American History

WELCOME!

Thanks for visiting Notes from the Frontier! This blog is for history lovers fascinated by the American West
and pioneer and Indian life on the frontier. I started this new blog in 2019 and it grew very quickly
to more than 100,000 readers! Today it has nearly 400 posts.
I spent many years of researching my just-released debut historical novel, Blood to Rubies
about Chief Joseph and his heroic struggle to save his people in 1877. (It's already bestselling and award-winning! Press the blue button below for more info.) During my research, I discovered that so much of what we'd been taught in history books and by Hollywood was just plain wrong. So I decided to start a history blog. And it's been a pure joy and a life's passion project for me.
We'll cover many topics: from "soiled doves" to slavery, firearms to freak show, home brew to homosexuality, tough men and tougher women, cowboys and Indians, childbirth and death, dreams and desperation, myths and the truth. And, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction!
It's sure to be a wild ride! So hang on to your hat and let's GIDDYUP!

SPECIAL NOTE: Go to the Directory to view more specific categories .

Here's me, author-to-be, Deborah Hufford, at 16 and the Dayton Rodeo Queen in Iowa (which was the U.S. National Rodeo of the Year that year! My childhood horse was named Sundance, and was a celebrity among all the children in my small farming town. He even carried the Iowa governor in our rodeo parade one year.

When Sundance died at the ripe old age of 30, our town newspaper ran his obituary. I was so lucky to have the best horse in the world 💙

Take a wild ride into America’s past.

5 min read

Child Labor in the 1800s

The Horrific History of Child Labor is One of the Saddest Chapters in Our History By the year 1900, about a fifth of all workers in the...

5 min read

Civil War Surgery

While war weapons during the Civil War had advanced in destructiveness, medical technology had not kept pace.

5 min read

Gall, The Mightiest Warrior

Elizabeth Custer said of the great Hunkpapa Chief: "I never in my life dreamed there could be...so fine a specimen of warrior as Gall."

7 min read

Wishing all Notes from the Frontier readers a Happy Labor Day Weekend!

For most Americans, today—Labor Day—is the last hurrah of summer—picnics, bar-b-que, that last summer weekend party before autumn.

8 min read

The First Thanksgivings

The first Thanksgiving in North American is popularly believed to have taken place at Plymouth Colony in 1621 with Pilgrims and Wampanoag.

8 min read

The Gettysburg Address

Seven score and 16 years ago today, on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave his immortal speech.

7 min read

Arlington Cemetery, In Honor of Our Veterans

The 612 acres that today comprise Arlington National Cemetery was once the plantation and Greek Revival mansion of General Robert E Lee.

8 min read

The Axe-idental Tourist: Part 3

Paul Mueller’s reign of terror between 1898 and 1912 included more than 25 cases and probably more than 100 victims from coast to coast.

9 min read

The Axe-idental Tourist: Part 2

After the Lizzie Borden axe murders in 1892, an epidemic of axe murders ravaged the country for about twenty years.

8 min read

The Axe-idental Tourist: Part 1

Nearly everyone has heard of the sensational Lizzie Borden axe murder case of 1892 but, Iowa had a case that was far worse.

10 min read

TERRRIFYING TEN: America's Most Haunted Places

Everyone is fascinated by ghost stories. In celebration of Halloween, Notes from the Frontier will take you on a virtual tour.

9 min read

The Surprising History of Lady Liberty

She’s been called the Mother of Exiles, Lady of the Harbor, Lady Liberty, the Green Goddess, Mother of Freedom, The Statue of Liberty.

8 min read

Revolutionary War Victory Day: October 19

We all recognize and celebrate July 4th as the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

7 min read

The Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903

It is the deadliest building fire in U.S. history but most people have never heard of it.

6 min read

America's First Animal Shelter

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of America’s first animal shelter in 1869 in Philadelphia.

7 min read

Prehistoric Giants Unearthed

Once trunked titans 15 feet tall, weighing up to ten tons, with monstrous tusks 20 feet long roamed North America from sea to sea.

4 min read

National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept 15-Oct 15)

Hispanic history in the United States has often been largely passed over.

5 min read

America's Oldest Brands

The legacy of American brand names also tells the story of America’s growth and expansion marching across the continent.

6 min read

In Praise of the Working Man & Woman

The cogs of the Industrial Revolution loomed grinding and monstrous over the individual worker and killed workers at spectacular rate.

7 min read

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Women have always worked but during the Industrial Revolution, they flocked to the cities in droves to work in factories.