Here are the most recent blog posts that link directly to their full articles on my Substack page, Foxtrot Firefly’s Research Report. These posts take time to research and write up, and are formed from trying to keep my research skills sharpened and fresh. All of my research articles are free and readily available. You can support the work I do in my own time with a paid subscription.
Cheers,
Robin
- Where did Columbus Day come from?
These melting pot moments have a really important place in American history overall. Immigrating a little after, but also around the same time as the Irish, were the Italians. But there was a huge backlash (as there always seems to be) against immigrants in America. “For most of American history, anyone not Anglo-Saxon fell somewhere on a descending scale of human ‘pollution.’ […] … the immigrants arriving from southern and eastern Europe, the ‘scum and offscouring,’ as a former Virginia governor put it, newcomers who purportedly brought crime and disease and polluted the bloodlines of America’s original white stock.”1
“In 1891, a mob of about 20,000 New Orleans residents lynch 11 Italian Americans who have been incarcerated in a New Orleans jail. And when that happens, there’s actually an outcry from the Italian ambassador to America and from the Italian government. And in office at the time is Benjamin Harrison.”2 Harrison ends up hosting the original Columbus Day as a one-off. But after this, there is a “continuing recurrence of local celebrations of Columbus is in the early 20th century”, but “the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, especially in the North really hits Catholic communities very hard, Catholic and immigrant communities. Because the KKK in the 1920s focuses on immigrants as well as on Black Americans and on bootleggers, by the way as well.”3
It will be Franklin Delano Roosevelt that institutes Columbus Day as a national holiday (not a federal holiday) in 1934. The Knights of Columbus “increasingly begin to pressure the federal government to go ahead and recognize the importance of Italian Americans and Catholic Americans in society.”4 And Roosevelt, being from New York, and trying to firm up his hold on politics at the time, declares October 12th to be that national holiday.
To continue reading, please head over to my Substack newsletter, Foxtrot Firefly’s Research Report, where you can subscribe to get updates in your inbox!
Where Did Columbus Day Come From?
- “First of May, sir! Out of the Way!”
It being a fine, bright, mild morning, I got up early, to take a walk on the Battery, the most glorious place for a morning or evening stroll, to be found in the world. Coming down into the entry, I found it cluttered up with a specimen of almost every thing that goes to the composition of house keeping, and three or four sturdy fellows with hand barrows, on which they were piling Ossa upon Pelion. I asked what the matter was, but all I could get out of them was, “First of May, sir—please stand out of the way—first of May, Sir.” So I passed on into the street, where I ran the gauntlet, among looking glasses, old pictures, baskets of crockery, and all other matters and things in general. The side walks were infested with processions of this sort, and in the middle of the streets, were innumerable carts loaded with a general jail delivery of all the trumpery, good, bad and indifferent, that the carelessness of servants had broken, or the economy of the housewives preserved. […] while all the apology I got, was “First of May—take care, sir—first of May.”1
I’ve been spending a lot of time digging into the writings of early 19th century authors – and yes, that has mostly meant spending time with Washington Irving.
Now, Washington Irving had a friend, James Kirk Paulding, who wrote a satire about May Day in New York (quoted above) that drew a very vivid picture in my mind because it very nearly described a similar “holiday” in Massachusetts known as Allston Christmas. Except worse. Everyone across the city appears to have moved simultaneously. Pets were lost. A Brooklyn newspaper noted that the pet business did very well due to the number of lost or killed pets – goldfish being particularly prone to accidents on Moving Day. “If there are children in the household, they should be sent to visit some friend for the day,” suggests an advice column in the Brooklyn Times Union on 12 April 1902.
To read the remainder of this post, you can find it here: “First of May, sir! Out of the way!”
- Astoria and John Jacob Astor
When I set out to start a newsletter about research rabbit holes, the sort of deviation from what I was supposed to be doing research on is sort of what I was thinking of. I see a sentence or two that sends me into a totally different direction than I thought I would be heading.
I was reading through The Life and Letters of Washington Irving compiled and annotated by his nephew, Pierre Monroe Irving, when I found the following:
For upwards of a month I have been quartered at Hell Gate, with Mr Astor, and I have not had so quiet and delightful a nest since I have been in America. He has a spacious and well-built house, with a lawn in front of it, and a garden in rear. The lawn sweeps down to the water edge, and full in front of the house is the little strait of Hell Gate, which forms a constantly moving picture… I cannot tell you how sweet & delightful I have found this retreat; pure air, agreeable scenery, a spacious house, profound quiet, and perfect command of my time and space.1
As someone who currently lives in Astoria, Queens, I was somewhat brought up short by the reference to Hell Gate. The train bridge crossing the river right at Astoria Park is also known as the Hell Gate Bridge. My limited understanding, prior to this reading of Washington Irving’s letters, is that John Jacob Astor had nothing to do with Astoria. So I went digging. Where was Hell Gate?
To read more, you can visit the full post on my Substack newsletter: Astoria and John Jacob Astor – by Robin Donovan Bocchiaro
- Quebec and the American Revolution
Did you know that we invaded Quebec? The Quebecois sure know that we invaded Quebec. They don’t much like us up there. If you’ve ever taken a tour of the Citadel in Quebec City, you would also know this. Our tour guide spent a good long time telling us of all the things that the Quebecois do not like about the British or the Americans.
If you spend enough time in Vermont, you’ll also know that we invaded Quebec. When we weren’t invading Quebec, we were thinking about it. And part of that history is baked right into Vermont’s award-winning bleu cheese: Bayley-Hazen.
Quebec was not an insignificant threat. It was, as of the end of the French and Indian War, a British colony as well. And while the local French population was not enthused by this take over, they were also not ready to jump into another fight—especially not when the British government had told them they could continue to practice Catholicism as part of the Quebec Act.
To finish reading, please visit my Substack Newsletter, linked below.
Quebec and the American Revolution
- Digging the Fortifications on Breed’s Hill
On the 16th day of June, 1775, at night after roll call, I was furnished with a shovel and ordered to march. I was ordered to Bunker Hill, to use my shovel in throwing up a breastwork. I was compelled to labor till daylight. As soon as we were discovered, the British ships and batteries opened a tremendous fire upon us; this they continued till about ten o’clock in the day, when they began to cross Charlestown Ferry.
Here they landed their forces and soon after set fire to the town, then formed their troops and marched on toward us. As soon as they came within gun shot, they began to fire upon us, but our officers, thinking it best to reserve our fire, we withheld it until they came within four or five rods of us, when we were ordered to fire, which we did.1
It seems remarkable that just a couple of months after the people of Charlestown opened their doors and cared for the wounded soldiers stumbling back from Concord, that those same soldiers would light fire to Charlestown.
And yet, that is exactly what happened.
To finish reading, please visit my Substack Newsletter, linked below.
Digging the Fortifications on Breed’s Hill
- When Your Great-Grandfather Poses for a Statue
Every year around Patriots’ Day (in Massachusetts), a combination of photo memories and public posts from Minute Man National Historical Park remind us of a story from our family. That story?
Our great-grandfather claimed that he had posed for Daniel Chester French for the statue of the minute man that stands at the Old North Bridge. The likelihood that this story is true? Very low. Very, very low. Not entirely impossible. But very unlikely.
To read the rest, please click on the link to my Substack below.
- Riding the Hoofbeats of the Early Revolution
Today is 16 April 2025. We are only days away from what would be the opening shots of the American Revolution, 250 years ago this year.
Yes, I’ve been banging on about this since, well… Basically since I started this newsletter. 250 years ago this, 250 years ago that. I think you have all been getting the idea by this point.
Many of the important anniversaries thus far have been smaller events leading up to this point. Some of them are a bit bigger, such as the Boston Massacre, but we haven’t yet seen any real fighting. Protesting? Sure. Britain sending in military might because of the tossing of tea in the harbor, yes. And, yes, there was that incident with the Gaspee in Rhode Island. (Major incident, by the way. This gets talked about a lot in Rhode Island public schools and in almost every single Revolutionary War text, but isn’t taught as much outside of that. I hadn’t even heard of the Gaspee until I took a university seminar on Vermont history and there was a guy from Rhode Island in the seminar with me.)
The 250th commemoration of Lexington and Concord is THIS WEEKEND. For an overview of events you can attend in Massachusetts, you can visit Rev250 or the Minute Man National Historical Park website. The biggest event will be the Battle Road Tactical Demonstration, which will be at Minute Man NHP on Saturday, 19 April 2025. And as they say in this video, please take public transit if you’re planning to go!
So here we go: An Overview of Events 18 April 1775 – 19 April 1775.
To read more of this post, please click the link below for my Substack Newsletter!
- What Happened Yesterday
New Substack Newsletter out now!
- Corned Beef and Cabbage
When I was working in Boston, I would be giving tours and have to explain the history of a pretty important holiday to Boston in the early American Revolution. Suffolk County, the county in which Boston sits, has a holiday that is not celebrated in the rest of the state – let alone the rest of the country. It’s called Evacuation Day. The fact that this holiday – recognized as a day off for city offices – falls on Saint Patrick’s Day, has always seemed a bit suspicious to outsiders due to the large Irish population in the city. Yeah, yeah – call it Evacuation Day – we know what you’re really up to.1
So the fact that in 1776, the British troops really did leave Boston on March 17 always seems to surprise people. Boston is also not the only city to have an Evacuation Day. New York City celebrates Evacuation Day on November 25 – though I should note that New York’s might have a little more significance as the troops evacuated New York in 1783 at the end of the War for American Independence. (For all that significance, Boston makes a much bigger deal out of its March holiday than New York does. But November in New York is really all about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.) Boston had been under British military control for two years, starting in March of 1774, in large part because of the dumping of the tea in the harbor. The evacuation of the British troops, and the continued maintenance of patriot control of Boston for the remainder of the war, is a huge victory as far as the people of Massachusetts are concerned – though these days it is certainly put aside for wearing green instead.
If you’d like to continue reading, please click on the link to my Substack Newsletter below.
- The Boston Massacre
250 years ago, on March 6th, Dr. Joseph Warren gave the fifth annual address commemorating the events of 5 March 1770 in Boston. This was the second time Dr. Warren had been chosen as the orator, the first time being in 1772. “… you will permit me to say that with sincerity, […] I mourn over my bleeding country: with them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.”1 This would be the last time Dr. Warren would give this oration before he was killed at Bunker Hill just a short few months later. The March 5th Orations would continue right up until 1783, when the War for American Independence ended.
One of the many museums that I have spent time working for is located across from the site of the Boston Massacre. It is where I learned a lot more about the Boston Massacre in order to give tours about it and answer questions about it. I helped teach school programs about the Boston Massacre. So, when I realized that my next posting date was March 5th this year, I could not let it just slip by.
If you’d like to keep reading, please click the link to my Substack Newsletter below.