history – Page 6 – Empowering women through fiction and history.

The Legend and Paradox of Saint Patrick

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! This is a holiday many of us in America, Irish and non-Irish, enjoy. There is lots of celebration on this day with everything Irish, including hanging out in an Irish pub, wearing green, and enjoying amazing Irish tunes (which I love).

But Saint Patrick’s Day actually has much more somber origins. The story of Saint Patrick, the saint after which the day was named, is an interesting and somewhat controversial one. As a historical figure, Saint Patrick was, in his lifetime — well, not as saintly as his name suggests.

We imagine saints as ethereal, pure characters. But from what we know about Saint Patrick, he had his faults. We know he lived in the fifth century and, in fact, wasn’t actually Irish. He was British, born in a time when Britain was under Roman rule. We also know as a teenager he went through a pretty traumatic experience. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders and enslaved. From here, the history gets a little muddy. Some sources say he was released or escaped, went back to Roman Britain, and became a priest, then decided to go back to Ireland to try and bring the Christian faith to the Irish who practiced a pagan religion at the time. Others say he never left Ireland, working as a shepherd there, and found Christianity during this difficult time and then became a priest as a result.

This drawing shows one of the myths of Saint Patrick — that he drove away all the snakes in Ireland. But this is now believed to be a legend and not truth, as it’s generally believed there were no snakes to drive away in Ireland at that time!

Photo Credit: Drawing of Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland (see note above), 1872, artist unknown, Library of Congress: Picryl/Public domain

As a holy man, he was not exactly what one would call patient. He had a reputation for being intolerant of other people’s beliefs. He was also rumored to have a violent temper, something we would never associate with a saint. Because of his traumatic experiences, he never received the proper schooling, and he was pretty touchy about this. The last thing we might envision a saint to be is lacking self-esteem, but it seems Saint Patrick was just that.

However grounded in religion, Saint Patrick’s Day become something entirely different at the turn of the 20th century. In America, it became a holiday that allowed for the large Irish immigrant population (who suffered a lot of prejudice, especially in the big cities) to celebrate their roots and rejoice in their ethnicity. That perspective on the holiday has usurped the religious one so we can be happy and celebrate rich Irish traditions today.

Celebration is what the fifth book in my Adele Gossling Mysteries is all about! The town of Arrojo is celebrating the coming of the circus, which was a rare and joyous event in early 20th-century life. But amid laughter and fun, there is also murder. You’ll be able to read all about that when the book comes out next month, but you can snag your copy now at a special preorder price. Details about Murder Under a Twilight Roof along with links to your favorite booksellers are here.

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to newsletter subscribers here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more!

Fact and Fiction: Charlie Chapin’s The Circus (1928)

The circus has always been a favorite topic of books and films. There’s something dynamic and fascinating about reading or watching a story take place within the crucible of the circus. There’s so much mystery and intrigue surrounding the circus that it makes a great setting for a mystery (which is one reason why Book 5 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries is set in the circus).

But when it comes to accuracy, we know films and books don’t always make the grade (though I would argue books do better with this since authors tend to love researching and we like to “get it right”). This is natural since films are more concerned with providing a good story and entertaining an audience than they are with getting the details straight.

Photo Credit: Poster for Chaplin’s film The Circus from 1928 by United Artists, scanned 1 April 2013: Sir Julian Esteban/Wikimedia Commons/PD US no notice

Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Circus (1928) is no exception. Although Chaplin films weren’t exactly known for their realism, the setting matters in some of his films (like The Gold Rush from 1925 which takes place during the infamous gold rush in the Klondikes of the late 19th century). Chaplin’s The Circus makes us feel the energy and chaos the circus held for audiences in the 1920s. That’s not an easy thing to do when we’re talking about a silent film since the sounds of the circus are as important as its sights (the 1956 film Trapeze is a good illustration of this).

There are some things about the circus Chaplin’s film does admirably well. For one, the film shows how being a circus performer required extreme discipline. The opening of the film shows the manager’s daughter Merna (played by Merna Kennedy) listlessly swinging on a bar trying to practice her act (she’s an equestrian performer). Later on, we see her in her act where she misses jumping through a hoop from a horse. Her manager’s father (played by Al Ernest Garcia) gets on her case backstage and even hits her and throws her to the ground.

Circuses also depended on audience reaction (just like vaudeville) for the success or failure of an act. In The Circus, the clown act is not up to par and the audience shows it. One boy yawns while a man opens a newspaper while the act is going on. Later, when Chaplin as The Little Tramp stumbles into the ring trying to escape the police (and gets into all sorts of funny scrapes, of course), the audience roars with laughter and applauds like crazy. Then, when the clown act comes on again, the audience boos it off, shouting for “the funny man” instead.

The film also shows how not all circus acts were treated equally and there was a hierarchy of respect among circus performers. As you might imagine, the more daring the act, the more honor the performer received (because of the more money he or she brought in). The storyline in the film shows this. Chaplin’s tramp falls in love with Merna, who returns his affection. Then, a tightrope walker named Rex (played by Henry Bergman) comes onto the scene and Merna immediately falls in love with him. Why? Because his act is daring and dangerous while Chaplin’s clown act has less prestige.

Also, the performers that were the most successful could make the highest demands. In the film, the innocent tramp Chaplin plays has, at first, no idea he’s the star of the circus and, in fact, keeping the circus from going bankrupt. When Merna tells him, he realizes his worth and begins to make demands of the manager, including a huge raise in salary. This was something many circus performers did in real life.

In true Chaplinesque humor, though, there are some elements in the film added more because they make a better story than the fact that they portray the circus in a realistic light and they don’t do the image of the circus any favors. For example, Chaplin makes the manager of the circus an abusive tyrant. He constantly slaps his daughter around and even punishes her for not going through the hoop during her act by starving her. He yells at his performers and makes fun of them and orders them around. While circus managers were known to be tough taskmasters, the portrayal of them as abusive and bullying is a little extreme (though Barnum and the Ringling Brothers didn’t exactly have a reputation for being nice guys.)

In addition, the film brings in one of the stereotypes we see a lot in circus films: crime. When we first meet The Little Tramp, he’s watching a sideshow with a large crowd while a man beside him picks the pocket of a wealthy spectator, then tries to throw the blame on Chaplin by quickly moving the wallet he stole into the tramp’s pocket when the police aren’t looking. Many films show the circus as being dishonest and even collaborating with pickpockets and thieves (like Nightmare Alley and The Unholy Three). In reality, early circuses were diligent about their reputation and keeping their performers out of trouble. Big circuses like Barnum & Bailey and The Ringling Brothers had strict rules about the conduct of their performers and many circus people kept close to the circus grounds rather than mingled with the crowds or the towns in which they stayed.

Still, The Circus is a fun film to watch and very Chaplinesque in its tropes (the sentimental Little Tramp, the situational gags, the triumph of love). Interestingly, many film critics consider it one of Chaplin’s underrated films because Chaplin himself underrated it. It was a difficult film for him to make, taking two years to complete and fraught with tragedy (including Chaplin’s own messy divorce at the time and a fire that burned down all the sets which had to be rebuilt). Though it did well on its release, Chaplin chose to shelve it for years and didn’t bring it out again until the 1960s, when it received the credit it deserved as both a great Chaplin comedy and a fun circus film.

If you want to see more fun (and mayhem and murder) in the circus, check out Murder Under a Twilight Roof, coming out next month. It’s on preorder now at a special price so take a peek at it here.

Civil Rights: Not Just a Mid-20th Century Phenomenon

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day where Americans celebrate not just the work of an extraordinary man and civil rights leader but the strides made by many who fought for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

Since I write fiction that takes place during the Progressive Era, I wondered if civil rights, like women’s rights, started earlier decade than the mid-20th century events we’re more familiar with. I did some digging and it turns out this is indeed the case. The progressives brought civil rights to the table some fifty years earlier than the word of King and others in the form of one of the instrumental organizations that worked for African American rights: the NAACP.

The NAACP (which stands for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) began in 1908 as a response to a wave of lynchings that occurred in Lincoln’s birthplace, Springfield, Illinois. Not surprisingly, a group of progressives, outraged by the violence, organized a meeting that included some of the most well-known abolitionists of the previous era such as W.E.B. Dubois and Ida B. Wells. From this meeting emerged the roots of the NAACP, formally established in 1909.

Photo Credit: A display featuring highlights and emblem of the NAACP at the Kraemer Family Library at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs to celebrate 100 years of the formation of the NAACP, Feb 2009: UCCS Kraemer Family Library/Flickr/CC BY NC SA 2.0

The NAACP’s mission was to fight racial injustice and discrimination not through violence or grassroots call to action but through the democratic system already in place in America. In other words, they used the same system that oppresses African Americans and other people of color to change laws and policies to fight injustice and discrimination. This is a different approach than many of the later civil rights activists, who believed the system could never work for them and chose more direct means outside the system to achieve their goals of justice and equality.

The NAACP won several victories in court in the early 20th century. For example, they won a case against the “Grandfather Clause,” (passed in some Southern states which made certain activities, including voting, illegal for people whose grandfathers had not served in the Confederate army). In 1917, they also won a case against racial segregation in Louisville, Kentucky where the court ruled it unconstitutional to prohibit African Americans from buying land in mainly white neighborhoods.

Prior to World War I, the NAACP didn’t see much action beyond the above-mentioned court cases. However, after the war, the organization began to gain more prominence and exposure. Their focus changed with the times such as fighting for more opportunities for African American workers during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The NAACP still exists today and fights for racial justice and equality. In 2000, the organization launched a campaign to encourage more African Americans to vote and succeeded in increasing the votes in that community by almost a million. They continue to fight for the African American voice in today’s issues. I think the headline on their home page, “Continuing to fight for Democracy” says it all.

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Friday the 13th: Religious, Literary, and Cultural Origins

I’ve been fascinated by the number 13 since high school when I had a morose phase that included an obsession with Sylvia Plath’s poems. In “Doomsday”, Plath talks about “lunatic thirteens” and the idea of the number thirteen having madness hidden behind it intrigued me.

Photo Credit: Black and white photo of black cat with arched back: BlueGarou/FreeIMG/CC0

But the legend of Friday the 13th (the day, not the movie) is more innocuous than that. Some of its roots are, interestingly, religious rather than occult. The story of the Last Supper is about a table set for thirteen. According to some sources, the last guest to arrive was Judas who, of course, betrayed Jesus, a betrayal that eventually led to the crucifixion. That led to the idea that the number thirteen is an unlucky number.

Many believe the significance of Friday the 13th is more literary. For example, many authors exploited this idea of the unlucky and even haunted thirteen throughout the years, beginning with Hesiod in 700 BC, who warned farmers not to plant their seeds on the 13th day on the month because they wouldn’t grow. Others who singled out Friday the 13th as a day to watch out for include Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales (1387), where Chaucer hinted trying to start a new journey on the thirteenth wasn’t a good idea, and Thomas Lawson in his novel Friday the Thirteenth (1907), where the plot combined the unluckiness of the day with Progressive Era ideals about corrupt business practices that had to go. Right now, I’m reading M. R. James (said to be the godfather of the ghost story), and one of his stories, “Number 13,” also focuses on the idea of the unlucky number and its relation to the supernatural.

Culture also had a hand in determining the number thirteen as an unlucky number. There are superstitions surrounding the idea of “the thirteenth guest”. There’s even a classic pre-code film by that name that stars a non-dancing Ginger Rogers you can watch on YouTube here. Agatha Christie’s book Lord Edgeware Dies, renamed Thirteen for Dinner when made for TV in 1985, carries this idea of the unlucky thirteen. One of the characters at the dinner mentioned above reminds Hercule Poirot about the superstition that bad things happen to the first person who gets up from a table set for thirteen. When Poirot asks him who did get up first, the young man grins and says, “Me.” Since the story is a murder mystery, you can guess what happens to this dinner guest in the film!

While Friday the 13th doesn’t have its day (no pun intended) in my upcoming release, The Mystery of the Golden Cat, there are plenty of unlucky things that happen on another important day of the year: Labor Day. To read all about it, you can preorder the book here.

The Theft Made the Mona Lisa Notorious

The Mona Lisa has been scrutinized and poeticized and theorized for decades, even centuries. It’s probably one of the most famous paintings in all the world, if not the most famous painting. And yet, before the 1910s, it wasn’t that big a deal. Thousands of people had been through the Louvre and caught a glimpse of it in a row with other paintings of similar size.

It might be a little hard to tell here, but the space on the wall is where the Mona Lisa was discovered missing after the theft. As you can see, the painting was hardly a standout among other paintings at that time. It sat below the massive painting of Paolo Veronese’s The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (a painting, ironically, that was seized by Napoleon and his men illegally during the Napoleonic wars), which got top billing in the display.

Photo Credit: The Mona Lisa’s vacant place in the Salon Carre after it was stolen in 1911, unknown author, Century Magazine, 1914 February, The Century Company: Meidosensei/Wikimedia Commons/PD anon expired

So what happened to make the Mona Lisa warrant a wall of her own with a heavy wooden railing and bulletproof glass to protect her? In a word: theft.

Many people aren’t aware the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911. And not by some world-renowned professional gang of thieves or a highly skilled and experienced cat burglar either. It was a working man, an everyday house painter, who walked off with the Mona Lisa.

An Italian immigrant working in France by the name of Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa. He had been arrested twice before, once for theft (though he claimed it was a misunderstanding) and once for not having his immigration papers on him. He was highly suspicious of the French, who showed a lot of xenophobia at that time, especially against the Italians, who were the largest immigrant group at that time. There are theories he was psychologically unbalanced due to lead poisoning from the paint he used in his job as a house painter. Yet, he managed to steal the Mona Lisa (painting only – he left the frame on the service stairs of the Louvre) and keep it hidden for two years.

Why he stole it is still a mystery. One theory is that it was an act of patriotism. Tensions were heating up in Europe, especially between France and Germany, and Italy, tensions that would eventually cause the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Peruggia, as mentioned earlier, had been subject to a lot of ridicule and prejudice in France for being Italian. His coworkers had nicknamed him “Macaroni” and he vowed one day to show them just who was a “macaroni.” In addition, the Mona Lisa was painted by an Italian — Leonardo da Vinci — and it was believed at the time France acquired it illegally during the Napoleonic wars when it was known Napoleon and his army would loot a conquered city of its precious artifacts and ship them to France. This story turned out to be untrue (da Vinci left all his works to his assistant, who later sold them to representatives of European monarchs, including the King of France) but maybe Peruggia wanted to believe it to have a reason to steal the painting.

Others surmise it was purely for money. Though the Mona Lisa didn’t have the notoriety it has today, it was still pretty famous and could fetch a cool $5 million at that time by some estimates (today the Mona Lisa is estimated to be worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars.)

Whatever the reason, this relatively small painting (roughly, 2 1/2 x 2 feet – compare with the Last Supper, which is roughly 15 x 29 feet) became a celebrity of its own after it was discovered missing. Media mayhem ensued and a frantic international search began, though it lasted only a few months. After that, all became quiet until 1913, when the painting showed up and Peruggia was apprehended.

Want the full details of this fascinating crime that didn’t involve murder? I’ll be doing a series of newsletters next month where I’ll be exploring all the ins and outs to celebrate the release of Book 4 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries (which is also about the theft of precious items, though none as precious as the Mona Lisa) on January 28, 2023. If you’re not a subscriber of my newsletter, now is a great time to join and find out all about the Mona Lisa heist. And you’ll get a free book when you do!

And if you’re into thieves and golden cats, check out Book 4, which is now at a special preorder price, here.