Annette Laing's Non-Boring History

Podcast: 60 minutesThe American Revolution ends, and American travelers are back, visiting Europe. But if they're not British, what are they? Continuing my riff on historian Daniel Kilbride's Being American in Europe, 1750-1860This is the podcast version of this Non-Boring History post:Part 1 of the podcast is here: Non-Boring History needs YOU. Without paid supporters, NBH simply isn't possible. And do tell a friend who's interested in entertaining access to academic history about the US, UK, and the relationship between them: Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

PODCAST: 51 MinutesThe rich colonial Americans who crossed the Atlantic in the 18th century considered themselves more British than the British. The Brits were not quick to agree . . . This is the podcast version of this Non-Boring History post:Non-Boring History is the ONLY newsletter of its kind, in which an academic historian and Brit in the US (me, Dr. Annette Laing, cheers!) leads you on a rollercoaster ride through British and US history that might seem random, (and kind of is), but brings you close up to academic history and the joys of museums, and gets you thinking like a historian, only without tests and other painful experiences. Upgrade to a paid annual or monthly subscription today, and become a Nonnie, for full access to NBH offerings, past and future! Healthier, a lot cheaper, and more enjoyable than a lot of coffees that are mostly ice and sugar anyway.Told a friend about Non-Boring History? Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

PODCAST: 24 minutesThis is the podcast version of this Non-Boring History post about my recent visit to the fascinating and lively Victorian home of President James and Lucretia Garfield:Non-Boring History is the ONLY newsletter of its kind, in which an academic historian (me, Dr. Annette Laing. cheers) leads you on a rollercoaster ride through British and US history that might seem random, and kind of is, but brings you close up to academic history and the joys of museums, and gets you thinking like a historian, only without tests and other painful experiences. Upgrade to a paid annual or monthly subscription today, and become a Nonnie, for full access to NBH offerings, past and future!Told a friend about Non-Boring History? Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 45 MinutesAt Non-Boring History, I bring you what I have to say in a variety of formats. Podcasts not your thing? Go to your Substack account at the top right of the Non-Boring History homepage (http://annettelaing.substack.com), and uncheck Annette Aloud! Easy!AnnetteThis is the podcast version of this Annette Tells Tales post about the animals that pulled the wagons to California (and Oregon). Both post and podcast are my take on the work of my fellow historian, Diana L. Ahmad, in her marvelous book Success Depends on the Animals, which I recommend to you.NBH Fan? Non-Boring History needs YOU. This is the ONLY newsletter of its kind. Upgrade to a paid annual or monthly subscription today, for full access to NBH offerings, past and future!This NBH podcast is free, so do share.Non-Boring History is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 56 MinutesPodcasts not your thing? Go to your Substack account at the top right of the Non-Boring History homepage (http://annettelaing.substack.com), and uncheck Annette Aloud! Easy!Forget Hamilton: The Musical. When it comes to the American Revolution, this story will have you questioning everything you know about it. And it's real. This is the podcast version of this Annette Tells Tales post about the extraordinary, ordinary life of George Hewes:Both post and podcast are my interpretations of the work of my fellow historian, the late Alfred F. Young, in his classic book The Shoemaker and The Tea Party, which I recommend to you.NBH Fan? As Non-Boring History approaches the end of its first year, we need YOU. Upgrade to a paid annual or monthly subscription today.Just stumbled across Non-Boring History? This is just one of a wide variety of formats and subjects I offer in US and UK history, and how they connect. Free plan available. Just enter your email here: Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 57 Minutes.Podcasts not your thing? Go to your Substack account, and uncheck Annette Aloud! Easy! Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.This is the podcast version of this Annette Tells Tales post:This is my riff on Clare's work, aimed at drawing in readers who might never have encountered Clare and Eglantyne Jebb otherwise. Eglantyne's story, and Clare Mulley's book, deserve an ever wider audience. If you enjoy podcast, post, or both, read Clare Mulley's The Woman Who Saved the Children! Frequent reader/listener? Want full access to all the posts and podcasts so far, and to support the work of Dr. Annette Laing, missionary for history and Brit in the US? Upgrade to a paid annual or monthly subscription today!Just stumbled across Non-Boring History? Join me, Annette Laing, and the Nonnies, and give this a try! Free plan available. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 22 minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.A few days ago, I had a great video chat with Clare Mulley, and here it is for your mobile listening pleasure as an audio podcast! Clare is the bestselling author of critically acclaimed biographies The Spy Who Loved, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, and, our subject today, her first book, The Woman Who Saved the Children. Eglantyne Jebb was an upper-middle class Victorian Englishwoman, but she was also a pioneering modern: She was among the second generation of young British women to go to university, she engaged in groundbreaking social science research, and, above all, she founded a charity that was ambitious and international from the beginning.My chat with Clare is also available in transcript (at the end of this page) and as a video, which is in this post:I introduce The Woman Who Saved the Children in my longform retelling of Clare's story in Annette Tells Tales, which you might (or might not!) wish to read first (spoilers!). This post and the interview aim to thoroughly whet your appetite for this book, and all of Clare's biographies:TRANSCRIPTI've lightly edited this for clarity. AnnetteANNETTE LAING: I'm Annette Laing. I write Non-Boring History on Substack. I'm delighted to have with me today Clare Mulley, all the way from the UK. Clare is an award-winning, bestselling author, writing meticulously researched historical biographies. Among her books is The Spy Who Loved, which is about Krystyna Skarbek, otherwise known as Christine Granville, a Polish noblewoman who was reputedly Churchill's favorite spy during World War Two, and who really out-Bonded James Bond. She's also written The Women who Flew for Hitler, about two women who flew airplanes during WWII for the Nazis, but ended up having two very different stances on the War. Clare is also a book reviewer for various august publications in the United Kingdom, including The Spectator, The Telegraph, and History Today. She's also familiar to British viewers for her frequent appearances on television, including BBC's Rise of the Nazis, Channel 5's Secret History of World War Two, and Adolf and Eva. All of her books, so far, are optioned for television and movies. These are all books with Incredible popular appeal that also complicate our understanding of her subjects. But the book I'm going to discuss with Clare today is her very first, and it's on quite a different subject. It is The Woman Who Saved the Children and this is story of Eglantyne Jebb who, as the title suggests, founded the charity Save the ChildrenClare, by the way, holds a master's degree from the University of London, in social and cultural history. But unlike most of the authors that I write about and talk about at Non-Boring History, Clare wisely did not go into academia, which gives her a really terrific opportunity to connect with the public in very, very thoughtful ways. Welcome, Clare. Thank you for taking the time from your very busy schedule. I do appreciate it.Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, upper-class Victorian woman, very much a woman of her times, and she founds this charity. And yet she's very blunt about it: She didn't like children. You are a very modern person and the mother of three. What led you to write about her? CLARE MULLEY: Yeah, I love this seeming contradiction. I don't think it actually is a contradiction. But it is true that she'd been a teacher early on in her career and she really found children very stressful, exhausting, too loud, noisy. And yeah, I've got three. But she kind of respected them. You said she was a woman of her times. I think perhaps she was ahead of her times in many ways. So she saw children as human beings. I think she said the idea of closer acquaintance [with children] appalled her, and it was a dreadful idea, so she didn't beat any bones about it. In fact, in the year she set up Save The Children, she told her best mate,  her very close friend Margaret Keynes, that, she said,  it's appalling I have to give all these talks about Save The Children and, you know, the common love of humanity towards children. It disgusts me. So she really didn't particularly want to spend time around children. She wasn't particularly maternal herself. She didn't have any children of her own. She never, in fact, married.There could be a number of reasons for that. But I do think she respected children. What she saw was young adults. She saw people, at a time when most people didn't think that children actually were humans enough to have human rights. Human rights were only for people of the age of 18, and below that,  there were parental rights, and the state had rights over children as well, but children didn't have individual rights.So one of the things that she did was she pioneered the idea of children being human beings, and being party to human rights.ANNETTE LAING: I noticed she laid the groundwork for the the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child. CLARE MULLEY: There's a wonderful story about that. Apparently, there was a sunny summer Sunday. [In] 1924, she climbed up Mont Salève. And in fact, I went out to Mont Salève. I was actually pregnant at the time, doing my research for this. And I went out and I thought, well, I'll climb up as well. This was my third child. So I'd had two. And I'd been watching The Sound of Music, and I thought these mountains might be, you know, filled with daisies in the fields, but, no, it's sheer, vertical rock for thousands of feet. It's incredible. And so I went up in a sort of ski lift that takes you up to the top, and it had black and white photographs in it of ladies in cloches, but it turned out that had only been put in place a couple of years after Eglantyne died. So she actually did go in her long skirts and tightly laced boots and climb up this mountain. She settled down at the top, and looked down over Geneva, which of course, is the international city. The lake of Geneva at that point was full of barges with building materials to build what is now the United Nations building, which was then the League of Nations. It's where Esperanto was formed, and the International Women's League was there. So she settled down and cracked a square of chocolate. One of the many things I take from her is my love of chocolate. And she looked out over this view, and she was inspired to come up with this idea that every child, everywhere in the world, should be party to the same universal, human rights, and she penned a statement. It was just five things, quite basic, initially,  about healthcare, food, education, a safe space to play. All those sorts of things. And she marched down the mountain and got it pushed through the United Nations, the League of Nations as it was then. She was actually the first adviser for women and health care to the League of Nations.ANNETTE LAING: She was a very practical person. And one of the things that came out in the book, is that it is experience that pushes her to work for children, as opposed to with them. What were her pivotal experiences or influences that drew her into this work? CLARE MULLEY: She had already had . . . I don't want to go into cod psychology. You can go back to her childhood and the death of her younger brother, which affected her very deeply. She refers to him a lot later on in her life. I think he's this sort of representative of the potential abuse of the value of life. Another commitment she took at that point was to live a life of social purpose. And she was inspired by her parents. Her mother set up a national organization in the creative industries, to give people artisanal skills, and so on. So she had a wonderful example of a compassionate idea being turned into a national movement, through her mother's work. She was one of the second generation of women in Britain to get a university education and she went to Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford,  which now has a bronze bust of her in their library.And so there are a number of inspirations. But of course, it was the First World War. Just before the war, she went out [to the Balkans] for her brother-in-law. She was very close to her sister Dorothy, who had married a Liberal MP, a Quaker. And he went out to the Balkans and saw what was really, we now know, the rumblings towards the First World War. But then, it was sort of seen as a civil conflict in that part of Europe. He sent out [Eglantyne]  because she'd already done good work in charities in Cambridge. But she had never really considered doing international development work, or help. So she went out and set up soup kitchens, and family tracing, and things like that. She realized then that this is really important work, but it's ambulance work, relief work, and what you need to do is try and stop some of this from happening [in the first place]. So she's taking a very progressive view, even very early on. Then she came back [to England], and her work is completely swept aside by the First World War which is very depressing. But [during WWI] she takes an active role, translating the [European newspapers] with her sister Dorothy. Eventually, at the end of the war, she's really appalled, because the British then-Liberal government decided to continue the economic blockade against Europe as a means of pushing through harsh peace terms, or really to get better reparations for Britain. Eglantyne felt if people knew the human cost of that policy, they'd be as appalled as she was. Because, at this point, there were about 800 children dying in Germany every week.ANNETTE LAING It's interesting that she had this sort of early grasp of the power of propaganda. So that during the First World War, she and Dorothy, and others, Dorothy's husband, were working to translate the foreign press, articles showing a very different perspective on World War One, which really walked a fine line, didn't it, in terms of legality? Because the British government had  strict censorship, but you know what? They're showing that maybe the news you're getting isn't the news. And then after the war when she, when she was arrested for distributing pamphlets . . .CLARE MULLEY: Exactly. You have this wonderful leaflet. She had become part of the planning council to try and change that legislation. That was getting nowhere fast. You said she was practical. She was. She gets up and produces this leaflet with a very upsetting photograph of what looks like a little baby, can't stand, massive head, tiny body, but it's actually a two and a half year old girl who's suffering from malnutrition and whose body hasn't developed sufficiently because the nutrients are needed for the brain. [Eglantyne] started taking that around, distributing it, mainly in Trafalgar Square, the sort of traditional site of public protest in the center of London, where the suffragettes often were,  and she was using suffragette tactics. So she was chalking up the pavement, saying, "Fight the Famine, End the Blockade". And she was, of course, arrested pretty much immediately. Well, she managed to get rid of eight hundred leaflets, but she was arrested and taken away. But they made a bit of a mistake. She's not the sort of person that you can quietly sweep under a carpet. So, when her court case came up, she actually insisted on presenting her own defense. And she knew that, legally, she didn't have a leg to stand on, because her leaflets weren't cleared by the government censors. So she focused on the moral argument,  and she gave the court reporters up in the gallery at the courthouse plenty to fill their columns with.The crown prosecutor, Sir Archibald Bodkin, he didn't spare her in his condemnation. But once the case was closed, she was only fined five pounds, and it could have been five pounds for every leaflet, or she could've been given a prison sentence, you know, so it really was the minimum. Once the case was over, he came up to her, in front of everyone, including the reporters, and took out his wallet a five-pound note, you know, they were quite big in those days, and pressed it into her hands. You know, it's the sum of her fine. He's clearly saying, as far as I'm concerned, you know, morally you won your case. And she said, no thanks. I can pay my own fine. But she took his five pounds. She said, I'll put this towards a new cause, to help save the children of Europe. And that was the first donation ever to Save the Children, from the crown prosecutor at the founder's arrest. ANNETTE LAING : Lovely, lovely story. And, you know, what you said earlier. that she was a woman ahead of her time,  I do think you bring that out in the book that Save the Children rapidly becomes, not just a local little charity in London, coming out of this one little group. She meets the Pope! There are branches of Save The Children all over the world, in pretty short order.CLARE MULLEY:  That comes from meeting the Pope, yes. She actually wrote first to the head of the Church of England, who was  Archbishop Randall Davidson at the time.  And because she was a Christian . . . Her faith was kind of unique and spiritual, but it was within the Christian fold, in her mind.And so she wrote to the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for support. And he thought, well, actually, this is quite political, wasn't she arrested? You know, he didn't even bother writing back.So she just wrote to the Pope, and he was much more interested,  and invited her to meet him. So she went over to the Vatican. She had to wear a mantilla over her face,  and then the door burst open, and an emissary called out in Italian.She spoke many languages, but, sadly, not Italian, but he kind of turned and ran on his heels. She said he looked like an Indian rubber ball in a purple dressing gown, kind of bounding down this corridor. And she's holding onto her mantilla, and pulls up her skirt, and pegs after him.And she went into this big hall. It was full of gold and big pillars, and there, she said, was a little figure at the back, standing still like a ghost, and suddenly remembering, you know, Popes tend to wear white, look a bit ghostly. She bobbed down on one knee, and it was the Pope, and he came and raised her up. And instead of the 20 minute appointment, he gave her over two hours, making notes in what she called a grubby little notebook. And he was so inspired by her. I mean, she commissioned some very early research, but her passion as well, her knowledge [came across]He said, I won't just ask Catholic churches in England, as she had requested, to give their collections one day for Save the Children's cause, but I'll ask Catholic churches around the world. And because of that, these individual congregations overseas then said the need hasn't gone away, and they became the early Save the Children overseas.So, you have this very interesting and very modern organization, that not only raises funds in Britain  and sends it overseas, but raises funds all over the world, and sends it wherever it's needed. Reciprocity like that is at the heart of what [Eglantyne] believed. So for example, one of the first donors to the children of Vienna after the First World War were the mining unions in Wales. They came together and all their members put some money in to help these children who were starving to death in Austria, in Vienna. And then about four, five years later, there was terrible poverty in the Welsh valleys, because there were miners' strikes, and a collapse of the industry. And there was real suffering among the children. And the City of Vienna got together and raised funds, and sent aid and, you know, funding support back over to Wales.That's how it's always been. It's not about you know, what we now call the developed world, or the Western Hemisphere or the North helping the South or whatever. It's about wherever there is need and wherever there is opportunity to help,  it's reciprocal.ANNETTE LAING: Right, she had, in that way, a very modern perspective, very egalitarian perspective. And yet, you know, at the same time, when I think of her as, here's this woman with this incredible upper-middle class confidence that is sort of developed, particularly, I imagine, at Oxford. And so, you know, in that sense, a Victorian woman who has such a short life,  dies at 52.You know, the world of nonprofits, as we say in the US, or charities today, is a very different place from in Eglantyne Jebb's time. Would there be a place for an Eglantyne Jebb in the world of nonprofits or charities today? CLARE MULLEY: There are some, and we need more, there's no question of it. Yeah, and she was very ahead of her time. It wasn't just that. I mean she was the first person to use cinema photography, cinema footage, to really bring home to people what was going on. She used, you know, "skip lunch" for the first time, donate your lunch money. She did all of these things. Sponsor a child was part of that initial team. So was fundraising use of branding, it's absolutely fantastic. You see her wearing Save the Children hats. I've looked everywhere in people's attics for that hat. If you come across it , Annette, please let me know. ANNETTE LAING: I will, I will! CLARE MULLEY: She using all these very modern ways, and her language we're talking about, it's not patronizing, it's very modern. And so, yes, of course, we need much more people, you know, working along those lines.And, you know, there's other things that she brings as well. So, I mean, her closest relationship in life was with a woman, and for a long time, this wasn't talked about because people are worried, you know, about the sensitivities around that. Thank goodness, a lot of the world has moved on now, and this is something discussed much more openly. In fact, Save the Children does a huge amount of work around LGBTQ+ issues, which is fantastic. So how wonderful to have a woman like that who was pioneering the way, back in the day. ANNETTE LAING: Fantastic. And you did yourself work for Save the Children when you began this project, which brought you into contact [not literally— A.] with Eglantyne Jebb. And all the royalties,  I believe, from this book go to Save the Children, which is fabulous and marvelous. So from your first project, then, to your most recent. You're writing a book, I believe already under contract with Weidenfeld and Nicholson, called Agent Zo. So can you give us a little preview what that's going to be about?CLARE MULLEY: Lovely question, thank you. Agent Zo's the working title. Hope it'll be called that, we'll see, and it's about this incredible [woman] in the Second World War. She's basically a special agent in the Second World War, and she was the only Polish woman to manage to bring contact between their commander-in-chief in occupied Poland, the first of the occupied countries.  She gets through Germany, through France, over the Pyrenees, this extraordinary journey, and being shot at in the mountains and all the rest of it. [She] eventually reaches London, where she reported to the Polish commander-in-chief,  Władysław Sikorski and had to go through working with SOE [British intelligence during WWII]. And then she's there, and the Poles are just amazed that a woman has achieved this. Some of them say, can't we just kiss your hand, you're a goddess to us, I mean, how did you manage it? You're so wonderful.  And she's just like, oh, stop all that lip. Where are the files? Why aren't you answering the ciphers quickly enough? She tries to improve all their systems, and they can't stand it because she's a woman. So one of them tries flirting with her. He thinks, oh, maybe, if I talk about silk stockings, that'll, you know, get the feminine side out. She's just like, oh, come on. So she's just sort of given all these extra hurdles, and in the end they say, okay. thanks. We've got all the information. She brings this incredible stash of information about persecution of the Jews, about some of the V1 missiles, the Vengeance, you know, that's the buzz bomb, troop movements, everything. They go, okay, thank you. That's been fantastic, Zo. Now, where do you want to relax? Do you want to spend the rest of the war in Scotland? She said, don't be ridiculous. I'm going back to Poland. And they're like, well, how? You know, you can't parachute. And she said,  why not? The men are parachuting. So she becomes the only female member of the Polish Special Forces, paratroopers, the Cichociemni, or Silent Unseen, to parachute back behind enemy lines into Warsaw, and then fights in the Warsaw Uprising. And that's not the end of her story.I mean, she's just this amazing, amazing woman.ANNETTE LAING I detect this theme in your books, being drawn to these to these exceptional, extraordinary women. Or maybe they're not exceptional. I mean, that's the other thing. I often talk to teachers, and one of the things I chide everybody about is, don't assume you know everything about a subject. Just don't, you never will, and much of it still remains to be written. Most of it still remains to be written. There are just so many stories. And right now, and this is just my own personal comment that you need not endorse, we have just seen a very concerning uptick in misogyny in  the last couple of years, this thing about Karens that I find very, very strange. It is so good to see you complicating people's understanding of women's role in the past.CLARE MULLEY: A gray area. ANNETTE LAING: Yeah, and you're dealing with stories that academic historians, and I think it's fair to say in Britain particularly . .  . It's a more conservative field. They're going to attack me for this, but it is a more narrow field, and you've been able not only to do work that they haven't, but also to bring it to this enormous audience. So for that, thank you so much, Clare Mulley. Once again folks, you can get this and any of Clare's wonderful books from the source of your choice. And of course, I do encourage folks, to, you know, avoid the dreaded Amazon if you can, but either way, do get ahold of Clare's books. Don't forget libraries and independent bookstores. Clare, it's been an absolute pleasure having you today. Thank you so much for your time.CLARE MULLEY: Thank you. It was a pleasure.Clare Mulley's The Woman Who Saved the Children is available from libraries and booksellers. Non-Boring History is a reader-supported publication, in which historian Dr. Annette Laing introduces readers to the wonderful world of US, UK, and Atlantic World history, including by translating the hidden treasures of academic history for real people. To receive her posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 59 Minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.Sarah Kemble Knight of Boston, Massachusetts, is a widowed single mother of one child, in her mid-thirties, and juggling lots of responsibilities. But she has some business in New York to do with her husband's estate, and anyway, she's ready for a bit of a break. So she dumps the kid with grandma, and sets off, solo. In 1704. On a horse. Apart from that, Sarah Knight's tale is a familiar story to anyone who ever does an American road trip: Lousy food, issues with the road and navigation, dodgy hotels, and a constantly-changing scene and cast of characters. This is the podcast version of Sarah Knight's Great American Road Trip, Annette's original post at Non-Boring History, based on a 1920s reprint of Sarah Kemble Knight's travel journal. Not a fan of podcasts? You can read it here instead!Enjoy this? Share the love! Send it to a friend, child's teacher, aunt or uncle, book club, or anyone you think will enjoy Sarah Knight's adventure.Did someone send this to you? Sign up to get more from historian Dr. Annette Laing! Non-Boring History is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 27 Minutes.Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.Thanks to old movie and TV Westerns, mid-19th century westward migration is completely misunderstood. And one of those misunderstandings is that everyone who went west with a wagon was white. Historian Shirley Ann Wilson Moore's book Sweet Freedoms Plains: African Americans on the Overland Trails, 1841-1869 not only tells the fascinating stories of Black migrants, but helps shift the entire story of the West from flat caricature to a living, breathing past that just makes more sense than those Hollywood cliches. This is the podcast version of Annette's original post, her retelling of just two of those stories from Dr. Moore's book. You can read it here:Enjoy this? Send to a friend!Non-Boring History is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, become a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 50 Minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.Oliver Twist. That's probably who you think of when you think of workhouses, and you're not far wrong. But how did English people get to the point that they thought cruelty to children was okay? And how did they move away from it? This is a story that's disconcerting, no matter your views on how to deal with poverty.This the podcast version of The Workhouse Effect, Annette's original post at Non-Boring History, based on The Workhouse, by Norman Longmate. Read it here:Enjoy this? Share the love, and send it to a friend, suggesting they sign up for Non-Boring History!Non-Boring History is a reader-supported publication by historian Dr. Annette Laing. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 22 minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.Black travelers with covered wagons on the overland trails? Absolutely!Dr. Shirley Ann Wilson Moore is author of Sweet Freedom's Plains: African Americans on the Overland Trails, 1841-1869, the book on which my latest Tales post, Black Americans and Covered Wagons, is based. Dr. Moore's book and her research for the National Park Service are changing how the American public understands 19th century Westward Migration after all the misimpressions left by Hollywood Westerns.Recently, I sat down (via Zoom) with Dr. Moore, and this is our interview, in downloadable audio podcast format.Our chat is also available on video at this link. You can also read it below as an edited transcript. TRANSCRIPTEdited for clarity.Annette Laing:  Welcome to Non-Boring History. Today we're going to be talking about a truly fantastic book. It's Sweet Freedom's Plains:  African Americans on the Overland Trail from 1841 to 1869,  written by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore. This is an academic book, but please don't stop watching, because I do think this book engages an awful lot of people outside of history departments. I'm delighted to say that today I have with me Dr. Moore herself. She holds a PhD in American history from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a professor emeritus at California State University. Sacramento. She's a specialist in African-American history and especially African-American women in the West. She's the author of three books, including this one [for which Dr. Moore won the 2019 Barbara Sudler Award for best non-fiction book on a western American subject authored by a woman.]Dr. Moore has also written numerous articles, essays, and book chapters, and she has served as a consultant on projects for the public, including with the National Park Service, as well as on various documentaries. So with that, thank you very much for joining me at Non-Boring History today, Shirley.Shirley Moore: Well, it's my pleasure and it's delightful to be here. So we'll have to live up to Non-Boring History, right?Annette Laing: Exactly! We're two historians. This is not a good start. We will do our best!So who were they? Who were the African American folks who went West?Shirley Moore: You know, that's a really good question. As to numbers, I don't think we'll ever establish the numbers of black people who went West. I've seen estimates from 5,000 to 50,000. So we'll never know. Because officials who were in charge of census taking of the travelers, those who were enslaved, their owners didn't refer to them or count them for anything other than black, or black woman, black man. They were ignored and discounted. So we'll never know the numbers.However,  one thing we have to understand, and probably most people don't think that in the pioneer days, the wagon train days, that African Americans were involved at all. That is not the case. Black immigrants, travelers, were involved in every aspect of that process from start to finish. And they were not all enslaved. Many free blacks came. So their invisibility doesn't stem from the fact that they weren't there. They were seen as inconsequential. So that's why this cloak of invisibility surrounded them, as far as whites were concerned,Annette Laing: The knowledge that most people have of the wagon trains is based more on 1950s westerns than anything. Most people haven't a clue, starting with the fact that people were not traveling in the wagons, but walking next to them. What makes black folks' overland journeys especially significant?Shirley Moore: That's one of the questions I set out to explore in Sweet Freedom's Plains. What I discovered is that many blacks came West for similar reasons as their white counterparts. You know, the West was the land of starting over, in the popular imagination. It was a place where you could reinvent yourself, a place where you had greater freedoms. That was in the popular imagination, and certainly African Americans held to those reasons.But especially those who are were enslaved, and those who were restricted by black laws and Black Codes--even if you were free in the so-called free states and certainly, in the slave states, if you had a free status, that meant very little-- were hemmed in by laws. You had no political status. You had no citizenship status. So it was tough for even free Blacks, in free states and certainly in the South. They came West seeking relief from those conditions.The title of the book, as a matter of fact, came from an old abolitionist hymn, you know, abolitionist words, from the anti-slavery movement, grafted onto hymns. The title is from one of these abolitionist hymns called The Flying Slave. One verse in that hymn says "Behind, I left the whips and chains. Before me, lay sweet freedom's plains." That's where the title comes from. That alone was, you know, worth the discovery. I knew when I heard it, that would be the title for the book. I knew it.Annette Laing: So when people embarked full of hope on this journey west. . .  I mean, this, we know, was not an easy journey for anyone . . .Shirley Moore: For anybody.Annette Laing: What specific challenges did black folks run into?Shirley Moore: As I said, they were counted whether they were free or enslaved, They were counted as non-people. Many wagon companies had in their charters provisions that restricted them from taking on Black travelers. Even if they could pay, they weren't allowed to be on those [wagon] trains. So, once they could secure passage, either by paying or working, they had to wait around those jumping off towns longer than their white counterparts. They had to figure out where they were going to stay as they waited, that kind of thing.So from the beginning, even before they hit the trails, this was the dilemma that white travelers, white overlanders, didn't face. And on the trails, they were, of course, as slaves, required to work.  Everybody worked under horrific conditions that we would just shudder at. But for Blacks, they had no choice. They were on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They did the most onerous, difficult work possible.There is one company, these were the so-called Mississippi Mormons, that made the journey in two stages, coming from Mississippi. There were a number of Blacks in that company, and one of the leaders of the train recorded that everybody suffered the terrible cold conditions. They suffered terribly but, as the person, whose name escapes me, writes in his journal, the Negroes suffered the most. And several died and were buried along the trail. It was commonplace for slaves to be worked in horrific conditions. And throughout the slave states, slaves, especially in the wintertime suffered from pneumonia. They called it . . . Oh, gosh. I forgot the name. It's in the book, so look it up! [laughter] So, they suffered from this, and they were routinely expected to die. So, this was a burden. They were routinely expected to be, as I say in the book, pack animals.Annette Laing: But at the same time, one of the things that really came out in the book to me, and I'm thinking here of people like George W. Bush, who's handing out loans and things . . . There was this sort of crucible on the overland trail.  Maybe you could address that.Shirley Moore: One of the reasons, you asked me why did they come West, one of the popular notions about the West was that some of these racial proscriptions could be left behind and capability and ability and prowess could trump those racial categories.Bush, who was a free black man, and he left with his five sons, and his wife who was white, left Missouri, he epitomized that.  George W. Bush --that improbable name! His chronicler and friend wrote in journals that George W. Bush was the most capable man he'd ever met. He not only financed several of the company members who were cash-strapped, because he was a successful farmer, and businessman in Missouri. He also bought wagons for them, provisioned their wagons, and so on. And when they were going through starving times, he taught them to hunt small game, and he was the provider. So he's an outstanding example of that notion that ability could at times overcome those stigmas. That was on the Trail. Now, when he made it to his destination in Oregon Territory, he was not allowed to own the land that he had homesteaded. And so the US Congress had to make a special petition for George Bush to own these lands up in the Puget Sound area. Bush is a fascinating story. This book is full of stories. It's full of footnotes, dense, wonderful footnotes . . .(laughing) But you can ignore those. You don't have to read them.Annette Laing: Don't worry, audience!Shirley Moore: Yeah, don't worry. Don't let that scare you off the stories. I like to think that this book is full of stories that Hollywood hasn't even tapped into. Real life.Annette Laing: That's absolutely right. I mean, there are so many. And it complicates things, doesn't it? I've asked you to do this interview in such a short time, and we can't just reduce it to "Did they get there, and everything went great or not?” Because it's impossible, right?Shirley Moore: It is impossible to do that. But the complications, the complexities, the nuances of this whole journey, that's what makes it so interesting to me.And I think your viewers and listeners would be interested to know that these overlanders in this timespan I'm looking at weren't the first Blacks in the west. You know, you had black mountain men, black guides, for whom this was their territory. And I talk about that in the book. I think that in the complexity and the complications, that's where you get the real stories. Once Blacks set out on the trails, took first steps on the trails, whether they were enslaved or free, they knew something had changed. And there were Blacks who, and I call them facilitators, who never made the Overland journey, but were very, very instrumental in allowing it to happen, in facilitating it. One such person was a man by the name of Hiram Young. He was a former slave. He didn't know how to read or write, but he rose to be, I think, the third wealthiest man in in Missouri. He was based in Independence, Missouri. He came up with a wagon [design]. The wagon was the iconic symbol, right, of the overland trip of pioneer days, of westward migration? [Young built] a wagon that was preferred by most overlanders. They called it, in short, the Hiram Young wagon. And it was lighter, smaller, just easier to work with. He had plaques put up on the wagons that bore his name.But he didn't stop at that. He had a business conglomerate in this jumping-off town of Independence, Missouri, where everybody came to provision themselves, to get supplies. He supplied them from his farms. He had cornered the market on yoke making. Oxen were the preferred mode of force pulling the wagons, so he cornered the market on oxen, yokes, wagons, food. He had farms. He was an interesting, interesting person, Hiram Young, because he employed slaves from the surrounding area, Missouri being a slave state, and gave them a working wage. His thought was that they can buy their freedom just as he did, and perhaps buy one of his wagons, and head West. He also employed white workers, and let some of them board in his home, which was breaking every racial taboo at the time.Annette Laing: Like the white Irishman that you mentioned. Shirley Moore: Oh, yes.  And so Hiram Young was a facilitator, and I don't think people associate the iconic symbol of overland immigration with a Black man. You know, he made it, and he sold wagons to anyone who could purchase them. One of his contemporaries said that you could see Hiram Young wagons on the trails from Missouri out to California and beyond, that's how popular they were.Annette Laing: He's mentioned in Independence, which is where I first learned of him. But this is news that is just not trickling down into schools. You know, I mean, I talk about westward migration, I talk about Hiram Young in schools. And this is all kind of news to people. Have you seen some progress with, you know, certainly with the National Park Service.?Shirley Moore: Yes. Yes, this book actually started out as a report. The National Park Service contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in writing a report, so they could update their materials on the various trails and their various facilities, update that signage, and update the language. And I thought, well, it's intriguing. I, like everybody else, didn't know much about the Blacks on the Overland trail, but I completed that report and they were pleased with it. But I knew, as I was working on the report, there was much more to be said about this, and that's what sparked me into continuing to this book. The National Park Service wanted to make changes and be more inclusive, and I know there's a hunger out there, as I've gone around and talked about these issues. People are hungry for it, from grade schools to adults who haven't been in school in a very long time, to everybody, and it strikes a chord because it is such a diversity of experience. We can't talk about the Black overlanders' experience because they had some things in common, but they had such different experiences.Annette Laing: You bring that out so, so well. This is a really compelling set of stories, and with really fascinating overarching arguments. You know, I have deliberately limited our time, which I hate, because I could really have this conversation all day.Shirley Moore: We could!Annette Laing: So we really have to have you back.  But I want to thank you so much, Dr. Moore, for taking the time out to talk to me today.I just want to remind everybody that Sweet Freedom's Plains is available in libraries, for sale in independent bookstores, and on  A____n, the online store we don't talk about. I do recommend this book, and I don't recommend all academic books for a popular audience.So once again, thank you,  Dr. Shirley Moore.Shirley Moore: Thank you so much. Next time I come back, I have to tell you about the two Black women who were kicked out of the wagon train, a super story.Annette Laing:  I want to hear that, and I also want to talk about the cover, and your interviews you did with people, and you name it! Thank you again, so much.Share this podcast with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe to Non-Boring History! 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Podcast: 52 Minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.What does it mean to be posh? And how did you become posh if you lived in a backwater like Virginia in the 18th century? That was the question facing tobacco planters, including a certain George Washington. We're still wondering how we can be equal and yet also posh. Here's some (posh) food for thought, carefully sourced and curated (naturally). Because if you want to be posh, you should know that even how you think will be judged.How to be Posh is the podcast version of Annette's original post at Non-Boring History, based on The Complete Colonial Gentleman by Professor Michal Rozbicki. Read it here:Enjoy this? Share the love, and send it to a friend, suggesting they sign up for Non-Boring History!If someone forwarded this to you, sign up for your own Non-Boring History! Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

ADVISORY: This podcast contains descriptions of wartime violence that some listeners may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.Podcast: 40 Minutes. Listen Now, or Download to Your Favorite App for Later, by clicking on “Listen in Podcast App” above right.Did people really sing cheerful songs in the air raid shelters during the London Blitz? How did they cope? Annette riffs on the insights of historian Peter Stansky's The First Day of the Blitz, and how it has both differed from and yet resonated with distressing days since, including during 9/11 and the pandemic.The First Day of the Blitz is the podcast version of Annette's original post at Non-Boring History, based on the work of Professor Peter Stansky. Read it here:This podcast is free. Share on social media, or email to a friend:If someone forwarded this to you, sign up for your own Non-Boring History:Like this? Like and/or comment below: Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 45 minutes (yes, this one is long!)Three stories of enslaved entrepreneurs in the Deep South. It might just change how you think about enslaved people.This is the podcast version of Annette's original post at Non-Boring History, based on the work of Professors Betty Wood and Timothy Lockley. More details here:Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right to save this podcast in your favorite app to listen later.This podcast episode from Non-Boring History on Substack is free. Share on social media, or email to a friend:If someone forwarded this to you, sign up for your own Non-Boring History: Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast: 21 mins. Continued from Let There Be Light? FDR Is In The Dark (1)It's August 11, 1938. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has traveled from the Little White House, his getaway in Warm Springs, Georgia, to the small town of Barnesville. He's here to celebrate a triumph of the New Deal, the arrival of electricity in a rural area where he got 92% of the vote. He's addressing thousands of excited locals and the national media. He's going to press the switch that will bring electricity to Lamar County for the first time. How could he possibly screw this up?Hold the president's beer. You're about to find out.Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right to save this podcast in your favorite app to listen later.Not yet a full, paid-up subscriber to Non-Boring History? Now is your chance to join the Nonnies for historical goodness in your inbox! American (and British) history hosted by a real historian with a different angle and accent.This is the podcast version of Annette's original post at Non-Boring History: Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

The President can count on huge personal loyalty here in the Deep South, and especially today, when he's arriving in triumph with new technology for this rural area. He also plans to say something that, while it would be controversial coming from anyone else, he knows the crowd won't mind when it comes from him. Franklin Delano Roosevelt knows he can count on the enthusiastic support of the folks in Barnesville, Lamar County, Georgia.Or does he?This is the podcast version of Annette's original post at Non-Boring History:Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right to save this podcast in your favorite app to listen later.Not yet a full, paid-up subscriber to Non-Boring History? Now is your chance to join the Nonnies for historical goodness in your inbox! American (and British) history hosted by a real historian with a different angle and accent. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast (30 minutes)Margaret and Ledyard Frink made it from Indiana to Sacramento in their souped-up RV, 1850 style. Now they own their own hotel/restaurant, and are more than breaking even. But it doesn't take long before things go awry . . . Does their future really lie in the West?This is the podcast version of my post, Margaret and Ledyard Go West (2)  based on Margaret Frink's 1850 journal, in Kenneth L. Holmes (ed.), Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850, vol. 2 (1983)Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right to save Margaret and Ledyard Go West (2) in your favorite Podcast app to listen later.Not yet a subscriber to Non-Boring History? For the full experience (and to support the work of Annette Laing, the Non-Boring Historian) why not get the paid annual subscription at 20% off (for a limited time!) Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast (24 minutes)It's 1897, and widower Ledyard Frink is about to publish his wife Margaret's extraordinary account of their early life in Northern California, nearly half a century earlier. Here's the Gold Rush like you never thought of it before, through the eyes of a savvy and kind young couple.This is the podcast version of my post, Margaret and Ledyard Go West (1) based on Margaret Frink's 1850 journal, in Kenneth L. Holmes (ed.), Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850, vol. 2 (1983) Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right to save Margaret and Ledyard Go West (1) in your favorite Podcast app to listen later.Not yet a subscriber to Non-Boring History? Free plan gets you most things. For the full experience (and to support the work of Annette Laing, the Non-Boring Historian) please opt for an annual or monthly subscription. Thanks! Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Two men in rural Virginia agree to the sale and purchase of a horse. Both men are Black. The year? 1660.A story that leaves us with the lingering sense that things might not have turned out quite as they did.This is the podcast version of my post, A Black Craigslist: 1660, based on T.H.Breen and Stephen Innes's classic book, Myne Own Ground. Click on “Listen in Podcast App” above right if you want to save A Black Craigslist in your favorite Podcast app to listen later.Not yet a subscriber to Non-Boring History? Already a subscriber? Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

St. Mary the Virgin Church, Ashwell, Herts, UK Photo: AnemoneProjectors, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsA Tweet inside the tower of a 14th century church has a message for us in plague-ridden 2021.This is the audio version of the Non-Boring History post The Remains of the Plague: A Pandemic Story, 1350.Like this ? Buy Me A (used) Book for just $5, and Support Non-Boring History!Want more? Subscribe (free or paid!) for podcasts, posts, Zoom meetups, giveaways, and so much more at Non-Boring History, free or paid! Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

Inside the Rebecca Nurse House in Danvers (formerly Salem Village), Massachusetts. Photo: Daderot, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons.Rebecca Nurse was a respectable elderly churchgoer, a woman held in high esteem in her community in rural Massachusetts. Until one terrible day in 1692, when her world suddenly turned upside down. This tragic episode still resonates today.Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to Non-Boring History!Already a subscriber? Great! Share this podcast episode with a friend:This audio version of Rebecca Nurse is Canceled: Salem, 1692, at Non-Boring History, is narrated by Annette Laing, and produced by Hoosen Benoti. Get full access to Non-Boring History at annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe