Who was Eve Leary? The name haunts modern Georgetown, attached to police headquarters and military barracks, yet its origins dissolve into the humid mists of colonial memory. In truth, Eve Leary was less a person than a palimpsest—the name given to a Demerara plantation that bore witness to the extraordinary life of Sara Thibou (1711-1780s), … Read more
Category: History
When Night Became Optional
London in 1807 was enveloped in darkness every evening, just as it had been since its founding nearly two millennia earlier. By 1830, it glowed through the night—a constellation of steady flames, transforming the rhythm of human life more profoundly than perhaps any technology before or since. Consider what darkness meant before gas lighting. As … Read more