American History Tidbits

American History Tidbits

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These are a few little interesting tidbits that, hopefully, are interesting and can probably be found on other pages on this site. Hope ya enjoy 'em!

PAGE CONTENTS:

Miscellaneous Tidbits

What Is an American?

The First Americans

A Day for Patriots

Thomas Paine

American Census, 1790

Top 5 Causes of the Great Depression

Miscellaneous Tidbits

The U.S. nickname "Uncle Sam" was derived from "Uncle Sam" Wilson, a meat inspector in Troy, New York. During the War of 1812, Wilson's "U.S." stamped on meat barrels prepared for the U.S. Army was interpreted by some workmen to stand for their boss, Uncle Sam, and the legend grew.

During the American revolution, more inhabitants of the American colonies fought for the British than for the Continental Army.

Only 16 percent of the able-bodied males in the American colonies participated in the Revolutionary War.

A Virginia farmer during the Revolutionary War, Captain William Lynch organized bands of townspeople to dispense justice to outlaws and British collaborators. These bands became known as "Lynch Mobs," and hanging someone without a trial became known as "Lynching."

An American gunsmith of the 1840s, Henry Deringer invented a tiny pistol that he named after himself. Further development and copying of his design resulted in the mis-spelled 'derringer' pistol, manufactured widely by other companies.

By 1973, Thomas Jefferson, an inventor, and his cabinet were so overwhelmed with patent applications that the duty was handed off to a state department clerk. In 1802, the U.S. Patent Office was finally established.

If you were a tobacco farmer in the 30's and 40's, you wouldn't have had to fight in WW II. President Roosevelt declared tobacco "an essential crop" at the outbreak of the war- exempting tobacco growers from the draft.

The White House, in Washington DC, was originally gray, the color of the sandstone it was built out of. After the War of 1812, during which it had been burned by Canadian troops, the outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains

The population of the American colonies in 1610 was 350.

Until 1863, postal service in the United States was free. In that year, the U.S. entered an international treaty requiring nations to pay for their mail delivery to other countries.

In 1914, the first year that the Federal Income tax was imposed, only one percent of the U.S. population was required to pay the new tax. Per capita, the average tax was .41 cents per person.

Although Betsy Ross ran a munitions factory from her basement, she did not design the American Flag. It was designed by Congressman Francis Hopkinson, a naval flag designer, who was paid by the U.S. government for his design.

The White House was originally called the Presidential Palace and the President was addressed as "His Excellency."

What Is An American?

You know there are now more than 300 million Americans. But do you know "What Is an American?" Hint: it's one of the most famous, influential, and elegantly written explorations of the American character ever published.

It was written by a Frenchman who came to own an early American farm: Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur (1735-1813). After turning American soil for a decade, Crèvecoeur returned to Europe in 1780, and published a collection of semi-fictional letters from an alter ego: J. Hector St. John. These letters--Letters from an American Farmer--made Crèvecoeur a celebrity.

The third letter--"What Is an American?"--became a classic. George Washington thought its sketch of the American character was "too flattering," but Crèvecoeur's sense of industrious immigrants "melting" into a new nation fixed itself in the American mind. Today, what Crèvecoeur wrote is so familiar that even Americans who have never read a word of it will feel like they know these passages.

"What Is an American?" (1782)

"Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of good roads and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself."

"We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed; we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free as he ought to be; nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are. Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain? for no European foot has as yet traveled half the extent of this mighty continent!"

"In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have by some means met together, and in consequence of various causes; to what purpose should they ask one another what countrymen they are? Alas, two thirds of them had no country. Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continual scene of sore affliction or pinching penury, can that man call England or any other kingdom his country? A country that had no bread for him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met with nothing but the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and punishments; who owned not a single foot of the extensive surface of this planet? No! urged by a variety of motives, here they came."

"I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men."

"There is room for everybody in America; has he any particular talent, or industry? he exerts it in order to procure a livelihood, and it succeeds. Is he a merchant? the avenues of trade are infinite; is he eminent in any respect? he will be employed and respected. Does he love a country life? pleasant farms present themselves; he may purchase what he wants, and thereby become an American farmer. Is he a laborer, sober and industrious? he need not go many miles, nor receive many informations before he will be hired, well fed at the table of his employer, and paid four or five times more than he can get in Europe. Does he want uncultivated lands? thousands of acres present themselves, which he may purchase cheap. Whatever be his talents or inclinations, if they are moderate, he may satisfy them. I do not mean that every one who comes will grow rich in a little time; no, but he may procure an easy, decent maintenance, by his industry. Instead of starving he will be fed, instead of being idle he will have employment; and these are riches enough for such men as come over here."

"They no sooner arrive than they immediately feel the good effects of that plenty of provisions we possess: they fare on our best food, and they are kindly entertained; their talents, character, and peculiar industry are immediately inquired into; they find countrymen everywhere disseminated, let them come from whatever part of Europe. Let me select one as an epitome of the rest; he is hired, he goes to work, and works moderately; instead of being employed by a haughty person, he finds himself with his equal, placed at the substantial table of the farmer, or else at an inferior one as good; his wages are high, his bed is not like that bed of sorrow on which he used to lie; if he behaves with propriety, and is faithful, he is caressed, and becomes as it were a member of the family. He begins to feel the effects of a sort of resurrection; hitherto he had not lived, but simply vegetated; he now feels himself a man, because he is treated as such; the laws of his own country had overlooked him in his insignificancy; the laws of this cover him with their mantle."

"Judge what an alteration there must arise in the mind and thoughts of this man; he begins to forget his former servitude and dependence, his heart involuntarily swells and glows; this first swell inspires him with those new thoughts which constitute an American. What love can he entertain for a country where his existence was a burden to him; if he is a generous good man, the love of this new adoptive parent will sink deep into his heart."

Michael Himick
Copright 2006, KnowledgeNews. All rights reserved.

The First Americans

So, who were the first Americans? Well, before there were English nobles in Jamestown or fur-trading Frenchmen in Quebec, there were Spaniards in Florida--heirs to Christopher Columbus. Before Columbus, there were Vikings in Newfoundland. And before all these Juan-, Jean-, and Johnny-come-latelies, there were Native Americans, the land's original inhabitants--whose ancestors were immigrants, too. Here's what we know about those earliest of Americans.

For more than half a century, the archaeological party line on the first Americans went like this. About 13,500 years ago, America's first founders walked from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that emerged when sea levels plunged during the last ice age. Don't picture a narrow walkway. This bridge, "Beringia," was as much as 1,000 miles (1,600 km) wide.

Some of these immigrants then headed south through an inland corridor that separated two huge ice sheets. When they reached the temperate regions of North America, they fanned out across the land--perhaps in pursuit of big game (their tools sometimes turn up among the bones of mammoths). Within a thousand years, their descendents had spread throughout North and South America.

Their hunters packed the latest in prehistoric firepower: a stone spearhead with grooves down the center of each side, presumably to enable a tighter fit between spearhead and stick. Such spearheads were first discovered near Clovis, New Mexico, some 75 years ago. Ever since, the name "Clovis" has been associated with both the spearheads and the ancient Americans who threw them.

Respectable archaeologists stuck to some version of this Clovis-first story for most of the 20th century. But in recent years, the field has undergone a significant shift. While no one seriously questions the importance of the Clovis people to early America, many experts now question--some quite loudly--whether they really came first. Their evidence?

Some recent mitochondrial DNA studies suggest that the genetic diversity of today's Native American peoples would have taken more than 20,000 years to develop at standard rates of genetic change. If the Clovis really came first, how did their descendents manage to squeeze 20,000 years' worth of genetic multiplication into less than 14,000 years?

Other DNA studies contradict the "more than 20,000 years" claim, but the Clovis-first story has other timeline problems. For years, archaeologists have known about sites deep in South America and along the east coast of the United States that date back to the earliest centuries of Clovis immigration, if not to pre-Clovis days. How could Siberian immigrants have made it so far south and east so quickly, when survival required adapting to new environments all along the way?

In 1997, after two decades of bickering among archaeologists about the authenticity of "Monte Verde," a purportedly pre-Clovis site in Chile, a blue-ribbon panel of archaeologists conducted a thorough review of the site. They concluded that humans lived at Monte Verde a thousand years before the Clovis people supposedly made it to America.

Soon, other rigorously studied sites with pre-Clovis claims got more attention. Among them: Cactus Hill, south of Richmond, Virginia, and Meadowcroft Rockshelter, a well-known archaeological dig near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the deepest layers of which may turn out to date back more than 20,000 years. Some archaeologists continue to question the veracity of all pre-Clovis sites, including Monte Verde, but most now agree that the Clovis barrier has been broken for good.

Assuming at least some ancient people did beat the Clovis to America, when did they come and how did they get here? Scientists have no solid answers to those questions--though they do have some interesting hypotheses. Among them:

Scientists used to think that humans didn't colonize northeast Siberia until about 15,000 years ago. So an earlier crossing from there to North America seemed unlikely. Yet recent Russian research suggests that the northeast parts of Siberia were populated for at least some of the year as early as 30,000 years ago.

Boats have been around for at least 30,000 years. So some experts think ancient peoples might have paddled alongside glaciers the way kayakers explore the Alaskan coast now--perhaps even skirting the shoreline all the way to Monte Verde. Yet if evidence of ice-age boat trips exists, finding it will be difficult. Sea levels back then were more than 300 feet (90 meters) lower than they are today. Any ancient coastal campsites now rest deep in Davy Jones's locker.

A few years ago, suggesting that the earliest American immigrants might have come from Europe rather than Asia would have made you the butt of every archaeologist's joke. But recently, some scientists have begun to explore that possibility. The signature Clovis spearhead technology, they argue, doesn't have a known precursor in Stone Age Siberian culture, but it does bear striking similarities to technology developed a bit earlier in Europe.

Could boaters have paddled from Europe along the edge of the Atlantic sea ice? Most experts see plenty of holes in that theory. DNA strongly suggests that today's Native American peoples are closely related to each other, and that their nearest relations outside the Americas are the native peoples of northeast Asia. Whenever they arrived, the ancestors of today's Native Americans almost surely came from Asia.

But did other peoples make the trip, too--at other, perhaps earlier, times? No one can say for sure. Maybe, as some specialists now suggest, ancient America was peopled in waves coming at different times. Perhaps those waves even came from different directions, and carried different technologies, languages, and cultures to add to the ongoing mix. Maybe it was a lot like now.

Steve Sampson

A Day for Patriots

Unless you live in Massachusetts or Maine, you may not know that April 21st is Patriots' Day--a holiday that commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first fights of the American Revolution. Those battles happened on April 19, 1775, but the holiday that marks them has been moved to the third Monday in April.

At least, that's when it happens in Massachusetts and Maine. Only a few other places have formal Patriots' Day observances. So we decided to observe it our own way--with a look back at the men who fought America's first revolutionary fights: the Massachusetts minutemen.

America's earliest militias were basically groups of paramilitary citizen-soldiers organized for the defense of the colonies. Able-bodied men, as young as 16 and as old as 60, were required to join.

As early as 1645, Massachusettswere supposed to designate men from each company as rapid responders, ready for action in half an hour or less. The term "minuteman" was used to refer to these rapid responders as far back as 1750. But the minutemen as a distinctive fighting force really emerged in 1774, when Massachusetts militias reorganized for the impending revolution.

That year, authorities in Worcester County fired all their militia's officers (to eliminate British sympathizers). They also improved the militia's training regimen and declared that one-third of all militiamen should "be ready to act at a minute's warning." Five days later, the town of Concord voted to establish a similar force. Towns and counties across the colonies followed suit, and the "minutemen" became the elite irregular troops of the fledgling American nation.

Ex-minuteman Thomas Brown recalled that these elite fighters had "to hold themselves continually in readiness to turn out at a moment's warning . . . in whatever place their services might be required." Pre-Revolutionary War militias generally met only once a year--and then mainly for drinks, tall tales, and target shooting. But the new minuteman units drilled two, three, or even four times a week.

They were the most active and physically capable men available. Most were under 20 years old, though their ranks also included fathers and even grandfathers. Among the hundred or so Lexington minutemen, a dozen were father-son teams and three were men over 60.

About a third of all minutemen were veterans of the French and Indian War, where they had learned guerrilla tactics. Most supplied their own firearms, and--like the rest of America's militiamen--they elected officers from their own ranks. This improved morale and ensured that officers who were not sufficiently anti-British quickly lost their jobs.

Minutemen from Lexington fought the first battle of the Revolution. On the morning of April 19, 1775, a few dozen stood their ground on Lexington Common, awaiting the approach of several hundred British soldiers. The British had been ordered to march to Concord and capture the town's weapons. Along the way, they were supposed to stop in Lexington and arrest John Hancock and Sam Adams.

According to an American who survived the fight, when the British soldiers came in sight of the minutemen blocking their path, a British officer yelled, "Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men." Although they were outnumbered at least seven to one, the minutemen refused to lower their muskets.

No one knows for sure who fired first. Eight Americans were killed and ten wounded during the battle, which ended when the remaining minutemen retreated into the woods. No British soldiers were killed. Hancock and Adams had already fled, so the British marched on to Concord--and into a shootout with three or four hundred militiamen at the town's North Bridge.

The British soldiers withdrew, but as they marched back to Boston, minutemen and other local guerrillas shot them to pieces. British losses from the Battle of Lexington and Concord ultimately totaled 73 dead and 174 wounded. The American Revolution had begun.

--Jeffery Vail

Thomas Paine

By Denis Mueller

Thomas Paine was born on January 29, 1737. He was the son of a poor corset maker. His father, Joseph, tried to provide his son with a proper education but he soon had to abandon his dream and Paine, with great hesitation, followed in his father's footsteps. He never liked his trade and was unsuccessful in marriage as well. His first wife died after only a year and he left his second wife to come to America. It was here, in the new world, that Paine found his calling.

He became a journalist, and after only one year in the United States, established himself as the propagandist for the revolution. His short pamphlet, Common Sense, was read widely and Paine committed himself to the cause of freedom. In it he attacked his former home, Great Britain, with passion and called for independence for the colonies, along with the establishment of a constitutional government. Paine distrusted government yet called for tax-funded public programs to protect the poor from the abuses of those with power.

In many ways, democracy was born through the writings of Thomas Paine. His democratic writings and ideas made him one of the greatest public figures of his time. Yet, he would die as a pauper, indeed hated in the country which he helped to create. Paine was a citizen of the world, a man who fought for and was jailed in France because of his role in the French Revolution. He spoke out against the hypocrisy of religion, which displeases many to this day.

But because of him democracy is viewed as a system that dares to be different. He was self-educated, and like many self-educated men, was perhaps combative to a fault. But when we think of the man who stands up to authority, who is unafraid to voice his objections of the abuses of power and speaks on behalf of those who are powerless, we think of Thomas Paine. Paine has become the father of American radicalism as magazine, and dot coms, which profess to challenge authority, look to him as their intellectual forefather.

His term "Winter Soldiers" has been adopted by groups like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who looked to Paine as their spiritual leader. His view of what life should be, and how people should act, includes a respect for ordinary folk and a demand for a government which is accountable to its citizens seems to be lacking in our bankrupt contemporary society. He remains a guiding light to those who cherish the ideal of democracy, and one wonders what he would say about a President who said, "God told him to go to war," while using lies and deceit to achieve that goal.

But, as we will see, the biographers of Paine are often in disagreement, with some viewing him with scorn. He is interpreted differently by various generations, which makes him a character that can still arouse our passions, and still anger the powerful and the hypocritical. I see Paine as man who confronts what we don't want to hear. His legacy is in those who have followed in his footsteps. They include people like, George Seldes, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn, Molly Ivans, Woody Guthrie, Martin Luther King and a whole host of people I have forgotten to mention. Paine is America at its best. He represents the type of country we want to be, which is often the country we are not.

But before going on to the history of people's viewpoints on Paine, perhaps we should hear what the fuss is all about.

American Census, 1790

Today, we're turning the clock back further--to 1790, the year of the first U.S. census.

Launched the year after George Washington became president, the inaugural census fulfilled a requirement set forth in the new U.S. Constitution--that "we the people" be counted every 10 years. Why? To let the nation divvy up federal taxation and representation. The Constitution says:

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers."

Not surprisingly, the census form was considerably simpler in 1790 than it is today. It focused on just five data points: the number of free white males 16 and up (considered a measure of potential military and economic might), the number of free white males under 16, the number of free white females, the number of "other free persons," and the number of slaves.

The census found that fewer than 4 million people lived in the United States. The official tally was 3,893,635. Virginia was by far the most populous state (with 748,000 people), followed by Pennsylvania (with 435,000), North Carolina (with 395,000) and New York (with 340,000). That helps explain why four of America's first five presidents hailed from Virginia.

Nationwide, nearly 700,000 people--more than 1 in 6 Americans--were slaves. Nearly 300,000 of them lived in Virginia, with another 300,000 in Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Of all the slaves counted, more than 90 percent lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a line of stone markers placed between 1763 and 1767 to separate Pennsylvania from Maryland and Maryland from Delaware.

Virginia had more enslaved people than seven other states had people. That helps explain--though not excuse--the Constitution's "three-fifths" clause, under which representation was based on counts of "the whole number of free Persons" plus "three-fifths of all other Persons," excluding "Indians not taxed." Virginia and the other slave states got fewer representatives than they would have if slaves had counted the same as "free Persons," but more than they would have if slaves had counted as property.

As for that supposed measure of potential military and economic might, the number of free white men 16 or older came to just 807,000. But the nation was growing fast. The 1800 census counted 5.3 million Americans, a 35 percent increase over the 1790 count. The population increased by another 36 percent between 1800 and 1810. By then, it was 7.2 million, and the number of states had grown from 13 to 17. By comparison, the U.S. population grew by 13 percent between 1995 and 2005--and we didn't add any states.

Steve Sampson
October 19, 2006

Top 5 Causes of the Great Depression

by Martin Kelly

What caused the Great Depression, the worst economic depression in US history? It was not just one factor, but instead a combination of domestic and worldwide conditions that led to the Great Depression. As such, there is no agreed upon list of all the causes of the Great Depression. Here instead is a list of the top reasons that historians and economists have cited as causing the Great Depression.

The effects of the Great Depression was huge across the world. Not only did it lead to the New Deal in America but more significantly, it was a direct cause of the rise of extremism in Germany leading to World War II.

1) The Stock Market Crash of 1929

Many believe erroneously that the stock market crash that occurred on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In fact, it was one of the major causes that led to the Great Depression. Two months after the original crash in October, stockholders had lost more than $40 billion dollars. Even though the stock market began to regain some of its losses, by the end of 1930, it just was not enough and America truly entered what is called the Great Depression.

2) Bank Failures

Throughout the 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. Surviving banks, unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, stopped being as willing to create new loans. This exasperated the situation leading to less and less expenditures.

3) Reduction in Purchasing Across the Board

With the stock market crash and the fears of further economic woes, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing items. This then led to a reduction in the number of items produced and thus a reduction in the workforce. As people lost their jobs, they were unable to keep up with paying for items they had bought through installment plans and their items were repossessed. More and more inventory began to accumulate. The unemployment rate rose above 25% which meant, of course, even less spending to help alleviate the economic situation.

4) American Economic With Europe

As businesses began failing, the government created the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930 to help protect American companies. This charged a high tax for imports thereby leading to less trade between America and foreign countries along with some economic retaliation.

5) Drought Conditions

While not a direct cause of the Great Depression, the drought that occurred in the Mississippi Valley in 1930 was of such proportions that many could not even pay their taxes or other debts and had to sell their farms for no profit to themselves. This was the topic of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

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