If you think that buttons proclaiming your enthusiasm for one presidential candidate or another is a twentieth century invention, it may come as a surprise to learn that swag has been around since the time of America's first president. George Washington's political buttons were made of brass; in the center were his elegant initials, circled…
Category: history
FOR SALE: Dracula’s Birthplace
Here's something you won't find in Craigslist's classifieds... The writing desk at which Bram Stoker created the bloodcurdling modern myth of Dracula will soon be up for auction. Looking at the ornate desk today, which seems so fitting as the gothic setting for the creation of perhaps the most chilling book in English literature, it's…
Powering Up: Social Media and the New Classroom
Just a few years ago, when kids began having their own phones in large numbers, schools freaked out. At my daughter's junior high, phones had to be hidden away in backpacks or lockers. Any teacher who observed a student with a phone was required to seize it. The phone was then taken to the office,…
That’s a Fact, Jack: History of the Jack-O-Lantern
Have you ever seen a flickering light, perhaps over a foggy river or hovering above a misty hilltop, that seems to recede the closer you get to its source? For hundreds of years, this phenomenon was referred to by several names: Will O' the Wisp, Ignius Fatuus, and, Jack O'Lantern. In 1750, a printed mention…
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The “Not Buried Imagination”: A New Poem by E. E. Cummings Discovered
It is the kind of thing scholars live for, the type of adventure A. S. Byatt wrote so eloquently about in her novel Possession. A few weeks ago, biographer James Dempsey, while working on a biography of Scofield Thayer (publisher of The Dial Magazine), made a remarkable discovery. Going through a file folder containing correspondence…
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