The “largest jobbers and manufacturers of caskets and undertakers’ goods in the West …” The Quincy Casket Company

John Lewis Loring Barlett Born on Sept. 14, 1856, in Edinburgh, Indiana, John Mooney Lewis would become a nationwide casket seller. John was raised in Indiana and remained there until his early 20s. According to his death announcement in the Quincy Whig, John worked in the sale and manufacturing of coffins with the Cincinnati Coffin...

Illinois History Post-World War II: Veterans, Suburbia, and Politics

In the years after World War II, the United States was rocked by immense change. Every aspect of society was altered in some way. There was no one area, geographically or other, left untouched. Illinois, like many other states, both fought against and accepted change after World War II.  Map of Illinois One of the...

A “Post-Pandemic” Takeaway: A Public Historian Working in the Museum Sector

It’s been over two years since the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted humanity and created a world of “unprecedented times”. I’m, like many others, still struggling to find a balance between this new world and the past–or what we know and understand to be normal. In order to keep moving along, I’ve had to find different ways...

A Brief History of the Woodland Home and its Architecture

Born out of the 1850 cholera epidemic, Woodland Home has been functioning since 1853, carrying out its mission “ … to provide comfort, care and shelter to the homeless, the neglected, the orphaned, the abused.” The building known as Woodland Home, which Quanada currently occupies, has been at the corner of 27th and Maine Streets...

Quincy Inventors, Pt. 1

Charles R. S. Curtis, Fire Escape Patent Thanks to a Quincyian we have improved fire escapes!  Did you know that Charles R. S. Curtis of Quincy is credited with creating a mechanical fire escape? On May 6, 1884, Charles filed a patent for “a new and useful improvement in Fire-Escapes”. His objective was to provide...

John Quidor: A Literary Artist in Quincy

John Quidor was born in Tappan, New York, on January 26, 1801. He was the third son of Peter and Maria (Smith). At the age of 10, he moved with his parents to New York City. Historians know little about his childhood and education; however, Quidor was apprenticed to a successful portrait painter, John W....

The Beecher-Tilton Affair, Part Two: The Conclusion

And I’m back.  Let’s recap what we learned (so far) from part one of the Beecher-Tilton affair. The short version is this:  Victoria Woodhull exposed a prominent New York preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, as a promiscuous man having committed a long-lasting affair with Elizabeth Tilton, a parishioner of his church. The act was to have...

Changes in Politics and Culture, David Goldberg & Lynn Dumenil: Book Review Series #7, the 1920s Selection, part two

Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s (1999) by David J. Goldberg offers a new take on the 1290s. Differing from Stanley Coben, Goldberg argues that the decade should be understood now as it was viewed then, as a distinctive postwar period, during which many conflicts spawned by World War I continued to echo...

Stanley Coben’s Rebellion Against Victorianism: Book Review Series #6, the 1920s Selection, part one

Since we are living in the "great decade" of the twenties again, I thought it would be fun to visit a few academic reads about the 1920s. I ask my readers this: were the 1920s all that it's cracked up to be? You decide after reading the next book reviews. Today's blog will be a...

A Sex Scandal of National Proportions: The Beecher-Tilton Affair, Part One

Who doesn’t love a good sex scandal?  The Beecher-Tilton Affair shook the entire nation. The scandal was reported all over America and became a hot topic of national importance. People were invested in the outcome of a preacher and his supposed mistress. I vaguely remember hearing about this scandal in school, but I wasn’t truly...