This 1865 Ad of an 18-Year-Old Man Looking for a Wife Is Hilarious!

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

In 2017, Max Roser, a researcher for the University of Oxford, shared a snippet of a dating ad published in a newspaper in 1865. The ad, titled “CHANCE FOR A SPINSTER,” featured a young man touting his best traits in the hopes that he would find a wife.

And this young lad really had it all going for him. He’s patriotic (he believes in the Star Spangled Banner!), he’s well-off (he has nine sheep, a bull, and 2 heifers), he wants to buy you a hoop skirt, and he even has a good set of teeth! Your Tinder date could never.

Here is the endearing transcript in full:

“I am eighteen years old, have a good set of teeth, and believe in Andy Johnson, the star-spangled banner, and the 4th of July. I have taken up a State lot, cleared up eighteen acres last year, and seeded ten of it down.

My buckwheat looks first rate, and the oats and potatoes are bully. I have got nine sheep, a two-year-old bull, and two heifers, besides a house and a barn.

I want to get married. I want to buy bread-and-butter, hoop-skirts, and waterfalls for some person of the female persuasion during life. That’s what’s the matter with me. But I don’t know how to do it.”

We’ll never know if this young man found the love of his life, but we have to applaud his effort… and at the very least his buckwheat.

(via INSIDER)

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Marilyn Monroe Working Out at the Bel Air Hotel in 1953

In 1945 Hungarian-Romanian photographer Andre de Dienes met the nineteen-year-old Marilyn Monroe, then called Norma Jeane Baker, who was a model on the books of Emmeline Snively’s Blue Book Model Agency

Norma Jeane had recently separated from her husband, James Dougherty, and told Dienes of her wish to become an actress. Dienes suggested that they go on a road trip to photograph her in the natural landscapes, for which Dienes paid her a flat fee of $200.

Dienes next met her on Labor Day in 1946, with her new name of Marilyn Monroe, they next worked together in 1952, where he shot her at the Bel Air Hotel and 1953, where she telephoned him at 2am, and took him to a darkened street where he used his car headlights to illuminate her, taking pictures her wide-eyed and unmade up. Dienes last saw her alive in June 1961.

These photos were taken by Hungarian-Romanian photographer Andre de Dienes at Bel Air Hotel in 1953, showing the beautiful Marilyn Monroe working out — or not really — and keeping herself in tip-top shape. De Dienes was also among the first photographers who photographed Marilyn during her early modeling days, notably the 1949 pin-up series taken at Long Island’s Tobay Beach in New York.

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A Day With Salvador Dalí: Hilarious Photographs of Dalí at His Home in Portlligat, Spain in 1955

Thursday, May 7, 2020

In 1930 Salvador Dalí was looking for a house of his own, he established himself in Portlligat, in the fisherman’s hut that Lídia Noguer had sold him. The house is in fact a cabin with its roof in poor condition, where Lídia’s sons kept their fishing gear. In order to purchase the Portlligat house Dalí used the 20,000 French francs that the Viscount of Noailles, as patron, decided to give Dalí as an advance on a painting that was to end up as The Old Age of William Tell.

Dalí tells us about the difficulties of getting to Portlligat from Paris in his autobiography La Vida Secreta de Salvador Dalí, in which he also speaks about the plan for the house: “Our little house was to consist of a room of about four square metres that was to serve as a dining room, bedroom, studio and an entrance hall. You go up some steps and as you land, three doors open out, taking you to a shower, a toilet and a kitchen of very tight dimensions that you can hardly squeeze in. I wanted it all good and small ̶̶ the smaller the more womblike.”

Referring to his usual residence, Salvador Dalí said: “Portlligat is the place of production, the ideal place for my work. Everything fits to make it so: time goes more slowly and each hour has its proper dimension. There is a geological peacefulness: it is a unique planetary case.”

Over the next four decades, he purchased neighboring cabins, gradually expanding the property into a twisting, labyrinthine villa, packed with artwork and ephemera reflecting his unique obsessions and fixations.

In 1955, photographer Charles Hewitt visited Dalí and his wife/muse/business manager Gala at their home to shoot photos for a Picture Post story entitled “A Day With Salvador Dalí.”

The artist, never one to shy away from a little showmanship, gamely modeled for the camera.

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Competition for Decorated Trams, Germany, 1908

Monday, May 6, 2019

Germany has an extensive number of tramway networks (Straßenbahn in German). Some of these networks have been upgraded to light rail standards, called Stadtbahn in German.

In 1865, a horse tramway was established in Berlin. In 1881, the world’s first electric tram line opened. Numerous private and municipal operating companies constructed new routes, so by the end of the 19th century the network developed quite rapidly, and the horse trams were changed into electric ones.

By 1930, the network had a route length of over 630 km (391 mi) with more than 90 lines. In 1929, all operating companies were unified into the BVG. After World War II, BVG was divided into an eastern and a western company but was once again reunited in 1992, after the fall of East Germany. In West Berlin, by 1967 the last tram lines had been shut down. With the exception of two lines constructed after German reunification, the Berlin tram continues to be limited to the eastern portion of Berlin.

Tramways served as the primary means of urban transport in Germany until the early 1960s when they were systematically replaced by buses. However, in the 1980s tramways began to reappear; experts spoke of the ‘renaissance of the tramway’. In the 1990s tramways had again become a modern means of public transport. Popular notions of fashion have been used by scholars to explain this cycle of acceptance rejection and restoration.

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What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City in 1901

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

54 years before Marilyn, there was Florence Georgie!

Florence Georgie in an image from “What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City.”

The corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue was renowned for its gusty breezes that might allow a man to catch a glimpse of a woman’s stockings. In this staged scene we see Alfred Abadie, an Edison cameraman, and Florence Georgie strolling along when Georgie has a Marilyn Monroe type moment.

Some compared the sequence to the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch. The image of Monroe’s thighs exposed under her billowing skirt entered American popular culture.

This film was restored by the Library of Congress and was copied at 16fps from 35mm. It offers a fascinating glimpse of what Manhattan looked like at the turn of the 20th century. The clothes and vehicles are fantastic!
Only a year after this movie was filmed and the Flatiron building was completed (also on 23rd Street), legend has it that men and boys would loiter around the base of the building (where due to its unique shape, strong winds were generated) in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a young woman’s shapely ankle. Police officers of the time would tell the men to, “Skiddoo”, thus creating the popular phrase of the time, “23 Skiddoo”.

The Library’s motion picture and broadcasting collections provide the opportunity to document not only how women’s roles and their depictions have changed throughout the past hundred years, but also how much has remained the same.

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Awesome Photographs of People Riding Around on Scooters From the Early 20th Century

Friday, April 12, 2019

The Autoped was an early motor scooter or motorized scooter manufactured by the Autoped Company of Long Island City, New York from 1915 to 1921.

The driver stood on a platform with 10-inch tires and operated the machine using only the handlebars and steering column, pushing them forward to engage the clutch, using a lever on the handlebar to control the throttle, and pulling the handlebars and column back to disengage the clutch and apply the brake.

After riding, the steering column would be folded onto the platform to store the scooter more easily. The engine was an air-cooled, 4-stroke, 155 cc engine over the front wheel. The bike came with a headlamp and tail lamp, a Klaxon horn, and a toolbox. Developed during wartime and gasoline rationing, it was quite efficient, but was not widely distributed. An electric version was also available with a motor on the front wheel.

A patent for the Autoped as a “self-propelled vehicle” was applied for in July 1913 and granted in July 1916. An early description of the Autoped described it as having a hollow steering column that acted as the fuel tank. However, the production version had a fuel tank above the front mudguard.

The Autoped went out of production in the United States in 1921, but was manufactured by Krupp in Germany from 1919 to 1922.

During the 1930s, scooters were introduced to a new market as the ideal mode of transport at large, sprawling military bases. Ironically, the era of the scooter truly began after the war — a direct result of fuel rationing.

Four special delivery postmen for the US Postal Service try out new scooters, c.1915.

Lady Norman on her scooter, c.1916.

Crowds gather around a two wheeler motor scooter, June 1919.

A folded Rouline scooter, Paris, 1919.

A man driving one of the first models of scooters, c.1920.

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