The brides in question are Peggy Shippen, who married Benedict Arnold, and Lucy Flucker, who married Henry Knox. The subtitle of the book is “The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married”. Of course, Knox and Arnold started out on the same side of the Revolution. And while there is Read More
Author: Julie Crain Miguel
Written Out Of History, by Senator Mike Lee
The subtitle of this book is “The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government”. To be honest, the last part of that subtitle was hidden under the library barcode, and I didn’t register the fact that this book on history was written by a Senator, not an historian. But I was curious about the individuals mentioned Read More
Pox Americana, by Elizabeth A Fenn
The subtitle of this book is “The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82”. Fenn describes how smallpox impacted the American Revolution. Since smallpox has been eradicated since 1980, and there has not been an outbreak in the US since 1947, we forget how much of an impact an epidemic can have on a population. At least, Read More
The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, by Stacy Schiff
This book is a deep dive into the days leading up to, during, and after the American Revolution. Focused, of course, on Samuel Adams and his role in all of this. And his role in all of these things was considerable. Apparently, he did not want this to be widely known, since he burned most Read More
Fifth Blogversary
Fifth Blogversary This is the fifth anniversary of when I started this blog. When I started, I don’t think I had thought about how long I would be doing this. It doesn’t seem possible that five years have gone by already! Why am I doing this? Since we are trying to learn what we can Read More
In the Founders’ Footsteps, by Adam Van Doren
The subtitle of this book is “Landmarks of the American Revolution”. Van Doren is an artist, not a historian. But he obviously has an interest in our shared history. He has visited a number of well-known, and several lesser known, sites relevant to the Revolution, and painted his impressions of these sites. With each watercolor Read More
Declaring Independence, by Edward J Larson
The subtitle of this book is “Why 1776 Matters”. Larson spends the entire book looking in detail at the year 1776. And it was a momentous year, not just because of July 4th.Season by season, Larson looks at how the mood shifted from late 1775, when, despite the battles at Lexington and Concord, many people Read More
The Downstairs Girl, by Stacey Lee
This is a work of historical fiction, which describes the life of a spirited young Chinese woman in 1890’s Atlanta. As you might expect, since she is not White, she faces basically the same discrimination as the African Americans she works with. At the start of the novel, she is employed at a millinery shop, Read More
Heaven’s Ditch, by Jack Kelly
The subtitle of this book is “God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal”. Much of the books is about how the Erie Canal went from being a far-fetched idea to a reality. But interspersed with the story of the canal are stories about others who lived near the route of the canal in that Read More
Cemetery Citizens, by Adam Rosenblatt
In late October, 2025, I joined a group of people in Oak Grove Cemetery in Wyandotte County, Kansas, to learn now to clean headstones. The program was hosted by the Wyandotte County Historical Museum, and there were folks from the county Parks and Rec Department to show us what to do. It was chilly and Read More