Block of text: If a man boasts that he could worst you in a set-to, answer that you think it very likely as you have no experience in fisticuffing; that you have never struck any one and should hardly know how to go to work to do it.

The Mentor: A Little Book for the Guidance of Such Men and Boys as would Appear to Advantage in the Society of Persons of the Better Sort, by Alfred Ayres, 1884

“Fisticuffing? I say, how terribly vulgar and middle class.”

Advertisement from 1913. Text reads: Gentlemen's Shirts of the Finest Material. The Best Possible Fitting. The Finest Private Work and a Durability Approaching Perpetuality. Orders Taken for Buttonholes. Your Money Never Went so Far In Shirts in the World Before. Annie E. Rider, 17 Almy Street.

~ Book Notes periodical, 1913

I love this ad so much. I wish I could be friends with Annie E. Rider so we could drink wine together and she could show me how to make shirts with a Durability Approaching Perpetuality. Also, I would place many Orders for Buttonholes.

Newspaper article from San Jose News, June 18, 1932. Louis Sonheim and Aaron Holtz were backing an ordinance for daylight delivery of milk because their slumbers were interrupted in the early morning hours by noisy milk trucks. Commissioner A.L. Barbor got up and gave the following impassioned speech: "This sleeping business has become a fad with people who have nothing else to do. I only get four or five hours of sleep a night and I'm on deck every morning. There's no sense in sleeping eight or nine hours."

~ San Jose News, June 18, 1932

Kids this days with their sleeping fad!

"Words…are little houses, each with its cellar and garret...To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream...
To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together."
-- Gaston Bachelard

Poster from US Department of Fisheries, 1911 encouraging people to eat carp. Lists several facts about carp and encourages everyone to catch it, eat it, cook it properly and eat it.

People, please consider the humble carp. It's easily digestible. Also it can be cooked in such a way as to remove the muddy taste. Catch the carp! Buy the carp! Make carp jelly! Give it for the holidays! Keep it as a pet! Wear it as a hat!

CARP!

Brought to you by the US Bureau of Fisheries, 1911.

The Mickey Mouse gas mask, created during World War II.

The mask was made for children, and was given the look of the famous Mickey Mouse to reduce the fear of actually wearing a gas mask.
Walt Disney himself was very fond of the idea and gladly approved of the production of the gas mask.

Text reads: Don't discipline your family or growl at the table. Many men and women who should know better appear to regard the announcement of dinner as a declaration of war, and fight through every course, making an hour that should be pleasantly anticipated as a time of happy reunion a dreaded misery for every member of the family circle. From text titled ~ Correct Social Usage: a Course of Instruction in good Form, Style and Deportment, by Eighteen Distinguished Authors, 1906

~ Correct Social Usage: a Course of Instruction in good Form, Style and Deportment, by Eighteen Distinguished Authors, 1906

Ad from the Whittier News, November 27 1911. Shows a couple kissing and a large number four. Text reads: Shop in Whittier. Whittier stocks for holidays are complete and are also adequate. Four weeks to Christmas. The early bird gets under the mistletoe first. Buy those gifts quick.

Whittier News, November 27, 1911

113 years ago today: Whittier Stocks for Holidays are Complete and also Adequate.

Get your adequate gifts in Whittier and then get your smooches under the mistletoe

Block of text from a book titled The Ladies' Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Florence Hartley, 1872. Text reads: Dinner Company. Etiquette for the Hostess. As the time just before dinner is very apt to be tiresome, you should bring forward all the armor against stupidity that you possess.

~ The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness; Florence Hartley, 1872

Good advice for anyone hosting American Thanksgiving this week. Or any dinner, really

Fred Astaire in 1940

📷 by George Karger

Podsnappery [pod-SNAP-uh-ree]
(n.)
-An attitude of complacency, smug self-satisfaction, and a lack of interest in the affairs of others, coupled with a refusal to recognize unpleasant facts.

Used in a haiku:
“Eyes closed to the world,
Podsnappery shields the truth
Ignorance feels safe.”

Black and white advert from the early 1900s. There is a lot of dense text that tallks about "The Wonders of Radium" with the headline 'Radium Cures Cancer, Consumption, Tubercuosis." There is also a picture of Dr Rubert Wells - a smart looking man with his hands in his pocket, a flower in his lapel and a very impressive mustache.

One of my favourites is the 'radium-impregnated fluid' known as Radol. We know quite a lot about both the product and the flamboyantly dressed and luxuriously moustachioed Rupert Wells, MD, of St Louis who marked the product. You can read the full story here museumofradium.co.uk/radol/

Text block reading: That style of language which society pronounces vulgar, and which grammarians call impure, arises less from the use of new and unauthorized words, than from the employment of old words in the wrong senses. For example, the word 'guess', when properly applied, is a good English word; it becomes vulgar only in its misappropriation. Use ita hundred times a-day in its right sense, and you are a genteman; use it once improperly, and you declare yourself a Yankee.

~ The Handbook of the Man of Fashion, by the author of “Etiquette for Gentlemen”, 1847
#grammar #vintageadvice

(Yankee: an American or specifically an American from the North)

A marble skeleton

A marble skeletal hand

A marble sculpture of a standing angel over a skeleton rising from the ground

One of my favourite skeletons in churches. This dates to 1791, and is in the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Sherborne, Gloucestershire. It is from the monument to James Lennox Dutton Esq. and his second wife Jane, and depicts an angel trampling Death.The sculptor was Richard Westmacott the Elder.

Copy of an article published in the Beaver Valley Times, November 1, 1946 Title: Readers Startled by Male Librarian Take if from B. J. Caldwell, Pomona's first male librarian, it's no easy task for the reading publoc to become accustomed to a man librarian. Caldwell, holder of a bachelor's degree in library science from the University of Southern California, had been on the job only a few days when a little girl entered the library. Loaded with books, she hoisted them to the loan desk, looked up for the first time and saw Caldwell. She let out a whoop and fled from the building, crying, "Mommie, it's a man." Caldwell succeeded Miss Sarah Jacobus, local librarian for 40 years before her retirement. "When I answered the phone," he said, "a lot of people would hang up, thinking they had the wrong number because a woman hadn't answered."

Readers Startled by Male Librarian
~ Beaver Valley Times, November 1, 1946
#libraries #librarians

A stage floating on water. It looks like a giant, open book. There is a huge skeleton rising from the water, holding the pages of the "book" open. On the stage are actors, who look very tiny.

The Bregenz Festival is famous for staging some of the most mind-blowing spectacles.

Verdi’s opera, “A Masked Ball,” featured a stage that looked like a giant book being opened by a skeleton. The show took place in 1999 on Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria. It astounds me every time I see it!

Cause and Effect table for the Villain, Hero and Heroine from Punch magazine, England, January 1, 1959. Cause: Blow on head with blunt instrument. Effect on hero: small lump. Effect on villain: If in penultimate chapter, death. Otherwise, loss of consciousness, lasting until heroine has been released from room full of crocodiles. Effect on heroine: assailant stumbles, instrument grazes cheek. Cause: Fall over edge of cliff. Effect on hero: winded. Effect on villain: dashed to pieces. Mask falls off, revealing identity. Effect on heroine: Fall broken by mossy ledge at 100 feet. Sprained ankle.

~ Punch magazine, England, January 1, 1959

A strange looking creature with a fish tail and animal-like arms with claws. The head looks a bit human, with no hair and sharp teeth.

A VICTORIAN MERMAN

Objects like this were often made from the torsos of monkeys and the tails of fish. They were displayed by showmen like P. T Barnum to audiences who believed they were real. This particular one is on display at the Horniman Museum, London. #skystorians #histmed #histsci

An ad for the 1968 Beretta minx gun. Picture of the gun with a thought bubble saying take me along. Text: I am 22. And very petite. My size is actually one of my greatest charms since I tuck so easily into your pocket or purse. And I'd love to spend some time with you. Take me along and I'll keep you company for plinking or protection. Once cute thing about me is that my barrel tilts up at the touch of a button. Lets you chamer my first round and start shooting like quick! (You don't have to be a big muscle man to pull back my slide). My magazine, also push button, holds 7 rounds. Or use me for a single shot. Get me. Minx .22 or for a little more punch my big sister, Jetfire .25. Or for a beautiful brochure featuring me and all my brothers and sisters -.22 .25 .32 .380 .9mm calibers - write Dept 2 GA 5. J.L. Galef & Sons, Inc. 85 Chamber Street, N.Y. Sole US Representative for Beretta pistols

Today in the Disturbing Ads Department: the Beretta Minx, 1968.

“I am 22. And very petite. … You don’t have to be a big muscle man to pull back my slide”

Gun ads: blurring the line between sex and violence for at least 56 years
#vintageads

Black and white advertisement for Knox Hat from 1910. A man is standing in front of his boss' desk and holding a Knox Hat. His boss is staring at the hat and the ad shows a line-of-sight from his eyes directly to the hat.

~ Cosmopolitan, v.49 June-November 1910
#vintageads

Does your boss have laser eyes? Use your Knox Hat to distract him and protect yourself!

Skeleton Park earns its name - The Queen's Journal Cemetery under Skeleton Park resurfaces after spring thaw.

Grave-robbing medical students were a reputed problem in Kingston, ON in the mid-to-late 19th C. Used to live right this.

www.queensjournal.ca/skeleton-par...

A page from a book with a poem titled The Parrot. The Carrot. The Parrot and the Carrot we may easily confound, They're very much alike in looks and similar in sound, We recognize the Parrot by his clear articulation, For Carrots are unable to engage in conversation

How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers. A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners by Robert W. Wood, 1907
#books

Cover of a book called The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (4/20)
#bookchallenge #booksky
📚💙

A cartoon from 1809 showing ten figures arranged in two rows. All represent classes of people impossible to find in society. Top row, from left to right: 'A Modest Woman of Quality', 'A Primitive Bishop', 'A Real Maid of Five and Thirty', 'An Exciseman with a Conscience', 'An Author with a Second Suit of Cloaths'. Bottom row, from left to right: 'A Great Man of Common Sense', 'A Woman who has continued three months a Widow', 'A Theatrical Hero of Modesty and Oeconomy', 'A Complete Honest Attorney', 'A Man of Talents, Wit and Learning possessed of a Thousand a Year'.

For lovers of #18thcentury and early #19thcentury satirists, our archive of George 'Moutard' Woodward cartoons may pique your fancy - we have nearly 500! They're all digitised and on our online catalogue: tinyurl.com/ykfs68pa

#history #archives #art

Want a pet basilisk? Then take an egg laid by a rooster and incubate it under a toad. It can kill with a glance though, so maybe pop some sunglasses on it...
#FolkyFriday

Quote from Robert Lynd 1921: Galileo was forbidden to be curious about the moon. One of the most difficult things to establish is our right to be curious about facts.

~ The Pleasures of Ignorance, by Robert Lynd, 1921
#quoteoftheday

Printed text reading: The Poor Man's Friend. The combined pessary and sheath is made of medicated indiarubber. It is fitted with a steel coil spring at the opening, by which means it can be rolled up into the shape of a check pessary, and so can be used by the wife. It can also be used unrolled, as a sheath by the husband, and will be found one of the most convenient, and a reliable article for this purpose. Will last for years.

Cheap, but at what cost? The steel coiled spring in these condoms helped them 'last for years'!

Anyone know what "medicated" meant? Sterile?

Tactful and truthful