Lifelong learning “brews” up new insights

 It began last year with just a sentence in a book – the tiniest of seeds that planted itself in my imagination. That sentence led me to the footnotes in the book’s endpapers, which led me to check out another book at the library. Some of the material in the second book raised more questions and prompted me to order up other books, and look into online sources, which led me to make a few calls to different museums and cultural centers on the other side of the country, as well as to friends who lived in those areas. 

And all of the above finally propelled me into making a trip to the East Coast to see things with my own eyes. 

This is an example of the intriguing twists and turns that are the joy of self-directed, lifelong learning. And in my particular case, it’s the story of how the feats and imagination and research of others before me pulled me down into some amazing rabbit holes of history. I became reacquainted with incidents that I’d scarcely remembered from my early years of formal schooling, and I was introduced to fascinating episodes and points of view that I’d never been exposed to, or aware of, before.   

That seminal sentence that sparked my quest lurked on a page in a book called “The Hidden History of American Democracy.” Written by Thom Hartmann, a radio talk show host and prolific author, the book made a brief mention of the Edenton Tea Party of 1774. That Tea Party, Hartmann noted, was considered the first collective political action taken by women in the American colonies. On October 25, 1774 – that’s 250 years ago next month – Mrs. Penelope Barker of Edenton, North Carolina, gathered 50 prominent ladies together to sign a letter she had written to King George III, announcing the ladies’ repudiation of tea-drinking due to the tax on tea that the monarch had signed into law. 

Unlike the fellows in Boston, who ten months earlier had thrown tea into Boston Harbor under the cover of darkness and the cloak of anonymity, these ladies signed their full names to the document. And to ensure that it wouldn’t only be the King who would get the message, Mrs. Barker sent it to a prominent London newspaper for publication. 

Now, in the American history classes of my youth I’d learned about the Boston Tea Party, but growing up on the West Coast, my classmates and I were oblivious to the fact that from Maine to South Carolina, there were several other related protests going on after King George III signed the Tea Act into law. I would expect that schoolchildren on the East Coast, at least in areas that had hosted rebellious “tea party” actions of their own in the lead-up to the American Revolution, have always had an advantage over us when they learned about their own state’s colonial history. On the East Coast to this day, there are monuments and murals and local commemorations that celebrate those historic events.

Furthermore, as an adult who now has had the privilege – and education – of living through many of the civil rights movements from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration through Black Lives Matter, our textbooks of old did not delve into the myriad stories of women, and youth, and people of color.

My recent “discovery” of the Edenton Tea Party prompted me to start digging for information about the other protests against the Tea Tax that transpired around the same time. I learned so much more about the active involvement of women, who joined together in Daughters of Liberty and other informal associations, not only to advance boycotts of imports from Great Britain but also to promote the “Homespun Movement” and develop home-based skills and cottage industries in textile manufacture and the concoction of Liberty Teas.

I learned about the colonial-era merchants and ship captains who had to navigate – both literally and figuratively – the tricky ins-and-outs of the politically fraught tea trade.

I learned about Black patriots and other people of color who were active participants in a variety of advocacy efforts and physical protests. 

And I was struck by the numbers of youth who were not just impacted in those times, but who were actively involved in shaping the outcome.

The fact that all of these events were happening exactly 250 years ago, in advance of “the shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington and Concord in 1775, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, stirred me to the core.

The upshot of all this is that – after poring over scores of books and original sources, and talking with curators, librarians and historians – I applied for and received grant funding to put together an interactive program that covers the diverse expression of protests from that era, and the amazing array of folks who carried out those protests.

This autumn I’m debuting my “Tempests and Teapots” program, which includes a lively PowerPoint presentation, tea-tasting, and micro-readings by participants of historical letters and documents from that era. 

I’m scheduling presentations around the Puget Sound region this winter, with plans to do a tour down the West Coast in March/April of next year, and an East Coast tour in May/June. Please contact me if you have an organization that would like to put me on its schedule.

If you’re in the Seattle area, I’d love to see you at one of my upcoming presentations of “Tempests in Teapots.” Admission is free, but advance registration is required.

   • Thursday, September 19, 4 PM at Renton History Museum. This event is made possible by the Renton Municipal Arts Commission and supported by the Renton History Museum. Register via Eventbrite at: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tempests-in-teapots-at-the-renton-history-museum-tickets-1004013791277?aff=oddtdtcreator

Or register via Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/events/904858288369770?ref=newsfeed

   • Saturday, October 19, 10:30 AM at the Kent Historical Museum. This event is being sponsored by the Kent Arts Commission. Register via Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tempests-in-teapots-tickets-1003085464627?aff=oddtdtcreator

Please join me for an informal cuppa and some lively American colonial history!

Barbara Lloyd McMichael is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest.