Many would love to believe that life one hundred years ago was gentler, better mannered, and simpler than today. I love history dearly, and I love historic sites, period dramas, and the like. I wouldn’t be working in museums and archives if I didn’t believe in the power of history for truth, reconciliation, justice, and …
Tag: law
Divorce Colonies of Gilded Age America
If you’ve seen 1939’s The Women (and if you have not, what is stopping you!? *g* ), you’ll remember the section of the film where Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) travels to Reno to obtain a divorce from her cheating husband and discovers an entire colony of almost-divorcees. Not only was this not fictional, but by …
L’Affaire Humbert
Today, society is shocked by the revelation of Bernard L. Madoff’s “Ponzi Scheme,” and many sources compare his fraud to that of Richard Whitney. However, Madoff is closer in relation to the infamous Le Grande Thérèse than the sad case of Whitney. In 1902, a political and financial scandal rocked the French nation when it …