Edwardian Promenade

Despite its roots in European paganism, Halloween is a thoroughly American holiday. During the Gilded Age, Americans took Halloween quite seriously, even going so far as to celebrate it wherever they happened to be–as German society soon discovered when the expatriates residing in Berlin shook up the Kaiser’s capital with “games, Jack-o-lanterns, mince pies, and [...]

LABOR DAY, First Monday in September. The only day when labor works overtime.
An occasion when the workingman takes a cane in place of a dinnerpail
and proudly tramps the streets behind a real silk banner
and a Hod Carrier on a Cart Horse. ~The Foolish Dictionary (1905)

Christmas Eve, darkness fell at about 7 pm on a long line of trenches held, on the one side, by a body of Saxon troops, on the other by the Leicestershire Regiment, the London Rifle Brigade, and some other British units. With it came a sudden calm. The German snipers seemed to have disappeared, and [...]

In the third week of December, Victoria traveled south aboard the royal train to Portsmouth where she boarded the 160-foot-long, 370-ton paddle-wheel steamer Alberta. The steamer bore the queen across the silent, gray waters of the Solent to the Isle of Wight, landing at East Cowes. Her Majesty then set off in a carriage [...]

Dropping change or bills, or even jewelry and rare coins into those red kettles may come second nature to nearly everyone during the holiday season. Just the sound of the bells chiming as the Salvation Army worker, or perhaps Santa Claus, sounds like Christmas. The organization and its annual Christmas kettle is so prominent in [...]

Now November was upon us, and we had kept All-hallow-mas, with roasting of skewered apples (like so many shuttlecocks), and after that the day of Fawkes, as became good Protestants, with merry bonfires and burned batatas, and plenty of good feeding in honor of our religion…
- Lorna Doone, by R. D. Blackmore
Guy Fawkes Day, or [...]