![[Woman reading a newspaper.] Digital ID: 1537205. New York Public Library](http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1537205&t=r "[Woman reading a newspaper.] Digital ID: 1537205. New York Public Library")
There's no better way to get a read on what concerned people in the past than to look at the classified ads in old newspapers - they can tell you about what kinds of jobs and houses people wanted, things they had lost, what was for sale, and all sorts of other things.
Sometimes you can even get a glimpse of someone's life - a little mystery in a few sentences, that can only be solved in the medium of fiction. Here's one from the New York Times on 1855 that struck me. I'm planning to use it in my NaNoWriMo Victorian mystery, and I thought I'd share it:
CLARA'S NOTE IS RECEIVED, and is a perfect mystery, taken in connection with what I have heard. Will not CLARA grant a short interview some time convenient to herself? It is important for several reasons. Write again, and remember that all letters must now be prepaid to reach their destination.
--New York Times, April 19, 1855, p. 5.
Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.
3 comments:
How fascinating! It does get one thinking ...
Lux - Yes, it does. It was just a tiny post, I know, but I just kept wondering about Clara and the writer of the ad. There's one I haven't posted, where a mother asks her actor daughter to contact her, that sticks in my mind too. I just keep wondering what happened and how things turned out...
It is facinating, truly.
Post a Comment