1. Paris, 1957
A random selection of photographs found on Live Journal.
2. Manhattan NYC, 1931
This is an aerial photo of Manhattan taken circa 1931. You can see all the way from 125th Street in Harlem down to the tip of Manhattan and beyond. That tall spike 25 blocks south of Central Park is the Empire State Building, which was completed in 1931. Also visible in the photo to varying degrees: Central Park’s Hooverville, the Statue of Liberty, several of the East River’s bridges, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Governors Island, and the much more uneven shorelines on both the Hudson and East River sides of the city. See also this aerial map of NYC from 1924, which is also available at NYCityMap (click on “Map Type” in the upper right) and a 1931 aerial photo of lower Manhattan.
Found on Kottke.
3. The Online Knitting Reference Library
Download 300 Knitting Books Published From 1849 to 2012, found here.
4. Royal Neighbors of America, one of the largest women-led life insurers in the USA
The early members of the Society were ahead of their time. In addition to providing life insurance for women, they stood firmly behind the women’s suffrage movement. Royal Neighbors was also one of the first fraternal societies to insure children and recognize mortality studies establishing the fact that women live longer than men, and to reflect that difference in life insurance premiums.
Found on Wikipedia.
5. Boat Leggers
Jason Lock Photography ©
Legging is a method of moving a boat through a canal tunnel or adit containing water. Early canal tunnels were built without a towpath as this would require a much larger bore, and hence cost more to build. Prior to the introduction of motorised boats, legging was one of the few options for getting a boat through such a tunnel.
Found on Vintage Everyday.
6. The pointy-shoed corruption of medieval London
Perhaps one of the oddest moral panics – a fear that some evil threatens the wellbeing of society – was one that arose in medieval times. Fashionable pointy-toed shoes called poulaines were alleged to promote sexual deviancy and, as a resulting sanction from God, were blamed for bringing about the plague. The long points were kept erect by being stuffed with moss or straw and could be made out of fancy decorative fabrics or sturdier leather. There were even armoured versions for use in battle. In a double whammy to the pious, the shoes were seen as both demonic and vain and were eventually banned from London…
Poulaines, also called cracows – after the Polish city Krakow, where they are thought to have originated – were pointed footwear worn predominantly by wealthy men. The cumbersome shoes advertised the wearer’s leisure and emphasised their inability to partake in physical labour.
Full article found on BBC.com
7. The Greek Island of Kinaros with only two residents: an 80 year-old woman and her dog
Rinio Katsotourhi-Thireou (and her dog Shiva), the sole residents of Kinaros , a remote islet in the Dodecanese, is determined to stand guard over her corner of Greece.
Read the article found here.
8. In 1894, A French Writer Predicted the End of Books & the Rise of Portable Audiobooks and Podcasts
“I do not believe (and the progress of electricity and modern mechanism forbids me to believe) that Gutenberg’s invention can do otherwise than sooner or later fall into desuetude,” says the character at the center of the 1894 story “The End of Books.” “Printing, which since 1436 has reigned despotically over the mind of man, is, in my opinion, threatened with death by the various devices for registering sound which have lately been invented, and which little by little will go on to perfection.”
“Certain Narrators will be sought out for their fine address, their contagious sympathy, their thrilling warmth, and the perfect accuracy, the fine punctuation of their voice,” he says. “Authors who are not sensitive to vocal harmonies, or who lack the flexibility of voice necessary to a fine utterance, will avail themselves of the services of hired actors or singers to warehouse their work in the accommodating cylinder.” We may no longer use cylinders, but Uzanne’s description of a “pocket apparatus” that can be “kept in a simple opera-glass case” will surely remind us of the Walkman, the iPod, or any other portable audio device we’ve used.
All this should also bring to mind another twenty-first century phenomenon: podcasts. “At home, walking, sightseeing,” says the Bibliophile, “fortunate hearers will experience the ineffable delight of reconciling hygiene with instruction; of nourishing their minds while exercising their muscles.” This will also transform journalism, for “in all newspaper offices there will be Speaking Halls where the editors will record in a clear voice the news received by telephonic despatch.” But how to satisfy man’s addiction to the image, well in evidence even then? “Upon large white screens in our own homes,” a “kinetograph” (which we today would call a television) will project scenes fictional and factual involving “famous men, criminals, beautiful women. It will not be art, it is true, but at least it will be life.” Yet however striking his prescience in other respects, the Bibliophile didn’t know – though Uzanne may have — that books would persist through it all.
Funny that with all these predictions for the future, they didn’t consider a change in fashion or decor!
Found on the Public Domain Review, via Open Culture.
9. When hotels used to have to put up signs explaining that electricity is safe and not to be feared
The comments on this Reddit Thread are fun.
10. Living in his famous father’s shadow, Thomas Edison’s son became a snake oil salesman advertising scam products as “the latest Edison discovery” and ultimately got sued by his Dad
Thomas Edison’s son, Thomas Edison Jr was an aspiring inventor, but lacking his father’s talents, he became a snake oil salesman who advertised his scam products as “the latest Edison discovery”. His dad took him to court, and Jr agreed to stop using the Edison name in exchange for a weekly fee.
The burden of big shoes to fill hey. Found on Wikipedia.
11. Spend a day with Collector and the Head of Vintage at Ralph Lauren, Doug Bihlmaier
12. Inside John Derian’s Penthouse Apartment on lower Fifth Avenue
You know his famous New York stores, see inside his city abode on Curbed.
13. Forgot how good the aesthetics of The Dreamers was. A good cozy January re-watch recommendation
