centuriespast:

Cover editorial cartoon from The Verdict, commenting on the gold crisis of 1895, 4 December 1899

The Morgan Library

peashooter85:

The Philadelphia Derringer,

In 1806 a gunsmith named Henry Deringer settled in Philadelphia where he made a living producing military muskets for the US Army.  In 1825 he invented a small large caliber pistol (around .45 - .50 caliber) that was small enough to be carried in a pocket.  The Philadelphia Derringer (somehow another “R” was added to the name) became a big hit for its size and concealability.  It was especially a popular weapon for gamblers, who could produce the small pistol at a moments notice in case of a poker game gone bad.  Early versions were flintlock but most were made with the more reliable percussionlock system.  

Eventually the Philadelphia Derringer became so popular that hundreds of small gunsmiths, workshops, and factories all over the United States produced copies.  In the US they became the most popular pocket pistol.  In Europe they were less popular as boxlock and muff pistols dominated the European market.  Eventually the word “derringer” became a colloquialism for any small pocket pistol.  I often hear people today use the term to describe modern subcompact automatic pistols.  While the Philadelphia Derringer’s legacy is of scoundrels, riverboat gamblers, and thieves, it also has the stigma of being the pistol of assassins.  On April 14th 1865 the notorious Confederate John Wilkes Booth mortally wounded President Abraham Lincoln in the head.  Booth’s weapon of choice was a Philadelphia Derringer.  Booth’s derringer (pictured above) is currently on display at the Ford’s Theater Museum.

poynterinstitute:

Today’s Historical Headline: Standard Oil loses in court

On May 15, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling that declared Standard Oil to be a monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act. 

As per Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States, John D. Rockefeller’s oil company was to be broken up and made into separate firms. Read more about U.S. monopolies at Investopedia, and more on the U.S.’s continuing dependence on oil at The Atlantic. 

Today’s headline comes from the Eugene Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon. 

(Photo from here.)

evocativesynthesis:

WWII Propaganda | Loose Lips Sink Ships

applesandibexes:

It is 150 years since the world’s first underground railway system was created. These posters are from the London Transport Museum’s exhibition titled Poster Art 150: London Underground’s Greatest Designs. (via Brain Picker)

theoddmentemporium:

Jane Foole

Jane Foole was a 16th century court jester to Catherine Parr, Mary I, and possibly Anne Boleyn, and is the only female jester ever depicted. She features on the lefthand side of this portrait of Henry VIII and his family, whilst the King’s jester, Will Sommers, features on the right.

Even in a time when ‘the privileged amused themselves with dwarfs, the deformed, the disabled and the dimwitted to ridicule and to laugh at,’ a female jester is still particularly curious. Despite this, however, frustratingly little is known about Jane’s life. Other than the above portrait, the only proof of her existence lies only in The Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary. Indeed, until her death, Mary financially supported Jane, ensuring she was always well presented in the most fashionable dresses and shoes - over the course of 18 months she was gifted 36 pairs. Furthermore, Mary paid Jane sick pay during “the tyme of her seekness” in 1543, handsomely compensated a Mrs. Ager who cured Jane of an eye ailment in 1556, and paid for elaborate gifts for Jane’s ‘valentines’.

Undoubtedly Jane was better looked after than most women at court, however, she was also required to shave her head twice a month in a custom ordinary for male jesters, but which would have undoubtedly set Jane apart from other women. Unfortunately no records of what she did to entertain the Queens she served survive, but feigning stupidity whilst insulting one’s master, practical jokes, and making up funny stories, were all popular tricks of the trade amongst male jesters of the period and might indicate what Jane got up to as well.

[Sources: Jane Foole | On the Trail of Jane the Fool]

weirdvintage:

As they were recognized as potential traffic hazards during the Blackouts of World War Two, some farmers took to painting their cows with white stripes so they could be seen by motorists, 1939 (via Forces War Records)

todaysdocument:

Photograph of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

from Mathew Brady Photographs of Civil War-Era Personalities and Scenes

Accidentally shot by his own troops following the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee’s “right arm”,  died of complications from his injury on May 10, 1863.

micropolisnyc:

In the 1800s, part of the West Village was known as “Little Africa, or less kindly as Coontown,” writes John Strausbaugh in his fascinating new book “The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village.”

“Little Africa also drew free blacks and ‘mulattoes’ who’d come to New York from the West Indies. Often better educated and with more skills than the city’s freed slaves, some of them thrived, within the limits imposed on them. One [William Henry Brown] started America’s first black professional theater company in Greenwich Village in 1821….the African Grove, with an all-black company….Its first full-lengthproduction was Richard III.” 

“As other productions followed — Othello, some farces and pantomines, and most controversially Brown’s own The Drama of King Shotaway, about a slave rebellion in the Indies — whites began to join blacks in the audience. They didn’t sit in respectful silence. Black actors performing Shakespeare represented to them an amusing novelty. A newspaper from 1822 reports that ‘the audience was generally of a riotous character, and amused themselves by throwing crackers on the stage, and cracking their jokes with the actors.’ 

“The seating policy at the African Grove, amazingly, instituted reverse segregation: whites were relegated to the back rows because, as a handbill stated, they didn’t know ‘how to conduct themselves at entertainments for ladies and gentlemen of color.’”

Brown closed down the Grove in 1823, but one of the company’s star actors, Ira Aldridge (shown above, in Titus Andronicus) moved to England, “where he became renowned for his Othello, as well as his Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Shylock, the latter roles sometimes performed in whiteface makeup.”

More on “The Village,” by John Strausbaugh

explore-blog:

Centuries before the ubiquitous Starbucks logo, we had these coffee-house keepers’ tokens of the 17th century, from a history of how coffee changed the world.