Curio Cabinet

This gives new meaning to “too much of a good thing.” This month in 1478, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was supposedly drowned in a barrel of wine. We’ll never know for certain whether this unusual execution actually took place, since it was common for stories in the 15th century to be passed around until they became exaggerated. We do know that, one way or another, the duke was executed for treason. We also know some details about the events, both sad and violent, leading up to his death.
 
George was the younger brother of Edward IV of England. The brothers’ father led the House of York in the War of the Roses against the House of Lancaster over the right to the English throne. While their father died in battle, Edward eventually took the throne. Given a dukedom by his brother, George could have lived the rest of his life in ease and prosperity. Instead he, along with others in the House of York, were grievously insulted when Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a widow from the House of Lancaster. The relationships between the two brothers only soured further when George married the cousin of a man who was a vocal critic of Edward. At one point, George even helped lead a rebellion against his own brother, captured him, and held him prisoner for a time, though wartime trouble with the Scots eventually led to his release.
 
Edward suspected that George was plotting to overthrow him, and George was forced to flee to France, for a time, to avoid Edward’s wrath. The brothers had a brief reconciliation after Henry VI was restored to the throne via political machinations. George helped Edward defeat him and retake the throne. Then, two things happened that finally ended the feud between the brothers once and for all. First, George’s wife passed away a few months after giving birth, and he accused one of her female servants, or “ladies”, of poisoning her. Without the proper authority to do so, he had the servant arrested and executed, which angered Edward. Around the same time, someone in George’s household was accused of “imagining the king’s death by necromancy.” When George publicly protested the charge, he was charged with treason himself. Although historical accounts show that he was executed in private, rumors began circulating shortly after his death that he was drowned in Malmsey wine, an expensive fortified wine from Portugal. Some accounts even claim that he made the request himself, and that it was to mock his brother’s drinking habits. With his own brother constantly trying to overthrow him, could you blame the guy for having a drink now and then?

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of the Duke of Clarence being drowned in a barrel of wine. The Duke is being held upside down by his feet as a guard pushes on his head.] Credit & copyright: John Cassell's illustrated history of England vol. II (London, 1858). Internet Archive. Public Domain, Mark 1.0

You may remember the Alamo, but how much do you actually know about it? On this day in 1836, the Battle of the Alamo began. Many Americans (especially Texans) think of the battle as a heroic last stand fought by brave patriots. As with many violent historical conflicts, though, things weren’t quite as simple or morally black-and-white as movies and folk songs might lead us to believe.
 
The Battle of the Alamo took place during the Texas Revolution, a war for Texan independence from Mexico. While Mexican officials obviously took issue with Texas attempting to break away, they were also upset by Texans’ use of slaves, since Mexico was cracking down on slavery. Texans argued that their economy depended on slavery, with many of their wealthiest being cotton farmers. At first, as the staunchly abolitionist Mexican government tried to outlaw slavery in their territory, some of the colonists left. By 1835, however, tensions grew into armed conflict. By the time of the battle, Texans were emboldened by their previous victories against the Mexican army, especially after they’d managed to drive the Mexicans south of the Rio Grande. However, when Mexico retaliated by sending General Antonio López de Santa Anna north with thousands of soldiers, many of the Texan rebels quickly abandoned the ground they had gained. One of the few remaining garrisons was located in a former Spanish mission called the Alamo. The adobe structure was not suitable for defending against an attack, and few rebels remained. Nevertheless, the commanders of the fort, William Travis and James Bowie, stayed behind, hoping that reinforcements would be sent their way. In the weeks leading to General Santa Anna’s arrival at the fort, the two commanders sent impassioned letters to the Texas legislature asking for reinforcements, to no avail. The Texas government was brand new and not organized enough to mobilize a large fighting force. Even if they had been, it would have been extremely difficult to get enough troops to the Alamo before the Mexican army’s arrival.
 
Travis and Bowie were both well aware of the approaching army, but refused to flee. Neither of them had much military experience, and with the fort poorly equipped or laid out for a defense, the odds were truly against them. On February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna arrived with his troops, and a 13-day siege began. Among the Texan soldiers was former Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett and the families of the soldiers garrisoned there. Some popular, modern imaginings of the battle, such as 1960’s The Alamo starring John Wayne, depict it as a desperate last stand. Historical accounts paint a different picture, though. Rather than a fight to the last man, about half of the Texan rebels fled before the battle’s end, and most of them were skewered by Mexican cavalry. Crockett himself surrendered and was executed, while the families of the soldiers were allowed to leave unharmed. The battle also did little to delay General Santa Anna and his troops on their way to their larger mission: capturing San Antonio. He had promised the Mexican government that he would take the city by March 2, and it was captured on the 6th.
 
Today, the Battle of the Alamo and the purported courage of the men who died there is an integral part of Texas state history, but that history is often not told in full. Most accounts of the Alamo make little mention of slavery, even though Texans’ desire to keep slaves was one of their main reasons for wanting to break with Mexico. Most modern adaptations of the story also leave out the Tejanos, the settlers of Mexican descent who fought alongside the white Texans. History might seem like a thing of the past, but it’s always relevant to the present.

 
[Image description: A watercolor drawing of the ruins of the Alamo.] Credit & copyright: Ruins of the Church of the Alamo, San Antonio de Béxar, Edward Everett (1818-1903). Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Gift of Anne Burnett Tandy in memory of her father Thomas Lloyd Burnett, 1870-1938. Public Domain.

Women face a lot of pressure. That might seem like an obvious statement, but someone had to be the first to write about it. On this day in 1963, The Feminine Mystique was published by American activist Betty Friedan. The book was a frank indictment of the prevailing myths surrounding women' s lives in post-World War II America.
 
Friedan defined the “feminine mystique” as the prevailing cultural idea that all women should feel fulfilled by dedicating themselves to domesticity. According to this idea, homemaking, raising children, and being dutiful wives to their husbands was all it took for women to be fully-realized, completely satisfied individuals. This notion was not just a matter of sociology, but psychology. Friedan herself drew inspiration from psychologists who believed that clinging to the ideals of the feminine mystique denied women the chance to grow and develop properly as adults, a particularly salient point in the post-World War II era. During the war, women had been enlisted into the workforce while many working-aged men were deployed. Upon the men' s return, the vast majority of women were ousted from the workforce, and were thus suddenly denied financial and social independence. The ideal of the nuclear family was heavily promoted in the U.S. during the Cold War, making the role of a housewife a matter of patriotism.
 
In reality, plenty of women during this time were highly dissatisfied with their lives. Friedan cited a number of different statistics in her book showing that the 1950s and 1960s were a period of social regression for women. Fewer women went to college, fewer women stayed in college, and in interviews with housewives, Friedan found that many of them didn’t find their limited roles fulfilling. Meanwhile, popular culture often blamed this dissatisfaction on the women themselves, attributing their lack of fulfillment to their higher education or professional ambitions. In the decades following the publication of her book, Friedan faced criticism from other feminists as well, largely for statistical inconsistencies and for the increasingly dated scope of her book as more women returned to the workforce. Regardless, The Feminine Mystique is remembered as a landmark book that helped jumpstart a national conversation about women’s rights. After all, there are some problems that should become dated.

 
[Image description: The feminine gender symbol in black against a pink background.] Credit & copyright: Author-created photo. Public Domain.

Have you ever bought a book because of a quote from another author telling you to? Such endorsements, printed on the backs of books or on the inside of their dust jackets, are called blurbs, and one publisher is doing away with them. Simon & Schuster is one of the largest publishing houses in the U.S., and like every other publishing house, they’ve implicitly required their writers to solicit blurbs from other writers for their books. The common argument in favor of blurbs often is that they give potential buyers more confidence in their purchase, especially if the blurb is from an author they’re already familiar with. Others believe that bookstores and other large-scale buyers place a similar level of trust in the blurbs, which helps sales.
 
The practice of acquiring blurbs, however, can be very taxing. Writers, especially those with little name recognition, must ask more established writers to read and endorse their book. Writers’ agents devote much of their time to finding blurb-writers for their clients, and editors, too, have to run through their contacts list to reach out for blurbs. Then there’s the fact that blurbs aren’t always sincere. Many writers exchange blurbs as favors, though some end up writing many more than they ever receive. The amount of time it takes to read a book means that many writers don’t actually finish the entire thing before writing a blurb. Sean Manning, the current publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, considers blurbs a waste of time and believes that they don’t always reflect the artistic merit of the book. After all, many of the worlds’ greatest novels were published without blurbs, and books with blurb-covered jackets don’t always do well commercially or critically. Still, writers are divided. Some believe that blurbs are meaningless, but others believe they’re an important part of marketing. Only time will tell how blurbless books will do.

 
[Image description: A stack of books.] Credit & copyright: Poppy Thomas Hill, Pexels