Category: Learn History Through Fiction

Before Margaret Hamilton played Elvira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, she was a kindergarten teacher and acted in children’s theater. She got the part when another actress refused to wear makeup that would cause her to appear ugly. Hamilton worried about the effect that her monstrous film role had on children because, in real life, she loved them and gave to charitable organizations benefitting them. Read more about the movie and Margaret Hamilton in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Pain management for women in labor became available in the late 1800s, first in hospitals and later to midwives. A combination of morphine and scopolamine called “twilight sleep,” it relieved pain and induced forgetfulness. Unfortunately, heavily medicated women had trouble pushing, increasing the need for forceps deliveries and C-sections. Babies were born sleepy, had trouble breathing, and often needed resuscitation. Read more about childbirth 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Aphorisms, pithy observations that contains a general truth, are a favorite form of literary utterance. Here are several I’ve used in my writing, some researched, others invented by me. Can you tell which is which? To undo a problem, you must unthink what caused it. // Morals are always better on a full belly. // You can’t ripen a watermelon in your armpit. // All sunshine makes a desert. // The learned live in the past; the learners in the future. // The key to happiness is a bad memory and a good drink. // Troublemakers are like farmers. They turn up the earth so something new can be planted. // Stubbornness comes from a weak will and a strong won’t. Read more real and invented aphorisms in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court 65 years ago today. Before the 1954 desegregation case, Topeka’s black and white schools were already substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, & teacher qualifications. Unlike other districts, Topeka Schools even paid the cost of busing. However, Chief Justice Earl Warren noted in his unanimous decision that despite these comparable “tangible” factors, going to segregated schools had adverse “psychological” effects on black children. “To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. . . . A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. . . . We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.” Read more about race relations in Topeka 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In 1964, the Beatles went on a concert tour to promote their movie, A Hard Day’s Night. The movie’s title came from a comment by Ringo, who said, “We went to do a job, and we’d worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, ‘It’s been a hard day . . .’ and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, ‘. . . night!’” The movie premiered at the Pavilion Theater in London on July 6, 1964, the night before Ringo’s 24th birthday. Read more about the Beatles and Ringo in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

During World War I, anti-German sentiment in the United States ran to extremes that resulted in many name changes. The town of Berlin, Michigan was renamed Marne (after French soldiers who fought there), and Berlin, Ohio reverted to its original name of Fort Laramie. In Chicago, Lubeck, Frankfort, and Hamburg Streets were renamed Dickens, Charleston, and Shakespeare Streets. In New Orleans, Berlin Street was renamed in honor of General Pershing, head of the American Expeditionary Force. In New York, Brooklyn’s Hamburg Avenue was altered to Wilson Avenue. In the most absurd examples, words of German origin were also temporarily changed. Thus, German measles (rubella) became “liberty measles,” sauerkraut was dubbed “liberty cabbage,” hamburgers were renamed “liberty sandwiches,” and dachshunds were called “liberty pups.” Read more about World War I and U.S. immigrants in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

The Kansas State Capitol Building in Topeka is one of the largest in the U.S. The cornerstone was laid in 1866, and construction was completed 37 years later at cost of $3,200,588.92 ($83 million today). Materials include native Kansas wild cherry wood; marble from Belgium, Italy, France, and Tennessee; Mexican onyx; and local copper hammered by Italian artisans. The 1923 hand-operated elevator is one of the few still in use. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Men’s fashion, like women’s, responded to the Depression. Bright colors were replaced by plaids and tweeds in gray, brown, and dark green. Their somberness was partly countered by wide neckties in bold patterns such as stripes, polka dots, and geometric shapes. Male vanity still ruled. A style designed for the Prince of Wales, with padded shoulders and a nipped waist, was adopted by Hollywood stars such as Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, and Gary Cooper, and soon copied by the public. Read more about fashion trends in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the late 19th and early 20th century, U.S. laundry labor was heavily identified with Chinese Americans. Discrimination, lack of English, and lack of capital kept them out of other careers. Around 1900, one in four ethnic Chinese men in the U.S. worked in a laundry, typically 10-16 hours a day. Read more about Chinese laundry workers and anti-Chinese discrimination in the early 1900s in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Adolf Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun (who became his wife less than two days before they committed suicide by cyanide) came from a respectable Bavarian Catholic family, daughter of a school teacher and traditional housewife. She met Hitler when she was 17 and he was 40, and described him to a friend as a “gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache, light-colored English overcoat, and carrying a big felt hat.” When Braun became Hitler’s companion two years later, she kept up habits he criticized including smoking, sunbathing in the nude, and wearing makeup made of animal products (Hitler was a vegetarian). Disapproving Nazi party officials referred to her as “The Fuhrer’s Whore.” Braun pampered her two Scottish Terriers, named Negus and Stasi, who she featured in home movies. She was an avid photographer who did her own dark room processing, and took many of the pictures and films of Hitler that survived the war. Read more about Nazi Germany and Hitler’s inner circle in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).