Susan Stoderl

12/03/2025

11/21/2025

The Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), although a member of the French aristocracy, fought for liberty and equality for all people. He fought in the American Revolution and in France, and advocated for a constitutional monarchy and human rights. The Marquis also had one of the longest names in history: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. He earned the nickname “Hero of Two Worlds” because of his significant involvement in both the American and French Revolutions.

In 1774, Lafayette volunteered to fight for the American cause without pay. Despite being only 19 and having no prior combat experience, he proved to be a capable leader. The Continental Congress commissioned him as a major general in 1777. He spoke only French when he arrived, but practiced English with George Washington and other officers.

In the Battle of Brandywine, Lafayette organized an orderly retreat after being wounded. At Valley Forge, Lafayette commanded a division and provided uniforms and muskets for his troops. At the siege of Yorktown, he helped trap Cornwallis’ troops, which led to the English surrender. In addition, he brought French troops, ships, and supplies to support American victory.

Lafayette returned to France and became a leader of liberal reform in 1782. With input from Thomas Jefferson, he drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789. He became commander of the National Guard of Paris after the storming of the Bastille. His job was to maintain order, protect the royal family, and support revolutionary reforms. However, as the Revolution grew more radical, Lafayette’s moderate stance made him unpopular. He escaped from France in 1792 to avoid ex*****on during the Reign of Terror. The Austrians held Lafayette prisoner until Napoleon secured his release.

He died of natural causes in 1834 and is buried in Paris beneath soil from Bunker Hill.

11/20/2025

Mary Seacole (née Grant) (1805–1881) was a pioneering nurse and humanitarian during the Crimean War. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother who practiced traditional medicine.

Seacole gained experience in tropical diseases while living in Panama (1850-1853). After hearing about the California Gold Rush, she opened a hotel and store for travelers crossing the Isthmus. There, she treated cholera and other tropical disease victims during a severe outbreak in 1850.

During the Crimean War (1853–1856), Florence Nightingale’s team rejected Seacole’s application to work with them. Only white British women served on Nightingale’s nursing staff. Undeterred, Seacole self-funded her trip to the Crimea.

She set up the “British Hotel” to provide food, shelter, and medical care for soldiers. It was a combination of a canteen, a store, and a medical facility, built close to the front lines near Balaclava. Enlisted men who didn’t want to go to the hospital became her customers. She offered meals and provisions to soldiers and officers, medical care to the sick and wounded, and a place for soldiers to recover and socialize, boosting morale. When her business failed, she worked at her boarding house during the day. At night, she volunteered with Florence Nightingale. She treated the wounded on the battlefield, even as the battle continued. Seacole was the lady in the yellow dress, blue bonnet with red ribbons, and medical bag. She took her bag of supplies on one mule and her medical equipment on another.

When she faced financial hardship after the war, British supporters held a fundraising gala in her honor. Seacole published her autobiography, “Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands” (1857), one of the earliest by a Black woman in Britain.

11/18/2025

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, with Confederate forces attacking Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Between 1861 and 1863, enslaved people in the Confederacy carried out most of the manual labor to support the Confederate military. Some served as personal servants to officers. The Union gave work or protection to “Contrabands,” enslaved people who fled to the Union lines. A Union military officer in charge determined the freedom of the escapees. Not all enslaved escapees gained freedom.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, took effect on January 1, 1863. However, it did not apply to enslaved people in the border states of the Union (Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and counties allowing slavery in West Virginia). It’s believed that about 350,000 enslaved people remained in those states.

Ending slavery was never a goal of the Civil War. The Proclamation was a military document to prevent the secession of the Southern states and preserve the Union. After the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, stated all enslaved people in Confederate states or parts of states would be free on January 1, 1863. It also noted that the Union Army and Navy would now accept Black men. By the end of the war, Black people were ten percent of those fighting. Besides inspiring all Black people to support the Union cause, Lincoln hoped to prevent England and France from recognizing the Confederacy or providing military aid to it.

The most significant limitation of the Emancipation Proclamation was that its promises depended upon a Union military victory. Complete abolition did not come until the 13th Amendment in December 1865.

Next week, we will look at firsthand accounts of this time.

11/14/2025

The Little Rock Nine, a group of nine African American students, began desegregating Arkansas’s Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Despite the danger and daily harassment requiring military guards, the students excelled in life.

Melba Pattillo Beals experienced severe harassment and threats at school. She wrote about her struggles in her memoir, “Warriors Don’t Cry.”

Once suspended for accidentally spilling chili on white students while being harassed, Minnijean Brown-Trickey underwent another suspension. She then transferred to a school in New York City. She became a social activist and worked for the Canadian government on diversity issues.

A photographer captured Elizabeth Eckford walking alone to school on her first day, surrounded by a hostile mob. She later worked as a journalist and in public service. Her image became an iconic symbol of the civil rights movement.

Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate from Central High School. He later served as assistant secretary of Labor under President Jimmy Carter.

Gloria Ray Karlmark faced daily hostility but persevered through the school year. She became a scientist and patent attorney, then worked internationally in technology and publishing.

Carlotta Walls LaNier was the youngest of the Little Rock Nine. She became a real estate broker and wrote about her experience in “A Mighty Long Way.”

Thelma Mothershed completed her coursework at Central High but graduated elsewhere because of safety concerns. She became a teacher and earned several awards for her work in education and community service.

Terrence Roberts, facing severe hostility, transferred to a school in Los Angeles. He became a clinical psychologist and professor.

Jefferson Thomas endured constant harassment, served in the military, and worked as an accountant.

11/12/2025

Eliza Jane Cate (1812-1884) began working at the Amoskeag Mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, sometime around 1830. By the 1840s, she had moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, because of higher wages. Her first piece appeared in The Lowell Offering in 1842, entitled “Leisure Hours of the Mill Girls.” Her fellow mill-mate and author, Hariet Hanson Robinson, nicknamed her “the Edgeworth of New England.” Both wrote about everyday life, social dynamics, and moral development. The Offering offered excerpts of “Susy L’s Diary,” “Lights and Shadows of Factory Life,” and “Chapters on the Natural Sciences.” She used the pen name of “D.”

Cate also contributed to several other magazines, such as “The New England Offering,” “Peterson’s,” “Sartain’s,” “The Olive Branch,” and “Godey’s Lady’s Book.” Her pen names included “D,” “Jennie,” “Jane,” “E. J. D,” “Frankin, NH,” and “The Author of Susy L.’s Diary.”

Cate wrote at least eight other books. The Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia published three, and J. Wi******er of New York published two. Book titles include: “A Year with the Franklins,” “Lights and Shadows of Factory Life,” “Rural Scenes in New England,” and “Jenny Ambrose.”

In the opening of “Lights and Shadows of Factory Life in New England,” published in “The New World,” February 1843, Cate writes:

“No pent‑up Utica contracts our powers; for the whole boundless continent is ours. Fearless we stand amid the whirl of busy life, each sister heart quickened by the universal pulse of progress.”

The quote by Cate is actually a metaphor drawn from the Revolutionary-era poet Jonathan M. Sewell, who writes that the new republic offers a life not found in Utica (New York). Cate uses this line to express the freedom, ambition, and expansive potential of mill girls in New England. This is remarkable, given that she could do this with the education provided at the mills.

Eliza Jane Cate’s works aren’t widely read today, but they provide insight into the significance of mill-girl life in 19th-century America.

11/11/2025

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) became a pastor in the German Christian Church in 1931. After Hi**er’s rise in 1933, the “German Christians” group banned Jewish Christians from the church. Bonhoeffer strongly opposed this. He asserted it went against Christian doctrine and urged pastors to resign to show support for the Jewish Christians. He helped establish the Confessing Church, which opposed the N***s.

In 1938, his brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi, who was working at the Justice Ministry, informed Bonhoeffer about various German resistance plans. Dohnanyi joined the Abwehr (military intelligence) in 1939. His connections helped Bonhoeffer avoid military service in 1940 and secured him a position with the Abwehr. As a double agent, Bonhoeffer made several trips outside the Reich between 1941 and 1942. He informed ecumenical contacts in Geneva and the Vatican of the resistance plans.

After the first deportations of Berlin Jews to the East on October 15, 1941, Bonhoeffer and Friedrich Perels, a Confessing Church lawyer, wrote a memo detailing the deportations. The memo informed foreign contacts and trusted German military officials of the deportations. They hoped to spur them into action. Bonhoeffer, as part of “Operation Seven”, organized Swiss visas and sponsors for fourteen Jews. He arranged for the removal of their names from deportation lists and secured identification designating them as agents of the Abwehr. The Gestapo uncovered “Operation Seven” and arrested Bonhoeffer and Dohnanyi in April 1943.

Officials brought charges against Bonhoeffer for using his intelligence role for non-intelligence purposes. He plotted to rescue Jews and assisted Confessing Church pastors in avoiding military service. After finding his connections to the failed July 20, 1944, coup, they moved him to the Gestapo prison in Berlin. In February 1945, Bonhoeffer was transferred from Buchenwald to Flossenbürg in April. The authorities executed Bonhoeffer and his brothers-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher, in April 1945, very close to the war’s end.

11/05/2025

When Harriet Hanson Robinson was 11 years old, the 1836 strike in the Lowell Mills (called a “turnout”) began. She later wrote about the turnout in her autobiography, “Loom and Spindle.”

Workers’ wages had been cut, and the twenty-five-cent-a-week contribution toward the women’s boarding had been stopped. These cuts would reduce the $2.00 to $4.00 pay by at least $1 per week. Harriet recalled leaving the factory. The other workers asked what she was going to do. She replied, “‘I don’t care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;’ and I marched out, and was followed by the others.” She added, “As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I shall ever be again, until my own beloved State gives to its women citizens the right of suffrage.” Twelve to fifteen hundred followed her.

Hanson was one of the noteworthy contributors to “The Lowell Offering,” a monthly literary magazine (1840–1845). Young female textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, known as the “Lowell Mill Girls,” produced the magazine. It featured poems, ballads, essays, and fiction. Their writings told of the real and challenging lives of factory workers, labor conditions, the need for workers’ rights, and even suicides among laborers. It included lighthearted satirical pieces and covered topics like astronomy, religion, housekeeping, and cultural enrichment.

When Harriet married William Stevens Robinson in 1848, she emerged as a women’s rights leader, organizing the Massachusetts branch of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1881. In 1889, she presented a suffrage petition to the U.S. Congress.

Harriet co-founded the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, providing women with a space for socializing, education, and self-improvement. Topics focused on art and literature, education, and work. Lectures from prominent intellectuals and reformers included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, William Lloyd Garrison, and others.

Next week’s blog will feature the writings of more of the Lowell Mill Girls.

11/04/2025

Arvid Harnack of the Reich Ministry of Economics and his wife, Mildred, along with Harro Schulze-Boysen of the Reich Aviation Ministry, and his wife, Libertas, started what became the Red Orchestra Resistance. By 1940–41, seven distinct Berlin circles existed. Each circle included around 150 made up of students, artists, journalists, civil servants, and many women. The groups had Communists, Social Democrats, religious dissenters, and liberals. They distributed leaflets, posted fliers, and reached out to other German sympathizers. Some gathered and transmitted military intelligence to the Soviet Union in 1940–41. John Graudenz joined the Berlin network, using a mimeograph operation to produce anti-N**i pamphlets.

Other notable members of the Red Rose Orchestra included Hilde and Hans Coppi, Kurt and Greta Kuckhoff, Maria Terwiel, Cato Bontjes van Beek, Liane Berkowitz, and Eva-Maria Buch. Hans Coppi organized leaflet campaigns and clandestine activities. Hilde Coppi documented Soviet broadcasts, passed critical information, and worked with resistance circles. Arrested while pregnant, she later gave birth in prison before being executed. Kurt (also known as Adam) was a writer, and Greta Kuckhoff did resistance work. Maria Terwiel, a Jewish lawyer, recruited sympathizers, distributed leaflets, and challenged N**i propaganda. Cato Bontjes van Beek took part in both leaflet campaigns and counter-propaganda actions. Liane Berkowitz helped distribute propaganda materials. Eva-Maria Buch translated and distributed anti-N**i leaflets aimed at forced laborers in German factories.

The authorities guillotined most members of the Red Orchestra. Both Liane Berkowitz and Hilde Coppi gave birth in prison before being executed. The ex*****oner hanged Hans Coppi. Greta Kuckhoff proved the exception. First sentenced to death, they then commuted the sentence and ultimately sentenced her to 10 years of labor.

10/31/2025

Against the odds, paleontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847) became a pioneering fossil collector, dealer, and self-taught paleontologist. She persevered despite encountering significant barriers as a woman in science. She learned to hunt for fossils along the Jurassic Coast from her father. This poor and uneducated girl became recognized as one of the ten most notable women scientists in history.

In 1811, at twelve, she and her brother discovered the skull of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile. Several years later, she uncovered a complete skeleton, one of the earliest complete ichthyosaurs ever found. Anning then found the first British example of a flying reptile, a pterosaur, in 1828. Anning also helped identify coprolites (ancient f***s), which contributed to early studies of prehistoric diets.

In 1834, she discovered the first complete plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile. It was such a rare find that some scientists doubted it until they proved it was real. A fun fact is that not all plesiosaurs had long necks. Elasmosaurids had extremely long necks, while pliosaurids had short necks, with massive heads and powerful jaws. Because they share a common ancestor in their evolution, scientists group them together.

Anning’s work helped build the foundation for paleontology and prove extinction as a scientific concept. Even though Charles Darwin respected her, she received little credit because of her gender and class. Her male counterparts built on the fossil evidence she helped uncover.

During her lifetime, she sold fossils to tourists and collectors in her family’s fossil shop. Sometimes scientists and collectors paid her to search for fossils, or they purchased her finds directly. Anning had a few patrons, including scientists and wealthy people, who recognized her skill.

Mary Anning passed away from breast cancer in 1847.

10/29/2025

Nancy Wake (1912-2010) ran away from home to be a nurse at 16, showing her fierce independence. It also made her one of the most decorated heroines of WWII. She was born in New Zealand but raised in Sydney, Australia. When she inherited money, she first traveled to New York, then to London. By the 1930s, she worked for the Hearst newspaper empire as a European correspondent based in Paris. After witnessing anti-Semitic violence in Vienna, she became determined to fight fascism.

Nancy married the wealthy French industrialist, Henri Fiocca, in November 1939. Following France’s surrender in 1940, Nancy and Henri joined the French Resistance together. As members of the Pat O’Leary (Comet) escape network, they used their home in Marseille to help downed Allied airmen and Jewish refugees flee to neutral Spain. It was not long before the Gestapo targeted Wake with a 5-million-franc bounty on her head when phone taps, mail surveillance, and checkpoints failed. Known as the “White Mouse” because of her ability to escape, she fled Marseille to Spain in 1943. Her husband stayed behind. The N***s captured and tortured him for information about Nancy and her network. When he refused to give her away, they killed him.

Wake joined Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) under the codename “Hélène.” She parachuted into the Auvergne region of France on April 29–30, 1944, where she collaborated with Maquis guerrilla fighters, coordinating arms drops and training resistance cells before D-Day.

After their defeat, Wake realized London needed critical intelligence on the situation. Wake rode a heavy, gearless bicycle about 310 miles round-trip in just 72 hours, dodging German patrols by posing as a local woman. In addition, she assisted approximately 2,000 refugees and Allied soldiers through these escape networks.

One of the most decorated women of WWII, Nancy Wake received medals of honor from five different countries: the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

10/28/2025

The Anschluss: March 11-13, 1938

German troops crossed into Austria without resistance on the evening of March 11 after Hi**er demanded that Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg resign. On March 12, German forces entered Vienna to cheering crowds, with Austrians greeting Hi**er enthusiastically. They annexed Austria on the 13th. Hi**er declared it part of the Third Reich, claiming he was only unifying all the German-speaking people. Meanwhile, Britain and France sought to satisfy Hi**er’s ambitions without resorting to conflict. Many believed that the union of Austria and Germany was natural because of their shared language, culture, and history. They underestimated Hi**er.

Demand for the Sudetenland in Summer; Occupation in October 1938

The Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia, had a large ethnic German population. Hi**er claimed the Czechoslovakians mistreated their German population as a pretext for intervention.

Munich Agreement: September 30, 1938

Britain (Neville Chamberlain), France, Italy, and Germany met in Munich. They sold Czechoslovakia out when they agreed to let Hi**er take the Sudetenland without Czechoslovakia’s knowledge.

Kristallnacht: November 9–10, 1938

Hi**er began a violent pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria with Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). The rioters burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish businesses, and arrested thousands.

The events of 1938 set the stage for the full invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and later Poland in September 1939, which triggered World War II. This proved Hi**er wasn’t just interested in uniting German-speaking peoples. He wanted the world.

Germany used a staged incident as a pretext to invade Poland on September 1, 1939. German SS operatives, dressed in Polish uniforms, “attacked” a German radio station in Gleiwitz, broadcasting a short anti-German message in Polish. They left behind the body of a man dressed as a Polish soldier (a murdered prisoner from a concentration camp). Britain and France had guaranteed Poland’s independence. They declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.

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