Saturday, February 28, 2015

Breakfast Links: Week of February 23, 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015
Fresh for your morning reading - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web-sites, blogs, articles, and images, all gathered for you via Twitter.
Mary Robinson, 18th c. writer and actress, and the solace of sorrow.
• A tribute to the ferocious ladies of the 19th c. Illustrated Police News.
Fascinating story about Charlotte Bronte, Currer Bell, and a bird book.
Image: Cut steel fan, c. 1810, depicting Diana's Temple, with original leather and cardboard box.
• See the work that goes in to conserving a 1920s beaded flapper dress.
• Some of the world's most interesting independent bookstores.
• Quiz: which Impressionist artist are you?
• An 18th c. toy kitchen and its modern counterpart.
• Regency advice: how to prevent cold feet in bed.
Monopoly's inventor: a Progressive woman who didn't pass 'Go.'
• Juvenile genius: the school boys and girls who wrote for the 18th c. Lady's Magazine.
• Arthur Wellesley repackaged: the birth of "Wellington."
Video: A heritage walk with author William Dalrymple in Mehrauli, Delhi's hidden gem.
• An expression of Victorian prudery, an aid to thieves, or just an awkward fashion statement? The crinoline and its caricaturists.
Image: Light brown pelisse worn by Lady Byron (Arabella Millbanke) on her wedding day in 1815.
• The problem with historical fiction: fiction needs heroes. History doesn't.
• Seriously - how did the most beautiful library in America get demolished?
• From opera tiers and tiaras to tatters on the bread line: slice of life reporting from New York, 1904.
• In 1771, Henry Barnes took his slave Prince Demah to London for art lessons.
• Even great writers get panned: one-star reviews for ten classic books.
Image: Ticket for the dress ball at Versailles on the occasion of the marriage of the Dauphin, February 24, 1745.
• Rare photos from the Selma March take you into the thick of history.
• Cornelius Vanderbilt's private stables in 19th c. NYC resembled a Moorish temple.
Downton Abbey's wedding dress will brighten your day.
• A hoard of fan letters reveals that Agatha Christie's books inspired devotion from the darkest places.
Image: After Waterloo, the Gordon Highlanders marched through Paris, precipitating a fashion for tartan.
• Where New Yorkers met for coffee in the 1790s.
• Confessions of a comma queen: learning to love life in the house of style.
• The first shoemakers arrived in America in 1610 - but just don't call them cobblers.
• Sally Smith, the 18th c. "ghost" of Brumby Wood Hall.
• Unraveling the evidence on the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England.
• Great question: how was the Revolutionary War paid for?
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1 comments:

Hels said...

One of the photos of the old Public library of Cincinnati now reminds me of Alexandria, truly the most magnificent library of the ancient world. No-one in their right mind would destroy the cast-iron book shelving and spiral staircases that towered ever upwards, or the tables where anyone could study.

But I am assuming that was the very point. It was open to everyone, free and not for profit. Any USA public institution created to help ordinary people improve themselves in that wonderful Victorian way (1870s) tended to be devalued.

 
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