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In tribute to Black History Month, I’d like to recount the remarkable story of Henry Johnson, whose craft was war. It was only in the last decade that his bravery from a century before was fully recognized by the United States in the form of a Medal of Honor.

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on July 15, 1892, Henry was orphaned at a young age and r…

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I love a good origin story. Typically, this focuses on an individual and how they got their start in a particular field of work. Today, I’m presenting the origin story of a unique—and high-achieving—group of individuals: US Navy SEALS.

Over a month ago, I read a new book called BY WATER BENEATH THE WALLS by first-time author Ben Milligan. Here’s a quick-…

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First off readers, some of you might have been expecting a profile of a zookeeper. That’s understandable since I promised one was coming. Alas, there was a hiccup during fact-checking, but it’s coming next Saturday. Instead, as evidenced by the photo above, I have some wonderful HistoryCraft.

In grade school, I read a short biography of Jim Thorpe, the Native American athlete who won two Olympic gold medals in track & field, reigned supreme on the football field, and played major league baseball. It was a hero’s story, without grays. The degradation of his Sac and Fox tribe and the forced assimilation Thorpe suffered at federally-run boarding schools like Carlisle and Haskell were barely noted. Further, his sporting prowess was tied almost exclusively to his early youth and natural abilities. As I recall, there were even illustrations of Thorpe running through the woods, hunting with a bow & arrow. The racist implications of this were only later clear.

A couple of months ago I read that David Maraniss, a two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, had turned his many skills to the life of Thorpe. I bought Path Lit by Lightning straightaway. Like David’s biographies of Vince Lombardi, Roberto Clemente, and Barack Obama, this one did not disappoint. His portrait of Thorpe is incredibly well-researched, richly told, and clarifying on so many levels. Somehow it busts the myths that have long surrounded Thorpe and yet made him greater than I had ever imagined.

I was particularly captivated by how Maraniss identified the qualities Thorpe embodied that made him arguably the world’s greatest athlete of all time. Sure, he had natural-born talents, but there was so much more that elevated him into the pantheon of sport. Earlier this week, David and I had a conversation about his biography and Thorpe.

To set the context, what do you consider Thorpe’s finest athletic accomplishments?

Take one year: 1912. There are always arguments in sports, but in my opinion, this was the greatest single year of any athlete ever. First, he wins gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics, competing in 15 events in less than two weeks and just trouncing the field. He dominated those Olympics in a way that no one has since.

Then he comes back to America and plays football for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the fall of 1912. He was an All-American left halfback, defensive back, punter, and placekicker. He played entire games, did everything on the field, and dominated. The highlight of that year was November 9, 1912, when Carlisle played West Point. Indians against Army. And the Indians won 27-6. Thorpe was the star athlete in that game, and it rose him to the mythological level. 1912 epitomized his all-around talents.

He also played baseball in the major leagues. He could literally do almost anything. He was a basketball player and a great ballroom dancer. His buddies would say he was even great at marbles, whatever that entails.

Beyond natural physical abilities, what were the qualities—or workcraft—that made Thorpe such an extraordinary athlete?  [This list of seven evolved out of our interview, and like the rest, is condensed and edited here in David’s words]

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Meet a 1930s Golf Ball Collector. "Like Mad Max on a fuel r…

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Profiles from history have their own resonance, and I can’t help myself but to continue to explore them. A dozen times a year or so, I’ll turn back the clock to such times past and offer a HistoryCraft post. A few will come from my books, but others will spring from new investigations.

Today I’ve sent you a profile of Lucy Schell from FASTER, my pre-WWII narrative about one of the most momentous David vs. Goliath stories in sports history (check the end of this post for a special offer on a signed edition). Although scarcely known, Lucy was the first—and only woman still—to launch, finance, and run her own Grand Prix motor racing team. She was also a fearless, path-breaking driver on her own.

This is an edited excerpt from my opening chapter featuring her. If you ever wondered what it was like to participate in the famed Monte Carlo Rally, here you go. This was her workcraft. Hope you enjoy!

“What if their car went into the ditch four times?” Lucy Schell, an American heiress and rally driver, boomed in English over the crowded Parisian restaurant. “Is that a good reason to forfeit?”

Thirty-five years old, thin, ruddy-faced, blue-eyed, with bobbed auburn hair, Lucy commanded the room. In fact, she commanded any room she occupied, all five feet, four inches of her, whether she was dressed in haute couture in a city restaurant or oil-stained overalls in a garage. Her husband, Laury, to whom she had addressed her remark, did not protest. Laury was Lucy’s opposite in every way — as reserved and quiet as she was lively and attractive.

At that moment, Lucy spotted the Le Journal reporter, Jacques Marsillac, across the restaurant. Her bright smile widened as she approached him, and in flawless French, she said, “At last! There you are. Come, I’ll introduce you. We were talking about the Rally.” Once seated at the table, Marsillac got an earful about what lay ahead for him in the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally. A distinguished war correspondent, he had been sent by his popular Parisian daily to accompany Lucy on her next adventure.

Launched in 1911, the Rally was a supreme test of endurance for its participants and their automobiles. As one journalist wrote, “There comes a moment when respectable drivers of unblemished reputation see imaginary elephants in pink pajamas wandering on French main roads where no elephants should be. That is the crux of the run.” Each winter run brought a new wrinkle in how to push both cars and drivers to their limits. For the 1932 Rally, competitors would start from their choice of nineteen far-flung places, including Stavanger, Norway; Gibraltar off southern Spain; Athens, Greece; and Palermo, Sicily. As always, the finish line was in Monte Carlo.

The greater the distance traveled, the greater the challenge and the higher the number of points to be earned by the drivers. Drivers needed to reach control stations during a specific window of time to prove that they were maintaining an average speed of at least 25 mph. At first blush, this seemed slow to Marsillac, but Lucy explained how difficult it was to meet even that pace given that no allowances would be made for sleep, food, refueling, repairs, poor navigation, or accidents.

The Schells planned to tackle the second-longest route, starting in Umeå, Sweden, 100 miles from the Arctic Circle and some 2,300 miles from Monte Carlo. The almost nonstop journey would take four days and three nights. When the teams arrived in Monaco, they would have to undertake a convoluted series of tests of their driving skills to determine the ultimate winner. Although he was no delicate flower, Marsillac was cowed by such an adventure, particularly when he learned about the icy road conditions. That the pilot was a woman made him even more uneasy. Fortunately for him, he kept that fear to himself — nor did he ask why a mother of two adolescent boys was taking part in such a treacherous competition. Had he done so, he would have had to find another ride.

A week after the lunch, at five in the morning, the Schells arrived at the Le Journal’s offices to collect Marsillac for their journey to Sweden where their rally would begin. The couple appeared ready for a polar expedition. Lucy wore a long waterproof jacket, wool trousers, and tawny leather boots that reached her knees. When they had met for lunch, Laury had looked to Marillac like a sallow mortician. Now, in his heavy, fur-lined coat and boots, he seemed a vigorous giant.

Their black Bugatti, a midsized tourer with filleted lines of silver and red down its body, was similarly well fitted out, with mud fenders, spare tires lashed to its sides, and three headlights perched on a bar at the front. Inside, there was enough gear to mount a siege: food stores, mechanic’s tools, picks, shovels, rope, tire chains, and a block-and-tackle set that could lift the car out of a ditch. There was so much stuff that Marsillac had to burrow himself a space on the back seat underneath a pile of luggage, blankets, and camera equipment.

“When do we sleep?” asked Marsillac.

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Juneteenth, the annual commemoration of the effective end of slavery in the United States, is fast approaching this weekend. It is now a federal holiday, and amidst parties for Father’s Day on the 19th, one should take more than a moment to reflect on this important date.

In June 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas with 2,000 federal soldiers. Throughout the city, he had General Order, No. 3 read out to its citizens: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages.”

No doubt, this was only a beginning, signifying step toward the freedom—and equality—of black Americans in the United States. The struggle continues today, step by faltering step, and there are better, more apt modern writers to illuminate all that this means.

Since this newsletter aims to profile people and their work, I thought it a worthy endeavor to look back at slave narratives, and the descriptions of labor forced by the lash. Here are excerpts from three well-known narratives, one not. Thanks to the Works Progress Administration sending out interviewers from 1936-38 to speak with former slaves, we have over 2,300 individual recollections (available here from the Library of Congress) of this time. It is remarkable how similar they are to the below—and evidence of how systemized slavery had become in America.

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1.     Life & Times of Frederick Douglass, written by himself.

“Old and young, male and female, married and single, dropped down upon the common clay floor, each covering up with his or her blanket, their only protection from cold or exposure. The night, however, was shortened at both ends. The slaves worked often as long as they could see, and were late in cooking and mending for the coming day, and at the first gray streak of the morning they were summoned to the field by the overseer's horn. They were whipped for over-sleeping more than for any other fault. Neither age nor sex found any favor. The overseer stood at the quarter door, armed with stick and whip, ready to deal heavy blows upon any who might be a little behind time. When the horn was blown there was a rush for the door, for the hindermost one was sure to get a blow from the overseer. Young mothers who worked in the field were allowed an hour about ten o'clock in the morning to go home to nurse their children . This was when they were not required to take them to the field with them, and leave them upon “turning row " or in the corner of the fences. As a general rule the slaves did not come to their quarters to take their meals, but took their ashcake (called thus because baked in the ashes) and piece of pork, or their salt herrings, where they were at work.”

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