Working Women All Through History: Blacksmiths, Silversmiths, Nail Makers

If you thought that "Kate the Blacksmith" was an anachronism in A Knight's Tale... she wasn't. (Well except for her dialect... and maybe her attitude...)  Despite the feminist mythology, women have engaged, openly and profitably, in almost every occupation in every era in the western, Christian world.

In the 14th Century Holkham Bible, this illustration shows a woman blacksmith forging a nail. Note the assumption in the caption, written by a modern author, that she is "the Blacksmith's wife".  Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't... what the factual record shows is a woman working at a forge with hammer and tongs.

In the brief article "Blacksmithing of the 18th Century", the author notes that the demand for nails was huge, and making them was a common sideline for people, including women - even those women who were not full-fledged master smiths.

The Bodleian Library blog has an interesting article about "Lizzie Bennett, Blacksmith":

" An account of blacksmithing work done in December 1708 by Eliz[abeth] Bennett at Blenheim ‘Castle’, her job included making 32 dozen holdfasts for the joiners (at 2 shillings a dozen), making new handles for three saws, mending a pump in the meadows, and making wedges and clouts (patches or plates) used in the stairs. But in addition to making items for a fixed price, she also charged for work by the pound weight. Twenty five pounds of iron works for a grindstone at 4 pence a pound earned her 8s 4d (100 pence total) and 31 pounds of wedges and clouts, also at 4 pence a pound, made her 10s 4d.The total for what would have been several days or weeks of highly skilled work? 4 pounds, 17 shillings, 2 pence. Not bad at all if you compare it to a female servant’s income at about that time – maidservant Sarah Sherin made £4 a year in 1717, while in the farming world, a female labourer called Goody Currell was paid 4 pence a day at an Oxfordshire farm in 1759, fifty years later."

An article from the Colonial Williamsburg journal:

"The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths in London lists sixty-five "brethren" and two "sistren" in its 1434 charter."

"A 1770 publication called The Tradesman's True Guide or a Universal Directory for the Towns of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsal, Dudley and the manufacturing village in the neighborhood of Birmingham carries exhaustive lists of tradesmen and -women alphabetically by name and by trade. There are women listed in every trade from butcher to wire drawer."

"Only recently did a Colonial Williamsburg interpreter look closely at a nineteenth-century print that had been hanging on the wall at the Geddy House for years: a portion of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard Illustrated features a country blacksmith shop where four men are working, and in the right-hand corner, a woman hammers at an anvil rather inconspicuously. A 1505 Polish print is centered on a lovely woman at a spindle, but a careful inspection of the background shows a woman making a shoe on her knee."

The article notes the big error in modern & postmodern Feminist History: the idea that women "weren't allowed to work" doesn't hold up to scrutiny:

"What is more compelling is the lack of documentation that women were not allowed to work. Although religious practices and social norms might have restricted certain activities in some parts of the world, there were no laws prohibiting women from working a trade.

"Yet sometimes scholars and guests have a hard time accepting the notion that women did just that. Schumann says that "the greatest obstacle for the visitor is in accepting Rind as an eighteenth-century woman, and not a 'born-before-her-time' women's libber."

As I point out when demonstrating Letterpress Printing, an ordinary occupation of women since Gutenberg's time, women have always worked for pay - they had to make a living, then as now. This author agrees:
".... no matter what century it is, women have always done what is necessary to provide for themselves and their families."

Open Letter to the Cast of Hamilton

A theater company is not responsible for what the audience does, but the persons on stage are responsible for how they react to audiences. Twice this week, Nuclear Hillary Clinton's supporters have reacted with unprofessional cowardice to audience disapproval. In both cases, they have abused the power of the stage and microphone to lash out politically at people who only came and paid to see them give a recreational performance. These supporters of Hillary the WarMonger reacted to their own paranoid imaginings and beat up on people who did nothing to them.

Earlier in the week, comedienne Wanda Sykes cursed her audience with obscene language after some of them booed her inappropriate and unfunny political attacks on President Trump and Americans who voted for him. They came to see a comedy show to support a good non-partisan cause, but she wasn't willing to let them do that.

And now, after some audience members at the Broadway play "Hamilton" were so obtuse as to boo  Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence who was in the audience to see the play, the cast ignored their job, teamed up with the mob (power in deranged numbers) and lectured Mr Pence from the stage about how they are "diverse" and have "feelings" and want "protection".

The same kind of "protection" apparently, that they won't offer to people in their audiences who haven't done anything to harm them. The same kind of "feelings" that they ignore when it isn't someone they see in their dressing room mirrors.

We all have feelings. Adulthood is understanding that we are responsible for controlling our feelings, and maturity includes being self reliant enough to no longer need protectors,  nor group-membership for our self esteem. After witnessing the irrational mental breakdown and destruction and riots and violence against President Trump's supporters, perpetrated by deluded abusive bullies who didn't get their globalist way, my own feelings have developed with remarkable clarity:


Dear Cast of Hamilton,


We are Les Deplorables.  We. Don’t. Care.


Signed,

A sole member of the smallest minority on earth, for whom the Constitution was written to defend me against the fashionably violent tyranny of your diverse elitist bullying mob.




11/20/16 Update: "Little Steven" Van Zandt has rightly named this bullying, and used Twitter to call on the cast of Hamilton to apologize, saying, in part:

"Completely inappropriate. Theater should be a safe haven for Art to speak. Not the actors. He needs to apologize to Mike Pence"

"There has never been a more outspoken politically active artist than me. He was their guest. You protect your guests. Don't embarrass them."

"When artists perform the venue becomes your home. The audience are your guests. It is nothing short of the same bullying tactic we rightly> >have criticized Trump for in the past. It's taking unfair advantage of someone who thought they were a protected guest in your home."

"Nobody on this planet disagrees more with everything Pence represents. But I don't tolerate bullying in any form. Even the respectful kind."

"A guy comes to a Broadway show for a relaxing night out. Instead he gets a lecture from the stage! Not a level playing field. It's bullying."

"You don't single out an audience member and embarrass him from the stage. A terrible precedent to set."

"So because he's a public figure we should be rude to him and bully him at public events? I'm not the one who couldn't be more wrong on this."

I first heard of  "Little Steven" Van Zandt when he stood up against South Africa's legal segregation of races called Apartheid, recording the song "I Ain't Gonna Play Sun City". He is not exaggerating when he says he was politically active before most of the Hamilton actors were born.

Thanks to Steven for modelling professional, adult behavior to a group that apparently never learned the basics of their craft, or of how to live in the wide world.  It's obvious they need an elder statesman to guide them into genuine adult self-control.



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The First Amendment and Hand Cranked Printing Presses

On this Independence Day, a little history lesson. "The Press" did not mean "journalists" when our nation was founded. It did not mean television, radio, or the internet. It did not mean respectable owners of newspapers or members of the White House Press Corps or people with Journalism Degrees or writers who make their living as full time reporters or only respectable bloggers or official licensed anything.

It meant "The Printing Press" of the type seen above, which is what Benjamin Franklin, Printer, used to print newspapers, broadsides, editorials, and -  to make a living - various advertising and other works for hire.  It meant anyone who owned a press or who could pay for something to be printed.

Franklin had a LOT to say about "freedom of the Press" and the right to freely publish things that offended some people.  

Most of the concepts we still apply to "Freedom of the Press" came from Franklin's own experience. His older brother James was a Printer, and was jailed for a month for printing some political outrage and then refusing to divulge the name of his source. Franklin, his apprentice, was 16 at the time and the court tried to force him to share the name as well. He stubbornly refused. He later wrote:

"During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libelling and satire. My brother's discharge was accompany'd with an order of the House (a very odd one), that 'James Franklin should no longer print the paper called the New England Courant.'" 

James got around that ban by releasing Ben from his apprenticeship (basically "graduating" him), and putting Ben's name on the masthead.

Then, as now, stubborn and recalcitrant "printers" are essential to prevent the never-ending attempts to censor Everyman. "Hate Speech" laws and "Blasphemy" laws are two sides of the same anti-Constitutional coin.  Freedom of the Press means both the right to print things the Printer himself disagrees with, and the right to print things that offend some people or even "all" people.

Just like in Franklin's day, sometimes the *authors* will need to be anonymous. But the Printers need liberty to make their platforms - whether Google or Facebook or Amazon or Wordpress or the New York Times  - available to all viewpoints without any government interference whatsoever.

In 1731, Franklin printed an advertisement from a ship captain who said he would not accept priests from the Church of England as his passengers.  Since America was still a colony of Great Britain, the Church of England was the OFFICIAL government-supported religion, and King George was the head of it. Other denominations were persecuted and "upstanding community leaders" were indignant over the advertisement.

Below is the full text of Franklin's response to the mob of pre-Twitter outrage:


An Apology for Printers by Benjamin Franklin

"Being frequently censured and condemned by different persons for printing things which they say ought not to be printed, I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing apology for myself, and publish it once a year, to be read upon all occasions of that nature. Much business has hitherto hindered the execution of this design; but having very lately given extraordinary offence by printing an advertisement with a certain N.B. at the end of it, I find an apology more particularly requisite at this juncture, though it happens when I have not yet leisure to write such a thing in the proper form, and can only in a loose manner throw those considerations together which should have been the substance of it. 

I request all who are angry with me on the account of printing things they don't like, calmly to consider these following particulars: 

1 . That the opinions of men are almost as various as their faces; an observation general enough to become a common proverb, "So many men so many minds"; 

2. That the business of printing has chiefly to do with men's opinions; most things that are printed tending to promote some, or oppose others; 

3. That hence arises the peculiar unhappiness of that business, which other callings are no way liable to; they who follow printing being scarce able to do anything in their way of getting a living, which shall not probably give offence to some, and perhaps to many; whereas the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, or the man of any other trade,  may work indifferently for people of all persuasions, without offending any of them; and the merchant may buy and sell with Jews, Turks, heretics and infidels of all sorts, and get money by every one of them, without giving offence to the most orthodox, of any sort; or suffering the least censure or ill-will on the account from any man whatever; 

4. That it is as unreasonable in any one man or set of men to expect to be pleased with everything that is printed, as to think that nobody ought to be pleased but themselves; 

5. Printers are educated in the belief, that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; and that when truth and error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter. Hence they cheerfully serve all contending writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the question in dispute; 

6. Being thus continually employed in serving both parties, printers naturally acquire a vast unconcernedness as to the right or wrong opinions contained in what they print; regarding it only as the matter of their daily labor. They print things full of spleen and animosity, with the utmost calmness and indifference, and without the least ill-will to the persons reflected on, who nevertheless unjustly think the printer as much their enemy as the author, and join both together in their resentment; 

7. That it is unreasonable to imagine printers approve of everything they print, and to censure them on any particular thing accordingly; since in the way of their business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory. It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, "That printers ought not to print anything but what they approve;" since if all of that business should make such a resolution, and abide by it, an end would thereby be put to free writing, and the world would afterwards have nothing to read but what happened to be the opinions of printers; 

8. That if all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed; 

9. That if they sometimes print vicious or silly things not worth reading, it may not be because they approve such things themselves, but because the people are so viciously and corruptly educated that good things are not encouraged. I have known a very numerous impression of Robin Hood's songs go off in this province at 2 s. per book, in less than a twelvemonth; when a small quantity of David's Psalms (an excellent version) has lain upon my hands above twice the time; 

10. That notwithstanding what might be urged in behalf of a man's being allowed to do in the way of his business whatever he is paid for, yet printers do continually discourage the printing of great numbers of bad things, and stifle them in the birth. I myself have constantly refused to print anything that might countenance vice, or promote immorality; though by complying in such cases with the corrupt taste of the majority I might have got much money. 

I have also always refused to print such things as might do real injury to any person, how much soever I have been solicited, and tempted with offers of great pay; and how much soever I have by refusing got the ill-will of those who would have employed me. I have hitherto fallen under the resentment of large bodies of men, for refusing absolutely to print any of their party or personal reflections. In this manner I have made myself many enemies, and the constant fatigue of denying is almost insupportable. 

But the public being unacquainted with all this, whenever the poor printer happens either through ignorance or much persuasion, to do anything that is generally thought worthy of blame, he meets with no more friendship or favor on the above account, than if there were no merit in it at all. Thus, as Waller says. "Poets lose half the praise they would have got Were it but known what they discreetly blot;" yet are censured for every bad line found in their works with the utmost severity. 

I come now to the particular case of the N. B. above-mentioned, about which there has been more clamor against me, than ever before on any other account. 

In the hurry of other business an advertisement was brought to me to be printed. It signified that such a ship lying at such a wharf would sail for Barbados in such a time, and that freighters and passengers might agree with the captain at such a place. So far is what's common; but at the bottom this odd thing was added, "N. B. No Sea-hens nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any terms." I printed it, and received my money; and the advertisement was stuck up round the town as usual. I had not so much curiosity at that time as to enquire the meaning of it, nor did I in the least imagine it would give so much offence. 

Several good men are very angry with me on this occasion. They are pleased to say I have too much sense to do such things ignorantly, that if they were printers they would not have done such a thing on any consideration, that it could proceed from nothing but my abundant malice against religion and the clergy. They therefore declare they will not take any more of my papers, nor have any further dealings with me, but will hinder me of all the custom they can. All this is very hard! 

I believe it had been better if I had refused to print the said advertisement. However, it's done, and cannot be revoked. I have only the following few particulars to offer, some of them in my behalf, by way of mitigation, and some not much to the purpose; but I desire none of them may be read when the reader is not in a very good humor: 

1. That I really did it without the least malice, and imagined the N. B was placed there only to make the advertisement stared at, and more generally read; 

2. That I never saw the word Sea-hens before in my life; nor have I yet asked the meaning of it. And though I had certainly known that Black Gowns in that place signified the clergy of the Church of England, yet I have that confidence in the generous good temper of such of them as I know, as to be well satisfied such a trifling mention of their habit gives them no disturbance; 

3. That most of the clergy in this and the neighboring provinces, are my customers, and some of them my very good friends; and I must be very malicious, indeed, or very stupid, to print this thing for a small profit, if I had thought it would have given them just cause of offence ; 

4. That if I had much malice against the clergy, and withal much sense, it's strange I never write or talk against the clergy myself. Some have observed that it's a fruitful topic, and the easiest to be witty upon of all others; yet I appeal to the public that I am never guilty this way, and to all my acquaintances as to my conversation; 

5. That if a man of sense had malice enough to desire to injure the 
clergy, this is the most foolish thing he could possibly contrive for that purpose; 

6. That I got five shillings by it; 

7. That none who are angry with me would have given me so much to 
let it alone; 

8. That if all the people of different opinions in this province would engage to give me as much for not printing things they don't like, as I can get by printing them, I should probably live a very easy life; and if all printers were everywhere so dealt by, there would be very little printed; 

9. That I am obliged to all who take my paper, and am willing to think they do it out of mere friendship. I only desire they would think the same when I deal with them. I thank those who leave off, that they have taken it so long. But I beg they would not endeavor to dissuade others, for that will look like malice; 

10. That it's impossible any man should know what he would do if he were a printer; 

11. That notwithstanding the rashness and inexperience of youth, which is most likely to be prevailed upon to do things that ought not to be done, yet I have avoided printing such things as usually give offence either to church or state, more than any printer that has followed the business in this province before; 

12. And lastly, that I have printed above a thousand advertisements which made not the least mention of Sea-hens or Black Gowns; and this being the first offence, I have the more reason to expect forgiveness. 

I take leave to conclude with an old fable, which some of my readers have heard before, and some have not: 

"A certain well-meaning man and his son were traveling towards a market town with an ass which they had to sell. The road was bad, and the old man therefore rode, but the son went afoot. The first passerby they met asked the father if he was not ashamed to ride by himself, and suffer the poor lad to wade along through the mire; this induced him to take up his son behind him. 

"He had not traveled far, when he met others, who said, they are two unmerciful lubbers to get both on the back of that poor ass in such a deep road. Upon this the old man got off, and let his son ride alone. The next they met called the lad a graceless, rascally young jackanapes, to ride in that manner through the dirt, while his aged father trudged along on foot; and they said the old man was a fool for suffering it. 

"He then bid his son come down, and walk with him, and they traveled on leading the ass by the halter, till they met another company, who called them a couple of senseless blockheads, for going both on foot in such a dirty way, when they had an empty ass with them, which they might ride upon. The old man could bear it no longer. 'My son,' said he, 'it grieves me much that we cannot please all these people. Let me throw the ass over the next bridge, and be no further troubled with him.'" 

Had the old man been seen acting this last resolution, he would probably have been called a fool for troubling himself about the different opinions of all that were pleased to find fault with him. Therefore, though I have a temper almost as complying as his, I intend not to imitate him in this last particular. I consider the variety of humors among men, and despair of pleasing everybody; yet I shall not therefore leave off printing. 

I shall continue my business. I shall not burn my press and melt my letters. "

                                                             ~B. Franklin, 1731, Pennsylvania Gazette

Letterpress Printing Projects: A Tiny Almanac

 AAPA Member Dave Tribby tackles a fine project each year: a bound volume that he titles "Ink Cahoots", made up of diverse submissions by any club member who wants to take part. All he asks is that it be properly weighted - he will even handle the trimming.

He's been doing this since 1973 - this is the 40th year for it!  I've been planning to send something for the 6 years that I have been a member, but never did until this year.

As my submission for Ink Cahoots, I set an Almanac for 2014, with a calendar, and a list of meteor showers and other celestial events. It is something I have wanted to try for a while. After all, Almanacs were a staple for printers all through history. When Gutenberg invented moveable type, he printed an almanac first, in 1457. The Holy Bible was Gutenberg's first lasting publication, but he had to make a living whilst working on setting and printing the Bible. Thus he set an example for printers everywhere from then on - one quick, non-political way to make a profit was to publish an almanac!

 It was surprising how challenging it was to set. I have tiny calendar blocks for the months, so that section was easy enough. But I used 12 point type for the remainder, and the typeface I chose didn't have enough numbers to handle all those dates of full moons and such. This meant I had to borrow from similar sized "neighbors" (ie other typefaces).  I should have just used my Kennerly 10 point (Kennerly is also a Goudy face), because there is lots of it. But I didn't think that far ahead.  Lesson learned.

So now I have a goofy batch of numerals in my otherwise lovely and pristine Goudy "Californian" from M&H Typefoundry. Someday I am sure I will get around to moving the Kennerly threes and Caslon ones back into their proper places. 

I am happy with the way the finished page turned out. I'm glad not to have to set an entire almanac by hand but this kind of dense work is good for my typesetting skills. Most of the time I just set cards or labels or mottos - minimal ephemera with larger type. Using these small point sizes is like learning touch typing - it forces me to remember the lay of the case instead of noticing each letter.

This is especially helpful when I go to "distribute" the type after the work is done. To "distribute" is to take the forme apart and put the type all away, each letter in its proper little cubby again. That is one of those jobs, like cleaning the kitchen, that is best done immediately.

Because type in a forme, just like dirty dishes, will outwait you every time.



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First Turkey Days! Thanksgiving Feasts in America 1540 - 1640 (or "The Real History of Thanksgiving")

A couple of years ago, I called Thanksgiving "The Immigrants Holiday" because nearly every shipload of Europeans who came to our shores continued their long-standing tradition of taking a time to rejoice and praise God for a safe journey.  They all did, whether Catholic or Church of England explorers trying to colonize the New World for their King, or Separatist Protestant refugees seeking freedom to worship Christ according to their own consciences. These weren't "harvest festivals", nor were they unusual or "uniquely American". They were simply the custom of Christian peoples everywhere.

 The picture-book Thanksgiving was a part of this culture, just like going to church on Sundays and saying grace before meals. In October 1621, the Mayflower Pilgrims and Pawtuxet Indians celebrated such an event, much like all these others. It captured popular imagination 250 years later in the 1850s when Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Ladys Book &  primary lobbyist for a national Thanksgiving Day, used it as a symbol of those early times.*  Oddly enough, there’s less documentation for this event than most of the other Thanksgivings on this list! Sarah Hale simply picked it out as a great “narrative” to sell her idea, just as marketers do today.

But by the time the Pilgrims arrived, nearly a century of regular Thanksgivings in North, South & Central America had gone before. Shiploads of passengers led by explorers from Spain, France, England, The Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal, planned their thanksgiving feasts as a matter of course and held them as soon as possible after they finally reached safety again.


Here's a list of a few of them. Texas gets to claim two of the very earliest!

May 23, 1541, near Canyon, Texas. A Thanksgiving feast was celebrated by explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and the "Tejas" Native Americans. The reason? Of all his finds, the discovery of good sources of wild foods, grapes and pecans, was cause for a day of rejoicing.

June 30, 1564 “Fort Caroline”, near Jacksonville, Florida: one of the earliest groups of French Huguenots to seek religious liberty in America, led by Jean Ribault, held a day of Thanksgiving. This settlement was destroyed soon thereafter by Spanish soldiers (led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles)  in the ongoing battle between Spain and France for supremacy in the New World as well as the old.

September 8, 1565  St Augustine, Florida: the 400 settlers from Spain travelling with Pedro Menendez de Aviles celebrated a feast of Thanksgiving when their ship landed safely. The Timucua Indians joined them, bringing local foods to the table.

August or September 1578 Frobisher Bay area of Baffin Island, Nunavut Territory, Canada: Martin Frobisher's expedition celebrated the first Thanksgiving recorded in Canada. Today, Canada celebrates  Thanksgiving much like the USA does, except it is held in October.

April 30, 1598 San Elizario, Texas (near El Paso): the 500 members of the de Onate expedition held a feast of Thanksgiving, with the native Manso Indian tribe as guests, to celebrate their safe arrival 10 days earlier at the Rio Grande after months of trekking up from Mexico. This was the first group to travel the newly blazed El Camino Real.

1604 Port Royal, Acadia, Canada: French settlers with explorer Samuel de Champlain held their first Thanksgiving feast in 1604 and thereafter. This is the group that founded 'The Order of Good Cheer', sharing their food with their Native American neighbors.

August 9, 1607 Fort St. George, Kennebec River, Maine: the newly arrived colonists of this short-lived New England settlement held its first Thanksgiving soon after making landfall, led by English Captain George Popham and joined by the Abnaki Indians.

1610 Jamestown, Virginia: Settlers of the famous English colony held a Thanksgiving to celebrate the arrival of ships bringing them new supplies of food after a harsh winter during which many starved to death.

December 4, 1619 The Berkeley Hundred, near Jamestown, Virigina: this group of settlers had planned before leaving England to hold a feast of Thanksgiving immediately on arrival, and annually thereafter. Many were killed in the massacre of 1622 and the site abandoned.

October, 1621, Plymouth, Massachusetts: this was the feast that came to symbolize the history of our Christian heritage, held by the Mayflower Pilgrims and Native Americans in the vicinity. It was probably not their first such celebration held by the Mayflower group, but is the only one for which any documentation survives.

1623, Plymouth, Massachusetts: The governor of the Plymouth colony called for a special day of Thanksgiving for the end of a drought that plagued the colony.

July 8, 1630, Massachusetts: Puritan settlers observed the first Thanksgiving of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England. This colony began having Thanksgiving days every year from 1660 onward.

September 18, 1639 Connecticut: the governor proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving, and by 1649, the colony celebrated a Thanksgiving day each year.

And thereafter it snowballed. By the time our 13 colonies had joined themselves together as a loose fraternity of independent & sovereign nation-states, each proclaimed a Thanksgiving at various times, as needed or as events warranted. This continued for another hundred years, until President Lincoln made it a permanent feature on the calendar for the whole nation.

The true history of Thanksgiving is a testament to our Christian heritage, upholding freedom to worship God in accordance with our own consciences.

A part of that freedom includes the freedom to "not worship", giving a bit of space to unbelievers, but the bulk of this freedom is the privilege to be religious: the freedom to worship God without being arrested, liberty not to be punished by the government if we believe some things are sinful.

The freedom to shout "Jesus" from the rooftops in every neighborhood, to "Preach the Gospel to all nations", using an uncensored bible in our own language, that we can read & interpret for ourselves.

How relevant is this today?

This very week,  former President George W. Bush was honored to be entrusted with a handwritten Bible, made and secretly used in a Chinese labor camp by Chinese Christians who were imprisoned for attending "an illegal religious gathering".

China claims to be the largest publisher of Bibles in the world - for export. Yet the repressive communist government does not allow any freedom of religion - people are required to worship only where, when and how the Chinese government tells them they can. They can only have the version of the Bible that the government allows.

Afghanistan was visited by the apostles during Biblical times - Christianity is as old in Afghanistan as anywhere in the world. Yet the Bible is illegal there, and to be a Christian is to risk prison, or worse.

And in the United States of America itself,  intolerant unbelievers have begun denying Christians freedom to practice our faith. Christians have been arrested and tried for the crime of preaching the Gospel to Moslems in Michigan. For "preaching too loudly" in North Carolina. For reading the Bible to people on the sidewalk in California.

This Thanksgiving, let us give thanks to our Father God for sending His Son Jesus Christ to save the world, for giving us the earthly blessings that are the fruit of Christianity: liberty, justice, equality, a good and moral society; and let us ask Him for laborers for the harvest, that America may continue to know our Father's favor. Godly leadership is needed more now than ever.



*Aug 22, 2017: edited to correct broken link & add new ones about Sarah Hale. Thank you to reader Ellen for alerting me and sharing a great link about yet another highly successful and influential working woman in the early 1800s.

TODAY 8/6 The Response Call to Prayer For A Nation In Crisis

 UPDATE Aug 11, 2013:  A footnote: Yes, it did indeed rain. A good source of the detail is from TexasStormChasers.com, which records, less than a week after this prayer event, the bountiful rain that the Lord did indeed send to the parched land in Texas. "A large portion of North and West Texas benefited from the most widespread rainfall event our region has seen in over three months! Several cities received several inches of much needed rainfall and San Angelo even had a flash flood event." - See more at the Texas Storm Chasers website.

We also received even more rain in October of 2011.... click HERE for The Weather Channel's report on those amazing rains. Since that time, the Lord God has sent us rain to suffice while we wait for the drought to completely break. In two days of rain in July 2013, Lake Brownwood recovered five feet of water, and is now only 6 feet below capacity. God is good, all the time. Thank you Father for hearing your people!

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(UPDATE Sunday, Aug 7, 2011: Follow-up post for this event is here: "I was Planning to Write about Community Prayer..." )

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Original Post:

 O Lord our God, "Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” -Psalm 119:160

Texas Governor Rick Perry will pray at this Day of Christian Prayer and Fasting. He has invited the governors of all other states to join him and the other Christians of all denominations who with gather in Houston today for the express purpose of  following the tenets of our Christian faith and the Lord's instructions,  to "call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy according to His grace, mercy, and kindness towards us."

Governor Perry told CBN News "I'm going to be praying for our country's economic prosperity." "There's just so many people that can't take care of their family because government's over taxed, over regulated, over litigated and caused roadblocks to economic prosperity -- and I don't see any relief in sight," he said.

When Christians pray in an event such as this, humility is one of the factors: publicly acknowledging our sins and transgressions, by publicly acknowledging our need for and reliance on God.  Governor Perry has also said  "This is me, just me, private citizen Rick Perry," he said. "As I take that stage, yeah, I'm going to be the governor of Texas, but this is about me and God."

 The biblical authority for coming together as a nation in prayer is found  in Joel 2:12-17 ""Blow the trumpet in Zion,  declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly."and in 2 Chronicles 7:14 " If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

The Response will be streamed live and many churches around the country plan to broadcast it on their screens. Streaming starts at 9:00 am today, Saturday morning, and the event itself begins at 10:00 am. It will continue until 5:00 pm.

I plan to watch, spending my day in prayer for our troubled nation, and in thanksgiving to Jesus.

HERE is the link to registration (it is free). You can access the main live webcast here: The Response Live Web Stream. You may need to register in order to view it. There is a schedule and prayer guide in that can be downloaded here: PDF document link.

 If you are unable to gather with others or access the internet, the Psalms are a good place to start, and
some of the historic prayers offered by America's presidents may provide a model for our own prayer and Bible readings. The full texts given by the Response can be found here (scroll down).   Excerpts:

On March 23, 1798, President John Adams declared a national day of humility, fasting and prayer:
That the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies... with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as individuals and as a nation, beseeching Him at the same time, of His infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for His inestimable favor and heavenly benediction.

On April 13, 1841, President John Tyler declared a national day of fasting upon the death of President William Harrison: When a Christian people feel themselves to be overtaken by a great public calamity, it becomes them to humble themselves under the dispensation of Divine Providence, to recognize His righteous government over the children of men, to acknowledge His goodness in time past, as well as their own unworthiness, and to supplicate His merciful protection for the future...to impress all minds with a sense of the uncertainty of human things and of the dependence of nations, as well as individuals, upon our Heavenly Parent... We may all with one accord join in humble and reverential approach to Him in whose hands we are, invoking Him to inspire us with a proper spirit and temper of heart and mind under these frowns of His providence and still to bestow His gracious benedictions upon our Government and our country.

On March 16, 1776, the Continental Congress passed without dissent a resolution presented by General William Livingston declaring: Congress....desirous...to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely...on his aid and direction...do earnestly recommend Friday, the 17th day of May be observed by the colonies as a Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease God’s righteous displeasure, and, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain this pardon and forgiveness.

On June 14, 1783, George Washington wrote a prayer to governors of the newly freed states on disbanding army. On the plaque in St. Paul's Chapel, NY, and Pohick Church, VA, where Washington was vestryman 1762-84: Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field. And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On April 15, 1775, just four days before the Battle of Lexington, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, led by John Hancock, declared: In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the impending judgments...the 11th of May next be set apart as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer...to confess the sins...to implore the Forgiveness of all our Transgression.

On April 19, 1775, in a Proclamation of a Day of Fasting and Prayer, Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull beseeched that: God would graciously pour out His Holy Spirit on us to bring us to a thorough repentance and effectual reformation that our iniquities may not be our ruin; that He would restore, preserve and secure the liberties of this and all the other British American colonies, and make the land a mountain of Holiness, and habitation of righteousness forever.

On June 12, 1775, less than two months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, where was fired “the shot heard ‘round the world,” the Continental Congress, under President John Hancock, declared: Congress...considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state...do earnestly recommend, that Thursday, the 12th of July next, be observed by the inhabitants of all the English Colonies on this Continent, as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, that we may with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins and offer up our joint supplications to the Allwise, Omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all Events, humbly beseeching Him to forgive our iniquities...It is recommended to Christians of all denominations to assemble for public worship and to abstain from servile labor and recreations of said day.

May God bless you and this day.

May God Bless America

The List of Reasons: The Complete Declaration of Independence

Most people over 40 are familiar with the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and it is indeed as inspiring today as it was when the 13 colonies affirmed it July 4, 1776.

But when was the last time you read the itemized list of grievances that make up the body of the Declaration? The document is a compelling reminder that America today still shares the concerns of our founders.

From the National Archives, here is the Declaration of Independence in its entirety:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

 *****

Joseph Fouche at Chicago Boyz has posted a marked-up version showing the various edits made by the Continental Congress to the first draft.  It is interesting that the larger group took out more verbiage than it added to yield the concise and effective final draft.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights: Precursor to the Bill of Rights

 The founding documents of our nation did not appear out of nowhere. They, and our form of government, were based on existing declarations and practices of those former colonies that became the Sovereign States that joined to form the Federation that is the United States of America - without giving up their sovereignty. One such document was a statement of William Penn's "Holy Experiment", the Frame of Government for Pennsylvania. Another was Virginia's Declaration of Rights.

Chuck Norris quotes Thomas Jefferson and writes: "In 1823, near the end of his life, Jefferson similarly wrote: "On every question of construction (of the Constitution), let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.""


The National Archives states that: "Virginia's Declaration of Rights was drawn upon by Thomas Jefferson for the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. It was widely copied by the other colonies and became the basis of the Bill of Rights. Written by George Mason, it was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776."

Full Text of Virginia's Declaration of Rights from the National Archives link:


A DECLARATION OF RIGHTS made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government .

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Section 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants and at all times amenable to them.
Section 3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration. And that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
Section 4. That no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, nor being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.
Section 5. That the legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part, of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.
Section 6. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled for the public good.
Section 7. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights and ought not to be exercised.
Section 8. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man has a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.
Section 9. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Section 10. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.
Section 11. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred.
Section 12. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
Section 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
Section 14. That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from or independent of the government of Virginia ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.
Section 15. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
Section 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.

Take A Trip Outside Your Door: The Beauty of Local Day Trips

Pat Austin @ And So It Goes In Shreveport has developed a whole series of posts of one-day jaunts to nearby small towns: the "Take A Trip" series. I've written about them before, and her posts are themselves a bit of armchair travel that can help the cares of a crazy day fall away just reading them.

This week's "Take a Trip to Natchitoches and to Melrose Plantation" has a special focus on the architecture in the area: ranging from poteaux-en-terre to post-revolutionary African Congo-style construction to antebellum churches with copper roofs to sleek new design that's a pure study in the range of light and shadow.

Set aside an hour or so to immerse yourself in the images and follow her generous links to more information. Notice the surprises: how many knew the first American plantation built by and for free Black Americans was in Louisiana shortly after the Revolutionary War? That it was the home of primitive artist Clementine Hunter? Or that Natchitoches is the oldest permanent settlement in the whole Louisiana Purchase - dating back to 1714? Or that it now boasts the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and a great independent bookstore?

In the waning years of the Baby Boomer World where so many have become "jet setters" - dashing about on holidays to exotic locations, when it comes to renewing vacations, the bluebird of Happiness is still right in our own backyard. A lovely day spent exploring the countryside around our own home can be as memorable as, and probably more meaningful to our quality of life than the All-Inclusive Here's Your Menu 4 Days 3 Nights Fantasy Cruise.

There's something renewing about walking along the corridors of our own time, the trails of our own past. As we balance on the railroad tracks of our youth and look across the graveyards of those who balanced themselves before us, there's a great opening perspective.

This is real: right here, right now. The beautiful decay of rusting sheet iron made way for the shining stars thrown by the welding torch that builds a continuing future just as bright and exciting as the past we still admire and learn from.

All we have to do is turn 180 degrees and our future waits, just one footstep further along to the horizon.

Go see it.

Mrs Palin Goes To Washington

Heh. Gotta love the Drudge Report's headlines:

"PALIN ROLLIN'...

"Media confused..."

Texas For Sarah Palin has Mrs. Palin's dispatches from Mount Vernon, and, of vast importance, the National Archives. When we need to know the truth these days, it is essential to go to the source documents and read them for ourselves, rather than relying on fifth-hand interpretations. Our Sarah seems to agree when she says "These are nonpartisan, valuable historical tools we all need to see, read, and absorb to learn the truth about our past, so we can move forward successfully."

Read it all here.

God bless the woman. She doesn't have to run - I'd love to vote for her but she doesn't need to - her greatest power is the innate and inalienable power every American Citizen shares: the power to govern ourselves via the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

God Bless The Weekend: Saving our Endangered Days Off Together

Those who wish to pretend that Christianity is not the root of all that is best in Western culture, or that America was not founded and formed as a Christian nation forget, or have not understood, that the Holy Sabbath mandated in the 10 Commandments is the only reason workers in the Western world have a day off every week - and workers in countries that never adopted Christianity as a majority faith still cannot expect to be given one day off to have for their own.

For thousands of years in Jewish and Christian societies, everyone - even the poorest, even indentured servants and slaves (before the Christian world - and no other - freed all slaves and set the precedent the rest of the world has not yet caught up with) - even in those times, everyone was entitled to a day off every week.

For centuries, American States had "Blue Laws" that prohibited the sale of certain non-essential merchandise on Sundays. These laws protected businesses from the need to compete for Sunday business, and were thus welcomed by merchants as well as their employees.

The concept of taking Saturday and Sunday together in the weekend as we know it arose in America in various locations where Christians and Jews united to respect both Sabbath and Shabbat. As Jewish immigration increased and the Industrial Revolution led to greater demand for constant labor, America's devout Jewish population needed the same protection for their religious observance. In the tumultuous early days of the 20th century, Jewish leaders joined with labor unions to promote the five-day work week - and the standard weekend - as a uniform practice across industry.

Consistent two-day weekends enabled people of all major American faiths (and those of other religions, and non-believers) to share this time off: Jews as well as Christians, Seventh Day Adventists as well as Baptists, Catholics as well as Mormons. All Americans could perchance meet each other through shared leisure time, and common endeavors for their free hours.

By assuring that the day off was the same for everyone and every class of people, a common culture promoted community, neighborliness, family life and time to rest, relax and enjoy life together.

The American Weekend is endangered: another unnoticed consequence of the persistent drive to de-Christianize the USA.
33 out of every 100 Americans has to work on Saturday or Sunday or both (according to a 2004 study on the detrimental effects of non-traditional work schedules). Those people, and their families, may "not mind" the schedule, but they lose out on the shared family and community leisure time and activities that are much of the joy in life.

If you have ever worked different shifts from that your spouse or friends work, or had to have different days off than the rest of the world, you know how much you miss out on. Not having Saturdays and Sundays off, or at least one of the weekend days, isolates us from everyone we care about.

In today's "not an employee" employment climate, where 40 hour work weeks and paid holidays or paid vacation are more rare than ever before, fewer and fewer can afford to take a day off without pay to make a short trip with their family, camp out overnight, or go to a wedding, or spend the day in the park playing volleyball.

So if you love your weekends, if you are "working for the weekend", and want to keep having Saturday and Sunday to spend with the people you love best, thank the Christian way of life, and thank your company for continuing to adhere to the traditional weekend.

You don't have to be a believer to save the weekend by supporting those businesses who close on Sundays, like McCoy's Building Supply Centers, Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, and those local businesses in your own town.

If you know of businesses that close on Sundays, feel free to post in the comments.

Part Two: 18th Century Business Women in Publishing: Limited Only By 20th Century Interpretation

We like to recognize "firsts", but so often that's the least interesting part of the story. Mary Katherine Goddard's career is most fascinating to me because it was neither unusual nor controversial in its time. In fact she reflects the ordinariness of a successful business woman in the 18th century, when women published 16 newspapers in the colonies - nearly a quarter of the 78 papers put out each week.

And that is only the women who owned the presses: how many more were employed in all these various shops, as unheralded as the also forgotten men who worked beside them?

Printing was actually a rather common occupation for a woman in the 17th and 18th (and 19th) Centuries. So common that it was little remarked. In 1638, Elizabeth Glover (who later married Harvard's first president) founded the first press in Massachusetts. Her Cambridge Press published the famous "Bay Psalm Book", the first book printed in the colonies.

A publishing dynasty began in 1738 when Elizabeth Timothy took over publication of the South Carolina Gazette as Benjamin Franklin's partner, then left the press to her son who operated it until his death, when he was succeeded by his wife Ann. Cornelia Bradford succeeded her husband as publisher of Philadelphia's American Weekly Mercury in 1742.

Anne Catherine Hoff Green continued the family publishing business in Anapolis after she was widowed in 1767, and became the official printer for the Maryland General Assembly in her own name. Her business was later renamed "Anne Catherine Green & Son, Printers", but she retained control of the reins and they worked for her. Two of her sons and her granson followed her in earning their livelihood as printers.

Following her husband's death in 1773, Clementina Rind ran the Williamsburg Virginia Gazette and was named official printer of Virginia.

Again and again we hear feminists say these women "don't count" because they were only in business by default through their husbands or fathers. They are excluded from lists of Firsts and from lists of accomplished women.

These stories do not show what they are assumed to by people who fail to understand the substance of legal marriage in a predominently Christian or Jewish society as a full joining of male and female into a single social and economic entity as well as a spiritual and physical one. In older days, widows were frequently elected to political positions, including Governor, in
their own right, by a citizenry that fundamentally credited women as full partners in all the achievements of the marriage, recognizing either party's success as stemming from a united purpose.

Is that an old fashioned way of looking at things?

Strangely, even this common occurance in our earlier history of electing women as Governors is poo-poo'ed. Texas tied with Wyoming, both electing women as governors on 1924 - the same year than New Mexico's Hispanic Woman Secretary of State served as interim governor of New Mexico.

These stories are ignored, discounted, and actively hidden by agenda-driven feminists and progressive writers & academics, playing with semantics. One wonders why they refuse to admit to those early accomplishments, and even more why they dually ignore similar husband/wife mutual interests today.

Why? It does not lessen any person's own accomplishment to admit that others have also achieved a position. It does not make the one greater to ignore history and accuracy in reporting.

Did anyone blink when Kimora Lee Simmons took over as CEO of Phat after her ex-husband & company founder Russell Simmons stepped aside? Do people say her achievements "don't count" because her husband started the business or because they ran it as partners? No? Of course not - it would be outrageous to apply that logic. It is just as outrageous to discount the talent and earned prominence of other wives in earlier eras.

Consider how the legacy of Mrs. Coretta Scott King was her own yet inextricably joined with that of her husband, Dr Martin Luther King.

Or the appointment of Missouri First Lady Jean Caranhan, widow of Governor Mel Carnahan, to the US Senate in 2001 in the place of her husband who had passed away during the campaign for Senator and been elected postumously. Had Hilary Clinton been more focused on winning the nomination and less intent on proving she was not running as Bill's wife, she'd be our President today.

Margaret Chase Smith still holds the record as the longest serving, most successful female US senator - and she was originally elected as the widow of the Congressman upon his death.

Does anyone discount the achievements (or controversies) of Indira Gandhi because she succeeded her father Jarawalal Nehru as Prime Minister of India? Or claim that Benazir Bhutto was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan only because her father had held the office before her?

Just so, these women in Colonial times were not mere tokens thrown by chance tragedy into business, struggling ineffectually against an adversarial society. Far from it. The original sources show they were accepted without question and with full confidence in their capacity to run a profitable business and meet the exacting needs of their clients.




Photo: From an 1865 issue of Harper's Weekly "The Magazine of Civilization", image of workers (both women and men) in a large commercial printing operation.

Other articles in the theme:

Read Part 1 - 18th Century Equal Opportunity & Success: Some Women Printers in Colonial America

Read - Working Women in Earlier America: Not so Uncommon After All

18th Century Equal Opportunity & Success: Some Women Printers in Colonial America

In honor of Benjamin Franklin's birthday (coming up on the 17th), here's a bit of history about some of the people who moved in his circles during those Colonial times leading up to the American Revolution.

Letterpress Printers think of Ben Franklin first as a printer - Poor Richard's Almanac set out proverbs that are still quoted today, and Franklin himself described his occupation foremost as "Printer". Postal employees think of Ben as First Postmaster General of the US. In the process of talking or writing about the great man, it's easy to overlook that other people in those days combined the Printer/Postmaster occupations with distinction, including several members of the Goddard family of New London, Connecticut.

Here again, printers like to talk about Sarah Updike Goddard, her daughter Mary Katherine Goddard, and her son William Goddard, as printers in the young Republic, while the USPS recognizes William Goddard and his sister Mary Katherine as significant figures in US Postal History. It is interesting to read the different slants that appear from the different perspectives.

Thus, it is Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816) Postmaster of Baltimore, who is first held up by printers as a heroine, whose early edition of the Declaration of Independence was commissioned by the Continental Congress as a definitive version of the document. At the time it was common for Printers/Publishers to take up the role of Postmaster to expand their circulation while reducing their costs and preventing competitors from gaining advantage.

Mary Katherine was following in her father's - and her mother's - and her brother's - footsteps. Giles Goddard was Postmaster of New London Connecticut until his early death, and his wife Sarah Updike Goddard probably took over in his place as one of the early Postmasters during the Colonial period (when everyone was "one of the early" from a historical standpoint) under Crown rule. Together with Sarah's son - Mary's brother - constitutional activist William Goddard, the family operated a publishing, printing and distribution business that figured prominently in early American History.

It was a family business that perfectly utilized the talents of the partners: Sarah as financier and Publisher, William as the charismatic promoter and advance man, Mary as printer and eventually as General Manager.

Sarah Updike Goddard's main work was in Providence, Rhode Island, where she published the Providence Gazette. The family had multiple connections to Ben Franklin, and we see the first here, when Sarah took on Ben's former apprentice John Carter as a partner. She operated the print shop until 1768, when she sold it to John Carter and moved to Philadelphia. There she joined William and Mary Katherine in building up another printing business. Sarah Updike Goddard died in 1770, at the age of 70.

William was a patriot, committed to the cause of liberty, who established a series of pro-independence media concerns: newspapers in Philadelphia and Baltimore, print shops, and, significantly, founded the "Constitutional Post", a mail collection and distribution network to give the colonies safe and private means of communication outside the official channel of the Royal
Post. When independence was declared, Goddard's Constitutional Post became the framework for the United States Post Office. Unfortunately, it was summarily co-opted by the fledgling government without compensation.

Mary Katherine Goddard was the first woman officially appointed Postmaster by Congress after independence was declared. Often labeled "First woman Postmaster in the country", she was not, nor was she the first or only woman serving as official printer to government. She became Postmaster in Baltimore in 1775 and was the only woman Postmaster we know of holding office at the time the colonies transitioned into the United States. She served until 1789.

(I say "that we know of", for early Postal records do not list the gender of the employee, so information prior to the mid 19th century cannot be conclusive. As with printing, Postmaster was also a job so frequently held by women at this early time as to be unremarkable (and thus not mentioned as an oddity in any accounts). Further, however precise record keeping may have been at the time, much is likely to have been lost. For instance, the town I live in got its first Postmaster in 1875. The official list of Postmasters for the town is fairly complete for early years but has question marks for names from 1973 through 1981, and even has gaps within the past 10 years. )

In 1784 when the siblings each published a competing Almanac, Mary Katherine had a falling out with William, after which they parted ways, with him taking over the publishing business while she retained the book business.

She filed no less than five lawsuits against him.

When replaced as Postmaster in 1789 due to a reorgnization of the department that required a traveling Postmaster for the Baltimore region, she complained all the way up to President Washington and the Senate.

Despite petitions from a couple hundred local customers, the needs of the rapidly expanding city for an more robust postal organization were more compelling. Mary Katherine remained in Maryland and continued her book business, although now she had to pay postage when she mailed them.

Goddard was successful in her enterprises, amassing assets of cash, property, books, printing equipment. She also invested in slaves, owning as many as four men and women during one census, and at least one woman at the time of her death in 1816 whom she freed in her will. Unmarried and without her own children as heirs, Goddard disinherited her relations and left the woman, whose name was Belinda Starling, her entire estate as well as release from
bondage.

One wonders why these people didn't free their slaves and bondservants while they were still living. We can only surmise that they approached this as a kind of "estate planning" much like some today who create elaborate wills and oppose estate taxes on the wealth they leave behind, rather than dividing with their heirs during their lifetime. It is a chilling thought, and one worth pondering.

Mary Katherine Goddard died in 1816, at the age of 78. William died the following year, aged 77.

(Have you ever noticed just how many of the people we read about from hundreds of years ago lived as long as we do, despite not having blood pressure meds and Ensure? While life expectancy has risen over the years, not a single millisecond of time has been added to human life span. That's a topic for another time.)

Click here to go to Part Two of this article: 18th Century Business Women: Limited Only By 20th Century Interpretation


(Photo: Illustration in "A Concise History of Printing" published in 1770, that pictures a press similar to that which these printers would have used. This is one of the oldest books in my library. The quality of the paper is such that it remains strong and flexible today. )