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Author: Benjamin L. Clark

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In the Museum: Translating Research to Video

Remember the post IN THE MUSEUM: A JFK AUTOGRAPH MYSTERY? Well, the video produced out of that work is now live, and apparently has been for a while, but I missed it.

Anyway, the gist of the video: A very young, not yet famous John F. Kennedy signed a copy of his book Why England Slept to Father Edward J. Flanagan, founder of Boys Town. We’re not sure when/ how/ where that happened, but it did. I do have a photo of a very young JFK signing a copy of this book to Spencer Tracy dressed as a priest on a movie shoot. Given the timing, Tracy could have been in the middle of shooting the sequel to the movie Boys Town, Men of Boys Town. Maybe, Spencer had JFK sign a copy to Fr. Flanagan. No word from the Tracy estate that he had a signed copy too. Fr. Flanagan was out to California for some shooting at different times, but we don’t know for sure when, so he may be just out of shot on this too. Who knows.

So, this video was a lot of fun to work on with our in-house writers, videographers, and editing people. Our organization is pretty big and focused on child care, so getting to use these amazing resources toward history and the museum, in particular, was a real treat.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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More About Working In Museums:
VHS is Dead
How to Research History Like a Novelist

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Book Review: Come Twilight by Tyler Dilts

Come Twilight cover ebook Tyler Dilts

WITH A BANG

Tyler Dilts’ latest installment in his current Long Beach Homicide series is fantastic.

Long Beach homicide detective Danny Beckett has had it rough, but things are starting to look up. That is until someone tries to kill him by blowing up his elderly Toyota Camry. The people around him, his fellow officers, his partner, and even his girlfriend do what they can to keep him safe from the mysterious people who have targeted him. And he hates it.

RECOMMENDED

I’m new to the series, which usually means I don’t get the ‘inside jokes’ and things, but it felt more like spending time with a group of great people, old friends, after hitting it off with a member of the group who is nice enough to include and accept you. I felt comfortable jumping in so late in the series and look forward to future books from Tyler Dilts.

I received a free ebook copy for review.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

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Book Review: Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
Noir Renaissance?

 

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Hello, from the FBI

FBI Research Unit

A very hectic week in the #museumtrenches with construction underway on a new exhibit, and lots of IT upgrades. But, I still managed to squeeze in some research. Turns out J. Edgar Hoover gave a high school commencement address in 1941. Curious if we had a copy of this speech I was delighted to find this card in the folder with the text of the speech.

So very official-looking. Usually, you get a letter or maybe a boring sheet of paper. I’ve seen similar cards before, but this one struck me as kinda cool. It makes me think I need one for my museum and archive. Maybe not with borders and Federal typography, but something reflective of the institution. I may need to think about this a little.

FBI Research Unit
FBI Research Unit

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About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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Did *You* Win This Book?

A Front Page Affair by Radha VatsalNo, you did not. UNLESS your name is Linda F. and your AOL email address starts with JDC. Thank you, Linda and everyone else that entered to win A Front Page Affair.

Linda, please get in touch! I’ve tried emailing you and it appears you’re not seeing those emails (probably because I have words like “You’ve Won!” in there.)

 

 

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Book Review: Shamus in a Skirt by M. Ruth Myers

IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER

Each book in M. Ruth Myers’ series featuring Maggie Sullivan, a lady private detective just gets better and better.

In Shamus in a Skirt, Maggie is hired by a strange couple of former theater performers who now run an upscale and very discreet hotel. The hotel caters to the wealthy and powerful, but someone is breaking into the hotel safe — or are they? When a young cleaning lady is found dead in the alley behind the hotel, Maggie must learn if certain murder is connected to possible thievery.

Shamus in a Skirt is a very good historical mystery focused when World War II is breaking out in Europe, and many in the US asked if we’d be involved in another European war.

RECOMMENDED

Shamus in a Skirt, like all of her Maggie Sullivan books, feels so … immediate. I don’t really feel like I’m reading historical fiction when I read these books, though the historical details are very good. So good in fact they fit seamlessly in the narrative. If you’re looking for a historic mystery series of quick reading books you can really submerge in, pick up the first book No Game for a Dame in ebook format for FREE. And maybe like me, you’ll find yourself keeping an eye peeled for the next word of Maggie Sullivan.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

 

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About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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In The Museum: Some Days are Not Glamorous

Glasses with built in hearing aidsNot every day in the museum involves solving mysteries surrounding JFK, tracking holy relics and appearing on TV. Some days, you’re working on exhibits about hearing aids.

These hearing aids are built into a pair of glasses. I wear glasses every day and these would be awful, even tiring to wear they’re so heavy.

And no, there’s no big reveal like these were found at Area 51 or were bequeathed to Elvis from Sasquatch. These are simply one evolutionary step in our current technology that helps so many people around the world hear.

Days like these may not sound very exciting, but every day is different and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Like this post? Here’s more about life behind the scenes in museums and archives:
BINGO! At the Intersection of History and Slang
How to know Things are Bound to get Worse
How to Research History Like a Novelist
In the Museum: A JFK Autograph Mystery

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About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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In the Museum: A JFK Autograph Mystery

JFK Signature

IMG_3251“That’s it?!”

I admit, it doesn’t look like much, but the cameraman’s tone stung. This book is a treasure at the museum where I’m curator. But with a book collector’s eye, yes it’s in tough shape. But what a story behind it!

Someone somewhere in our large organization decided to create and promote some short videos about fascinating objects in our collections. They needed a list of suggested artifacts and this one was high on our list.

In 1940, a young John F. Kennedy’s senior thesis at Harvard was published as Why England Slept. Not long after that, an autographed copy from the young man from a prominent family was given to Father Edward J. Flanagan, of Boys Town fame. Father Flanagan was one of the most famous Catholics in the United States in 1940, just two years following the film that earned Spencer Tracy his second Oscar.

JFK Signature
Circa 1940 signature of John F. Kennedy

We’re still not 100% sure how the book came to have been gifted to Father Flanagan, but he and young Jack Kennedy’s sister Eunice Schriver served on a committee studying juvenile delinquency around that time, and that was the best guess according to long-time staff at the museum.

Then I found this November 1940 photo online at the JFK Presidential Library of young JFK signing the book for Spencer Tracy. Father Flanagan wasn’t the only priest played by Tracy, but he did play him twice. First in 1938 in Boys Town, and a little-known sequel Men of Boys Town in 1940.

KFC 2616PIt makes sense if this was on the set of Men of Boys Town with Tracy reprising his role as Father Flanagan. Did young Jack Kennedy sign a copy for Father at the same time as Tracy’s? Someone on staff asked if JFK made it out to Father Flanagan, giving it to Tracy!

Nothing turns up in our archives of correspondence between Tracy and Flanagan about the book, but there’s a decent probability Father Flanagan was on set at Men of Boys Town, so he could be just out of frame in this photo! We’ll probably never know.

We do know that we’ll have a nice video telling the fascinating story behind this particular book and the strange and roundabout way it came to the museum.

More About Working In Museums:
VHS is Dead
How to Research Like a Novelist

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Happy 100th Birthday Roald Dahl

roald-dahl-books-spines

henrysugar

Where would we be without Roald Dahl’s books? Separate the man if you can and consider his work. This past week I read aloud to my partner Susan The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and other stories. It’s a fantastic collection of fiction and non-fiction. Some of it horrifying (I’m looking at you, bullies and the swan story!), but all of it perfectly RoaldDahlian. That perfect mix of weird and wonderful, macabre and marvelous.

Modern Moms and Dads sometimes say his stories are too dark. Too gross. Too profane, and are too mature for young readers. Bull. Shit. Dahl was brilliant (and yes grouchy), but I’d never tell a parent how to parent (now that I am one, I get it) however I will judge you silently. Everyone from Tim Burton to Stephen King and those who follow them, like Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers, stand on Roald Dahl’s shoulders today.

What would I be without his strange sense of wonder, his fascination with life and death, and his sense of justice?  And acceptance? Like that of a grandmother and her grandson who has been turned into a mouse and will never be a boy again. Reading Dahl as an adult teaches me far more lessons than when I read him as a child. I think that’s the point.

We read The Witches in the last month or so waiting for the birth of our son last year. Reading aloud to one another each night and taking a few moments to talk to the baby yet to make his debut. Each chapter is a prayer to be able to love, to be brave, and stand up to wrong no matter the odds. It was perfect.

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roald-dahl

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Win A Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal!

WIN A BOOK

Sign up and WIN A Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal. My review is here.

book giveawaySign up for my mailing list NOW thru September 30. I’ll announce a winner on October 1.

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Continental US addresses only, please. Yes, this is the copy I read for my review, so it’s very gently used. My newsletter is only a couple times per month, featuring great stuff at the intersection of history and mystery, and also updates on my own stories. You’ll be the first to hear when my new books drop. THANKS!

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Book Review: Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal

book review Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal

Out of the Gate Like a Stutz Bearcat

IMG_3118

Radha Vatsal is a scholar and a talented storyteller, evident in her strong historical mystery debut, A Front Page Affair, just released this summer.

Capability Weeks (“Kitty” to her friends) and her father (a well-to-do, self-made mogul) live well in 1915 New York City. Kitty, a young addition to the New York Sentinel‘s Ladies Page, covers a July 4th society soiree and becomes tied to a murder and what looks like a plot to endanger the delicate international balance. 

Kitty Weeks (and supporting cast) are wonderful. She’s young and privileged and begins to recognize what that has meant in her life throughout this story. I don’t go for that combination in a hero much, but Kitty’s introspection and awareness redeem her (to me at least). A hero who can throw money at their problems and make them go away is not much of a hero. Kitty also works not only externally but internally as well, to find solutions, being creative and brave throughout.

Radha Vatsal has sentences in this book that are heavy with history. It’s hard to write historical novels without ‘info dumping’ on readers. It’s a challenge to weave historical information, foreign to modern readers, and achieve a native harmony so readers glide along, learning without being jarred by the thrills and not the history.

…

RECOMMENDED

Get in on this new series straight away. You’ll enjoy this plucky young hero as she matures during a time of great change in our nation and our world. Strong historical research sunk deep below the surface pushes this debut novel to the top of my recommendation list this month. For a work of fiction, there’s a fantastic ‘Further Reading’ and ‘Selected References and Sources’ pages. Old historian habits die hard.

About the Author: Benjamin Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

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Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.