Which By the People historical figure would you have coffee with?

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1

If you could have coffee with a historical figure from a By the People campaign, who would it be?

  • Ojibwe poet and writer Jane Johnson Schoolcraft
  • Amelia Simmons, a early American cookbook author
  • Civil War nurse and American Red Cross founder Clara Barton
  • Central Park landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted
  • Margaret Bayard Smith, aka early Washington’s unofficial gossip columnist
  • Early musical theater composer George M. Cohan
  • President James Garfield
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Comment below on why you chose your coffee partner. What would you ask them? And who might you add to this list?

2

I’d add Walt Whitman, as well as his much-younger friend, caregiver, and eventual literary executor Horace Traubel. The more Whitman I do, the more I am fascinated by the way his friends with cult-like devotion considered him a kind, generous, brilliant personand poet, while his detractors considered him a licentious sham.

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3

Olmstead! As an architect I would enjoy talking about his theories of design. Plus, he seems like he would be interesting - he kicked around all over the place before finding his professional niche.

And I’d love to talk about all the changes over time to his great parks. I would tell him of the beautiful casting ponds and angler’s lodge added to Golden Gate Park by the WPA in the 1930’s.

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4

I would tell James Garfield to avoid a guy named Charles Guiteau. I would love to hear George M. Cohan’s inspiration for his music and if he knew how well received it would be.

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5

I hadn’t known much about James a Garfield before working on his papers, and now I’m totally in awe of him and very sad about great his loss was to the country and the world! He was truly a Renaissance man - a self-made man who became an expert in classics, mathematics, diplomacy, the law, leadership, advocate for education, human rights and dignity, etc - yet he remained hard working, humble, sincere, and dedicated to his religious and ethical principles.

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