BackStory; From BackStory to You: A History of Giving and Receiving

which event for backstory survive about anonymous donor that ashram down for the humanities and the joseph a robber cornell memorial foundation this is bad welcome to back story the show that explains the history behind today's headlines i'm joined freeman i'm brian balogh from basically if you'd to the podcast each week along with our colleague errors we start a different aspect of american history aha yes this week's down the beloved american pastime chef that from this time most of the shopping americans are doing whether it's online or in stores is in anticipation of the holiday season that's because for many americans december is a time for gift giving a chance to find that special something to show someone how much you appreciate them or to donate to those who are less fortunate according to a two thousand sixteen survey more than sixty percent of americans donated

to a charitable cause throughout the month of december but throughout american history gift giving has taken on many different forms and the act of giving and receiving has allowed bars to four across social political and cultural divides so on this episode of backstory we're giving you two very different stories of giving and receiving resource crosses the atlantic ocean and weaves together to different groups with very similar struggles and the other looks at a time when lending has been actually stirred up more harm than good her story comes to you from backstory producer melissa just monday it's a segment we're calling the voice of benevolence this story starts in ireland it's

the mid eighteen forties and across the british colony irish people are starving to death the accounts which reaches from many quarters of the country of the progress of the disease which threatens the destruction of the whole of the potato crop are deplorable in the extreme the streets were thronged with poor half starved creatures who had come in from the country hoping to obtain some relief if hamish and families what was going on was that the population of ireland for starters was a growing astronomically i think in the first decades of the nineteenth century turtle banbury is a historian based in county carlow ireland it quadrupled to eight point five million of the tunisian hundred and eighteen forty five how does an enormous increase so forty five million people in the

country at least two million of them are reckoned to be living in extreme poverty landowners and farmers they start exerting massive pressure on the air on the peasantry the working classes that were there that they start raising the rents terminating leases their them forcing evictions and so then you end up with all these people if they go where they going to go jeeves you have the fact that they are notoriously and dependent on potatoes for their subsistence it's what everybody everybody with huge number of the essential population live on and so inevitably if there's a failure of that crop that's going to have a disastrous effects you are

so when the potato blight arrives at mit eighteen forty five that's the first year it's quite bad making forty five minutes were sitting forty six and it's terrible and eighteen forty seven and a complete secret kills the crop thrives ireland in an aging forty seven is known as black forty seven in ireland and continues through asia forty eight eighteen forty nine so first we got no potatoes what happens then is where you go to people stockpiling into the work has is a vague became rife with color what you end up with this is that this this intense starvation and starvation killed a lot of people enjoying the winter of asian forty six a nation forty seven we are talking about written maybe four hundred thousand people dying due to a lack of food by the end of the famine it is germany's data that up to one and a half million people would have died on a kind of a flood of starvation and disease in art and it's quite often known as the great hunger because when

you look at it the wall street indictment was lots of food but the laws of the free market meant that grain which was the main food could be exploited during that time he didn't there's no obligation to distribute of amongst all poor and hungry but you have to get the grain merchants and especially in britain and ninety nine and there are a very powerful lobby they're supplying enough grain from ireland to feed a couple million british mouths every year so what you end up with is in the eighteen forty seven you have this absurd situation all about four thousand vessels leaving ireland carrying fruit that's why says the great hunger because there was food it just wasn't going to marshmallows by eighteen forty seven news of the famine had crossed the atlantic meanwhile in oklahoma the ira's story of struggle and starvation resonated with one community in

particular my name is gary bettman and the chief of the choctaw nation of oklahoma today the choctaw nation resides in southeastern oklahoma but before the eighteen thirties the choctaw people occupied large parts of modern day mississippi at that time a white settlers were eager to claim these lands and they found an ally in president andrew jackson and eighteen thirty he signed into law the notorious indian removal act there's apps built upon earlier campaigns of this possession the shops or one of the first nations to relocate under the terms of the treaty of dancing rabbit creek their journey westward was one several nations turks during the eighteen thirties that have become known as the trail of tears i was whine as chief that explains where we lost a third of our people along the way and you know were diseases that killed a lot of our people course we travel during the harsh called low winter

so i mean literally we had people that was losing grandma grandpa they were losing young children babies it was really a major critical time for us and recourse to survival as a people that i know were we going to be able to endure this trail to get to a place of hope yours god our forefathers that we we made it to where we are today and two to give us to me what always cause the batteries that we have today in the choctaw nation of a servant leadership and to be in that touched at the warrior spirit that is still losing in the breeze and a kalter today will come back to those values of service and leadership and just a bed the first you're probably wondering what the trail of tears and the great hunger have in common it was right after we came

across the patrol tears in england to all the travesty is that our tribal members had to have to deal with it and it was the the soldier that actually helped its lack of better work guided our people over here i was talking about the irish potato famine to the principle government figures during the whole trend appears upset her two brothers frank and william armstrong and they were scots irish stock a huge number of the people who came from ireland to america in the eighties and she would be a scots irish among them was their father this guy colonel james armstrong who was from a place called anise guillen and twenty from an eye an ardent anti then later settled in knoxville masters boys are raised and this is a frank at william and their older brother robert they were jackson's man and when jackson became president amazing thirty year that they're dumb songs are part of his party's gary frank armstrong he was a central theme at thirty one he was dispatched to mississippi

to take a census of the shock top which meant bases surveying their farms before their departure because they were about to settle for much so that would become the trail of tears and frank ends up becoming agents to the shock top and he's in charge of the space you receiving shock to as they cross the mississippi and to do that he because he persuades washington to send the army over to build anew wagon roads that they can get them all across but then of course you tumble into the trail of tears and he was appalled by what happened at the awful winter and all the horror and he was deathly this shelter were very fond of frank armstrong and eight when the crops there's a crop failure making thirty four and he did we could to try and sores extra bushels of corn extra to bring in extra corn for that the shock though they're starving and he was going full steam ahead when he was hit by a number identified disease and what we don't know what was a need he died in beijing thirty five so when frank dies his brother william that was brought across to become the

new superintendent for indian affairs by early eighteen forty seven that america was becoming more more aware of what was going on unarmed there are lots of ships that are piling into place like boston and new york with huge numbers of people telling of the hora back home i am on the story spread very quickly we'll get contemporaneous papers all across the us people are actually starting to get very concerned about what is going on in ireland and trying to you know distorting to raise big money and sending ships laden with provisions back across the atlantic overjoyed and so major armstrong having was seven his father being an irishman he would have always been unified one eye on them on air on the irish affairs so i see him that he was aware of that and in any event i just after st patrick's day in eighteen forty seven a week after he gathers a group of people in sunnyvale in that in the end the agency buildings it's cold and the purpose as he summons them for is to raise money for the relief of the starving poor of art and lots of people came there were missionaries in all the

traders and loads of other people who all came from rhonda vote on the shuttle yamin she's a shock to what will they get when they subscribed their hundred and seventy dollars that was obviously taken up very quickly as the most remarkable of all the donations back in that time there was no normal dollars doctor is days away literally had or take money out of their pocket and they wanted to help the people violent because they did know what it felt like to go to this travesty and to lose you know language to lose coltrane to lose your homes all those types of things they felt compelled to make sure and reach out and do what they could to help that situation even though they were don't want to own a situation at the top yes to what's there to know why they did what i made that a nation needs a you know is it some sort of respectfully armstrong's were from ireland or was it an empathy for

people who circumstances must descend very familiar they've been at you know the irish were blighted by cholera epidemics in my intrusion old which will shop till would've said joe was in the polling charities ten twelve years earlier so i think that must've been an important part of that we'll know dispersed when uno course i wasn't there at the time but all we say there's hope in agony and so what i mean by that when you can relate to somebody that has gone through the same experience that you have you know builds a new work got a mile and in that person's moccasins then you can you can truly know how that person feels when we knew what they were quarantined oxy a week they were losing like settling was a losing family children's grandparents all those things we really did so well to the travesty set they would they were going to do and i think that's a reason why are people reached out because they wanted to

make sure that they in that the average people know that somebody cared about deal after a major armstrong gathered up that money for the song to the memphis irish relief committee and they then sent on to the society of friends the non intuitive the quakers who are organizing this massive relief campaign in ireland and when they got onstage at the society of friends immediately referred to it as the voice of benevolence from the western wilderness of the western hemisphere so it you know instantly single bite of something quite remarkable it's important to say that there are hundreds of dollars raised in style of il was not the only money raised by the shop talk because there's a place called coke still and his was the largest town in indian tired she had spent fifty mile size of scully go and that they gathered a hundred and fifty three dollars another hundred fifty three dollars but for some reason i don't know why there is no

record all of that contribution in the kinds of the general irish are relief committee which was that the society of friends liked it and maybe never got i don't know you were in oklahoma a major armstrong lived just long enough to see the donation he'd collected preach the irish relief committee and memphis he died in june eighteen forty seven meanwhile the choctaw nation maintain their struggle to make oklahoma home turtle but murray says that in eighteen sixty they found themselves on the verge of famine after the region was hit by a terrible drought that ruined many crops back in ireland eighteen forty seven march one of the worst years of the great hunger the situation improved slowly but ireland was forever changed what you end up with after that the great hunger as to say that of the population that

change in ireland was absolutely must've and you get to know you conversely indian in north america at this and they got irish people i can never ever heard before meanwhile in ireland the by asian fifty eight and fifty one the country starts to recover and a lot less people have but the agricultural side of things actually takes up and i think the aging fifties but it's such an odd prosperous country but is not the worst decade for ireland i think the story would have fitted into a book called iran's forgotten history and told about twenty years ago when things started to change mary robinson is the president of ireland for two terms for fourteen years until she was a became a great friend of the choctaw nation i think she might even be an honor as shop talk because she was a became aware of the story apartment exactly how but she ended up going over and meeting the epa has the choctaw nation talking about it and i gave it a better

coverage and then the shuttle come across to mayo where in and in the west of our end where there's this awful event where people weren't walking went for a walk at the height of the famine in order to get some relief on and dumping an awful that tragedy has that will die at bat so a hundred and fifty years on flood events there was a sort of trail of tears and in mayo a few nights an owner of these people in the shop told that had a shuttle mission of the she still commissioner that time came over for that's a sudden you start having his bumbling and the press there you know the media not to start picking up on it it's a detective story for school teachers to suddenly frame i get letters just about every year from a sixth grade class that since thank you notes because they're teaching about to give to me it's a pretty hard story to take when you're a kid you try to get your head around the fact fda potatoes that they lived on them and that it was this your mama's event in our past that killed quite so distant those figures are unbelievable the numbers of people who died in an integrated

so if you can get a positive story which is what it is now and was then i'm on the ticket from something this kind of soul extraordinary as the shock to a nation it does when other people have wanted to hit and i'm even mean it in twenty eighteen liver activity shock the irish prime minister and he also went over to st patrick's for all around us irish prime minister liam the wrong car and the rancid ministers are very much part of a conscious now mennonites context they're beautiful sculpture done in an un middleton in county cork again is putting it into a conscious so i think a lot more people in ireland are aware of the story now than ever before alex pentax culture is called kindred spirits when i reached him in between meetings at a hotel

lobby he told me he had a very specific goal in mind that it's a fusion of it is trying to communicate the horror house bill's history as a foreigner and i'm also lucky and choctaw trail of tears only a few years previous it took and do the symbolic image of an empty bowl ann and i made that form of a series of nine and around two to eagle feathers which are used in choctaw ceremonial dress so remind voters are says creating a bowl shaped form out great a permeable sculpture out of as a sort of a mix of it has to do is you try to communicate the story arcs the sculpture was unveiled at a commemoration ceremony and twenty seventeen he remembers meeting chief batton at the event and how much he appreciated alex's vision for the sculpture and he really understood the message that i was trying to sort of put forty

life and those remembering the history the eighteen forty seven donations and also oh i think speaking beyond the history with the image of this is uplifting feathers and humanity and i suppose maybe the motion solidarity and standing together against adversity and he really understood that mention that was a good speech that regard that these were communicated visually our shared history but also spoke out to present day meeting where we have numerous tales of oppression around the world and that we have to stand together against adversity and that's what this is about i was very humbled by the gratitude of the irish people i think didn't understood the significance of been a tribal member even as he knows been achieved this growing up as always been chopped are you know i mean i don't know that i really understood the analysts cite it they understood the significance of that because people just by mere been chopped all

children such great esteem of giving this gift of hope and i think it even made an even embrace that we are i mean i've always embrace that we are a nation that one and other nations says think you nation for hope and us remain as a nation as a country and a membrane religious can explode in a recourse to how significant are people all or to the world i think one of the things i buy twenty when you look at the famine and trying to see some sort of light in amongst all the darkness it comes from v unusual people bringing forward relief and there were some weighty truly extraordinary people that was captain forbes bringing his war ship across the atlantic to a fisherman from cape cod to sailed across the sea with the provisions in this mountainous communities to bring to the starving irish those

unusual source of the sultan of the ottoman empire at who contributed money towards the relief but the shock toll stands out because it really it was an extraordinary so in those times with so many thousands and thousands of miles between ireland and oklahoma and that sort of hand of friendship really add that it went across the last jews in the long to shoot around it was a it was really short and i can understand why it must have sent a shiver up the spine of the people ok you can when they were working the relief to it in dublin to realize where you come from and i think it still does to this day always say that history always tells whether you make a great decision or not so i don't know that the people buy ireland or the people of the chao cartel members knew the significance the impact that that would make but its later you know i know people viruses you helped us remain who we are as the

people of ireland it was because they give to hope they hoped to stay true to our values used to our culture to our language you in unison here about you think a hundred seventy dollars you knows that he's used me gary patton of the choctaw nation of oklahoma you also heard from turmoil a binary author of eighteen forty seven a chronicle of genius generosity and savagely and from sculptor alex an attack who are murderers who are it

i really enjoyed that story that we just heard from a listener about this bond between the choctaw in the irish i think it really says a lot about the surprising connections that can come out during tough times and the incredible spirit of generosity that can result now i share another story but it sounds pretty different it's still a story about a community going out of its way to give to another group in a time of hardship but there are big differences in how the folks on the receiving end accepted that generosity and this time instead of spanning the atlantic order to stay in one city philadelphia this story takes place and seventeen ninety three when philadelphia was the capital of a brand new united states and at the time one of the city's biggest religious leaders was a man named bishop richard allen he's a church builder a civil rights leader and a really important activist for civil rights a new republic rich news when help us tell the story he wrote a biography

about richard allen called freedom's profit now rich says seventeen ninety three was a really important year for alan he had recently led a big walk out from the methodist church because he and other african americans were fed up with segregation in the ministry decided to build his own church which will eventually become mother baffled the league church in the african methodist church the nomination so in nearly seventy nineties he's trying to get african american congregants to join his church is trying to get white and black people to donate to the church but while i was out trying to build support for his new church the city is struck with a devastating disease called yellow fever yellow fever its name would imply is a bill as fever so folks get high temperatures they feel nauseous and sick there's a yellowing of this in any eyes and the thing that strikes you about yellow fever is the physicality of it it's not something that's hidden when people are sick with that they

look sick of the city itself seems six so people start shutting off their homes they closed doors that close the shutters and what people interrupt they yell at people passing by viewers stick with the yellow fever ah sure you've you walk by for me so the city is in every conceivable way city and people are really worried that it'll fall apart so how big was it how many people are affected by it it wipes out a big segment of the philadelphia population philadelphia is the united states' largest city at the time it has about fifty thousand people and historians estimate that between four and five thousand people maybe more perished in this deadly epidemic as yellow fever ravaged philadelphia people were scrambling to try and figure out how to treat people with the disease that's where a physician named benjamin rush comes in benjamin rush was one of the leading physicians in the united states at that time he had trained in europe she's also a noted performer and politician he

had signed the declaration of independence and so he's one of the main civic leaders in philadelphia one yellow fever strikes so rash conjures this idea for how to help people who are infected but it's based on a belief that turns out to be very very wrong benjamin rush believe that african americans were immune from the yellow fever is a medical man he was sharing his science and it turns out that he should have been because he was wrong african americans are susceptible to the yellow fever but benjamin rush thought that because do ring the early phases of the disease and from reports elsewhere that african americans were getting is intersected as whites and so therefore they were noon and it because they were immune this was probably an opportunity offered by died to let african americans into the public stage and help white philadelphians recover from the yellow fever so propelled by this faulty assumption rush

goes to two of the most influential african american leaders in the city richard allen and his friend absalom jones and he asked them to kind of put all of their worries and qualms about getting sick aside and to assist the sick and the port authority officer this means going out into the city and find people are sick of treating them if people have perished and getting them out of their houses burying them taking what they think are infected articles of clothing so african americans are tasked with burying some of these things so that the city won't have some of these leftover items to spread disease so benjamin rush really prevailed upon african americans to put their lives at risk and help save the city of philadelphia at this moment of crisis wow and an allen basically agrees to help corral that effort yes both allen and russia are guided by a religious

sensibility which says this is a special moment perhaps offered by a just god which will allow african americans to prove their worth two philadelphians as equal citizens because one of the other things that's going on is that at this time is that pennsylvania is still in the early stages of an emancipation process so both richard allen and absalom jones who are in the abolition movement agreed that this might be a very special one providential moment where african americans in saving the city can prove their fitness for freedom in the us approved the worth of emancipation itself so for richard allen it's kind of like killing two birds with one stone or in this case three burns alan believes the rescue effort will number one ethically be the right thing to do number to bolster their case for emancipation across the united states a number three hoping to gain support for building his new church and so

without leadership the african american community lanza hand and gets to work and at first you seem to be going well there was a sense of gratitude for their help when they find out that african americans are due to serve as nurses and pall bearers and aid workers call them to their private homes that let african americans like alan jones into their house they let them touch their bodies richard allen and absalom jones are trained in the art of bleeding which mention russia's a big proponent of this are that the blade eight hundred people and i want to conjure this image of african americans holding onto a blade and touching it to white people's skin not only at this moment of crisis for philadelphia but when you get these big debates over slavery and freedom in the atlantic world revolution and send him a news oh going on at this time in their report spreading throughout fought off the society so when whites let african americans like alan jones into their home and he let them aid their families and physically touch them i think it's

a real genuine feeling of gratitude that they offered to black aid workers and so i dont underrated at all but things start to change when a publisher named matthew carey enters the picture and the carrier on something people definitely read it he was enormously influential in the publishing world at the time but when el fever strikes he joins a lot of other white people of means in leaving the city he heads out of infected philadelphia and when he returns several months later he hears stories from a few people about african americans who took advantage of the yellow fever to exploit white homes white kindness ellen jones argued that these are libelous stories they're false there sensationalized but matthew carry sees an opportunity to not only tell a tale about her yellow fever philadelphia that will sell some pamphlets and make some money but

to weigh in on this debate over slavery and freedom and so when he publishes his history of yellow fever near the end of seventy ninety three he celebrates a few black leaders like alan jones for doing some heroic deeds but she castigates most african americans for engaging in what he refers to as poll for ng in plundering of white holmes charging too much for nursing services stealing our right from white homes the great demand for nurses afforded an opportunity for in position which was eagerly seized by some of the finalists of the blacks they extorted two three four and even five dollars a night for attendants which would have been well paid by a single dollar some of them are even detected in plundering the houses of the sick but it is wrong to cast the center on the hole for this sort of conduct as many have done

the services of jones allen and gray and others of their color have been very great and demand public or gratitude ellman the black community outbreaks they think this is a false hood it's not based in truth and so kerry's pamphlet motivate solomon jones' to write their own pamphlet their own history of yellow fever in which they as they claim in that pamphlet seek to set the historical record straight and what's amazing about the pamphlet is that first and foremost richard allen and absalom jones directly take i met hugh carey and this problem of black stereotyping they say we've read this pamphlet the pampered has already gone through several additions it's selling like hotcakes it's a blockbuster and philadelphia and it's telling false that about the black community so you wanna correct the historical record and said people straight the second thing that

alan jones doing that pamphlet is tell a tale of black hair was so african americans were approach during yellow fever epidemic they say white leaders like benjamin rush wanted them to help out during this time of need an african americans put aside all of their personal reservations and risk their health to save the city and in doing so they interacted with a wide variety of white people who are desperately in need and so what they end up doing is talking about the way their brother love fell apart in philadelphia during yellow fever epidemic family member turned against family member neighbor turned against neighbor and many people who could like maggie carey left the city an african americans who by large couldn't and eventually even if they could there was a quarantine that can people in philadelphia so african americans in allen in jones's rendering are the people who are left in the city and as a community the only group that combines their

effort to help save white as well as black philadelphians and the flakes they get is this horrible pamphlet from if you carried blaming them for exploiting the yellow fever to get personal wealth to steal things so they're really upset and in his pamphlet they can to turn that anger into something that will redeem african americans in the public eye we feel ourselves sensibly agreed by this and stories epithets of many who did not render the least assistant and the time of necessity yet our little of this century of us for the prices paid for our services when no one knew how to make a proposal to anyone they want to assist them at first we made no charge letter to those we serve to removing very good to give what they thought fit we said no price until the reward was fixed by those we had served or were jailed as a dna that pamphlet is he attaches a couple of addresses to the people at large not

just a philadelphia she addresses the nation and a series of mrs including a really important anti slavery section which is kind of a pamphlet in its own right it's an untitled an address to those who keep slaves and approved the practice he says will we see in yellow fever philadelphia bald example of racism and racial stereotyping flows from slavery and so this is a lesson to americans that to confront the problems of the yellow fever we have to confront slavery and racial injustice of richard allen really uses yellow fever pamphlet is an opportunity to strike a blow for the abolitionist movement as well but richard allen wasn't just thinking about the present for african americans at the time nobody knew that with especially he had a chance to cement something in history so it goes with absalom jones down to the federal office and they get copyright number fifty five for the district of pennsylvania pamphlet that richard ellenberg publishes

is the first copyrighted pamphlet in african american literature so in a sense richard allen and absalom jones are doing is copy writing black public protests this is an important moment for black protest because it puts before national political leaders of black anger and black solutions alan jones say unknown certain purposes if you love your country if you love freedom and clear hands of slaves get rid of bondage and make sure that america lives up to all its professed ideas of liberty and justice for all rich says aoun's demand for liberty and justice for all is by no means the only time a push for civil rights has coincided with a natural disaster we might think of the yellow fever epidemic and seventeen ninety three as the first of several katrina moments in american

history are referring to hurricane katrina two thousand five in new orleans where a natural disaster becomes the staging grounds for bram morality play about islam as an awareness moment of sorts where african americans in the world did they the deeper meaning of civil rights and civil wrongs and it's really striking when you go back and look at the yellow fever that way that alan jones talk about this natural disasters leading to a kind of civic disaster were african americans are blamed abused stereotype it may sound so much like what happens during katrina and just like during katrina which is now a marker of black activism right similar yellow fever is one of those moments where african americans say to themselves and to the nation it's time to wake up so you know it's a really powerful event for all of these reasons because

it isn't just what you think it is a natural disaster where people are challenged to do better it's a real challenging moment for democracy itself and richard allen and absalom jones hope that the gift that day give to white society will be one that changes them forever and of course sadly it's not now you used the great phrase that in a sense alan and jennifer copy writing black protest ahmad so thinking that way not just about the moment that alan was in the thinking down the road towards the future are there ways in which allen's activism and actually his generosity and the generosity of the black community in philadelphia they have an active influence and how future generations of black activists and leaders are conducting themselves or without a doubt the yellow fever pamphlet is this model of black protest for subsequent generations of civil rights leaders an african american performers and

others so you can go to frederick douglass who is in the next generation of black leaders to find someone who reveres richard allen and absalom jones particularly richard allen during reconstruction frederick douglass right to know he says that what we really need now on the late nineteenth century is a man like richard allen someone who claimed to equal citizenship merely republican would tell us what to do during the travails of reconstruction web dubois is another civil rights leader in the early twentieth century who extols the virtues of richard allen's activism and so he publishes especially smelly thinking about impacting people in his own time and his own community he's thinking about impacting people through time and through space we have evidence that african americans are circulating allen's pamphlet in the early republic and then when he dies other dishes will be published and so we know that even region

own self as interested in this war he is near the end of his life in the eighteen thirties he passes away in eighteen thirty one one of his last acts is to dictate an autobiography to one of his sons any instructions you not only published an autobiography about the building was black church of his gospel labor's he says reprint that yellow fever pamphlet so the new generation of white and black abolitionist can read about all that we had done in the seventy nine peace to a protest for freedom song that way i would argue richard allen's yellow fever tablet is the gift that keeps on giving to white abolitionists black performers american citizens it richmond is a history professor at rochester institute of technology he's also the author of freedoms profit bishop richard alan e at church

our moon <unk> it's what you get me for chanukah oh dang it and i'm a better gift giver brian you give a gift of gab joy or awe thank you went and i think read as they wanted on the internet back around on it matthew ryan and nathan you know we just heard these two amazing stories but one of the things that so it struck me as we were listening you know we're talking about a gift giving which isn't necessarily the same thing as charity as i'm wondering what you think about working your way through different kinds of gifts and what they mean that's a terrific question

and it had just off the top of my head my sense is that gift giving news at least i supposed to be more spontaneous more a motion or less concerned we're it's kind of the long term consequences unless somebody returned your gift of the store that's always embarrassing and i would seem gentle kind of girl part of the personal relationship i understand that people gave gifts as part a business in office relations and all that but i think of gift giving as fairy person oh i think of the charity as maybe now the nineteenth century join but but in the twentieth century is over and organizations and it away trying to achieve something throw a financial contribution

and that i think are deftly is awaited for thinking about relationships and how you have on the one hand relations between populations so if you think about you know the choctaw the iris those are groups and i was in a desert going to be an interesting way to think through what kinds of advantages or disadvantages come out of that kind of gift but you know even that are more intimate level i think between individuals and within families are you in small communities this kind of giving has very rich and layered meaning i mean you know we think about something like philanthropy it mean that there's a way in which you know people who have a concentration of wealth are looking to affectively ingratiate themselves with you know certain populations right so that there's a there's a history for example you know andrew carnegie or madame c j walker as you know business people who find ways of building is to choose the schools or libraries as a way of demonstrating that they are in

fact the title to their wells because they do good things with it even more small scale business people and some folks that i study my first book a miami is our property managers and landlords they were profiled engines of institution building often through guest and give says you know sensual as building a school or playground but also things as intimate as providing a christmas dinner for tenants and you'll be on the underside of this and that in the larger social network of this moment in the context of save your rental property is that say if you give someone a christmas dinner will be less inclined to report you to the local housing bureau if you're slow there's a kind of way that the day to day social relationships that some ways benefit the already well off can be lubricated by these bodies get cynical about what it is to recognize and that is one aspect of the guest relations well nathan this will make it even more cynical because i just read a terrific proposal for

a book on income inequality and now our fellow historian kim thought fine is going to talk about the philosophy that under girds carnegie which is if you don't have income inequality then you can have these wonderful things why climbers alive it's really even it its it will make you more cynical than what you just said because it's embedded in history philosophy of giving that in life you have this income inequality are you don't get all these benefits and gifts and contributions and charitable contributions you think you can take that back in time to worry that i'm going to jump on the diesel into it hard to say how it would have the powdered wig involved

very slightly post founder and they really laid an early nineteenth century as eliza period when the alignment among other things her gave you this sense that you could do things to better society and you begin to get organized philanthropy efforts at that time so on the one hand the non cynical version of that is a nice people are trying to better society of course the single part of that is okay well now that we're extending money and gifts we get to say something about how the people were giving them to behave really right where our sort of insert ourselves into their private lives in some ways so now we can coin or refine these other kinds of people so that they are more like us so so something about that though the way we use gives as a kind of social improvement would we consider that to be as important to what became american culture as say the federal government or no the founding documents of it is his gifting really critical to the american way of life

well i am and i'll jump on that because i would be willing to argue that americans are on a broad spectrum iraq among those people kind of elisa namur with government and so i do think in the united states over the course of american history at least people have made the argument that we don't need the government because we have all these volunteer organizations we have all these charitable organizations that not only fill the gap but do it a lot more effectively and by the way that goes back to this very personalized relationship of gift giving that we started with that the family again any guarantee and at least in the united states the rationale for not having the government do things is well the family should take care center where the community rain or the community exactly what what's i think you know a good way to think about the holiday feeling round gift giving medicine

is not just about the kinds of you know uses to which you can put products and objects and goods and services to get your position but that there is a kind of cohesion that we experience as family units in communities that come from the giving of oneself or one's time or even of a thoughtful gifts to someone else and it is is there a way to balance our lisa minimize the possible harmful aspects of gift giving a really emphasize what becomes a more cohesive side first of all you know one doesn't have to accept a gift item and in fact one doesn't always pick except guests and secondly we haven't talked about receiving gifts very much but receiving gifts can be error rather i'm comfortable saying precisely for the reasons you're talking about nathan precisely because you know one as well what do i own return rate and so i don't have a

historical answer for you why i do think it allows all of us to think about the obligations entailed in both giving and receiving guess the obligations of the fact that in some way or another it's easy to get power impaneled in the air depending on the nature of beginning in and receiving right right right on the other hand and more in spirit with the season i hope there's a great joy in gift giving and i hope in the case of the gifts i've given expecting nothing in return while i think i think you've put your your thumb on the magic word for this a bright which of expectation yes right of any of the expectation that say a landlord in the jim crow south has about giving christmas dinners at the knees tenet will report and tools that we should be a little man think about that that is a gift that is given without

expectation and i wonder if there's a way of understanding of american history as a series of give center given with greater or lesser expectations and that sometimes in the way many parts with the differences between a philanthropist and you know uncle was giving us a tour do a job is to say well maybe you know there are those for forgotten how much wealth one has are you know the relationship between two folks knew what makes the difference between a gift that should be taken one that shouldn't is the expectation that's attached to it and in these are away for to highlight the positive aspects of gift giving by focusing on that expectation i think there is a way although it's not news that often that's anonymity some very huge gifts in some small very meaningful gifts i've been given anonymously social services or an expectation that you're a muslim of experience i had very briefly as a parent of public school kids in new york city and we had the benefit of going to a very resource

rich public school in lower manhattan that had a very wealthy parent teacher association and in that hundreds of thousands of dollars you know many times over ahmad was the budget and in the budget was largely generated they're a combination of people who work in the field of public sector who had kids who went to the school that the fund was managed by a disbarred stockbroker had in all kinds of you know important enough once and it was because we understood that the parents should be closed to or above ninety percent giving you know as a body in the way we're going to encourage this kind of contribution on the part of the families in this part of new york city was to put a large sign or a plaque on the wall of the four years the kids walking to school a featured all of the names of the families who have given this is whatever and it certainly would work and how parents could be encouraged him and give them out of a sense of recognition in the audience would feel proud seen their family names on the wall as well let

me just tell you this was not a popular initiative at all and there was a real pushback from parents who certainly did not have the resources to you know both live in new york city often has a multiple children and give them regular are hefty donations there were a number of people who say we give in ways that cannot be measured in gaza we give him time and resources and skills and does our name go up on the wall as well wright a minute there there was a whole horse did i even ask that and then go up on the wall right exactly right so so so many of the common questions of recognition and public investment in the idea that money is the only contribution and thinking about this whole thing that's already come out of the show of much more informal contributions actually again provide a sense of connection and you are a community that there there was a disconnect between those two different culture and i

wonder about about the extent to which we have enough time or space or energy in this particular moment of american history on her that kind of giving that kind of different that's going to do it first day you can keep the conversation going on while let us know what you thought of the episode as christian questions about his send us an e mail the backstory we're also on facebook and twitter at backstory making whatever you do don't be a stranger with a special thanks this week to the theaters involvement and found this wealthy teams dale sarah macdonald think a moment please support from anonymous don't record the johns hopkins university and the national endowment for the committee findings conclusion for recommendations of the national

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