GUEST BLOGGER: Debbie Weinkamer on Lucretia Garfield, “The Vanishing First Lady” – or Am I?

Former First Lady Lucretia Garfield (seated center) with thirteen of her sixteen grandchildren in Mentor, Ohio, summer 1906.
Left to right –Standing (back row): Newell Garfield, Lucretia Garfield, James Garfield, Rudolph Hills Garfield (in sailor suit w/teddy bear), John Garfield, Rudolph Stanley-Brown.  Seated (front row): Margaret Stanley-Brown, Stanton Garfield, Edward Garfield, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield (Mrs. James A. Garfield), Mary Louise Garfield, Ruth Stanley-Brown, Mason Garfield, and James A. Garfield.

First Lady Lucretia Garfield lived for 36 years after her husband, President James A. Garfield, was assassinated in 1881 by Charles Guiteau. During that time, she became a beloved figure in America, though she shunned publicity. She created the first Presidential Memorial Library and became the matriarch of a large, close-knit and affectionate family. Debbie Weinkamer, who portrays Lucretia, is a Garfield researcher and first-person living historian. Here she presents how Lucretia would speak for herself in answering the critics if she had the chance. Not always self-assured, except in the company of friends and family, nevertheless, Lucretia had always met adversity head on, facing her responsibilities.

Next up: DARK HORSE

Which was the worst presidential campaign in American history, from the viewpoint of the winning candidate?  How about 1880, when the bad blood and infighting got so intense that the new president was shot in the back four months into his term by a follower of a rival faction in his own party -- in an argument over patronage jobs?



Today, on the eve of what promises to be a rocky, ugly 2012 political year, we proudly announce the new Viral History Press LLC edition of DARK HORSE: The Surprise Election and Politicial Murder of President James A. Garfield.


For this year, it is exclusively at Amazon.com.  

Check out possible savings here.


James Garfield's 1880 "dark horse" nomination for president after the longest-ever Republican convention (36 ballots), his victory in the closest-ever presidential popular vote, his struggle with feuding factions once elected, and its climax of violence, all produced one of the most dramatic presidential odysseys of the Gilded Age. The era's decency is seen contrasted against sharp and bitter partisanship, hauntingly familiar to modern America. But in this case, it ended in the pistol shots of assassin Charles Guiteau.


Featured on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" and NPR's "All Things Considered" when first released in 2003, DARK HORSE has since become a true underground classic in political circles.


Now we are making it available again. You can read the story yourself and share it with your politico friends.

BOOKS -- 1861: Civil War Awakening

Recently the Delmarva Review asked me to write a few words about the new book by Adam Goodheart, that focuses on the opening months of the Civil War.  Here's what I came up with.  It's in their new issue, just out this week:  

1861:  The Civil War Awakening

By Adam Goodheart

460 pages

Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Review by Ken Ackerman

 

For Civil War buffs, these are salad days.  With the 150^th marking of the Great Conflict just begun, we can expect a happy great flood of top-notch books marking every step in the War.  1861: The Civil War Awakening is a good one, a tasty appetizer to the coming feast. 

Adam Goodheart, journalist and New York Times Civil War blogger, gives us not the great battles to come, but an appealing, human scale introduction to the people and country preparing to fight them.   He tells his story through portraits and panoramas, from Fort Sumter with its outnumbered Union defenders, to the first slaves to taste freedom at Virginia’s Fortress Monroe, saved by the clever strategy of its commanding general, lawyer-politician Benjamin Butler, who cuts the legal knot by declaring them enemy “contraband.”   We follow Elmer Ellsworth, creator of the Zouaves regiment, an early version of today’s military Special Forces, and the New York Fireman who volunteer for his.   We meet future president James A. Garfield as a young school teacher bringing a deep idealistic intellect to framing the North’s will to fight.  And many more.

Then there is Abraham Lincoln.  Goodheart gives us a Lincoln still wrestling with unprecedented crises, maligned by all sides until he finally finds his own authentic voice that July.

Adam Goodheart is a fine writer and a pleasure to read.  You will appreciate the future volumes on Gettysburg, Antietam, and the rest much more from having first learned the terrain through the lens of this evocative book.  

On Susan B. Anthony's trail -- Ohio's South Newbury Union Chapel

The South Newbury Union Chapel in Newbury, Ohio.

Last time, I told you the story of how Susan B. Anthony had one chance to vote for president of the United States in her lifetime, in 1872,  and was thrown in jail as a result. (Click here for the story.)

Here's a photo sent by Guest Blogger  Jim Robenalt taken from Remarkable Ohio, the fine website of the Ohio Historical Society, showing the South Newbury Union Chapel, where Susan B. Anthony gave many of her subsequent speeches on women's suffrage.  Note how small the building is, but how big an impact had.  Here's the description:


           "Called the 'Cradle of Equal Suffrage' and 'Free Speech Chapel,' Union Chapel was to be '…open and free for all denominations, but to be monopolized by no one or to the exclusion of anyone.'


           "Built in 1858 or 1859 on land donated by Anson Ma it tthews, the chapel reputedly exists in response to incident triggered by James A. Garfield, then principal of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College) and later president of the United States. He was scheduled to speak at the Congregationists' 'Brick Church' in December 1857. Because of the supposed controversial nature of Garfield's speech, however, the invitation was withdrawn.  Outraged citizens built Union Chapel in response. 


           "Fulfilling its mission, the chapel welcomed groups crusading for many causes in late 19th century America, including women's dress reform and temperance. One of the most active groups at the chapel was the Newbury Woman's Suffrage Political Club, founded in January 1874. The chapel was the club's meeting place and the site of lectures by Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Taylor Upton, leaders in the woman's suffrage movement. The chapel also hosted singing schools, plays, and other social, religious, and political gatherings." 


Next time you're in Ohio, check it out.  

Portrait: Chester Alan Arthur's inauguration, 1881

Of all the presidential inauguration scenes of the late 1800s, my personal favorite is this one, a full-page cover from Leslie’s Illustrated showing Chester Alan Arthur taking the oath in the living room of his New York City townhouse. It took place at about 2:15 am on Tuesday morning, September 20, 1881, just hours after word reached Arthur by telegraph that President James A. Garfield had died, making Arthur a thoroughly accidental and reluctant chief executive. Arthur’s aides had to scour the neighborhood to find a judge — John R. Brady of the New York Supreme Court — to administer the oath.

The whole nation had been on a tense death-watch for Garfield ever since early July when Garfield had been shot in the back by a psychopath named Charles Guiteau at the Washington, D.C. train station. Garfield could have survived the gun shot, but his doctors had infected him by probing the wound with dirty fingers. During his struggle for life that summer, Garfield had become beloved in America, while Arthur was distrusted and feared.

Arthur never aspired to be President. His selection as candidate for vice president on Garfield’s 1881 ticket had been a political fluke — the product of a stalemated nominating convention. ”A greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining,” he called it. Known as Gentleman Boss for his role managing New York’s statewide Republican political machine, Arthur as vice president had openly opposed Garfield in the bitter argument over patronage and intra-party factions that had set the stage for Guiteau’s attack. As Guiteau was being arrested minutes after shooting the president, he announced: “I did it! I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President!”

These words by the assassin, coupled with Arthur’s role in the patronage fight, led many Americans to believe Arthur in fact was involved in the shooting. Arthur himself, a mild-mannered, dapper man, was horrified at the thought and dreaded the reaction if he took office. When told of Garfield’s death, Arthur broke down in tears. Look at Arthur’s eyes in the image above, (click to make it full size) and notice how the artist sought to capture the mix of fear, sadness, and determination.

If fact, once sworn in, Chester Alan Arthur became admirably independent. He surprised friends by signing the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, the most important and successful government reform of the era. When old cronies came asking favors, he turned them away — often after bitter arguments. Said one: “He isn’t ‘Chet’ Arthur anymore; he’s the President.” Arthur guarded his privacy, telling one nosy temperance lady hectoring him about alcohol in the White House: “Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s dan business!”

Arthur’s admirable record won him no friends. His party refused to nominate him for re-election in 1884. That same year, he was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a painful, then-uncurable kidney ailment that would kill him in late 1886.

Today, a century later, Chester Alan Arthur is largely forgotten. His name is the punchline to a dozen jokes about obscure dead presidents. I think this is shameful. Arthur, for all his faults, was also one of the most human and compelling presidents we’ve had, a flawed person who found integrity and grace in the most difficult circumstance.

Portraits: James A. Garfield's inaugural ball, March 1881

Here’s a snapshot I took recently of a rarely seen two-page spread from the Leslie’s Illustrated of March 19, 1881. It took a team of artists to sketch and then carve it by hand onto wooden block for printing. It shows the grand inaugural ball for PresidentJames A. Garfield, held in the Smithsonian Building that year. Garfield, a popular and moderate Ohio Republican, was doomed to serve only four months in office before a psychopathic hanger-on named Charles Guiteau shot him in the back as Garfield was entering the Washington, D.C. train station on a Saturday morning that July. Garfield would die from infection (yes, the doctors killed him by failing to wash their hands) a few months later on September 19, 1881. His assassination would shock the nation and make Garfield widely popular for a generation. There is hardly a town or city in America with a Garfield Street or two.

Click on the photo to blow it up and marvel at the detail. So accurate is the sketch that you can make out literally dozens of prominent faces in the crowd: Garfield, his wife Lucretia, Senators Roscoe Conkling, John Sherman, and Carl Schurz, plus incoming Vice President Chester Alan Arthur, incoming Secretary of State James G. Blaine, and a bevy of foreign diplomats. Look at the women’s gowns, the bunting on the walls, the guarded conversations. The band that night played tunes from the latest Gilbert and Sullivan operetta H.M.S. Pinafore — Garfield’s favorite. — that had premiered in London just two years earlier.

It’s a group portrait of a vanishing generation of politicians taken at a moment of graceful indulgence. Could any photograph or video have captured the moment so well?

Why James Garfield over LBJ and the Adamses?

James A. Garfield accepting surrender of US Grant at the 1880 Republican convention after 36 ballots.