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The Traveler… oh my stars and stripes!
January 16, 2017 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled Boston, Massachusetts via the Boston Commercial Gazette, January 16, 1817. There I found that a change was being made that would be an on-going occurrence every fourth of July… sometimes. It was the new flag design! The Star Spangled Banner — “The stripes are to be reduced permanently to their original number of thirteen; but the stars are to be constantly increased in number, equal to the number of the States in the Union. The first change to take place on the 4th of July next, and the change of every additional star after that to take place on the succeeding 4th of July…”. Let the flag continue to fly, free and proud!
~The Traveler
The Traveler… Squelching conspiracy to the bitter end…
January 5, 2017 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to Parsons, Kansas, by means of The Parsons Sun dated January 3, 1967 where the headline read: “Cancer Victim – Death Takes Ruby; Slayer of Oswald”. “Jack Ruby, insisting to his final day that he acted along as Lee Harvey Oswald’s slayer, died today of cancer in Parkland Memorial Hospital…” This was the same hospital in which President Kennedy was pronounced dead.” Soon after Ruby’s killing of Oswald, conspiracy theories were stoked as news spread focusing on the point that Ruby knew Oswald. However, he attempted to debunk these stories as is described within the coverage: “…over the last weekend, it was revealed that one of Ruby’s last acts was to record another statement denying any conspiracy… a small recorder into the hospital room for Jack to use and tell his story — the story he died with…”
~The Traveler
A January, 2017 stroll back thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
January 3, 2017 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of January – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago (1967, 1917, 1867, 1817, 1767)? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
New Year’s Eve – a look back…
December 30, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What do race riots, Kevlar, Star Trek, and Pet Sounds have in common? 
They all have their roots firmly established in the year 1966. While the 11:00 news brought daily reminders of the horrors of war, many back home were additionally distraught by the $14,000 price-tag for a new home and the 32 cent per gallon price they were paying for gas to fuel their gas-guzzling Bonnevilles and Oldsombiles. Young men were conflicted over whether to ogle more over Chargers, Mustangs, and GTO’s, or the most amount of bare leg they had ever seen thanks to the ever-popular mini skirt. Just for fun, we selected a New Year’s Eve issue from small-town Kansas (Parsons, Kansas) to explore how those who lived at the time viewed this tumultuous and formative time in both American and world history. Of particular note is the editorial regarding honesty in Washington, D.C.. Please enjoy: New Year’s Eve – 1966
Second time killed was the charm…
December 26, 2016 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The April 8, 1882 issue of the “Garfield Banner” from Tin Cup, Colorado, has an interesting article on the front page reading: “Jesse James has been killed again. This time a member of the gang named Bob Ford, a cousin of Jesse, is the man who killed him. Ford had been with Jesse about a week seeking an opportunity to kill him,and finally shot him in the back of the head, the ball coming out over his left eye.”
They should have published why the first time he was killed it didn’t work.
The Traveler… “Who’s the leader of the club…?”
December 19, 2016 by The Traveler · 2 Comments
Today’s journey took me to New York City by the way of The New York Times dated December 16, 1966. There on the front page I found the headline “Walt Disney, 65, Dies on Coast; Founded an Empire on a Mouse.” “Walt Disney, who built his whimsical cartoon world of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into a $100-million-a-year entertainment empire; died in St. Joseph’s Hospital here this morning. He was 65 years old… Just before his last illness, Mr. Disney was supervising the construction of a new Disneyland in Florida…”
Oddly enough, Mr. Disney did not do any of the drawings of his famous Mickey Mouse.
~The Traveler
A December, 2016 stroll back thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
December 8, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
The Traveler… “…I could see no promise in him…”
December 5, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to New York City by the means of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine dated December, 1866. I found the first appearance of Mark Twain in a national magazine with the publishing of “Forty-Three Days in an Open Boat. Compiled From Personal Diaries.”
I also found through the Harper’s Monthly website the following information. “Mark Twain’s first article in Harper’s was miss-attributed to Mark Swain. The story, “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat” (December 1866), is an account of the Hornet, a clipper ship that caught fire in the ocean, leaving its crew adrift. Twain referred to it as the “first magazine article I ever published,” though he had published numerous pieces in other periodicals and newspapers under such names as Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass; W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab; Rambler; Grumbler; and Peter Pencilcase’s Son, John Snooks.
Mark Twain was born thirty-one years earlier, and two months premature, as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, in Florida, Missouri. “When I first saw him I could see no promise in him,” his mother said. The Clemenses moved several miles upstate, to the Missouri River-side Hannibal, when he was four; the town would later inspire the fictional St. Petersburg of his two most famous works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)…”.
Twain didn’t turn out too bad after-all!
~The Traveler
The Traveler… tired of pirating… checking out early?…
November 21, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
I traveled to London by The London Chronicle of November 22, 1766 where if found that not all Pirates are bad. An article with the dateline “Newport, Rhode Island, October 6” which is from “a letter from Castle Brew, at Annamaboa, on the Coast of Africa…”. It talks about the pirate infested areas along the coastline, but in particular the one ship “commanded by one Hide”. “…These fellows neither murder, or force any into their service; but, on the contrary, one of their crew complaining that he was weary of that life, they put him on shore, and allowed him a sufficiency to bear his expences to the first English factory.”
There is also an interesting article from Paris… “Within a month or six weeks past, several persons in this city, tired of life, have sought the means to deprive themselves of it. Some of them have done it by pistols; but a Baker who in cool blood leaped from the top of Pont-Royal… and was only slightly wounded:… however it was imitated a few days ago by a young man,… threw himself out of a window of the third story into the garden of the royal palace; whereby all his limbs were either broken, or dislocated; and when they raised him up, he only said that it was very unhappy for him that the houses of Paris were so low…”.
~The Traveler
Oddball collecting ideas – advice columns through time…
November 17, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · 3 Comments
One of the beauties of the Rare Newspapers hobby is the infinite possibilities old newspapers provide for collecting. Triumphs and tragedies, inventors and inventions, outlaws and gangsters, incredible feats and devastating failures, historic headlines and under-the-radar events – the reasons for collecting are almost endless.
A new idea (to me)…
Recently, as I was searching for historic content related to Thanksgiving, I was struck by the abundance of advice columns and wondered if the questions and corresponding advice had stood the test of time. This motivated me to grab a handful of issues from 50 years ago to randomly select a few to include within this post (see below). If I had more time and energy, the thought of amassing a collection of such columns through time and providing a bit of hind-sight analysis might make for an interesting coffee-table book – or perhaps a blog. Regardless, how’d she do? Does her advice still hold water? Are the questions still pertinent to those living today? I personally give her a 2 1/2 out of 3. Enjoy.
