Give Andrew Jackson a Tattoo!

Now and then an article pops up about surprising people in history who have had tattoos. Always included on those lists are Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Supposedly Roosevelt had his family crest tattooed on his chest, Polk had a Chinese symbol meaning "eager," and Jackson had---I kid you not---a tomahawk inked on his upper thigh.

Now, I don't want to call bullshit on all of these, because they're...possible? I guess? Especially Roosevelt because I could totally see him having a tattoo. The problem is that I haven't actually been able to find any proof other than the same articles repeating the same "general knowledge" without actually giving any sources. I'm inclined to believe that TR did not, in fact, have a family crest on his chest, but I'm open to the possibility that he did. Except I really doubt it.

I am perfectly willing to go out on a limb and call BS on Polk having a Chinese symbol tattooed on him. What, did he have a small butterfly on his lower back, too? I'm trying to figure out a scenario in which this supposed tattoo would have happened. Oriental art has found some popularity here and there ever since America started trading with China, but not to the level that some mid-19th-century white dude would get a tattoo of a Chinese character. Polk's predecessor John Tyler was president during the ratification of the Treaty of Wanghia after the first Opium War, but I'm not aware of any significant dealings Polk had with China that might have inspired this "eager" tattoo in some way. (To be fair, I know very little about Polk's foreign affairs outside of the Mexican-American War and the annexation of various territories, so maybe he was really into China? But again, I doubt it. If any Polk scholars want to weigh in, please do.)

That brings us to Jackson. I love the idea of Jackson having a tattoo, but on his upper thigh? For real? And a tomahawk? That would be a pretty dickish move considering his track record, although I suppose in a way that's fitting for him.

I decided to go to the best source I could to get some answers about Andrew Jackson's tattoo: I emailed the people at The Hermitage. I asked if Jackson really (or likely) had a tattoo, or if this was all an urban legend.

Less than 24 hours later I received a response: "Unfortunately, there is no definitive proof that Jackson had a tattoo on his thigh. This story more than likely an urban legend that has grown in popularity over time."

Bummer.

Regardless, I thought it would be fun to give people the chance to ink a few tattoos on Old Hickory, so I present to you an Andrew Jackson template. I've provided the tomahawk; you provide the rest! You can download the PDF here or you can click on the jpeg up above.

Some tattoo ideas to get you started: a dreamcatcher, the Bank of the United States, a heart with "mom" written inside. The possibilities are endless! (And, yeah, I've covered up his ankles and wrists, which are prime tattoo locations. Sorry. I just thought the boots would be funny and I can't draw hands.)

If you tattoo Andrew Jackson, please snap a photo to share on my Facebook page or tag me on Twitter @MsPresidentress

Happy inking!

Abraham Lincoln Meets Teddy Roosevelt

During the school year, my 7-year-old daughter's favorite pastime was writing and illustrating stories. Sadly, she hadn't written a single thing this summer, so the other night I asked her to make me a book. The next morning, she presented me with a gift: an original story entitled "Aborham Lincon Meets Teddy Roseavelt." [sic]

In the story, Abraham Lincoln is illustrated as a ham, and Teddy Roosevelt is illustrated as a teddy bear. One would think her inspiration for the ham came from the series of paintings of presidents holding hams, but no! It was purely coincidental. In fact, she surprised me with the book mere seconds after I discovered the president/ham artwork. I consider it fate.

I thought the world would like to read her story, so I've transcribed it here. I've fixed spelling and added quotation marks and some other punctuation, but everything else (including the illustrations) is original.

***

Abraham Lincoln Meets Teddy Roosevelt

"Oh! Hi! I am Abraham Lincoln. What is your name?"
"Oh! Abraham! I found you a new friend," said George Washington.

"What!? A new friend? Cool!"

"Hi! I am Teddy Roosevelt! Are you Abracon Lincoln or something?"
"No, I am Abraham Lincoln!"
"Oh! Well hi!"

"So what do you want to do?" asked Teddy.
"What about catch?" said Albert. Albert was a very annoying bird. Never mind about him.

"Do you want to pretend we are hamsters?"
"Oh, do they sell ham there?"
"No, silly," said Abraham Lincoln.

"Get ham"

"Ya! Let's play that!"
"My name will be Ham and yours will be Teddy! Ok?"
"Sure!"

"Squeak squeak." "Oh."

Then the friends went to George's house for dinner. They first had chicken instead of ham, and pie for dessert. After dinner they went out to play catch. At last it was time to go home. They had so much fun together.

The End

***

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the chicken they ate was Albert, the annoying bird. What do you think?

NYC History Tour, Part 2: Random Presidents and Stuff

Welcome to Part 2 of Presidentress' historical tour of New York!

You'll remember from Part 1 of my tour that people like rubbing, licking, and otherwise posing with the Bull of Wall Street's testicles. Well, across the street from the bull's balls is the old U.S. Customs House, where Chester A. Arthur served as Collector of Customs, a highly coveted position bestowed upon him thanks to the strong New York spoils system. I forgot to take a picture of it, though.

Sort of related, in the sense that it involves money and power, is where we ate lunch on the first day of our tour. There is now a Bobby Van's Steakhouse in the lobby of the old J. P. Morgan bank. In the basement, which used to be the bank's vaults, is the Vault Grill. One of the private rooms (which also does double-duty as a wine cellar) was J. P.'s own private vault, and that's where we ate. Since my love for Robber Barons rivals my love for presidents, this was an awesome experience.

We walked off our lunch by visiting several other sites, including Cooper Union, where Lincoln gave his famous Cooper Union speech.

Speaking of Lincoln, we also stopped by Gramercy Park, where there's a statue of Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes. Edwin lived in Gramercy Park and was a famous Shakespearean actor. His home is now the location of the Players Club that he founded.

I didn't get a photo of it (because I didn't realize it was there at the time), but Samuel Tilden also owned a house in Gramercy Park. You'll remember Tilden from such disputes as the Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877. Also from the cake I made a couple months ago. Tilden's house is now home to the National Arts Club and is located just a couple doors down from Edwin Booth's old abode.

We also stopped by the New York Police Department's former headquarters, where Teddy Roosevelt was Police Commissioner. The building now contains private condos, so we couldn't go in.

Then we walked by Roosevelt's childhood home, which we also couldn't go into because it's closed for renovations. (Thankfully we knew this ahead of time or else I would have been crushed.)

Our next stop was Tammany Hall, home of the famous/infamous political machine. Most recently it served as an art school, but apparently it is now undergoing major renovations as well.

We also somewhat unexpectedly stumbled upon a statue of William Seward. Seward was Secretary of State under Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, and is probably best known for Seward's Folly, or the

purchase of Alaska. What many people don't know is that he was also targeted for assassination the night Lincoln was killed.

John Wilkes Booth's plan was that while he was busy killing Lincoln, two other people would kill Secretary of State Seward and Vice President Johnson, thus upending the Executive Branch. Only one of the plots wound up successful. The guy who was supposed to kill Johnson chickened out, and Lewis Powell, the guy who was supposed to kill Seward, tried but failed. His gun misfired, so he wound up pistol-whipping Seward's son and then stabbed Seward several times, but Seward survived. (If you want to learn more about Seward and the assassination attempt, make sure to read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. I can't wait to hunt down the Seward Plaque in D.C.)

I did a little more digging and learned that there was some controversy surrounding Seward's statue. The same sculptor had previously created a statue of Lincoln, and some people claim that the artist simply recycled Lincoln's body and slapped Seward's head on top.

Incidentally, my New York friend said that people often steal the quill from Seward's hand, so we were lucky to find it intact.

And speaking of statues, on Day Two of our tour, we hit (figuratively) Columbia University and saw

the building where Lou Gehrig used to hit (literally) Columbia University. (There were no baseball fields, so he did the best he could, which involved accidentally breaking windows with his home runs.) That area is just a stone's throw (if you're Gehrig) from a forlorn statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Apparently the statue, bequeathed by the estate of Joseph Pulitzer, was supposed to be installed in New York's City Hall Park near a statue of Nathan Hale. But Hale's sculptor didn't want another statue there, so the plan was foiled. Instead, the Jefferson's statue was relegated to a courtyard in front of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, where it's not visible from the street and no one but J-School grad students and weird people searching for presidential relics will find it. Poor Thomas.

Apparently there is also a statue of Alexander Hamilton on the Columbia campus, but I didn't learn about that until just now, so I didn't seek it out.

After Jefferson, we walked several blocks to Grant's Tomb. My New York friend had never been inside so it was something new for all of us. The building itself is lovely, but it's surrounded by a strange art installment: a series of garish mosaic benches that pay homage to everything from Smokey Bear to seahorses. They were cool but felt out of place at Grant's Tomb.

Anyway, I'm a big Grant fan, so it was nice to be able to pay my respects. (Yeah, "paying respects" and taking a selfie...they don't have to be mutually exclusive.)

My BFF and I also attended a Broadway show and afterward we met Jeff Daniels, one of my very favorite actors. I'm including that tidbit here partly to brag but also because I've featured Jeff Daniels in two presidential-ish Separated at Births: William Jennings Bryan and William Henry Harrison.

William Jennings Bryan/Jeff Daniels

William Henry Harrison/Jeff Daniels

Thus concludes Presidentress' historical tour of New York. There are dozens and dozens of other presidential (and related) sites I didn't get to see, so I might need to go back. If you're in the area, seek out some of the places I've mentioned here, and feel free to share your finds. Happy travels!

TR and the Myth of the Piranha

A few days ago we went to the Shedd Aquarium with my dad and step-mom as an after-Christmas treat. That would have been fun in itself, but everything's better when unexpected presidential trivia works its way in.

As we were admiring---if that's the word one would use---the piranha tank, a helpful Aquarium worker explained how piranhas aren't nearly as dangerous as we think, and how that erroneous perception is due largely to Teddy Roosevelt.

It all began during TR's trip to the Amazon. (Speaking of Amazon, make sure to shop there through my affiliate link! This post brought to you by shameless plugging!) Anyway, the locals wanted to make a big impression on the former president, so they dammed off a portion of the river and caught a bunch of piranhas to throw in. Then they starved the fish for several days.

Not eating for several days could make anyone cranky, and the piranhas were no exception. When Roosevelt got there, the locals pushed a live cow into the river, and rest is history...just like the cow was once the piranhas sunk their teeth into it.

The Aquarium person said that piranhas are omnivores, and as long as they're fed, they're pretty docile. My dad asked her what would happen if he jumped into the tank and she said they'd probably ignore him. We didn't test the theory.

So piranhas might not be as vicious as we've been taught, but it's more fun to think that they are, so I'm going to keep on believing that. Thanks, Teddy Roosevelt!

Drinking with the Presidents: Teddy Roosevelt

Welcome to the first in what I hope will be a robust series of posts about drinking with the presidents! Not drinking with them, of course. More like drinking in their honor. But whatever.

A while back, I posted a meme of Theodore Roosevelt filling in for the Dos Equis guy. Someone took issue with the photo, pointing out that TR didn't drink alcohol. That wasn't the point, of course, but it got me thinking. I knew it wasn't true that TR never drank, but I did some research (read: quick google search) and found it true that he didn't drink much. He probably didn't have the time to.

We have proof that he did drink, at least a little, because he testified about it under oath. When a Michigan newspaper ran a column stating that Roosevelt was drunk in public, Teddy harnessed his infinite energy into proving it wrong. He sued the paper for libel, and during the trial person after person testified that they had never seen Roosevelt drunk. TR himself took the stand and recounted practically every drink he had ever imbibed, which was hardly the list of a drunkard. The newspaper wound up admitting it was wrong, and Roosevelt, just happy to have his name cleared, asked the judge to impose the lowest possible damages: six cents.

While reading about this, I also found a couple cocktails created in Teddy's honor. It's likely he never actually tasted them, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't benefit. So the other day, Mr. Presidentressor and I had some friends over to try a "Teddy Roosevelt's Hat." This was a recipe I found online and also in a book about the history of presidential drinking, aptly titled Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt.

Teddy Roosevelt's Hat was invented during the 1912 Republican Convention by a bartender at Chicago's Congress Hotel. That convention found current-president Taft pitted in a heated and animated race against former-president Roosevelt for the Republican nomination. A server at the hotel set the drinks in front of two delegates and dropped a lemon-peel hat into each glass, explaining it was symbolic of Roosevelt throwing his hat into the ring. The Roosevelt delegate was tickled pink, while the Taft delegate threw his lemon hat onto the floor.

The drink requires only five ingredients, all relatively easy to find: gin, dubonnet, orange bitters, raspberry syrup, and lemon peel. I'd never had dubonnet, but I found some at our local liquor store. They also had a half gallon of raspberry-flavored high-fructose corn syrup, which I didn't want, so I opted to make my own raspberry syrup. (Simmer 2/3 c water with 2/3 c sugar for about five minutes. Remove from heat and mash in 1 c raspberries--I used frozen. Let sit for an hour, then strain through a fine mesh sieve.)

The recipe for Teddy Roosevelt's Hat is as follows:

Put ice into a cocktail shaker.

Add:
A few dashes of orange bitters (I used about five)
1 oz gin
1/2 oz dubonnet
1/2 oz raspberry syrup

Shake thoroughly and strain into a glass. Add a piece of lemon peel cut into the shape of a hat. Enjoy! (You can opt to fish out the peel and throw it on the floor, too, depending on your persuasion or on how drunk you are.)

Mr. Presidentressor, our guests, and I are not big fans of gin, so we weren't sure what to expect. The result was fantastic, though. Our one friend commented that he wouldn't have known there was gin in it if I hadn't told him. The drink was fruity, a little sweet, a little sour, a little herby. I would drink it again--and will. I bet Teddy would have approved.

Awesome Possum

I love this story because it involves two of my favorite presidents: Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. It's also just a really great story.

(Before we begin, it should be noted that the animal we're actually talking about is an opossum. Possums are Australian. But for the purposes of this post, we'll call them "possums" because that's what they're known as, even if it's technically incorrect.)

Now, everyone is familiar with the teddy bear, but how many people are familiar with the Billy Possum?

You might know that the teddy bear got its name thanks to Theodore Roosevelt (who, by the way, disliked being called "Teddy"). There are various and conflicting stories about how the stuffed bear came to be popular. In some versions of the story, it's because Roosevelt took a bear's life, in others it's because he spared a bear's life, and in still others it's because he didn't encounter any bears at all. One of the stories originates in Mississippi; some in Colorado. The Mississippi story seems to be the most widely accepted and documented version. Basically, TR was out hunting and decided to spare a female bear's life. A cartoonist depicted the incident in a newspaper, and from that touching story and adorable drawing, the "teddy bear" was born.

(Incidentally, I bought a Teddy Bear from a Colorado hotel that claims to be the site at which the teddy bear was really born, but considering the hotel itself has at least three different stories about how the bear came to be, I'm reluctantly inclined to believe the Mississippi version. At least I got a bear with a vest and wire-rimmed glasses from it.)

Anyway, suddenly teddy bears were all the rage, and 100 years later, they still are.

So what's the deal with the Billy Possum?

It seemed logical at the time: If children loved playing with an animal associated with President Roosevelt, surely they'd also love an animal associated with President Taft. Unfortunately, there were no touching stories about William Howard Taft sparing a bear's life, so promoters chose the next best thing: a meal of possum and sweet potatoes that Taft enjoyed while campaigning in the south.

Several companies tried to capitalize on what they assumed would be a flood of requests for Billy Possums, but despite their best efforts, the Billy Possum never took off.

This podcast (presented here on YouTube, complete with Ken Burns-style photography) gives three possible explanations for why the Billy Possum fizzled.

Their reasons are:

1) Possums are scary, ugly creatures.
I'm not buying this explanation. Possums are actually adorable. Yes, they're horrid creatures and you wouldn't want one in your backyard, but the same can be said of bears.

2) Mechanical toys were becoming popular, so why would someone want a floppy possum?
Maybe true, but why not make a mechanical possum? (Also, "Floppy Possum" would make an amazing name for a band.)

3) The Billy Possum didn't have a heartwarming story attached to it.
This one is definitely true. Roosevelt sparing the life of a helpless bear is certainly a more endearing image than someone chowing down on possum. (As the podcast mentions, though, Roosevelt later had one of his fellow hunters kill the bear instead. And then they ate it. With a side of possum. For real!)

What the podcast touches on but doesn't emphasize enough, in my opinion, is that it really came down to the men themselves. Roosevelt was a larger-than-life being bursting with charisma. People idolized and admired him. Taft was kind of...a wallflower. (Even that isn't completely accurate, because Taft was supposedly quite personable and friendly, but he certainly didn't have Roosevelt's public persona.) If someone had made a possum to commemorate Roosevelt's eating of one, we'd probably still be cuddling with Teddy Possums today.

My Favorite Presidents

You'd think "Who's your favorite president?" is something I get asked a lot, but it isn't. Mostly people ask "Why presidents?" in the same incredulous tone they use when asking why I moved from Southern California to Northern Illinois.

So, you didn't ask but I'm going to answer anyway, about my favorite president at least. (As for why the obsession, I have no answer. As for the California-Illinois thing, that's a discussion for another day.)

The truth is that I have a few favorites. In no particular order, they are:

Abraham Lincoln

This one seems kind of obvious. When people discuss the greatest presidents, Lincoln is always at or near the top, although I don't see how he can ever be rated lower than number one. Abraham Lincoln is like Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player of all time. Not Mantle, not Mays, not Williams, not DiMaggio. It's Ruth. And it's Lincoln. It just is.

That's not to say that "the best" always has to be "the favorite" (Babe Ruth isn't my favorite baseball player), but Lincoln is definitely part of the three-way tie for my favorite.

Theodore Roosevelt

I'm a little conflicted on TR's presidency because I'm not just a fan of presidents; I'm also a fan of turn-of-the-century business moguls. (I totally need to make another blog called RobberBaroness.com.) Teddy as Trust-Buster caused some of my favorite historical figures to be pitted against one another, and that's uncomfortable but also kind of awesome. He was more hawkish than I'd like, but his administration did result in several important reforms.

More than anything, though, he was a fascinating human being. The guy taxidermied his own animals as a kid. He wrote several books, including a history of the War of 1812, just for fun. He overcame severe asthma to become a star athlete, and was partially blinded in one eye while boxing...when he was president. And there was the whole Rough Rider thing. And he was president. And so very, very, very much more. 

The guy was truly the most interesting man in the world. Wait, I feel a meme coming on.

There we go.

William Howard Taft

Remember I said that "favorite" and "best" don't always align? No one will ever accuse Taft of being among the greatest presidents, and it's not Taft's presidency that landed him on this list. Instead, it's because of his character, and also because I've always felt bad for him. Everyone knows he's the "fat guy," but most people don't know he was also Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (after he was president). Supreme Court Justice is the role he always aspired to, and he sort of got thrust into the whole presidential thing against his will. He didn't like acting as a politician and he didn't want to be president. In many ways, he was too principled to succeed in politics, which is probably why he didn't.