Relic on the Lethe

An ad placed in the Winchester News for August 18, 1865 shows Winchester getting back to some semblance of normalcy. One of those signs was Nathaniel Routzahn, a local photographer, noting a reduction in prices for his services to previous costs. His prices before the war? According to an 1859 ad , they ranged anywhere from 50 cents to $50.  An 1858 invention to display photographs like a slideshow, advanced by the knobs on the top of the cabinet in The American Journal of Photography . The inventor believed "it has numbered the days of the fashionable album." Suppose you were hankering for a portrait. Mr. Routzahn's company offered several options, so let's take a look to explore what each type of image was: Ambrotypes : This is an image printed on glass, which first proliferated in the United States in the 1850s. While they were cheaper to produce and clearer than the earlier daguerreotype, by the time of this ad, ambrotypes were falling out of favor, in part due t

We take for granted these days that our clothes and items will be machine-sewn and generally well-constructed. You might be surprised, however, at how long that has been true. The first mention we find of the invention of the sewing machine reported in Virginia comes by way of the Alexandria Gazette, October 15, 1845 : An ingenious piece of mechanism has lately been made known to the public in France. It is a sewing machine, and calculated to revolutionize completely the art of sewing. It will perform two hundred stitches to the minute, enlarge or contract tho stitches by the simple turn of a screw, lead the needle along all the sinuosities of the stuff to be sewed, without the least danger of tear, whatever may be the texture of the stuff and do every part of the sewing of a coat, button holes excepted. The Staunton Spectator, published on October 30 that same year, includes the final line omitted from Alexandria's publication: "The inventor is Mr. B. Thimounier, tailor at A

How many ways can you think of to eat shredded wheat biscuits? Apparently there were "two dozen ways of preparing them" in 1896, according to an ad in the Daily Item . Just four years later, public demonstrations using shredded wheat mentioned a r ecipe book with 262 recipes . Newspapers ran snarky ads decrying the manufactured necessity for shredded wheat and other breakfast cereals. Despite the push back, shredded wheat was here to stay - at least as a breakfast cereal. But how did it arrive? Shredded Wheat Biscuit with Apricots and Cream, from More Light . Shredded wheat was the invention of Henry Perky . The story goes that he met another person over shared digestion woes around 1890, and learned this person's trick of eating boiled wheat with cream. After connecting with machinist William H. Ford, they developed a machine to process wheat into "little whole wheat mattresses" to facilitate the ease of eating the wheat.  After exhibiting his biscuits at the

While perusing local news items in the July 16, 1896 Daily Item , several notes on construction projects and locations in Winchester jumped out. Let's see if we can track down where these building may be, and if they are still in existence. Miss Marie Wood, daughter of Col. Robt. C. Wood , of New Orleans, is the guest of her aunt, Mrs. B. T. Dandridge on Braddock street.  This was a well-known house that no longer stands. Mrs. B. T. Dandridge is Betty Taylor Dandridge , who acted as First Lady when her mother declined the role. The house, located at 116 N. Braddock St., was demolished in 1934, but several images of it are available at the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives . Mr. J. S. Haldeman, of the creamery on Kent street, received yesterday 5000 pounds of milk and manufactured 387 pounds of butter.  One of Haldeman's buildings still stands at 21-25 South Kent St. ( another building in the complex was demolished to provide parking). Although much altered by later uses, the buildin