May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month — a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States — which led me to wonder if there were any Asian flappers. China also experienced their version of the Roaring 20s in Shanghai. Because of the opening of trade in the 1920s, there were many Western influences […]
In the Fall of 1920, local Atlantic City, NJ business owners devised a scheme to extend the tourist season into September. They planned to stage an "inter-city" beauty contest where local newspapers would select contestants and pay for their wardrobe. The Atlantic City Businessmen's League would pay for their travel to the contest. Newspapers in […]
Bessie Coleman is not exactly a byword in most homes, but in some circles she's a glittering star. Born in Atlanta, TX, in 1892, Coleman became the first African-American/Native American woman to hold a pilot license. Her sharecropper father was of Cherokee descent and her mother African-American. She earned her license from the French Fédération […]
Disclaimer: This is NOT a political. It is only meant to be historical and informative. Depending on the outcome of an eventual trial, one candidate could be campaigning for the White House from jail. Strangely, it will not be the first time this has happened in the US. Eugene V. Debs, running on the Socialist […]
Princes William and Harry were not the first British princes to marry non-royalty. On April 26, 1923, Prince Albert, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, wed Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, at Westminster Abbey. Years earlier, Albert had formed a romantic connection with […]
Michelle Yeoh’s well-deserved Oscar/Golden Globe wins have been all over the news lately, but what about those who came before her? Have you even heard of Anna May Wong? Wong, nee Wong Liu Tsong, was the first Chinese American movie star. And while she may not have won an Oscar, she appeared on silent film, […]
I’m just back from three weeks “Down Under”, so I thought I’d post about the notorious gangsters of Australia’s Roaring Twenties. 1920s Melbourne wasn’t all that different from New York or Chicago when it came to crime. Gangsters abounded, and their criminal endeavors kept the police jumping and Victoria Prison full. The US had Al […]
Many fortunes were made (and lost) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Names such as Andrew Carnegie, George F. Baker, William Rockefeller, and Henry Ford readily come to mind. But what about women? What about Black women? Hannah Elias is not exactly a well-known name, but by the early 1900s, she had built […]
