Saturday, February 11, 2012

Breakfast Links: Week of February 6, 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected for your from around the Twitterverse.
"How to Look Amorously" print of 1790. All men should adopt this attitude on Valentine's Day. http://twitpic.com/8guabd
Leap Year's Most Eligible Batchlors, 1888: http://bit.ly/znLpr1 & http://bit.ly/AtFrLW
Very cool feature on the National Galleries of Scotland site: Tour Scotland with our cross the country feature: http://bit.ly/xPa7P7
• Story of Revolutionary War redcoat and the wife he left behind: http://bit.ly/zyQgVQ
• George IV's Coronation Gown http://wp.me/pGJsu-237
• Scourers, the 18th c dry cleaners for woolen wear: http://bit.ly/yWYmJB
• The Sad Story of Two Grisettes in Paris, 1854: http://bit.ly/AetfmU
• Vinegar Valentines: for the one you love to hate? http://post.ly/56mNo
• Sayyida al Hurra, Islamic pirate queen: http://bit.ly/zJdcOO
• Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names: http://bit.ly/qn4jFo
• Not for the shy society lady: 1887 Evening Ensemble by Charles Frederick Worth: http://bit.ly/wsMVyd
• First page of Dickens' Great Expectations. Heartening number of cross-outs: http://bit.ly/x8oOTD
• Highclere Castle aka Downton Abbey - including rare early 1860s photo http://bit.ly/A8CozQ
Delman satin and rhinestone evening shoes made especially for Marlene Dietrich. http://fb.me/K7lvsBmH
• Reward of $1000 for lost pudding decree: http://bit.ly/wjPNLo
• Oops. Viking axe turns out to be 18th c. woodworking tool: http://bbc.in/ycq9jW
• The actress behind the Rolls-Royce 'Spirit of Ecstasy' & other women who inspired famous emblems: http://bit.ly/z2XM40
• Lecturer uncovers previously unknown documents with inside story of Henry VIII’s first divorce http://tinyurl.com/7mt4g2s
• Did you know that ticker tape was invented in 1867? History of NYC ticker tape parades! http://bit.ly/xEpWGs
• Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded this week in 1587. Just hours before, she wrote this letter: http://bit.ly/bOXNx8
• "Coffee Tale" about love between a Japanese Mandarin & her courtesan - http://bit.ly/xcBsuQ
• Is it possible to shake both JQ Adams and JFK's hands in one lifetime? http://n.pr/xyRRbk
• The Etiquette of Bowing http://fb.me/Lt9JdJHP
• "I shall always be near you." A beautiful, heartbreaking letter from a Civil War soldier to his wife in 1861: http://bit.ly/zag6qw

2 comments:

QNPoohBear said...

Thanks for linking to the Sullivan Ballou letter. (Yeah good publicity for our tiny little Rhode Island!) He's gotten a lot of press since his letter appeared on the Ken Burns series Civil War. Unfortunately none of the libraries here in RI know what happened to the original letter. I've heard them all say they have copies but the original may have been buried with Sarah. Sullivan Ballou was an extremely distant cousin of my mother's ancestors.

Isabella Bradford/Susan Holloway Scott said...

QNPoohBear - I'll gladly use any excuse to reprint Sullivan Ballou's letter. It has to be one of the most eloquently heartbreaking letters of its kind, ever - though I would guess that there are likely many others, written during every kind of war, that are equally heart-felt and poignant, but never shared.

As for standing up for little Rhody - I went to college there (Brown), and continued to live in Providence for several years after graduation because I just loved the place. I've also set a number of books in colonial Newport and Providence. Very under-rated state - or maybe that's an intentionally well-kept secret? :)

 
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