1910s girls did NOT fuck around when it came to hairbows

“Lad Who Praised Capital Punishment Pays the Penalty in Electric Chair,” Toronto Star. September 15, 1931. Page 19. ---- Boston, Sept. 15. (UP). - Paul V. Hurley, 20, who as a schoolboy won a prize for an essay extolling capital punishment, died in the electric chair early to-day, for killing a policeman.

The execution ended the lawless career of a youth who became a petty criminal at 15 and who four years later fired four slugs into the body of Patrolman Joseph P. O’Brien, of Brookline when the latter found him with a stolen automobile.

Eleventh-hour efforts to gain a reprieve proved fruitless and at 12:01 a.m. to-day Hurley marched calmly to the death chamber at State prison. Two minutes later he was strapped into the chair. At 12:10 doctors pronounced him dead. He was the second youngest person ever electrocuted in Massachusetts.

‘Good-by, father,’ were his last words, whispered to Rev. Ralph W. Farrell, prison chaplain, who had administered the last rites of the church.

Before the execution the doomed youth had expressed one last wish - for a big dish of ice cream. He ate one pint with relish.

Kirsten People! St. Lucia Day is coming up!

I’m going to get ahold of some clay and make some more accurate foods for the celebration, including coffee and mulled wine inserts for the Rowe pottery, lussekatter, pepparkakkor, and cinnamon hearts from Mr. Berkhoff’s store. A bowl of raisins, too, will go into the pottery bowls.

I’ll do this next week so if you want to follow along and make your own you can! All you’ll need is Sculpey clay and acrylic paint.

Bonus: The buns Kirsten has are called lussekatter, which translates to “Lucia cats”, because they’re often shaped into sleeping cats with raisins for eyes. Kirsten, who’s a cat girl, would certainly have done that.

Already dressed up:

A Quizzical Glimpse of Native American History

A Quizzical Glimpse of Native American History

Most people are familiar with the saying “To the victor go the spoils,” which includes writing (or rewriting) history books to justify defeating the enemy. With that in mind, see how many of the following questions you can answer correctly. 1. True/False King Ferdinand was given permission to kill indigenous people or make them their slaves by the pope. 2. How many tribal nations have a formal…

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Two-year-old Yuki Okinaga Hayakawa waits at Union Station in Los Angeles, for the train taking her and her mother to Manzanar (April 1942).

(”A young evacuee of Japanese ancestry waits with the family baggage before leaving by bus for an assembly center in the spring of 1942″. by Clem Albers, California, April 1942. (Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority)).  

"The Harlem Uprising offers a powerful narrative of the riots and upheaval in Harlem and other African American neighborhoods in New York City in the summer of 1964. Hayes’s vividly written book provides a stinging portrayal of midcentury New York from the perspective of Black New Yorkers and offers an important new historiography of the carceral state."

History Of The Black Panther Party: Facing Police Brutality And Advocating Social Change

History Of The Black Panther Party: Facing Police Brutality And Advocating Social Change

The History of the Black Panther Party in America is traced to the movement formed by two Black American revolutionaries in the latter part of the twentieth century known as the Black Panther Party. The activities of the black panthers were aimed at tackling the failure of the civil rights movement to improve the condition of the black people in America. Black Panther History The black panther…

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The Famous Frederick Douglass Speech – What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?

The Famous Frederick Douglass Speech – What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?

The speech with the title, “What to the slave is the fourth of July?” delivered in 1852 by Frederick Douglas has become noteworthy in recent times due to the significance of the speech in projecting the plight of the African Americans during the slavery days of America. Hence, the historical significance of the speech cannot be disputed. Frederick Douglas – The Man Frederick Douglass, born…

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Michelle Pfeffer first appeared in a new look and she is still unknown.

Michelle Pfeffer first appeared in a new look and she is still unknown.

November 10, 2021 – 15:56 GMT Unit Sanwari When Michelle Piffer went to social media, she left her fans in awe, praising and praising her. Michelle Pfeiffer When she showed off her new look this week, a huge fan and celebrity responded, making her anonymous and royal. MORE PICTURES Michelle Piefer delights fans with her unusual baby photos. The actress shared photos from one. Entertainment…

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Soo now this is a 1776 musical appearication blog, The Henri/Thomas from Pocahontas Cult blog and we also stan Wiggins blog... thank you for coming to my Ted Talk!!!

Elaborate slate marker for Abigail Paine carved by James Foster III of Dorchester Mass.  The Foster family was a grave carving family starting with James Foster I who began carving graves in the early 1690s.  The Fosters quickly gained popularity in the region due to their high quality and detailed tombstones and exported stones to the surrounding states of Connecticut, New York, Maine, with some exported as far south as the Carolinas.  Foster I usually carved winged skulls, sometimes carving crests or plant designs, while his son Foster II and grandson Foster III carved both winged Skulls and Cherubs.  This stone is a more unique one using a clock, a less common symbol representing the time being up for the deceased, more often represented by hourglasses on gravestones.  Other Momento Mori symbols used here include crossed bones, a pick and shovel, and some border elaborations and half rosettes.  This stone along with a fair number of others by Foster II and III is located in the Woodstock Hill Burying Ground in Woodstock Connecticut.

way back in 2018 when i was a sophomore in college i wrote a paper for a journalism course on the New York Times’ coverage of the legalization of abortion in NY state in 1970. here are some snippets from it that despite 19 year old me’s shitty essay writing, are still relevant today. 

i highly recommend Rosemary Nossif’s Before Roe: Abortion Policy in the States and Patricia Miller’s Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church. both books are available on JSTOR.

“...Before examining the articles in the Times, it is necessary to provide context on attitudes towards abortion before its legalization. R. Sauer’s journal article “Attitudes to Abortion in America, 1800-1973” gives important insight as to how public views over abortion changed from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Sauer recounts, “The law regarding abortion in the earliest decades of the Republic was in most instances quite permissive… the American common law failed to recognize abortion before quickening as a crime (quickening being the time when a woman first feels the stirring of the foetus, which rarely occurs before the sixteenth week of pregnancy).” (Sauer 54). However, as the nineteenth century went on, abortions became discussed more and more by doctors and even advertised in newspapers, leading to a public impression that the abortion rate was drastically increasing. Sauer notes, “Nineteenth-century commentators felt that abortion was primarily an urban phenomenon, most concentrated in the north-east.” (Sauer 55). 

Many doctors believed (generally based on interviews and anecdotal evidence) that abortion was mostly practiced by the Protestant middle and upper classes, who saw large numbers of children as a deterrent to their social lives, as opposed to the lower class Catholic immigrants: “among this highly fertile group abortion was reported to be rarely practised.” (Sauer 55). While doctors and religious leaders in the nineteenth century condemned abortions, attitudes held by the general public tended to be more tolerant. But due to fervent public campaigning against abortion, in the 1820s most states began to outlaw abortion at any stage of the pregnancy. In New York, 1828, a “legislative report… recommended banning most types of surgery because of a perceived increase of unnecessary and dangerous operations which led to many injuries and deaths… [Cyril Means] inferred that that New York’s 1830 anti-abortion law represented one element in the legislators’ campaign to halt… all kinds of dangerous operations.” (Sauer 57). This 1830 law would remain on the books for the next one hundred and forty years, permitting abortions only if the mother’s life was in danger.

....Patricia Miller’s book, Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church sheds some light on Catholic attitudes towards abortion. She writes, “Throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, anti-Catholic discrimination was widespread. Few Catholics could be found in boardrooms, elite schools, or country clubs. Local bishops were powerful figures whose authority over the faithful was unquestioned, and the hierarchy worked to emphasize the patriotism of their flock and and protect them from discrimination.” (Miller 43). Yet Miller goes on to note that Catholics were able to assimilate after World War II, finding themselves more represented and accepted, even into the presidency with the election of John F. Kennedy. With Vatican II, Catholic clergy was encouraged to focus on social issues such as poverty, the threat of nuclear war, and above all else, abortion. 

Miller explains, “The movement to legalize abortion challenged not just the hierarchy’s prohibition against abortion as an ‘unspeakable crime’, but also its belief that that sex needed to be linked to procreation to preserve the sanctity of marriage.” (Miller 44). Bishops began to focus on cultivating grassroots movements among lay Catholic to oppose abortion, and the Blumenthal bill referenced in the prior two Schanberg articles was struck down in the New York legislature, with the Catholics speaker of the assembly “[ousting] Blumenthal as chair of the Democratic Advisory Committee at the behest of the Catholic bishops.” (Miller 45). In New York, this was a serious sign that the Catholic Conference of Bishops was not going to be easily dismissed, and that they could and would wield significant political power to oppose any and all easing of abortion restrictions.

…A rare article that centered upon the needs of women was Martin Tolchin’s account of author and researcher Bill Lader’s vow to begin an underground abortion service for women in need, in conjunction with Protestant and Jewish ministers. This article gave an uncommon voice to the women affected by abortions, albeit indirectly through Bill Lader, who recounted, “Most of them are married women who have too many children… A man whose wife had five children said she had become mentally ill after the last two children, and he was unable to work.” (Tolchin). The article also covers some of the realities faced by women seeking abortion in New York, such as “must obtain the approval of hospital therapeutic abortion boards.” (Tolchin). A doctor could not simply claim a woman’s life was endangered by a pregnancy and refer her for an abortion. Women whose lives were in active danger from their pregnancies were required to go through committee first and submit evidence for approval. None of the previous articles surrounding abortion had deigned to mention this. 

…Brody also cites the case of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, where doctors at the time were known to help the victims of botched illegal abortions, some of whom were now sterile for life. She writes, “Dr. J.J. Smith, head of the hospital’s obstetrics department, said that ‘at least 20 percent of these women are admitted to the hospital seriously ill… Many suffer permanent kidney damage and sterility.” She also notes, “Most of the hospital’s abortion victims are women with several children at home who felt that they simply could not house or feed another child.” (Brody). Brody’s article gave an uncommon voice to the plight of lower class women who did not have the money or connections to arrange a hospital abortion and who instead were forced to seek abortions illegally, often at great risk to their health.

…Stacie Taranto’s book Kitchen Table Politics: Conservative Women and Family Values in New York details the clash between pro and anti-abortion female activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Activists such as Constance Cook were not heavily covered in the Times, but Cook was nonetheless instrumental in crafting a repeal bill, rather than the reform bill that had been advocated previously: “Both would legalize abortion, but repeal would decriminalize it in all circumstances, while a reform bill would, as Blumenthal had done, outline various circumstances in which abortion was legal. Feminists argued that reform would open the door for men in power to set those terms and police them as they saw fit.” (Taranto 64). 

Taranto’s book also covers the waning influence of the Catholic Church on its parishioners as the 1960s progressed; Vatican II had a perhaps unintended side effect of promoting questioning and debate among laypeople; “This amalgamation of factors caused many Catholics to question (if not blatantly disregard) what their church said about sex and reproduction, including its warnings on abortion.” (Taranto 67). The passage of the repeal bill, which inevitably was turned into a reform bill by the time it reached the Assembly, banning abortion after twenty four weeks if the mother’s life was not in danger, also signaled a schism in the New York Democratic Party: many Catholic Democrats who were strongly opposed to abortion would go on to switch to the Republican party in the 1970s, leading to the vast majority of upstate New York going red.

…As the 1960s came to a close, abortion once again headed for the State Assembly. At this point a general attitude that it was inevitable that some reform to the 1830 law would occur purveyed. While Catholic authorities maintained strong opposition to any changes, the oncoming tide of the feminist movement and the sexual revolution persisted, and activists such as Constance Cook were working hard to recruit as many people, including female politicians, to the cause as possible. This had long reaching effects, not just for New York: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel recount in their Yale Law article that “...it was because the abortion issue was perceived to be of distinct concern to Catholics that the Republican party began to shift its position on abortion, in order to attract Catholics to the fold.”

Furthermore, they note that Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips identified “that, in the North, Catholics- long staunch Democrats- were increasingly open to affiliating with the Republican party.” (Greenhouse and Siegel 2052). When abortion was legalized in New York, and failed to be struck down in the years directly afterwards, this triggered a widespread shift of many Catholics to the Republican party, often at the urging of their bishops and priests, as abortion had become a single-issue vote for many who considered it murder. 

….Carmody noted, “Some theologians, however, hold that it is not certain at which point human life begins. Others hold that there may be cases—such as pregnancies resulting from rape or incest— where an abortion should be left to the individual conscience.” (Carmody). 

[The Constitutional Convention, 1787]

Virginia: Here’s the thing about your little plan, New Jersey.

Virginia: Exactly zero people care.

On This Day In History

December 2nd, 1970: The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

the gender neutral urge to direct a live action series solely about lams is very strong this evening

Highland lads looking out for each other storming Fort Washington

While attacking the steep defenses of Fort Washington in November 1776, a major in the Black Watch, who was not a lean man, had to ask for help getting up the slope;

“Major Murray, being a large corpulent man, could not attempt this steep ascent without assistance. The soldiers, eager to get to the point of their duty, scrambled up, forgetting the situation of Major Murray, when he, in a melancholy supplicating tone, cried, 'Oh soldiers, will you leave me!'. A party leaped down instantly, and brought him up, supporting him from one ledge of the rocks to another till they got him to the top.”

Helen Adam the Scottish poet, collagist and photographer was born on December 2nd 1909.

Glasgow born Adam was  a true eccentric poet who was part of “The Beat Generation” before there was a Beat Generation!

Described as a child prodigy, Adam was said to have started composing poetry almost as soon as she could talk, her first book, The Elfin Pedlar, was published in 1923, when the poet was 14 years old, under the name “Pixy Pool.”  It has been described as “victorianesque” with light verse, faeries and pastorial characteristics, it was well received in Scotland and beyond but showed little of the flair that would come in her adulthood offerings. She would go on to study at Edinburgh University

Adam emigrated to America in 1939 with her mother, Isabella, and sister Pat, somewhat by accident after what had begun as a family visit was rendered permanent by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Settling in San Francisco Helen Adam worked with some of the influential poets of the day in the city she also developed her first theatre piece, ‘San Francisco’s Burning’, a play with music.

She quickly became known for her incantatory and mystifying oral performance style. She moved to New York City in 1964, where she became an influence on the Beat poets. Adam’s books of poetry include Turn Again to Me and Other Poems, Gone Sailing, and The Bells of Dis. Her work was included in Donald Allen’s famous anthology The New American Poetry, and she was awarded the American Book Award in 1981.

I often wondered where Ivor Cutler got his inspiration from, and it would not surprise me if he was a fan of Adam, although Adam’s work was more upbeat than the dour offerings of Ivor.

Following the death of her sister in 1986, Adam became depressed and withdrawn, bereft of the energy which had been so great a part of both her life and performances, and died in 1993, and such energy has been captured on film, and thanks to Youtube is now available to view, not just in written form, but in the way she performed it, in clips from a 1981 documentary on her, Poetry in Motion. Please watch the video of her reciting her poem Apartment at Twin Peaks.

A Tale Best Forgotten

Hail! Most Holy ANUBIS. In a house by a river that lamented as it ran, Lived a father, and his daughter, and the dog-headed man. A father, and his daughter, and the dog-headed man! It’s a tale best forgotten, but before the tale began From the house to the river limped the dog-headed man. Blood swelled the river before the tale began.In the garden, in the garden, while the river slowly ran, Walked the daughter, and her lover, and the dog-headed man. The daughter, and her lover, and the dog-headed man! It’s a tale best forgotten, but before the tale began His daughter, by the river that reflected as it ran, Fed the bones of her lover to the dog-headed man.

Dog Head he was fed before the tale began.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BC9rsdSdlw&feature=emb_imp_woyt

Beebe Steven Lynk

An academic and activist, Beebe Steven Lynk (1872-1948) was a chemist, pharmacist, and author who fought for educational opportunities and equal rights for women and Black people.

Lynk was born in Mason, Tennessee. She earned a bachelor's degree from Lane College by age 20 and a degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of West Tennessee, a Black Medical College in Jackson, Tennessee founded by her husband (and later moved to Memphis). She began teaching at the college, one of only two women on the teaching staff. She taught medical Latin botany and materia medica.

She was an active member of early Black women's club movements and was the Treasure of the Tennessee State Federation of Women's Clubs. Lynk wrote a book, Advice to Colored Women,(1896) to help promote the moral duty and political responsibility that she believed women had in transforming public policy.