Technolandy

Day 121 (of 2024/25) Mavericks by social media historian Jenny Draper (couldn’t wait until April 1 to share!) 

Love non-textbook approaches to history. Facts are interesting but details are so much more captivating! And Jenny Draper subtitle of: ‘life stories and lessons of history’s most extraordinary misfits’ had my attention when she first announced her book a little while ago… big fan of hers – I like to believe that she was one of the Vikings in the Jorvik centre when I saw it in York, but I don’t believe the math works out! (The jobs of a history major are varied!)

But a delightful read that could nicely be formatted into a black mirror of history (the real life names of some of the people are hard to believe!)

24 characters that I figured I’d likely be able to make connections to the world of education (as usual, this share is based on my reading in real time! (With an edit to the opening regarding my appreciation/recommendation of it). And why not the more “as seen in school textbooks” share on history? Love that it’s because history will occasionally “throw up something completely wild, like a palaeontologist who collects useless string or a lady who lives in a hollow tree”. History can be fun (disclosure – I’m a history major so my bias will show from time to time!)

Also love that she shares that while we can learn from some of these examples, it doesn’t mean we should emulate them. Something we don’t always get across in education (though I will continue to whine that we need more adults modelling reading writing mathing and netiquetting. 

Also love the subtle point out that systemic discrimination hides in plain site as the term ‘eccentric’ is typically used rather than other terms due to one’s wealth (I’d say also linked with gender and skin colour as well, but that’s not a research piece, more of a feeling). So teasers, not spoilers, and thoughts connected to education:

Thomas Blood – shows how confidence can let you get away with almost anything. The opposite of imposter syndrome…which many educators feel from time to time e! Fabulous way to share some perspectives of the British republic!

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – Voltaire commented on her… ‘nuff said!?! Well, a neat look into gender separated education where boys -rich ones- got an education, girls didn’t… at least not a formal education! And marriage…wowsers…the Georgian age…

Takeaways connection to education: the smallpox vaccination process was seen as very counter-intuitive – much as many education things that work are as well (and what seems logical has not been a panacea). 

Ellen and Williams Craft – couple born into slavery… and sharing that certain audacious lies might be okay…? And the good reminder that the introduction of “race” into our systemic discrimination mindset was invented by racists to help them be racist. Just a reminder for classroom discussions!

Noor Inayat Khan – children’s author and badass ww2 spy – until… well, no spoilers here! But which goes in the cup first: milk or tea <— topics that need more importance in class debates!

Mary Frith – where girls wearing “boy clothes” could be arrested and publicly humiliated. Hmmm school dress code connections to “rules” that are 400 years out of step?

Lady Hester Stanhope – an ‘eccentric’ (see above…) traveller to the Middle East at an early time of “elsewhere” being mysterious and spooky… or a place of common sense. Living with her uncle (the PM) and advising on a skirmish with another famous historical French emperor… it kinda feels like a bit of Pippi Longstocking meets Forrest Gump. What a journey!

William Buckland – teaches that sometimes you may end up being remembered for one thing (or as The Arrogant Worms song goes – history is made by stupid people… and interesting menus) and it isn’t his wished title of being one of the og palaeontologists… 

Eleanor Rykener – ‘sense of story’ appears in curriculum and FPPL – oops,  I guess gossip counts… a #sogi story… from the 1300s… that details could supplant acotar! (Also an interesting sidetrack into the history of lgbtq+ [sic] terminology – ‘gay’ being a word from the 14th c but not associated. With homosexuality until the 1920s, bisexual coined in 1824 meaning having both sexual organs, transgender being introduced in the 1970s and lesbian being used (as per – us she from the isle of lesbos <—a real island… since the 1730s…though not directly termed female homosexual until the 20th century – fun facts abound in this section

James China & Abdullah David Susi – people have heard of explorer David Livingston (first European to see and rename Mosi-oa-Tunya as Victorian Falls and archives a lot of learnings) because of these two – taking his dead body & notes some 2250km (walking) across the continent! Okay – one spoiler – James is his Christian/baptized name after Livingstone rescues him from slavery. What a journey! Stories we wished we learned about the era of colonization rather than dates of when Kinshasa was founded. 

Black Agnes – countess of Dunbar – a forbidding castle on the way to Edinburgh. Scotland vs England just before the movies popularization of Williams Wallace and Robert the Bruce! Dusting the walls after each seize assault… one of many noblewomen who fought in wars, but are not written about…  and a good lesson that appearances matter – fake it till you make it!

Margery Kemp – author of first genre: autobiography (inn English language) but, as happens in group work [and why as Ken O’Connor reiterates: don’t use it in grading of individuals] she is duped by a transcriber who writes gibberish when a second scribe is hired after the first dies… and then remains discreet (this is before the printing press fad began) until accidentally rediscovered in the 1930s! Second lesson: save a backup

La Chevalière D’éon – an amazing name and a lesson that age does not need to matter to continue to have layers of mystery!  And another example of pronouns not being a new topic for discussion and debate and fighting gender ‘norms’ is also centuries old 

Ira Aldridge –  if you don’t like your “role”. Change it! Being a black actor in the 1800s… he blazed a trail! And saved slaves – can’t omit that!

The Rebecca Rioters – showing that riots and protests can be very effective – even if using a nom de plume- or wearing a skirt and fake beard…

Julius Soubise – a talented slave connecting with an eccentric (there’s that word again!) old lady… the Netflix series is already written! Especially when he is taken out of the country to evade a rape charge. 

Ethel MacDonald – anarchist radio reporter (still one of my favourite media types) reporting on the Spanish Civil War (such an under-studies part of the 20th century rise of fascism). Teaches us all to pick the battles we choose to find important. Interesting point looking at the ebb and flow of when people look for ‘new political philosophies’ – especially when ‘those in charge’ make decisions that don’t work out (cough cough… 2025 politics) ~ which is what led to the rise of more radical philosophies such as communism, socialiasm, fascism and anarchism… and I learned that even in the 1930s, there were companies for which you could spam ‘free trial’ periods over and over (though in this case typewriters and printing machines rather than media access). 

The Chartists – lesson that what may be a radical thought can be ‘old school’ in the not too distant future! These are the folks who pushed (less than 2 centuries back) for things like: regular elections; secret ballots; all regions being equal in representation; all men being eligible to be MPs (still awhile for the women); salaries for MPs; vote for all men – not just those who owned (nice) houses. But it’s a journey to get to the (now assumed) destination with many not living to see their radical thoughts normalized…

Gerrard Winstanley – alpha testing communism before it was cool! Early design thinking iteration! 1600s edition… It’s not a good time in England… outside the plague years (love this for a comparison point!), probably the worst.. and with the king losing his head, the ponder: no king (who owns the land) mayhaps the land go to… the people! Unshockingly there are a lot of artificial obstacles that come up. At least a movie has been made of this Maverick: Winstanley. 

Mary Anning – dinosaur hunter! (Fossils) When people today ask “where are all the dinosaur bones” it’s a good reminder that people like Mary found a lot of them (and many sold them as ‘curiosities’). She started a career that hadn’t been known (dinosaurs were not a thing when she was naming plesiosaurs et al) and helped show/prove earth was a lot older than the thousands of years it was believed by many to be…

Caroline Herschel – Told she’d only be good for looking down (scrubbing floors) she instead became a well known astronomer discovering nebulae and comets (and has a crater in the moon named after her!) Not to any thanks to her family… yowsers! Her brother may have discovered Uranus, but her own discoveries far exceed that! Especially getting fame after discovering her first comet…. Also highlights the gender wage gap of the 1700s… and the first (of only 9) woman to win the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal… 

Peter the Wild Boy – wow, there were a lot of rules in the Georgian court.. and in comes a boy who was founding living feral in Germany… an antithesis of the type of person usually welcomed… but a wild court means he is the subject of a couple key philosophers (Hobbes and Locke) among others who look for meaning in his (lack of) upbringing. And so instead of being cast on the search, he is looked after and treated … royally. Finding kindness in what would easily be anticipated to be an unkind world.

Sabrina Sidney – what a pedagogical experiment = shooting someone (and dripping wax, and more) doesn’t make them love you. What a horrific life journey (but at least a happy ending!)

Radcliffe “John” Hall – interesting lesson on secrets… good example on how they can backfire: a pen name that hides a code name (at a time when British lesbians had male nicknames as a signal to each other…) and another example about ‘the argument that queer people should be tolerated’ that gets people angry… 

Paul Robeson – what does it mean to be a ‘renaissance man’ when you’re not in/from the Renaissance era? Trickier when growing up in the Jim Crow US apartheid system… of course he starts by playing Othello, but also a pro athlete, singer, film star, civil rights activist (which got the attention of the fbi…) 

Fabulous collection to emphasize hiSTORY ~ it’s not just about the lives of the rich and famous… the mavericks are who keep life entertaining all around us!