If you grew up in the United States, you probably took a course in middle school or junior high about your state’s history. I don’t remember a thing about my class except a frantic late-night scramble to finish my “Missouri Scrapbook,” full of notes, photographs, postcards, mementos, etc.
My guess is that you didn’t learn a lot from state history classes, either. Am I wrong?
But state history has much to be said for it. Americans who move from state to state can find vivid confirmations of the themes of American history. I’m thinking of the frontier, our wars of independence—the American Revolution and the Civil War—, the destruction of American Indian tribes, the struggles to build infrastructure, etc.
Local sites may not rise to the fame of, say, the Trail of Tears, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, or the Boston Tea Party, but they help build the story of our past.
Each state’s history offers surprises. Here are a few examples from places I’ve lived in. I welcome you to send me others (for publication).
As readers know, I have written quite a bit about war on these pages.[1] But, to my surprise, I have never written about direct personal combat—specifically, about dueling. This amazes me because I just learned that dueling was a widespread activity, a way of life even, in the antebellum South.
We all know about the fatal duel in 1804 between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which led to the death of Hamilton. But I have recently learned that Hamilton was involved with—that is, at least entered into discussions about—ten duels before that. Burr had dueled once previously. (And Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel.)
A recent scholarly paper perused two newspapers (the New York Times and the Richmond Daily Dispatch) for duels reported between 1861 and 1865. They found 130 duels (over just five years!). Of these 130 duels, they write, “71 involve prominent figures, which we define as politicians, military officers with rank of at least colonel (Army) or captain (Navy), and other well-known private citizens.”[2]
The year 1901 was not a promising time for Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a young black woman, to return to her native North Carolina and teach in a mission school.
White supremacists had overthrown North Carolina’s Fusionist government in 1900. The new governor was proud of the amendment to the state constitution that had “the deliberate purpose of depriving the negro of the right to vote, and of allowing every white man to retain that right.” [1] Schools were separate and unequal in spite of the 1896 Supreme Court decision that said they could be separate if they were equal.
Yet, given that environment, Brown’s experience is not as grim as one would think. Her life is not only inspiring, but it also sheds light on the many people—black and white, from north and south—who tried to help southern blacks. They were unable or unwilling to challenge the power structure, but they went around it.
Brown’s life also illustrates the cross-currents in black education represented by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, both of whom Brown knew.
Readers of history know that government efforts to reduce monopoly power and protect the consumer often fall short. Some protect competitors rather than the consumer. Famous break-ups of large companies like Standard Oil and Alcoa have had little impact on the companies’ success. And regulators tend to be captured by the regulated [1].
So can government intervention be beneficial to a company—and also serve the community? Let me introduce you to Theodore Vail, president of AT&T in its early days. I learned about him from the great management guru Peter Drucker. You be the judge.
The U.S. Forest Service has proposed renaming Wayne National Forest, a 240,000-acre forest in southeast Ohio. It has selected the name Buckeye National Forest. (Ohio is the Buckeye State.)
The forest honors Anthony Wayne, an important general in the American Revolution. But “Mad” Anthony (whose label was given for disputed reasons) also was a key figure in the Northwest Indian War, ousting Native Americans from much of Ohio. Understandably, American Indian tribes are encouraging the name change.
I have been opposed to the removal of statues for the sake of “woke” ideology. I’m also doubtful about renaming southern forts, even though they were named for mediocre Confederate generals in order to perpetuate Jim Crow (see this post). And I think renaming college buildings is mostly silly. Which North Carolina State college student wonders about the namesake of Daniels Hall—now labeled 111 Lampe Drive?
