Readers, I consider myself a junior member of the History Detectives. I love that show. Of course, I realize that they have a big team of people going around and digging and researching the topics they show on television. It isn’t just the one host doing all that digging, although […]
Readers, I wish it were that simple with Emmett. I’d love just to pick up the phone, dial the Great Beyond, and ask Emmett about his life, directly. As much as I love the research process, it is frustrating at times, because while I believe a lot of Emmett’s information […]
There are five things I’ve learned over the past several months with regard to writing a biography on Emmett: Question Authority Librarians (God bless them) are incredibly busy, generous souls. They have a lot of information at their disposal, but they are not computers. They may have databases, but they […]
I’m going to Pensacola in a few weeks to see Emmett! I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a few months now, and to be honest, I’m thrilled, but a little nervous. I know. He died almost 100 years ago. What’s to be nervous about? It isn’t like the […]
In the past week, I’ve come across what I consider the turning point, the downward slide, in Emmett’s career and life. It’s October, 1914. Up until this point, Emmett was the Golden Boy of West Florida, he was getting appropriations for his constituency, he was serving on important committees, he […]
Even after 100 years, nothing really changes. I found this article yesterday in The Pensacola Journal microfilm. I hope the game was good, but in keeping with the spirit of ‘nothing really changing’, the Washington team probably lost. It is unlikely that Emmett Wilson would have taken off during the […]
When I first began to study Emmett Wilson and his political peers, I noticed right off they called themselves “progressive Democrats.” For a while, this confused me — and I wasn’t alone. Many editorials were written in Emmett’s time asking how the progressive Democrats were different from ‘regular’ Democrats. “Aren’t […]
Today, we’ll put Atticus Finch, Anthony Weiner and Emmett Wilson into a room together, ask each man to name his key, defining moment in his career, then explain how that moment changed his life. An odd group with nothing in common? Maybe not. Each was a lawmaker, each was considered […]
Today I found two different film clips of Woodrow Wilson’s swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Emmett attended both of these events, as a newly minted, and then, newly retired congressman. The first one was on March 4, 1913. The clip comes from a film archive source […]
Friends, in research, success often depends on what you do when you are told that a resource needed for critical information doesn’t exist. Many will simply take that as the final answer, and either rework the thesis (which isn’t always bad), or ditch the project (which can be tragic). Very […]
Tell my story. 