From the Archives: Curiosity’s Cats
By the time this post is available for you to read, I will be deep in the final day of a four-day exploration of a previously untouched and barely organized archive. I hope to come out the other end knowing whether I have enough material to write a proposal about a subject I’m interested in. (And no, I’m still not giving you any hints.). I had hoped to have a new blog post for you today, but it’s only halfway done and I’m running short on time and brain power. Instead I’d like to share a post about doing research from 2014.
Wish me luck!
Research is a big part of my writing work day. In fact, I read far more words than I write in my constant search for a topic, a story,* and/or a telling detail. I have special glasses for the hours I spend on the computer, and eye drops that I generally forget to use. (Excuse me, while I pause and lubricate.)
More importantly, I have library cards for five local library systems, am an active user of Interlibrary Loan, and frequently max out my borrowing privileges. Because contrary to popular opinion, you really can’t find everything on the internet.** Sometimes you need to browse the shelves, skim an index, read a primary source or an authoritative history, succumb to the allure of the archives, or ask a reference librarian for help. Some of the most satisfying moments of my career have occurred in libraries.***
Bruce Joshua Miller, editor of Curiosity’s Cats: Writers on Research, makes no secret of his discomfort with researchers’ increasing dependence on digitized sources. The 13 essays he commissioned for the collection share a common mandate: tell a story about a research project that required techniques beyond computer searches. The resulting collection could have been an extended Luddite shudder against technology or a simple exercise in nostalgia. It is neither, though several of the essays include a variation on “I’m not a Luddite, but…” and the final essay (Marilyn Stasio’s “Your Research–or Your Life!”) uses nostalgia to pointed effect. Instead, each piece explores the complicated and often personal relationship between writers and their research.
The essays, written by novelists, historians, journalists and a filmmaker, vary widely in topic, tone and method. Some give detailed accounts of methodology, like historian of science Alberto Martínez who gives a step-by-step account of the convoluted and creative process tracking down a single elusive fact: the date that Albert Einstein had the intuitive flash that led to the theory of relativity. Others, like essayist Ned Stuckey-French, who describes research as a way of life for his entire family, are more impressionistic. Despite the book’s focus on non-digital discoveries, several also celebrate new opportunities of on-line digging.
Whether funny or poignant, describing the insights that come from getting lost in a strange city or the development of a research path over the course of a career, the essays in Curiosity’s Cats celebrate the joy of research on-line and off.
* Topic and story are not the same. This is the first lesson any writer must learn if she wants to survive.
**Though you can find more than you may realize if you know how to look. I take a lot of pride in my on-line search skills.
***Not to mention some of the most embarrassing. If you meet me in person ask me about the “sexist man alive” incident at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library. Let’s just say librarians don’t always whisper.
Fearless: A Q & A with Cathy Curtis
I am delighted to have biographer Cathy Curtis back on the Margins to discuss her new book, Fearless, the first comprehensive biography of Irish writer Edna O’Brien (1930-2024). Pull up a chair and enjoy the conversation!
What drew you to Edna O’Brien’s story?
I had been a longtime fan of Edna O’Brien’s novels and short stories, always keen to buy her latest book. While I was in the final stages of my previous book, I looked for another contemporary writer whose work I admired, who had not yet been the subject of a comprehensive biography, and who had led an eventful life.
Writing about a figure like Edna O’Brien requires living with her over a period of years. What was it like to have her as a constant companion?
Delightful! She was a mercurial person, quick to take offense, but her other traits were endearing to me: her passion for ultra-feminine clothes; her impulsive generosity; her abiding love for her two sons; her passionate romances with men unable to cope with her intensity; her wry sense of humor; her ability to use her intimate experiences as the basis of memorable fiction; her unwavering belief in the power of the written word; and above all, her extraordinary perseverance in the face of personal tribulations and literary snubs.
Are there any special challenges to writing about a woman who was a literary superstar in the second half of the twentieth century?
All five of my biographies are about notable women whose careers blossomed during the second half of the twentieth century, the historical period in which I feel most at home. But my previous books were about Americans. The challenge with this biography was to learn more about Ireland’s tragic history in order to comprehend the values and constraints that molded Edna’s way of looking at the world.
It was important to know that the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century had decimated the population, that Ireland’s fight for independence from the U.K. took agonizing decades to (partly) achieve, and that living under the total dominance of the Catholic Church had a terrible effect on human lives. I rewrote each chapter dozens of times, letting it “breathe” for weeks and returning to add more information, or to clarify what I had written.
Edna O’Brien died in 2024. Did her death change the book in any way?
She was in her late eighties and in declining health when I began researching the book in 2019, so her death was always on the horizon as I wrote. Afterward, I was able to write about her deeply moving funeral Mass (which I watched in real time on Vimeo) and to incorporate quotes from some of the people who wrote about their memories of her in the Irish and British press.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
I had no idea how long it had taken for Edna’s work to receive serious recognition in the form of awards and reviews that did not belittle her writing as too overblown, too involved with women’s dashed romantic hopes, or “too Irish” to be the equal of works by prominent British writers. During her last years she finally received a bouquet of major awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the David Cohen Prize for Literature, and the Prix Femina Spécial—all for her entire body of work. But her novels were never even shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the most famous British literary award.
Did the writing of this book lead you to make other discoveries?
Yes, I began reading the seemingly endless stream of brilliant novels by younger Irish authors. The last chapter of my book takes a final look at Edna O’Brien’s life and work alongside brief mentions of remarkable novels by ten contemporary Irish women authors who in some way owe their candor and literary inventiveness to her writing.
Cathy Curtis is the author of four previous biographies of prominent 20th-century women in the fields of visual arts and literature: Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Nell Blaine, and Elizabeth Hardwick. Fearless: A Biography of Edna O’Brien will be published on September 9, 2025. Curtis is a former journalist, a member of The Authors Guild, and a past president of Biographers International Organization. Her website is www.cathycurtis.net
Buffalo Soldiers on Bicycles
This is one of my favorite stories from our visit to Fort Snelling:
After the American Civil War, Congress created six regiments of Black soldiers, led for the most part by white officers, known informally as Buffalo Soldiers.[1] One of those regiments , the 25th Black Infantry, was posted at Fort Snelling in 1880. Eight years later they were transferred to Fort Missoula, Montana, where this story took place.
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At the end of the nineteenth century, bicycles were all the rage. The bicycle was as popular with members of the army as it was with the general public. In 1894, roughly half the personnel at Fort Missoula had bicycles and the fort was holding informal bicycle drills, which included members of the 25th Infantry.
In 1896, Lieutenant James Moss, commander of the 25th Infantry Regiment in Missoula,[2] took the idea one step further and proposed that the military could replace horses with bicycles for some operations.[3] Bicycles, unlike horses, did not need food water or rest. They were virtually noiseless. He was not the first Army officer to suggest the use of bicycles by the military. Several years previously, then Major General Nelson A. Miles tested the possibility of using bicycle couriers. (Among other things, he reported, his bicycle trials demonstrated the wretched condition of American roads.)
Moss’s request to organize an experiment with bicycles was approved on May 12, 1896. A little over a year later, after months of training that included daily rides of fifteen to forty miles and two longer excursions to Lake McDonald and Yosemite during which they carried rifles, rations, and equipment, the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps, also known as the Iron Riders were ready for a much longer expedition. This ride was designed to demonstrate to the Army leadership that bicycles would be an efficient way to transport soldiers in time of war. Moss described the corps as “bubbling over with enthusiasm . . . about as fine a looking and well-disciplined a lot as could be found anywhere in the United States Army.”
On June 14, 1897, twenty soldiers, two officers and one reporter set out on a 1,900 mile bike ride from Fort Missoula to Saint Louis. The route took them through a variety of terrain and climates. Averaging 50 miles a day for 41 days, on bikes specially made for them by Spaulding Bicycle Company, they rode on unpaved roads and occasionally on railroad tracks. (Not a fun surface to ride on, as anyone who ever rode a bicycle can imagine.) They crossed mountains and forded rivers. They rode through snow, sleet, rain, and oppressive heat. Sometimes the ground was so muddy and slippery that they had to push their bikes for several miles.
By the time the riders reached Missouri, the story had caught the public imagination. When the members of the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps reached St. Louis on July 24, almost 1000 local cyclists rode out to meet them. Crowds lined the streets to greet them as they rode into the city, In the following days, tens of thousands St. Lois residents visited the corps’ camp in Forrest Park and watched them perform exhibition drills.
The discovery of gold in Alaska replaced the story of the bicycling Buffalo Soldiers in the nation’s headlines. The corps was disbanded once it reached Missoula, traveling this time by train. Lieutenant Moss remained optimistic about the value of the bicycle to the military in his report to the War Department and requested permission to organize a second bicycle corp. But with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, the military moved further experiments with bicycles to a back shelf.
The 25th Infantry Regiment left Fort Missoula for training camps in Georgia and Florid. From there, the unit saw action in Cuba and distinguished itself in the Spanish-American War. Moss returned from Cuba and proposed a company of 100 soldiers on bicycles to patrol Havana once it was under the occupation of American troops. His proposal was rejected.
By World War I, the Model-T had replaced the bicycle as the hot new mode of transportation in the eyes of both the public and the military.
[1] By some accounts, the Native Americans against whom they fought gave them the nickname because their curly hair resembled buffalo manes and because of their fierce nature. Maybe. Maybe not.
[2] Racism was rampant in the army at the time. Moss graduated last in his class at West Point and had no choice in where he was assigned. As he later said in a speech in his home town in Louisiana “ Being a Southern boy I did not at first, I must admit, like the idea of serving with colored troops.” With time, he changed his mind and was proud to have them under his command.
[3] This was not as revolutionary an idea as is sometimes claimed. Italy created a military bicycle unit, which was used for reconnaissance and courier services, as early as 1875. Other European countries followed Italy’s lead. By 1890, France, Austria, Switzerland and Germany all had bicycle units.