• Ownership and imprints: famous hands and famous gloves.
• Even a genius has to sell himself: the remarkable resume of Leonardo daVinci.
• Wealthy boys from Eton who were accustomed to getting their own way: The Eton College Riot, 1818.
• "I don't know whether to kiss you or spank you": a half-century of fear of an unspanked woman.
• Image: 17thc blocks for printing playing cards.
• The golden age of the classic high heel: Ferragamo, Vivier, and the stiletto.
• The extraordinary life of Marianne North, Victorian explorer, naturalist, and painter.
• A history of virility, and why it's different (and maybe better than) mere manliness.
• Blue men, the bean-nighe, and a brownie: more mythical creatures of Scotland.
• Image: Postcard of American tourists in Europe, 1910.
• Why the colors you see in an art museum can't be replicated today.
• Why there's nothing vanilla about vanilla.
• An early 19thc church in Manhattan's Henry Street still retains its slave galleries.
• Painstaking portraits of 19thc dermatology patients.
• Image: Central dome of the 1889 Paris World's Fair Gallery of Machines - the world's largest interior space at the time.
• Could the Broadway smash Hamilton keep a woman's face off the $10 bill?
• The secret history of the Civil War photo at the center of the black confederate myth.
• Egyptian blue, the oldest known artificial pigment.
• Only a year after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, Mrs. Irwin wears an "earthquake costume" to a party.
• A tale of two 18thc patriots from Salem, MA.
• For an editor in 1800, the best way to document a brutal local murder was to publish an epic poem about the crime.
• Image: Good luck using this 19thc tax calculator.
• Long (but interesting!) read: conversations and chimney-pieces: the role of the hearth in 18thc British portraiture.
• Watch 65 of Charlie Chaplin's films free online.
• Presidential inaugurations: national unity and partisan poking.
• Is Longfellow's famous poem about Paul Revere's ride really a call to 19thc abolitionists?
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.
One of us -- 
6 comments:
Warning; do not attempt to look at the article about why colours are not as good today unless you have stupidly large amounts of RAM. All it does is try to load adverts and bungs up your whole server. I only have 4 gb of ram and it is not enough
Sarah, I'm sorry you had trouble with the link about historical colors. It's from the Smithsonian's site, so it's not some suspicious spammy source; my server didn't have the same issues with it that yours did. However, servers, computers, and RAM do vary around the world, and what works for me might not necessarily work elsewhere. I hope you had better luck with other links this week.
I love your blog! This week the derm pics were right on (I'm a practicing dermatology). If you ever are in DC, check out the carved wax portraits at the Walter Reed Medical Museum which is one the original campus. You will have to check for the hours as I don't know since they closed the medical facility.
I am also an authentic civil war living historian doing both civilian and military impressions. I do an enslaved or free black woman who is a cook with the Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society www.agsas.org and a mounted cavalry bugler. With regards to the article on the Chandler boys, I agree Silas Chandler was not a black confederate but one of the ubiquitous body servants dragged off to war by their owners. The subject has been an academic interest of mine for over a decade mainly for the questions "Why?". Black Confederates did exist but not in the 90 thousand often quoted by slavery apologists. My criteria is a black person employed, drafted or mustered in to Confederate service willingly. The key word is WILLINGLY. I suggest you check out Ervin Jordan's book Black Confederates and Afro Yankees in CW Virginia, U of VA Press. Dr. Jordan is a black historian at the Special Collections library at UVA and would be a great resource if you want to include this topic in your books. From my own research, they numbered between 3-5000 max. This is based on looking at private correspondence, muster and pension records. That includes the two regiments of 1st and 2nd Louisiana Native Guards and ones and twos scattered about in various regiments. The first two regiments were made up of gens de coleur the black creoles who spoke high French and owned slaves. There had been a tradition of black men taking part in NO militias, there were two companies of free black men militia at the battle of New Orleans under Jackson. They were only confederate for a hot second since the Confederate govt did not allow them to fight but only used them for guard duty. They were disillusioned and gladly changed sides when Gen Butler occupied NO and offered them a chance to fight. My cavalry unit is the 13th VA Cavalry, Co. H., Light Sussex Dragoons and am one of their buglers. We have two black members but we are rarely there at the same event. We have documentation of a free black man named Dick Poplar who was a private and had pro secessionist view who served with the 13th, Co. H as a cook. He was captured at Gettysburg, imprisoned at Ft. Delaware and refused to take oath on early release as he refused to leave his pards. They were transferred to Pt. Lookout where they stayed till the end of the war. He had been a successful caterer/chef before the war and was more popular afterward due to his loyalty. He died in the 1880s (he had joined the war effort in his early 40s) and his funeral was attended by 10,000 people in Petersburg. Yes it's a controversial topic but only because people are looking at this through politically correct 21st century glasses. It upsets people because it messes with their sense of reality or what they perceive is reality. When one is looking at history, you need to look at it from their 19th century point of view. That is difficult and maybe I find it easy as being a physician, I have been taught to look and evaluate patients and information without letting my emotions guide my actions. I am still in the middle of my research. If you want to reply to me, use my personal email agintomboy@verizon.net instead of the gmail address below. I will get it faster that way Anita L. Henderson, MD
I enjoyed the article about colors. I did not notice a problem. I have 2GB of RAM on my ancient laptop.
Ah, on rereading your comment, Sarah, I see the part about ads. I have Adblock installed. I highly recommend it. I also have flash disabled so that I have to click on flash objects to let them run.
Love your blog! I would love to read the bit about the mythical creatures of Scotland, but the link goes to something else entirely, the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto...
Anonymous - Argh! Sometimes the links get muddled....the mythical creatures of Scotland are now back where they belong. Here's the link, too: https://cullodenbattlefield.wordpress.com/2016/04/01/blue-men-the-bean-nighe-and-a-brownie/
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