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Lackawanna County,
1886-1890
It was startling to discover a dish called “Andersonville beans” on the menu from a Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association banquet in 1889. Andersonville, the largest Confederate prison during the Civil War, was a hellhole in Georgia, where nearly a third of the prisoners died of starvation or disease. A quarter of a century later, this local veteran’s group in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania had the curious idea of naming a bean dish after the infamous prison.
Cincinnati,
1908
This daily menu from the Sinton Hotel in Cincinnati reflects the city's exuberant mood on July 28, 1908, when William Howard Taft accepted the Republican nomination for president from the portico of his Federalist mansion. Feeling the intense heat of that hot summer day, the 300-pound Taft passed over large sections of his speech, explaining to the crowd that they could read his entire oration in the newspapers.
San Simeon,
1940
Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst sent to San Francisco for the good linens and china in September 1929, when preparing for the upcoming visit of British politician Winston Churchill to his grand estate named La Cuesta Encantada. Although Churchill appreciated the efforts that were made in his behalf, it did not stop him from keenly observing his host, writing to his wife Clementine: “Hearst was most interesting to meet, & I got (sic) like him - a grave simple child - with no doubt a nasty temper - playing with the most costly toys. A vast income always overspent: Ceaseless building & collecting not very discriminatingly works of art: two magnificent establishments, two charming wives; complete indifference to public opinion, a strong liberal & democratic outlook, a 15 million daily circulation, oriental hospitalities, extreme personal courtesy (to us at any rate)...”1