Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Last year, hubby and I did a joint blog post about each other’s foibles. Ah, married life can be so entertaining – especially from the sidelines. 😉 This year, I’ve been thinking about how communication has been radically altered in the 20+ years Paul and I have been married. If we were…
I voted. It’s still a thrill, 32 years after I first registered to vote in the presidential election between encumbent Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. (Yeah, I know, I’m old). I’ve voted in nearly every election since then – not just the presidential ones – in the three different states in which I’ve lived. Whether…
What fictional forms were the precursors to mystery stories? Many point to Edgar Allan Poe’s (1809-1849) work, especially his August Dupin short stories. While his influence is huge, there’s more to the origins of the modern mystery. Let’s look at another contributing genre: Victorian Sensation Fiction Critics agree that Victorian sensation fiction (approx. 1850s to…
Labor Day was declared a federal holiday in 1894. Its purpose was to honor the American worker, in a time when labor unions were fighting to make conditions safer and wages/working hours fairer. The legislation to make it a holiday had been pushed quickly through Congress, in response to the overwhelming negative reaction to the…
Welcome to Fashion Friday, where we take a look at an item or aspect of 19th century fashion. I haven’t done one of these in a while, but Jenny Hansen’s recent celebration of National Underwear Day set off a flurry of “undie” posts by fab writers August McLaughlin, Natalie Hartford, and Julie Glover, so here’s my contribution to the “undie”…
We all know who Agatha Christie is, but in case you’re unfamiliar with specifics, here are some facts you might find of interest: Her lifetime body of work: 66 novels and 15 short story collections. She wrote novels for over 50 years, from 1920 to 1975. Her stageplay (also in novella form), The Mousetrap, holds the record…
Here in the United States, unless you’ve been living in a hole, you know that Mother’s Day is this Sunday (and if you forget, you’ll soon be hiding out in the doghouse, LOL). Most of us are affected by Mother’s Day in one way or another: if we aren’t moms ourselves, we each had a…
Welcome to Flashback Friday, where we take a look at a fascinating bit of pop culture history, usually from 19th century America. A couple of weeks after doing a post on The Gibson Girl, I ran across this fabulous post on Evelyn Nesbit, one of the models for the Gibson Girl. It’s from Jan Whitaker’s blog,…
