Book Log 2022 #17: Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

Harriet Baxter, now an old woman living in London, is taking upon herself to chronicle the life of Ned Gillespie, an artist who she believes never gained the acclaim he deserved. She considers herself to be the best suited person for the job as she knew Gillespie quite well, having met him and his family by accident when she was visiting Glasgow for the 1888 International Exhibition.

That meeting involves Harriet saving the life of Gillespie's mother, and from that act she becomes quite close with the family, becoming a sort of surrogate member by helping with day to day tasks and patronizing their work as artists. It's clear that the family has its troubles, and when they eventually lead to tragedy and a criminal trial, Harriet winds up in the middle of things.

Where the book is told from Harriet's point of view and several decades removed from the events she's recalling, there is plenty of room to question the reliability of the narrator. It's also not clear what her motives are in telling the story - is she really trying to give Gillespie a boost in popularity, or is she trying to clear her own name?

I liked this book quite a bit, though in reading a couple of reviews Harris' previous book, The Observations, was noted as being along similar lines but better. I've not read it, but maybe it would make sense to read that one first.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 40: The first spring forward

Americans who hate Daylight Savings Time should rue the day March 31, 1918, as that was when DST became an official practice in the US. 

For most of history there was no organized approach to best using the increased daylight that comes with summer. In Roman times, when the day was split into 12 equal hours of day and night, they just changed the number of minutes in each hour to suit prevailing conditions. When fixed-length hours became the norm, businesses and other institutions would shift opening and closing times as needed, but that was a voluntary practice.

The idea of actually shifting the clock ahead was suggested by a few individuals, but didn't catch on (outside of a handful of localities) until World War I, when Germany and Austria-Hungary shifted their clocks ahead in 1916 in order to conserve coal. Most of Europe followed over the course of the next year, with the US (as with their entry into the war) coming later. And like much of Europe, the US wound up dropping DST after the war (though Congress had to override President Wilson's veto to do so).

DST would pop up in the US again during World War II (though it was called War Time rather than Daylight Time), and was repealed again after the war. Localities were allowed to observe DST, and many states did, creating a patchwork of local times. Complaints by several industries (most notably transportation) led to the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which required states to observe DST unless they passed a state law exempting the entire state from the practice.

And that's pretty much where things have stayed until recently, with a renewed push for year-round DST (most notably in the Sunshine Protection Act). Proponents tend to forget the mid-1970s experiment with this that was prompted by the 1973 energy crisis, which saw problems with late sunrise times in the winter months that had kids going to school in the dark.

So there you have it, 40 days of things that happened on Easter. Tune in next year when we'll have 40 days of things that happened on Holy Saturday (if I take this to its logical extension I can run out most of the 2020s with things that happened during Holy Week).

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 39: On the march

The Panic of 1893 caused an economic depression in the US that lasted for four years, and was the most significant economic downturn (non-Civil War division) experienced by Americans in their lifetimes. This led people to some drastic measures, such as the decision by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey to lead a march to Washington, DC, to demand the government intervene by creating jobs and putting more money into the economy.

Coxey and about 100 other men left Massillon, Ohio on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1894. Other marchers met up with Coxey (now leading what became popularly known as Coxey's Army), and about 6000 men made an encampment just outside of the capital. The day after making camp, Coxey and some of the other march leaders were arrested for walking on the grass at the Capitol building. Not long after that the marchers lost interest and the protest largely broke up.

While it wasn't successful, Coxey's march is notable for being the first planned protest march on Washington. It also saw one of its main goals, a government works program to provide jobs during a depression, adopted for the New Deal. 

 Book Log 2022 #16: American Fire by Monica Hesse

Accomack County in Virginia was once one of, if not the richest, rural counties in all of the US. But over time, as agriculture shifted to other places and took money and people with it, it became more isolated and poorer, with plenty of fallow fields and abandoned buildings.

Which wound up being a pretty good environment for a serial arsonist. As buildings burned and the locals tried - and failed - to catch the arsonist, the spate of fires drew national attention. Once a suspect was arrested, the author went to Virginia to cover the hearing, and as the case unfolded it not only reflected the history of the county,  but took an unexpected detour into a love story.

I don't remember many specifics about the book, but I gave it four stars on Goodreads, which suggests I liked it. So sure, give it a read.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 38: Marian Anderson sings

In 1939, contralto Marian Anderson was trying to plan a concert for Washington, DC. Only problem was that Anderson, an African-American, couldn't find a venue. The Daughters of the American Revolution denied her the use of Constitution Hall, which when the DAR wasn't hosting their national convention was often used for concerts. Turns out the DAR had a whites-only performer policy in place at the time, and the building also lacked segregated bathrooms (as required by DC law). Anderson then tried to book the auditorium at a whites-only high school, but was similarly denied by the city's board of education.

An ad hoc group of supporters, drawn mainly from civil rights and labor groups, formed the Marian Anderson Citizens Committee, which then put pressure on the DC Board of Education to change their decision. In addition, the DAR saw a slew of resignations after their decision, most notably by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

As pressure mounted to let Anderson sing, Roosevelt was able to lean on her husband, who then got Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to let Anderson perform an open air concert at the Lincoln Memorial. And so it was that Anderson, on April 9, 1939, performed for an assembled crowd of 75,000 (and millions more at home over the NBC radio network).

This landmark concert opened up further opportunities for Anderson to perform in integrated settings, most notably a 1943 concert at the now-integrated Constitution Hall (though the DC Board of Education still banned her from using public high schools). Anderson would later go on to become the first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera, sang at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work promoting civil and human rights before retiring from singing in 1965.

 Book Log 2022 #15: Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

This climate novel brings together a feral pig hunter, an oil billionaire, and the Queen of the Netherlands in a scheme to address global warming through a rogue geoengineering project. While the project isn't sanctioned by any government, it does draw the attention of both China and India, which undertake their own responses aimed at promoting their own interests in relation to the project.

This book reminded me a little bit of both Zodiac and Cryptonomicon in how non-governmental actors can influence policy through technology (though this book is much more focused on the aftermath). It also had one of the more entertaining romantic subplots, which was unexpected.

It's not his best book, but I did enjoy it, and think it compares favorably against other climate fiction.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 37: A planter gets planted

The Harrison family has roots in Virginia going back to around 1630, when Benjamin Harrison arrived and quickly established himself. Within three years he was made clerk of the state's Governor's Council, setting a course in public service that future Harrisons - many also named Benjamin - would follow.

Notable among them is Benjamin Harrison V, who by the age of 20 was managing several plantations covering thousands of acres (which included a manor house, a grist mill, a fishery, and a number of slaves). This all was due to the untimely death of Benjamin Harrison IV, who also left other plantations to others of his 10 children.

Harrison flourished, and followed in his father's footsteps by being elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses (although he was too young to serve when first elected, which makes you wonder how he got elected in the first place). Harrison quickly fell in with those opposed to direct British rule, and served on several bodies which argued that colonists should have a voice in the laws (and taxes) applied to them.

Not surprisingly, Harrison was voted to be a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses (one of his roomates at the latter was George Washington), and would be one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He spent most of the Revolutionary War in Virginia, serving in the new House of Delegates and working with the fledgling government to secure military aid for the southern states.

Just a month after the American victory at Yorktown, Harrison became the fifth governor of Virginia, and focused mainly on maintaining peace and improving the local economy, which the war had damaged greatly. After his term he returned to the legislature, where he served until his death on April 24, 1791, of unknown causes (though he was often in ill health thanks to what one source calls his "persistent corpulence").

For all that, Harrison's greatest legacy may be that he fathered one president - William Henry Harrison - who then fathered another - Benjamin Harrison. Who, as you might have noted, was not one of the line of Benjamin Harrisons. Benjamin Harrison V's oldest son was Benjamin Harrison VI, who like his dad was a planter and state politician. He would father Benjamin Harrison VII (with his first wife after the death of his second wife), and he would beget Benjamin Harrison VIII, and after that I can't bother to look. One other notable detail of the Harrisons is that they are also related to Abraham Lincoln through Thomas Harrison, who established a branch of the Harrison family in the Shenandoah valley.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 36: The phone lines reopen

Much like recent innovations in communication, the telephone was adopted quickly after Alexander Graham Bell's successful demonstration in 1876. It allowed anyone to talk to any other person - as long as there was an operator to connect the call.

By 1919, thousands of women were working as telephone operators in New England. While the job wasn't as dangerous as mill work and in a more professional setting than domestic occupations, the work wasn't easy. Operators were expected to work at quick pace throughout their shift, and were often disciplined harshly for minor mistakes. The pay was also much lower than that given women in other occupations.

Julia O'Connor had tried to change that. While working as an operator she had a little success trying to organize operators into a union, and that combined with the poor working conditions led O'Connor to leave her job to start organizing full time. The operators went to the Postmaster General (who was given oversight of the telephone industry during World War I), who refused to bargain with them for a new contract, or allow the telephone company to negotiate. So on April 15, 1919, the New England operators went on strike.

The effect of the strike was immediate, and several attempts were made to bring in replacement workers, from college students to recently-returned war veterans. But they were often stymied by members of other unions - cab drivers refused to take them to work, and the police refused to break the strike. This was critical for the operators, as women didn't generally have the support of largely male unions.

With the phone outage crippling business, the Postmaster General relented and allowed New England Telephone to negotiate with the union. And so on April 20, 1919, the operators returned to work, with a new deal in hand.

Their victory was somewhat short-lived, however, as the phone companies made an even harder push to develop a telephone system that would automatically connect calls. Within 20 years, the operators union was gone, replaced by technology. Also something we're getting used to with recent innovations in communications.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 35: It's good to be the Chhatrapati... sometimes

After the death of Shijavi I, ruler of the Maratha Empire, his widow, Soyarabai, maneuvered to get her son, Rajaram, made emperor. Rajaram, at all of 10 years old, was installed on the throne on April 21, 1680 (I'm guessing he was unaware that it was Easter Sunday). 

The only problem is that his older half-brother, Sambhaji, was still around and aiming to be emperor. He was a prison at the time that Rajaram was elevated, but upon hearing about this Sambhaji made plans to escape. He did so, taking control of a couple of forts along the way, and on July 20, 1680, he replcaed Rajaram on the throne. Sambhaji would survive a coup attempt not long after becoming emperor, and to make sure that didn't happen again he executed a number of people involved, including Soyarabai. 

Rajaram was spared, and finally became emperor when Sambhaji was captured by the Mughals (with whom the Marathas were having a series of wars) and executed. Rajaram would serve until his death in 1700 due to lung disease (someone liked his bidis a little too much), which fittingly kicked off another succession crisis between his various wives and children. On the plus side, his family still holds the throne of what has become Kolhapur state.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 34: The Post-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a poet and painter, and was a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of British painters who wanted to revive the style and look of painting from 15th century Italy and Flanders. His paintings were usually of classical, mythological, or religious subjects; his only attempt at a modern painting as part of the Brotherhood went unfinished.

Rossetti was also a translator, and his work on titles like Dante's La Vita Nuova and Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur also influenced his painting (art inspired by literature was common among the Brotherhood). 

Rossetti's personal life also had a strong influence on his work, and vice versa. He had several relationships with his models, including a two year marriage to Elizabeth Siddal, which ended when she overdosed on laudanum (possibly on purpose, as the overdose happened not long after she gave birth to a stillborn child). Rossetti buried the bulk of his unpublished poems with Siddal, though friends would later convince him to dig them up for publication.

Unfortunately, the public reaction to his first volume of poetry was quite negative, finding the poems too erotic or sensual. Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the bad reviews, and it took him a couple of years to recover to the point where he could paint again. That period was short lived, and his mental state went back into decline. His physical health wasn't much better, between a dependence on chloral hydrate and heavy drinking to mask the drug's bitter taste. Rossetti died on April 9, 1882, of Bright's disease (a form of nephritis). 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 33: Under the Green Grass

Marilyn Chambers (born Marilyn Briggs) wanted to be an actress. In New York she landed some modeling gigs (her first job came when she was much younger, as a baby on boxes of Ivory soap), and a small role in The Owl and the Pussycat. She went to the west coast on a promotional tour for the film, and wound up moving to San Francisco, which she thought was much more of a location for the entertainment industry than it actually was.

In 1972 she answered a newspaper ad that touted a "major motion picture" in need of actors. It turns out that the movie was porn. Chambers was concerned that making porn would prevent her from crossing over into mainstream movies, but her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd led the film's producers to give into her salary demands (which included a percentage of the film).

That film, Behind the Green Door, was a hit. Chambers would stick with porn, making Resurrection of Eve the following year. It was also successful, but rather than continue with porn Chambers wanted to make the transition to mainstream roles. The only problem was the no one in Hollywood wanted to cast a well-known porn star in their movies. 

Chambers did land a part in David Cronenberg's Rabid, but spent most of her post-porn '70s doing a variety of things, from stage acts to a memoir to singing on a disco song. Not surprisingly, she decided to return to porn, in 1980's Insatiable. Chambers would continue to make porn movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, though she took some time off during the AIDS crisis.

She did land some roles in independent films in the 2000s, and was a vice-presidential candidate for fringe libertarian parties in 2004 and 2008. On April 12, 2009, Chambers died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 32: Dr. Jurin retires - permanently

John Jurin was born in London in 1684, lived in what appears to be a pretty average household, and was granted a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. He earned a BA and a MA, became a school head teacher, and gave public lectures on mathematics and Isaac Newton. He returned to Cambridge to study medicine, earning his MD in 1716. He established a medical practice while also lecturing on anatomy and working at a London hospital.

His most notable contribution to medicine (or more precisely, public health) came in his research into smallpox variolation - where material from a smallpox sore is inserted into a scratch on a healthy person to give them a mild case of the disease, which would also confer lifelong immunity to the disease. Based on his statistical analysis, compounded by results found elsewhere in England, he determined that variolation was much less risky than catching smallpox naturally. 

His medical work didn't preclude him from involvement with math and other sciences. A fellow of the Royal Society, he was its secretary during the latter part of Isaac Newton's presidency, and was an ardent supporter of Newton's work. At one point he published a 300-plus page defending Newtonian calculus against a critique by George Berkeley. Jurin also studies optics, the mechanics of the heart, meteorology, and had a law concerning capillary action named for him.

It wasn't all smooth sailing for Jurin, though. A medicine he created for treating bladder stones may have accidentally killed Robert Walpole (though Walpole's health was always precarious). Jurin himself would pass away five years after Walpole, on March 29, 1750.

 Book Log 2022 #14: 1979 by Val McDermid

One of Scotland's most prolific crime novelists, I was aware of McDermid but hadn't read any of her works before picking up this one. It's the first novel in a series featuring Allie Burns, a journalist who is trying to break into serious reporting while being shunted off on "women's stories" at her newspaper. She finds an ally in a male investigative reporter, they're able to complete stories about international tax fraud and a Scottish nationalist group that wants to create a local version of the IRA.

While these stories give Allie greater standing in the newsroom, they also make her a target for those who she might report on next. Amid this danger she also has to balance difficulties in her personal life, including her relationship with her parents and a woeful love life.

I've read more than one review for the book that called it "charming," citing its cultural references and nostalgic depiction of the time. McDermid noted in the introduction that she herself was a fledgling journalist in 1979, so I'd think there's a fair bit of autobiography that helps with the overall tone of the book. 

I don't have any point of reference between this book and McDermid's other works, so I can't say how it measures up against her other series, but I did like this quite a bit and look forward to future installments (which will be set in 10 year increments).

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 31: More !%&#&% twisters

In March 2020 the southeast US was under an area of high pressure, which combined with calm weather to cause higher than normal temperatures and a quick warming of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This also created higher humidity near the water's surface, and the warm, moist air created instability where it interacted with the high pressure system. 

The result? Tornadoes. Lots of tornadoes.

Over the course of Easter weekend (April 12-13), at least 141 tornadoes touched down over 10 states, from Texas to Maryland. Monroe, Louisiana may have had the worst storm of the bunch, which didn't cause any fatalities but did a quarter billion dollars in damage. Mississippi saw the strongest storms of the outbreak - they were the only state to record storms at EF4 - and had the most deaths of any state, tallying 14 of the 38 attributed to the storms.

And, of course, this outbreak happened during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, so relief and recovery efforts were hampered by social distancing requirements and the demand for PPE.  

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 30: It's another twister!

The tornado outbreak over Easter weekend in 2000 happened a little farther south than the 1913 outbreak, with 33 known tornadoes touching down over a seven hour period on Sunday, April 23 in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Unlike 1913 there were no fatalities (only 12 injured), and none of the storms were rated higher than F3. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 29: It's a twister!

The weekend of March 21-23, 1913, saw two major tornado outbreaks. The first, on Good Friday, struck mostly in the south, with a F4 storm in Alabama killing 27.

A larger outbreak struck the midwest on Easter Sunday, with a number of F4 storms touching down in Indiana, Missouri, and Nebraska. Nebraska actually got the worst of the outbreak, recording 135 tornadoes over the weekend, which was more than half of all tornadoes recorded. The deadliest of these tore through Omaha, where the storm entered from the west of the city and left a path of destruction through both high end neighborhoods and the city's African-American district. All told over 2000 homes were destroyed and 94 people died.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 28: Post-it Notes hit the shelves

In 1968, Spencer Silver was trying to develop a super-strong adhesive for 3M. What he came up with was a low-strength adhesive, but one that was pressure-sensitive and reusable. Silver spent years presenting the adhesive to his colleagues, but without finding a way it could be developed into a saleable product.

In 1974, another 3M employee named Art Fry used the adhesive to solve a personal problem, using it to keep the bookmark in his hymnal in place. Fry decided to create a product out of this idea, and while his press and stick bookmarks didn't catch on, the notepads that we've come to know did, and Post-It Notes were launched to the American public on April 6, 1980.

Or at least that's the official story. An inventor named Alan Amron claimed to have developed the technology behind the Post-It Note in 1973, which he disclosed to 3M in 1974. A 1997 lawsuit led to a settlement, where Amron agreed to not press his claims if 3M agreed to not claim that they invented the Post-It Note. Amron brought another lawsuit in 2016 alleging that 3M breached their agreement by claiming that they invented the notes, but this suit was dismissed. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 27: Bulgaria rises up

While the Irish may have the best known rising related to the Easter holiday, the Bulgarians did it first, and on Easter Sunday to boot (albeit Western Easter).

What we think of today as Bulgaria became part of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-15th century. For a time the Ottomans were able to suppress Bulgarian identity, but Russia and Austria-Hungary would support Bulgarian Christians in occasional revolts, with an eye towards destabilizing Turkish rule in the region.

As the idea of the nation-state took hold in Europe in the 19th century, Bulgarians began to reassert their national identity, and saw an opportunity to throw off the yoke of the Ottomans, who were having their own issues in maintaining the empire. An 1875 tax on non-Muslims led to a revolt in Herzegovina, which the Ottomans put down, but the act of revolt exposed the weakness of the empire. Later that year a revolutionary committee of Bulgarians decided it was time to have a rising of their own.

After about six months of planning and preparation, the rising started on April 20, 1875, two weeks before it was planned to start thanks to a local revolutionary committee's decision to attack an Ottoman police headquarters near Sofia. The revolt spread quickly over the next few days, but the Ottomans replied in force starting on April 25. Their response was brutal, with an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 killed and 58 villages destroyed by the end of the rising in mid-May.

Reaction to the rising and its bloody quelling in the rest of Europe was strongly anti-Turkish, especially after accounts of what happened spread. The UK, which had been a supporter of the Ottomans, distanced themselves, and when Russia attacked the Ottomans in 1877 the British refused to help the Turks, citing negative public opinion due to the aftermath of the Bulgarian uprising.

It was the treaties that came after the Russo-Turkish War that would lead to the re-establishment of an independent Bulgaria, albeit a small principality that was still legally affiliated with the Ottoman Empire. It wouldn't be until 1908 that a fully independent Kingdom of Bulgaria was proclaimed.