Historical Link & Literature

Okay so I was up late last night - well not late it was like 11pm, but hubby had fallen asleep at 8pm so it was "late" in perspective - and I caught 'Age of Innocence' on one of the Encore channels.

I've seen the film before, and have listened to the book in mp3 (hey its free off iTunes podcast section) and have the book downloaded from the web (also free from Project Gutenberg) ....

each new media seems to open new perpectives for me on the story - the movie showed me the wonderful clothes (neck to foot, which is why it was so scandalous for Daniel Day Lewis to kiss Michelle Pfieffer's wrist which should have been covered by her glove) .... the audio opened the beauty and glamour of the food (such great feasts they would have that would sometimes last for hours on end) ... the book really brought home the confinement that Newland felt all the way thru his life with May) ...

but this time while watching a little bit of info popped out at me which I seemed to have missed thru all the other exposures .... maybe its our present economic times ... but they mentioned that one of the characters had lost everything in the Crash.

This didn't make sense at the time .... I knew there was a down turn in the 1800s but nothing that I thought would have 'destroyed' anyone's fortune -- I knew there was something that happened in the UK which made the daughters of the American 'Nuevo Riche' very desirable to marry in order to save thir family estates, but nothing that bad over here.

So I did a little bit of research:

Long Depression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"This 'long depression' affected much of the world and was contemporary with the Second Industrial Revolution. At the time it was regarded as the Great Depression, remaining so until the Great Depression occurred in the 1930s"

Wow ... this means that there was a "Great Depression" before there was a "Great Depression" ... only this one was because the US was trying to get back onto the Gold Standard and because of some problems with the railroads.

But when you listen to the news panicking about there being 'another' Depression, you have to remember that this happens quite a bit ... even more so with Recessions, in fact from 1947 - 2007 there were 11 recessions, some lasting a year some even longer, the average being 11 months ....

So the question will be how 'history' will regard this period, Depression or Recession ... my guess is it depends on who history lays the blame on -- if its Bush, it will be a 'depression' and if its Obama it will be called a 'recession'.
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So now I have to go over the tale again and see what else 'pops' out at me.

Dang I hate that ... learning things I didn't know before. Its almost like being back in college.