The only thing better about the past is the way the women dressed and that's reason enough for me to write about post-Civil War America with passion. The more you know about the Gilded Age the more compassion you have for they way the people lived their lives. So many things were in flux--work, marriage, religion, race relations! There's no better time to write about a part of the past that so informs the way we live today and it's just plain fun to make women wear great clothes!