Who didn't love reading the Sunday funnies as a kid? My most vivid memory of my paternal grandfather is watching him paste Sunday comic strips into scrapbooks. After he died, my aunt gave me two of them as keepsakes. One is Jiggs and Maggie, the other a strip called The Bungle Family. Jiggs and Maggie […]
Back in the days when I was a reporter (long before the internet), one of our favourite lunch spots was a small restaurant around the corner from the newsroom. Most days we ordered the blue-plate special which was invariably delicious, filling, and inexpensive. Ever wonder where that term came from? Apparently, this is a very […]
In November 1924, movie studio pioneer Thomas Ince attended a party on William Randolph Hearst’s private yacht, the Oneida. All of this is indisputable. But what happened next? There were 15 guests aboard the luxury yacht that weekend, including Hearst, his mistress Marion Davies, actress Seena Owen, and author Elinor Glynn. A full and accurate […]
A Belgian detective, a soldier recovering from duty on the Western front, and a Scotland Yard detective walk into a country manor . . . It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the beginning of an Agatha Christie mystery. It is, in fact, Christie’s first mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written during World War […]
During the 1920s motion pictures played a huge role in social life for people of all ages but especially those in their teens and early twenties — probably after they discovered those dark, secluded back theatre rows. The first public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but it would be […]
Women's fashions may have stolen the headlines during the 1920s, but men's wear flourished nonetheless. In 1818, Henry S. Brooks opened a clothing store on the corner of Catherine and Cherry Streets in Manhattan, which was the early 19th century garment district where some of the first textile wholesalers in Manhattan were located (Lord & […]
During the 1920s motion pictures played a huge role in social life for people of all ages but especially those in their teens and early twenties. The first public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but it would be decades before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization, […]
Consider the case of Little Lord Fauntleroy — not the English one, but the unidentified American boy found murdered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1921. That’s not his real name, but the one given to him by the press. On March 8, 1921, the body of a boy were found floating in a pond near a […]
Many of the foods we love today (and some we hate) debuted or had their hay-day in the 20's. Marketed as innovative, thrifty, and time-saving, these foods promised to revolutionize family life. Gelatin dates back to the 17th century and was traditionally made by boiling the bones and hooves of large animals for long hours, […]
