What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?
2076. Do not pensioners, and aged cottagers, generally prefer the black earthen teapot to the bright metal one? 2077. Yes, because they set it on the hob to “draw;” in which , the little black teapot will make the best tea.
You learn new things every day. The top surface of a cook stove is call the hob. Didn’t know that, but a little research uncovered its meaning.
Well, I’ve been distracted again, in part due to a writing assignment that sent
me down twice along the South branch of the Stillaquamish River in Snohomish County, WA looking for clues about a long lost rural place named Jordan. It’s hard when the place is just a spot on a road I never heard of, but well known to locals. Trying to figure out the history of a place, let alone find it is just one of the challenges of writing both fiction and non-fiction. Just try it with 1910 map in your lap.
Gathering Sources For Writing A Historical Novel
Historians work all the time with various forms of information when they research a period. This falls into two types: primary and secondary.
According to a local archivist, primary sources are “information generated during an event.” Letters, journals, memos, manuscripts, photographs, newspapers and periodicals. Secondary sources are “information created after an event to explain it to someone else.”
Therefore, a letter from Surgeon WF in 1863 sent to his friend at home is a primary resource. His article about his experiences at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg is another. The Hospital on Seminary Ridge at the Battle Of Gettysburg is a secondary resource. So are the excellent pamphlets the national park at the battlefield produces.
Start with secondary sources first. They are important because they identify context. The event or period that you are writing about is more than a local affair. It is connected to the outside world. Secondary sources can also be browsed. That is, you can work through a shelf in a library because they are classified.
When I started on my first novel about Norway in WW II, I hit the university library in the European section and an even tighter category, Scandanavia. I found a wonderful title Blood on the Midnight Sun which gave me valuable information about the country during those times and a great bibliography that lead me to important sources. I also read wartime copies of Time Magazine and National Geographic.
For how to read a secondary source read this article. For bibliograhies, try Librarything. You can apparently store your books there.
Primaries sources are letters, diaries, newspapers, ephemera (tickets, things created for an event and not expected to be saved). Clothing, buildings, tombstones are also primary sources. Washington State has the nation’s first digitalized archives. A repository of Primary Sources is at University of Idaho.
Happy hunting. Gotta go check my tea pot.
prepared for a talk on the bark Ann Parry at a local maritime society. ( I’m looking into her West Coast owner and waiting on a new set of 1857 newspapers on microfilm). I also did some fact checking on a type of car in a Depression novel that I’m currently querying. Which reminds me of research planning for historical fiction or any writing that takes place in some historic past. You have to know the lay of the land.
Such as, what kind of lighting did they have in this time? Did they have lamps run on whale oil or kerosene? How did they light such a thing?
including one by Ray Rhamey of
Visiting
The missionaries, in fact, used a circular filter cut out of coral rock for such a purpose. They poured the water through it and into a pitcher or bowl below. It can be seen on a table in the back room in the photo to the right
The Hawaii Writer’s Conference has been like that, providing water for writers to grow in. It was a wonderful weekend with many authors, screenwriters, editors and agents. While I was out gathering facts I took to heart what author William Martin of Back Bay said to do — I walked the ground, pacing the steps my characters might have made. It wasn’t hard to fall in love with place again and hope to convey it when I get back to revisions in my novel. Mahalo nui loa for a great time.
It brings out the writer in me. I sew the pages, then sew words together.
In Hawaii, an oral tradition of story telling received its first alphabet in 1825 with the publication of a little ABC book created by
A poem. Or a novel.
I was ready to sharpen my pencil and revise. What a life! I hope to come back to this place often in the next week.
I’ve been thinking about feet and shoes and what I’m going to do about them. I’m leaving for Hawaii in a few days and want to be prepared for a long visit, which includes walking. A lot. Manoa Falls, the north shore, the Koolaus. I’m looking forward to the chance to see again truly historic places such as Kawaihoa Church,
When I can, I’ll find a spot to write on my own. There’s a great cafe I found last time just right for the muse.
I taught school all day as Miss Lydia. Guests from the British Consul, Mary Gilbert and a representative from the British Royal Navy and his wife made presentations and joined in the dance.
What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipt for the Million 1857?
candles came from the head wax of a sperm whale and was considered a step above a tallow candle when it came to longevity– it didn’t smell like stinky tallow candles either. But what of Belmont sperm and adamantine candles listed so often in ads in the Northwest and San Francisco?