By ©2023 Sarah Becker Pet Appreciation Week, initiated by the American Veterinarian Association—an Association established in 1863—is celebrated June 4-10, 2023. It is said that George and Martha Washington were “avid dog and bird people.” Mary Thompson, published author and Mount Vernon Historian Emerita, loves dogs. She joins me for a Q&A. Q1: The American Heritage Dictionary defines pet as “an animal kept for amusement or companionship; an object of the affections, a favorite.” To what extent did the Washington family enjoy companion animals, pets of a particular type? A1. “The Washington family knew and related to animals in a number of different roles, including as pets. Like other people now and two hundred years ago, they used animals to supply labor on their farms: to pull plows, harrows, and other agricultural equipment. Also to power coaches, wagons, sleighs, and other means of land transportation. Dogs mostly served as guard animals.” Q2. You recently purchased a West Highland white Terrier puppy. Did the Washington family’s fondness for Westies influence your choice of household pet? A2.”The new puppy, whose name is Fingal, is our second Westie. Much as I wish we could prove that Washington had Westies that is just a fond wish. Many dog breeds with which we are familiar today were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although Westies are primarily house pets at present, they were developed as hunters who helped keep barns and stables free of rats and mice: barnyards free of unwanted vermin, i.e. rabbits, foxes, badgers, weasels, otters, water rats, woodchucks, and even small game and birds. There is some evidence that Westies have been a feature of Scottish life since at least the time of King James VI [1566-1625]. Terriers, as a group, came in a range of sizes as did their prey.”…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker From the Republic’s founding there has been a connection between politics and the courts. Perhaps no more dramatically than the case of Marbury v. Madison [1803]. The U.S. Supreme Court decision was landmark: it established the Constitutional doctrine of judicial review. The case—brought by the district of Columbia’s William Marbury and Alexandria complainants Robert Townsend Hooe [the Town of Alexandria’s first Mayor], Dennis Ramsay and William Harper—was an outgrowth of the contentious politics surrounding the Presidential election of 1800. In November 1800, President John Adams [F-MA] lost his re-election bid. Incumbent Vice President Thomas Jefferson [DR-VA] defeated him. Soon after Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party claimed Adams was packing the courts in an effort to protect the Federalist Party’s legacy. John Adams was well known for his 1776 Thoughts on Government. “For Adams the structure of government was a subject of passionate interest that raised fundamental questions about the realities of human nature, political power, and the good society,” David McCullough explained. “It was a concern that for years had propelled much of his reading and exchange of ideas.” Adams want: a government that included an executive, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. President Adams appointed attorney and former French Envoy John Marshall Secretary of State on June 6, 1800. Months later, when U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth [1796-1801] resigned, Adams offered the Chief Justice’s job to Marshall. Chief Justice Marshall took his oath of office on February 4, 1801, while simultaneously serving as ad interim Secretary of State. Marshall, a moderate Federalist, was born in Germantown, Virginia, in 1755. The oldest of 15 children he was schooled using mostly the Dictionary. His was a stellar resume. Marshall joined the Virginia BAR in 1780; was a member of the House of Burgesses [1782-1788] and an…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker The American Library Association [ALA] celebrates National Library Week April 23-29. Did you know Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]—author of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Minister to France, first Secretary of State, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia—was fascinated with books? The ALA’s 2023 theme: There’s more to the Story. “Books are boring,” the green frog said. “Dude, books are fascinating,” the orange frog replied. The frogs were discussing Newbery medalist Kwame Alexander’s Surf’s Up. Libraries offer not only children’s and big print books, audio and e-books but also story times and book clubs, programs and lectures. “A little attention to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful,” Jefferson wrote in 1771. “[E]very thing is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue,” i.e. moral excellence. “More patrons check out fiction than nonfiction,” Brack Stovall Duncan Library Branch Manager agreed. “I cut my teeth on science fiction.” He now enjoys environmental fiction, books like Kim Stanley Robinson, Jennifer Fitzgerald, et.al.’s 2019 Pulitzer prize-winning The Overstory. Also The Ministry for the Future by Robert Powell [2020]. Alexandria’s Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library [KWBB] received a six-month 2020-2021 American Library Association Resilient Communities grant to educate patrons concerning global climate change: to “highlight issues of environmental justice, sustainability, and emergency preparedness.” The local takeaway, flooding. “Climate change is the one thing we’re all experiencing,” Megan Zimmerman KWBB adult services librarian conceded. “Twenty percent of Alexandria city is located on a floodplain and in recent years rainstorms have become more severe, causing homes and businesses to flood.” Examples include the Old Town Alexandria waterfront and the West Street Braddock Metro. “With the detonation of Trinity in the New Mexico desert in 1945,…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker March is not only Women’s History Month: March 21 is also World Poetry Day. According to Fireside poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is “a universal poet—of women and young people.” Whitman’s poetry is “situated between” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism and Realism. “Where in Washington is the house in which Walt Whitman—printer’s devil, compositor, carpenter, country school teacher, editorial writer, publisher, tramp, hospital orderly, Federal employee, and immortal poet—resided?” The Washington Post asked. “In 1863 he disclosed he was paying $7 a month for a ‘bright little third-story front room’ at 1407 L Street NW.” Whitman, born a Quaker worked as a Civil War hospital volunteer in both Washington and Alexandria. Cherry syrup, horehound candy, and money were among his favorite bedside offerings. “You just maturing youth! You male or female!” Walt Whitman wrote in Chants Democratic 6. “Remember the organic compact of These States,/ Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man,/ Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners,… Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined….” Hening’s Collection of the Laws of Virginia refers to femes covert, “orphans, femes covert (married women) and persons of unsound mind,” beginning in 1657-1658. In 1789, President George Washington’s inaugural year First Lady Martha Custis Washington was a feme covert; the property of her husband, without rights unable to vote or hold elective office. “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law,” British jurist Sir William Blackstone said in 1765, “that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least…
by © 2023 Sarah Becker “My opinion with respect to emigration is, that except of useful mechanics—and some particular descriptions of men—or professions—there is no need of extra encouragement,” President George Washington wrote in 1794. In 2020 25.6% of Alexandria’s population was foreign born. Washington advised against the “settling of emigrants in a body” arguing that “by so doing they retain the language, habits & principles (good or bad) which they bring with them.” He preferred that emigrants intermix; “get assimilated to our customs, manners and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” As of 1795, U.S. citizenship required a five year residency. In 2015 Wallet Hub ranked Virginia 8th overall for Hispanic assimilation. Virginia’s 2020 Hispanic population: 10.2%. Alexandria’s Hispanic population 16.5% of the city’s total. “[T]he United States has never adopted any measure to encourage or invite emigrants,” Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote in 1819. “It has never held out any incitements to induce the subjects of any other sovereign to abandon their own country.” “They come to a life of independence, to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, they may always…return to the land of their nativity,” Adams continued. “To one thing they must make up their minds,” Adams concluded. “They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity [to future generations] rather than backward to their ancestors.” [Italics added] The power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” rests with Congress [U.S. Constitution: Art. 1, Sec. 8]. Emigrate describes the move relative to the point of departure. Immigrate describes the move relative to the destination. “They came here—the exile and the stranger;…
By ©2022 Sarah Becker British historian Andrew William Kinglake, best known for his 1874 book The Invasion of The Crimea, published his first tome Eothen, or Traces of Travel, Brought Home from the East in 1844. It is for reason of the latter that his poem Stick and Stones became forever famous. Kinglake’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me….” The rhyme has long been “used as a defense against name-calling and verbal bullying.” The Virginia Code [22.1-276.01(A)] defines bullying as “any aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the victim; involves a real or perceived power balance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma.” Cyber bullying is included: ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict is not. In 1844 former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Tennessee Governor James K. Polk [D-TN] defeated statesman Henry Clay [Whig-KY] for President. America’s anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum, as was Polk’s plan to annex the Republic of Texas. Anti-slavery Whigs thought annexation troubling and Polk supporters responded by claiming Clay “spent his days at the gambling table and his nights in a brothel.” In 1862 Congress forbid slavery in federal territories and President Abraham Lincoln [R-IL] completed the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation. The black community, free and enslaved became enthused and the African Methodist Episcopal [AME] Church—“born in protest against slavery”—rallied. The Church adapted an “old adage,” Kinglake’s Sticks and Stones and delivered. Said the AME’s Christian Reporter in March 1862, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.” The first black members of the U.S. Congress were elected in 1870. Two years later Southern Republicans, Negroes were “told to stand…
by ©2022 Sarah Becker ‘Tis the holidays, a season many celebrate with tasty treats. Foods made with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. For the Friends Meeting, followers of the Quaker faith—a Protestant faith—SPICES is an acronym for religious Testimonies. According to Swarthmore College, of Quaker origin, Quakers use the word testimony “to describe ‘a witness to the Living Truth Within the human heart’—as it is acted out in everyday life.” The six Quaker Testimonies are: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship of the Earth. Integrity, adherence to truth and an ethical code is a given. Peace Testimony: “The Peace testimony is based on the same understanding of the nature of God and of human beings,” Swarthmore said. “How can one kill another child of God, a potential channel of Truth, no matter how misguided he or she may seem at the moment?” The testimony has led many Friends to oppose war; to seek a reconciling force between peoples and nations in conflict. “Your principles & conduct are well known to me,” President and retired Revolutionary War General George Washington wrote the Society of Quakers in 1789, “and it is doing the People called Quakers no more than Justice to say, that [except their declining to share with others the burthren of the common defense] there is no Denomination among us who are more exemplary and useful Citizens.” Alexandria educator Benjamin Hallowell [1799-1877] “never doubted the correctness of the Quaker peace testimony.” He remained a pacifist during the War of 1812. An Alexandria exception: Disowned Quaker, Confederate army Major and inventor of the modern knuckle coupler Eli Hamilton Janney [1831-1912]. Two of America’s 46 Presidents were Quakers, Herbert Hoover [R-CA, 1929-1933] and Richard Nixon [R-CA, 1969-1974]. “The son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency…
by ©2022 Sarah Becker Colonial Virginia celebrated its first day of thanksgiving on December 4, 1619. “We Ordain that the day of our ship’s arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly,” the Berkeley Company declared, “and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.” There, on the north shore of the James River, settlers, including Episcopal clergyman George Thorpe “knelt and held a thanksgiving service for their safe arrival.” The Pilgrims’ Plymouth, Massachusetts, day of thanksgiving was held one year and seventeen days after Berkeley’s. Berkeley Plantation may well be the “most historic plantation on the James River.” A plantation located halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg Berkeley includes not only a First Thanksgiving Shrine; it is also the 18th century home of Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the Declaration of Independence and his son William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States. Benjamin Harrison III purchased the tobacco plantation in 1691 and created the River’s first commercial shipyard. General George Washington, his Revolutionary Army welcomed thanksgiving. The General’s December 17, 1777, order: “[B]eing the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us—The General directs that the army remain in its present quarters, and that the Chaplains perform divine service with their several Corps and brigades….” Winning a war, forming a Union, and rewriting the Articles of Confederation are not easy tasks. “The disinclination of the individual States to yield competent powers to Congress for the Federal Government—their unreasonable jealousy of that body & of one another—& the disposition which seems to pervade each, of being all-wise & all-powerful within itself, will, if there is…
by ©2022 Sarah Becker How do lawyers and historians pass their respective bar exams? Lawyers mostly study hard. Spirited historians sip booze. The American Whiskey Trail, championed by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States includes both distilleries and historic sites, sites such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon distillery and Gadsby’s Tavern Museum. GW’s favorite alcohol drinks: sweet, fortified wines like Madeira and Port; rum punch, and porter [dark beer]. Reconstructed as of 2007 Mount Vernon’s “whiski distillery” was originally built in 1797: the same year John Adams succeeded George Washington as President. Two years later the distillery was one of the country’s largest 18th century facilities, producing approximately 11,000 gallons of whiskey annually. Whiskey sold for $.50 a gallon and a federal Excise Whiskey Tax was due. The 1791 tax was used “to offset a portion of the federal government’s assumption of state debts.” Mount Vernon’s distillery was a spinoff—born of Washington’s want “to simplify his farming operations.” It generated a substantial profit, thanks mostly to the efforts of Scottish farm manager James Anderson. The Estate produced ample grain; the gristmill and water system were previously installed, and enslaved labor was cheap. Better still, the remaining slop—distilled grain—was recyclable. The distillery was home to 150 pigs and 30 cows. The “demand,” Washington wrote, was “brisk.” Alexandria merchant and leading surveyor George Gilpin was among the distillery’s earliest customers. The un-aged whiskey was made from 60% rye, 35% corn, and 5% malted barley. According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health 85.6% of Americans ages 18 and older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 69.5% reported that they drank in the past year. The top alcohol drinks, in descending order: 12-oz. of regular beer, 1½-oz. of distilled spirits, and 5-oz. of…
by ©2022 Sarah Becker “We’ve all seen how quickly and creatively Texas can act when it wants to protect the unborn embryo,” CNN Anchor Alisyn Camerota said on May 25, 2022. “Why not act with that alacrity to protect a living, breathing 10-year old child?” Camerota was referring to Uvalde’s Robb Elementary mass shooting. Nineteen school children and two teachers were killed; 17 others were wounded. More than 311,000 students have experienced a school shooting since 1999. A mass shooting is defined as “a gun crime in which four or more people excluding the shooter are killed.” Should returning students learn the particulars of school safety? Absolutely, including vocabulary words like shots fired, active shooter, dangerous someone; inform, counter, and evacuate. On May 24, 2022, children were confined to two Robb Elementary classrooms; held at gunpoint, either dead or pretending death while calling #911 for help. The deceased gunman, age 18, purchased his AR-15 assault style semiautomatic rifle, a rifle akin to the military’s automatic M-16, one day after his May 17 birthday. Texas makes it easy to buy and carry guns. Why, the gun lobby is famous for its generosity. “Gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America spent $15.8 million—a record amount—on lobbying in 2021,” Open Secrets explained. “Senator Ted Cruz [R-TX] has received more funding…than any other politician since 2012.” According to Brady United the NRA’s top career grossing Senators are, in descending order: Mitt Romney (R-UT) #1@$13,647,676, Richard Burr (R-NC) #2, Roy Blunt (R-MO) #3, Thom Tillis (R-NC) #4, Marco Rubio (R-FL) #5@$3,303,355, Joni Ernst (R-IA) #6, Rob Portman (R-OH) #7, Todd Young (R-IN) #8, Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) #9, Tom Cotton (R-AR) #10@$1,971,214, Pat Toomey (R-PA) #11, Josh Hawley (R-MO) #12, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) #13, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) #14@$1,283,515,…
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