On the New Bustle
A single sharp-tongued sentence of church-porch gossip about fashion and vanity, preserved here as a tiny slice of period wit.
NewsPipe summary
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876 · Page 1
1 min read&Quot;I don't know," said a young female, meditatively, as she glanced at an elegantly dressed rival who was sailing out of church, Sunday morning, with all the airs of an empress, "I don't know, but it seems to me that every time she gets a new steel for her bustle, she sort of acts as if nothing could hold her."
Was this worth reading?
This is how the site learns what to look for. Ratings move the weights behind the front page; notes go into the editorial brief that guides what gets pulled from the archives next.
Elsewhere in the archive
The Ruling Passion Strong in Death
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876 · St. Louis, Missouri
A wry, gently mocking deathbed anecdote from the St. Louis Republican, in which a dying old woman's last words concern nothing more than a disliked hairpiece — a small comic gem about vanity outlasting even life itself.
The Chicago Rothschild
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876 · Detroit, Michigan
A comic tale from the Detroit Free Press about a boastful stranger who claims to be a millionaire when a hotel clerk asks him to pay in advance — a slice of vintage American tall-tale humor, cut short where the original page ends.
A Remarkable Lynching Scene in West Virginia
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876 · Barboursville, West Virginia
A harrowing eyewitness account of a lynching in Barboursville, West Virginia, where a mob hanged a man and nearly hanged a woman for the axe murder of her husband, complete with confessions, prayers, and a near-riot over whether to spare her life.
Norwich University Alumni Banquet
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876 · Boston, Massachusetts
Vermont's Norwich University alumni gathered in Boston for their first banquet, celebrating the school's forty-four year history — a small but telling snapshot of 19th-century collegiate loyalty and civic boosterism.