Frances Benjamin Johnston: Pioneer Photographer

Local newspapers are a great source of unsung heroes.  The Long Island Press recently featured an article entitled Frances Benjamin Johnston Showed The World What A Woman Can Do.   The article highlights a trailblazer from the early 1900's. At the time people thought women could not handle heavy cameras, afford expensive equipment and were less talented. Johnston proved that a woman could master the profession of photography.  Her dedication to the field led her to be one of the first woman exhibiting photos at the Library of Congress. Her successful portraiture studio attracted clients such as Mark Twain and Isadora Duncan.       

Alexander Augusta

The life of  Alexander Augusta was recently featured on the Brian Lehrer Show.  He is an Unsung Black Hero of Public Health.  He was an African American  Virginia native who had to learn to read and write under the cover of night. He had to travel to Canada for a more extensive education because American universities rejected him. His pursuit of education and social justice garnered Abraham Lincoln's attention.  As a result, Lincoln recruited him as a surgeon of the 7th U.S. Colored Regiment.  His burial at in Arlington Cemetery is a testament to his courage and bravery.  

 

Upcoming Presentations

Rockville Centre Public Library
Saturday March 20th, 2021           11-12 pm
Unsung Heroes: Labor Leaders

Virtual 

Rockville Centre Public Library 

Thursday May 13th, 2021            1-2 pm

Unsung Heroes: Segregated Military Units 

Virtual 

Bilingual Wire Experts

In 1914 the first world war began between the French and Germans.  The war created a stalemate that lasted three years.  In 1918, the stalemate was finally broken when twenty five thousands of American soldiers joined the French side.  Among the American troops were two hundred and twenty three volunteer women called the Army Signal Corp.    

These French and English speaking switchboard operators sent messages along radio wires to help maintain contact with troops scattered over hundreds of miles. The Signal Corp decoded and transmitted top secret information directly to the battlefields. The switchboard operators were efficient and courageous working under terrible  conditions.  .       

These soldiers worked twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  It is estimated that one hundred and fifty thousand messages were sent daily and twenty six million messages were sent by the end of the war. 

Merle Egan Anderson was an advocate for the Signal Corp officers after the war. During the war she helped train newly arriving officers while completing her own responsibilities.  After the war she fought for veteran status for all Signal Corp officers. Without veteran status, officers were not entitled to war medals and benefits.  Nearly sixty years later her persistence paid off when the United States  government gave them full veteran status in 1977.

Upcoming Presentation: Unsung Heroes Women

Massapequa Public Library

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

7 - 8 PM

Sign-up here

Argument For Diversity

Article published in NEA Today magazine entitled Why We Need More Diverse Books.  I especially agree with the section where the author discusses the concept that students need more windows into other peoples experiences and mirrors of validation. I wrote a similar article entitle How to Broaden Students Sense of History.  

Apache Trails of Tears

The story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears is very well documented.  Under the guise of the Treaty of New Echota with Presidential support, thousands of Cherokees were removed from their territory east of the Mississippi River between 1835-1838.  The death toll is estimated at 10 thousand.  Fifty years later, the development of Carlisle Schools  (1879-1918) across the country worked actively to erase Native Americans' culture.  The Bureau followed the principle of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."  Other lesser known, bur similar events followed this pattern including the Apache Trail of Tears and the Occupation of Alcatraz. American society is still coming to terms with it's brutal past. I found a great article written in the Washington Post entitled "Native American sports mascots turned real people into flimsy props good riddance to them all." Some critics claim it is part of a cancel culture.  I disagree,  I strongly believe it is a country wrestling with its past transgressions.  The Cleveland logo does not honor Native American Indians.  It erodes and reduces humanity to something trivial.  

Merrill's Marauders: James Richardson

In September of 2020 the U.S. Government finally got around to recognizing an elite unit that were assigned the unimaginable task of capturing an airfield in Japanese-occupied Burma during World War II.  The 530th Unit, known as Merrill's Marauders trekked 1,000 miles behind enemy lines.  While traveling across Burma the unit endured many hardships.  First, the soldiers fought a determined Japanese enemy.  Second, the long journey led them through miles of jungles and over the rigid Himalayan foothills.  And last the unit was riddled with dysentery, fever and malaria. The combination of war, sickness, unique terrain, and lack of supplies made for a hellish combat.  The success of the Burma campaign was achieved on May 17th 1944, but it came with an enormous death toll.  Among the 3,000 U.S. soldiers deployed for this special operations mission only two hundred survived.  One of the last surviving members of the World War II jungle fighting unit known as Merrill's Marauders just died at the age of 99.