So the Man behind the Salisbury Steak is from Upstate New York
Salisbury steak: not just a hamburger without a bun. The inventor was James Henry Salisbury and he was born in Cortland County, NY. The details are at Exploring Upstate.
Violet Strange and Phoebe Daring: Girl Detectives Before Nancy Drew
Stephanie Gorton Murphy writes about the girl detectives who predated Nancy Drew. Both Daring and the more conservatively named Mary Louise were created by L. Frank Baum. Violet Strange starred…
The Story Behind the Field Guide to American Houses
See the Curbed article on Virginia Savage McAlester, the author of A Field Guide to American Houses. A revised version of the encyclopedic classic came out a few years ago,…
G-Shocks, Resin Rot, and Avoiding an Obsession
Browsing a garage sale, I examined a plastic bag full of watches. It was mostly junky stuff, including a lightweight piece that said “Rolex” on it, but there was also…
Louis Sullivan’s Jewel Box in Grinnell
The Merchants National Bank building in Grinnell, Iowa, also known as the Jewel Box, was designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan late in his career and built in 1914. Used…
Early Images of the Classical World: Daguerreotypes of the Monumental Journey
In the 1840s, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, a French photographer and architectural historian, took thousands of photographic images of monuments of Greece, Italy, Egypt, and other countries during a three-year…