Beginning in 1836, many young ladies turned to a popular advice manual, A Young Lady’s Friend, which told them how to dress and to behave after they finished their schooling. A proper young lady was as constrained by expectations as ...

New England is dotted with famous writers houses, a testament to the Puritan ideal of literacy and the region’s many publishing houses. Some writers, like Rudyard Kipling, were born elsewhere, but wrote prolifically while living in New England. Some, like ...

In 1830, Joseph Palmer bucked the fashion trend and wore a flowing beard – for which he was persecuted and jailed. Since 1720, non-Jewish American men stopped wearing beards and moustaches. Except for Joseph Palmer. He was born in 1789 ...

Wallace Stevens was a plodding insurance executive in Hartford for nearly all of his adult life, except when he spent winter vacations in Key West. There he got drunk and fought with Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway. Stevens was also ...

The summer White House has been a feature of presidential life since John Adams returned to Quincy, Mass., to get away from the muggy heat of Washington, D.C. Spending time away from the nation’s capital also allowed the president to ...

In the Peterkin Papers, Lucretia Hale turned taking jibes at the haplessness of over-educated, citified folk into an art form. Hale was a prolific author of both short stories and novels. She was daughter of Boston newspaperman Nathan Hale (a ...

Dozens of Little Canadas have contributed a significant but often ignored part of the character and history of New England since the 19th century. They’ve given us magnificent churches, Catholic hospitals and sports heroes like Springfield’s Leo Durocher and Woonsocket’s ...

Neil Armstrong might not have taken his moon walk on July 20, 1969 were it not for a former high school teacher named Margaret Hamilton. Three minutes before the Apollo 11 lunar lander Eagle reached the surface of the moon, ...

After Harry Crosby was nearly killed in World War I, he vowed to live fast and die young. His success scandalized Boston society during the Jazz Age. Born a Brahmin to an old, wealthy family, he lived a wild bohemian ...

The Readville Race Track in its glory days was a place where politicians, socialites, sportsmen and gamblers mingled;  speed records were set for horse racing and auto racing; and the first airplane designed for combat was tested. For years the ...