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Crisscross America-on dogsleds and ships, stagecoaches and trains-from pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago. Join fifteen of today's most talented writers of young adult literature on a thrill ride through history with American girls charting their own course.

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A Tyranny of Petticoats (A Tyranny of Petticoats, #1)

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A Tyranny of Petticoats has 3,028 ratings and 741 reviews. Nat said: Source I was so excited when I found about this anthology because some of my all-t...

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Criss-cross America - on dogsleds and ships, stagecoaches and trains - from pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago. Join fifteen of today's most talented writers of young adult literature on a thrill ride through history with American girls charting their own course.

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Golden Age of Piracy - History of Piracy - The Way of the Pirates

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Here you can read about the short period between 1680 and 1730, when pirates were most influential in history of piracy.

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Alaska's Native American History

The first people migrated to Alaska around 15,000 years ago, during the Ice Age. At that time, a frozen land bridge known as Beringia extended from Siberia to eastern Alaska, and migrants followed herds of animals across it. These people split into two groups: One group stayed in Beringia, while the other group migrated down into North and South America. This second group is considered the ancestors of all Native Americans in the Americas. The first permanent settlements in Alaska date to about 4,000 years ago. Most Indigenous people hunted sea mammals such as whales, although those living inland hunted caribou.

Russians first came into contact with Indigenous people in the mid-1700s. Various tribes met Europeans across different periods. Some Indigenous Alaskans were barely impacted by European colonists. Others, especially those living near the Aleutian Islands, were taken hostage by Russian colonists and forced to hunt. Many were later converted by the Russian Orthodox church. A significant number of Alaskan natives married Russians. Their offspring were called Creoles, a term borrowed from the colonial French that described people of mixed Indigenous Alaskan and Russian heritage.

With the arrival of American settlers and the diseases they brought in the 20th century, the Indigenous population began to plummet, from 45 percent in 1940 to 19 percent by 1959. Yet today, Alaska still has the highest population of American Indians and Alaska Natives of any state in the United States, at around 16 percent. There are 11 distinct Indigenous cultures in Alaska that are grouped in five regions: the Iñupiat and St. Lawrence Island Yup'ik in the Arctic; the Athabascan in south-central and interior Alaska; the Yup'ik and Cup'ik in southwest Alaska; the Unangax̂ and Sugpiaq (Alutiiq) in south-central Alaska and the Aleutian Islands; and the Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian and Tlingit in the Inside Passage.

Russian Exploration and Colonization

Russian explorer Mikhail Gvozdev mapped Alaska and the North American coastline in 1735, although strong winds prevented him from landing. In 1741, Danish-born explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering and his crew sailed between Russia and North America for Russian Czar Peter the Great and became the first Europeans to explore parts of Alaska. For the following decades, private traders known as promyshlenniki returned to hunt seasonally in Alaska for furs.

In 1784, Grigorii Shelikhov created the first Russian settlement on Kodiak Island, though he died before fulfilling his dreams of creating a fur trading empire. In 1794, Catherine the Great sent the first Russian Orthodox monks to Kodiak Island. Along with missionary priest Ivan Veniaminov, who was sent to the Aleutian Islands, they created a Russian Orthodox community that remains vibrant in Alaska.

Alaska's fur-trading business took off when Russian czar Paul I created the Russian-American Company in 1799. The company conducted its fur-trading business from Sitka Island in Alaska and sold to wealthy Chinese. One of its founders, Nikolai Rezanov, helped the Alaskan colony survive by trading with the Spanish in California.

After British navigator James Cook sailed around Alaska in 1778, British and American fur traders established operations in Alaska. Russia eventually created trading treaties with its competition, and widespread trapping almost led to the extinction of several species.

Alaska Purchase

Russia controlled most of the area that is now Alaska from the late 1700s until the mid-1800s, when the fur trade began to fail for ecological and commercial reasons, and Russia decided to focus its efforts to the east. After losing the Crimean War to Great Britain in 1856, the Russian government didn't want to sell Alaska to the British, who wanted to add to their territory in British North America (modern-day Canada). Instead, Russia began looking to sell Alaska to the United States.

At first hesitant to make a big purchase in the aftermath of the Civil War, secretary of state William Seward eventually decided to acquire the territory under the pretext of " Manifest Destiny." In 1867, Seward purchased Alaska for the United States for $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre. Seward was ridiculed for the purchase, and American expansion into Alaska was slow. Presbyterian and other religious missionaries began migrating to the territory and "Americanizing" Indigenous people. Nearly 100 years after the territory was purchased, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the declaration naming Alaska as the 49th state on January 3, 1959.

The Alaska Gold Rush and Exploration

Gold was discovered in 1872 near Sitka, Alaska, leading more than 60,000 people to arrive in Alaska in 1888. After gold was discovered near the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory, prospectors began flooding into Alaska from 1896 to 1897. The Klondike Gold Rush brought more than 100,000 prospectors to Alaska, including author and journalist Jack London. It led to more than 50 gold-mining camps over the next decade. While many prospectors came up empty-handed, major strikes in Nome and Fairbanks led to the development of larger towns.

American railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman turned a hunting trip into one of the most famous scientific explorations of his time when he brought 126 researchers and artists on a two-month trip to Alaska in 1899. Known as the Harriman Expedition, the group discovered 240 species of plants and published stunning photos of the landscapes and Indigenous people that raised national interest in the territory.

Civil Rights Movement

Women have long played an important role in Alaskan society. The wives who accompanied their husbands to Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were often educated, self-sufficient and enterprising. During the Klondike Gold Rush, working women were standard in Alaska. Women ran boardinghouses, restaurants and mining companies. Some established boarding schools, hotels, banks and telephone and water companies. Indigenous women frequently married immigrant men and helped them survive by providing food and clothing and establishing relationships with local people.

Given women's role in Alaskan society, it's perhaps no surprise that women's suffrage passed in Alaska in 1913, seven years before the 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution. In the 1940s, Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich fought to end discrimination against Indigenous Alaskans, who didn't have the same access to businesses and rights under the law as white citizens. Her engagement helped ensure the passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, which preceded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by nearly two decades.

Industry and Immigration

As fur trading declined in the mid-1800s, fishing and canneries became the predominant industries in Alaska. By the early 1900s, Alaska produced half of the world's canned tuna.

When the Alaska Railroad was built between 1915 and 1923, with Anchorage as its base, new workers and merchants migrated to the area. The installation of military bases and defense industries in Alaska during World War II reshaped the local economy. But it wasn't until oil was found in Prudhoe Bay in 1968 that significant numbers of new people migrated to Alaska, mostly white people from the west coast of the U.S. Beginning in the 1980s, the population diversified as more Filipinos and Pacific Islanders began migrating to Alaska.

Date of Statehood: January 3, 1959

Capital: Juneau

Population: 733,391 (2020)

Size: 664,988 square miles

Nickname(s): The Last Frontier; Land of the Midnight Sun

Motto: North to the Future

Tree: Sitka Spruce

Flower: Forget-me-not

Bird: Willow Ptarmigan

Interesting Facts

During World War II, the Japanese occupied two Alaskan islands, Attu and Kiska, for 15 months.

Alaska contains 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States. At 20,320 feet, Mt. Denali (formerly known as Mt. McKinley) is the tallest mountain in North America.

Alaska has roughly 5,000 earthquakes every year. In March of 1964, the strongest earthquake recorded in North America occurred in Prince William Sound with a magnitude of 9.2.

The most powerful volcanic explosion of the 20th century occurred in 1912 when Novarupta Volcano erupted, creating the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park.

The temperature dropped to a record -80 degrees Fahrenheit at Prospect Creek Camp in 1971.

The state of Rhode Island could fit into Alaska more than 420 times.

More than 100 million acres of land throughout Alaska was preserved and protected with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980.

Over 11 million gallons of oil poured into 1,300 miles of Alaska's coastline when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran into a reef in the Prince William in 1989. The spill killed thousands of animals, including seabirds, sea otters, killer whales and seals, with lingering oil pockets found in the waters more than three decades later.

Sources

Alaska Kids' Corner, alaska.gov

Seward's Folly, loc.gov

Why We Don't Use the Word Eskimo Anymore, sinchi-foundation.com

Ancient Human Remains Document Migration From Asia to America, npr.org

Native Peoples, loc.gov

Alaska Native Communities on Harriman's Route, pbs.org

Alaska Natives Before Statehood, pbs.org

Alaska Native Culture, travelalaska.com

Alaska Native Peoples, nativefederation.org

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Youth, youth.gov

QuickFacts: Alaska, census.gov

Russian Discovery, loc.gov

Russian Colonization, loc.gov

Alaska Fur Trade, loc,gov

Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska, loc.gov

Russian-American Company Created, prlib.ru

James Cook, exploration.marinersmuseum.org

The Alaska Purchase, loc.gov

American Early Development, loc.gov

What Was the Klondike Gold Rush?, nps.gov

Gold Rush, loc.gov

Popular Culture, loc.gov

The Harriman Expedition, naturalhistory.si.edu

Pioneer Women, loc.gov

The 19th Amendment, Elizabeth Peratrovich, and the Ongoing Fight for Equal Rights, nps.gov

Alaska Migration History 1900-2018, depts.washington.edu

Fact Check

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Alaska - Juneau, Alaska Purchase & Population

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Alaska is the largest state admitted to the Union; It was acquired by the United States in 1867 and received statehood in 1959.

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No other city in America keeps its history as vital and accessible as New Orleans. House after house, street after street, indeed entire neighborhoods, exude a rich sense of place, and serve as touchstones for fascinating history and complex culture. Look for it. In New Orleans, history can strut as loudly as a Carnival walking krewe, or creep as softly as a green lizard on a courtyard wall. Thrilling. Colorful. Tragic. Inspiring. Discover a little about the sweep of the city's history.

Colonial New Orleans

Indigenous people called it Balbancha, "land of many tongues," and they inhabited the rich delta lands between the Mississippi River ("Father of Waters") and Okwa-Ta ("Big Water," Lake Pontchartrain) for the same reasons that would later attract Europeans: abundant ecological resources and a convenient network of navigable rivers, bayous and bays. Claimed for the French Crown by explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682, La Nouvelle-Orleans was founded by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1718 upon the slightly elevated banks of the Mississippi River approximately 95 miles above its mouth. Engineers laid out a grid of streets with a Place d'Armes (today's Jackson Square) that would become known as the Vieux Carré ("Old Square"), or today's French Quarter. The nascent outpost became the capital of the French Colony of Louisiana in 1723.

That same year, France ceded Louisiana to Spain, to keep it out of the hands of the British, victors of the recent French and Indian War. For the remainder of the 1700s, Louisiana was a Spanish colony, and Nueva Orleans functioned as an important trading and cultural partner with Cuba, Mexico, and beyond. It was during the Spanish colonial era that New Orleans transformed from a village-like environment of wooden houses to a city of sturdier brick buildings with urban infrastructure, largely due to the unpaid labor of enslaved people. Catalyzing the change were two disastrous fires, in 1788 and 1794, which together destroyed over a thousand old French buildings. New architectural codes were introduced shortly thereafter, resulting in splendid Spanish Colonial-style buildings such as the Cabildo fronting today's Jackson Square. Other Spanish contributions include wrought-iron balconies, patios (courtyards), above-ground cemeteries, and the city's earliest expansion, the Suburbio Santa Maria, today's Central Business District. The Spanish also liberalized policies governing slavery, which enabled the dramatic growth of a caste of free people of color

In 1800, the Spanish retroceded Louisiana back to France, only to have Napoleon sell the entire Louisiana colony, including New Orleans, to the United States as part of the $15 million Louisiana Purchase, finalized on December 20, 1803.

Although no longer a French colony, residents in the new American city of New Orleans held tight to their Francophile ways, including language, religion, customs, a complex social strata, and a penchant for the epicurean. The Creoles-that is, the locally born descendants of early inhabitants, many with French blood-created a sophisticated and cosmopolitan society that stood apart from nearly every other American city. From the streets of the French Quarter, to the Creole cottages of the Faubourg Marigny, to the Old Ursuline Convent and the former Charity Hospital, vestiges of French colonial times persist to this day.

Beset by Pirates and Privateers

The flow of goods between the Gulf of Mexico and port of New Orleans attracted smugglers, privateers, and pirates, with Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre among the most infamous. Jean Lafitte was a fixer and rogue who played an instrumental role in aiding Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson and the Americans in their victory over the British during the Battle of New Orleans (1815) at Chalmette. Tradition holds that Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, at 941 Bourbon Street, served as the pirates' base. Probably dating to the 1770s and said to be the oldest structure housing a bar in the United States, Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a picturesque relic of colonial-era vernacular architecture, and still a popular saloon today.

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was first recorded in the present-day United States in March 1699, as Iberville and Bienville sailed up the Mississippi River and made note of the midwinter feast in their journal as they camped at Point du Mardi Gras. After that, French colonists celebrated Mardi Gras in Mobile and, following its founding in 1718, in New Orleans, mostly in the form of public festivity and private costumed balls. Mardi Gras remained a raucous but generally informal affair until 1857, when a group of Anglo-Americans from Mobile formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus and introduced formal parades and elaborate floats organized by social organizations called krewes. The krewes of Comus and later Rex would set the template for Mardi Gras for decades to come, by which time New Orleanians proudly called their pre-Lenten feast "the greatest free show on Earth."

Antebellum New Orleans

In the mid-1800s, the highest concentration of millionaires in America could be found between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Their wealth came largely from sugar cane plantations, which depended on the labor of thousands of enslaved African Americans. In the 1850s alone, Louisiana plantations produced an estimated 450 million pounds of sugar per year, worth more than $20 million annually.

Sugar and cotton came downriver on steamboats en route to global markets. Thousands of dockworkers toiled on the wharves of New Orleans to transfer the cargo to ocean-going ships after unloading their imports, while hundreds of bankers, merchants, factors, insurers, and lawyers managed finance and logistics. Millions were made in the commerce, and much of it went to the powerful aristocracy. That wealth may be seen to this day in the opulent townhouses of the French Quarter and the magnificent mansions of the Garden District. But that elegance could not mask the fact that this was an enslaved society, as well as the nation's busiest slave marketplace, throughout the antebellum era, 1803-1861.

In 1840, New Orleans ranked as the third-largest city in the nation, the largest in the South, and the fourth-busiest port in the world. It had a population of 102,193, of whom 58 percent were white, 23 percent were enslaved African Americans; and 19 percent were free people of color. Its two primary ethnicities, French-speaking Creoles and English-speaking Anglo-Americans competed for power and lived in largely separate sections, the Creoles in the French Quarter and the lower faubourgs, the Anglo-Americans in what is now the Central Business District, Lower Garden District, and Garden District. All neighborhoods occupied the narrow crescent-shaped natural levee abutting the Mississippi River, behind which was an uninhabitable swamp. River floods, hurricanes, and fires were constant threats, as were devastating epidemics of yellow fever, dengue, malaria and cholera.

The Civil War and Reconstruction

Union troops captured Confederate New Orleans in May 1862 and occupied the region for the remainder of the Civil War. Afterward, a racially integrated Reconstruction-era government passed a progressive state constitution and sought to establish civil rights for emancipated slaves. But after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, white-supremacist forces steadily regained control, and racial subjugation and segregation would ensue for a century to come. The 1896 Supreme Court decision on Plessy versus Ferguson, which legally sanctioned "separate but equal" policies, derived from a local case.

While New Orleans would never regain its domination of western trade, the Crescent City in postbellum times did catch up on railroad construction, port modernization, levee-building, and urban improvements. The city made bold infrastructural advancements during the Progressive Era in municipal drainage, water treatment, sewerage, sanitation, public health, and urban beautification. Locals also pioneered the preservation movement, starting with the French Quarter, even as auto-friendly neighborhoods were laid out in recently drained swamplands, and the urban footprint of the modernizing metropolis reached to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.

Victorian New Orleans and the Dawn of Jazz

You can still hear it and smell it: the rustle of skirts across heart-of-pine floors; a Ragtime tune tinkling from an open Treme window; a whiff of cheroot smoke; iced oysters and lager beer from a Magazine Street saloon. Discover Victorian New Orleans, the late 1800s, when the city gained traction, when arts and performance flourished, and when ornate gingerbread-adorned houses went up by the thousands. The Fairgrounds (1872), Audubon Park (1886), New Orleans Museum of Art (1911) and many other of the city's great offerings came into being in this era.

The late Victorian period also saw the emergence of jazz, a revolutionary new musical idiom that would become New Orleans' greatest cultural contribution to the nation and world. Music has always been a birthright in New Orleans; even before jazz, diverse ethnic and racial groups- French, Spanish, African, Italian, Latin, German, Anglo, Irish-found common ground in making music, and to this day, the city makes outsized contributions in various musical genres, including rap, hip-hop, bounce, and funk.

The Jazz Age in New Orleans also saw the rise of a literary and artistic community. The "French Quarter Renaissance" involved figures such as writers William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson, artists Ellsworth Woodward and Caroline Wogan Durieux, and famed playwright Tennessee Williams, who took inspiration from the "rattletrap streetcar" that ran down Bourbon and up Royal Street as he penned his 1947 masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire.

World War II

New Orleans played a critical role in the epic struggle of World War II. Local shipbuilder Andrew Higgins, who had designed special vessels to navigate shallow Louisiana bayous, realized they would serve to well to deliver soldiers and materiel onto shallow beaches while avoiding deep-water harbors in enemy hands.

Built in local shipyards by a racially integrated workforce of men and women, "Higgins Boats" were used on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and throughout the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. They were so successful that General Dwight D. Eisenhower would describe Higgins as "the man who won the war for us." The story of New Orleans' heroic role in the war is featured in New Orleans' world-class National WWII Museum.

A continuum of change marks New Orleans' post-WWII experience. New bridges and highways were built to access expanding suburbs; a new city government complex opened in downtown, and modern skyscrapers broke the city's formerly modest skyline.

In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement brought dignity and new opportunities to Black New Orleanians. But, as elsewhere, resistance to school integration, white flight, and a reduced tax base left some inner-city neighborhoods impoverished and divested.

The oil bust of the early 1980s, coinciding with the mechanization of port activity and the decline of well-paying shipping jobs, led to a regional recessional and population exodus. By the late 1990s, however, an increasingly robust tourism sector and a more diversified economy helped mitigate the losses, though they fell short of returning the metropolis to its earlier economic position.

Hurricane Katrina

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina landed east of New Orleans, driving a storm surge into manmade canals and breaching federal levees and floodwalls in numerous locations. Eighty percent of the urbanized East Bank flooded, tens of thousands of people were trapped in the deluge for days, and over 1500 people would eventually perish. Many evacuees never returned, and some neighborhoods, particularly the Lower Ninth Ward, endure today with significantly reduced populations.

While recovery proved slow and contentious at first, sheer grit got most New Orleanians through the crisis and yielded something of a renaissance of civil spirit and cultural pride. A highlight of the post-Katrina era came on February 7, 2010, when the city's beloved New Orleans Saints won the team's first-ever Super Bowl. Cheers were heard 'round the world, and the sustained revival of spirit helped attract well-educated young people to be part of this epic story, transforming the Crescent City once again.

New Orleans remains a city of rich culture, proud people, and historic neighborhoods that have survived and thrived against odds. New Orleanians have always held tight to their unique culture, exuding pride of place and relishing music, cuisine, and festivity. Tourists from around the world can't stay away. We're glad you're here as we embark on our fourth century since Bienville commenced this bold experiment on the banks of the Mississippi, over three hundred years ago.

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New Orleans History - New Orleans & Company

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Delve into the fascinating history of New Orleans with New Orleans & Company as your trusted resource. Uncover the city's vibrant past!

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1528A Desperate Account

Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of four survivors of the failed Narváez expedition, washed up on the beach of a Texas Gulf Coast island he named "Malhado," which means "misfortune." The name was apt, because for the next several years, Cabeza de Vaca lived one harrowing moment to another as a captive slave of various Texas American Indians. He kept a detailed diary which has become an invaluable primary source describing the life and peoples of early Texas. In 1536, Spanish soldiers returned Cabeza de Vaca to Mexico City. He eventually made his way back to Spain where he published his memoirs, The Narrative of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, in 1542.

1536A Voice for Human Rights

Bartolomé de las Casas was the first priest to be ordained in the Americas. Conscience-stricken by the abuse of American Indians at the hands of Spanish conquistadors, he crusaded on the native peoples' behalf for over five decades. In 1536, de las Casas participated in a debate in Oaxaca, Mexico, where he argued for the American Indians' right to be treated as individuals with dignity and against the Spanish efforts to convert native peoples to both the Catholic faith and the Spanish culture. His blistering work in 1542, A Brief Report on the Destruction of the Indians, convinced King Charles V to outlaw the conversion practices, but riots among land holders in New Spain (Mexico) convinced authorities not to make any changes in their treatment of American Indians.

1554Bad Weather and Bad Luck

In November, 1552, fifty-four vessels sailed from Spain under the command of Captain-General Bartolomé Carreño. The ships, including six armed vessels, carried cargo and were headed to various parts of the world including New Spain (Mexico) and the Indies. On April 29, 1554, three ships were wrecked in a storm on Padre Island, near present-day Port Mansfield. In the 1960s and 1970s, excavation efforts retrieved thousands of artifacts such as cannons, silver coins, gold bullion, astrolabes, and tools from the wreckage of the San Esteban and the Espiritu Santo. The third sunken ship, the Santa Maria de Yclar, was destroyed during ship channel construction in the 1950s.

On September 25, 1829, the first issue of the Texas Gazette was published in San Felipe de Austin. Published until 1832, Texas' first newspaper kept settlers informed of news by providing English translations of Mexican government laws and decrees.

Courtesy the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

1853Alabama Reservation Polk County

On October 29, 1853, Alabama Chief Antone, the tribal subchiefs, and prominent citizens of Polk County presented a petition to the Texas legislature requesting land for a reservation. In part to thank the tribes for their support of the Texas Revolution in 1836, the petition was approved. The State of Texas purchased 1,110.7 acres of land for the Alabama Indian reservation. About 500 tribe members settled on this land during the winter of
1854-55. In 1855 the Texas legislature appropriated funds to purchase 640 acres for the Coushattas.

J. De Cordova's Map of the State of Texas Compiled from the records of the General Land Office of the State, New York: J. H. Cotton, 1857, Map #93984, Rees-Jones Digital Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX. Courtesy Texas General Land Office

"Always in the vanguard of civilization and in contact with the most warlike and savage Indians of the Plains. The officers and men have cheerfully endured many hardships and privations, and in the midst of great dangers steadfastly maintained a most gallant and zealous devotion to duty...it cannot fail, sooner or later, to meet with due recognition and reward..."
-- General Benjamin Grierson, relinquishing command of the 10th Cavalry

On November 1, 1917, approximately 10,000 Texas and Louisiana oilfield workers walked off the job to protest long hours and low pay. The strike dragged on for months. Oil producers refused to accept federal authority to mediate the dispute. When the strike ended in June 1918, 25% of the workers had lost their jobs, though many companies did voluntarily raise wages and extend benefits for those who were kept on.
Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection [LC-USF33-012167-M2]

George Francis Porter was an African American civil rights activist in Dallas. In 1938, Porter attempted to exercise his right to serve on a jury. When asked to leave a Dallas courtroom, he refused to be dismissed. He was physically forced out of the room and thrown headfirst down the stairs. This incident drew national NAACP attention, leading to an investigation by Thurgood Marshall. Marshall visited Governor Allred who pledged to have Texas Rangers protect potential Black jurors in Dallas County. Even still, it took the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Hernandez v. Texas to stop courts from only summoning white citizens for jury duty.

Thurgood Marshall, September 17, 1957. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

1942Citizens of the Nation

"Women who stepped up were measured as citizens of the nation, not as women. This was a people's war and everyone was in it."

Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby
WAAC/WAC Director 1942-1945

1942Double V for Victory

The Pittsburgh Courier, the most widely read black newspaper in America, began the "Double V" campaign to encourage African Americans to join the war effort abroad and to secure equal rights for all Americans at home, regardless of color. Courier editor James G. Thompson wrote, "The first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within."

In her newspaper column, My Day, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote: "I believe in this case, if the war goes on long enough, and women are patient, opportunity will come knocking at their doors. However, there is just a chance that this is not a time when women should be patient. We are in a war and we need to fight it with all our ability and every weapon possible. Women pilots, in this particular case, are a weapon waiting to be used."

1977Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas

The Texas Indian Commission officially recognized the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. In 1983 the Kickapoo also received Federal Recognition and received dual American citizenship with Mexico. They maintain a traditional village in Mexico that preserves their traditional ways, and their tribal headquarters is in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Southern Kickapoo people building a winter house in Nacimiento, Coahuila, Mexico, 2008. Courtesy Fernando Rosales

By a slim margin, Congress passed Public Law 95-20. The law, which became effective in 1979, granted Women Airforce Service Pilots official military status, but with limited benefits.

1980Juneteenth State Holiday

In 1979, Representative Al Edwards introduced a bill calling for Juneteenth to become an official state holiday. The act was signed into law in 1980. The first state-sponsored Juneteenth celebration took place that same year. Juneteenth was officially recognized as a national holiday in 1997. The holiday commemorates the arrival of General Granger to Galveston in 1865 to inform the enslaved that slavery had been abolished. It serves as a celebration of freedom and represents a milestone in human rights while also reflecting on the centuries-long struggle to end racism in America.

Juneteenth Quilt by Renee Allen from the traveling exhibition And Still We Rise: Race, Culture and Visual Conversations. Courtesy the Women of Color Quilters Network in partnership with Cincinnati Museum Center and National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

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Texas History Timeline | Bullock Texas State History Museum

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Skip to main menu Skip to page content Skip to footer 1528A Desperate Account Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of four survivors of the failed Narváez expedition, washed up on the beach of a Texas Gulf Coast island he named "Malhado," which means "misfortune."

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Fate, Greek Moira, plural Moirai, Latin Parca, plural Parcae, in Greek and Roman mythology, any of three goddesses who determined human destinies, and in particular the span of a person's life and his allotment of misery and suffering. Homer speaks of Fate ( moira) in the singular as an impersonal power and sometimes makes its functions interchangeable with those of the Olympian gods. From the time of the poet Hesiod (8th century bc) on, however, the Fates were personified as three very old women who spin the threads of human destiny. Their names were Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Inflexible). Clotho spun the "thread" of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread (thus determining the individual's moment of death). The Romans identified the Parcae, originally personifications of childbirth, with the three Greek Fates. The Roman goddesses were named Nona, Decuma, and Morta.

Amy Tikkanen.

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Fate | Destiny, Predestination, Free Will

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Fate, in Greek and Roman mythology, any of three goddesses who determined human destinies, and in particular the span of a person's life and his allotment of misery and suffering. Homer speaks of Fate (moira) in the singular as an impersonal power and sometimes makes its functions interchangeable

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America at the beginning of the Civil War

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America at the beginning of the Civil War

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Causes of the Civil War

In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country's northern and southern regions.

In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South's economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.

Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery's extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America -and thus the backbone of their economy-was in danger.

Did you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in " Bleeding Kansas," while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery's extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the "peculiar institution" that sustained them. Abraham Lincoln 's election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states-South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas-had seceded from the United States.

Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter's commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states-Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee-joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides' initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

George B. McClellan-who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war-was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan's army in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope's forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson's forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope's men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North. Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg.

On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee's forces (reinforced by Jackson's) in what became the war's bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at the Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan's failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside. Burnside's assault on Lee's troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker, and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4)

Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all enslaved people in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the enslaved people in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 Black Civil War soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker's plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee's forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent.

Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee's remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi) in the Siege of Vicksburg, a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater. After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expanded Grant's command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in the Battle of Chattanooga in late November.

Toward a Union Victory (1864-65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William Tecumseh Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee's troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months.

Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous "March to the Sea," devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman's men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee's forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee's forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston's surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War.

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Civil War - Causes, Dates & Battles | HISTORY

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The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states' rights and westward expansion. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy. Ultimately more than 620,000 Americans' lives were lost in the four-year war that ended in a Confederate defeat.

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1. Rose Greenhow

Known from a young age as "Wild Rose," Rose O'Neal Greenhow ascended the ranks of Washington, D.C., society as the wife of a wealthy and prominent doctor. Her charmed life took a tragic turn in the 1850s, when her husband and five of their eight children died. In the months before the Civil War broke out, Greenhow, a fervent supporter of the Confederate cause, became the ringleader of a growing network of anti-Union spies. Renowned as a charming hostess and engaging conversationalist, she gleaned critical information from politicians and diplomats, passing along their secrets to Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and other contacts.

In July 1861, Greenhow obtained critical information about the Union Army's planned attack of Manassas, Virginia. She sent her 16-year-old courier, Bettie Duvall, through 20 miles of Union territory with a coded message for Beauregard tucked into her hair. Confederate President Jefferson Davis later credited Greenhow for his army's success at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas).

On August 23, 1861, Allan Pinkerton, head of the federal government's newly formed secret service, arrested Greenhow and conducted a raid of her home. She and her youngest daughter, Little Rose, were placed under house arrest and later sent to prison. Despite her confinement, Greenhow still managed to transmit cryptic notes to Confederate leaders.

After her release in 1862, Davis sent her on a diplomatic mission to Europe, where she met with Napoleon III and Queen Victoria, became engaged to a British nobleman and published her memoirs. While returning to America in 1864, Greenhow's ship ran aground off the cost of North Carolina after encountering Union forces. Trying to escape in a rowboat, she drowned in choppy water, weighed down by gold intended for the Confederate treasury.

2. Harriet Tubman

One of the most celebrated heroines in American history, Harriet Tubman is perhaps best known for ushering enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad in the 1850s. But not everyone knows that the courageous Tubman, who escaped slavery in 1849, set up a vast espionage ring for the Union during the Civil War.

In early 1862, with the support of abolitionist friends in the North, Tubman traveled to South Carolina, where she served as a nurse and teacher for the hundreds of newly liberated slaves who had assembled in Union camps. She soon recruited groups of black men who slipped behind Confederate lines, posing as servants or enslaved people in order to gather military intelligence.

She also organized dangerous missions in which Union troops destroyed plantations and spirited formerly enslaved people away on warships. In June 1863, Tubman herself led an armed expedition along the Combahee River, disrupting Confederate supply lines and liberating more than 700 enslaved people.

In a shameful coda to Tubman's wartime exploits, she was paid only $200 during her three years of service, forcing her to scrape together a living selling pies, gingerbread and root beer; she was also denied a pension for her spy work. Later in life, Tubman became a key figure in the suffrage movement.

3. Belle Boyd

Born into a Virginia family with strong Southern loyalties, the celebrated beauty Isabelle "Belle" Boyd became one of the Confederacy's most notorious spies after a skirmish with a drunk Union soldier in July 1861. According to her own account, the man invaded her home, tore down a Confederate flag and spoke offensively to her mother; enraged, 17-year-old Belle shot and killed him. Acquitted of the crime but closely watched by Union troops, she beguiled her enemies into revealing military secrets, which she then transmitted to Confederate commanders.

In May 1862 Boyd was staying in Fort Royal, Virginia, with relatives whose hotel had been taken over by Union officers. She eavesdropped on their meetings through a hole in a door and rode through enemy lines, reportedly dodging bullets along the way, to report to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. She was imprisoned that July in Washington, D.C., but released a month later; a second incarceration the following year ended with her banishment to the South.

Boyd sailed for England in May 1864 to serve as a Confederate courier but was intercepted by Union troops. One of them, a naval officer named Samuel Hardinge, fell in love with the alluring spy and helped her escape to London, where they wed. He apparently died shortly thereafter.

Boyd, now a widow and mother at 20, remained in England to compose her memoirs and launch a successful stage career. She later returned to America, where she continued acting, married twice more and lectured on her wartime experiences across the United States.

4. Elizabeth Van Lew

Raised in a wealthy slave-holding family in Richmond, Virginia, Elizabeth Van Lew developed strong abolitionist sympathies as a young adult, particularly after attending a Quaker school in Philadelphia. After her father's death in 1843, Van Lew convinced her brother to free their enslaved workers, many of whom stayed on as paid servants.

When war broke out, Van Lew and her mother began visiting Union soldiers held in Richmond's brutal Libby Prison, bringing them clothing, food and medicine. She helped men escape, smuggled out letters for them and gathered valuable information about Confederate strategy from both prisoners and guards.

In late 1863, Union General Benjamin Butler recruited Van Lew as a spy; she soon became the head of an entire espionage network based in Richmond. With the help of her servants-including Mary Bowser, an important spy in her own right-Van Lew sent coded messages to Union officers, often using invisible ink and hiding the dispatches in hollowed-out eggs or vegetables.

She convinced new members to join her covert ring, including a high-ranking official at Libby Prison. When Richmond fell to Union forces in April 1865, Van Lew brazenly flew the Stars and Stripes above her home, drawing even more ire from her scornful neighbors.

By war's end, Van Lew had become a pariah in her own community but earned the respect of General Ulysses S. Grant, who appointed her postmaster of Richmond. She spent her final days in poverty, having used up her family's entire wealth on espionage activities. The family of a Union officer she had assisted during the war-who happened to be the grandson of Paul Revere-provided for her until her death in 1900.

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Secret Agents in Hoop Skirts: Women Spies of the Civil War | HISTORY

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Find out more about Rose O'Neal Greenhow and three other female informants who played a significant role in America's bloodiest conflict.

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Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley. Photograph by D.F. Barry, 1894. P.69.1168.1

(1860 - 1926)

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses-called Annie by her family-on August 13, 1860, in Darke County, Ohio. This unassuming woman, who would perform before royalty and presidents, came from humble beginnings. When Annie was 6, her father, Jacob Moses, died of pneumonia-leaving her mother, Susan Wise Moses, with six children and little else. Annie's mother remarried but her second husband, Dan Brumbaugh, died soon after, again leaving her with a new baby.

At the age of 8 or 9, Annie went to live with Superintendent Edington's family at the Darke County Infirmary, which housed the elderly, the orphaned, and the mentally ill. In exchange for helping with the children, Annie received an education and learned the skill of sewing from Mrs. Edington, which she would later use to make her own costumes. Perhaps this early experience of working in such a sobering place aroused Annie's lifelong compassion for children. She remained with the Edingtons until she was 13 or 14.

When she returned to her family, Annie's mother had married a third time to Joseph Shaw. Even with this remarriage, the family finances were marginal. Annie used her father's old Kentucky rifle to hunt small game for the Katzenberger brother's grocery store in Greenville, Ohio, where it was resold to hotels and restaurants in Cincinnati, 80 miles away. Annie was so successful at hunting that she was able to pay the $200 mortgage on her mother's house with the money she earned. She was 15 years old.

Her noted shooting ability brought an invitation from Jack Frost, a hotel owner in Cincinnati who had purchased her game, to participate in a shooting contest against a well-known marksman, Frank E. Butler.

Butler was on tour with several other marksmen. While on the road, he typically offered challenges to local shooters. Annie won the match with twenty-five shots out of twenty-five attempts. Butler missed one of his shots. This amazing girl entranced Butler, and the two shooters began a courtship that resulted in marriage on August 23, 1876.

Annie and Frank Butler first appeared in a show together May 1, 1882. Butler's usual partner was ill and Annie filled in by holding objects for Frank to shoot at, and doing some of her own shooting. It was at this time that Annie adopted the stage name of Oakley. Off stage, she was always Mrs. Frank Butler. For the next few years, the Butlers traveled across the country giving shooting exhibitions with their dog, George, as an integral part of the act.

At a March 1884 performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, Annie befriended the Lakota leader Sitting Bull. The victor over George Armstrong Custer at the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull was impressed with Oakley's shooting, her modest appearance, and her self-assured manner. Although Sitting Bull was still a political prisoner at Fort Yates, he was in town for an appearance, and had arranged to meet Oakley. They became fast friends. It was Sitting Bull who dubbed her "Little Sure Shot."

In 1884, the Butlers joined the Sells Brothers Circus as "champion rifle shots," but only stayed with the circus for one season. After a brief period on their own, Butler and Oakley joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885. This was a significant turning point in Annie Oakley's life and in her relationship with Butler. Until this time either Butler had received top billing or they had shared the limelight. However, with the Wild West, Oakley was the star. It was her name on the advertising posters as "Champion Markswoman." Butler happily accepted the position as her manager and assistant. Oakley and Butler prospered with the Wild West and remained with the show for seventeen years.

In 1887, Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured England to join in the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. When the show opened that May, Oakley was the subject of considerable press due to her shooting skills and presence. This tour also helped Oakley increase her growing collection of shooting medals, awards, and trophies.

When the Wild West returned to Europe in 1889, Oakley had become a seasoned performer and earned star billing. The troupe stayed in Paris for a six-month exhibition, and then traveled to other regions of France, Italy, and Spain. Oakley proved especially popular with women, and Buffalo Bill made the most of her fame to demonstrate that shooting was neither detrimental, nor too intense for women and children.

Oakley and Butler's desire for less extensive traveling, as well as a serious train accident that injured her back, caused them to leave the show in 1901. However, she continued to perform and eventually joined another wild west show, "The Young Buffalo Show," in 1911. During this period, Butler signed a contract as a representative for the Union Metallic Cartridge Company in Connecticut. This was a position that allowed both Butler and Oakley to make endorsements for the company and to continue their shooting exhibitions. Finally, in 1913, the couple retired from the arena and settled down in Cambridge, Maryland.

While in Cambridge, the Butlers welcomed a new member into their family, their dog Dave. Named for a friend, Dave Montgomery of the comedy team of Montgomery and Stone, Dave was to be a constant companion to the Butlers. When they returned to the arena, Dave was to become an important part of the act-one trick was Annie shooting an apple from the top of Dave's head. In 1917, they moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina. That same year, Buffalo Bill Cody died. Annie Oakley wrote a touching eulogy for Cody, and the passing of a golden era.

The United States was pulled into World War I in 1917, and Oakley offered to raise a regiment of woman volunteers to fight in the war. She had made the same offer during the Spanish-American War; neither time was it accepted. She also volunteered to teach marksmanship to the troops. Oakley gave her time to the National War Council of the Young Men's Christian Association, War Camp Community Service, and the Red Cross. Dave became the "Red Cross Dog" by sniffing out donations of cash hidden in handkerchiefs.

Oakley began making plans for a comeback in 1922. Attracting large crowds in Massachusetts, New York, and major cities, she had plans to star in a motion picture. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, she and Butler were severely injured in an automobile accident. It took Oakley more than a year to recover from her injuries. By 1924, she was performing again, but her recovery did not last long. By 1925, she was frail and in poor health. She and Butler moved to her hometown in Ohio to be near her family. They attended shooting matches in the local area, and Oakley began to write her memoirs, which were published in newspapers across the country.

In 1926, after fifty happy years of marriage, the Butlers died. Annie Oakley died on November 3 and Frank Butler died November 21, within three weeks of each other. Both died of natural causes after a long and adventuresome life.

From her humble roots as Phoebe Ann Moses to taking center stage as Annie Oakley-champion shooter and star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West-this remarkable woman is remembered as a western folk hero, American legend, and icon. Throughout her career, Oakley maintained her dignity and propriety while quietly proving that she was superior to most men on the shooting range. Thanks to Hollywood and history, the legend of Annie Oakley endures into the twenty-first century through motion pictures, television, on the stage, in history books, and in museums.

Interested in learning more about Annie Oakley?

Take a look at our suggested reading list.

Explore our McCracken Research Library's web pages.

Browse the Buffalo Bill Center of the West's online Museum Store for items related to Annie Oakley.

Find out more about Buffalo Bill's Wild West and other shows.

You may also enjoy these other books on Wild West shows.

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Annie Oakley biography - Buffalo Bill Center of the West

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Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses-called Annie by her family-on August 13, 1860, in Darke County, Ohio. This unassuming woman came from humble beginnings

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oklahoma education history subscription schools indian black white tuition fee public education

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Schools, Subscription | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

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Although subscription schools varied in the quality of instruction offered, they provided children an education until public schools could be built and supported by tax and bond revenue. Subscription schools in Oklahoma Territory gradually disappeared after the passage of the Organic Act of 1890, which provided for the establishment of school districts in the organized counties.

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History of the Real Deadwood, South Dakota

The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the great gold rushes in America. In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills. That's where they came across a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold and Deadwood was born.

Practically overnight, the tiny gold camp boomed into a town that played by its own rules that attracted outlaws, gamblers and gunslingers along with the gold seekers. Wild Bill Hickok was one of those men who came looking for fortune. But just a few short weeks after arriving, he was gunned down while holding a poker hand of aces and eights - forever after known as the Dead Man's Hand.

Calamity Jane also made a name for herself in these parts and is buried next to Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery. Other legends, like Potato Creek Johnny, Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen, created their legends and legacies in this tiny Black Hills town.

You can find these colorful characters walking the streets of present-day Deadwood as a part of Deadwood Alive. This theater troupe reenacts the major historic events - like the Trial of Jack McCall and Wild Bill's assassination- that inspired the legends you know today.

Deadwood has survived three major fires and numerous economic hardships, pushing it to the verge of becoming another Old West ghost town. But in 1989 limited-wage gambling was legalized and Deadwood was reborn.

Today, the town is booming once again. You'll find modern-day casinos, resort hotels, full-service spas, big name concerts, and some of the best parties in the entire United States. Come walk in the footsteps of our legends and make history in Deadwood. We've been entertaining guests since 1876.

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Deadwood History - Wild West | Black Hills, South Dakota

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The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the great gold rushes in America. In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills. That's where they came across a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold and Deadwood was born.

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She was just shy of five feet tall, all of 100 pounds, a part-time waitress and amateur poet from a poor Dallas home who was bored with life and wanted something more. He was a fast-talking, small-time thief from a similarly destitute Dallas family who hated poverty and wanted to make a name for himself.

Together, they became the most notorious crime couple in American history-Bonnie and Clyde.

Clyde Champion Barrow and his companion, Bonnie Parker, were shot to death by officers in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana on May 23, 1934, after one of the most colorful and spectacular manhunts the nation had seen up to that time.

Barrow was suspected of numerous killings and was wanted for murder, robbery, and state charges of kidnapping.

The FBI, then called the Bureau of Investigation, became interested in Barrow and his paramour late in December 1932 through a singular bit of evidence. A Ford automobile, which had been stolen in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, was found abandoned near Jackson, Michigan in September of that year.

At Pawhuska, it was learned another Ford car had been abandoned there which had been stolen in Illinois. A search of this car revealed it had been occupied by a man and a woman, indicated by abandoned articles therein. In this car was found a prescription bottle, which led special agents to a drug store in Nacogdoches, Texas, where investigation disclosed the woman for whom the prescription had been filled was Clyde Barrow's aunt.

Further investigation revealed that the woman who obtained the prescription had been visited recently by Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and Clyde's brother, L. C. Barrow. It also was learned that these three were driving a Ford car, identified as the one stolen in Illinois. It was further shown that L. C. Barrow had secured the empty prescription bottle from a son of the woman who had originally obtained it.

On May 20, 1933, the United States Commissioner at Dallas, Texas, issued a warrant against Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, charging them with the interstate transportation, from Dallas to Oklahoma, of the automobile stolen in Illinois. The FBI then started its hunt for this elusive pair.

Early Years

﻿ Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in January 1930. At the time, Bonnie was 19 and married to an imprisoned murderer; Clyde was 21 and unmarried. Soon after, he was arrested for a burglary and sent to jail. He escaped, using a gun Bonnie had smuggled to him, was recaptured and was sent back to prison. Clyde was paroled in February 1932, rejoined Bonnie, and resumed a life of crime.

In addition to the automobile theft charge, Bonnie and Clyde were suspects in other crimes. At the time they were killed in 1934, they were believed to have committed 13 murders and several robberies and burglaries. Barrow, for example, was suspected of murdering two police officers at Joplin, Missouri and kidnapping a man and a woman in rural Louisiana. He released them near Waldo, Texas.

Numerous sightings followed, linking this pair with bank robberies and automobile thefts. Clyde allegedly murdered a man at Hillsboro, Texas; committed robberies at Lufkin and Dallas, Texas; murdered one sheriff and wounded another at Stringtown, Oklahoma; kidnaped a deputy at Carlsbad, New Mexico; stole an automobile at Victoria, Texas; attempted to murder a deputy at Wharton, Texas; committed murder and robbery at Abilene and Sherman, Texas; committed murder at Dallas, Texas; abducted a sheriff and the chief of police at Wellington, Texas; and committed murder at Joplin and Columbia, Missouri.

The Crime Spree Begins

Later in 1932, Bonnie and Clyde began traveling with Raymond Hamilton, a young gunman. Hamilton left them several months later and was replaced by William Daniel Jones in November.

Ivan M. "Buck" Barrow, brother of Clyde, was released from the Texas State Prison on March 23, 1933, having been granted a full pardon by the governor. He quickly joined Clyde, bringing his wife, Blanche, so the group now numbered five persons. This gang embarked upon a series of bold robberies that made headlines across the country. They escaped capture in various encounters with the law. However, their activities made law enforcement efforts to apprehend them even more intense. During a shootout with police in Iowa on July 29, 1933, Buck Barrow was fatally wounded and Blanche was captured. Jones, who was frequently mistaken for "Pretty Boy" Floyd, was captured in November 1933 in Houston, Texas, by the sheriff's office. Bonnie and Clyde went on together.

On November 22, 1933, a trap was set by the Dallas, Texas sheriff and his deputies in an attempt to capture Bonnie and Clyde near Grand Prairie, Texas, but the couple escaped the officer's gunfire. They held up an attorney on the highway and took his car, which they abandoned in Miami, Oklahoma. On December 21, 1933, Bonnie and Clyde held up and robbed a citizen at Shreveport, Louisiana.

On January 16, 1934, five prisoners, including Raymond Hamilton (who was serving sentences totaling more than 200 years), were liberated from the Eastham State Prison Farm at Waldo, Texas, by Clyde Barrow, accompanied by Bonnie Parker. Two guards were shot by the escaping prisoners with automatic pistols, which had been previously concealed in a ditch by Barrow. As the prisoners ran, Barrow covered their retreat with bursts of machine-gun fire. Among the escapees was Henry Methvin of Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker was listed as 5'5" and 100 pounds

Clyde Barrow (left) with William D. Jones, one of the Barrow gang

The Last Months

On April 1, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde encountered two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas. Before the officers could draw their guns, they were shot. On April 6, 1934, a constable at Miami, Oklahoma fell mortally wounded by Bonnie and Clyde, who also abducted a police chief, whom they wounded.

The FBI had jurisdiction solely on the charge of transporting a stolen automobile, although the activities of the Bureau agents were vigorous and ceaseless. Every clue was followed. "Wanted notices" furnishing fingerprints, photograph, description, criminal record, and other data were distributed to all officers. The agents followed the trail through many states and into various haunts of the Barrow gang, particularly Louisiana. The association with Henry Methvin and the Methvin family of Louisiana was discovered by FBI agents, and they found that Bonnie and Clyde had been driving a car stolen in New Orleans.

On April 13, 1934, an FBI agent, through investigation in the vicinity of Ruston, Louisiana, obtained information which definitely placed Bonnie and Clyde in a remote section southwest of that community. The home of the Methvins was not far away, and the agent learned of visits there by Bonnie and Clyde. Special agents in Texas had learned that Clyde and his companion had been traveling from Texas to Louisiana, sometimes accompanied by Henry Methvin.

The FBI and local law enforcement authorities in Louisiana and Texas concentrated on apprehending Bonnie and Clyde, whom they strongly believed to be in the area. It was learned that Bonnie and Clyde, with some of the Methvins, had staged a party at Black Lake, Louisiana on the night of May 21, 1934 and were due to return to the area two days later.

A crowd gathers around Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riden sedan

Before dawn on May 23, 1934, a posse composed of police officers from Louisiana and Texas, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, concealed themselves in bushes along the highway near Sailes, Louisiana. In the early daylight, Bonnie and Clyde appeared in an automobile and when they attempted to drive away, the officers opened fire. Bonnie and Clyde were killed instantly.

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Bonnie and Clyde | Federal Bureau of Investigation

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She was just shy of five feet tall, all of 100 pounds, a part-time waitress and amateur poet from a poor Dallas home who was bored with life and wanted something more. He was a fast-talking, small-time thief from a similarly destitute Dallas family who hated poverty and wanted to make a name for himself.

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Hello, friends! I am still healing from the wisdom tooth extraction and feeling cross about my soup/hummus/pudding subsistence diet. So! Much! Slime! But I don't want to talk about that. Instead, I'd like to share some of the sources I consulted when writing "The Legendary Garrett Girls".

As you probably know, I adore research. In this case, though, my research began entirely by accident, with an extended-family holiday to Alaska back in 2007. We rode the White Pass Railway (now a tourist's toy) and saw the grave of the villainous Soapy Smith, but most of this was secondary. The main impressions I retain from that trip are of the sublime landscape. Still, I bought a souvenir at Parnassus Books (still open! hurray!) in Ketchikan: William B. Haskell's Two Years in the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Fields, 1896-1898. I flicked through bits of it and then got distracted. I read other books, wrote about other times and places.

Several years later, Jessica Spotswood asked me for a short story for her anthology. Her parameters? "Any time in American history, with a girl protagonist." Talk about possibilities!

I knew I wanted to write about a place I knew, however slightly. (I'm daunted by the idea of a real place I've never visited. Even with the internet at my disposal, I question whether I can take the measure of a place without smelling it.) And I'm drawn to people and places on the margins. Alaska was logical, the Gold Rush almost too obvious. But what kind of story was this going to be?

What happened next was Fate. I opened Haskell's memoir and my eye fell on this line: "They now say there are more liars to the square inch in Alaska than any place in the world." And that was it: I knew I had to write a romp about con artists during the Gold Rush.

Of course, there were logistics to work out, questions to answer. But unlike my novels, "The Legendary Garrett Girls" has remained remarkably true to its initial proposal, a high-energy scrawl of words on a page: sisters, scammers, hijinks ensue. I hope I've got the setting mostly, nearly right. I hope Alaskans don't shake their heads with pity for the presumptuous cheechako who had the nerve to set a short story in their place, their legendary time. As ever, all errors in the story are my responsibility.

If you're as entranced by the Gold Rush as I became, here's a list of the books that I found most enjoyable - and, in some cases, infuriating but essential.
The Legendary Garrett Girls: Sources
Berton, Pierre. Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899. 1972.

Emmons, George Thornton. The Tlingit Indians. Ed. Frederica de Laguna. 1991.

Haskell, William B. Two Years in the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Fields, 1896-1898. (1898.) 1998.

Hitchcock, Mary E. Two Women in the Klondike. (1899.) 2006.

Holder Spude, Catherine. "That Fiend in Hell": Soapy Smith in Legend. 2012.

Smith, Jeff. Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel. Klondike Research, 2009.

Winslow, Kathryn. Big Pan-Out. New York: W. W. Norton, 1951.

In a couple of weeks, I'll return to the question of my sources and talk about anti-heroes, historiography, and holdouts.

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Hello, friends! I am still healing from the wisdom tooth extraction and feeling cross about my soup/hummus/pudding subsistence diet. So! Much! Slime! But I don't want to talk about that. Instead, I'd like to share some of the sources I consulted when writing "The Legendary Garrett Girls".

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Bessie Coleman (Jan. 26, 1892-April 30, 1926) was a bravely independent and determined woman who decided that learning to fly provided an exciting challenge. However, in the early years of the 20th century she had two strikes against her: her race and her gender. Unable to secure flight training in the U.S., she went to France and earned her license. On June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman received the first pilot's license issued to an African American, male or female, from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

She returned to the U.S. in September 1921, and began to perform in the Chicago area, doing aerobatic loops and figure eights. Her ultimate goal was to establish a flying school for African Americans. In 1925, she moved to Houston and performed throughout the South, drawing multicultural crowds. She had nearly reached her goal of opening a school, when on April 30, 1926, she went up for a practice flight for a May Day celebration in Jacksonville, Fla. About 10 minutes into the flight, the Curtiss Jenny biplane, piloted by her mechanic and publicity agent, William Will, went into a nosedive and flipped. Coleman, whose seat belt was unfastened, was thrown from the plane and plunged to her death. It was later found that a wrench that had been used to service the engine had jammed the controls.

Coleman's brief flying career inspired many young African Americans to enter the field of aviation and her legacy continues in the form of aviation clubs and tributes, including the 1995 U.S. postal stamp issued in her honor. Each year on the anniversary of her death, African American pilots fly over "Brave Bessie's" grave in Chicago to drop flowers in her honor.

This photo is in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum; for more information on Coleman and other early aviation pioneers visit Black Wings: African American Pioneer Aviators.

Watch a video of Coleman flying and see her postal stamp in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.

Tags: National Air and Space Museum

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Bessie Coleman, First African American Licensed Pilot

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Bessie Coleman (Jan. 26, 1892-April 30, 1926) was a bravely independent and determined woman who decided that learning to fly provided an exciting challenge. However, in the early years of the 20th century she had two strikes against her: her race and her gender.

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Riding the Rails in the Great Depression

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Riding the Rails in the Great Depression

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A hobo is a traveling worker who has little and is homeless. Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all. They carried their worldly goods in a bindle; this was their term for a bundle of bedding carried in a sack.

During the Great Depression, people went across the country in search of work. But without a job, they didn't have money to pay for transportation. The only way to get across the country, and potentially get the job, was riding the rails. This is how the hobos of the Great Depression lived from day-to-day.

The above image illustrates the panic and reality that men faced in trying to feed themselves on the road and their families at home.

Sometimes families traveled together and made-do with camping along creek banks for a water source. They carried what they had with them, and often children had an essential to carry along.

They had to think about food all the time. Finding it was a daily task, and they all knew it. Hobos developed a series of symbols in order to "talk" to each other, leaving messages so other hobos would get information. Friendly farms where they could find work and food were marked, as were the unfriendly farms where they would find neither.

John's aunt Jenny Belle, who I write about in Tales of a Cosmic Possum, ran a boarding house in Union, South Carolina. Because of her kindness and proximity to the railroad, sometimes hobos stopped at her home. She always made sure they left her house with something to eat, even if she couldn't help them any other way. If any farmers needed help, she would share that information with them, too.

In a list of thousands of men and women who rode the rails are names of many who later became famous -

Novelists Louis L'Amour, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and James Michener

Actor Clark Gable

TV host Art Linkletter

Oil billionaire H. L. Hunt

Journalist Eric Sevareid

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Teens struck out on their own for an adventurous life riding from one place to another.

Unbelievable, but true, many hoboes attended the 1889 National Hobo Convention in St. Louis. The group constructed a strict ethical code for all hobos to follow. This is a partial listing of those rules.

1. YOU DO YOU.

"Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you."

2. SHOW SOME RESPECT.

"When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times."

3. DON'T BE AN OPPORTUNIST.

"Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos."

4. GET A JOB.

"Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again."

5. BE A SELF-STARTER.

"When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts."

6. SET A GOOD EXAMPLE.

"Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hobos."

7. BE MINDFUL OF OTHERS.

"When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you."

8. DON'T LITTER.

"Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling."

9. LEND A HAND.

"If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help."

10. PRACTICE GOOD HYGIENE.

"Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible."

11. BE COURTEOUS WHEN YOU'RE RIDING THE RAILS ...

"When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member."

12. ... AND WHEN YOU'RE NOT.

"Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard."

13. HELP OUT THE KIDS.

"Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home."

14. SAME GOES FOR HOBOS.

"Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday."

15. LEND YOUR VOICE.

"If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!

The hobo culture was amazing. Starting after the Civil War as people were displaced and continuing on until after WW II, this way of life appealed to some men, but for others it was a necessary choice. Even the danger of jumping on and off those trains couldn't stop them from that leap.

I enjoyed finding out about hobos and their lives, but I know it would not have been one I would have chosen. But then Lulu, my grandmother, used to say "sometimes you do what you have to do."

"I grew up poor. I never had any money. I was a hobo, you know, ride the freights." Art Linkletter

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Riding the Rails During the Great Depression

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A hobo is a traveling worker who has little and is homeless. Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all. They carried their worldly goods in a bindle; this was their term for a bundle of bedding carried in a sack.

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Contents

1. Black Panthers Origins and History

2. Political Activities And Social Programs

3. Black Panthers Violence And Controversies

4. The FBI And COINTELPRO

5. New Black Panther Party

The Black Panthers, also known as the Black Panther Party, was a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to challenge police brutality against the African American community.

Dressed in black berets and black leather jackets, the Black Panthers organized armed citizen patrols of Oakland and other U.S. cities. At its peak in 1968, the Black Panther Party had roughly 2,000 members. The organization later declined as a result of internal tensions, deadly shootouts and FBI counterintelligence activities aimed at weakening the organization.

Black Panthers Origins and History

Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale met in 1961 while students at Merritt College in Oakland, California.

They both protested the college's "Pioneer Day" celebration, which honored the pioneers who came to California in the 1800s, but omitted the role of African Americans in settling the American West. Seale and Newton formed the Negro History Fact Group, which called on the school to offer classes in Black history.

They founded the Black Panthers in the wake of the assassination of Black nationalist Malcolm X and after police in San Francisco shot and killed an unarmed Black teen named Matthew Johnson.

Originally dubbed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the organization was founded in October 1966. The Black Panthers' early activities primarily involved monitoring police activities in Black communities in Oakland and other cities.

As they instituted a number of social programs and engaged in political activities, their popularity grew. The Black Panthers drew widespread support from urban centers with large minority communities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. By 1968, the Black Panthers had roughly 2,000 members across the country.
READ MORE: How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement
Political Activities And Social Programs

Newton and Seale drew on Marxist ideology for the party platform. They outlined the organization's philosophical views and political objectives in a Ten-Point Program.

The Ten-Point Program called for an immediate end to police brutality; employment for African Americans; and land, housing and justice for all.

The Black Panthers were part of the larger Black Power movement, which emphasized Black pride, community control and unification for civil rights.

While the Black Panthers were often portrayed as a gang, their leadership saw the organization as a political party whose goal was getting more African Americans elected to political office. They were unsuccessful on this front. By the early 1970s, FBI counterintelligence efforts, criminal activities and an internal rift between group members weakened the party as a political force.

The Black Panthers did, however, start a number of popular community social programs, including free breakfast programs for school children and free health clinics in 13 African American communities across the United States.

Black Panthers Violence And Controversies

The Black Panthers were involved in numerous violent encounters with police. In 1967, founder Huey Newton allegedly killed Oakland police officer John Frey. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1968 and was sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. An appellate court decision later reversed the conviction.

Eldridge Cleaver, editor of the Black Panther's newspaper, and 17-year old Black Panther member and treasurer Bobby Hutton, were involved in a shootout with police in 1968 that left Hutton dead and two police officers wounded.

Conflicts within the party often turned violent too. In 1969, Black Panther Party member Alex Rackley was tortured and murdered by other Black Panthers who thought he was a police informant.

Black Panther bookkeeper Betty Van Patter was found beaten and murdered in 1974. No one was charged with the death, though many believed that party leadership was responsible.

The FBI And COINTELPRO

The Black Panthers' socialist message and black nationalist focus made them the target of a secret FBI counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO.

In 1969, the FBI declared the Black Panthers a communist organization and an enemy of the United States government. The first FBI's first director, J. Edgar Hoover, in 1968 called the Black Panthers, "One of the greatest threats to the nation's internal security."

The FBI worked to weaken the Panthers by exploited existing rivalries between black nationalist groups. They also worked to undermine and dismantle the Free Breakfast for Children Program and other community social programs instituted by the Black Panthers.
READ MORE: How the Black Panthers' Breakfast Program Both Inspired and Threatened the Government
In 1969, Chicago police gunned down and killed Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who were asleep in their apartment.

About a hundred bullets were fired in what police described as a fierce gun battle with members of the Black Panther Party. However, ballistics experts later determined that only one of those bullets came from the Panthers' side.

Although the FBI was not responsible for leading the raid, a federal grand jury later indicated that the bureau played a significant role in the events leading up to the raid.

The Black Panther Party officially dissolved in 1982.

New Black Panther Party

The New Black Panther Party is a black nationalist organization founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1989. Members of the original Black Panther Party say there's no relation between the New Black Panther Party and the original Black Panthers.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center have called the New Black Panther Party a hate group.

Sources

5 things to know about the Black Panthers. USA Today.
Black Panther Party. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Black Panthers: Revolutionaries, free breakfast pioneers.

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The Black Panthers made up a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to challenge police brutality against African Americans. Dressed in black berets and black leather jackets, the Black Panthers organized armed citizen patrols of Oakland and other U.S. cities.

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In 1942, 20-year-old Naomi Parker was working in a machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, when a photographer snapped a shot of her on the job. In the photo, released through the Acme photo agency, she's bent over an industrial machine, wearing a jumpsuit and sensible heels, with her hair tied back in a polka-dot bandana for safety.

On January 20, 2018, less than two years after finally getting recognition as the woman in the photograph-thought to be the inspiration for the World War II-era poster girl "Rosie the Riveter"-Naomi Parker Fraley died at the age of 96.

Fraley's late-in-life fame came as the result of the dedicated efforts made by one scholar, James J. Kimble, to explore the history behind this American and feminist icon and to untangle the legends surrounding the famous poster. "There are so many incredible myths about it, very few of them based even remotely in fact," Kimble says.

The poster in question was originally produced in 1943 by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and displayed in its factories to encourage more women to join the wartime labor force. Created by the artist J. Howard Miller, it featured a woman in a red-and-white polka-dot headscarf and blue shirt, flexing her bicep beneath the phrase "We Can Do It!"

Although it's ubiquitous now, the poster was only displayed by Westinghouse for a period of two weeks in February 1943, and then replaced by another one in a series of at least 40 other promotional images, few of which included women. "The idea that we have now that she was famous and everywhere during the war-not even close to true," says Kimble.

Kimble, an associate professor of communication at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, began studying the "We Can Do It" poster due to his interest in the propaganda that was used on the home front during World War II.

During the war, Miller's poster was far less well known than the image of a female worker created by a much more famous artist: Norman Rockwell. Published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943, Rockwell's painting depicts a woman in a blue work jumpsuit with a rivet gun in her lap, a sandwich in her hand and a copy of "Mein Kampf" under her foot. The woman's lunch box reads "Rosie," which linked her with a popular song released that same year called " Rosie the Riveter," by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

But in the 1980s, Miller's "We Can Do It!" poster resurfaced with a bang, and was widely reprinted on T-shirts, mugs, pins and many other products. Kimble believes this resurgence was due to a combination of factors, including Reagan-era budget cuts, which led the National Archives to license the image to sell souvenirs and raise money; the 40th anniversary of World War II; and the continuing push for women's rights. Adopted as a feminist symbol of strength and an icon of American wartime resilience, the woman in the poster was retroactively identified as Rosie the Riveter, too, and quickly became the most widely recognizable "Rosie."

For years, people believed that a Michigan woman named Geraldine Hoff Doyle was the model for the poster. Doyle, who had worked briefly as a metal presser in a factory in 1942, saw a photograph of a bandanna-clad woman working at an industrial lathe reprinted in a magazine in the 1980s, and identified the woman as her younger self; she later linked this photo to Miller's famous poster. By the 1990s, media reports were identifying Doyle as the "real-life Rosie the Riveter," a claim that was widely repeated for years, including in Doyle's obituary in 2010.

But Kimble wasn't so sure. "How do we know that?" he says of his initial reaction to reading that Doyle was the woman in the image that (supposedly) inspired Miller's poster. "Everything else we think we know about that poster is dubious. How do we know about her?"

Though he already knew the artist had no descendants, and had left limited papers behind, with no clue of who his model might have been, Kimble began looking into the 1942 photograph. And after five years of searching, he found "the smoking gun," as he calls it-a copy of the photograph with the original caption glued on the back. Dated March 1942 at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, it identified "Pretty Naomi Parker" as the woman at the lathe.

Here is the original caption, which speaks volumes about how women working in factories during the war were seen:
"Pretty Naomi Parker is as easy to look at as overtime pay on the week's check. And she's a good example of an old contention that glamor is what goes into the clothes, and not the clothes. Pre-war fashion frills are only a discord in war-time clothing for women. Naomi wears heavy shoes, black suit, and a turban to keep her hair out of harm's way (we mean the machine, you dope)."

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Meanwhile, in California, Naomi Parker Fraley had already stumbled on the truth herself. In 2011, at a reunion of female war workers, she saw the Acme photo of the woman at the lathe on display and recognized herself. Then she saw the caption, with Geraldine Hoff Doyle's name and information. Fraley wrote to the National Park Service to correct the error, but got nowhere, even though she had kept a clipping of the photo from a 1942 paper with her name in the caption.

"Doyle's tale was so believable by that point, and so widely accepted that even the original clipping couldn't convince people otherwise," Kimble says. "So when I called [Fraley], she was just delighted that someone was willing to listen to her side of the story."

In 2016, Kimble published an article revealing his findings in the journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs, called "Rosie's Secret Identity." At the time, the New York Times reported, Fraley gave an interview to the Omaha World-Herald in which she gave a simple yet memorable description of how it felt to finally be known to the world as the real-life Rosie: "Victory! Victory! Victory!"

People magazine also sent a crew to her rural California home, complete with makeup artist and lighting technician, and did a photo shoot of the then 95-year-old dressed like her presumed alter ego in Miller's poster.

Doubt still remains, however, as to whether the photo of Naomi Parker-which was published in Miller's hometown newspaper, The Pittsburgh Press, in July 1942-was in fact the inspiration for Miller's image. Without confirmation from the artist, who died in 1985, there is only the physical resemblance between the woman in the photo and the woman in the poster-and, of course, the polka-dot bandana-to go by.

All that was beside the point for Naomi Parker Fraley, Kimble believes. "I think the most important thing to her was her identity. When there's a photo of you going around that people recognize, and yet somebody else's name is below it, and you're powerless to change that-that's really going to affect you."

When he interviewed her, he says, "there was an anguish that she felt. A powerlessness. The idea that this journal article, and the media picking it up and spreading the story, helped her regain her claim on that photo and her personal identity was really the big victory for her."

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Uncovering the Secret Identity of Rosie the Riveter

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In 1942, 20-year-old Naomi Parker was working in a machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, when a photographer snapped a shot of her on the job. In the photo, released through the Acme photo agency, she's bent over an industrial machine, wearing a jumpsuit and sensible heels, with her hair tied back in a polka-dot bandana for safety.

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Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

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Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

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The Democratic Convention of 1968 was held August 26-29 in Chicago, Illinois. As delegates flowed into the International Amphitheatre to nominate a Democratic Party presidential candidate, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the political status quo. By the time Vice President Herbert Humphrey received the presidential nomination, the strife within the Democratic Party was laid bare and the streets of Chicago had seen riots and bloodshed involving protesters, police and bystanders alike, radically changing America's political and social landscape.

Chaos Precedes the Convention

The months leading up to the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention were turbulent: The brutal assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April had left the country reeling, and although segregation had officially ended, racism and poverty continued to make life difficult for many blacks.

The Vietnam War was in its 13th year and the recent Tet Offensive had proved the conflict was far from over, as the draft sent more young men into the fray. It was only a matter of time before a showdown would take place between the government of President Lyndon B. Johnson and America's war-weary citizens.

By the time delegates arrived for the convention in Chicago, protests had been set in motion by members of the Youth International Party (yippies) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), whose organizers included Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden.

But Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley had no intention of letting his city or the convention be overrun by protestors. The stage was set for an explosive face-off.

A Divided Democratic Party

The Democratic Party in 1968 was in crisis. President Johnson-despite being elected with a huge majority in 1964-was soon loathed by many of his peers and constituents due to his pro-Vietnam War policies.

In November 1967, a relatively unknown and unremarkable Minnesota senator named Eugene McCarthy announced his intent to challenge Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination. In March 1968, McCarthy won 40 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary, thereby validating his candidacy.

A few days later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy abandoned his support for Johnson and entered the presidential fight.

President Johnson saw the writing on the wall and, on March 31, told a stunned nation during a televised address that he would not seek reelection. The following month, Vice President Hubert Humphrey -backed by Johnson-announced his candidacy for the nomination, further dividing the Democratic Party.

Humphrey focused on winning delegates in non-primary states, while Kennedy and McCarthy campaigned hard in primary states. Tragically, the race was turned upside down again when Robert Kennedy was assassinated after giving his victory speech following the California primary on June 4.

Kennedy's delegates were divided between McCarthy and dark-horse candidate Senator George McGovern, leaving Humphrey with more than enough votes to clench the Democratic presidential nomination, but also leaving the Democratic party in turmoil just weeks before their national convention.

Pigasus

Fed up with Democratic leadership's penchant for war, yippies protesting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention conceived their own solution: nominate a pig for president.

Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman came up with the idea, named their candidate "Pigasus the Immortal" and pledged, "They nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him."

Pigasus the Immortal's presidential campaign may have been the shortest in recorded history. His chance to become leader of the free world ended abruptly when he, Rubin and other members of his campaign staff were arrested at his first press conference in front of the Chicago Convention Center. (Pigasus's eventual fate remains unknown to this day.)

Protestors Take Over Lincoln Park

In July 1968, MOBE and yippie activists applied for permits to camp at Lincoln Park and hold rallies at the International Amphitheatre, Soldier Field and Grant Park. Hoping to dilute the protestors' momentum, Mayor Daley approved only one permit to protest at the bandshell at Grant Park.

About a week before the convention, despite not having permission, thousands of protestors-many of them from out of state and from middle-class families-set up camp at Lincoln Park, about ten miles from the Amphitheatre. Expecting resistance, protest leaders organized self-defense training sessions including karate and snake dancing.

In the meantime, Democratic Party delegates began arriving in a Chicago that was rapidly approaching a state of siege: National Guardsmen and policemen met their planes. Their hotels were under heavy guard and the convention Amphitheatre was a virtual fortress.

Violence at Lincoln Park

Initially, Mayor Daley let the protestors remain in Lincoln Park. The day before the convention began, however, he ordered Chicago police to enforce the city's 11:00 p.m. park curfew hoping that a show of force would clear out the protestors before the convention began.

The mood at Lincoln Park was festive at first. There were impromptu yoga sessions, music, dancing and the general revelry that happens when like-minded people gather together to protest the establishment. But the mood turned tense as opening day of the convention approached and the police presence increased.

Around 11:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 25, a couple thousand police officers wearing riot gear, helmets and gas masks lined up at Lincoln Park. Some threw tear gas into the crowd.

Protestors scattered every which way and rushed out of the park, blindly falling over each other as the tear gas assaulted their eyes. The police attacked them with clubs and often didn't stop when someone was subdued on the ground.

Eyewitnesses report it was a scene of unrestrained bloodshed and chaos. Later, the police defended their actions by claiming the protestors shouldn't have broken curfew or resisted arrest.

According to Thomas Foran, the Chicago lawyer who would later prosecute protest leaders, many of the protestors were "spoiled brats who thought that they knew better than everybody...they were being encouraged to do things they shouldn't do by these sophisticated guys whose idea was to shame the U.S. government."

Infighting on the Convention Floor

On Monday, August 6, the 1968 Democratic National Convention officially opened at the International Amphitheatre. Television cameras captured everything happening on the convention floor but were unable to live broadcast the demonstrations happening outside.

Whether the news blackout was due to the electrical workers' strike (as Mayor Daley claimed) or a deliberate attempt to prevent the public from learning about the citywide protests is unclear.

Several states including Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama had multiple slates of delegates competing to be seated at the convention. Many took the battle to the convention floor. A racially diverse delegation from Texas was defeated.

The convention soon became a battleground between anti-war supporters and Vice President Humphrey's-and indirectly, President Johnson's-supporters. On Tuesday night, when a promised televised prime-time debate on Vietnam was postponed until after midnight when most viewers would be asleep, the anti-war delegates made their fury known to the point that Mayor Daley had the convention adjourned for the night.

National Guard Called Up

By Tuesday evening, protestors had gathered at the Hilton Hotel where many of the delegates and candidates, including Humphrey and McCarthy, stayed. As tense police officers tried to maintain control, Mayor Daley sent in the National Guard to help.

Protest leader Tom Hayden united the crowd by proclaiming, "Tomorrow is the day that this operation has been pointing for for some time. We are going to gather here. We are going to make our way to the Amphitheatre by any means necessary."

On Wednesday, August 28, the promised televised Vietnam debate finally took place to determine if the Democrats would adopt a plank of peace or one of continued war. At the same time, MOBE convened their long-planned and highly-anticipated anti-war rally at the bandshell at Grant Park.

Up to fifteen thousand protestors gathered, much less than protest leaders had hoped for, and they were quickly surrounded by hundreds of police and National Guardsmen under orders to keep the protestors from reaching the Amphitheatre.

Around 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, a teenage boy climbed a flagpole near the bandshell and lowered the American flag. The police moved in swiftly to arrest him as protestors rallied to his aid, assaulting the officers with rocks and food or whatever else they had on hand.

Hoping to quell further violence, Davis reminded police that a legal protest permit had been obtained and requested that all police leave the park. In response, the officers moved in and beat Davis unconscious.

The police beat protestors at will with clubs and fists. Despite the hostility, anti-violence protest leader David Dillinger still supported protesting peacefully. But all bets were off for Hayden, who feared mass arrests and worsening violence. He encouraged protestors to make for the streets in small groups and head back to the Hilton Hotel.

Peace Plank Defeated

As things heated up in Grant Park, they also heated up on the convention floor. The peace plank was defeated, a huge blow to the peace delegates and millions of Americans who wanted the Vietnam War to end, and the delegates erupted into chaos.

In the words of one delegate, "We were desolate. All of the work that we had done, all of the effort we had made had, it seemed to us, come to naught...our hearts were broken."

By nightfall, a standoff had ensued in front of the Hilton between thousands of angry protestors and thousands of police officers. No one knows who or what triggered the first blow, but soon police began clearing out the crowd, pummeling protestors (and innocent bystanders) with billy clubs and using so much tear gas that it reportedly reached Humphrey some 25 floors up as he watched the bedlam unfold from his hotel room window.

At home in their living rooms, horrified Americans alternated between watching images of police brutally beating young, blood-splattered demonstrators and Humphrey's nomination. During the nomination process, some delegates spoke to the violence. One pro-McGovern delegate went so far as to refer to the police violence as "Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago."

Late that evening, Humphrey won the presidential nomination with Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine as his running mate. But the win was nothing to celebrate. Any illusion of unity within the Democratic Party was shattered-after Humphrey's nomination, many anti-war delegates joined protesters in solidarity and held a candlelight vigil.

The next day, the remaining protesters and hundreds of anti-war delegates attempted to reach the Amphitheatre again but were deterred with tear gas. At midnight on August 29, the bloody and contentious 1968 Democratic Convention officially ended.

Chicago Seven

Over 650 protesters were arrested during the convention. The total number of injured protesters is unknown but over 100 were treated at area hospitals. It was reported that 192 police officers were injured and 49 required medical treatment.

Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Black Panther activist Bobby Seale and four other protest organizers, known as the Chicago Eight, were charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite a riot and brought to trial. After Seale complained about being denied his right to choose his own lawyer, the judge ordered him to appear before the jury each day bound, gagged and chained to a chair.

Seale was removed from the Chicago Eight case and ordered to stand trial separately, making the defendants into the Chicago Seven. Seale was sentenced to four years for contempt of court, but the charges were later overturned.

After a lengthy, often circus-like trial, the jury found the Chicago Seven not guilty of conspiracy. Five defendants, however, were found guilty of inciting a riot. All convictions were eventually overturned on appeal.

The pandemonium at the 1968 Democratic National Convention did little to stop the Vietnam War or win the 1968 presidential election. By the end of the year, Republican Richard M. Nixon was President-elect of the United States and 16,592 American soldiers had been killed in Vietnam, the most of any year since the war began.

The events of the convention forced the Democratic Party to take a hard look at how they did business and how they could regain the public's trust.

Sources

1968 Democratic Convention [Documentary.] YouTube.
1968: Hippies, Yippies and the First Mayor Daley. The Chicago Tribune.
Chicago '68: A Chronology. Chicago 68.
An Excerpt From: Rights in Conflict: The violent confrontation of demonstrators and police in the parks and streets of Chicago during the week of the Democratic National Convention of 1968. Chicago 68.
A Look Back at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. MSNBC.
Brief History of 1968's Democratic National Convention. CNN All Politics.
'Police Riot' at the Democratic National Convention. World History Project.
Riots Erupt at the Democratic National Convention. World History Project.

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The Democratic Convention of 1968 was held August 26-29 in Chicago, Illinois. As delegates flowed into the International Amphitheatre to nominate a Democratic Party presidential candidate, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the political status quo.