What are you obsessed with right now? Is it the Marquis de Lafayette?
If you lived in America in 1824, you probably would have been obsessed with him.
As much of the nation, myself included, has been obsessed with Taylor Swift lately (lately = the last two years), it got me thinking about other individuals whom Americans have been collectively obsessed with. Naturally, the Marquis de Lafayette came to mind.
A book to read: Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
Like all Sarah Vowell books, LAFAYETTE is part history and part travel memoir. Her research trips, the friends and family she travels with, and her thoughts on current politics are part of the historical story she is also telling.1
LAFAYETTE is mostly set in the 1770s, when the nineteen year old French dude left behind his pregnant wife to go fight for American Independence, but the book begins and ends in 1824, the year that the Marquis de Lafayette returned to America to tour the states: all twenty-four of them.
This was the height of America’s Lafayette obsession.
News of Lafayette’s return to theses shores whipped up so much collective glee that when his ship docked in New York Harbor, eighty thousand fans turned out to welcome him - in a city whose population was one hundred and twenty-three thousand. (As opposed to the measly four thousand out of a population of seven million screaming when the Beatles landed there in ‘64).
There was Lafayette merch, Lafayette songs, and commemorative Lafayette plates and cookies. There was NOT Lafayette friendship bracelets (to my knowledge).
In the book, Sarah Vowell lamented that nineteen decades after Lafayette mania, “all that’s left of his memory is the name of a Cajun college town.”
But wait!
LAFAYETE IN THE SOMEWHAT UNITED STATES came out in 2015, the same year Hamilton debuted on Broadway. This means that Americans, once again, became obsessed with the Marquis, or at least Daveed Diggs’s version of him.
Excellent timing, Sarah Vowell.
My favorite part of this book recalls a moment in 1917, when America (finally) joined The Great War. Vowell writes:
“When the American Expeditionary Forces…came to the aid of France during World War I, they marched into Paris on July 4, 1917, heading straight for Picpus Cemetery. Colonel Charles E. Stanton…addressed the French people while standing before Lafayette’s tomb. ‘America has joined forces with the Allied Powers…and here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor…Lafayette, we are here.’”
This part of the book, oddly, made me tear up. It’s weird when my patriotism shows up unexpectedly. Later, when my husband and I were at the WWI museum in Kansas City (for our anniversary! so romantic!) I saw the quote and teared up again.
A place to explore: Lafayette Ave, of course!
During his cross country tour, towns, boulevards, squares, schools, and bridges were named after Lafayette. Vowell recounts a conversation with a neighbor about the subject of her book: “She inquired if I would be spending a lot of time in Louisiana. I was confused…[until] I realized that the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, must be her go-to Lafayette-labeled noun.”
Is there a Lafayette-named noun in your city? I bet there is!
Even though Lafeyette’s tour took him no further west than Missouri, and even though Washington (not D.C.) wasn’t even a territory in 1824, there are no shortage of Lafayette avenues and streets in the Seattle area. I opted to visit Lafayette Ave in South Seattle because it’s by Jefferson Park up on Beacon Hill.
Lafayette Ave is three quintessentially Seattle blocks. No cars are allowed to drive down the street on account of the Healthy Street Initiative. There are two little libraries, flowers blooming between the sidewalk and the street, and placards touting the rights of the Duwamish, Black Lives, Refugees, and the LGBTQ+ community. The homes are mostly well-kept craftsmen surrounded by luscious gardens, interspersed with the three-story duplexes that are popping up all over the state. There’s also a dilapidated house on the block, with overgrown blackberry bushes reaching all the way up to the moss-covered roof. I wonder why the owners haven’t sold the lot and danced away with their millions. I bet their reasons for holding onto the house would make a great book.
Jefferson Park is the area’s crowning jewel, with it’s winding paths, open space for games of tag, and iconic views of Seattle.
Before 1850, the Duwamish tribe had built a village called Tal-tal-kus at the foot of the hill which was named Beacon Hill in 1889 (yes, after Beacon Hill in Boston). Over the next forty years, the prime real estate atop the hill housed a smallpox hospital, a jail, a golf course, and even an airfield. Today, it’s a part and golf course.
A lesson to teach: Do you know what your students are obsessed with? Find out!
The great thing about obsessions is that it gives us humans one more tool to connect with other humans. If you know what someone is obsessed with, you can talk to that person. For example, if I’m next to a copy machine next to a teacher I don’t know well, 2 that person will usually strike up a conversation with me about the Mariners lineup, as my baseball obsession is the most obvious fact about me.
It got me wondering about my student’s obsessions. This late into the school year, I figure I should be able to list what each student is obsessed with. I printed out my five class rosters and tried to do just that. To my horror, I could only come up with an obsession for about half of my students.
This is terrible.
It’s also a great reminder that April is not too late to bring back some of those get-to-know-you team builders that we teachers are so great at in September and then forget about sometime after Winter Break.
So I incorporated the question into their Daily Do Now
Do Nows: my students always have a question waiting for them on the board when they enter the class. They write at least 3-5 COMPLETE sentences to answer each question and then I collect the sheet every Friday. Questions are usually content-related, but I really should include more “fun” questions. Their Do Now sheet also includes relevant vocabulary words for the week and any upcoming assignments or quizzes. Here is an example.
So I asked my students “What are you obsessed with this week?” The exact wording of this question is stolen from literary agent and podcaster Jennifer Laughran - Check her out at
She always concludes each podcast by asking her guest “What are you obsessed with this week?”I was worried that I’d get a slew of “food” “sleep” and “idk/nothing,” but was delightfully surprised. My students are obsessed with golf and soccer and anime and their boyfriends and body mist and Wingstop and all kinds of random stuff.
Here are a few:
Happy teaching, traveling, and reading y’all! May you find a new happy obsession this week.
I’ve listened to all Vowell’s books in order and whenever her nephew Owen shows up in the pages, I have that distant-relative urge to say something like “I remember back when you were a four-year old obsessed with death!” Owen is a teenager in this book, which was published in 2015. He’s probably all grown up now
Actually, we are probably trying to fix the machine because it’s broken.
is the VERY apt name for a newsletter about teaching
I have a book by Mike Duncan about Lafayette sitting on my shelf, and shame on me I haven't read it! This post is a good reminder to push it higher on my reading list.
I don’t know how you do it, but find the COOLEST historical fiction books to recommend. I can’t wait to read/listen to this book over the summer!