Friday Cat Blogging with Pepper the Crazy Cat

My grandparents have new bookcases...it's a good thing Mom taught me to like books! Here I am keeping the books company.



It isn't as high as I would like...I really like a high perch, but still, this is pretty nice.

Friday Cat Blogging with Pepper the Crazy Cat



Lately I've taken to climbing up onto the dividing wall between the living room and the bedroom. It's really neat up there but I'm scared to jump down so Mom has to lift me down. She really doesn't like it when I go up there, but I can't resist it! It's so neat there! Last night I got up there in the middle of the night and howled really loudly until Mom woke up. She took this picture of me before she got me down.

Double Tagged...

...for the 8 Random Facts Meme by PhDinHistory and John at By the Bayou (and I think someone else did also, but I can't remember!). I'm not going to tag anyone because everyone I read has already been tagged...but I'll do the meme! Here are eight random facts about me:

1. I don't drink caffeinated beverages. I really love coffee but I find my stomach doesn't really love it. I drink a lot of herbal teas.


2. When I was little I wanted to be a palaeontologist and I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I'm still interested in fossils of all kinds.


3. When I was in high school I wanted to be an equine veterinarian.


4. I have an extensive collection of My Little Ponies. I liked them better than Barbies.


5. My favorite movie *ever* is The Great Race, with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, and Jack Lemmon.


6. I've had short hair since I was fifteen. I hate having hair--the shorter the better!


7. I got my ears pierced when I was six, on the same day that I met Geraldine Ferraro (who was running for Vice President).


8. My favorite book *ever* is Jane Eyre.

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

Read it here.

Pay special attention to the list of the King's many tyrannies. Anything sound familiar?

Also, for your Independence Day reading pleasure: Bill Fowler's Boston Globe column "Lives Lost for Freedom." It contains a description of the suffering of Revolutionary War soldiers, and a lovely quote from Washington's Newburgh Address (which prevented the onset of a military coup against Congress in 1783).

An odd factoid for an odd afternoon

I'm wrapping up in the Library of Virginia; I have only a few days left and I'm busy solving small problems. One thing I'm thinking about is a manuscript I recently read on microfilm (Bodleian Library Class Tanner MSS 447, if you must know) and transcribed. It is entitled An Act for the Baptizing and Better Ordering of Negroes & Infidals in the King of Englands Plantations in America. Naturally, I was very excited by this find, which from context appears to be a draft bill originating in Parliament. It is, however, undated. The Virginia Colonial Records Project surveyors gave it a date of 1619, but this makes no sense: there was no sitting Parliament in 1619. James I's most recent Parliament at that point (the Addled Parliament of 1614) had been dissolved after only a few months, and James would not call another Parliament until 1621. So 1619 is out.

So I'm trying to date this thing, and in my notes I found reference to the Commonwealth Parliament that Cromwell called in 1653 after he dissolved the Rump (the vestigial remains of the Long Parliament). One of this Parliament's members, an MP from London, was a lay preacher of varied and odd theology named Praise-God Barebone. Praise-God's brother had an even more unfortunate name: "If-Christ-had-not-died-for-you-you-had-been-damned Barebone." Folks apparently couldn't get their tongues around that name and instead referred to him as Damned Barebone. (Couldn't his parents have gone easy on him and named him Habbakuk? or Zerubbabel? You know, something nice and easy.) The 1653 Parliament was thus known as Barebones Parliament.

Ah, English radical religion of the seventeenth century. Where would we be without it?

Of course my draft bill couldn't have originated in the Barebones Parliament. The draft clearly indicates this is a bill originating from the King-in-Parliament, and in 1653 there was no king. I personally suspect that the draft comes from Charles II's first Parliament, which sat from 1661-1679. The bill itself references slavery, which did not legally exist in 1619, and a bill from that Parliament would be contemporaneous with colonial legislation about the baptism of slaves.

This was all a way for me to tell my readers all about Praise-God Barebone and his unfortunately named brother. :)

Welcome to History Carnival #54

It being summer, which as historians know is not a season of rest but rather a season of research trips and conferences, I'm sure many readers of the History Carnival are sitting in archives surrounded by piles of material, which they must make sense of in order to fulfill their summer writing quotas. Or at least, I'm sitting here in Virginia surrounded by a pile of material, trying to make sense of it. Sometimes, though, there is just no rhyme or reason. For History Carnival #54 I've gone through more than forty nominated posts. I couldn't use them all, but I've tried to group some posts on common themes. So here it is, in all its carnie glory, with topics ranging from mummies to poo, from murders to mayhem. Enjoy!

Just to put you in that archival mood, here's Dictatorship of the Air blogging from a research trip to Russia.

Judith Weingarten puts the discovery (rediscovery?) of Hatshepsut in context.

Manan Ahmed writes about outsiders in the East India Company, using the character of William Moorcroft (veterinary surgeon, explorer, surveyor, and judge of fine horseflesh) as a way of thinking about British imperialism in the early nineteenth century. While we're on the topic of horses and vets, here's an odd case, of, er, horse witchcraft.

Walking the Berkshires shows off a certificate his great-grandmother received for supporting the Francis Scott Key homestead--the house was torn down in 1947. In another problem of historical memory, Clio Bluestocking focuses not on historic preservation but instead on the historical myths surrounding the Underground Railroad. Rob MacDougall takes on similar issues in this post about the role of amateur historians in how the public thinks about history. At Frog in a Well: China, Alan Baumler comments on historic preservation and historical reconstruction (?) in China.

Natalie Bennett discovers the remarkable fourteenth-century life of Margery Kempe, pilgrim, writer, and, dare I suggest, Historianess?

Greg Afinogenov discovers the eighteenth-century death of one Danvers Osborne, depressive, flatulent, and governor of New York for five days. But was it really suicide?

American Presidents Blog notes the origins of the phrase "pin money" and indicates that First Ladies actually have a pin money trust fund. Who knew?

Poop the Book presents a history of sewers. Apparently, what we have now is not optimum for the removal of human poo. Again, who knew? In case you missed it, here is Slate's tour of London's sewers.

Aadvarchaeology quotes Keith Windschuttle on postmodernism, receives many (some hostile) comments, and then clarifies his own position on culture. (This post is an excellent window into some hot debates in archaeology and anthropology that do affect how historians think about the history of colonized groups.)

Konrad Lawson visits the Museum of Natural History's "Hall of Asian Peoples" and finds it wanting.

From the land Down Under, Disability Studies has a post recognizing the 140th birthday of deaf balladeer Henry Lawson.

Also on music (and architecture), Mary Beard comments on some operatic ironies.

Unitary Moonbat at Progressive Historians takes on another controversy with a history of anti-immigrant walls (they just don't seem to work! yet we're building one!).

James Livingston, also at Progressive Historians, invites historiographical controversy with this take on Abraham Lincoln.

Frumteacher comments on teaching history
through old films at Frumteacher, and Owen Miller at Frog in a Well: Korea comments on the rising popularity of historical fiction in Korea.

Owen Miller also has a stunning 18-part series on the 20th anniversary of the 1987 pro-democracy protests in Korea. See the whole series here.

Historical Resources:
on ancient literature, at Trivium Pursuit;
new web resources on being poor in Victorian England, at Victorian Peeper;
Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory offers up a reading list on Civil War Memory. Boy, do I have some catching up to do.
Natalie Bennett reviews the new exhibition of John White's sixteenth-century American drawings. If you have a chance to see them when they tour the US, you absolutely should. Or, you can view some online at Virtual Jamestown.

And, some conference blogging for any other self-described conference geeks out there. Jon Dresner guestposts at Chapati Mystery on the Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast conference.

As my concluding remark, I leave you with the Patahistorian's LOLFoucault. That ought to leave all you carnies giggling for the rest of the day!

The next History Carnival will be held at Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory on or around August 1.

All your internet are belong to us!

Sorry, folks! My corporate overlords got their wires crossed and my cable internet was shut off at midnight June 30. I spent some quality time yelling into the phone yesterday and this morning things are back up and running. So, History Carnival #54 to appear shortly before noon today. My apologies for the delay!