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Posts from the ‘history’ Category

Jul 4

Skåne farmstead at the Skansen museum. Photo: Marie Andersson
16 Comments

“The house had a thatched roof which blew off occasionally”: memories of a 19th-century Swedish girlhood

See here for the background to Augusta’s story, as well as links to all related posts.

Sturup, the hamlet of about fifteen houses where Augusta grew up, no longer exists as such*; it was within the footprint of what is now Malmö Airport. I can find nothing online about its history, which seems to make her memoir of her time as a little farm girl there all the more valuable and worth preserving.

*[Edit: true, but Augusta's homestead is apparently still extant! See comment from Susan Hylander Duncan at the foot of this post]

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Jun 23

Captain Samuel Adams, 1689, Boston, MA; Farber Gravestone Collection
2 Comments

Breast-shaped gourds, and other early American gravestone motifs

I was so busy staring at the inscription on the Jane Dummer/Henry Sewall stone that I recently posted about, I completely forgot to consider the carved imagery that surrounds it. Read more

May 20

Bella
4 Comments

What sort of uniform is this woman wearing?

Just a quick post, as I’m feeling blogging withdrawal on account of MASSIVE quantity of copy-editing needing done, deadline looming, and exciting visit from my dad coming up this weekend. I am working on a proper post, but for now, I genuinely do want to work out who this woman is (she’s not related to me). I’d really appreciate any ideas about her uniform. Read more

May 11

Lucy Parsons c.1886
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Lucy Parsons 1 — Stuart Lindsley 0

It would, of course, be exciting to discover a woman in my family tree with a traceable record of something newsworthy and positive; political campaigning or activism, for instance. I don’t need an “extraordinary” hook in order to find someone’s life interesting – if anything, the opposite is true – but just once, it would be nice to find a woman who generated press coverage without having to be murdered, or embroiled in a custody battle with a toddler-kidnapping ex-husband. Read more

May 3

Remsen, New York. Photo courtesy of Douglas Kerr via Flickr, with thanks.
3 Comments

Eveline Allen, 1815–1899

I discovered A Narrative History of Remsen, New York, 1789–1898 while researching my 3 x great-grandmother, Eveline Allen. As the title suggests, it’s a local history book, self-published in 1914 by one Millard Fillmore Roberts; only 250 copies were printed at the time, but as with many such volumes, it’s been rescued from obscurity in the digital age and granted a new life online. Read more

Apr 27

Homestead of General Timothy Ruggles, before 1776, Winthrop Chandler. Photo (c) Lauren Shear, with thanks.
5 Comments

More by Jill Lepore

I thought it might be worth looking up Jill Lepore, the Harvard professor who wrote the NYT op-ed piece I linked to here yesterday; and lo, I now have several more items on my reading list. Read more

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