Historical Fiction: New York

I read a lot, pretty much daily, and my love of history definitely creeps in to my book choices. I have already described my early love for young adult historical and time-travelling novels, and for a long time my favourite summer reading was anything about Henry VIII, his wives, and his descendants. Luckily my tastes have broadened since then and reached beyond the 16th century. Historical fiction is a great way to get introduced to different eras and real-life characters, even if it only convinces you to visit Wikipedia to see if something you read was true or not. Just before Christmas I happened to finish three different books about one of my favourite cities, New York, and I thought I'd share them.

It took only a few days to read The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay (author of The Birth House), which shows you how much I enjoyed it. The book follows Moth, a 12-year-old girl in the Lower East Side of 1870's New York. The book delves deep into the poverty, crime and generally poor quality of life (sanitation-wise, health-wise, education-wise, you name it) for residents of that neighbourhood. Young girls and women are hit particularly hard - Moth is first sold into being a maid for an mentally unstable rich lady who beats her, escapes to beg on the street, and ultimately ends up in a house where girls are trained to become prostitutes and their virginity is sold to the highest bidder.
McKay wrote the book after researching her great-grandmother, who was a 'lady doctor' in the Lower East Side at this time, so we also get a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman who chose to study medicine (in the 1870s!) and then committed herself to treating the poorest women in the city. I love that McKay's own family history got her researching and writing. And while the 'virgin cure' (the idea that having sex with a virgin can cure syphilis) seems crazy, McKay writes on her website that parallels can be found today with AIDS in countries like Thailand and India, which just reminds me why we need to keep studying history in the first place.
Read before: visiting the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

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It took me significantly longer to read Edward Rutherfurd's New York, but then again, it is almost 900 pages long. This is Rutherfurd's love letter to New York, an epic that follows the van Dyck and Master family (among others) from their beginnings as 17th century Dutch immigrants to their success in the financial world of Wall Street by the 20th century. Did I mention the book is 900 pages long?
The book is far from perfect. Some parts became too bogged down with historical detail - the American revolution was important but I didn't really need to read about every movement of the British and rebel armies. I enjoyed how events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were detailed, but other ones were completely ignored - one Amazon reviewer recalled the amalgamation of the boroughs and the building of the subway as events unworthy of being left out. And while secondary characters were created to discuss some of the more marginalized populations (the Irish, African Americans) the book was really about a white, upper-class family.
The main character of this book is really the city itself. I found it fascinating to learn interesting tidbits of New York history, from when and why buildings were built to why streets are named what they are named. While it got a little cliched at times with its talk of freedom and the American Dream, it is a well-researched epic that's worth reading for its historical detail.
Read before: wandering Wall Street and drinking at Fraunces Tavern.

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Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin is set in 1970s, which begs the question - when is fiction classified as 'historical'? Are the 1970s historical? Is last year historical? Either way, I'll include it in my list for it's portrayal of a very specific time in New York history. One summer morning in 1974, New Yorkers looked up and saw something incredible: a tight-rope walker balancing, without a harness or safety net, between the two World Trade Centre towers. McCann introduces a variety of characters - an Irish priest looking after prostitutes in the Bronx, a grieving mother on Park Avenue, the tight-rope walker himself, among others - and chronicles their stories as they interconnect.
McCann does a great job placing readers in his specific time period - you feel the growing tension in Harlem, the heat of the summer day, the poverty on the mean streets of the city, the anger regarding Vietnam, the excitement of the new World Trade towers. While I wouldn't necessarily call it historical fiction, he does drop readers right in the middle of that particular day.
Read before: wandering up Park Avenue before exploring Harlem and the Bronx.

In which I think back to historical novels

I am blatantly stealing Jenna's idea, so I hope she doesn't mind!

I too became interested in history through more popular means than my 'Integrated Studies' classes of grades seven and eight (and yes, for some reason geography and history were lumped together under that unappealing name). Something about fur-traders and the plaines d'Abraham just didn't peak my interest. But I read many historical novels for 'tweens' - or whatever we were called back then - and I thought I would share some of my favourites.



Karleen Bradford, The Nine Days Queen

I loved this book when I read it. It got me completely interested in Henry VIII and his wives. The book revolves around the short life of Jane Grey, whose mother was first cousin to Henry. When Henry's son, King Edward VI dies, a Protestant faction puts her unwillingly on the throne for nine days, until she is unceremoniously thrown in the Tower of London by the true queen, Mary I. Later she is beheaded. The fact that it was a true story made it such an exciting book, and it had everything: royalty, Renaissance England, murder, sex scandals. Young readers will be completely engrossed by the fact that Jane is only a few years older than them.


The Diary of Anne Frank

Though not a novel, this is a must-read for anyone young person, even if they're not interested in history. It is an incredibly powerful book and will give any young person a real glimpse into the horrors of WWII (I doubt I'm spoiling anything when I say that everyone except her father dies in concentration camps). Anne is a great narrator, however, sharing every personal detail of her life hiding from the Nazis - how she hates her parents, when she got her period, even how she has a crush on the boy they live with. Incredibly poignant, and a great introduction for kids interested in learning about WWII.


Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow

I read this book in school, and good thing I did. It really is one of my favourite children's books of all time. I was slightly obsessed with time travel books, and this book is a great example of the genre done well. Unhappy Abigail is intrigued by a game played by some kids in the park called Beatie Bow, and her search (as well as a piece of Victorian lace she has just bought) leads her to travel back to 19th century Sydney. I loved time travel books because it let the reader see very clearly the differences in past and modern life, and the modern narrator's comments were always the same as my own. It let you imagine what you, the reader, would do in the same situation. Abigail discovers new friends, a new life, grows up a bit and learns to appreciate what she has. Sounds simple, but it works.


Kit Pearson, The Daring Game

Okay, so this one isn't too historical, though it is set in the 1960s. I just had to put a Kit Pearson book on this list because she's such a great children's writer, and I loved all her books. This is her first one, and it's a great story about a girl who moves to a boarding school, and gets into some fun/trouble with a game played by her roommates. Pearson also wrote a fabulous time travel book called A Handful of Time, where an unhappy girl accidentally goes back in time to when her mother was young while she's at a family cottage. She's well-known for her Guests of War trilogy about English children who come to Canada to escape the war.

History will always be in the popular imagination, and as long as authors and directors find new ways of bringing it to life, kids will gain an interest in history that might even translate to a life-long hobby or even further study. I find it hard to believe that kids can't get excited about history when it is so prevalent in novels, movies, even video games. It's true that history classes in school can be dry and unimpressive, but hopefully kids can discover the wealth of popular history that is out there, like I, and most likely many of my history grad colleagues, did.

Introduction

Aaah, the internet.  I had been without you at home for seven long days, and now that you're back I can rejoice.  I will be the first to admit that this past year, I used the internet for the most banal of activities (*ahem* celebrity gossip *ahem*).  Living without it, however, when moving to a new city, starting a new school and new programme was challenging at best. Arguments with one national telecommunications company, a switch to the Other national telecommunications company, two rescheduled appointments and one broken telephone jack did not make things any less irritating.  It all makes one wonder - the internet is so completely prevalent in our daily lives, so why is something as simple as setting up a connection sometimes so difficult?  But enough about my frustrations.  This blog is here to talk about everyone's favourite subject, public history.

Public history is still a bit of a mystery to me, one I am looking forward to unraveling as the year goes by.  As I understand it, it is history as it is related and communicated to the public.  Museums and historical sites are key, but for those whose interests in life may not include history (unbelievable as that is to me!) we must remember the incredible importance of popular culture: movies, novels, maybe even video games.  A young adult historical novel I read in middle school got me interested in Henry VIII and Tudor England, an interest that still exists ten years on.  I even had a Scottish friend explain to me this summer how the movie Braveheart rekindled national interest in William Wallace, surprising because the movie was made in Hollywood by an Australian/American.        

A big part of public history now is of course the internet.  Many believe the internet to be a necessary evil.  Evil, however, is too harsh of a word.  The internet has been a wonderful development for the study of history, not least in the field of public history.  The internet has the power to make accessible so much information, from archives, to historical documents, to interactive exhibits from world-famous museums.  Their are pitfalls of course, such as the loss of stringent academic rules, which has already been pointed out by a colleague on their blog.  Historians, however, are trained to be critical of all sources they use, whether they be primary or secondary.  Clearly with the rise of the digital age, this training will be even more important.  

The internet will never replace the feeling of holding an 800-year old manuscript in your hands, or standing in the middle of an ancient Greek temple, but it can help foster interest in new students, as well as be an invaluable resource for historians around the world.