Happy Treason Day?

Here's an Update I'm now adding: 

If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

– Winston Churchill –

That is so appropriate for what today's post considers that I'm putting it at the very beginning!

I really don't want any post about the Fourth of July to get political. I'm well aware that current public  polling about the holiday is gloomy:

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll out this month, a plurality of Democrats – 42 percent – say that Independence Day is about “friends and family time,” compared to only 24 percent who say that the holiday is about “celebrating America.” Among Republicans, meanwhile, 65 percent say the holiday is about celebrating America, while 23 percent say it’s about friends and family.

The same poll also asked whether respondents would display an American Flag this July 4. Just 27 percent of Democrats said yes, compared to 64 percent of Republicans. When that same question was asked in July 2001, 68 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of Democrats said they would display the flag.

But perhaps the most astonishing finding on the left’s patriotic collapse is that more than half of Democrats don’t even want to live in America.

 or to put it another way:

or as Homework.Study.com explains: 

"Happy Treason Day" is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek nod to U.S. Independence Day! It’s all about playfully reminding our British friends that the Founding Fathers technically committed treason when they signed the Declaration of Independence.  

That got me thinking back to the Bicentennial in 1976. History.com looked back to see how it differs from today. I especially enjoyed this section: 

 International Recognition

Two official state visits took place during the Bicentennial celebrations, according to the Ford Presidential Museum. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and his wife, Anne-Aymone, visited in May. In July, Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II toured several states, including attending a formal state dinner in Philadelphia.

“We are deeply grateful for having been invited to visit the United States in the main week of your bicentennial,” the queen said during the event. “After all, nobody can say that what happened on the Fourth of July 1776 was not very much a bilateral affair between us.”

During the visit, she presented the country with the Bicentennial Bell on behalf of Britain.

While I have seen tee shirts with Queen Elizabeth and the "Happy Treason Day" meme, this updating will probably soon appear on a shirt.

Made by AlexBrodsky 3 years ago

For a look further back to 1912, Project Gutenberg has preserved several of the books in the series by Robert Haven Schauffler called Our American Holidays.  At the start of the anthology, Independence Day; its celebration, spirit and significance as related in prose and verse readers are presented with a preface that emphasizes the importance of Independence Day as America's national holiday and critiques how it has been traditionally celebrated with meaningless noise and injury. Schauffler advocates for a more meaningful observance that honors the holiday's true historical significance. While no source other than the author's name is given, I appreciate the book's opening by Viscount James Bryce to the section called "Spirit and Significance."  (He was the British ambassador to the United States from 1907 to 1913. Wikipedia notes he "was very efficient in strengthening Anglo-American ties and friendship.")

---

ENGLAND AND AMERICA

BY JAMES BRYCE

This is a memorable day to Englishmen as well as to Americans. It is to us a day both of regret and of rejoicing: of regret at the severance of the political connection which bound the two branches of our race together, and of regret even more for the unhappy errors which brought that severance about, and the unhappy strife by which the memory of it was embittered. But it is also a day of rejoicing, for it is the birthday of the eldest daughter of England—the day when a new nation, sprung from our own, first took its independent place in the world. And now with the progress of time, rejoicing has prevailed over regret, and we in England can at length join heartily with you in celebrating the beginning of your national life. All sense of bitterness has passed away, and been replaced by sympathy with all which this anniversary means to an American heart.

England and America now understand one another far better than they ever did before. In 1776 there was on one side a monarch and a small ruling caste, on the other side a people. Now our government can no longer misrepresent the nation, and across the ocean a people speaks to a people. We have both come, and that most notably within recent months, to perceive that all over the world the interests of America and of England are substantially the same.

The sense of our underlying unity over against the other races and forms of civilization has been a potent force in drawing us together. It is said that the Fourth of July is a day of happy augury for mankind. This is true because on that day America entered on a course and proclaimed principles of government which have been of profound significance for mankind. Many nations have had a career of conquest and of civilizing dominion: but to make an immense people prosperous, happy, and free is a nobler and grander achievement than the most brilliant conquests and the widest dominion.

***

I'm sure that both Schauffler and Bryce would be appalled with the present opinions found in the Reuters/Ipsos poll opening today's look at the Fourth of July during America 250.

 

Hale - Peterkins Celebrate the Fourth - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I went looking to find stories about fireworks as many locations have canceled them this year.  Instead I found many stories about a greater than usual amount of individuals setting them off (often illegally) along with gunshots.  Since those stories would be possibly inappropriate for re-publishing or telling, I started to check my own collection.  Like a firework exploding in the air I was delighted to discover America's own "noodleheads", Lucretia Hale's delightful Peterkin family, celebrated the Fourth of July in true Peterkin fashion.

For those who might need reminding, the cast of characters includes Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, their youngest sons just known as "the little boys" and their friends; the older, well educated (but clueless) sons, Solomon John and Agamemnon; daughter, Elizabeth Eliza, of approximately the same age; and their neighbors, the Bromwicks.  Their Hired Girl, Amanda, is given most of the holiday off, and the sensibility of "the lady from Philadelphia" is also absent.  Since this is 1876, here's the Philadelphia Centennial at Independence Hall.

Independence Hall Centennial Celebration July 4, 1876

The Peterkins had earlier in the book visited the lady from Philadelphia at the Centennial exposition.  Maybe that's why, in this story the lady "was not well, and her doctor had prescribed quiet."  There's not much quiet in this story.  The family seems determined to have every form of Independence Day insanity.  There's even the fire engines which on a normal day here in small towns are part of a parade.  There's no official parade, but cannons and bells and chaos aplenty.  It's enough to make whatever is happening near you seem tame.

Leave it to the Peterkin family to find a way to make it memorable.

Of course this blog is also viewed by storytelling friends abroad.  This year t-shirt makers all over the internet have had fun with a British view of our holiday saying variations on this theme.

While looking for a good graphic of that bit of cheek in the "mother tongue" I found the perfect response.

Stay safe, but have fun over this unusual holiday weekend.
********************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Déjà vu

I've never done this before and don't plan to do it regularly, but this was on my Facebook page.  I think you can see why I'm taking this very personal shortcut.

This week has been deja vu time @ St. Joe Mercy hospital. Years ago my older daughter had brain surgery there. Remember seeing 4th of July fireworks from the window. Monday I took my husband there & he's still there with a bad leg infection.

Nobody home to walk or feed our dog, so I can't stay the night there this time. It's cooler for the dog then, so I took him for a nightime walk. Fireworks everywhere made it sound like a war zone + some in the air. The "Magnificent Beastie" had no reaction, just another walk. Last year he went to Frankenmuth & a fireworks display. The only thing was the tons of fans wanting to pet him. With our current heat & storms I wish the 3 of us were there again.

Fortunately as of Tuesday I have off rehearsals from Pontiac Theatre IV's play of Grisham's "A Time to Kill" until Monday. Then it's "Hell Week" -- the final week until we open July 12 at the Pontiac Little Art Theatre.

I know, I know, when this all ends I'll be bored, but right now I WANT MY ROADIE BACK! . . . the one with the banjo!!! (Shh, don't tell him 'cause I give him a hard time about that banjo.)

Hopefully next week will be back to what passes for normal.

Irving et al about the Declaration of Independence

from a National Park Service photo with Independence Hall in the background

The musical 1776 gives a great view of the fighting involved in signing the Declaration of Independence and how our Founding Fathers were as creator, Sherman Edwards, said "the cream of their colonies. ... They disagreed and fought with each other. But they understood commitment, and though they fought, they fought affirmatively." (Personally I look at our country and its divisions and wonder if such a consensus could be reached today.)

I didn't know Washington Irving had written a Life of Washington, but it gives a glimpse of how we nearly celebrated the Second of July.  (Like the musical, he focuses on John Adams.)

I let that flow into H.A. Guerber's look at the signing as the one followed the other in Frances Jenkins Olcott's book, Good Stories for Great Holidays.  Irving's book, by the way, gets two more excerpts in Olcott's coverage showing better the sense of drama relayed by the author best known for short stories like "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Actually there was very little beyond his best-known work that I knew.  Scanning an article about Washington Irving, I learned he must have had a great interest in his namesake as the Washington biography is five volumes! long, spending much of his life on it.  Also Irving represented the United States in both Spain and England under Presidents Van Buren and Tyler.

Now for an anonymous third look at the event from outside Independence Hall and the ringing of the Liberty Bell.  (It comes from the Fifth Year of Story Hour Readings a textbook popular in the early Twentieth Century by E.C. Hartwell, who may have written it.  There were several illustrators for the book, including Joseph Franke', whose signature is in the left corner.)

I opened this article with a look at the Liberty Bell and want to mention the National Park Service site about Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. It includes such information as the Liberty Bell was originally the State House bell made in London and taken to Philadelphia for the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. It is inscribed with the words from Leviticus 25:10 “Proclaim liberty throughout the land”. It cracked on the first test ring in 1752, so it was melted down and cast again in Philadelphia. Further cracks occurred, so in 1846 for Washington's birthday, the city attempted to repair it. The repair failed, widening the crack further and silencing the bell forever, but not its significance. The site also has teacher lesson plans. While looking for images of the Liberty Bell, I discovered https://notebookingfairy.com/liberty-bell-notebooking-page/ which has various graphics teachers, homeschoolers, and others might appreciate.  

Here in Michigan next week I'll be doing a program that includes a mention of the War of 1812 with a bit of emphasis on here in Detroit and across the river at Canada's Fort Amherstburg (now Fort Malden) and the wrap-up of that war in the song, "The Battle of New Orleans."

Because that means we had not one, but two wars with Britain, I appreciated this from the N.P.S. site:

There are two other bells in the park today, in addition to the Liberty Bell. The Centennial Bell, made for the nation's 100th birthday in 1876, still rings every hour in the tower of Independence Hall. It weighs 13,000 lbs. - a thousand pounds for each original state. The Bicentennial Bell was a gift to the people of the United States from the people of Great Britain in 1976. That bell is currently in storage.

Considering the way Queen Elizabeth II at the dedication in 1976 mentioned our shared heritage of the principles of the Magna Carta, I hope we dust off that bell and display it, too.

Can't resist this image for a bit of a chuckle.  Even so, remember those who fought in the Revolutionary War were indeed considered traitors and paid with their lives and fortunes.

After two wars, these Ungrateful Colonials are definitely different, but glad to share a heritage and get along again.



********************************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!