January 1, 1839: Happy birthday Louise de la Ramé! Louise de la Ramé (better known by her pen name Ouida) was a prominent figure in a movement which has been greatly misunderstood and deliberately villianized by later generations with their own agendas: the women's anti-suffrage movement. Louise de la Ramé and other women like her (First Lady Frances Cleveland, journalist Lucy Price, and Special Agent to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Minnie Bronson, to name a few) felt that suffrage would prove detrimental to the power women already wielded and would have no compensating benefit on politics. As De la Ramé wrote, "you can make no nation virtuous by act of parliament."
In the "Female Suffrage" chapter of her book Views and Opinions, De la Ramé described the problems with universal suffrage:
"…No doubt, to see a woman of superior mind and character, left without electoral voice, whilst… the most illiterate laborer… can exercise it, is on the face of it absurd. But it is not more absurd than that her brother should have his single vote outnumbered and neutralized by the votes of the [ignorant masses]. It would be more honest to say that the whole existing system of electoral power all over the world is absurd; and will remain so, because in no nation is there the courage, perhaps in no nation is there the intellectual power, capable of putting forward and sustaining the logical doctrine of the just supremacy of the fittest: a doctrine which it is surely more vitally necessary to insist on in a republic than in a monarchy… Theoretically, a republic is founded on the doctrine of the supremacy of the fittest; but who can say that since the days of Perikles any republic has carried out this doctrine practically? The lawyer or the chemist who neglects his business to push himself to the front in political life in France is certainly not the most admirable product of the French intellect; nor can it be said by any impartial student that every President of the United States has been the highest type of humanity that the United States can produce.
Alexander Dumas fils, the most accomplished, but the most rabid of the advocates of female suffrage, resumes what seems to him the absurdity of the whole system in a sentence. 'Mme. de Sévigné ne peut pas voter; M. Paul son jardiniere peut voter.' He does not seem to see that there is as great an absurdity in the fact that were Mme. de Sévigné, Monsieur de Sévigné, and were she living now, all her wit and wisdom would fail to confer on her more voting power than would be possessed by 'Paul son jardinier.'
With all deference to [Dumas], I do not think that Mme. de Sévigné would have cared a straw to rival Paul, the gardener, in going to the electoral urn. Mme. de Sévigné, like every woman of wit and mind, had means of exercising her influence so incomparably superior to the paltry one of recording a vote in a herd that she would, I am sure, have had the most profound contempt for the latter. Indeed, her contempt would have probably extended to the whole electoral system and 'government by representation.' Women of wit and genus must always be indifferent to the opportunity of going up to the ballot booth in company with their own footman and coachman. To those who have a sense of humor the position is not one of dignity. Hypatia, when she feels herself the equal of Julian, will not readily admit that Dadus, however enfranchised, is her equal.
Absurdities are not cured by adding greater absurdities to them; discrepancies are not remedied by greater discrepancies being united to them. Whether women voted or not would not change by a hair's breadth the deplorable fact, that under the present electoral system throughout the world, the sage has no more electoral power than the dunce, that Plato's voice counts for no more than a fool's." --Views and Opinions, 1896, pp. 305-307.
(Ouida image courtesy National Portrait Gallery)
January 1, 1889: Total eclipse of the sun visible in the western United States.
January 2, 1877: Queen Victoria declared Empress of India
Image courtesy https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/jrr-tolkien-inkling-and-hobbit
January 3, 1892: Happy birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien!
January 3, 1893: Miss Louise Austin of WA state files a patent for pinking shears.
For more on Victorian lady inventors, go to <http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/women-inventors-1897.html>
More Victorian sewing tools: http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/sewing.html
January 4, 1838: Happy birthday Charles Sherwood Stratton, a.k.a. General Tom Thumb, performer with P.T. Barnum's show.
January 4, 1896: Utah becomes a state.
January 5, 1855: The Morning Star of Tillamook was launched. This schooner was the first ship built and registered in the Oregon Territory. The goods aboard included butter from Tillamook County, and today the Tillamook Creamery Association proudly depicts The Morning Star in full sail.
January 6, 1889: The University of Minnesota Law School graduates its first class, a total of three men. The next year, forty-five students would graduate.
January 8, 1824: Happy birthday, Wilkie Collins!
Wilkie Collins was the Victorian version of John Grisham; his books are thrilling page-turners, and it's really hard to put them down! Some of our favorites:
--The Dead Secret: A dying noblewoman orders her maid to reveal her darkest secret, and swears with her dying breath to haunt her forever if she disobeys! What is that secret? When the maid thinks she's found a loophole in the solemn oath she took, will her mistress still come back from the grave to torment her? Librivox (free audiobook) version.
--
The Frozen Deep One woman, two would-be lovers: When the men are sent on a doomed Arctic mission together, will her horrible premonitions come to pass? Librivox (free audiobook) version.
--Hide and Seek: A kind-hearted man takes in a small, deaf girl and raises her as his own. Where did she come from? What secrets are hidden in the mysterious hair bracelet left behind by her dying mother? Librivox (free audiobook) version.
--The Law and the Lady —The unyielding heroine of this story is determined to expose the truth about her new husband, but each secret she unlocks opens the door to an even bigger mystery.
[N.B. There is a poisoning scene in this book which bears a very striking resemblance to a case of poisoning investigated by American detective Allan Pinkerton and described in his book, The Murderer and the Fortune Teller. Pinkerton's book was published the same year as Collins' The Law and the Lady, but detailed a case he had investigated years before. Given the parallels in the stories, it seems likely Collins had been familiar with Pinkerton's work.]
Librivox (free audiobook) version.
--Man and Wife: A wonderful legal thriller about the complexities of marriage law in Scotland and Ireland. Librivox (free audiobook) version.
—Miss Bertha and the Yankee: A short story in classic Collins style! The scene opens on a young woman testifying in court: She is now an heiress, but tells the court from the start that her poverty as a small child left her sadly ignorant of the ways of the world. What exactly happened after she came to England and inherited her fortune?
--The Moonstone Who stole the precious Indian diamond —and is it really cursed?
--Poor Miss Finch Will poor, blind Lucilla get her sight back —and will she still be entranced with her lover when she sees the color of his skin? Librivox (free audiobook) version.
--The Woman in White Mysteries within mysteries as crimes intertwine with questioned sanity and confused identities. One of Collins most popular novels! Librivox (free audiobook) version.
January 8, 1889: Herman Hollerith patents an electric tabulating system, an early computer used for tabulating the U.S. Census. He would later found the Tabulating Machine Company, which merged into the Calculating-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed IBM.
January 9, 1850: P.T. Barnum contracts with Jennie Lind to come to America and sing at 150 concerts. He promised to pay all of Miss Lind's expenses and those of her servants, and in addition to pay her $1,000 for each concert. Even while paying her this astronomical price, Barnum still managed to turn a very impressive profit on the concerts thanks to a massive advertising campaign launched by Barnum. Miss Lind's very first American concert (in Castle Garden, New York) would bring in $17,864.05. When he saw how profitable she was, Barnum insisted on giving Miss Lind one-half of all receipts beyond $5,500 on all concerts. Nonetheless, Miss Lind would ultimately grow weary of the fame which Barnum hyped up for her: she quit her American tour and annulled her contract after 95 concerts. The total receipts of the tour added up to $712,161.34: of this, Miss Lind received $176,675.09 and Barnum received $535,486.25. (Source: Living Leaders of the World, p. 73.)
An excerpt from Delivery Delayed, Book IV in the Tales of Chetzemoka:
"… "Now, my cookbook said this is Jenny Lind's favorite soup," Addie told everyone. She giggled and added, "So you can blame the soup if people start breaking out into song!"
Laughter broke out around the table and Ken started humming the "Jenny Lind Polka."
Lizzie started explaining to Isaac, "Jenny Lind is a very famous soprano—"
He smiled and held up a hand. "I know Jenny Lind, of course. The Swedish Nightingale."…" --Delivery Delayed
An 1878 recipe for Jenny Lind's soup appears in the appendix of Delivery Delayed, along with 19th-century recipes for all the other foods mentioned in the story!
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January 9, 1854: Happy birthday, Jennie Jerome Churchill!
Some of my favorite quotes by or about Jennie:
"Personally I would never give up anything by which I really set store for the sake of [society's] unsatisfactory approbation." —Jennie's memoir, Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. p. 104.
"Strong women make beautiful women." —Clara Jerome to her husband Leonard (Jennie's parents, discussing Jennie). Quoted in Jennie by Ralph G. Martin, p. 24.
"One must always pretend the sun is shining, even when it isn't." —Jennie Churchill, quoted on the dedication page of American Jennie, by Anne Sebba.
Jennie's commentary on California: "The flowers in California, although lovely, have little odour, and the fruit, which is gorgeous, has no taste, like a beautiful woman devoid of brains." —Jennie's memoir, Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. p. 241
"Many would tell you that feelings such as I feebly attempt to describe to you are quite out of date in this practical 19th-century, that a love such as this is an anachronism & that what I have written is only the effusions of a too ardent imagination or perhaps the ravings of a lunatic. God knows with me they are neither one nor the other, but simply the sincere & real description of a true pure love, which I own unhappily for the world is not common, but is not on that account less admirable or less possible. Feelings such as these are not as many would say from their very strength shortlived, on the contrary…" —Lord Randolph Churchill in a letter to Jennie shortly after they first fell in love. Quoted in a biography of Jennie by their grandson Peregrine Churchill, p. 34.
"You were never born to love lightly." —Jennie's father Leonard Jerome in a letter to her when she told him of her engagement to Lord Randolph Churchill. Quoted in Jennie, by Ralph G. Martin, p. 74.
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Jennie Churchill was the model for the vivacious Theresa Delaroux in my novel A Trip and a Tumble, Book V of the Tales of Chetzemoka. The following details of how she inspired the character appear in an appendix at the end of the story:
From Appendix V of A Trip and a Tumble:
To write about a Victorian socialite I needed a model. I chose one of my favorite figures from the period, Jennie Jerome Churchill. Often unfairly relegated to a minor footnote, Jennie deserves far better than to simply be dismissed as "Winston Churchill's American mother". Jennie was already famous in her own right when she married Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874; indeed, she was arguably more famous than her aristocratic British husband.
Jennie was a fascinating, vivacious lady with regal poise, a fiesty sense of humor, and boundless energy. Besides her beauty and intelligence Jennie was known for her stamina[1] . She was also a skilled artist (her paintings were thought good enough for a professional[2]) and an excellent writer. Her memoir, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, makes for wonderfully engaging reading and I highly recommend it to anyone. All of Theresa's lines in A Trip and A Tumble are things I can picture Jennie saying, and in some cases (such as when she describes people as "deficient in humor and not overburdened with brains") her witticisms are cribbed directly from Jennie's memoir. Many of the terms used to describe Theresa are cribbed from various biographies of Jennie.
Jennie was rumored to be part Iroquois on her mother's side. Whether she was or wasn't is a matter of rather snarky debate in certain circles and academics will probably never reach consensus on this matter. Jennie's descendants believe it to be true: for an article written by Jennie's great-grandson about his American ancestors, see <https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/myths/churchills-american-heritage/>. One thing everyone does seem to agree on is that Jennie's mother was dubbed "Sitting Bull" by her daughters' suitors, partly in reference to her strongly Indian features but mostly because of the silently brooding way she would chaperone Jennie and her sisters' romantic encounters.
Besides Jennie's own memoir, I would also recommend the biography written by her grandson Peregrine Churchill, Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill, A Portrait in Letters. As one of Jennie's descendants Peregrine had access to the private Churchill family archives and his book contains many excerpts from Jennie's letters as well as from the absolutely beautiful love letters Lord Randolph wrote to her.
[1] Martin, p. xi.
[2] Source: Baker, F. Leslie. "Transplanted American Beauty", The Cosmopolitan, September, 1890, p. 526.
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January 10, 1840: Penny post introduced in Britain.
Image courtesy http://www.historylink.org/File/5029
January 11, 1818: Happy birthday, James G. Swan! Swan lived with and wrote about the aboriginal tribes of the Pacific Northwest in the mid 19th-century. His writings have been, and continue to be, very useful to me in understanding the cultures of the region as I write my Tales of Chetzemoka series.
An excerpt from the glossary of A Trip and a Tumble, Book V of the Tales of Chetzemoka:
"…The spelling [of the word Passaieux, meaning "French" in aboriginal trade jargon] used here was found in James G. Swan's book The Northwest Coast (1857). Swan reports: "Formerly the Americans had a very extensive trade of furs on the Northwest Coast, and this was carried on principally by the merchants of Boston. The Indians, hearing the name of Boston so often repeated, supposed that to be the name of the country these people and ships came from; consequently, all Americans are to this day [1857] called by the Northwest Coast Indians Boston tillicums, or Boston people. English, Scotch, and Irish are called King George People, and the French, Passaieux. The derivation of this last term… is undoubtedly [derived from] some Canadian French patois word."[1]
Orthography of trade jargon words varied substantially between different sources. As Swan put it, "no two writers of Indian words fully agree as to the proper method of spelling."[2] Among many other alternatives, this word was also spelled "pasiuks"[3]; and "pasai-ooks".[4]
British ethnographer Horatio Hale attributes the word's origin to a mispronunciation of the French "Français" by people unable to pronounce f, r, or nasal n sounds. However, this explanation seems questionable since Swan, who lived at close quarters with Northwest tribes for a number of years, reported their extreme linguistic skills: "The Indians are very quick to detect any difference in the intonation or method of pronunciation of the whites, and sometimes think we speak different languages. An Indian asked me one day (while pointing to a cow) what was the name we called that animal. I told him cow. He said that he had just asked another white man, and he called it a caow. By this means, different Indians who have been with the whites acquire a habit of pronouncing such English words as they pick up in the same style and manner as the person from whom they learn them."[5]
[1] Swan, James G., The Northwest Coast. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857. pp. 95—96.
[2] Swan, ibid, p. 308.
[3] Hale, Horatio. An International Idiom: A Manual of the Oregon Trade Language. London, Whittaker & Co., 1890. p. 8.
[4] Bryce, George. The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1900. p. 410.
[5] Swan, ibid., pp. 308—309.
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January 24, 1839: Texas officially adopts their Lone Star flag.
January 24, 1848: Gold discovered near San Francisco during the building of a sawmill. This was not yet the start of the '49 gold rush, but it was a small glimpse of greater things to come. <http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist/chron1.html> <http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/gold.html>
January 26, 1855: Treaty of Point No Point signed at Hahdskus on the Kitsap Peninsula, Washington Territory. This treaty between aboriginal tribes and the U.S. government guaranteed tribes the right to fish in their usual and accustomed grounds for all time. Asserting this right would become a point of major importance during the 20th-century Civil Rights movement in the Pacific Northwest, and it continues to have both environmental and political ramifications today.
Gabriel's paper on the topic:
Uncompromising Activism:
The Fish-In Protests at Frank's Landing.
Read this award-winning research paper:
Fish-in Protests at Frank's Landing
Listen to Gabriel being interviewed about this subject:
"'Schelangen,' But Also A Right": http://kuow.org/post/schelangen-also-right
Another of Gabriel's award-winning research papers on the history of Pacific Northwest tribes:
The Port Madison Area in the 1870s and 1880s:
An Integrated Community
Image from Native American Wives of San Juan Settlers by Karen Jones-Lamb
Aboriginal culture in the Tales of Chetzemoka:
Indian wives of early settlers, an excerpt from Delivery Delayed
"The Oldest Families", an excerpt from Appendix VI of A Trip And A Tumble
Image from Native American Wives of San Juan Island Settlers.
Tacee "Little Bird", an excerpt from Appendix VI of A Trip and a Tumble
January 28, 1888: Lunar eclipse.
"Watching an Eclipse
Winkie and Blinkie sat up one night,
To see an eclipse of the moon;
But Winkie, he winked,
And Blinkie, he blinked.
And they said, "If it don't come soon"--
Then suddenly out o'er a misty sea,
They sailed in a star balloon;
And losing the track,
They never came back,
Till a voice cried, "Children, 'tis noon!"
—Mrs. J.T. Greenleaf, Good Housekeeping, Sept. 1893.
Note: Mark your calendars for a lunar eclipse the night of February 20-21, 2019!
January 28, 1887: Construction begins on Eiffel Tower in Paris.
January 29, 1861: Kansas becomes a state
January 31, 1865: The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (abolishing slavery) is passed by the House of Representatives. It had already passed the Senate on April 8, 1864; it would be approved by President Lincoln on February 1, 1865 and ratified on December 6th, 1865.
Special days in January:
Image courtesy https://outofthisworldx.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/image202.jpg?w=290
January 1: New Year's Day —time to go to another year!
Books as Time Machines, Historical Fiction Authors As Tour Guides: An Essay
January 6, 2019: Epiphany
January 20-21, 2019: Mark your calendars for a lunar eclipse!
January 21, 2019: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I was born in King County, Washington state, the same county where Seattle is located. The county was originally named after Vice President William Rufus de Vane King. In 1986 the county's name was changed from King County to (er...) King County! It is now officially named after Martin Luther King Jr., human rights advocate.
People interested in human rights history will enjoy this piece by the BBC, comparing modern slavery with the historic variety:
"Slave Labor and Consumer Power: The Long View" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sgxg5
January 24th: The feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers!
"The author himself must live through what he describes."
—Wolstan Dixey, 1889.
The Trade of Authorship, 1889. p. 111.
***
"Every new book must have, in the consciousness of its author, a private history that, like the mysteries of romance, would if unfolded have an interest for the reader, and by unveiling the inner life of the volume show its character and tendencies."
—Sarah Josepha Hale, 1866.
Manners, 1866, p. 3.
***
"The author is, as we must ever remember, of peculiar organisation. He is a being born with a predisposition which with him is irresistible, the bent of which he cannot in any way avoid, whether it directs him to the abstruse researches of erudition or induces him to mount into the fervid and turbulent atmosphere of imagination."
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1868.
"Speech at Royal Literary Fund Dinner, May 6, 1868." Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, 1880, p. 16.
***
"An author is a solitary being, who, for the same reason he pleases one, must consequently displease another."
—Isaac Disraeli, 1859.
Literary Character of Men of Genius. 1859, p. 301.
***
"The pen is the tongue of the hand: a silent utterer of words for the eye."
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862.
Eyes and Ears, 1862, p. 245.
My writing den: http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/sarahs-writing-den.html
Writing tools: http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/writing-tools.html
Tour of my writing den:
January 28: Happy birthday to my darling Gabriel!
PROVISIONS IN SEASON IN JANUARY
From Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management, 1893 edition
Vegetables - Jerusalem artichokes, beetroot, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, celery, chervil, cresses, asparagus and cucumbers (forced), endive, lettuces, parsnips, potatoes, savoys, spinach, turnips, - various herbs.
Fruit - Apples, grapes, medlars, nuts, oranges, pears, crystallized preserves (foreign), dried fruits and raisins, plums (French and Spanish), prunes, figs, dates, filberts, walnuts, almonds and Brazil nuts.
In a seaport town in the late 19th-century Pacific Northwest, a group of friends find themselves drawn together —by chance, by love, and by the marvelous changes their world is undergoing. In the process, they learn that the family we choose can be just as important as the ones we're born into. Join their adventures in
The Tales of Chetzemoka
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