While researching President Lincoln’s first inauguration on March 4, 1861, (see photo below) I came across this interesting tidbit of information.

The first presidential inauguration (President George Washington) was held on April 30, 1789. Following inaugurations from 1793 to 1933 were held on March 4. Why? March 4 was the day the federal government began operating under the United States Constitution. If March 4 fell on a Sunday. Then the inauguration was held the day after, March 5. Which happened on four occasions: 1821, 1849, 1877, and 1917.

The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution reestablished the beginning terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20. Also, the term for the members of congress was changed to March 4 to January 3. The Twentieth Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933.

Author and Archaeologist Lois Miner Huey

While visiting Rochester, New York, I read an article in the local newspaper about a slave graveyard that had been uncovered near Albany, New York.  I was impressed with how the community was coming together to rebury the slaves with the honor they deserve.

Shortly after reading article, I discovered Lois Miner Huey had written a book about slave graveyards entitled “Forgotten Bones:  Uncovering a Slave Cemetery.”  I met Lois several years ago at a Highlights Writer’s Workshop and asked to interview her.

In her book, Lois discusses three grave sites uncovered in New York City, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the Albany site on the Schuyler family farm.

How unusual is it to find slave graveyards in northern states?

Many sites have been found that date back to the 19th century in the northern states.  They are located mostly near churches.   Only three grave sites have been uncovered that date back to the 18th century.  All three were located away from white habitation sites and not near churches.

How did researchers identify who the burial grounds belonged to?

The slave cemetery found on the Schuyler property no doubt was associated with that family. It was identified by me and other archaeologists many years ago.  Because of its significance to local history it had been turned into a town park.  The second site was located on a colonial New York City map. When archaeologists tested this site, they found almost nothing. But when the construction machinery reached twenty feet below modern ground surface, they hit bone. That shows how much soil can build up in a city over time. The third site was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, near what once was the water front. This burial ground was found under a street during construction of a new sewer line.

Archaeologist digging at slave grave site.

What did archaeologists and scientists learn about the lives of the slaves buried at the sites?

The bones from the three sites showed the tremendous amount of work these slaves did. Most people in the 18th century worked hard, but these people got room and board of varying quality and nothing out of what they did.  They weren’t working for themselves but for the benefit of their enslavers. They all showed traces of overwork: torn muscles on the bones, early arthritis, bone breakage, and, in New York City, traces of malnutrition.

The Schuyler slaves lived on a farm where they apparently were able to grow their own food (in the little time they had each day to do something for themselves) so signs of malnutrition weren’t found on their bones. The most surprising find was the differing backgrounds of these people. DNA studies showed Native American ancestry for some and Madagascarian ancestry for others.  Madagascar is located off the coast of East Africa, while most enslaved people came from West Africa.

What findings most impressed you as an archaeologist?

Facial Reconstruction of slaves found at Schuyler Farm.

None of the people found in the Schuyler burial ground were related through the female line. So they had to form their own community despite differing backgrounds, perhaps language problems, and abilities. Fifty percent of the skeletons in each of the three burial grounds were children, so the slaves had to overcome those losses on top worrying about losing family members who might be sold. Their lives were pretty much out of their own control and the hard work reflected on the bones shows their amazing contributions to the building this country. They dug the ditches, lifted the timbers, plowed the fields, cooked the food, and trained the horses–all for someone else.

What has happened to the remains of the slaves found at the sites?

A public cemetery located near the Schuyler burial grounds gave land for the reburial. Local artisans donated their time to decorate the ossuary boxes, funeral homes offered transportation for the boxes, Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site had the boxes laid out for the public to view, and local clergy participated in the burial ceremony. A similar ceremony occurred in New York City where the skeletons were re-interred in the same ground, and a museum dedicated to them was opened. Signs have been installed along the street in Portsmouth identifying the grave site and funds are being raised for a memorial and reburial there.

In honor of mother’s day the George Eastman House, in Rochester, New York, was decorated with flowers and themed table top displays. My favorite display was in the conservatory.

In his retirement, Eastman often invited a group of four young married women to join him for lunch on Saturdays.  The group consisted of Mrs. George Whipple, wife of the Dean of the medical school; Mrs. Harold Gleason, wife of Eastman’s organist; Mrs. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, wife of a professor of bacteriology at the University of Rochester; and Mrs. Marion Folsom, wife of an Eastman Kodak executive. They were like nieces to Eastman.

Since the group often dined on lobster, they became known as the Lobster Quartet. Eastman always gave his female guests orchid corsages and presented them in boxes lined with lilac tissue paper.

Eastman subscribed to Vogue magazine and kept up with the latest fashions so he would have something to talk about with his female guests. He was rather opinionated about the colors women wore. He disliked black and liked to see women in bright colors.

When visiting Rochester, New York, be sure to stop by the George Eastman House.

Photographs taken by Lynda Pflueger

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math.   It is an educational movement to help children become better prepared to enter the workforce and solve problems that exist in the real world. The movement is gaining momentum and as a children’s writer I wanted to understand its implications. I looked up the definitions of the four components of STEM in Webster’s dictionary:

Science – systematized knowledge derived from observation, study, and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied.

Technology – applied science; a method, process: etc. for handling a specific technical problem.

Engineering – the science concerned with putting scientific knowledge to practical use; the planning, designing, construction or management of machinery, roads, bridges, buildings, etc.

Math – the group of sciences (including arithmetic, geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.) dealing with quantities, magnitudes, and forms, and their relationships, attributes, etc.

I was surprised by the definition of technology. Previously, I had a limited view of the word.  Now I realized technology encompassed more than computers and programing.

Not totally satisfied, I began to search the internet for more clues to help me understand what STEM meant.  When I discovered Anne Jolly’s article “Six Characteristics of a Great STEM Lesson” things began to fall in place. Jolly defines science as the study of our world, math as the language of numbers, shapes, and quantities, and engineering as the process used to solve problems. She feels that any product created to solve a problem or meet a need is technology.

I also discovered the following websites:

California STEM Learning Network

http://www.cslnet.org/our-agenda/what-is-stem/

This site has an excellent video entitled “STEM Integration in K-12 Education.” After watching the video I realized that the pillars of the STEM movement are Math and Science.

Engineer Your Life

http://www.engineeryourlife.org/

This colorful and fun site is a guide to engineering for high school girls. The sections on why engineering, meet inspiring women, and find your dream job gave me a lot to think about.

NASA for Educators

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html

This impressive site provided a tremendous amount of information. I watched with amazement the video of astronaut Scott Kelly playing “Liquid Ping-Pong in Space” and was inspired by Kate McCourty, the branch Chief of Operations and Engineering at NASA, talk about STEM.

When I finished searching the web, I felt I had a better understanding of what STEM stood for and began to think about what stories I might undercover using STEM as criteria for researching people I might write about.

What ideas do you have for applying your writing talents to STEM?

Alice Roosevelt without her snake

While researching different kinds of pets, I came across the Presidential Pet Museum website. I couldn’t stop laughing when I read the museum’s blog about Alice Roosevelt and her pet garter snake. Alice, the oldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt, liked to carry her pet garter snake in her purse and pull it out at unexpected times to startle people. She named her snake Emily Spinach. Why? Because the snake was green like spinach and thin like her Aunt Emily.

Evidently, Alice was not the only one of Roosevelt’s children who liked snakes. Her younger brother Quentin bought four snakes at a pet shop in Washington, D.C. Instead of waiting to share them with his father when he wasn’t busy, he busted into a cabinet meeting. He sat the four snakes on his father’s desk and the cabinet members ran for cover. President Roosevelt was not amused. After the snakes were recovered they were returned to the pet shop.

Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., and Eli Yale a blue macaw

Roosevelt’s children had many pets. So, many they almost had a zoo. They also had funny names.

* Jonathan Edwards – a small bear
* Bill -a lizard
* Eli Yale -a blue macaw
* Baron Spreckle – a hen
* Josiah – a badger
* Rollo – a Saint Bernard
* Peter – a rabbit
* Admiral Dewey,  Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O’Grady – guinea pigs.
* Sailor Boy – a Chesapeake Bay dog
* Tom Quartz – a cat
* Skip – a black-and-tan Rat Terrier

For more fun reading about White House Pets, check out Presidential Pet Museum website.

(Photographs from the Library of Congress)

Initially, images of George Eastman or his company’s trademark, KODAK, were highlighted in advertisements for his cameras and film.  But, Eastman didn’t like his image being used,  “I don’t care about seeing so much of my likeness,” he said.  So he invented the Kodak Girl.  He felt  a photograph of a pretty girl would sell more cameras.

And he was right.  His KODAK Girl advertisements were one of the most lasting and successful marketing campaigns in advertising history.

Holding a camera, the KODAK Girls were wholesome looking outdoor types wearing fashionable dresses. They were featured in newspaper and magazine advertising, on six-foot cardboard cutouts in stores, and often did personal appearances.  They enticed women to buy Kodak cameras and use them to capture the important events in their families lives.  Hence, snapshots became the rage!

(Note:  Quote from George Eastman:  A Biography by Elizabeth Brayer and photographs from the Library of Congress)

Ulysses S. Grant

Thomas Nast and Mark Twain idolized Ulysses Grant because he was the Union General who finally ended Civil War.  Both artists corresponded with Grant.  Nast even visited Grant in the White House and wrote home to tell his wife about it.  Grant and his wife dined several times with the Nast’s at their home in Morristown, New Jersey, after Grant left the White House.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain also visited Nast’s home on Thanksgiving Eve, 1885.  Twain gave a presentation at the Morristown Lyceum and dined with the Nast’s that evening.  They invited Twain to spend the night.   The ticking clocks in the Nast home irritated him and he couldn’t go to sleep. He got up in the middle of the night and turned all the clocks off.  In the morning when Mrs. Nast questioned Twain about it, he informed her “that the clocks had needed a rest.”

Thomas Nast

Ulysses Grant and Thomas Nast lost all their savings in the Grant  & Ward investment scandal in 1864.  The firm composed of Ulysses S. Grant Jr. (one of the former president’s sons) and Ferdinand Ward, whom many considered a financial genius.   It came as a great shock  when Grant & Ward failed. The firm had been using Grant’s name to inspire confidence, but it had been fraudulent from the beginning.  Ward had made a habit of using new investor’s money to cover the dividends paid to old investors. After the scandal Mark Twain published Ulysses Grant’s memoirs which prevented the Grant family from living in poverty after the former president died of throat cancer.

While researching mass demonstrations in the 1960’s, I came across something I did not expect – the El Cajon Boulevard Riot.  I was eleven at the time and my family often went to the Campus Drive in on El Cajon Blvd near where the protest occurred.

The group was protesting the closure of Hourglass Field, an unused Navy airfield (near Miramar) where they had held unofficial drag races.  The US Navy had allowed the drag racing until four bystanders were injured during a race and shut it down.

The protest began on the evening of August 20.  A crowd of almost 3,000 blocked off three blocks of El Cajon Boulevard and began drag racing.  They left just enough room for cars to race by two a breast. Spectators lined the sidewalks and center island.

When more than 65 policemen arrived on the scene and tried to disperse the crowd, many of the protesters fought back.  They pelted offices with rock and bottles.  Then they attempted to overturn police cars.  It took three hours before the disturbance ended.

Sometimes, when doing research, I find amazing information I wasn’t even looking for.  This time it was in my own backyard!

General John Fritz Porter

While updating my biography of Mathew Brady, I discovered an interesting tidbit. During the Peninsula Campaign in 1862, Major General George B. McClellan sent Professor Thaddeus Lowe up into the sky in his hot-air balloon to spy on the Confederates. One of his generals, General Fritz John Porter, occasionally accompanied Lowe.

Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon

One day, Porter decided to go up in a balloon by himself. As he ascended into the sky, the balloon cable broke. The runaway balloon moved away quickly and floated over the Confederate line. Sharpshooters were preparing to fire on him. Mercifully, the wind shifted and pulled Porter back over the Union lines before the Confederates could shoot him down.

When Porter finally got the balloon under control, it made a dramatic descent and struck a Union tent when it landed. As Porter emerged unhurt from under the numerous folds of the balloon, he was greeted by cheering soldiers and a military band.

General McClellan, aware of General Porter’s adventure, wrote to his wife, “You may rest assured of one thing – you won’t catch me in the confounded balloon.”

Source: G. Allen Forster, The Eyes and Ears of the Civil War.