pottery and adobe homes.

Among the civilizations discussed in this section are the Hohokam, whose name means “Vanished Ones” (I’ve seen different versions of the translation of that name, but they’re all words to that effect – that they are gone, vanished, disappeared, etc.) because, for unknown reasons, they seem to have suddenly abandoned the area where they had previously lived and farmed for generations. They don’t seem to have died off, at least not all of them. It’s believed that they were the ancestors of the Pima and Tohono O’odham tribes, and the book discusses that a little further on in the chapter. There is a Pima story about a fierce rainstorm and a massive flood that killed many people, but The Hohokam were the ones who built the original irrigation canals for watering their crops. Later, when settlers came from the Eastern United States, they found these abandoned canals, dug them out, and started using them again. The canals are still in use today, and one of the activities in this chapter of the book is about irrigation.

This section of the book also covers the Maya and the Aztecs, who lived in what is now Mexico and Guatemala. There is an activity about creating hieroglyphs, like the kind that the Maya once used.

In the part that describes the Navajo, there are activities for sand painting and Navajo-style jewelry.

The Pacific Northwest Tribes – The Nootkas, Makahs, and Tlingits

Much of this chapter discusses hunting and fishing and the preservation of food. Because food-related work mostly took place during a single season due to the severity of the winters, there were periods of time when the members of the Pacific Northwest Tribes had time for social and artistic pursuits. The book explains the meaning of totem poles, and there is an activity for readers to create their own.

The Arctic Tribes – The Inuit

The lives of the Inuit were shaped by learning to live in a very cold environment. The book explains how they built igloos out of packed snow and ice, but really, igloos were temporary shelters. The houses they lived in long term where made of sod and were partially built underground for insulation. There are activities for building a snow cave called a quinzy (this requires that you live in a place with snow) and for playing a game called Nugluktaq.

The last chapter in the book is called New Immigrants, Manifest Destiny, and the Trail of Tears. It’s about how European settlers arrived in the Americas, the westward expansion of the United States, and the confinement of Native American tribes to reservations.

The book ends with an Appendix with further information about Native American Sites and Museums State by State. There is also a glossary, index, and bibliography.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

North American Indian Sign Language

North American Indian Sign Language by Karen Liptak, 1990, 1995.

This book is going to be one of three I’m planning to cover on the same topic because this book includes a list of recommended reading about North American Indian Sign Language, and I happen to have two other sources from that list in my collection. The other books I have are much older, and I’d like to compare them to this newer book and explain why the newer one does things differently.

To begin with, older books about this topic frequently just use the term “Indian” or “American Indian” to refer to Native Americans. This particular book defines its terms right at the beginning. The author says, “North American Indians are currently called both American Indians and Native Americans. I have chosen the term American Indians to reflect the preference voiced in a recent informal survey at an intertribal powwow in Reno, Nevada, and to help readers find the book more easily. The signs presented in this book are based on the sign language used by the American Indians of the Great Plains.” I appreciate it when authors explain their thinking clearly.

The introductory section of the book explains the purpose and history of using sign language for intertribal communications. It starts with an example of a fictional encounter between two members of different tribes who are strangers to each other. At first, they’re not sure who the other one is and if they’re someone who can be trusted, but when they begin using sign language to signal to each other who they are and what their intentions are, they realize that they’re from tribes who are friendly with each other and that it’s safe to continue communicating.

This particular form of sign language was particularly popular among Native Americans of the Great Plains, including the Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and Blackfoot tribes to allow communication between tribes that did not share a common spoken language and also within tribes in situations that demanded silent communication, such as during hunting and warfare or when communicating with people who could not hear well. American Indian sign language isn’t commonly used in modern times because there are others more commonly used, but it still appears sometimes at powwows or in Native American ceremonial festivals. This book is meant to present the sign language for fun and education.

It begins by explaining basic hand and finger positions and introducing some basic vocabulary, demonstrating signals for simple words, like “I”, “You”, “Yes”, and “No.” All of the hand signs are shown in drawings with arrows to indicate movement where necessary. It also introduces how to signal that you are asking a question.

The rest of the vocabulary is presented in themed sections, introducing words for family members, counting, seasons of the year, weather, time, food, clothing, feelings. This is different from the older books about American Indian sign language, which had vocabulary words organized alphabetically, like a dictionary. I prefer the approach of the themed sections because they demonstrate related words together and provide information for forming sentences as needed, like how to indicate that a concept is past tense. Later sections build on earlier sections, like when the section about seasons draws on the earlier concepts of counting and how to ask questions to demonstrate how to ask how old someone is or how to tell someone your age.

There are also sections at the back of the book discussing other methods of communication used by Native Americans, including smoke signals, pictographs, and petroglyphs.

The book is part of a series by the same author about various aspects of Native American culture. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Empty House

Mystery of the Empty House by Dorothy Sterling, 1960.

Patricia Harrison’s family has recently moved from their apartment in New York to a house in Haven. Her father used to live in Haven when he was a boy. His mother still lives in town, and he still knows some of the other people who live there. Patricia, called Pat, is still unpacking her belongings when a boy from across the street, Jim Gray, calls to invite her to play ball with him and some of his friends in the field behind her house because his mother used to know his father when they were kids. Pat isn’t very used to playing with boys because she went to an all-girls school when she was in New York, but she agrees to go play ball with the boys.

When she goes to meet the boys, some of the other boys, the Paine brothers, don’t want her to play with them. When Jim said they were meeting “Pat”, they assumed that “Pat” was another boy. Jim says he doesn’t care if Pat is a girl or not because they could really use another player. Pat thinks they’re rude, and since they don’t seem to want her, she starts to leave, but Jim stops her and persuades her to stay. Even though Pat is usually good at baseball at school, she finds herself making clumsy mistakes when she plays with the boys, probably because she feels uncomfortable with them. Finally, she hits a home run, which is great, but there’s a problem. She accidentally hit the ball into the window of an old, abandoned house nearby that looks haunted.

The boys are mad because it’s the only baseball they have. Pat says they could just go get the ball, but the boys say they can’t. When she asks them if they’re scared, they say that’s not the problem; they’ve just promised that they won’t go near the old house. Pat says that, since she didn’t promise, she can just go get the ball, but Jim stops her from going into the house. He tells her that they can just buy a new ball. When Pat asks him why he doesn’t want her to go in, Jim says that it’s a secret having to do with the Paines. Pat says that she’s sick of the Paines and insists on going into the old house.

The old house is dark and spooky. When she climbs in through the window, Pat is startled when she runs into another person inside. At first, she can’t see the other person too clearly because it’s dark, but when she asks the girl who she is, the girl tells her that she’s Patricia Harrison. Pat is shocked and tells her that she can’t be Patricia Harrison because that’s her name. The girl finally laughs and admits that her real name is Barbara Thomas. Barbara lives next door to Pat’s grandmother and decided to stop by and meet her. When she saw Pat playing with the boys, she decided to go explore the old house instead.

Barbara is the one who explains the history of the house and the Paines’ attitude to Pat. The Paine family used to live in the old house. It’s the oldest house in town, dating back to the Colonial era. Nat Paine, the oldest of the Paine boys, was always proud of his family’s old home and used to brag about how George Washington and Lafayette visited the house during the Revolutionary War. It was even occupied by British soldiers at one time. Unfortunately, the father of the Paine boys was killed during the Korean War several years earlier (dating this story to the late 1950s or 1960, the year it was published). Since then, the family has fallen on hard times, and they’ve been unable to pay the taxes on the house. Now, because of the unpaid taxes, the town council is threatening to sell the old house to pay the unpaid taxes. The Paines have been forced to move out of the house and into a much smaller place, and Nat is very upset about it. Plus, he’s been going through this phase where he’s decided that he hates girls because he’s just getting into middle school, where all the boys either start developing crushes or decide that they hate girls. His younger brothers are being pests because they’re following his lead.

Barbara says that her father felt bad about what happened to the family and tried to convince other people in town to help the Paines pay the taxes on the old place. They could have helped, but they’ve made it plain that they just don’t want to. As Barbara’s father put it, “people in Haven are a bunch of rock-ribbed, rugged individualists who wouldn’t help their own grandmas.” (I have strong feelings about that, and I’ll explain them in the reaction section.) Barbara reveals right away that the secret Jim is keeping for the Paine brothers is that Nat made his brothers take a vow with him that they wouldn’t enter that house again “until it was rightfully theirs.” Barbara says that Nat’s sense of pride talking, and “You know how boys are.” She thinks Nat’s being overly dramatic, although she sympathizes with the family’s plight. When Pat suggests that maybe they shouldn’t be in the house, either, Barbara says that she comes there all the time to explore. Barbara thinks the old house is fascinating and that there might be a secret passage somewhere. She invites Pat to help her look for it sometime.

At dinner that night, Pat finds out that her parents already know about the death of the boys’ father and the trouble that the family is having over their old house. Pat’s mother says that the old house is a good example of the saltbox style of house that was popular in Colonial New England. (I remember my old high school history teacher explaining how the slope of the roof was meant to help snow slide off during the winter, but the uneven slope also allows more living space to be added onto an existing house.) However, Pat’s mother says that there probably aren’t any secret passages in the house because houses from that time were built pretty simply and didn’t even have closets or bathrooms. She doesn’t think that there’s any place in the old house to conceal a secret passage.

Now that Pat knows the issues with the Paine family, she begins to feel better about them, and they start being nicer to her. As Pat begins settling in, she becomes better friends with Barbara and is happy that she has another girl as a friend. They ride their bikes downtown together, and Barbara sleeps over at Pat’s house. As the girls are getting ready for bed, Pat looks out the window and sees a light in the old Paine house when no one is supposed to be there. Barbara says that whoever’s in the house is probably looking for the secret passage and the treasure. When Pat asks what she means by “treasure”, Barbara says that there’s a rumor that there’s treasure hidden in the house from Revolutionary times. The family used to be rich, but after the American Revolution, when the children of the family returned to the house after their parents were killed, the family fortune had vanished. People think that the ancestors of the Paines hid their fortune somewhere during the war and that it’s still waiting to be found. (I already had some misgivings about the people of Haven and their intentions in kicking the Paines out of their house, and now, suddenly, my suspicions are even worse.)

Barbara says that they can’t just let this mystery sneak steal what should rightfully belong to the Paines and ruin the only chance they have left of regaining their house. The girls sneak over to the house to spy on the intruder, and they end up frightening him away. The girls tell the boys about what they witnessed the next day, and they persuade the Paine brothers to come into the house with them in spite of their “vow” to look around and see what the intruder was searching for. As they inspect the kitchen fireplace, where the man was searching, and look at the flashlight he dropped, the man shows up again. It turns out that he’s a college student doing research on the Paine family.

Back in Revolutionary times, the family that lived in the house was the Woodruff family. (A Paine ancestor married into the Woodruff family, changing the family name, but the Woodruffs are also ancestors of the current Paines. It’s the same family.) The college student, Robert Popham, found some old papers that indicate that the head of the Woodruff family, the first Nathaniel Woodruff, was a Tory. Nat, who was named for this ancestor (full name Nathaniel Woodruff Paine IV), angrily denies it, saying that his family was known to associate with George Washington and Lafayette, hosting them at their house. Robert explains more about the papers he found, but he also says that the last letter Nathaniel Woodruff wrote to his wife before he was killed indicates that he feared for his life and left something hidden in an old post box to pass on to his young son. However, as Nat points out, the date on this final letter was shortly after Nathaniel Woodruff’s wife was murdered by unknown assailants. (She was found scalped, so people blamed her death on American Indians, but it’s also possible that she was killed by someone else who just wanted to make it look that way to cover up the real reason for her murder.) Nathaniel Woodruff didn’t know his wife was already dead, and since she never got the letter and he was also killed soon after, the box is probably still hidden somewhere. Robert thinks that what Nathaniel hid was proof that he was actually a spy for the Patriots and that he feared for his life because he suspected that the British knew he was a spy. He says that he wants to find this hidden box and the information it holds because it would make a fantastic historical research paper.

The kids are completely on board with the search for the hidden box, both because the Paines want to preserve the reputation of their ancestors and because there may be valuables hidden in the box that will help the Paines pay their taxes and keep their home. However, they only have until August 15, the date that the town council has set for selling the Paine house. They only have until the end of summer to figure it out!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The book is also known by the title Secret of the Old Post Box.

My Reaction and Spoilers

To begin with, I didn’t like the people of Haven right from Barbara’s description of them as “rugged individuals who wouldn’t help their own grandmas.” It is pretty cold to turn out a war widow who is working as an underpaid nurse in the community and her children after their father was killed serving his country. I completely agreed with Barbara’s father’s assessment of the townspeople’s levels of generosity from the first. I suppose at least some of the townspeople of Haven probably thought they were actually being kind, giving Mrs. Paine several years after her husband’s death to come up with the mounting tax money, while doing nothing to help her and not actually paying her enough to manage and letting her family sink deeper into the hole until there was no way for them to escape, but in realistic terms, that’s not really kind at all.

We don’t actually hear the townspeople express their own feelings because the children don’t talk to the adults about their search and discoveries until they’re sure of what they found. When Barbara explained how her father felt about the townspeople’s unwillingness to help the Paines, I was also a little suspicious of their motives, and when Barbara mentioned that there’s been a popular rumor about hidden treasure in the Paine household for years and everyone has heard of it, I got really suspicious. Basically, I started looking for thieves among the townspeople. I immediately suspected that the “rugged individuals”, or at least some influential ones in the community, wanted to steal some historical treasure from a veteran’s widow and orphans because people who would would kick the widow and orphans out of their home might as well be out to steal their legacy, too.

If that was part of their plan, they weren’t very good at it, and they never even show up in the story. Perhaps I’m judging them a bit harshly, although in a way, I’m a little disappointed because that kind of Machiavellian plot would have made the story much more exciting. From the way the story goes, the townspeople might just not believe that there’s any treasure to be found because that rumor has been going around for so long and nothing has come of it. Still, I was suspicious of them for a good part of the book because it looked like the author was setting them up to be suspicious.

I was also annoyed by the townspeople because I found them ineffectual and uncreative in their approach to a community problem. They miss opportunities, and worse, they deny opportunities to others because they’re apparently stuck in their “rugged individual” mindset and won’t even entertain ideas that might help themselves as well as others when people like Barbara Thomas’s father suggest them. I often think that high-and-mighty rugged individualistic attitude cuts out so many genuinely fun, creative, and amazing possibilities that can make a community rich in character as well as money. It’s maddening to a person who thrives on creativity and likes to consider possibilities.

When I started getting really irritated at the townspeople, I guessed that, before the end of the story, they would do something to redeem themselves that would simultaneously leave me unsatisfied. I figured that the point where the townspeople finally come together would probably result in something that I thought they should have been working on from the beginning, and then, they’d act like it was such an amazing idea that they’d never thought of before and I’d be really irritated with them all over again because I thought of something like it very early in the story. Actually, that’s not how the story goes, and it’s still irritating to me.

So, what would I want them to do in this situation? Basically, the community wants its tax money, and the family wants to keep their house with a living wage that can support them. Fine. So, I asked myself, why not make this historic house, which is known to be the oldest house in town, into a community project which would actually contribute to the common good of the community (I don’t think “common good” is a dirty word, although I’m aware that some “rugged individualists” think so) and provide the Paine family with an additional source of income? If the town council invested in fixing up the house, which is also known to contain some very interesting Colonial antiques as well as fascinating architectural details and a unique history, the house could be turned into either a museum or a period bed-and-breakfast to encourage local tourism. (Sleep where George Washington and Lafayette slept!) Since it does have original furnishings and actual bedrooms, it probably wouldn’t take a lot to make the conversion for either of those projects.

The town and its business owners would benefit from the tourism, giving them an actual monetary return on their investment, and the Paine family could stay on with the house as its caretakers, receiving additional wages from visitors. People couldn’t say that the Paines simply received a handout because they would be doing valuable community work to support the town’s image and industry. It would satisfy Nat Paine’s family pride because he could talk to tour groups on the weekends and during the summer about his family’s great legacy to the history of his town. The whole community could even expand on the idea to further attract visitors, setting up a sort of local living history center, where people can learn Colonial crafts and recipes (something like what the Townsends demo on their YouTube channel), and schools from neighboring towns and cities could book field trips. Local business owners could support it with a themed restaurant and shops selling Colonial-era replicas and memorabilia and books about the time period. The town could hold special celebrations a few times a year to draw in more visitors, like a big Fourth of July parade or a Colonial Christmas celebration (although I known not all of the American colonies actually celebrated Christmas) or a re-creation of old harvest parties (more historically accurate) with plays by the local theater group (if they don’t have one, they could form one) or dramatic readings from Washington Irving at the local library or a themed fair with people selling local artisan crafts. They wouldn’t have to do all of this at once, but they could start with the matter of the house and build up from there. It’s an idea that has the potential for future expansion. This story is even set pre-Bicentenniel, so imagine what the town could do if they already had everything up and running by July 4th, 1776! Doesn’t anybody plan ahead? That’s creative use of resources. That’s community action. That’s job creation. Even if it’s not as big as Plimoth Plantation (now called Plimoth Patuxet to better incorporate the Native Americans) or Colonial Williamsburg (which both already existed by the time this story was written and could have provided inspiration), it’s still a money-making industry that is inherently built into the town’s very nature and won’t disappear tomorrow because some outside business decides to move or close a job-providing factory or something. Even if they didn’t get national or international attention, they would probably still be a destination for people from around their state and neighboring ones, and there’s potential for continued development. The project just need to be supported and promoted by the community.

Unfortunately, that’s not what they do. My griping aside, I guess if the solution was really that simple and the townspeople were more thoughtful and pro-active, we would lose the source of tension and the obstacle that our heroes have to overcome. The August 15th deadline is what pressures the kids to hurry up and find the treasure, so as irritating as it is to me, I have to put up with it.

The treasure hunt part is a lot of fun, and I liked the children’s logical, methodical approach to their search. When the children eventually find the hidden box, the story isn’t over. There are coded messages in the box that they have to decode to learn the full truth about Nathaniel Woodruff. Part of the story explains how they figure out how to decode the substitution code and the book code that compose parts of the message. The story they learn about Nathaniel Woodruff is better than anything the Paines had originally thought.

So, did they save the old house and do anything cool, like start a unique museum? Yes, and no. Although they don’t find any jewels, gold, or traditional sort of treasure, the letters that they find in the box are worth quite a bit. They sell them to a wealthy local business owner, and he donates them to a local university library. (So, you know, the wealthy business owner who never makes an actual appearance in this story and who wouldn’t have helped a war widow and her orphans for their sake can buy their family legacy and present it as his magnanimous gift to the university. I can’t say that he’s terrible for doing this because it does help, but I still think my idea was better.) The Paine family has enough money to keep their house and fix it up. It’s a pretty good ending, but I still prefer my vision. The story points out that it’s not a matter of everyone living happily ever after because they’re all their imperfect selves and still have some problems, but one lesson that they all learned from this experience is how to create their own book code to use for passing notes in class. It’s not profound, but codes are fun.

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Medieval Places

Medieval Places by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book takes a unique approach to explaining life in the Middle Ages. It focuses on the types of places where people spent their time and what they did there. I like it that the author doesn’t rely on just one country for the descriptions of places, providing examples from various places around Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, and Iceland.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval People. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The places described in the book are:

The Field

During the Middle Ages, most people lived in small farming communities, making their living through farming. This chapter describes the agricultural year and the feudal system, where peasants worked fields belonging to lords and gave the lords their services and food they produced in return for use of the land.

The Peasant’s Cottage

This chapter explains what a peasant’s house and living conditions were like.

The Castle

This chapter explains how castles were built and how they were used to control territory. There is also a brief description of what life in a castle was like.

The Battlefield

This chapter describes how warfare and sieges were conducted and what types of weapons were used.

The Forest

People hunted animals in forests for sport and food, but there were rules regarding who could hunt where and what types of animals they were permitted to hunt. Anyone caught breaking these rules would labeled a poacher and could suffer serious consequences.

The Law Court

There were different types of law courts in different places, and they could handle different types of cases or offenders. For example, clergy were often tried in special courts. Punishments for offenders varied with the nature of the offense. Prison wasn’t typically a punishment by itself. Dungeons were more for holding prisoners until their case was tried. After the trial, another punishment would be assigned, possibly a fine or some form of public humiliation. For more severe offenses, offenders might have a hand or an ear cut off or might be executed. However, there were some law breakers who had so many supporters that no one was ever able to bring them to justice.

The School

Most schools were church schools held in monasteries, cathedrals, and other churches. There, students would be taught Latin (the universal language of educated people all over Europe during the Middle Ages) and religious lessons. Students practiced writing lessons on wax tables or pieces of slate that could be reused. School was not a requirement, and most lower-class children did not attend, either simply helping their families on their farms or learning a trade. There were some secular trade school run by towns to teach the children of merchants some basic skills, like reading, writing, and keeping accounts.

The University

The format for modern universities began during the Middle Ages. Particularly skilled teachers, often ones who taught at church schools, who gained a reputation for their teaching ability sometimes attracted a following of scholars, and people would travel to the location where they were teaching in order to study with them. Universities grew because of the excellent reputations of individual teachers, who attracted students to come. As they grew, they developed sets of rules, sort of like the a trade guild, organizing courses for students to study and exams to test them on what they had learned. There were no age requirements for students, but they always started by studying some general knowledge subjects, like Latin and mathematics, before choosing a specialty to study, such as law, medicine, or theology.

The Road

There were various reasons why people had to travel during the Middle Ages. Nobles had to travel to to visit different parts of their estates, and peasants had to travel to bring their produce to markets. Merchants would travel in search of customers for their trades. Criminals and judges both had to travel to law courts. Messengers would carry letters. There were also soldiers and religious pilgrims. People from every level of society could be on the roads. However, the roads were rough, making travel uncomfortable, and there was always the danger of robbers.

The Port

People also traveled by ship, and merchants brought goods from other countries through ports.

The Parish Church

Local parish churches were important centers of life and religion in the community. The local church would perform baptisms, marriages, funerals, and other services for the parishioners. Because most people couldn’t understand Latin and many couldn’t read at all, priests had to use sermons and scenes painted on the walls of the church to teach people Biblical lessons. Sometimes, church buildings and the churchyards surrounding them were also used for other important community functions, like schools, hospitals, meetings to discuss local matters, and even markets, dances, and games.

The Market

People in towns practiced trades other than farming, so towns held regular market days when village farmers could come and sell their produce.

The Guildhall

Various types of merchants and craftsmen formed guilds to organize and regulate the standards for their trades and how much their goods and services would be worth. Guilds were also responsible for arranging apprenticeships for those wanting to learn specific trades.

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Medieval People

Medieval People by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book looks at Medieval history in terms of the different types of people in Medieval society and what their lives were like. It has examples from different countries focusing mainly on western Europe.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval Places. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The types people included in the book are:

The Chronicler

This is an important chapter because it explains how we know many of the things we know about the Middle Ages. Some people kept chronicles of events that happened in their time. Most of the chroniclers were monks because they were usually the ones who had both the education and the time to keep written chronicles. That’s part of the reason why many chronicles have religious overtones. People who wrote chronicles not only recorded events but also considered why certain important events may have happened, and they interpreted events through their religious beliefs.

The King

Medieval society was structured in levels, and the king was the person who held the most power and authority. However, he also depended on the nobles who supported him, so he had make sure that they were satisfied with his rule and rewarded for their loyalty. A successful king had to be a successful military leader, and he rewarded the nobles who served him with gifts of land. In turn, the nobles had to serve the king militarily and successfully manage their estates, and they could attract other people to serve them by granting them some of the land that they received from the king.

The Pope

The pope is the highest leader in the Catholic Church, and during the Middle Ages, Catholicism was the major Christian denomination in western Europe. (The Greek Orthodox Church was the major Christian group in eastern Europe, and Protestantism wasn’t an option until the Reformation.) Medieval popes were different from modern ones because they were political leaders as well as spiritual ones, and they clashed with secular kings about whose authority was greater.

The Bishop

Bishops were below the pope and the archbishops in authority, but they oversaw the lower religious officials within their territory or diocese. A bishop would make sure that church buildings in his diocese were being built and properly maintained and that the clergy were doing their jobs correctly and teaching and leading their parishioners properly. He would also oversee the training of new priests. In some ways, his position would be somewhat like that of a noble within the church, answerable to people higher than himself and in charge of people below him, but aside from his position in the church, a bishop would also have obligations to the king, owing services to him. Kings often used bishops as ambassadors and advisers and even as military leaders because they were among the most educated people available. However, this sometimes put bishops in an awkward position when their kings’ demands conflicted with their orders from the pope.

The Knight

A knight was a warrior who fought on horseback. Part of the service that nobles owed to their king in exchange for grants of land was supplying him with knights when he needed them. In the early Middle Ages, the status knighthood was a reward for excellent performance as a soldier, but later, there were rituals associated with knighthood, including that knighthood could only be granted by a king.

The Pilgrim

Pilgrims were travelers going to religious shrines. Some shrines were fairly close to the places where they lived, and some were far away, in major cities like Rome and Jerusalem. Pilgrims hoped to spiritually connect with the saints associated with the shrines they visited in order to ask for their help with some special purpose, such as recovery from an illness or the forgiveness of their sins.

The Lady

Women in Medieval society were subject to the authority of their fathers up until their marriage, and then, they were under the authority of their husbands. Money was a consideration when marriages were arranged, and marriages could be arranged for wealthy heiresses when they were very young. Married women had the task of managing their husband’s household and accounts, supervising the servants, and making cloth and clothing for her household. Women who did not marry might become nuns. Some liked the religious and scholarly life of a nun, but others simply became nuns because they had no other options and their families didn’t know what else to do with them.

The Herald

Knights always wore full armor when they fought, including a visor that covered the face. In order to know who was who, knights had special crests or coats of arms, which included identifying symbols and colors. Knights could wear their coat of arms on a tunic over their armor, have it displayed on a banner, and on coats on their horses. The herald was the person who kept track of everyone’s coat of arms, ensuring that they were all unique and settling disputes between knights who tried to claim the same combination of colors and symbols.

The Monk

Monks and nuns devoted their lives to prayer and meditation. Their days were organized around prayer, but they also performed manual labor, producing food for the monastery where they lived. Other tasks involved copying the Bible or prayer books and making clothing or medicine for the poor.

The Doctor

There were many dangers from illness during the Middle Ages, particularly the Black Death in the 14th century, when about a third of the population of Europe died. Doctors often didn’t understand the causes of illness, and not all doctors and healers even had any formal training. Wealthy people could afford doctors with more training. Cures often included combinations of herbs and various experimental substances, like crushed bugs or even gold and pearls. They had reasons for choosing the substances they did to put in medicine, but because they were lacking knowledge of the true nature of disease, their choices were often flawed.

The Heretic

Although the Catholic Church was the major form of Christianity in western Europe and widely regarded as the “true” Christian religion, religious beliefs were not completely uniform in the population. People whose beliefs seriously conflicted with the Church would be labeled as “heretics.” Because the Church believed that heretics’ souls were in danger, they could use severe punishments and even execution or the threat of it to force them to change or to stop spreading their messages to other people, thus endangering their souls.

The Mason

Masons were responsible for the great building projects of the Middle Ages, like castles and cathedrals. Some of these great buildings kept a staff on site to handle repairs, but some masons were itinerant, moving from site to site as necessary.

The Merchant

Merchants had to travel frequently to obtain and trade goods, some of them even from other countries. Towns would hold fairs at regular intervals where merchants would gather to sell their goods. Merchants with highly desirable goods could become very wealthy, and some people thought that they often got above their station in society, living like nobility.

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Eyewitness Medieval Life

Eyewitness

Medieval Life by Andrew Langley, photographed by Geoff Brightling and Geoff Dann, 1988, 2004.

I love books that explain the details of daily life in the past, and I especially like Eyewitness books because they include such great photographs to show objects that people would have used in the past.

This book begins by explaining the time period of the “Middle Ages”, which was the period between Ancient Greece and Rome and the Renaissance, when culture and knowledge from Ancient Greece and Rome came back into vogue. The Middle Ages lasted about 1000 years, roughly from 400 to about 1540 AD. (Estimates of the start and end dates vary because this was a period defined by cultural changes, which are gradual and don’t have precise start and end dates.) This long period of time can also be divided into smaller periods and contained many important events that helped to shape society and culture, including The Crusades and The Great Plague.

Medieval society was hierarchical and was based on land ownership. The king and the highest nobles controlled the land and allowed people in lower levels of society to use it or grant farming rights to peasants in exchange for rent in the form of their services and a share of what they produced. The peasants or serfs were tied to the land they farmed, and the land was owned by the lords they served. They were not regarded as “free” people, and they couldn’t leave their lord or the land except by raising enough money to buy some land for themselves or by marrying a free person from a higher level of society.

A lord’s manor included not only his manor house or castle but the nearby village, church, and the farmland where his serfs worked. Often, villages and manors had little contact with the outside world, so the people who lived there had to make most of what they needed themselves. Most people never left their land or were only able to travel a short distance from it, so the only new people they might meet would be traveling peddlers, soldiers, or pilgrims.

The book explains what would be found in a typical Medieval home. Poor people lived in houses that had only one or two rooms for the entire family. Few people could afford to buy glass windows. Poor people only had wooden shutters to cover their windows. Others might have tallow-coated linen over a lattice frame, which would let in light, and some wealthier people had pieces of polished horn in their windows, which also let in light, although you couldn’t really see through them well. What people ate varied depending on their social status. Wealthier people could afford a wider variety of foods, and poor people mostly ate what they produced themselves.

Women’s lives also varied depending on their social status. Pleasant women farmed and provided for their families alongside their husbands. Women in families of craftsmen and tradesmen often worked alongside the men in the family business. Wealthy women managed their husbands’ households or could rise to rank of influential abbess if they joined religious orders. However, the highest ranks in society were occupied by men.

While peasants served their lords, lords also owed services to higher nobles and, ultimately, to the king, although sometimes the king struggled to control powerful nobles and assert his authority over them. The king generally had to keep his nobles satisfied with his rule if he wanted to retain their loyalty because, while he was the source of their land and authority, they were effectively ruling over their own smaller lands with their own troops. While nobles owed their king military service and support, if they were dissatisfied with the state of their lands or were just unoccupied with other battles to fight and saw an opportunity, they would sometimes use their troops to raid the lands of neighboring nobles. Part of the king’s job involved preventing his nobles from being dangers to him and to each other. The king also made and enforced laws, settled disputes, and oversaw the collection of taxes.

Christianity, specifically in the form of Catholicism, was central to the lives of people in the Middle Ages. During this time, stonemasons and craftsmen developed new techniques for building impressive cathedrals that still stand today. These cathedrals were lavishly decorated with statues, frescoes, and stained glass windows that depicted Biblical stories and the lives of saints. These works of art were important for helping to teach people who did not have the ability to read the Bible themselves about their religion.

Religious orders of monks and nuns performed important functions for society, such as caring for people who were poor or sick, providing safe places for travelers to stay, and copying written texts by hand. In the centuries before the printing press was invented, there were only handwritten books, and they took time and skill to produce. It could take an entire year for someone to copy an entire Bible. Few people were able to own personal books, and much of the schooling in this period was provided by religious orders.

The book describes the rise of Islam during the early Middle Ages, increases in trade and commerce, the growth of towns, and guilds that controlled different professions. It also describes Medieval music and entertainment, such as plays and parades. One of my favorite parts of the book is about fairs and feast days.

The book ends by describing the beginning of the Renaissance and the rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman culture as well as the beginning of the Reformation and the development of new scientific discoveries and artistic styles.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Posted on by TracyC

Eyewitness Castle

Eyewitness

Castle by Christopher Gravett, photographed by Geoff Dann, 1994, 2004.

Eyewitness books are always great for the photographs that they use to illustrate the concepts in the book!

This book is all about Medieval castles. It starts by explaining the evolution of castle-building from early wooden motte-and-bailey castles to the great stone castles that we often think of as being the classic Medieval castle. However, stone castles could come in different shapes and styles, depending on where they were located.

The book shows examples of castles in different countries. Most of the focus of the book is on castles in European countries, including Spain, Germany, and France. However, the book also includes information about castles in Japan.

Castles were built for defense, and the book explains the types of defenses that castles would have, such as gatehouses, murder holes, lifting bridges, battlements with corbels and machicolations, and loopholes. It also explains what a siege was like, what types of weapons would have been used, and what knights and soldiers were like.

The parts of the book that I liked best were the parts that described the rooms in a castle and the daily lives of the people in a castle. Among the rooms in a castles were the great hall, kitchen, and chapel. I like how they show the objects that would be found in different rooms and how they would be used.

The book explains the lives of the lord of the castle and women and children who lived there. There is information about the types of foods they would eat in a Medieval castle and the types of games and entertainment they would have enjoyed.

There is also information about other workers in and around the castle, including the castle builders and people who tended the castle’s animals and worked in the agricultural fields around the castle, producing food and textiles for the population.

There are sections in the back of the book with additional facts and information about castles and the people who lived in them and a glossary.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Posted on by TracyC

Castle

Castle by David Macaulay, 1977.

Castle is one of David Macaulay’s books about historical architecture, and like his earlier book, Cathedral, it has detailed and realistic drawings to explain each step in the building process.

The castle in the story is fictional, but it’s based on real castles built by English lords during the conquest of Wales, circa 1277 to 1305. The process for constructing the castle and the military strategy behind it are historically accurate. The English, under King Edward I, used a strategy of establishing permanent towns and castles in Wales to dominate the Welsh. The construction of these castles and their accompanying towns took years, but it was part of a long-term political and military strategy that actually aimed at avoiding direct armed conflict. The purpose of the castles and towns was not only to support the occupying English forces and settlers, but also to provide economic centers that the Welsh would also find beneficial. The idea was that the Welsh, while initially opposed to the interlopers, would eventually come to rely on the presence of the new towns for business and trade and not want to force the newcomers out. This strategy is in keeping with the nature of castles themselves because they are defensive structures, designed for holding off attackers in order to maintain territorial control, shielding the people within the castle so they cannot be forced out. The fictional castle in the story is built with a fictional town called Aberwyvern and belongs to a fictional nobleman, Lord Kevin.

The beginning of the book explains the military strategy of Edward I and how he appointed noblemen to build castles in Wales. When choosing the site for a castle, they would take into account the natural landscape and its defensive capabilities. For example, Lord Kevin’s castle will be built on a high outcrop on the edge of a river. The high ground and the surrounding water will make the castle harder to attack.

The book shows a plan of the castle that will be built and explains the different craftsmen who will be working on the construction, along with the tools they will use. The book then describes the various stages of construction, beginning with the preparation of the site and the digging of a moat that will separate the section of rocky outcropping where the castle will be built from the land around it, where the town will be located. The moat is important because it provides an extra defensive feature.

My favorite parts explain the living quarters of the castle. People think that castles must have been uncomfortable with bare stone walls, but actually, the walls are only bare in ruined castles that were exposed to the elements over time. When a castle was inhabited, the walls were covered with plaster. The plaster would be painted and/or hung with tapestries for decoration. Reeds and nice-smelling plants would cover the floors as a kind of carpeting, and the plants would be swept out and replaced regularly.

The castle and town take years to finish, and the pictures show how they look at each stage of construction, both in aerial view and up close.

Toward the end of the book, King Edward visits the castle and warns Lord Kevin that there have been some Welsh uprisings. Lord Kevin and his people make sure that they have enough food and supplies to last through a siege, and the following year, the castle’s defenses are put to the test when they do have to withstand a siege.

Eventually, the Welsh attackers are forced to retreat when they are unable to take the castle and they receive word that more English forces are coming.

Over time, the community includes people of Welsh and English descent, living side-by-side, and the town extends beyond the original town walls. The town walls are no longer necessary for defense. By that point, the castle itself is mostly neglected, and people sometimes scavenge stones from it for other buildings.

This book is a Caldecott Honor Book. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). There is also an animated film version of this story, which is available online through Internet Archive.