Franklin Pierce in the Top Five!

Let's face it--trying to find new or interesting information about someone as obscure as Franklin Pierce is a Herculean task. Therefore, the author takes some topical license, and publishes the occasional post about Handsome Frank's namesake university. While President Pierce's name perpetually dwells near the bottom of any ranking of U.S. presidents, the women's basketball team at FPU continues to enjoy unbridled success. Led by English standout Johannah Leedham, the Lady Ravens are now 10-0 this season and are ranked number two in the USA Today ESPN Division II Coaches' Poll, behind the Michigan Tech Huskies (an unfortunate moniker for a women's team, don't you think?). When I went to the Michigan Tech web site, I had a pretty good idea the campus was on the upper pennisula when I saw the title of the lead news story on the home page: "Can Snowmobiles Adapt in the Age of Ethanol?"

Seriously.

2010 Pierce Dollar Coin

Franklin Pierce Dollar
Designer: Susan Gamble
Engraver: Charles Vickers
The US Mint has released the 2010 Presidential Dollar Coin designs. Three of the biggest losers in Presidential history--Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan--will be featured, along with perennial favorite, Abraham Lincoln.

Ain't Nothin' Funny 'Bout the Death of Franklin Pierce

In a stunning turn of events, yet another song about Franklin Pierce has been unleashed on an unsuspecting public, complete with the lamest--and possibly the only--tenor guitar guitar solo ever performed. As evidence, ladies and gentlemen, I submit this video of The Two Man Gentlemen Band at the Brass Heart Inn in Chocorua, NH on November 21, 2009.

Pierce Biography

Bob Timmermann has posted a good summary of the life of Franklin Pierce at his blog.

Another Ostend-tatious Musical Interlude

Incredible as it may seem, 2009 may be remembered as the year when not one, but two songs concerning the Ostend Manifesto were written.

Although the document is not explicitly mentioned in "Why Franklin Pierce Sucked: The Song," by Eric Olson, the lyrics obviously refer to the notorious Ostend Manifesto, the scheme cooked up by Franklin Pierce's minions to take Cuba from Spain, by purchase or force.



For information on the other song, see my previous post "Franklin Pierce's Miserable Legacy Celebrated in Song."

Pierce on TV

Franklin Pierce will be the subject of a television program, or at least a segment of a television program, and this time he will not appear as the question to a Jeopardy answer.

From the Campus News section of the Bowdoin College web site:

Prof. Patrick Rael, Scott Ogden '10 to Discuss Franklin Pierce on WCSH Saturday, Oct 17

Story posted October 09, 2009

Franklin Pierce, fourteenth President of the United States (1853-1857) and a member of the Class of 1824, is to be the focus of a segment on the WCSH program Bill Green's Maine Saturday, October 17, 2009.

Host Bill Green interviewed Associate Professor of History Patrick Rael and Scott Ogden '10, who is working on an honors project about Pierce's life.

The crew also photographed some of the Pierce-related materials held in the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives.

Bill Green's Maine airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on WCSH (Channel 6).

Franklin Pierce's Miserable Legacy Celebrated in Song

Fellow Franklin Pierce aficionado David Holzel has shared with the editorial staff of this blog (me, myself, and I) the breaking news that Handsome Frank is prominently featured in a song slated for release in November of 2009. That's right, Handsome Frank fans--singer-songwriter Christine Lavin has penned a paean to the current White House occupants titled "Attractive Stupid People." Lest stunned supporters of the 44th President start running their Priuses (or is that Prii?) into bridge abutments when they hear this news, let me hasten to add that the song mentions the Obamas only briefly as pretty people with brains, as opposed to the likes of the 14th President, who skated into office on good looks and charm. The song, not surprisingly, was composed after the writer heard Sarah Palin speak.

I never thought I would hear the phrase "Ostend Manifesto" in a contemporary song, or a song of any kind, for that matter. Yet there it is in Ms. Lavin's catchy little ditty, which is available for preview at her web site. She is to be congratulated for historical accuracy. Not only did she avoid the pitfall of believing that Franklin Pierce ran over a woman during his presidency, she went so far as to go beyond the internet for fact-checking. Writing in the Sunday Washington Post, Gene Weingarten explains how Ms. Lavin asked him whether Pierce had actually signed the Ostend Manifesto (a scheme cooked up for taking over Cuba put together by Pierce's subordinates), and how Mr. Weingarten earned credit for co-writing "Attractive Stupid People" when he suggested the final verse to Ms. Lavin. The complete article, "Lyrical Miracle," is quite entertaining and is available online.