Lenora Rogers's Blog, page 116
December 26, 2015
December 24, 2015
Analysing 19th Century Emigration, A Case Study: Dissecting One Irishman’s Letter Home
Irish in the American Civil War
As regular readers are aware, I have long been an advocate of the need to studythe thousands of Irish-American letters contained within the Civil War Widows & Dependent Pension Files. This unique resource offers insights into 19th Century Irish emigration that do not exist anywhere else. Their value to Irish, as well as American, history reaches far beyond our understanding of the Irish experience of the conflict itself. They have much to tell us about multipl...
December 23, 2015
Tom and Dolley: The Original Ben and Jerry
Ice cream has always been one of America’s favorite desserts. But was it Thomas Jefferson or Dolley Madison who deserves the credit?
Ice cream has been one of America’s favorite desserts for more than 200 years.
Many people believe that “Dolly Madison” ice cream is named for the First Lady because she invented ice cream.
Wrong. She did not invent ice cream. It is actually an ancient recipe.
Many others believe that it was because Dolley Madison (note the “e” in th...
Captain Joseph Henry Hurst and Lieutenant Harry Clay Hale, 12th Infantry – Courage, Fortitude, Good Judgment, and Tact
The statement of the services immediately performed by Capt. Hurst and Lieut. Hale carries with it so evident a suggestion of every meritorious conduct on their part that special remark thereof would seem superfluous.
–Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger
Second Lieutenant Harry Clay Hale of the 12th Infantry was twenty-nine years old and seven years out of the United States Military Academy when his duty called him into action during the Sioux campaign. Captain Joseph Henr...
Track of the Day – THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT ‘Do The Revelation’
The Temperance Movement’s brand new album ‘White Bear’ is set for release January 15, 2016, but the band has just released the brand (and rather fantastic) new tune ‘Do The Revelation’on Spotify. It’s an acoustic version, and the studio version will be available January 15th!
‘White Bear’ is available for pre-order right now: check the band’s Facebook page or website for details.
The Temperance Movement is also heading out on tour in 2016, and will be doing some North American...
18th Century Quill Pens and Postage
A Physician in His Study, Writing a Prescription for His Waiting Patient by Pieter Jacob Horemans, 1745
(c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
We know through our research that those Georgians were prolific letter writers so we thought we would take a look at communication beforethe advent oftelephones, the internet, computers and the like, back to a time when the quill pen was all the rage and when all letters were either hand delivered or se...
December 21, 2015
The Youngest Spanish Princess is born at Alcala de Henares
A Very Happy Birthday to Henry VIII’s first Queen Consort, Catherine of Aragon who was born on the 15th of December 1485, in Alcala de Henares, Spain. The Palace was located over twenty miles to the North of Madrid and the local seat of the archbishop of Toledo. It dated all the way back to the thirteenth century and it was likely *“decorated in the Mudejar style of elegant white filigree carving, tile work and ornamental metals set around gracious courtyards.” It m...
Cod Wars
The cod wars were a series of disputes between Britain and Iceland running from the 1950s to the 1970s over the rights to fish in Icelandic waters. Although it was never a war in the conventional sense of the word (the massive and well-equipped Royal Navy would have easily defeated the tiny Icelandic Navy), the peak of the Cod Wars saw thirty seven Royal Navy warships mobilized to protect British trawlers fishing in the disputed territory. While the wars were eventually settle...
Civil War survivors: ‘Old Ned’ and ‘Old Jim’
More than 3 million horses and mules were pressed into service during the American Civil War, with an estimated 50 percent – 1.5 million – being killed, wounded or dying of disease during the conflict.
The last surviving horse to have served in thewar appears to have been an equine named “Old Ned,” a horse owned by Benjamin Franklin Crawford, a quartermaster sergeant in Company C of the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry.
The Pennsylvania State University Libraries in Univ...
