{"product_id":"matrimony-inc-book-francesca-beauman-9781643135786","title":"Matrimony, Inc.","description":"\u003cb\u003eA clever, thoughtful, and funny history that reveals how the Union of states was built on a much more personal union of people.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat connects lonely homesteaders in 18th century New England to the millions of us today who use dating apps\/websites to help find a partner? At once heartwarming and heartbreaking, \u003ci\u003eMatrimony Inc. \u003c\/i\u003ereveals the common thread that weaves its way through not just marriage and relationships over the centuries, but American social history itself: advertising for love. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmazingly, America's first personal ad appeared in the \u003ci\u003eBoston Evening Post\u003c\/i\u003e as early as 1759. A person who flatters himself that he shall not be thought disagreeable was in search of a young lady, between the age of eighteen and twenty-three, of a middling stature, brown hair, of good Morals. As family-arranged marriages fell out of fashion, Husband Wanted or Seeking Wife ads were soon to be found in every state in the nation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom the woman in a Wisconsin newspaper who wanted no brainless dandy or foppish fool to the man with a glass eye who placed an ad in the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e hoping to meet a woman with a glass eye, the many hundreds of personal ads that author Francesca Beauman has uncovered offer an extraordinary glimpse into the history of our hearts' desires, as well as a unique insight into American life as the frontier was settled and the cities grew. Personal ads played a surprisingly vital role in the West: couple by couple, shy smile by shy smile, letter by letter from a dusty, exhausted miner in California to a bored, frustrated seamstress in Ohio. Get ready for a new perspective on the making of modern America, a hundred words of typesetter's blurry black ink at a time. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSo anxious are our settlers for wives that they never ask a single lady her age. All they require is \u003ci\u003eteeth\u003c\/i\u003e, declared the \u003ci\u003eDubuque Iowa News\u003c\/i\u003e in 1838 in a state where men outnumbered women three to one. While the dating pools of 21st century New York, Chicago or San Francisco might not be quite so dentally-fixated, \u003ci\u003eMatrimony Inc. \u003c\/i\u003ewill put idly swiping right on Tinder into fascinating and vividly fresh historical context. What do women look for in a man? What do men look for in a woman? And how has this changed over the past 250 years?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49503581962513,"sku":"GOR011688804","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50315776164113,"sku":"GOR011689401","price":16.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50423146676497,"sku":"CIN1643135783G","price":3.89,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51323238514961,"sku":"CIN1643135783VG","price":3.89,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1643135783.jpg?v=1751214739","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/matrimony-inc-book-francesca-beauman-9781643135786","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}