historybizarre

[historybizarre]

Many Russian tomatoes have evocative names. There’s the Mother Russia and the Black Sea Man. But perhaps the most unusual of all is the Paul Robeson tomato. Named after the African-American singer, actor, and activist, his namesake tomato has become a cult favorite in American gardens. .... In 1950, the State Department denied Robeson a passport, stating that “his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the US should not be aired in foreign countries.” Robeson testified before Congress again in 1956, after he would not sign an affidavit saying that he was not a Communist. When asked why he had not remained in the Soviet Union, he replied, “because my father was a slave and my people died to build the United States and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you.”

#paul robeson #tomatoes #agriculture #history #cold war #cold war civil rights

[historybizarre]

The Honorable Charles Hamilton, an 18th-century British aristocrat and member of Parliament, was explicit in his advertisement. The ornamental hermit he was recruiting to live in the sprawling gardens at his Painshill estate in Cobham, England, must be silent, never speaking to the servants who brought him his daily meals. He must wear a goat’s hair robe and never cut his hair, nails or beard. Shoes were out of the question. If and only if the hermit fulfilled the terms of his contract, living in solitary contemplation without stepping foot outside of the estate for seven years, he would be rewarded with £500 to £700 (around $95,000 to $130,000 today).

#ornamental hermit #weird things rich people did #where can i apply to be a hermit? #history #18th century #regency england

[historybizarre]

A brief history of (charming and mean) Valentine's cards | V&A

#victoria and albert museum #valentines day #valentines cards #victorian #edwardian

[historybizarre]

Because hard as the men of the fashion industry (and they were mostly men) worked, in the words of the Boston Globe’s syndicated fashion columnist Marian Christy, to “cram down women’s throats the idea that the hemline of the season is the midi,” it just didn’t happen.2 Many, many women were not on board, and they were open about their rejection of the trend. As “Mrs. Mary Bartos—housewife—” told the Inquiring Photographer of Pennsylvania’s Hazelton Standard-Speaker in October 1970: “For some of us to wear it would make us look like a creep from the Middle Ages. And with the high cost of food and everything else, who can afford to get rid of an entire wardrobe of short clothing for a type of apparel which is neither practical nor appealing?”3

#history #fashion history #continegent magazine #1970s #hot pants #diy fashion

[historybizarre]

Sad: Then: In an object: Of muted color (flax, puce, somber green). In a man: Grave, serious, trustworthy, firm. Now: Unhappy or sorrowful.  Smug: Then: Well-dressed. Now: Complacently self-righteous. (Or: Well-dressed, and knows it.)

Joan P. Bines Words They Lived By: Colonial New England Speech, Then and Now is a collection of words that are still familiar today, but that were used in totally different ways in colonial New England. Bines, director of the Golden Ball Tavern Museum in Massachusetts, follows words in several…

#colonial america #linguistics #slang #history #us history

[historybizarre]

Dr. Seuss’s private hat collection is on public display for the first time in history. The exhibit also marks the 75th anniversary of his book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

#history #fashion history #hats

[historybizarre]

Visiting the opulent Paris Opera at one point in the 1840s, novelist Paul DeKock described seeing a magistrate, dressed as the comic servant Arlequin, dancing in a group with a felon wearing judicial robes.... Women often came to the balls dressed as the Débardeur, a dockworker in an open white shirt, black pants, and a cap.

#paris #19th century #1830s #1840s #counterculture #masked ball #french history

[historybizarre]

In 1946, Carnival triumphantly returned to New Orleans’ streets after four years of canceled celebrations due to World War II. On the Thursday before Mardi Gras, a wage dispute arose between organizers of the Knights of Momus parade and a company of veteran flambeaux carriers. The strikers demanded five dollars per parade, a significant increase from the two dollars they were paid before the war, but a raise they said they had been guaranteed.

The krewe captains of three upcoming night parades countered with $2.50 and, in a public address that was front-page news in all three major local newspapers, begged the flambeaux to withdraw their “exorbitant” wage demands. They then appealed to the city’s African-American war veterans to mobilize, volunteer their services, and pick up a torch for the good of Carnival, a request met with derision by the Louisiana Weekly, the city’s leading African-American periodical. “Momus, god of mockery and rebuke, got a rebuke,” an anonymous editorialist gloated. “It seems that white Carnival parades are having a post-war rude awakening.” 

#mardi gras #solidarity forever #new orleans #labor history #unions

[historybizarre]

At the height of his fame, Truman Capote was a fixture in New York City’s elite social circles, capitalizing on the success of classics like In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s to ingratiate himself with the wealthy, perfectly coiffed women who dominated that scene: the so-called Swans.

#based on a true story #truman captoe #ryan murphy #20th century #nyc

[historybizarre]

From today’s vantage point, many of the anti-feminist ideas Schlafly espoused sound extreme. But it’s worth thinking about why so many people found her message compelling.

In a 1991 paper, Susan E. Marshall looked at the popular support for Schlafly and other antifeminist activists over the previous two decades, starting with their successful fight against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.... Schlafly’s Stop ERA project, which later transformed into the Eagle Forum, was an inseparable part of New Right ideology, which blended “traditional values,” economic individualism, and anticommunism.

#women's history #jstor #20th century #us politics

[historybizarre]

But DNA can only tell you so much. “I was just getting so sick of the interpretation being, ‘We have an African individual, and our interpretation is this person is from sub-Saharan Africa,’” says Vicky Oelze, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who studies the archaeology of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Being able to pinpoint where exactly a person is from, she says, “has implications for their culture, their language, their beliefs, their practices—which contributed to so much of the culture of the Americas and the African diaspora at large.” To trace those origins with more precision, Oelze uses a tool called isotope mapping. Just as geographic regions vary in types of rocks and trees, they also have different proportions of elements. Oelze and her team focused on the isotopes strontium 86 and 87, which show up in the ancient bedrock of Angola. (A quick refresher from chemistry class: Isotopes are variations of an element that have the same number of protons—in the case of strontium, that’s 38—but different numbers of neutrons.)

#science! #genealogy #history #black history #african american history #genetic genealogy #she blinded me with science

[historybizarre]

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act made it clear that the problem of slavery could not be confined to the southern states, that Black people in the North were under siege by U.S. officials, and that the country was on the path to all-out war. 

As a result, the stories of enslaved people that appeared in many later antislavery publications became far more personal and considerably more complex. 

Vague notions of collective and geographically contained suffering were replaced by reports of individualized trauma that followed Black people into the nominally “free” North.

Content Warning: discussions of historical racial violence, death of children.

#fugitive slave act #us history #racial slavery #histor

[historybizarre]

A century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama, Sarah Mayrant Fossett – business woman, church founder, civil rights activist, participant in the Underground Railroad – successfully integrated the Cincinnati streetcar system.

#black history month #women's history #civil rights #cincinnati #Youtube

[historybizarre]

We might share a few of these essays over the next few weeks/months, but this roundup from @jstor Daily's editors was too good not to share!

#black history month #we love jstor #jstor daily #roundup #so many good links!

[historybizarre]

9th Cavalry Personnel with Red Cross Canteen Worker

Record Group 336: Records of the Office of the Chief of TransportationSeries: Photographic Albums of Prints of Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation

This black and white photograph shows a group of seven African-American soldiers posing for a photo around an African-American Red Cross worker. The soldiers wear helmets and carry all their equipment.  Several hold paper cups.  The Red Cross worker wears an overcoat and is holding a water bucket.

Original caption: "Colored enlisted men of unit 5891-E (A detachment of the 9th Cavalry) are shown on pier 2 with Red Cross Canteen Worker, Helen Alston, before sailing overseas. Official Photograph U.S. Army Signal Corps, Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, Newport News Virginia.

#1944 #wwii #black history month #us history

[historybizarre]

We are no longer actively updating this account. For updates from the Center for Legislative Archives, please visit https://www.archives.gov/legislative.

Follow other @USNatArchives social media accounts: https://www.archives.gov/social-media

[historybizarre]

Can you talk about strange ways people have died?

For bite-size, with a strong humor approach: the Horrible Histories' Stupid Deaths is a classic:

For general histories of death, deathways, and dying, check out Ask a Mortician

#ask box #deathways #more if we can find it #stupid deaths #horrible histories