While divorce is somewhat unremarkable these days, in the not-so-distant past, it was remarked upon quite a bit. We forget how relatively recent that attitude shift happened. Divorces were not always easy to obtain. In the early days of this country, it literally took an act of the legislature to grant someone a divorce. While Read More
Author: Julie Crain Miguel
Savage Liberty, by Eliot Pattison
While this is historical fiction, and not a fictionalized version of an actual historical event, if you enjoy mysteries, then it is an interesting read. The author did do his research, and name-drops a number of actual historical figures. The main plot of the book, the mystery to be solved, is completely created by the Read More
The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902, by Scott D Seligman
This book tells the story of Orthodox Jewish women finding their voices in New York in the early 1900’s. The subtitle is “Immigrant Housewives and the Riots that shook New York City”. In the spring of 1902, the price of kosher beef had risen 50% in a few short weeks. It had gone from 12 Read More
The Boston Massacre: A Family History, by Serena Zabin
We all learned about the Boston Massacre in school when we studied the American Revolution. We saw the image of the uniformed British soldiers firing on the unarmed citizens. We learned that it was one of the events that pushed us inexorably to the point of war. But we didn’t learn the whole story. I Read More
Paper Promises, by Mazie M Harris
This is almost a coffee-table book, which is interesting, since it actually mentions what was probably the first “coffee-table” book, although I’m not sure people even had what we consider coffee tables in 1861. The subtitle is Early American Photography, and while this book does discuss photography – a bit of the history, a little Read More
How the Scots Made America, by Michael Fry
While this is not a comprehensive survey of American history, it definitely covers quite a bit of it. And all of it in relation to Scots, or the descendants of Scots, who came to America. The author makes the point that the unique Scottish personality helped make Americans and America who and what we are Read More
Baptists & Bootleggers, by Kathryn Smith
The subtitle of this book is “A Prohibition Expedition Through the South . . .with Cocktail Recipes”. It does indeed include recipes. I did not try any of them, because I don’t have many of the ingredients or utensils for mixing drinks, but some of them sounded pretty good! The premise of this book is Read More
The Peabody Sisters of Salem, by Louise Tharp
Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia are the sisters, and Massachusetts is their home state. The sisters are born between 1804 and 1809, and all led interesting, if not remarkable, lives. In addition to living through the Civil War, two of the sisters married well-known men (and in that era, women were usually more known for who Read More
Homesteading the Plains, Toward a New History, by Richard Edwards, Jacob K Friefeld, & Rebecca S Wingo
Since two of the three authors teach history at the college level, this book is what you might call a scholarly work. It is still accessible for the casual historian, and very informative if your ancestor was actually a homesteader. While they focus their deepest analysis on Nebraska, they look at data from other plains Read More
The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini, by Joe Posnanski
Everyone has heard of Houdini; his name is almost synonymous with magic. That is a point this author makes a number of times in his book. And there have been a couple of popular movies about him, with variable accuracy. This book tries to get at the real story. One important part of Houdini’s story Read More