history – Page 2 – Much That Is Fair

On Miracles

Hartsdale, New York is home to one of the country’s more eccentric pieces of history: the nation’s oldest, largest, and (in their own words) “most prestigious” pet cemetery. Founded in 1896 when a local doctor gave his friend permission to bury her beloved dog in his apple orchard, it is now the final resting place of thousands of animals, mostly dogs and cats.

I first learned about it as I searched the state for World War memorials: an early memorial in the cemetery, named the War Dog, is dedicated “by dog lovers to man’s most faithful friend, for the valiant services rendered in the World War, 1914 – 1918.” The staggering human cost of World War I often hides the toll it took on animals and on nature, but it too is nearly beyond imagining. After the war, veterans of the Great War estimated a soldier’s life expectancy on the Western Front to be three to six months. The life expectancy of a horse was two weeks.

Lord, Have Mercy on This Land of Mine

I don’t know what most folks look for when they travel, but as a historian, one of the most interesting intersections to me in all of America is in Alabama: a circle called Court Square, at the center of downtown Montgomery. It is not a particularly commanding visual, and it holds some of the greatest horrors of the American past in its cobblestones. But as a relic of the layers of American history, all crowded into one tiny little space, it’s hard to beat.

Ironic Points of Light

Several months ago, I had a fascinating conversation with an archivist in New Ulm, Minnesota. I had gone out for the day to review some documents surrounding New Ulm’s World War history – a heavily German town, they had suffered intense discrimination during both World Wars, a story reflected in the town’s monuments. But what New Ulm is famous for in Minnesota history comes earlier: in 1862, the town was besieged as part of the US-Dakota War, a war waged by Dakota people against white settlers for their violation of land treaties. In the same year that the Battle of Antietam handed us the single bloodiest day of combat in US history, it is a war not often minded outside of Minnesota, but it is one that deeply marked the state’s history. The hanging of 38 Dakota prisoners as punishment for the insurrection remains the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history, and the Dakota people were banished from the state. The attack on New Ulm, meanwhile, was commemorated in a painting that was hung in the Minnesota State Capitol in 1923. It remained for nearly one hundred years, until it was removed in 2016.

The Past Still Needs Us

“I want to wander. But the past still needs me.
How could I ever leave?”
– Hua Xi, The Past Still Needs Me

A sentiment I have heard more and more in recent years from confused and weary liberals is the bitter sense that Lincoln made a grave mistake in keeping the Union together. Why bother? Why not let the South just go? I was first asked this question just after the 2016 election, but I get it more these days, both from my students and from folks who would be pretty happy creating a United Republic of the East and West Coasts and calling it a day. Let them have kept their slaves. Let them have their guns and their backward lives. Leave us out of it.

Abandoning the ‘War’ on COVID

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Sometime this month or next, the United States will hit a once-unimaginable milestone: one million dead from coronavirus. When that happens, the reaction from many will be muted. Americans are exhausted, most agree, and they are ready to put the pandemic behind them, whether or not the pandemic is done with them. We have hit so many milestones by now that these numbers appear almost meaningless to us. What makes one million more unimaginable than any of the rest of them?

Fidelity

On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, I made the mistake of scheduling an eye exam for mid-afternoon. This meant that just as the rioters were breaking into the Capitol, I was having my eyes dilated, and subsequently lost my ability to see clearly for a few hours. Having heard just enough before I went in to know that something was going on, I tried to look at my phone anyway, before remembering, belatedly, that there are other ways of getting the news and turning on NPR for my walk home instead.