In these days of ‘gig’ employment and lots of home delivery options, we may forget why there is a day dedicated to those who work for a living—that is, most of us. In the late 1800s, there was a lot of labour unrest, in part because of long hours, over-controlling bosses, low pay and dangerous… Continue reading A Story for Labour Day
Category: History
A Unionist and Two Yankees in Montana
When US 20 leaves the western bounds of Yellowstone Park, it passes through the small southern tip of Montana for about ten miles. Montana therefore deserves a spot of recognition in this tale. Let’s focus on the gold rush to Montana during the Civil War, and on two Yankees and a Georgia Unionist who played… Continue reading A Unionist and Two Yankees in Montana
Wyoming: More Ladies, Please
We will remain out of the Union a hundred years, rather than come in without our women [voters]! - Message about Acquiring Statehood from the Wyoming Legislature to the US Congress, 1890. In 1869, The Union Pacific (UP), commonly called ‘the transcontinental railroad’, was about to join up with the Central Pacific Railroad (CPR) in… Continue reading Wyoming: More Ladies, Please
Those Healthy Yankees Part 2: Joel Shew, Mary Gove Nichols and the Water Cure
This is the second in a two-part piece on the early 19th Century Yankee contribution to healthy lifestyles (you can read of Part 1 here). The parallels with today’s pandemic are most interesting. The material comes from a chapter in Volume 2 of my book, The Yankee Road. By 1840, Massachusetts school reformer Horace Mann… Continue reading Those Healthy Yankees Part 2: Joel Shew, Mary Gove Nichols and the Water Cure
Those Healthy Yankees Part 1: Graham and Alcott
This is the start of a two-part piece on the early 19th Century Yankee contribution to healthy lifestyles. The parallels with today’s pandemic are most interesting. The material comes from a chapter in volume 2 of my book The Yankee Road. In 1832, the Great Cholera Epidemic hit the United States. It was another of… Continue reading Those Healthy Yankees Part 1: Graham and Alcott
Following Paddy’s Footsteps: Two European “Road Books”
A long time ago, a friend introduced me to the story of the British writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor. At the age of 18 in 1933, being both charming and restless, he decided to walk alone overland from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul. He planned, if that is the word for it, on sleeping in… Continue reading Following Paddy’s Footsteps: Two European “Road Books”
American Road Books
"Not only for Cyrus’ sake did Xenophon march up toward the Persians. But in search of a road which led up to Zeus." Diogenes Laërtius Americans have added, in great numbers, to the road book literature. American stories of travel and roads have been conditioned by the general habit of a people constantly on the… Continue reading American Road Books
The Yankee Origins of Baseball
The following is adapted from my book, The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe that Created Modern America My wife and I have visited Cooperstown at least four times, primarily to view the Baseball Hall of Fame. The “downtown” of today’s village of two thousand people is a standard tourist trap:… Continue reading The Yankee Origins of Baseball
Welcome to the Blog!
Recently, I finished writing a three-volume project that tells the story of the experiences of the people in New England and surrounding areas to its north and south as they made their way west, out of the relatively infertile land of north America’s east coast toward the more fertile center of the continent. I've called… Continue reading Welcome to the Blog!
Old Professor by the Sea 