We envision what it must have been like to illuminate one’s home before electricity. The evening’s gloom thickened and the room’s furnishings cast their long shadows from the dying light seeping in through pane glass windows. Candles were lit and a soft glow continued to play with the shadows, now shimmering in a flickering light. …
“The Colonies will no longer need Britain’s protection. She will call on them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to bring on her, and they will answer by striking off their chains.” Comte de Vergennes at the close of the French and Indian War. Americans were the subject of intense British propaganda to …
The Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia compiled the most extensive report about diseases and success rates of doctors during the Revolutionary War Period. Aside from mental disorders which affected nearly one fifth of all patients, half of the hospital’s cases concerned seven disorders: scurvy – 15%, fevers – 9%, venereal disease – 9%, dropsy – 6%, …
Many early mattresses were not mattresses at all. Straw, often available after cereal crops had been harvested, was piled in either outhouse or residence and made do for sleeping, as it was far better than a hard wooden floor. Sometimes straw was layered into a wooden bed with sides. However, loose straw strewn about living …
Keeping food fresh (or even edible) was a problem in colonial times, since neither refrigeration nor tin cans had been invented yet. Preservation and packaging by pickling, smoking, and other means were crude and careless. It was discovered early on that the kinds of provisions which would stand the long voyage on a slow sailing …