I buy old papers, research the people who wrote them, and write about what I find. Each story starts with a piece of paper and ends somewhere I didn't expect.
Ordinary people exist in historic times. We tend to think of "History" as something that happens to Kings and Presidents, but the rest of us? We are the grist in the mill. We are the ones wh...
The Phalo Club Sends Its Condolences
A condolence letter from the Phalo Club led me to ordained women ministers, Susan B. Anthony's colleagues, and the suffrage movement's forgotten alliance of progressive religion and industrial money.
Gilded Age Gold
How I bought the papers of Julia Anna Nenninger Balbach, a Gilded Age novelist and industrialist's wife, at an online estate auction for $200. What was in the box.
I have a problem. I can't stop buying other people's dead relatives' papers. Storage units, estate sales, auction houses. If there's a box of old letters gathering dust somewhere, I'm probably already bidding on it.
Free. No spam. Just stories about old documents and the people who wrote them.