I first saw Mary Mallon thirty-two years ago, that is, in 1907. She was then about forty years of age and at the height of her physical and mental faculties. She was five feet six inches tall, a blond with clear blue eyes, a healthy color and a somewhat determined mouth and jaw. Mary had …
1. Though it is undeniably the driving force behind the adoption of automation in industry, the Model T wasn’t the first car made on a production line – that was the Oldsmobile Curved Dash, beginning in 1901. 2. Famously the Model T was available in “any color as long as it’s black” – however for …
Eight things you might not know about the Ford Model T Read More »
What did the Edwardians like to do in their free time? Smoke pipes? Grow moustaches? Wear boater hats? Chain themselves to railings? Let’s add one to the list – rollerskating. Apparently the late 1900s saw a rollerskating craze sweep the UK, and at one point 500 rinks were open for public use. A deep, but …
A truism that bears continual restating; the Edwardian / “progressive” era was really, truly racist. Even the most diehard bigots these days would be unlikely to begrudge a black man his boxing career, but it took the best part of a decade of being the best boxer in the world, and two years of stalking …
January 1 — Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the Nimrod, for Antarctica. January 13 — A fire at the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 170 February 1 — King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon. February 12 — The first around-the-world car race, …
MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack I’ve lived through a couple of decades of recorded sound now — perhaps you have too — and as a result the world of 1908 seems almost entirely alien from the perspective of 1888. Recording technology has improved a great deal of …
Gustav Klimt – Danaë Pablo Picasso — Les Demoiselles d’Avignon Jacek Malczewski – Death of Ellenai Vardges Sureniants — Salome Lyonel Feininger — Der weiße Mann Ivan Grohar — The Sower Félix Vallotton – Andromède debout et Persée Mikalojus Konstantinas ÄŒiurlionis – Sonata of the Sun Robert Delaunay — Paysage au disque Gustaf Fjæstad — …
That Fatal Sneeze The Red Spectre Tunneling the Channel The Policemen’s Little Run The Golden Beetle The Dancing Pig The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon The Race For The Sausage Ride through Victoria and Vancouver, Canada Laughing Gas Premier Prix de violoncelle / First Prize for Cello The Lion Hunt Ben-Hur
Not even close to being the first sound film, and not particularly advanced technologically (being simply a mime to a pre-recorded disc), it’s still something of a marvel to see this performance 20 years before ‘The Jazz Singer’ and a few years before even silent shorts started coming out of Hollywood. Three minutes of your …
An odd book, but not one I’m particularly fond of, The Wind in The Willows is a mix of Edwardian rapture at frolicking in the splendors of nature, the high-church volksgeist mysticism that was in vogue at the time and classic anthropomorphic children’s moral tales. It does sort of hang together, and there are many …
