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Category / Lost & Found

The Fantastical World of Mingering Mike, the Imaginary Legend of Soul

When you were young, what did you want to be? An astronaut, a princess, maybe a superhero or president of the world. Mike Stevens dreamt of being a soul super star, he wanted to tour the world, to write and produce award-winning albums and run his own record label. He would star in, write and…

A Compendium of Native American Tipi Decoration circa 1900

I found an online treasure chest of gas lantern slides today in Yale’s digital rare book library today. There are thousands of hand-coloured slides of the Blackfoot community in northwestern Montana at the turn of the 19th century and reflect the photographer’s particular interest in the unique decorative and artistic styles of the Native American…

Florence Nightingale’s Rival was a Fearless Transgender Man the World Forgot

The secret life of Dr. James Miranda Barry would make one hell of a movie. This remarkable character would spend decades working as a pioneering military surgeon for the British Army, travelling the world, reforming entire healthcare systems and fighting the corner of society’s undesirables. In Africa, Barry performed one of the first successful C-sections…

Before There Was Emily in Paris, There Was Sally Jay Gorce

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and well into the beginning of the next, it’s easy to track our fascination with young women attempting to figure out life – they are witty, tenacious, and often keenly perceptive of the world in which they exist and their place within it. Their names have become…

Pre-War Germany’s Buried Art Nouveau Magazine

A magazine like Jugend was never going to survive Nazi Germany. A monthly art periodical created in Munich in the late 19th century, it featured many Art Nouveau artists on its cover, and effectively launched the art movement in Germany. They called it Jugendstil, literally “youth style” in German. This period of art and design is still…

Dressing the Woman in Gold: The Unknown Bohemian Designer behind the Paintings

You know a Gustav Klimt painting when you see one. His gold leaf Japanese-influenced portraits of women, one of the most famous of which was the subject of a major Hollywood film (Woman in Gold), dressed in vibrant, multi-colored and almost psychedelic prints, saw him become one of the most prominent painters of his era.…

London’s Abandoned Eiffel Tower Replica

When a tower made of 7,500 tons of steel and iron was unveiled at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, it was an immediate triumph, made even more victorious in light of the controversy which had surrounded the Eiffel Tower prior to its opening. Protesters had argued to “imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris…

A Buried “Daytime Hotel” rediscovered in all its Art Nouveau Splendour

It was built to provide a moment of rest and rejuvenation for citizens going about their day in the big city; a temporary home away from home for travellers arriving in Milan to find their feet. Welcome to “L’Albergo Diurno Metropolitano”, which literally translates to the Daytime Metropolitan Hotel. Situated beneath Piazzale Venezia in Milan, indeed, it…

Born into Slavery, She Became the First “Queen of Drag”

It’s a little before 11 PM on April 12th, 1888 in downtown Washington DC. President Grover Cleveland has just finished up a speech on what will become American Somoa, his wife Frances is already asleep, and, four blocks east, at the intersection of F and 12th Street, thirty Black, gay men are having a party.…

It took a Hundred Years and Two Gays to Decode Her Diaries

Anne Lister has recently crept out of the shadows of what was her own gothic novel, penned almost two centuries ago. Like all things of the neo-Gothic late 18th century, hers was also a world of shadows, veils, intrigues and most of all, it concealed her obsessional love for other women. British society was at…

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