Civil War Romance: J.E.B. Stuart Conquered!

In 1855, J.E.B. Stuart met Flora Cooke, the daughter of the commander of the 2nd U.S. Dragoon regiment, Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke. They became engaged in September, less than two months after meeting. Stuart humorously wrote of his rapid courtship in Latin, "Veni, Vidi, Victus sum" (I came, I saw, I was conquered).





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Cocktail History: American Culture at the Paris Exposition

The Cocktail is, perhaps, America’s mot important contribution to the culture of the world. The first cocktail known to history was described in an American periodical of 1816. The American display at the Paris Exposition of 1867 featured a genuine American bar dispensing New World concoctions. Two British critics, Henry Porter and George Roberts, deplored the, “…sensation drinks which have lately traveled across the Atlantic. We will pass the American bar, with its bad brandies and fiery wine, and express gratification at the slight success which, ‘Pick-Me-Up’, ‘Corpse-Reviver’, ‘Chain Lightning’, and the like have had in this country.”



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Are Taxes too Low?

No one likes taxes (or death), but here is a little historical context when you are forced to listen to the political rhetoric:

Top income tax rates in the United States:

1913: 77 %

1932: 63 %

1945: 94 %

1963: 90 %

1964: 77 %

1988: 28 %

1991: 31 %

2009: 35 %





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Cars and the Environment

In September 1895, the Duryea brothers established the first American company to manufacture gasoline-driven cars, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. In 1904 the Ford Motor Company produced 1,695 cars, and by 1907 had increased its production to 14,887. America’s love affair with the automobile had begun in earnest and has never stopped, as demonstrated by the fact that by 2006 there were some 251 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S. owned by a population of 298 million. There is now a car for virtually every man, woman and child in America. Overall passenger vehicles have been outnumbering licensed drivers since 1972 at an ever increasing rate. New York City is the only place in the country where more than half of all houselholds do not own a car.



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The Civil War “Marrying Craze”

The diaries of hundreds of women of the time attest to the “marrying craze” sweeping the South. "Every girl in Richmond is engaged or about to be”, wrote Phoebe Pember Yates in February 1864. Fear of spinsterhood and natural desire heightened by the immediacy of war led to many unconventional matches, many reflecting the truth of a phrase common to the time, “The blockade don’t keep out babies.”

Things in the North were somewhat better, but single men were still scarce. Mary Livermore wrote, "Wisconsin and Iowa are run by women". Women were doing jobs previously performed by men. Women were in the fields, behind store counters and manning factories. Recuperating soldiers were eagerly sought after.






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