A side-note about corsets

When Tom Paine was 13, he was apprenticed to his dad’s corset business; he made corsets. I guess I should explain what a corset is. It’s an undergarment for ladies, it’s underwear. A corset is rigid. It’s built out of sewn-together layers of starched linen with laces in the back and long skinny pockets or channels in rows for whalebone struts to slide into. A corset’s purpose is to flatten the stomach, tighten the waist, straighten the back and make a lady’s form more appealing. After you squeeze yourself into one, you get somebody nearby to haul on the laces to make the whole apparatus even tighter. In the 17- and 1800s, upper-class ladies wouldn’t dream of being seen in public without wearing a corset.

Here’s the epic movie Gone With The Wind (it takes place in the American South just before, during, and following the Civil War)—this is the scene with Scarlett O’Hara getting trussed into a corset by her slave, Mammy.

https://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2011/08/politics-staymaker-thomas-paine-1793.html

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.

Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.

More Tom Paine

Here’s Tom Paine, a guy with common sense.

(continued from this previous post)

But don’t worry. Big things were about to happen to Tom Paine. In London, he bumped into Benjamin Franklin (what are the odds?). Franklin must’ve liked that pamphlet. He wrote a nice letter of recommendation and told Paine to go seek his fortune in America. Remember, America was still the Thirteen Colonies back then. Paine sailed to Philadelphia and helped start up Pennsylvania Magazine with Ben Franklin’s son-in-law. He wrote more essays and pamphlets, including the blockbuster, Common Sense. It sold 500,000 copies! Common Sense was a criticism of the British government’s unfair taxation of her colonies and it made a persuasive argument for declaring independence from Great Britain—which the colonists did on July 4, 1776.

Contraband—goods which are brought into or taken out of the country secretly and illegally.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/contraband
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Paine
https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-paine-common-sense-pamphlet
https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu/resources/when-how

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.

Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.

Tom Paine

As I was saying a few posts back, the pamphleteers of 200 years-or-so ago did well for themselves. They wrote essays, then printed and published them. These essays were opinion pieces—sometimes about culture and fashion, sometimes about how the government should be run. The successful pamphleteers had big followings, large audiences who were eager to buy and read their pamphlets.
Thomas Paine was one of those pamphleteers. When he was a young guy in England, you would never guess that he’d turn out to be so influential. He’d gotten hardly any education (he could read, write and do math, that’s it). From 13 years old, he worked at a bunch of different jobs but without much success. Tom sewed ladies’ corsets at his father’s shop. Later, he had a job chasing liquor and tobacco smugglers and making them pay taxes on their contraband—his paycheck was so lousy he published a pamphlet about how the British government should pay their tax collectors a better wage. They fired him!

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.

Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.

Read all about it!

Newspapers were the natural next step after printers saw the success of pamphlets. A newspaper is published regularly (daily or weekly), it tells its readers the important news, and printers can sell advertising space in it. A newspaper could carry more than one essayist to write opinion pieces.
By the later years of the 1700s, essayists were writing their opinions in the newspapers. Successful newspapers had a large circulation—meaning: many people bought and read that newspaper. The bigger your circulation, the more you can charge for advertising space. Advertising revenue is what makes a newspaper profitable. The way to get a big circulation is to hire writers whose stuff people want to read.
What kind of stuff? One hot topic was taxes. In the American colonies, people were fed up with an overbearing government that imposed high taxes on everything. There was even a tax on newspapers and pamphlets. The problem was: colonists had no say in how they were governed from England—they had no representatives in Parliament to make laws or vote on their behalf. King George III thought of the American colonies as not much more than a money-making machine for the British treasury. He needed buttloads of cash to support his enormous empire. So, he taxed his colonial subjects. If they didn’t pay their taxes, there were plenty of George’s soldiers to throw them in jail.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/no-taxation-without-representation#:~:text=In%201768%2C%20the%20catchphrase%20of,grew%20more%20and%20more%20popular.

King George wasn’t happy

In the later years of the 1700s, much of the Eastern edge of North America was British colonies. You loyal readers will remember how European nations snapped up chunks of the New World in order to have bases of operation for overseas trade. By the 1770s, the British people who lived in America’s 13 colonies had grown to like that their king lived across the Atlantic Ocean, far far away. They’d begun to think of themselves as ‘autonomous’—that they might more or less rule themselves. If you’re King George III, you don’t like your subjects thinking this way. https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/come-cheer-up-my-boys-tis-to-glory-we-sail/

King George III. I write dialogue for British aristos as if written by P G Wodehouse.

The Charlie Painting

Here’s the painting of Charlemagne. You can watch me paint it in the previous post. Also, if you’d like to receive this Christmas card—let’s face it, I’m listening to Christmas music over here and the decorations are still up—just private-message me your postal address.

The Coronation of Charlemagne!

I recorded myself painting the art for this year’s Christmas card. This image is my ham-handed take on The Coronation of Charlemagne, painted in AD 1861 by Friedrich Kaulbach. Charlemange was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day AD 800.
That painting can be found at the Maximilianeum in Munich, Germany if you happen to be in the neighborhood.
As loyal readers know, Charlemagne is one of my favorite figures from history. You can read about him here: https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2019/09/18/may-we-be-frank/ and here.
I lost my mailing list last spring when my dear old computer crashed. If you’d like a card, shoot me your postal address: john@johnmanders.com.

Merry Christmas!

Roxie

Monday morning I said goodbye to my sweet Roxie.

Roxie was the first of the trio of dogs I accumulated that included Lizzie and Gus. I got her when she was a mere slip of a girl—one and a half years old—and we’ve since had 8 and a half years together. Back then Roxie and I both had recently come through divorces. She got left behind in her backyard with a promise of regular visits and feedings that didn’t materialize. Luckily, the nice people at Precious Paws Animal Rescue fostered Roxie and found me to adopt her.

Roxie was spoiled. All my dogs are. She believed she was a princess and I never told her she wasn’t. She was a gracious royal: she allowed those around her to adore her. Roxie would slowly roll from a sitting position onto her back so anyone nearby could scratch her tummy. When we lived at my dad’s house Aunt Marian spoiled her (and Lizzie and Gus) with prime rib bones and white wine reduction sauce to top off her kibble. Roxie had no particular talents or skills except being adorable. She loved me whole-heartedly, just as I loved her.

Except for that one time she and Gus took off to chase a deer all night, I could trust Roxie to stay in my backyard unleashed. Walks in the woods were at her own unhurried pace. She daintily dawdled and sniffed while I was hauled through the brambles at break-neck speed by my other wild-eyed hounds. Somehow she kept track of us and we’d all arrive back home at the same time.

Lately our walks tired her and she had to rest frequently. This past weekend her breathing was quick, short pants. She couldn’t lay down or find any comfortable position. I called Dr Sandy early Monday morning and Roxie was admitted right away. X-rays showed her lungs filled with cancer. It had happened very quickly. There was no choice but to let Roxie go. Dr Sandy made her passing easy. I was with her to the very end—I held her and kissed her and looked into her beautiful eyes and told her I love her. I always will.

Go with God, my princess.
Roxie 2013 – 2023

A Splendid Wedding Reception

The bride and groom

I’m so happy and grateful to say it’s been a busy summer! I’m especially thankful for my customers who hire me to draw their guests. What a fun crowd this was. Many thanks to my manager, Marie, who kept everybody moving and smiling.

More events are coming up—I’ll post photos as I take them. If you’re around Oil City, PA Friday-Saturday August 18-19, come get your face drawn at Bridge Fest!

AppleFest 2022

It’s that time of year again! My little town of Franklin turned itself into the hub of Appledom for 3 days last weekend. My lovely girlfriend Marie managed the crowd and kept everything running smoothly with hardly any fistfights. Here are some of the wonderful people I got to draw. Quite a few return customers!—I’m so grateful.

Plan to attend the best three days of the year!