“107,062 Delawareans are without the free delivery of mails, except where furnished in spots by the experimental rural free delivery services,” noted the News Journal [Wilmington] in July 1898. From our vantage point today rural free delivery (RFD) mail service seems like a no-brainer. But in 1898 it was untested, and there were opponents to…
The ‘Delaware peach’ ruled eastern markets from about 1840 till the turn of the 20th century. What about the ‘Georgia peach,’ you ask? Georgia horticulturists did indeed start a determined effort in the 1850s to selectively breed the peach and get the industry under way there. But Delaware had the lead already, thanks to one…
Over half of publicly traded companies on the NY Stock Exchange are incorporated in Delaware. Compared to the corporate laws of most states, Delaware’s make the state the ultimate corporate haven. How did that come about? “During the interval between 1898 and 1899,” says Samuel Arsht in ‘A History of Delaware Corporate Law,’ “a small…
Imagine the shock a parent would experience. You’re at your desk, at work. The postal carrier brings in a package. You open it. It contains the dead body of your daughter. You had no idea she had even died. Surely one of the most haunting events in the long life of Isaac Jacob Benioff. Benioff…
