In which the archives can make you go cross-eyed.

Summary of today: looked through pages and pages of the 1860 Federal Census, ate lunch, looked through pages and pages of the 1860 Federal Census, took a 2 minute nap with my eyes open, looked through pages and pages of the 1860 Federal Census.

Yes, it was indeed as exciting as it sounds. Let's just say I ended the day with a caramel cheesecake cupcake.

Some background: Wednesdays and Thursdays are my print department days (they deal with all archived things print related -- lithographs, broadsides, paintings, maps, architectural plans, photos, etc), and I'm helping them with a project for a database of Philadelphia lithographers (fancy name for printers). My small, rather tedious mission is to find these guys in city directories and censuses from the 1800s and figure out when they were born, when they died, whom they married, how many dozens of children they had, etc. Mostly, I get to look up guys with names like "Hiram Arms" and wonder why we don't name kids Hiram anymore (or "Arms" for that matter...).

Which brings me ever so quickly (hooray for actual brevity) to the AHFOD! Since I was already amidst the censuses and rather curious, I looked up popular girls names back in the day. I don't know quite know what I was expecting, but I suppose I was hoping for names like "Gertrude" or "Millificient." Lo and behold, however, Mary was the most common girls' name in the United States. And it stayed that way from 1801 until 1962, only to be eclipsed by Elizabeth. That's 160 years, people. We really need to get more creative.

On that note, I'm off to celebrate Restaurant Week (3 course meal, swanky restaurant, relatively cheap) with a friend tonight, and then mentally prepare myself for the census-ing that will be tomorrow...and by "prepare" I mean watch Modern Family and Jon Stewart.