Experience Tarbox

First of all, awesome name.

Add Experience Tarbox of Wenham, MA to the list of the "depated."

Wenham Cemetery gets its best light in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, I was there at 11 a.m. and couldn't hang around all day. I had a tiny mirror, so Pete helped me illuminate the relevant part of the inscription.

HERE LYES BURIED

the BODY OF Mrs

EXPERIENe TaRBOX

WHO DEPAtED

THIS LIFe MaRCH

the 2nd 1739 &

in the 85th YEaR

OF HER AGE

Notice the strange mix of upper- and lower-case letters and the crossed capital Is.

Other "depated" gravestones:

• John Potter, NJ, 1780
• Manassah Fairbank, MA, 1767
• Martha Brown, RI, 1769
• Abraham Gibson, MA, 1740
• Francis Brown, MA, 1800
• Ephraim Terry, CT, 1797
• Daniel Tyler, CT, 1741
• Sarah Swan, RI, 1767
• William Pabodie, RI, 1707
  

Boy or Girl? A Public Service Announcement

Until the middle of the 20th century, young children in Europe and the United States regularly wore dresses, regardless of sex. Many modern Americans are aware of this tidbit of sartorial history, but find it amusing or baffling. When I was looking for a digital image of this Winterhalter portrait of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their five oldest children, many of my Google hits contained comments along the lines of "Two of the kids are boys!?!?"

Yes, two of the children are boys. From left to right, this portrait shows Alfred (b. 1844), Edward (b. 1841), Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Alice (b. 1843), Helena (b. 1846), and Victoria (b. 1840). Before WWII, most European and Euro-American boys wore skirts until they were "breeched" around age 5-6 (sometimes as late as 7-8).

If you looked at Alfred and thought he was a girl, don't worry — lots of people have trouble telling. Luckily, my early years as a Civil War reenactor and historical costume enthusiast have armed me with some tips for deciphering mid-19th-century images and I am happy to pass them along to you.

The most reliable way of identifying the sex of a child in a mid-19th-c image (1840ish-1870ish) is the hairstyle. As a general rule, boys' hair is parted on the side or swept up in a topknot, while girls' hair is nearly always parted dead-center. Take another look at the portrait — the little princes have side parts, the princesses have center parts, and the baby doesn't have enough hair to tell.

Here are some examples from Harvard's Houghton Library:

Girls:

Boy, Boy, Girl, Boy:

(Adorable) Boy, (Adorable) Girl:

Now that we've established a pattern, we can look at some ambiguous images:

Boy or Girl?

side part = boy

Boy or Girl?

center part = girl

Boy or Girl?

top knot = boy

Boy or Girl?

boy on left, girl on right

If you still can't tell the difference, don't feel bad — whoever catalogued these pictures for Houghton can't tell either. Nearly all of the boys under the age of five are misidentified as girls on Harvard's VIA site:

Yet, when we look at pictures with identified subjects, the pattern holds firm:

Ellen Tucker Emerson:

Alice Howe Gibbens James and Mary Sherwin Gibbens:

Tad Lincoln:

It's not a perfect method — for example, the Davis boys have wonky center parts — but it's a good starting point.

Other tips:

• Props: Is the child holding a doll, needlework, or a flower? It's probably a girl. Is it holding a ball, whip, dog, or military accoutrement (drum, toy cannon, kepi)? It's probably a boy. A book? Could be either.
• Accessories: Some types of jewelry can offer hints — earrings and brooches worn at the throat generally signify "female," but necklaces are tricky. Children of both sexes have worn coral necklaces as charms for centuries.
  
• Color: Before the 1930s, Americans generally considered red/pink to be a masculine color (think Mars) and blue to be a feminine color (think Virgin Mary). That said, there was not hard and fast rule on the color issue and it won't help you much unless you're looking at a painting or an actual garment. The Valentine Museum in Richmond had a fabulous exhibit on this subject a few years ago.
  
• Pattern: It would be a mistake to assume that only girls wore floral patterns in the 19th century. Still, if something is all-out floral and other signs point to girl, girl is a safe bet. On the flip side, little boys often wore tartans that evoked a martial style.
  
• Tunics: Sometimes, young boys went through an intermediate stage of dress — neither dresses nor full-on pants. See Prince Edward in the first painting (red belted tunic). Tunics often had a military flair win the form of buttons, belts, and trim. Other types of jackets worn by boys also have military overtones, such as the zouave jackets that became popular during the Civil War.
  

boy in tartan tunic, side-parted hair

I'm sure that people who are familiar with images from other eras could offer similar tips. I imagine the general principles are the same — look at hair, props, cut, etc. — but the specifics are slightly different.

The Gore Children (1755)

John Singleton Copley

Sarah and Frances hold flowers and have loose, flowing hair. John wears child-sized clothes in the style worn by adult men. Samuel's hair is confined and styled differently from his sisters' hair. He is also wearing red/pink and has a dog to mark his masculinity.

My grandfather, Benjamin Manfredo DeAngelis, 1921

"Future Corrected Edition in the Hands of a Higher Editor"

It's been days — DAYS! — since I posted a gravestone here. I'm entering panic mode because my exam is in exactly three weeks, so I haven't visited many graveyards lately.

This picture was taken by my parents on a recent trip to Washington, DC:

Thomas Mann, librarian, has a gravestone that looks like a Library of Congress catalogue card.

Mann, Thomas, 1948-
Librarian. Chicago: Charles H. and Margaret Mann, 1948.
Rev. ed. Baton Rouge, 1976; Washington, DC. 1980.
Future corrected edition in the hands of a Higher Editor.
1. Christian. 2.
Z710.M23
Library of Congress
025.5 24  0221-1948
AACR 2 MARC

The call number Z710.M23 is The Oxford Guide to Library Research by Thomas Mann.

Clever readers will recognize the reference to Benjamin Franklin's mock epitaph:

The Body of
B. Franklin
Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be whlly lost:
For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and Amended
By the Author.
He was born on January 6, 1706.
Died 17

Abe and Jeff, Brothers at Last

I have found ten black/biracial families with sons named Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis in the 1870 and 1880 census records. All of them lived in the ex-Confederate South.

I won't pretend to know why anyone would name brothers Abe and Jeff, but I will offer a few observations:

• In most cases, the children were born after 1865, suggesting that parents, rather than slaveowners, may have chosen these names.
• In those cases where one of the brothers was born during the war, it is always Jeff, not Abe.
• This pattern does not seem to be peculiar to any particular state, but it does seem to be limited to newly freed slaves in the ex-Confederate South.

I am a firm believer in the proposition that names convey meaning, but I'm not sure what the message is here. Is this a case of two names that "go together" because of ubiquitous pairings in news items and popular songs?

I can only suggest one political motivation that makes some sense:
I remember once reading a WPA slave narrative (admittedly, not the very best source) in which an elderly ex-slave characterized Lincoln and Davis as partners in bringing about the war that brought on freedom. He didn't distinguish between their motives — he argued that their quarrel created the necessary conditions for emancipation. If that was a wide-spread idea, it might account for the Abe-Jeff pairs.

Examples!

Alabama:
Moris, Jeff Davis (b. 1865) and Abe Lincoln (b. 1870)
St. Stephens, AL
(Abe Lincoln is on the top of the next page of the census)

Arkansas:
Caffee, Jeff Davis (b. 1865) and Abe Lincoln (b. 1865) twins
Troy, Arkansas

Mississippi:
Bush, Jefferson (b. 1867) and Abraham L. (b. 1869)
Noxubee Co., MS

North Carolina:
Powell, Jeff Davis (b. 1866) and Abraham L. (b. 1867)
Tarboro, NC

Tenessee:
Mason, Jeff D. (b. 1869) and Abe L. (b. 1865)
Montgomery Co., TN

Walker, Jeff Davis (b. 1863) and Abe Lincoln (b. 1865)
Giles Co., TN, 1880 Census

Texas:
Baylis, Jefferson D. (b. 1863) and Abe L. (b. 1867)
(brother Andrew J)
Marion, TX

Bolan, Jeff Davis (b. 1866) and Abraham L. (1866) twins
Colorado Co., TX

 Robinson, Jeff Davis (b. 1864) and Abe Lincoln (b. 1867)
Liberty Co., TX

Virginia:
Broadnax, Jeff D. (b. 1861) and Abraham L. (b. 1865)
Drewryville, VA

 

Chronology of Confederate Naming

Merely counting the number of children named Jeff Davis or Stonewall Jackson does not tell the whole story. These names waxed and waned in popularity over time. Examining the chronology of naming patterns may help us determine whether certain explanations are plausible or unlikely.

Some names were much more popular during the war than afterward. These charts show the birthdates of black men and boys named Jeff Davis (or Jefferson Davis or Jefferson D.) who appear on the 1880 Census*:

As you can see, "Jeff Davis" was a much more popular name for black children during the war than afterward. The initial dropoff was dramatic, though the name gained slightly in popularity over the next decade.**

Another name that was much more popular during the war than after was "Stonewall." Like Jeff Davis, Stonewall gained in popularity after its initial dropoff — it actually made more of a comeback than Jeff Davis. This chart includes people named "Stonewall" and "Stonewall Jackson":

These two charts have similar patterns, so they can be considered convergent for the purposes of testing theories about naming practices. But what do we do with this one?

In the immortal words of Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the other. Whatever explanations we come up with for why black men and boys were given the names of Confederate heroes must account for the fact that different names had starkly different patterns of popularity.

*A few notes of caution: I did not include black men named "Jeff D." because a large percentage of them were born before the war, indicating that this name may not have been intended to honor Jefferson Davis. It is also possible that the 1880 Census underreports people named Jeff Davis during the war and its immediate aftermath because some may have died and others may have elected to go by other names later in life.
**Since this graph includes only people who were alive in 1880, it is possible that the name did not actually gain in popularity, but that fewer children born in earlier years were still living in 1880.

Teach the Controversy: Pangaea

Andrew Sullivan has a post up right now called "Looking at Race." It concerns a poll that asks Americans whether they believe that Africa and America were once part of the same continent.

At first, I thought, wtf does the existence of Pangaea have to do with race? Of course America and Africa were once part of the same continent, but the Atlantic Ocean has been around for about 100 million years, while our species is only a few hundred thousand years old. "Race" is not really a concept that maps well onto geologic time.

Then I looked at the breakdown of the results.

Yikes! Only 35% of white respondents said "yes," while 63% of black respondents agreed. I imagine that this gap is not reflective of overall scientific knowledge. Did all the white kids skip Earth Science? From this evidence, it seems that white people (particularly those who are Republicans, Southerners, or over 60) are less likely to accept the science of plate tectonics, perhaps indicating that they are still struggling with the idea that all people belong to the same species.

If it were just Republicans or Southerners who were willfully ignorant of continental drift, I might be able to explain it away by blaming Young Earth Creationism. But that racial gap is astounding.

White people do realize that our species originated in Africa, don't they? And that all humans of all races are related? Also — and I hestiate to point this out — white people are not actually from America originally.

One last thing — in his post, Sullivan says that he "would have said yes, but not too confidently." Really? Because I definitely covered Pangaea with my second graders. I thought that this was common knowledge, at least among elementary school grads.

Teach the Controversy 

Update: Some are saying that the question is flawed — that it doesn't really tell us how many Americans "believe" in continental drift. But that isn't the point, is it? The point of the question is to tell us how many Americans reflexively reject any idea that connects North America to Africa. It's a brilliant question because you can't just straight-up ask people if they are racist. Many people don't know what the term means, though they're pretty sure they aren't. You have to ask roundabout questions like this one.

"Changed this Life for a . . ."

In honor of the beer summit:

Yes, ok, it really says "beter," i.e. "better," but the first time I saw it, I did a double-take because I thought it said "beer." I've shown this to other people and they've done the same.

via Farber Collection

Jeff Davis, General Lee, and Stonewall J

When I first found Lavinia Meekins in the census, I thought that her family might be unique. After all, how many black Southerners had children named after Confederate heroes?

Actually, quite a few.

The more I looked, the more I found. So far, I have looked at the 1870 and the 1880 census records for all 11 ex-Confederate states. Here is what I've found*:

I was surprised to find 325 black children named Jefferson Davis in the 1870 census — I was expecting to find no more than a dozen. To put these numbers in perspective, there are about 2,000 white Southerners named Jefferson Davis in the 1870 census.

One interesting thing about this chart is the tremendous drop in the name "Jefferson Davis" between 1870 and 1880. It seems unlikely that more than half of the black children named Jeff Davis died in the intervening decade, especially since most of them were older than 5 in 1870, so they had a better chance of survival than infants. Did many of the boys named Jeff Davis decide to go by another name when they reached the age of 15 or 16?

Unfortunately, it is difficult to track any Southerner from census to census. I count 166 black Stonewalls in 1870 and 161 in 1880, but there is very little overlap between the two lists. This makes it difficult to generalize about the rising or falling popularity of a name over time. In my next post, I'll try to tackle this problem.

These three names seem to be the most popular, but a few others crop up from time to time. The 1870 census shows handfuls of black Southerners named Pickett, Longstreet, Wade Hampton, General Forrest, Zollicoffer, and Braxton Bragg. I haven't run the numbers on "Forrest" and "Beauregard," but, in initial searches, both seem to be almost as popular as Stonewall and Lee.

I won't overburden this post with specific examples, but here are a few notable examples of Confederate names given to black children during and after the war:

Secession Bants, b. 1862, Fredonia, AL
(one of four black children — two boys, two girls — named Secession, 1870 Census)

Confederacy Johnson, b. 1862, Livingston, VA

brothers, Zollicoffer Robinson, b. 1862 and General Lee Robinson b. 1864, Lancaster, KY (not included in statistics)

the McCullough family of Fairfield Co., SC:
Wade H. (b. 1862), Jefferson D. (b. 1863), Braxton B. (b. 1862), Beauregard (b. 1866)
(They have a little brother named Dempsey — any suggestions?)

*In this graph, "Jefferson Davis" includes black or biracial men and boys named "Jefferson Davis," "Jeff Davis," and "Jefferson D." living in the ex-Confederate states. "Stonewall Jackson" includes men and boys named "Stonewall Jackson," "Stonewall," and "Stonewall J." "Robert E. Lee" includes men and boys named "Robert E. Lee," "Robert Lee," "Bob Lee," and General Lee."

Black Children, Confederate Heroes

While working on a post about babies named after presidents, I came across Lavinia Meekins, a black woman in Virginia whose three young sons were named Jeff Davis (b. 1861), Robert E. Lee (b. 1864), and Andrew Johnson (b. 1867). I found this pretty confusing. Why would a black woman name her boys after the Confederate President, a Confederate hero, and the man who killed Reconstruction?

I knew I would need some context to make sense of this. Was Lavinia Meekins a single eccentric? Are these names part of a pattern? I dug into the census and found some surprising things.

I'll break this research up into several posts because the information is a little hard to digest all at once. I haven't made sense of the data yet and I'm not sure I can do that without some sources other than the census. Here are some of my initial observations:

• Lavinia Meekins was not a lonely eccentric. Many black parents in the Confederate states named their children after Confederate heroes during the war years — Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, etc.
  
• Fewer black parents named their children after Confederate heroes after 1865. White Southerners continued to give Confederate names to their children into the 20th century.
• Some Confederate names (Jeff Davis, Stonewall) dropped off rapidly after 1865. Others (Robert E. Lee) gained in popularity after 1865.
  
• At least nine families have one child named Jeff Davis and another named Abe Lincoln. Sometimes they are twins. 
• Many white Southerners named their children after Northern heroes — U.S. Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, etc.
  

Over the next few posts, I will report on what I have observed, but I'm going to hold off on drawing broad conclusions for the moment. It would be simplistic to assume that just because an enslaved woman named her child "Jeff Davis" that she necessarily supported the Confederate cause. Off the top of my head, I can think of several alternative explanations:

• Perhaps masters named children and enslaved parents had no say in the matter. That would explain the sharp decline in these names after 1865.
• Perhaps enslaved parents named their children after Confederate heroes to feign docility. If this were the case, I would expect parents to rename/nickname the child after the war, which doesn't account for names on the 1870 census (unless feigning docility was still necessary during Reconstruction).
• Perhaps some slaves really did support the Confederate cause. In any group of 4 million people, you're bound to find a range of political opinions. It's not hard to imagine that some people might prefer to preserve the status quo rather than gamble on an uncertain future.
  
• Perhaps people named their children names from the news, regardless of the political associations. You see this in recent naming patterns when awful hurricanes cause bumps in popularity for their names.
• Perhaps census-takers have odd senses of humor.
  

Let me say it again — these aren't my conclusions. They're initial musings and possibilities. If you have other interpretations of the forthcoming, I'm eager to hear them. I do believe that the names people give their children are markers of their values — I'm just not sure what they're trying to convey in these cases.

Data and Discussion:

• Jeff Davis, General Lee, and Stonewall J
• Chronology of Confederate Naming
• Abe and Jeff, Brothers at Last
• Unionist Naming in the Postwar South
• Beyond the Census (Coming Soon!)

Tiny Books!

I don't have a dollhouse, but I could be persuaded to get one just so I could fill it with tiny books. Miniature Bookshelf has nearly 500 books the size of pennies. Most are classics, but there are a few modern children's best sellers (Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events). I love the vintage covers.

At this point, these are probably the only books I could possibly fit on my shelves.

via Shakesville

I Heart Little History Nerds

After watching 5-year-old Wesley sing "Folsom Prison Blues" ("I shot a man in Weeno . . .") I clicked around a bit and found this original composition, performed at the same open mic night. Connor, age nine, is learning to play the guitar and write songs. His composition is called "Civil War," though "CIVIL WAR!" might be more accurate. Chorus: "CANNONBALLS! BULLETS!" I vaguely remember writing something similar when I was in third grade. Enjoy!

Charles Torrey, "Martyr for Liberty"

I've been watching Ken Burns' The Civil War this week as I update and revise my book lists for my general exams. Even though I know that Burns' reconciliationist narrative doesn't really fly with academic historians, I still enjoy the program. At the very least, it beats reading Battle Cry of Freedom again.

This time, as I watched, I reflected on how much Burns has shaped what I (and many others) know about the Civil War. For example, the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy is a well-known incident in antebellum abolitionism that has undoubtedly enjoyed a resurgence in notoriety due to Burns' PBS series. Lovejoy was not the only abolitionist martyr of the antebellum period, but his inclusion in The Civil War has given his story new prominence in the minds of modern Americans.

Burns could just as easily have chosen to include the story of Rev. Charles Torrey in his documentary. I had never heard of Charles Torrey before I stumbled across his grave at Mount Auburn, but his epitaph made me think that I probably should have.

It reads:

Reverend

CH'S T. Torrey

Born at Scituate

Nov. 21, 1813.

Graduated at Yale College

Aug. 1833.

Ordained at Providence

March 1837.

Arrested at Baltimore

June 24, 1844.

Died in the Penitentiary

of that City

May 9, 1846.

The friends of the

American Slave

erect this stone

to his memory

as a Martyr for Liberty.

Yale-trained minister dies in Southern jail as "Martyr for Liberty"? That seemed like something I should hae heard about.

Turns out that Torrey was actually jailed several times for crimes such as attending a slaveholder's convention as an undercover reporter and assisting the escape of nearly 400 slaves from Maryland and Northern Virginia. He was sentenced to six years of hard labor in Baltimore, but died of tuberculosis in 1846. You can read his memoirs and letters on Google Books.

Torrey's impressive obelisk has its own island in the middle of one of Mount Auburn Cemetery's internal roads, where it is surrounded by flowers. A bas relief of Torrey's bust (toga-clad, natch) embellishes the monument. Though the marble is cracking, it is still quite beautiful. 

A quotation of Torrey's is engraved above the bust. When he was offered a pardon in return for a public apology, Torrey reportedly told his lawyers,

It is better to die in prison with the peace of God in our breasts than to live in freedom with a polluted conscience.

Whoever erected the monument wanted to make extra certain that viewers understood that Torrey was a MARTYR, so he/she/they topped it off with a crown of thorns.

Though largely forgotten in our day, Torrey was a celebrated figure in New England's abolitionist circles. Rev. Amos Beman, an African-American minister from New Haven had a grandson named Charles Torrey Beman who fought with the 5th MA Cavalry in the Civil War (and kept a journal). I don't know whether Charles Torrey Simpson, celebrated botanist, was named for the abolitionist, but since he was born in June of 1846, I think there's a good chance that he was.

Maybe I can find some way to slip this into my general exams . . . it might convince certain of my examiners that I'm not just wasting my time wandering around old graveyards.

Mysteries of the Google

In the past two months, 44 Google searches for "Wayte-A-While Makepeace" have directed readers to this blog.

Is there a Wayte-A-While Makepeace fan club out there? If so, may I join?

Grumble

I just bought a Trivial Pursuit app for my iPhone. It is generally very good — a little easier than regular Trivial Pursuit (it's multiple choice), but still good.

I'm a little confused about EA Games' understanding of the "history" category, though. One of the "history" questions was "To whom is Ellen DeGeneres married?"

But that's not why I'm grumbling. I'm grumbling because one of the answers was WRONG!

Question: In which war were the most Medals of Honor awarded?
A: World War II
B: World War I
C: The Civil War

It said that the answer was WWII, but, in fact, way more Medals of Honor were awarded during the Civil War. Fewer than 500 Medals of Honor were awarded during World War II, while over 1,500 were awarded during the Civil War. I don't know whether that figure even includes the 864 Medals awarded to the 27th Maine (all but 300 erroneously) or other rescinded Medals.


I'd rather be right than win.



Update: I've played a bit more of this game and found the other categories equally dubious. The "geography" category includes questions such as "Where does Peter go in 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'" and "Where are the villains in 'Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull' from?" It's pathetic. There's already an "entertainment" category — why must it spill over into everything else?