Category: Learn History Through Fiction

Little People of America (LPA) is a nonprofit for people no taller than 4’10” and their families. It was started by Billy Barty in 1957, who called on people of short stature to meet in Reno, Nevada. The original gathering of 21 people grew into the organization. A newspaper reporter wrote, “The small people gathered here today are endowed with that good quality which takes them out of the realm of oddity into the realm of humanity.” LPA’s motto “Think Big” was established in the 1960s. Today LPA has over 6,000 members in 70 chapters across the U.S. and internationally and is politically active in the disabilities rights movement. Read more about Little People of America in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press), a fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner in The Wizard of Oz (see NOVELS). Munchkin actors were called “midgets,” now considered a derogatory term.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, workers were unionized under the CIO’s United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). An interracial committee led organizing in Chicago, where the majority of industry workers were black, and in other major cities, such as Omaha, Nebraska, where they were a sizable minority. The UPWA secured important gains in wages, hours, and benefits. Other labor unions remained largely segregated however, until the AFL and CIO merged in 1955 and declared in their new constitution that “all workers without regard to race, creed, color, national origin or ancestry shall share equally in the full benefits of union organization.” Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Rubies get their name from ruber, the Latin word for red. The color is caused by the element chromium. Rubies are one of the four precious stones; the others are sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. Like diamonds, the value of rubies is determined by 4 C’s: color, clarity, cut, and carets. The brightest and most valuable color is called pigeon blood red. The Smithsonian has a 23.1 carat ruby mined in Burma in the 1930s. Ruby is the July birth stone (Cancer), a symbol of the 40th wedding anniversary, and a sign of good luck in Asia. Read more gems about gems, including Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

After failing at farming in the Catskills, Selig and Malke Grossinger, Polish immigrants, bought a large house on 100 acres, named it Grossinger’s, and made their daughter Jennie the manager. Malke, the daughter of an innkeeper who knew about hospitality, believed that “a life without sharing is barren.” Grossinger’s served strictly kosher food and attracted winter guests with the first artificial snow machine in 1952. By the time Jennie Grossinger died in 1972, the hotel’s 1,200 acres had 35 buildings and served 150,000 guests a year. The hotel closed in 1986 and only the golf course remained open. Read more about Grossinger’s and U.S. cultural history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Kansas became the 34th state in January 1861. The Civil War began three months later. When rumors circulated that President Lincoln was about to be kidnaped or assassinated, Kansas senator James H. Lane recruited 120 Kansas men dubbed the “Frontier Guard.” For nearly three weeks they were billeted in the White House to protect the President. Kansans were staunch Union supporters. Of 30,000 Kansans of military age, 20,000 enlisted in the Union Army. After the war, Kansas returned to agriculture. Topeka, where the cattle ranches of the Southwest meet the Corn Belt, prospered as a typical Midwestern city. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Henchman, used the confiscation of Jewish property to amass a fortune, seizing art and other valuables for himself, and collecting bribes that allowed others to do so. Born to a wealthy father and peasant mother, he exulted in aristocratic trappings such as a coat of arms and ceremonial swords and daggers. He designed an elaborate personal flag that was carried at public events, and was known for his extravagant taste and garish clothing, including a medieval hunting costume and a russet toga fastened with a golden clasp. His car, a Mercedes 540K Special Cabriolet, nicknamed “The Blue Goose,” had special features such as bullet-proof glass and bomb-resistant armor, and was modified to fit his girth behind the wheel. Dubbed “The Iron Man,” he didn’t mind jokes about his corpulence, taking them as a sign of his popularity. Read more about Nazi Germany and Hitler’s inner circle in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, two elevator operators, Joe Zitto and Joe Gaspar, each made 15-20 trips rescuing workers, nearly all of them immigrants. The elevators were meant to hold 15 passengers, but 30 or more piled inside. When workers on the 8th floor saw the elevator descend from the 10th floor without stopping for them, they broke the elevator’s glass door and jumped on top of the car. After the last descent, some desperate workers plunged down the empty shaft to their death. Read more about the fire and one immigrant survivor in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The task of assembling little people to act in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz fell to Baron Leopold von Singer. In Germany, he had put together a troupe of touring “midgets” who took part in vaudeville shows all over Europe. He had bought some of them as children from their parents, who wanted to get rid of them. By 1938, he had gathered a stable of 100 tiny performers and was based in America. Singer was put in charge of all the Munchkins, looking after lodging, food, and attendance on set. Managing them was never easy. Many did not speak English and sang in thick German accents. The little people had no affection for him either. They claimed Singer stole a big percentage of their wages. Read more about the Munchkins and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During the Depression, the San Diego Naval Base used money from the federal Public Works Administration to expand the Pacific Fleet to 48 warships, 400 naval aircraft, 55,000 sailors and 3,000 officers. The goal was to demonstrate U.S. sea power and show Japan and the rest of world that the country was interested in and ready to defend the Pacific. Today the U.S. Navy has over 400,000 active personnel (nearly one-fifth women), 490 ships, 41 aircraft carriers, nearly 4,000 aircraft, and 135 bases in the U.S. and abroad. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

While researching a story about a (fictional) 1910 poetry class at the Bronx branch of the Henry Street Settlement, I remembered the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage that I used to pass when, as a child in the 1950s, I rode the bus to Fordham Road. The simple, white house had a raven painted outside one window. As I looked into the background of the cottage for the short story, I discovered that Poe did not actually write “The Raven” while living there. He wrote that poem earlier, when he lived in Manhattan. However, during the years (1846-1849) that he, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria, lived at the house, Poe wrote “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume.” They loved the small, rustic place, of which a friend wrote, “The cottage had an air of taste and gentility… So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never saw.” The Bronx was still quite rural at the time and the family is said to have kept songbirds in cages on the porch. Virginia died there of tuberculosis in 1847 in her first-floor bedroom, and Poe died in 1849 while visiting Baltimore. Maria moved out shortly thereafter. Poe Cottage was recognized as a landmark in the 1960s. Presumably (I have not been back to look), fact checkers at the Bronx Historical Society have removed the raven, nevermore to be seen at the cottage window. Read more about my SHORT STORIES and interesting background details in BEHIND THE STORY.