I've moved!!

So I have a new website, designed by the brilliantly talented Brynna Curry:

www.marinmcginnis.com

This blog is moving over to the new digs--please stop by and say hello!

Marin

Writers Retreats

I have been quite remiss in posting lately, so apologies for that. The day job, writing, home life, etc. have taken most of my energy.

But this past weekend I took some much needed "me" time and attended the annual retreat of the Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America chapter. It's always held at Punderson State Park southeast of Cleveland, and it almost always involves an insane amount of food, wine, and laughter. Occasionally, there is even writing, I had a super productive weekend, writing 4,400 words on my second book at the retreat. Another 10,000 words later, I played hooky from the day job and finished it.

Anyway, as some of my cabinmates and I walked up to the Punderson Manor House for a hike, one of them said she was interested in knowing more about the house. Strangely, they all looked at me.

I am so predictable.

Punderson Lake

The land on which the Manor House sits was originally settled by Lemuel Punderson, who moved west from New Haven, Connecticut in 1806. Punderson constructed a number of dams on the lake in order to use the water for a grist mill. He married Sybil Hickok in October 1808, and in addition to operating a mill and a distillery, they reportedly also used the property as a recreational area for friends and family.

Wales Hotel.  Source: C& E Interurban Historical Society.

Punderson died of malaria in 1822 at the age of 40, and Sybil in 1872. The Punderson estate owned the land, but not the water rights to the lake, so the lake continued to be used by the public for recreation. In 1887, James E. Wales constructed a hotel (imaginatively called the Wales Hotel), which served as a resort destination for twenty years.

William and Ocie Cleveland.
Photo taken by author in the lobby of Punderson Manor.

In or around 1902, William B. Cleveland, a descendant of the founder of our fair city, Moses Cleaveland, began purchasing pieces of land around the lake, owning most of it by 1910. Cleveland had been a frequent visitor to the Wales Hotel as a child, and wished to create a hunting and fishing estate. In 1904, he built a house on the site of the present manor for his much younger bride, Ocie Coppedge,

Apparently not content to own all the land around the lake, Cleveland bought and demolished the Wales Hotel, then in 1907 he successfully sued to purchase the water rights to the lake, then subsequently acquired the last remaining parcel from Ella Punderson. The resulting 505 acre property eventually included a dog kennel, called Lakefield Farm and Kennels, a dog food factory, a herd of buffalo, angora goats, and a six bedroom houseboat,

Cleveland died of cancer in Cleveland Heights in 1929, at the age of 67. (Ocie, twenty years his junior, married again three years later, and died in 1974.) In 1929 (or possibly earlier, depending on which history you read), the property was sold to Karl Long of Chicago, who wanted to build an English tudor mansion for his family. Long defaulted on the mortgage, which was held by the Cleveland family, and the partially constructed mansion and the property reverted back to the Clevelands.

Punderson Manor, November 2014

Ocie Coppedge Cleveland Bikkelhaupt owned the property until 1948, when she sold it to the State of Ohio.  The State completed Karl Long's mansion in 1956, and did extensive renovations and additions in 1965 (opening as Punderson State Park Lodge in 1966) and again from 1979 to 1983.

I wish I knew when this guy was added to the house. 

But quite apart from the history, which is probably fascinating only to history geeks like me, Punderson Manor is actually famous in certain circles, because it is reportedly haunted.

Guests and employees of the company which manages the manor have reported a number of spooky occurrences, including hearing children's laughter in empty rooms, cold hallways accompanied by a woman dressed in Civil War era clothing, a ghostly lumberjack hanging by his neck from a rope descended from the ceiling, a woman held down on her bed by invisible hands, pictures dropping off the wall, doors opening and closing,

Considering I am wildly averse to scary stuff, I was glad that I didn't read all of these stories before I settled into the Manor's library to write with friends. It was cold in there, but I attribute that to our failure to notice that we could turn on the heater. (I stole these pics from the uber-talented Miranda Liasson, who somehow managed to avoid being in any of them.)





Should you ever get a chance to go on a writers' retreat, I can't recommend it highly enough. Good times, good friends, good (or at least productive) writing, and even a hike or two under a splendid autumn sky.

Sources:
The history of Punderson is a surprisingly unclear one, with a certain amount of embellishment, accusation, and a few court cases thrown in. These are the sites from which I gleaned most of the information for this post:

http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/punderson#history
http://www.punderson.com/History.htm
http://friendsofpunderson.com/PDF/HistoryProgramPunderson.pdf
Findagrave.com
Ancestry.com
http://geauganews.com/the-history-of-punderson-manor-state-park-lodge/
http://www.ohiostateparklodges.com/media-announcements/the-haunted-history-of-ohios-punderson-manor-state-park-lodge/
http://www.deadohio.com/punderson.htm

Revelations

So, today is my birthday--I won't tell you which one--and I received the coolest present:

Gorgeous, no? I love the soft, elegant romance of it. Many, many thanks to the talented cover artist, Debbie Taylor.

I have to tell you, this whole cover business has been kind of weird. Theodora has been living in my head for the past two years, and it was an oddly intimate experience to see a photographic depiction of her. I can only imagine how strange, scary, and wonderful it will be to send the final version of the book out into the world.

Coming soon from The Wild Rose Press.  Happy birthday to me!

Dream a Little Dream

This morning I woke up after a dream--I dreamed today was Thanksgiving, and I had NO food and a houseful of people. My son had a dream as well; he told me that he dreamed about "an epic bed" which featured a mattress in a bath tub, floating on water. His dreams are always more colorful than mine.

I have always been fascinated by dreams, although not in a hugely analytic way--I prefer not to spend a lot of time in my own head (or my kid's), thank you. It's just interesting to me how they can give insight to one's true feelings. Years ago, I tried to keep a dream journal, with limited success. My dreams are so ephemeral, I usually forget them within moments, even with a handy notebook by the bed. Other times, my notes were completely unintelligible.

I do remember some of my dreams. The--ahem--erotic dreams and anxiety dreams are usually the most memorable. I am not entirely sure what the former are supposed to signify, but they are fun. The latter, much less enjoyable, let me know that something in my life is freaking me out more than I thought. Some days I have to try very hard to figure out what it is--I adore Thanksgiving, especially when I'm cooking, so today's dream was obviously about something else, probably to do with the day job.

I like to use dreams in my novels too, as they are wonderful literary devices. They are ways to get deeper inside a character's head, to weave in backstory, to break the rules a bit. When you come across dreams in my books, that's what they are: devices.

I am not a particularly deep thinker--what you see is usually what you get with me. I always hated literary criticism classes in college, where the professor took apart books page by page to search for the hidden meanings. Sometimes there just aren't any, at least not intentional ones. There's a 2011 Paris Review article that pops up on Facebook every now and then--Julia Quinn, one of my favorite romance authors, is the latest to mention it. It describes a high school kid in 1963 who, tired of searching for symbolism in English class, wondered what authors really thought. So Bruce McAllister sent a survey to 150 novelists to ask them. Half of them responded, some in tremendous detail. I can't do justice to the questions or their responses here, so go read the article.

But I digress.

Do you remember your dreams? What's your most memorable one? Literary criticism--yea or nay?

Another visit to Akron

Akron's been on my mind lately, as I've been there more in the past two weeks than I have in years. Okay, only twice, but still.

Last week my husband and I went to a concert (Wilco, in case you were wondering) at the Akron Civic Theater, which is truly one of the oddest looking buildings I think I've ever been in.

Strangely enough, given that my dad grew up in Akron and my grandmother lived there almost her entire adult life, I had never been there before.  It was originally envisioned as "the Hippodrome," a 3,000 seat movie theater with an arcade full of shops and restaurants. It was designed in 1919 by L. Oscar Beck, an Akron dance hall owner. Construction began and the lobby was built, but the project was bankrupt by 1921. In 1925, the abandoned lobby and adjacent land along the Ohio and Erie Canals were purchased by Marcus Loew--who founded the Loew's theater chain and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios--and designed by architect John Eberson.

The theater was completed in 1929, two years after Loew's death. Its interior was fashioned after a Moorish castle featuring Mediterranean decor, including medieval carvings, European antiques and Italian alabaster sculptures. Eberson also designed the theater to be "atmospheric," featuring twinkling starlit skies (seriously, it's wild--this picture of mine doesn't do it justice at all) and drifting clouds.

Proscenium arch, Akron Civic Theater

I had never seen or heard of an atmospheric theater before, so being the nerd that I am I needed to do some digging. The Akron Civic is one of the largest remaining examples of atmospheric theaters in the US. It was nearly destroyed in the 1960s, but for the enterprising persistence of a group of Akron matrons, who saved the theater from destruction and insured its continued success. (Ironically, they did so in part by selling popcorn, the smoke and grease from which so blackened the walls that the theater underwent a $19 million cleaning and renovation in 2001. Or at least that's what the guy selling beer(and no popcorn) told us.)

John Eberson was born in Romania in 1875 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1901. He developed the atmospheric design, and by the end of his career had designed anywhere from 100 to 1,200 theaters, depending on which website you choose, all over the world. Usually designed with European themes, Eberson’s theaters featured large sky-blue ceilings with twinkling stars and clouds, and facades on either side. You can almost imagine you are in a courtyard in some ancient European city. Almost. We really weren't sure what the fake Christmas trees along the top were doing in a Moorish castle.

Left facade, Akron Civic Theater

.
It's curious that so many of his theaters are in Ohio, and some in relatively small towns as well. Eberson designed the Colony Theater in Shaker Heights, which is now Shaker Square Cinemas (a slightly bizarre art deco space), as well as theaters in Marion, Canton, Bellefontaine (the only one with a Dutch motif and working windmills), Bryan, Celina, Norwalk. Perhaps it is because he built his first theater, the Jewel, in Hamilton, Ohio, and started his own architectural firm in Hamilton.

Have you ever been in an "atmospheric" theater? What did you think?

Resources 
In addition to the links embedded above, check out these sites for more information and some great pictures:
http://www.ohio.com/lifestyle/akron-s-lost-landmark-retains-a-grand-facade-1.154282
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eberson
http://auburncinefile.com/schines_friends_page
There are some wonderful examples of Eberson's work at this interesting blog about, of all things, ornamental plaster.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

I love zoos. I am glad that I still have a relatively small kid so I can go to the zoo without making excuses, but I would go even if I didn't. We are blessed in Northeast Ohio to have not one but two great zoos: the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Akron Zoo. My son and I visited the Akron Zoo last weekend, and it inspired me to think about the history of zoos.

The predecessor to the modern zoo was known as a menagerie, and the oldest of those is believed to have been in Egypt, circa 3500 BC.  Zoos were kept by the ancient Greeks and the Romans, although it seems that the latter kept them primarily to house the animals which fought in the Colosseum.

Source: "The Tower Menagerie."

The first British zoo was a collection of exotic animals amassed by Henry I in the 12th century, housed at the royal residence in Woodstock. The Royal Menagerie was started by King John in the early 13th century, and was housed in the Tower of London until 1835. The "Lion Tower" was built by Henry III to house a trio of leopards given to the king by Emperor Frederic II; another building was erected in 1255 to house an elephant gifted by Louis IX.

The collection was not opened to the public until the 16th century, when the Tower housed a lion and several lionesses, a tiger, a lynx, a wolf, a porcupine and an eagle. Conditions were such as would appall us now--habitats more resembled prisons than the natural settings we use today, and the food offered was unconventional--King James I's elephant, for example, was given wine from April to September, as it was believed it could not drink water at that time of year.

By the early 1830s, the zealous efforts of the menagerie's dedicated keeper, Alfred Cops, had resulted in a collection of over 280 animals. Given the size, and the fact that over the years the animals had developed a habit of occasionally attacking guests (in the 18th century a baboon hurled a cannon ball at a visitor, killing him), it was determined that the Tower was no longer the appropriate place to house them, and the majority of them were donated to the London Zoo in Regent's Park.

The London Zoo in Regent's Park, 1828. Source: Wikipedia. 

The London Zoo opened in 1828 and is the world's oldest scientific zoo. Access to the zoo was originally granted only to members of the London Zoological Society, but it was opened to the public in 1847.

Photo by Derek Ramsey, via Wikimedia Commons. 

The first zoo in the United States was chartered in 1859 in Philadelphia, but did not become a reality until 1874. The zoo rests on the land once owned by John Penn, grandson of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.

Sea Lions at Wade Park Zoo. Source: Cleveland State University.

The zoo I know the best, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, was founded in 1882 in Wade Park, which now houses the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. The Zoo moved to its current location in Brookpark, just west of Cleveland, in 1914.

Minnie the Elephant, 1910. Source: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

 

The Zoo's first elephant, Minnie, was acquired through the "Pennies From Children" fundraising campaign in 1907.

Wade Park Barn. Source: Cleveland State University.

The Wade Park Zoo began with a donation of 14 deer, and they lived in a Victorian-style barn built just for them in 1884. It moved along with the animals to Brookpark, and now is one of my son's favorite places at the zoo--it serves as a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop.










My favorite site at the zoo, however, is the meerkat habitat.

The Akron Zoo, to the south of Cleveland, opened in 1900 on land donated by heirs of the founder of the City of Akron, Simon Perkins. It's much smaller than Cleveland's zoo, but it's lovely, AND it has penguins.

I have visited zoos in at least nine states (so far), and could write about all of them, but right now I have the strangest urge to go to the zoo. . .

Some resources:
*The Smithsonian's collection of historical documents and images of zoos: http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/zoos/intro.htm
*World's First Zoo: http://archive.archaeology.org/1001/topten/egypt.html
*Wikipedia's article on the history of zoos is pretty comprehensive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo
*A story about the great cats housed in the Tower of London: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4371908.stm
*http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories/buildinghistory/royal-menagerie
*This book features a history of the Tower Menagerie and descriptions of all the animals at one time housed within it, which perhaps owe rather more to drama than to accuracy. "The Tower Menagerie: Comprising the Natural History of the Animals Contained in that Establishment : with Anecdotes of Their Characters and History," by Jennings (1829). (Available on Google Books.)
*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313816/The-polar-bear-lived-Tower--grumpy-lion-baboon-threw-cannon-balls-Britains-bizarre-zoo.html
*Philadelphia Zoo: http://www.philadelphiazoo.org/About-the-Zoo.aspx
*Wade Park Zoo: http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/387#.VANkL_ldWJE
*Cleveland Metroparks Zoo: http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/506#.VANmRPldWJE and http://resourcelibrary.clemetzoo.com/historicals/1
*Akron Zoo: https://www.akronzoo.org/History/3/33/293

In Praise of Deadlines

As you all know, given how loudly I shouted it from the rooftops, I recently signed a contract for my first book. This week I received a flurry of emails from the publisher and my editor, with tons of business-related stuff, marketing tips, and--ta da!--my first round of edits.

I have been told by published writer friends that the moment you sign that first contract you're no longer writing on your own timeline. You can't just write whenever you feel like it any more. Once you sign, you have--cue dramatic music--deadlines.

I have to admit I actually like deadlines, since I am fundamentally lazy. If I know that someone is waiting on me to do something, I will do it. If no one particularly cares when I do something, I will often put it off--especially if it's icky or hard--until someone does care. This is not, perhaps, my finest trait.

So when my editor gave me a deadline, I was very happy. First, because it was a reasonable one--she doesn't want my edits next week, she wants them next month. Second, because it will motivate me to do what needs to be done, in a timely fashion. Hopefully I will not wait until the night before the deadline to finish...

The other good thing about deadlines is they make me do things I don't particularly want to do, inevitably allowing me to discover they weren't as bad as I feared (most of the time, anyway). I was terrified to open that document with the edits. What if she hated my book? What if she wants me to change everything? The more rational side of my brain told me she didn't hate it--if she had, she would have rejected it and I would not be writing this post--and that she wouldn't want to change everything. But I was nervous, so I waited hours before I opened it. But once I did, of course, I discovered her changes only made the book better.

What do you think about deadlines? Do they motivate you? Annoy you? Tell us your best (or worst) deadline story!

A Victorian Era Time Capsule

Two weeks ago my family and I wandered westward for a family reunion and to visit some of my husband's childhood haunts. On the way there my husband suddenly turned off the road into the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. Turns out he spent many happy hours exploring there when he was a kid, and when he saw the entrance he impulsively decided to stop to see how it had changed in the last 40 years.

The Missouri River

It was a fortuitous detour, at least for this history geek, because on the land owned by the Refuge, the wreck of a steamboat rested in the mud for 100 years.

On March 18, 1865, the Steamboat Bertrand set off down (up?) the Missouri River from St. Louis, Missouri for the newly discovered gold fields in Fort Benton, Montana Territory. It carried 250,000 pounds of cargo as well as many passengers.

On April 1, 1865, the ship hit a submerged log on the treacherous Desoto Bend of the Missouri River, about 25 miles upstream from Omaha, Nebraska, ripping a hole in the ship's hull bottom. It sank in 12 feet of water in under ten minutes. Although all the passengers were saved, almost all of its cargo was lost. The Bertrand joined over 400 boats that sank on the Missouri during the steamboat era.








The ship sank into the mud and stayed there until 1967, when the search for the wreck began, spurred on in part by the fact that the Bertrand was reputed to be carrying 30,000 pounds of mercury, which was to be used in mining operations in Montana. The excavation was completed in 1969, and all artifacts were turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Crate filled with indigo

Most of the cargo was held in crates, barrels, and burlap sacks, which were almost immediately covered with thick clay, thus preserving it. When the wreck was discovered the cargo was in nearly the same pristine condition it had been when the vessel sank a century before. For a writer whose time period is the 1860s, it was a treasure trove indeed.






There is SO MUCH stuff they don't have all of it on display, but there is enough to give you an excellent idea of what people wore, what kinds of things they used for cooking, working, playing, and relaxing. Some of my favorites are posted below. I apologize for the picture quality--all I had was my phone, and I had to be quick because the battery was dying. . .

This shows how the Missouri River has moved since the sinking. 

A passenger's account of the sinking. 

A silk overcoat belonging to Annie or Fannie Campbell

Lice combs, as well as combs made of rubber.

Bottles of French champagne and brandied cherries. 

Ironstone pottery from England and glassware.
The second shelf holds tins of powdered yeast.

From top left, counter clockwise: Yeast powder, nuts,
lemonade cans and flavoring, and what look like gold bars but aren't. . . 

Candle holders, a griddle that looks very like the one I have,
irons, fireplace tools, and salt cellars. 

The top shelf holds a lady's shawl, and the bottom holds men's ties.
I think. I neglected to photograph the identifying card.

Socks and boots.

Sorry, this pic is particularly bad, but it
explains the munitions that were found.

There's an interesting article, with photos from the excavation, at http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1970Bertrand.pdf.
The Bertrand collection also has a Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/SteamboatBertrandMuseam, with way better photos than the ones I took, including pictures of items not on regular display.

Announcement Time!!

I am delighted to report that -- drum roll please. . .

Today I contracted with The Wild Rose Press to publish my first book. I am tremendously excited and still a little bit dazed, although I suspect it's nothing compared to how dazed I'll be when I get the first round of edits. . .

And so the next part of the publishing journey begins!

Up, Up and Away

Okay, I know, this is a week late. Sorry! It's been crazy town over here.

So my research last week took me on a rather meandering path. I am working on two books at once, which is par for the course for me, given my short attention span. One of them I had shelved for awhile to think about where it was going, but last week I found myself ready to go back to it. Part of the story takes place in the U.S. at the start of the Civil War, a period of time I know very little about. So I started to do a little research, and found this picture.

Boston, as the Eagle and Wild Goose See It. J.W. Black, 1860.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It is an aerial view of Boston, taken in 1860. From a balloon.

I find hot air balloons fascinating, mostly because I simply cannot understand the desire to go up into the sky in such a thing. But then, I'm not really a huge fan of airplanes, either. Fortunately, I am not a scientist.

Seraphina.
Source: Max Planck Institute.

The first hot air balloon, made of taffeta and filled with hot air, was launched in France in 1782 inside the house of Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. Further experiments led to bigger balloons outdoors, and ultimately to "Seraphina," a 40-foot envelope made of paper and held together by 2000 buttons, with an "aerostat" beneath it designed to hold people. The balloon was filled with hot air produced by burning straw and wool (ugh--imagine the stench!). It flew, without people, into the air some 6500 feet, and descended gradually to earth some 2 kilometers away.

The first balloon pilots were a sheep, rooster, and duck flown into the air by the intrepid Montgolfiers on September 19, 1873, from Versailles. The first manned flight was two months later, on November 21, 1783, with a speechless Benjamin Franklin in attendance.

In 1785, an American and a Frenchman, who, oddly, was not named Montgolfier, became the first to cross the English Channel in a balloon, and it wasn't long before ballooning made it across the Pond.

The first balloon flight in the United States took place in Philadelphia in January 1793, piloted by another Frenchman, Jean Pierre Blanchard, and his dog. They flew 15 miles, across the Delaware River into New Jersey. The flight was witnessed by President George Washington, who had given the non-English-speaking Blanchard a "passport" which requested that anyone reading the document "oppose no hindrance or molestation to the said Mr. Blanchard." It apparently worked like a charm, earning Blanchard a few meals and a ride back to Philly. The account I read failed to mention what became of the dog.

The aerial photograph which appears above was not the only one that was taken during the 1860s. The Union Army during the Civil War actually had a Balloon Corps, led by veteran balloonist Thaddeus Lowe from 1861 to 1863. Lowe was accompanied on flights by military cartographers and analysts. Lowe's favorite balloon was called the Intrepid, which could rise to higher elevations and carry telegraph equipment and an operator.

Intrepid. Source: Wikipedia.

As with anything else Civil War-related, there are a number of books which discuss the use of balloons during the war and the drama that was Lowe's tenure with the Union Army. I couldn't even hope to do anything more here than uncover the teeniest tip of the iceberg. But if you're interested, visit Amazon.com, Google Books, or check out the links below for more information.

Links:
http://www.sandiegohotairballoons.com/ballooning_history.aspx
http://bibliodyssey2lj.livejournal.com/23457.html
http://stratocat.com.ar/artics/blanchard-e.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army_Balloon_Corps
http://www.thaddeuslowe.name/CWbargeobservation.htm
http://civilwarhome.com/balloons.htm
http://www.civilwar.org/photos/galleries/civil-war-ballooning/civil-war-ballooning.html

Taking Time

A friend of mine posted on Facebook this week, "Some days I just don't feel like writing a novel." I can relate. It's days like these, when I am exhausted in mind, body, and spirit, that inspiration, not to mention motivation, utterly fails to make an appearance. Frustrating on days when I am due to write not just one but two blog posts.

This week has been an interesting one.  My husband has been out of the country for three weeks. Work has been insane since I was out of town at a conference last week. This week, when I've had to work, parent, as well as do both his household jobs and mine, all I want to do is curl up in bed with a glass of wine and a book. For an entire day. (Maybe I should make it a bottle?) Thinking of something to write about has fallen near the bottom of the to-do list. 

In addition, this week I received my very first rejection from an editor. I'm okay with it, I truly am, but even though I suspected it was coming, it stung. On the other hand, I also got a request for a full this week--thanks entirely to the kindness and generosity of a lovely person whom I have never met but who believes in me anyway. I now have to get off my ass and finish the last few pages of edits and send it off before she changes her mind. Refer above to the comments regarding exhaustion. But it's good. 

Some days no one feels like writing a novel, or working, or mowing the lawn, or doing the laundry. The hardest thing about writing, at least for me, isn't finding inspiration or doing the actual writing--it's the management of everything else in my life. It's carving out time for myself, to take care of myself, and I am spectacularly bad at that. 

So I am resolved to take some time for myself today. The house is clean enough, the laundry is--mostly--done. Might have to do something about the lawn, but I'll call that exercise.

How do you take time for yourself?

Intersections

The other day as I was driving around town with the kid, he asked what people did before there were traffic lights. I replied that policemen helped to direct traffic, but honestly, I was just guessing. That got me thinking: when were traffic lights invented, and when and where were they first used?

Truly, I was delighted with the answer, and if you regularly read this blog, you will understand why.

The very first traffic light was invented in 1868 by John Peake Knight, a superintendent of the South-Eastern Railway. Streets in larger English cities, primarily London, had become terribly congested by the 1860s. As trains became the primary vehicles for transport of goods and people across the country, carriages were increasingly used to get both goods and people to and from the trains. As the English middle class and its wealth grew, more people bought their own carriages, putting more of them on the street.

Poster issued by Metropolitan Police, 1868.

The signal invented by Knight closely resembled a railway signal; a pillar with a light on the top, and semaphore arms, operated by a policeman. It was erected in December 1868 near the House of Commons, at the intersection of Great George and Bridge Streets in Westminster. Unfortunately, just three weeks after it was installed, a gas leak caused it to explode, severely injuring its operator. The light was declared a safety hazard and removed, and London didn't see another traffic light until the 1920s.

Cleveland, Ohio, 1914.
Source: The Motorist

US Patent 1,951,666, Inventor J.B. Hoge.
Source: uspto.gov. 

Traffic lights as we know them today were invented in the U.S. The first electric traffic signal was erected in 1914 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the intersection of Euclid Avenue (of course) and East 105th Street. The signal consisted of eight lights, four red and four green; red, of course, meant "stop," and green meant "proceed." Each pair of lights was mounted on a corner post, and operated manually.

US Patent 1,475,024, Inventor Garrett Morgan
Source: uspto.gov.

But it was Garrett Morgan who patented the design that was the precursor to the traffic signal we use today. He was born in Kentucky and eventually moved to Cleveland, where he and his brother saved a number of workers in a tunnel collapse under Lake Erie, using a gas mask of his own invention. The first African-American man to own a car in Cleveland, he developed and patented the first three-way traffic signal in 1923. He eventually sold the rights to General Electric for $40,000. Just before his death in 1963, he was honored by the U.S. government for his invention, and recognized for his role as a hero in the Lake Erie disaster. He is buried in Lake View Cemetery.

Sources:

http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/items/westminster-road-semaphore 
The Victorianist: The Disastrous Debut of the World's First Traffic Lights
This Day in History: August 5
The Guardian: Nooks and Crannies
http://invent.answers.com/transportation/j-p-knight-and-the-first-traffic-light
http://allthingsclevelandohio.blogspot.com/2008/03/cleveland-birthplace-of-first-electric.html
http://www.biography.com/people/garrett-morgan-9414691
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1311


P.S. This being the first Father's Day since my dad passed away in January, I didn't have the heart to do a post on Father's Day. But if you're interested, I found a fascinating post on the history of the day at http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/fathers-day. Father's Day, it says, was slow to catch on. "As one historian writes, they 'scoffed at the holiday's sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products--often paid for by the father himself.'"

Happy Father's Day, everyone. May you be able to spend it with someone you love.

In Which I Have Very Little to Say

This morning before breakfast I spent about an hour and a half writing a lengthy, thoughtful post to weigh in on the latest round of romance bashing sparked by a recent article in the New Republic. I reviewed some of the responses--in the Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and Eloisa James' interview on vulture.com--but when all was said and done I decided not to let anyone read it. Once I got my annoyance at the New Republic piece off my chest, I realized I had said everything I wanted to say on the subject in my last post.

I am weary of the argument, and extremely tired of listening to people who haven't even bothered to read the books they denigrate. And so I will bow out of the discussion, close my browser windows, kick back on the patio in the sun, and bury my nose in a book.

In Defense of Romance

A few weeks ago I attended a portion of the annual Cleveland Rocks Romance conference, sponsored by the Northeast Ohio chapter of RWA. The fabulous Christie Craig was the speaker--if you ever meet her, ask her to tell you the story of the Festiva, the cowboy, and the burning mattress. I was laughing so hard I almost spit my drink across the table. 

In her workshop on adding humor to writing, however, the most memorable story she told was the one that made me cry. Years ago she was at a book signing, and someone asked her when she was going to write a "real book." I couldn't possibly do her response justice so I won't even try, but the gist was that there is nothing more real in this life than love. 

I didn't start reading romance until I was in my 30s. Part of my reticence, I suspect, was that I was too embarrassed to be seen reading something with a half-naked Fabio on the cover.  I assumed romances were full of pathetic heroines who had to be saved by the strapping young heroes. But then one day I read a book by Nora Roberts. The book had a kick-ass heroine who saved herself and fell in love along the way. I was hooked, and have been a devoted romance reader ever since. And although I used to be embarrassed when caught reading a romance, I am now unapologetic.

Romances are not considered "real books" for several reasons, I think. They aren't particularly cerebral. They are seldom more than 250 pages long. They very often include sex. And they always end happily ever after.

But those things that knock them out of consideration as "real books" are what make them the most real. Although I have been known to debate weighty topics around the dinner table, most of life consists of snippets. Or--because I have a Hulu Blue Bunny ice cream ad stuck in my head--moments. Moments large and small. Moments both scripted and wholly unstructured. A laugh, a smile, a caress, a crying jag. A class to teach, a speech to make. A dog howling along with piano practice. A fight with a spouse. A speeding ticket. A crappy day at work. Snuggling with a child under a blanket on a rainy day. A candlelit dinner. A glass of sangria on the deck with good friends. 

My husband and I were at an orchestra concert last week. A few rows ahead of us a man had his arm around his wife. During the piano concerto, his fingers moved over her shoulder in perfect time, as if he were playing the music himself. His wife didn't flinch, didn't tell him to stop, just contentedly rested her head against his shoulder. I was busy constructing an elaborate scenario in my head about their lives, when the intermission arrived, they turned around, and greeted my husband. We knew them, and suddenly the perfect bubble of a life I had created for them popped--a fantasy life they definitely didn't have. But they did have perfect, quiet moments, and obviously shared a love that sustained them through the other times. 

I read, and write, romance precisely because they are real. They celebrate those moments, large and small. And although, unlike life, they always end happily, those endings give us a perfect, quiet moment to savor until one of our own comes along. 

  

Western Reserve School of Design for Women

It's been interesting to me lately how often I get inspired by presentations to the DAR. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since for the last two years I have been in charge of selecting the speakers, but whatever. In our most recent meeting, the speaker was discussing the history of the Cleveland Institute of Art. The CIA began in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women (WRSDW).

Old City Hall, built in 1875. Source: Cleveland Memory Project.

It was founded by Sarah Kimball, reportedly known as "Cleveland's first militant suffragette," in her own house on Euclid Avenue, intended to train women for a career in design--there was, after all, a shortage of marriageable men after the Civil War, and women had to do something to support themselves. The school was founded to teach "the principles of art and design as practically applied to artistic and industrial pursuits, and also the collection and exhibition of works of art and virtu." (You can see a copy of the original Articles of Incorporation here.) In just six weeks, the school had outgrown Kimball's house and moved to the attic of City Hall. Within one year, the school had grown to five instructors and 77 students.

  

Horace Kelley Mansion. Source: Cleveland Memory Project.

The school was co-ed from its inception, but the name kept its focus on women until 1892. It was renamed the Cleveland School of Art and moved into the Horace Kelley Mansion on Willson Avenue, now known as East 55th Street. Efforts to merge the school with Adelbert College, now part of Case Western Reserve University, were unsuccessful, and the school remains independent to this day.

Cleveland School of Art. Source: Cleveland Memory Project.

The School of Art remained in the Kelley Mansion until roughly 1906, when a new building was constructed in University Circle. In 1949, the school was renamed the Cleveland Institute of Art, and in 1956 moved around the corner into the more modern, and far less pretty, building in which it is still housed today.

In 2015, the Cleveland Institute of Art will move back onto Euclid Avenue into the former Model T Assembly plant that CIA acquired in 1981, and which now houses the Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts.

Clara Wolcott Driscoll, c.1904-05.
Source: Morse Museum of American Art.

One of the WRSDW's most notable alumna was Clara Wolcott Driscoll. Born in Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1861, Clara was a graduate of one of WRSDW's first classes. In 1888, she moved to New York and found a job with the Tiffany Glass Company. Although she resigned in 1889 when she married Francis Driscoll--Tiffany did not employ married women--she returned to the company in 1892 when her husband died. She oversaw a small Women's Glass Cutting Department. Tiffany was a proponent of women in his industry, because, Tiffany noted in 1894, women "were better suited than men for small hand work and possessed 'natural decorative taste' and 'keen perception of color.'”

But in addition to glass cutting, Clara was a designer as well. In 2005, many of her letters came to light, revealing the fact that Tiffany did not design many of the lamps for which he was famous; Clara did.

Tiffany Studios Dragonfly Table Lamp, c. 1900-06.
New York Historical Society

Sources for more information on the Cleveland Institute of Art and Clara Driscoll: 

"Cleveland Institute of Art," Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Cleveland Institute of Art website, http://www.cia.edu/about-us/history
"Designing Women in the Cleveland School of Art," Marianne Berger Woods
"Breaking Tiffany's Glass Ceiling: Clara Wolcott Driscoll (1861-1944)," CIA website, January 1, 2012
"Out of Tiffany’s Shadow, a Woman of Light," New York Times, February 25, 2007
"A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls," New York Historical Society traveling exhibit
"Tiffany Studio Designers," Morse Museum of American Art exhibit
Website of Susan Vreeland, author of Clara and Mr. Tiffany (2012), http://www.svreeland.com/tiff.html