by Molly Owen | Feb 7, 2012 | Anne Carrole, Blog
Being we are close to Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d do a post on falling in love western style.
Despite Victorian mores, marriage and courting in the Wild West was a good deal less formal than the overarching norms of the period. This had much to do with the scarcity of women in the West, at least in the early period before the Civil War. After the Civil War, the female population increased somewhat as more adventurous women rode west, mainly in search of men to marry since the War Between the States had decimated the population of young men in the East and Southeast. Of course, women still made up a smaller part of the western population even in 1890 with the West reporting 41% of its population as female while in the total United States females made up 49% of the population.
Surprisingly, the marriage age was later for women in the West, perhaps because they could be choosier about whom they married and had a few more career options that allowed for independence, such as teaching and running boarding houses and stores, than their eastern sisters. The 1890 census reported 35% of men and 36% of females as married in the total United States while the Western Region reported only 30% of the male population married and 39% of western females as married.
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by Molly Owen | Jan 7, 2012 | Anne Carrole, Blog
- Tent Home, Library of Congress
Our forefathers were quite adept at making a home anywhere and out of anything, it seems, particularly those who went west.
Tents were a common sight, especially when new towns were in the making. With canvas sides and roofs, they served the purpose for the mostly male dominated boom towns and, according to Everyday Life in the Wild West, became known as “Hell-on-Wheels” towns, because the businesses and residents could pick up and move quickly. The new AMC series, Hell on Wheels, depicts tent town living along a railroad line. Dodge City, Kansas started out as a tent town as did Denison, Texas when 3000 people moved into town in the first 100 days after the KATY railroad went through the sparse settlment that had been a stop on the Butterfield stage route. Both towns came into being due to tracks being laid. In this photo, note how many lived in this tent and the fact that they had found time to build a barn and windmill but not a home yet.
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by Molly Owen | Dec 7, 2011 | Anne Carrole, Blog
The period of the Old West fascinates me because I wonder if I would measure up to the men and women who risked everything, including their lives, for the chance at a new beginning. I love to research the women who made the journey, generally following their men folk . These women were determined, persistent, and courageous.
Such a woman was Mary Low, who came to WashingtonTerritoryat the age of nine with her family as part of the first settlers of what would become Seattle, Washington. Presumably she had no say in the matter when her father decided to leave Illinoisfor the new land. It was a cold and damp November when the family arrived by ship expecting a settlement with four cabins ready and found none completed. One can imagine she had to work hard, even as a youngster, to help finish those cabins by Christmas. According to an essay by Dorthea Nordstrand,( History Link.org), that first Christmas was celebrated not only with four fully finished cabins but a feast consisting of two wild geese, salmon, wild potatoes and a few dried applies for pies as their bountiful supper.
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by Molly Owen | Nov 6, 2011 | Anne Carrole, Blog
Bankers, stockbrokers, politicians and millionaires mingled at Saratoga Springs, New York in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. As with any age, however, it had its characters, some of whom made great fodder for the newspapers of the day.
I mentioned last month about Florence Vanderbilt finding love in Saratoga Springs with Hamilton Mckowen Twombly who, at the time was clerking for Western Union. In fact, Twombly confronted her father, William Henry Vanderbilt, son of the Commodore, on what was then considered the “millionaire’s” piazza of the United States Hotel where Twombly screwed up courage to ask Vanderbilt for his daughter, Florence’s, hand in marriage. By all accounts, Twombly, an 1871 graduate of Harvard, was quite a handsome man with dark, wavy hair parted in the middle and a handlebar moustache and Florence was a comely young lady. The Twombly family name was well known in New England with ancestors who came to America in 1656 with a land grant for what became Dover, New Hampshire and Twombly’s father was engaged in shipping enterprises so young Twombly was far from poor. But even though his family was “comfortable” they could not match the gilded age wealth of the Vanderbilts. George Waller reports in Saratoga: Saga of an Imperious Age that the conversation went thusly:
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by Molly Owen | Oct 11, 2011 | Anne Carrole, Blog
Looking for a great setting for your gilded age historical? I found one for mine when I recently visited Saratoga Springs, NY.
For much of the 19th century, Saratoga Springs was the “Queen of the Spa” resorts with the added attraction of horse racing and a first rate casino along with proximity to New York City from which it drew a large part of its monied clientele, attracting the likes of the Vanderbilts, Fisks, Goulds and Asters. For a time, it also boasted the largest hotels in the world such as the Grand Union Hotel where congressman, senators and bankers gathered, The United States Hotel where the likes of Vanderbilts, Goulds and Rockfellers held court on the piazza and Congress Hall which hosted the Asters and other old New York scions.
Saratoga Springs and its mineral waters had attracted visitors since the early 1800’s. With concerted efforts on the part of innkeepers and hotel owners, by the 1830’s Saratoga was a fashionable place to go for one’s health but also for “good society” once lectures, entertainment and hops (balls) were added to the fill the days and nights. The 1830’s also saw Saratoga purposely go after gamblers in hopes they would test their skills “at faro and chuck-a-luck in the billiard halls and bowling alleys, and a room was fixed up for roulette.” (Saratoga: Saga of an Impious Era by George Waller).
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Being we are close to Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d do a post on falling in love western style.