As Alex showed us earlier, Florida merited a celestial spotlight to be shone upon it. But it was not the only favored land!
Original ad here.
Kemp Plummer Battle
In 1915,
Kemp Plummer Battle sent the following letter to the North Carolina Historical Society:
Sir: I ask the acceptance by your Society of a hermetically sealed tin box containing a copy of the catalogue of one of America's largest department stores in which are descriptions and pictures of practically all article used now in the industries and avocations of the United States. This gift is on the following conditions:
This box is to be opened in 1965, A.D., and again in 2015, A.D., and a student designated by the President of the Society shall write a thesis on the change of the preceding semi-centennial period. I request my descendants of those dates to pay $50 (fifty dollars) to the writer of the thesis. I have no doubt that payment will be duly made, as I have seven children and grandchildren, married and doing well, who agree to this proposal. As I have also four great-grandchildren, it is almost certain that my descendants will be numerous fifty and one-hundred years hence.
That the changes will be great and important in the articles in use in 1965 and 2015 may be gathered from the fact that the railroad system, telegraphs, telephones, the machines worked by electricity, air craft, submarines, and hundreds of other inventions, have been made practical since I was born, and most of them within fifty years.
As per his instructions,
Battle's box was opened in 1965, revealing the contents to be the Montgomery Ward Catalog of 1915. An essay competition was organized and the winning essay was titled "Great and Important Changes: The Machine Age in North Carolina as seen by comparing Montgomery Ward & Company's catalog of 1915 with that of 1965."
It's now 2015 — time for Battle's box to be opened again and another essay written. However, I haven't been able to find any sign that an essay competition is being organized. Though I did come across a 2012 post on the
North Carolina Miscellany blog wondering if a competition would be organized.
Of course, the Montgomery Ward catalog is no longer produced. So a direct comparison of catalogs from 1915, 1965, and 2015 wouldn't be possible. But there is the
Wards.com website. So an essay writer could compare the site to the old catalog.
Incidentally, the 1915 Montgomery Ward Catalog sealed in Battle's box isn't the only one of its kind. There are other extant copies of the catalog from that year. For instance,
one sold recently on eBay for $50. See the pictures of it below.
Marian Morgan believed that dance could be used to enhance the instruction of just about any subject. And back in 1916, she toured the country with her six dancers, demonstrating how dance-enhanced education would work.
The basic theory was that students would pay more attention if young female dancers performed at the front of the classroom as the lecturer talked. For example, as explained by the
Washington Post (Aug 20, 1916):
Picture a fat freshman dosing in the chemistry class. The day before he had said boldly, and unashamed, 'I think I'll cut that beastly class in chemistry. I don't care what those darned atoms do to each other.' The fat freshman enters the class, bored and rebellious. He remains in it sleepy and indifferent. Suddenly he starts, suppressed a yawn, stealthily arranges his tie sheepishly, combs the hair with hurried fingers.
What happened? Has Old Bones (his disrespectful nickname for the professor of chemistry) been rooting around some second-hand store and found Aladdin's lamp?
The freshman's perception, newly acute, pierces his usual mental haze. The scene is a real one and delightful. True, 'Old Bones' is continuing his discourse. He is describing the chemistry of the blood. 'But this war of atoms may be a beneficent one,' he drones. 'The presence of disease-breeding bacilli in the blood is not necessarily destructive. For there are vigilant baccilli who lay hold upon the destroyers and slay them, as you see illustrated by this dance.'
The eyes of the freshmen beam. Never have 'Old Bones'' lectures been rewarded by such rapt and flattering attention. On the platform one lithe young Amazon in short Roman tunic is struggling with another.
Too bad this never caught on. Certainly would have improved a lot of lectures I had to sit through back in my college days.
Morgan's dancers
More in extended >>
We're now three weeks into
Movember. So this seems like timely advice from the
Washington Post - Apr 28, 1912.
Original ad here.
Isn't this the exact ad that pimps today use to trick women into becoming "escorts" on Craigslist?
What exactly was the purpose of the Clover Club? Answer after the jump.
More in extended >>
To investigate the conditions in the New York State prison system for women circa 1916, socialist reformer
Madeleine Zabriskie Doty arranges to have herself incarcerated, masquerading as a real criminal, under the name "Maggie Martin."
Read her experiences here, in
SOCIETY'S MISFITS.
I knew that it's popular to put politician's faces on toilet paper (for instance, Amazon sells
Obama toilet paper as well as
Mitt Romney toilet paper), but I didn't realize that these kind of novelty products were being sold even back in World War I. [via
Daily Mail]
Walter George Newman definitely sounds like he was a bit of a character. I like the idea of having a guy blowing on a trumpet instead of a horn.
The New York Times - Aug 17, 1910