Life in a time of crisis
In 1843, Sir Henry Cole, who was helping to set up the Public Record Office (later the Post Office) in England, needed a way to encourage people to use the Penny Post. He and an artist friend, John Horsley, decided to design and print 1000 Christmas cards and sold them. However, the sending of cards... Continue Reading →
Everyone loves candy, and people during the Civil War period were no different. Recipe books of the time feature numerous recipes for sweets of all kinds. Mrs. Cowan's American Lady's Cookbook (1847) includes recipes for coconut, lemon, rose, horehound, and rock candy as well as peppermints and molasses twists. Commercial candy was also widely enjoyed.... Continue Reading →
“Good came out of evil, as it often does…” Thus writes Susan Warner at the end of her novel The Wide, Wide World, a work often considered America’s first best seller. It was certainly a literary sensation. Published by Putnam in 1851 Warner’s novel was widely acclaimed. Henry James, for example, compared it to the... Continue Reading →
The turn of the year from old to new has long been celebrated in a variety of ways sometimes with frivolity and sometimes with spirituality, and sadly, sometimes on the battlefield. This is true of the Civil War period also. Celebrating with Frivolity According to Alexis McCrossen, writing for We’re History, men and women belonging... Continue Reading →
` Who Wore What?: Women's Wear, 1861-1865 by Juanita Leisch My rating: 5 of 5 stars There is plenty of useful information in Who Wore What by Juanita Leisch. However, as she admits, the sample of photographs she worked with, although carefully dated, were not random and were not identified as to location. So her... Continue Reading →
In the mid-1800s, the Christmas season was a time for family get-togethers, good cheer, and good will. It is also a time when the different cultural practices brought by immigrants from various backgrounds began to meld together into those we are familiar with today. We can find descriptions of what holiday celebrations were like in... Continue Reading →
Today when we want fresh vegetables in the middle of the winter we need go no further than our local grocery. During the Civil War, it wasn't so easy. In the next series of posts, I will be examining how foods were preserved in the 1860s. Drying Air and heat drying is one of the... Continue Reading →
Brr. It's January and the snow is falling at least in some parts of the world. Are you looking out your window right now? Are you lucky enough to see expanses of white snow and to be dreaming of riding with your beau in a one-horse sleigh? How romantic you might be thinking. However, Jennie... Continue Reading →
The 1864 Christmas Poems and Pictures: A Collection of Songs, Carols, and Descriptive Poems relating to the Festival of Christmas is typical of the Christmas books popular during the Civil War period. Published in New York by James J. Gregory it contains old English Christmas carols such as "A Carol for the Wassail Bowl", religious... Continue Reading →
Yes, there were elevators in use during the Civil War. In fact, elevators actually have a very long history. Elevators or hoists to lift supplies to the top floors of buildings or to lower men and equipment into mines using pulleys can be dated back to the third century. These simple platforms were raised by... Continue Reading →
There is a contemporary perception that women could not become doctors during the Civil War period because they were banned from medical college. But while their paths were not "strewn with flowers", at the time of the Civil War, there were places women could go to study medicine. The Boston (later New England) Female Medical College was founded... Continue Reading →
Oak tubs, washboards, iron pots, fire grates, homemade soap, bluing, and plenty of back-breaking work were the basic things needed to get clothes clean mid-century. This 1861 drawing of two hard-working entrepreneurs gives a good idea of the basics. However, Robert Kemp Phillip in The Family Save-All (1861) suggests numerous ways to make the process "easier."... Continue Reading →
Away! Away to the maple grove! Come hither my boys and girls, thither let us rove. "The Sugar-Camp" by Harry in Merry's Museum 1862 p. 80 Isaac Hurlburt lived not too very far down the same road I live on today. His farming round was also much like our own, except we only raised sheep... Continue Reading →
The elegance, speed, noiselessness and simplicity of the machine; the beauty and strength of the stitch:...impossible to ravel, and leaving no chain or ridge on the under side; the economy of thread and adaptability to the thickest or thinnest fabrics, have rendered this the most successful and popular sewing machine made. (Advertisement for a Weber... Continue Reading →
I Wish I Had a Fat Contract to the tune of Barbara Allen But if I had a fat contract To make clothes for de solders De army coats and striped pants, I wouldn't use no shoddy Nor no oder stuff that's rotten; But I'd use the very best of cloth, Widout a bit of... Continue Reading →
"...this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycelped* Valentines, cross and inter-cross at every street and turning. The weary and all forespent twopenny postman sinks below a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own." Valentine's Day in Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb 1860 (*called) Valentine's Day was a well-established holiday by the... Continue Reading →
During wartime communicating with loved ones becomes an overwhelming concern. In the Civil War period many soldiers and families wrote letters to each other almost daily. Postage was cheap by our standards 3 cents per half ounce which was lowered to 2 cents in October of 1863. But for people who earned an average salary of $20 a month... Continue Reading →
When we think of magic, probably one of the most magical things of the Christmas season are brilliantly lit Christmas trees. Although decking the house with boughs of pine was a traditional Christmas practice [the pine scent was believed to clean the air and prevent disease], Christmas trees were uncommon in early America. The custom,... Continue Reading →
While soldiers in the field were waiting for their turkeys to arrive packed in crates filled with straw and kept cold, hopefully, by winter weather, at home women were preparing to roast their turkeys. Roasting a turkey in the 1800s meant cooking it on a spit inside a tin oven. Catherine Esther Beecher in her 1859... Continue Reading →
Thanksgiving had been celebrated in America from the time of the Puritans, and soldiers had taken the tradition with them when they went to war. In 1863 President Lincoln declared November 26 as a national day of "thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens" in response to a letter from... Continue Reading →
American Civil War Voices 