yeoldenews:

This week’s highlights in my ongoing project to read and transcribe the letters of Rachel (a wealthy Victorian girl at boarding school in Philadelphia in the 1890s) include…

• The entire Prom Saga, which merited its own post.
• Some quotes from Rachel, ever the avid ? scholar, on the subject of school…
• “I am writing this just so you will write to me and cheer me when I arrive in “prison” once more.”
• “I’m afraid I’m too naughty in “study hour” to be on the Honor Roll.”

• “We haven’t been here a week yet and it
  seems a month.”

• “My brain is positively breaking and when I think I shall be here until Xmas I nearly go crazy.”
• 
  “I have a good notion not to come back next year.“
• Mr. Cooke, the benefactor of Rachel’s school, throws a big party every year that all the girls look forward to. This year (1897) in addition to the party everyone got gifts of flowers, fruit and candy. They also got food poisoning. Over half the school, including Rachel, ending up in the infirmary. The doctor thinks it was the salad dressing.
  
• Rachel is very fond of using not entirely correct grammar/words for humorous effect. Her two favorites appear to be “bestest” and “muchly”.
• Rachel’s cousin Jack has requested that she burn his letters. She complies, but isn’t happy about it.
• I’m really dang curious what was in those letters.
• In an update to one of my previous posts: there are apparently only two Margarets. I still don’t know which one she’s talking about at any given time. When she’s talking about both she refers to them as “the two Margarets”.
• Rachel’s plans for Spring Break 1897: “I want to go to Washington and shake hands with the president or else to New York.”
• Jack’s plans for Spring Break 1897: “I don’t care a rip what I do.”
• Rachel does indeed end up going to Washington and shaking hands with the president, as well as having an extended visit with Mrs. McKinley. Or “the Pres” and “Mrs. Mc” as she refers to them in the letter.
• Mrs. McKinley is apparently well acquainted with one of the Margarets.
• I’m not sure what Jack ended up doing, but I’m assuming he met his Spring Break goals as well.
• Rachel and her roommates go to gawk at the remains of the huge fire in downtown Philadelphia. Rachel seems extremely relieved that Wanamaker’s department store didn’t entirely burn down. She mentions that all the plate glass windows in City Hall had cracked from the heat.
• Rachel’s family is building a new house in one of the remote company towns her father’s lumber company owns. Rachel is NOT happy about moving so far away from civilization. “You know I hate it down there.”
• There are apparently some unsavory rumors of some sort going around about “O. T.”, a friend of Rachel’s. Rachel writes to Jack asking him whether he thinks they are true, and if so whether she should end the friendship (“drop him”). Of course, being proper Victorians, there is absolutely no clarification as to what these rumors might be, only that they are scandalous enough that her mother says she doesn’t want Rachel associated with “O. T” if they turn out to be true.
• Your 1890s slang word of the day: “wheel” (noun) – a bicycle.
• Rachel’s letters date from the very height of the 1890s Bicycle Craze, and “wheeling” was all the rage among the upper classes.
• Rachel received her first “wheel” from her father for her 19th birthday. (”Wont I look funny in a golf suit?”) She learned to ride that summer by taking lessons at Chautauqua, where the family spent their summers.
• Example: “The day papa went to M. he rode seven miles on his wheel, can mount and everything, don’t you think that’s pretty good?”  Can also be used as a verb as in: “The roads are fine for wheeling.”

Is Jack the one whose roommate is a guy named Susan?