9:06 AM



Welcome back to my blog. 
Here in Connecticut, it is raining and just two days ago we had a dusting of snow.....Mark Twain who visited St Louis said when he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes."
Doing the Work
This morning I am working on my draft of the St Louis Salesman's Amos Broadnax adding in the details I learned in his bio. I promised my editor, Craig, I would make a trip up to Harvard Business School to look up the Chinaware et al. Amos visited. So, last night I went thru the journal making a list and will call the library tomorrow and book an appointment. It's a 2 hour drive one way and if it snows, the trip is called off. 


(In a recent blog, I showed two sentences which disputed my salesman was Amos Broadnax- so today let me mention I found an additional piece of supporting info I haven't mentioned-  while in NYC he received a letter from his brother Chas B.- which means my salesman's last name began with B- so I feel pretty good.)


Over the weekend, I found time to read a the first two chapters of Adam Arenson's book, The Great Heart of the Republic- St Louis and the Cultural Civil War. Thus far my only criticism is the footnotes aren't at the bottom of the page. Maybe most people don't read them, but I do, so I am constantly flipping back and forth. At least he lists them so why should I complain?




Like Arenson's, I too agree that the fire of 1849 moved St Louis to becoming a major wholesale market. As he quotes a letter printed in the Missouri Republican, June 10, 1849,
"At this Critical moment the fire came and swept away the old tenements, leaving the ground lately occupied by the principal business houses of the city- an opportunity was thus afforded...." 
He makes me want to do interlibrary loan to read all these letters.. He also tempts me to get a copy of William Greenleaf Eliot's diary that details the fire as he moved cholera victims... Looks like I will be calling the Missouri Historical Society.