Guest Blog: Kate Rothwell

This week, we're welcoming historical romance author Kate Rothwell, (who also writes as Summer Devon). Her title, SOMEONE TO CHERISH, (formerly published as The Rat Catcher) features a heroine down on her luck in 19th-century New York City.  Kate is here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Here's the blurb:

The death of Callie Scott’s fashionable father left her with nothing—except an inquisitive mind not even her grandmother’s puritanical upbringing could quash. An adventurous spirit doesn’t help the sheltered young lady in 1884 New York City, and she must accept an abysmal position as a companion.

Things are looking up when she lands a trial job in a “special” library. Her benefactor’s offer of wine before noon should have signaled something amiss—not to mention the heated text she’s asked to translate. The more she reads, the more wine she needs to cool her blush.

Detective Cutter can’t quite place the tipsy young woman he encounters in a notorious brothel, but when she plants a dizzying kiss on his lips, he’s sure she doesn’t belong there. The resulting scandal of the police raid leaves Callie on the street, and Cutter feels responsible for her welfare.

Despite the cruel knowledge that he will never be part of her world, Cutter impulsively offers her a job in his home, where she turns out to possess more than the face of an angel. She has an irresistible, innocent sensuality—and an insatiable curiosity that could bring her one step too close to a murderer.

**Q&A with Kate Rothwell**

Where do you get your ideas?

I don’t have a clue. Usually I have far too many stories rolling around in my head and have no time to capture them all. For the first time in years, I’ve got a blank brain. There are some manuscripts hanging around that I should edit, but I like having a new project started. So I put out a call on my Facebook page for five word contributions to Start Up the Plot Bunnies.  https://www.facebook.com/kate.rothwell  Here are the words my Facebook friends gave me:

Melvin felt his heart die.
And so it begins. :)
Step up to the plate~~~
The ticket's hidden at McDonald's.
The gun's in your purse.
I lied about last night.
The plot rabbit was fox-snatched.
She plummeted from the dream
I can't do just five words..."although I understand the intent".
Little did he know, his death was closing in on him.
disgrace, religion, pharmacy, ice cream, tow truck
disparity wormhole leverage framework sacrificial
‎"What the hell IS that?!"
the nutella killer has escaped‽
I have no idea how.
She never wanted a goat.

…I love writing exercises. Maybe you could use some of these?

You write about 1880s New York. What about that era has vanished that you wish still existed?

I’m not sure that we’re so far removed from that world.  I guess I’d bring back the push-carts (anyone read The Pushcart Wars, a kids’ book by Jean Merrill? I loved that story) and I love reading the descriptions of the esoteric businesses that filled the city. But if you go only a couple of blocks away from the less touristy parts of New York, you’ll still find the strange little shops and restaurants. It isn’t all Saks and Olive Garden.

From the primary material I read from the era, I get a sense of exuberance and zest for growth that isn’t inhibited with the fears we have now. Because I mean well-founded fears, such as damage to the environment or disregard to personal safety, I’m not sure I’d want to bring back that recklessness. 

I’d love to see the clothes! I’m not so sure I’d want to wear them. Oh, here’s something I’d bring back with no reservations: the milkman delivering bottles every morning. I’d prefer it if he’d drive a horse-cart, too.

You’re Kate Rothwell and Summer Devon. Why do you use two names for your writing?  

Summer used to be responsible for the hotter titles. These days, I’m not as certain which name goes with which sorts of stories. The only thing I’m sure of: Summer will always be the name I use on the m/m stories and the stories I write with Bonnie Dee.

What are you working on?

I should be editing a couple of stories. One’s set in 1880s New York and features a heroine based on Nelly Bly and a newspaper publisher who’s determined to get her to work for him (think His Girl Friday). I think I’ll go play with that right now.

Bonnie Dee and I have a contemporary coming out at the end of this month. I’m looking forward to seeing that in print—and it will also be a recorded book. That’s a first!

Is that New York historical about a journalist a romance?

Everything I write is! Next up: taking those words my Facebook friends gave me and wrestling them into something fun.

Thank you, Kate, and best of luck with Someone to Cherish, available now! The first full chapter of the book is included in Kate's FREE read, a novella, Seducing Miss Dunaway. Get your copy of Someone to Cherish at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Excerpt Thursday: Someone to Cherish by Kate Rothwell

This week on Excerpt Thursday, we're welcoming historical romance author Kate Rothwell, (who also writes as Summer Devon). Her title, SOMEONE TO CHERISH, (formerly published as The Rat Catcher) features a heroine down on her luck in 19th-century New York City.  Join us Sunday, when Kate be here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Here's the blurb:

The death of Callie Scott’s fashionable father left her with nothing—except an inquisitive mind not even her grandmother’s puritanical upbringing could quash. An adventurous spirit doesn’t help the sheltered young lady in 1884 New York City, and she must accept an abysmal position as a companion.

Things are looking up when she lands a trial job in a “special” library. Her benefactor’s offer of wine before noon should have signaled something amiss—not to mention the heated text she’s asked to translate. The more she reads, the more wine she needs to cool her blush.

Detective Cutter can’t quite place the tipsy young woman he encounters in a notorious brothel, but when she plants a dizzying kiss on his lips, he’s sure she doesn’t belong there. The resulting scandal of the police raid leaves Callie on the street, and Cutter feels responsible for her welfare.

Despite the cruel knowledge that he will never be part of her world, Cutter impulsively offers her a job in his home, where she turns out to possess more than the face of an angel. She has an irresistible, innocent sensuality—and an insatiable curiosity that could bring her one step too close to a murderer.

**An Excerpt from Someone To Cherish**

The three-story brownstone lay not far from Gramercy Square. Not at all the sort of residence one expected a police officer could afford. She supposed that the house had been carved into apartments and that explained the matter. She'd heard mutterings from Mrs. Lucien about how the old neighborhoods were dying and the best residences were being built further and further uptown.

Officer Cutter answered the door. She tried not to stare, but he was dressed in blue trousers, shirtsleeves, no jacket or waistcoat, with his suspenders showing. He had his sleeves pushed up to reveal strong forearms that had discernable brown hair on them. His collar was gone and she could see the dip at the base of his throat.

Callie was not used to seeing men in dishabille. Her face grew hot and she stared at the floor.

"Come on," he said. He must have seen her discomfort for he rolled down his shirtsleeves and when she felt brave enough to look up, he grinned at her. Oh, goodness. She'd forgotten how his grin transformed his features to an almost puckish intelligence. Her face grew so hot she wondered how she could see through the red haze.

He took a step back and she realized she still stood on the doorsill.

"I won't hurt you," he said mildly.

"No, of course not. I didn't think you would." Her nervousness made her sound waspish. Hardly the way to begin a working relationship with an employer.

"I, er, assumed you did not mind Mauschen?" She shifted the dog under her arm forward for his inspection.

"Suppose not."

"She's not very active."

He eyed the dog doubtfully. "Sure she's still alive?"

"Usually. Sometimes I feel I should check her breathing." Callie smiled, grateful that the peculiar tension between them had eased. "She is content, I hope."

He led her through the high-ceilinged room on the first floor and she was struck by the odd contrast. She caught sight of elegant molding, huge windows, a marble fireplace but she only had glimpses because so many things cluttered the space. A stuffed blue jay perched on a pedestal next to an iron, which lay on top of a cracked firescreen, next to a stack of books near an empty elaborate wrought-iron cage of some sort. A path was cleared through the haphazard stacks of objects, but she still had to step over a dusty belljar.

"Granny," he explained. "A collector, or was."

"I see." Callie disengaged her skirt that caught on the spindle of a broken chair. "Er. Why?"

He rubbed his chin."I'd best explain. Come on."

They threaded their way through the stacks and piles to the kitchen that felt huge because it was nearly empty.

"Her stuff's only in two rooms," he said. "Want coffee? Tea?"

"Coffee, please." She wondered if she should offer to make it, but realized she had no idea how to brew coffee.

As Officer Cutter turned the handle to grind the beans, he spoke. "Granny's eccentric. Suspicious of most people. Happiest going through rubbish. Was doing that when I met her."

"When you met her? But I thought..."

Before she could think of a polite way of phrasing it, he shook his head. "Naw. Ain't my real Granny. Don't have one." He pulled out the drawer from the mill and dumped the coffee into the pot. His motions were clean and deft, as if he made hundreds of pots of coffee every day.

"You were saying," she prompted.

He gave her an impassive look. "She lived in a pit--a basement. Rags and bones. I changed it slow, so she wouldn't notice. Always been... eccentric. She's sick now. So. That's all. If she takes to you, I'll pay five dollars a week. And room and board."

Callie gasped. "That's far too generous."

"Not if she's safe. Might not work. I've tried before." He rubbed his knuckle over his upper lip. She'd seen him do that before. It brought back the confused frightful feeling she'd had that day in the library. She'd wanted to feel that lip too. Oh, goodness, please not another blush, but she could feel the heat rise.

He didn't seem to notice. "Hmmm. Pretend you're related. Or a friend, come to call. Maybe a lady's companion." He smirked slightly, no doubt recalling her recent past. "Yah. Could work. She might be used to it. I think she's from your world."

"My world?"

"Money." He plunked down two mismatched cups on the table with no saucers. "Respectable. She wasn't always a trash picker."

"But she was when you met her." Callie wondered if she would risk rudeness if she pressed him about Granny's past, or his own.

"Yup."

Apparently he wasn't going to volunteer more.

He poured out the coffee and sat down across from her at the small table. How large he seemed. And every time she snuck a peek at him, he was watching her with those steady blue eyes. The same thoughtful examination he'd given her in Panz's library. One corner of his mouth quirked up into a grin and she realized she'd been staring at him as she tried to remember exactly what that kiss had been like.

"Willing to try?"

Heaven help her. For the briefest moment she wondered if he meant another kiss. "Yes, please, I would like to see if I can take care of your, um, Granny."

Guest Blog: DeAnna Cameron

This week, we're welcoming historical fiction author DeAnna Cameron. Her most recent title, DANCING AT THE CHANCE is set in New York City in the early 1900's, where a strong-minded but insecure heroine, Pepper McClair, chases an elusive dreams.  DeAnna is here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Leave a comment for your chance to win. Here's the blurb:

New York City in 1907 is a kingdom of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream. The Gilded Age has ended, and immigrants fill the bustling streets. The glamour of Broadway lures those who desire the limelight-but only a few are fortunate enough to thrive in the lights of a city that casts long, dark, and merciless shadows...

Pepper MacClair and her mother arrived penniless in New York thirteen years ago, and their fortune has not changed. A dancer of fluid grace and motion, Pepper is still only one chorus girl among many, struggling for an opportunity to prove herself worthy of something bigger.

For now, Pepper dances at The Chance, a rundown venue long past its prime. It is not only Pepper's workplace, where she has pushed her physical endurance to its limit, but also her home. And as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of New York's elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to fulfill her heart.

**Q&A with DeAnna Cameron**

What inspired you to write about vaudeville in Old New York?

When I finished writing THE BELLY DANCER, my debut novel about the scandal surrounding the belly dancers who performed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, it was my intention to write a sequel that would follow the lives of those performers into the vaudeville circuits, which is where many of them went when the fair closed. But when I began researching the world of vaudeville, especially what was taking place in New York at the turn of the last century, I realized I had stumbled upon a forgotten moment in the history of the entertainment industry – or at least a moment that has been forgotten by many of us in the current generation.

Why would you say vaudeville has been forgotten?

When people recall that time in American history – the late 1800s and early 1900s – they tend to focus on what was happening out west with the settlers, the prospectors, the cowboys and all of that. But those individuals weren’t the only resourceful Americans pulling themselves by their bootstraps. The theatrical world, especially in New York, was full of them.

People also seem to have forgotten that many of the early vaudevillians became some of the greatest names of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, and Mae West, to name a few. But to me, the marquee stars weren’t as compelling or as interesting as the performers who toiled at the bottom of show bills. The show openers and chasers who put in so much time and hard work for very little pay and prestige who were merely following their muse and a hope that one day they would get that big break. There’s something very quixotic in that, and that became the world I wanted to explore in DANCING AT THE CHANCE. I wanted to know what kept those performers going and why they sacrificed so much for what seemed to be so little.

Since DANCING AT THE CHANCE began as a sequel to THE BELLY DANCERS, do the belly dancers make an appearance?

They do! The story belongs to a whole new cast of characters, but the belly dancers do make an appearance. And the heroine from THE BELLY DANCER plays a particularly important role as a mentor, of sorts. There’s also a glimpse of what happens to the belly dancers after their departure from the fair.

What part of DANCING AT THE CHANCE is fact, and what part is fiction?

It’s really a blend of both. The Chance Theatre is an invention of my imagination, but it was inspired by many of the small and struggling theaters operating in New York at the turn of the last century.  Similarly, the major characters are fictional, but in many cases they were inspired by real-life counterparts. For example, male impersonator Ella Shields influenced Em Charmaigne, and Trixie Small was based somewhat on the dancer Madge Lessing. Like many vaudevillians from this time, though, too little information was available to do a legitimate portrayal, so what I could learn about those performers was just a starting point for the characters they became in the novel.

Fortunately, there is ample information available on Florenz Ziegfeld and early cinema pioneer Edwin S. Porter, which made it possible to present them as themselves in the story. In the case of Ziegfeld, who plays a pivotal role in the story, I preserved the details of his life and work as much as possible, including the fact that in the spring of 1907 he would have been making arrangements for his inaugural Follies, which for that first outing was titled Follies of 1907.

New York was the center of the entertainment world at the turn of the last century, but Los Angeles now fills that role. Do you think living in Southern California influenced how you wrote DANCING AT THE CHANCE?

I believe it did. Around here, film shoots are common. It might be “90210” or “CSI: Miami” shooting at the beach, or a movie like “J. Edgar” shooting at historic old Santa Ana Courthouse. And just about everyone has some association with individuals who work in the local entertainment industry. It might be a screenwriter or an actor, but more often it’s the professionals who work behind the scenes. The people whose names appear deep in the rolling credits. The key grips, the makeup artists, the production assistants. So for many of us in this region, we feel close to this industry whether we have a direct connection to it or not. It feels personal, and it feels natural to me to want to celebrate its history. I think in many ways DANCING AT THE CHANCE is my way of doing that.

Thank you, DeAnna, and best of luck with DANCING AT THE CHANCE! 

To celebrate the back-to-back releases of DANCING AT THE CHANCE and the reissue of THE BELLY DANCER, weekly prizes & a grand prize of a Kindle or Nook (winner's choice) are up for grabs on the author's website. Visit www.DeAnnaCameron.com and follow the contest link for details.

Excerpt Thursday: Dancing At The Chance by DeAnna Cameron

This week on Excerpt Thursday, we're welcoming historical fiction author DeAnna Cameron. Her most recent title, DANCING AT THE CHANCE is set in New York City in the early 1900's, where a strong-minded but insecure heroine, Pepper McClair, chases an elusive dreams.  Join us Sunday, when DeAnna will be here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Here's the blurb:

New York City in 1907 is a kingdom of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream. The Gilded Age has ended, and immigrants fill the bustling streets. The glamour of Broadway lures those who desire the limelight-but only a few are fortunate enough to thrive in the lights of a city that casts long, dark, and merciless shadows...

Pepper MacClair and her mother arrived penniless in New York thirteen years ago, and their fortune has not changed. A dancer of fluid grace and motion, Pepper is still only one chorus girl among many, struggling for an opportunity to prove herself worthy of something bigger.

For now, Pepper dances at The Chance, a rundown venue long past its prime. It is not only Pepper's workplace, where she has pushed her physical endurance to its limit, but also her home. And as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of New York's elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to fulfill her heart.

**An Excerpt from Dancing at the Chance**

Chapter One

New York, 1907

For a full half hour the stage manager sat on a stool near the footlights, his fingers curled on the hooked head of his cane, silently watching the vaudeville players at morning rehearsal. Not a single word of correction or praise passed his lips, not even the typical complaint that a minute be cut from one bit or added to another. Harland Stanley was biding his time.

But now, as Pepper MacClair hunched against a white gazebo set piece with her knees pulled to her chest and the hem of her black cotton frock skimming the top edge of her boots, she watched the man pummel the heel of his steel-braced foot into the boards, not once, but three times in a brutal call for quiet.

In an instant, the music stopped, the voices fell away.

This was why they were here, the reason the scrawled note had been tacked to the call board telling performers and stagehands alike they were expected on the stage.

No exceptions, no excuses. Even the wardrobe mistress was sitting upon a crate, tugging her needle and thread through a ripped seam on an extra-large pair of green plaid trousers.

Jimmy, the opening-act juggler, roused himself from beside the piano, the brim of his bowler clenched between his fidgety fingers. “Mr. Stanley, before you say anything about that Variety notice, I’d like to say in my defense that it was hardly raining plates upon the stage. It was one plate, sir, only one.”

The stage manager raised his palm. “I am not concerned with your dropped plate, Mr. Jack.” He turned to Marvani, the magician. “Nor am I concerned with the dove that seemed to disappear beneath your cape until it escaped by way of your sleeve.” He turned to the Shorty Shakespeareans, a troupe of thespians measuring between three and four feet tall. “Neither will I remark upon certain forgotten lines from the Midsummer scene, except to say it was most unfortunate that these events— and others—were witnessed by the only critic to visit The Chance Theatre in well over a year. Shall we leave it at that?”

The stage filled with murmurs of shame and sheepish agreement.

Pepper watched her fellow players in disbelief before scrambling to her feet. “No,” she declared. “We should not leave it at that.”

She searched for a supportive nod from any quarter, but no one met her gaze.

Except Stanley, who stared back with a hateful glare. “I suppose you would prefer I make light of these errors? Or lie and say such mistakes don’t matter?”

“No, but what you might say . . . You could say . . .” She did not know what he should say, only that what he had said was frightfully unfair. The day the critic appeared had been an awful day at the theater. Another stagehand had quit, the third that month, and a ventriloquist with two weeks left to his contract had gotten himself arrested for disorderly conduct during the dinner break. The shuffling backstage had taken a toll, as Stanley was very much aware.

He smiled and watched her fluster.

“You could say the notice was undeserved,” she blurted at last.

“Undeserved, Miss MacClair?”

“Yes, very much undeserved.” Fresh conviction swelled within her. “You could say it was untrue. That we are not a ‘band of vaudeville fools, misfits and deviants.’ ” She was quoting the portion of the notice where the critic had poked fun with the phrase, alleging it to be more apt than Vaudeville Stars, Marvels and Delights, the show’s title since The Chance Theatre had opened its doors sixteen years before.

Stanley pounded his cane like a gavel. “I will not be lectured to, Miss MacClair. Not by anyone, and certainly not by a seamstress.”

His words cut, though not as deeply as did the muffled laughter behind her. She shot a look over her shoulder and saw Beatrice Pennington’s froth of white-blond curls at the edge of the crimson curtain. Her dance partner was already dressed in their Dancing Dolls costume— the snug black bodice that covered little more than a corset and the black tulle skirt that dropped to the knee.

Beside her, Trixie Small, the third and youngest member of their trio— a girl of a mere sixteen years— stared in horror at the stage beneath her feet.

Pepper ignored them. “I am a dancer now, Mr. Stanley, and have been since the start of the season, as you well know.”

“Seamstress, chorus girl, it hardly makes a difference. May we move on to the business at hand?”

She would have pressed him, forced him to admit the wrong, if she had not seen the message implicit in the expressions of those around her. The others wanted her to stop. Jimmy and Marvani. The dog trainer and the wardrobe mistress. Even the stagehands. She read the meaning in their dodged and downcast glances: If Stanley preferred to ignore the notice, they did as well.

She plopped down against the fake gazebo’s step and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Thank you,” he said with false sincerity and turned to the others. “I have called you together to say that Mr. DeGraaf will not return this week as planned, and it is with deepest regrets that he has advised me his convalescence will extend indefinitely.”

Disappointment tinged the air. The sickness that had kept the theater’s owner away had seemed a blessing at first. A welcome reprieve from the old man’s booming Dutch curses and nightly rants. But now that The Chance had been left solely in Stanley’s tight-fisted charge, even Pepper was eager for DeGraaf’s return.

The marquee and playbills still read James P. DeGraaf Presents, but for the past five months it had been the stage manager filling the show’s slots, and he was doing it with one embarrassment after another. Last week’s headliner had been the worst yet. The man sang Irish ballads so maudlin and morose that more than one patron fled mid-act with a hanky pressed to her nose. The singer had taken it as a source of pride, even crowed backstage about his “keen ability to stir the soul.” Pepper had to clasp her hands to keep from smacking him silly. Only a simpleton called a bit that sent the audience fleeing from the seats a success, but if he did not know that yet, he likely never would. He was a lost cause, and as far as she was concerned, so was Stanley.

“So you are still in charge,” she said. “That is the big announcement?”

“No, Miss MacClair. Mr. DeGraaf’s son will be stepping in during his father’s recovery.”

Robert DeGraaf was returning to The Chance? The old man had sent his son off to a Cambridge college on a sweltering September morning more than three years ago, and the younger DeGraaf had not stepped foot in the theater, even once, in all that time.

The boy had never spent much time at The Chance, but the veterans knew him well enough. “How can a young man reared in classrooms and drawing rooms know anything about running a theater?” “When has he ever showed an interest in his father’s business?” “What good can he possibly do?”

Pepper held her tongue. The complaints about Robert were not new, and they had never been fair. He could certainly do no worse than Stanley. She, for one, welcomed the change, and it had nothing to do with her feelings for the younger DeGraaf. Absolutely nothing at all. Robert had promised he would come back for her. No matter what anyone said, he was keeping his word.

To celebrate the back-to-back releases of DANCING AT THE CHANCE and the reissue of THE BELLY DANCER, weekly prizes & a grand prize of a Kindle or Nook (winner's choice) are up for grabs on the author's website. Visit www.DeAnnaCameron.com and follow the contest link for details.

Photo Essays: Summer in the City, 1920s Style

Anna C. Bowling

A hot summer day can make anybody cranky. Add a toddler and subtract modern conveniences such as air conditioning, television, computers, mp3 players, DVDs and refrigeration. For many, this may sound like the start of a story of modern horror. For those who lived before the age of modern conveniences, it was just summer, and family and friends provided plenty of entertainment.

One of the best parts of historical research is remembering that no matter what era it might be, the people who lived then have the same needs we do today. Since primary sources are the most accurate research tools, vintage photographs can be a window into a world of generations past.

Today, we'll join a young couple and their toddler son enjoying the great outdoors in 1924 New York City. Though these photos may not all be from the same day, it is the same family, and they've invited you to their summer outing.

Either this water is very interesting or someone is looking for the plug.


Gathering with friends means dressing up for everyone. Note the matching caps on the couple and the menswear on the Mrs.



No matter what the era, everything is better when shared with friends...



...and it's always good to go home at the end of the day.



Vintage photos give us the opportunity to exercise our creative muscles. Who are these people and what was important enough about this particular moment that was worth capturing to share with generations to come? Is it so that we can drool over the details of gorgeous clothing, play forensic psychologist and analyze subjects of the photos, or something else altogether? What is it about vintage photos that catches your interest?

Writing historical romances allows Anna C. Bowling to travel through time on a daily basis and make the voices in her head pay rent. Her current release, ORPHANS IN THE STORM, is available from Awe-Struck E-books.

Research: 19th & 20th Century Web Resources

By Eliza Tucker

Being a stay-at-home mom who lives in present-day Ohio but writes fiction primarily set in New York Century at the turn of the 20th century, I rely heavily on Web-based history resources. Here's a list of my most-used sites, and insight on how I employ them.

Google Books: While the Google Books project has been the source of contention for many in the publishing industry lately, their publications which fall in the realm of public domain can be a big help for researchers. Using the 'Advanced Search' feature, you can look up search terms within specific dates. You can search full texts of public domain books and even download most in PDF or EPUB formats.

New York Times Archive: Using the 'Advanced Search' function, you can search any day's release of The New York Times from 1851-1980, with specific dates and search terms. When I first started doing historical research, I lost eyesight on microfilm archives of this paper at our local library! Each article is viewable as a PDF download.

Library of Congress American Memory Project: This is a massive resource with collections ranging from Advertising to Women's History, African-American History to War and Military History. It takes a bit of time to navigate, but chances are if you're looking for very specific information, it's in here. The most fascinating of these fully viewable online collections is the Thomas Edison films of New York City.

Cornell University Making of America Archive: A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

Museums' Virtual Exhibitions, such as The Museum of the City of New York: The great thing about singular museums' exhibitions is that they change on a somewhat regular basis.

The Dictionary of Victorian London: Historical thriller author Lee Jackson has collected and organized articles and info regarding life in Queen Victoria's Britain. Includes unique maps! Even if you don't write in this period or time, it's definitely worth a look.

The Inflation Calculator: Need to know how much $5 meant to a person in 1816? A simple "form adjusts any given amount of money for inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index, from 1800-2007."

Small sites: One of my most-referenced sites right now is No. 9 Duane Street, which is chock full of info about the newsboys' lodging houses of the 1800-1900s.

Places You've Never Heard Of: Vinegar Hill

By Eliza Tucker

New York played an important role in the Revolutionary War, and dozens of sites around the city bear testament to this. St. Paul's Church. Fraunces Tavern. The Dutch Cottage. Federal Hall. But across the East River and into Brooklyn, an important memorial was made in the early 1800s.

Vinegar Hill is about eight blocks square, a tiny enclave near the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge, next to the closed-off Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1800, well before bridges and the city's consolidation, Vinegar Hill was so named because its developer specifically planned to attract Irish immigrants, as it had been the "site of a fierce battle in the Irish rebellion of 1798." - Forgotten-NY.com

But fewer than 25 years before, a similar American war blazed nearby. Even before voting for independence, Congress called up 28,500 men, but by the time General Washington arrived in New York, only 19,000 American soldiers had gathered there--this, against the British and Hessian troops that totaled 32,000 only a month later. The British invasion began on August 22, after a month of attempting to come to a truce satisfactory to both sides. The battle didn't last long: the British easily overtook the untrained Continental Army, and with only 64 reported fatalities.

By the end of the Revolutionary War, more than 8,000 Continental soldiers (some reports say up to 11,000) died aboard British prison ships--damaged or decommissioned ships in Wallabout Bay that served as prisons once the British jails were at maximum occupancy. Over the course of the century, bones washed up on the shores of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Many of these remains were gathered in 1808 for the underground crypt portion of the Tomb of the Martyrs, erected in Vinegar Hill by the Tammany Society of New York.

Vinegar Hill became the first real resting place for so many patriots. In the 1870s, the Tomb was in heavy disrepair and the crypt was moved to a special monument Ft. Greene Park.

Pictured: early 1900s postcard of Ft. Green Park's Prison Ship Martyr Memorial

Literature & Education: The Grand Street School

By Eliza Tucker

School isn't just for good little boys and girls.

In the 1870s, there thrived in the Lower East Side of New York City, a school open to children of all colors and creeds. Located near the intersection of Grand and Clinton Streets in a dry good shop owned by Prussian immigrant Wolfe Mandelbaum, The Grand Street School became the most highly esteemed school for young criminals in the United States.

By the time the school was established, Wolfe's wife, Fredericka, had become New York City's most well-respected receiver of stolen goods. She employed expert pickpockets and thieves who not only helped fill two large Manhattan warehouses with items that once belonged to the city's finest families, but took in children aged ten and younger to learn how to scam, cutpurse, and rob. Even the advanced classes in safe cracking, burglary, blackmail and conartistry were free of initial charge for astute students.

The best and brightest graduates of the Grand Street School were offered salaried positions, but they had to surrender anything they stole. This offering didn't last long: "Marm" Mandelbaum found several of these employees were double dealing by turning in their better finds to her rivals.

The Grand Street School only operated for six years, when, in an act of rebellion, a well-known police officer's son applied for training. Marm Mandelbaum realized the educational venture was too common and bad for her other businesses. In 1884, Marm Mandelbaum--New York's own Fagin--was captured in a sting operation led by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Food & Drink: Painting the Town Red

By Vicki Gaia

World War II had come to an end, Europe was in shambles, and New York City had become the New World View. Eating out, listening to music, drinking and dancing, theater, movie houses--whatever your pleasure, you could find it in Manhattan.

Good ol' American food could be found at many of the restaurants. The Plaza offered boiled salt mackerel, fried hominy grits, pecan waffles, clam juice, little pig sausage and fried cornmeal mush. You had the modest delis serving Jewish bagels and lox with cream cheese and hot pastrami. If you liked to stroll in Central Park on Sundays, you could dine at the Essex House on summer prune juice, cherrystone clams, Scotch woodcock, sweetbreads, creamed finnan haddie on toast.

Drinking became an obsession after the repeal of Prohibition on December 5, 1933, which was only twelve years before. Every neighborhood had its local saloons, and many trades had their favorite hang outs. Mad men, those advertising gurus, hung out at the East Side piano bars, newspapermen at Bleeck's, next door to the Herald-Tribune. Cedar Tavern on University Place catered to artists, and you could find writers drinking at their favorite bar of the Algonquin Hotel or Costello's on Third Avenue. And for the sailors and seamen, their home away from home was The Horse.

When I think of the forties, I think of cocktails. This weekend I had a bittersweet orange Manhattan at PF Chang's. Served in a wide fluted glass, I sipped the elixir and thought of my mother's generation. The Manhattan was invented at the Manhattan Club, or so it's said. One part vermouth, two parts whiskey, a dash of bitters, stirred with ice and garnished with a cherry. But the cocktail of the forties was the dry martini. Barely touched with vermouth, it was mostly pure gin.

Cafe Society thrived. A mix of theater people, old families, musicians, sportsmen, actors, sprinkling of military men, and a few writers, and of course, the gossip columnists who reported on their comings and goings. The society could be seen listening to jazz at the Cotton Club in Harlem; sipping afternoon tea at the Plaza; dancing at the Starlight Roof on a perfect summer night; dining at Sardi's; or drinking at the El Morocco.

After the war, New York City heralded the new way of life in America. For a few years it held its "... particular mixture of innocence and sophistication, romance and formality, generosity and self-amazement...", quoted from Manhattan '45' by Jan Morris.

Picture of Sardi's taken by Walter Sanders was published in Life Magazine.

Expansion & Invasion: New Amsterdam

By Christine Koehler

If you never read (or heard of ) The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto, you should. It's a wonderful story about the founding of New York. Granted, he's a little long-winded in the middle, but it's a well-researched book and a fascinating piece of our history.

New Amsterdam developed outside of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in the New Netherland territory (1614–1674). Because the Dutch believed their territory was what they could 'own' and use, it was situated between 38 and 42 degrees. Yup, it's now New York City.

The harbor and river was discovered, explored, and charted by an expedition of the Dutch East India Company captained by Henry Hudson in 1609. From 1611 through 1614, the territory was surveyed and charted by various private commercial companies on behalf of the States General of the Dutch Republic and operated for the interests of private commercial entities prior to official possession as a North American extension of the Dutch Republic as a provincial entity in 1624.

To secure the settlers' property and its surroundings according to Dutch law, Pieter Minuit, created a deed with the Manhattan Indians in 1626 which signified legal possession of Manhattan. Minuit negotiated the "purchase" of Manhattan from the Manahatta band of Lenape for 60 guilders worth of trade goods. No, they didn't by it for $20-some odd dollars. It was an extremely complicated agreement involving alliances against neighboring tribes, trade, and the general well being of each side.

Because the Dutch themselves believed in equality among all, everyone was welcomed in the colony regardless of race, sex, creed, or origin. This law superseded any individual’s intolerance or individual bigotry.

The city, situated on the strategic, fortifiable southern tip of the island of Manhattan maintained New Netherland's provincial integrity by defending river access to the company's fur trade operations in the North River (Hudson River) and to safeguard exclusive access to the Delaware River and the Connecticut River.

On August 27, 1664, while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam’s harbor. They demanded New Netherland's surrender. Director-general Peter Stuyvesant provisionally ceded the city to the English. This resulted in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, between England and the Dutch Republic.

In 1667, the Dutch didn't press nor relinquish their claims on New Netherland in the Treaty of Breda, in return for an exchange with the tiny Island of Run in North Maluku and the guarantee for the factual possession of Suriname. The New Amsterdam city was subsequently renamed New York, after the Duke of York (later King James II) who was granted the lands by his brother, King Charles II with the simple stroke of his pen.

The English had a very different view of colonization. They believed they owned all the land they saw on their maps. Didn't matter if they could use it or had enough people to colonize it. That land was theirs.

However, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch recaptured New Netherland in August 1673 and installed Anthony Colve as New Netherland's first Governor. The city was renamed New Orange. After the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in November 1674 the city was relinquished to English rule and the name reverted to New York. In return, Suriname became an official Dutch possession.

NPS.Gov

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto

Weapons and Armies: The Tong Wars

By Eliza Tucker

All wars begin on smaller scales: a push for more freedom, a governmental revolution, or the desire for resources. New York City of the mid-1800s was no different. Dozens of gangs, small and large, violent and not-so-violent, ran the city with their support of the police through grafts and vice rackets.

Originally, life within the Chinese communities was dominated by a few large family and district associations with restrictive membership. As a protective response to their dominance mutual aid associations, so-called tongs, emerged. The tongs adopted the norms and values of the Triad subculture. Their secretive nature, combined with the fact that they could recruit members without traditional restrictions, enabled them to overpower the family and district associations and to take on the social functions of arbitration, protection and exploitation in Chinatown. A tong is not a criminal organization per se, but a natural means of obtaining and using mutually obligate bonds (guanxi) for both criminal and non-criminal purposes.

Organizing Chinatown: Race and Racketeering in New York City, 1890-1910
Jeffrey Scott McIllwain
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004

Photo: Mock Duck

When the tongs first emigrated to the American West, they served as mutual aid societies. Quickly the 'mutual aid' provided began to resemble the strongarm tactics of the mafia and Irish mob. The tongs spread across the US to Chicago, Boston, and New York City. In the early 1900s, two Chinese gangs took hold of the few Manhattan blocks known as Chinatown. Led by newcomer Sai Wing Mock, known as Mock Duck or "Clay Pigeon", the Hip Sings launched a war against the much larger On Leong Tong, led by press-and-police pet, Tom Lee.

Mock Duck, at age 22, politely asked the older, legendary Tom Lee for half the revenues of all of the On Leong gambling and prostitution rackets. After a long stare, Tom Lee laughed and walked away, without saying a word.

Two days later, Mock Duck set fire to an On Leong boarding house, killing two tong members. Shortly after, an On Leong member was attacked by two hatchetmen. Tom Lee replied to the attack with an order to kill all Hip Sing members, with an emphasis on Mock Duck.

Mock Duck survived stabbings and shootings, and began wearing a chain mail vest under his clothes. Known for his terrible aim with a gun, Mock Duck soon realized his best chance against the hatchetmen was to stoop to the ground, duck his head, shut his eyes, and shoot two pistols in any direction he pleased. Using this method, Mock Duck rarely failed to hit his attackers, but often hit innocent bystanders as well.

Tom Lee put a $1000 price on Mock Duck's head--that's almost $25,000 in today's currency--and the warrant fueled the fires in the Tong Wars. Meanwhile, Mock Duck was busy securing his tong's ties to the Four Brothers, China's oldest and most respected family guild. The Four Brothers joined the war against the On Leongs after Mock Duck promised them cultural power in New York. Mock Duck also drafted the two most dangerous hatchetmen in San Francisco, who are estimated to have murdered around 100 men in the Tong Wars.

While Tom Lee had the police force in his pocket, so Mock Duck appealed to the religious reformers for added support. He told the popular Rev. Charles Parkhurst about the good Chinese trying to live honestly, and about the terrible vices the On Leongs pushed upon them, such as the singsong girls (prostitutes) and the opium dens. Mock Duck provided Parkhurst with a list of On Leong's establishment, and Parkhurst used his favor with most of New York's upper class to force the authorities into action.

But Mock Duck kept the Ace up his sleeve. Tom Lee realized that Mock Duck hadn't given Parkhurst any addresses along On Leong's Mott Street, from whence the On Leong's highest revenue came. Tom Lee couldn't turn over any information about the Hip Sings in retaliation if he wanted to stay in business.

In 1906, Tom Lee finally conceded, only to try to rebuild the On Leongs in 1909. This time, the police involved themselves fully, working toward peace more than profit. These battles, fought within just five diminutive city blocks, were responsible for approximately 350 deaths.

Families & Children: The Children's Aid Society

By Eliza Tucker

For kids without families in Victorian New York City, orphanages and almshouses were the only alternatives to life on the streets. In 1853, Charles Loring Brace changed the future for the city's least fortunate when he founded the Children's Aid Society.

A minister working in Manhattan's notorious Five Points district, Brace was appalled by the slum's widespread abuse and neglect. Taking advantage of the Westward push, Brace and his reformers would place nearly 100,000 children with frontier-bound families. While many of these stories ended well, as Brace hoped, some of the children in the Orphan Trains found themselves in situations similar to or worse than the ones they'd left in the East.

Brace and the Children's Aid Society (CAS) continued their outreach programs within the city, by founding and sponsoring industrial schools for boys, girls, and young women, offering free out-of-city camps and excursions, providing free lunches for children enrolled in schools, and opening the first free dental clinics in New York.

The CAS set up several lodging houses in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, designated for the abandoned, homeless, and orphaned children. These houses offered part-time schooling, but their occupants worked during the day, often as newsies, delivery or messenger boys, in factories or shops. The children in these lodging-houses often did well for themselves later in life. Having created their own family units comprised of other urchins, former CAS kids held reunions, stayed in touch, and became successful business partners.

Today, the Children's Aid Society continues its work as a privately funded organization, helping more than 150,000 children annually through camps, after-school and weekend care, foster care, legal advocacy, health and counseling, and cultural development.

The Love Cycle: Romance Novels and the Working Girl

By Eliza Tucker

At the turn of the twentieth century, London, Paris, and New York attracted dreamers and bohemians. Young suburban women who, when finished with as much school as their parents deemed necessary, shuffled into big cities in search of employment. Excited by stories of girls making the munificent sum of $8 per week, young women went from milliner to florist, factory to laundry-room in search of the ideal job and the ideal wage.

The Industrial Revolution set more than just machines in motion. Working-class women were thrust into close proximity to men on a continual basis in every part of their lives. Girls were allowed to walk city streets, to dine with men in certain establishments, and to date without supervision without suffering much in the way of tarnished reputations. In many ways, the working-class woman enjoyed more freedom than the lady of fashion.

With literacy on the rise, romance lived in the dress factories and sweatshops, where the hopeful young employees read books during breaks, hoping for better lives. In The Long Day by Dorothy Richardson, the narrator considers the role of fiction in the lives of working girls of her era, New York City in 1905:

Promptly at half-past twelve the awakening machinery called us back to the workaday world. Story-books were tucked away, and their entranced readers dragged themselves back to the machines and steaming paste-pots, to dream and talk as they worked, not of their own fellows of last night’s masquerade, but of bankers and mill-owners who in fiction have wooed and won and honorably wedded just such poor toilers as they themselves.

This entertaining discourse over the daily task of box-making follows:

IN WHICH PHOEBE AND MRS. SMITH HOLD FORTH UPON MUSIC AND LITERATURE

Don't you never read no story-books?" Mrs. Smith asked, stirring the paste-pot preparatory to the afternoon's work. She looked at me curiously out of her shrewd, snapping dark eyes as she awaited my answer. I was conscious that Mrs. Smith didn't like me for some reason or other, and I was anxious to propitiate her. I was pretty certain she thought me a boresome prig, and I determined I'd prove I wasn't. My confession of an omnivorous appetite for all sorts of story-books had the desired effect; and when I confessed further, that I liked best of all a real, tender, sentimental love-story, she asked amiably:

"How do you like 'Little Rosebud's Lovers'?"

"I've never read that," I replied. "Is it good?"

"It's fine," interposed Phoebe; "but I like 'Woven on Fate's Loom' better--don't you?" The last addressed to Mrs. Smith.

"No, I can't say that's my impinion," returned our vis-à-vis, with a judicious tipping of the head to one side as she soused her dripping paste-brush over the strips. "Not but what 'Woven on Fate's Loom' is a good story in its way, either, for them that likes that sort of story. But I think 'Little Rosebud's Lovers' is more int'resting, besides being better wrote."

"And that's just what I don't like about it," retorted Phoebe, her fingers traveling like lightning up and down the corners of the boxes. "You like this hot-air talk, and I don't; and the way them fellows and girls shoot hot-air at each other in that there 'Little Rosebud's Lovers' is enough to beat the street-cars!"

Phoebe goes on to tell the story of 'Little Rosebud's Lovers,' which is complete with an exotic setting (South Carolina), two lovely sisters (but only Rosebud had a demeanor to match her physical beauty; the other, Maud was jealous and spiteful), and Harvard-grad lover (who turned out to be 'a villain of the deepest dye'). The story-book fans go on to discuss the plot holes in a way that would fit well on a current-day lit forum:

"Where did she get the money to come to New York with?" interrupted the practical Phoebe. "That's something I don't understand. If she didn't have no money to hire a room at a hotel down in South Carolina for overnight, I'd like to know where she got the money for a railroad ticket."

"Well, that's just all you know about them swells," retorted Mrs. Smith. "I suppose a rich man's daughter like that can travel around all over the country on a pass."

The banter continues for a chapter, and gives us a great look into the origins of romance, while the book glimpses how average girls fit courtship and passion into otherwise taxing lives. Write on, romance authors!

The History of a Slum

Oh! the night that I struck New York,
I went out for a quiet walk;
Folks who are "on to" the city say,
Better by far that I took Broadway;
But I was out to enjoy the sights,
There was the Bow'ry ablaze with lights;
I had one of the devil's own nights!
I'll never go there anymore.
- Charles H. Hoyt, 1892, from the musical "A Trip to Chinatown"

Before the Dutch West India Company settled the island called Mannahatta, the native Lenni Lenape walked a path from water to forest to hills and then to bogs. Colonists came and Mannahatta became New Amsterdam. By 1645 it had become a residential area: ten families of freed slaves were the first to bring the Bowery toward civilization. At the top of the road was the great farm belonging to Peter Stuyvesant, one of the last Director-Generals of the Colony of New Netherland. One of the first things you'll learn on a tour of the Bowery is that the name has nothing to do with the shape of the avenue (which is rather like a hunting bow), but a corruption of the Dutch word bouwerij, which means "farm." One of the other things you'll learn straightaway is how to pronounce it: "take a bow" rather than "tie a bow."

By the late 1700s, the Bowery was New York City's major uptown thoroughfare (back when Hester Street was considered uptown) and lined with mansions and trendy shops. Because this section of town was the new "it" area, the Manhattan Company, under the direction of Aaron Burr, began to develop it further. And to develop it they'd need to dry up the bogs and fill in the neighboring freshwater pond, The Collect, which had become polluted.

Soon after The Collect was filled in, people started building on the landfill. Within a decade, water began to rise under the new shops and homes and factories, and the buildings began to sink. Cholera and other diseases spread, and the denizens who could afford to move from the area, did. Slumlords bought up chucks of the Five Points and the nearby Bowery.

Historians call New York City's Bowery America's first slum. Since the 19th century, the street has boasted more than its share of saloons, flophouses, bawdy houses, and dance halls. Places like McGurk's Suicide Hall, where its backroom girls (most of whom were between the ages of 16 and 18) killed themselves by drinking carbolic acid, and brothels that catered to specific preferences helped herald the Bowery as the Devil's Own Street.

Less-sinister establishments like Steve Brodie's saloon (Brodie claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge), McKeon's and Morgue were more abundant, and it was in places like these that a teenager named Irving Berlin started his career by singing and dancing. Vaudeville got its start here, at Tony Pastor's Opera House, and America's first permanent zoo, the Zoological Institute, was opened in 1821.

In 1826, the Bowery Theater opened at No. 46-48, and is considered the first gas-lit theater. On that very site was the Bull's Head Tavern, where George Washington and General George Clinton celebrated after freeing New York from British rule in 1783. The theater was burned down in an 1834 riot when one of its actors was rumored to have made anti-American remarks. The theater was rebuilt, and in 1879 the theater hosted the US debut of the H.M.S. Pinafore.

A century later, the Bowery was still fighting reformers, and kept adding to the rep it had begun building so long ago. It's no surprise that punk music found its home at CBGBs, and in the past decade, the city officially designated a stretch of East Second Street, along the Bowery, "Joey Ramone Place," and a bloke could get a room at the Andrews for $9 a night. The infamous road has attracted many a history-savvy celeb, too, with models trafficking the former Bowery Bar (now the B Bar and Grill) and Denzel Washington and Lenny Kravitz's exclusive club, Kos.

There are a hundred more stories and legends about the Bowery, and so many ghosts of ne'er-do-wells just begging to have their stories embellished that I will never, ever run out of something big, brash and brilliant to write about. While the Bowery’s past is as grievous as it is colorful, I am drawn to the street every time I visit New York. Here's hoping the recent gentrification doesn't stick, and thanks for taking a quick tour with me.