American History
Tiny Broadwick: “First Lady of Parachuting”
Georgia Ann “Tiny”[1] Thompson Broadwick (1893-1978) fell in love with aviation in 1907 at the age of 14 when she attended an aerial show at the North Carolina State Fair. The show featured pioneering balloonist Charles Broadwick (c. 1875-1943), who went up in a hot air balloon, climbed over the side and parachuted down. Tiny…
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Madame Demorest, Women’s Magazines, and Fashion
In the mid-19th century, Ellen Curtis “Madame” Demorest (1824-1898), aided by her husband William, created a fashion and media empire in New York built on the growing magazine industry and the aspirations of middle-class women who wanted to reproduce current French couture at home, something that was previously only available to the wealthy. The connection…
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History on Display: The National Civil Rights Museum
Because we are heading into the Martin Luther King holiday weekend here in the United States. I thought it was an appropriate time to re-run my post on our visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis in the spring of 2024. It turns out that I didn’t write one. With questions of institutionalized…
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