#raikes

Raikes Bears "Maude" Plush in Flapper Dress

Just a heads up there’s gonna be discussion of graphic racial violence in the post. I’ve marked the paragraph where it is, so you can read around it if you’d like.

Hello everyone! Here is my weekly post about some of the historical context for episode 4! I’m a Historian working on my PhD in this time period. Although I must always disclose that my primary focus is the South during this period. But there is a large degree of overlap in a lot of the cultural elements.

So without further ado, let’s begin!

We get to meet T. Thomas Fortune this week. Fortune was a leading African American figure of this time period. As we can tell from the episode he was really involved with civil rights issues and was not afraid to get political. He was considered to be militant in his desire to increase the standing of African Americans.

The element that I find the most interesting about him is his connection to Booker T. Washington. Washington was one of the leading African American intellectuals from this period. Washington is a little controversial now compared to his contemporary W.E.B. DuBois (actually pronounced DEW BOYS, not DU BWAH). Washington was a proponent of the idea of racial uplift.

The way he framed this idea is that African Americans should not directly challenge the Jim Crow laws that proliferated in the country. The community should work on improving themselves and gaining the acceptance of the white community by gaining respectability. This was a controversial idea at the time, because many black leaders wanted to directly push back against discrimination. They felt that he was too accommodationist. Where he was meeting the white community on their terms instead of trying to cause more substantial, faster change.

DuBois on the other hand advocated for the black community to have equal treatment in laws and to push more directly against discrimination. He believed in the idea of the Talented Tenth where the top 10% of African Americans should become educated and fight for equality. This approach also had its supporters but it was also seen as really elitist, because what exactly were the people who were not part of the Top 10% to do?

The African American community of this time really divided into two camps, those who supported Washington, and those who supported DuBois. And even to this day this debate rages on among historians. There are positive and negative sides to both, of course. But it became a major almost political debate during the Gilded Age.

We also get to see more of Peggy Scott’s attempts to be a writer. So I wanted to talk about another really prominent African American woman writer who really deserves to be more well-known. Ida B. Wells! She was born into slavery in Mississippi and after being freed. She became a teacher and then became a very active writer especially in fighting against the extremely prevalent issue of lynching.

Content warning

This paragraph is going to be a little graphic so consider this a warning if you don’t want to see it. But it is a big issue in this period in the North and South. Lynchings were common throughout the country and they usually involve led mob violence against a person of color. Jim Crow laws made it very difficult to exist in society as an African American. There were many unspoken rules and violation could result in death. For instance if a black man bumped into a white woman she could accuse him of rape, and her family would hunt him down and kill him. They were accused of awful crimes even if it wasn’t remotely true, and they were convicted in public and executed. The thing that made it REALLY sick is that the communities often turned these into events. They would have postcards showing the dead bodies of the people they executed. They would even take their body parts as souvenirs. It’s just an EXTREMELY disgusting part of American history, and I’m even sparing you some of the really awful elements that make my stomach turn to even think about.

Content warning over

Anyway, Ida Wells created a pamphlet where she denounced the practice of lynching and argued that most of the people who were executed were completely innocent. She wrote this pamphlet and several articles WHILE IN THE SOUTH. So she ended up being forced to move and they told her if she came back to the town she was staying in, she would be killed. She became very involved in the North with the early issues of Civil Rights. She became good friends with DuBois and ended up being one of the founders of the NAACP. She was even given a posthumous Pulitzer Prize! I have a really interesting biography of her, but I forget the name. I’ll try and update with it tomorrow.

We also see a bit of shift in this episode towards the Republican Party. The Republican Party had changed quite a bit by this point in comparison to how it was following the Civil War. It was still a much better choice than the Democratic Party at this point, but it was no longer serving the communities who helped get it into power at this time.

The Republicans became closely associated with big business and robber barons during this period, and they’ve largely remained more connected with business interests ever since. The general attitude of the Party towards the black community at this point was, “we helped free the slaves, you’re all free now. And we aren’t going to help you anymore. You have freedom, solve your own issues.” But of course that wasn’t very supporting for people who were LITERALLY dying. So the dissatisfaction of Turner and others is quite fitting and probably highlights what a lot of African Americans felt in the Gilded Age.

Peggy mentions that she was unable to vote. Some women had tried to push for the right to vote for an extended period of time. There were actually some women who could vote in the Early Republic period because the right to vote was not implemented based on sex originally, but they gradually lost this right over time.

Activists were very involved in trying to give women a political voice but they largely fell on deaf ears throughout this period. There was even one instance of a woman, Alice Paul, who refused to eat until she got the right to vote. This resulted in her being force fed while in jail.

During World War I, women had new economic opportunities and they aided the war effort by getting involved. It didn’t make sense, in the minds of certain governmental figures, that women were so active in the war effort yet couldn’t vote. So in 1920 they passed the 19th amendment finally giving women the vote.

But, at the same time, voting rights for African Americans were also really limited at this time, especially in the South. The 13th Amendment got rid of slavery, the 14th amendment made African Americans citizens, and the 15th Amendment said that the vote could not be restricted based on race.

The grandfather clause said that anyone could vote whose grandfather could vote. Well that proved to be a problem since most African Americans’ grandparents were slaves WHO COULDN’T VOTE. So that was one way they prevented it.

Another way was the creation of Literacy exams. They would require everyone to pass what amounted to an intelligence test to try and see if the voter was “fit” to actual vote. But the thing is they have different exams based off of race. We’re talking essentially asking white men “What is the name of the country?” And then ask African Americans “what is Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution?” Which was really difficult for people who largely could not read. The whole process was enshrined at the state level and the federal government had no way to prevent this and didn’t really want to if they could. It’s part of what set off the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

It’s especially unfortunate because during Reconstruction, the African American community actually had the right to vote. Some were even elected! And then once Reconstruction ended, there was almost a 100 year gap before an African American was ever elected to a state or National post.

This is more of a fun tidbit, but my father doesn’t really know the history of the US very well, but he’s really into historical silverware. He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of it. And I showed him the silverware from this episode and he was able to name some of the patterns. One of the most common patterns he said was the King’s pattern which was really popular in this period. He said that the show did a great job with getting period silverware!

Agnes also mentions that Ada has been reading German books about self-destruction. I think this is probably a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a German philosopher who wrote extensive critiques of morality and the idea of an absent God. I’m not as familiar with his works but he proved to be extremely popular and he wrote a lot about the meaning of life and the way human’s are possibly inherently self-destructive.

Agnes instead suggests that Ada should read Louisa May Alcott. This was the more acceptable choice at the time. She was an extremely popular American writer who wrote the famous story Little Women for which she is most well-known. She enshrined many of the values that Agnes desires and also hopes that Ada would embody.

Mrs. Chamberlain talks about her husband and how he was involved with the 1845 Cliff Mine in Michigan. I was not familiar with this but I looked into it, and the Cliff Mine was a massive copper mine that was discovered in Michigan in 1845. For about 9 years it was the most active copper mine in the country. Mr. Chamberlain was lucky, he was in the right place at the right time and was able to get involved in the mine and used it to get very wealthy. Which of course would make him the “new money” but also gave him the money necessary to be able to purchase all of the lovely pieces of art his wife now enjoys.

Women’s relationship to men was very complex. A man could become a widower and marry a second wife and it was not frowned upon, it was actually encouraged. But the rules were different for women, as usual. Women were held to a different standard and oftentimes were not encouraged to remarry especially if they had kids. But at the same time, spinsters, or women who never married, were also often seen as social outcasts. It made it very difficult to be a woman in society and we get to see some of this in the actual series.

We also get mentions of Jay Gould and JP Morgan. Gould was another inner Baron not unlike Mr. Russell who worked in railroads. He helped finance the development of many of the railroads in the country, and much like Russell was not afraid to grease a few pockets to get what he wanted. He became heavily involved in the political corruption that existed in New York in the Gilded Age and worked closely with the infamous Boss Tweed ring of political bosses. He didn’t prove to be very popular during his life but he became extremely wealthy.

Morgan’s thing was banking. He was a Wall Street banker who helped spur industrialization while also creating a monopoly. He worked with other elites and their businesses in order to create a conglomeration that consisted of steel, General Electric, railroads, and many other interests. Monopolies were not illegal in this world and he created a huge one that gave him unprecedented power. Which made him extremely wealthy, and he was also a robber Baron like Mr. Russell and Gould. These men would have been contemporaries to Russell and he would have to either interact with them, or compete with them in order for his own business interests to thrive.

I hope this helps add something to your experiences of the episode! If you have any questions feel free to post them below and I’ll try to answer them as best I can!

#365daysofbiking Lane’s end:

Monday March 8th 2021 – I was discussing online the other day a local lost stub of a lane that used to be Bullmore Lane. Bullmore Lane ran from Raikes and Chesterfield, a mile or so north of Shenstone, shadowing the Watling Street, to a junction near Wall Butts at Hilton, where it met Cranebrook Lane and Boat Lane. As a kid it was one of my first local discoveries. I loved that quiet, undulating backway, and still do.

When the M6 Toll came through at the turn of the millennium, the last half a mile of Bullmoor Lane was diverted south, to meet Cranebrook Lane without building a second flyover, leaving the old stub abandoned.

It still exists, and is now gated, but when nostalgic one can push past the gate and ride the crumbling asphalt to the edge of the new motorway, echoing in my childhood tracks.

I always find these dead, divorced and orphaned lanes a bit sad: Dark Lane at Longdon is one, just closed as out of use, like School Lane at Norton. But other lanes were lost to the toll, especially around Hammerwich and and Shenstone Park.

It’s the feeling that they hold memories, which cannot be put back, I think.

A curious bit of melancholia on the exercise ride.

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I went through the most recent episode and jotted down some notes about the episode so that I can provide some extra information about the period from a historian who specializes in the Gilded Age. But, as always, I want to preface this by saying that my knowledge is primarily relegated to the South during this period, but there are still numerous commonalities!

We’ve got some very interesting individuals in this discussion, as well as a bit of an anachronism on the part of the show!

First, see a mock up of the Grand Central Terminal with what it was planned to look like. There was actually a pretty large period of time between this demonstration in the show (1882) and the construction of Grand Central Terminal. They didn’t start working officially on the Terminal until 1909, and it took 4 years to complete it before it officially opened in 1913. It brought together a couple of lines that were already in New York City and it’s still a huge landmark in the city today!

Stanford White was actually a real life architect, which adds to another historical figure being involved in the show! Much like we see in the series he was part of McKim, Meade, and White firm and was responsible for designing many of the houses for the rich. They were also involved with the designing and construction of many institutional buildings in New York City, and even some religious buildings!

He was also part of a movement called the American Renaissance which lasted roughly from 1876-1917. He centered a lot on the United States as the heir to Greek, and Roman culture as well as the Renaissance. It also had a lot to do with American exceptionalism and nationalism which is a whole other issue. But the show’s depiction of him seems pretty accurate, but they didn’t go far enough with his facial hair. Seriously look the guy up, it’s intense!

Of course the big thing with this episode was the lighting up of Wall Street by Edison! Edison had been working on the lightbulb for awhile. He officially created the first one in 1879. But he didn’t have the electricity contained within it yet. He demonstrated how you could light up a building from a single location but it was not until September 4, 1882 that he implemented it on a large scale.

This demonstration required a TON of power. It needed six 27 ton steam driven dynamos. Each dynamo produced a total of 100 kilowatts of electricity or enough to power about 1,200 lamps.

One instance where the show differs in this compared to history is that Edison lit up the street at 3 PM, so it wouldn’t have been as dark as it was in the show, but it certainly makes it more dramatic!

He moved really quickly after this and by the end of the month there were 59 homes with electricity. And by the end of the year there were 513. I wonder if this switch to electricity will happen to any of the prominent characters? I can see the Russell’s adapting to it better than Agnes though for sure!

Lewis Latimer was also a real person and his life was incredible. He was the son of former slaves who escaped from slavery and fled to Massachusetts. This ended up being controversial and there was even a whole trial over it where his father was represented by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison two of the most prominent abolitionists of the period.

Latimer is so instrumental to a lot of the key inventions we use today. Alexander Graham Bell hired him to draft the necessary drawings for Bell to get a patent on the telephone.

Fortune mentioned that he made a carbon filament for the light bulbs, ironically he did this while working for Edison’s rival, Hiram Maxim. He even got a patent on this which helped improve Edison’s light bulbs.

But his work goes beyond that though! He also created an early precursor to the Air Conditioner and while working for Edison he even translated their data into French and German.

He also spent his time teaching English and drafting courses to immigrants in New York. He was an altogether incredible person and inventor!

We didn’t see any of Nikola Tesla in this episode. Tesla proved to be one of Edison’s rivals and was heavily involved in the War of Currents over AC vs DC. He actually was the winner of the Current War with his support of Alternating currents. But he was still an employee with Edison at the time we see in the show. He didn’t break off to work on his own until 1885, 3 years after the display we see in this episode.

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I went through the most recent episode and jotted down some notes about the episode so that I can provide some extra information about the period from a historian who specializes in the Gilded Age. But, as always, I want to preface this by saying that my knowledge is primarily relegated to the South during this period, but there are still numerous commonalities!

One of the first big things in the episode was the mention of the Pinkertons. The Pinkertons were essentially a detective agency. But there is a lot more to them than that. They were created in the 1850s by a man named Allan Pinkerton and they eventually became involved with private security. Supposedly Allan Pinkerton helped to foil an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln and because of this, Lincoln ended up using Pinkerton agents for his security since this was long before the Secret Service.

Another interesting element about the Pinkertons is that they also hired women and members of minority groups to work for them and used them for spies. I think an accurate comparison to the Pinkertons would be the CIA although the Pinkertons were independent and not run by the government. The Pinkertons still exist under Securitas AB today.

As I’ve mentioned before, my father is really into antique silverware. So when they showed the placement of the utensils, I showed him the arrangement. He told me that the utensils are part of the King’s Pattern which you can tell by looking at the handles. He stated that they were the more fancy silverware that were quite prevalent in the US and were used from the 1860s to the 1880s. The association with the King also helps cement some of their Englishness for Mrs. Russell’s luncheon.

I looked into the doll parties of the 1880s to see if there was such a thing, and I couldn’t really find anything. Which I think makes sense because it was meant to be portrayed as a weird fad. But if anyone knows anything about them please let me know! I like learning from these posts as well!

Lenox Library was a real place in New York City from 1871 to 1912. It was located on Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets. And just like in the episode, it was well known for its collection of Bibles which included a Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bibles were one of the first ever books to be mass produced. They were printed in the 1450s and are still extremely valuable. There are only 49 known copies that remain. I’ve seen one in my Undergraduate University’s library and they are gorgeous!

The Lenox Library also had a huge collection of Shakespeare and works by Milton. It was so prominent that over 26,000 people visited the library in 1894. But unfortunately it ran into some financial hardships and was eventually demolished in 1912. But all the books in its collection were transferred to the New York Public Library.

There was also a brief mention of Islam this week. I’m not exactly an authority on this topic, but there was certainly some xenophobic and anti-Muslim rhetoric during this period. Oftentimes it was seen as a “new religion” coming into the United States, despite that being extremely far from the truth. Many of the slaves who were brought to the United States in the colonial and Early Republic eras were actually Muslims. So Islam has been in the United States before the United States existed!

Slaveowners actually really valued Muslim slaves because they believed them to be more intelligent. They felt some kinship with them because both Christianity and Islam are religions rooted in books. So many Muslim slaves could read, and this was a valuable skill for some slaves to have. Eventually some of the Islamic influence faded as slaves either converted to Christianity or better hid their religious beliefs from the eyes of their masters. But that doesn’t hide the fact that Islam was a part of Early American history.

That said the treatment of other religions wasn’t great during this time. They didn’t get along well with Catholics, so they certainly weren’t going to get along with Muslims. But Ada’s acceptance of this possibility speaks to her character and as being ahead of the times.

We also get a brief mention of Benedict Arnold. Arnold was a major figure during the Revolutionary War. He was born in Connecticut and became heavily involved in the Patriot cause agains the British. But he was a rather temperamental man and seemingly became heavily in debt to Congress in an attempt to support his lavish lifestyle.

Even with these issues, he fought with distinction and made his way to the rank of Major General and became a close ally to George Washington. But this didn’t last. He became closely associated with Loyalists to the British and actually married a woman named Peggy Shippen who was part of a prominent loyalist family and likely helped him change his allegiance.

The British offered him £20,000 to turn over West Point in New York, of which Washington had appointed him control. But on 1780 the plan was found out and stopped and Arnold officially defected to the British. He became a brigadier general and led the British army against troops he once led.

After the War he moved to London and then lived briefly in Canada where he was unpopular. He returned to England and died there in 1801. His betrayal served a really important propagandistic role and his name was forever linked to treachery. To this day, people who are traitors are called Benedict Arnold because of this, and it is fitting since it reflects some of the emotions we see in this episode!

The final point I’ll make is about General Custer. The characters likened Agnes’ appearance at the luncheon to General Custer and Little Big Horn. George Armstrong Custer was a member of the US Army and served as part of the cavalry. He had fought in several major battles of the Civil War including the Battle of Gettysburg. He became so well known and accomplished that he was present with Ulysses Grant at Robert E. Lee’s surrender.

One of the major shifts following the Civil War was an attempt by the United States to continue to expand their land and influence and unfortunately they considered Native American tribes to be in their way. This started a new chapter in the horrible mistreatment of Native Americans. This time in the Plains.

In 1876 the US government discovered that there was gold in the Black Hills which is now part of modern day South Dakota and Wyoming. This land belonged to the Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. The US wanted the gold and would do whatever it took to get it which led to the The Great Sioux War of 1876.

Custer was a major part of these campaigns by the government to take Native American lands. And in June of 1876 he encountered Native American resistance and a battle broke out. This battle came to be known as The Battle of the Little Bighorn (named after The Little Bighorn River.

In the fighting 268 US soldiers were killed, while only 31-135 Native Americans were killed. The Native American tribes led by Chief Gall and Crazy Horse won a decisive victory. And in the fighting Custer was killed along with two of his brothers. This battle is also commonly referred to as Custer’s Last Stand because of the work of Custer’s widow who portrayed her husband as a heroic figure fighting against Native Americans. She helped turn her husband into a tragic figure and forever made him famous for his final defeat.

Unfortunately the Native American Tribes did not get to enjoy their victory long, because the US had more resources. They used these resources to attack Native American encampments and property until the Native American tribes could no longer resist. The War resulted in a U.S. victory and they seized the lands that they wanted and came to the Agreement of 1877 which annexed Sioux land and established Native American reservations.

This episode really latched onto the idea of Agnes as Custer completely surrounded with nowhere to go. And since these events only transpired 6 years before the period when this episode was set, it would have been an extremely topical reference!

[Prompt]

Rori nudged the mercenary's ribs playfully before pushing against his shoulder with her own. She brought her steaming mug of coffee to her lips, taking a deep sip before cutting her eyes at him.

[Prompt]

“It’s not a stupid mask,” Chase countered, a frown settling on his face as the stupid mask in question dangled from his fingers. “It was a gift, first of all, which makes you sound like an ass, by the way. Secondly, the feral ghouls won’t bother you if you’re wearing it. Cause you look and smell like them, so they think you’re one of them. Kind of like how they don’t mess with regular Ghouls.”

To prove his point, Chase pulled the grotesque mask back over his own head, and started towards a group of ferals. He walked through the middle of them, only receiving a few curious sniffs from a few before he headed back, completely unharmed.

[Prompt]

A groan came from under the sheets, the only reply available for the moment. Eventually, after a few quieter groans of pain, Rori removed the sheets and partially sat up, eyes barely open.

“Did I get into a fight with a Deathclaw last night?”