Edgar Allan Poe wrote his great works while living in several homes across several cities, scattered along America’s East Coast. While Baltimore’s claim is the most famous — it was there that Poe died in 1849 — he also spent important periods in Virginia and New York.
Here are some rare images of Poe’s former homes — at least one of which is rumored to be haunted, though not by the author himself.
Growing up in Richmond
The Ellis home at the corner of Second and Franklin Street, 1877. Image sourced from Edgar Allen Poe in Richmond.
As a child, Poe and his foster family lived in the Ellis home in Richmond, at the corner of Second and Franklin Streets. It was one of several homes he grew up in. This photograph was taken in 1877, and the building was demolished six years later.
In 1822, at the age of 13, Poe and his family moved from the Ellis house into this home at Fourteenth Street and Tobacco Alley. It was at this time that the young Poe collected his poetry into a book he asked Allan to have printed for him. Poe’s headmaster advised Allan against publishing the volume because he thought Poe already had too much pride.
The Baltimore house in which Edgar Allan Poe was living when he began his literary career in 1833 has survived. Located at 203 North Amity Street, it is overseen by Poe Baltimore, a nonprofit organization created for the purpose. The little home has become a destination for Poe pilgrims from around the world.
Honeymooning in Petersburg
Hiram Haines Coffee and Ale House. Photo by Jeffrey Kyle Rayner. Image sourced from Edgar Allen Poe’s Petersburg.
Petersburg, Virginia, was a melting pot of French, Haitian, Scotch-Irish, and free black populations. It was in this eclectic city that Poe chose to take his new wife, thirteen-year-old first cousin Virginia Clemm, on their honeymoon in 1836. They stayed in the Hiram Haines Coffee and Ale House, which is pictured here as it looks today. Legend says that on the anniversary of Virginia’s death, she can be seen looking out the window on the far right. (Haunted hotels! Who knew?)
The House’s upstairs rooms are virtually untouched since the time Poe and Virginia visited them. The second-floor bedroom where Poe and Virginia would have stayed for their honeymoon.
Completing “The Raven” in New York
This etching created around 1880 depicts the Brennan farmhouse on Eighty-Fourth Street in New York.
Precisely when, where and how Poe composed “The Raven” is unknown. But the most likely location of the poem’s completion, if not its conception, is the Brennan farmhouse that once stood on what is now Eighty-fourth Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in New York. This etching created around 1880 depicts the Brennan farmhouse. Though the building has been demolished, the mantel from Poe’s room is preserved at Columbia University.
This I Believe, born in Philadelphia as a folksy collection of stories from Americans in all walks of life, was an instant hit for broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and his radio and newspaper sponsors. Filled with “the living philosophies of one hundred men and women in all walks of life,” This I Believe showed both Americans and citizens of other nations that they had a shared humanity — a noble goal indeed during the early years of the Cold War. And even though the project seemed to die with its publisher, the project was brought back to life in the 21st century stronger than ever. In 2013, National Public Radio collected and shared essays from specific cities or states, many reprinted for their own region. Philadelphians from the 1950s and today are not as far apart as 70 years might make them. Here are some highlights from This I Believe: Philadelphia. See if you can guess which era each one is from.
The “Rise Above” mural in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
“As a youngster, I used to watch football teams line up and play the game. It was nothing more to me than one team winning and the other losing. Later on, when I became an actual participant, I saw that there was more to it all. There was competition of the right sort; there was skill and all the hard practice that made for skill; there was fellowship; and there was the will to win. There was the thrill of victory, the thrill of achievement, and I think that life is something like that when the game is played right.” — Robert Arthur Evans
Robert Arthur Evans was a North Philadelphia native, a graduate of Roman Catholic High School, and a three-year letter winner at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the first African American captain of the football team.
“When the world we are living in is storm-driven and the bad that happens and the worst that threatens press urgently upon us, there is a strong tendency to emphasize men’s baseness or their impotent insignificance. Modern philosophy has turned that way; modern art, too. Is this the way the world is to go or not? It depends upon us.” — Edith Hamilton
Edith Hamilton was a scholar, a writer, and one of the foremost interpreters of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.
Aerial view of Philadelphia’s “City Center.” Courtesy of Library of Congress.
“The great danger in our time is that we misjudge our individual, national, and international problems by not recognizing that they point toward tensions to be resolved patiently and with faith in man’s destiny. Life has meaning, dignity, and joy in spite of the many besetting problems of our days. If we ask for it, we shall receive inspiration and vision from within to create more sunshine, warmth, and light in the world of tomorrow.” — William Hubben
German immigrant William Hubben was a prominent Quaker educator, speaker, editor, and author of books and articles in the fields of religion and literature.
“If men like Jesus and Mohammad and Gandhi were all impractical dreamers when they taught that men were brothers, what is the practical alternative?
I realized, with the clarity of shock, that there is no practical alternative. The brotherhood, the unity of man, is not a dream, not if the desires and hopes of ordinary men are recognized. It seems to me that the hope of our very survival lies in teaching ourselves to understand and accept the fact that we are indeed our brother’s keeper.” — Betty Muther Jacob
Betty Muther Jacob held a variety of positions at the University of Pennsylvania, including administrator of International Studies of Values in Politics, and helped found the University of Hawaii’s Matsunaga Institute for Peace, where she was known as the “Godmother of Peace Studies.”
Streetscape view of City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
“It is my belief that all of us need to be acknowledged at least once a day—that we need to hear our names spoken aloud by another person to cement our place on this planet, to know that someone sees us and recognizes our humanity, the truth of our being. I feel that it is incumbent upon all of us to acknowledge each other each day, in this way to speak to that truth.” — Peg Fagan
Peg Fagan was the executive chef and owner of The Flying Avocado Whole Foods.
“While I can’t change the world alone, I work on making it better by addressing issues that mean a great deal to me. So when I see injustice, inequality, and prejudice, I can’t accept the status quo, and I need to take action. As idealistic as it may sound, I know I can make a difference. And I thank my parents for instilling this belief in me.” — Carol Fixman
Carol Fixman was vice president for academic affairs/dean of the faculty at Philadelphia University, director of international programs at Temple University, and executive director of the Philadelphia Education Fund.
A portion of a store-width mural painted in 2009 by artist John Lewis on a Shop-Rite supermarket in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, part of the city’s Mural Arts Program. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
“We must have a conversation about…how to heal our community. And the best way is through education. Not just reading, writing, and arithmetic, but we have to educate people about people—including the truth of our history, where the feelings of low self-esteem and anger come from, and the nature of the human being. I believe that a well-rounded education—including science, technology, engineering, math, the performing arts, sports, home economics, music, and, of course, history—is the key to ending the cycle of violence, poverty, ignorance, war, and racism. Education is the key to our future.” — Kenneth Gamble
Philadelphia native, producer and songwriter Kenneth Gamble is the CEO and chairman of Philadelphia International Records. He has written and produced more than three thousand songs along with his writing partner Leon Huff.
“I believe in the good that government can do. My whole life has taught me to believe in government. No one knows the flaws of government better than those of us who labor under its maddening limitations. But government is still the best institution that we have devised to address the panoply of problems that beset the human condition.” — Frank Hoeber
Frank Hoeber managed the Philadelphia office of the National Labor Relations Board, and was an executive in the state headquarters of the New Jersey court system.
Joe Exotic isn’t the first self-made Tiger-whisperer or Lion Tamer in American history–not by a long shot.The curious man made famous in Netflix’s series, Tiger King, may seem like a novelty–he’s eccentric, there’s no doubt about it–but he’s just one example of men and women who trade in exotic animals through American history.
Since the 19th century, American business owners have seen the potential in exotic animal attractions. Here are some of the most interesting ones we’ve found.
Robbins Brothers Circus
If you’ve watched Tiger King, the name Robinn’s Brothers Circus will ring a bell. We found historic photos of the travelling circus from all over:
In June 1938, the Robbins Brothers Circus came to the East End Grounds and did a parade and three shows. They visited the children at the TB hospital and the Protestant and Roman Catholic Orphanages. Free tickets were given to the boys of the Industrial Home. In this image are, from left to right, (first row) the Ross Brothers Trio of acrobatic clowns—unidentified, Happy Kellums, and Van Wells, the comic cop; (second row) Gordie Crockett and newspaper reporter Charles Lynch. (HR6810.) From East Saint John by David Goss and Harold E. Wright
It was really hard to pick just these 7 pictures of this mid-century California locale, so we highly recommend checking out Jungleland, a pictorial history by Jeffrey Wayne Maulhardt.
Founded by Louis Goebel in 1926, this private park began as a support facility for Hollywood and was famously the home of the Leo the MGM Lion and the only female lion tamer in the world, Mabel Stark.
Goebels started out as a butcher of animals used for Lions’ food at Gay’s Lion Farm in 1919, moving up the ranks and eventually becoming a trainer at Universal studios until they shut down the animal division in 1926. Goebel bought six of the lions and a tract of land in Ventura County for $10.
On most days, he would leash his lions to an oak tree, and, inevitably, passing motorists would stop to look. If Goebel was around, he would answer questions. This led to his next plan. In addition to renting out his lions, he decided to open his site to the public and create a roadside attraction. The park enjoyed forty years of growth until a series of missteps and accidents–including the near-death of Jayne Mansfield’s son after a tiger mauled him–led the owners to declare bankruptcy in 1969.
Hate to be a broken record, but again, it was truly difficult to narrow this down to the five pictures below. We cannot recommend the pictorial historyBenson’s Wild Animal Farm by Bob Goldsack more!
Benson’s Wild Animal Farm (later changed to Park in 1988) was a New England landmark attraction established by John T. Benson. Benson purchased the property in 1922 as a place to quarantine imported animals before they were sold to zoos and circuses. Most circuses and animal trainers at that time obtained their wild animals from Benson, who served as a dealership for the Hagenbeck Company of Hamburg, Germany, the largest dealer in wild animals during that time. Benson learned his trade while traveling with the Bostock and Wombwell Circus in England, and he accompanied it to the United States in 1890.
The word “farm” in its title and corporation papers allowed children 14 years and older to work at the attraction in accordance with child labor laws. As fast food operations were well in the future, Benson’s was the only place in town where, according to child labor laws, teenagers could earn some money. Generations of Hudson teens worked at Benson’s during their high school years
This is Part 6 in our continued series, Healthcare Heroes, where we look back at the profound legacy of American doctors, nurses, and healers.
Advancements in Pre-hospital Emergency Aid
Early paramedics Ed Edwards (front) and Randy Foy in promotional ad for Physio Control, late 1970s. Courtesy of Seattle Fire Department. Image sourced from Seattle’s Medic One
In Seattle and all over Western Washington, it is now even more difficult to die at the scene of a cardiac arrest or major trauma than it was forty-five years ago. The paramedics won’t let you.
In most hospitals back then, an emergency room was just that, a big room full of acutely ill people, some sitting up, some lying on gurneys divided into almost individual spaces. There were no CT scans, no MRIs, no ultrasound, no sophisticated angiography, no minimally invasive operations, no internal fixation of fractures, no cardioversion, and no CPR. And then things quickly began to change.
Over the space of a very few years, doctors suddenly had a lot more ammunition to fight disease and injury, but it was all stored on shelves and in drawers at emergency rooms, or in the Central Supply Departments. Eventually, hundreds of young men and women without medical school educations learned to do expertly in the field some of the same things doctors do in hospitals, and do them very quickly and well.
Moby Pig
Moby Pig behind Harborview, 1970. (Left to right) Paramedics Stan Yantis, Ken Beach, and Jim Dixon. Courtesy of Seattle Fire Department. Image sourced from Seattle’s Medic One
The actual vehicle the firefighters would first take into the community was a “large, walk-in type van, large enough to stand and work on a patient,” and loaded with the usual first aid equipment. But in addition, it carried an EKG machine and a portable DC defibrillator (although at thirty-three pounds, the Physio Control early Life Pak device was really only almost portable).
The firefighters immediately christened the unwieldy, underpowered boat of a van with the moniker Moby Pig.16 It hit the streets on October 13, 1969, and although a lot was expected from this first “super ambulance,” it almost immediately bottomed out. The first class of paramedics were all to learn it didn’t work very well, not because the idea was unsound but because the first vehicle was. Still, many firefighters were motivated to become paramedics.
The underpowered and bouncy Moby Pig lasted just a year, and then a Ballard body shop replaced it with a dedicated, well-designed Ford truck rebuilt into an emergency rig.
Portable 55
Chief Gordon Vickery, 1970s. Courtesy of Medic One. Image sourced from Seattle’s Medic One
In 1969, HMC Chief of Medicine Bob Conn had started the first Coronary Care Unit at Harborview. The hospital rebuilt an eight-bed ward on Four Center into its first ICU. In a May 1970 article in the Seattle P-I, Charles Russell wrote, “Yesterday three such patients were recovering in Seattle hospitals. One, a 44-year old man restored to life after a heart attack Wednesday, wanted to play cards with his rescuers.”
In the first six months of operation, paramedics had responded to 630 calls and treated 83 patients in ventricular fibrillation, a life-threatening condition. Even so, by late in 1970, the grant that was supposed to pay the bills for two and a half years was already running dry. Fire Chief Gordon Vickery set up a two-week public subscription drive where the companies and organizations from all over Seattle raised about half of their goal amount in the first week.
In the fall of 1971, Dr. Cobb and Chief Vickery announced the “Medic Two” program. A $100,000 grant from Seattle Rotary and another $9,000 from the Washington State Heart Association aimed to fund CPR training for willing citizens. In 1973, 18,000 Seattle citizens learned CPR from Seattle medics.
Teaching High School Grads How to Think Like Doctors
Len Cobb (far right), paramedics Zachary Drathman (center left) and Bryan Smith (center right), and firefighters outside Harborview about 2005. The woman between the paramedics had been resuscitated and saved by them. Courtesy of Medic One. Image sourced from Seattle’s Medic One
Initially, the total period of the Harborview paramedic training was three months, and the training classes were held in in the hospital’s old neurology ward. Students also made hospital rounds and, when they weren’t riding one of the rigs, worked in the ED.
There also was an animal lab where they put dogs into ventricular fibrillation electrically and then performed canine resuscitation. The faculty taught them to do cricothyroidotomy on dogs and pigs in the event that a patient could not be intubated in the field.
Paramedic training at Harborview today requires about three thousand hours total. The field internship is ten intensive months long. Students each see about six hundred patients in the field, intubate forty-five human beings (thirty in OR and fifteen in the field), start 325 to 450 IVs, put in five to ten central lines, manage fifteen cardiac arrests themselves, and are the “in charge” medic for about three hundred patients.
West Texas is tough. With its countless cowboy and Indian tales, rocky, dusty West Texas is the most Texan setting, inspiring the imaginations of authors, filmmakers, and even playground adventurers. Dozens of outlaws, gunslingers, Rangers, desperadoes, and banditos met their end in the Texas mountains, where the Hill Country becomes the treacherous frontier. In the 20th century, those far reaches of the state were home to hundreds looking to expand the Texas oil business. So many sought their fortunes out past Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio — Bob D. and Ann Henderson were one of those families in the 1950s, and their journey through West Texas is a very Texas story. Here are some of their highlights.
OIL!
Since the 1920s, nothing has played a greater role in the story of West Texas than the oil and natural gas buried beneath. Oil had been a Texas industrial staple for a few decades by the time it was discovered in West Texas’ Reagan County in 1923. Locals and land speculators around the Santa Rita oil field flooded the boomtown Big Lake, Texas. Within five years, the population of Big Lake had skyrocketed from nearly one hundred to two thousand people, and with them the need for specialists, engineers, and support like schools, housing, and churches. During the early years of Permian Basin drilling, it became clear that both towns would play their own unique roles in the West Texas boom—Midland was to become the financial and organizational center of the West Texas oil industry, while Odessa served as the transportation and supply center. Among the oil men in West Texas, Oklahoman E.W. Marland made a name for himself by examining the sound waves of underground dynamite blasts to locate prospective sites for drilling. Despite his success, J.P. Morgan and Company forced Marland out of his own company in 1928. A later merger with Conoco included Marland Oil’s West Texas oil leases, including controlling interest in the Big Lake oil field. Conoco remains a huge player in West Texas oil even today.
Bob D. Henderson, a self-proclaimed “old country boy,” took a job with Continental Oil (Conoco), which was moving a crew into town to survey new leases. By the time he met a young college student named Ann Swetnam, surveyor Bob D. and his Conoco crew were working in Aspermont, Texas. After months of letter writing, the sweethearts wed in 1950. Soon, Pecos, Texas needed Bob D. and his crew — actually, the crew members and their families moved back and forth between Aspermont and Pecos three more times in the first half of 1951. Itinerant doesn’t fully capture the newlyweds’ life for Conoco — after Pecos, there was Decatur, Gainesville, and Denison. Then Fort Davis, and back to Sherman, north of Dallas. Then to Abilene. Eden. Big Lake. Ozona. Sherman again. More towns, more months, the couple finally landed in Fort Worth…after 13 hard years, and five children.
“Of all the work we did out there, I never did find a gun. I kept thinking I’d find a gun out there where we were, dropped by a cowboy when an Indian had been after him. But like I say, I never did find any sign of anything like that.” — Bob D. Henderson
The life of a Land Surveyor, especially in West Texas, is tough even on an easy day. Once Bob D. and the crew were surveying a remote mountainous countryside, when one of his team members was stung by a scorpion, half a day’s walk from where they’d parked their truck. Another time, while surveying not far from the town of Valentine, Bob D. came across the rock fences, former makeshift forts for protection from night raids by the Apaches. Bob D. always kept an eye out for spear points and arrowheads along the ground where the crew walked for his collection, which included the name plate on a fender from a 1910 Fuller Buggy Roadster to an 1850 dime, bridle bits, lariats, numerous spurs, a couple of saddles, and a pack rat nest with a metal spur mixed in the tangle of twigs and limbs. Some of those spots became campsites where he and Ann would later bring their kids, and pretend to be the original pioneers on the West Texas frontier.
This is Part 5 in our continued series, Healthcare Heroes, where we look back at the profound legacy of American doctors, nurses, and healers.
U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps Legislation and Features
Created in 1942 by the American Nurses Association, Nurse Information Bureau, this poster shows a young woman receiving her nursing cap. A male (only the hands and sleeves are shown) is placing it on her head. He wears blue sleeves with a stars-and-stripes motif on the cuffs. The young woman wears a blue cotton uniform with a white collar, cuffs and pocket-handkerchief. University of North Texas Libraries, Government Documents Department. Image sourced from The Cadet Nurse Corps in Arizona.
After the United States entered World War II, the need for military nurses quickly emptied hospitals of nurses, thus bringing on a stateside nursing shortage. To address this problem and to avoid a draft for nurses, Congress unanimously approved legislation that resulted in the establishment of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. The U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps started operation on July 1, 1943.
The program was administered by the U.S. Public Health Service, then under the direction of Surgeon General Thomas Parran. Lucile Petry, RN, was the founding director of the Division of Nurse Education, which administered the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps program. After the war, she became the first chief nurse officer with the rank of assistant surgeon general.
Through the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps program, the federal government provided qualified schools of nursing funding to cover tuition and fees, stipends and uniforms. Students accepted into the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps had to be high school graduates between the age of seventeen and thirty- five, be in good health and agree to serve in the nursing profession for the duration of the war to qualify for scholarships, modest stipends and uniforms. Approximately 3,000 African Americans, 350 Japanese and 40 Native Americans became nurses through this program.
Adele Slivers (left) and Ruth Henderson are commemorated here as the first graduates from the Sage Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Ganado, Arizona, on November 29, 1933. At the time, it served as the only accredited School of Nursing for Native American women. They were also the first Navajo women to come before the Arizona State Board of Nurse Examiners on October 20–21, 1933. Arizona Historical Society Library and Archives, Tempe. Imaged sourced from The Cadet Nurse Corps in Arizona.
At the beginning of World War II, the United States maintained a neutral posture and did not engage in the war effort. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, everything changed. During this time the population of California grew 53 percent, Oregon by 40 percent and Washington State by 37 percent. Women became the core of the labor force.
Across the country, around nineteen million women worked in war factories, the transportation industry and agriculture. This period was not called a production miracle for no reason. Cadet nurses in Arizona were training at a time when there was a lot of other war work going on around them, and there were many occupational choices for women that had not existed previously.
The U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps offered young women in Arizona an opportunity to participate patriotically through service in the state’s understaffed hospitals. The program also promised lifelong benefits in this profession with a future.
Hospital Schools of Nursing in Arizona
Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing cadet nurses in uniform. National Archives and Records Administration. Imaged sourced from The Cadet Nurse Corps in Arizona.
Arizona’s five participating schools of nursing in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps were at Sage Memorial, Saint Mary’s, Santa Monica’s, Saint Joseph’s and Good Samaritan Hospitals. Saint Mary’s in Tucson trained the largest number and Sage Memorial in Ganado on the Navajo Reservation the fewest. Saint Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing was the oldest in the state, and Santa Monica’s the youngest. Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing was originally known as Deaconess Hospital. All five schools had religious roots, and each had a unique mission and history.
The Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing opened in 1920. Over the course of its fifty- three-year history, Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing prepared 1,400 young women to be nurses, including Janet Lowe, the hospital’s first baby girl born at the hospital, in 1923.
The Saint Joseph’s Hospital Nurse Training School opened in 1910 with a standardized curriculum that predated national standards for nurse education, which would appear four years later. In 1946, there were 119 students. During World War II, nearly 200 student nurses at Saint Joseph’s were cadet nurses.
Santa Monica’s Hospital School of Nursing was the first integrated hospital and interracial school of nursing west of the Mississippi River. Santa Monica’s was known as a haven “for all races” and had evolved into Phoenix Memorial Hospital by 1951. During its twelve years’ existence, Santa Monica’s graduated between 98 and 145 nurses.
Saint Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing was established in 1914. In June 1943, the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps was established at Saint Mary’s. During the first six months of the program, Sister Mary Beatrice Johnson, director of the school, enrolled fifty-four students in the corps. Saint Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing closed in 1966, a casualty of financial pressure and the realization that nurse education had changed and the movement from hospital-based training to college education to prepare nurses was complete.
Arizona’s Cadet Nurses
Photograph of Dr. Clarence Salsbury and nurses using an iron lung with a young girl at the Sage Memorial Hospital in Ganado, Arizona, circa 1945. Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Image sourced from The Cadet Nurse Corps in Arizona.
Federal funding made an enormous difference to young women in realizing their educational dreams by making this educational opportunity accessible. They grew up during the Great Depression, and few would have been able to afford the costs of going to nursing school.
However, it was not only financial motivations that prompted these women to become cadet nurses. The program offered young women the opportunity to serve their country. They had the opportunity to become part of a bigger world than the one in which they grew up.
