The Double Hip “Ironsides” Corset shapes American Women
Victorian women liked their corsets tight. If a person looked up and down any busy street in the late nineteenth century, they saw townswomen that struck dramatic silhouettes. The corset, a tight fitting, boned garment, restricted movement and reshaped the natural position of organs inside a woman’s body.
Episode: University of Alabama at Birmingham • Image: Wikimedia Commons
Essex: Starvation and Survival
As the sun sank toward the horizon, the empty, blue enormity of the Pacific washed over three small whale boats. The Essex had sailed from Nantucket a year ago, scouring two oceans for the whale oil that drove the island’s economy.
Episode: Furman University • Image: Wikimedia Commons
“The Slow Dead March of Camp-Disease”: Death in the American Civil War
Charles Furman had known Fannie Garden for only 13 days before he asked her to marry him. In all, they spent less than a month together before the Confederate government ordered him northward to fight the “soulless soldiers” of the “despised Yankee Nation.”
Episode: Furman University • Image: Wikimedia Commons
A Massachusetts Federalist Opposes Declaration of War
On Thursday June 18, 1812 the members of the House of Representatives were in session when word came that the Senate had passed a bill, “An act declaring war between Great Britain and her dependencies and the United States and their territories.”
Episode: Wheaton College • Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Outcast of Virginia
“A Voice from Louisa” wrote to the Richmond Enquirer in December 1832 with the hope that a man like John Tyler would not be elected as a United States Senator once again. Instead, the writer expressed the importance of knowing the “political creed” of the candidates…
Episode: University of Virginia • Image: Wikimedia Commons / Library of Congress
The Graphic Scene after President Abraham Lincoln was Shot
Charles Furman had known Fannie Garden for only 13 days before he asked her to marry him. In all, they spent less than a month together before the Confederate government ordered him northward to fight the “soulless soldiers” of the “despised Yankee Nation.”
Episode: Juniata College • Image: Wikimedia Commons
Poe’s “Sepulchre by the Sea”: Love and Death in Victorian America
Edgar Allan Poe spent his final months in poverty, tormented by grief, drowning his depression in alcohol and poetry. In May 1849, in his small New York cottage, he wrote what was to be his last completed poem, “Annabel Lee,” in which he returned to the themes that had haunted him for much of his life.
Episode: Furman University • Image: Wikimedia Commons
Jefferson Davis Responds to the Gibson County Massacre
On September 2, 1874 former President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, delivered a speech in Memphis, Tennessee denouncing a massacre of sixteen black men a week prior in Trenton, TN.
Episode: Juniata College • Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Tobacco Trade in Virginia
As an appointed Commission Merchant of Virginia, William Brown was responsible for reporting on many markets. However, in 1850’s Virginia, there was really only one market that was truly booming, and that was tobacco.
Episode: University of Virginia • Image: Wikimedia Commons
Local Chinese React to Imperial Decree
When Americans think of Chinatown, they rarely associate it with New Orleans, but at the turn of the twentieth century, New Orleans was the only southern city with a population of Chinese immigrants significant enough to constitute a Chinatown.
Episode: Furman University • Image: Wikimedia Commons
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: A Free Woman
Unrestrained Florida landscapes surround the large, white plantation home on Fort George Island, now called “The Princess House.” Echoes of past voices in celebration, in labour, and in daily life resound through the hollow rooms, the large covered porch, and the plantation grounds.
Episode: Rollins College • Image: Wikimedia Commons
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