Monday, August 24, 2015
Eighteenth Century Welfare-Parish Relief, by Diane Scott Lewis
In my continued research into history, to add to my 18th century novels, I came across interesting details about the English version of Welfare, Parish Relief. Charity in this era was limited. The very poor had to rely on parish relief to survive. But first they had to prove they had a legal link, such as birth, a residence or employment, in the parish—the territorial area under the clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest—where they sought funds. People who were denied parish relief were sometimes found starved to death.
Some parishes were so small they tried to shuffle their poor into the larger neighboring parishes. The elderly and sick were turned away. A few parishes paid indigent bachelors in other settlements 40 shillings to marry their poor women to take them off the books. Overseers of the poor might interfere in a marriage between two paupers, fearing it would result in burdensome children.
To make matters worse, parish authorities were often corrupt and stingy. They’d spend the Poor Rate (the tax on prosperous citizens for the care of the poor) on themselves instead of their deserving claimants.
The poor rates were a source of constant irritation to those who had to pay them. As the population and rates rose, the richer citizens were desperate to find others to pay for their poor. Men who deserted their wives or bastard children were pursued for support. One prominent merchant was discovered to have let his mother wilt away in a workhouse—he was forced to pay for her maintenance.
For deserted children, or foundlings, wherever they were found was their settlement/parish. Self-sacrificing women often traveled to the richer parishes at the onset of labor, hoping to birth their babies in more solvent settlements. But the parish authorities were aware of this and would force these women back over the boundaries. The Parish Act of 1772 came to the aid of these women by stating: “mothers who are suddenly taken in labour will no longer be subject to be removed...” Of course, enforcing this act was another matter.
Children born in wedlock were part of their father’s settlement. If the fathers died, after the age of seven, the children became part of their mother’s parish.
Reformer Jonas Hanway—a merchant who had traveled widely (and the first Londoner to carry an umbrella)—devoted himself to philanthropy. His efforts resulted in a Parliamentary act in 1767 to set aside funds to send urban orphans to country wet-nurses, and provided incentives for the children’s survival.
Though commissioned in the late seventeenth century, the classic eighteenth century’s solution to ending poverty and idleness was the workhouse. By the 1720’s parishes could commit any pauper who sought relief to the workhouse. Ideally a shelter, these places could never make a profit since many people were indigent because there wasn’t enough work available. Workhouses became the repository of the sick, elderly and mentally retarded. Infants consigned to workhouses before Hanway’s intervention were virtually sentenced to death. Hanway called one London workhouse “the greatest stink of mortality in these kingdoms, if not on the face of the whole earth.”
Three substantial private charities would be formed to take the burden from the parishes. The Foundling Hospital for abandoned children, Magdalen House to reform prostitutes, and Hanway’s Marine Society to clothe and prepare pauper boys for the navy.
Parish relief was resented, underfunded, unorganized and corrupt. Along with these issues and the misunderstanding of poverty’s causes, attempts to help the poor, or at least make them less visible, were doomed to fail.
Enjoy my recent release which takes place in 1781 Truro, England: The Apothecary’s Widow.
Click HERE to purchase
Diane Scott Lewis writes historical fiction with romantic elements.
http://www.dianescottlewis.org
Sources:
Daily Life in 18th Century England, by Kirstin Olsen, 1999
Dr. Johnson’s London, by Liza Picard, 2000
Labels:
charity,
eighteenth century,
parish relief,
poor,
Welfare,
workhouses
I'm a former Navy Radioman (person) from California, married to a retired Navy chief. I've always loved to write and discover the past. I have two sons and two granddaughters.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Regency Fashions for Ladies by Victoria Chatham
Fans of the Regency era will, no doubt, be
quite familiar with terms like muslin and superfine, half boots and spencers.
It doesn’t matter in what era we set our novels, our characters need clothes,
at least for some of the time depending on how hot the romance is. The Regency fashions
were looser and less form fitting than in earlier eras emulating as they did
the flowing neoclassical styles of Greek and Roman statuary.
So what, exactly, did a Regency lady wear under
her gown? The fact is – not much! Short-legged drawers with a drawstring waist
were only just coming into fashion in the early 1800s but were more popular by
1811. Our Regency belle would also have worn a chemise designed to
protect the outer clothes from perspiration or prevent a silk or muslin dress
from being too revealing. A chemise rarely had any trimming as the coarse soap
and boiling water in which it was frequently washed would have reduced
trimmings to rags in no time.
The
chemise was worn next to the skin and the corset, either short or long stays over
it. The short stay fitted just below the bust and the long stays reached the hipbone
and created a smooth vertical line. Both styles of stays were kept in place by
shoulder straps. A petticoat, usually with a scooped neckline, short sleeves
and fastened at the back with hooks and eyelets, was worn over the chemise and stays.
Usually trimmed at the hem, it was meant to be seen when a lady lifted her
outer dress to avoid mud or to otherwise prevent it being soiled. Stockings were
made of silk, knitted cotton or wool and held up by garters.
Dresses
were often made of soft, clinging
muslins but the oft mentioned morning dress was high necked, long sleeved and
made from plain, serviceable fabrics such as wool and linen. The thin twilled
fabric sarsnet, or sarcenet, was woven with different colors in the warp and
weft so that when the fabric moved there was a subtle shift in color. Evening
dresses, or ball gowns, were satin and silk creations, fitted under the bust,
short sleeved and with low necklines. An apparent contradiction in terms was
that being fully dressed referred to evening wear which showed quite a bit of
skin and décolletage, and being underdressed meant wearing a high neckline as
in morning clothes. Colors indicated status as young ladies wore bright colors
such as pinks, pale blues and lilacs, while mature ladies dressed in purple,
deep blue, yellow, strong reds or black.
Outerwear
included capes, wraps, shawls, spencers (a short waisted fitted jacket) and
pelisses. Rather than a pocket, which was worn under a dress with a slit in the
side for access, ladies carried a reticule, or a bag closed with a drawstring
and often decorated with beads. This in essence was the lady’s handbag in which
she could keep her vinaigrette and handkerchief. No respectable lady would
dream of leaving the house without her hat or bonnet and, at home, married
women usually wore caps. Short gloves were worn at all times during the day and
long gloves reaching the elbow or higher during the evening. The latter would
be removed for dining.
Flimsy
flat soled slippers of silk, satin, kid or velvet would be worn indoors. Often
embroidered or otherwise decorated, they were usually tied with ribbons and
sometimes had a short heel. For walking, a lady had her half boots made of
kidskin or nankeen, a canvas type fabric. She might even resort to slipping a
pair of pattens over her shoes, which lifted her up out of the dirt and mud and
prevented both shoes and hem from getting dirty.
No lady would dream of leaving the house
without wearing a hat, usually some style of bonnet trimmed in numerous ways.
Chip straw was not actually straw, but thin slivers of wood woven into shape. Grosgrain,
a ribbon most often used for trimming hats and bonnets, is still in use today
and is a coarse weave, tightly
woven fabric. It resembles a fine cord that lies perpendicular to the long
edges with the warp (the threads which run lengthwise on the loom) being
lighter than the weft (the threads that run across the loom). Grosgrain has to
be sewn carefully as it frays easily and holds pin or needle marks. It was
usually made of silk or wool and occasionally a combination of the two. It was
most often used for trimming hats and bonnets.
Sources:
Tom
Tierney’s Fashions of the Regency Period Paper Dolls
Wikipedia
Victoria Chatham is proud to be a Books We Love author.
Find her at:
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Just A Few Blocks Of Stone
Just a Few
Blocks of Stone
I've had a very
busy month with some personal setbacks. So this month I'm not in the mood for
writing something funny. Someone in last months wrote about some interesting facts
regarding Stonehenge. For those of you who think I'm just a crazy funny guy,
well I am, but those that know me more, know that I have a far deeper spiritual
side and I've done a lot of research into native beliefs and other cultures.
I've written a lot of science fiction and love learning about ancient places.
One of the most interesting for myself has always been the Pyramids of Giza.
Some old blocks of stone, a friend once said to me. Yup, on that he was
correct. But once I begun to look closer at these blocks I begun to realize
there is so much more here than some Egyptian scribes working with copper tools
could have put together.
So some facts on
what is known. The main pyramid contains two and a half million blocks of
rock cut from an Aswan quarry six hundred miles away. It weighs an
estimated six to seven million tons, which probably doesn’t mean a lot until
you consider it’s heavier than all the cathedrals, churches and chapels built
in England since the beginning of Christianity, and the tallest structure
erected until the Eiffel Tower was built it 1889. The main pyramid was
supposedly built by the pharaoh Khufu in twenty years. We now know his name is a forgery put there by an English archeologist which wrongly spelled it as Rhufu, and to this day here's been no true evidence of any pharaoh has ever been found inside the main pyramid, or any inscriptions of any kind. Pretty humble scribes in those days, I'd say.
This is quite a remarkable feat, considering the Egyptians lacked astronomical, geological and mathematical expertise. Although no records recorded anywhere by the Egyptians have shown any details on building, moving or assembling the blocks. Which you'd think some egotistical hotshot would have put into permanent inscriptions. I Know I would.
This is quite a remarkable feat, considering the Egyptians lacked astronomical, geological and mathematical expertise. Although no records recorded anywhere by the Egyptians have shown any details on building, moving or assembling the blocks. Which you'd think some egotistical hotshot would have put into permanent inscriptions. I Know I would.
To build this
grand edifice in twenty years would require placing one block every five minutes, day and
night, nonstop for twenty years (read this as no unions, no holidays). This
doesn’t even include cutting the stone, moving it and building the ramps needed
to place them. Setting a mere twenty blocks a day would need 340 years just for
the main pyramid to be finished. The easiest way would be floating them up the
Nile, man what a traffic jam with all those barges.
Historians
claimed that they were erected using an earthen ramp circling the pyramid.
Engineering experts have said it is not possible to construct them to such
precise dimensions in this manner. Also, that ramp would not be shallow enough
to allow the huge blocks to be dragged up it. A ramp of a shallow enough
gradient to allow this would have to have been 4,800 feet long - that’s more
than three times the length of the pyramid itself - and would have to be built out of stone in order to handle the 5-20 ton blocks. And
if it were made of stone, where are the remains? Nothing has ever been found to
even suggest how all this was done.
If I've got your
attention, here’s where the fun and real mind-blowing stuff starts. The precise
nature of the main pyramid is amazing. The difference in length of any of its sides
is eight inches. The twenty-two inch thick plain it sits on is within one inch
of level on an area of 756 X 756 feet. Which doesn't sound big, but is about
ten NFL fields side by side. Gaps between the casing stones measure just a
fiftieth of an inch and the apex of the pyramid is located directly over the
center, not bad considering this building is forty stories high. Some really good string there and a great plomb bob I'd say.
The lower passageway is 350 feet long. It’s straight to one fiftieth of an inch through the blocks they’ve laid, and straight within a quarter of an inch through 200 feet of solid bedrock. Darn sharp copper chisels and a mighty good eye. Oh, did I forget to mention no evidence of any torches used?
The lower passageway is 350 feet long. It’s straight to one fiftieth of an inch through the blocks they’ve laid, and straight within a quarter of an inch through 200 feet of solid bedrock. Darn sharp copper chisels and a mighty good eye. Oh, did I forget to mention no evidence of any torches used?
The Meridian
Building of the Greenwich Observatory in London was built to align with true
north and even it is out by nine-sixtieths of a degree. The main pyramid is
aligned to true north within one-twelfth of a degree. It sits exactly on thirty
north parallel, that’s an imaginary line one third the distance between the
equator and the North Pole. Also, if a line is drawn along the longest land
parallel on Earth and the longest land meridian the exact center is the apex of
the main pyramid.
Calculations of
the length of the King’s Chamber and of the length of the pyramid divided by
its height both equal pi. If a line is drawn through the apex of all three
pyramids and another through the left shoulder and headdress of the sphinx then
the entire Giza complex becomes a Golden Mean Spiral based on the Fibonacci
spiral of numbers, which is a sacred set of numbers that govern all patterns
and growth in nature. Seashells and watermarks have been found about halfway up
the pyramids, carbon dated to around 10,000 BC. These shells, along with a
fourteen foot layer of silt around the base of the pyramid, seem to indicate
that there was flooding here at one time, a fact which could be further
confirmed by the inch-thick sea salt crystals discovered inside the pyramids
when they were first opened around 1200 AD. You’re probably thinking ‘how did
that happen in the middle of the bleeding desert.
According to the Bible, and fossil records, the Giza area had a lush environment around 10,000 BC. This was also the time of the great flood. Erosion marks on the Sphinx, which, by the way, is the largest limestone structure in the world, shows that it was subjected to rain storms for thousands of years and is perhaps far older than the pyramids. Seashell growth on the Sphinx also indicates that it too was underwater at some time. Lastly, the alignment of the pyramids is the same as the three stars of Orion’s belt as they appeared from Earth in 10,500 BC. The two larger pyramids were originally encased in white limestone and the smaller in red to resemble the color of the three stars as seen in the night sky. The Egyptians weren’t the only ones to build pyramids dedicated to Orion. In Xian, China.
You'll find what look like the same configuration of seven pyramids. Also built in Teotihuacan in Mexico is again the same configuration of pyramids. If you draw a straight line across the globe, oddly enough they all link up. Which makes my scratch my head and say, "Very Interesting. Weird, but very interesting." I like to think facts are stronger than fiction. So if I've got your curiosity piqued, go grab a tape measure and give your local travel agent a call and check out those old blocks of stone.
Note: Photos courtesy of the New York Public Library
Frank Talaber, Writer by Soul.
A natural storyteller, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and the subconscious before being poured onto the page.
Literature written beyond the realms of genre he is known to grab readers; kicking, screaming, laughing or crying and drag them into his novels.
Enter the literary world of Frank Talaber.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Goodbye Julian Bond, hero and powerful voice for justice, By Sandy Semerad
“Those were
the days,” Julian Bond said, as I handed him a copy of my novel, A MESSAGE IN
THE ROSES.
“It’s based
on the murder trial I covered as a reporter in Atlanta back in the 1980s,” I
explained. He remembered the trial and
the Klan march I wrote about in the novel.
I
felt fortunate to have reconnected with him. I wanted granddaughter Cody to meet
a fearless and cool civil rights activist and listen to him speak at the Destin
Library in Destin, Florida.
Although
that was a year ago, it seems like yesterday. I can’t believe he’s no longer
with us.
We have lost a
hero and a powerful voice for justice.
I first saw
Julian on television at the Democratic National Convention. He was nominated
for Vice President of the United States, leading up to the 1968 election. He was only 28 and had to decline, due to a
constitutional age requirement of 35.
Julian
was ahead of his time. He began his activism at 17. He helped lead the sit-in movement to fight
segregation in Atlanta, and bravely spoke out with a deep and resonant voice for
those with no voice in the Jim Crow South.
He was one
of the Freedom Riders with Martin Luther King, Jr. and later helped start the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
In
1965, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representative. (The Civil Rights
Act and Voting Rights Act had given blacks the opportunity to vote).
Although he
was lawfully elected to serve, the Georgia House refused to seat him, because
he had endorsed SNCC’s policy opposing the Vietnam War.
Julian
refused to back down. He fought for his rightful seat in the House. He took his
case all the way to the United States Supreme Count. The high court ruled (Bond
v. Floyd) in his favor, stating the Georgia House of Representatives couldn’t
deny his freedom of speech. He went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House
and six terms in the Georgia Senate.
I
remember meeting him face to face for the first time at a Jefferson-Jackson Day
dinner in Atlanta. We kept running into each other while talking to the same
people. We laughed at this coincidence and he said, “Must be in the stars.”
And
speaking of stars, he was a bright and shining beacon of hope, who spoke out for what he thought was right. For decades he's been saying black lives matter, women’s rights matter, gay rights
matter, human rights matter, and he never gave up the fight.
“If you don’t
like gay marriage, don’t get gay married,” he has said. He was born African
American, just as some people were born gay, he said.
Thanks
to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Julian co-founded with Morris Dees, the
Klan lost its vicious bite. SPLC sought
justice on behalf of victims. These lawsuits helped to break the Klan financially.
I
could go on and on about Julian Bond’s accomplishments. Not only was he a civil
rights activist, commentator, eloquent speaker, professor, author, poet, Saturday
Night Live host and occasional actor, he was also a husband, father and grandfather.
“He advocated
not just for African-Americans but for every group, every person subject to
oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us
all,” Morris Dees has articulately said.
I say amen
to that, as I bid farewell to a great man.
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Labels:
#blacklivesmatter,
A Message in the Roses,
Atlanta,
books we love,
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Destin,
Julian Bond,
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Welcome to my blog. I invite you to participate.
I have worked as a newspaper reporter, editor and broadcaster and I've written two novels: Mardi Gravestone is available in paperback and in the ebook version it is called, "Sex, Love & Murder," to reflect the steamy content.
I hope you will take the time to read them. Hurricane House is my second novel, set in a Florida fishing village with a murderer at large.
Midwest book Review gave Hurricane House five stars and Romantic Times gave it four-and-a half-stars. My books are available everywhere books are sold.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Voices by Ginger Simpson
I heard this older song today by Chris Young and some of it really relates to how I feel when I'm writing. I recently promised Jude, our publisher, a book by December 31st. I have it started, but now I have to tune out the voices of Cassie and Will from Deceived in order to get Sarah's Soul finished in time for the fall deadline.
I'm sure I explained in a previous post the difference between Pantsers and Plotters. I, unfortunately, rely on voices in my head to help me write. Without all that chatter, I'm at a loss. I've tried plotting and it just doesn't work for me, so all the people talking in my head are really a blessing...at times.
For me being a "pantser" is akin to having someone tell me a story. I listen and jot down the words, but I never know where I'm headed until I get there. It's a lot more exciting, in my opinion, to having a chart of some type that outlines your entire novel for you. I prefer to be surprised. The only problem is when the characters are done, so is the book. I've written some short, some long, and some in between. You never know how long creating a novel is going to take when you're a pantser.
I have to admit I do take notes now because my memory has faded with age. There is nothing worse than forgetting the heroes name and putting in one from another book or having your heroine suddenly gaze through blue eyes instead of green with gold flecks.
If you're a pantser too, you'll be able to relate to this video. If you aren't, you probably will anyhow, since all those words of wisdom your parents and grandparents shared with you still run through your mind. I can hear my granny to this day telling me all little boys wanted to do was get in my panties. I could never figure out what they'd do once they got them on. How embarassing. I never wanted to wear Jockey shorts. Now that I'm older, I realize she was warning me to be a lady. *lol*
So...I may be camping for the next few months, but I'll be working on Sarah's Hope. This will be sort of continuation of Sarah's Heart and Passion. Here's an except closer to the end of that book so you'll better relate to what Sarah is sharing with me now. She's a chatty one, for sure.
“Really.” He (Wolf) caressed her cheek. “I love you Sarah Collins, and I’d be honored if you would consider spending this life with me. I might have been unselfish enough to have given you up once, but not twice.”
Glee squeezed Sarah’s heart. She’d lived through pure hell in a dream, found the love of her life only to lose him, and now she had a second chance. No way was she missing out on the passion she felt for this man. Locking her arms around his neck, she rested her cheek against his chest, drinking in his warmth, his smell, his feel. “I love you, too, Nathaniel Grey Wolf Elder, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend eternity with…even if it’s on a cattle ranch in Missouri.”
Please check my website for places where you can find this book, and most likely my upcoming one.
http://www.bookswelove.net |
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Mothers and Mortality by Stuart R. West
A year ago, my mother had open-heart surgery. I was just as terrified as her. Nothing makes you confront your own mortality more than having a parent--someone you've taken for granted all your life, always expecting to be there--go under the knife. I felt like I'd be on the operating table alongside her.
Months before, my mom waffled about having the procedure. Her aorta was closing fast, surgery the only option. But my mother elevates stubbornness to an art-form. She'd said, "Maybe it's best to leave it in God's hands and let me live the rest of my life as is."
"Your grandchildren are counting on you," I'd told her. Absolutely shameless, sure, but I played the "grandkid card" nonetheless.
It worked. Mom decided to have the procedure. I told my winter-bound Florida "snow-bird" mother to get her dancing heels ready 'cause the procedure would go great.
The family gathered on the day of the operation, three sons and their families. We sat in the cold, sterile waiting room, chugging bad coffee, killing time by reminiscing. Every embarrassing tale from my childhood was dragged out and beaten like a rug. Then we had even more bad coffee.
The operation went well. So well the surgeon pronounced the procedure as "boring." "Boring's" good in this case.
Hours after the operation, my wife and I visited Mom in Intensive Care.
And I totally lost it.
I wasn't prepared.
My mother, dear God, I didn't recognize her.
She uttered disembodied, agonized "oh's" every few seconds, her eyes wandering, milky and lost. She looked like she'd lost twenty pounds in ten hours. I wanted to hold her, kiss her cheek, afraid I'd break her.
There was no way of letting her know how much I loved her.
Later that same day, I visited again, dreading what I'd find.
I couldn't believe the difference. Sitting up in a chair, she welcomed me. I helped feed her breakfast, administer her medicine, scratch her neck. When she started griping about things, I thought, "Yes! My warrior mother's back!"
All past grievances, annoyances, racial and political differences I'd had with her jettisoned out of the room.
My Mom. The angel who raised me, formed me, talked me through things. Protected me from monsters under the bed and monsters in the school yard.
I cradled her head as gently as I could, said, "Mom, I love you. I'll do anything I can for you."
Months before, my mom waffled about having the procedure. Her aorta was closing fast, surgery the only option. But my mother elevates stubbornness to an art-form. She'd said, "Maybe it's best to leave it in God's hands and let me live the rest of my life as is."
"Your grandchildren are counting on you," I'd told her. Absolutely shameless, sure, but I played the "grandkid card" nonetheless.
It worked. Mom decided to have the procedure. I told my winter-bound Florida "snow-bird" mother to get her dancing heels ready 'cause the procedure would go great.
The family gathered on the day of the operation, three sons and their families. We sat in the cold, sterile waiting room, chugging bad coffee, killing time by reminiscing. Every embarrassing tale from my childhood was dragged out and beaten like a rug. Then we had even more bad coffee.
The operation went well. So well the surgeon pronounced the procedure as "boring." "Boring's" good in this case.
Hours after the operation, my wife and I visited Mom in Intensive Care.
And I totally lost it.
I wasn't prepared.
My mother, dear God, I didn't recognize her.
She uttered disembodied, agonized "oh's" every few seconds, her eyes wandering, milky and lost. She looked like she'd lost twenty pounds in ten hours. I wanted to hold her, kiss her cheek, afraid I'd break her.
There was no way of letting her know how much I loved her.
Later that same day, I visited again, dreading what I'd find.
I couldn't believe the difference. Sitting up in a chair, she welcomed me. I helped feed her breakfast, administer her medicine, scratch her neck. When she started griping about things, I thought, "Yes! My warrior mother's back!"
All past grievances, annoyances, racial and political differences I'd had with her jettisoned out of the room.
My Mom. The angel who raised me, formed me, talked me through things. Protected me from monsters under the bed and monsters in the school yard.
I cradled her head as gently as I could, said, "Mom, I love you. I'll do anything I can for you."
***
My new Books We Love novel can be found here: Ghosts of Gannaway
Book trailer for Ghosts of Gannaway:
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