Devs (she/her/hers) History nerd (and someday historian!) The blog for all the history rabbit holes I fall down Mostly Arthurian Legend/Medieval times, but you never really know, lol
Basically this account only exists because my main @solitaireobsessed was getting flooded with my random history thoughts, so I decided to just stick them here from now on
Did the Democratic Party Really Support Slavery? Let's talk about it.
“The Democrats supported slavery!” is something I’ve been hearing a lot of Republicans say as of late. It’s normally brought up as an argument for why both parties are “equally bad”, that left-wing people are just “snowflakes”, and other such nonsense. This argument does, however, make one wonder: are they telling the truth? Yes and no. Let’s talk about it.
On May 13th, 1792, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison founded the Democratic-Republican Party. At the time, it was just called the Republican Party (though for this post I’ll refer to it as the “Jeffersonian Republican Party”). The party ran on the ideologies of liberalism and republicanism, favoring equal rights, the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and free markets and trade, to name a few key policies. Very similar to today’s left-wing ideas, but under the name of the Republican Party. That being said, this would eventually become the Democratic party, and it’s true that they supported slavery.
During this time, America was operating on the First Party System. It’s very complicated, as American politics tend to be, so we’ll leave that there for the moment. All you need to know is that during the 1820s, the Jeffersonian Republican party transitioned to being called the Democratic party. At this point, the Democrats split over the issue of slavery—anti-slavery Democrats split to join a young Republican party, leaving pro-slavery people to the Democrats.
Moving forwards, to March 20th, 1854—what we now know as the Republican party was founded. It was created by anti-slavery activists, who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and slavery spreading into US territories. During Reconstruction (which is another post altogether), Republicans were the ones fighting for the rights of formerly enslaved African-Americans. Time continued to pass, however, and the Republican party moved more toward infrastructure. Now, we’re entering the 20th century, and we’re operating on a more recognizable system.
The New Deal coalition is where we were able to really see the parties switching sides. This was in the 1930s, and it pulled a lot of minorities to the Democratic party. Those who stayed put in the Republican party were adopting a more conservative mindset, and this switch would continue through the civil rights movement, and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election.
All this to say, yes, the Democratic party did support slavery—but that’s not the Democratic party we know today. It’s pretty difficult to follow the trail of the parties without getting confused, which is why you might hear things about a party that just don’t seem quite right. One thing remains certain—it’s not hard to see how people got confused about the Democratic and Republican parties.
Sincerely,
-Your favorite liberal historian (a modern liberal, just in case there was any more confusion)
It’s the Holiday Season, so Let’s Talk About Christmas Versus Yule
Let’s start with Yule–if you’re a nerd for Arthurian Legend, like myself, you might’ve been introduced to Yule from various retellings of King Arthur stories. At first glance, it seems a lot like Christmas. It falls around the Winter Solstice, there are familiar colors, like red and green, all around, garlands as decoration or clothing accessory, the list goes on.
But, the original Yule is not Christmas.
Historically, Yule was observed by Germanic peoples. In more modern times, it’s been adopted by Neo-Pagans, who carry on some of the holiday’s ancient traditions. This isn’t particularly easy, though, because it’s pretty hard to say exactly what went on at these early Yuletide celebrations. One thing that I personally won’t be participating in is the sacrificing of animals…the gods will have to be okay with something a little less messy.
Anyway, Yule started out as a two-month period that people used to mark the passing of time. This was about two months long. Then the holiday evolved into festivals, often involving lots of drinking and feasting, and, as previously mentioned, animal slaughter. As the holiday continued to evolve over time, it became what we think of as Yule now: A celebration of the winter solstice, and a time to observe the changing of the seasons. People often keep the celebrations going for 12 days, from roughly December 21-22 to January 1.
Now, there’s Christmas. Around the 9th century, Yule and Christmas were merged, in a way. The name “Yule” was used to describe Christmas, and certain traditions were starting to transfer over to the Christian holiday. The history of Christmas, however, doesn’t start with Yule. It starts with a birthday party.
At first, Christians couldn’t agree when Jesus Christ would have been born. People just knew they wanted to observe the day. Then comes the Chronograph of 354 (AKA the Calendar of Filcocalus), which decided that Jesus was born on December 25th. Other texts agreed with this date, and eventually religious leaders gave it the okay as well.
So, now the Christians had a date pinned down. All that was left to do was actually celebrate that date. A feast was the obvious choice, of course, so that’s what people did. At first, people just combined Christmas with Epiphany, which falls on January 6th (an unfortunate date to be writing about in this day and age, I know), and partied it up then. In 567, however, the season of Christmastide was introduced, which included (you guessed it) a 12 day long celebration! Christmastide would last from Christmas to Epiphany, and it was basically the reward for Advent fasting (which begins on Advent Sunday, otherwise known as the fourth Sunday before Christmas).
From when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas in 800, up until today, the idea of “Christmas Day” has become increasingly popular. By the high middle ages, we still had some mentions of Yuletide celebrations, like that of the “Yule Boar” served at Christmas feasts, and some writers at the time lamented that the art of caroling was a crude leftover from Yule celebrations. Moving forward in time, gift giving began to take place on Christmas Eve, much closer to what we see now, but feasting was still a pivotal part of Christmas. Following the condemnations of Christmas in the 17th and 18th centuries (which are a conversation for another post), Christmas started to become popular again, especially with authors like Charles Dickens and Clement Clarke Moore taking the spotlight.
By now, Christmas is a pretty different holiday than Yule. With the introduction of Saint Nicholas in 1822, the idea of Santa Claus began to take hold, inviting a whole new tradition to form. This one involves setting up a Christmas tree for Santa to leave presents under, leaving Santa milk and cookies on Christmas Eve, then, on Christmas morning, opening presents with family. Of course, one thing remains the same: feasting. Though most people refer to it as “Christmas Dinner” now, the idea is still the same. Stuff yourself full of food, often some form of meat (like turkey) as a centerpiece of the meal, and for the adults, perhaps get a wee bit tipsy ;))
And that, my fine friends, is Christmas Versus Yule! Both are such fun holidays to learn about and celebrate, and this post only scratched the surface, so let me know if you want to learn more!
I’d love to hear what you and your family do to celebrate the holidays, reblog/comment all about it!
(Sources linked under the cut.)
Happy Holidays!
Sources:
Yule is a winter solstice festival historically observed among Germanic peoples that became supplanted by Christmas. In many languages of no
The worst thing about being a history major is its so fucking broad man. You'll tell someone youre a history major and theyre like "haha yea can you answer this question about ancient Rome?" And you and your history buddies are sitting there with your respective knowledges of ancient aztec agriculture, southeast asia from the years 1873–1876, and the lives of dog breeders in the 19th century in northwestern Europe and no one knows the answer to "when did Rome fall"
The artwork titled 'Unfinished Painting' (pictured above) was created by Keith Haring in 1989. The purpose of the piece is to reflect the lives cut short by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It represents the lost potential of those who died from the disease and the lack of care for it.
This disease disproportionately affects queer men like Haring. Due to this it wasn't taken seriously enough by governments, particularly in America. Keith Haring himself later died due to complications related to HIV/AIDS in 1990, just a year after he created the painting.
I find this painting and it's background extremely compelling. There is a whole generation of queer people, particularly AMAB, who are gone because of the negligence of governments and healthcare systems. They could have done so much but their lives were cut short in a cruel act of erasure.
June 7, 1987 - David Bowie plays a concert in West Berlin in front of the Reichstag with the speakers pointing towards the nearby Berlin Wall where thousands of East Berliners stood and listened.
Just found out that you can help transcribe material on the Smithsonian at any time, for however long you want, and it’s totally free (you don’t even need an account?)
I’m about to spend WAY too much time doing this guys
Just found this article, and OMG I’m so hyped for more Arthurian lore
Also, bald child Merlin is canon!! Not sure if we already knew this information, but if not shoutout to the authors of the Once & Future duology for calling it lol
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