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 Fell Spice Mill, 1873 So far on this site, we've looked at a number of different types of mills -- grist mills, saw mills, woolen mills, and iron mills, just to name a few. But there is one type that we haven't seen yet, and for a very good reason. Not only was it unique in the Red Clay Valley or Mill Creek Hundred, it was the only one of its kind in the entire state! The Fell Spice Mill at Faulkland (Faulkland Road and Red Clay Creek) was, for a time, a very successful enterprise, but one that was ultimately doomed by a series of misfortunes. This is one of those posts where it's challenging to even figure out where to start, because there's probably enough history in the Faulkland area for about a half dozen posts or more. The location originally was the site of Oliver Evans' (who deserves a whole book to himself) innovative grist mill, then was owned by William Foulk (who lent his name to the area). Foulk sold the property to the Fells, who operated the worl...

Pam's post last Friday reminded me of how much inspiration and honest-to-goodness craft authors draw from movies. I'm currently taking Alexandra Sokoloff 's fabulous Screenwriting Tricks for Novelists , where we study movies' structures to improve our books. As you can imagine, we discuss a lot of movies as the best model for our novels. Now this is not quite the same as being a favorite movie, since things like thematic similarity have to be considered as well as plot line. Sometimes the class feels like a wild discussion among friends where everyone's trying to suggest the best possible movie for somebody else to study, including the reason why. To my fascination, only four historical movies (in the New York publishing sense of "history") get mentioned regularly. Chinatown Gladiator The Last of the Mohicans Sense & Sensibility Of these four, The Last of the Mohicans and Sense & Sensibility are definitely my favorite two films. I've undou...

On Thursday, November 29, 1877, Thomas Edison revealed a device that was to fuel all of my adolescent fantasies: the phonograph. It's difficult for me to imagine what life must have been like before recorded music. I recently completed a novel in which the heroine is a violinist, the hero a composer. In the first scene, she desperately tries to memorize the song she's just heard played. Without a way of recording the music, she had little hope of remembering the piece after only one hearing. Yes, there was sheet music, but it's difficult to recreate an entire symphony when you're looking at one instrument's part at a time. Edison's first attempt wasn't all that different from the record players I knew and loved during my youth. There was a spinning cylinder, a groove, and a needle; there were speakers. When I was a child, I watched a man walk on the moon for the first time. At school that autumn, I was one of a dozen children in my class who dreamed of becom...

First, a question, for any of you who might have also already seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I -- and who know your British landscapes better than I do. Where were those wonderful location shots taken? What were the regions the filmmakers sampled: now high and dramatic (was it the Lake District? Scotland?); now infinitely flat with moody, lowering skies (I took it to be the East Anglia I imagined for Almost a Gentleman , but I'm probably dead wrong.) In any event, there was none of that all-too-recognizable teacozy greenery checkered by hedgerows you're likely to encounter in one or another televised Jane Austen redo. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione go on the lam from the Ministry of Magic and in pursuit of the horcruxes, the camera plunges them into bleak dark gray nights of the soul when it's not leaving them unprotected and vulnerable to the sky's glare. As though the land were conspiring with the miserable, horny adolescence they're trying to work ...

The History Hoydens are pleased to welcome novelist Gillian Bagwell, who makes her s historical fiction debut on January 4, 2011 with THE DARLING STRUMPET: A Novel of Nell Gwynn Who Captured the Heart of England and King Charles II. Advance praise for The Darling Strumpet! " "Richly engaging portrait of the life and times of one of history's most appealing characters!" - Diana Gabaldon, author of the best-selling Outlander series "Bawdy and poignant ... an ebullient page-turner!" - Leslie Carroll, author of Royal Affairs "Hard to resist this sort of seduction - a Nell Gwynn who pleasures the crowds upon the stages of London and the noblest men of England in their bedrooms. A vivid portrait of an age that makes our own seem prudish, told with verve, humour, pathos... and not a little eroticism." - C.C. Humphreys, Actor and Author of Jack Absolute. Apart from what I said in my blurb, I think that Gillian hit it out of the park on her f...

 Stanton Friends Meeting House, 1936 To anyone at all familiar with the history of New Castle County, it should come as no surprise that there are several Friends (Quaker) Meeting Houses in Mill Creek Hundred. And to anyone familiar with the area today, it should be no surprise that they are not as influential or as (proportionally) attended as they once were. Of the three meeting houses in the hundred, the one that best reflects this change in demographics is the Stanton Meeting House. And not to give away the ending, but it's also the only one of the three that is no longer a functioning meeting house. However, we are fortunate that the building is still here, even if it's obscured enough that I'm sure very few people driving by have any idea when and why it was built. What would become the Stanton Meeting can trace its lineage back to 1772, when the Wilmington Monthly Meeting granted locals' request, and allowed them to hold an "indulged meeting" (one fo...

Pam asked about this in the last post, so here we go . . . When (historically) do men stop wearing breeches This is a complicated question, as class and age are heavily involved. Assuming that we’re talking about young-ish, hero-aged men (under 40 let’s say), the answer is that they’ve largely adopted pantaloons c. 1795-1800 (with buckskin breeches still being worn for riding by some and silk breeches still being a part of very formal court costume). Older gentlemen, men of the lower classes, conservative types, and country bumpkins will all still be in breeches. In the image to the right (dated 1826), the young man is clearly wearing breeches. He appears to be in informal attire, as though for an outting to the park or paying morning calls. It's all about who he is, what he's doing, where he is, and what kind of man he is. What exactly is/are a pantaloon/pair of pantaloons From the OED: 1801 Port Folio (Philadelphia) 25 July 238/1 High collars, embroidered pantaloons, and squa...

Over on Risky Regencies I found them talking about recent discoveries. One of them was the idea of pulling the skirts of a gown through the pocket slits to shorten it. This was actually very common in the 18 th century (wouldn’t really work with a Regency gown though, you’d end up looking like an upside-down mushroom!). It was called retroussee dans les pouches and was used to keep your skirts clean when walking through the notoriously filthy streets or when in the country. In the image shown here, you can see a clear example of this. The cherry and white stripes are the outer fabric. The orange and purple stripes are the lining. QUESTION ONE: Garters Hey Diane, I’m adding to the post so that I can post pics. I too have the V&A’s new underwear book (I pre-ordered it; isn't it fab?). Yes, stockings were held up by garters. Garters encircled the leg, either just above or just below the knee (depends on how your leg is shaped). When everything went white, so did the underwear ...