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Date: | Tue, 1 May 2007 12:36:56 -0400 |
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Great topic!--thanks, Brent. Not that I have any answers.
I've wondered the same thing about stagecoach travel. It's one thing
to make a scheduled stop at a tavern, say; quite another to deal with
such matters unscheduled on long hauls between towns. And given the
almost proverbially wretched state of Virginia's roads in the
stagecoach era (e.g.,
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc_online_exhibits/doc/archived/
dec_2005/doc.html), there must have been many such unscheduled stops.
I'm thinking of the plight of women, particularly. Those long skirts!
And how on earth did women manage the practical side of their menstrual
cycles while traveling? Or, for that matter, on or off the road in the
eighteenth century, when even among the wealthy (if memory serves) the
only undergarment normally worn below the waist was one's shift?
All such matters may be one more element explaining why early
Virginia's traveling population in all social strata, including runaway
slaves, seems to have been heavily male.
--Jurretta Heckscher
Opportunistic P.S. on a tangential topic: Eventually, as we ponder
these mysteries and refresh our gratitude for modern conveniences, can
someone please explain why the rest area at approximately mile post 105
on I-95 north of Richmond is officially designated the Petersburg rest
area? It's more than 50 miles from Petersburg. Thanks.
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