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http://liberlexica.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/dr-livingstone-i-presume/
Today's person is a nutcase. I came across him while reading the book, King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild (which I highly recommend). He was born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales in the year 1841 (ahh, a good year). Sadly, neither his mom, Elizabeth Parry, nor anyone else in his family wanted to take care of him. As a result, he was sent to St. Asaph's Union Workhouse (which reminds me or the Warner Brothers film Anastasia. That could not have been any fun).
Eventually he escaped this life by catching a ship to America, where he decided to completely change his life story. He changed his name to something you might recognize, Henry Morton Stanley (after his employer, who was named Henry Stanley) and started telling people he was an American. He made up lots of stories about himself that don't check out at all.
Fun fact: Henry Morton Stanley (who we have established is Welsh by birth, and American by delusion) is one of the very few people who ended up seeing combat on both sides of the Civil War. He started out fighting for the Confederates and got caught and sent to prison by the Union soldiers. He was given the opportunity to get out of prison my agreeing to fight for the Union army, which he did. However, after not so much time in the service of the Union army, he deserted.
Through a series of events, he came to be a journalist and explorer (sometimes I wish I could go back a few centuries and be an explorer/academic/person of the times, but then I think about it and realize that if we went back in time, I would likely be involved in something like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire). Anyways, Henry Stanley Morton became a journalist, which gave him the opportunity to go abroad and send salacious stories back to the US newspapers.
Since he was really good at embellishing stories (which made him really popular with his newspaper editor back in New York) and already in Africa for some exploration, Stanley was in the right place at the right time when David Livingstone (British explorer in Africa) went missing somewhere in the African Continent. Hoping to snap up the first scoop, Stanley's editor put him on the job in 1871.
As the story goes (reminder: Stanley wrote the story), Henry Morton Stanley saved the embattled Dr. Livingstone (hence his most famous quote that makes the title of this post) and brought him back to civilization. He wrote a book about his incredibly difficult and heroic adventure which was very, very popular. (Livingstone didn't really get a chance to chime in with his own side of the story because he died shortly after his "rescue"... this has a strange way of happening a lot with anyone who might disagree with Stanley's stories. Conspiracy?)
http://liberlexica.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/dr-livingstone-i-presume/
Today's person is a nutcase. I came across him while reading the book, King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild (which I highly recommend). He was born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales in the year 1841 (ahh, a good year). Sadly, neither his mom, Elizabeth Parry, nor anyone else in his family wanted to take care of him. As a result, he was sent to St. Asaph's Union Workhouse (which reminds me or the Warner Brothers film Anastasia. That could not have been any fun).
Eventually he escaped this life by catching a ship to America, where he decided to completely change his life story. He changed his name to something you might recognize, Henry Morton Stanley (after his employer, who was named Henry Stanley) and started telling people he was an American. He made up lots of stories about himself that don't check out at all.
Fun fact: Henry Morton Stanley (who we have established is Welsh by birth, and American by delusion) is one of the very few people who ended up seeing combat on both sides of the Civil War. He started out fighting for the Confederates and got caught and sent to prison by the Union soldiers. He was given the opportunity to get out of prison my agreeing to fight for the Union army, which he did. However, after not so much time in the service of the Union army, he deserted.
Through a series of events, he came to be a journalist and explorer (sometimes I wish I could go back a few centuries and be an explorer/academic/person of the times, but then I think about it and realize that if we went back in time, I would likely be involved in something like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire). Anyways, Henry Stanley Morton became a journalist, which gave him the opportunity to go abroad and send salacious stories back to the US newspapers.
Since he was really good at embellishing stories (which made him really popular with his newspaper editor back in New York) and already in Africa for some exploration, Stanley was in the right place at the right time when David Livingstone (British explorer in Africa) went missing somewhere in the African Continent. Hoping to snap up the first scoop, Stanley's editor put him on the job in 1871.
As the story goes (reminder: Stanley wrote the story), Henry Morton Stanley saved the embattled Dr. Livingstone (hence his most famous quote that makes the title of this post) and brought him back to civilization. He wrote a book about his incredibly difficult and heroic adventure which was very, very popular. (Livingstone didn't really get a chance to chime in with his own side of the story because he died shortly after his "rescue"... this has a strange way of happening a lot with anyone who might disagree with Stanley's stories. Conspiracy?)
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Illustration for 1876 French Edition
After his now-famous journey, Stanley headed a number of other expeditions into Africa. For instance, he was responsible for the being the first (non-African) person to find the mouth of the Congo river and to traverse completely across Central Africa. Although his stories were widely read in the United States, not everyone liked him. He came under fire by some people for his blatant disregard for the African people he encounters (he likes to shoot them...a lot).
I think its probably difficult to come up with a good take-away message about Henry Morton Stanley. He was a pretty bad guy: he lied about pretty much everything, was responsible for a ton of deaths, and was an overall pretty rotten character. Yet, he was a fairly important historical figure with a solid impact on the way history went (he helped King Leopold II to get ahold of the Congo, which was definitely not good for Congolese people). And to make it worse, he was really successful as a journalist and explorer (both pretty sweet jobs). To conclude this post, I'll add a picture that I think says a lot about crazy Henry Morton Stanley:
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