The Hakima, Clot-Bey, and Women’s Health
It may surprise you to know that a medical school for women opened in Cairo in 1832. Can you imagine such a thing in the United States or Great Britain at that time?… Continue reading
Tag Archive: Caroline Warfield
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Making War on Cultural Heritage
… the enemy makes a wilderness and calls it war. Richard Harding Davis, NY Tribune, witness to the burning of Louvain, 1914 Cultural treasures disappear at a disheartening rate, often due to… Continue reading
Tea, Taxes, and War
Historians suggest a variety of causes for the Opium Wars. Some declare the cause to be “extraterritoriality,” the refusal of one sovereign nation, in this case, the United Kingdom, to allow their citizens… Continue reading
The Prince of Fraud
In an era of British imperial expansion, with limited social mobility at home, men with ambition, energy, and imagination looked to the wide world for opportunities to make their fortune. It didn’t seem odd… Continue reading
The Natchez Trace
Once young men routinely floated their goods—products of the farms and settlements of newly formed states and territories—down the Ohio, Wabash, and Illinois rivers to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. They… Continue reading
The Artist Who Dressed As She Pleased
Rosa Bonheur dressed in trousers when women were still trussed in corsets. She required permission from the prefect of police to do so, but she was unapologetic about her choices. She lived her… Continue reading
The Anti-Opium Crusader
Not all the interesting and colorful characters from the 1830s were British. Lin Zexu, also known as Lin Tse-hsu, a Chinese scholar and government official, rubbed against the British mercantile ambitions of that… Continue reading
Fashion and Foot Binding
Fashion. Some readers of historical romance will tell you it is one of the reasons they enjoy the genre. Love of clothing certainly fuels the continued popularity of all things Jane Austen in… Continue reading
Opium, Hypocrisy, and Amnesia
Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) This much-abused quote is frequently tweaked to say “ignore” or “forget” history. Sometimes people simply choose to ignore it, particularly… Continue reading
The Desert Queen
Among the colorful personalities of the late Georgian/Early Victorian world of the 1830s Lady Hester Stanhope stands out for her brilliance, independence, and sheer brazen disregard for social mores. If ladies rode sidesaddle;… Continue reading