Historical Indulgences

Hey all! I just got this tattoo done a few hours ago. It’s a nutmeg plant, located on my back, flanked by my portrait of Ulysses S. Grant. It’s for my home state, Connecticut, nicknamed “the Nutmeg State”. According to legend, 18th and 19th century Connecticut peddlers carved wood to imitate the exotic nut and sold them at exorbitant prices to unsuspecting buyers, and thus, our notoriously devious reputation stuck. However, some believe it was the ignorance of the spice and it’s preparation that lead to confusion. Some assumed the nut was to be cracked to reveal meat rather than simply ground to attain the powder.

Anyway, I’m just showing my pride.

ca. 1860, [Blind woman with dark glasses], J.P. Blessing & Co.

via the Southern Methodist University, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

ca. 1861, [Private Japhet Collins, Confederate States Army]

via the Southern Methodist University, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

(For everyone who’s already seen this post, I hope I’m not annoying you completely! I’ll reblog this a couple times before the end of the giveaway so everyone has a chance to participate if they’d like.)

In celebration of over three years posting to Historical Indulgences, I’m setting up my very first giveaway. I absolutely love you guys and thought you should know. My first inclination is naturally gratitude via gifts — I figure everyone loves gifts?

However, this giveaway is not going to be the typical reblog sweepstakes, it’s going to be based on the best 19th century photograph, or Ulysses S. Grant related ephemera, posted to Tumblr and submitted to the #Historical Giveaway tag, from the web or your own collection: as long as it’s awesome (—also this is important: images must be sourced, and preferably dated)! You may submit as many photos as you’d like.

Starting today and ending on Grant’s 190th birthday, (Friday, April 27th), at 12pm EST the most interesting photo posted with the #Historical Giveaway tag on Tumblr wins. I’ll reblog my favorite post as the winner that afternoon.

The prize: A copy of “The Daguerreotype: Photography at the Musee D’Orsay” photo book, a print of your choice from Toothsome Prints (featured), and two antique photographs from my collection (more choices will be updated shortly).

Anyone into it? Questions?

(Source: tuesday-johnson, via tuesday-johnson)

ca. 1900-10, [Woman and girl on rock by ocean], Fitz W. Guerin

via the Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in High Demand

ca. 1860, [Victor Prosper Considerant (attributed)]

via the Southern Methodist University, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

ca. 1897, [group of children infront of U.S. Grant’s tomb], Robert Bracklow

via the Museum of the City of New York, Byron Company Collection

ca. 1890, “Where Ignorance is Bliss”

via the Southern Methodist University, U.S. West: Photographs, Manuscripts and Imprints Collection

ca. 1900, “St, Luke’s Hospital—Norrie Pavilion—Drug Room”

via the Museum of the City of New York, Byron Company Collection

ca. 1860-65, [Portrait of Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, officer of the Federal Army],  Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.)

via the Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints

After McClellen was removed from command of the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln named Burnside as his replacement. Burnside reluctantly accepted, and then, like McClellen before him and Hooker after, failed to be the aggressive leader Lincoln so desperately needed.

Fortunately for him, his legacy continues in a less embarrassing manner than military defeat as the namesake for the facial hair style of the “sideburn”. Burnside’s facial hair was unusual for his time, but was popularized later in the century. The term was then corrupted from the original “burnside” to the now recognizable “sideburn”.

ca. 1850, “Dr. John Collins Warren”, Josiah Johnson Hawes and Albert Sands Southworth

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographic Collection

ca. 1895, [Three men toasting and smoking pipes], H.D. Klenke

via the Southern Methodist University, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photograph Collection

ca. 1872-75, [Six seated men looking at photograph], Louis de Planque

via the Southern Methodist University, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

ca. 1861-65, [Ulysses S. Grant, dried flowers]

via the Library of Congress

On his deathbed, U.S. Grant wrote a note to his doctor:

“I do not sleep, though I sometimes doze a little. If up, I am talked to, and my efforts to answer cause pain. The fact is, I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; or to suffer. I signify all three.”

On July 23, 1885 at the age of 63, he died.

nprfreshair:

Historian Adam Goodheart on the Civil War’s 50th anniversary: “In 1913, there was an anniversary celebration at Gettysburg — the anniversary of the 1863 battle — and they brought these Northern and Southern veterans together and the Confederate and Union vets embraced one another. There are some wonderful photographs and they’re holding Union flags and Confederate flags and Woodrow Wilson went and gave a speech, saying that the ‘old quarrel has been forgotten.’ Well it’s very symbolically significant that excluded from that reunion were the black veterans. They were not even invited to participate. That part of the Civil War history was, for a long time in this country, simply pushed aside and erased almost completely.”