Category Archives: History

Sep1

PART IV: JORDAN JULY 2018

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PART IV: JORDAN JULY 2018

ROMAN AMPHITHEATER

It was built in the 2nd Century AD during the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61), it was cut into the northern side of the neighboring hillside. Built on three tiers (for the elite, the military and the general population), the theater had a seating capacity of 6,000. Today, it is sometimes used for summer concerts.

FORUM

The row of columns in front of the Roman Theater is what is left of the forum or public square built by the Romans. it was built in 190 a.D.; the fourth side of the structure was flanked by the Seil Amman stream which lies underneath the street.

ODEON

The Odeon was built in the 2nd century A.D. and is located on the eastern side of the Forum. It has a seating capacity of 500.

HASHEMITE PLAZA

The Plaza is named after the Hashemites, royal family of Jordan, and is the site of cultural events. It is flanked by the Roman Amphitheater, the Odeon and the Nymphaeum fountain.

FOLKLORE MUSEUM AND MUSEUM OF POPULAR TRADITIONS

The museum highlights traditional Jordanian life. The displays include tools, basketry, musical instruments, looms, traditional Palestinian dress among other artifacts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Walker, Jenny and Clammer, Paul. Lonely Planet, Jordan.

www.lonelyplanet.com

South, Coleman and Newsome, Joel. Cultures of the World, Jordan.

 

 

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Nov4

The Grand Mosque of Paris

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The Grand Mosque of Paris

Just Loved Reading:

The Grand Mosque of Paris

MG/Non-Fiction

DeSaix, Deborah Durland and Ruelle, Karen Gray. The Grand Mosque of Paris. New York: Holiday House, 2009.

The Grand Mosque of Paris was a gift from the French government to the Muslim population of France in honor of the half million Muslims from their French colonies who fought for France during World War I.

After the Nazi occupation of their country, French Jews were in danger of arrest and deportation. The Grand Mosque, located on the Left Bank,  became a place of refuge and temporary escape for Jewish men, women and children, Allied military and prisoner of war escapees. Many of them stopped at the mosque for only a few hours or a few days and then continued their journey out of Paris. It was too dangerous for most of them to do otherwise.

The Nazis and the occupied French Vichy government suspected that Jews and others were hiding at the mosque. Its rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, issued Certificates of Conversion and Muslim birth certificates to them at great danger to him and the Muslims living in the mosque’s apartments.The rector issued these false identification papers whenever possible. Someone (possibly Si Kaddour Benghabrit) even went so far as to carve the name of one man’s grandfather on a blank tombstone.

During the 1930s and 1940s, most of the resident Muslims at the mosque were Kabyle or Berber emigres from Kabylia in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria  and it was hard to discern any physical difference between the Jews and Muslims from that region. Religious differences aside, there were also cultural similarities that bonded them.

Some were also members of the Resistance.

The Jews and the escapees from the war or prisoner-of-war camps went through a sub-basement, tunnels, underground rivers and passageways under the mosque. A small handful stayed in the mosque especially children and women. The children were often too young to know how to escape and blended with the families of the handful of people who lived and worked inside of the monastery.

While some of the Kabyle and Berbers were members of the Resistance, many were workers. They used peniches or barges to carry people fleeing from the Nazis to safety along with their cargoes of large vessels of wine.

WHY I LOVED READING THIS BOOK:

Historians tell us that history repeats itself. Once, people of two different religions that are now at war with each other once had a history of coöperation and respect. During the occupation of France during World War II, Muslims helped Jews escape arrest and deportation to concentration camps at great peril to their own lives.

The authors thoroughly researched the book as much as they could but the main players are all dead and little authentic documentation exists. Much of the story about these courageous people remains unfortunately lost.

However, in 1990, filmmaker Derri Berkani, released the film, Une Resistance Oubliee: La Mosque which tells the story of the Grand Mosque of Paris during WWII.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosbottom, Ronald C. When Paris Went Dark, The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944. NY: Little, Brown, 2015.

  https://www.quora.com/How-was-French-life-in-Paris-under-the-Nazi-occupation
 
 Cahill, Susan and Ranoux, Marion. The Streets of Paris: A Guide to the City of Light   Following in the Footsteps of Famous Parisians. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/movies/how-a-paris-mosque-sheltered-jews-in-the-holocaust.html
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lft2t3zTm8 (You can view the film, Une Resistance Oubliee: La Mosque)
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Apr10

JUST LOVED READING: The Royal Diaries: Mary, Queen of Scots

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JUST LOVED READING: The Royal Diaries: Mary, Queen of Scots

Just Loved Reading:

The Royal Diaries: Mary, Queen of Scots

Middle Grade Novel

Lasky, Kathryn. The Royal Diaries: Mary, Queen of Scots, Queen without a Country. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2002

 

“I am a princess. All girls are; even if they live in tiny old attics, even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty or smart or young, they’re still princesses.”

 

Mary Stuart was crowned Queen of Scots when she was nine months old after the death of her father King James V.  When she was 5, political conflicts forced her to leave her mother and flee Scotland. Mary went to live in the royal court of King Henry and Queen Catherine de Medici of France.  In order for Scotland to forge an alliance with France (and send a message to England), the powers-that-be betrothed Mary to Francis, the sickly son of Henry and the treacherous Queen Catherine de Medici.

Mary’s journal begins in 1553 when she is 11 years old and ends a year later.

The diary relates a year in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots a year packed with parties, visits to castles, playing with her Ladies-in-Waiting (all four of whom are also named Mary) and her betrothed, Francis, academic and music lessons and court intrigue. She muses about marriage to Francis and her attraction to her royal Scots guardsman. Mary is smart, athletic and loves the arts. She is also impulsive and we get a hint of the trait which will ultimately lead to her demise at the hands of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.

WHY I LOVED READING THIS BOOK:

      The story of Mary Queen of Scots takes place during two important historical periods: the Renaissance and the Reformation. Both movements influence Mary’s life and thoughts as she grows into womanhood. A devout Catholic, she becomes aware of the influence John Knox and the Protestant Reformation has on her native Scotland. She muses if she will exercise tolerance of religious dissent when she returns to her native land. Yes she tells herself but we now know only time will tell.

Living in the French royal court affords Mary many of the refinements of the arts: music lessons, poetry and more. She is not unaware of this when she reflects that in Spain none of these refinements are found in its royal court. Indeed, the Spanish seem obsessed with the Inquisition and nothing else she writes in her diary. Mary gives credit to Queen Catherine for bringing many of the arts from Italy.

We will never know what the real Mary Stuart thought and felt at the age of eleven but the Royal Diaries gives us an idea especially since history tells us how the rest of her life transpires.

FOR FURTHER READING:

https://www.scotland.org

https://www.visitscotland.com

www.localhistories.org/scotland.html

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/history-scotland

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Dec12

An Amazing Quilter

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An Amazing Quilter

An Amazing Amish Quilter

I first visited Smicksburg, Pennsylvania on the last day of summer 2016. Smicksburg is a small rural town where a small arts and crafts community coexists with the Amish and other rural folks. The shops are fun to visit: pottery, antiques, dried flowers, yarn and wool, country gifts and a small Heritage museum. Other shops flourish on the periphery of Smicksburg and include an Amish furniture shop, antiques, a country restaurant, a chocolate shop (with more than just chocolate).

I wrote about that first trip (and the second trip) but I didn’t mention the Amish farm that my friend and I passed. We saw the sign by the side of the road: “Quilt repairs.”

I thought about the handmade basket pattern quilt I bought at the annual antiques show in a mall 18 to 20 years ago (Monroeville Mall, Monroeville, PA). Some of the material had frayed so I put it away hoping to repair it one day.

I knew it would be expensive to fix and finding someone who repairs quilts is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I tried. The closest quilt “repairer” that I had found was a five-hour drive away from Pittsburgh.

On the second rip to Smicksburg, I brought it along thinking I would get an estimate. The fabric had deteriorated even more; in fact, so had the cotton batting between the quilt top and the backing. We stopped at the quilt shop which displayed some of the most beautiful quilts I have ever seen in many different colors and patterns including crazy, log cabin, postage stamp (my favorite) and more.

She has her share of customers, too.

Effie greeted us and explained how long it would take and how much and that cotton doesn’t last. The Amish have switched to cotton blends. So I decided right there and then that I would leave the quilt for Effie to repair. That was in October. She had two other quilts ahead of mine to work on so it would take as until the Christmas holidays or even early January before she could finish it. I plucked down a deposit and wrote my name and address in her guest book.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Effie wrote to me that she had finished the quilt.  I picked it up this Saturday, December 10th (again spending the day in Smicksburg browsing and shopping).

Effie is an amazing artist;  the quilt is like new. Not only are the baskets replaced in their original colors (with fresh fabric) but the quilted background was redone like the original.  Effie’s mother told us that Effie used fabric that belonged to her grandmother to repair the baskets that had deteriorated (some of the baskets were in good condition).

We chatted with Effie and her mother for a while. I had never really communicated with the Amish before but it’s no different from speaking to anyone else.  (I once spoke to an Amish buggy driver in Lancaster.) Her mother told us that Effie was named after a beloved aunt.

Effie works by hand, without the benefit of electricity (or running water), a computer to store her patterns and database of customers, or a cell phone to text that the quilt is ready or that she’s running a special for the holidays. We communicated by letter or face-to-face.Their way of life reminds me of the seven months I spent in my father’s village in Cyprus: no running water, electricity, etc.

And the Amish are hardy. In October, Effie and her mother greeted us walking barefoot on the hard ground. Neither wore a coat yesterday and it was not a warm day.

Yesterday, I felt like I was going through a spiritual experience fixing my heirloom quilt!

A Brief History of Quilting

Quilting was first developed in Europe during the Crusades when European soldiers discovered that Turks wore several layers of fabric quilted together under their armor.

In other parts of the world, (China, North Africa, the Middle East, and northern Europe), clothing sometimes featured patchwork stitching. In ancient China, silk was so expensive that when an article of clothing wore out, the silk was cut into pieces and sewn into patchwork clothing. Today, quilting is primarily used on bedspreads, wall hangings, place mats and the like.

A quilt is composed of a top which is made of pieces of fabric cut and sewn into a pattern. Cotton (or polyester or wool) batting is layered between the quilted top and the backing. The three layers are pinned together, the quilted design marked on the top piece and quilted by hand or by machine. The outer edges of the quilt are turned under and sewn with binding.

By the time the early colonists arrived in the New World, quilting was a common way of sewing bedding and clothing. However, only the wealthy owned them. Fabrics were imported from France and England and expensive for the average colonial family.

By the early 19th century, American manufacturing cheaply produced cotton fabrics in various colors and patterns and designs evolved over time: the medallion, crazy pattern, mosaic, and Baltimore Album or Friendship design among others.

In 1972, the Whitney Museum of American art celebrated the history of American quilts with the exhibit, “Abstract Design in American Quilts.” The Bicentennial Celebrations and the growing feminist movement influenced the theme of the exhibit which featured vintage Amish quilts. The exhibit was a success with the public.

Quilts not only became popular to make and/or own, but vintage quilts became quite collectible.

www.britannica.com 

Teague, Ken. Growing Up in Ancient China.  Troll Associates, Eagle Books, 1994.

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Oct25

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Annis Boudinot Stockton

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Annis Boudinot Stockton
Annis Boudinot Stockton

Annis Boudinot Stockton

Annis Boudinot Stockton was born in Darby, Pennsylvania between 1733 and  1736 to a wealthy family, descendants of French Huguenots who came to America in 1685 after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. She was the first in her family born in North America. The family later moved to the Princeton area of New Jersey where she learned to read and write unlike many women of her generation and interacted with the intellectuals of the town.

She married Richard Stockton in 1757 and they lived in Morven, the Stockton estate. As a mother of six children, she became an advocate for education after she read “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792).

Richard Stockton was a lawyer and a representative for the College of New Jersey and the American colonies. In June 1776 he sided with the patriots who elected him to the First Continental Congress. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

During the Revolutionary War, British General Cornwallis marched through New Jersey. Annis and her family left their home in Princeton and found refuge in the home of friends in Monmouth County. The British army set up headquarters at Morven, burning the Stockton library and furniture and trashing the estate but they soon found Annis and her family and imprisoned Richard.  His imprisonment left him weak and sick. Annis nursed him until his death in February 1781.

Annis B. Stockton was primarily a poet. Her poems celebrated the Battle of Bunker Hill, the fall of General Richard Montgomery at Quebec and the “deeds” of George Washington. Washington was effusive in his gratitude of her praise. She also wrote about other events during the Revolution, Congress, marriage, and friendship. She wrote her poems in a neoclassical style and compiled into a copybook.

 

ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:

http://www.jerseyhistory.org/findingaid.php?aid=1221

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.New York: Random House, 2004

 

MATERIALS:

2 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 inch white paper like bond paper or drawing paper

1 sheet of 8 ½ x 11 inch construction paper any color but preferably a light color

Black felt-tip marker

Pencil/eraser

Ruler

PROJECT:

  • Fold the sheets of white drawing or bond paper in half along the width.
  • Fold the construction paper in half along the width. This will be the cover of the book.
  • Open up all the folded pages. Place the cover sheet face down and draw a thin line of glue along the center fold.
  • Place one of the white sheets over the cover sheet aligning the center folds and press. Do the same for this sheet and draw a thin line of glue along its center fold.
  • Place the second sheet of drawing or bond paper on top of the first one. Align the center folds and press. Allow the glue to dry
  • Fold the papers so that the book now measures 5 ½ x 18 ½ inches. Place the cover on the outside. Cut and paste the clip art sites listed below into your browser to help you design the cover and the inside pages. Like Mercy Otis Warren and other colonial women, write in your diary every day recording the important and everyday events of your life.
  • (Optional) Free Clip Art:
VARIATION: Use the previous colonial crafts projects to enhance your country diary. Decorate the cover with a quill paper design and try writing in it with the homemade pen and ink.
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Oct18

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mary Katherine Goddard

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mary Katherine Goddard
Mary Katherine Goddard

Mary Katherine Goddard

Mary Katherine Goddard was born in New London, Connecticut in 1783. She and her widowed mother moved to Providence Rhode Island where her brother William operated printing business. They helped him in his business but after her brother moved to Philadelphia, they wrote and edited the Providence Gazette and later West’s Almanack.

In 1768, they joined William in Philadelphia and Mary Katherine, her mother and William printed the Pennsylvania Chronicle until August 1773 when William moved to Baltimore.  Mary Katherine sold the Philadelphia business and true to form, followed him to Baltimore. She became the sole proprietor of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser.

During the American Revolution, the Maryland Journal was one of the most circulated in the colonies. To keep the paper financially afloat, Mary Kate offered bookbinding services and sold stationery and dry goods. Later, she accepted payment in kind when subscribers could no longer afford to buy the paper.

She was one of the first to write about the Battle of Lexington and Concord realizing that it was important to get the news out quickly. Relying on eyewitness accounts, letters and the news from other towns, she printed and sold the paper on the same day she received the information.

On July 4, 1776, fifty-six men met in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. By August of that year all the patriot leaders had signed the document but no printer had the courage to print it. It was an act of treason and King George would hang anyone guilty of treason.

In December of 1776, the British marched into Philadelphia forcing the patriot leaders to flee south to Baltimore, Maryland. They carried with them a handful of written copies of the Declaration of Independence and they needed a printer.

Mary Katherine agreed to print it and proudly printed her name at the bottom of the document. She also paid the post riders to deliver it to the rest of the colonies.

Her accomplishments didn’t stop there. In August 1775, Mary Katherine became the first woman in America to hold the office of Postmistress of Baltimore and on January 18, 1777, Congress authorized her to print the first official issue of the Declaration of Independence. She died August 12, 1816.

 

Additional Bibliography:

www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Katherine-Goddard

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution, New York: Random House, 2004

 

 

MATERIALS FOR THE PEN:

Feather

Scissors or utility knife

Fine sand paper

 

PROJECT:

  1. Cut the tip of the feather with scissors or a utility knife (if using the knife, ask an adult to help you). Make sure the cut is clean. If it isn’t, work the tip back and forth on the sand paper.
  2. Remove the feathers. Now make the ink.

 

MATERIALS FOR THE INK:

Black, brown or blue gouache paint

Distilled water

Small glass jar

Popsicle stick

Bond paper

 

          PROJECT:

  1. Squeeze a small amount of paint in the bottom of the jar.
  2. Add a small amount of water and mix using the popsicle stick. Make sure the ink is the consistency of pancake batter.
  3. Dip the quill pen into the ink and begin writing! Use the quill and ink to write in your diary.

 

 

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Oct11

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Judith Sargent Stevens Murray
Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

Judith Sargent Stevens Murray born into a wealthy Congregationalist home. At the age of 18, she married John Stevens, the son of a prominent Gloucester, Massachusetts family. When Judith’s father, Winthrop Sargent, read Union or A treatise of the Consanguinity of Affinity Between Christ and His Church by James Relly, he and his family began to embrace the new theology Relly proposed.

In 1774, the English Universalist preacher, John Murray, was lecturing in Boston and Judith’s father invited him to their home. John Murray and Judith met for the first time and began a correspondence discussing theology and later, the revolt of the colonies against the British. John Murray, accused of being a spy, accepted a job as army chaplain to avoid expulsion from the colonies. In the meantime, the Congregationalist church suspended Judith, her father and several other members. The following year, these Gloucester Universalists signed Articles of Association and formed the Independent Church of Christ. In 1780, John Murray became their first pastor.

Judith embraced her new religion and became a religious educator for the Universalist children of Gloucester. She and her husband adopted his two nieces and a cousin. She compiled and published the first Universalist catechism written by a woman. In it, she declared that men and women are equal, a central belief of the Universalist church.

In 1786, John Stevens escaped to the West Indies to escape creditors and died. Judith married John Murray in  1788.

Judith began writing poetry under the name “Constantia” She wrote essays on politics, manners, women’s role in society and religion for the periodicals of the day. She published under assumed names because she believed her writings would be taken seriously if the public didn’t know the writer was a woman.

Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine published her essay, “Desultory Thoughts Upon the Utility Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, Especially in Female Bosoms” in 1784. In 1792, she began to write a column in Massachusetts Magazine and chose the pen name Mr. Gleaner. She also began another column for the same magazine as Constantia. For Thomas Paine’s The Federal Orrery, she wrote a series of five articles for the The Reaper column.  Paine edited and rewrote some of her material and she vowed to never write another column again. The themes of her writings included Universalism and the political and social issues of the day. She also wrote plays and continued to write poetry published in the Boston Weekly Magazine writing as Honoria Martesia.

In the colonies, tutors or their mothers instructed women from wealthy families. A small minority attended the few schools in existence which were private schools for the wealthy. As early as 1784, Murray publicly urged that girls get an education.

In a 1790 essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” she asserted that men and women were equally capable of acquiring knowledge but differences in their education “resulted in inadequate instruction of women.” Murray felt she received an inferior education compared to her brother and learned on her own by reading. This experience taught her that women and men should have the same access to educational opportunities.

Murray’s legacy as a writer and educator continues to this day, In 1974, Alice Rossi included “On the Equality of the Sexes,” in The Feminist Papers ensuring Judith Sargent Stevens Murray’s place in women’s history.

Additional Bibliography:

Smith, Bonnie Hurd, Mingling Souls Upon Paper: An Eighteenth-century Love Story) Hurd Smith Communications, 2008.

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.New York: Random House, 2004

 

Quilling

American Colonial Crafts – Quilling with paper

 

MATERIALS:

Strips of quilling paper 1/8 inches to ½ inches in width

Scissors

Clear glue

Pencil or Q-tip

Colored paper or card stock

Light-weight paper in various colors (optional)

Ruler (optional)

 

PROJECT:

  1. Purchase quilling paper which comes in a variety of colors. Or using a ruler, measure and mark anywhere 1/8” to ½” at intervals along the length of the lightweight paper. Draw a long line along the marks. Cut and repeat the steps until you have enough strips for a design.
  2. Roll the end of the paper on to the end of a pencil or Q-tip. When you reach the end, loosen a little of the coil so you can easily roll it off the pencil. Add a little glue and finish rolling the coil to keep it from loosening.
  3. Roll the coils tightly and/or loosely depending on your design. Look at the sample above.
  4. Arrange the coils on the colored paper or card stock creating a design: flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, abstract designs. Quilled paper designs can also be framed (without glass) and hung in any room or classroom.
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Oct4

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Patience Lovel Wright

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Patience Lovel Wright
Patience Lovel Wright

Patience Lovel Wright

Patience Lovel Wright was a successful painter, poet and sculptor. She was born on Long Island, NY in 1725. When she was four her family moved to Bordentown, New Jersey. She married an elderly Quaker farmer, Joseph Wright and bore him five children. After Joseph died, she supported her family working as a sculptor and moved to London to work on the bust of Benjamin Franklin. She became famous for her wax portrait busts of King George III, Queen Charlotte, the historian Catherine Macaulay, and other prominent people. She also created sculptures of Patriot sympathizers hiding the fact from her benefactor, King George.

Circulating among French and British high society, she was able to gather valuable information about British preparations for the war against the colonies. She didn’t hesitate to send that information to the American rebels often detailing it in her correspondence or hiding it inside her wax sculptures. After visiting John Adams in London, she fell and died a few days later.

Today the only existing example of her wax sculptures is the bust of William Pitt which stands in Westminster Abbey. Another miniature wax bust of an unidentifiable woman is in the Bordentown Historical Society’s collection.

Additional Bibliography:

www.bordentownhistory.org/Current_Exhibits/PatienceWright

 

Corn Husk Doll

CORN HUSK DOLL

MATERIALS:

Corn husks from one corn on the cob (summer is a great time to get corn husks for the price of corn on the cob or ask the grocer to set some aside for you). To make two dolls you will need the husks from two corns on the cob. Discard the corn silk.

Bowl of warm water

Scissors

Black felt-tip marker

String or garbage bag ties

Scraps of fabric and/or paper

Glue

Embellishments like sequins, etc.

 

PROJECT:

  1. Dry the corn husks (the outer leaves of the corn) overnight.
  2. Soak the corn husks in the bowl of warm water until they are soft to handle.
  3. Fold the corn husks from one corn on the cob in half and tie string near the fold. This will be the head of the doll.
  4. The husks are easy to split vertically. Shape the rest of the husks into legs by tying them at the bottom with string or garbage bag ties.
  5. Cut clothes out of the scraps of fabric or colorful paper. Add sequins and other embellishments to decorate the clothing.
  6. Use marker to make eyes, a nose and a mouth on the doll. 
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Sep27

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mercy Otis Warren

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren was born in 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts into a wealthy family. She was home-schooled especially in the domestic arts but listened in on her brothers’ academic lessons. She absorbed a lot because her brother, James, encouraged her to pursue her interest in history and writing..

In 1764, she married James Warren, a merchant, farmer and a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature. Through her husband she came to know the leaders of the American Revolution and he, too, encouraged her to pursue her literary interests.

Mercy frequently wrote letters to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson about issues involving the colonies and the Warren’s home eventually became a hub for  revolutionaries and intellectuals. Boston revolutionaries formed the Committees of Correspondence after a series of protest meetings were held in Mercy’s parlor. She also corresponded with her friend, Abigail Adams, whose husband became the second President of the United Sates. Later their friendship cooled when Mercy was critical of John Adams in her three-volume history of the United States.

She used the pseudonym Fidelia for the poems and dramas she wrote many of which were anti-British. In Model Celebration, mermaids and other sea creatures enjoy sipping British rea during the Boston Tea Party of 1773. In Blockheads, Mercy made fun of the British King George. Other plays included the Adulateur (1772), The Defeat and The Group (1775). In 1790, she published yet another volume of poems and plays.

The British did not know who wrote these works otherwise they would have arrested and hanged Mercy for treason. Warren was also noted for the three-volume History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution published in 1805, the first narrative of the conflict between America and Britain.

In addition to her writing pursuits and political interests, Mercy ran a farm in her husband’s absence and raised five sons.

Bibliography:

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.

www.britannica.com/biography/Mercy-Otis-Warren

POMANDER BALLS

MATERIALS:

Ripe orange, or lemon or lime

Jar o whole cloves

Toothpick

Dish of powdered cinnamon (optional)

Netting

Ribbon

String

Scissors

 

PROJECT:

  1. With a toothpick, poke holes in the skin of the fruit keeping them close together.
    (Sometimes this step isn’t necessary. Try it without the toothpick first.)
  2. Push a clove into each hole covering the entire fruit with cloves. Place the cloves as tightly or as far apart as you choose but cover the entire fruit with cloves.
  3. Optional: Roll the fruit in the cinnamon. Cover with cloves. Place it in a pretty dish and place the dish in a cool dark place for two to three weeks so that the fruit dries out.
  4. Optional: Place the fruit in a square of netting. Gather up the ends of the netting and tie a ribbon around it. Leave enough extra ribbon to make a loop. Or, skip the netting and simply tie ribbon around the pomander ball.
  5. Hang the pomander ball or place it on a pretty dish. It will scent the entire room.

 

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Sep20

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Phillis Wheatley

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Born and kidnapped in Senegal, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1761.John and Susanna Wheatley, a Quaker couple, bought her to work as a domestic and named her Phillis. Instead, they raised Phillis like their own daughter. Phillis didn’t know English when she came into their household but Susanna tutored her. Phillis mastered the English language and was able to read the Bible at a young age, compelling the Wheatleys to hire teachers. Her tutors encouraged her to continue her English studies and study theology and the Greek and Latin classics.

When she was eleven, she began to correspond with a Mohegan Indian, the Reverend Samson Occum, agreeing with his criticism of slave-holding Christian ministers and other related issues.

Phillis was the first African-American to publish a book of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1767. Her writing was so powerful that Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and the Reverend Samuel Cooper questioned the poems were really written by her.

Phillis’ poems condemned slavery and celebrated freedom and liberty. She wrote a poem entitled To His Excellency General Washington in which she praised him and urged to carry on the fight for America’s freedom. The poem impressed George Washington and he invited Phillis to have tea with him at his army camp.

After the publication of her book of poems, Thomas Wheatley took her on a trip to England where the public treated her like a literary celebrity. In France, Voltaire praised her “very good English verse.”

In 1773, John and Susanna Wheatley gave Phillis her freedom.  After the Wheatleys died, Phillis  married John Peters in 1778, a free black Bostonian. They had three children two of whom died in childbirth. Peters later abandoned her. Impoverished, she and her third child died of complications following childbirth. her final manuscript has never been found.

Bibliography:

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.

New York: Random House, 2004

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p12.html

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h19.html

 

Do the craft below!

Red, White and Blue Banner

Fourth of July Banner

Fourth of July Banner

 

Ages: 5 – 12 years                            Time: ½ hour

MATERIALS:

White felt 36” x 36”                          Red Fun Foam

Blue Fun Foam                                  white Fun Foam

sharp tool like an awl                        ¼” red, white and blue ribbon

Measure and cut white felt to 14” x 20”. Place felt horizontally. Fold a 1” seam at the top of the felt and iron. Fold a second 1” seam and iron again. Glue the second seam with tacky glue. You will pass the dowel rod through this loop. This piece of felt should now measure 14” x 16”.

Trace the large star pattern and cut one large star out of the white Fun Foam. Cut 13 smaller stars out of the white Fun Foam using the smaller star pattern.

Trace and cut a large circle out of the blue Fun Foam. Glue the large star in the center. Arrange the smaller stars around the circle. Make sure that they all face the same way. Lay aside. Measure and cut 7 stripes ¾” x 16” out of the red Fun Foam.

Arrange the stripes on the banner so that there is a ¾” stripe of white felt showing between them. (Refer to the diagram provided.) Glue the stripes down and trim if necessary.

Glue the blue circle with the stars in the center of the red and white stripes.

At the bottom of the banner, poke holes every 1” with a sharp tool like an awl.  (Small children should let adults do this for them.) Insert the ribbon in the holes, alternating the colors. Pull the ribbon through and tie a knot in the back.

Trim the dowel rod to 18 x 20”. Cut a piece of string to a length suitable for hanging. Tie the string to each end of the dowel rod.

Remember Phillis Wheatley and her love of liberty!

 

 

 

 

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