In Celebration of Independent Bookstores
Here is my annual Public Service Announcement:
Today is Independent Bookstore Day in the United States, assuming you are reading this on the day it comes out. It’s a nationwide party for book lovers. Here in Chicago, local independent bookstores are once again hosting their bookstore crawl in celebration. I’m lucky enough to have three independent bookstores within walking distance: the fabulous Seminary Coop, its more commercial younger sister, 57th Street Books, and, just around the corner from our house) Call and Response Books, which specializes in books by and about people of color. In addition, Barnes and Noble just opened a store in the neighborhood. [1] So many choices. So little room on my bookshelves. [2]
A bookstore visit always leaves me feeling a little better. I browse. I scan the shelf readers—those cards on the shelves that tell you something about a book. I chat about books with the booksellers. I eavesdrop on other people’s bookish conversations. I check to see if my books are on the shelves. I check to see if my friends books are on the shelves. I sheepishly take photos to post on social media. I try to resist the temptation to buy books I don’t need. [3] I give in to temptation and buy some anyway, which I justify by reminding myself that it’s important to support independent bookstores.
If you’re lucky enough to have an independent bookstore near you, stop by and show them some love. If not, you can adopt an independent bookstore somewhere else—most of them ship. Or you can buy your books through Bookshop.org, an online bookseller that supports independent bookstores.
[1] I must admit, I have mixed feelings about the new store. It is beautiful and well stocked, but I worry that my local indies will find it hard to compete.
[2] By which I mean no room on my bookshelves.
[3]I have enough unread books to keep me going for years, even without taking my habit of re-reading into account.
From the Archives: Cornelia Hancock–Civil War Nurse, Reformer, Muse
Dear Marginalia: As some of you may remember, ten years ago I wrote a book on Civil War Nurses called Heroines of Mercy Street: Real Nurses of the Civil War. Right now I have Civil War nurses on my mind again as I prepare to give talk on the subject at the historical museum in Marietta, Georgia. (By the time you read this, the program will be over.) It seems like a good time to share the story of one of my many favorites, Cornelia Hancock.
As the official superintendent of the Union Army’s newly minted nursing corps, Dorothea Dix had a clear vision of what her nurses should look like. Only women between the ages of thirty or thirty-five and fifty would be accepted. “Neatness, order, sobriety and industry” were required; “matronly persons of experience, good conduct or superior education” were preferred.
Dix turned away many able applicants because she thought they were too young, attractive, or frivolous. Twenty-three- year-old Cornelia Hancock, for instance, was preparing to board the train to Gettysburg with a number of women many years older than she was when Dix appeared on the scene to inspect the prospective nurses. She pronounced all of the nurses suitable except for Hancock, whom she objected to on the grounds of her “youth and rosy cheeks.” Hancock simply boarded the train while her companions argued with Dix. When she reached Gettysburg, three days after the battle, the need for nurses was so great that no one worried about her age or appearance. Too inexperienced to help with the physical needs of the soldiers, she went from wounded soldier to wounded soldier, paper, pencil and stamps in hand, and spent the first night writing farewell letters from soldiers to their families and friends. When wagons of provisions began to arrive, Hancock helped herself to bread and jelly, then divided loaves into portions that could be swallowed by weak and wounded men.
She quickly became accustomed to the realities of the battlefield, telling a cousin in a letter written on her second day in the field “I do not mind the sight of blood, have seen limbs taken off and was not sick at all.” In fact, she proved to be such a dedicated nurse that the wounded soldiers of Third Division Second Army Corps presented her with a silver medal inscribed Testimonial of regard for ministrations of mercy to the wounded soldiers at Gettysburg, Pa. -—July 1863. (She also had a dance tune named after her, the Hancock Gallop–a tribute that I suspect none of Dix’s middle-aged matrons received from the soldiers under their care.)
Hancock worked as a nurse for the rest of the war, tending the wounded after the battle of the Wilderness, Fredericksburg, Port Royal, White House Landing, City Point and Petersburg. She was one of the first Union nurses to arrive in Richmond after its capture on April 3, 1865.
After the war, Hancock helped found a freedman’s school in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where she taught for a decade. (At one point those who objected to the concept of education for black children riddled the schoolhouse with fifty bullets.) When she moved back north to Philadelphia, she helped found the Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania.
Hancock became a posthumous best-selling author in 1937, when her charming and insightful letters from the battlefield were published under the title South After Gettysburg. They are now available under the title Letters of a Civil War Nurse–well worth the read if you are interested in Civil War nurses or daily life in a Union army camp behind the lines.
History on Display “Spies and Space” at The Museum of Russian Art
Several weeks ago, I was the guest of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War II History Round Table in the Twin Cities. I was there to talk about Sigrid Schultz and The Dragon From Chicago,[1] but the members of the Round Table[2] kept me entertained throughout my visit, introducing me to history-adjacent sites I would never found on my own, including the Museum of Russian Art.
I had no idea what to expect at the museum, mostly because I didn’t take fifteen seconds and look it up online[3]. Even if I had taken a look at the website, nothing would have prepared me for “Spies and Space,” an exhibit featuring artifacts[4] of Cold-War popular culture from both sides of the Iron Curtain. It was a fascinating combination of nostalgia and smack-up-the-side-of-the-head.
The exhibit space is cleverly divided with a mock-Iron Curtain. In some ways it is divided by differing mind sets as well.
The half of the exhibit dealing with Cold War popular culture in the United States is devoted to toys and entertainment. What I’m going to call collectibles rather than artifacts— toys, lunch boxes, posters, etc—evoked childhood memories for my two companions and I, all members of Generation Jones[5]. We laughed, shared memories, and occasionally quoted lines from shows that ranged from early James Bond through Star Wars. (I suspect that no American my age can see a promotional item from Lost in Space without thinking “Danger, Will Robinson”.) We also gasped at a large, over-the-top, toy robot that looked like a mash-up of a giant nutcracker, the witch’s soldiers in The Wizard of Oz, and Snidely Whiplash, with a creepy grin that had too many teeth. None of us had seen anything like it. Which was a good thing from my perspective. I think it would have given seven-year-old Pamela nightmares.
Then we turned the corner at the end of the mock-Iron Curtain and everything changed.
The first thing we saw was The Motherland Meets the Hero a painting on an epic scale depicting cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin being greeted in Moscow after his return from space. The mood is joyous, with the heroic Yuri striding down a red carpet with smiling, red-flag-waving Russians on either side. Krushchev waits at the other end, arms outstretched in welcome. It is socialist realism at its best.
The painting set the theme for the Soviet half of the exhibit. Where much of the American section of the exhibit was focused on spies, often in satirical form, and fictional space adventure, the Soviet section was devoted almost entirely to real life space exploration. Following Gagarin’s flight in space, space exploration became a major theme in Soviet culture, high and low.
Our guide, who was the Russian equivalent of a Baby Boomer in age, clearly felt the same nostalgia for some of the objects on this side of the mock-Iron Curtain as we did for the Get Smart lunch box: holiday[6] tree ornaments in the shape of Sputnik and other space vehicles, a gift tin with images of Belka and Strelka, the first “cosmohounds,”[7] etc. There were many, many postage stamps devoted to triumphs in space exploration, which our guide described a “celebration of firsts.” On the darker side, the exhibit also included Soviet propaganda posters, including images of Uncle Sam as a threatening figure that I found both disturbing[8] and illuminating.
In short, the exhibit was a useful reminder that there is always another side of the wall story.
‘Spies and Space’ is on display through May 10. If you happen to be in the Twin Cities, I strongly recommend that you see it. If you miss “Spies and Space,” I still highly recommend the Museum of Russian Art. Exhibits change every six months. One special exhibit, a selection of Ukrainian political cartoons, changes every week—a statement of the museum’s support of Ukraine in the current war.
[1] And speaking of speaking, if you belong to a group that needs speakers and are interested in hearing about Sigrid Schultz, women warriors, Civil War nurses, or the craft of writing history, send me an email and we’ll see if we can make it work. I’m happy to speak to small book clubs, auditoriums packed with history buffs, and everything in between. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
[2] I feel some complicated joke about knights and Round Tables circling my brain, but I think I will spare all of us and ignore it.
[3] Life has been crazy enough in the the last few months that I am trying to simply let things happen when I can. Unlikely as that may sound to those of you who know me in real life. Old dog. New tricks.
[4] A term I’m not entirely comfortable with since many of the items on display date from my childhood.
[5] I came across the idea of Generation Jones a while back and it immediately resonated. The term refers to those of us born between 1955 and 1964—although still part of the population explosion that gave the Baby Boom its name, our formative experiences were very different than those of the earlier boomers. Thee term was coined by cultural historian Jonathan Pontell, himself a member of Generation Jones, in 1999 and has gained traction ever sense. But I digress.
[6] New Year’s Eve, in case you’re wondering
[7] Krushchev gave one of Stelka’s puppies, born after the space flight, to Jaqueline Kennedy, after the First Lady asked about the puppies at a state dinner.
[8] Again, So Many Teeth