One Hundred Years Ago

[Rix Gins]

A couple more pre-showing of The Gingerbread Man clippings from the 1910 Bonanza that I wasn't able to download earlier.

[K_Dubb]

A couple more pre-showing of The Gingerbread Man clippings from the 1910 Bonanza that I wasn't able to download earlier.

Great to see the publicity efforts, too!  I wonder where the "not Japs" comment comes from?  Maybe they had little conical hats like the picture?  And classing it as an opera must be what gave it its highbrow status.

As much as I'd love to think of brightly painted caravans crossing the desert, I suspect our people had autos:

[K_Dubb]

A look at Seattle's music scene in an article dated today (it looks like 1910 but is in a 1916 issue, so maybe a typo?):



Here is a 1916 recording of Fritz Kreisler (famous for modestly passing off his own compositions as those of obscure 18th-century composers to audiences largely unfamiliar with the style) from 1916, though here he is playing Dvorak:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cmW_UKMTrE

And an article on the OSK line's Seiko Maru, which left Tacoma for Japan a hundred years ago today, never to be seen again:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article67383377.html

[K_Dubb]

From the Seattle Star today:







An opening to a Morton mercury mine from a 2001 article:







The Monroe St. bridge in 1916:







I  know where I'd be in 1916 -- waiting for the record store to open!  Keeping with the Irish theme, here's a 1916 recording of the daughter of Mother Machree:

http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/4241/

[Rix Gins]

Great stuff K, thanks.  Definitely was a date typo on your first article, as the timeline for 1916 fits with Madame Gadski and the Gabrilowitsch's touring schedule and by this I mean that they were in the states during 1916.  And what a high class performance that would have been to witness.  I was going to write up a mythical meeting of the Gabrilowitsch's and Happy Bowler and how they wound up on Vaudeville as Gabrilowitsch, Bowler and Gabrilowitsch...but then I looked the Gabrilowitsch's up and they would have been way too high class for such a scenario.  (Sorry, Happy.)  Here are some Wikipedia profiles of the performers...

               
Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara.  (Mark Twain's daughter.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossip_Gabrilowitsch

               
Clara Clemens (the future Mrs. Gabrilowitsch) with a friend and her famous dad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Clemens

               
   Johanna Gadski (An interesting story in her own right.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanna_Gadski

[K_Dubb]

Great stuff K, thanks.  Definitely was a date typo on your first article, as the timeline for 1916 fits with Madame Gadski and the Gabrilowitsch's touring schedule and by this I mean that they were in the states during 1916.  And what a high class performance that would have been to witness.  I was going to write up a mythical meeting of the Gabrilowitsch's and Happy Bowler and how they wound up on Vaudeville as Gabrilowitsch, Bowler and Gabrilowitsch...but then I looked the Gabrilowitsch's up and they would have been way too high class for such a scenario.  (Sorry, Happy.)  Here are some Wikipedia profiles of the performers...

Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara.  (Mark Twain's daughter.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossip_Gabrilowitsch

Clara Clemens (the future Mrs. Gabrilowitsch) with a friend and her famous dad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Clemens

   Johanna Gadski (An interesting story in her own right.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanna_Gadski

Mark Twain's daughter!  Wow, I had no idea.  Because I can't get enough music, here is Gabrilowitsch playing his own composition, thanks to a piano roll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR9rr5RmInU

And Mme Gadski singing the most iconic German soprano role  -- listen to those swoopy portamentos!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzbXuwln9vA

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

From the Seattle Star today:



I never heard of "Booze Tablets." I wonder how they worked and if you can still get them today, because those would be handy little items to keep in your pocket!

[K_Dubb]

I never heard of "Booze Tablets." I wonder how they worked and if you can still get them today, because those would be handy little items to keep in your pocket!

Neither have I.  I googled, and powdered alcohol wasn't invented until the '60s.  I wonder if it was some other intoxicating substance.

[albrecht]

From the Seattle Star today:



I never heard of "Booze Tablets." I wonder how they worked and if you can still get them today, because those would be handy little items to keep in your pocket!

That is weird. I know they have powdered alcohol now (and as K_Dubb mentioned was invented earlier in the 60's in Japan) but someone was going to market it recently and there were articles and hand-wringing about it (I think it was quashed or "not approved" maybe?) I wonder what was really in the pills? Some barbiturate maybe that could approximate alcohol's effects?

[gabrielle]

In 1916, the Canadian Province of Ontario introduced the Temperance Act.  Other Provinces soon followed.  I wonder if the same prohibitionist movement was active in the United States, adding to the popularity of an "alcohol pill"?

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/temperance-movement/

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

That is weird. I know they have powdered alcohol now (and as K_Dubb mentioned was invented earlier in the 60's in Japan) but someone was going to market it recently and there were articles and hand-wringing about it (I think it was quashed or "not approved" maybe?) I wonder what was really in the pills? Some barbiturate maybe that could approximate alcohol's effects?

They might even have been placebos and people just thought they were catching a booze buzz!

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

In 1916, the Canadian Province of Ontario introduced the Temperance Act.  Other Provinces soon followed.  I wonder if the same prohibitionist movement was active in the United States, adding to the popularity of an "alcohol pill"?

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/temperance-movement/

There was always an active Temperance Movement in the U.S., and before national Probition began in 1920, there were Dry states and counties.  I'm amazed that the 18th Amendment received enough support to pass, because it's not easy to amend our Constitution.  I'm also surprised that Canadian prohibition didn't create the organized crime networks ours did, but you folks tend to be way more sensible and laid back than we are in many ways.  I've enjoyed all my visits!

[gabrielle]

This booze tablet issue has me stymied for the moment.  I hate when that happens!!  LOL

I know there were rum runners landing on Canadian shores in 1916.  I don't know from whence they came.  I will commence the investigation tomorrow.  This thread is amazing.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

From the Seattle Star today:






I  know where I'd be in 1916 -- waiting for the record store to open!

Nothing like belittling your enemy and portraying the as greatly inferior. 

I'd never heard of a grafonola.  I'll have to check it out!

I remember waiting for the record store to open in 1976--lol!  The darn hippie proprietors didn't open until 11!

[K_Dubb]

In 1916, the Canadian Province of Ontario introduced the Temperance Act.  Other Provinces soon followed.  I wonder if the same prohibitionist movement was active in the United States, adding to the popularity of an "alcohol pill"?

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/temperance-movement/

Prohibition began in Washington State in 1916.  According to everything I've read, smuggling from Canada via fast speedboats quickly became a major enterprise.  This is Roy Olmstead, Seattle's most notorious bootlegger (and former police lieutenant) leaving his boat sometime in the early '20s:



Another look at a captured smuggler's boat from the deck of what must be a Coast Guard ship:

[albrecht]

There was always an active Temperance Movement in the U.S., and before national Probition began in 1920, there were Dry states and counties.  I'm amazed that the 18th Amendment received enough support to pass, because it's not easy to amend our Constitution.  I'm also surprised that Canadian prohibition didn't create the organized crime networks ours did, but you folks tend to be way more sensible and laid back than we are in many ways.  I've enjoyed all my visits!

Also interesting that one of the few remaining areas in which State and Local power has been still found to exist and ok in most Court rulings on the issue etc (though this might be changing.) Here we still have 'local option' and some areas are dry or combination thereof (some you must join a 'private club,' others beer/wine ok but not booze, others BYOB, some only with sale of food- in addition to usual 'blue laws' depending on area about sale times, no Sundays for booze (except at a bar, etc.) Also the distribution of alcohol is still very archaic (and some would say corrupt) in many States with specific rules on (and usually distinction between) distributors, retailers, brewers, distillers, bottlers, territory, etc.

[WhiteCrow]

1916 Advertisement.  Didn't need any expensive health insurance back then. Cured both Lumbago and Female Problems.. Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 took away all the fun. No more legal dope..

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

1916 Advertisement.  Didn't need any expensive health insurance back then. Cured both Lumbago and Female Problems.. Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 took away all the fun. No more legal dope..

Great find! I didn't know there actually were patent medicines sold as "snake oil."  According to this, very few of the elixirs contained snake oil, including Miller's which gets a mention in the fourth numbered example. "Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound," which I believe was featured in the early days of this thread, gets an uncomplimentary mention in Number 6.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/snake_oil_a_guide_for_connoisseurs

[albrecht]

Great find! I didn't know there actually were patent medicines sold as "snake oil."  According to this, very few of the elixirs contained snake oil, including Miller's which gets a mention in the fourth numbered example. "Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound," which I believe was featured in the early days of this thread, gets an uncomplimentary mention in Number 6.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/snake_oil_a_guide_for_connoisseurs

Ha, Lydia's is still for sale as I mentioned in an earlier thread and if you go to the internet or, depending on where you live, lower-end or ethnic sections of pharmacies/grocer you can still find some interesting ointments, tinctures, lineaments, etc. Though often not cheaper than the 'mainstream' solutions and nothing (unless going online or to very shady areas) narcotic or that dangerous. But foreign, often Mexican or Oriental, or older US-based stuff. For some reason in same section in my store. I almost bought "Dr. J. H. McLean's Volcanic Oil Liniment" for a stiff neck but went with Absorbine Jr because cheaper.
ps: the descriptions reminds me of rattlesnake roundups of which, as suburbs grow and people move, are now criticized.

[gabrielle]

but what about the booze pills?  LOL.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Ha, Lydia's is still for sale as I mentioned in an earlier thread and if you go to the internet or, depending on where you live, lower-end or ethnic sections of pharmacies/grocer you can still find some interesting ointments, tinctures, lineaments, etc. Though often not cheaper than the 'mainstream' solutions and nothing (unless going online or to very shady areas) narcotic or that dangerous. But foreign, often Mexican or Oriental, or older US-based stuff. For some reason in same section in my store. I almost bought "Dr. J. H. McLean's Volcanic Oil Liniment" for a stiff neck but went with Absorbine Jr because cheaper.
ps: the descriptions reminds me of rattlesnake roundups of which, as suburbs grow and people move, are now criticized.

The pharmacy departments in the high end Hong Kong department stores I checked out while there for several days in in the mid-nineties, had little packages of traditional natural Chinese remedies right next to the over-priced products of the giant drug companies. It was funny, because there were plenty of shops that specialized in natural medicine.  Maybe the carriage trade didn't like going to those places, because they weren't the least bit elegant. I thought they were pretty cool, and it was fun to browse the exotic and mysterious wares even though I had no clue what most it was. 

[albrecht]

The pharmacy departments in the high end Hong Kong department stores I checked out while there for several days in in the mid-nineties, had little packages of traditional natural Chinese remedies right next to the over-priced products of the giant drug companies. It was funny, because there were plenty of shops that specialized in natural medicine.  Maybe the carriage trade didn't like going to those places, because they weren't the least bit elegant. I thought they were pretty cool, and it was fun to browse the exotic and mysterious wares even though I had no clue what most it was.

I haven't messed with Oriental medicine but see the various balms etc which, I think, would be relatively innocuous if they didn't work. Not sure on stuff of any variety that one would also ingest- from any suspect source. But do like that the older 'stuff,' even for normal things like aspirin or vitamins are more gimmickry- like effervescent in water, powdered, etc. I don't take much but when I have a headache or something I want some 'fun' with my cure- make in bubble in water or put into a powder. Pills are so boring.

[Rix Gins]

Everett True, March 23, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

The Chicago Day Book, March 23, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

A couple items from the March 23, 1916 Daily Bonanza.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

A couple items from the March 23, 1916 Daily Bonanza.

Sure, they don't want those gypsies in town, but I wouldn't be surprised if "every night all the men would come around. And lay their money down."   

[K_Dubb]

A couple items from the March 23, 1916 Daily Bonanza.

Ha, I love it!  A new settlement, and the first thing they build is a saloon.



Also, "flannel mouth" is going immediately into the arsenal!

[Rix Gins]

More (and probably final) info on the infamous championship basketball game from the Bonanza. 

[K_Dubb]

A picture of Seattle's Fremont Bridge, a bascule bridge, under construction, taken a hundred years ago today:





Also, I made gingerbread yesterday after all that discussion hahaha.

[K_Dubb]

From the Seattle Star today: