Victorian Era Men’s Hairstyles

Victorian Era Men’s Hairstyles

Men’s hairstyles of the Victorian Era are identified in photographs from the era, including one barber school’s style plate images. Includes vintage recipes for styling products like Bay Rum and Macassar oil.

BOOK REVIEW: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

BOOK REVIEW: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

4 STARS for the 1879 title, Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes. As an amateur historian determined to learn what I could about the telegraph and its impact on American society, how it worked, and the challenges telegraphers faced, this sweet (innocent) love story fit the bill!

Charlotte Smith Demands National Legislation to Require Matrimony

Charlotte Smith Demands National Legislation to Require Matrimony

I endorse newspaper articles as an original source in researching Victorian-era America. Yet while I trust–for the most part–newspaper articles to be a reasonable representation of attitudes, circumstances, happenings, and differing opinions, I’m well aware that not everything in print is fact…at least as presented.

I came across newspaper articles mentioning Mrs. Charlotte Smith, presented as a rather ridiculous woman seeking legislation to force marriage upon the matrimony unencumbered. Three such articles follow, all of which are from credible, well-respected newspapers of the late nineteenth century. At the bottom, I’ll share more of who Mrs. Charlotte Smith was, the platforms she supported, the work she did–and cast an entirely different light on her nature than these newspaper reporters suggest.

Nineteenth Century Mail-Order Bride SCAMS, Part 5

Nineteenth Century Mail-Order Bride SCAMS, Part 5

Part 5: Chicago’s 100 Matrimonial Agencies–all shut down by one Police Detective, Clifton Wooldridge.
ONE HUNDRED FALSE Matrimonial Agencies in Chicago at the Turn of the Century?
Note the two new crime method additions (as addressed in my series of Nineteenth Century Mail-Order Bride SCAMS, Parts 1-5 so far): stock matrimonial letters and stock matrimonial photographs– more than one million, each.

Book Review: The History of the Telephone

Book Review: The History of the Telephone

HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE is an incredibly readable resource. Entertaining, enlightening, an historic gem. I delved right in, entirely unaware that it had been written more than 100 years ago. It reads with the same clarity and ease as if it had been written recently, and by a gifted historian. It’s that insanely well-written.