There is a fly trapped in our dorm room.  I think he accidentally flew in when we had the window a while ago.  At first I found his relentless buzzing rather annoying.  Every once in a while, I’d hear him as he passed overhead and I would get a little angry at him.  Sometimes, he would buzz by during a particularly dramatic moment in a book or movie.  But now I find him a bit endearing.  Go ahead, call me crazy.

It started last night when he got stuck under the shade of the lamp on my dresser.  It’s a rather bright light with a white shade, and when he got caught under it he just kept buzzing back and forth frantically.  Think what it must have been like for him.  There he was, already in a foreign world, when suddenly the entire world was WHITE and BRIGHT and CONFINING.  According to the box, the lightbulb puts out 1170 Lumens.  I’m not sure what that means exactly, but it’s a pretty big number, and imagine what it must have felt like to the poor, tiny fly.  Add to that the fact that flys have complex eyes (so they can see WAY more than we can), and the poor thing must have been in an immense amount of pain.  I know what it’s like to have sensitive eyes, and that cannot have been fun at all.

The point is that ever since he got stuck in there, he hasn’t been the same.  Not that I was really monitoring his behavior that closely before, but he has now taken to flying around at random, buzzing almost constantly for long periods of time, and running into the walls quite frequently.  I know it sounds weird, but I’m actually a little worried about the wee fellow.  I have good reason to believe my lamp drove him temporarily (if not completely) insane.

Perhaps I am the insane one.  I feel a bit like Renfeild, actually, and trust me, that is not a good feeling.  I like to think that this obsession is more along the lines of “She wouldn’t even hurt a fly”, because that would make me a much nicer person.  The point is that the fly is trapped.  And maybe my caring so much proves that I am a little trapped too.  Maybe I need to get out more, instead of spending so much time in front of my computer.  Maybe I need to find some human company so I won’t have to worry endlessly about a fly.

I actually do think my college life is going well so far, and I certainly don’t regret any of the time I’ve spent here.  But maybe it would do me at least a little good to get out more.  Meanwhile, my poor friend the fly will go on ramming into the white walls.

I would just like to apologize for how stunningly boring my last entry was.  I didn’t realize until after I posted it that it really isn’t interesting to anyone who is not me.  So I’m sorry about that.

My goal is to be a history teacher and make history interesting.  I can’t afford to make mistakes like that.  I could say the trouble is that history is personal.  That in order to attack history from a perspective you can understand and enjoy, I’d have to know you personally.  But that is no excuse at all, really.  So once again, I’d like to express my deepest regrets.

~Emily

Jenny thinks I am in love with Henry Clay and really, there may be some truth to this.  (Though as I told her, if I were going to fall for someone from history, it would be Thomas Jefferson hands down.)  I tell you this, because my first two Historical Figures were, shall we say, slightly off the mainstream, whereas you may have heard of Henry Clay before.  If you haven’t, that’s okay too.  I’ll tell you all about him.

Henry Clay was a man who served as a US Congressman, was elected Speaker of the House at the very young age of thirty-four, headed more than one political party, ran for president numerous times, engineered a few pieces of major legislation, helped to postpone the Civil War, and lived forever.  Ahem.  Well, he… eh… did nearly all of those things, anyway.

 Clay started out as a strong political leader of the new Republicans that followed the administrations of presidents Jefferson and Madison.  Strongly nationalistic, this party advocated economic development and westward expansion.  These new Republicans were eager to go to war.  We’ll fight anyone.  No, really, we mean it.  War is good for the economy… uh… and things.  These aggressive Congressmen helped to push the young republic into the War of 1812.  They were known, quite rightly, as the War Hawks.  Henry Clay was their leader.  After the war was over, Clay proudly proclaimed  “Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war.  The scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves… What is our present situation?  Respectibility and character abroad- security and confidence at home.”

The next time Clay appears in the history books is when he arranged the Missouri Comprimise.  You may have heard of it, because it is vitally important to American history.  It admitted Maine to the union as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and drew a line across the country between the Northern (free) states and the Southern (slave) states of the west.

In the election of 1824, Clay ran for president, winning a disapointing 34% of the popular vote.  There was some tricky business with the election that year, and the top three candidates had to be presented to the House of Representatives, who would choose a winner.  Though Clay was out of the race by then, he was still Speaker of the House, and that pretty much gave him the power to choose the next president.  Good old Henry convinced the House to elect John Quincy Adams, and two days later Adams named him Secretary of State.  (Incidentally, Secretary of State is a great stepping-stone to the presidency.)  When Adams decided not to run for re-election, Clay stepped up and led the Republican party, but in the confusion, the Democrats won the election.  Clay ran for president again in 1832, this time gaining the party vote, but he lost to the popular returning candidate, Andrew Jackson.

By the time Jackson’s term was done, the Republican party had fallen apart.  Henry Clay, however, had not.  Clay was now leading the Whigs, a new party to oppose the Democrats.  He came up with the idea of an “American System” that would support the economy through bolstering manufacturing.  When he ran for president again in 1844, he was unanimously nominated among the Whig party.  And he very nearly won that time.  Honestly.  Just not quite.

Clay’s next acheivement was to engineer the Compromise of 1850.  He became well-renowned for his sectional compromises, which is almost ironic for someone who formerly headed the War Hawks.  The secret to this was his strong feelings of Nationalism, which supported both war with outsiders and internal connection and wholeness.  Though the Compromise of 1850 was not accepted all at once, it was eventually taken on, and it kept the Civil War at bay once again.  At this point, Henry was seventy-three years old, suffering from a habitual cough, and nearing the end of his political and natural life.  You could say the Compromise was his last huzzah, though his strong influence on Abraham Lincoln should be taken into account.

Henry Clay was a true politician.  Not afraid to change his position if it meant getting ahead, always willing to enter an election, even one he couldn’t win.  His entire life was devoted to politics, and he influenced greatly almost four decades of American political life.  The sad thing is, many people don’t know about his existence.  Rachel tells me that the Regents US History courses at her High School don’t even talk about Henry Clay.  Perhaps such a complicated man is too much for them, but it is sad to think that a person so devoted to the United States doesn’t even merit a place on the bulleted list of Important People.  It really makes you wonder what kind of influence you will have in your lifetime and beyond, doesn’t it?

This mini-biography is summarized from several chapters of Nation of Nations:  A Narrative History of the American Republic, Volume I:  To 1877, Fifth Edition.  Authors listed are Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff.

Here is the final draft of an essay I wrote on my Great Aunt Edna.  The photos referred to are at the end, except for the one of Louise Brooks.  You’ll have to look her up yourself, because I could not figure out how to get that picture in here for the life of me.

Edna Mae Town was born on March 10^th, 1908 in Dunkirk, New York.  At the recognized beginning of the flapper era in 1920, she was eleven years old (1920 Federal Census).  Thus she was the perfect age to experience the twenties as a flapper.  Though her hometown of Forestville was not a typical metropolitan center where flappers would have been found, Edna was influenced greatly by the flapper movement.

Many modern American young women in the 1920s were rebellious.  These women exhibited crass behavior such as smoking and drinking in public; wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, and went out dancing.  They broke free of social norms and redefined women’s roles.  This social group was known as the flappers, a general term for the socially indecent women of the jazz age, also known as the “roaring twenties”.  Flappers were characterized by their straight dresses that hid curves and contributed to the boyish look already shown in their short hairstyles.  Their short skirts exposed their knees as they danced the Shimmy, the Bunny Hug, and the Charleston.  Shocking and abrasive to the parent generation, the flappers changed American society (Pittsburg State University).  Edna was such a woman.           

Flapper influence was evident in Edna’s hair and clothing styles.  Photographs of Edna show her wearing styles consistent with those of young women in cities during the twenties.  Following is a photo of actress Louise Brooks and four photos of Edna.  Ms. Brooks exemplifies flapper styles through her clothing and hair.  The short skirt, low-cut dress, and thick-collared coat she wears are all typical of the flapper era.  Her bobbed hair and short, round hat are also styles that were popular in the nineteen-twenties.   Edna’s style, as shown in photos of her, is consistent with flapper styles.  In the second picture, Edna wears a straight, short dress that is characteristic of the roaring twenties.  The dress comes down only past her knees and exposes skin on her arms, both fairly radical fashions for the time period.  The photo was taken in 1930 at the close of the flapper era.  Edna was twenty-two years old and already married at the time.  Figure three is an undated photo of Edna, probably taken while she was still at school.  This means it would have been anywhere from 1918 to 1926.  This picture particularly emphasizes the bob hairstyle.  Her hair is short enough that it grazes the cheekbones, barely covering her ears.  Until the nineteen-twenties, women traditionally wore their hair much longer than this.  The flappers popularized a bob hairstyle.  Next is a family photo, which was taken around 1925.  Edna is in the center of the photo, and she would have been about sixteen years old.  The shapeless, stylized dress is consistent with twenties fashion because of the short sleeves which exposed the arms.  This was considered scandalous to many women of the former generation.  The thick stripe down the center of the dress is a pattern that flappers would have worn.  Edna also sports the thick beads that were popular in the time period.  The final photo was taken on Edna’s twenty-sixth birthday in 1934 (she is on the right).  Even though the flapper era had ended, its influence is still seen in the thick, boyish coats the women are wearing.

Edna possessed many of the mannerisms of a flapper too.  Family members recount that she played cards, drank, and smoked quite heavily, all habits that many flappers indulged in (Robert and David Schlick).  Those who knew her also say that Edna and her sisters enjoyed shopping and generally having a good time together.  This trend toward materialism is very characteristic of the 1920s.  Edna’s family also recalls that she loved to dance, and that she would teach the younger generation flapper-style dances.  One relative said:

Edna probably was a flapper.  Once when we were showing her the dance of the 60’s called the [Mashed Potato], she said “Why that’s the Charleston.”  We begged her to dance for us and she did.  She could really do the Charleston well.  She would have been a teenager during the Roaring 20’s (David Schlick).           

Edna was set apart from the older generation by her liberal tendencies for a woman of her time period.  She gained a flair for reading by attending school as a girl (1920 Federal Census).  Whereas more conservative women were not interested in books, Edna continued to read (and do crossword puzzles) enthusiastically for the remainder of her life.   This ensured that she was a well-educated woman (Robert Schlick).  Her literary finesse also extended to writing, and she was the author of a few poems.  Her poems were of a personal nature, and she never had them published.  In fact they were not of any true literary merit; it is more important that she wrote them.  There were few women writers at the time, at least few that gained any following.  The fact that Edna was writing during this time period proves her views on women’s achievements to be quite open-minded.         

Edna also exhibited liberal trends by divorcing her first husband, Porter Ruttenbur.  Divorce was not common during the twenties and thirties, because it was a difficult legal process.  The fact that Edna was willing to obtain a divorce and remarry in a time when such an act was pushing the social boundaries shows her forward-thinking mindset and also her disregard for what the public would think of her.  Both are traits that a true flapper would have.  Women often had to prove adultery, abuse, or abandonment in order to secure a divorce.  While “No-Fault” divorces were becoming available in the 1930s, couples often had to move to places like Reno, Nevada to obtain them (Online Nevada Encyclopedia).  Edna and Porter were married in 1928, and they had three children together (1930 Federal Census).  By 1939, Edna had divorced Porter and remarried, to a man called Homer Johnston (Don Town).  Family rumor dictates that Porter abused Edna, and that he and Homer fought over her (Margaret Jensen and David Schlick). 

It is certain that the divorce was a long, messy process for all involved.  Edna and Porter had three teenage children at the time, Daphne, Marilynn, and Terry Ruttenbur.  The children appear to have been sent away while the divorce was taking place.  Daphne lived with Marian Town, Edna’s sister, and her husband Phillip Schlick during that time (David Schlick).  Presumably Marilynn and Terry were away from home as well.  Edna and Porter most likely did not want their children to see them fighting.  This sentiment is shown in a poem Edna wrote during that time in her life.  Edna’s poetry is important to her character because it shows her spirit as a writer, but also because it explains how hard the divorce was for her.  Only a woman of true social spunk could withstand such trials.  The poem is as follows:

Dear God, please watch my babies
While I am far away;
I worry so and wonder how
They get along each day.
It is my fault they are alone
And oh, I miss them so!
Don’t let them grow to hate me
I beg you, God, oh no!
 
There are three of them, dear Lord,
Two girls and a little boy;
If I could only have them again
My heart would fill with joy -
But I grew tired of staying there
Half-living from year to year -
(Excuse me, God, one second
While I brush away this tear.)
 
So I just up and left them, God.
What can I say or do?
I’ve come to You for judgement [sic], Lord,
I rest my case with You.

Edna Town was my great aunt, sister to my grandmother.  Many family members have told me that I resemble her.  I have long been fascinated with the world of the roaring twenties, and it intrigues me that she may have fit into it, even in some small way.  By examining Edna’s clothing and hair styles, mannerisms, and social actions, I have given myself a glimpse into her life, a life that I believe was centered around the flapper movement.