Greyfriars Bobby, 1865
Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner, John Gray (Auld Jock), until he died himself on 14 January 1872. A year later, Lady Burdett-Coutts had a statue and fountain erected at the southern end of the George IV Bridge to commemorate him.
A photograph of the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Yorkshire in July 1912.
During the visit they stayed at Wentworth Woodhouse as the guests of William, the 7th Earl Fitzwilliam. The intention was for the royal couple to visit what was then the industrial heartland of the British Empire, including the steelworks of nearby Sheffield and the South Yorkshire coalfield which surrounded Wentworth.. The visit was overshadowed by a dreadful mining disaster which occurred on the second day of the Royal visit at the nearby Cadeby Colliery in which 88 miners were killed.
(Source: newsfromnowhere1948.blogspot.co.uk)
These grainy photographs, taken in the late 19th century by photographer John C.H. Grabill (who also famously photographed the aftermath of the Wounded Knee massacre)in and around the notorious gold mining town of Deadwood, South Dakota, provide a unique, sepia-toned glimpse of the Wild West.
Deadwood was founded shortly after the discovery of gold in the neighbouring Black Hills in 1876.
As miners flocked to the town, its population quickly grew to 5,000, and the wagon trains brought in not only supplies but gamblers, prostitutes and gunfighters.
The top picture see’s mining engineers with their wives and a couple of tame deer getting together for some impromptu music.
Whilst the bottom picture shows a band of Big Foots (Miniconjou) at a Grass Dance on the Cheyenne River. Long before the arrival of the white man, the land was home to the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow and Sioux (or Lakota) Indians.
(Source: Daily Mail)
Pablo Picasso to Gertrude Stein
(Source: poeme-de-ma-vie)
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in a wallpapered room, 1938.
(Source: The Huffington Post)
Charles Sherwood Stratton (January 4, 1838 – July 15, 1883)
Born in Connecticut USA, to parents who were of medium height, Charles was a relatively large baby, weighing 9 pounds 8 ounces at birth. He developed and grew normally for the first six months of his life, at which point he was 64 cm tall and weighed 15 pounds. His parents became concerned however when, after his first birthday, they noticed he had not grown at all in the previous six months. They showed him to their doctor, who said there was little chance Charles would ever grow to, or reach normal height, but Apart from that, he was a totally normal, healthy child.
Charles’ father, Sherwood Stratton and mother, Cynthia Thompson were first cousins and Charles maternal and paternal grandmothers, Amy and Mary Ann Sharpe, were allegedly small twin girls born around 1781/83.
P.T. Barnum, a distant relative (half fifth cousin, twice removed), heard about Stratton and after contacting his parents, taught the boy how to sing, dance, mime, and impersonate famous people. Stratton made his first tour of America in 1843, at the age of five, with routines that included impersonating characters such as Cupid and Napoleon Bonaparte as well as singing and dancing. He went by the stage name of General Tom Thumb.
A year later, Barnum took young Stratton on a tour of Europe making him an international celebrity. Stratton appeared twice before Queen Victoria. He also met the three-year-old Prince of Wales, who would become King Edward VII. The tour was a huge success, with crowds mobbing him wherever he went.
Because of his celebrity status, Stratton’s marriage on February 10, 1863, to another little person, Lavinia Warren, became front-page news. The couple stood atop a grand piano in New York City’s Metropolitan Hotel to greet some 10,000 guests. Following the wedding, the couple was received by President Lincoln at the White House.
Under Barnum’s management, Stratton became a wealthy man. He owned a house in a fashionable part of New York, a steam yacht, and he had a wardrobe of fine clothes.
Stratton died suddenly of a stroke aged 45 years old. At the time of his death he was 102 cm. Over 20,000 people attended the funeral. P. T. Barnum purchased a life-sized statue of Tom Thumb and placed it as a grave stone at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
(Source: Wikipedia)
James Dean in his New York apartment, 1955.
[warning: video contains scenes of death]
Topsy (circa 1875 – January 4, 1903) was a circus elephant killed by electrocution on January 4, 1903.
Topsy belonged to the Forepaugh Circus and spent the last years of her life at Coney Island’s Luna Park. After killing three men in as many years (including a severely abusive trainer who attempted to feed her a lit cigarette), Topsy was deemed a threat to people by her owners and killed by electrocution on January 4, 1903, at the age of 28.
Hanging was initially discussed but American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals protested. Inventor Thomas Edison suggested electrocution and oversaw and conducted the electrocution, he captured the event on film.
According to at least one contemporary account she died “without a trumpet or a groan”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Mugshot of François Bertillon.
Age: 23 months.
Crime: Gluttony; nibbling all the pears from a basket. October 17, 1893.
A gentleman who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jay Z hangs about in New York in 1939.
OTMA - 1915
(via vintage-royalty)
The World’s first playground swing…
Built 90 years ago, these photographs show what historians beleive to be the world’s first playground swing.
The play equipment is believed to have been constructed in 1923 in Wicksteed Park in Kettering, England - the first park of its kind in the UK.
Charles Wicksteed said at the time: ‘We had a Sunday School treat in the park and put up primitive swings with large poles, tied together at the top with chains.
Fortunately they were not cleared away with the other things the day after the treat and I ultimately found them so popular that instead of pulling them down I added more.
I have direct evidence from mothers how whining, pale-faced children, complaining of any food they get, have come back with healthy faces and rosy complexions, ready to eat the house out after a good play in the playground.’(Source: Daily Mail)
Its probaly a bit wierd to have a favourite year but when I was little my grandma told me that she was born in 1912, an that the titanic had sunk in that year. When I got older and found out more about it, I got really interested in the Titanic, and then I also got really interested in Captain Scotts travels to the North Pole which, of course, ended in 1912. I was facinated that stuff like that was happening a hundred years ago and thats what people were like. So I guess those things mainly got me interested. I love that in British history, its after the Victorian times so people we’re starting to move forward from that and it was pre-war so there was none of that going on. I think as well that its crazy my grandparents were alive in a time like that, and it seems so different to our lives now.
Marilyn Monroe’s Poetry
Only parts of us will ever
touch only parts of others –
one’s own truth is just that really — one’s own truth.
We can only share the part that is understood by within another’s knowing acceptable to
the other — therefore so one
is for most part alone.
As it is meant to be in
evidently in nature — at best though perhaps it could make
our understanding seek
another’s loneliness out.
-
Life –
I am of both of your directions
Life
Somehow remaining hanging downward
the most
but strong as a cobweb in the
wind — I exist more with the cold glistening frost.
But my beaded rays have the colors I’ve
seen in a paintings — ah life they
have cheated you
