“Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus” created what has become one of the most recognized icons of horror fiction, but behind fiction there is always a bit of fact, and Frankenstein’s monster was truly a creature of its time.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.