by Roseanna White | Sep 2, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
First, don’t forget the TITLE CONTEST, detailed on Monday! Now, onto the real post . . .
In my ’20s research for Mafia Princess, I checked a book out of the Library that got into very detailed descriptions about the time. One of the most interesting things I came across was drawings for houses that you could order from the Sears catalogue. I mean, lol. Housewares, sure. But houses?
The layout of houses changed greatly around that time. Back in the day, rooms were small and many because of the heating source–keeping them small cut down on the transfer of smoke and dust from one room to another. But as cleaner fuels and electric heating gained prominence, rooms opened up. Got bigger, but fewer in number. Interesting, huh? I didn’t realize until then that that’s why really old houses have so many teensy tiny rooms.
In the same (or nearby, anyway) section of the book, it talked about the extreme dichotomy between rural and urban life. In the country (read: where I live), it looked like it had for the last century. Horses, buggies, no electricity . . . indoor plumbing wasn’t a must. (I shudder at the thought.) In the cities, everyone had electricity, cars were more numerous than horses, and I daresay the advent of bathrooms that included toilets were welcomed with open arms.
When I eventually sit down to write the sequel to Mafia Princess, which will be titled Gangster’s Girl, part of the book will travel to my hometown of Cumberland, Maryland. I’m looking forward to this–I get to go to all the historical stuff around here and try to get an idea of what this place looked like in the ’20s, when it was a booming railroad city instead of one barely larger than a town. Back then, we’d earned our nickname of Queen City, being the second largest in the state. And I can just see my bobbed blonde sauntering down the brick streets!
by Roseanna White | Aug 26, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
It’s a little-realized fact that Washington D.C. has not always been our nation’s capital. For a while right after the Revolution, Annapolis, Maryland held that distinction–something I didn’t know until I went down to visit my college for the first time and saw all the plaques.
I’m considering a new historical novel, though, and thought that would be a great setting. I did some basic research and now know that Annapolis was the capital from 1783 to 1784. Long time, I know–but oh, the things that happened! It’s where George Washington resigned his commission in the Continental Army. It’s where the delegates of the Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris. And the State House was so admired by the founding fathers that Thomas Jefferson often referred to it as “The only decent piece of architecture in Annapolis“” (okay, so that’s not such an awesome endorsement of the city, lol) and George Washington had the nation’s capital building modeled after it. Pretty cool, huh?
Annapolis was such a hub of society at the time that it was called “The Athens of America.” It boasted a glittering social season, gracious hospitality, intellectual stimulation (ahem, says the graduate of its oldest institute of higher learning . . .) and cultural activities in spades. The oldest theater in the New World was built in Annapolis, and more 18th-century architecture survives there than anywhere else in the country.
Is it any wonder this history-loving romantic enjoys that little city so much? You can feel the past walking along with you as you take a stroll along its many circles, and see it in every building you pass (not the mention all the reenactors;-) If I buckle down to writing this story, I’m going to have a lot of fun with the research! Day trip, anyone?
by Roseanna White | Aug 19, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
One of the things I find most interesting about the shape (so to speak) of the Twenties is women’s issues. Now, I am not a feminist–far from it. I baffled many a young woman in my college classes when I replied to their in-class rants on “Why should the men be in charge?” with “Why not? Someone needs to have the final say. They were more qualified.” (Keeping in mind this was a conversation on Ancient Greece, lol.)
But when women gained the right to vote in 1920, it ushered in a new era for females around the nation. As the father of my heroine observes in Mafia Princess, the new legislation made women champion equality across the board–and that led to some interesting changes.
You know the 20s fashions we all find so charming? All those straight lines and curve-less silhouettes came straight from men’s clothing. One fashion book I looked at for research referred to the 20s as the Tomboy Decade. Hair went short, corsets went out (though a more comfortable version quickly came back in), shape went straight, and now and then you’d even (gasp!) see a woman in trousers–though that was still very rare.
The Flappers we often equate with the decade (though they weren’t as numerous as you might think) took things a step farther and flaunted the feminity they kept with a boldness unheard of before. Sure, most ladies powdered their noses–but never in public as they did. And applying lipstick in a restaurant where everyone could see? Shocking! They rolled their stockings down so you could see the tops below the hems of their dresses, and even wore frocks cut low enough up top to show their bandeaux!
And those things–they took undergarments to a level that Victorian mothers had to wonder about. After centuries of women accentuating their curves and padding them where lacking, these elastic contraptions’ sole purpose was to flatten a woman’s (ahem) assets. Otherwise those straight-lined dresses wouldn’t hang as they should, and the tomboy-ish thing would have gone out the window.
Women put much of the roar into the Roaring Twenties by defying what had before been social norms, demanding freedom, and chucking the styles that men expected. And still . . . even those flappers would have been shocked by what we consider normal today. (We think their dresses were short, but “short” meant two inches below the knee.)
Makes for interesting characterization, let me tell you! There was a pretty big gap between the thinking of the mothers still in a Victorian mindset and the thinking of the daughters coming of age in the 20s. Stories just waiting to be written. =)
by Roseanna White | Aug 12, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
One thing that’s super interesting about the 20s is that what we consider “modern life” had taken hold in some areas (like big cities) and was virtually unknown in others (read: rural areas–like where I live, lol). Electricity? You’d find it everywhere in town, but go five miles out, and nada. Phones? They were gaining traction fast, but very few private residences had them, even in urban areas.
One thing I really enjoyed researching, though, were the cars (partially, perhaps, because my husband did the bulk of the research, lol). So this blog is totally for my car-loving hubby (and all those other people out there who think Car and Driver is literature at its finest [for the record, I thoroughly enjoy the snippets my hubby reads me from C&D]).
When it came time to put my 20s characters behind the wheel of a car, I yelled across the room, “Hey, honey. What cars would these people drive in 1922?” My hubby dear spent the next hour looking them up for me. We decided that my hero would drive a Nash. A what, you ask? At this point in history, a Nash was your solid, middle-class car. Affordable, but offered considerable value for your buck. They rarely broke down and had a certain elegance. Totally the car my ever-reasonable hero would drive.
But keep in mind this is a book about the Mafia, so naturally I needed something a little more ostentatious too. For that, we went with a Pierce-Arrow. Made famous by another Chicago gangster (who died in 1920), the Pierce-Arrow was distinctive, huge, and sooooooo expensive. What I found interesting in reading about them is that you could choose to make them less distinctive. They were known for the unique placement of their headlights, but you could also order the more standard placement. I have my heroine’s father, a fictional mob boss, do this. He wants the status symbol of the Pierce but doesn’t want to be confused with Colosimo (the aforementioned gangster).
One thing I’m looking forward to in the sequel to Mafia Princess which I haven’t yet written is picking out what car my new hero will drive. He does some rum running (bad, Tony, bad!) so it’ll have to be something with some get-up-and-go. Should be a fun choice to make. =)
by Roseanna White | Aug 5, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
In spite of my title, we’re going to go a few years earlier. The Mafia (and Chicago) changed a lot once Capone took over. Before that . . . well, it was still mean and nasty. But it had a surprising honor. So today I’m gonna give you a taste of Mafia history.
In Sicily, the government was corrupt. As in, so corrupt that people had to form organizations to protect themselves. That’s how the Mafia started, and that was often the only thing standing between the people and a “law” that would have taken everything from them. When people started emigrating from Sicily to the U.S., their distrust of government came with them (go figure), and so did their ideas to combat it.
Experts insist that the American Mafia is not the Sicilian Mafia. By that, they mean that there was never a central authority in Sicily that ran things in America. But. Those were in the Mafia in Sicily more often than not formed or joined a branch of it on this side of the pond too.
In turn-of-the-century America, everyone just assumed that if you were Italian, you must belong to a gang. Street gangs roamed the cities, usually preying on their own kind. The most prominent of these were the Black Hand and the Camorra. They were . . . er, not very organized. That’s were the Mafia differed. They earned that title of Organized Crime, boy, let me just tell you.
They lived by the rule of Omerta, which basically said that you could kill each other, but woe to anyone who turned another Sicilian in to the authorities. You just didn’t do it. And in those days, another thing you just never did was hit a guy’s family. Family was precious. You could kill the gangster, but his wife and kids had better remain untouched.
That tide started to change in the mid to late 20s . . . which is why I set my Little Italy Trilogy in the earlier half of the decade.
Come back next Wednesday for some more interesting Mafia tidbits!
by Roseanna White | Jul 29, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
The 1920s. Hemlines went up, waists went down, curls waved goodbye, and everyone shimmied their way into the Jazz Age. Prohibition was the law of the land . . . and gangsters made millions flaunting it.
Is there anyone who thinks this doesn’t sound like a fun time write about? LOL
A little over a year ago, I was struck by inspiration. “What if,” I thought, “a law enforcement officer used a girl to get an in with her family? And what if we’re on the girl’s side, even though her father’s, oh, I don’t know . . . a mob boss? And what if she knows what he does and has no problem with it–at the beginning?”
This is how Mafia Princess was born.
I threw myself wholeheartedly into research. After reading a book about the Mafia (not yet called the Mob), I decided that I wanted to set my book in pre-Capone Chicago, which meant around 1922. (Capone was there, of course–just not ruling the city.) I made this decision because I much preferred the Mafia of those days. In spite of some really nasty illegal goings-on, they had an honor that was lost after Capone took over. A respect for the “old ways” that they brought with them from Sicily.
Unfortunately, that also meant that a lot of the styles that came to define the era weren’t around yet. Yes, hair was bobbed–but not yet shingled. Yes, dress silhouettes were simplified and elongated–but waists hadn’t dropped to the hip quite yet. Yes, cloche hats were coming into style–but brims still reigned the day.
And of course, there was the super-fun slang like in the title of the post. I had to use it sparingly, but I really enjoyed writing one character who peppered her conversation with every faddish phrase I could find. She habitually said things like, “Take off this ball and chain, put on your glad rags, and let’s hit the town. I know of this party that’s going to be the elephant’s instep.”
Now, selling a Mafia story to the CBA (even one that is decidedly Christian) may prove a challenge, but I just received word that the first editor we submitted to has requested the full, and I’m pretty excited. So for the next few weeks, our Remember When Wednesdays are going to share some more interesting FYI about 1922 Chicago. We’ll learn a little about the Mafia of the day, the styles and fashions, and some of the misconceptions that have arisen about the era over the years.
Come on, Twenties, give us a roar!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.