Tag: Feminists

7 Things I Love (8-15-2022)

Hi all, sorry I missed last week – a very dear family member, my Uncle, passed away and there was a lot going on.

My Uncle Bobby in Cuba in 1951

My Uncle Bobby was a devout Catholic and a HUGE lover of history and this week’s blog reflects those things as well as being sort of a tribute to him.

1. This Woman Who Was the First to Circumnavigate the Globe Alone – Everyone is familiar with Amelia Earhart and we all think of her as being the first woman to aviate, well, pretty much everything. But Amelia wasn’t alone when she made her infamous (and tragic) flight around the world.

“Looking back, Geraldine ‘Jerrie’ Mock might have said these were the things she preferred: a double shot of scotch over a bouquet of orchids. Pants instead of a skirt. And a trip around the world where she could’ve taken her own sweet time taking in the sights, instead of staring at the ceiling of a hotel, trying to sleep in preparation for her next flight.

Mock is the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world alone. During and after her ground-breaking 22,860-mile flight in 1964, the barely five-foot-tall pilot set 21 world records. ‘Just nobody else had the sense—or shall I say, the stupidity—to try it,’ Mock told Air & Space magazine just before she died at the age of 88 in 2014. ‘There were women who told me that they flew because of me. I’m glad I did what I did, because I had a wonderful time.’”

Who Was the First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World?
August 12, 2022 | Smithsonian Magazine

Between March 19 and April 17, 1964, Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock (above: at the start of her journey at Ohio’s Port Columbus Airport) flew her single-engine Cessna 180, dubbed “Charlie,” solo around the globe setting a world record. NASM 2007-10125, photo by Sheldon Ross, Columbus Dispatch

[Found on Smithsonian Magazine]

2. This Historic Photo – In 1906, Gabriel Lippman was the first person to create a color photograph. Although he won a Nobel Prize for his invention, his process was too time consuming and costly to be used commercially. The following year the Lumière brothers  introduced the Lumière Autochrome which allowed people to take color photographs.

Here’s how Autochromes work:

“Autochrome plates are covered in microscopic red, green and blue coloured potato starch grains (about four million per square inch). When the photograph is taken, light passes through these colour filters to the photographic emulsion. The plate is processed to produce a positive transparency. Light, passing through the coloured starch grains, combines to recreate a full colour image of the original subject.”

— From the Science and Media Museum

This process really made it much more accessible for general photographers to take color photos because they could use their existing cameras and simply purchase autochrome plates.

Kodachrome came out in 1935 and the following year a German company invented Agfacolor (but because of WWII it wasn’t released until 1949.)

The reason I’ve given a brief history lesson on color photography is because I wanted to show why it’s so unusual to have a “colour (not colorised)” photograph in 1928!

[Found by my friend Jeanne – thanks Jeanne!]

3. This Technique for Securing Letters – Before modern envelopes were invented, people used something called “letter-locking” to make sure that only the intended recipients read their missives.

Two of the most well-known individuals who used letter-locking were Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. On the eve of her execution, Mary wrote her last letter which was purported to be her last will & testament and a bid for martyrdom. She carefully made a slit to create a needle-like piece of the paper sticking out, folded the letter over and over, cut a slit through the letter, and threaded the needle through the slot until it was fastened tightly.

There are other letter-locking videos on this YouTube channel, from all through history and all over the world. They are fascinating! If makes me want to write real letters so I can try it.

There is one thing I noticed though – on some of the letter-locking videos the process ruins a small part of the letter. It made me think – what if someone was sending a love letter and they rip it open and they’re reading it and it says – I’ve waited so long to tell you this. I …. and then there’s a big splotch of sealing wax or the words were poked through by a spiral lock. AHHHH!

A reconstruction of how Mary, Queen of Scots’ last letter may have been secured shut using the spiral lock mechanism. Unlocking History Research Group Archive/MIT Libraries

[Found on Atlas Obscura and NPR]

4. These Photographs – Photographer Richard Silver has taken these breathtaking photos of the interior ceilings of churches from around the world and published them as a collection called Vertical Churches.

You can find out more about Silver’s podcast at the My Modern Met article. I’d also suggest checking out his website and his Instagram for more vertical churches photos and just more photos in general (he’s fantastic!)

[Found on My Modern Met]

5. This Juicer – Passed down from my Grandma Celeste to my Mom to me. Sometimes no amount of innovation can improve something. I mean, if you want to have a big ole’ electric juicer that might be better but there is no manual juicer better than this one, especially when you have to juice a bunch of citrus.

6. These (Not Surprisingly) Overlooked Medieval Women – In 13th century Europe, though things were prosperous or perhaps because of the prosperity, there was a lot of wars being waged. This led to many men being killed and women and children being left without a provider.

Enter the Béguines, were most likely the first feminists. They were a group of women who created female-only (and children) communes to provide refuge, support, and outreach.

“From the early 13th century, a loose movement of concerned women, the Béguines (origin and meaning of the name unknown) had started to spring up in towns and villages, not as formal institutions, but as local refuges, for mutual support and outreach. These discreet communities of like-minded charitable women were determined to respond to the suffering of the disadvantaged, beaten, abandoned, and even the rescue of children from the clutches of prostitution. Béguine women were never nuns, they had no religious affiliations, they were solely motivated by a mutual desire to provide service, support and welfare to the less fortunate in society.”

— From Surprise Surprise, a Medieval Feminist Movement Left Out of the History Books,’ June 16, 2022 | Messy Nessy Chic

[Found on Messy Nessy Chic]

7. These 3,300 Year-Old Shoes – Of course I can’t hear the words “King Tut” and not think of Steve Martin singing his song but once the song plays out in my head I am able to focus on how remarkable these sandals are. The first photo is a little misleading. It doesn’t show the wear and I thought to myself – these aren’t really over 3,000 years old.

Word of the Week


Quote of the Week


Song of the Week

Rest In Peace, Olivia.

Seven Things I Love (5-24-2021): History Edition

  1. 1. This Patent Drawing – Which finally puts to rest the question over or under. I don’t mean to gloat but I KNEW IT and my Mamma never lead me astray.

From My Modern Met:

Over or under? This is the question that has plagued the Western world since the invention of modern toilet paper. It was in 1857 that New York-based inventor Joseph C. Gayetty developed the first packaged variety to be made widely available in the U.S. However, it wasn’t until 1871 that perforated rolls of toilet paper were invented. Seth Wheeler filed a patent for his innovative design for the first time that year, and he filed another for a refined version of his invention again in 1891.

The illustrated diagram from Wheeler’s 1891 patent sheds some light on how the toilet paper roll was originally intended to be used. According to the image, it appears that the dangling end was designed to hang over—rather than under—the roll. This may be a crippling blow to those who are of the persuasion that under is the way to go. Even so, if hanging your toilet paper roll under is wrong, they probably don’t want to be right.

Original Patent Drawing Puts an End to the Great “Over or Under” Toilet Paper Debate” by Arnesia Young; May 13, 2021; My Modern Met

2. These Videos about Women’s Clothing in History – They are all just too good. The first talks about how women’s clothing may actually have been created to help protect. The second gives the history of how standard sizes came to be and the motivations behind doing so (hint, it’s always money.) The third video is a fascinating history of why men traditionally wear pants and women traditionally wear skirts (or did they….)

And last but not least (and this is a a wee bit of a stretch but I’m including it) a video about the clothing in the show ‘The Nevers‘ – my current favorite television show, which can be seen on HBO Max. They’ve already aired the first half of season one (8 episodes) and will be airing the second half sometime in the fall I believe (another 8 episodes.) As the vlogger mentions, the show is extremely historically accurate with their costumes (and she should know, it is her area of expertise.) She takes the opportunity to bust the myth that clothing from that era was extremely restrictive. There have been anti-corset campaigns for some time. Certainly the extremely boned corsets that reshape the body are not/were not good, but for women of this era most weren’t wearing the tightly drawn or heavily boned corsets (like Scartlett O’Hara). Unless a woman was from a wealthy family she would have been quite active and probably wouldn’t have had the luxury of having a ladies maid.

3. This Article about the New Version of the Game ‘Oregon Trail’ – A fascinating essay where the author, who is a black historian, is in a battle between his longing for childhood nostalgia and truth-telling in history. Is there really any correct way to make a game about colonialization?

John Gast, “American Progress” (1872), oil on canvas, 12 3/4 inch x 16 3/4 inch
(image courtesy Wikimedia Commons, painting in possession of Autry Museum of the American West)

4. This Article on Book Curses – In medieval times, because books were handmade, written by scribes, and took a long time to make, they were rare and had great physical value. Most scribes and book owners did not have the financial means to protect their libraries with armed guards so instead they used words to fend off would-be thieves. Fortunately for them, most people believed in curses so it worked fairly well.

What I want to know is why don’t we use book curses today? They would look so nice on a bookplate. Even if most people don’t believe in curses anymore, at least it would remind them to keep their paws off of things that aren’t theirs.

I looked up some more and found one [here] that I am going to make into stickers so I can put it inside all my books:

Whoever steals this book
Will hang on a gallows in Paris,
And, if he isn’t hung, he’ll drown,
And, if he doesn’t drown, he’ll roast,
And, if he doesn’t roast, a worse end will befall him.

From a 15th century manuscript owned by Count Jean d’Orleans.
12th century Hell. Herrad von Landsberg/Public Domain.

5. These Articles about Coco Chanel and Her Nazi Connections – I’ve always been a huge fan of Coco Chanel so when I first read about this it made me extremely sad. The first article was from nearly a decade ago and appeared on MessyNessyChic. It was written about eight months after the book Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War by Hal Vaughan was released. This was the first book to really include details about her involvement with the Nazis (not just that she was dating one) such as her code name, agent number, that she was included in nazi missions and worst of all, that she had taken advantage of her “Aryan rights” (meaning the seizing of Jewish-owned property and businesses.)

The second article was equally interesting. This one appeared on Forbes last year. The author is trying to determine if we can justify overlooking such a horrifying past in someone like Coco Chanel, whose left such a legacy. It’s an interesting question. I think this might be a good analogy – what if there was a building built by the nazis and after the war, all that remained was the foundation. So the French come and build a ground floor and the English build a 1st floor and the Norwegians build a 2nd floor (I’m doing the european counting of floors) and the Danish build a 3rd floor and so forth. And each floor is filled with beautiful things. But ultimately that base was built by nazis – should the entire thing be torn down and rebuilt? Should it be moved? I don’t think so.

BUT what I do think is that Chanel should stop avoiding Coco Chanel’s horrific history. I know that they think it can’t be good for PR but what they need to do is use it to help and get ahead of it. Just admit – we realize that our founder was a nazi sympathizer, possibly a nazi collaborator and our response is that we are appalled by the information as much as you are. Our founder was a talented woman and we cannot deny that Chanel wouldn’t exist without her genius but the nazi atrocities were unforgivable and that she was involved is a huge black stain on the origin of our company. They could put their money where their mouth is and contribute to a Holocaust organization.

My believe is that we should not be completely erasing bad history but instead we should be making it accurate and using it as a teaching opportunity.

6. This Article about How Women in the UK/Ireland Were Duped into Believing it was Bad to Drink Tea – Though it’s me who is saying that the women were actually duped. The article implies it but doesn’t come right out and say it. Neither does this one.

Here’s the situation – first and foremost, tea was considered expensive back then. So was sugar if you wanted to sweeten it (because milk and honey in tea just doesn’t work.) Right away men (husbands and fathers) were going to say that women shouldn’t be drinking something as expensive as tea.

Then there were the wealthy, who liked to feel that drinking tea was something the gentrified did, certainly not the poor.

And of course, there was concern that women who sat around drinking tea would have time to talk to one another and that could lead to anarchy.

Even without social media, the “powers that be” managed to get messages out that women shouldn’t be drinking tea – said it was “unhealthy”, it made you lazy, etc. And the worse part is that the poor, uneducated women were the ones that bought into the lies and helped spread it. Hmmmm, that sounds vaguely familiar.

c. 1900 The Glencar Tea House in County Leitrim

7. This ‘Self Portrait’ by Photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston – I was thrilled when I finally found out who this photo was of and what it was about. I’ve loved it for years! Taken around 1896 by the photographer herself, it is supposed to represent the “new woman.”

Here’s a great article about the photo and the photographer from Smithsonian.

Frances Benjamin Johnston could be both ladylike and bohemian, which abetted her career as a photographer. (Library of Congress)

Word of the Day


Quote of the Day

Five Things I Love (1/20/2020)

1 Dead Feminists broadsides – I discovered the postcard versions in a shop in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. I wanted to get ALL of them but settled on one to start. The broadsides are nearly sold out but you can buy extra large (5″x 8″) postcard versions that are suitable for framing

2. I’m obsessed with ice bubbles. They’re created from methane gas which has frozen beneath the water. The methane gas forms as a result of microbes consuming dead organic matter at the bottom of a body of water, usually a lake. Are the microbes basically burping up the methane gas?

3. This article about the real spies who were the inspiration for James Bond. Whoa.

“Before creating Bond in 1953, Ian Fleming served as a commander in the British Naval Intelligence during WWII.”

4. Have you tried the new ‘Beyonce’ of apples – the Cosmic Crisp? I’m a HUGE fan!

5. My sister-in-law’s floral artistic talents…. If you are in the Portland area, my brother & sister-in-law’s establishment will be opening soon. In the meantime you can follow them on Instagram.