Castillo de San Marcos

 St. Augustine, Florida

Thursday, March 31, 2022

    The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. It is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay, on the way to the Ponce De Leon bridge. The monument was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza, with construction beginning in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding. The fort's construction was ordered by Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after a raid of the English in 1668 destroyed much of the existing wooden fort. Under the administration of Guerra, the first coquina stones were laid in 1672. The construction of the current fortress was completed in 1695, though it has undergone many alterations and renovations over the centuries. 

https://www.nps.gov/casa/index.htm

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact Photo 1

    The photo above shows a zoomed-in angle of the coquina stone used to build the fort. In the waters of coastal Florida resides tiny coquina clams. They are small pink, lavender, yellow or white shells that are most generally spotted along the waterline at the beach. When the clams died, the shells accumulated in layers for thousands of years forming submerged deposits several feet thick. The shells were eventually exposed to air and rain which caused them to be covered with soil, then trees, and other forms of vegetation. Through the vegetation and soil, it picked up carbon dioxide and became carbonic acid. As the acid-soaked through the layers of the shells, it dissolved some of the calcium in the shells producing calcium carbonate. The material then "glued" the shell fragments together into a limestone known as coquina. 

    While the Spanish had ownership of Castillo de San Marcos, they began the construction of the monument. The coquina stone was quarried at present-day Anastasia State Park. Military engineers and stonemasons were brought in from Spain and oyster shells were burned into lime and mixed with sand and water to create mortar. Slowly, the walls had risen. 

    Coquina stone had changed St. Augustine. The rock made out of seashells turned out to be an excellent building material and has been used on many other structures around town. 

Artifact Photo 2

    Pictured above are seven cast iron howitzers of various sizes. Howitzers are generally large ranged weapons between a cannon and a motor. Cannons are smaller and have higher velocity shells fired at flatter trajectories while mortars fire at higher angles of ascent and descent. There are multiple howitzers placed around the fort that were used to protect the individuals inside and fight against the enemies. 

    The first artillery identified as howitzers developed in the late sixteenth century as a medium trajectory weapon. Originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In the middle of the eighteenth century, a lot of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were mobile enough to accompany armies in the field. 

    Now, these howitzers aren't as common but are still active. The M198 is currently used in service with both the US Army and the Marine Corps though it is being replaced by the M777 ultra-lightweight 155mm howitzer in selected units. 

Image in Conversation #1

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/07/07/fort-sumter-national-monument-where-the-civil-war-began/2493645/

    The attack on Fort Sumter marked the official beginning of the American Civil War, a war that lasted four years, cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage. On April 12, 1861, forces of the Confederate States of America attacked the United States military garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Less than two days later, the fort surrendered. No one was killed. 

    Months earlier, seven states including South Carolina had seceded from the U.S. The attempts by President Buchanan to supply the U.S. troops at Fort Sumter had failed which led to new President Lincoln telling South Carolina's governor that he would try to supply the U.S. troops. At that moment, the governor of South Carolin demanded all troops to evacuate Fort Sumter immediately. Although, the troops did not evacuate until they faced overwhelming force causing them to surrender. 

    The Confederate victory at the Battle of Fort Sumter resulted in enormous support for military action. 

Image in Conversation #2

https://www.historynet.com/weapons-of-world-war-i/

    Rifles are long-barreled firearms designed for accurate shooting. They are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, self-defense, law enforcement, crime, hunting, and shooting sports. 

    The origin of rifles is difficult to trace, but some of the earliest practical experiments seem to be carried out in Europe during the 15th century. They were created as an improvement in the accuracy of smoothbore muskets. In World War I, all of the world's armies were equipped with bolt-action rifles. The Russian Empire produced the world's first battle rifle and only about 100 were produced and used during the war before the Russian Civil war forced Russia to withdraw its forces in 1917. During the battle of World War II, the battle rifle was of major significance with the United States, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan all producing them in some capacity. Since then, rifles are used in a lot of events and are currently still used as a major military weapon. 

Literature in Conversation 

    During my visit to the Castillo, as a class, we learned about the fort walls and what they were able to provide for the individuals inside. The walls served as a protective barrier from the others on the other side trying to enter and cause chaos. While there, I thought about Parable Of The Sower by Octavia E. Butler because the individuals there live within a wall. On page 8, Lauren had written in her journal "That was before Dad's parents were robbed and murdered. Before there was a neighborhood wall. Crazy to live without a wall to protect you", this demonstrates that the wall in their community served the purpose of protecting the families from the dangerous people on the outside (Butler 8). Both of the locations supply a barrier from the outside world to help protect individuals from what could occur if it were not there or at least to help limit the amount of danger. 

Creative Component 

    This is an acrostic poem about losing someone who has fought in battle. The emotions and experiences felt by the loved ones. 

Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center

St. Augustine, Florida 

Thursday, March 24, 2022

    The Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, formerly known as Excelsior Museum and Cultural Center is an African American history museum located at 102 Martin Luther King Avenue. It is located in the former Excelsior High School, St. Augustine's first black public high school. The building is held in the neighborhood known as Lincolnville which was originally a distinct town but is now a piece of the city of St. Augustine. It was originally settled by freed black slaves after the American Civil War. 

    The museum was primarily founded by Otis Mason, an Excelsior High School alum, who in 1984, became the first Black superintendent of the St. Johns County School District. The main focus of the museum is on the history, culture, and contributions of African Americans in the St. Augustine area. 

    The mission of the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center is "to preserve, promote and perpetuate over 450 years of the African American story through the arts, educational programs, lectures, live performances and exhibits". 

https://www.lincolnvillemuseum.org/

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact Photo 1

    The photo above shows a book all about Frank B. Butler. He was an African American businessman who originally established a beach resort for African Americans during the segregation era. He had worked in Fernandina Beach, St. Augustine, and then in the Lincolnville neighborhood where he had established his own market as well as a real estate business. He had acquired land on Anastasia Island which stretches between the Atlantic Ocean and Matanzas River. That is the location of the beach area resort for African Americans. It became known as Butler Beach. In Lincolnville, he ran the Palace Market next to his home at 87 Washington Street. 

    Butler was born in Du Pont, Georgia in 1885. He moved to Fernandina Beach in 1902 and worked for a Mr. Salvador who moved to St. Augustine and opened a fish market. Butler worked for him as a butcher in Snyder's Market. After Frank B. Butler's death, the park that he worked on was named Frank B. Butler County Park. 

Artifact Photo 2

 

    Willie Galimore "The Wisp" was an American football halfback for the Chicago Bears from 1957 to 1963. He was born March 30, 1935, and died July 27, 1964. Galimore attended Excelsior High School in St. Augustine and went to college at Florida A&M University. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. In his football career, he possessed incredible speed and lateral movement. He was cited to be one of the fastest running backs in professional football. Continuing on with his football career, in a documentary shot by NFL films, it was said that Galimore was probably the last great find before NFL scouting became sophisticated. Due to his skills as a halfback, he was drafted in the fifth round of the 1956 NFL draft. 

    In Galimore's last visit to his hometown in St. Augustine, he participated in the St. Augustine movement during the Civil Rights Movement. He had become the first Black person who was able to register as a guest at the Ponce de Leon Hotel. His civil rights activism is honored with a Freedom Trail marker at his home at 57 Chapin Street in St. Augustine. 

    At age 29, Galimore was killed in an automobile accident on July 27, 1964, in Indiana. His number 28 was then retired by the Chicago Bears. Galimore's life will forever be spoken about in St. Augustine. 

Image in Conversation #1 

https://www.notarowindows.com/famous-front-doors-in-tv-films/matilda-the-chokey-front-door/

    The clip above is of the chokey in Ms. Trunchbull's office from the movie Matilda. Closely related to an iron maiden, the chokey is designed to be so narrow that no one can sit or squat while in it. It is filled with glass sticking out of the walls and nails on the door. The device was used to torture anyone who broke the rules. It is basically a torture device. 

    The chokey ties into what I saw at the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center. When you first walk through the door, you see the obelisk created for the Obelisk Art 450 Tour of Compassion. It used to "pay tribute to the 450th anniversary of the Nation's Oldest City and promoted a legacy of compassion in St. Augustine". The Obelisk that won the competition was created by Joe Segal and it "represents the chief of a tribe and the nails and shards he was imbedded with symbolize the trials and hardships that his tribe had to endure". It also stated, "If Freedom, Democracy, Human Rights and Compassion were not under attack, the constitution would not be needed". The look of the object reminded me immediately of the chokey because it looks as if it is a device to torture people even though in real life, it is a symbol of paying tribute. It correlates with the hardships the black people of St. Augustine and the world had to endure. 

Image in Conversation #2

https://www.britannica.com/event/Montgomery-bus-boycott

    As most of us know, above is a picture of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was a civil rights protest during the period in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. 

    Just a couple days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. She was commuting home from her job at a local department store. She was seated in the front row of the "colored section", but when the white seats filled, the driver asked Parks and three others to vacate their seats, but she refused. 

    This political and social protest against the policy of racial segregation in the public transit system was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. This event ties into the peaceful protests that happened in St. Augustine such as the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in. In July 1963, the St. Augustine Four started a sit-in protest at Woolworth's lunch counter in St. Augustine. The group along with several others were arrested and taken to jail. These peaceful protests were done to try and get segregation to go away and eventually they succeeded. 

Literature in Conversation 

       Tying into a previous post, I had talked about the Luako and a crossed-out section. Well, another section stuck out to me which is "Despite the nurse midwives' creditable record of services, their role in assisting with home births in Guam has disappeared, owing to a combination of factors such as development of the U.S. medical care model, the end of midwifery training, new licensure requirements, increased numbers of physicians, and then opening of new hospital facilities. The focus on the birthing process shifted away from families and home to an institutionalized medical setting " (Perez). This section focuses on how the jobs of individuals got taken away because of the improvements in another country. It shows how there was discrimination amongst the individuals who were not a part of the U.S. medical care system. The crossing out displays a forgotteness, Guam individuals were just erased and in the past. The midwives had creditable records but they were not seen as good enough. Their role in the world disappeared. 

Creative Component 

https://www.history.com/news/bold-women-who-changed-the-world

    This image displays 10 underappreciated world-changing women. 

 1. Sybil Ludington: The Female Paul Revere 

2. Claudette Colvin: Teenaged Civil Rights Activist

3. Jane Addams: Pioneer for Social Change

4. Hedy Lamarr: Invented Tech Behind Wi-Fi

5. Rosalind Franklin: Revealed DNA's Structure

6. Babe Didrikson Zaharias: First Female Sports Star

7. Sojourner Truth: A Voice that Changed a Nation

8. Jeannette Rankin: Broke Barriers Before Women Could Vote

9. Chien-Shiung Wu: Disproved a 30-year Old Law of Nature

10/11. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rae Rivera: LGBTQ Activists Who Dared to be Themselves 

Lightner Museum

 St. Augustine, Florida 

Thursday, March 17, 2022

    The Lightner Museum is a museum of antiques, mostly American Gilded Age pieces, housed within the Hotel Alcazar building. The museum occupies three floors of the former Hotel Alcazar. The first floor houses a Victorian Science and Industry Room that displays shells, rocks, minerals, and Native American artifacts. Furthermore, the first floor contains a music room filled with instruments dating from the 1870s through the 1920s. The second floor contains cut glass, Victorian art glass, and stained-glass work from Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio. On the top floor is the ballroom's upper balcony which exhibits paintings, sculptures, and furniture. Looking down from the balcony is where the swimming pool used to be which now hosts Cafe Alcazar. At the Lightner Museum, they are "inclusive, inspiring, engaging and stewards" (Lightner Museum). 

https://lightnermuseum.org/

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact Photo 1

    The above photo displays Egyptian, Syrian, and Roman examples of oil lamps. The lamps are used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although the use is less common. They work the same way as a candle would. There are multiple components to the oil lamp consisting of the shoulder, the pouring hole, the wick hole and nozzle, the handle, the discus, and the fuel chamber. Oil lamps can be categorized based on different criteria including material, shape, structure, design, and imagery. For example, there are seven different categories to be split amongst such as wheel-made, volute (early imperial), high imperial, frog, African red slip, slipper, and factory lamps. 

Artifact Photo 2

    The origin of the use of cigar bands is a myth. One legend reports that Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia in the late 18th century did not want to stain her fingers so she took cigars wrapped in silk. Other tales have been told of paper bands used on cigars exported to Europe to prevent the staining of gentleman's white gloves. Cigars were just becoming popular in Europe in the 1800s. A German is credited by the Cubans for inventing the modern-day cigar band. Gustave Bock was an immigrant to Cuba who owned a cigar factory and seeking to protect his brand, he placed a paper ring with his signature on each of his cigars for export. By 1855, nearly every Cuban export carried a cigar band and the bands were registered with the government. Cigar bans became an eye-catching addition to cigars in general. As bands became more prevalent, they became more colorful, and collecting cigar bands became popular. As shown above, is a collection of cigar band labels over the years which were used to create a piece of artwork. 

Image in Conversation #1

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic

    The artifact of the I.C. Woodward Model Steamboat reminded me of the Titanic. The Titanic was designed by the Irish shipbuilder William Pirrie and built-in Belfast was sought to be the world's fastest ship. The ship spanned 883 feet from stern to bow and its hull was divided into 16 compartments because four of the compartments could be flooded without causing a critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. The vessel set out at full speed for New York City on April 14th, 1912. Just before midnight, the ship failed to divert its course from an iceberg and ruptured at least five of its compartments. Those compartments filled with water and pulled down the bow of the ship causing it to sink and the stern raised up to an almost vertical position above the water. The Titanic then broke in half, and, at about 2:20 am, on April 15th, the stern and bow sank to the ocean floor. Due to a shortage of lifeboats and a lack of emergency procedures, more than 1,500 people went down on the ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the 700 or so survivors were women and children. 

    The wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 by a Franco-American expedition sponsored by the United States Navy. Thousands of artifacts have been recovered and displayed at multiple museums around the world. The Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history. 

Image in Conversation #2

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ln4na

    One of the first things that caught my eye in the museum was the golden candelabrum which immediately led my mind to think of beauty and the beast. Lumière is a candelabrum with a bronze human-like face, arms tipped with candles, and legs to walk with as well. In the museum, the candelabrum had a figure of a woman and on her head was the candle-holding portion. Comparing the two objects, they are quite similar in the way they are configured and color-wise as well. 

    A candelabrum is a term that originated from Latin and translates to candle-tree. That is due to the many branches or arms of the candelabrum, resembling that of a tree spreading its branches in all directions. The candle has been around as early as 3000 BC and since then, displaying light is a necessity. Candleholders or candelabrums made of clay have been found dating back to 400 BC. In the 1800s, antique silver candelabrums became a regular at the evening dinner table, providing illumination and decoration. Today, candelabrums are used for decoration and sometimes for illumination like in the olden times. 

Literature in Conversation 

    In the excerpt from Habitat Threshold, by Craig Santos Perez, he touches on a lot of issues concerning global warming and our planet. His poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier", displays ways to look at one specific subject, such as a glacier, and digs deeper into the meaning of it. In the thirteenth reason (the first in the poem), he says "Among starving polar bears, / the only moving thing / was the edge of a glacier", placing emphasis on what is happening in the world day by day (Perez). With each day, animals continue to starve and nothing is done except the glaciers keep moving due to global warming. As humans and animals, we are destroying our planet, yet doing nothing to fix it. 

    The whole issue with the environment is shown tremendously through St. Augustine. In our town, every time it rains, the town is underwater. Due to living in a historical area, each street is different and has a different layout creating creases for water to reside. When Henry Flagler came to town, he had huge ideas of building state-of-the-art hotels. For him to do so, he had to create more dry land which lead to the Maria Sanchez Creek being gone. During the removal of the creek, it was filled with sand from the Bradford property. Today, we know the hotels as Flagler College and the Lightner Museum. The hotels are basically built on a "swamp". Eventually, the town placed a dam to control the floods which created Lake Maria Sanchez. Henry Flagler had destroyed a living marsh to place something more 'useful' for individuals. His buildings did not help the Earth, instead, he added partially to the cause of global warming and the wrongdoing of the environment. 

Creative Component 

medium: computer paper and colored pencils

    I chose to draw a piece of stained glass with poppy flowers in it. This type of flower means a lot to me because it, first of all, represents my birth month but also stands for my grandfather. I used to call him poppy and he, unfortunately, passed away in 2012. I figured it would be best to create an image inside that means something to me rather than something random.