Categories
19th Century

John Colt

Have a drink with: John Colt
Double-entry bookkeeping and axe murder

Ask him about: packing advice

You’ve probably heard of Samuel Colt, especially with gun rights so prominently in the news. Not only was Colt one of America’s most well-known gun manufacturers, he used the eager 19th century press to transform gun ownership from a largely utilitarian act into a totem of defiant individualism. An 1860 Colt corporate advertisement in Knickerbocker magazine plainly advertised pistols, rifles, carbines and shotguns to the American public as the needful way to “afford surest protection to your family, your life and your property;” and it was around this time that an oft-repeated adage made its way into American discourse: “God made little men, and God made big men. But bless Col. Colt, he made every man equal.”

But Sam was not the only blood-soaked weirdo in his family. Samuel Colt was an enterprising businessman, if narcissistic, morally flexible and utterly unconcerned with the damage his products would do (also, he once made a living hawking nitrous oxide as a “doctor”). His older brother John Colt, though, was a riverboat gambler, admitted perjurer and forger, an accountant of some note, and a semi-public figure who earned public pooh-poohs for cohabiting with his pregnant girlfriend. Oh, and he also went on trial in 1842 for axe murder.

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Categories
18th Century

Stede Bonnet

Have a drink with: Stede Bonnet
The Gentleman Pirate, if you please

Ask him about: the shipboard library

Image: Warner Media
Image: Warner Media

Like many, many other people around now, I am smitten with Our Flag Means Death, Taika Waititi’s comedy series about real-life pirate Stede Bonnet and his journeys with the famous Blackbeard. What may be surprising to viewers is the degree to which the show is based on verifiable history. Read on for what the show gets right, from a tricked-out ship to pirates in pajamas…

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Categories
20th Century

The Dream of Venus

Have a drink with: Salvador Dalí
Girls, girls, girls. Plus lobsters.

Ask him about: But how do you make the giraffe explode?

The 1939-1940 World’s Fair was a tremendous attraction, drawing more than forty million visitors to New York over its two seasons to experience the “World of Tomorrow.” Built over 1200 acres on top of the site of a former ash dump in Queens, the sprawling fairground was an ode to progress and international modernity, featuring a number of attractions meant to bring people out of the emotional and economic slump of the Depression. There were technological pavilions showing off new wonders like Formica and television sets; a range of theatrical entertainments including Billy Rose’s all-swimming, all-dancing Aquacade and Gypsy Rose Lee in “The Streets of Paris;” celebrations of the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s inaugural; and, looming over it all, giant modernist ball and spire sculptures called the Trylon and Perisphere. President Franklin Roosevelt became the first president to appear on television with his broadcast introductory speech.

And if you looked at this prewar proto-Epcot spectacle and said, well, this is all well and good, but it is missing one major component, and that component is a whole lot of fish, rest assured: Salvador Dalí to the rescue.

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Categories
20th Century

King Edward VII

Have a drink with: King Edward VII, aka “Bertie”
Sportsman, monarch, don’t mention the lobster

Ask him about: Holiday weight gain

Edward VII, Library of Congress

It’s movie awards season, which means I have been trying to catch up on all the “for your consideration” titles I didn’t get to over the course of 2021. Last week I caught Spencer, in which Kristen Stewart plays Princess Diana during a tense holiday weekend with the royal family at their Sandringham estate. In the movie, as Diana arrives for the festivities she is informed by the house manager that all guests must, per the queen’s request, weigh themselves before and after the holiday on a set of antique scales. The tradition is said to have begun with King Edward VII, as a way of figuring out whether his guests had sufficiently enjoyed themselves under his hospitality – three pounds being enough gain to show that guests had properly indulged.

Do we know if this whole scale story is true? A leading royal columnist says so, and there is indeed a 19th-century jockey’s scale on display to guests at Sandringham. But the story is hard to back up to satisfaction, not least because the royals are not exactly known for publicizing their in-jokes.

But would King Edward VII (nicknamed “Bertie” within the royal family) have gone for such a practice? I’d certainly buy that he believed a minor food-baby was an appropriate measure of a good time. This is a man who was so fond of epicurean pleasures that his nickname was “Tum Tum,” and who postponed his coronation over the fallout from an epic lobster dinner.

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Categories
20th Century

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Have a drink with: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Elementary, my dear Watson.

Ask him about: ghostsACD & spirit (Wikimedia)

In the early 1920s, folks in America were generally worn out, in a not unfamiliar way. The geopolitical situation was fraught in the wake of World War I, racial tension was high after the 1919 “Red Summer” race riots, extreme weather events popped up to keep people generally bewildered and awash in adrenaline, and oh, by the way, giant influenza pandemic.

Which goes a fair way to explain why spiritualism – the school of thought that believes we humans can connect with the spirits of the deceased in the great beyond through means like mediums, spirit writing, channeling and photography – experienced a resurgence of popularity in the early 20th century. And there were few spiritualist advocates more ardent – or more famous – than Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who toured America in 1922 waving a Go-Team-Go flag for the spiritualist cause.

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Categories
18th Century

Judge Breckenridge’s Eggnog Bender

Have a drink with: Hugh Henry Brackenridge
Attorney, nog enthusiast, clothing optional

Ask him about: Pork as medicine

It’s the holiday season, and that means it’s time for nog.

Where did eggnog come from? If you look into it, you get a linguistic soup of suggestions (“nog” being an old word for strong ale, or “noggin” as a drinking vessel); and there are all sorts of historical links dragged out as to its origin, from medieval “posset” concoctions, to frothy egg-flips, to aristocratic milk punches (not clarified punches, which are an entirely different thing and which Ben Franklin loved). Consensus is that there is a centuries-long human history of making eggy milk drinks and pouring booze into them, which at some point syncretized into the modern concept of eggnog.

It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that eggnog existed early on in American history, thanks to British culinary tradition and the good availability of eggs and dairy in the young nation, and it frequently involved a fair quantity of whatever liquor suited the local taste and economy.

I say a “fair quantity.” We now turn to Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge, a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court at the turn of the 19th century, for demonstration of the fact that there is indeed such a concept as too much of a good thing.

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Categories
19th Century 20th Century

Louis Wain

Have a drink with: Louis Wain
Auteur of psychedelic fractal cats

Ask him about: cat memes

“British cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”    – H.G. Wells

If you love yourself a good cat photo, you can go ahead and thank Louis Wain. Up until the late nineteenth century, it didn’t seem like a celebrity the likes of Grumpy Cat would ever be in the societal cards mostly because no one was all that fond of cats – I mean, sure, people liked to scritch the ears of their barn cats or local strays now and again, or keep a kitten, but for the most part cats’ practical use as rodent control was their standout feature, and they certainly weren’t as friendly or fussed-over as dogs in England. But then Louis Wain decided he was going to draw cats and nothing but cats, and people were HERE FOR IT.

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Categories
19th Century

Really Old Wedding Cake

Have: a piece of cake.
It’s….pleasantly aged?

Ask: is it past its sell-by date?

Royal Collection Trust RCIN 750872
Detail of Queen Victoria’s wedding cake, Royal Collection Trust

According to the BBC, last week a slice of cake from the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana sold for £1,850 at auction (about $2,500 USD). A piece of one of the couple’s twenty-three cakes, the slice had been in the care of one of the queen mum’s household, who had apparently cocooned it in cling wrap and stored it in a floral tin with a “handle with care” label before selling it to a collector in the early oughts. This person decided the wedding’s 40th anniversary was the perfect occasion to give this slice of cake something cakes don’t usually get: a third owner.

Forty-year-old cake may seem like a very strange souvenir, even if it does happen to be royal cake. But this is hardly the first time the preserved desserts of the rich and famous have been hot commodities.

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Categories
15th Century

Anne of Brittany

Have a drink with: Anne of Brittany
Iron will, heart of gold, death before dishonor

Ask her about: Being an early modern #girlboss

Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art

For Women’s History Month in March, we’re diving into conversation with Rozsa Gaston, the author of a four-book series of historical fiction on Anne of Brittany, the only woman to be twice crowned Queen of France (married to Charles VIII and then to his successor Louis XII). Ruling at the dawn of the Renaissance, Anne was quite a character: wealthy, self-assured and strong-willed, she was devoted to the integrity and independence of her beloved Brittany, then an independent duchy in the northwest region of modern France.

Rosza is here to answer some questions about Anne, what it is like to imagine her life in detail, and what we might learn if we sat for drinks with her today.

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Categories
19th Century

The Wellerman

Have a drink with: The Weller Brothers
Blow, me bully boys, blow.

Ask them about: Sugar and tea and rum

Amidst other things people probably did not have on their bingo card in 2021 was the rise of Sea Chantey TikTok, but it’s been a strange year already, so why not?

So the biggest question on everyone’s mind, no doubt: who IS the Wellerman, anyway, and why are we singing about him?

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