Blog
Stories that Need to be Told
How can fiction bring forgotten stories to light when the historical record is incomplete? Jessica McCann explores how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and its companion work, A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, helped inspire her approach to researching and writing All Different Kinds of Free. Through the story of Margaret Morgan, McCann reflects on the power of historical fiction to document injustice, recover overlooked lives, and tell stories that need to be heard.
Seeing the Elephant: The American Dream of the Extraordinary
What does it mean to “see the elephant”? Jane D. Cairns traces the nineteenth-century American expression through Civil War soldiers, California gold seekers, and the era’s fascination with exotic animals. Exploring the tension between anticipation and experience, Cairns connects this enduring idiom to her novel Exalted Objects and Tim Schooley’s Circus of the Vanishing Elephant, where elephants become symbols of extraordinary dreams and the realities behind them.
Depot Dining in the Era of Steam Engines: Fred Harvey and the Harvey House Model
Before fast food chains and roadside restaurants, Fred Harvey transformed dining along the American railroad. Marilee Aufdenkamp explores how Harvey's restaurants and hotels brought reliable food, refined service, and the famous Harvey Girls to communities along the Santa Fe line. From steam-powered trains to Route 66, discover how the Harvey House system shaped Western travel—and left a legacy that continues today.