Gig, A Flirting Girl

Below is an article I found in an 1899 Newspaper that I thought was interesting in terms of word use. We've discussed often on various writer loops the way certain words were in vogue at certain times and how they can have totally different meanings in other times. For example the gig. A gig concerning my research into 19th century Carriages & Wagons is a light, two wheeled carriage. Obviously it has another meaning as you can read from this article. Enjoy!

How to Keep Cool

For today's tidbit I'm sharing some of the various ways I've come across during the later part of the 19th century, to keep cool.

Another New York bookseller, who has been interviewed on the subject of keeping a store cool in summer, claims that it can be done if proper measures of precaution are taken.
"For example,*' he says, "I have a transom over my door that I leave open every night; also the top of the back window. This gives a draft of cool air during the night, and I find it cool in the morning. I also follow the trail of the sun, and in the hot days in summer see that it never gets into my store."
"All the cleaning that is done in my place of business is done between six and seven in the morning. This gets the store in trim for the day's work. In order to keep out flies the store should always be darkened and, above all, the atmosphere pure. Flies and other insects will only come when the air is bad. Care should always be taken to place everything out of the way that will attract them. If possible, do not permit any eating or cooking in your store during the hot months. If you do, then place all your stock under covers, for flies and other insects will play havoc with it."
There are electric fans and other machine devices to cool stores, but for the small city and town bookseller the above is simple and low in price.
Source: The Bookseller and Newsman ©1896


How to Keep Cool in Summer.—In summer we should eat less meat and less food than in winter. Usually our appetite is not so good in summer as it is in winter, and naturally, therefore, we take less food, and we should wear light clothing. Everything we do during the warm parts of the summer days we should do slowly and should not hurry. We should not walk much in the sun without being shaded.
How the Body is Kept Cool in Summer.—It would seem difficult to prevent the body from being overheated in summer when the air around us is so warm; and you might wonder, too, why it is that the blood of a locomotive engineer, or of a cook, who is in front of a hot fire all day long, is no warmer than that of persons who can keep cool. There are two ways in which the bodily heat is prevented from rising above 98 degrees when persons must be near furnaces and fires or are otherwise exposed to the heat.
Both methods depend upon the fact that whenever moisture or water leaves any surface it makes that surface cold; that is, it takes some of the heat of that surface with it. In India, the drinking-water is cooled by placing it in porous clay

In this way our blood does not get any warmer in summer than in winter. For in summer more moisture leaves the body than in winter. Moisture leaves the body in two ways: By the lungs and by the skin. We breathe more rapidly in summer than in winter, especially if it is very warm, and in this way, more moisture is given off to the air from the blood passing through the lungs. Then again, the expired air contains more moisture in summer.
Perspiration.—The moisture which passes off by the skin is called perspiration. This is taking place constantly through the pores, but in summer so much passes off that it collects in drops and is then called visible or sensible perspiration.
Ice-water in Summer.—There is no objection to ice-water in summer if you do not drink too much, and if you take but a little at a time. Some people get into the habit of drinking ice-water constantly. This is very unhealthy and will make them suffer. But if it be remembered to drink it slowly and only a little at a time, it will not usually do any harm.
Source: May's Anatomy, Physiology and ©1899


ABOUT YOUR HAIR
YOU will never look cool in summer unless you learn to arrange your hair properly—that is to say, to bid good-by to the heavy bang which is on your forehead, and which will, after a few hours, look frowzy and become uncurled. Draw part of this back and pin it down with small lace hairpins, and have the very shortest fringe possible, if, indeed, you wear one at all. If your forehead is low and broad you can say farewell to the bang, and parting your hair in the centre draw it back in the neatest way possible. Instead of the soft, full loops that retained their position during the winter, braid your back hair and pin it closely to your head. This done one's coiffure will be neat all the day long, and if you have a well-shaped head it will bring out its outlines to perfection. I do not want any girl to think that I wish her to lose her good looks, and if she doesn't look well with her hair parted then let her elect to wear it rolled off her forehead, or if she has a very high forehead then she must have a short fringe or bang, with the ends just turned to soften her face. Do not wear fancy pins or ribbons during the day. In the evening, though, it is quite proper for you to put among your locks anything that you may choose. By-the-by, it must be remembered that I am talking now to the busy girl who wants to look her best in the summer time, and who yet has not the half hours in which to rest, and who cannot wear dainty house dresses, as does the girl who has no occupation in the outside world.
Source: Ladies' Home Journal ©1893

Hepatitis Treatments

Below is a brief outline over the 19th century for the treatment of Hepatitis. As I was preparing this list I couldn't help but thank the Lord that I was born in this time period than back in that one. If your characters develop this disease, I sure do pity them.

In the American Journal of Medical Sciences Vol. 8 ©1830 the treatment for hepatitis was the use of leeches and bleeding.

I found a reference in the Medical Examiner ©1839 that mentions the use of the "blue pill" but also the use of the leeches.

Leeches and Bleeding is still standard course of treatment in 1845 cited in the Half-yearly abstract of the medical sciences. It also states a light diet is in order.

In 1871 Beeton's Medical Dictionary it states that blood letting is not recommended now except in severe cases. It mentions the most common treatment is to try to an support the system during the course of the disease. It also mentions the possibility of using Mercury.

In 1885 A Revised and Enlarged Edition of Clark's new system of electrical medication we find the use of electricity as the practice of apply the current to 'as much as the patient can bear' for 20 minutes once or twice a day.

In 1899 The Practitioner's manual, by Charles Allen acknowledges that the treatment is symptomatic, in other words it only treats the symptoms not the cause of the disease.

Etiquette & Manners

Etiquette & Manners is something often discussed on some of my of the writer loops I belong to as they pertain to the 19th century. Through Google books I've found a great source of books regarding such topics. Below is a list ordered by the year they were published. I've gathered this resource list over the past two years from Google Books. Hope it helps you in your search for proper behavior in the time period of your setting.

1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans
1835 Pencil Sketches
1837 The Young Lady's Friend
1839 Miss Leslie's Behavior Book
1842 Elegant Extracts
1843 Etiquette or, A Guide to The Usages of Society with a Glance at Bad Habits
1854 Etiquette Social Ethics and the Curtiousy of Society
1854 The Behavior Book
1860 The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manners
1860 The Hand Book of Etiquette
1866 Marine's Sensible Letter Writer
1868 Manners or Happy Homes
1870 Good Manners a Manual of Ediquette
1872 The Ladie's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness
1873 The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness
1884 Don't: A Manual of Mistakes and Improprieties More or Less
1888 Manners
1889 American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness
1889 Perfect Etiquette or How to Behave in social...
1892 Etiquette An Answer to the Riddle, When? Where? How?
1896 Social Etiquette or Manners and Customs of Polite Society
1897 Manners for Men
1897 Practical Letter Writing
1899 Twenty Letters in Letter Writing and Business

Telephone Timeline for 19th Century

March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell yelled those now famous words "Come here Mr. Watson, I want to see you!" We all accept that to be the first monumental moment of the invention that would change our lives for ever. Below are a few other dates surrounding the history of the telephone during the 19th century.

1877 July The Bell Telephone Company was formed by Gardiner Hubbard. Watson oversaw the production of the first telephones in The Charles Williams Shop. Bell left for England opting out of the day to day operations of the company.

By the end of 1877 three thousand telephones were in service.

mid 1878 10,000 phones in service. Hubbard named Theodore Vail as the new general manager of the Bell Company.

1878 manuel switchboard was invented.

1879 Telephone subscribers begin to have designated telephone numbers

1880 Long distance service was established

1880's first "metallic" circuits were installed. Changing from one wire to two wire to reduce the extreme static noise from one wire.

1885 The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) is formed.

1891 Almon Strowger invented an "automatic" telephone allowing him to dial a number without waiting for an operator. The first one Strowger switch goes into operation in 1892

1899 Bell company had 800,000 phones in service.
Rural independent territories had 600,000

The Bronx Zoo

On Nov. 8, 1899 the Bronx Zoo opened as the New York Zoological Park. In 1899 there were 261 acres. New York purchased the property for a mere thousand dollars from Fordham University with the condition that the area be used for parks and no further building (for private homes, businesses, etc) of the area.

Google Books has a copy of the second addition of the Popular official guide to the New York Zoological Park ©1900 the following year of the Parks opening. Below is the preface. Here is a link to the entire guide book.


PREFACE.
The opening of the Zoological Park marks another great step toward the education of the people of the City of New York. It will bring the beauties and wonders of living Nature within reach of hundreds and thousands who are unable to travel. Like its predecessors in this field of popular education, the Park is maintained by the City, while its collections of animals and all of its present buildings are due to the generosity of citizens of New York. "We look to the continued and increasing support of all classes of people for whose education and amusement the Park is designed, rather than for the exclusive interests of science.
Although the Park is only one-third of the way toward completion, the Zoological Society believes that visitors will welcome a popular and reliable guide to what has already been accomplished. One year ago we began active work, and after two years of planning and organization ceased to speak publicly of our plans for the future. This handbook describes and pictures only what has actually been accomplished up to the day of going to press.
We bespeak for the Director and his colleagues on the Zoological Park staff, as well as for the Architects, indulgence for such shortcomings as are inseparable from such a difficult undertaking as this, during its first year. As rapidly as possible the incomplete parts of the Park will be taken in hand and brought to a finish. It has been no trifling matter to provide plans and surveys, building materials and workmen for our twenty-two installations, proceeding simultaneously with the construction by the City of miles of walks, roads, sewers and water-lines ; to finish-Bonds and entrances, trim the forests, establish a nursery, grade and plant miles of walk - borders, and build retaining walls ; to select a staff of assistants, collect animals, write labels, disburse $170,000 in small sums, without loss or dispute, and finally, during the last few weeks to improve Lake Agassiz sufficiently to make it a full and wholesome body of water.
That all the above has actually been accomplished in one year's time, without costly mistakes, or losses on account of changes in plans, and with no friction whatever, is certainly a cause for congratulation. We have enjoyed the constant and capable co-operation of the Park Department for the Borough of the Bronx and its engineers, as well as the generous support of the Mayor and other City authorities.
Executive Committee
Of The Zoological Society

Stonehenge 1899

There are as many theories about Stonehenge as their are large stones there. This post is simply one of a curious fact. On Dec 31, 1899, yup the last day of the 19th century, a large stone falls at Stonehenge.

Comments at the time revolved around preserving the other stones from falling and resetting the stone that had fallen. In either event, what I find surprising is the lack of overplaying this historical event.

Buffalo Bill Cody

Below is an excerpt from the "Last of the great scouts:the life story of Col. William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill" by Helen Cody Wetmore ©1899

The reason I decided to post this tidbit about Buffalo Bill is because of the nature of his Wild West show and how it influenced the American perception of the West. What I like about this book is that it is written by his sister and the oldest account I've found so far. However as stated in the intro she wrote these to sell at the Wild West Show. The excerpt is just a tidbit from the introduction written by Donald Danker. Here's a link to Google Books if you're interested in reading more.

Beginning Excerpt:
The American legend that is Buffalo Bill Cody was formed from three main sources; the man, the Wild West Show, and the printed word. The man was an authentic, likeable, and even modest western hero, cited by his army superiors for his bravery and resourcefulness, and willing and able to capitalize upon his prairie exploits for financial gain. The show was so good that it almost lived up to its billings; it was an exhibition of real Indians, cowboys, sharpshooters and wild derringdo that captivated Europeans and Americans, kings and democrats. Every other "Western" was and is, in a sense, an imitation of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. The printed word has been in the form of novels, autobiographies, articles, and biographies. Cody books have been numerous and exaggerated. Perhaps none have contributed more to the Buffalo Bill legend than Last of the Great Scouts, the Life Story of Col. William F. Cody "Buffalo Bill" as told by his sister Helen Cody Wetmore.

Helen Cody was the fourth of five daughters of the Isaac Cody family. Her brother, Bill, was four years older and she idolized him. Her admiration did not diminish when he became the famous Buffalo Bill. Helen's second marriage was to Hugh Wetmore, editor of the Duluth Press. The generous Cody helped the Wetmores financially. Helen wrote Last of the Great Scouts and it was first published by the Duluth Press in 1899. The book was widely sold and read and was good advertising for the Wild West Show. On the mornings of the pre-show parade a wagonload of Last of the Great Scouts would tour the city with a salesman and an Indian. The Indian would dance and the salesman sell books at a dollar a copy with a fifty cent show ticket added to the bargain. Several editions were printed, one illustrated by Remington. In 1918 Grosset and Dunlap issued a reprint boasting a foreword by the famous Zane Grey.

Although Mrs. Wetmore stated that she told "a plain unvarnished tale" and that "embarrassed by riches of fact I have had no thought of fiction," the book treats fact lightly. Its obvious exaggerations and inventions not only helped to establish the Buffalo Bill legend but they also gave ammunition to the debunkers of Cody. It was easy to prove the book to be laced with fiction and it followed that its hero was a fraud. The living hero did not care because he was in show business and knew the value of publicity.

The frontier scout and hunter had become a showman. One of his contemporaries on the Nebraska frontier at Fort McPherson, a talented girl named Ena Raymonds, recorded the change in her diary with a mixture of insight and poor prophecy. They met for the first time in the summer of 1872. He had returned to the fort from a scouting trip and invited her to a shooting match. Later, she saw him "dashing around first one place and then another" preparing for a hunt. She recorded that his baby boy, Kit Carson Cody, was a handsome child with great promise of a future. Neither she nor Cody could know that the boy would die within four years. When Bill went East on his first theatrical tour, Ena read the reviews and noted that one termed him ill at ease and "at loss of what to do with his hands." Ena commented to her diary "poor Cody! ... He is out of his sphere. I have seen him the very personification of grace and beauty; but it was not in the crowded city... but dashing over the free wild prairie and riding his horse as though he and the noble animal were bounding with one life and one motion! Well 'there is money in it' that golden fact renders every other consideration insignificant ... Such fame is not lasting."

Ena was wrong. Cody's fame was made lasting because he became more than a scout and Indian fighter; he became legend. As such he brought excitement and enjoyment to thousands, young and old. A part of the unsophisticated, simple pleasure they knew may be recaptured by an uncritical reading of Last of the Great Scouts.
Donald F. Danker

Blacksmith

Earlier today I posted about the anvil of the Blacksmith, there are many other tools needed to be a good blacksmith but we'll get to those at a later time. For now, I wanted to point out an interesting tidbit I recently learned about blacksmithing. Many a blacksmith had a wood working shop in their Blacksmith shop. This stands to reason when you think of the wagon wheels the ax handles, etc. They also had rooms dedicated to storage of lumber, paint room, varnishing room and clear varnishing.

In my previous research of blacksmiths it was very superficial. I knew they were in high demand and many towns would brag if they had one. In a city you often had many. I read of one account of 40 blacksmiths in one city. Obvious rural communities had a tougher time in securing a blacksmith to work in their town.

Milton Richardson put out a book called Practical Blacksmithing ©1889 that lays out the plans of the blacksmith's shop.

19th Century Railroad Timeline

1800: Oliver Evans, an American, creates the earliest successful non-condensing high pressure stationary steam-engine.
1804: Oliver Evans builds his first steam-powered boat, weight: 4,000 lbs.
1804: Matthew Murray of Leeds, England invents a steam locomotive which runs on timber rails. This is probably the FIRST RAILROAD ENGINE. Seen by Richard Trevithick before he builds his loco.
1804: Richard Trevithick of Cornwall builds 40 psi steam locomotive for the Welsh Penydarran Railroad.
1807: The very first passenger train ran from Swansea to Mumbles on March 25th.
1808: Trevithick builds a circular railway in London's Torrington Square. Steam carriage Catch Me Who Can weighes 10 tons and makes 15 mph.
1812: The first commercially successful steam locomotives, using the Blenkinsop rack and pinion drive, commenced operation on the Middleton Railway. This was the world's first regular revenue-earning use of steam traction, as distinct from experimental operation.
1812: American Colonel John Stevens publishes a pamphlet containing:
"Documents tending to prove the superior advantages of Railways and Steam Carriages over Canal Navigation."
He also states,
"I can see nothing to hinder a steam carriage moving on its ways with a velocity of 100 miles an hour."
1813: Englishman William Hedley builds and patents 50 psi railroad loco which could haul 10 coal wagons at 5 mph, equal to 10 horses.
1814: Englishman George Stephenson builds Blucher, his first railway engine. Pulls 30 tons at 4 mph, but is not efficient.
1815: Stephenson's second engine: 6 wheels and a multitubular boiler.
1821: Englishman Julius Griffiths patents a passenger road locomotive.
1824: Construction begins on the 1st locomotive workshop in New Castle, England.
1824: Englishman David Gordon patents a steam-driven machine with legs which imitates the action of a horse's legs and feet. Not successful.
1825: Stephenson's 8-ton LOCOMOTION No. 1 built for the Stockton & Darlington Railroad. Capable of pulling 90 tons of coal at 15 mph. Stephenson plans all details of the line, and even designs the bridges, machinery, engines, turntables, switches, and crossings, and is responsible for every part of the work of their construction. (The passenger coaches of this time were all drawn by horses.)
1825: Colonel John Stevens builds a steam waggon which he placed on a circular railway before his house now Hudson Terrace at Hoboken, New Jersey.
1826: The first line of rails in the New England States is said to have been laid down at Quincy, Mass., 3 miles in length and pulled by horses.
1827: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is chartered to run from Baltimore to the Ohio River in Virginia. It was the first westward bound railroad in America. Wind power (sail on carriage) was tried, followed by horse power, with the horse walking on a treadmill which drove the carriage wheels!
1827: The Switch Back Gravity Railroad in Pennsylvania began operation in May of 1827 before work began on the B&O. It was the second railroad in the U.S., the first railroad in Pennsylvania and the first common carrier railroad in the U.S.
1828: Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. builds a railroad from their mines to the termination of the canal at Honesdale. Also pulled by horses.
1829: The first steam locomotive used in America, the English-built Stourbridge Lion, is put to work on the Delaware & Hudson. It is too heavy for the track (twice as heavy as had been promised by the builders), and is laid up next to the tracks as a stationary boiler.
1829: Peter Cooper of New York in 6 weeks time builds the Tom Thumb, a vertical boiler 1.4 HP locomotive, for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It hauled 36 passengers at 18 mph in August 1830. It had a revolving fan for draught, used gun barrels for boiler tubes, and weighed less than one ton.
1829: James Wright of Columbia, PA. invents the cone "tread" of the wheel, which prevents wear of flanges and reduces resistance.
1829: Stephenson's Rocket wins a competition for locomotive power at the Rainhill Trials on the Manchester & Liverpool Railway. Capable of 30 mph with 30 passengers.
1830: The Best Friend is built at the West Point Foundery at New York for the Charlston & Hamburg Railroad. It was the first completely American-built steam engine to go into scheduled passenger service. It did excellent work until 1831 when the boiler exploded due to a reckless fireman, unexpectedly ending its, and his career.
1831: The 3.5 ton De Witt Clinton hauls 5 stage coach bodies on railroad wheels at 25 mph on the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad between Albany and Schenectady. This engine was lightly built, and was retired less than two years after going into service.
1831: The South Carolina was the first eight-wheeled engine.
1831: Robert Stevens, son of Colonel John Stevens, went to England and shipped back (unassembled) the John Bull for the Camden & Amboy Railroad in New Jersey. It was erected by mechanic Isaac Dripps, who had never seen a steam locomotive. There was no assembly manual. He made this the first locomotive fitted with a bell, headlight and cowcatcher, and it remained in service until 1866. Dripps went on to become superintendent of motive power for the Pennsylvania Railroad at Altoona.
1832: The Brother Jonathon was the first locomotive in the world to have a four-wheel leading truck. Designed by John B. Jervis for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad.
1832: The American No. 1 was the first 4-4-0, the first of its class. It was capable of regular speeds of 60 mph with its 9.5" by 16" cylinders. Designed by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer for the Mohawk & Hudson.
1832: The Atlantic on the B&O hauls 50 tons from Baltimore over a distance of 40 miles at 12 to 15 mph. This engine weighed 6.5 tons, carried 50 pounds of steam and burned a ton of anthracite coal on the round trip. The round trip cost $16, doing the work of 42 horses, which had cost $33 per trip. The engine cost $4,500, and was designed by Phineas Davis, assisted by Ross Winans. English locomotives burned bituminous coal.
1833: George Stephenson applies a small steam brake cylinder to operate brake shoes on driving wheels of locomotives.
1855: The first land grant railroad in the U. S. is completed. The Illinois Central arrives in Dunleith, Illinois (now East Dubuque).
1856: The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River is completed between Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa.
1860: Nehemiah Hodge, a Connecticut railway mechanic, patents a locomotive vacuum brake. Pressure is limited to atmospheric (14.7 psi), but practical considerations limit pressure to 7 to 8 psi. Thus, available braking power is low, especially above 3,000 feet altitude.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific Railway Act, which authorizes the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. Theodore Judah had the vision to build a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, and then to continue the railroad across the United States. The Central Pacific Railroad was financed by The Big Four: Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins.
1868: Major Eli Janney, a confederate veteran of the civil war, invents the knuckle coupler. This semi-automatic device locks upon the cars closing together without the rail worker getting between the cars. This replaces the "link and pin" coupler, which was a major cause of injuries to railroad workers. A "cut" lever at the corner of the car releases the coupler knuckle making uncoupling safer.
1869: George Westinghouse, an inventive Civil War veteran, develops the straight air brake. A Pennsy 4-4-0 and a couple of passenger cars are fitted with the system and successfully demonstrated on April 13th.
1869: The Central Pacific and Union Pacific meet at Promontory Summit, Utah for the driving of the golden spike on May 10th.
1872: George Westinghouse patents the first automatic air brake. This is basically the same system as is used by today's railroads.
1876: All Southern Pacific and Central Pacific passenger cars converted to air brakes.
1883: The Northern Pacific is completed at Gold Creek, Montana.
1883: The Southern Pacific is completed.
1885: The Santa Fe is completed.
1893: The Great Northern is completed in the Cascade Mountains of Washington.
1893: Federal Railway Safety Appliances Act instituted mandatory requirements for automatic air brake systems and automatic couplers, and required standardization of the location and specifications for appliances such as handholds and grab irons necessary for employees' use. This applied only to interstate rail traffic.
1893: On May 10th locomotive #999 of the New York Central & Hudson River RR hauled four heavy Wagner cars of the Empire State Express down a 0.28% grade at record-breaking speed. Although unverified, the conductor timed the speed at 112.5 mph over 1 mile, and at 102.8 mph over 5 miles. This 4-4-0 had 86" drivers for this run, and was later fitted with more normal 78" wheels as it now has on museum display.
1893: The first mainline electrification was in Baltimore, MD. A rigid overhead conductor supplied 675 VDC via one-sided tilted pantograph to the 96 ton 4-axle, 4-motor locomotives. These were very successful, hauling 1,800 ton trains up the 0.8% grade in the 1.25 mile Howard Street tunnel, where steam was not allowed to operate.

Peanut Recipes

Peanuts seemed to come into their own during the 19th Century. Most folks used them for cookies and candy. The fourth tidbit is an article with a lot of different uses for the peanut. Enjoy! And start thinking what your characters would do with all their peanuts.

Peanut Cookies.
Cream one tablespoonful butter; add two tablespoons sugar, one egg, two tablespoons milk; mix with onehalf cupful flour, one-half teaspoon baking powder, one salt spoon salt, one-half cup chopped peanuts and onehalf teaspoon lacto-lemon. Drop by the spoonful onto nnbuttered tins; garnish with whole peanuts and bake about twelve minutes. Mrs. C. F. Crosby.
Source: Cook Book of Tried Recipes ©1897

Peanut Brittle.
Boil three cups of brown sugar, one cup of New Orleans molasses, half a teaspoonful of cream-of-tartar, and one cup of water to the hard-ball stage. (To test, plunge a skewer in cold water, then into the boiling mixture to the depths of about two inches, then back into the water; let it remain while ten is counted, then push off the candy with the forefinger and thumb; if it can be worked while held under water to a hard, solid ball, it is cooked enough.) Now add one pint of peanuts, and boil to the hard crack stage. Test as before, but, when the candy is taken from the skewer, drop it into cold water a second, then press the teeth on it, and if it leaves the teeth clean it is boiled enough; add one-fourth a pound of butter and let just boil in; remove from the fire, add two level teaspoonfuls of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in a little water and stir vigorously. When the mixture begins to rise, pour out upon a marble or platter and spread thin. When cold break or cut in pieces.
Source: The Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science ©1899

PEANUT CANDY.
Two small bags of peanuts—say, ten cents' worth—fresh roasted. Shell and chop fine in wooden bowl. Measure-, then take exactly the same amount of granulated sugar. Melt without water, and as soon as a liquid and without cooking, turn in the nuts; stir a moment, then put out on a dripping-wet breadboard, and roll with wet pin very thin.
Mrs. E. B. K. sends us the following recipe for peanut candy, which is simply made, very satisfactory, and for which we wish to thank her:
Source: Table Talk ©1897

THE PEANUT AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD.
WE take from the Philadelphia Evening Call a communication by May Forney on the peanut as an article of food and the various ways in which it may be prepared for the table. Some of our housekeeping readers will no doubt give one or more of the following recipes a trial:
The majority of people know very little about the peanut any more than that it is a palatable, though rather indigestible, article of food, and that a savory odor greets one pleasantly while passing by the corner peanut-roaster.
But the peanut has a mission far more important than to be eaten simply in its roasted state, .ind it performs it so well that it is raised extensively in all of the warm regions of the globe, and its cultivation grows constantly in proportion as the nut is found to be more and more useful. The peanut is presumably of American origin, and although the nuts raised on our soil are larger in size and finer in flavor than those grown in other countries, it is everywhere else more appreciated, its nutritious qualities more recognized and put to practical uses. In New Spain and some parts of Africa the peanut forms a staple article of food. It enters largely into the composition of some of the choicest European chocolates, and an oil is expressed from it said to be quite the equal of olive or almond oil for either h nip or table use.
Before war times, old "mammies," who were the presiding geniuses of plantation kitchens, made any number of niceties out of peanuts, only one of which ever to any extent became known to us. There was a time—not so very long ago, either— when every Philadelphia child was familiar with the peanut or groundnut cakes, as they were called. They were sold on the corners of streets by .old. colored: women wearing gorgeous-hued
I Madras turbans and spotless aprons. They w. on low stools and had their tempting wares neatly arranged on linen-covered trays. Likely the tmrbaned heads are laid low by this time, for we rarely see them and never see the groundnut cakes. They were very good, too, and fortunately tbc recipe for making them has been preserved. It was a savant who said that old recollections were revived more vividly through the taste than any other of the senses. For the benefit, then, of that who may care to recall the days when they bought groundnut cakes from their picturesque vendors, I append the original recipe for
Philadtlphia Groundnut Cakts.—Boil two pounds of light-brown sugar in a preserving-kettle, with just enough water to thoroughly wet it, and when this sirup begins to boil throw in the white of an egg to clear it. Let it boil until a few drops of the sirup put into cold water become brittle; it Lthen sufficiently done, and must be taken from the fire and strained. Have ready a quarter of a peck of groundnuts, roasted in the shell and then shelled and hulled. Mix the nnts thoroughly through the sirup while it is yet hot. Dampen with i brush a pasteboard or marble slab, free from all grease, and drop the hot mixture upon it in little lumps, which must be flattened with a spoon iato thin cakes the size of a tumbler-top. When coW take them off of the board with a knife.
The following recipes are no less good md somewhat more practical, and show that the peanut can be made into dishes that can be served with every course, from soup to dessert:
Peanut Soup.—Shell and hull carefully three pounds of roasted nuts; pound them to a smooth paste in a mortar. Put the paste into a saucepan, set it over a fire, and stir into it slowly two qua of boiling water; season well with salt and caj
pepper, and let it simmer gently until it thickens, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Serve very hot.
Peanut >'».'/' '"''•'' Oyttert.—Prepare three pounds of nuts aa in the preceding recipe; mix with the paste two tableepoonfuls of dour, smoothly blended with half a pint of cold water. Place the mixture in a saucepan over the tire, stir into it gradually a pint and a half of boiling water, or half milk and half water; add a email red pepper and a good pinch of salt, and boil fur fifteen minutes; then pat in one pint of fine oysters. Let the soup boil up on«e, taking care it does not burn, which it will do readily, and serve immediately.
thicken Stuffed with Peanuti.—Shell and hull two quarts of roasted nuts, pound them in a mortar, and take two-thirds for the stuffing, reserving the remainder for the sauce or gravy. Mix with the stuffing-paste one cup of fine cracker crumbs; season with a teaspoonful of salt and a sallspoonftil of cayenne pepper and a little chopped parsley; add one-third of a cup of melted butter. To make the peanut-sauce, remove the fat from the drippingpan after the chicken has been taken out, adding water sufficient to make nearly a pint. Thicken with floor, add salt, pepper, and the remainder of the plainest paste. Boil up once and serve.
Peanut Croguettei.—To make these, remove the shells and bulls from three pounds of roasted nuts; simmer them gently in good broth or gravy until they are soft enough to rub through a sieve with a potato masher. To each pint of this mixture add one ounce of butter and a-palatable seasoning of salt and pepper, and stir these ingredients over the fire until they are scalding hot, then place the saucepan where the eontents will keep hot without boiling; stir into them the yelks of six raw eggs, stirring the mixture constantly until the yelks thicken, taking care it does not boil, in which cafe the eggs will curdle. Cool the pur£e. Now wet the hands slightly with cold water and mold tablespoonfuls of the cold mixture into little pyramids. Boll them in cracker or bread-crumbs, dip them in beaten egg and then a tecond time in the crumbs, and drop them in boiling lard sufficient to cover them. When brown, take them out of the fat with a skimmer, lay them for a moment on coarse brown paper which will absorb the grease, sprinkle a little salt over them, and serve at once u a folded napkin.
Peanut Salad.—Have ready about three pints of freshly roasted nuts, carefully hulled, and place them in a dish of crisp, tender lettuce-leaves. Dress the salad with a plain French salad dressing made of one part vinegar, three parts oil, and highly seasoned with pepper and salt. The salad ahoild be eaten an soon as prepared, as it readily loeea its flavor and crispness.
Peanut Pattiet.—To one quart of roasted nuts pounded fine in a mortar, add ten well-beaten eggs, one pound of sugar, and a half a pound of batter. Line two dozen patty-pans with flaky puff-paste, and fill with the nut mixture. Bake in a moderate oven until the pastry is done. Dust the patties with powdered sugar; they are equally good eaten either hot or cold.
Peanut Sovfflt.—Make a purge of roasted nuts by simmering them in a gravy and mashing them through a sieve; add to about three ounces six
ounces powdered sugar, two ounces of flour, a teaspoonful of salt, and stir in gradually a pint and a half of milk. Set the saucepan over the fire and stir ita contents until they have boiled two minutes; then set it to one side of the stove, where they will not boil, and stir for one minute. Separate the yelks of seven eggs from the whites and stir the yelks, one at a time, into the souffle' mixture, watching that it does not boil. Add the whites beaten to a stiff froth, stirring them in very lightly. Put the mixture very quickly into a twoquart tin mold lined with buttered paper that rises several inches above the top. Bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven, and serve the instant it is done.
Peanut Cakes.—Pound one pint of roasted peanuts to a smooth paste; mix in one pint of lightbrown sugar and the whites of five eggs, beaten stiffly. Put the mixture into small buttered pans, and bake in a fair oven to a light brown.
Source: Arthur's Home Magazine ©1884

Blueberries

Rather than give you recipes for blueberries I thought these little tidbits from various states might spark some thoughts for some of your stories. Enjoy!

Blueberries and cranberries. The blueberries and cranberries, of which there are about eleven varieties in the state, include some well-known forms. Here are to be classified the bog huckleberry, the dwarf bilberry, the thin-leafed bilberry, the tall bilberry, the tall blueberry, the Canada blueberry, the low blueberry, the mountain cranberry or cowberry, the deerberry, the small and the large cranberry. Most of these are found only in the northern part the state, especially along the international boundary and the north side of Lake Superior, extending, as so many northern plants do, down the valley of the St. Croix, through which in early days Lake Superior drained into the Mississippi river.
Blueberries. The different kinds of blueberries or bilberries are to be discriminated by their foliage and by the flavor of the berries. The one most common is the dwarf or low blueberry, gathered in large quantities for the market. Its fruits are blue with a whitish bloom and are of very pleasant flavor, enjoyed alike by the Indians and the whites. The plant is a low shrub, with pale green leaves, not evergreen. Its flowers are vase-shaped, small, and white or pink.
The deerberry, which resembles the blueberry in some respects, is considerably larger—three or four feet in height. The berries, shaped like the blueberries, are greenish or yellow and not edible. This variety is also called the squaw huckleberry.
The Canada blueberry, found growing in much moister soil than the ordinary form, has smaller berries, of a blue color, with a bloom. It may be distinguished by the entire margins of the leaves, quite different from the notched margins of the low blueberry. The bog blueberry has pink flowers and small ovate leaves. The cowberry may be recognized by the sour red berries and the evergreen leaves. The flowers and fruits are in structure altogether similar to those of the blueberries.
Source: Minnesota Plant Life ©1899

New Hampshire
The Benton Range.
In the W. part of the town of Benton, and running nearly N. and S., is the chain of peaks which includes Owl's Head, Blueberry Mt., Hogsback Mt., Sugar Loaf, and Black Mt. Though not remarkable for altitude or mass, these summits are otherwise picturesque and interesting, and may be visited without great labor. The same town also contains the famous Moosilauke, another Black Mt. (now called Mt. Clough), and a part of the Blue Ridge. There are no accommodations for tourists here, and people who wish to explore the Benton Range must start out from Warren, Haverhill, or Newbury. The hotels at the latter points are better than that at Warren, and the difference in distance is small. Benton has but 375 inhabitants, and is famous for its quartz crystals and other minerals and ores.
Owl's Head is a spur of Blueberry Mt. to the S. W., and is faced by a fine preoipice, several hundred ft. high, of purple and other dark-hued rocks. Thousands of bushels of blueberries are gathered yearly on this ridge. The ascent is made from the highway, near Warren Summit, and is steep, but short. A vague path conducts through the lower thickets, and along the face of the ridge which looks off on the cliffs. Large crystals of epidote are found about the cliff.
...
Blueberry Mountain is the name given to the fine peak N. of and above Owl's Head. It may be easily ascended from Owl's Head in less thaii an hour, although a quicker route for tourists who do not care to visit the latter summit is to go up the N.-Benton road to a point about 7 M. from Warren, and then strike up the E. flank. For about 1 M. from the summit the mountain is free from trees and is covered with alternate bands of carpet-like moss and granite ledges moderately inclined. The work of ascent and exploration is thus rendered easy and pleasant. There is but a slight depression between Owl's Head and Blueberry Mt., the former being a bold spur of the latter rather than a detached mountain. On the highest point of Blueberry Mt. is a signal-beacon of the U. S. Coast Survey (2,800 ft. above the sea).
Source: The White Mountains ©1876

Dwarf Blueberry, Low Blueberry. Six inches to two feet high, usually forming straggling masses in dry woods and old fields. Common, and well known throughout the southeastern parts of the state. Fruit abundant, blue or black. The earliest blueberry of the markets.
Canada Blueberry. A straggling shrub, stouter than the preceding, which it resembles. Leaves and branches downy. Berries often oval, blue, somewhat acid. Probably never seen in the markets. Northern part of state.
Half-high Blueberry. Sugar Blueberry. Two or three feet high, with upright, slender, yellowish-green branches. Fruit harder, and keeps longer than that of any other species; usually very round, bright blue, and spicy. It has the most limited range of any of our blueberries. It is common on pine barrens, and sparingly found very near the Connecticut river as far north as the rapids at White River.
High Blueberry. A shrub ten to fifteen feet high, with stems sometimes two inches in diameter. It grows in moist lands and swamps. The wood is hard and very closeSgrained, useful for the handles of small tools. No attempts have been made to cultivate it, although it doubtless could be cultivated to advantage.
Male Blueberry, Stagger Bush. Shrub three or four feet high, with yellowish bark. In the same situations and much resembling the high blueberry, but the fruit a dry, globular pod instead of a berry. Sometimes poisonous to cattle. Southern parts of the state.
Source: The Forests of Vermont ©1886

The culture and improvement of the blueberry is also receiving attention. There are large areas in the State which at present are practically worthless but which with a little attention and the planting of a few hundreds or thousands of blueberry bushes might, in our opinion, be made to yield profitable returns. Again, if the little dry, unsatisfactory June berry is worthy of culture in the garden, and it is cultivated to quite an extent, there certainly seems to be a field for work in developing improved varieties of the much more promising blueberry.
Source: Agriculture of Maine ©1895

Tacks

Here's something a little different for today's tidbit. TACKS, that's right those tiny little things that hold up papers on a board, fabric down on furniture and a pain when stepped on.

TIN TACKS
A few bright Nails of truth, Pins of thought, Pivots of illustration, and small Tin-Tacks for the Tiny Folks, are worth far more, practically, to busy workers than all the enlarged addresses in the world.
Source: Tin Tacks for Tiny Folks ©1898 The book is actually a sampler of various lessons one could use to help teach children.

In 1899 a patent was present for a machine for driving tacks in rapid fire action.

A patent for: This invention relates to improvements in hand-operated nailing-machines to drive tacks or nails in boots and shoes for lasting them.
Source Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the US Patent Office ©1878

When lightening was reported in striking a house:
The several parcels of nails, tacks, hinges, &c. that lay in the course it took, were very plainly affected by it: some of the small tacks in particular were soldered together, 6, 7, 8, or 10 in a clump, as if scalding metal had run over them. The papers of the parcels were burnt in small holes.
Source: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London ©1809

BRASS TACKS
Often ornamental as shown in the examples below:
Indian Muzzle-loading Rifle, cal. 52, made by H. E. Leman, Lancaster, Pa., percussion-lock, octagon barrel, maple stock, patch box, brass trimmings, ornamented with brass tacks. It also has a bullet hole through the stock near the patch box. [I.]
Indian M. L. Rifle, cal. 52, made by H. E. Leman, Lancaster, Pa., percussion-lock, Octagon barrel, maple stock, brass trimmings, patch box; stock ornamented with brass tacks, and broken near the lock; repaired with rawhide.

Also listed in some supplies:
Cooper Tacks,
Zinc Tacks
Iron Tacks
Steel Tacks
Lead Tacks

This advertisement comes from Geyer's Stationer ©1877

Drying Beef

Today we can purchase Beef Jerky at just about any store but when 19th Century folks spoke about dried beef, it wasn't what we think of with regard to beef jerky. In fact, you can still find 'dried beef' in some stores today. Below are some recipes from various sources with regard to drying beef. However, "Jerky" as we know it today was referred to as "Jerked Beef or Jerked Meat."

Jerked Meat. — What most persons imagine to be the significance of jerked in the compound "jerked beef" it would be hard to say. The word is not derived from the verb to jerk, but from the Peruvian charki, as is shown by the following citation from Prescott's " Conquest of Peru": "Flesh cut into thin slices was distributed among the people, who converted it into charki, the dried meat of the country."
Source: The Mistakes we Make ©1898

And I stumbled on this tidbit as well:
"Jerked beef" has been an important article of import into Cuba, and it may become still more so in the future, as Texas, with its millions of cattle, has a climate peculiarly adapted to the preparation of this form of beef product.
Source: Industrial Cuba ©1899

Beef—To Pickke For Winter Or Present Use, And For Drying.—Cut your beef into sizable pieces, sprinkle a little salt upon the bottom of the barrel only, then pack your beef without salt amongst it, and when packed pour over it a brine made by dissolving G lbs. of salt for each 100 lbs. of beef in just sufficient cold water to handsomely cover it.
You will find that you can cut and fry as nice as fresh, for a long time; just right for boiling, also; and when it gets a little too salt for frying, you can freshen it nearly as nicely as pork, for frying purposes, or you can boil of it, then make a stew for breakfast, very nice indeed. By the other plan it soon becomes too salt for eating, and the juices are drawn off by the salt. In three weeks, perhaps a lithe less, such pieces as are designed for drying will be ready to hang up, by soaking over night to remove the salt from the outside. Do not be afraid of this way; for it is very nice for winter and drying purposes; but if any is left until warm weather, throw away this brine, put salt amongst what is left and cover with the first brine, and all is right l'oi long keeping.
Source: Dr. Chase's Recipes ©1866

HUNG BEEF. Take any piece of beef you please, some prefer the navel piece; salt it in precisely the same way as directed for ham above, and keep it in salt for about the same period. Dry it also in the same way. When it is wanted boil it till it is tender. Note.—That some direct blood to be washed over the beef during its drying to make it of a dark colour; but this is surely a useless piece of art. Hung beef will require long soaking and boiling to be eatable: we do not much admire it, more especially if, before being salted, the beef has been hung in a cellar, as some of the books direct, till it becomes “a little sappy.”—Sappy indeed must he be who desires or directs the preparation of such a dish!
Source: Two Thousand Five Hundred Recipes in Family Cookery ©1837

DRIED BEEF.
Buy the best of beef, or that part which will be the most lean and tender. The tender part of the round is a very good piece. For every twenty pounds of beef use one pint of salt, one teaspoonful of saltpetre, and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar. Mix them well together, and rub the beef well with one-third of the mixture for three successive days. Let it lie in the liquor it makes for six days, then hang up to dry.
A large crock or jar is a good vessel to prepare the meat in before drying it.
Source: White House Cook Book ©1889

Domestic Art Textiles

Below is a five year plan written by John Dewey for the University of Chicago curriculum for textile work. This kind of information you might find helpful if your character is going or has gone to finishing school.

FIRST YEAR.
1. Simple weaving.
2. Sewing bag.—Materials: scrim or art denim, Barbary cotton. Stitches: basting, coarse back stitch
ing, overhanding basted hem, outlin-. ing name or initials, twisting cords for drawing string.
The child has his choice of color in the denim and sewing cotton used, and sometimes the bag is decorated with a blanket stitch around the edge or a stitching-stitch fastens the hem. The name is printed with a pencil on the bag in large letters and outlined in the same color used in sewing the bag. This bag is used through the course to hold the child's work.
SECOND YEAR.
1. Spinning.—Study of silkworm and cocoon. Cotton, wool and flax spinning with simple spindle.
2. Practical sewing.—Holder for use in cooking. Materials: felt, braid, No. 40 cotton. (A square piece of felt is cut the size of holder. Strips are cut lengthwise one-half inch from each edge. The braid is woven through and the ends fastened with a running stitch. The back is lined with unbleached muslin. This introduces the turning in of raw edges, the basting the edges even, and the overhanding the edges together.)
Needle Book. Materials: brown, coarse art canvas; Barbary cotton; white flannel. Stitches: blanket stitch on canvas and flannel; cross-stitch decoration.
Pin flat. Materials: card board; woolen cloth or silk. Stitches: basting in raw edges; overhanding.
Canvas mat with cross-stitch design in colored cotton.
Pincushion. Materials: art canvas, denim; Barbary cotton. Stitches: overcasting; stitches used in design; basting; back-stitch in color; overhanding of open end.
Designs were obtained as follows: Large photographs of snowflake crystals were shown, from which the children worked out a simple design first in drawing and then in cross-stitch on canvas.
THIRD YEAR.
Theoretical work is study of fibres of following materials: Cotton, flax, jute, hemp, wool and silk with reference to following points: where grown; where manufactured; how transported. Rough maps are made snowing the location of the countries where the fiber is produced, manufacturing centers, lines of transporta- . tion.
Practical sewing.—Burlap Pillows. Materials: burlaps; Barbary cotton; unbleached muslin for inside of pillow; moss for filling; frame to hold work. Stitches: stitches used in design; basting, back-stitch; overhanding; overcasting; filling with moss; fitting the two pillows.
Bag for soiled handkerchiefs.—Materials: coarse white art canvas; rope silk; wooden ring for top of bag; ribbon to cover ring. Stitches: Russian design in cross-stitch for border; initials in cross-stitch; hemming; running stitch; back-stitch.
Shoe bag. Materials: linen; braid. Stitches: binding with braid; hemming with braid; loops.
FOURTH YEAR.
Theoretical work.—Manufactured products. Study of different kinds of cloth: texture, hydroscopic nature, relation to warmth, inflammability.
The difference in texture, etc., de
pending both on the preparation of the fibre and its structure; the microscopic study of the different fibers is made here to bring out the differences which necessitate the various threads and therefore different cloths made from them.
Practical sewing.—Burlap curtains: knotted fringed ends; darned design in colored cotton. Paper dolls for illustration of historical work. Patterns for doll's clothes. Flannel skirt. Stitches: running and backstitch; catch-stitch; turning hem and basting; gathering; putting on band; sewing on button; loop for button.
FIFTH YEAR. Theoretical work. Cultivation of fibers; climate, topography. Kind of soil needed, and mode of cultivation. Preparation of fibers for manufacture. Practical work: darning stockings and mending; doll's outfit cut from patterns made preceding year.
SIXTH YEAR.
Theoretical work. History of manufacture of cloth. Development of spindle and loom. History of inventions and their commercial importance, with social changes effected. Study of present processes of manufacture.
Practical work.—Baby's dress and skirt; table linen; patching; darning; hemming damask; fringing doily; hemstitching; embroidering initials. Small sheet, pillow case.
Source: Everyday Housekeeping ©1899

Tidbits on Carrots

First we'll start with some basic info on carrots, move on to storage and then I'll share a few recipes. Enjoy!

THE CARROT.
The carrot is a root well worth the consideration of farmers; perhaps no root is better adapted to constitute a portion of food for milch cows, horses or swine. When fed to cows it adds largely to the flavor and quality of the milk, with a reasonable increase in quantity; no dairyman who makes butter or milk of the best quality would expect the best results without a liberal use of the carrot. The carrot adapts itself to most kinds of soil, but seems to succeed well on a deep loam with a slight admixture of sand.
If it is the desire of farmers to raise large and paying crops of the carrot, such can be produced with a great degree of certainty by a liberal dressing of good and well-decomposed manure to the land, which should be well ploughed in as early in the spring as possible. As soon as the weeds have come up the laud should be cross-ploughed as fine as possible with a swivel-plough; the land should then be harrowed and rolled, when it will be read)' for the seed. The seed should be soaked in warm water twenty-four hours previous to planting, and sunned a short time to dry the surface-moisture, that the seed may not clog in the seed-sower. The seed may be planted with any suitable machine that will sow thin; two pounds of seed per acre is more than enough, if judiciously planted; too thick sowing results in very unnecessary and expensive thinning; or if neglected, in a small growth of roots, expensive to harvest and to handle.
The seed may be planted from early in May to the 10th of June. Our practice is to plant in straight rows twenty-two inches apart, and the plants should be thinned to three or four inches in the row. The after-cultivation of the carrot should be always prompt; "hoe the ground and not the weeds," should be the motto. The horse-hoe can be used in the cultivation of the carrot to a very considerable extent, and our cultivation is very like that given the mangold. English turnips can be sown between the rows with the seed-sower by the 20th of July, without injury to the carrot, and will add materially to the product of the land. There are many varieties of carrot now grown in market-gardens, and as field crops. We have tried nearly all the prominent sorts that have been introduced in the last thirty years.
The Long Orange has for many years been a standard field variety. Perhaps no kind has been more extensively cultivated, or has better repaid its culture; but there are other kinds also very desirable. The intermediate, which arc shorter but larger in diameter—a very convenient root to handle in feeding—having a decided advantage in storage, occupying less space per ton, and in harvesting, to be pulled by hand, will yield a heavy weight per acre. There is also the Early Horn carrot, a shorter and heavier root in proportion to the size, thirty-five bushels weighing a ton; it takes forty bushels of the long sorts; they can be grown closer and make less tops than the longer sorts, and are more desirable for domestic use. The white sorts are not much grown by our farmers; they yield well, but do not store and keep as well as the yellow-fleshed sorts.
As regards the harvesting and storing the carrot, it is important to let the crop remain in the ground as late as the latter part of October or the 1st of November. In harvesting the long sorts the labor is lessened by cutting the tops with a sharp hoe, and raking them together and carting them to the stables to be fed to cows and horses; and they are greedily relished. Carrots may be more easily dug by running the plough on the side of the row of roots, when they can readily be pulled by hand and thrown into piles, where, aftpr a few hours' drying, they may be carted to the cellar for storage. Carrots require considerable ventilation until freezing weather sets in. When carrots are fed to milch-cows, if an equal amount of mangolds is used, a large flow of milk of good quality will be obtained. When fed to horses once a day, in the place of grain, they will be found most conducive to the health and strength of the animal.
Source: Public Documents of Massachusetts ©1875

Carrot Storage
Carrots, Beets, and Turnips.—Carrots should be stored on slat platforms in layers about 2 feet deep and covered lightly with sand. They tend to heat and decay and should have good ventilation. Beets, turnips, parsnips, and salsify, if stored in cellars, should be put in bins or boxes in layers 2 or 3 feet deep and covered with sand or soil to prevent shriveling. If not needed till spring, an excellent method is to store them in pits in the same manner as potatoes.
Source: Farmers' Bulletin ©1899

Carrots.—Let them be well washed and brushed, not scraped. An hour is enough for young spring carrots. Grown carrots must be cut in half, and will take from an hour and a half to two hours and a half. When done rub ofl‘ the peels with a clean, coarse cloth, and slice them in two or four, according to their size. The best way to try if they are done enough is to pierce them with a fork.
Carrot FRITTERS.—These very nice fritters are simply made, and we can recommend them as being an agreeable variety for a side dish at a small party. Beat two small boiled carrots to a pulp with a spoon, add three or four eggs, and half a handful of flour. Moisten with cream, milk, or a little white wine, and sweeten to taste; beat all well together, and fry them in boiling lard. When of good color take them off and serve, having squeezed over them the juice of an orange, and strewed them over with finely sifted sugar.
Source: The Godey's Lady's Book Receipts ©1870

Carrot Soup.
252. Carrot Sonp (without Meat). Take four or five large carrots, one turnip, three onions, and three heads of celery shred fine; put into a stew-pan with a quarter of a pound of butter, three cloves, some peppercorns, and a blade of mace; stir till it is a pulp; add half a pint of peas boiled to a pulp, two anchovies, and three quarts of water; let it simmer two hours, and rub through a hair sieve. If not thick enough, add a little flour and butter.
Another.—Slice two good-sized carrots, two large onions, one large turnip, and one stick of celery; dredge flour over them and fry till tender, with just butter enough to keep them from burning; put them in a stewpan, and pour enough boiling water to cover them. Stew them about four hours, and when half done add boiling water to make the proper thickness. Mash and strain through a sieve, and season with pepper and salt. If approved of, add a little cream.
Another Carrot Soup.—Take one turnip, two or three onions, and twelve carrots; boil them in some stock till quite tender, then rub tliem through a hair-sieve. Season with peppercorns and salt, if necessary, and thicken with a little flour and butter.
253. Carrot Soup (with Meat).—Put some beef-hones with four quarts of the liquor in which a leg of mutton or beef has been boiled, two large onions, a turnip, pepper, and salt, into a saucepan, and stew for three hours. Have ready six large carrots scraped and cut thin, strain the soup on them, and stew till soft enough to pulp through a hair-sieve or coarse cloth, then boil the pulp with the soup, which is to be as thick as pea-soup. Use two wooden spoons to rub the carrots through the sieve, and pulp only the red part of the carrot, not the yellow. Make the soup the day before, and add cayenne to the palate.
254. Carrot Soup (with Cream).—To the liquor that a knuckle of veal has been boiled in, add twelve large carrots; boil till the carrots will mash through a sieve, put them through, and then let them boil in the broth till quite smooth; add half a pint of cream and a little salt. It should be boiled till smooth, and of the consistence of pea-soup. Or, the stock may be made of one pound and a half of scrag of mutton, stewed in three quarts of water.
Source: The English Cookery Book©1859

1899 Japanese Ashore in San Diego, CA

Here's an interesting tidbit from the 19th Century. This was reported in Harper's Weekly July 1899.

JAPANESE SAILORS ASHORE FROM THE GUNBOAT “HEIYI" AT SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA.

THE Japanese gunboat Heiyi carries sailors and marines who are well up to the mark in point of discipline, and
who can row cleverly. Proof of these facts was offered at San Diego, California, towards the end of June, when the United States government showed its friendship for Japan by making an exception to the rule that no foreign power may place armed forces on American soil. The illustrations above show the men who were landed at San Diego for the purpose of drill. Evidence of the careful attention paid to shore drill by the Japanese navy was afforded to Americans on the Atlantic coast on the occasion of the launching of the Japanese cruiser Kasagi. While the Heiyi was at San Diego its boat crew won a very exciting six-oar barge-race from a crew representing our Naval Reserves.

Wax Dolls

When I stumbled on the term of a wax doll I just had to look it up and find more information on them. Enjoy!

THE WAX DOLL MANUFACTURE.
To make a real wax doll or one of papier-mache is quite a long process. First of all the limbs have to be made. The legs, either of pot or cotton, have to be filled out with moss and sawdust, and the same process is gone through with the body and arms, the task being entrusted to a number of young women. The head is more diflicult to make. First comes the moulding, from a kind of whity-brown paste, which when hard is almost indestructible. The head is moulded in two halves, the back and the front, and then the two parts are joined together with the same sort of paste. The heads are made by the thousand, of all shapes and sizes, and left for the moment unpolished and sickly looking. Then these frame pasteboard heads are carried to the wax room, where they are passed through some severe ordeals. The papier-mache model heads are dipped in boiling wax, and thus have the appearance of wax dolls. But the genuine article, the real dolls of wax, are made thus:—The boiling wax is poured into a plaster mould; it adheres to the sides as it becomes cold, and when the mould is taken apart there is the beautiful wax head, but simply a shell, and of course very weak. The head is cast complete, and only a small opening is left in the crown of the head. Then a workman takes the wax shell and very carefully lines it throughout with a kind of soft paste about the thickness of cardboard, which soon hardens and gives the head its strength and durability. After this process the head is placed over a hot furnace, the wax is permitted to melt to a very slight degree, whereupon it is dusted with powder made of potato meal and alabaster, to give it a delicate flesh tint. In another room the head is provided with a pair of eyes, and it is no easy thing for the workman to select two exactly alike.

Sometimes, as the children know, dolls squint, and this proves that the workman who put them in was not very careful in his work. Another very skillful workman then receives the head, and finishes off the front appearance of the eyes, scooping off all the wax and aflixing the lids in a charming manner. Then eyelashes have to be aflixed, and then the little lady has to be provided with teeth, which are put in by a skillful workman one by one. A still more interesting study is in the hair dressing room of a doll manufactory. All the dolls that come into this room are complete as far as their heads. The hair for these heads is first worked on to a mesh, which fits the dolls heads so nicely that one cannot tell but that it is a natural growth. Then the rough head of hair, with the doll, is sent to the female hair dressers, who are armed with combs and brushes and hot curling tongs, have no small amount of good taste, and would make excellent ladies’ maids. The hair is made up in the most beautiful manner, in imitation of the very newest fashions; and then when the doll is thus combed and curled, it is provided with a delicate little chemisette, and placed, with a hundred or more little companions, in a huge basket, and transported either to the great store—rooms or to the doll milliner who provides it with clothing and costumes fitting it to appear in the great world. This will only give a faint idea of how wax dolls are made. There are other interesting parts of the process such as how the baby dolls are made to open and shut their eyes and to cry 'papa' and 'mamma' but nearly all children at one time or another looked into these mysteries of doll life, and a description would be superfluous. NY Tribune.
Source: The People's Condensed Library ©1877

Wax dolls have undoubtedly become the favourites of our little English maidens. They have the disadvantage of being perishable, but that is a mere detail in these days of cheap toys. No doll made of other material can be given such a natural expression or such a rich peach-like complexion as the wax doll which is made by the hundred and thousand in German factories. For, alas! although 125 years ago this business was in the hands of Englishmen, it has long since passed over to foreigners. Our photographs of doll-making were taken in one of the half-dozen surviving manufactories in London, and the various operations portrayed will be manifest to the reader. The most tedious work in the perfecting of a wax doll is the insertion of the eyelashes and eyebrows, and consequently these details are omitted in all but the most expensive varieties. There is a wonderful similarity in the features of wax dolls of one make, which is accounted for by the fact that their faces are cast in a uniform mould. When, however, a doll is to be made for Royalty, a far more elaborate task falls to the duty of the workman. As a rule, Royal dolls' faces have to be made according to certain photographs sent with the orders. This year it is said that most of the dolls made for the use of our little Princes and Princesses bear a wonderful resemblance to Queen Wilhelmina, although whether her youthful Majesty feels flattered by the multiplicity of her effigies is a question open to doubt.
Source: The Royal Magazine ©1899

The Folly of Housecleaning by a Bachelor

Here's a very different take on housework and cleaning from a bachelor's perspective. It's a fun read, enjoy!

BY A BACHELOR.
As a bachelor who has lived with various married brothers, I want to enter my protest against the senseless practice of house-cleaning. Cannot housewives see that the act is an admission of poor house-keeping ability? A well-kept house is clean. This is an axiom. And if it is clean, where is the need of house-cleaning?
I am not the first man to cry out against this practice. I remember to have read numerous articles by the funny men of the press directed against this vice, but to me the affair has no funny side. Is it humorous to have to move all your belongings from one room to another in a vain effort to escape the deadly ravages of the housewife? Is it a joke to have to eat your meals on the gas-stove and do your writing on the stationary tubs while your wife and the maids are rubbing imaginary dirt from the dining-room and sweeping it from your study?

A woman with the fever of housecleaning upon her is not responsible for her acts. There is no woman living who is so sweet-tempered that she can go through an attack of housecleaning without turning—her temper. There is no man alive who is so angelic that he can avoid giving his wife offense while she is under the fell influence of the national disease. Does a man tell you he helped his wife put up or take down the dining-room stove without any hard words? Trust him not, he is fooling thee, as Longfellow was in the habit of saying.

A soft answer turneth away wrath, but not when you are helping your wife take up the matting. She will bowl over your soft answer with words hard enough to drive tacks. If a young man instead of trying to find out the quality of his fiancee's temper by taking her to the theatre and to evening parties, would visit her at her home when she and her mother are roaming unshackled all over the house in the last stages of house-cleaning, marriage would not be so lightly entered into, nor would divorces be so disgustingly prevalent.

Nor is a woman to be blamed for becoming infuriated over the process of house-cleaning. A man may be in Wall Street during a panic, he may be the overseer of a gang of incompetents, he may be superintendent of an insane asylum, but he will never have any experiences so trying to his temper as the useless but seemingly inevitable experience of house-cleaning.

I picked up a paper this morning, and in the local notes was the report of an accident to a young woman. She had smashed her thumb while housecleaning. Is a clean house worth a flattened thumb? Are spick-and-span rooms worth the alienation of a husband's affections?

What is it to the minister that his wainscoting looks fresh and clean, when the style of his sermon has been muddied by many interruptions? Why s hould the poet be proud that his wife has polished the legs of the piano and brightened the hands of the clock, when the feet of his poem have been so injured that they limp under the stern eye of the reviewer? What is it to the domestic man that his bedroom is sweet and fresh while the wife of his bosom is hag-worn and soured by the process?

House-breaking is less of a crime than house-cleaning. It is less insidious. It is attended with fewer hard words, with much less noise and displacement of dust, and it is accomplished by an avowed enemy of society instead of by the companion of your life-journey. And it is vastly more successful—from the burglar's point of view at least.
I knew a man in Chicago who made a practice of never marrying until after his prospective wife had finished her annual house-cleaning. As a consequence, his marriages were singularly happy ones.

But the most diabolical kind of house-cleaning is that form which attacks some women who have had generations of thrifty and neat forebears, but who themselves are anything but neat. With these women house-cleaning is an involuntary act. They go through the motions, they have all the symptoms in their most aggravated form; the husband eats in the kitchen; the wife's temper is lost beyond hope of a clew; and in spite of all the house is not clean. They are like the dog who turns around thrice before lying down—he knows not why; or the hen brought up on a macadamized floor, who scratches as hard as did her ancestors in the garden.

Women who in other respects are singularly open to reason, and whose minds are as progressive as a game of euchre, will stand up for this habit with all the narrow-mindedness of a backwoods woman. Ask any woman of your acquaintance whether she believes in cleaning house, and she will look at you as though she thought your sanity in doubt. Then ask any married man, and he will tell you that the vermiform appendix is not moreuseless than house-cleaning. With this difference of opinion between the sexes, it is easy to fancy the bitter' words that are laid to the credit of a couple that have been married sixty years, and whose house has been devastated three-score times by the whirlwind of house-cleaning.

Spring would be the most delightful season of the year if house-cleaning were abolished. To the house-cleaner the odors of the woods and fields appeal in vain; sweeter to her is the smell of soap and patent cleansers. The tender grace of the adolescent maple leaves is as nothing while the walnut leaves of the extension-table need scouring.
Happy is that man whose wife never allows her house to get dirty, for tohim house-cleaning shall be unknown, and the passage of the lives of the twain shall be as unruffled as that of two leaves on the bosom of a placid stream. And the address of that wife shall be found in the directory of the millenium.—Charles Battel Loomis, in Harper's Bazar.

Lunch Menus and a recipe for Croquettes

I stumbled on this comment regarding lunch that I'd never heard before. "The menu: for the second breakfast, the lunch, which is served at twelve o’clock, and for dinner, which comes at about six o’clock in the afternoon," (The Chautauquan ©1899 Personally, I've never heard of lunch being called the second breakfast before, perhaps some of you have.

Today our tidbit are some Lunch Menus.

Deviled Crabs Parker House Rolls
Coffee
Fruit Hot Gingerbread

Curry of Beef, Rice
Baked Bananas
Coffee
Fruit

Baked Tomatoes, Cream Sauce
Milk Biscuits Tea
Potato Salad
Fruit

Macaroni Croquette, Cheese Sauce
Peas
Cress Salad
Wafers
Fruit
Source: Household News ©1895


And here's a little tidbit about Croquettes and specifically at the end of the paragraph what Macaroni Croquettes are.
CROQUETTES—The word signifies something crisp. Croquettes are balls or any shape of almost any eatable thing, floured or bread-crumbed and fried in plenty of hot fat, then drained on paper. Chicken Croquettes A L'italienne—Meat of i large chicken cut in very small squares, half as much mushrooms; little chopped shallot; butter and flour fried together; broth added to make thick sauce; yolks of egg's, chicken and mushrooms stirred into the sauce; made cold; rolled into pear shapes, or rolls; breaded; fried; served with Italian sauce. Croquettes Of Beef Palates—Beef palates parboiled and skinned; cooked 3 hours, and pressed; cut in small dice; made same as chicken croquettes; tomato sauce. Croquettes De Homard-Lobster croquettes; tne meat, coral, white sauce, yolks of egg's> and butter, made into smooth long rolls; breaded; fried; served with any fish sauce, which then gives the name, as with Hollandaise sauce. Croquettes De Cekveli.es— Brains scrambled with bread crumbs, milk, flour, yolks, little minced shallot, nutmeg, lemon juice, pepper, salt, parsley; made in cone or pear shapes; breaded; fried. Croquettes De Volaille Aux Truffes—Chicken with truffles mixed in, instead of mushrooms, and served with truffle sauce. Croquettes De Volaille A L'ecarLate—With red tongue in the composition and in the sauce. Croquettes De Pommes—Apple marmalade stiffened with corn starch; cooled; cut in oblongs; breaded; fried; served with sweet sauce or jelly. Ckoquttes De Riz—Rice boiled dry, slightly sweetened; butter and yolks added; made in pear shapes; floured; breaded; fried; currant jelly for sauce. Croquettes De Riz De Veau—calves' sweetbreads; same way as chicken or brains. CroQuettes Of Rice Axd Ham—A London caterer's specialty. Potted ham or tongue made in small balls; rice cooked and seasoned; yolks and whipped whites added; the ham balls covered with the rice paste; egged; rolled in ground pop-corn; fried; white sauce containing lemon juice. Turkey CroQuettes—Made of 1 lb. cold turkey, % lb. bread crirtnbs, % lb. butter, 1 teaspoon ■ onion, 4 eggs, parsley, little nutmeg, salt, cayenne, sweet cream; bread wetted with cream, butter and eggs; stirred over the fire, chopped meat added; cooled; balled up; fried. Croquettes De Macaroni—Macaroni and cheese in croquette form.
Source: The Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering ©1889