Caroline Cowles Richards

A charming and detailed account of small-town life in America before electronic gadgets took over. When people found amusement in parlor games, sleigh rides, and visits to neighbors. Steeped in religion, this book is as wholesome as the novels of Louisa May Alcott. But this is not fiction. It is about real people, including mentions of some prominent real people: Susan B. Anthony, P. T. Barnum and Tom Thumb, Cyrus Field, Horace Greeley, Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Dickens, etc. Even President Grant and General Sherman put in appearances. Although it covers the years of the Civil War I would not recommend it to Civil War buffs because the author was a long way from the action.

This book could benefit from some editorial clarifications. On page 105 the author mentions “a ball game.” What would that mean? Not what it would mean to us today. On page 149 she writes, “All the girls wear newspaper bustles to school now.” What was “a newspaper bustle”? Why are prices sometimes quoted in shillings? But a very readable book.

Worth reading if you want to escape to upper New York in the 1850s. Lots of quaint details about daily life. Fashions, pastimes, what people were thinking. Lots of humor. How I wish my ancestors had kept such a journal! Illustrated with ambrotypes and daguerrotypes.… (más)