The Hello Girls of WWI

As I’ve mentioned before here in the Margins, now and then a bit of history begins to track me down. A name, event, or idea piques my interest and suddenly I stumble across it everywhere. Or at least in the footnotes to books on tangentially related subjects. Lately the “Hello Girls” of the first World…

Read More

The Empress Maud (aka Matilda)

I was first introduced to the Empress Maud and her battles to regain the throne of England by mystery writer Ellis Peters.(1) The war between Maud and her cousin Stephen is the immediate background against which her Brother Cadfael mysteries are set. (One step behind that stand the Crusades–a deft way to place her stories…

Read More

From the Archives: Word With a Past: Mausoleum

Among other things, I’m currently working on the story of Artemisia II, the widowed queen in the story below.  I’m ashamed to realized that I did not mention her by name:  my own small contribution to erasing women from history. (I’ve corrected that in this re-run.) While we don’t know a great deal about Queen…

Read More