A tip of the Unusually Stout Parasol

Momma and I were saddened to learn today of the death last month of one of our favorite authors, Barbara Mertz.

I knew her better as Elizabeth Peters, author of the beloved Amelia Peabody books.

As you might remember, Amelia was the inspiration for both my Unusually Stout Parasol and my utility belt.

As posted on her official website:

She died as she had told everyone she wanted to – unexpectedly, in her sleep. Shortly before her death, she had written a line to be posted on this webpage: “At 85, Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Michaels) is enjoying her cats, her garden, lots of chocolate, and not nearly enough gin.”

"In the end the clouds will blow away and falcon will fly through the portal of the dawn."

The Falcon at the Portal

RIP Barbara Mertz. You shall be missed, but your characters live on.

The golden boy

Did you now that I was there when Howard Carter (and Amelia Peabody) discovered the tomb of King Tut?

Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who ruled during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom.

The Nov. 4, 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt.

In February 2010, the results of DNA tests confirmed that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten and his sister/wife, whose name is unknown but whose remains are positively identified as "The Younger Lady" mummy found in KV35.

Exhibits of artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb have since toured the world and his burial mask remains a popular symbol. 

An Electra-fying Mystery

A new clue could soon uncover the fate of American aviator Amelia Earhart, who went missing in the South Pacific on July 2, 1937.

Enhanced analysis of a photograph taken just months after Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane vanished shows what may be the landing gear of the aircraft protruding from the waters off the remote island of Nikumaroro, in what is now the Pacific nation of Kiribati, 350 miles southeast of Howland Island.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has suggested Earhart may have flown without further radio transmissions for two and a half hours along the line of position she noted in her last transmission received at Howland, arrived at then-uninhabited Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) in the Phoenix group, landed on an extensive reef flat near the wreck of a large freighter (the SS Norwich City) and ultimately perished.

A British colonial officer and licensed pilot radioed his superiors in 1940 to inform them that he had found a "skeleton... possibly that of a woman," along with an old-fashioned sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner.

Artifacts discovered by TIGHAR after six expeditions on Nikumaroro have included improvised tools, an aluminum panel (possibly from an Electra), an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas the same thickness and curvature of an Electra window, bronze bearings which may have belonged to Earhart's aircraft, a zipper pull which might have come from her flight suit, and a size 9 Cat's Paw heel dating from the 1930s.

Earhart's surviving stepson, George Putnam Jr., has expressed enthusiasm for TIGHAR's research and circumstantial evidence.

TIGHAR said in 2010 it had found bones that appeared to be part of a human finger, but DNA testing proved inconclusive.

They announced on March 20, 2012 that they are launching a new search starting in June 2012 to find the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra off Nikumaroro.

I wonder if they need my help?

It's tool time

It's taken awhile, but I am slowly assembling the items I need for my tool belt, inspired by both Amelia Peabody's belt and an old-fashioned (to you) chatelaine.

Amelia Peabody Emerson is the protagonist of the Amelia Peabody series, written by author Elizabeth Peters. Peabody is married to Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson and has one biological child, Walter "Ramses" Peabody Emerson.

Peabody usually carries one of her stout parasols, which she uses as a weapon (including a sword-parasol). Her other famous accessory is her belt, later partially replaced with a vest with many pockets. It contains:

"Pistol and knife, canteen, bottle of brandy, candle and matches in a waterproof box, notebook and pencil, needle and thread, compass, scissors, first-aid kit and a coil of stout cord (useful for tying up captured enemies)."

He Shall Thunder in the Sky
Chapter 2

A chatelaine is a decorative belt hook or clasp worn at the waist with a series of chains suspended from it. Each chain is mounted with a useful household appendage such as scissors, thimble, watch, key, vinaigrette, household seal, etc.

Chatelaines were worn by many housekeepers in the 19th century. Originally the chatelaine was designed to have all the tools necessary for the woman of the household to sort out any problem she may encounter in her day.

However, with time, the chatelaine evolved from a purely utilitarian object into a decorative symbol that reflected the status of the wearer.

So far I have:

• Aether Pistol
• Flask (for medicinal purposes)
• Candle
• Notebook and pencil
• Compass
• Scissors
• First-aid kit
• A coil of stout cord

What else do I need?

Viva la Vega!

Those magnificent women in their flying machines!

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo transcontinental nonstop flight across the United States, when she took off from Los Angeles on Aug. 24, 1932 and landed her Lockheed Vega at the Newark Airport in New Jersey 19 hours later. She established a women's record of 19 hours and 5 minutes and set a women's distance record of 2,447 miles. 

The Dallas Morning News reported on Aug. 26, 1932: 

When the aviatrix stepped wearily from the cockpit of her ship after landing, an enthusiastic crowd, predominantly female, rushed out to greet her, and almost knocked her over.

“Don’t come near me. If you knew what I feel like—” 

She threw her hands up in a tired gesture. When photographers asked her to smile, she told them, “I don’t feel like smiling. I’m too tired.” 

There was a broad smile on her face a moment later, however, as she asked the cameramen, “how’s this?”

While it's a great photo of Amelia, this is sooo undignified. 

To boldly go where no women have gone before

Three of my favorite women are being celebrated in The Episcopal Church today, and I learned about a fourth. Gosh darn, that Episcopal Church is smart.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Ross Tubman:
Four American Pioneers of Black Rights and Women's Rights 

The Episcopal Church has added to its Calendar four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19-20, 1848.

Sojourner Truth (Nov. 26, 1883) 

 
Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker Abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for homeless women. When she was traveling, and someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus."

Harriet Ross Tubman (March 10, 1913)

Harriet Ross was born in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed by the Bible narrative of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and it became the basis of her belief that it was God's will to deliver slaves in America out of their bondage, and that it was her duty to help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped to Canada, but returned to help others escape. Working with other Abolitionists, chiefly white Quakers, she made at least 19 excursions into Maryland in the 1850s, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. During the Civil War she joined the Northern Army as a cook and a nurse and a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that freed more than 750 slaves. After the war, she worked to shelter orphans and elderly poor persons, and to advance the status of women and blacks. She became known as "the Moses of her People."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Oct. 26, 1902)

Mrs. Stanton was born in 1815 and reared in the Presbyterian Church. She found the Calvinist doctrine of predestination dismaying, and rebelled against it. She denounced the clergy of her day for not upholding women's rights, but as she traveled giving speeches on the subject, she found no lack of pulpits available to her. She undertook to write what she called a Women's Bible. It never got beyond a series of notes on selected Biblical passages. For example, she quotes the passage in Genesis where we are told that Noah's Ark had only one window, and remarks that if a woman had been consulted, the Ark would have been better designed.

Amelia Jenks Bloomer (Dec. 30, 1894)

Amelia Jenks was born in New York in 1818, reared as a Presbyterian, and as a young woman became an activist for the anti-slavery, anti-alcohol, and women's votes movements. One of her concerns has made her name a part of the language. In her day, women's fashions encouraged tightly laced waists, involving severe health problems. (The fashions were denounced in 1728 by William Law--see April 9.) The fashion also called for skirts trailing the ground, an arrangement that made it difficult to keep the skirts reasonably clean, especially since the streets were full of horses. Mrs. Bloomer designed a women's costume featuring what are known as Turkish pants, or harem pants, loose baggy trousers gathered into tight bands at the ankles and waist. Over these she wore a mid-calf-length skirt. It seems a thoroughly modest garb, but it excited indignation and ridicule. (At least well into the 1940s, women's underpants, and women's baggy outer pants worn for athletics, were known as "bloomers.")

Mrs. Bloomer and her husband eventually settled in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she worked to promote churches, schools, libraries, and progressive and reform movements. On one occasion she said:

"The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning." 

O God, whose Spirit guideth us into all truth and maketh us free: Strengthen and sustain us as thou didst thy servants Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that worketh against the glorious liberty to which thou callest all thy children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Oh, you beautiful doll!

Being a Time Traveler can be a Challenge but has its Rewards, too.

A Challenge? Remembering what Year it is, what's been Invented (or not), and what Tense to use when Speaking.

Rewards? Knowledge!

And this time a really Great Doll.

When Momma and I Ran Away from Slavery I had to leave my doll behind. So when I spotted this Little Darling in 1934 I knew she had to be mine.

Thankfully, I was able to Smuggle her back to 1864 since she's Homemade with materials available in 1864.

How could I Resist her?! My own little Steampunk Aeronaut Doll complete with Goggles!

I named her Amelia after Amelias Bloomer, Earhart and Peabody.

Momma thinks she's a Boy doll since she's wearing (gasp!) Pants, Jacket, Cap, Goggles, Boots, and Gloves. (Momma doesn't acknowledge Rational Dress yet.)

I've been Humming this Song since I got her:

Oh! you beautiful doll,

You great big beautiful doll!

Let me put my arms about you,

I could never live without you. 

Yes, I know it's a Song from 1911. (See what I Mean about the Challenges of being a Time Traveller?)

But the author of the song, Seymour Brown, was Born in Philadelphia in 1885, so maybe he'll Hear me someday and Then write it!

She who wields a mean parasol

Queen Victoria's anti-terrorist parasol

I am anxiously awaiting Momma to finish my stout parasol, but wanted to show you I'm not the only strong-minded woman to wield one.

Of course I got my inspiration from Mrs. Amelia Peabody Emerson, but do you know where she got her inspiration?

Detail of parasol showing chain-mail lining.

Queen Victoria!

Queen Victoria experienced several assassination attempts, the first being in June 1840. Prince Albert is thought to have designed this parasol incorporating a layer of mail between cover and lining as protection for the Queen. However, the weight of the mail made it impossible for the parasol to be held normally. It weighs 1468g (3.237 lb) and was probably never used by the Queen.

Momma said mine won't be lined with mail.

Yet.

 

Way down in Egypt land

I sincerely apologize to my faithful readers for not writing anything this past week, but I got a bit adventurous with the time travel machine. I promise that I shall write about 1864 Philadelphia soon!

In the meantime, after spending much time in future libraries I became acquainted with the memoirs of the famous female Egyptologist, Amelia Peabody Emerson. Since her journals began in 1884 I decided a quick trip to Egypt was in order so I could meet this remarkable lady.

What a woman! A proponent of rational dress, she gave her stamp of approval to my ensemble and I got many ideas from her to adapt for my own growing wardrobe.

Mrs. Emerson usually carries a parasol, which she uses a weapon - including a sword-parasol! Her other famous accessory is her belt which contains a pistol and knife, canteen, bottle of brandy, candle and matches in a waterproof box, notebook and pencil, needle and thread, compass, scissors, first-aid kit and a coil of stout cord (useful for tying up captured enemies).

Momma's making me a stout parasol and while she won't let me carry a pistol (or brandy!), I think I shall try to assemble my own belt which I think would be useful working for the Underground....