The Victorian-era Soda Fountain

The Victorian-era Soda Fountain

The Soda Fountain was a hallmark of late Victorian-era United States culture. Numerous patents and patent renewals show the developments in technology–just how complicated and how effectively simple the designs were. Vintage newspaper articles explain Europe’s reaction to Dows’ Soda Fountain in the American Restaurant at Paris’s Universal Exhibition. Soda fountains have come a long way!

BOOK REVIEW: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

BOOK REVIEW: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

111 years ago today, April 18, 1906, an earthquake with a magnitude (estimated) of 7.8 destroyed much of San Francisco. Charles River Editors did a fine job covering this tremendous natural disaster in a brief, concise, instructive manner. See my five-star review.

Victorian Dancing Etiquette

Victorian Dancing Etiquette

Etiquette governing balls and dances in the American Victorian era seems stuffy, old-fashioned, and strict to 21st century Americans. Every rule of decorum ensured good manners were in play, but most importantly, the moral purity and innocence of young women and young men were maintained. Etiquette governed everything from how a man asked a woman for a dance to how he could properly hold her hand while dancing, to how many dances that pair could have in one evening. This article contains the specifics propriety demanded, and the vintage sources where they may be found. Leap year turned some of the lady’s restrictions upon the men; see the true-to-history newspaper article from 1888 that starred in Sophia’s Leap-Year Courtship.