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Category / Obscure history

The Ever-Optimistic World of Vintage Comics for Newlyweds

On my internet travels today, I came across an old American comic genre for young newlyweds. Young Brides and the Secrets of Young Brides, provide an eye-opening peak into popular culture before the sexual revolution. What strikes me the most about these cover pages is how laughably pessimistic the story lines are for a publication…

Vintage Spanx! Before & After

Before Spanx, there was the girdle (not to be confused with the corset). The buttock, stomach, thigh and torso-slimming garment was worn by just about every woman until the 1960s and was cleverly advertised  using all types of tactics including before & afters photographs and peer pressure. The trickeries of the before & after format…

15 Reasons why ‘Black and WTF’ is my new Favorite Tumblr

There are a lot of Tumblrs out there that stick a bunch of pictures up and don’t tell you anything about it. Black and WTF is a fascinating photoblog that’s dedicated to doing its homework on some of the wackiest, most inexplicable black and white photographs from the past. Some of the images and the…

Discovering Ancient Roman Ruins in a German Parking Lot

One of the most visited sights in Germany is the Cologne Cathedral (der Kölner Dom) where it’s easy to spot swaths of tourists taking in its Gothic beauty. But what a lot of visitors to Cologne don’t realize is that right underneath their feet is a functional parking garage that happens to have an added…

Postcards from a Seaside Village of Upturned Boat Homes

There’s a sleepy seaside village in France with a small fishing port, a population of less than 3,000 and some very peculiar-looking houses. At a moment’s glance, they could almost appear to be an unfortunate pod of beached orcas, but look again carefully at those unusual roofs. Yes, those are boats … upside down! Local fishermen of Équihen-Plage have lived under scavenged boat hulls here…

A Bewitching Compendium of Victorians Letting their Hair Down

There was one fairytale character in particular that seemed to leave an impression on the ladies of the Victorian era. Rapunzel was originally written in 1790 by Friedrich Schulz and retold by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The story was told during the Georgian era where long, loose straggling locks were unheard of and ringlets in…

The Secret Invention behind Michael Jackson’s Anti-Gravity Lean

Ever since the first time I saw Michael Jackson do his infamous gravity-defying lean in Moonwalker, it’s remained a total mystery as to how he and his dancers did it. I hopelessly attempted it in front of the television screen for years. But today, the mystery came to an end today and it feels ever…

Inventing the “Stepford Wives” American Dream Town

The first thing to know when walking around Levittown, PA, is that it is very easy to get lost. The leafy winding streets often double back on themselves, and confusingly, the street names in the different parts of town not only all begin with the same letter, but have similar sounding, idyllic names; Shadetree Lane,…

Saving China’s Memories from the Trash, One Kodak at a Time

What do giant sharks, gymnastics, and a banana-eating competition have in common? They all inhabit the fantastic world of “Beijing Silvermine.” For almost a decade now, this has been the curious project of French photographer Thomas Sauvin, who has been on a tireless mission to rescue and revive the millions of 35 mm negatives floating…
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