Tuesday, November 19, 2013

150 and 20,000

Today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address.  I had to memorize it in 5th grade, so it's in my brain somewhere, but now basically all I can remember is the very first part.  In case you're like me, here is a refresher:
 
 
(Remember, you can click on the picture to see it bigger)  It's amazing how concise this speech is considering everything that was going on in the country with the Civil War.  Generally politicians are NEVER concise.  Go, Lincoln!  In honor of this anniversary, here are some shoes from 1863:
 
 
 
These are wedding shoes, and I think they're really cool.  I'm guessing someone's family had money, as I doubt shoes like this were very common during wartime.

 
Baby shoes, made with fabric from her father's uniform.

 
It never ceases to amaze me that people walked as much as they did in shoes like this.  I'm not saying new is always better, I'm just thinking of marching and walking and fighting and trying to stay warm in shoes with no arch support or decent insulation.  No, thank you.
 
On a completely unrelated note, this happened today:
 
 
20,004 pageviews!  Thanks everyone for helping me reach this new milestone!
 
 

2 comments:


  1. Supposedly your great great grandmother had to walk quite a distance to town so she wore her old comfortable shoes and carried her nice not so comfortable ones over her shoulder until she was almost there. She then apparently changed shoes, concealed the others and arrived fashionably. As long as skirts were I don't know what difference it would have made what shoes she wore. ME

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    1. That's awesome! I knew I came by this fetish naturally.

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