In A Widow’s Guide to Scandal (coming July 2020 from Soul Mate Publishing), the town where the heroine lives is threatened with destruction by the British. I based the fictional attack in my book on the very real attack on Fairfield, Connecticut by the British in 1779. I first learned about this event of the American Revolution when I lived in Fairfield and attended a Town Green Walking Tour presented by the Fairfield History Museum.
Continue reading “The Burning of Fairfield, Connecticut 1779”Think You Know Bagels?
When I was little, we lived in a suburban community northwest of Baltimore. We were Jewish, some of my neighbors were Jewish, most of my activities took place at the local Jewish Community Center. I didn’t know I was different from most of the population until I went to elementary school.
Continue reading “Think You Know Bagels?”A Quick Guide to Becoming a Female Artist in the 18th Century
Note: I intend for the word “female” to cover those who identified and were accepted as female. I do not mean to police the term in any way.
Lately, I’ve been curious about the lives of female artists in the 18th century, painters in particular. They are a hard lot to track down.
In 1971, feminist art historian, Linda Nochlin, wrote, “Why have there been no great women artists?”
Continue reading “A Quick Guide to Becoming a Female Artist in the 18th Century”The Manhattan Bridge and The East River, Not a River
When my daughter was in fourth grade, I drove a gaggle of girls to the American Girl Store in Rockefeller Center for her birthday. On the way home, I took a wrong turn and ended up in Brooklyn.
It happens. More than I’d like to admit.
Continue reading “The Manhattan Bridge and The East River, Not a River”Public Houses, Inns, Taverns
Churches and taverns had a complicated relationship in Colonial America. As early as 1656, it was a finable offense in Puritan Massachusetts for a town not to have an ordinary.
As you can see by their definitions, the words for a drinking-eating-lodging establishment are mostly interchangeable. (Ordinary became the regional word for a tavern throughout New England.) However, only places called “inns” were reliably somewhere to stay while switching horses or waiting for one’s horse to rest for the next length of travel.
