I bet you can’t guess my favorite
research site from the past month. It isn’t one that comes immediately to mind.
But now that I’m working
on a historical novel, I’ve found that eBay is a great tool for
discovering what life was like back when.
Several weeks ago, I was researching
the types of picnic supplies people used in the 1920s. My novel takes place in
the early 1940s, but my main character’s father would have bought the picnic
basket in the 1920s when he was courting her mother. So I needed to know what
type of equipment people used in the 1920s and what material the plates and cups
would have been made of.
I started with a Google
search for “1920 picnic baskets.” The results included eBay and other auction
sites that sold vintage picnic baskets. By looking at the pictures and reading
the descriptions, I was able to gather most of the information I needed.
In my second experience,
I used eBay the way it was intended. I participated in my first auction and
purchased a 1942 Montgomery Ward Spring & Summer Catalog.
My main character has to
do her shopping by mail order, and I wanted to know what was sold in the catalogs
of the time. Naturally, I started with the free resources. First, I looked online
for a scanned copy of either a Montgomery Ward or a Sears Roebuck catalog from
the period. When that didn’t work, I checked the card catalog for the Harold
Washington Public Library in Chicago, hoping to find something in the library’s
extensive microfilm collection. No luck there, either.
But I did find a current
auction on eBay. It took several bids to win the prize, but my 1942 Montgomery
Ward catalog will be worth every cent I spent on it.
Because a catalog is both a
time capsule and a great way to get a feel for the period.
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