Mayflower pilgrim William Bradford wrote a detailed manuscript describing the pilgrim’s
experiences in the New World, now known as “Of Plymouth Plantation,” between the years 1630 and
1651. In the 270 page manuscript,
written in the form of two books, Bradford recorded everything from the
pilgrim’s experiences living in the Netherlands, to their voyage on the Mayflower and
their daily life at Plymouth Plantation.
The manuscript is known by many names, such as “The History of Plymouth
Plantation,” “History of the Plantation at Plymouth” and “William Bradford’s
Journal.” Bradford never made any
attempt to publish the manuscript during his lifetime and instead gave it to
his son William, who later passed it on to his own son Major John
Bradford. A number of people borrowed
the manuscript over the years, such as William Bradford’s nephew, Nathaniel
Morton, who referenced it in his book “New England’s Memorial” in 1669, and
later Reverend Thomas Prince, who used part of the manuscript in his own book
“Chronological History of New England” in 1736.
According to editor William T. Davis, in the introduction to the 1908
edition of “Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation,” Prince then gave the
manuscript to the New England Library: “The manuscript bears a memorandum made by Rev. Thomas Prince,
dated June 4, 1728, stating that he borrowed it from Major John Bradford, and
deposited it, together with Bradford’s letter-book, in the New England Library
in the tower of the Old South Church in Boston.” During its time at
the library, William Hubbard borrowed the manuscript and referenced it in his
book “History of New England,” as did Thomas Hutchinson, who used it as a reference
for his book “History of Massachusetts Bay” in 1767. What happened next to the manuscript is
unclear. At some point in the late
1700s, the manuscript disappeared. It
remained missing for over half a century until it was discovered in the Bishop
of London’s Library at Fulham in 1855.
The British government didn’t offer to give the manuscript back and
instead created a copy of it, which it sent to Boston in August of 1855. The copy was published soon after in 1856
and, due to its description of the First Thanksgiving at
Plymouth, sparked a sudden interest in the Thanksgiving holiday, which was up
until then only a regional New England tradition and not the national holiday
it later became. The discovery of the
original manuscript ignited a long debate between British and American scholars
about its rightful home. The debate
raged on for over 40 years while politicians, such as United States Senator
George Frisbie Hoar, a member of the American Antiquarian Society, made
multiple failed attempts to have the manuscript returned to the United
States. Finally, after Massachusetts
Governor Roger Walcott filed a formal petition with a London court asking for
the return of the manuscript, the British government agreed to return it to
Massachusetts in April of 1897, over 100 years after it first went
missing. The manuscript now resides at
the Massachusetts State House. http://historyofmassachusetts.org/of-plymouth-plantation/
Download the text of Bradford's History of 'Plimoth
Plantation' by William Bradford
PILGRIM AND PURITAN: A DELICATE DISTINCTION by
Richard Howland Maxwell
See six-page article at http://www.pilgrimhallmuseum.org/pdf/Pilgrim_Puritan_A_Delicate_Distinction.pdf See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bradford_(Plymouth_Colony_governor)
The illustrated history of the Super Bowl in under 2 minutes published January 29, 2015
The Presidential Library system formally began in 1939, when President Franklin
Roosevelt donated his personal and Presidential papers to the Federal
Government. At the same time, Roosevelt
pledged part of his estate at Hyde Park to the United States, and friends of
the President formed a non-profit corporation to raise funds for the
construction of the library and museum building. He asked the National Archives to take
custody of his papers and other historical materials and to administer his
library. Before the advent of the
Presidential Library system, Presidents or their heirs often dispersed
Presidential papers at the end of the administration. Though many pre-Hoover
collections now reside in the Library of Congress, others are split among other
libraries, historical societies, and private collections. In 1950, Harry S. Truman decided that he,
too, would build a library to house his Presidential papers and helped to
galvanize congressional action. In 1955,
Congress passed the Presidential
Libraries Act, establishing a system of privately erected and federally
maintained libraries. The Act encouraged other Presidents to donate their
historical materials to the government and ensured the preservation of
Presidential papers and their availability to the American people. Under this and subsequent acts,
more libraries have been established. In each case, funds from private and
nonfederal public sources provided the funds to build the library. Once completed, the private organization
turned over the libraries to the National Archives and Records Administration
to operate and maintain. Until 1978,
Presidents, scholars, and legal professionals held the view dating back to
George Washington that the records created by the President or his staff while
in office remained the personal property of the President and were his to take
with him when he left office. The Presidential
Records Act of 1978 established
that the Presidential records that document the constitutional, statutory, and
ceremonial duties of the President are the property of the United States
Government. After the President leaves
office, the Archivist of the United States assumes custody of the records. The Presidential
Libraries Act of 1986 also made significant changes to
Presidential libraries, requiring private endowments linked to the size of the
facility. NARA uses these endowments to offset a portion of the maintenance
costs for the library. http://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/about/history.html The National Archives administers 13
presidential libraries--find the list at https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/visit/ Other libraries not on the list include that
of Rutherford B. Hayes, our 19th president.
The Rutherford B. Hayes
Presidential Center is now the Rutherford
B. Hayes Presidential Library &
Museums after it unveiled its new name, logo and website on December 4,
2015. The Rutherford B. Hayes
Presidential Library & Museums is the nation’s FIRST presidential library,
and it celebrates its 100th birthday in 2016.
http://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/
GIANT CANE Alternate Names: Cane, Fishing-pole Cane, Mutton Grass, Rivercane,
Swampcane, Switchcane, Wild Bamboo.
Dense stands of cane, known as canebrakes, have been likened to a
“supermarket” offering material for many purposes. The grass occurs from Florida to eastern
Texas in the south, in parts of the Midwest, and north to New York. It is found in at least 22 states in the
United States. Cane provided the
Cherokee with material for fuel and candles and the coarse, hollow stems were
made into hair ornaments, game sticks, musical instruments, toys, weapons, and
tools. A cool-season member of the grass
family (Poaceae), giant cane comes from the genus Arundinaria and is the only
bamboo native to the United States.
Giant cane was sometimes slit and made into chair bottoms, weavers’
shuttles, and the hollow stems for inexpensive tubes. Non-Indian settlers also used the giant cane
for fishing poles, weaving looms, scaffolds for drying cotton, pipe stems and
pipes, splints for baskets and mats, toys, turkey-calls, and musical instruments. Giant cane is an excellent plant to stabilize
stream and river banks. Read much more
and see graphics in a ten-page document at http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_argi.pdf
The period is dead. Punctuation is over. Run-on sentences and incomplete thoughts are
the new standard. Do I sound insincere? Maybe it’s because proper grammar is now being
associated with insincerity, at least when it comes to texting. As it turns out, science has now confirmed
that your passive-aggressive habit of ending one-word texts with periods
to quietly express your anger (“k.” “fine.” “cool.”) isn’t as passive as you
think. According to new research published in the journal
Computers in Human Behavior http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215302181,
texts that end with a period are rated as less sincere than those that do not. Led by Binghamton University’s Celia Klin, a
team of researchers asked a group of 126 college undergrads (a small
sample size, to be sure, but likely quite representative of the most active
texting demographic) to look at a series of both texts and handwritten
notes. Common one-word responses like “yeah,” “sure,” “ok,” and the like
were shown with and without periods. When participants were asked to judge the
degree of sincerity of these notes, the researchers found that “the
responses that ended with a period were rated as less sincere than those that
did not end with a period.” However,
this same discrepancy was not observed in handwritten notes. “We conclude that punctuation is one cue used
by senders, and understood by receivers, to convey pragmatic and social
information,” wrote Klin’s team. “Texting is lacking many of the social cues
used in actual face-to-face conversations,” Klin said in a statement. “When speaking, people
easily convey social and emotional information with eye gaze, facial
expressions, tone of voice, pauses, and so on.”
Lulu Chang http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/dont-jerk-stop-ending-texts-periods/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1396
December 21, 2015 On thsi date in
1620, William
Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed
on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth,
Massachusetts. On this date
in 1879, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark. Word of the Day for December 21: apologetic apostrophe
an apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.
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