A lot of us are obsessed with vintage stuff nowadays, from clothes to music to generally wishing we had grown up in the 60s. We often forget, however, that our dear old parents were the ones who started all those trends we now admire.
🎨 Artist Виталий Графов/Vitaly Grafov
Someone is Wondering Why He Don’t Write by David Wright I’ve been sitting by the fire these winter days finishing up a book due out September 2015, awaiting galleys for Love’s Fortune, and wrapping my head and heart around a new frontier story set in Kentucky in 1773. This was Kentucky at its wildest and wooliest so to speak, a place and setting ... Read More
“I’m damned if I could tell the difference between a hexameter and a pentameter to save my scalp.” Joaquin Miller, c. 1871 Many surprises await the reader of “The Poet in th…
Check out these patterns and tutorials on making your own blanket capote. This post appeared first on NMLRA.org
https://historyhysteria.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/stefan-lofving-adventurer-extraordinaire/
Do you take drawing requests? In a big Muriel x Portia shopper and god damn I just love your art. Imagine Muriel sitting at the edge of the bed and portia kneeling behind him to plant a big kiss on...
The fur trade in the New World it is said started back in the 16th century. If you arrived in the New World without a trade, short of labouring, getting into the fur trade may have been you're easiest option. If you could convince a trader to hire you and supply you with all you're needs, then you were off to a good start. Providing of course that you have had some prior experience with hunting and trapping, even if it was poaching back in the old country. If you had some equipment and a little money of your own, then you were set. If you had a horse it made carrying the furs and skins a lot easier, but horses also made noise and left tracks and could attract unwanted attention. If you had no horse as many did not, then you had to carry your game and or skins out on your back or use a sled when there was snow on the ground. I have as yet not found any documentation to suggest that a hunter/trapper would have used a travois, but I have done so in the past and it seems like a logical alternative to carrying it on your back. Of course hunting and trapping on your own had inherrant dangers, you have to be constantly on the look out for danger. Hunting and trapping in groups was far safer, and different jobs could be assigned to each man or woman. Someone had to flesh the skins and peg them out to dry. There were other camp chores to be taken care of also. Farmers usually hunted and trapped to subsidise there earnings, and early on when they were just starting out they needed furs and skins to trade for crop seed. Trading posts were the place to go for all ones needs, from hunting tools or guns for family defence, to farm implements and seen corn, and even clothing and cloth. Time had to be divided between the farm chores and hunting/trapping, usually the wife and any other family carried on the farm work whilst the man was away. Daniel Boone did more hunting and trapping than farming, so his family had to do most of the farm work. But being away from home was not just a danger to the lone hunter/trapper, it was also a constant danger to the family left alone to fend for themselves. Both women and children had to be proficient at using the flintlock guns, and moulding the lead shot in an open fire. But sometimes being aware of the dangers and being prepared just were not enough. Sometimes when everything seemed so quiet and peaceful people could become complacent, and that is when the Indians would strike, taking your family away to be adopted into woodland Indian society, or perhaps taking them into Canada to trade to the French. But if all went well, then you could make a new life for yourself in this New World. One where you could own your own land and reap the profits from your own toil without having to worry about any Government taking it away from you. Unless of course you were Indian!!!
Arnold Friberg, 1920-2010, was a famous American illustrator and oil painter. He was famous for his biblical and patriotic subject matter, which lead to a commission from the Northwest Paper Company for a number of works depicting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
LIFE IN TIBET by Scrambler*** on Flickr
Fashion Flashback: Given that fashion was instrumental in the creation of Canada, this blog series explores the development of what Canadians wore one era at a time. Suit. Made of wool and gilt met…
I've mentioned in past posts that I often use bamboo or cane to make my powder measures as well as containers for pre-measured shot loads. I had not...
I started off researching packaging for chocolate, and really did not get very far. This led me to wonder about other forms of food packaging, and I did not get far there either! So I decided to apply my past experimental archaeology experience and some common sense, and decided, at least for now, that there really are not many choices. Paper bags were not a commercial product until the late 18th century to 19th century, though in 1743, John Bartram with a supply of paper from London, did make his own paper bags, both large and small to hold seeds (New Green World, Josephine Herbst, page 71). Of course at this time paper was made from flax, not from wood as it is today, and later they made paper from old linen rags. So I guess there is a precedent for using paper. Leather and cloth food bags plus a couple of glass bottles. Pottery was also used, but it tends to be too heavy for packing on foot. Glass although fragile, can be wrapped in cloth or covered in leather. Then there are linen bags and leather pouches, both of which have been used in a variety of sizes for centuries for carrying and storing foods. We also know that items intended originally for one use, were often used for for others once empty. such as bottles. Wine and spirit bottles could be used for carrying water or even cooking oil (Encyclopedia Of The American Revolution). One chap found that a powder horn he had found did not contain gunpowder... "Found my powder horn was filled with spirits and got drunk as a wheel barrow.” Constant Belcher of Elizabethtown 1776. http://greensleeves.typepad.com/berkshires/ogden_genealogy/ This cloth sack was used for provisions in a 1910 expedition and contains cocoa powder. Now I realise that 1910 is 200 years too late for us, but I figure if it was still in use two hundred years later, then it was probably a favoured method for carrying food provisions in the earlier period. Flour was carried in cloth sacks, so why not cocoa powder. Spices could be carried in a small or large bottle, or they could have been contained in some folded paper, as in perhaps an envelope. This in turn could be secured in a cloth bag. This I would have taken for a replica, but the tag sais it is medieval period and it is in the museum of London. These three images of drawstring pouches are from Diderot's 18th century encyclopedia.
Well, I am back in The Big Crapple yet still thinking about and missing the Blue Ridge Mountains that we got to stare at lovingly every ni...
Luminous clouds as Madaleine and I traverse La Silla on the way down from climbing Fitz Roy. Loving life. Photo by Kate Rutherford
