Victorian Era Parlour Talk: UFOs Meet Society

What do Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have to do with theVictorian Era? Actually, they became popular and proper topics of conversation. In an age when conversation was prized as an art, anything new and unusual or from another part of the world merited as a proper topic in Society.
While researching current topics of interest for [...]

Tuesday Ten, Victorian Adventures/Discoveries

1.) Antiseptics—as we know them, anyway. In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis in Hungaria noted that when doctors washed their hands between pregnant patients in a hospital, the spread of puperal disease(childbed fever) was significantly reduced. In the ‘70’s Joseph Lister took the new “theory” into the operating room and tried to prevent sepsis with carbolic acid. [...]

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was one of those holidays people celebrated but not necessarily one that everyone recognized. Actually, it was a jumble of days with no rhyme or reason celebrated from state to state whenever.
That all changed when poet and editor Sarah J. Hale began lobbying for a national Thanksgiving holiday. During the Civil War, President Abraham [...]

Tuesday Ten: Stagecoach Etiquette

In the old west, the only means of public transportation was the stagecoach. Stage stops were as common on the western plains as bus stops are today.
Journeys by stage were long, dusty and uncomfortable. Coaches were cramped, loaded down with heavy merchandise and luggage and passengers jammed in like sardines—as many [...]

Persistence

I just completed a workshop on persistence. That is, persistence as in regard to writing and getting your work noticed.
I thought I had persistence. After all, I’ve been writing toward publication for 13 years now. But, so far, I have only a few short stories published in obscure magazines that pay in copies or don’t [...]

Tuesday 10

Look – it’s Tuesday! I totally missed that, what with the holiday (well it was for me, did you thank a Vet this weekend?) and the long weekend I took…ahem. No excuse. None. But I do have a list of ten for everyone.
10 Famous Firsts that debuted at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (otherwise [...]

Victoria’s Empire Measuring Stick of Greatness

One thing Queen Victoria represented with her imperialism and personal lifestyle was a quest for presenting greatness. Each undertaking was a new level of greatness or a revival of the superior achievements of the past. Those she surrounded herself with also shared this focus.
The momentum of achieving drove the fastest eras of innovation in [...]

Tuesday Ten: Favorite Research books

After posting this, I realized that the last Tuesday Ten was about research books too–on the West. Ah well, I wrote it, I’ll post it. Next time my rotation is up in the Tuesday Ten, I promise I will be more orginal.
Sorry Nic, for accidentally stealing your idea!
1.) The Essential Handbook of [...]

Victorian Serial Killer–Jesse Pomeroy

In this age of CSI, Without a Trace and a host of other television stories we tend sometimes to look back on previous eras with nostalgia. Oh those wonderful days when you could let your children roam the streets and not worry about their safety! Ah, those wonderful Victorian days when we were safe!
Maybe so [...]

Interview–Nicole McCaffrey

Scandalous Victorian Nic tells us about her writing and her winter release The Model Man.

Why do you write historical?

Aside from having always been a history buff? LOL. Hmm… I’m fascinated by it. The courage it took to build a nation, the passion that held it together, the raw guts and determination it must [...]