Sweet Americana Sweethearts: early 1900s

Showing posts with label early 1900s. Show all posts

Monday, November 18, 2019

Predictions From 1901

By Sophie Dawson

Just as with the turn of the 21st century, predictions of what the world will be like in 100 years occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. These are from a 1901 issue of the Ladies Home Journal. I've chosen ones that struck a chord with me, either coming to pass or way off the mark. If you'd like to see the entire article, here's the link: https://www.popculturemadness.com/PCM/wp-content/uploads/1901/12/Predictions.jpg

You should be able to tell which have come true or not.

"These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our great institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 -- a century from now."
( I could say his first mistake was only asking men, but I won't.)

Between 350,000,000 - 500,000,000 people in the US.

Mexico will seek admission to the United States as will other Central and South American countries.

Americans will be from one to two inches taller. (I checked this out and it's true. Men are 2.4" taller on average, women 2" taller.)

C, X and Q will have been abandoned in the alphabet because they are unnecessary.

English will be the dominate language spoken worldwide followed by Russian.

No mosquitoes, flies or roaches.

Ready-Cooked meals will be delivered to homes and the dishes returned to be washed. (Can you say pizza delivery, Home Chef, Plated, etc?)

There will be no cars on the streets of large cities, they will be underground with broad subways and well-lit, well-ventilated tunnels. Therefore, cities will be free from all noise.

Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance and in total color.

Trains will run 150 miles per hour with cooled cars. Homes will be air-cooled also.

Automobiles will be cheaper than horses.

Fast electric ships will travel on a cushion of air and speed across the Atlantic to England in 2 days.

There will be Air Ships but they won't be able to compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger and freight traffic.

Wireless telephones will make it possible for a husband in the middle of the Atlantic to speak with his wife in Chicago.

College education will be free. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in all public schools.

Store purchases will be delivered by pneumatic tube to all homes or stations similar to post offices and delivered to homes by truck.

Vegetables will grow larger and faster by electricity which will also kill the weeds. (Not sure how it will kill weeds but not the plants wanted.)

Fast moving refrigerators will bring fruits and vegetable from South America, Africa, Australia, and the South Sea Island to the US in winter.

Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries will all be as large as apples.

Strawberries and cranberries will grown on bushes.

Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, peaches, apples, pears and all berries will be seedless.

Peas will be as large as beets.

Roses will be as large as cabbages and available in black, blue and green. Pansies will be the size of sunflowers.

Few drugs will be swallowed. They will be applied to the skin and carried to the organs by application of painless electricity.

The living body will be, essentially, transparent. It will be possible to see a living heart beat. Photographs of any part of the body will be taken and able to be magnified by rays of invisible light.

As you can see, some of the predictions have come about, maybe not in the way envisioned a century ago, but others not so much. Some I hope come in the future. No mosquitoes, flies or roaches, that's a yes. Same with strawberries the size of apples, yum.

So, what will be commonplace in 2119? Check out these links for predictions for the next century.
https://nypost.com/2011/03/20/the-world-in-2100/

https://futurism.com/2118-century-predictions

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16536598

https://bestlifeonline.com/this-is-what-life-could-look-like-years-from-now/

Sophie Dawson writes mainly sweet historical and some contemporary romance. You can find her books at https://www.amazon.com/Sophie-Dawson/e/B0084POHB6

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Sears Roebuck & Co Catalogue 1897

by Shanna Hatfield

Many of the historical stories I write take place in the 1890s and early 1900s.
There are any number of sources that give some detail about the day to day way of life back then, but one of my favorite resources is a replica of an old mail-order catalog.

When I came across the 1897 Sears Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, I ordered it on the spot and could hardly wait for it to arrive. From Skyhorse Publishing, this replica of an original Sears catalog is full of all the nitty-gritty info that I so often search for online and can't find elsewhere.
You can find everything in this catalog from Bibles, bath soap and buggies to china, rocking chairs and telephones.

There were some things in here that make me laugh, (a lot), like Bust Cream. I wonder how many women purchased it back in the day, or the bust developer?

Jewelry, watches, and all sorts of apparel are included. I find the descriptions very helpful, not just for details about the fabric, but also for the way people described the fashions back then. For instance, what we would refer to as a dress shoe with a heel for women were referred to as sandals. Waist denim overalls we call jeans.

Captain Cavedweller happened to catch me looking at the gun section of the catalog and promptly snatched it away from me.

Ever wondered what baby teethers looked like in the 1890s? They've got some in there. You can discover types of candy, popular book titles, selections of garden seeds, musical instruments, china patterns, and so much more.

If you are writing a story set in the late 1800s or early 1900s, this book is a great resource to have on hand to find out what every day products were available, what they were called.

And if you aren't writing a story - it's certainly a fun way to spend an hour or two, perusing all those old, fascinating items.

~*~

Convinced everyone deserves a happy ending, hopeless romantic Shanna Hatfield is out to make it happen one story at a time. Her bestselling sweet historical and contemporary romances combine humor and heart-pumping moments with realistic characters.

When she isn’t writing or consuming copious amounts of chocolate, Shanna hangs out with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller, and fondly recalls the days of her youth spent on an Eastern Oregon farm.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Zeppole

by Shanna Hatfield

When I'm researching details for one of my historical romances, I never quite know what adventures it will lead to.
Sometimes they can be quite tasty.

When I wrote Caterina (the second book in the Pendleton Petticoats series), I researched the type of food an Italian girl who loves to cook might make in the early 1900s. I even decided to try a few recipes.

Lucky enough to stumble across a cookbook, Italian Cooking, written by Dorothy Daly in 1900, it really helped me know the types of ingredients Caterina would have used and had available as well as cooking methods.

Of my experiments, Captain Cavedweller liked Zeppole the most.

Zeppole are Italian pastries, deep-fried of various sizes (especially if I’m the one making them!). Typically, they are about four inches in diameter.

I almost had to beat CC away with my spatula when I made these because he ate them about as fast as I cooked them.

Rich and yeasty, they were really simple to make and amazingly tasty.

Start with some very basic ingredients.

Mix the flour and salt together and set aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together and set aside.

Mix yeast with warm water and let set about five minutes.

Lightly whip eggs into yeast.

Then add the flour mixture. The dough will be really sticky – not like bread dough.

Set in a warm spot, cover with a dish towel and let rise for about 20 minutes. Stir it back down and repeat the process. Can’t you almost smell the yest with those delicious looking bubbles in the dough?

Heat about four cups of oil in a heavy saucepan (you want a couple inches of oil in there) and heat over medium-high heat until a bit of dough dropped in sizzles. Drop a heaping spoon of dough (carefully!) into the oil and fry until golden brown. These sweet little babies turn themselves over so you don’t have to, unless you want to, then by all means- go right ahead!

While the Zeppole cool enough to be handled, scoop some powdered sugar into a lunch bag. Drop in a piece of the fried dough and give it a good shake then be prepared to fight people off.

You can also mix up some cinnamon and sugar…

And roll them around in it.

See wasn’t that easy?

Zeppole
2/3 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 pkg. instant yeast
1 cup warm water
3 eggs
Mix flour, sugar and salt then set aside.
Empty yeast into a large bowl with warm water. Stir until dissolved then let rest about five minutes.
Add in eggs and whip lightly then add flour and stir until well mixed.
Cover bowl with a dish towel and set in a warm place for 20 minutes. Stir down the dough and let rise again before frying.
Heat a heavy-duty pan of oil on medium-high heat until a drop of dough sizzles in the pan.
Drop a tablespoon full of the dough (think in terms of the size of a plum) into the oil, being carefully not to burn yourself on any splatters and cook until golden brown. The Zeppole turn themselves over when they are cooking, which is fun to watch.
Drain on paper towels or paper bags (to soak up the grease) then drench in sugar. I liked powdered sugar best and CC preferred cinnamon and sugar. Either is delicious.
You can also serve these with fruit or whipped cream, if you so desire. (Or stand over the bag with powdered sugar devouring these like a ravenous beast.)

~*~

A hopeless romantic with a bit of sarcasm thrown in for good measure, Shanna Hatfield is a bestselling author of sweet romantic fiction written with a healthy dose of humor. In addition to blogging and eating too much chocolate, she is completely smitten with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller. Shanna creates character-driven romances with realistic heroes and heroines. Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.” She is a member of Western Writers of America, Women Writing the West, and Romance Writers of America.

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