Casey's Patch Collection

Longfellow House / Washington's Headquarters

Pretty soon after I moved to Boston -- well, I actually spent my first few months in Waltham -- I took the commuter rail one day from the Waltham station to Porter Square and got on the Red Line to Harvard Square. It was my first time in Harvard Square, and I was not familiar with the area. I made my way down Brattle Street, and low and behold, I found myself standing in front of the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

It was not until after I had taken the tour of the house that I realized its history was significant in other ways as well. It was at this house where George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army, and it served as his headquarters during the Siege of Boston from 1775-1776. During Longfellow's residence at the house, notable visitors included Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, Charles Dickens, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Although he is most well known for his poetry and as a scholar, Longfellow was also an abolitionist and published Poems on Slavery in 1842. While working on the Abolitionist Map of America, the Longfellow House / Washington's Headquarters partnered with us to populate the map with historical materials. You can find a lot of their archival images and documents pinned in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area, or by exploring their collections online. 

Longfellow's birthplace is located in Portland, Maine, and the house is operated by the Maine Historical Society. I have visited the historical society on two occasions but have yet to take a tour of his house.

Ford's Theatre

When I graduated high school, my parents took my sister and me to Washington, D.C. To this day, I still do not think that they could have given me a better high school graduation present. It wasn't until my 11th grade year in high school that I gained such an appreciation for U.S. history, and I give 95% of the credit to my teacher, Uncle Craig "Bowie" Davis. Bowie inspired me so much with his passion for history, and it was because of him that I decided to major in history in college. When he was in his 20s, Bowie left home to visit many of the most siginificant historic sites and national parks in the country (sound a little familiar?). He brought back so much knowledge and experience and has passionately taught thousands of high school students for over 20 years.

...I think I got off topic. 

Anyway, I asked my parents to take me to D.C. to celebrate my graduation from high school, and we visited all of the monuments and memorials, Smithsonian museums, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Mint, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the White House, and Ford's Theatre. (Yes, I have at least one patch for each site.) 

Today, I'm featuring my Ford's Theatre patch, the site where President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. Of all of the places that we visited in D.C., walking through Ford's Theatre was certainly the most somber experience of them all. The theatre also houses a museum with exhibits following Lincoln throughout his presidency. The collection of artifacts includes the deringer that John Wilkes Booth used as well as the clothing worn by Lincoln on the night of his assassination.

 

Lowell National Historical Park

During my 4th of July extended weekend, I made it my goal to visit as many historic sites as possible. Well, I have four patches that offer evidence of my accomplishment, and this patch from Lowell National Historical Park is one of them. On July 5th, I woke up early after spending the 4th riding bikes in downtown Boston and watching fireworks in Salem. I was pretty tired but refused to let my lack of energy quash my plans to go exploring. I had previously been told by Dr. Dow that I should visit Lowell, a city about 40 minutes north of Boston that is known for its significance to the American Industrial Revolution. By 10am, I had packed my bags for my day trip, and I headed out. I'll just go ahead and say that this was one of the best decisions I have made since I moved to New England. Lowell National Historical Park is the most impressive National Park Service park I have EVER visited.

When I arrived to Lowell I navigated myself to the headquarters of the Lowell National Historical Park. I walked inside the doors only to find an administrative office staffed by two very helpful National Park Service employees. They gave me a couple of brochures, one that included a map of the National Historical Park. I was surprised and somewhat overwhelmed to find out that the National Park pretty much spans the entire city of Lowell! They pointed out several different museums, exhibits, landmarks and activity centers throughout downtown Lowell's cobblestone streets and water canals, all of which are part of the park system -- and all of which are interspersed among the city's businesses and restaurants. Most of the buildings in Lowell are 19th century red brick textile factory buildings that have been repurposed for use by businesses, the National Park Service, and private residences. 

After I left the park's headquarters, I made my way to the Park Visitor Center, where I found this awesome patch you see below. I signed up for the next canal tour that was about to depart. We were guided outside the Visitor Center where we were met by a Park Ranger and a trolley. The trolley took us about half a mile to a boat waiting for us in a canal, and we learned that the canals throughout Lowell were built during the Industrial Revolution to power the city's textile mills. The canal tour took about two hours, and throughout the trip our Park Ranger told us the history of the city, answered our questions, and provided several experiential learning activities to further help us learn about the history by which we were surrounded in Lowell. At one point during the tour, we entered a set of locks in the canal. The next thing we knew, our boat had elevated six feet higher!

I had lunch at an Irish pub after the tour, and then I walked across town to the Boot Cotton Mills Museum, which features interactive exhibits, a 25-minute documentary, and a working weave room with textile power looms. Of all of the exhibits and activities I experienced that day, none moved me more than walking through that weave room. Before I entered the weave room, I read about the young women who worked in the factory during the Industrial Revolution. Many of them left their family farms in New England to experience life in the city and to make their own money in the textile mills. Once they were hired, they worked 12-14 hour shifts in the factories, 6 days a week. They lived in boarding houses and lived and worked by a bell that rang in the courtyard outside of the factories. It rang at dawn; it rang at breakfast; it rang when breakfast was over; it rang at the beginning of the shift; it rang for lunch; it rang when lunch ended; it rang when the shift ended; and it rang at their 10pm curfue. Every day. Six days a week. And if they didn't attend church on Sunday, they were banned from working in the mills. 

While I was reading the exhibit panels about the mill girls at the beginning of the museum, I could look through a glass wall that served as the barrier between the quiet of the exhibit and the somewhat obnoxiously loud sound of the power looms on the other side. When I finished reading the panels and was ready to enter the weave room, I made my way to the glass door and prepared myself for what I was about to experience. 

Or so I thought. I walked inside and could not believe the level of noise made by those hundreds of machines. It was unbearable. All of the power looms were turned on and were producing fabric, and the room must have been more than 150 feet long. I imagined the hundreds of young women between the ages of 15 and 30 working in that room for 14 hours a day during the late 1800s. Dark. Hot. Dusty. Cotton and debri floating throughout the room. Roaring. Thundering. Ear-piercing. The loudest noise I have ever experienced. Unbearable. 

I made myself walk slowly through that room, reading all of the panels along the walkway. One panel quoted a mill girl's diary:

"I discovered, too, that I could so accustom myself to the noise that it became like a silence to me. And I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough."

My eyes were filled with tears when I left the room.

I finished the museum and walked across the yard to the Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit, which was inside a preserved mill girls boarding house. By the time I finished the exhibit, it was nearly time to head home. There were many sites that I had not had the time to see in Lowell, including the American Textile History Museum, the River Transformed Exhibit and the grave of Jack Kerouac. One of the brochures that had been given to me at the start of my day listed the line-up for the Lowell Summer Music Series. I got home and noticed that Josh Ritter will be playing at the Lowell National Historical Park when my parents and sister and brother are in Boston. I bought six tickets that evening, and I cannot wait to go back to Lowell to share its history with them in August!

Vulcan Park and Museum

In March, I made a rare trip home to the South, and who would have thought I'd find a patch anywhere inside a 4 hour radius of where I grew up that I did not already have? I actually picked up not one, but two patches in just a matter of a few hours! Pretty awesome if you ask me. I guess I'll give some of the credit to my sister Carly, who now lives in Birmingham, Alabama. On the day we flew in, I had the opportunity to see her new home for the first time, and then she made sure to take me to some of the most significant sites in the city.

Our first stop was Vulcan Park and Museum. Did you know that Birmingham boasts the largest cast-iron statue in the world? Sculpted by Guiseppe Moretti, Vulcan was commissioned by the city of Birmingham to represent the city at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Why a huge cast-iron sculpture of a Roman God, you ask? By the beginning of the 20th century, Birmingham came to be known as the "Magic City," attracting a large number of migrant workers to harness its rich natural resources: iron, coal and limestone. Named for the Roman god of fire and forge, Vulcan signifies the history of Birmingham's iron and coal industry.

Vulcan stands at 56 feet tall on a 124 foot pedestal and weighs 101,200 pounds. You can take an elevator to the top of the pedestal or climb the stairs to get a great view of the city of Birmingham. If you ever visit the park, don't miss the museum center, which has some great exhibits and a very friendly staff. 

Thanks, Carly, for taking me to see this great monument to American industry! (Now that I've given you a shout-out on my blog, maybe you'll start following me?) ;-)

The Liberty Bell

First off, I'd like to thank my mother for finding this patch (and several others) in the back of a closet at her home in Monticello, Mississippi and for her understanding of how much my patch collection means to me -- so much that she would ship them to me in Boston. Thanks, mom!

Several years ago, while still a young student in high school, I took a summer trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with some friends in my hometown church group. We departed the Hattiesburg, Mississippi AmTrak station on July 2 on what turned out to be a 38 hour train ride to the City of Brotherly Love (the train broke down in the middle of the night). One of our first stops was Philadelphia Museum of Art, and although at the time I had never seen the movie Rocky, I made sure to run up the steps -- arms high above my head -- just as he did in the film. Now that I'm older and more wise, I'm glad that my naive younger self took part in such a sacred cultural tradition. ;-)

On Independence Day, I visited none other than Independence National Historical Park -- Independence Hall -- where in 1776, 56 delegates from the colonies declared our independence from Great Britain. I got to see the Liberty Bell, the national symbol which has only recently become so historically extraordinary to me, particularly its significance to the abolitionist movement.

Originally hung in 1751 on the 50th anniversary of Pennsylvania's first constitution, the Liberty Bell became a symbol of the abolitionist movement in 1837. It wasn't even called the "Liberty Bell" until William Lloyd Garrison published an anti-slavery poem in his newspaper The Liberator, in which the poem's author referred to the Pennsylvania State House bell as the Liberty Bell. Eventually, its inscription "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land" became a symbol for the abolitionists' goal to free all Americans from enslavement.

In 1839, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society began publishing an annual gift book titled The Liberty Bell, containing anti-slavery poems, short stories and songs written by abolitionists including Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell. While working as an intern at the State Library of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to see and read many of these for myself. Here's a link to my State Library blog post about The Liberty Bell gift book: http://mastatelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/07/liberty-bell.html.

I hope to visit Philly again soon and visit all of these significant historical sites again. I'll definitely appreciate them more the second time around.

Newport, Rhode Island

In January, my boyfriend and I took a weekend trip to Newport, Rhode Island. Also known as the "City by the Sea," the "Sailing Capital of the World," and "America's Society Capital," the small city sits right on the southern coast of Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island. I hear that the city is mobbed all summer by vacationers, so I really enjoyed our jaunt during the winter off-season.

Known for its famous mansions along the water, we first took a tour of Cornelius Vanderbilt's 70-room, 65,000 square foot summer home called "The Breakers." After the tour, we strolled along the gorgeous Cliff Walk, a public walkway bordering the shoreline of the city. Throughout the afternoon, we hosted our own pub crawl and ended up at the oldest tavern in America for dinner, the White Horse Tavern, which opened in 1673.

The next day we visited several other notable historic sites. We took a tour of the oldest synagogue in America, Touro Synagogue, which in 1946 was designated a national historic site. We then took a walk to see one of the oldest baseball fields in the United States, Cardines Field. A local historical debate continues as to whether baseball was played on the field prior to 1900, or if baseball wasn't played there until 1908 -- which is the earliest documentation of the stadium's construction. As we continued our walk, we stumbled across the oldest house of worship in Rhode Island, the Quaker Meetinghouse, established in 1699.

By that time, we thought that we had seen all of the significant historical sites that Newport had to offer. That was until I realized we were walking by the oldest lending library in America, the Redwood Library and Athenaeum!!

Before we left Newport to head back to Boston, we played a round of Geo-caching and found a micro-cache hidden behind the town movie theater, we stumbled across the grave of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and we picked up some truffle oil for Aaron at a local gourmet food store. On our way back to Boston, I navigated us through New Bedford, Massachusetts so that we could make an important pit stop -- Frederick Douglass' first home as a free man.

All this being said, we had a wonderful weekend in Newport! This is just one example of the many adventures we have been on so far and with many new patches to prove it!

Vicksburg National Military Park

The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the "bloodiest day in American History," is approaching and will occur next week on September 17. Although this patch is not specifically commemorative of the Battle of Antietam, I thought that it was an appropriate time to reflect on the Civil War and specifically the extreme amount of loss that was suffered by the American people during the war. I acquired this patch after visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi on my 18th birthday.

The siege of Vicksburg began on May 18, 1863 and lasted until July 4, 1863, taking place over a period of one and a half months.  During that time an estimated 19,233 Union and Confederate casualties were suffered. The Battle of Antietam lasted one day.  On that September day in 1862, an estimated 23,100 casualties were suffered on both sides. During the entire Civil War, the United States and the Confederacy lost an estimated 750,000 men, roughly 2.5 percent of the entire U.S. population. If the U.S. suffered that percentage of loss of its population today, we would lose 7.5 million citizens.

I keep using the word "estimated" because during the Civil War there was no way to keep track of the number of soldiers killed on or off of the battlefield. Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University and author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War sheds light on how the Civil War ultimately redefined the federal government's obligation to those who sacrifice their lives for its survival. Before the Civil War, there was no battlefield ambulance system, no dog tags, no military cemeteries, no Memorial Day.  

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE will broadcast a documentary on September 18th, Death and the Civil War, based off of Faust's book. I highly recommend tuning in.

 

LBJ State Park and Historic Site

During the summer after I graduated high school in 2006, I journeyed again with my dad and about 40 middle school and high school history teachers on an NEH Teaching American History Teachers grant summer bus tour. On this trip we visited a number of historic sites all across Texas. On our way to Lyndon Baines Johnson's Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, we made a stop at his boyhood home in the Texas Hill Country near Johnson City.  

In 1965, LBJ donated the land where he grew up to the State of Texas and is now part of the LBJ National Historic Park. The park includes several sites including a visitor's center, his boyhood home, the Johnson Settlement, LBJ's first school, the "Texas White House," the Johnson Family Cemetery, and a beautiful field of wildflowers commissioned by Lady Bird Johnson.  

LBJ's great-grandfather settled there in 1860, and LBJ lived in his home near the original settlement until he graduated high school in 1924. LBJ's first school is located on the ranch, which is also the site where he signed the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. After Johnson was elected president, he built his Texas White House so that he would have a place to come home to during his administration, and Lady Bird Johnson lived there until her death in 2007. It became open to the public in 2008. LBJ had a deep attachment to his home in the Texas Hill Country and was laid to rest there at the Johnson Family Cemetery in 1973.

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri is operated by the National Park Service and comprises the Gateway Arch, the Museum of Westward Expansion, and the Old Courthouse. This is yet another historic site for which I could deserve two patches - I've been here once with my parents and sister and another time with my dad on a Teaching American History Teachers grant summer excursion.  

The idea for the Gateway Arch was conceived in 1948 by architect Eero Saarinen, and was constructed in 1963.  It stands at 630 feet and serves as a monument to the spirit of the western pioneers.  You can actually take an elevator (or walk the stairs) all the way to the top, and on windy days it will sway up to 18 inches!

Below the arch underground is the Museum of Westward Expansion.  My dad always made sure that we were kept occupied on the bus to and from historic sites, so on our way to St. Louis he had us watch Ken Burns' EXCELLENT PBS documentary, Lewis and Clark.  The museum contains many artifacts and has some very well developed exhibits that tell the story of the Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery.

On the patch you'll see in the center what is known as "The Old Courthouse."  In 1847, Dred Scott filed suit against his slave owner for his freedom after having lived with his master on free soil for almost nine years.  The first two cases took place at the Old Court House, and in 1857 Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney finally dismissed the case, arguing that black people, both free and slave, had no rights under the Constitution because they were of "inferior order."  This ultimately led to abolitionists in the North becoming more active and vigilant in their cause.  Frederick Douglass knew after the decision was made that slavery had to end as soon as possible, for his sake and for every free and enslaved African American in the United States.

 

Omaha Beach, Normandy

During the summer of 2008, I studied World War II with the University of Southern Mississippi's British Studies Program.  Most of our time was spent in London, but for one week we visited Normandy, France to study the D-Day campaign that took place in June of 1944.  Before we arrived in Normandy, I had just finished reading Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day, published in 1959, which documents the events leading up to, during, and after the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944.  I don't like to romanticize battles and war because the reality of war is that is that it is brutal and deadly and often unfair to the unfortunate people who have to risk their lives and die.  But as I walked along Omaha Beach that day, I lifted my thoughts in thanks to all those who sacrificed their lives there on D-Day  

At the same time there was another feeling of thanks that hit even closer to home for me. I walked and remembered everyone who had influenced me to want to study history.  I didn't know at the time, but all of those for whom I was thankful that day would also have a direct influence on me choosing LIS for my master's degree, which would eventually lead me to Boston to land a job working for the most well-known history documentary series in the United States, American Experience.

Besides this patch, I only brought one item back from Normandy with me.   I gathered a gallon bag full of sand from Omaha Beach, and upon my return to Mississippi I divided that bag of sand into individual glass containers, which I gave to the people who had been a direct impact on my decision to study and love history.  Among those were first and foremost, my Uncle Craig "Bowie" Davis, as well as Mr. Steve Clyburn, Mr. Terry Joe McKenzie, and Coach Eddie Rials.