In the course of my research I find a lot of information, some of it useful, some of it not so much. I share a great deal of the useful information at the blog Slip Into Something Victorian, along with several other Victorian era writers. That information, though, is generally in essay/blog post form. I thought here, on my website, it might be fun to "bullet" useless bits of information as I collect it for other people who might be intrested in useless bits of information. Or maybe, for other people, it's not useless. Please let me know if you find something that may be of use to you. I may be able to find the source. But no gaurentees--I have a difficult enough time keeping the sources straight for the information that actually enters my books. And keep coming back--I'll be updating, I promise!

All right, here goes. I'm putting the recent useless information on top, so I'm not numbering it:

The Victorians ate a lot of oysters.

In the 19th century, New York had one of the toughest divorce laws in the country, only allowing for divorce in the case of adultery and only the injured party was allowed to remarry.

Lizzie Borden didn't really kill her mother with 40 whacks, or her father with 41. In fact, if she killed them, it was her stepmother--her mother died when she was very young. I don't recall how many "whacks" were used but it was far less, more like in the teens (not that it matters, dead is dead.)

In 1831 Philadelphia had one of the largest police forces in the country with 40 patrolment, several junior officers and constables.

Unlike many other city societies established in cities around the country during the 19th century, Boston's Society--First Families, Brahmins--was pretty much established before the Civil War. After the mid 1850's if you weren't a "member" you didn't get in except through marriage. Period. Money didn't cut it, ancestry didn't cut it.

I can't find anything that says the same about Philadelphia, but I have the impression it was similar.

New York Society continued to change. The orginial "Knickerbockers" were supplanted by the wealth of the Astors, Vanderbilts, Fish's etc. Although the Livingstons were part of the old guard and were still on the list when McAllister published it in 1876

The old guard of San Fransisco were Spanish. They were supplanted by the wealth of the Gold Rush and railroad money, by the likes of The Crocks, Floods, Stanfords.

Newport RI, the Summer Resort for New York Society through the Gilded Age, was, before the Civil War, a resort for many Southerners.

The Season in Newport RI was only two months long. Yes, those incredibly huge "cottages" were built for just two months.

They were called cottages because once-upon-a-time the people who came to Newport as a vacation resort actually had relatively normal cottage-like homes. Then came the likes of the Astors and Vanderbilts.

The society at Newport was, for the most part, female run. The men worked in New York during the week and generally only came to Newport on the weekends. Thus there was often a scarcity of men during the week.

Cowboys were generally young men. The work was very hard on the body, and older bodies couldn't handle it. Either that or by the time men reached a certain age, they realized it wasn't worth the standard 40 dollars a month.

Many cowboys were displaced southern boys, looking for fun, excitement, and money after their homes were destroyed in the Civil War (or as they might have referred to it, The War Of Northern Agression)

There were quite a few black (African American, ex-slave--not sure what is politically correct) cowboys as well. Even after emanciaption, there really wasn't a whole lot for a young black man to do in the South, so he went West as well.

One of the more famous books written--at the time--about the cowboy era was written by a black cowboy named Nat Love.

Kansas and other prarie states were tough on women. Their men were often away for long periods--and no cell phones--and the constant wind and literally drove some women insane.

The cowboy era was in many way directly related to the Civil War. Remember much of the South was destroyed. The North on the other hand was doing pretty well, moving into the fortune-making industrial revolution. They wanted BEEF! Fortunately, Texas had these longhorns (which were very lean and probably tough by today's standards) hanging around waiting to be rounded up. Throw in a railroad, the canning industry and the advent of refrigerator cars and the industry was born. A man could get rich rounding up those longhorns and transporting them to the rail road. And many did.

Americans weren't the only ones who made money from the cowboy era. The word spread to England, and quite a few British gentlemen bought up ranches (later in the era--1880's) in the Northern ranching states, like the Dakotas