Category: Learn History Through Fiction

During the Depression, the San Diego Naval Base used money from the federal Public Works Administration to expand the Pacific Fleet to 48 warships, 400 naval aircraft, 55,000 sailors and 3,000 officers. The goal was to demonstrate U.S. sea power and show Japan and the rest of world that the country was interested in and ready to defend the Pacific. Today the U.S. Navy has over 400,000 active personnel (nearly one-fifth women), 490 ships, 41 aircraft carriers, nearly 4,000 aircraft, and 135 bases in the U.S. and abroad. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

While researching a story about a (fictional) 1910 poetry class at the Bronx branch of the Henry Street Settlement, I remembered the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage that I used to pass when, as a child in the 1950s, I rode the bus to Fordham Road. The simple, white house had a raven painted outside one window. As I looked into the background of the cottage for the short story, I discovered that Poe did not actually write “The Raven” while living there. He wrote that poem earlier, when he lived in Manhattan. However, during the years (1846-1849) that he, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria, lived at the house, Poe wrote “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume.” They loved the small, rustic place, of which a friend wrote, “The cottage had an air of taste and gentility… So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never saw.” The Bronx was still quite rural at the time and the family is said to have kept songbirds in cages on the porch. Virginia died there of tuberculosis in 1847 in her first-floor bedroom, and Poe died in 1849 while visiting Baltimore. Maria moved out shortly thereafter. Poe Cottage was recognized as a landmark in the 1960s. Presumably (I have not been back to look), fact checkers at the Bronx Historical Society have removed the raven, nevermore to be seen at the cottage window. Read more about my SHORT STORIES and interesting background details in BEHIND THE STORY.

Judy Garland, who played Dorothy Gale in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. One-half inch shy of 5′ tall, the 17-year-old actress had to have her budding breasts strapped down to make her look like a 13-year-old in the movie. Not only was she a film heroine to the Munchkins, in later life Garland became an enduring icon in the gay community. In the decades before the LGBTQ movement, gay men referred to themselves as “Friends of Dorothy.” Read more about the movie and Judy Garland in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

A 1911 study of Armour Meats in Chicago (five years after Upton Sinclair’s exposé The Jungle was published) found that the average weekly pay for 10 hours a day, six days a week, was $9.50, whereas the living wage for a family of five, the average size at the time, was $15.40. But Armour swore it would pay whatever it wanted or close its factory doors. Armour successfully broke three strikes and blacklisted union leaders. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Pubs are a British mainstay, analogous to American bars. What Americans might call their neighborhood bar is known in the UK as the “local.” The term “public house” was first used in the 17th century; the landlord or manager was dubbed a publican. Pubs are licensed to serve “beer, wine, and spirits” and serve classic food, such as fish and chips, pickled eggs, pork scratchings (pork rind), and ploughboy’s lunch (a sandwich of buttered bread, cheese, ham, pickle, and onion. Read more about old London in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

The first New York City neighborhood settled by large numbers of Italian immigrants, most of them from Southern Italy and Sicily, was in East Harlem, which became known as Little Italy. Its population peaked in 1930. Italians also settled in or moved to the outer boroughs. In the early 1900s, Bensonhurst, considered the Little Italy of Brooklyn, was equally divided between Jews and Italians. Read more about a young Italian immigrant who first lived in Brooklyn 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

(Posted on the 75th anniversary of D-Day) Those not serving in the Armed Forces during WWII supported the war on the home front. Most workers bought War Bonds using automatic payroll deductions. They were encouraged to invest at least 10% of their earnings. Factories were given a “Minuteman” flag if 100% of the workers joined the “Ten Percent Club.” Hollywood celebrities also appeared at War Bond drives, urging civilians to do their share. Read more about WWII and life on the home front in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

(Posted on the 75th anniversary of D-Day) During WWII, the San Diego Naval Base converted, overhauled, maintained, and repaired more than 5,117 battle-damaged U.S. ships. Central to this work was the construction of 155 floating dry docks — some weighing as much as 3,000 tons — to deploy onsite or deliver to other bases. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The U.S. Congress passed the 19th Amendment recognizing women’s right to vote 100 years ago today, June 4, 1919. At 56-25, it barely reached the two-thirds majority necessary. The Amendment was ratified on August 19, 1920. The battle for women’s suffrage actually began nearly a century earlier, when women played a prominent role in other reform groups including the abolitionist movement and temperance leagues. However, it was not until the Seneca Falls (New York) Convention of 1848 that women began to organize for the vote. The push for women’s suffrage took a back seat during the Civil War, and split when leading advocates for women’s rights opposed granting those same rights to blacks in the 15th Amendment. But the movement revived in the early 1900s, beginning at the state level and eventually gaining national momentum, aided by the role women played in WWI. Read more about the fight for women’s suffrage in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

In 1948, San Diego was the site of the Grant Hotel sit-in to protest racism. The rapid growth of blacks in San Diego during WW II paved way for an expanded NAACP branch. Humiliated and angered at being refused a snack at a downtown “greasy spoon,” the NAACP’s president, a dentist, recruited a group of black and white students at San Diego State College, rehearsed them to act as customers and witnesses, then targeted white-owned restaurants that discriminated. As the black students were denied service, already seated white students who were on their side observed and later testified in court. The NAACP filed and won 31 of its 32 lawsuits, usually with court awards to plaintiffs of $300 per case, which the students split with their attorney. The ultimate triumph was desegregation of the Grant Grill at the prestigious U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego. Read more San Diego and desegregation history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).