Celebrating spring with the maypole

By | April 26th, 2023|Categories: Holidays, Victorian culture, Victorian Era, Victorian Era Celebrations|

How are you celebrating the arrival of spring? I will be spending a few days in the mountains next week, both as a farewell to the long winter we have had in Denver and also for my birthday which lands on May 3rd. I will be following in a long tradition of venturing out into [...]

Thimbles: protecting us from pinpricks for thousands of years

By | April 23rd, 2023|Categories: History of the home, Trinkets|Tags: , |

I love to study trinkets from time. Some of my recent ideas have come from research I did last year for a post on women’s tie-on pockets. Among the many items that were commonly carried in the deep, under-the-skirt pockets of the 19th century were thimbles. It struck me that women would be ready to [...]

Mary Quant: British Fashion Influencer

By | April 19th, 2023|Categories: Fashion history, Women's History|Tags: , |

England lost one of its most notable fashion designers this month with the passing of Mary Quant, the Swinging 60s creator who is often credited for popularizing mini skirts, hot pants, and clothing whimsy. I am a big fan of both mini skirts (I bought two this weekend!) and 1960s fashions so began to read [...]

The charvolant: Regency kite buggy

By | April 13th, 2023|Categories: Regency Era|

April 16th is Fly a Kite Day, and the sunny weather here in Denver is inviting me to celebrate. I wanted to share the excitement over spring with our readers and it immediately dawned on me that there must have been some smart inventors in the 19th century who used kites in various ways. New [...]

All About April

By | April 6th, 2023|Categories: Easter, Holidays|Tags: , |

Robin Williams said that “spring is nature’s way of saying ‘let’s party!'” I’ve always thought that was quite a cute way of looking at it, and even more so this year after having been through such a long winter here in Denver. And even though it snowed all day long yesterday, it is meant to [...]

March History News Roundup

By | April 1st, 2023|Categories: History News|

March was a fun month for women’s history research and human interest stories! It was a challenge to pull my top picks and also to stop myself from spending all day in bed reading each day after discovering the latest each morning. I hope that this will provide some fun weekend reading for you. There [...]

Constance Spry: Floral Powerhouse

By | March 30th, 2023|Categories: Women's History|Tags: |

I wanted to highlight someone lesser known on the blog to close out Women’s History Month. I started thinking about some of my hobbies and something that I may learn as well and the idea of floral arrangement came to me. Much to my delight I discovered that a courageous English woman had so much [...]

Virtual self-guided tours to celebrate Women’s History Month

By | March 26th, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|

Every month is Women’s History Month here at Recollections, but we appreciate the extra incentive to do fun research on our favorite topic. All month long we have been compiling a list of virtual women’s history exhibits to share with you. We’ve got some videos of museum tours, some 360° virtual walks of historic sites, [...]

Five women's history books from my collection

By | March 22nd, 2023|Categories: Women's History|Tags: |

Want to celebrate Women’s History Month by helping to keep the lives of pioneering women remembered? Here are five recommendations from my own collection.  What’s your favorite women’s history book or biography? Let us know in the comments! ZeldaBy Nancy Milford It was an absolute joy to read this gripping and detailed biography last year. [...]