A fascinating true story of a revolutionary figure in the history of American medicine who has for some reason remained in obscurity – until now. Aptowicz’s well-researched and, even more importantly, well-written biography of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter has all the excitement of a true thriller. Clearly entranced by her subject. Aptowicz introduces us to a dazzling innovator in the field of medicine, who not only saved countless lives with his introduction into the U.S. of the virtually non-existent field of “radical surgery” (what we […]
“To Be a Godey’s Lady….”
In my continual search for quantitative research on Godey’s Lady’s Book, I came across “Mr. Godey’s Ladies: Being a Mosaic of Fashions and Fancies” by Robert Kunciov, which after the disappointment of the “Sarah Josepha Hale” book, I was leery. I was pleasantly surprised however, by the wonderful reproductions and a few color plates of the original etchings, as well as the author’s selections of excerpts from the original text. He begins with a chronology of the types of fashions, detailing the trends, colors, and […]
Everything History Should Not Be
I’m so angry that THIS was my half-cannon ball….. I’m working on researching “Godey’s Lady’s Book” for an annual historic fashion show I run, and there’s a striking lack of historical documentation about this famous magazine other than manually plowing through 60 years worth of the magazine itself, and frankly, I don’t have that kind of time. So I thought I would do a bit of digging about the founder and his editor, Sarah Hale, to shed some light on the gaping holes I have […]
Taking the Romance out of the Victorian Era
I picked this book based on a recommendation from NPR’s Book Concierge for 2014., under the category For History Lovers. It’s a very long, very detailed book. I did some research on the author afterwards and learned that she did live the life of a Victorian for a BBC show called Victorian Farm. So when she talks about what it was like to wear period clothes and use a scythe, she had that experience for a year. The book discusses everything from the morning wash […]
“Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos.”
This book wasn’t exactly what I thought it was when I decided to read it. I thought Mary Roach would be writing from the perspective of what needs to be done/brought/invented to get us to a place where we are sending humans to live on Mars. What Roach really does is explain how the same things which had to be accomplished for basic space flight and putting a man on the moon are the things that scientists of various stripes are working on right now […]
A year in the revolution.
This isn’t the book I wanted to read, or was expecting to read, but it was good nonetheless. What I was expecting: 1. A book about the first full year of the American Revolution (this part was accurate). 2. Insight into the causes of the Revolution (absent almost completely). 3. Portrayals of the way the two sides saw each other, and why (somewhat present). 4. Stuff about George Washington and the other founding fathers (there was some stuff on George Washington, mostly in his role […]
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