Swamp Root Remedy and Also Some Thank Yous

Dr. S. Andral Kilmer of Binghamton, New York, who made Swamp-Root* Miracle Cure, was so grateful for business that he planned to give every Brooklyn Eagle reader a free bottle (too bad the AMA called Swamp Root a "worthless fraud" in 1912**).

And the customers whose letters are printed in the ad - well, they are thankful too, for those "wonderful curative properties" which alleviated kidney and bladder troubles.

All of which is leading, in its peculiar, post-Victorian, medicinal way to my saying thank you to the February top ten droppers from dear old Entrecard, who have visited the VDM - well, quite a lot of times!

And I also want to thank all my friends and visitors who are not on this short list, but who I am also so glad to see every day. Thank you so very much for your visits, your comments, and your suggestions. Because a museum without any visitors is just a dusty building full of artifacts. And a dime museum without any audience? All that, plus an assortment of vaudeville acts with no one to entertain!

So, many thanks to February's Top Droppers at the Dime Museum. And as an extra bonus, I will not be distributing bottles of Swamp Root Remedy. You're welcome.

My Note's
Sound of a Soft Breath
Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Computer Aid
The Ad Master
First Door on the Left
Scandanavian Ways -Winesworld Blog
Programming Made Easy
Rocket Scientist
Dallas Marketing Services

The advertisement above ran in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (of course you knew that already) on April 15, 1902, p. 8. Many thanks as always to the Brooklyn Public Library and their spectacular digitized Brooklyn Eagle Online, without which this would be a considerably less lively enterprise.

More on Dr. Kilmer and his Swamp Root here.

The Kilmers of Binghamton have a page devoted to them over here.

And you can still buy Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Herbal Tonic. The AMA says this version is OK, apparently (they changed it around a bit).

Also his old medical building in Binghamton, New York has been restored; there's a Kilmer's Brasserie and Steakhouse there now.

Swamp Root T shirts? Yes, indeed. Perfect attire for the Brasserie and Steakhouse!

* It was called Swamp Root because it was also supposed to cure swamp fevers such as malaria. It was 9% grain alcohol; Dr. Kilmer's Cough Remedy was 10% grain alcohol [Nostrums and Quackery, pp 674-6]

**See the AMA's Nostrums and Quackery (Chicago, 1912), p. 677.

Herpicide Girls

Well, this is not what you might think. This is not what Medusa uses to give her that silky shiny updo.

Herpicide was a tonic that you put on your hair in 1912 to keep it "beautiful and abundant." It killed "dandruff germs," too - bet you didn't know they were germs. But the Girls are pondering this fact, and seem to be, if not enjoying the preparation, at least benefiting from it.

Herpicide ads also used the catchphrase "Going (Herpicide will save it)...going (Herpicide will save it)...gone! (too late for Herpicide)" - with a picture of three little heads [see Kerry Segrave, Baldness: A Social History, McFarland 1996, p. 67].

The unfortunate fact that "herpicide" also means a preparation that kills snakes, seems not to have deterred the makers of this hair tonic.

From the Toronto Telegram, October 1912. Check out this astonishing Herpicide ad (with a huge rabbit) over at JB's Warehouse and Curio Emporium.

The Surf Queen

Emma Abendschoen began her life as a Brooklyn Emma Woodhouse - and went on to become the Rockaway Beach version of Emma Bovary.

To paraphrase Jane Austen: Emma Abendschoen, handsome, athletic and strong-willed, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Very little, that is to say, until Alwin Mabius (and some other gentlemen) came into her life.

She was an athletic young woman of 21 - an expert swimmer, living in Sea Cliff, Queens, on the eve of her marriage in 1891. She had "posed as the queen of the surf at Rockaway," the Brooklyn Eagle noted: "In fact, so graceful have been her exploits in toying with the ocean that no swimmer of her sex could approach her by many yards." And she was a charmer on land, too: a wonderful dancer, she "led the grand march" at a Rockaway police benefit ball. And she was flirtatious, too. She lived with her divorced mother Mary, who ran a dry goods shop in Sea Cliff.

Alwin Mabius was a Brooklyn jeweler in his early thirties, more than a decade older than Emma. They probably met when Alwin took a short holiday in Rockaway: many people in New York did, as the railways made it easy to get there from the city. On March 18, 1891, Alwin and Emma were married from her mother's house in Sea Cliff. Emma returned with Alwin to his flat at 712 Sackett Street, Brooklyn, to begin her married life.

That lasted all of six weeks. One night Alwin came home from the jewelry store and found Emma gone. Emma kept in touch with Alwin (through letters and telegraphs only) and said she was renting a cottage at Sea Cliff. That also lasted six weeks, after which she told people at Sea Cliff that she was going to Europe with her husband.

She wasn't, of course.

Alwin went down to the cottage on July 24 to investigate. The furniture was gone as well as Emma - all of it except the piano, and a bureau. Too bad Emma didn't go through the bureau drawers before she left, though. Alwin found a big bundle of spicy letters in the bureau - all addressed to Emma. And they weren't from him. They were from "men well known in Brooklyn, Rockaway and other sections of the island." Alwin heard that Emma was down at Rockaway for the summer, so he then took a little trip there. Almost the first person he ran into was Emma.

"She turned white as a ghost," Alwin told an Eagle reporter. So he went home and began a suit for absolute divorce. Among the persons distressed by the divorce suit (and the gossip) were the members of the Rockaway police force - for one of Emma's suitors was Sergeant John F. Clancy.
And the Eagle published a sensational sampling of the bureau-drawer letters, including Clancy's.

Clancy wrote that he didn't get Emma's letter until late because "the folks neglected to send me the letter" but would she please let him know when they can meet up. Not on July 4th, though, for that was his "bissey day" but if she comes down to the beach they would have a good time. He had been "very bissey in the Jack the Peeper case."*

Another suitor was a Mr. Kroll, a commercial traveler (salesman) who wrote odd letters expressing sympathy for Alwin Mabius and speaking of Kroll's child and his late wife's headstone. The Eagle printed two of Kroll's letters. He sounds confused and sad, for though he speaks of Emma's "lovely photo" in his bedroom he then writes:

I was anticipating having a nice quit [sic] time with you, but my hopes mostly always go wrong...Don't ask me to come any Saturday or Sunday, as I know this is the only time your husband can see you and will not stand in his way. He may properly be in future be your only true friend, so be good to him, for I do believe he dearly loves you. Try and make him happy, poor soul.

In another letter, Kroll tries to break things off with Emma [the spelling is Kroll's]:

When are you coming to New York. I fear it will lead to trouble if I call on you any more in future. I don't beleive you are awere of the risk you are runen by my callen at Your house.

Jack Allen (perhaps Jack the Peeper?) was Emma' favorite boyfriend. He was a little harder to manage than Clancy or Kroll. Emma wrote to Jack asking him to please come back to her. They would open a little store together, or anything he wanted [spelling is Emma's]:

...you know what our past has been and it always looked as though you loved me: why at once have you turned against me so?...What am I to do? Travel as far as posobel for a place or to come back and take a little store and you be my friend again or what is it to be.

Meanwhile Emma had some strong words for Alwin. The letter, quoted in the Eagle in full, is quite amazing. She blames him not only for what he has done (such as complain to her family) but for all of her shenanigans as well. If only he would send her on the Grand Tour, everything would be swell [the spelling is Emma's]:

You can never win my love by talking behind my back. You told my father quite enough about me so that there is trouble in the family...I told you to pay my trip to Europe for a sail and I then would come and be a wife to you, but not a word did you write of that but a lot of crazy talk...If you should oferd to send me to Europe I should of thought of you as good and kind but you said "no come down" an I spose be your slave, instead of a man saying "go and it will be a good nice trip for you." You are not a sensible man or you would work your plans in a nice way, do what you thought would make me happy for the Summer months...Hold your head up and say "I will be good to her while she is mean." She may turn and love me again. Still ever your true wife, EMMA."

As the Eagle noted, Alwin did not want to be good to Emma while she was mean. He was granted an absolute divorce from her in November 1891 - after only eight months of marriage. Aurelia Gillet of 325 East 85th Street, Manhattan, testified. She was Emma's servant in Sea Cliff. She said that Emma got a lot of letters "from Jack Allen, Martin Harris and other men." Aurelia also said that the men visited "very often" and that Emma went away with Jack Allen about twice a week and stayed overnight.

Alwin left Brooklyn sometime in the 1890s and ended up in New Orleans; later on, he lived in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. He married 20 year old Therese Muller, who was half his age, in New Orleans on February 28, 1901.

As for Emma, I don't know (yet) what happened to her. And I promise to write about Jack the Peeper in a future post.

SOURCES

Newspapers:

"A Surf Queen," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 24, 1891, p. 4.
"Mabius Will Be Divorced," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 1, 1891, p. 15.
"The Queen of the Surf," New York Times, Aug. 25, 1891, p. 8.

Census and Directories:

George and Mary Abendschoen were both living in the 18th Ward of Brooklyn in 1880. Mary (age 45, b Baden) is listed as divorced, quite plainly; George (age 45, b Baden) calls himself a Bachelor, but given that they are in the same ward and the surname is uncommon, I am going to go with the theory that they are Emma's estranged parents. Emma was living with Mary in 1880, age 10, born in New York.

George Abendschoen household, 1880 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 18, Kings, NY; Series T9, Roll 852, #174/375, p. 147 [7 Beaver St, just s. of Flushing Ave. near Bushwick]

Mary Abendschoen household, 1880 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 18, Kings, NY; Series T9, Roll 852, # 14/20, p. 195. [56 Troutman St, near the intersection of Myrtle/Bushwick]

George Abendschoen in 1878 Lain's Brooklyn City Directory, digitized here at Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page. His home address is 104 Suydam St, 2 blocks from 56 Troutman where Mary and Emma were living in 1880. Mary not listed in 1878 directory. Neither listed in 1879-80.

Alwin Mabius household, 1900 US Census, New Orleans City 2nd Precinct Ward 16, New Orleans, LA; Roll T-629_576, #69/73, p. 4A. [Watchmaker, 39y, b Germany, imm. 1879]

Alwin Mabius household, 1910 US Census, Bay St. Louis Ward 2, Hancock, MS; #32/32, Roll T624_739, pp. 15B-16. [Watch Maker, repair shop, age 50, imm. 1880, 2nd marriage, married 10y to wife Theresa 30y b LA, parents b Germany]

New Orleans, Louisiana Marriage Records Index at Ancestry Library Edition: Alvin Mabius married to Theresa Muller, Feb. 28, 1901, Vol. 22, p. 848.

Images:

Boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, ca 1890-1900, NYCL Digital Gallery
Sheet music cover, "Don't Go In the Water, Daughter" (1908), NYCL Digital Gallery

Some Victorian Classified Ads

Here are some classified ads from 1881 that prove that the more things change, the more they stay the same: as in the same get-rich-quick schemes (or scams), the same magic tricks and quack treatments. And of course, the kind of pictures that required plain brown wrappers (although they don't seem to mention that).

1. The ironically-named True & Co. would like to tell you how to make $12 a day (a lot of money in 1881) and give you a "costly outfit free." Suspicious lack of details, check. Suspicious offer of costly something for nothing, check.

2. Another place in Maine (are they related?) wants to give you something worth $5 for free and says you can make up to $20 a day. If only they weren't so taciturn up in Maine, maybe they would tell us how we're supposed to make all this money.

3. Time for a break, after all that commerce. How about a Joker's Dictionary and some spicy photographs? First we have Female Beauties and some Illustrated Catalogues. Followed by scarce photos from the Paris Book Company (never mind that they're in Chicago).

4. The Down Easters strike again, this time they say we can make $66 a week in our own town! Every time they place an ad, the promises get more and more inflated.

5. Speaking of which...Down in Boston, they are selling a little something called "Perfezione" with which you can "enlarge and develop" various parts of the anatomy. Oh, dear. But you do have to send them a dollar first. So you'd better write to one of those places in Maine and get busy making money.

From the New York Clipper, July 1881.

A Carmen Complexion

Louise Huff (1895-1973) was a silent movie actress born in Columbus, Georgia, who started her theatrical career when she was only 15 years old. She played the romantic lead role opposite Mary Pickford's brother Jack in Seventeen, based on the Booth Tarkington novel, in 1916.

She also starred in this Carmen Complexion Powder ad in the same year, although since she was only 21 at the time, and might have been expected to have a pretty good complexion anyway.

Carmen Complexion Powder was tested in the early 1910s by Harvey W. Wiley; he wrote a book detailing tests he had made on 1001 foods, beverages and cosmetics. He wrote that Carmen Complexion Powder was the "usual combination of talc, zinc oxide and starch, perfumed and colored" and that its claims of never rubbing off and being amazingly good for the complexion "are unwarranted."

Louise Huff photograph from the NYPL Digital Gallery. Advertisement from McClure's Magazine, November 1916.

Louise Huff at silentladies.com
Louise Huff at MSN Movies
Tobacco card featuring LH at EBay
Carmen advertising mirror at EBay

Wiley, Harvey W. 1001 Tests of Foods, Beverages and Toilet Accessories, Good and Otherwise (READ Books 2008, orig. pub. ca 1915), p. 207.

*****
And now for something completely different:

Tonight on The History Detectives (on PBS at 9 pm EST), Tufuku Zuberi, Chairman of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, will be answering five viewers' questions about African-American history. You can leave him a question here - so get busy thinking about what you'd like to know! This looks like a terrific episode and I can't wait to see it (I'm in Canada so I hope I can watch it online somehow).

The Lost Marx Brother

Well, not really. But with a name like Zero Marx, he could have been.

Zero Marx, later Dr. Zero Marx, owned a sign company in Chicago and St. Louis in the last half of the 19th century. His name caught my eye so I thought I would find out a little bit about him. He was born about 1850 to a German family living in Russia. He was in St. Louis, Missouri by 1875, when he married Emilie Haase. They were living in Chicago with their three children Fred, Annie and Walther by 1880.

Marx and a German immigrant to St. Louis, Christian Hoell, developed a plan for rescuing people from burning buildings after a devastating 1877 fire in St. Louis. This involved sending trained gymnasts, called "German turners," up into high and hard-to- access places in tall buildings. They brought the hoses up and the people down to safety, and were known as the pompier corps.

Zero Marx became a homeopathic doctor at the age of about 45 and died in 1914 in Rochester, Minnesota. In that year The Clinique noted that he had graduated from CHMC (Chicago Hahnemann Medical College, or possibly Harvey Medical College) in 1895 and was also "president of the Zero Marx Sign Works."

And of course Zero Marx never was in vaudeville or the movies with anyone named Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo or Gummo. They were the sons of a French-German Jewish tailor named Simon (later Sam) Marx, nicknamed Frenchie, and they grew up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan in the 1890s.

Advertisement from an 1879 Puck magazine (vol. 5, Jul.-Dec. 1879) from Google Books.

Information about Marx, Hoell and the German turners from Eating Smoke: Fire In Urban America 1800-1950, by Mark Tebeau (JHU Press, 2003), p. 219.

"Coro Marx" [sic], 30 year old Russian-born Sign Painter, and family in Chicago on the 1880 US Census at FamilySearch. Zero had married Emilie Haase in St. Louis on June 20, 1875, see here.

The American Turners homepage is here.

More on medical education in Chicago in the 19th century at the Chicago Encyclopedia.

COMING UP LATER THIS WEEK : The curious history of the Surf Queen.

A Delightful Elixir

This startling ad is from 1928, when drinking liquor seems to have been a common cold remedy.* Aspironal is "most enthusiastically endorsed by the people as ten times as quick and effective as whiskey, rock and rye, or any other cold remedy they have ever tried." Aspironal itself contained 10% alcohol - roughly the same percentage as table wine, and twice that of beer.

The reader was advised to line up at the drugstore, give the pharmacist fifty cents and tell them to dole out two teaspoonfuls right there. And if you didn't feel fabulous in a minute or so, you didn't have to pay:

Every Druggist in U.S. Instructed to Refund Price While You Wait at Counter if You Don't Feel Relief Coming in Two Minutes.

...With your watch in your hand, take the drink at one swallow and call for your money back in two minutes if you cannot feel the distressing symptoms of your cold fading away like a dream with in the time limit. Don't be bashful...Everybody's doing it.

The pharmacists must have been so delighted with this gimmick: imagine all the sticky spoons, the opened bottles, the lines of people waiting for some miraculous change to take place inside them. And all the money that might have to be handed back. Although given that the Aspironal was 10% alcohol, people probably did feel happier after a few spoonfuls.

Advertisement from Duke University's Medicine and Madison Avenue collection, which is full of bracing and invigorating treasures.

* Whiskey was indeed a traditional cold cure, as in this Scottish recipe for a toddy given to cure colds: 1 nip of whiskey mixed with a tablespoonful of sugar, to which is added a cup of boiling water [from The Scottish Bakehouse Cookbook by Isabella Maxwell White, Tashmoo Press 1972, p. 200]

"Can Dance Some And Sing"

WANTED, by Two Boys, 16 and 17 years old, Who have a desire to learn the theatrical profession, an opportunity to go with some company during 1884 and '85. One of us can play Banjo, Guitar, Xylophone, Tambo[rine] and (Snare-drum by note), and one can play Guitar and Bones. Both can dance some and sing. Minstrel troupe preferred. Address, stating salary, etc. CHARLES MOREMAN, Brownsville, Fayette Co., Pa (P.O. Box 38).

I wasn't able to find Charles Moreman in the 1880 census (not yet, anyway, I am going to keep looking) but I intend to find out about him and his friend (brother?) if I possibly can.

Don't you wonder whether Charles and the other boy got jobs in vaudeville and went out on the road? Or if anyone even wrote back to them? And what happened to them later in life?

I always want to know, but this sort of history is hard to research. I think that Joe Gould would want to know, too. And if he didn't find out, he'd probably have made up a really good story anyway.

From the New York Clipper, May 24, 1884.

A Wraith's Progress

"The name is Joseph Ferdinand Gould, a graduate of Harvard, magna cum difficultate, class of 1911, and chairman of the board of Weal and Woe, Incorporated. In exchange for a drink, I'll recite a poem, deliver a lecture, argue a point, or take off my shoes and imitate a sea gull. I prefer gin, but beer will do." - Joe Gould, quoted in Joe Gould's Secret, p. 22

...a myth is a good as a smile but little joe gould's quote oral history unquote might (publishers note) be entitled a wraith's progress or mainly awash while chiefly submerged... - e.e. cummings, No. 261 of the Collected Poems, quoted in Joe Gould's Secret, p. 17.

Joe Gould had one goal in life: to write the longest book in the world.

From about 1916 to the early 1950s, Gould was a Greenwich Village fixture. Everyone knew who the short, thin old man was, with the long bushy beard, dressed in old suits three sizes too big. He was born in 1889 in Norwood, Massachusetts, the son of a Harvard-educated doctor. Nicknamed Pee Wee as a child, Joe never fit in and was seen as incompetent and abnormal by both parents.* He'd worked sporadically as a researcher and a journalist, but from the age of about 27 he devoted himself primarily to the Oral History. He was the last of the bohemians, he said:

All the others fell by the wayside. Some are in the grave, some are in the loony bin, and some are in the advertising business.

The alternate title was An Oral History of Everything. It was contained in 270 composition books that were hidden all over New York City (some were in a stone barn at a Long Island chicken farm). The Oral History consisted only of what Joe Gould saw and heard. he had perfect recall of more than 20,000 conversations with down and out people, accounts of their operations, their hardships, their bar fights and their life stories. He was also including all the things he'd read on bathroom walls, what he'd seen at decades of Greenwich Village parties, and heard in bars and flophouses over all the years he'd been living on the streets of New York.

When he finished, it would be over 9 million words long. When Gould died, he said, people would realize that he was a genius. His will bequeathed two thirds of the manuscript to Harvard and a third to the Smithsonian.

He always carried a overstuffed, half-disintegrating cardboard portfolio full of his writings. He told Mitchell that his Oral History was written down in over 200 composition books. They were hidden all over New York Some were in friends' closets. Some were in a stone barn on a Long Island chicken farm, that belonged to a friend of a friend.

Journalist Joseph Mitchell met Gould in 1932. For a decade, he gave Gould money, endured his ten-hour marathon monologues, read the same few ranting manuscript chapters of the magnum opus - until even he, the most patient of men, could take no more.

Mitchell said that there were a few basic chapters written and rewritten again and again. Two treated the death of his parents. One was about his experiences working on a reservation. And one was on the Dread Tomato Habit. The last might have had something to do with Gould's fondness for eating entire bottles of ketchup in diners (he once downed all the bottles in the diner and then told the enraged waitress that Mitchell had eaten them).

Joseph Mitchell only revealed Gould's secret after his death in Pilgrim State Hospital in 1957. it was simply this: that aside from he few chapters that Gould obsessively wrote and rewrote in his barely legible writing, the Oral History simply did not exist - not outside of Gould's grand imaginings. There were no notebooks hidden on a chicken farm or anywhere else.

Ironically, Joseph Mitchell himself suffered from writer's block after completing this second piece on Gould. Gould had recited much of his own history - and the raw materials of the Oral History - to Mitchell in those ten-hour marathons. In essence, Joseph Mitchell was the author of the only real version of Oral History - through writing about the man in whose mind contained its unwritten secrets.

*Interestingly, in Joe Gould's Secret, there is no mention of the fact that he had a younger sister, Hilda Pauline, born in 1895, though JG speaks often of his parents and of Norwood. See Clarke S. Gould household, 1910 US Census, Norwood, Norfolk, MA; #43/51, Series T624, Roll 609, p. 3.

Image of Macdougal St., Greenwich Village, in 1936 from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Mitchell, Joseph. Joe Gould's Secret (New York: Vintage Books, 1996; "Professor Seagull" first pub. 1942, "Joe Gould's Secret" first pub. 1964). A wonderful, gripping read - highly recommended.

Sunlight Soap Commercial, 1898

For Wordless Wednesday, here's a Sunlight Soap commercial from 1898. It is French, although Sunlight was of course made in Great Britain, by Lever Brothers. Although the YouTube notes do not mention this, there is possibly a connection between this clip and the advertising endeavors of François-Henri Lavenchy-Clarke. He was a Swiss businessman who was a Sunlight representative in the 1880s and 1890s, who became interested in the idea of using motion pictures as advertising.

The Magic Bon Bon Box

This Magic Bon Bon Box was patented by J.M. Hartz in 1872. It was a cardboard candy box with two lids, and two compartments. In one, you would put loose candies (bon bons) and in the other, the same number of candies pasted down. Once you had all this set up you could do various magic tricks, looking as if you were making the candies appear and disappear at will. You could, of course, make some of them disappear by eating them, but it would not have the same effect!

Bon bons were often candy-coated almonds, but they could also be any number of candies with either a fondant center, dipped in chocolate (i.e. chocolate creams) or else candied fruit or another sweet filling coated with crystallized sugar or hardened sugar syrup.

The Larousse Gastronomique (1961 edition, p. 152) states that bon bons are simply candies in general and that they come in four classifications:

-dragées (sugar-coated almonds)
-bonbons fondants (fondant = filling made of sugar, water and cream of tartar cooked until soft but pliable)
-boiled sweets (hard candy)
-pastilles (fruit jellies)

The Larousse is very detailed, and also rather pompous and old-fashioned - in a strangely enjoyable way. It goes on to talk about other candies such as caramels, but the above four would be the basics to place in your Magic Bon Bon Box. I'm not quite sure how you would paste down the fruit jellies. Caramels might work better, actually.

The bon bon advertisement is from the same decade as the Magic Box. Patent image and advertisement (from Puck magazine, 1879) are from Google Patents and Google Books.

Lutie A. Lytle: An Extraordinary Woman

I am not a radical in anything, nor do I intend to be. I believe in efficacy of reason to bring about the best results.
-Lutie A. Lytle

Meet the first practising African-American female lawyer in the United States, Miss Lutie A. Lytle - a radical and a revolutionary, whether she intended to be or not.

She was born about 1875, the daughter of John and Mollie (Cheesboro) Lytle. The Lytle family moved to Topeka, Kansas when Lutie was seven years old. She attended Topeka High School and after graduation worked as a clerk and as a compositor (in printing office) for an African-American newspaper. Reading the papers at work gave her the idea of going on to study law.

She was the third African-American woman to graduate from law school in the US, and the first in the state of Kansas. When she graduated from Central Tennessee law School in 1897, she was one of only two students in her class.

Lytle was the first woman law instructor in the world when she joined the faculty of her alma mater, Central Tennessee, for the 1898-9 school year. She married lawyer Alfred C. Cohan on January 2, 1901 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. In 1910 the Cowans, probably the only married practicing lawyers in the US at that time, were living in Brooklyn, New York, though they are reported to have returned to Kansas in later years. They had no children. I was not able to find Lutie A. (Lytle) Cowan in the 1900 census, so have not been able to confirm the statement in the Robinson Library article (link below in Sources) that Lytle was living in New Paltz, New York sometime between 1899 and 1901, and that she was married at that time to an African-American minister.

I will follow this post up, as always, if I am able to find out anything more.

SOURCES

Lutie A. Lytle at Hers Kansas [an excellent, detailed account, though does not cite Willard, which is source of Lytle's 1897 remarks]

Lutie A. Lytle at the Robinson Library [mentions a first marriage to an African-American minister and a move to New Paltz, New York, prior to marrying Cowan, though this seems questionable given the dates - though certainly possible]

John Lytle household, 1880 US Census, Murfreesboro, Rutherford, TN; #674/840, Series T9, Roll 1276, p. 230. [John's MIL Susy Cheesboro is living with the family]

Alfred C. Cowan household, 1910 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 7, Kings, NY; #7/7, Series T624, Roll 957, p. 123. [John R. Lytle, Lutie's father, and her brother and sister Albert and Corine, were also living with them; the address was 16 Downing Street].

Marriage record of Lytle and Cowan here at FamilySearch.

Willard, Frances E. Occupations For Women (Cooper Union, NY: The Success Company, 1897), pp 379-81.

Mrs. Vanderveer's Bathing Pavilion

This is Mrs. Vanderveer's Bathing Pavilion at West Brighton Beach, Coney Island. Her husband, William Vanderveer, ran the Concourse Hotel. Lucy (Devlin) Vanderveer (born in Ireland about 1835) was in charge of this enormous Bathing Pavilion.

The bathing pavilion was associated with the hotel run by William Vanderveer (also known as Vanderveer's Hotel). According to the above ad from 1881, featured 400 bathing rooms. These rooms were sheltered cubicles in which ladies (and gentlemen) could enjoy bathing in the sea without having to reveal themselves in bathing costumes (which were available for rent as well). It sounds as if there were taps for hot/cold and salt/fresh water, too.

Mrs. Vanderveer was sued for $5000 by the widow of William Nugent, who had drowned in August 1884 in front of the Pavilion, after renting a room and bathing suit there. The lack of life boats at the pavilion was cited as negligence and the widow was awarded the money in 1885.

After Mrs. Vanderveer's death in the mid-1880s, her will was challenged and fought over by her children for years. Her husband survived her, so she must have been wealthy in her own right. It is a very sad story, best told perhaps in a future post.

SOURCES

"A Bathing Accident at Coney Island," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 13, 1884, p. 4.

"The Law Guarding Bathers," New York Times, Feb. 28, 1885, p. 3.

Picture from the Brooklyn Public Library.

August 17, 1881 advertisement of the Vanderveer Pavilion from Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

William and Lucy Vanderveer on the 1880 census, link here at FamilySearch.org.

Pabst Okay Special

Well, which is it? Is it really special, or is it just - okay? It was marketed about 1910 in Chicago, probably as a cure-all tonic as one was supposed to take it three times a day for an indefinite period of time.

It does have 22% alcohol, I can see that. Which definitely puts it in the Vitameatavegemin category.


Image from NMAH (National Museum of American History), which is part of the Smithsonian.

A Special thank you to Michelle and James Nevius of Inside the Apple, who pointed me (and now you) to this amazing poster for Pabst Okay Special. The Pabst people got into a spot of trouble with the then-new FDA for this, not surprisingly.

Paris Rumbustifications and Country Mushroom Concerns

This wonderful advertisement is from an 1864 edition of my favorite New York Clipper (really, it is filled with wonderful things - you could devote a blog solely to Clipper gems and have plenty to write about for years).

Can't you just imagine what sort of man Morphy was, and hear him speaking as you read this?

The first part is about all the terrific and saucy books that you can buy from Mr. Morphy: Yankee Notions, London Absurdities and Paris Rumbustifications*!

"Avoid country mushroom concerns and one horse city establishments. Send to us only, and save yourself from being Barnumized...Beware of ROGUES copying this advertisement for fraudulent purposes."

Morphy was not a fan of Phineas Barnum's.

You can also find many naughty photographs and "Fancy Goods" such as:

The Fancy Budget; or, Flash Cove's Bang Up Companion. It's full of songs, jokes, and toasts! Off color, every one of them, guaranteed.

The Love Album; or the Casket of Love. Twelve dirty pictures, each one a "Hunkey Dorie**." And you can carry this book around in your pocket!

But wait, there's more. Mr. Morphy wants us all to avoid being swindled by "the Hungry Howlers and Systematic Swindlers on the Rampage. Don't be trapped by their Puffery, Bogus Promises and Lying Assertions. They are Professional Peter Funks***." All this in outraged capitals, see left (Morphy was a soulmate of John Palmer, it would seem).

I would like to try and find out about the Swindling Book and Fancy Job Ring that enrages Mr. Morphy so much - as well as more about him. He sounds like he was a real character, doesn't he?

I'll let you know what I can find out.

* Rumbustious was a corruption of the 17th century slang word robustious, which meant loud and obnoxious, approximately. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage states that "in the 19th [century] it ["rumbustious"] had a revival, especially by archaizing writers." [ p. 530]

** Hunky-Dory: The slang word "hunk" was first used in print about 1847, meaning "in good condition." Wentworth and Flexner note the first occurrence of the phrase "hunky-dory" in 1947, meaning a sexually attractive woman - but obviously it was first used much earlier. [Wentworth and Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang, p. 277]

*** A Peter Funk was the accomplice of an auctioneer, who stood in the audience bidding fraudulently in order to drive the price up [Wentworth and Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang, p. 384].

Snake-Charming Women, Part 3: An Erratic Disposition

Rosa Lansing was one of many young women working at Coney Island in the mid-1880s. She liked to be called simply "the Snake Charmer," as though she was the only one - or the only one that truly mattered. Rosa Lansing was not her real name: "she does not deny that this is an alias." The Eagle describes her as attractive and mysterious:

Visitors to Coney Island...will recollect a fine looking young woman, who professed to be a snake charmer. She flitted from one museum to the other...handling the huge boa constrictors as though she did in truth exercise some fascination ove them. Her dresses were always of the spangled variety and full of color, which combined with a pretty face, a fine figure and a certain grace of bearing, gave the girl a special charm of her own. Her intimates knew nothing of her except that she was well read, well spoken, and gave evidence of having received a first class education.

Her lawyer, Mr. Charles Kurth, who knew her true identity, added to this that "she is a girl of erratic disposition, whose habits offended her relatives, who occupy a high social position and are wealthy." Of course, this might also have been a lie, as one does not need to have been wealthy and socially prominent to be well educated. But Mr. Kurth - and Rosa - said nothing more.

Now, most snake charmers did not retain legal counsel (which implies that Rosa Lansing had some independent income of some sort, perhaps from her family). She hired Mr. Kurth in the spring of 1886, as a result of the charms that she exercised upon gentlemen less easily managed than the huge boa constrictors.

In the winter of 1885 Rosa Lansing met a horse trainer named John A. Cook. They quarreled soon after, and she broke off with him. Sometime in the spring of 1886, she "took up with" one of Cook's employees, a jockey named Robert Leiser. This caused Cook and Leiser to become "very unfriendly." Cook also became unfriendly to Rosa, and hit her. She took him to court and he was fined $5. In revenge for this, Cook them began to spread nasty rumors about Rosa, so she took him back to court, with Mr. Kurth in her wake. Cook had no lawyer, though, and the case was adjourned by Judge Waring.

In June 1886, another case came before Judge Waring, concerning "a snake charmer" and two different men who had got into a violent fight. On June 27, John Ross of 352 Madison St. in New York went to Coney Island for the day with a few of his friends. He was "a well known restauranteur of Fulton Market," noted the Eagle.

He went "walking on the beach with a young woman, who is know only as 'the snake charmer.'" The Eagle noted that they had met at a "dancing pavilion" and that she went by the name of "Rosie" although she was better known as "the snake charmer." Rosie and company visited "several small beer gardens at the West End" and then found themselves in from of "Quandt's place" on the Sea Beach walk.

At this point they encountered another young man from Manhattan, Thomas F. Greene, who "brushed up against them." The men with Rosie "remonstrated" with him and Greene said he could lick any of them who wanted to take him on. Ross said he would; soon after, Ross fell to the ground, bleeding from two deep stab wounds in the neck. A Dr. Chambers was sent for in a hurry, and he said Ross would probably die. Ross was taken to the hospital, and Greene (who made no attempt to flee) was arrested. Two knives were found near the spot, where Greene had probably dropped them.

This was reported in the June 28, 1886 morning edition of the Eagle. Rosa Lansing wasted no time in writing a rebuttal to the paper, and the following day the following letter was printed. Rosa's voice is more articulate and educated than that of Emily/Nala, the saucy snake charmer from Connecticut. And unlike Emily, she is worried about her reputation:

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle:

In this evening's edition of the BROOKLYN EAGLE, I notice an account of a stabbing affray which took place yesterday on Sea Beach walk and in which you mention my name. Now as I can produce any number of respectable witnesses (in particular one who is connected to Coney Island) to testify as to my whereabouts at the time of that occurrence, I shall expect you to contradict in your next issue that I was at all implicated in the matter. I do not know the parties or have I ever seen them. Hoping you will give this your earliest attention I remain yours respectfully,

ROSA LANSING, better known as the Snake Charmer, CONEY ISLAND, June 28, 1886.

The Eagle printed the letter with no comment - much less a contradiction - aside from a subtitle stating that Rosa Lansing says she was not there. Two violent fights in two months must have terrified her; perhaps she also worried that her family would recognize her, somehow. I wish that there was some way to find out the rest of her story, a history hidden from history.

That sort of history was exactly what captivated a man who was born just about the time that Rosa was charming snakes and men in Coney Island. His name was Joseph Ferdinand Gould. He was, like Rosa, the son of wealthy parents. And like her, he chose to break off from them, and lose himself in a crowded, honky-tonk corner of New York City.

Coming up soon in the Virtual Dime Museum: the story of Joe Gould.

Image from NYPL Digital Gallery, depicting a trio on the beach at Coney Island in the 1870s.

SOURCES

"Cook's Jockey," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1886, p. 4.
"Stabbed in the Neck," New York Times, Jun. 29, 1886, p. 2.
"Stabbed At Coney Island," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun. 28, 1886, p. 4.
"Tha Snake Charmer Not There," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun 29, 1886, p. 4.

The Whole Dam Family

A little risqué punning fun from the Lumière brothers, circa 1905. But where are Cousin Amster and Uncle Boulder?




Tomorrow, Rosa Lansing's strange interlude; and Friday, the amazing story of Joe Gould (and his secret).

Snake Charming Women, Part 2: Emily Pompon and the Two Nalas

Nala Damajanta*, the Original Hindoo Snake-Charmer, was born Emily Pompon - perhaps. That is what the Brooklyn Eagle reported, in a useful article detailing the real and stage names of a slew of performers. The surname Pompon, however, sounds dubious. She came from Connecticut (as you will see later on) and I have not yet found anyone of that name from there. Nor have I been able to find much (for this post) about the Palmers (if I do, they will have their own space, as they sound like an interesting lot).

In the fall of 1884, Emily had a little spot of trouble with Mr. John Palmer, her manager, and decided to strike out on her own. She advertised in October 1884 that she has "severed [her] connection with John Palmer" and would fulfill all contracts made by him for her. Others wishing to engage her could contact her directly through Forepaugh's Dime Museum in Philadelphia.

John Palmer did not like this one bit. he bought a large ad of his own in the next issue of the Clipper:

In last week's Clipper, Nala Damajanta (so called) whom I had engaged for the last three years, has the audacity to advertise that she had severed her connection with me and was ready to fulfill the engagements I had made for MYSELF AND ACT.

MANAGERS ARE HEREBY WARNED that the Title of NALA DAMAJANTA, Original Hindoo Snake-Charmer, is my own invention and trade mark, and I have the title registered in different ways of spelling the above NAME, and any infringement will be prosecuted to the full extent of the Law.

I, JOHN PALMER, son of the great JAMES PALMER, whose Gymnastic Performances and Ceiling Walking caused such enormous success in London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Russia and other large cities in Europe from 1856 to 1880, hereby declare [that last week's ad]...is a deliberate falsehood.

He adds (capitals raging) that he has got another Artist to use the Nala Damajanta name and act. That Artist would be fulfilling the contracts made- not Emily. She would be arriving from Europe very soon and would surpass "the former lady" both "in costumes and doing the act."*

Emily didn't care. She was sassy, outrageously outspoken and afraid of nothing - neither of John Palmer's raging capitals, nor of any snakes, either. She went right ahead with her plans to tour as Nala Damajanta in Forepaugh's traveling circus.

A timid-sounding reporter in Burlington, Vermont met her while she was touring in the Forepaugh circus in 1884. He asked her: "Are you not afraid that the great anacondas may some time crush you in their powerful folds?" He got an answer full of double-entendres:

"Afraid of being squeezed to death?" said Nala Damajanta, scornfully. "La, no! I lived in Connecticut all my life, and our pastor - his wife wasn't congenial, you know, and he was one of these old bald-headed boys who are always yearning for an affinity and all that sort of thing - oh my! he could just give a python points on squeezing!"

And she wrapped a twenty-three-foot python about her waist, and the enormous snake caught on and shut up until its eyes stood out like sleeve-buttons, and its tail was set as rigid as a poker with the immense strain, Nala Damajanta half closed her eyes, leaned back her head and said dreamily: "Tighter, you dude; brace up and take hold of me, can't you?"

* Pompon is a French name, and it is possible that the Eagle was referring to the European, second Nala. The name fits the personality of the first Nala so well, however, that I am assuming that it belongs to the first Nala (also, a French lady would be likely spell her name Emilie).

** The name "Nala Damajanta" was probably derived from a story about a prince named Nala and a princess Damayanthi - see here and here. A movie called Nala Damayanthi was made several years ago, loosely based on the original folk tale, see here.

SOURCES

[Untitled ancedote], Puck, July-Sept. 1884, p. 284.

"Not What They Seem," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 11, 1887, p. 10.

Advertisements from the New York Clipper, October 4 and 11, 1887.

Amy Arlington: "America's Representative Snake Performer"

Snake charming was popular in sideshows and circuses in the 19th century. It has its origins in Ancient Egypt and in India, though it was practiced in various parts of Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Itinerant healers and magicians, often those specializing in the treatment of snakebite, apparently hypnotized snakes by playing music and then handled them with no ill effects. They carried the snake or snakes in a pot or basket. The snake (serpent) was considered to be sacred by the Hindus as well as by the Ancient Egyptians, hence the dual role of the snake charmer as both healer and entertainer.

In the Victorian circus and dime museum the snake charmer was something rather different: a woman who could handle snakes and perform with them without fear. She was usually dressed in a spangled, pseudo-Eastern costume, and often took on an exotic stage name. Here are four women of the 1860-1900 period who charmed snakes:

Amy Arlington was known as "America's Representative Snake Performer." She worked, most famously, for Barnum and Bailey in the the 1890s, though the above photograph was taken in the 1860s, according to Picture History (I suspect that it was taken in the 1880s-90s). She was a versatile performer, doing "character changes" in 1882; in the same year she was also billed as a "charming operatic vocalist, Serio Comic," at Brooklyn's New American Standard Museum. In 1883, George and Amy Arlington were billed together at the Standard as "Teutonic comedians." George and Amy were most likely siblings or husband and wife.

George is probably the showman George Arlington, father of Edward Arlington (1878-1947). In 1916, George and Edward were co-owners (with Joe Miller) of the 101 Ranch Shows, which were associated with Buffalo Bill. Edward, like Amy, worked for Barnum and Bailey at one time. In the 1910 census he is shown as living in Brooklyn, age 33, the proprietor of a "Wild West Show." His father was born in Germany, and his mother in Tennessee; I have not yet found any of the three Arlingtons in an earlier census, though.

Picture of Amy Arlington from Picture History.
Many more wonderful Amy pictures here at quasimodo.net

Tomorrow in Snake Charming Women, Part 2: Rosa Lansing, Coney Island runaway, and the true identity of Nala Damajanta.

SOURCES

Bogdan, Robert. Freak Show (U of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 258.

Buffalo Bill and Sarah J. Blackstone. The Business of Being Buffalo Bill: Selected Letters of William F. Cody, 1879-1917 (Greenwood, 1988), p. 77.

Kline, Tiny and Janet M. Davis. Circus Queen and Tinker Bell (U of Illinois Press), p. 326.

Reddin, Paul. Wild West Shows (U of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 162.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle ads for the New American Standard Museum on Dec. 13, 1882, p. 3, Dec. 16, 1882 (p. 1), Dec. 18, 1882 (p. 1) and Apr. 1, 1883 (p.5).

Edward Arlington household, 1910 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 30, Kings, NY; #84/93, Series T624, Roll 985, p. 27.

Two Tricks and A Mystery

1. The delightful Elma Trick Water Bottle. Dismay and annoy all your soon-to-be-former friends!



2. McGinty Trick Watch Charm - This is for the friends who come back for more. You can see someone called McGinty pop up out of your watch charm. What an amazing money-maker this must have been, it takes the whole bakery (there's your Victorian slang phrase for the day, too: a bonus!).



3. And finally, for the mystery-lovers out there: become a detective! And here's an idea for your first big case: Find the missing 'D'.

Be shrewd, it might be in any County.

From the New York Clipper, March 1890.

The snake charmer post is so interesting that I need a little more time to chase a few things down. Also, I may split it into a few posts, as two of the ladies have good backstories. In any case, the first serpentine episode will be along tomorrow. And later in the week, Joe Gould's Wraith's Progress, which is currently in progress.

Scrubb A Dub Dub...

...Don't put this in the tub.

Why is the person in the ad (a) hiding behind the sign and (b) either wearing black gloves or - well, I don't really want to speculate on the alternative. In any case, ammonia does not sound like a good addition to the bath.

But if you don't want to scrub yourself with Scrubb's, you can clean your clothes, your carpets, and your jewellery with it. It is Marvellous, Refreshing, Invaluable, Splendid and Invigorating. Mr. Scrubb thinks that you ought to just carry a bottle around with you; it will probably come in handy, in some marvellous, invigorating way.

Advertisement from the British newspaper, the Daily Graphic, May 1909.

Coming Attractions:

Tomorrow: Amy the Snake Charmer
Monday: A Wraith's Progress

The Ghostly Wild Man of Far Rockaway

It was very definitely off-season at Far Rockaway, Queens, in November of 1885. So Frank Foster, a Brooklyn man who happened to be walking on the beach one day, was startled to see a six-foot-tall bearded apparition come staggering out of the winter surf. He had long hair and was dressed in nothing but a "piece of salt sack." Foster thought that he had "a face like the satyr in the famous Hoffman House picture." This painting, "Nymphs and Satyr," was painted in 1873 by William-Adolphe Bougereau and hung in the Hoffman House hotel in New York.

Several other people saw the "wild man" on the beach, too. Captain Reinhart of Life Saving Station No. 6 said that he tried to confront the man but he vanished into the sea. Several men went onto the beach at night and saw the wild man dancing on the sand, but he disappeared into "a great breaker" and was gone. John B. Ennis had a similar encounter with the wild man, who was "dancing like one deranged" but screeched and ran into the sea when he caught sight of Ennis.

The wild man frightened Mrs. Falling's guests when he peered into a window at her hotel. Her son went out with a gun to look for him. But he again vanished into the water "close to the iron pier." Women and children were afraid to go out alone. Men patrolled the beach armed and ready to attack the wild man, to prove whether or not he was a ghost. They reported that he was covered "with auburn hair as long as a horse's mane."Some people thought he was the ghost of a drowned sailor. Some thought he was an escapee from an insane asylum. But no one knew for sure.

On December 3rd the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which had been covering all of the excitement, published a curious article. It stated that the wild man had packed up and gone away to Hoboken, New Jersey. He was, they said, an "expert swimmer" who had been employed the previous summer to advertise one of the hotels. He was hired "to create a sensation to attract trade to the beach, but the scheme did not take. He dressed in a buffalo skin, which is on exhibition at the Gem of the Sea.*" Nothing was explained about why the man would be swimming about in a piece of sacking, acting extremely strangely, in the middle of November.

Then on Christmas Eve, a "badly decomposed' body washed up at Rockaway Beach, near one of the Life Saving Stations. No one knew who it was. Maybe it was the wild man, some thought. But the following summer, in August 1886, a "Coney Island tramp" named Andrew Morrison** was arrested for behaving erratically, and making noise, in the Berliner Concert Hall.***The Eagle noted that he was also known as the "Wild Man from Rockaway." And once again, the Eagle provided no additional information. So it remains a mystery: who was the wild man of Rockaway?

* I found a couple of references to a boat called Gem of the Sea in the BDE in the 1850s, but nothing else. It was probably an establishment on the Rockaway boardwalk.

**There was one Andrew Morrison in Queens in the 1880 census (only 2 others in NYC, one a man in his 80s, the other a child). He worked in a rubber factory and was age 49, married with children [Andrew Morrison household, 1880 US Census, College Point, Flushing, Queens, NY; p. 296, #85/100, Series T9, Roll 917, ED 267].

***Again, I could not find any information about this concert hall. I would think that it was either in Brooklyn or Kleindeutschland in Manhattan (Lower East Side).

SOURCES

Images: "Nymph and Satyr" from Wikipedia (link is above); Rockaway Beach photograph from NYPL Digital Gallery.

From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

"A Wild Man Who Disappears Into the Sea at Rockaway," Nov. 30, 1885, p. 6.
"The Wild Man at Rockaway," Dec. 1, 1885, p. 4.
"The Wild Man is Still Visible," Dec. 2, 1885, p. 4.
"The Departure of the Wild Man," Dec. 3, 1885, p. 4.
"A Body At Rockaway Beach," Dec. 24, 1885, p. 8.
"He Indulged In A War Whoop," Aug. 17, 1886, p. 4.
"Old and New Rockaway," Oct. 3, 1886, p. 4.

A Methodist Ghost

In the mid-1880s, Lawrence was "an aristocratic quarter of recent creation" near Far Rockaway, Queens (now in Nassau County). It is presently part of the Town of Hempstead. Lawrence is often called the "First Hamptons" - it boasted a seafront hotel and many mansions, some of which dated back to the 18th century. The "recent creation" refers more to its reputation as a newly-discovered haunt of wealthy New Yorkers Naturally the Eagle, back in Brooklyn, was delighted to make fun of the elite Lawrence residents.

In December 1885, there was an alleged ghost at Lawrence's Methodist Episcopal Church. The Lawrence residents went out to watch its antics nearly every night. As its fame spread, they were joined by people from neighboring communities. The ghost tended to fade away and disappear into the church cemetery, but it spent most of its time in the steeple and on the church roof.

Several people said that it was the ghost of a deceased church sexton, but it had acrobatic qualities, too. Not only did it sometimes ring the bell, but it "flit[ted] about the belfry in the most nimble fashion" and "play[ed] hide and seek in the lattice work of the bell room." Then it would get on the slanted part of the roof and dance. On one Saturday night, it rang the bell, skipped around the belfry (while changing in size) then flattened itself on the roof, before ending up by running up and down the steeple, finally perching on top. It then vanished "in the direction of the graveyard."

People who had traveled to see the ghost often "declare[d] that the specter has followed them home and hung around their residences for hours, like one trying to revive a broken friendship."

One elderly Irish gentleman offered to do a little detective work, since everyone else was too scared to approach the church. He requested a candle blessed by a Catholic priest before commencing. One was obtained at Far Rockaway but some unknown authority (the police or possibly the Methodist minister) said that he couldn't go inside with the "heretical taper." Eventually, the ghostly sexton seems to have gone away - perhaps it followed one of the spectators home to Far Rockaway, to try and make friends there.

If so, it had some competition already there. Another ghost had been spotted at Far Rockaway, in November 1885. It was a far different sort of ghost than the dancing sexton, though.

Tomorrow, the story of the beachcombing ghost of Far Rockaway...

******
Image of Lawrence Methodist Church from Lawrence Cemetery Restoration Project

SOURCES

"Many Ghosts," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 31, 1886, p. 15.
"A Lively Ghost," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 7, 1885, p. 6.

Lawrence Methodist Church at the Society for the Preservation of LI Antiquities
Lawrence Methodist Church at Lawrence Cemetery Restoration Project

Drive Around New York City In 1928

But don't get in the taxicab if Harold Lloyd is driving...This clip is an instant time machine, a trip through the city as it was 80 years ago. The stress (here caused by watching Harold et al careen down the street), and the volume of traffic will be familiar to the modern viewer. I was surprised at just how many cars and other vehicles were on the road in 1928, though.



*****

I also want to thank UserFriendly (and Giulia D.) for choosing VDM's sister site, Kitchen Retro, as the Link of the Day. UserFriendly is cool and funny, and I recommend a visit!

Pouffe Bonnets, Bismarck's Cat, and Some Delighted Montrealers

Here are some assorted news items from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for October 10, 1868 ["Miscellaneous News Items," p.1] - from the trivial to the slightly less trivial.

If any of these Victorian-breaking-news items prove worthy of special treatment (i.e., if I can find out anything more about them, and the anything-more is interesting) I'll post updates. In the meantime, you ought to know that:

There is an Astor House at Shanghai, China.

St. Cloud, Minnesota has an organ manufactory.

Kennedy, the vocalist, is delighting the Montrealers.

Richard the Third has been burlesqued in London.

There are 210 miles of paved streets in New York City.

The latest item about that item-famous man Bismarck, is that he is very fond of cats.

The planet Venus was visible during the earlier part of the day, at Wilmington, N.C., on the 25th.

Pouffe bonnets in the style of Henry the Fourth are much in vogue in Paris, and something entirely new.

The bronze doors for the Capitol at Washington, after four years hard labor, are at length finished.

The Madison avenue people have bought off the sacrilegious Frenchman who purposed establishing a restaurant on that aristocratic street.

I couldn't find a picture of pouffe bonnets - or Bismarck with a cat - but the German operetta singer Charlotte Kelly posed with a cat in 1875, and they are today's image, thanks to Picture History.

******
Coming up (some sooner, some later) at The Virtual Dime Museum:

A Wraith's Progress: The Story of Joe Gould and His Secret

Tomorrow, something theatrical or cinematic, possibly silent (apropos of Wordless Wednesday)

Madame Tournaire's Beautiful Performance

The Man Who Kidnapped Himself (my great grandfather's first cousin, in fact...)

Electric Cigarettes

The Methodist Ghost

Sensation of the Season

There were women in baseball long before A League of Their Own. The young ladies in this 1884 New York Clipper ad first played baseball in Philadelphia in 1883, according to Baseball History From Outside the Lines by John E. Dreifort. The 500 people in the audience laughed as they tried to figure out what to do. They played for about 2 years, sometimes against men's teams (they were supposed to play other women). It seems that they were somewhere between serious athletes and a sort of traveling vaudeville act.

In 1893 the New York Times reported that some young society ladies had played baseball against the young men in Lenox, Massachusetts - and they played so well that "the boys got the worst of it." The young men and women were "so evenly matched," in fact, that everyone enjoyed it thoroughly; so much so, that they were going to play again. One of the "brightest young ladies" hit a home run, when the male pitcher was not looking, "much to the amusement of the spectators."

The wonderful photo is from San Francisco State University College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. It is of another team, known as Franklin's Young Ladies' Baseball Club, and was taken about 1890.

SOURCES

Dreifort, John E. Baseball History From Outside the Lines (U of Nebraska Press, 2001), pp. 203-4.

"Girls Who Play Baseball," New York Times, Sept. 3, 1893, p. 12.

Spanish Nervine

One of a whole columnful of doom and gloom ads in a January 1893 edition of the Toronto Telegram. It was surprising to see so many ads about "lost manhood" and weakness and nerves in an ordinary newspaper. Well, never fear, gentlemen - Spanish Nervine is here to help.

Here is what it's good for: "Fits and Neuralgia, Hysteria, Dizziness, Convulsions, Nervous Prostration, spread by the use of tobacco and alcohol. Wakefulness, Mental Depression, Involuntary ??, Hyper ??? caused by over-exertion of the brain, self-abuse and over-indulgence." [The microfilm as well as the scanned copy were both very hard to read, as you can see.]

The After man does not look much happier than the Before man, though he does look a little healthier.

Spanish Nervine is supposed to be from the "Spanish Medicine Company" of Madrid, Spain - though it does not seem likely that a Madrid medical firm would go by that name, does it? There were other "nerve tonics" that went by the name "Nervine" such as Bunter's Nervine, which was primarily a toothache remedy.

******
Thank you so much to Bad Gals Radio for the Smokin' blog award!