Saturday, September 6, 2014

Breakfast Links: Week of September 1, 2014

Saturday, September 6, 2014
We're back with a fresh batch of Breakfast Links for you - our weekly round-up of fav links to other blogs, web sites, images, and articles, all gathered from around the Twitterverse.
• A rare 16h c. stone bridge in Tintern, Wexford.
• The mill girls of Lowell, MA, 1835-48.
Hannah Norsa, the first Jewish actress to take the London stage in the 18th c.
Image: The language of stamps: angle of fix carried a message, and this one meant "Accept my Love", sent August 4, 1914.
• The past and the future: two early 20th c. court presentation dresses from the Chicago History Museum.
• You're not old enough to read this steamy erotica written by an American president.
• Bums, tums, and downy calves: fashionable 18th c. female whimsicalities.
• New discovery: very rare 1860s Matthew Brady photograph of Edgar Allen Poe's mother-in-law.
• Boston art collector Isabella Stewart Gardiner: the lady, the legend, the legacy.
Image: Sunshine in a shoe: silk brocade mule with silver metallic thread, c1660.
• Celebrating the end of Silly Season: vintage pix of sea serpents.
• Elegant lingerie: Paquin's version of the modern slip in silk chiffon and alencon lace, c. 1930.
• "There is no sign or trace of insanity about a number of them": feigning madness and Broadmoor asylum, 1890s.
Image: Kissy-face knitter: 1950s advertisement for long-lasting Pond's lipstick.
• Wonderfully weird and ingenious medieval books.
• The importance of sewing classes for Japanese-American internees during World War Two.
• Dry grass hints that Stonehenge was once a full circle.
Bartholomew's Fair in London, which dates from the 12th c., was held for the last time in September 1855.
• The top ten codpieces in art (though we don't want to consider what the criteria were....)
Image: The oldest public library in the English-speaking world: Chetham Library, founded in 1653 in Manchester, England.
• An ingenious 19th c. pair of forgers: Billy and Charley's Shadwell Shams.
• Once a Gothic-style confection, a 1909 apartment building in New York is stripped of its charm in a  mid-century update.
• The saddest place in London: a story of self-sacrifice.
• Is this early recipe for Shrewsbery Cakes really the Georgian version of snickerdoodles?
• "Ladies, I will pay you. I mean business. Must be accomplished and pretty. No blondes need apply": finding love in 19th c. personal ads.
• Beautiful restoration of John & Dorothy Hancock's 18th c. "chariot."
• Women's work: 1850s diary of an Indiana farm mother.
Image: Dragon firework, 1635. Described as "troublesome to compose."
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

3 comments:

nightsmusic said...

I clicked on the Stonehenge link because it's a place that has always fascinated me. The dry spots...I would probably have been one of those who never noticed them. But on the right side of the page of that story, I clicked on the Mutter article and sobbed at the end. Have you read that one? Pink Silk Suits in surgery to boot.

Hels said...

Boston art collector and patron Isabella Stewart Gardiner is a lady I refer to often in lectures. I will go straight to the blog and check her out.

Thanks for the reference. I would never have found The Freelance History Writer without you.

Nicola O. said...

The Mill Girls! I have that book. My one run at writing a romance was set right there, with the heroine running her father's mill after his death. (It was terrible, but the research was fun!)

 
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