Mrs. Laura Birkhead and the French Medal of Honor

Back in June, I was poking around in newspapers.com* looking for examples of May Birkhead’s war reporting in World War I. In the process, I stumbled across a fascinating story about her mother, Laura Birkhead (1858-1938) Mrs. Birkhead was visiting her daughter in Paris when Germany declared war on France on August 3, 1914. Despite…

Read More

And Speaking of X-rays….

Several of you responded to my recent post on the subject with interesting information about the early use of x-rays.* This story caught my imagination for several reasons that will be obvious to those of you who are regular visitors here on the Margins: When World War I broke out in 1914, Marie Curie (already…

Read More

From the Archives: Before Rosie the Riveter

Sometimes life makes it impossible to write blog posts on a dependable basis. This is one of the those times. For the next little while, I’m going to run pieces from years past. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Next up, a post from October, 2018: A…

Read More