Contemporaneous
Articles
Another
approach to learning about the daily lives of folks back then
is to read what they used to read to help them through their workdays.
The best place to find such material is in magazines directed
at housewives or men with leisure time. Below are just a few
samples of the kind of thing you might find.
“Boy
Life at Camp Idlewild.” Connecticut Magazine 5(May, 1899)5:286-90.
The camp is in New Hampshire, but the founder and director, the
Reverend John M. Dick, lived in Hartford. We think he wrote the
article. Most of the boys were from Connecticut. It was a camp
“where the sons of the well-to-do class of people, between 10
and 18 years of age, could spend their summer vacation months
free from the evil association of the average summer resort. .
. [with] popular college men of robust Christian character to
lead the boys in all phases of their outdoor life.” (p. 286) Sounds
keen. Lots of photographs.
Bunce,
Louise W. “The Home.” Connecticut Magazine 6(1900). A series
of articles on home economy and hints “by which the hostess may
be aided in the entertainment other friends.” Mrs. Bunce “will
treat of homes where there is one maid for general housework,
who also takes upon herself the laundering.” Lots of recipes.
Mrs. Bunce suggests radishes every morning for breakfast, which
sometimes also included oatmeal, corned beef hash, and pancakes,
in addition to fruit and coffee.
Eaton,
Edward Bailey. “Hartford’s Educational Institutions.” Connecticut
Magazine 9(1905)3:610-16. A photoessay about the schools of
music, drafting, business, plumbing, etc. Very revealing of some
rarely investigated aspects of education.
Freer,
W. D. “Golf Clubs in Connecticut.” Connecticut Magazine
6(May-June, 1900)3. A twenty-eight-page, profusely illustrated
piece on dozens of golf clubs all over Connecticut in 1900. This
is hard-to-find material.
Modem
Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts. New York: American Homecrafts
Co., 1921. Representative houses; several hundred engravings,
scores of photographs, many of interiors of houses all over Connecticut.
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