The stories of a bunch of cranky, power-hungry, opinionated, brilliant, and idealistic men…. Some favorites (links go to Indiebound.org) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by…
We visited Arlington National Cemetery January 1. My father told us where he would like to be planted if the authorities let us choose. Hopefully…
Ginger was used in nineteenth-century medicine to treat everything from scurvy to cholera to impotence to lead poisoning. And, as in TR Hummer’s poem “Whitman’s…
“…So important is an elegant, easy handwriting…that the aspirant for a position in a counting-room or office cannot hope for success therein without it….” – Gaskell’s…
Well-worn sentimental phrases and verses make Civil War love letters by soldiers no less poignantly heartfelt. The letters of ordinary Civil War soldiers can be rough-cut:…
A late nineteenth century advertisement for condoms reveals that safe sex and contraception were considered as important then as they are now. A flyer advertising…