Hans Brinker, Or, The Silver Skates. Mary Mapes Dodge. 1865. 244 pages. [Source: Bought]
What did I think of Hans Brinker, or, The Silver Skates? What did I REALLY think? It was something, that's for sure. At times I felt it was going in too many different directions to be a solidly-good read.
There is the Brinker family drama. Hans and Gretel are brother-and-sister in a desperately poor family. Their father has had a brain injury for a little over ten years, and, he is getting worse, beginning to suffer more, and lash out more in his madness. Hans wants to seek out a famous surgeon to see if his father can be helped. But, of course, there is no money to pay the surgeon, and, the surgeon travels around from city to city, and you never know where he is to be actually found.
There is the drama surrounding a dozen village children--boys and girls--all more "better off" than the Brinker children. A group of boys--including one visiting English boy--decide to go off on a sight-seeing adventure together on their skates. They'll cover many, many miles; go through many cities and villages; and spend many days and nights away from home. Throughout their actual adventure, history lessons--dense history lessons--are included in the form of dialogue among the children.
Then there is the drama and excitement of the SKATING RACE. Hans and Gretel *want* to participate of course. And all the other boys and girls ARE participating. Will Hans and Gretel be able to participate too. Perhaps if they can manage to buy *real* skates instead of homemade wooden ones. The prize for the skating race is a pair of silver skates; one pair to be awarded to a boy, another pair to be awarded to a girl.
The book is part action and adventure, part travelogue, part history book, part sentimental coming-of-age. I must admit that I really liked the story line with the doctor/surgeon and the Brinker family--how everything is resolved. I know it's the most sentimental aspect of the story, but, I really enjoyed it all the same. The basics of the story are good, I think, it's just I'm not sure how many readers really, really want detailed history lessons covering centuries worth of material.
© 2016 Becky Laney of
Becky's Book Reviews
Today is a very important day in American history, the anniversary of when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Congress, that which formally abolished slavery in the U.S. in 1865. The Thirteenth provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” It was ratified later that year on December 6. In honor of this anniversary, we offer an excerpt from The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, which provides an overview of the Civil Rights Cases.
Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), submitted on the briefs 7 November 1882, argued 29 March 1883, decided 15 October 1883 by vote of 8 to 1; Bradley for the Court, Harlan in dissent.
Few decisions better illustrate the Supreme Court’s early inclination to interpret narrowly the Civil War Amendments than the Civil Rights Cases. There the Court declared unconstitutional provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that prohibited racial discrimination in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement. The decision curtailed federal efforts to protect African-Americans from private discrimination and cast constitutional doubts on Congress’s ability to legislate in the area of civil rights, doubts that were not completely resolved until enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Civil Rights Cases presented two conflicting views of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The conservative view saw the amendments in narrow terms: the Thirteenth Amendment simply abolished slavery; the Fourteenth granted the freed people citizenship and a measure of relief from state discrimination. The more radical view believed the amendments helped secure to the freed people and others all rights of free people in Anglo-American legal culture. Moreover, the amendments gave the national government authority to protect citizens against both state and private deprivations of rights.
Justice Joseph P. Bradley’s majority opinion rejected the more radical interpretation of the new amendments. He held that the Fourteenth Amendment only prohibited state abridgement of individual rights. In Bradley’s view the 1875 Civil Rights Act was an impermissible attempt by Congress to create a municipal code regulating the private conduct of individuals in the area of racial discrimination. He asserted in dicta that even private interference with such rights as voting, jury service, or appearing as witnesses in state court were not within the province of Congress to control. An individual faced with such interference had to look to state government for relief. Bradley also rejected the contention that the Thirteenth Amendment allowed Congress to pass the 1875 legislation, declaring that denial of access to publ
Young children in the US are often taught that the tradition of Thanksgiving began with a friendly meal between the Pilgrims and Native Americans. In school, they make buckle hats out of construction paper and trace their hands to make turkey drawings, all in anticipation of the great Thursday feast. If asked, I’m sure most Americans wouldn’t actually know the origins of the Thanksgiving tradition as we practice it today. Below is an excerpt from The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (edited by renowned food historian Andrew F. Smith) which explains just how the modern holiday came to be. Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone! -Lauren Appelwick, Blog Editor
Hale’s Tale
The driving force behind making Thanksgiving a national holiday was Sarah Josepha Hale, who was born in 1788 in Newport, New Hampshire. After her husband’s death, Hale turned to writing to generate money. Her novel Northwood: A Tale of New England (1827) included an entire chapter devoted to a Thanksgiving dinner. Its publication brought Hale fame, and she ended up as editor for Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most influential women’s magazine in the pre-Civil War era. For seventeen years Hale campaigned to proclaim the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day. Hale encouraged other magazines to join the quest of making Thanksgiving a national holiday, and many published Thanksgiving-related stories, poems, and illustrations. During the Civil War, Hale redoubled her efforts. A few months after the North’s military victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November a national day of thanksgiving. Every president since has proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a national holiday.
Hale’s pre-1865 letters and editorial promoting Thanksgiving Day made no mention of the Pilgrims or the first Thanksgiving feast. There were several good reasons for this. Jamestown had been settled before Plymouth, and colonists in Jamestown had observed days fo thanksgiving before Plymouth was settled. Hale made the connection between the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving holiday in an 1865 editorial in Godey’s Lady’s Book. This connection was picked up by newspapers and by other magazines. By 1870 school textbooks contained the story of the “first Thanksgiving.”
By the late 1880s the concept of a Pilgrim-centered Thanksgiving had blossomed in popular books. Thanksgiving plays were produced annually, and many schools offered special dinners based on fictional visions of life in Plymouth in 1621. This curriculum spawned a large body of children’s literature focused on the Pilgrims and the “first Thanksgiving.” These myths were enshrined in books, magazines, and artworks during the twentieth century.
The rapid adoption of the Pilgrim Thanksgiving myth had less to do with historical fact and more to do with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe flooding into the United States. Because the immigrants came from many lands, the American public education system needed to create an easily understood history of America. The Pilgrims were an ideal symbol for America’s beginning, so they became embedded in the nation’s schools, as did the Thanksgiving feast.
