Lenora Rogers's Blog, page 65
October 6, 2016
Podcast: The Forgotten Irish– Revealing the Personal Stories of 19th Century Emigrants
Irish in the American Civil War
On 18th August last I was privileged to return to the National Library of Ireland in Dublin to deliver one of the Summer lunchtime talks at the institution, which are organised by Eneclann and the Ancestor Network. The title of the talk wasThe Forgotten Irish: Revealing the Personal Stories of 19th Century Emigrants through American Civil War Pension Files.The 40 minute lecture looked briefly at the Irish in the American Civil War, before discussing the origin...
Masonism in Mozart’s The Magic Flute
On the 30th of September 1791,the opera The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart made its debut at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. The piecewas finished three months before the composer died of suspected rheumatoid fever at the young age of 35. Mozart scholar Maynard Solomon wrote that, “Although there were no reviews of the first performances, it was immediately evident that Mozart and [the librettist] Schikaneder had achieved a great success, the opera drawing immen...
The Dreaded Synopsis—What It REALLY Reveals About Our Writing
There is one word known to strike fear into the hearts of most writers.Synopsis.Most of us would rather perform brain surgery from space using a lemon zester and a squirrel than be forced to boil down our entire novel into one page.
Yes one.
But alas we need to for numerous reasons. First and foremost, if we want to land an agent, it works in our favor to already have an AWESOME synopsis handy because the odds are, at some point, the agent will request one.
Sigh. I know....
October 5, 2016
Steeling Hill Earthwork, Near Coniston Cold, North Yorkshire
Steeling Hill Enclosure, near Coniston Cold (north-side).
OS grid reference: SD 8859 5515. A large earthwork or enclosure located on the crest of Steeling Hill above the A65 near Coniston Cold, North Yorkshire. This flat-topped hill on the opposite side of the lane from Kelber Farm was once the enclosure, settlement or campof an ancient tribe, but unfortunately nothing much is known of its history. It was almost certainly a strategically placed encampment overlo...
Marcel Proust and his Mother: A Unique Bond
On the 26th of September 1905, Jeanne Clémence Weil, mother of writer Marcel Proust, died in Ile de France, Paris. Madame Proust, as she was to be known, seeing as Marcel never got married, was bornJewish on both sides of her family. Her genealogyactually showsthat Marcel Proust and Karl Marx were distant cousins, albeit seven generations apart. Jeanne was a sensitive, veryintelligent, and well-educated young woman who had a deepunderstanding of music and literature. Her schooling...
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Road to Val-Kill
Eleanor Roosevelt, at the time she became “Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Eleanor Roosevelt was nearly forty before she had a life, and place of her own.
FDR, Eleanor and Polio
The marriage between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, fifth cousins by birth, had never been a joyful one. Their personalities were poles apart, and while they truly cared for each other and recognized and appreciated the others’ strengths, the young Mrs. Roosevelt was never comfortable – or happy –...
Worst neighbors ever.
Tis the season of the witch! Stumbled across this very vague story…
Janet Horne was the last person to be executed for witchcraft in the British Isles. In 1727, she was stripped, covered in tar, led through the town of Dornoch, and burned alive. The poor woman was accused by her neighbors, which most likely came about because she was going senile. Her daughter was arrested too- she had a deformity in her hands and feet. The neighbors told stories of Janet of riding her daughte...
What happened this month in history?
Great post.
If It Happened Yesterday, It's History
Sometime around 610 CE, the senate sent out a call for help to be rescued from the paranoid and revengeful Byzantine emperor named Phocas. In short, everyone was praying for a miracle, and it came in the form of Flavius Heraclius, the son of the governor of Carthage.
Heraclius sailed immediately with his fleet from Carthage to C...
Savannah’s Carnegie Library a testament to perseverance
It’s been slightly more than a century since the Carnegie Library in Savannah, Ga., opened, offering increased access to books, learning and knowledge for blacks at the height of the Jim Crow era.
Among those who called the library home were James Allen McPherson, the first black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie provided funding for the construction of nearly 1,700 public librari...
October 3, 2016
Self-inflicted wounds and the surgeons’ revenge–1864
Few things speak to the intensity and horror of the Overland Campaign than this candid admission from a man of the 2d US Sharpshooters, written on May 9, during in a lull in the campaign.
Monday, May 9 Perfectly still. Don’t know what it can mean. I’m afraid the army has moved, and I can’t tell which way. Still in the rear, and wish I was at home. I would give a hundred dollars for a discharge. Almost made up my mind to wound myself; & then conc...
