“According to Swedenborg, all human experience was only a reflection of a larger spiritual one. The human soul was what gave meaning and expression to the concrete world.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“All disease, she {Mary Baker Eddy}, asserted in her 1876 first edition of 'Science and Health,' the bible of her new faith, was a fiction of the soul. Neither disease nor matter existed. Both were creations of the soul which symbolized the universal mind, of Jesus Christ, at work.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“While music may be the food of love, it can also serve as solace for love's demise.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“Illness was thus considered not so much a condition of the human body as a reflection of a doubting or ailing spirit.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“Strange surroundings make youngsters cling to habits that represent earlier securities.”
Source: Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen
“... Women's impulse to change her own rhythms in the face of an environment constructed to retain her as guardian of the suburban hearth.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“Yet our old expectation that the suburbs are homey, tranquil and predictable places continues to gnaw at the feminine collective subconscious. The suburban home still begs for a presiding divinity -- a keeper of the keys and human cares, the archetypal mother of earlier ages.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“She had difficulty accepting adultery despite its prevalence among high-born men of the era.”
Source: Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen
“Andre had violated the international laws of war He had behaved as a common spy. Death by hanging was the usual punishment.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Andre mounted the wagon, stood on the coffin, removed his hat, ad lowered his shirt collar. 'It will be but a momentary pang,,' Dr. James Thacher heard him say. Seizing the nose, Andre brought it over his head, tied a knot under his left ear, and placed a handkerchief over his eyes.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Having scanned the faces of the spectators, Andre mounted the wagon, stood on the coffin, removed his hat, and lowered his shirt collar. "It will be but a momentary pang,' Dr. James Thacher heard him say. Seizing the noose, Andre brought it over his head, tied a knot under his left ear, and placed a handkerchief over his eyes. When asked for his last words, the British officer raised his handkerchief. 'I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Unless a suburban woman is in the relatively rare position of commanding a high salary, and is able to find and afford top-quality child care, she may find herself in a no-win situation”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“The suburban dream began innocently enough one and a half centuries ago, with a weariness of city life and a craving for all things green bright and pure.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“Yet the tranquil image of suburbias of the past remains, and continues to influence us, as do traditional concepts of femininity....”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“By the late 1840s, anticipation of a better life and the concept of 'progress' had become an American touchstone, a national expectation.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“Life on the road, even for a worldly man like C. W. Post and his well-bred daughter, presented certain challenges. although he could order meals, fasten Marjorie's buttons, and make sure that she was properly dressed, C. W. could not fix her hair.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“The Moslem people had brought an extraordinarily rich mixture of knowledge, beauty, and bloodshed to the Iberian peninsula; in the process Spain had been permanently transformed.”
“The conversos were thus both a troubled and troublesome population in late fifteenth century Castile.”
Source: Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen
“If Arnold's leap to the British was to succeed, Peggy must play the innocent as his cheerful and charming young wife.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Pegg, cowering in her bedroom, asked her housekeeper to check on the ailing Varick. Then, willing herself in to a frenzy, she tore at her hair and clothes, weeping, her sobs accelerating in volume.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Inevitably, the British barrier ringing Boston created new hardships for residents. While initially forbidden to leave the city, new food shortages sweltering summer temperatures convinced Gage to grant some citizens passes. ...Even after the arrival of fishing boats civilians could not buy the catch until the British were supplied. Outbreaks of disease became common.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“By then Mercy, too, had evolved from the decorous wife of an affluent patriot into a reporter for those removed from the theater of war.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“Above all, wealth was no longer to be flaunted. While an ostentatious displays of money might have been de rigueur in the Golden Twenties, it was decidedly out of fashion in the desperate days of the Destitute Thirties.
The splashy parties the socialite once gave and attended in the twenties in New York and Palm Beach now dwindled to a trickle and were replaced with charity teas, and fund raisers.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“Within a day Mercy heard the news. She never forgot it. A few months later, that riot became the backdrop for her first political satire.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“With the distanced drumbeat of the Revolution, the chink of coins suddenly became more important than commitment to the cause.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“What, after all, was the point of describing a Revolution meant to create a democratic republic of free men that was destroyed by power-hungry men determined to create a new 'aristocracy?”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“Like most well-built Russian homes, Spaso House had been 'furred in', built with an extra layer of wall between the exterior and interior to provide additional insulation against the cold.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“If Peggy's personal star was on the rise, Arnold's was in freefall as their respective ships headed into the high seas.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“To soften relations between the two groups and meet Philadelphia's fashionable young beauties, Arnold hosted a ball at the... City Tavern with a guest list that included Tories and neutralists, as well as patriots. Inevitably the 'disaffected' emerged triumphant, their beaded gowns gleaming in the candlelight, their two-feet--high hairdos towering over the caps of patriot woman in their crude clothes.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Peggy was equally enchanted with the older, more sexually experienced Arnold. Long after their honeymoon and first years of marriage, she continued to praise Arnold as 'the best of husbands.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Raised in an era when women were valued for their sexuality, solicitude , and silence, the eighteen year old stood loyally by Arnold's side.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“Contradictory emotions roiled over her; grief over Arnold's thwarted plans and their mutual hopes for a large reward; relief that her husband was safe, coupled with doubts abut their marriage. Would she ever see Arnold again?”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“The former Philadelphia belle's evolution from the fragile, compliant bride fo the American traitor to a restrained wife was remarkable enough, but what followed was even more surprising: a revelation of strengths Peggy long held in reserve.
Her transition was born of necessity.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“The former Philadelphia belle's evolution from the fragile, compliant bride of the American traitor to a restrained wife was remarkable enough, but what followed was even more surprising: a revelation of strengths Peggy long held in reserve.
Her transition was born of necessity.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“To most Americans, Peggy remains an enigmatic and nearly forgotten figure. Early historians depicted the former Philadelphia belle as a Loyalist whose fondness for British officer John Andre led her to corrupt Arnold's political views. By the early twentieth century, members of her family attempted to correct that view.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“As cities were melting pots in the nineteenth century, suburbs have become the twentieth-century equivalent...minorities, refugees and other population subgroups have ...entered the suburbs.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“Spiritualism, born out of the same discontent with social restrictions and punitive theologies as the suffrage movement, ended up even sharing the same table. The subsequent meeting, at the Seneca Falls Universalist Wesleyan Church on July 19-20 would ignite the woman's suffrage movement, setting the stage for a seventy-two year battle that resulted in the 1920 passage of the Twenty-First Amendment.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“Punishments were severe, their harshness underscored by the fact that they were written in blood. At the very least, petty thieves were beaten with whips. Those convicted of stealing property...routinely lost an army or a leg. the most serious offenders were tied to a post, where, as it was stipulated, 'his body shall be taken as a target,' with arrows.”
Source: Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen
“Rhythms. You can almost feel them on suburban streets, divine the hour of the day without consulting a clock from the sounds heard in the cool, leafy neighborhoods.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“By dawn, June 18, 1778, an eerie silence surrounded the docks of Philadelphia, which were strewn with tables, chests and other household goods. Tossed overboard by the departing British to make room for military gear, those possessions were the remaining personal effects of the three thousand Tories who had streamed onto British ships and sailed for New York City the preceding day.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“The great suburban mansions and modest tract homes are often silent all day, mausoleums to a dream, the streets hushed until the schoolchildren return home.”
Source: The New Suburban Woman
“Inspired by its views of both the Atlantic and Lake Worth, Marjorie planned to call her home Mar-A-Lago from the Latin, meaning 'from sea to lake.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“When acquaintances expressed their fascination with his new Palm Beach home {Mar-A-Lago} , the stockbroker often shrugged cynically. 'You know Marjorie said she as going to build a little cottage by the sea. Look what we got!”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“With the onset of World War I and the deaths of thousands of young men, a new generation of spiritualists appeared. One of the most prominent was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes detective series, whose pro-spiritualist book "New Revelation" was published in 1917.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“Like others who had once enjoyed an elite lifestyle, Lucy craved its return and whenever opportunity arrived, attempted to recreate it...By then no one questioned Lucy's role as the reigning hostess of celebrations, a role she continued to hold in public celebrations during the early Federal period.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married
“In the wake of that uproar, Boston settled into a sullen calm, probably at the stern insistence of Sam Adams, who reprimanded the street gangs, printers and "wharf rats" who often identified themselves as Sons of Liberty.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“...within a few weeks, the young minister Reverend George York , had expelled the family, accusing them of blasphemy and devil worship. their neighbors suspected the some of them feared the Foxes were in league with the devil, and must have encouraged their daughters to join them by engaging in some kid of 'witchcraft.”
Source: The Reluctant Spiritualist: A Life of Maggie Fox
“The usual method for starting a fire in colonial America was to strike flint against steel. the usual way to protest an injustice was to bring a suit to the colonial courts.”
Source: The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation
“By 1937 Soviet standards, mementos of Russian history before the 1917 revolution were irrelevant. Even the suggestion that china, jewelry, or furniture created for the imperial palaces of the tsars was worth more than its weight in gold might be construed as anti-Soviet propaganda.”
Source: American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
“Slippery as was Knox's land grab of the entire Waldo Patent, nepotism and patronage were common in those days.”
Source: Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married