Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Marriage
Her son had her committed. She said it was so he could get his hands on her money. Now, 130 years after this bitter and controversial drama, a trove of letters—long believed destroyed—sheds new light on it.
What Human nature and the California gold rush tell us about crime in the inner city
Of the three basic rites of passage— birth, marriage, and death—the most vital is marriage, according to a historian of wedding customs, because it is the only one at which we are fully present, fully aware. Read more >>
Happy marriages may have been all alike in the eighteenth century, but the unhappy ones
fought it out in the newspapers
Augoft 2d. 1771.
Whereas Hannah, wife Read more >>
An Unfortunate Affair at Fullerton Which at the End is Amicably Adjusted.
Joe Lyons, the nineteen-year-old son of Isaac Lyons of Orangethorpe, shot and seriously wounded Morris Smith, son of W. J. Smith of the same place, at Fullerton at about half-past 9 o’clock on last Thursday morning. Read more >>
Wilson's letters to Mary were frequent and intimate, but it would have been political suicide to marry a divorcee by the post-Victorian standards of the time
On the afternoon of September 18, 1915, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States and a widower, wrote a brief note that he knew might change the rest of his life. The note, sent by messenger, was for Edith Boiling Galt, to whom he was secretly engaged. Read more >>
Institutionalizing the American Honeymoon
On the theory, perhaps, that there is safety in numbers, it is possible to have a honeymoon in the company of five hundred couples doing exactly the same thing. Read more >>
According to Alexander Hamilton, he was with his family in Philadelphia on a certain summer day in 1791 when a young woman called at the door and asked to speak with him in private. Read more >>
Three Centuries of Divorce, American Style
Appearances may be deceiving, but marriage in the United States looks as if it is in trouble. Read more >>