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Snapshot 1885… Early flight (?)
June 28, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The following snapshot comes from The Scientific American, New York, dated May 9, 1885. Thankfully, the wise saw, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” eventually proved to be true.
Snapshot 1914 – the first warship passes through the Panama Canal…
June 25, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · 2 Comments
The following snapshot comes from the Boston Evening Transcript dated August 18, 1914, which announces the first-ever warship making its way through the Panama Canal. Quite historic.
I’m New Here: Week Nineteen…
June 21, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
What do Lizzie Borden and the Galveston Flood (Great Storm, Galveston Hurricane, and any other alternate title) have in common? Of all the things I could focus on this week, those are the two that stuck in my mind, and it wasn’t because of personal fascination. Collectors frequently look for things not readily available, and they request to be put on a “want” list. Sometimes we are waiting for a specific title and we contact them when one is in our possession. Other times they are looking for material related to a certain topic, which takes much more time. Ms. S will always buy things concerning South Carolina, and Mr. G is following threads of a story that spans our nation’s history. So, in every spare moment this week my desk was piled with huge volumes of pulpish papers from the year 1900. I was looking for the details as the story unfolded, and I read each in sequence in close to the way a contemporary of that disaster might have.
I didn’t know much, and neither did the newspaper subscribers of the time. They, too, were scouring pages for updates, and recoiling in disgust at some of the pictures and descriptions. I read at least five portions aloud to anyone who would listen, because it seemed such a thing should not be kept to one’s self.
I’m not going to describe the bodies piled, and martial law decreed and then finally lifted. I loved reading the notices for benefits that went on for at least a full month in cities as far away as New York. There was also the funniest story about a pair of children under the age of ten who developed a racket going around posing as bedraggled twin refugees from the city of Galveston. It seems many a kindhearted housewife bathed and fed them before realizing herself to be the victim of a scam.
And Lizzie Borden’s story is not much like the Alfred Hitchcock Presents version I was introduced to in midnight reruns during a childhood sleepover. Most people believed her innocent, according to news reports. The earliest police statements were adamant that there could not have been only one killer at work. There was also a credible confession of guilt by a male neighbor who turned himself in.
Often it is this way; complex pictures emerge as I pull reports to fill requests.
This week I learned to follow the sequence, uncovering a fuller story with each new dateline. There’s a moral in this aspect of things, if I can only pause long enough to ponder it…
I’m New Here: Week Eighteen…
June 14, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · 2 Comments
This week I learned to back up my data files with more diligence. I also learned that I shouldn’t boast of finishing a task early, as I am liable to then fall far behind (particularly if I don’t save my work).
Most importantly, I learned that we don’t know what we don’t know, and we can’t learn it until we know something.
As I was immersed in the newspaper coverage of significant dates in American History, I found that my vague idea of the Civil War as being somewhere around 1862 kept me from understanding the significance of Lincoln’s assassination within the timetable of the war of brother-against-brother. The great conflict was in the mopping-up stage; Grant had definitively beaten the Confederate troops. And President Abraham Lincoln, the man who took up the burden of holding together the Union, was shot in a theater where he was out for what was termed by one report as “an evening of respite”. It’s suddenly more tragic, and those long lines formed by a mourning populace seem so reasonable a response by a shocked nation.
Over the weekend, the relative of a Timothy Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers employee was touring the facility and paused over text running down the right margin of the cover of a small periodical from the 1920’s. “You know who that is,” she asserted. We didn’t. We thought it was an issue about the game of hockey, positing the question whether it would or would not last in the United States.
It turns out the featured author of the issue was one Rose Wilder Lane, the woman who penned the tales told by her mother of pioneering days in what eventually came to be called The Little House on the Prairie series. An accomplished writer and reporter, many of her short stories were published in Harper’s Bazaar and Saturday Evening Post. When Rose was in her seventies, she traveled to Vietnam in order to provide a female perspective on the war for the readership of Woman’s Day Magazine. And I learned all of this because someone who knew a bit, put together pieces and asked a question.
Juxtaposed with this whole journey following strands of the known into discovery of the unknown, was an overheard discussion about the lack of liberal arts education received by the up-and-coming generation. In an era of information available by voice command, almost everything that can be known is, theoretically, accessible. But how will any of us know the questions to ask if we don’t have a base of knowledge from which to begin? A narrow foundation must by its very nature constrict the breadth of potential growth.
Anyway, this is a great place for contemplation of deep things. And, since I lost my first draft, I have the opportunity to contemplate the same subject for the second time. 🙂
By the way, the Liberty Magazines are nifty compilations somewhat in the vein of the later Reader’s Digest, packed with advertisements and helpful hints right beside news of the day.
Snapshot 1862… Civil War inner-family strife takes its aim at Lincoln…
June 11, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The following snapshot comes from The Crisis, Columbus, Ohio, dated May 7, 1862, which printed the death report of Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law, and includes considerable Lincoln-directed angst.
I’m New Here: Week Seventeen…
June 7, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
Despite the obvious gender bias inherent in the title, I like “The Gentleman’s Magazine“, as I suspect many non-gentlemen of the time did as well. This week I pulled an issue from April of 1775 – mainly because I enjoy the tone of superiority that saturates those months before what we now know of as the Revolutionary War (or whichever various title you prefer). “Colonial upstarts” were causing commotion and consternation to the rest of the world, but mainly to the ruling class in London.
The heading of the very front page of the one perched on my desk amidst the new catalog excitement is entitled, “Continuation in the House of Lords on the Address to his Majesty respecting the Situation of Affairs in America”. What follows is a labyrinthine balance between appeasing the vanity of the monarch, and an attempt to elucidate the different aspects of potential vulnerability to defeat. In particular, the French and Spanish ships continuing to trade with the colonists brought great consternation. “Does the noble Earl pretend to interpret this explanation [England would be “…at liberty to seize any of their ships trading with American subjects”] generally, so as to authorize our taking their vessels at sea? If he does not, what can such a vague deluding promise avail? If he does, then I will venture to assure his Lordship, that he is miserably deceived; and that the first attempt to prevent French or Spanish ships from navigating the American seas will furnish them with an opportunity of asserting their maritime freedom, of making reprisals, and of justifying their conduct to the other great states of Europe, who are known to be long jealous of what they are pleased to call our despotic claim to the sovereignty of the ocean.”
When I read this, I start to understand a little bit this American spirit, this classification under which our country has been perceived by the world, from the very earliest days. This mindset changed the world. And that is an immense, and not embarrassing, thought.
But, lest you think the GM’s are all politics, I would like to recommend any meteorology enthusiasts plug in the data compiled monthly and displayed on the inside cover page. The average prices of corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats and beans are delineated by county. Genealogists will enjoy the Births, Marriages, and Deaths alongside the list of Promotions and Bankrupts. There are book reviews and parish reports and a comprehensive section entitled “Historical Chronicle“, which gives an overview of multiple aspects of the state of the world.
Anyway, to delve into these accounts of the earliest days of this country is to see the tenacity that fueled an eventual nation – and perhaps nurture an admiration for what was once made, an inspiration for all that could be made again.
You can read more about Gentleman’s Magazines via previous posts at: Gentleman’s Magazines
Announcing: Catalog #283 (for June, 2019) is now available…
June 4, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
- Catalog 283 (in its entirety)
- Noteworthy Catalog 283 ($250+)
- Combined Catalogs (current, w/ remnants of previous)
Don’t forget about this month’s DISCOUNTED ISSUES.
(The links above will redirect to the latest catalog in approx. 30 days, upon which time it will update to the most recent catalog.)