by Kate Dolan | Sep 30, 2026 | Colonial America, Kate Dolan, Latest Posts, Romans, Servants
Back when I was regularly volunteering at 18th Century historic sites, I frequently taught kids about doing laundry the “old-fashioned way.” (My favorite part was having kids scrub a shapeless blob of white fabric and then telling them that they were cleaning...
by Kate Dolan | Aug 1, 2026 | Kate Dolan, Latest Posts, Living History, Romans, Servants, Uncategorized
Have you ever seen a colonial American house with fake windows? Or a building with very few windows? You may be told that people did that to avoid the British window tax. That’s not accurate, but when you learn about the creative ways that governments have tried to...
by Kate Dolan | Jan 31, 2026 | Kate Dolan, Latest Posts, Living History, Romans
We all know that the Egyptians mummified their kings and invested quite a bit of money and time in the process. What I didn’t know, until I saw an exhibit at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore recently, is that the Egyptians also mummified millions of animals with...
by Kate Dolan | Jan 26, 2025 | Living History, Romans, Travel
During the 1600s, poor farmers in the Alps prayed desperately for relief as slow-moving rocks made of ice–more commonly referred to as glaciers—overran their villages. Decades later, poor farmers on the western outskirts of Europe would similarly watch in horror...
by Kate Dolan | Feb 13, 2024 | Holidays, Latest Posts, Living History, Romans
Until 1969, the holiday we celebrate on February 14 was known as St. Valentine’s Day and it was an official Roman Catholic feast day. The feast commemorated one—or possibly two or three—men named Valentine who were said to have been martyred by the Roman emperor...
by Kate Dolan | May 4, 2023 | Faith, Kate Dolan, Latest Posts, Living History, Religion and Magic, Romans
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...
