American History – June 2019

(John Hannent) #1

JUNE 2019 7


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The 1918 influenza pandemic cast a long


shadow, apparently affecting not only the


infected but descendants. Three researchers


at the National Bureau of Economic Research


found reduced years of schooling in a subse-


quent generation—born to women exposed


to the virus in utero in 1918—and that genera-


tion’s children, the third. The study tallied


2.4 months less schooling in the second gen-


eration and 1.7 months less schooling in the


third. Researchers suggest socioeconomics,


altered gene expression, or an interaction of environment and inherited biology explain the differ-


ences (see "Really Truly Going Viral," p. 14). Studies have found negative impacts on health and edu-


cation in the second generation; this is the first to suggest impacts in the third. The study was based


the 1957 Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey, collected from Wisconsin high school graduates.


In 1663, North America got its first Bible—in Wômpanâak, the lan-


guage of the Wampanoag, native residents of Massachusetts woodlands


and offshore islands like Nantucket. The volume was part of Christian


outreach by Peter Folger and Thomas Mayhew, Jr., the American Philo-


sophical Society, where the Bible is held, reports. British-born Folger


was 18 when he arrived with his father at Watertown, Massachusetts, in



  1. Endowed with skills from surveying to writing verse, Folger sur-


veyed Nantucket and learned the local language. He and collaborators


created an alphabet, translating passages and then the Bible itself. In


1663, Harvard’s Indian College printed several thousand copies of


Up-Biblum. Folger moved to Nan-


tucket with wife Mary Morell; he


had spent nine years working to


earn the money to buy her out of


indenture. Both European colo-


nists and Native Americans lived


on Nantucket. Folger had such a


good relationships that locals


called him the “white-chief’s old


young-man.”


The couple had eight children.


The last, Abiah, became the


mother of Benjamin Franklin.


First Bible Published


in North America


Pandemic


Affected


Flu Survivors’


Descendants


Fighting Flu


Volunteers in 1918


ready dressings for


use in treatment.


Restoring


Freedmen's Homes


Preservation North Carolina will acquire


and restore two historic residences in a


vanishing freedmen’s village for use as that


group’s headquarters. The houses are two


of the few remaining in Oberlin, a Raleigh


neighborhood named for the abolitionist


Ohio town where founder James Harris


went to college. The 1890s-era structures


will be linked by a deck and a basement.


The 1,000-resident neighborhood was cre-


ated in 1866 on plantation lands formerly


held by Duncan Cameron. Cameron's hold-


ings of 1,900 slaves, including James Harris,


—reportedly made him one of North Caroli-


na's largest slaveholders.

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