I’m a textiles nerd. I spin, I knit, I weave. I love the feeling of being connected with thousands of ancestors. I’ve read a few books on the subject of textile history, of course, but I doubt most of my readers care about the technical stuff. So instead I’m going Read more…
Subtitle: Why You Should Always Get Your Flu Shot In the year 1918, the entire world caught influenza. It was a particularly virulent strain, and thanks to troop movements in WWI it became the first recorded global pandemic. A lot of people died. And it wasn’t just children or the Read more…
The short version: from colonial times until the mid-1800’s, white America was drunk. Really drunk. Like, most of the time, especially the men. But even the women and children made our modern-day party animals look like lightweights in comparison. The longer version: Rum, gin, and brandy were thought medicinal. And Read more…
This is the first book I’ve read specifically for this blog. Being a milestone, I wanted it to be a good one, a perfect example of how the books I read sound dull at first but are fascinating and involve world-changing events. So I chose a book about the color Read more…
Let’s talk about death. Humans have done lots of odd things to human remains. The Catholic church in the Middle Ages did some spectacularly morbid things with the skeletons of the diseased, creating whole death cults, bizarre works of art, and ghoulish business practices. In the late Middle Ages, the veneration Read more…
In the days of traveling by horse and sailing ships, it could take months to get a message to someone. You’d send a letter, and it may or may not arrive due to bandits and shipwrecks and other perils, and if it did arrive then whatever had been fresh information was Read more…
People who romanticize the past annoy me. Because, frankly, the past was smelly and dirty and kind of awful. Yes, I hear some of you say. Of course it was. But do you have any idea exactly how filthy things were? (Disclaimer: when I say “women” in this post, I Read more…