In The Flow of Time – February 19, 2025
I’m crafting the scene for the next chapter. A young sociopathic entrepreneur is meeting with the Governor-elect. The entrepreneur will become the central antagonist. (Aside: he is fiction, but modeled after and inspired by a historical figure from the period.)
I’m going to need his home. It’s where he does his business. I find a perfect model in the Library of Congress collection of Historic American Buildings. For real it was built 1857, and I’m in 1820. But close enough. It is the house the high end American magnate would live in. But, talk about resources, I have floor plans, elevations, photos of rooms. I’m not gonna have to invent very much. It’s awesome.
OK, so location settled. What about the people? There are two men. It’s August. I actually have the historical weather for this week. It is unusual, sunny and hot. Not the usual damp rain, clouds, etc. I can work with that, nice. So they’re in the library talking….
But mosquitoes, it’s the start of the season, they could be a bother. I can give them a “safe” and they talk inside netting. Klutzy. I’d rather have a net over a writing desk, but these men are talking in easy chairs, smoking cigars, the absolutely classic “back room deal.”
You know what would be nice, the author thinks, a fan. Stir the air, keep the skeeters off. I go researching fans. Rotary ceiling fans don’t show up until the 1860s. But what’s this… a punkah fan? Score! These absolutely were in the South in the early 1800s. It’s a panel, wood or fabric, that hangs straight down from the ceiling. A slave pulls the rope, makes it go back and forth. Jefferson doodled with mechanizing them, but who needs machines when you have slaves. (You did catch the satire there, right?)
And an element of the narrative is suddenly fleshed out. How does Marie learn inside scoop about this? Because the rich white men talk, the slave hears. The men are unconcerned because slaves are things and are so beneath notice that they don’t count. The overheard news travels on the downlow out into the world.
Which. Is. What. Happened. For. Real. I love it when history matches my imagination.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/punkah-project-fans-antebellum-south
