Worlds Fairs range from the spectacular (The Great Exhibition in London in 1851, The Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889) to the middling (did you know Expo 2017 is taking place right now in Kazakhstan right now?) but surely none can have changed the world as much as the World’s Columbian Exposition which took place …
The World’s Columbian Exposition and The Devil in the White City Read More »
A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression France takes over Laos and Ivory Coast. Interests connected to the USA overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii The United States Supreme Court legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable Gandhi arrives in South Africa where he will live until 1914 Lizzie Borden is …
When looking back into the past, it’s important (but difficult) to remember that for everyone concerned it was just the present, especially at times like these when technology was making the world strikingly different. For Americans born into the civil war era, the gilded age of the 1880s and 1890s must have been a dizzying …
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – At The Moulin Rouge Anders Zorn – A Portrait of the Daughters of Ramón Subercaseaux Thomas Eakins – The Concert Singer Émile Bernard – Breton Women at a Wall Félix Vallotton – Bathers on a Summer Evening G. Caillebotte – Nasturces Almeida Júnior – Reading Frederic Leighton – The Garden of …
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole of its day, The Diary Of A Nobody is perhaps less hilarious than it was back in 1892, but it’s no less readable and seems to evoke its age better than any of the supposedly naturalist contemporary fiction. By reading it I have learned that: Dull, respectable men in …
George and Weedon Grossmith – The Diary of a Nobody Read More »
Cinema was even more a sideshow attraction than recorded sound in 1892. In pre-Lumiere France, cinematic pioneer Émile Reynaud was projecting slides with moving images in front of painted backgrounds at his Théâtre Optique in Paris. In a sense this had been done for hundreds of years with magic lantern shows, but Reynaud’s innovation was …
Can’t remember when I first hear that yellow wallpaper sent you round the bend, but I would have been very young – then later, hearing that it was a famous short story, I imagined it was one of the anthologised horror stories I liked when I was 13 or so. But it’s not. It’s a …
Firsts Ellis Island opens. Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent for the Diesel engine. The Carnegie Steel Company, Liverpool Football Club and Newcastle United F.C. are founded. Abercrombie & Fitch is established. The “Pledge of Allegiance” is first recited by students in U.S. public schools. The Nutcracker ballet with music by Tchaikovsky is premiered. Viruses …
What was recorded sound for; historical record? dictation of memos? the arts? At this point nobody is really making the case for any one purpose. The phonograph is out there in the homes of the wealthy trend-setters, recording studios are being set up in major cities, and popular entertainers are being sought out to make …
