Today’s offering is a few mixed drinks
named for women. If you find one to your liking, pass on the
story as well as the drink.
The first is named in honor of an
African-American woman of note, Susie King Taylor. Employed as a laundress, nurse, and educator,
Susie Taylor wrote a book Reminiscences of
My Life with the 33rd United States Colored Troops Late 1st S.C. Volunteers. An easy read of about 80 pages (available
free online) it starts with a brief history of her family, describes her
experiences traveling with her husbands unit during its campaigns, then
finishes with a brief description of her life in the post-war years.
No mere camp follower, Mrs. Taylor was
hired by the regiment as a laundress, though she says she seldom had time to
perform that task. There was a myriad of
more pressing needs that kept her busy such as nursing the sick and wounded,
helping to clean muskets, packing knapsacks and cartridge boxes, searching for
food, and teaching reading and writing to those soldiers interested. She saw the war from Charleston to
Jacksonville and her slim book is a good read for as it gives a uniquely female
perspective of life in the "colored troops."
In a late chapter, Taylor writes a very
thoughtful essay on issues of race and treatment of veterans in general. One sentence, appropriate to our proximity to
Veterans Day, serves to illustrate how times really do not change:
“I look around now and see the comforts that our younger generation enjoy, and think of the blood that was shed to make these comforts possible for them, and see how little some of them appreciate the old soldiers. My heart burns.”
The Susie Taylor comes from Straub's Manual
of Mixed Drinks, 1913. A simple,
pleasant cooler, it is a Cuba Libre with ginger ale substituted for Coke.
Next, we have Elsie Ferguson, a blue-eyed
blond star of stage and screen in the early 20th century. Starting as a chorus
girl in 1900, she made her last
performance on Broadway in 1943.
In 1919, the women's magazine, Milady Beautiful, described her as
"the greatest mistress of poise, grade and artistry." She was a very private, and self-effacing
person active in charity work and an "ardent" suffragette. During WWI, Elsie Ferguson participated in
Liberty Loan drives, the Red Cross and United War work. Elsie was considered a difficult person, in
part, for her dislike of interviews and parties. A 1918 article in Photoplay described her as "rather cold, indifferent, almost
unhappy, and sometimes rather unreal" when off-stage. She was not without
humor. When told a reporter wanted to do
a story on how she spent her money, she stated, "I spend it with
pleasure."
Today, only one of her silent movies Witness for the Defense, 1919, and one
of her talkies Scarlet Pages, 1930,
are known to exist.
The Elsie
Ferguson Fizz is also from Straub's.
Finally, we have Phoebe Snow. Again we
return to 1900. Phoebe was a model
Floradora girl, a shining example of feminine pulchritude and decorum, the
"Girl in White,” and like most shining examples - imaginary. Phoebe, a product of the mind of one W. P.
Colton, advertising manager for the Lackawanna Railroad, was as real as Flo,
the enthusiastic Progressive Insurance spokesperson.
Phoebe Snow was simply a name made up to
fit the first of a series of advertising jingles:
Phoebe Snow about to go
Upon a trip to Buffalo
"My gown keeps white
Both day and night
Upon the Road of Anthracite"
Phoebe, dressed in white like Flo a la
1900, was the darling of the Lackawanna Railroad. She was able to travel in white on the
Lackawanna without fear of her clothes being soiled by soot because the
Lackawanna locomotives burned more expensive anthracite coal, hence the moniker
of "The Road of
Anthracite." For those of you too
young to remember coal fired furnaces and stoves, coal comes in three flavors -
dirty (anthracite), dirtier (bituminous/sub-bituminous), and dirtiest
(lignite), and was priced accordingly.
In in her day, Phoebe Snow, graced
magazines, billboards, newspapers and streetcars. The ad copy featured rhymes
extolling the virtues of the Lackawanna Railroad - courtesy, safety, comfort,
and pleasure. While the rhymes seem juvenile today, in 1904 they were described
as "tripping, lilting rhymes, associated with a form feminine equally
dainty."
Phoebe fell on hard times about 1914, being
eventually dropped by the railroad only to return briefly hawking cosmetics and
underwear. In the 1940's the Lackawanna
gave her a facelift, and brought her back for another twenty years.
The Phoebe
Snow Cocktail is from The How and
When by Marco, 1940.
