Native American history
Attic Wife: A Q & A with Marcia Biederman
Attic Wife: The Shocking Case of Agnes Young McAlpin by Marcia Biederman is the true story of an Alaska Native woman who married a young white dentist’s apprentice during the Klondike Gold Rush. Soon regretting his choice, he brought her back to his Pennsylvania home, where his mother and sister, mortified by the interracial marriage, concealed…
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Deja Vu All Over Again: The Fort Snelling Concentration Camp, 1862
Back in August, My Own True Love and I spent a History Nerd Holiday in the Twin Cities. I came back with a lot of stories, but I left an important one for later: the concentration camp the United States government built at Fort Snelling at the end of the U.S. -Dakota War of…
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In which I take a side trip in time and space to consider the Mayans, the Aztecs and Chocolate
During our visit to Antica Dolceria Bonajuta, the artisanal chocolate producer in Modica, our guide emphasized the fact that most modern chocolatiers, who use heat based methods such as conching and tempering to create smooth chocolate with a shiny appearance. By contrast, the Bonajuta chocolate makers still used a traditional “cold-processing” method similar to that…
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