Category: History

Who Was Buffalo Bill? Getting to Know an American Legend

5/11/2022

Andrea Warren

Giving Voice to Children in History

Buffalo Bill was the ultimate showman, the superstar of the fabled Wild West show that toured America, Europe, and Russia for forty years. He was so famous that he performed for the queen of England and was friends with several American presidents.

But who was the person behind that celebrated name?

He was born William Frederick Cody in 1846 and called Billy. When he was eight, his family moved to Kansas Territory to become homesteaders. Kansas was in turmoil over the issue of joining the Union as a free or a slave state. Billy’s father, who opposed slavery, was stabbed by a pro-slaver. He died three years later from his injury, leaving eleven-year-old Billy, the eldest son, to support his mother and six siblings. Jobs were scarce, but Billy was already an expert horseman and a hard worker. A freight company paid him a man’s wages to work on supply wagons headed west. When he was just fourteen, he rode the Pony Express. He learned to be a trapper, trail guide, scout, and fine marksman. These dangerous jobs allowed him to care for his family while doing work he loved.

When the Civil War started in 1861, seventeen-year-old Billy enlisted, becoming a Union soldier, scout, and spy. After the war he worked as a civilian guide for the army, fought in the Indian Wars, and earned the nickname Buffalo Bill from Kansas railroad workers amazed by his skill in downing buffalo to provide meat for them. He used that name when he created a show about the Old West that he loved so much—and which was fast disappearing.

His show debuted in 1883 and was immediately successful. It featured sharpshooter Annie Oakley, hundreds of Native Americans, trick riders, cowboys and cowgirls, a runaway stagecoach, buffalo, and horses galore. People loved it, and Bill grew famous.

So who was he? A showman, yes, but also a generous philanthropist, a conservationist of western lands, and a supporter of women’s rights. When necessary, he fought Native Americans, but also befriended them. He paid them fairly and brought them recognition and dignity by featuring them in his show.

Above all, he was always Billy Cody, a brave boy who cared for his family and fought for his country, a boy who loved the West and brought it to life for millions of enthralled viewers around the world. He was truly an American icon.

Cody around 1880. Railroad workers are credited with making up this song about Bill: "Buffalo Bill, Buffalo Bill, never missed and never will, always aims to shoot to kill, and the company pays his buffalo bill." Wikimedia Commons

Colorful posters advertising Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show helped draw crowds to the show’s performances. Library of Congress

Next to Annie Oakley, the most famous performer in the show was Sitting Bull, a Sioux chief who was with the show one season and is shown here with Bill. Library of Congress

To learn more about Buffalo Bill’s childhood, you’ll want to read Andrea Warren’s newest book, The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing Up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas. Learn more about all her books at AndreaWarren.com.
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Andrea Warren is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

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Why is February Black History Month?

2/1/2022

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Janus Adams

BackPax: Empowering ‘adventurous young minds"

Why is Black History Month celebrated in February?

The answer is really quite love-ly.

For Black people enslaved, a birthday was as hard to come by as justice. But, never one to be outdone by the “impossible,” Frederick Bailey wanted a birthday—and a birthday he was going to have. First, he'd have to find out when it was.

He’d heard that his father was the slave owner from whom he'd escaped, so he couldn't ask him. His mother, Harriet Bailey, had been sold away from him when he was only five, so he couldn't ask her. But, he could remember stories she'd told him before they’d been separated.

She said he was born on a Maryland plantation in the ‘teens. He chose the mid-teens, 1818, for his birth year. She always called him her “little valentine.” He chose Valentine’s Day for his birth date. With that, Frederick finally had the birthday he'd always wanted: February 14, 1818.

Then . . .

In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson wanted to solve a problem. For centuries, Americans were taught to believe that African Americans had “no history or culture.” Now that is, of course, impossible. Everyone inherits the history and culture of their family elders. But, this horrific idea was used to justify slavery and segregation by making Black people seem less than human.

Dr. Woodson had a better idea: he’d tell the truth. He would research and share the true history of Black people in countries throughout the world over.

To promote his idea, he created Negro History Week (now, Black History Month). He chose February in honor of two birthdays. Born on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was the first American president to take action to end slavery. Born on February 14, 1818 Harriet Bailey’s “little Valentine's” became the noted Underground Railroad conductor, abolitionist, and publisher, Frederick Douglass. As a special adviser to President Lincoln, he proposed—and the president wrote and signed—the “Emancipation Proclamation”; ending slavery.

Such is the power of love.

We never know how we will remember what our parents say or what their words will mean to us when we need them most. Frederick's mother—an enslaved woman with so little to give—empowered her son for life with the gift of her enduring love.

For this love-ly reason, February is Black History Month.

Frederick Bailey's mother was sold to a new owner, leaving the 5-year-old behind. This was a common practice in the slavery era.

Abraham Lincoln's successful campaign to end slavery in the United States culminated in the Emancipation Declaration of 1863. Alexander Gardner via Wikimedia Commons

;In 1926, Carter G. Woodson (left) shown here as a young man, pioneered the celebration of "Negro History Week" during the second week in February, to coincide with marking the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (above) and Frederick Douglass (right). Black United Students and Black educators at Kent State University expanded the celebration to become Black History Month on February 1, 1970. Woodson Courtesy of the New River Gorge National River website, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, United States Government; Douglass via Wikimedia Commons.

Janus Adams has produced Steal Away-- a package of a book, an audio and a game about the Underground Railroad. You can learn more about her award-winning series of adventure and travel books, audios and games on her website called Back Pax Kids.

MLA 8 Citation
Adams, Janus. "Title tbd." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 28 Feb. 2018,
www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
why-is-february-black-history-month.

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Dickens' A Christmas Carol: How a Short Story with a Big Message Helped the Poor

12/22/2021

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Andrea Warren
Giving Voice to Children in History

In 1843, thirty-one-year-old Charles Dickens had money problems. His wife was expecting their sixth child, he was in debt, and he supported a slew of needy relatives. He was known for long novels that were published in weekly installments, but because time was of the essence, he decided to write a short story (actually a long story by our standards, but short by his) that he could publish quickly.

          The British were enamored with the paranormal, so he decided it would be a ghost story. To increase interest, he included THREE ghosts. And to seal the deal, he added a bonus apparition that appeared at the stroke of midnight, dragging its chains from hell. That would get readers’ attention.

          He didn’t intend to simply entertain them. He was Charles Dickens, after all, and his writing was also meant to inspire. His family had once been poor, and his quest, as always, was to help the less fortunate. The tale he crafted happened at Christmas, a holiday that in England included charitable giving—the perfect setting for his message that charity must come from the heart, and that it’s never too late for redemption.

From his fertile imagination he conjured up Ebenezer Scrooge, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” whose refrain to anything distasteful was “Bah, Humbug!” Scrooge represented the self-serving upper classes, while his poorly paid clerk, Bob Cratchit, and his family, including sickly Tiny Tim, represent the deserving poor.

          Dickens sent Scrooge on a wild night’s journey, led by the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. Scrooge visited his childhood and learned why he’d become such a miserable miser, and he saw a grim future awaiting him if he didn’t change his ways. By sunrise Christmas morning he was a new man: his hard heart had melted and he became a good friend to the poor, beginning with the Cratchit family. He resolved to “honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

          To Dickens’ delight, his readers did the same. In example after example, A Christmas Carol inspired the upper classes to be more charitable to the lower classes. And because the book became a bestseller, it eased Dickens’ financial worries.

Dickens’ ghost story remains popular today, reminding us all that it’s never too late to do the right thing, and allowing us to proclaim with Tiny Tim, “God Bless Us, Every One!”

The title page of the original 1843 edition of "A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas."

Scrooge and Marley -- a John Leech etching from the original edition of "A Christmas Carol:

The last of the spirits, a John Leech etching from the original edition of "The Christmas Carol"

Scrooge's third visitor -- a John Leech etching from the original edition of "A Christmas Carol

Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, a John Leech etching from the original edition of "The Christmas Carol"

Ignorance and want of the miser -- a particularly moving etching of children suffering. Drawn by John Leech for the original edition of "A Christmas Carol."

You can learn more about Charles Dickens and his stories in Andrea Warren’s book Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London and on her website.

Andrea Warren is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
Warren, Andrea. "Dickens' A Christmas Carol: How a Short Story with a Big Message Helped the Poor." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 12 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/Dickens-a-christmas-carol.

1 Comment

A Flight to Remember

12/7/2021

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Amy Nathan
Stories that surprise and inspire

  On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Cornelia Fort was doing something few people expected a woman to do. This 22-year-old was in a small two-seater plane, flying over Honolulu’s Pearl Harbor, teaching a student to fly. At that time, most people felt that flying was a “man’s job.”

      Cornelia had fallen in love with flying about two years earlier when, just for fun, she took a ride in a small plane. That ride changed her life. She took flying lessons and became such a good pilot that she was hired to teach others, one of the few flying jobs open to women in those days.

      On that sunny December 7 morning in 1941 in the skies over Pearl Harbor, something happened that changed her life yet again—and the lives of many others. Cornelia saw a military-type plane zoom straight at her. She pulled up on her plane’s controls to keep from being hit. She was accustomed to seeing military planes because there were U.S. Navy and Army bases nearby. But the plane that almost hit her wasn’t American. It had a big red circle on its wings—the symbol of Japan. Looking down, she saw smoke billow up from ships in Pearl Harbor. A squadron of foreign planes flew by. Something shiny dropped from one plane and exploded in the harbor.  As Japanese fighter planes sprayed her plane with bullets, she skillfully managed to land safely at a nearby airport,

She and her terrified student had just had a bird’s-eye view of Japan’s surprise attack on U.S. military ships and bases in Pearl Harbor, an attack that forced the U.S. to enter World War II. But the U.S. military wasn’t ready to fight air battles around the world. It didn’t have enough pilots. So it called on women to help. Cornelia joined the first women pilot’s unit to fly for the U.S. military, a group that became known as the WASPs--Women Airforce Service Pilots. They weren’t allowed to fly in combat overseas, but they handled much of the military flying in the U.S. Nevertheless, their missions were often dangerous. Sadly, through no fault of her own, in March 1943, Cornelia Fort became the first woman pilot to die flying for the U.S. military. The excellent job that she and the more than 1,100 other WASPs did showed that being a pilot could very well be a “woman’s job.”

Click here for article sources.

Pearl Harbor naval base on December 7, 1941, showing an explosion on the USS Shaw after being bombed. More than a dozen other U.S. ships were damaged, 188 aircraft were destroyed, and over 2,000 Americans were killed during this surprise attack. Courtesy Library of Congress

Cornelia Clark Fort was a civilian instructor pilot at an airfield near Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Courtesy USAF

Japanese torpedo bomber Nakajima B5N2 Model 12 "Kate" over Hickam field, 7 December 1941.

Amy Nathan's book Yankee Doodle Gals tells the stories of many women who served as pilots from 1942 to 1944, including Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love, the true leaders of the WASPs. The history of the group, the hardships they faced, the obstacles they overcame, and what has transpired since the end of the war are supplemented by numerous photos that complement the text.
For more information on the book, click here.

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Who Was Buffalo Bill? Getting to Know an American Legend

Why is February Black History Month?

Dickens' A Christmas Carol: How a Short Story with a Big Message Helped the Poor

A Flight to Remember

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