Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
I started volunteering at the Alachua Friends of the Library in 2021. Since that time I have come across many gems and oddments which I will collect here for the edification and amusement of all.
Books pictured/reviewed here are from the
Alachua County Friends of the Library
unless otherwise specified.
Materials presented for review purposes only.
The Book of Birds; Intended for the Amusement and Instruction of Young People, that’s some title! We discovered this book in our “attic” during a major cleaning. Turns out it is over 170 years old… pre-Civil War!
Below is a limited sampling of historically significant pages that contain many surprising (and perhaps inaccurate) facts. Alas the “Elegant Plates” mentioned on the title page appear to be missing. Also missing is any mention of smaller birds such as wrens and warblers?!
Sad to say the Great Auk was near extinction (by human hands) at the time this book was written. The book says it “is frequently seen” but this is unlikely. For Europeans it was the original penguin. In other words penguins were named after the auk and not the other way around! [Pinguinus impennis is the correct classification, Alca is the genus for the related Razorbill.]
The Common Loon is now classified as Gavia immer. They can (according to the book) predict approaching tempests. Their pelts and feathers were also popular with various native peoples for ceremonial clothing, but “They are never eaten.“
The book actually cites Lewis & Clark (!) to say Condors inhabit the “Rocky Mountains“. It goes on to say it is doubtful the bird “assaults infants” but a group may attack and maim a “young bull“.
Modern books refer to this bird as the Carolina Parakeet, now extinct. Apparently it originally ranged as far north as New York and Wisconsin, and as far west as Colorado! No more, how sad…
“I Still Trust The People” — Samuel J Tilden
There are many interesting parallels between the 1876 and 2016 presidential elections. Both had enormous impact on their times and what came after. Both had a great deal to do with race. Both where marred by chicanery and a split between the popular and electoral vote.
Coming just a few years after the Civil War the Republican Party was in power and overseeing the rehabilitation of the Confederacy (known as “Reconstruction“). Their candidate was Rutherford B. Hayes the governor of Ohio. The Democratic Party nominated Samuel J. Tilden the governor of New York (who was seen as an anti-corruption crusader).
Tilden clearly won the popular vote, but the electoral vote as contested in four states for various reasons. Ironically (from today’s perspective) the Republicans accused the Democrats of suppressing the vote of African Americans in the South.
The upshot of all this was the Compromise of 1877, an informal bit of horse-trading by Congress to give the majority of electoral votes to Hayes in return for the withdrawal of federal troops protecting the rights of former slaves in the South, thus ending Reconstruction and paving the way for the Jim Crow era to begin.