The Undiscovered Past
As I work on a historical fiction novel inspired by my two grandmothers and research what life was like in Newark, New Jersey in the late 1920s, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the “facts” that make it into the historic record and all the untold stories that we still need to discover in order to fully understand the past.
While in London earlier this summer, my son and I visited the World War II exhibit at the Imperial War Museum which, as you might expect, was huge and offered tons of information about many of the well-known events of the war like the retreat at Dunkirk, the bombing of London, and the eventual Allied invasion of Europe. We learned a lot about things we thought we already knew, like the large number of supply ships sunk by Nazi U-boats, illustrated by the museum in a unique, visual display. We also learned a lot about things we knew very little about, like how much the various nations in the then-British Empire contributed to the war effort through resources and (often conscripted) manpower. [This 2019 article in The Guardian provides a brief overview.]
For me, the two items that stood out the most from our visit were artifacts that revealed small but important details that aren’t part of the standard historical accounts of the war, at least in the United States. The first was a long, low, metal box called a “Morrison shelter” that could be used as a combined table and bomb shelter during the Blitz. [Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum. ©IWM EPH 3209)] Despite our imaginings as Americans, Londoners couldn’t all bravely huddle together in Underground stations or basements during the night bombings; some people had to crawl onto the mattresses inside these claustrophobic boxes just 6 ½ feet long, 4 feet wide and 2 ½ feet high. And pray that their buildings didn’t collapse on top of them.
The second item was a small brochure that the government provided to families hosting children who were evacuated from London to the countryside to escape the attacks. The brochure sought to dispel prejudiced assumptions that the children, many of whom came from poor homes, were wetting their beds because they were undisciplined or badly trained. In fact, the brochure explained, the children were likely reacting to the trauma of being displaced from their homes and separated from their parents. So, the complete story of the Blitz and Operation Pied Piper is not just the number of lives saved, it’s also terrified kids wetting their beds from the stress of the evacuation and upsetting the already overburdened and frightened families who hosted them.
To me, that’s the ultimate benefit of historical fiction, and one reason it’s a genre I’ve always loved. By transporting us into the past, historical novels can offer us these kinds of small details and show how people really experienced the transformative events of their time—good and bad— while hopefully providing inspiration as we try to navigate the many pressing challenges we face ourselves.