Halloween from the Celts

History of Halloween courtesy of the History Channel

I always play this video clip and show the article about the history of Halloween in my classes.  It does a great job showing the progression from the Celtic holiday Samhain to our modern concept of Halloween.

My Son Ethan the Pirate

Italian Architecture in Virginia

Besides the V and cross swords, the most well-known symbol of the University of Virginia is the Rotunda.  Anyone connected to the university or Charlottesville knows that this is the school Jefferson built.  He designed the buildings, gardens, and the academic curriculum.  However he did not create them brand new.  He used his studies and travels from Europe as inspiration.  I had the amazing pleasure to recently travel to Rome and got to experience Jefferson's inspirations first hand.  As a UVa grad the most powerful moment of my trip was standing in the Pantheon, which is the model for the Rotunda (finished in 1826 and added to the National Registrar for Historic Places on Oct. 15, 1966).  With its amazing dome and columns this 2000 year old building overwhelmed me.  This will be the first in a few blog posts about Italian culture influence on the third American President.

 

An Unknown Declaration of Rights

“Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World”: The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

After international contributions that African Americans made in the First World War soldiers who had fought for both the French and the United States returned home and demanded the same rights for those of African heritage around the world.  Led by Marcus Garvey the UNIA combined elements of Wilson's 14 points and the Bill of Rights to show unity in the need for worldwide equality. 

This thought provoking document was the attempt of African Americans to take their movement to the world as they still faced extreme discrimination at home.  They hoped for international support at a time when the United States had risen to the pinnacle of power as victors of World War I.  The document lists both American atrocities of inequality and discrimination and also the actions of Europeans to dominate the African continent.  It would not be until after the next world war when Jim Crow and imperialism begins to fall does the goals of the UNIA begin to be realized.

Here is the document in its entirety:  http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5122/

Declaration of Rights Around the World

On June 28th, 1776 Thomas Jefferson presented his Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress after weeks of writing and revisions and editing by the five member committee that included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.  It was not the first or the last time leaders felt the need to put pen to paper and establish the need to declare the rights of mankind.


1690 - John Locke's Second Treatise on Government:

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_locke.html#tdmePvf8rY0ols70.99

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_locke.html#tdmePvf8rY0ols70.99

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_locke.html#tdmePvf8rY0ols70.99

June 1776 - George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights
THAT all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. 

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_locke.html#tdmePvf8rY0ols70.99

July 1776 - Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence:
 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

1793 - Article 2 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen:
The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

1876 - Declaration of the Rights of Women (National Women Suffrage Association)
We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.

1948 - Articles 1 & 3 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Wilson's Proclamation 1335 - Flag Day

"Let us on that day rededicate ourselves to the nation, "one and inseparable" from which every thought that is not worthy of our fathers' first vows in independence, liberty, and right shall be excluded and in which we shall stand with united hearts, for an America which no man can corrupt, no influence draw away from its ideals, no force divide against itself,-a nation signally distinguished among all the nations of mankind for its clear, individual conception alike of its duties and its privileges, its obligations and its rights."
 
Woodrow Wilson could not have picked a better time to try and unify the country through the symbol of the American flag.  On May 30th, 1916 he gave his Presidential Proclamation 1335, which established Flag day.  He had many motives for doing so.  The United States had become a nation of immigrants in the second half of the 19th and early 20th century, there were still deep cultural divides between North, South, and West, and the country was again being pulled apart by the European conflict later known as WWI.  Wilson won the presidency on a pacifist platform and continued to keep the US out of the international war.  However, the Lusitania had been sunk and continuing German u-boat threats to the seas prompted many Americans to advocate the country joining the war.  Flag day has lasted but Wilson's pacifism did not and reluctantly followed with Congress's declaration of war less than a year later.


"Many circumstances have recently conspired to turn our thoughts to a critical examination of the conditions of our national life, of the influences which have seemed to threaten to divide us in interest and sympathy, of forces within and forces without that seemed likely to draw us away from the happy traditions of united purpose and action of which we have been so proud."

Woodrow Wilson's Complete Speech from the American Presidency Project
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=62991

Springtime Memorial Celebrations

Springtime usually means the onset of flowers and a renewal of life, but it has also been a time to mourn and memorialize  sacrifices made by those in the armed services.  Memorial Day on the last Monday of May each year is a time to remember and honor those who gave their lives for America. After the Civil War, local communities through both the north and south began the practice of systematically placing flowers on the graves of those who served.  It did not become an official national holiday until1971.
Source:  US Dept. of Veteran's Affairs

Other nations followed the example set by the Americans and after the World Wars nations throughout the world established their own Memorial Days.

• Dodenherdenking (Remembrance of the Dead) - May 4th Netherlands (est. 1961)
• Vimy Ridge Day - April 9th Canada (est. 2003)
• Anzac Day - April 25th Australia (est. 1920)

Jefferson and Macaroni

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most complex and controversial figures in American History.  His birthday of April 13th (also my grandmother's) always makes me want to discover something new about this fascinating man.  It is not just my University of Virginia brainwashing, but the fact that Jefferson is truly America's Renaissance man.  Jefferson made it a point to be a cultural connection between America and the world especially when it came to food.  In 1793 a macaroni mold from Naples made its was to Monticello.  He probably was not the first to introduce the food to America but he did popularize it with his dinner parties at both Monticello and the White House.  Guests would then return home and want the same food as that of the writer of the Declaration of Independence.

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/macaroni