We've been taught that history is the story of great events and important people -- but is it? In Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella, Michael Olmert shows how the most ordinary artifacts of everyday life can also be important sources of information. For the modern historian it's the little things that count, and these intriguing essays force us to take another look at the odds and ends of life we so often take for granted, including: -- Toothbrushes -- how they eased civilization into the Industrial Revolution -- Graffiti -- why they became a feature of our public "decoration" --...
We've been taught that history is the story of great events and important people -- but is it? In Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella, Michael Olmert s...
In Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies, Michael Olmert takes us into the eighteenth-century backyards of colonial America. He explores the many small outbuildings that can still be found at obscure rural farmsteads throughout the Tidewater and greater mid-Atlantic, in towns like Williamsburg and Annapolis, and at elite plantations such as Mount Vernon and Monticello.
These structures were designed to support the performance of a single task: cooking food; washing clothes; smoking meat; storing last winter's ice; or keeping milk, cheese, and cream fresh. Privies and small...
In Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies, Michael Olmert takes us into the eighteenth-century backyards of colonial America. He explores the ...
