Five-star Book Review of Jody Hedlund’s A Noble Groom, with historical background, my personal reasons for rating this book so highly, and celebrating the historical accuracy in the setting and conflict of this superior Christian Historical Romance novel.
In Part 2 of this blog series, I share 70 newspaper clippings from Victorian America, wherein reports abound that husbands have sold their wives. Prices range from $0.05 (5 cents) to thousands of dollars (US, Victorian). I provided price comparisons, just for impact. Throughout, I provided my opinions regarding TRUTH or JOKE. Ultimately, there had to be some of both. What a bizarre practice!
Potato Chips are an American (and world-wide) favorite. Invented by accident–or should we say “accidentally-on-purpose”?–these potato crisps first graced the table of an elite resort in 1853 in upstate New York. News of the “invention” spread far and fast, and quickly became part of every homemaker’s repertoire, available on grocer’s shelves, served in restaurants, peddled by salesmen, and inspired further inventions.
“Nineteenth Century Problems” is a bit of poking fun at today’s “First World Problems” tongue-in-cheek humor…the challenges we face today because we have a life of ease. I came across the Nineteenth Century practice of allowing barnyard animals free run of the surrounding neighborhood–not a problem until their presence (and eating habits, and messes)–became an inconvenience of that growing town. Read vintage newspaper clippings about this challenge and the dangers it posed, along with a separate, serious threat of the late Nineteenth Century; now that’s a serious problem!
The decade of the 1880s proved among the most disastrous, desperate, life-threatening (and life-taking)–as winter in North America was at an extreme, the whole decade long. Climatologists have theories we understand today, but were unknown to our Victorian American ancestors. If you read a fictional book set in the 1880s, that touches on a mild winter, be surprised. Today, March 11th, is the anniversary of “the big one”.
