25 at 250: America's homegrown diamonds and Civil War mail-in ballots

0:00Gabriela Farfan:Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts. Boston.

0:23Dan Piazza:I think we imagine we invented everything in the 21st century, but these are very old stories.

0:28Gabriela Farfan:The first case of mass mail-in voting in the United States was, when do you think? I would not have guessed all the way back in 1864.

0:49Gabriela Farfan:Today is Friday, March 6th, and this is Here at Now Anytime from NPR and WVUR. I'm Chris Bentley. paper. Did you know you can dig for diamonds in a state park in Arkansas? If you get really lucky, you could turn up one of the largest diamonds ever discovered in the U.S. It's happened before.

1:11Dan Piazza:This stone completely covers the width of my ring finger when I put it on.

1:16Gabriela Farfan:We'll have that story in a few minutes, but we're saving all the best diamond finding spots for ourselves. Today on the show, we are continuing our series 25 at 250. Every other week leading up to July 4th, which will mark 250 years since the founding of the United States, we're popping into the archives of the Smithsonian to take a look at 25 objects that help tell the story of America. And something you learn by looking through history is that things that seem new are actually variations on old stories. Take voting by mail. After the 2020 pandemic, Republicans stoked skepticism of mail-in ballots, claiming without evidence that there was widespread fraud.

2:01Gabriela Farfan:But it's not a new controversy. The U.S. first rolled out mail-in ballots on a large scale during the Civil War. And there was a similar backlash, says Dan Piazza at the National Postal Museum. He spoke to Robin Young. Dan, old yellowing mail with elaborate cursive handwriting is one of my favorite things. Welcome back.

2:24Dan Piazza:Thank you for having me. Yeah, cursive handwriting itself is something of an artifact that's disappearing.

2:29Gabriela Farfan:There was some voting remotely before the Civil War, but give us context here. First of all, Lincoln was president. His party was the Republican Party. They were waging war against slavery, the Democrats in southern states fighting to preserve slavery, or as they put it, preserve states' rights. But Lincoln didn't think that he was going to win.

2:48Dan Piazza:The 1864 presidential election was a very bitterly contested one. Lincoln, as you say, was the Republican, the incumbent. The election is coming in the middle of a war that's dragged on for three years at this point. The northern Democrats had nominated George McClellan, whom Lincoln had fired several years earlier as commander of the Northern Armies. And so there was a lot of not just political bad blood between the parties, but there was personal bad blood between the candidates. And you had a large chunk of the electorate in 1864. That's free white males over the age of 21, right, who are away from their home district in the field in the Civil War.

3:32Dan Piazza:and various state legislatures start passing acts to allow these soldiers to vote in the field. And no one knows how this military vote is going to go, whether it's going to go for Lincoln or for McClellan. And both sides feel the other is trying to stuff the ballot box and influence the outcome of the election. It's interesting, these historical vignettes, we kind of, I think we imagine we invented everything in the 21st century, but these are very old stories.

4:04Gabriela Farfan:You have an envelope on display at the National Postal Museum. It's a tally sheet sent from a field hospital in Atlanta recording the votes of soldiers from a county in Ohio. So talk about how it worked on the ground.

4:17Dan Piazza:Well, it worked a number of different ways. In most cases, the elections were conducted in the camps by officers of the Army unit, But this wasn't mail-in voting as we think of it today in that individual ballots being mailed back. These are kind of mini elections being held in the army camps and then the results being tallied by the officers and sent back to the county boards of election.

4:44Gabriela Farfan:Well, one of the claims of fraud at the time, as we said, the Democratic southern states had seceded, but there were those who leaned Democratic, you know, fighting on the battlefield, you know, maybe from northern states, for instance. And the claim was that their votes were suppressed for different reasons, including this sense that their opinions were suppressed. So even if the ballots went in the field, they would feel like they couldn't vote against the Republicans. Was that largely one of the claims of fraud at the time?

5:12Dan Piazza:Well, that was definitely a claim at the time and added to that the fact that it's the soldiers' officers who are counting and tallying the votes so they know how the men under their command are voting, right? and the candidate for president, one of the candidates for president, is their active current commander-in-chief. So some may have felt pressure to vote that way.

5:36Gabriela Farfan:Well, thank goodness today we have privacy in our voting.

5:41Dan Piazza:Right.

5:42Gabriela Farfan:Talk more about this artifact. You know, this, as I said, it's kind of yellowing and the other artifacts that you have there that reflect this time. What's it like to see them?

5:51Dan Piazza:Well, they're really little windows into the past. And, you know, I think that letters and mail, because of their scale, because of their size, because of the personal handwriting that's often found on them, you can have a very personal and intimate experience with letters and mail that I think makes the historical story come alive.

6:14Gabriela Farfan:Well, and is it fair to say that this, you know, tally sheet, this yellowing tally sheet represents a key moment in the Civil War when maybe Lincoln might have lost if not for those paper ballots in the field with soldiers?

6:31Dan Piazza:Right. I mean, it's a constant reminder that we know how the story ends, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that they didn't. They didn't know what the outcome was going to be. We can look it up now and say, of course, of course, Lincoln won the 1864 election by a large margin. But no one knew that that was going to be the outcome at the time. Sort of restoring that sense of suspense at the outcome and being able to put ourselves in their shoes and understand that they didn't know how it was going to turn out. We do, of course, but they didn't know.

7:04Gabriela Farfan:Yeah. Dan Piazza, chief curator of philately, which is what?

7:08Dan Piazza:The study of stamps and mail.

7:10Gabriela Farfan:I love it. Be still my heart. At the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Thank you so much.

7:16Dan Piazza:My pleasure. Nice chatting with you.

7:24Gabriela Farfan:The National Postal Museum is actually pretty cool. If you're in D.C., I recommend you go check it out sometime. Coming up next, the story of America's biggest and best homegrown diamonds. Scott Tong gets out his jeweler's loop after the break.

8:07Gabriela Farfan:This message comes from MidiHealth, introducing AgeWell, longevity care designed by women, for women. Women can feel overlooked by the healthcare industry, especially when it comes to aging. MidiHealth offers personalized services conveniently accessible through telehealth visits and covered by major insurance providers. Your health is worth it. Book your virtual visit today at joinmidi.com. That's joinmidi.com. The United States does not have a rich diamond mining history, but an exhibit at the Smithsonian proves that some of the world's most dazzling gems are indeed homegrown. Here to tell us about two of the biggest diamonds ever found in the U.S.

8:49Gabriela Farfan:is Gabriella Farfan, curator of gems and minerals at the National Museum of Natural History. It's part of our look at 25 objects that tell the story of America as we approach the country's 250th birthday. Gabriella, welcome to the program. Hello, Scott. It's nice to be here. Good to have you. Radio's a little hard because we can't see these amazing diamonds, but we're here to talk about two in particular, ask you to describe them for us. First of all, the Uncle Sam diamond, I understand, is the largest uncut diamond ever found in this country. What's the story?

9:23Dan Piazza:So just over 100 years ago, in July of 1924, the Uncle Sam diamond was discovered by Mr. Wesley Ole Basham, who was a miner in the Arkansas Diamond Corporation. And it was a whopping 40.23 carats. Now, that's a pretty large diamond if you think about your average engagement ring. So this is indeed the largest diamond ever found in the United States, including all the diamonds that have been found since.

9:51Gabriela Farfan:Now on display, describe a little bit what it looks like because it doesn't have that gem cut for a ring, right?

9:59Dan Piazza:So every time you take a crystal and an artisan or a gem cutter has to essentially polish all of its facets and turn it into a gem that you would wear in a piece of jewelry, it gets them a lot smaller. And so the Uncle Sam Diamond was actually cut twice. The first time it was cut into a 14.34 carat parallelogram, which is a bit of a wonky shape. And so it was later recut into a more elegant, elongated emerald cut. And this type of cut is ideal for showcasing just how flawless this particular diamond is.

10:34Gabriela Farfan:Tell us a little bit more about this source location, this mineral deposit in Arkansas.

10:39Dan Piazza:Absolutely. So the Crater of Diamonds is a very famous mine in Arkansas. It's one of only two diamond mines in the United States that have produced commercial diamonds. And this particular mine is my favorite since I actually got to dig there myself. And you can actually dig there today. It's a state park run by Arkansas. And you can actually roll up and dig for diamonds yourself.

11:05Gabriela Farfan:All right. Let's talk now about the Freedom Diamond. Gigantic. More than 16 carats, as I understand it. Not found until the 1990s. 1990s. First, again, describe this for us.

11:16Dan Piazza:Absolutely. So the Freedom Diamond is currently the largest faceted or cut diamond from the United States from Kelsey Mine, Colorado, which is the second diamond mine that I described. And this diamond is also very beautiful. It has a slight undertone of yellow, and it's actually set into a ring flanked by two other diamonds. So it's actually fun to wear.

11:40Gabriela Farfan:Wow. How do you put 16 carats on a ring into some perspective?

11:46Dan Piazza:Let's just say that this stone completely covers the width of my ring finger when I put it on. It probably extends beyond the width of my ring finger. So it's a very large stone. It would make a statement.

11:59Gabriela Farfan:You know, we know about the American gold rush. 1948, gold was discovered in California at Sutter's Mill sparked this economic gold rush. And yet, as you and your Smithsonian team tell us, these places where these diamonds were found, eventually the mines were closed. They were not profitable. Why not?

12:18Dan Piazza:Mining is very difficult work. And unlike the gold rush, where it was kind of free-for-all and everyone could come, these were commercially run mines. And it's much more difficult to source diamonds out of kimberlite or lamproite, which are the rocks that these diamonds are in, versus going through a stream bed and finding a negative gold.

12:39Gabriela Farfan:Which means there may still be a lot of diamonds sitting there in this country.