America/United States
Grant’s Inauguration of 4 March 1869
Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration was slated for 4 March 1869 at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. He had been elected the presidential candidate in 1868 after being unanimously nominated as the Republican Party’s pick. In the end Grant won the popular vote for president by 300,000 votes out of…
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Decorative Hair Combs of the 19th Century
Decorative hair combs date to the earliest of times and were created from all sorts of materials. For instance, ancient combs were made from wood, bones, ivory, feathers, and other natural type materials. Sometimes they were “studded” with gems or painted with designs. These early decorative hair combs were also often flat in construction but…
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Mark Twain: Interesting Facts About Samuel Clemens
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was called “the father of American literature,”[1] by William Faulkner and noted to “unhesitatingly be called ‘all-American’”[2] partly because of his famous novels that include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel,…
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Great Blizzard of 1888: The Great White Hurricane
The Great Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great White Hurricane, was one of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history. Snow fell from 10 to 58 inches and sustained winds reached more than 45 miles per hour producing snowdrifts more than 50 feet high. The storm paralyzed the East Coast from Chesapeake…
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Thomas Neill Cream: Lambeth Poisoner and Serial Killer
Thomas Neill Cream, also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-Canadian serial killer of the late 1800s. His first known victims lived in the United States and the rest were residents of Great Britain. However, there is also the possibility some of his victims lived in Canada.
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Madame Moustache: The Notorious Life of Eleanor Dumont
The initial beginning of Madame Moustache remains conjecture but what is known is that she arrived in Nevada City, California in 1854. At the time she was about 20 years old. Her reason for being there was that she was hoping to capitalize on the fascination held by the rough-and-tumble men of the West for…
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Ina Coolbrith: First California Poet Laureate
Ina Coolbrith was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, and christened Josephine Donna Smith on 10 March 1841. Her parents were Agnes Moulton Coolbrith and Don Carlos Smith, youngest brother to the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith. Unfortunately, Don Carlos died of tuberculosis four months after Josephine’s birth and her…
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Virginia City: An American Silver Mining Boomtown
Virginia City developed as a boomtown after the January discovery in 1859 of the first major U.S. silver ore deposit known as the Comstock Lode.* Located in Storey County in the state of Nevada, the population reached around 25,000 in the mid-1870s and then declined after 1878. In addition, some people consider Virginia City to…
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Hell on Wheels: Temporary Cities of the Transcontinental Railroad
“Hell on Wheels” was an itinerant tent city that included a collection of gambling houses, dance halls, saloons, and brothels that moved from place to place in the 1860s as it followed the army of Union Pacific railroad workers who were constructing the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America. It also formed mushrooming municipalities and…
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Pug Collectibles and Trinkets in the 1700 and 1800s
Pug collectibles and trinkets were plentiful in the 1700 and 1800s because at the time pugs were a popular dog breed having been introduced beginning in the seventeenth century into Europe from China. “Pugs at this time looked somewhat different than today. They had fewer facial wrinkles, longer legs, and clipped ears, a practice that…
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