Category: Uncategorized
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What Can Amundsen Accomplish?
A 1922 New York Times Magazine article described Roald Amundsen’s imminent attempt to fly over the North Pole as “the greatest venture into the unknown since Columbus set out from the shores of Spain.” Eleven years prior, Amundsen’s party of five had become the first in human history to reach the South Pole, in 1911. […]
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The New High Art of “Ad. Writing”
In 1921, the writing in advertisements was getting better than ever. It looks as though the “renaissance of American literature” would come through the advertising columns of our great newspapers and the pages of our magazines. Today some of the best-written matter that is printed in America introduces a new shoe, a new automobile tire, […]
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The Pent-Up German Flood
Not long after Germany lost World War I, a 1920 article predicted a coming surge of German immigrants to the U.S. While German immigration did increase that decade, it still fell well short of the numbers from a few decades prior. German immigration peaked at more than 1.4 million during the 1880s, plummeting to less […]
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Primitive Delaware
For anyone who claims the New York Times is biased, or looks down upon certain areas of the country, it’s impossible to imagine them calling a state “primitive” as they did to Delaware in 1919. This opening passage is brutal: When Caesar Rodney put to blush all the other historic Caesars and Czars and Kaisers by signing […]
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An International Anthem — Britain and America
This attempt for a joint anthem between the United Kingdom and the United States, written in 1913, never really caught on. Why not? Surely it wasn’t the music, because the tune was the same as “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” which everybody still knows today. Likely people just preferred the lyrics to a singular national […]
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Is Spelling Reform, Ten Years Old, a Success?
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt tried to shorten the spellings of about 300 words. Although the presidential directive was overturned by Congress, there was still a surge of support for this measure pushed by the Simplified Spelling Board. This article checked in a decade later to see whether most of the shortened spellings took off. […]
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Rochefort Tells How Americans Buy Art Fakes
When I worked for Christie’s Auction House, I was always fascinated when something came through that turned out to be a forgery. I was a photographer for the company, so I worked with a lot of experts in each department, and I tried to learn a bit about how they were able to tell a […]
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Rich Men Who Have Organs Built In Their Homes
As mentioned in the article, the “largest and costliest organ in the United States” belonged to Frederick G. Bourne’s and was installed in his Oakdale, Long Island home. According to the Organ Historical Society’s Pipe Organ Database (who knew?) the residence became a military academy after Bourne died, and in 1948 the organ was sold. […]
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The Negro Is The South’s Drawback, Says Hoke Smith
Astonishing to remember how much room was given to racism 100 years ago. In this article, Georgia Senator Hoke Smith poses a question in the process of making his case that black people are a blight on the south: “It is logical to ask the question: What have the negroes of Africa, after thousands of […]
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