After Congress voted in Prohibition and passed the Volstead Act, it found an office for a pet bootlegger, “The Man in the Green Hat,” George Cassiday. A WETA Boundary Stones video by Mark Jones.
_______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Doj
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
On February 26th, 1937, in Osaka, which then boasted the largest geisha district in Japan, about 60 to 80 geisha entertainers went on strike when the manager of their office refused to recognise their union. They traveled to the top of Mount Shigi and stayed at the Gyokuzo Temple for a week until negotiations succeeded, apparently with help from the temple’s monks. Geisha communities in Asahikawa and elsewhere followed suit.
Something to keep in mind as US entertainment industry strikes loom.
More here
_____________________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Djb
Image (“Bicycle in the Pleasure Quarter, after Yoshitoshi”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The history of ketchup, now a pantry staple, goes back centuries, but the ubiquitous condiment didn’t even include tomatoes until 1812. A Weird History Food video.
________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Da4
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
How did we get artificial flavors? Danielle Bainbridge explains, for The Origins of Everthing, from PBS Digital Studios.
______________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CWN
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
In the 17th century, plague doctors.wore beak-like masks and covered themselves from head to toe, their idea of hazmat suits. This TED-Ed animation explains. Research by Stephanie Honchell Smith, narrated by George Zaidan.
________________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-D87
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“Hell-Bent for Election,” a political animation for the 1944 presidential election, funded by the United Auto Workers, promoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt (the fast express train) over Republican oppontent Thomas Dewey (the tired old steamer). Voters are encouraged not to “fall asleep at the switch.” It’s also a “win the war” message.
Directed by Chuck Jones and written by Robert Lees, with music by Earl Robinson and lyrics by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg. Narrated by Marvin Miller. The is the first production of United Productions of America (UPA), made in founder Zack Schwartz’s apartment. UPA made training films during WWII, won Academy Awards for its post-war theatrical cartoons, and later transitioned to television. UPA was active up through the 1970s.
_____________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-D6r
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
After losing the Civil War, apologists for the Confederacy explained that the South didn’t secede frpm the United States over slavery, but to protect “States’ Rights.” Sure — the right to own other human beings. A TED-Ed video by Karen L. Cox.
________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Akk
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Coachmaker and blacksmith Charles Richard (“C.R.”) Patterson of Greenfield, Ohio founded C.R. Patterson & Son coachworks in 1893, producing buggies, buckboards, phaetons, surreys and other horse-drawn carriages, about 500 each year. After the death of his son Samuel, his eldest son Frederick Douglas Patterson moved home to help Patterson senior with the business. C.R. died in 1910, and Frederick Patterson added automoblie repair to the company’s services.
The first C.R. Patterson and Sons automobile was assembled in 1915, a two-door coupe, the first motorcar produced by a Black-owned company. Of the 100 or so autos produced by Patterson, none are still in exsistence. The firm couldn’t compete with the Ford assembly line, so the company switched to producing trucks and buses. There was brisk demand for the latter, especially schoolbuses, and Patterson manufactured 500 buses a month, producing as many as 7,000 between 1921 and 1931. One-third of the school buses in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania were thought to be Pattersons. Although the Depression closed the business in 1939, some Patterson buses were still on the roads as late as the 1950s.
C.R. Patterson and Frederick Patterson were inducted into Detroit’s Automotive Hall of Fame in 2021.
More:
“How America’s first — and only — Black automakers defied the odds,”Kevin Williams, Washington Post
“The Only African American Automobile Company,” National Museum of African American History & Culture
________________
Short link:
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Today is officially Washington’s Birthday (observed) according to the federal government. This date is also known as Presidents’ Day in some states, combining observance of all your favorite chief execs (Millard Fillmore?) into one holiday.
Birthday boy and first president George Washington enslaved 319 human beings in Virginia during his lifetime, but the state’s current governor, Glenn Youngkin, won’t let that be taught in the Old Dominion’s schools. Virginia’s kids will need a field trip to Mount Vernon to learn about it. President Washington also signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, requiring authorities in free states and territories to allow slave-catchers to seize escaped refugees and transport them back into bondage.
Happy Black History Month.
More:
“George Washington, Slave Catcher,” Erica Armstrong Dunbar, New York Times
Related:
“More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation.” Julie Zauzmer Weil, Adrian Blanco and Leo Dominguez, Washington Post
_____________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CZ8
Image (“George Washington Observes Black History Month”) by Mike Licht. Download a free copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
NotionsCapital 