Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
Interesting history tidbits I’ve learned while researching my novels and short stories
The city of was Topeka incorporated in 1857, benefitting at first from the Oregon Trail, which crossed the Kansas River there, and later from the railroads when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad system was established in 1878. After a decade of conflict between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces, the Kansas territory was admitted to the Union in 1861 as the 34th state with Topeka as its capital. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
The first successful school desegregation court order happened 23 years before Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. On January 5, 1931 in San Diego, California, Lemon Grove Grammar School principal Jerome Green, acting under instructions from school trustees, turned away Mexican children. In the resulting lawsuit (Roberto Alvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District), the Superior Court of San Diego County ruled that building a separate school for the children of 50 Mexican families (said to be “backward and deficient” and in need of special Americanization education) violated CA laws because ethnic Mexicans were considered white under the state’s Education Code (which did allow segregating Oriental, Negro, and Indian children). Read more about this 1931 San Diego case as well as the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Topeka ruling in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In the last century, San Diego’s Italian immigrant population was small compared to other cities, but the “Italian Colony” (often called “Little Italy” elsewhere) was tight-knit and insular. Many became fisherman, especially hauling in tuna, although their livelihood was threatened when the U.S. imported tuna from other locations, such as Japan, and canned it for domestic consumption. Read more about poor labor conditions in the tuna industry in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
Marshall Field & Company, a Chicago landmark built 1891-1892, boasted lavish restaurants. The Narcissus Tea Room for women was named for a bronze statue atop a huge center fountain. Chicken croquettes cost 45¢. The Men’s Grill, where no women were allowed, featured heavy walnut furniture and table-cloth free tables. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see (NOVELS).
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that declared separate public schools for black and white students to be unequal and hence unconstitutional. The unanimous decision paved the way for subsequent civil rights legislation. Read more about race relations in Topeka and elsewhere 50-100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In 1910, there were only two Chinese Americans listed in the Las Vegas census. One immigrated in 1878, the other in 1880. Both owned laundries and lived on the same street. A somewhat larger Chinese community lived in outlying Clark County, mainly single males or men with wives left behind in China due to racist immigration restrictions in the U.S. Read more about the life of a lonely Chinese American during this period in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Topeka’s “Smoky Row,” set among the commercial buildings of lower Kansas Avenue, was the site of pool halls, liquor joints, and brothels. This disreputable area was a colorful part of Topeka’s turn-of-the-century prohibition history. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, detailing the horrors of the Chicago meat-packing industry, was first published in serial form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. Sinclair spent seven weeks as an undercover worker at a plant to research the story. What he revealed was so repulsive that U.S. meat consumption fell by half. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
On July 4th, read these novels to discover what America has historically meant to immigrants. In A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve., Meinhardt Raabe flees Nazi persecution in search of a dignified life https://amzn.to/2LqpAu7. In On the Shore, Shmuel Levinson is willing to fight the Great War for the country that welcomed his family www.vineleavespress.com/on-the-shore-by-ann-s-epstein.html. In Tazia and Gemma, Tazia Gatti seeks a life of greater opportunity for her daughter www.vineleavespress.com/tazia-and-gemma-by-ann-s-epstein.html. Meinhardt’s LIFE, Shmuel’s LIBERTY, and Tazia’s PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Celebrate their unique lives and our shared ideals. Read more in NOVELS.
In the 19th century, inventors mechanized the laundry process with hand-operated washing machines. Most involved turning a handle to move paddles inside a tub that sat on legs with a hand-operated mangle on top. Some used an electrically powered agitator to replace hand rubbing against a washboard. Later, mangles were also electrically powered. Laundry drying, like washing, also became mechanized with spinning perforated tubs that blew heated air rather than water. Read more about toiling in a Chinese laundry 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
