The Historian's Hut: Did You Know?

Sunday, August 13, 2017

The Great American Writer, Edgar Allan Poe, Married A Child

(Left: Photograph of Edgar Allan Poe, reproduced from a lost daguerreotype c. between 1844 and 1847, Right: Watercolor of Virginia Clemm Poe painted after her death in 1847, both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

With his literary career not generating revenue and his foster father not providing any support, a young Edgar Allan Poe in his early twenties roamed the eastern coast of the United States looking for ways to make a living. Read about Poe’s early-life family and educational troubles, HERE. He drifted through cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Richmond, before finally settling in with his aunt, Maria Clemm, who had a home in Baltimore, Maryland. From 1831 to 1835, Edgar Allan Poe would live with his aunt and her young daughter, Virginia.

While living with his aunt, Poe finally received some literary recognition when his piece, “MS. Found in a Bottle,” won a $50 prize from a contest in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Although the prize was some of the first acclaim Poe had received for his work, he had already published two books of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) and Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829). These books received little recognition at the time, even though modern observers believe the collections to contain masterpieces.

For Edgar Allan Poe, the best accomplishment he achieved during his stay with the Clemm family was the relationship he developed with his cousin, the young Virginia Clemm. When, in 1835, he was offered the position of editor at the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond Virginia, he brought Maria and Virginia Clemm to live with him in his new home. The next year, in 1836, Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia were married. He was in his late twenties, at the time. Virginia, on the other hand, was only between 12 and 14 years of age.

The marriage would last for over a decade, but, tragically, Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847. She was still in her early twenties at the time. Edgar Allan Poe grew darker after the death of his wife, and he quickly began to give way to his ongoing fight against depression and alcoholism.

In 1849, Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond Virginia, intending to arrive in Philadelphia. Mysteriously, he was found delirious in Baltimore and died on October 7, 1849. The cause of the great author’s death remains unknown and debated. There are many theories about the cause of death, including being beaten to death, rabies, poisoning, or even a case of fatal kidnapping.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

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Wednesday, August 9, 2017

A Dark, Supernatural And Sensual Tale About Periander, The Ancient Tyrant of Corinth

(Painting of Odysseus trying to embrace a ghost, by Jan Styka c. 1901, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Periander was the second tyrant of Corinth. Although he was a dictator with extraordinary power, he is generally considered by modern observers to be a wise and greatly effective ruler. During the reign of Periander (r. 627-587/585 BCE), the city of Corinth drastically increased in prosperity and became a major power among the Greek city-states. Yet, with these impressive accomplishments, Periander was involved in something even more dramatic—he was featured in one of the weirdest stories in The Histories of Herodotus. Although little to any of the story is likely historically true, the tale remains ghoulishly fascinating.

This bizarre story, as Herodotus told it, all began when Periander lost an unnamed item lent to him by a friend. He was so baffled as to the whereabouts of the item, that he sought supernatural means to ease his search. He apparently asked an oracle of the dead for help, but it was not the oracle that actually appeared to help the tyrant. Oddly, the ghost of Periander’s dead wife, Melissa, returned to the world of the living in order to aid in the search for the lost item. To prove to her husband that she was who she claimed to be, the ghost of Melissa divulged to Periander that she knew of a disgusting act of necrophilia that he had performed on her dead body. Or, as she put it, “Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven” (The Histories, Book 5, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and John Marincola, 2002). Sadly, the disturbing comment convinced Periander of the ghost’s credibility.

Yet, the ghost did not offer her aid without conditions. She chastised her husband for not burning her burial clothes. Apparently, Melissa could not use the unburned clothes in the afterlife and, consequently, was quite cold. As a result of her discomfort, Melissa withheld the location of the lost item.

Periander, however, hatched a grand plan to send more than enough clothing for his deceased wife to wear in the realm of Hades. As tyrant of Corinth, Periander used his power and influence to make all the Corinthian women donate a garment for his dearly departed wife. Yet, according to Herodotus, he did not simply ask for clothes to be handed in—he had a much more creative method.

As the story goes, Periander demanded that all the women of Corinth meet in the local temple of Hera. Thinking that the gathering at the temple of Hera was a festival, fair or other ceremony, the women of Corinth all arrived wearing their very best attire. When the women had all congregated, Periander sprung his trap—he called in his soldiers and made the women of Corinth strip completely bare. He then heaped the mass of clothes into a large pile and burned it all, sending a whole city’s worth of garments for his wife to enjoy in the afterlife.

After this audacious feat, Periander contacted the oracle of the dead, once again. This time, when the ghost of Melissa was summoned, she was obviously pleased with her husband’s impressive gift, and she finally told Periander where to find what he had lost.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Periander
http://www.ancient.eu/Periander/

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Edgar Allan Poe Had An Early Life As Filled With Misfortune As The Stories In His Writings

(Original daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe taken by Edwin H. Manchester, on the morning of November 9th, 1848, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Few authors have mastered channeling the dark, eerie and macabre nature of the world like the great poet and author, Edgar Allan Poe. Even in his earliest years, Poe was intimately aware of the frustrations and burdens that can plague a life cursed with misfortune.

Elizabeth Arnold Poe gave birth to Edgar in 1809, in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Elizabeth was an actress from Britain working in the United States, and her husband, David Poe Jr., also worked in the acting business in Boston. David and Elizabeth Poe, however, did not raise their son for long. Unfortunately, David Poe abandoned the family shortly after the birth of his son, and Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar Allan Poe was only three years old. When he grew up he had little, if any, memories of his real parents.

With no immediate family able to take care of him, Edgar Allan Poe was taken in by the Allan family in Richmond Virginia as a foster son. Edgar’s relationship with his new foster father, John Allan, was rarely, if ever, stable or friendly. Mr. Allan wanted his foster son to be a businessman, but Poe stubbornly strived to be a poet and a writer. John Allan never adopted his foster son and would continue to have a tense relationship with Poe for the rest of his life.

When Edgar Allan Poe reached his mid-to-late teens, his life began to look up. Yet, in keeping with his mystique, soon most of his ambitions and ventures came crashing down on top of him. Between 1825 and 1826, he left home to attend the University of Virginia, leaving a fiancé or sweetheart named Sarah Elmira Royster to wait for him as he completed his education. Poe’s foster father, John Allan, however, did not provide his ward with enough money to pay his foster son’s tuition and living expenses. To make up the difference, Poe turned to gambling. Unfortunately, this only made him fall into debt. In less than a year, Poe was dismissed from the University of Virginia for lack of funds. If that was not bad enough, another sad surprise was waiting for Poe back in Richmond. Sarah Royster had become engaged to another man during his absence.

With little family support and no relationship tying him to Richmond, Edgar Allan Poe headed to the city of Boston and eventually joined the United States Army in 1827. He spent the next few years in the military, estranged from his foster-family. Yet, when his foster mother, Frances Allan, fell seriously ill with tuberculosis in 1829, Poe quickly traveled back to Richmond, Virginia. Unfortunately, she died before he arrived home. With the death of Frances, John Allan and Poe tried to mend their broken relationship. That same year, in 1829, Edgar Allan Poe received an honorable discharge from the military at the rank of regimental sergeant major. Soon after, John Allan helped his foster son gain attendance to the prestigious U. S. Military Academy at West Point.

Yet, the weak façade of a good relationship between Allan and Poe quickly shattered with time. Edgar Allan Poe was eventually dismissed from West Point for ignoring his duties. The cause remains unclear, but it resulted either from John Allan ending the funds for his foster son’s education or Poe intentionally seeking dismissal to anger his foster father. Another theory is that the former incident caused the latter.

With no family support and no major income coming from his two published poetry books, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) and Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829), Edgar Allan Poe wandered the east coast, trying to find a way to get by. His life would only begin to turn around when he settled down with his aunt, Maria Clemm, from 1831-1835. There, he began to increase his reputation as a writer and met his wife, Virginia Clemm, whom he married in 1836. Yet, despite periods of success and happiness, he unfortunately continued to struggle for the rest of his life.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

Monday, August 7, 2017

Prankster Fauns And Trolls In The Witchcraft Lore Of The Malleus Maleficarum

(Mythological Trolls by John Bauer (1882–1918), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

One interesting way some Christian missionaries tried to make people understand the theology of the Bible was to interpret through a Christian lens the very cultures and mythologies that they considered to be pagan. They did this with much of the traditional folklore of Europe, as well as with the gods and supernatural creatures exposed to them by the people inhabiting the regions that Christians came to colonize, such as the Americas. By aligning benign deities with the Abrahamic God and angels, and monstrous evil beings with Satan and demons, Christian missionaries thought that foreign cultures would be more accepting of the supernatural realm described by the church.

One such instance of folklore and mythology being incorporated into Christian mythology is in The Malleus Maleficarum. Published around 1486-1487 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, the peculiar text was the most influential source of information on witches, demons and monsters, and it was used by inquisitors and witch-hunters for nearly three centuries. Along with other creatures such as basilisks, changelings and werewolves, the authors of The Malleus Maleficarum also worked mythological beings such as fauns and trolls into the supernatural realm of angels and demons.

In Part II, Question 1, Chapter 3 of The Malleus Maleficarum, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger cited Cassian’s Collationes I, which confirmed the existence of odd demons or spirits that focused on pranking and scaring humans instead of causing serious harm. This is what they wrote:

“For it is manifest that some of them, which the common people call Fauns, and we call Trolls, which abound in Norway, are such buffoons and jokers that they haunt certain places and roads and, without being able to do any hurt to those who pass by, are content with mocking and deluding them, and try to weary them rather than hurt them. And some of them only visit men with harmless nightmares” (The Malleus Maleficarum. Part II, Qn.1, Ch. 3. Translated by Montague Summers, 1971).

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

The Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by Montague Summers. New York: Dover Publications, 1971.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

The Man Behind Uncle Sam

("Buy War Bonds" (Uncle Sam) circulated 1941-1945, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Flamboyant, colorful and patriotic, the symbol of Uncle Sam is either loved or hated—yet, either way, he is an unforgettable character. Almost every United States citizen has at one point in their life seen an image of the iconic man clad in red, white and blue pointing at them from within a poster. Many people, however, have no clue that a man who lived in the 18th and 19th century is credited as the original “Uncle Sam.” His name was Samuel Wilson and this is the story of how he sparked America’s most vibrant mascot.

(Portrait of Samuel Wilson, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Samuel Wilson was born in 1766 within the modern region of Arlington, Massachusetts. At the time, the American colonies were at war with the British Empire. In 1781, a fifteen-year-old Samuel Wilson joined the Revolutionary Army for the last few years of the war, though he likely did not see any combat. He was given the position of a military cattle guard, and also served as a butcher and meatpacker for the American forces. After the United States secured its independence with the close of the war in 1783, Samuel Wilson returned home and began cultivating a family business with his brother.

The Wilsons invested their money into more than one field of commerce. Initially, they thrived in brickmaking, but Samuel Wilson also diverted his profits into building a meatpacking industry in Troy, New York. Wilson’s meatpacking business obtained a lofty deal when the War of 1812 broke out—the United States contracted with Samuel for around 5,000 barrels of beef and pork to be shipped to American forces.

The thousands of barrels shipped by Samuel Wilson were stamped with his company’s insignia, but were also labeled with the letters “U.S.” so as to convey that the food was being shipped to the United States forces. Soldiers and American citizens, however, had a different interpretation of the “U.S.” stamped on each barrel. Either mistakenly, or as a joke, or just out of appreciation and affection, the soldiers simply stated that the barrels were coming from “Uncle Sam” Wilson. Whatever the cause, the name stuck and soon became a national sensation. By 1813, the name "Uncle Sam" had already become a nickname for the United States and its government.

("The lightning speed of honesty," an Uncle Sam cartoon by Thomas Nast (1840–1902), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

As for the cartoon mascot of Uncle Sam, that would take many more decades to coalesce into the U.S. mascot of today. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the great cartoonist, Thomas Nast (1840-1902), laid the groundwork for the iconic image of Uncle Sam. The artist’s other influential works were with the characters of Santa Claus and the donkey and elephant mascots of the Democratic and Republican political parties. His Uncle Sam included a beard or goatee and wore the signature striped American suit. Another artist named Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960) finalized the Uncle Sam imagery. Flagg contributed Sam’s patriotic top hat and was the first to include the famous, “I Want You In The U.S. Army,” slogan.

(Uncle Sam poster c. 1917 by Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Unfortunately, Uncle Sam Wilson did not live to see his name bloom into an unforgettable national image. He died in 1854, at the age of eighty-eight, before Thomas Nast had popularized the basic features of the Uncle Sam character. Samuel Wilson was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, in his adopted home of Troy, New York. The United States government formally recognized Wilson as the inspiration behind the famous image of Uncle Sam in 1961.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Eleanor Roosevelt Had A Tragic Childhood

(Eleanor Roosevelt in school portrait. Date, 1898, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (known as Eleanor), one of the most inspiring women in the history of the United States, had an unbelievably bleak childhood. Her parents, Elliott and Anna Roosevelt, were loving toward their children, but suffered from a troubled marriage. In particular, Eleanor’s father, Elliott, was an alcoholic and a drug addict. He was also thought to have fallen ill with a sickness that caused nervousness and anxiety. His condition grew so severe that, during a family trip in France, Elliott was committed into the care of a medical asylum from 1890-1891. The next year, his older brother, Theodore Roosevelt, transferred Elliott to the Keeley Center in Iowa to receive help for alcoholism.

All this unhealthy family disruption was soon followed by tragedy. Eleanor’s mother, Anna Roosevelt, died a sudden and unexpected death brought on by diphtheria in 1892, only a year after her husband was interned with the Keeley Center. Anna was only twenty-nine at the time, and Eleanor was just nine. The very next year, in 1893, Eleanor Roosevelt’s younger brother, Elliott Jr., also died too early a death. A year later, in 1894, Eleanor’s troubled father also died. In a two-year period of time, Eleanor was left an orphan before she had even reached the age of ten.

After the death of Anna Hall Roosevelt, young Eleanor and her siblings were taken in by Mary Hall, their grandmother on their mother’s side. Under the guardianship of her grandmother, and support from uncle Theodore, Eleanor Roosevelt continued her education and regained a sense of normalcy.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

The First Soft "Bulletproof" Garments Were Made In Japan And Korea

(Image of Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik successfully testing a bulletproof vest (1901), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Cloth and fiber armors are likely the longest-serving family of armor. Light and soft materials, from overlapping paper scales to thick fabric gambeson jackets, have long been used to create powerful armor that resists cuts and punctures. The effectiveness of these armors grew exponentially when combined with mail coats made of interwoven metal rings.

The introduction of firearms into warfare caused many armor designs to become obsolete, but armorers and inventors quickly began inventing better and stronger defensive equipment that could resist firearm projectiles. The first bulletproof armors are thought to have been reinforced metal breastplates, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Yet, the first modern soft, bullet-resistant vests are thought to have been created by the Japanese and Koreans in the mid-to-late 19th century. The Japanese found that garments that were skillfully constructed with around thirty layers of thick silk cloth could stop a bullet from puncturing the human body. The Koreans, too, constructed a bullet-resistant armor made of around ten layers of thick cotton material.

The men who popularized the modern notion of the bulletproof vest were inspired by the cloth designs of the Japanese and the Koreans. A Ukrainian immigrant priest named Casimir Zeglen and a Polish inventor named Jan Szczepanik created and marketed a bulletproof vest that consisted of a steel plate woven in between layers of silk. To prove that their product worked, the priest, Casimir Zeglen, held a demonstration where he was shot by a .44 caliber firearm at a distance of only ten steps from the shooter.

The materials of bullet-resistant armor have continued to change since the days of Japanese silk garments. Instead of steel, aluminum was tried. Kevlar replaced Asian silk, and ceramic plating was found to be a great solid material for bullet-resistant armor. Now, however, silk is making a return—yet, this time the inventors and engineers have set their gaze on scientifically-modified spider silk.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

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