Posts by Geri Walton
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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Elisha Perkins: Eighteenth-century Metallic Tractor Inventor
Elisha Perkins was a United States physician and inventor who created a fraudulent medical device to cure inflammation, rheumatism, and pain. His story begins when he was born on 16 January 1741 in Norwich, Connecticut to and Mary Bushnell II and Joseph Perkins, who had graduated from Yale College in 1727 and practiced medicine in…
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Midwinter Fair: California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894
The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, referred to as the “Midwinter Fair,” was a World’s Fair, like the U.K.’s Great Exhibition or Paris’ Exposition Universelle. The Midwinter Fair came about after U.S. President Benjamin Harrison, grandson to the ninth U.S. President, William Henry Harrison, appointed Californian Michael H. de Young as a national commissioner…
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Emperor Norton: Colorful Self-proclaimed Emperor
Emperor Norton was Joshua Abraham Norton, a citizen of San Francisco, California, who declared himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in 1859. He was the son of farmer John Norton and Sarah Norden, both English Jews. The exact date of his birth is unclear and records conflict although it seems he was born…
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Fonthill Castle: Edwin Forrest’s Country Estate
Fonthill Castle was built in 1852 in The Bronx borough of New York City by prominent American Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest and his wife Catherine Norton Sinclair. According to American actor Lawrence Barrett, the architectural designs used to build Fonthill Castle came from the ideas generated by Sinclair and were then approved by Forrest. However,…
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Wigs: Their Wearers and Eighteenth-Century Anecdotes
In the eighteenth century, those who wore wigs almost always powdered them. By the 1780s, young men were moving away from wigs and were powdering their own natural hair and by the 1790s both wigs and hair powder were used primarily by older, more conservative men, such as Voltaire, whom Madame Tussaud made sure had…
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Ann Moore: The Impostor and Fasting-Woman of Tutbury
Ann Moore became famous as the “fasting-woman of Tutbury.” That was because she claimed that from 1807 to 1813, she ate nothing at all. Of course, such a claim was ludicrous and eventually her claims were proven to be a hoax and she was declared an impostor, just like the Kewsick impostor John Hatfield.
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Olivia Langdon Clemens: Wife to Mark Twain
Olivia Langdon Clemens, often called “Livy” by her husband, was born on 27 November 1845 to Jervis Langdon, a wealthy businessman, and his wife, Olivia Lewis Langdon, in Elmira, New York. The family was religious, reformist, and abolitionist. Olivia was tutored at home and attended the Thurston’s Female Seminary and Elmira Female College, a school…
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Eye Miniatures: For Lovers of the 18th and 19th centuries
Eye miniatures became a popular item to exchange among lovers and although the fashion began in the late 1700s it reached its zenith around 1803 or 1804. Among some of the earliest pieces produced was one given by the Prince Regent (the future George IV) to his lover and mistress Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert. The gift…
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