Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a couple dozen essays on the history of painting for BeyondBooks.com, a subscription service that provided online supplementary materials for high-school students. The site’s…
Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a couple dozen essays on the history of painting for BeyondBooks.com, a subscription service that provided online supplementary materials for high-school students. The site’s…
Second in a series: the first, with the introduction and the years 1801-1806, is here. 1807 Major events: Peninsular War (1807-1814) began as the French invaded Portugal, which offended Napoleon…
Prowling through my database of art recommendations past, present, and future, I noticed that quite a few of the artworks come from the first 15 years of the nineteenth century.…
Now available: Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography and Alexander Hamilton: A Friend to America, volumes 1 and 2. (The "sell sheet" with all the information below is available as a…
Elijah Boardman (1760-1823) In 1790, when Elijah was thirty years old, John Ramage painted his two-inch high portrait on ivory. From it, you'd probably recognize Elijah if you met him on…
Even in an era when scientific discoveries were being made with astonishing rapidity, man's first piloted flight in 1783 ranked as an awe-inspiring event. The Montgolfier brothers began experimenting with…
My favorite short story by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is "The Washed Window," which centers on Booker T. Washington. Fisher's story was published in 1955, forty years after Washington's death. I…
This post is adapted from the forthcoming Guides Who Know app on Central Park. Fame ... The national reputation of “the god-like Daniel” dates to 1830. Two years earlier, no…
The purpose of the liberal arts: clarification In my post on Grammar, I stated that the liberal arts were originally intended to provide the knowledge that a person needed to…