In the Victorian world, few objects carried as much quiet power as the calling card. About the size of a modern business card—and often far more elegant—these small rectangles of [...]
You don’t hear much about May-December romances these days. But history is full couples made of young women with older men, especially in centuries when so many women died in [...]
Courting at the resort at Saratoga, NY in the 19th century carried some risk for wealthy women, for it was described as a “heterogeneous society” where anyone who could [...]
Valentine’s Day’s coming up, and I will be on Rochester’s WHAMTV31 at 8:50 AM to discuss The Truth About Daniel, which is among other things, a love story. (Plese note: [...]
Courtship in the nineteenth century was a carefully-controlled affair, especially among the upper classes like the sphere where Annie Osborn lived. Unmarried women were carefully chaperoned, as this three-way chair in [...]
Nowadays expectant parents may give their babies names based on seasons, astrological signs, place names, or popular celebrities. Or they may create new names
Recently I had the pleasure of presenting Susan B. Anthony in costume at the World of Inquiry School in the Rochester City School District. Approximately 100 seventh-graders, in groups of [...]
As Martha’s Vineyard, along with the rest of the northeast, braces itself for another mass of cold and ice this week, I can’t help but think how much easier we [...]
The Rochester Anthonys were not in the habit of celebrating Christmas until the end of the 19th century. “We Quakers don’t make much of Christmas,” Susan said as late as 1899. It should [...]
