Prohibition: A Vermont Tradition

Locations listed on this handbill surround my writing territory today.

"Prohibition," short for "prohibition of alcohol," is often thought of as the time period when the U.S. federal government, through a Constitutional amendment, banned booze. Here's the actual text of the 18th Amendment:

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. 

Both crime and social ills flowerd in spite of, or even because of, this well-meant piece of social legislation. The hopes of decades of Americans, especially women who experienced the ills of drunkenness at home, were crushed by the side-effects of this law. It stayed in place from 1920 to 1933, when it was repealed, and this 13-year segment is the time period we call Prohibition.

But there were many places in the United States that got serious about banning "intoxicating liquors" both before and after that time. A collection at the Bailey-Howe Library at the University of Vermont highlights Vermont's experience with such legislation: From 1850 to 1902, the state created its own Green Mountain "prohibition" years. (See details here; the exhibit took place in 2009, but the materials are still available.)

This is a great challenge for both an investigator of history and a novelist. After all, if the federal banning of alcohol use encouraged organized crime and also the Jazz Age, what did the state version encourage?

Autumn Adventure from Texas Librarian Analine Johnson

Remember the video trailer for The Darkness Under the Water, crafted by Texas librarian Analine Johnson? (It's in the righthand column here on the blog.) Analine wrote today with a Big Announcement! I'll let her tell you in her own words:

Hi Beth, I Have great news to share with you. I don't know if you follow the School Library Journal but they are holding their very first 'Book Trailee Awards'. I'm so excited to share with you that my trailer for The Darkness Under the Water has been nominated for the category: adult created for secondary. I need your vote! So please spread the word. Voting started today and will end on October 22nd. Winners will be  announced that evening at School Library Journal Leadership Summit on the Future of Reading in Chicago, IL.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/887006-312/school_library_journal_trailee_awards.html.csp

Analine Johnson
Librarian
Rodolfo Centeno Elementary
Laredo, Texas

I hope you'll vote for the trailer, and spread the word. Who knows? We are one of only 24 trailers selected for the finals!!

American Library Association "Banned Books Week" and Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK

Eleven years after publication, Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel SPEAK is under attack again -- but this time, defenders of the book and the right to read freely are speaking up more clearly than ever, thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook.

To read the ALA explanation of "Banned Books Week," Sept. 25-Oct. 2, click here.

For School Library Journal's interview with author Anderson, click here.

And here's the synopsis from the back of SPEAK, where the protagonist has been raped -- a far cry from what its critics are labeling "pornography":

Melinda Sordino busted and end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know hate her from a distance. It’s no use explaining to her parents; they’ve never known what her life is really like. The safest place for Melinda to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that’s not safe. Because there’s something she’s trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she admitted it and let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have no choice. Melinda would have to speak the truth.

Perspective: Now Is Not Then

The photograph here of an "elderly Chinese man with queue" (as it is described on a California website that doesn't identify the photographer or source) got me thinking in a different way about the (very real) basement laundry space owned by Sam Wah in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, from 1886 to 1921. Mr. Wah's murder, officially unsolved, is one of the centers for the background history of my book in progress, Cold Midnight. Knowing his shop was in a basement -- and knowing the damp fierce chill of most downtown basement spaces here in Vermont today -- originally gave me the sense that his shop location reflected both bias against strangers, and cheap rent available for unwanted shop space.

But at the start of last summer, I toured Boston's Chinatown, courtesy of the Chinese Historical Society of New England, and saw the many businesses that utilized cellar spaces. In fact, there seemed to be a loose arrangement of industrial-type businesses (like a print shop) in the basements, grocery stores and restaurants in first-floor rooms (slightly higher up than sidewalk level), and meeting spaces and residences above those.

Reflecting on this photo reminds me: Don't assume that a basement space meant the same thing to a Chinese immigrant in 1886 that it means to a downtown merchant today.

That's a crucial attitude to keep fresh during historical research and while writing: Now is not the same as then. And that's why the original material -- in this case especially, the writings in the local paper about Mr. Wah and his business, as well as the narratives that today's Chinatown residents share -- are so important.

Always Learning: Language and Power

I now have copies of almost all the news articles that related to the death of Sam Wa at age 75 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The 1921 murder of this aging downtown businessman was not officially solved, in spite of a detective being hired. And it's the center catastrophe of the (fictional) mystery I'm writing, Cold Midnight.

Research never stops, not during the writing process, and not even afterward. One strand I've been exploring is the meaning and use of the word "Chinaman" in 1921. From 2010, it's easy to ignore the term, assuming it had the same kind of descriptive value as "Irishman" or "Englishman." But in fact, it was a slur, an offensive word. Used for all Asians at the time, it made clear the American ignorance of people who lived at or came from "the other side of the world." Every dictionary notes that the term was (and is) "offensive." And the Urban Dictionary gives a modern description of this, as the offense of the term endures:

A term used to define a person of chinese descent. Depending on the situation of where the word is used, it can be offensive to a man of Chinese Origin espeacially if hes not Chinese but of Asian descent. Doesnt seem racist but it is The term China Man was coined by the racist ignorant white man.

Hes a China Man!
HEy China Man pick that up for me!
Hey CHina Man go back to China!
Hey China Man I didnt know you grew up in the U.S.

So when we read the articles and editorials in the local paper, the Caledonian-Record, about how the community should respond to the murder of Sam Wa, we need "1921 ears" to understand the sermons that the local ministers offered, when they said on the Sunday after the murder that Sam Wa's death should NOT be treated as a case of "he was only a Chinaman."

They weren't saying Sam Wa was just a poor Chinese immigrant; they were weighing a label that held the power of the oldtime label "nigger," a way to distinguish a person who never be allowed to rise to full humanity in the eyes of the culture of that moment.

For another angle on the image of Chinese in America in the 1920s and 1930s, take a look at the Jill Lepore write-up of Yunte Huang's new book, Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with History, which just appeared in The New Yorker online.

Research Via Postcards

I was excited to purchase a hand-drawn tinted postcard last week that showed the YMCA Building in St. Johnsbury (Vermont) -- a building I've never seen, because it was destroyed by fire. When I first started paying attention to downtown fires, I thought the downtowns full of brick structures were safe. After all, you can't light a brick very well, can you?

But it turns out that brick buildings burn most often from the inside. After all, they are lined with wooden structures, which in turn are lined with wood and plaster walls. Many of the "stone" structures have the same susceptibility to fire. In the mystery I'm now writing, Cold Midnight, there's a cathedral-like church in town called Notre Dame des Victoires; in the 1900s, that was where the French-Canadian Catholics attended Mass ("Irish" and other "English-speaking" Catholics went to St. Aloysius). Notre Dame des Victoires was set on fire by an altarboy who placed a burning candle inside the wooden wall structure.

The color photo postcard here is taken at the top of Eastern Avenue, and I think the ornate architecture of the YMCA building shows over to the right; the building in the center of the card is the one where a lot of the action in Cold Midnight takes place -- on the roof!

This first black-and-white postcard is the Avenue House, which became the New Avenue House when rebuilt after a fire -- it was the closest hotel to the railroad depot. And now it's called Depot Square Apartments instead.

Last but not least, I was pleased to find today a postcard image of the Woman's Club home on Cherry Street. The St. Johnsbury Woman's Club was the group that invited "Mrs. General Custer" -- that is, Elizabeth (Libbie) Clift Bacon Custer -- to speak in town. A separate research project on the town's habit of inviting exciting speakers (1871-1901 in this case) can be found at http://stjathenaeum-hall.blogspot.com with many more photos from various sources.

Family Stories, Family Stones

I've just reached the first crisis point in the YA history/mystery that I'm writing, Cold Midnight; it's about ten pages earlier than I figure it would happen (I was aiming for page 100, but the characters pushed the plot to erupt at page 87). Well, that's how it goes. Considering that subsequent revisions are likely to add a page here and there, the final version is still likely to see that crisis come around page 100! Feeling the braiding of the families involved in the tale, with the suspense that the teens are handling, seems like a good framework for this crime-and-adventure novel.

With cooler, less humid weather and a great breeze, I wrapped up the writing session around 4:30 this afternoon and took off on a bike ride to a tiny family cemetery on a local farm. Last week the farming family told me I was welcome to visit "The Hill Cemetery." It's named for the family whose lives are marked on the stones in the neatly mowed enclosure. There are some other names as well -- including a Bugbee, a name still common around here. I expected some Civil War veterans -- but not this Revolutionary War soldier, Moses Wright, whose place is marked with honors in both old and new styles. Can't see myself writing a novel set in Vermont's 1770s (especially this far north), but it never hurts to let the images sink in and whisper for a while.

Tomorrow I've got two Big Chapters scheduled. A good night's sleep and a protein-packed breakfast are in the plans. But no encore bike ride just yet -- the chain snapped today. Repairs!

Looking for a Guest Speaker for This Fall?

I've just inked in evenings with two local Vermont historical societies in October and I am excited, knowing that these will lead to great discussions of the history behind The Darkness Under the Water. I still have plenty of dates open for community groups and schools. And since I can see the end of the second draft of Cold Midnight coming by the end of this summer, I'm going to be charged up and eager to hit the road -- not only to talk about the books, but also to learn some of your local history, too.

Teens in your life? Ask me about special programs for schools and youth groups, as well as book and reading clubs.

The Long Road of Research

The photo here is part of the remains of the Ely Copper Mine in central Vermont. I took the back roads home today from the Vermont History Expo, in order to find the site and catch a couple of photos. This adds to information that I already have from a scientific researcher for the site. Look hard and you may spot the remains of a laid dry-stone wall at the rear -- I think perhaps from a rail bed. I stayed on the road to snap the photos, as walking on the land is banned.

And it all is part of the long, slow accumulation of detail for a book that I'll probably start in 2012 -- working title "Crowd Control" but that's just for the file folder. I already know it involves a haunting, and the long consequences of injustice. Will it be for young adults, or older readers? I won't know until the characters start speaking to me.

But for the moment, I'd rather they only whisper. COLD MIDNIGHT and THE FIRE CURSE are occupying about all of the writing brain that I've got!

Just for the fun of it, here's a photo from the History Expo, where I met with readers and history buffs at noon. The Expo takes place every second year and is well worth attending! In the photo are members of the Vermont Civil War Hemlocks (Civil War re-enactors).

Summer in Vermont!

It's cool and rainy today (sweater weather for the evening!), but here's a photo taken on the deck yesterday morning, settling in to re-read Blood of the Wicked, a definitely dark crime novel from Brazilian author Leighton Gage. I also dipped into a Denise Mina (Glasgow) crime novel last night -- but fear not, this evening (if and when I finish writing and editing!), I'm planning to enjoy reviewing a new and very gentle Vermont novel by Laura Stevenson. Take a peek tomorrow morning if you like, at my mysteries (and sometimes poetry) review blog, kingdombks.blogspot.com.

More Stories That Matter: Local News

Here's a photo of the construction team headed to work on the rooftop skylight of the St. Johnsbury (Vermont) Athenaeum today (cell phone photo, so a bit fuzzy!). Problem: Skylight work means the Athenaeum's noted art gallery is closed for the season. Opportunity: Another part of the building, Athenaeum Hall, has a glorious history including visits from President Benjamin Harrison, Henry Stanley ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"), receptions for other speakers like "Mrs. General Custer," Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Horace Greeley -- this was a hotbed of discourse in the late 1800s! So a handful of us collaborated this spring in researching these "stories" and an exhibit will open in a week or so, lingering through summer and early fall, giving visitors to the Athenaeum a new set of adventures.

To see the work of creating this exhibit, check out our "workspace" at http://stjathenaeum-hall.blogspot.com.

I am so excited as I tell people about "Libbie" Custer and her powerful effect in redirecting history around her husband's disastrous battle; about how Stanley pandered to Victorian taste in his narratives (that are now strongly in doubt in several portions); about President Harrison's light-bulb moment that resulted in flags in public schools; about Lincoln's argument with Horace Greeley. If people can be seen as plants, our roots are in these stories, and our blossoms and fruit are shaped by them, whether for good or ill.