Where to find Knowledge

Instantaneous Chocolate

I love old advertisements. It's inevitable that when I'm researching one thing, I go off on tangents because I've discovered something else. This time it's: INSTANTANEOUS CHOCOLATE - THE GREATEST INVENTION OF THE AGE.

Yes, I'd support instant cocoa as one of the wonders of the modern age, especially the "add water" kind. Warming up milk can be annoyingly difficult compared to putting the kettle on for hot water.

Sliced bread is pretty nifty, too. You know the expression "greatest thing since sliced bread"? Before you had to slice your own loaf, which can be problematic if you can't cut in a straight line both across and down.

What are some other food inventions you'd like to nominate?

Roman Intaglios

Aren't these gorgeous? They are ancient Roman intaglios -- tiny gemstones for rings or other jewelry. A person hand carved these figures into the stone. No laser. No sophisticated magnifying device.

See how tiny?

I love these. The craftsmanship amazes me.

You can see many of these intaglios at the Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon, Wales.

Photo Credits:  The top image is from @RomanCaerleon and the bottom image is from http://www.antique-rings.co.uk/roman.htm

Roman Dice Tower

"You can just see the dice tower on the table, it has a little set of stairs for the dice to roll down." - @RomanCaerleon, http://twitpic.com/7rxa04

This device prevented cheating by providing a uniform way by which the dice were thrown.

First Massachusetts Coffee License

Look! It's a piece of coffee history, one of my favorite kinds of history.

And the honor of possessing the first coffee & chocolate license in Massachusetts - possibly in the colonies - goes to a woman:  Dorothy Jones in 1670.

Yay for enterprising colonial women who know the value of providing coffee and chocolate!

Abducting Heiresses

Abduction is a popular storytelling device when it comes to historical romance, which isn't surprising since you can trace its place in romance literature right back to the Abduction of Persephone.

When you're talking historical romance set in England or Wales, abductors - and elopers, for that matter - are usually racing to Gretna Green in Scotland to take their vows.

Gretna Green was the Vegas of its day, in terms of quickie marriages. The marriage laws of England and Wales, requiring amongst other things parental consent for marriages of those under 21 years of age, did not apply in Scotland and Gretna Green was right across the border.

Photo by Niki Odolphie from Frome, England

But things that can seem romantic in fiction are often far from it in real life.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who is apparently something of a hero to New Zealand, tried his hand at heiress abduction in 1826.

He happened to hear of Ellen Turner, a beautiful 16 year old heiress, from an acquaintance who mentioned her as being a neighbor. So Wakefield moved to her neighborhood, learned the family's circumstances and habits, and then appeared at Ellen's school with a letter informing the headmistress that Ellen's ill father had taken a turn for the worse and the girl must accompany him at once.

This was entirely plausible - her father was sick, in an age of primitive medicine sudden deterioration was not uncommon, and a friend or servant would often be asked to carry an important letter (there being no FedEx service or the like).

So Ellen was packed off in Wakefield's carriage.

Which headed north to Scotland.

Now alone with her, Wakefield told the teen her father's business had collapsed, sheriff's officers were in pursuit of her family (for debt), and only through marrying him could she hope to save her father from jail and her family from the poor house. He said he would use his (nonexistent) fortune to save them, but only once he and she were wed.

Remembering that she was a sheltered 16 year old, in an age when women of her class were not taught anything about business and economics, trapped in a small space with a stranger - and Wakefield was known for being a smooth talker, it's pretty easy to see how she would come to believe him over the many hours to Gretna Green.

This is Wakefield & Ellen's marriage license:

Successfully married, Wakefield informed the Turners where to send his checks and promptly took his new wife off to France, where he thought he would be safe from any repercussions. He was wrong. Ellen's family contacted the French police.

Extradited, Wakefield stood trial at Lancaster Assizes, was convicted of abduction and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

This had no affect on his marriage, which was still valid.

An Act of Parliament was obtained to annul the marriage, so Ellen finally could be free.

(Yes, an Act of Parliament. You couldn't get out of a marriage without one. So those Regency romances you read with divorce treated as if it were nothing? Yeah. Not happening.)

Just so you know, some time after his release from prison, Wakefield relocated to the Australian colonies and did something more honorable with his life.

So why is today's post about heiress abductions?

Because today in Salem Massachusetts history:  October 25 1736 a Mr. McIntosh is bound at Salem court for trial, charged with attempting to abduct his two nieces, who are heiresses, and carry them off to England.

Heiress abductions happened in America, too.

Isn’t it cool when truth and fiction converge?

Haarlem Oil - Health Insurance in a Jar

Today in Salem History:

On April 24, 1792, Abraham Solis advertised "Haerlaemer Oil" with "Dutch explanations of its use" in the Salem Gazette.

This was probably Haarlem Oil, a diuretic made in Holland since 1672 and still in demand in the early 20th century.

So popular was this remedy, practically every drugstore in America made their own blend. In 1906 it was estimated that "ten bottles of substitute are sold to one of the genuine."

Thackeray mentions it. Louis and Clark never went anywhere without it. So what was it?

In a time with few powerful medicines and no health insurance, Haarlem Oil was your basic safety blanket. It was said to ward off contagious diseases. It strengthened the eyes. It helped your kidneys, bladder, and stomach. It was good for your nerves. In fact, it was good for just about anything, according to its faithful consumers.

Speaking of faith, the "Dutch instructions" bore the Latin legend:  Medicamentum Gratia Probatum which was translated as "remedy approved by Grace." This wasn't any potion derived from black magic or superstition. Haarlem Oil was Approved. Consumers were encouraged to have faith in its ability to heal them, whatever their hurt.

You might be wondering, what did the Oil contain?

The recipe for genuine Haarlem Oil was a close-kept secret. However, the American knock-offs tended to be mostly made up of balsam of sulfur and oil of turpentine.

I suppose if you were strong enough to survive the remedy, you were bound to get better.

The Trial of Margaret Douglass

From American State Trials:

"A Southern lady (Margaret Douglass) living with a daughter in Norfolk, Virginia sixty-six years ago (1853) and being greatly interested in the religious and moral instruction of colored children and finding that the Sunday school where they were allowed to attend was not sufficient, invited them to come to her house, where in a back room upstairs she and her daughter taught them to read and write.

She knew that it was against the law to teach slaves, and so she was careful to take none in her school but free colored children.

One day a couple of city constables entered with a warrant and marched the two teachers and the children to the Mayor's office, where she was charged with teaching them to read, contrary to law. She explained that none of the children were slaves and that she had no idea that a child could not be taught to read simply because it was black.

But the Mayor told her that this was the law, but as she had acted in good faith he would dismiss the case.

But the Grand Jury heard of it and indicted her.

At the next term of court she was tried for a violation of the Virginia code which provided that ... every assemblage of negroes for instruction in reading and writing ... was unlawful, and if a white person assembled with negroes to instruct them to read and write, he should be fined and imprisoned.

She refused the services of a lawyer and defended herself, and though she called several witnesses to show that the same thing had been done for years in the Sunday schools in the city, the jury convicted her, but placed the penalty at a fine of only one dollar.

But this was overruled by the judge:

"The Court is not called on to vindicate the policy of the law in question, for so long as it remains upon the statute book, and unrepealed, public and private justice and morality require that it should be respected and sustained.

There are persons, I believe, in our community, opposed to the policy of the law in question.

They profess to believe that universal intellectual culture is necessary to religious instruction and education, and that such culture is suitable to a state of slavery; and there can be no misapprehension as to your opinions on this subject, judging from the indiscreet freedom with which you spoke of your regard for the colored race in general.

Such opinions in the present state of our society I regard as manifestly mischievous.

... I exceedingly regret, that in being called on for the first time to act under the law in question, it becomes my duty to impose the required punishment upon a female, apparently of fair and respectable standing in the community.

The only mitigating circumstance in your case, if in truth there be any, according to my best reason and understanding of it, is that to which I have just referred, namely, you being a female.

Under the circumstances of this case, if you were of a different sex, I should regard the full punishment of six months' imprisonment as eminently just and proper.... As an example to all others in like cases disposed to offend, and in vindication of the policy and justness of our laws, which every individual should be taught to respect, the judgment of the Court is, in addition to the proper fine and costs, that you be imprisoned for the period of one month in the jail of this city.""

So there ya go, a trial with a side of sexism accompanying the main course of racism.

A Girl's Two Paths

Here is another interesting historical document. Again with a feminist theme. Or anti-feminist. Also anti-romance.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to read Sappho.
Who actually wrote poems, not a novel.

Unless they mean this....

They probably meant this.  (It was first published in 1888.)

Yet again, romance will lead you down the path to perdition. (sigh)

Going back to our two paths - I like how Virtue doesn't Flirt.  How does Virtue get a man's attention then?  Did men back then just wander door-to-door, searching for virtuous women like Diogenes with his lamp?

And apparently that baby arrived by stork. (No "murmuring how delicious it is"! Bad woman!)

By the way, this warning to women was also distributed with a white character. I suppose we should be happy the people behind it were equal-opportunity party-poopers.

Woman To Woman

This is an interesting historical document - it's using Sisterhood to forward the abolitionist cause.  Not surprising in the North, since abolition was taken up by many churches and church work was one of the few acceptable public spheres in which women could participate. And, of course, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by a woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

However, there is research coming out now that this broadsheet might have played well to the white female audience of the South, too.

Seems as long as you were female, The Man was keeping you down, regardless of color.

I've listed some books you might be interested in below.

I also want to read Gary Gallagher's book on how Hollywood has shaped our perceptions of the Civil War. Because, maybe it's just me, but I think of images from Gone With The Wind before I think of those black & white photos of the war dead. (Which on the one hand is a good thing, because those photographs are very gruesome.)

So there ya go.  Some things to think about.

Lizzie Borden Not Guilty - Her Period Did It

This is the bedroom where Lizzie Borden allegedly took a hatchet to her step-mother.

(And you can actually stay here in this room - the house is a bed & breakfast now.)

I've long known about the infamous axe murder of her parents and the fact that Lizzie was generally thought to have done it even though she was acquitted at trial.

Someone was certainly after them, as they had suffered from suspicious food poisoning. And Lizzie had bought poison at the drugstore.

So why a hatchet?

Well, according to The History of Murder and A Private Disgrace, Lizzie's father had recently chopped off the heads of her pet pigeons with a hatchet. (Makes ya wonder what was going on in that house - what a sick, cruel thing for a father to do.)  And she may have been thinking about that when she had a petit mal epileptic seizure. These are also known as absence seizures. Basically, the person suffering from the seizure can walk and talk and function but isn't conscious of their actions. Such seizures can happen during one's menstruation.

And it is a recorded fact that Lizzie Borden was menstruating on the day her parents were killed.

This was mentioned in Flow, that Lizzie committed the murders during - and due to - her period, and I was like, what? Seriously?

So I looked it up in The History of Murder and, sure enough, there it is. No wonder men are so afraid of a female with access to nuclear weapons. It's not just the PMS you have to worry about. It's the period during the period itself, as well. So that's, what, two weeks each month where women could be indiscriminately violent. As opposed to men....

Anyway, this theory was first put forth by Victoria Lincoln in A Private Disgrace, which I have yet to read. The theory about Lizzie and her period, that is, not the theory about man-fear. Obviously. Just checking that you were still reading attentively.  ;)

On top of the pigeon massacre, there were also some financial dealings with which Lizzie took issue. So money was a motive as well. And then the menstruation-instigated seizure caused her to act out her feelings.

It's an interesting solution to the crime.

Forking

Have you ever wondered why Americans switch hands to eat with their fork, but Europeans don't?

Yes you have. You lie awake at night, in the cold early morning, pondering life, the universe, the number 42, and why Americans eat with a zig-zag fork pattern. Admit it.

Well, now there will be one less thing to ponder in the bitter existentialist dawn because I am here to share the answer with you:

If you're American, you know the proper way to hold your dining utensils is:  fork in left hand, knife in right. After you cut your food, you release the knife and switch your fork to your right hand. Then you eat right-handed with the fork.

If you're British, you know the proper way to hold your dining utensils is: fork in left hand, knife in right. Full stop. Period.  After you cut your food, you eat left-handed with the fork.  No switching occurs.

Why the difference?

Time was, your average fork possessed two narrow tines, spaced apart, and was absolutely flat.  Sort of like a carving fork, which was basically what it was. You used it to hold the food still while you cut with your knife, then you lifted the food to your mouth with your knife's wide, flat blade.  (Remember, this was considered far more genteel than eating with your fingers.)

The technology for making utensils changed over the 1700s so by the early 1800s flatware was financially within reach of more people and, to establish your place in high society, the idea of having whole matching sets came into vogue.

At which point, etiquette moved from use-your-knife-not-your-fingers to use-your-fork-not-your-knife.

"Where, excepting among savages, shall we find any who at present eat with other than a French fork?" - The laws of etiquette, 1836

Forks weren't French, but Americans associated them with good manners, and the French were our arbiters of taste (remember, we'd fought the British twice at this point). At this time, the French ate in the zig-zag pattern, so the US did, too.

The British invented the fork-stays-in-left-hand method.

Other Europeans saw this as a "simplification" of table manners - always a good thing in an age where there was etiquette for everything - so a German etiquette book recommended the "English method" in 1832 and a French manual recommended it in 1853.

Meanwhile, patriotic Americans did not wish to be "influenced by imported manners" (Mrs. Farrar, 1830s).  So we kept to the zig-zag. And ended up being the only country that did.

TA DA!
Now you know. Go forth and amaze your friends at the water cooler. :)

Research from:
Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington (Octagon Research Series)

Do You M/M?

Are you one of the many (many, many) readers of m/m romance? Do you swoon to Alex Beecroft's False Colors: An M/M Romance or Erastes' Transgressions: An M/M Romance?

For anyone who might be thinking, "What, M&M's have romance?" and trying to picture the green girl M&M in something slinky.... no.

M/M is short for male/male - as in leave-out-the-annoying-heroine-and-just-give-us-two-hot-men - romance. This genre is extremely popular, especially in ebooks.

I like the historical ones. Now, you might think there wouldn't be much scope for realism in such romances.  And there you would be wrong.

I have been reading Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships and it is fascinating how fluid love could be in early America. Not only was there no word yet for homosexuality, there was no real concept of it as a permanent existence. As this was also before companionate marriage, both men and women got married because it was expected - not only for social but for business and economic reasons. So whom you married often did not coincide with whom you loved. And once in a while someone left us evidence that the person they loved shared their gender. How they then handled this can be very emotional and touching.

We tend to think of maritime settings as being the best venue for historically accurate m/m romance, and indeed, next I am going to be reading the non-fiction An American Seafarer in the Age of Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Buskirk, 1851-1870. However, there were Virginia planters, mountain men, trappers, farmers, and even urban citizens who experienced the love that dared not speak its name. (BTW, apparently Philadelphia rocked when it came to wild sex during the Federal period.)

Quite a diverse field for authors to mine for story-lines!  I encourage anyone who writes or reads m/m fiction to check out the non-fiction.

And speaking of inspiring tales of m/m non-fiction, I must of course mention I Am What I Am, John Barrowman's new autobiography.

Yes, I'm a fan-girl. I dare you not to be. :)