Tag: history

The Cooper’s Wife Is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary by Joan Hoff, Marian Yeates

The Cooper’s Wife Is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary by Joan Hoff, Marian Yeates

“Are you a witch, are you a fairy, are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”

In March 1895, after walking the fabled “fairy fort” of Kylnagranagh Hill in Tipperary County Ireland, Michael Cleary’s wife, Bridget Boland Cleary, returned home ill with a fever and headache. Michael Cleary thought she was exhibiting signs of fairy abduction. And he was determined to get her back.

What happened next highlighted the clash of paganism and Catholicism, and the ushering out of old superstitions to make way for the modern era. After days of abuse, he eventually burned Bridget until she died because he believed she had been replaced by a fairy.

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“… they continued to feed her herbs and to shake, slap, and swing her while she ‘screamed horrible’ and they shouted: ‘Away with you. Come back, Bridget Boland, in the name of God.'” pg 191

The Cooper’s Wife is Missing gives nearly complete context of Ireland in this era and the political and social pressures during the time period.

The crime was shocking in its brutality but also the stated motive. The press had a field day. It was 1895, the world was on the brink was technological, social and political change. And yet, they wrote, these rural Irish peasants still believed in fairies or practiced witchcraft. (Depending on which publication you chose to read.)

And it wasn’t just perpetrated by Michael Cleary. Bridget’s own family and neighbors participated in the “fairy trial” that led to her death. Nine people were found guilty at varying levels of culpability for the crime.

“As the police led him away, he shouted, ‘I am innocent.’ Cleary maintained it was not his wife he burned but a fairy.” pg 361

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The Cooper’s Wife is Missing jumps back and forth, giving the reader the history of Ireland, fairy lore and what historians believe happened to Bridget Cleary. That was my only complaint with this read, some of the story repeats itself, especially during the testimony at the trials.

But, overall, highly recommended for fans of true crime and history. This book has both of those in spades.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s the History Guy episode I wrote about Bridget Cleary:

The Chinatown War: Chinese Los Angeles and the Massacre of 1871 by Scott Zesch

The Chinatown War: Chinese Los Angeles and the Massacre of 1871 by Scott Zesch

The Chinatown War is an outstanding examination of a little remembered event in Los Angeles history. One terrible night in 1871, racial tension boiled over in what was later labeled “the Chinese Massacre” and what the people of Los Angeles at the time called “Black Tuesday” or “the night of horrors”.

Scholars can’t even agree on how many people were murdered that night in October 1871. Scott Zesch, the author of The Chinatown War, believes it was around 18.

“Most Angelenos do not even know what happened that night, for the city’s fathers decided to put the incident behind them shortly after it occurred, and the victims were not people of consequence. They were ordinary immigrants whose American dream ended in a nightmare.” prologue

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Public opinion was driven by resentment and distrust of Chinese immigrants. While often portrayed as a working class complaint over jobs, the hatred towards the Chinese was a thinly veiled racism against a people who were hated largely because their ways and culture were different.

“Contrary to popular belief, the earliest Chinese immigrants to America did not come to build the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. Instead, it was the California Gold Rush of 1849 that brought the first large wave of Chinese to the West Coast.” pg 6

I learned so much from this book.

For example, Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles were often members of social groups called huiguan – commonly called “companies” in the newspapers of the time, although that translation is not exactly correct. Huiguan were social groups formed to help Chinese immigrants in their new lives in America. Members would sign up for the huiguan based on the location they immigrated from in China.

Also, though it is now one of the most populous cities in the U.S., in 1871 Los Angeles only had a population of around 6,000 people. Unfortunately, this massacre is one of the events that brought Los Angeles to the attention of the rest of the world.

“One of the city’s early historians, Charles Dwight Willard, characterized Los Angeles as ‘undoubtedly the toughest town of the entire nation’ during the 1850s and 1860s. He claimed that it had a larger percentage of miscreants than any other American city and, for its size, also had the highest number of fights, murders, and robberies.” pg 23

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Policing this rough and tumble western town wasn’t easy. This was compounded by the fact that the police department was too small.

Los Angeles’s early police department was too small, and was staffed by men too inexperienced or indifferent to their responsibilities, to be very effective in keeping order.” pg 53

The riot itself is difficult to read about, even now that nearly 150 years have passed since that night. Innocent people were dragged from their homes, brutalized and murdered.

“One eyewitness reported that the ‘stark, staring corpses hung ghastly in the moonlight,’ while ‘others, mutilated, torn and crushed, lay in our streets.'” pg 150

Not all of the citizens of Los Angeles participated in the massacre. Some tried to shame the mob into stopping or hid the terrified Chinese in their own homes to protect them.

“Baldwin quickly realized that the crowd’s sentiment was very much against him. As he said later, ‘I might as well have spoken to a cyclone.'” pg 145

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A man named William H. Gray concealed several people in his home. In the years following the massacre, he received anonymous gifts in thanks for his actions that night.

Zesch examines the whole incident from the beginning to the trials following and how it affected (or didn’t) Los Angeles afterwards. His research and scholarship really is astonishing. He gives context and history not only of the city but also of the Chinese immigrant community at that time.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn about an event in Los Angeles history that should never be forgotten.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s the History Guy episode I wrote about this event:

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was a complicated lady. She was politically active, a progressive thinker, had an atrocious gambling habit that kept her perpetually in debt and suffered from an unfortunate, sometimes unhappy, marriage.

Did I mention she lived in the late 1700 and early 1800s?

“There was enough popular participation to make politics as big a national obsession as sport, if not bigger. The emergence of national newspapers turned politicians into celebrities.” pg 18 ebook.

And one of the brightest stars among them, was the Duchess of Devonshire.

“This was the age of oligarch politics, when the great landowning families enjoyed unchallenged pre-eminence in government. While the Lords sat in the chamber known as the Upper House, or the House of Lords, their younger brothers, sons, and nephews filled up most of the Lower House, known as the House of Commons.” pgs 22-23.

It wasn’t a particularly great age for democracy or for modern thought.

“Georgiana’s methods were too modern for eighteenth-century society. She was never allowed to canvass openly in London again, nor did other aristocratic women imitate her example. It would be another hundred years before women once more ventured boldly into street politics as Georgiana had not been afraid to do in 1784.”pgs 178-179, ebook

1784!

“She felt that she had the same qualities as a man; it was simply her sex, not her capability, which barred her from taking part in politics.” pg 346.

Imagine that. 🙂

The leaders of the Whig party, Georgiana’s political friends, were brilliant but flawed.

Eighteenth-century England was full of wits, connoisseurs, orators, historians, drinkers, gamblers, rakes, and pranksters, but only (Charles James) Fox embodied all these things.” pg 75, ebook.

I confess, though this book has extraordinary detail and research about Georgiana’s political activities, I found her personal life far more fascinating.

Her marriage may have been doomed from the start: “The Duke did not know how to be romantic; never having experienced tenderness himself he was incapable of showing it to Georgiana. He did not mean to hurt her, but there was a nine-year age difference between them and a gulf of misunderstanding and misplaced expectations.” pg 49, ebook.

There was another woman, who may or may not have been both Georgiana and the Duke of Devonshire’s lover. There were multiple handsome men who entered and exited Georgiana’s life.

She even had an illegitimate child with one of them.

A fascinating biography of an extraordinary lady – highly recommended.

Video guest post: Hayreddin Barbarossa, The King of Pirates

Here’s another entry in the collaboration between the Help Desk and, my friend, The History Guy.
He has a degree in history. He likes history. And if you like history too, this is the video for you!

 

 

Thanks for watching and reading!

Video guest post: The Beast of Gévaudan by The History Guy

Here’s another entry in the collaboration between the Help Desk and, my friend, The History Guy.

He has a degree in history. He likes history. And if you like history too, this is the video for you!

It killed over 100 people. What was it? Enjoy the curious history of The Beast of Gévaudan.

As always, thanks for reading.

Trials of the Earth: The True Story of a Pioneer Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton

Trials of the Earth: The True Story of a Pioneer Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton
trials of the earth

Trials of the Earth is Mary Mann Hamilton’s memoir about her hardscrabble life in America during the late 1800’s.

She uses period speech to illuminate a life of struggle and hard work. If certain anachronistic and racially insensitive terms bother you, especially the casual use of the N-word, you may want to chose another memoir. It was shocking but I kept reminding myself that Mary was a product of her times.

On top of the constant struggle of putting food on the table and keeping a roof over her head, it seems like she was perpetually pregnant and her husband was an alcoholic.

But Mary lived up to the challenges, raised and buried children, nursed her husband through his hangovers and illnesses- she was a survivor. That is mainly what Trials of the Earth was to me- a survival story.

“Nevertheless, this is not a book of repining; it is a tale simply told of what one woman has lived through in the Mississippi Delta. I say ‘lived through’ because at times this history reads like a record of the extreme limits of human endurance.” loc 75, introduction

So many of the modern conveniences that we take for granted didn’t exist. Mary moved around a lot and notes with relief every time her husband manages to install a pump in her new house so that she didn’t have to haul water from the river.

Mary’s relationship with her husband, Frank, isn’t a fair deal. She is a very young woman when she gets married and from the start he’s controlling- telling her what they will eat and what friends they will have. He even tells her what books she can read.

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That would have been the last straw for me. But again, she was a woman of her times.

“To me he seemed like a man that had taken a silly child to raise rather than a wife. … As time went on I found there were plenty other things I didn’t know, too. The first thing I found out was that he drank.” loc 226, ebook.

In addition to the inequality in their relationship, Frank is from England and has a secret past. He won’t tell Mary, his own wife, his real name or talk about his circumstances or the family he left behind. But, Mary doesn’t let it bother her too much. I suppose she was too busy with everything else they had going on. That lack of trust would have driven me bonkers.

Not that she felt like anything was wrong with their relationship. “Women can stand more work, more trouble, and more religion than men.” loc 528, ebook. She accepted the hardships because she knew that she could. I admire her gumption but I also felt sad for her too. I felt sad because she didn’t have the option to live any other sort of life.

Frank is always talking about the sin of Eve and all the baggage that comes with it to Mary. There is a lot of mansplaining that goes on too. Parts of this book were infuriating to me.

Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs that read like historical fiction. Ability to tolerate the bleak role that women occupied in society in the late 1800’s is a must.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for a free advance reader’s copy of this book. Reminder: some of the quotations in this review may change in the final printed copy.

Thanks for reading!

Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor

Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor
joanofarc

The review that I’m about to give Joan of Arc: A History has nothing to do with the historical accuracy of the book. On the contrary, I found this to be an extraordinarily well researched and cited biography.

Unfortunately, that mega-effort did not lend itself to a readable or enjoyable book.

The general idea behind Joan of Arc is sound. Helen Castor wanted to present Joan’s story in context with an extended history of France for years before and after her appearance on the world stage.

In that way, she thought that the legend of the woman could be separated away from the reality. The reader could appreciate the main players, the attitude towards spiritual visions, the belief of divine will in war and the monarchy, and capture the overall general flavor of the time period.

It was a good premise, but it just didn’t work. Maybe this was a doctoral thesis that Castor tweaked a bit and published? It reads like that.

Why is it that experts on topics are rarely able to translate that interest and depth of knowledge into stories that the general public would enjoy? I love medieval history, especially the backgrounds of the handful of female figures who made it into print during that period. This should have been right up my alley.

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Joan of Arc: A History read like a school textbook- the dull kind.

Actually, it reminded me of translating Livy’s History of Rome from Latin into English during college. It should have been fascinating stuff as he was writing about a particularly exciting period in Roman history when Hannibal was crossing the Alps to invade. But, sadly, Livy got caught up in listing endless details, particularly the size and shape of the elephants. Through description after description, the pace of Hannibal’s army slowed to a trickle and then it turned into a snooze-fest.

That also happened in this book.

If you enjoy scholarly research to the point that you just have to have it and nothing else will do, read this book. If you want history to come alive and punch you in the face, pick up something (anything really) by Margaret George or Bernard Cornwell.

I particularly liked The Memoirs of Cleopatra or The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers. George may not have the exacting research standards of this biography, but her historical fictions are informative in addition to a delight to read.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads. Thanks for reading!

Video guest post: George Washington’s Wooden Teeth by The History Guy

Another entry in the guest series collaboration between The Help Desk and The History Guy.

Watch this fascinating video to learn about George Washington’s teeth. I didn’t know most of this! And, as always, thanks for reading.

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

Though a bit rambling at times, The Power of Myth is a great introductory text on archetypes found within all world mythologies from almost every time period.

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In it, Joseph Campbell explains why the underlying stories are the same from all over the world and what they mean in both cultural, personal, and world contexts.

He breaks down some of the major archetypes like the sacrificed god and resurrection, virgin births, goddesses, trees, snakes, and more. As someone who has studied tarot and The Tree of Life extensively, I found it to be an illumination.

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I particularly liked learning about the mythology of Star Wars. With the release of the new film, that particular series is back in the top of the pop culture charts. I think that The Power of Myth explains why it has such enduring appeal.

If you liked The Power of Myth, you may want to try Hero with a Thousand Faces or Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, both of which are also by Joseph Campbell.

Or pick up any of the many books about mythology from any country you’d like. If you immerse yourself in enough of the stories, you will pick up on the reoccurring patterns yourself.

I believe that one of the many purposes of mythology, beyond its entertainment value, is to teach us about what we have in common with each other, and also, the hidden dimensions of ourselves.

As the doorway to the Delphic Oracle said, “Know Thyself.” And, really, that is the greatest power there is. Mythology helps you do that.

Thanks for reading!