Blog
When Were Teenagers Invented? Who’s to Blame for Making Me Think Adolescence Should Have Been Fun?
At some point while I was kid, I developed the idea that teenagers lived in some type of nirvana. It was a world where you had freedom and mobility—cruising in cars and staying up late—but without the crushing load of responsibilities that made adults so boring. I got...
Regency London from an American Perspective: The Carroll Granddaughters and Betsy Bonaparte
I’m not sure there’s any point to speculating as to why Regency England is such a popular subject for modern Americans. Suffice it to say that I, like so many others, know far more about what life was like in London during the Regency period than I do about what life...
Strange Patriotism- Granddaughters of the Revolution Mortgage Their American Fortune to Appeal to Regency Aristocrats
When representatives of the British colonies signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have joked “we must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” But despite the humor, the threat was real. Signing...
Tweetsie Railroad and the Cloudland Motel: Smoky Mountain Tourism in the Good(?) Old Days
Today people come to the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina to enjoy the rugged beauty and, in a few places, an obscene amount of tourist trap attractions. It is easy to imagine the days when the people who lived in the hills were isolated...
Writing Before Paper
Last week when I was working on a craft project with kids at church, I offered them the choice of using white paper or card stock with a tan swirl pattern designed to look like parchment. I was guessing that in in the time of Jesus, paper hadn’t been invented yet. But...
Hanging in a Different Kind of Hammock: Highlands Hammock State Park
Hammocks in Florida are not always fabric loungers attached to trees. Sometimes, the term instead refers to the trees themselves. A hammock is strand of hardwood trees with a dense canopy that provides shade and serves as home to an array of animals and plant life....
Native American Cooking Techniques I Will Not Be Using this Thanksgiving
On a trip to Colorado years ago, we visited a site with replicas of ancient American cliff dwellings. The site is commonly decried as fake, but we enjoyed the opportunities to climb through the semi-accurate replicated dwellings, and we particularly enjoyed all the...
Royal Funerals in Regency England: Private Affairs at the End of Public Lives
The recent funeral of Queen Elizabeth II broke with a 300-year-old British tradition started by George III. His predecessor and grandfather, George II had a large and public funeral at Westminster Abbey in 1760. That would be the last time the 11th Century icon hosted...
I Shouldn’t Complain: The History of Women’s Bathing Suits
Since I live in a beach town, it should be easy to find a bathing suit that fits, right? It isn’t. I can find thousands of t-shirts that mention the word "ocean," but nothing comfortable to wear in the actual ocean. But it used to be so much worse. When tourists...
Pirates of the Algarve: Not the Highlight
Algarve, the southernmost province in Portugal, was the first stop on our cruise around the Iberian peninsula and I have to admit I did zero research on the history before we left. That was a mistake. Besides being beautiful, the land has a truly interesting history....