The HEA Cafe

Hi Lyn Cote here!

My latest book Blessed Assurance has three novels in one. The first one is about Chicago in the year of the Great Fire 1871. And here’s a little about what made the Chicago Fire great!

Chicago Blog

Two facts made the fire spread faster in Chicago that fateful night–the raised wooden sidewalks and the balloon framing of the houses. First, think of a fireplace. It must have a draft in order to draw air into the chimney or fire which needs oxygen can’t ignite. So imagine a windy night and long streets with raised wooden sidewalks. The sidewalks not only burned but acted like an open draft on a woodstove or fireplace; the sidewalks sucked in the air, fed the fire and burned.

Now balloon framing is the way we build our houses. It means that each wall is constructed out of tall wooden studs that reach from the foundation to the roof. So if a fire starts on the first floor, nothing stops it as it climbs the walls. In modern homes, fire stops or non-flammable gypsum board is put between floors so the fire can’t just go up up up. The fire stops are placed between each floor so the fire must completely engulf the first floor before climbing higher.

Needless to say, fire stops had not been introduced in the 19th century. In fact, the Chicago Fire brought this construction defect into prominence. And remember that Chicago was built from the Wisconsin and Michigan pine forest wood. Pine burns hot and fast.

Isn’t it funny how it’s these little things that add up to big disasters? Kind of a life lesson, isn’t it?

And here’s a review of BLESSED ASSURANCE by Harriet Klausner.

“Whispers of Love”. Several years have past since the Civil War made Jessie Wagstaff a single mother. She runs a Chicago boarding house as she raises her young son Linc. A new guest Lee Smith makes her feel uneasy as he seems too interested in her late husband’s family and besides she feels attracted to him. However, when the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 threatens mother and daughter, Lee risks his life to keep them safe.

“Lost in His Love”. In 1906 San Francisco social activist Linc Wagstaff demands the city outlaw child labor. To make his case stronger he investigates the Dickensian exploitation. During his inquiries he meets heiress Cecilia Jackson. As they fall in love, he holds her accountable for practices her trustees are doing to increase her wealth. Before they can confront one another, an earthquake devastates the city leaving everyone struggling to survive.

“Echoes of Mercy”. Meg Wagstaff has returned to the States after spending time as a volunteer in France during the war. Her parents, Linc and Cecilia are elated she came back safe, but Meg learns her childhood friend Delman Dubois has been accused of murdering Mitch Kennedy by the New Orleans police. Meg refuses to believe Del would kill anyone so she travels to the city to prove her Negro friend is innocent. As Del faces racism that will gladly lynch him, Meg feels like a traitor as she is attracted to her opponent New Orleans Parish Attorney Gabriel St. Clair.

The omnibus collection of the three superb Wagstaff BLESSED ASSURANCE inspirational historical tales will elate fans of the genre as each era comes alive due to the strong lead couple and a deep support cast.

Harriet Klausner

And Happy Holidays!

Lyn

“Give the Lady What She Wants”– Marshall Field

If you grew up near Chicago as I did, the name of the famous Chicago Department Store, “Marshall Field’s,” possessed an allure of fine shopping, elegance and class.

But I never realized until I was doing my research for BLESSED ASSURANCE that the department store concept was a 19^th century social movement. No! I’m not kidding! In the emerging more urban culture, men had saloons to gather in daily but what social institution did “the ladies” have to go to?

Well, Marshall Field decided it should be his store! And he designed a place where every woman—by just walking through the door—became a “lady.”  With a tea room to meet her friends for lunch or just a cup of tea and conversation. A place where a liveried boy opened the door for her and a store which boasted marble floors and Greek columns and sparkling display counters.

Needless to say, Marshall Field’s was a success. His guiding principles were: “best quality, attractively presented, customers received with courteous and considerate treatment. Nothing petty or little.”

Originally there were three partners: Potter Palmer, Marshall Field, and Levi Leiter in 1852.

Potter Palmer built the store at the corner of State Street and Washington for $350,000 (and that’s in gold standard money—whew!). The store had six stories and was made of limestone and Canaan marble with fronted Corinthian columns. It was finished in the summer of 1868. Field and Leiter rented it for the sum of $50,000 per year.

The gala opening was heralded by the “Chicago Tribune”: “The formal opening by Field, Leiter and Company of Potter Palmer’s new marble palace on the corner of Washington and State was the grandest affair of its kinds which ever transpired even in Chicago, the city of grand affairs.”

This is what I love about historical research. I’d been to Marshall Field’s many times since I was a child who pressed my nose up to their windows watching the exciting Christmas window displays that were a Chicago must see every December.  And I never realized that it was part of a social movement!

You won’t see the cover of my latest book down the left column because my publisher pushed my release date back a month. Anyway, I’m very excited about BLESSED ASSURANCE. It is the omnibus edition (which means the edition that includes all three original books). This was my first historical series from 19989-2000. Now it has a brand new cover and my new publisher let me go back and revise the original so it –I think–has a brand new life.

 In this series, I feature earth-shattering (quite literally in book 2) events that shaped American history: The Great Chicago Fire 1871, the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and the start of Prohibition in 1920.  Each story is a generation in two families–one white and one black–that help each other, love and live through these troubled times.

 I was very pleased that Harriet Klausner reviewed this edition. If you’d like to read her review, go to amazon.com to the entry for this book and scroll to the bottom. I think she used the word, “superb,” always a favorite of mine–in reviews!!

Chicago Blog #1
What do you think the invention was that made Chicago the hub of all trade, all railroads in America? Why did all rail-lines lead to Chicago, just as in ancient times all roads led to Rome?
 

In the early 19th century, Chicago on Lake Michigan and St. Louis on the Mississippi River were competing to be the major inland trading center of the expanding United States.  The question was would America’s heartland send everything by rail to Chicago to be loaded onto ships and then to New York via the Great Lakes? Or would everything be sent to St. Louis, put on ships and then sent down the Mississippi River to New Orleans?
 

A warehouse man in Buffalo, New York, Joseph Dart was the man whom you’ve never heard of, but who made Chicago the hub.  He did this by inventing something you’ve probably never thought about very much–unless you’re born on a farm.  Dart invented the grain elevator in 1842.
 

Since I grew up in Illinois and also lived for nearly 20 years in Iowa, I am acquainted with grain elevators.  They are those tall metal buildings near the railroad in small farming communities all over the Midwest.  When I was in college I was visiting a girlfriend whose family (the Browns) were farmers and I actually worked with the mother as she helped her husband harvest crops one fall. The men are in the fields with the combines, harvesting the corn.  Usually their wives drive the grain truck back and forth between the field and the grain elevator in town.  When we would arrive at the grain elevator with another full truckload of grain, Mrs. Brown would drive onto a special plate (or plates) which would weigh the grain (subtracting the weight of the truck) and the bottom of the heavy-duty grain truck would open in the grain would pour out into a grate below. Then it would be lifted up into the elevator.
 

Now what’s the big deal about grain elevators?  The big deal is that St. Louis kept the old system of sacking grain and then shipping the sacks down the river on barges.  But Chicago built grain elevators on the lakefront so that farmers at first could just drive their loaded wagons to the elevator and not have to bag it first or wait for longshoremen to load the bags onto barges.  As soon as the railroads saw that the grain elevator took out the laborious and time-consuming sacking of grain and loading of grain bags, they built the railway lines to Chicago, not St. Louis.  Have you ever heard of Joseph Dart?  Is he even listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica?  No.
 

The effect of his invention in 1842 caused many other American financial institutions to be born.  I will be talking about those on Thursday.
My source is Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon, 1999.

Something New from Lyn Cote—

“Interesting History–What You Never Learned in School” Blog
As most of my readers know, I write contemporary romance and romantic suspense but my first love is historical sagas. And with my masters degree in American history, I love doing research but I don’t get to share every interesting fact about the past that I find.
So what I’m intending on doing is to blog three times a week. Sunday or Monday will be the latest book by a friend (or me). And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I’ll be blogging on “Interesting History–What You Never Learned in School.”
My October release, BLESSED ASSURANCE, is a reissue of my first historical series and features three books in three settings: 
v   the Great Chicago Fire of  1871,
v   the San Francisco Quake of 1906 and
v   New Orleans during the birth of Prohibition in 1920.
I unearthed tons and tons of research that of course never appeared in the books. (My characters just wouldn’t stop what they were doing and give history lectures—why not??? )
Each Tuesday and Thursday, I intend to share some of the interesting facts and information I found while doing research about these different settings and their history, starting with Chicago. You can receive find or receive these message in three places:
v   Here on the HEA Café under Weekly Topics,
v   at www.shoutlife.com/LynCote blog,
v   or at www.amazon.com when you enter my name and go to my listing of books, then scroll down to my messages.
Today here at the Happily Ever After Café, I’m debuting this new blog so you are the first to receive this introduction and a hint about what Tuesday’s blog will be about—Ta Da!!!
Intro: The first blogging city is Chicago in 1871—
Have you ever seen an Interstate or railroad map of the US? All the major highways and more particularly all the rail lines radiate from Chicago like a giant wagon wheel with Chicago as the hub. Have you ever wondered why this is so? It’s all due to a simple 19^th century invention that we all benefit from still today.
What do you think the invention that made this possible, made Chicago the hub of all trade, all railroads in America? Why did all rail-lines lead to Chicago, just as in ancient times all roads led to Rome?
So see you Tuesday for—
“Interesting History–What You Never Learned in School” Blog #1