Saturday, May 11, 2013

Breakfast Links: Week of May 6, 2013

Saturday, May 11, 2013
Happy Mother's Day! To celebrate, we're serving up our freshest assortment of Breakfast Links, our fav links of the week to other blogs, web sites, articles, and pictures, gathered from around the Twitterverse.
• Edward Gibbon Wakefield twice acquires brides through elopement - or was it kidnapping?
• Everything you know about corsets is false.
• Putting on the pounds: Georgian pound cake.
• The wonderful London Sewing Machine Museum.
• How the latest version of The Great Gatsby still gets flappers wrong.
• A history of the red-and-white striped barber's pole.
• Sifting through the myths surrounding Revolutionary War heroine/legend Molly Pitcher.
• Do you have the right personality to become a secretary in 1959?
• The unfortunate demise of the flying man of Pocklington, 1733.
• How to ride the New York el tracks like a boss, c. 1877.
• Slices of wedding cakes, royal and presidential, become prized by collectors.
• The ecstasy of a modern romantic: dancer Isadora Duncan writes her memoirs, 1927.
• This week in 1813: the Prince Regent is a guest of honor at a grand commemoration dinner for Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Liquorice: "The spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down."
• A new old look at Mother's Day.
• Bare beauties (almost) from the 1920s.
• Sweet potato (i.e., potato buns that are sweet) bun: 18th c. recipe, plus modern version.
• Under the poodle's fluffy coat is a dog with history of bravery, intelligence, and battlefield know-how.
• Vintage photos: the statues & effigies of Old London.
• Remedies for an unusual case of menstruation in 18th c. England.
• Elegant Merlot-Larcheveque day ensemble, c. 1867.
• How paid newspaper advertising started in Boston, c. 1704.
• When women ruled or influenced the Ottoman Empire: the 16th-17th c. Sultanate of Women.
• The lies you've always been told about the QWERTY keyboard.
• "She that's here interred needs no versifying": unusual 17th c. gravestone, Malden, MA.
• The ghost who ordered a hat, 1900.
• Not your ordinary sampler from the 1870s: the Obsidian Serpent.
• A series of wealthy Van Buren women retain their once semi-rural family home on 14th Street as NYC rises around it.
• Collecting a century of Girl Scout uniforms & memorabilia.
• Quick tip for 1777: If you're a Loyalist trying to pass for a Patriot, talk about "King Hancock" won't work.
• Gorgeous textile sample & swatch books from 19th c. to view online.
• True, or history myth? A deerskin was worth a dollar, hence the origin of the word "buck."
• Polychromed plumes of 1888.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls and receive fresh updates daily!

3 comments:

Ana said...

That article about the harem politics was such an interesting read.

I have been fascinated by the family/harem politics and its influence on Ottoman empire ever since we've been told in elementary school about one of ours, Olivera Lazarevic, being sent - after their fathers faced each other in battle and were both killed - to Bayazit I becoming, the story goes, a favourite there.

Kathy said...

Lots of fun, as usual! You might want to link to this site for next week's breakfast: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/

It shows color films of England in the 1920s.

Adi said...

As a proud owner of two standard poodles, I was very happy to read the Roundtable article about poodles. I love my dogs and it's a joy to read that their breed is so present in history. Thank you for sharing that with all of us!

 
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