Clik here to view.
George Armstrong Custer’s “Trusty Spencer”
George Armstrong Custer’s Personal Army-Issue Model 1865 Spencer Carbine A good friend from Yale, Tom Slater (JE ’72), is Director of Americana at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. An email update from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“The Bullet Came through Billy, and It Broke the Bartender’s Glass”
Paul Slade traces the (factual and performance) history of America’s favorite revenge ballad, “Stagger Lee,” and gleefully explains that “each successive generation darkens the song and casts aside...
View ArticleAndrew Baxter with the Georgia Yellow Hammers (1927): “G Rag”
An interesting specimen of an extinct and forgotten musical genre, recorded at Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, August 9, 1927 — Andrew Baxter, fidle; Charles Ernest Moody,banjo-ukelele; Phil...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Remembering the Police Gazette, America’s First Men’s Magazine
Yale eventually built the residential college I much later lived in at the Berkeley Oval where these guys used to play football. Before radio and television came along, weekly serial publications were...
View Article“Little White Lies”
“But let anyone born in 1926 try to stay home on a Saturday night in 1998 and listen to Dick Haymes singing ‘Those Little White Lies.’ Just have them do that, and then tell me afterwards if they have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
American Anthronomastics Revisited
On the female front: I expect the popularity of Jane Austen explains the rise of Emma. Sophia is a lot more problematic, though similar in period quality. Exactly why Ava is doing so well in Vermont...
View ArticleClik here to view.
American Regional Dialects
NC Statistics grad student Joshua Katz used an algoritm to map responses to a 120-question survey of regional English by Bert Vaux of Cambridge University. The Abstract 22 maps My native Schuylkill...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Upper Mauch Chunk, 1940
August 1940. “Old house in Upper Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. In the background is East Mauch Chunk.” Photo by Jack Delano. Mauch Chunk, renamed as Jim Thorpe in 1953 in an outrageous feat of Babbitry,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hamilton Hides Behind Jefferson In Whole Foods
Whole Foods produce section, Reno, Nevada Venkatesh Rao (as is becoming ever more frequent these days, we Americans get our explanations about ourselves from Indians) describes a longstanding American...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Times Square Grindhouse, 1955
“Teenage Devil Dolls” aka “One Way Ticket to Hell” (1955). From Ratak Monodosico.
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Neighbor’s Photo From Shorpy’s
1938. “Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Joe Gladski, wife of a coal miner at Maple Hill.” Photo by Sheldon Dick, Resettlement Administration. Shorpy’s, the great historical photo site, yesterday put up...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Manson Hale Whitlock, 1917-2013
Manson H. Whitlock, proprietor of the last prominent typewriter repair and sales shop in the United States, and the last of Bethany, Connecticut’s renowned Whitlock brothers passed away August 28 at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Popcorn and the Cinema
Smithsonian magazine explains how popcorn conquered the movie theater industry. in 1885, the first steam-powered popcorn maker hit the streets, invented by Charles Cretor. The mobile nature of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Craigslist Ad From Enid, Oklahoma
Craigslist: 1997 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) 220K Miles 4.0 L in-line 6 4WD AUTOMATIC Transmission Bright Red Straight Stock Crank Windows, no cruise, no tilt, no delay wiper, no nonsense POWER MIRRORS! Woo...
View Article
