Lockdown Link Dump

Well, Dear Reader(s), things are certainly interesting now. I hope you’re all keeping journals of this time. One day, they’ll become first-account sources used by scholars that haven’t been born yet. Have you always wanted to make history? Now is your chance!

What have I been doing during quarantine? For me, it’s been an opportunity to catch up on different projects, maybe work through that stack of library books that aren’t collecting late fees right now (yay!), and trying to avail myself of all the culture that is suddenly online and accessible to all. Artists, JSTOR, even the Metropolitan Opera are putting their content online, free of charge. (Last week, I did sixteen hours of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle from the Met in four days …  oofdah.) Historic entities like Mount Vernon and The Battlefield Trust are putting their tours and workshops online. If you can, I highly encourage making a schedule of enrichment and not feeling guilty for any of it. Times like these are unprecedented – yes, for all the scary, unknown, how-am-I-going-to-pay-rent ways, but also for the amount of cultural content suddenly available to folks who normally can’t pay for anything. Like me.

This post is my Lockdown Link Dump, with cultural links and random history things I thought was interesting. Grab a drink and peruse to your heart’s content.

 

 

More Miscellany

Dear Reader(s) – It’s been pretty quiet over here. There’s been a lot of Life happening, which has kept me from historical-themed exploits (unless you count another rewatching of Turn…). In the meantime, I’ve curated a small abundance of miscellaneous links for you to check out. Enjoy!

Culpeper State Park – Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation are looking into creating a national park around the Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain Battlefields. The article is slightly dated now (Feb 2019) but goes into a lot of the different groups advocating for this, including the American Battlefields Trust (formerly the Civil War Preservation Trust). The site of the largest cavalry battle in the Western Hemisphere? Yeah, I think that should be a park. Also, there’s a nice little ice cream shop up the street from here….

Reenacting the Past – A lot of pictures of a lot of different types of reenactments, from World War II to the Crusades to Vietnam. The pictures are really good.

Revolutionary Women – In honor of Women’s Month, here’s a brief description of eleven different women featured at the Museum of the American Revolution. I’ve wanted to go through the MoAR focusing only on women, but it just hasn’t happened yet and I keep getting distracted by other things. This might be the best you get.

Women’s History Month Book Club – Again through the MoAR, this link has a bunch of different books by and about women. I haven’t read any of them so I can’t actually vouch for anything, but the people over at MoAR tend to know what they’re talking about.

Inside the Weird World of Historical Reenactors – A journalist type person sort of analyzes historical reenactors, some of the tension cause between them and academics (ie, who does “real” history?), why reenactors do what they do, etc. It’s kind of a lighter take on the Civil Wargasm chapter of Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horowitz.

History Lost? The Art of Civil War Reenactment is Slowly Fading Away – There are several factors at play here – younger recruits are fewer and far between, and there’s lately been a national discussion about all things Civil War that doesn’t help make Civil War reenacting look all that appealing.

His Excellency, George Washington

Historians Fight Back as TV raids their Research Treasures for its shows – If you hadn’t noticed, there’s an abundance of historical fiction shows on TV, from Turn to Outlander to Peaky Blinders, and the list goes on. A lot of academic research historians have been consulted by the production teams of these shows (either for costuming or culture or other time period ephemera, etc) but they don’t necessarily get credit by the show for all the work they had done and shared. This is actually something I’d wondered about. Shame on those production companies.

A Pioneering WWII Veteran Died Alone –  An article about the life of Bertha Dupre, who joined the Women’s Army Corps and was part of the only battalion of all African-American women to be deployed in Europe. She had no known family when she died so her community came together to give her a hero’s sendoff.

Finally, a clip from a film about WASPs – Women Air Service Pilots, an elite group of women trained to free men for the front lines. I forgot if this was a crowd-funded type of film or if this had more cinematic power behind it, but it looks good and WASPs should not be forgotten.

More Cleaning

Once again, Dear Reader(s), here’s a collection of links that you might find of interest. I covered more ground this summer on the internet than in person so there are many tabs to share.

The first three are In Memoriams that crossed my path after the passing of Senator McCain, may he rest in peace.

• https://www.wsj.com/articles/sen-john-mccain-former-presidential-candidate-once-a-prisoner-of-war-dies-1535243058
• https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/08/25/john-mccain-dead-arizona-senator-republican-maverick-obituary/538330001/
• http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2008/04/the_great_mccain_story_youve_probably_forgotten.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_fb_bot

Corby Hall at Notre Dame – May it rest in pieces. – I understand the necessity of tearing it down and starting over, but the historical purist in me cringes.

My last shot of Corby Hall, taken right before demo begins

Inside Corby looked like a total liquidation sale

Civil War era Limb Pit discovered – kind of macabre, kind of cool, especially if you’re into forensics.

The Science of Saving the Declaration of Independence – Sadly, I don’t think it would hold up to National Treasure-esque shenanigans.

New Theory States that Men Nearly Caused Human Extinction – My current place of employ is currently 90% male. The findings of this article do not come as a surprise.

The Creative Mind of J.R.R. Tolkien – currently on view at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, then coming to New York next year. I think I’m going to have to make a trip to New York to see this.

British View the War of 1812 Quite Differently than Americans – Again, I kind of feel like this is a no-brainer. It makes sense that Canadians and Native Americans also have their own take on this particular conflict.

Ask A Reenactor Playing The Bad Guys – Worth the read. The author makes a good point that the victors write history so the bad guys need humanizing. The author also points out that reenactors are pretty good at self-policing, and there’s an unspoken code about how to judge/evaluate other reenactors doing controversial impressions (ie, the SS).

Ask A Reenactor: Ethnicity Reenacting – Such a complicated topic. So relevant. Speaking of which, I’ve crossed paths with this guy many times and am certain I asked him a lot of inappropriate questions about ethnicity and reenacting the first time I met him. And by that, I think I downright accosted him. Unrelated, I want to know how big his closet is for all of his gear.

And lastly …

Well this seems like an interesting fusion of a lot of things:

Spring Cleaning

In lieu of a post with actual content, I find I must once again clean out the open tabs on my browser.

Mewki – “little seagulls” – women who volunteered in the Polish navy during World War II. I was doing research on them because my reenacting unit is Commonwealth and someone offered me a complete WRN (Women’s Royal Navy) uniform for a stupidly cheap price. We don’t have a naval impression but, in order to see if it would be worth it to have, I started reading up on this and … never finished.

Fly Girls The Series – a fundraising site(?) for a documentary about WASPs – Women Airforce Service Pilots. Was doing research for an upcoming post, but turns out to not need this link. Still, an interesting topic on an elite group of women during WW2.

Colm Toibin reads Mary Lavin – Irish author reads short fiction. My dad had sent me this link because it included an Irish author (my dad’s hobby is sending emails) and I deleted the email because I thought I would listen to it but I didn’t and I’m tired of having the tab open.

The Reel History of the Great War – An article through the National Archives publication on the role film and photography played during World War I.

French Museum Discovers Half of Its Collection are Fakes – If a forger can fool an expert, why doesn’t it count as art? (Not sure Han Van Meegeren’s obviously fake Vermeers count, but some of his earlier Vermeers could have fooled me.)

Michael Collins Did Not Start the Irish Civil War – well this is interesting. I wrote a paper in high school on the IRA and Sinn Fein, which naturally had to touch on the years of oppression, the Black and Tans, Wolfe Tone, Michael Collins vs. Eamon de Valera, the Irish Civil War, Irish Republicanism vs Irish Nationalism, the Troubles in the 70s, all the way up to the Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998, which wasn’t that much earlier than high school and the said paper.

Learn About WWII by Watching These Films in Order – Someone took a list of all the WW2 movies out there and organized them in the order of chronology of their events.

The Chinese Soldiers Who Fought in the American Civil War – Definitely not common. Definitely interesting.

The Right Way to be Introspective – The difference between introspection and insight. Self-reflect all you want, but it doesn’t help if you don’t have self-awareness.

And last but not least…

The Full Declaration of the Summit Between North and South Korea – history in the making, my friend(s).

 

Current stack of to-read books. The chances of me actually finishing them all before they’re due are … not good.

I’m A Special Snowflake

I just wanted to encourage people to go be interesting. Go find things that interest you and explore them further. Don’t be ashamed. It’s ok to be weird.

Was I ashamed, running through Valley Forge National Historic Park while listening to the Turn soundtrack with my Avengers knee socks? NO! Just the opposite! In fact, I wanted to stop other runners/walkers/bikers and inform them of what I was doing. If they appreciated my utter dorkiness, I would categorize them as “cool”. If they didn’t, I could feel sorry for them and be about my merry way.

When I say running, I actually mean a brisk walk. I didn’t realize how little minuets and harpsichords lend themselves to running. 

Ephemera (or random tidbits)

The problem(??) with history is that it just keeps on coming. So when you turn around there’s layers upon layers upon layers, like a really, really, really thick slice of baklava. Like Mesosoic baklava. With nuts. Because History is full of nuts.

There have been many historical anniversaries of late, almost too many to keep track of:

• A bunch of Civil War 150th Anniversaries: Monocacy, Ft. Stevens (the only time a sitting [well, standing] President came under direct fire), The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Kennesaw Mountain, Mobile Bay, while Atlanta is coming up in about a week. And those are just some of the big names. In fact, just go check out this link because I’m linking from here anyway.
• The 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. Interesting. WWI was began 50 years after the Civil War.
• The 70th anniversary of DDay.
• The City of Alexandria celebrated its 2xxth birthday with fireworks.
• And apparently today is the 2xxth Bastille Day, celebrated by the French and, I suppose, Americans pretending to have a global outlook.

To commemorate this, have some music: