Tuesday, June 30, 2009

How about...a heat index?

Also we learn about 'anacoluthons', with an amusing example (third article).

Better Weather Reports

Mayor's Displeasure An Unexpected Crisis For Local Man

A good story, told in the day's style:

City Typewriters

Mrs. Howard Gould's "The Crystal Rood" (1914)

Here is a New York Times book review from 1914. There are copies of this book available through Amazon and evidently there was a co-author, but we're not told so in 1914:


The Crystal Rood

Monday, June 29, 2009

The Gould Trial: Her (and my own) Phyrric Victory

In the 10 articles reproduced here from the Gould trial, we have a scant view of 1909 law, a very fractured view of an instance of the New York Times' journalistic practices 100 years ago, and surely an unfair view of the people involved.

The law doesn't interest me much, the newspaper was changing each day as the miraculous, flying new century threw new sparks, and the people were mercurial as you and me.

In some sense I think 1909 is no more lost or found to us than, say, 2004: for if you access the web-archives of certain blogs and newsites, or if you were to watch video-tapes of NBC Nightly News from 2004, you will have the sensation of witnessing something mishappened, under-developed and even meaningless. The tragedy may be that what we witness will never be in its right context. "Hold everything!" is the judicious shout to the heavens. "Let's get this straight."

Mr. Gould Responsible

I don’t mean to knock “source material” too hard, and my general view is that as each new history book is written our confabulation of memory becomes worse, if only due to changing “P.C.” attitudes, but also because historians rely on one another and their parents’ work. (What’s the latest word on the veracity of Sandburg’s 'Lincoln'? I’ve heard people think better of it lately.) But if you are blessed to retrieve your history from contemporaneous sources, like these 1909 New York Times articles, you can’t keep yourself fooled for very long about the importance or even the truth of certain events. And in this case everything became water under the bridge almost as fast as it would today.

I've learned just about nothing from Henry Gould’s trial for abandoning his wife, so I've been trying to remember what first surprised me about this sad case, that I wanted to share.

Most of the early articles, with the most startling accusations against Mrs. Gould, were on the front page of the Times, in the prime space for the day's most important news--- traditionally, the upper right hand corner article. I don't attribute this to slow news days, although a startling murder case finally put the Gould articles on the very back page (which seems to be the prime spot for entertainment) just as Mrs. Gould's defense was presented.

Genocide continued in Armenia during this time period, and armies were still in battle after the 2nd Constitutional Crisis in Turkey, which resulted in the over-throw of the Sultan and further weakening of the Ottoman Empire. In Washington, after a lot of surprisingly brave shenanigans regarding a new Tariff schedule, President Taft was spading the ground for a federal income tax, which would involve amending the constitution.

In short, I expected The Times to be more dignified, and not cater so well to my unseemly interest in public stonings and the details of peoples’ private lives.

To think, now. She wore the same style black dress each of these hot summer days of the trial, when people could only fan themselves for relief from the heat (finally one day the judge did apparently order some electric fans).

To think, now. She was there to save her reputation and of course to save herself from poverty. It was an imbroglio, a trial that ought to have been played out in a circus tent (in evening time, rather than a stifling court room).

Mr. Gould had offered to 'return' to Mrs. Gould (or at least allow her the same social station and same allowance of funds) if she'd only agreed to sign a pledge not to drink. Paraphrasing her now: 'I would sign myself away as a drunkard? Never!'

Instead, the details of her apparently drunken behavior (including an incident where she cameoed at a luncheon, to scratch or somehow bloody one woman and give another woman a black eye) ended up in the worst public record of all: the newspaper and then peoples' faulty memories.

And a hundred years later here I am with from 'The Times Machine', making hay.

The other surprise for me (and therefore a learning experience, for what it's worth) was not so much the falling away of masks, but the lack of protection afforded to the proverbial, pre-suffrage 'Woman On The Pedestal'. If you factor in the mores of 1909, Mrs. Gould’s public humiliation may have been as stunning as Jennifer Wilbanks’, the runaway bride in 2005 (something that still takes my breath away).

I think the worst moment was when the actor Farnum testified that he’d first met Mrs. Gould when he was a boy of eight, and she was on the stage. (He was the man they alleged may have spent the night with Mrs. Gould 20 years later). This was after many failed attempts to reveal Mrs. Gould’s age, which she clearly held as a useful secret, a secret which ought to be permitted her. You didn’t ask a woman’s age then, nor even now as it simply invites unreasonable prejudice.

Maybe my surprise is at myself: for still having some undisturbed if childish belief about the innocence of this day and age. But we should remember that the upper classes had more freedom than royalty, and the lower classes of every age could be as criminal or immoral as today. Middle class families and their ministers must have been scandalized (to their credit) or else the New York Times would not have pedaled this story (and with such excellently detailed reporting too). So maybe my belief in that innocence can remain intact.

My Grandmother had two pretty portraits of idealized Edwardian Era women in her living room. As I read these articles I couldn't get these two idealized figures out of my mind. Remember, in this newspaper, which boasted that it would only print what was fit to print, it was suggested that Mrs. Gould not only slept with Farnum but they’d also had lunch together at a road-house!!

I found it interesting, but not surprising, that the defense wanted to make sure the judge understood Mrs. Gould had once been 'on stage'. An actress can marry above her station, and become a lady, but the way to put her back in her place is to remind people of her back-ground.

I remember that under cross-examination, Mrs. Gould was pressed about her different stage names, as if they were criminal aliases. She had to change her first stage name after her step-father objected. So, acting was not a respectable occupation, and I think we know why. Only a few women could ever stand out as remarkably talented, to be admired and adored, while hundreds of others were mere props, part of an entertainment. They were a vulnerable group of women whose virtues would always be questioned because it was well known they were always being preyed upon.


Maybe with source material, we don’t discover facts so much as we do our prejudices about certain times in history. This is why I ask myself, not what I learned, but what surprised me.
I think my aim was to find a developing story to share in serial style and allow to unfold here at nearly the same pace it unfolded in real time.

This is what 1909 has offered so far: The Gould’s Summer headliner, then sideshow.

Take heed: my scroll-blog here is mostly horse-feathers. I should quote myself on that in the header. Also I should repeat that I’m no historian, but only someone who is haunted by the black and white photographs of my long dead ancestors, which my grandmother showed me when I was eight years old.

The people in those photographs frightened me, and I felt terrible pity for them being so long gone; fated to dust and now, in fact, probably dust. One becomes increasingly dead as time goes by, it’s sad to say (and these are comforting words: ‘they still live in our hearts’).

I like to remember now, the people of 1909 had God, Jesus and the Bible. They had one another, most of all. (I should have felt pity for their hard work and frequent bereavements more than their human fate. )

Anyway, let me say "meh". And in conclusion, Class of 2009: damnation, but Mrs. Gould should have got a lot more money, if you ask me.



From earlier in the trial of Mr. Gould for abandonment, a representation (fair or not) of Mrs. Gould's spending habits:

Mrs. Gould's Expenses


fwky8xht3z

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Mrs. Gould Continues Testimony

By now, the story has moved from the front page, top of the fold, right hand column (usually reserved for most important news), to the back page of the Times.

I like the actor Farnum, especially his last quote. I find myself 'standing around like a mutt' quite often. Well put, well put...

Mrs. Gould Denies Drinking and Swearing

Wright Brothers progress

Wrights Prep for 40mph

Wright alarms public regarding bicycle and automobile safety

This sounds familiar. He doesn't say flying is safer, you notice. Actually the New York Times' headline is wrong. Wright says flying is 'nearly as safe'.

Aeroplane as safe as auto, says Wright.pdf

Friday, June 26, 2009

Lusitania and Maurentania Cut Rates

Of course, it's still five years before the Great War. The Lusitania was sunk in May, 1915, almost nine months after the war began.

Big Liners Cut Ocean Rate

Snarky Editorial Questions English Motives

The New York Times saw nothing alarming about the arms race between Germany and England, and here mocks worried souls and their visions of Dreadnoughts. (Use Toggle at top right to enlarge. Scroll down for opening paragraph.)

English Exaggerate Fear of Barbaric Europe

England Willing to Celebrate "America Day"

England Warns Us of Germanic Wave

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Editorial: School Lunches and the 'gradual disuse' of the family

School Lunch

Gould Divorce Trial considers Manahattan Cocktails

Remember you can use the toggle button on far top right, for easy reading.

Note how the Southern man refuses to hear of a black woman referred to as a 'lady'...


Mrs. Goulds Checks for St. Regis Drinks

Gould Evidence

"I don't see what is exciting you so much, Mr. Shearn."

Mrs. Gould's Refreshment Checks

Monday, June 22, 2009

Mr. Gould's defense complete and catastrophophic

Hopefully Mrs. Gould's rebuttal will be as thoroughly described as all the testimony against her was last week. There ought to be a book about this divorce trial.

Mrs Gould Will Testify Again

1909: Navy May Ban Cigarettes

Navy Ban on Cigarettes

As we accustom ourselves to the new sanity about cigarette smoke, we marvel at what was 'normal' only a few years ago. It's already becoming hard to believe people smoked in resturants. Years ago, of course it must have been appalling as cigarettes became so popular. They were different from cigars and pipe smoke: the frequency of use, the eventual ubiquitousness (women didn't smoke cigars or pipes normally but in the 1830's began to smoke Spanish 'sigaritos'). Eventually we all lived in a noxious indoor cloud. And while it was universally accepted to smoke in an elevator was rude, parents thought nothing of smoking in their cars with their kids.

Some relief could be had by becoming a smoker. I suppose some people picked up the habit in a subconscious way to adapt.

With the factory manufacturing of cigarettes, the insanity of chain-smoking caused as much an uproar in the early 1900's, as the uproar is now, with the percieved 'right' to smoke indoors finally taken away. Recovering our senses now, the facts below are interesting in a new way.


  • 1900: Brosch experiments with tobacco carcinogenisis on guinea pigs

  • 1900: REGULATION: Washington, Iowa, Tennessee and North Dakota have outlawed the sale of cigarettes.

  • 1900: CONSUMPTION: 4.4 billion cigarettes are sold this year. The anti-cigarette movement has destroyed many smaller companies. Buck Duke is selling 9 out of 10 cigarettes in the US.
  • 1900: SCOTUS: US Supreme Court uphold's Tennessee's ban on cigarette sales. One Justice, repeating a popular notion of the day, says, "there are many [cigarettes] whose tobacco has been mixed with opium or some other drug, and whose wrapper has been saturated in a solution of arsenic.".1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. "[O]nly Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books, were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity" (Dillow, 1981:10).

  • 1901: ENGLAND: END OF AN AGE: QUEEN VICTORIA DIES. Edward VII, the tobacco-hating queen's son and successor, gathers friends together in a large drawing room at Buckingham Palace. He enters the room with a lit cigar in his hand and announces, "Gentlemen, you may smoke."

  • 1902: USA: Sears, Roebuck and Co catalogue (page 441) sells "Sure Cure for the Tobacco Habit". Slogan "Tobacco to the Dogs". The product "will destroy the effects of nicotine". (LB)

  • 1902: Spring: Topsy, the ill-tempered Coney Island elephant, kills J. F. Blount, a keeper, who tried to feed a lighted cigarette to her. She picked him up with her trunk and dashed him to the ground, killing him instantly. On January 5, 1903, 1500 watch Topsy's electrocution in Coney Island.


  • 1903-08: The August Harpers Weekly says, "A great many thoughtful and intelligent men who smoke don't know if it does them good or harm. They notice bad effects when they smoke too much. They know that having once acquired the habit, it bothers them . . . to have their allowance of tobacco cut off."

  • 1904: BUSINESS: Connorton's Tobacco Directory lists 2,124 "cigarettes, cigarros and cheroots." (GTAT)

  • 1904: BUSINESS: Cigarette coupons first used as "come ons" for a new chain of tobacco stores.

  • 1904: BUSINESS: Duke forms the American Tobacco Co. by the merger of 2 subsidiaries, Consolidated and American & Continental. The only form of tobacco Duke does not control is cigars--the form with the most prestige.

  • 1904: American Lung Association is founded to fight tuberculosis.

  • 1904: MEDICINE: The first laboratory synthesis of nicotine is reported.

  • 1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
  • 1904: New York CIty. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer says.

  • 1905: POLITICS: Indiana legislature bribery attempt is exposed, leading to passage of total cigarette ban

  • 1905: U.S. warships head to Nicaragua on behalf of William Albers, a Amaerican accused of evading tobacco taxes

  • 1905: BUSINESS: ATC acquires R.A. Patterson's Lucky Strike company.

  • 1905: REGULATION: "Tobacco" does not appear in the US Pharmacopoeia, an official government listing of drugs. "The removal of tobacco from the Pharmacopoeia was the price that had to be paid to get the support of tobacco state legislators for the Food and Drug Act of 1906. The elimination of the word tobacco automatically removed the leaf from FDA supervision."--Smoking and Politics: Policymaking and the Federal Bureaucracy Fritschler, A. Lee. 1969, p. 37
  • 1906-06-30: FEDERAL FOOD AND DRUGS ACT of 1906 prohibits sale of adulterated foods and drugs, and mandates honest statement of contents on labels. Food and Drug Administration begins. Originally, nicotine is on the list of drugs; after tobacco industry lobbying efforts, nicotine is removed from the list.
    Definition of a drug includes medicines and preparations listed in U.S. Pharmacoepia or National Formulary. [JDJ: is this what Obama has just reversed?)
    1914 interpretation advised that tobacco be included only when used to cure, mitigate, or prevent disease.

  • 1906-04: SMOKEFREE: IN: Richmond resident Orville Stanley is arrested and pleads guilty to possession and unlawful use of tobacco. Fines are suspended because he is a minor. (!!)

  • 1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."

  • 1907: REGULATION: WASHINGTON passes a law making it illegal to "manufacture, sell, exchange, barter, dispose of or give away any cigarettes, cigarette paper or cigarette wrappers."

  • 1907: ADVERTISING: Bull Durham ad shocks New York. In 1907, the American Tobacco Company signed a contract with the operator of a horse-drawn stage line in New York to lease advertising space. One very controversial ad appeared for "Bull" Durham, the nation's leading tobacco brand. "Onlookers were shocked at the sight of the bull's well-endowed maleness so graphically rendered, and had the driver of the first stage that appeared on the street arrested." The City of New York sued the coach company and its client, the American Tobacco Company, to ban the ads. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1911, which upheld New York's ban. Ironically, this case ruling took place the day after the same court handed down a historic verdict ordering the dissolution of the Buck Duke's $240 million-a-year American Tobacco Company monopoly, which the court deemed in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. --Moyer, D. The Tobacco Reference Guide http://new.globalink.org/tobacco/trg/Chapter4/Chap4Page52.html

  • REVERSAL: Ok, then women and children will not smoke, at least.

  • 1908: CANADA: LEGISLATION: The Tobacco Restraint Act passed. Bans sales of cigarettes to those under 16; never enforced.

  • 1908: ENGLAND: LEGISLATION: 1908 Children Act prohibits the sales of tobacco to under 16s -- based on the belief that smoking stunts childrens growth. This act paralleled similar acts for alcohol--based on medical and moral issues-- and concern for the welfare of children in general.

  • 1908-01: SMOKEFREE: New York city passes Sullivan Act, forbidding women to smoke in public. Managers of public establishments must not permit females to smoke. An earlier ordinance which would have forbidden men to smoke in the presence of women failed to pass. One Katie Mulcahy is arrested for lighting up. Two weeks after enactment, Mayor George B. McClellan vetoes the ordinance.

  • 1908-01: NY: New York City bans smoking by women in public.

  • 1909: 15 states have passed legislation banning the sale of cigarettes.

  • 1909: "Princess Nicotine; or the Smoke Fairy" is the first instance of tobacco product placement (for Sweet Caporal cigarettes and cigars) in the movies. The special effects are so remakable they are noted in a contemporary issue of "Scientific American." [JDJ: scroll down to watch]

  • 1909: SPORTS: Baseball great Honus Wagner orders American Tobacco Company take his picture off their "Sweet Caporal" cigarette packs, fearing they would lead children to smoke. The shortage makes the Honus Wagner card the most valuable of all time, worth close to $500,000.


  • Source for bulleted list.

    Sunday, June 21, 2009

    Mrs. Gould looks into Philidelphia mirrors...

    Unless Mr. Gould takes the stand tomorrow, I think our 1909 serial may be over. Everything went so poorly for Mrs. Gould, I feel like taking up a collection, so she can continue to change clothes three times a day (as she's accustomed to)...and certainly so she can move out of the Belmont Hotel, where that awful maid from Friday's testimony coincidentally is working now. (Or, WAS that a coincidence, Spade?)

    What can be in her future? She's not 20 anymore. I don't see moving pictures. And to travel in vaudeville would be too shameful.

    Mrs Gould Hunts for Evidence

    Saturday, June 20, 2009

    Coney Island dresses up in a hurry

    In the Spring of 1909, Coney Island's amusement proprietors were compelled to present themselves as "Educational", due to a new 'Sunday Law'. The weekend of May 24th was no rehearsal. Luna Park became "The Luna Park Institute of Sciences".

    Coney Island

    This Fatty Short opens with a scene of Luna Park.

    Friday, June 19, 2009

    Mrs. Gould and the 'Up All Night Look'

    Today's witnesses included grand-hotel desk clerks, who made sure that everyone was sleeping where they should be sleeping. There is a desk-clerk on each floor and they have strategically placed mirrors in order to keep a keen eye out for signs of gross immorality.

    In October, 1906, a Miss Harris was stationed on the 6th floor of the Bellvue-Stratford in Philadelphia, where our excitable Mrs. Gould (former actress, and then a fabulously wealthy socialite) had a five bedroom suite with a few lady friends.

    At 7:45 a.m. Miss Harris saw the actor Dustin Farnum exit Mrs. Gould's suite and call for the elevator. She then observed that Mr. Farnum rode up to the 14th floor, where he had his own room.

    She dutifully telephoned Miss Garner, the 14th floor's desk clerk.

    Have I told you Dustin Farmer was starring in a play based on The Virginian? The Virginian is a great novel, and considered to be the first "Western". By Owen Wister. You should read it sometime.

    Miss Garner, alerted by Miss Harris' telephone call, saw the actor as he got off the lift. With the aid of the mirrors watched from her desk as he entered his room. Then she called a chambermaid and arranged a subterfuge. She sent the chambermaid to Mr. Farnums's room to ask him if he needed fresh towels. Perhaps the maid could get a good look at the actor's bed.

    It was reported back that, no, Mr. Farnum's room had not been slept in!!1!!1. So Miss Garner reported this back to Miss Harrison.

    Miss Garner told Miss Harris that Farnum had that "Out All Night Look". But on the stand she added that Mr. Farnum was never very well groomed. (Perhaps he had a Wild West look for his stage role.)

    Miss Harrison then alerted hotel managment. It is not recorded here what happened after that.
    ***
    Mind, this was in 1906. For two years, Miss Harrison wrestled with her conscience, whether she should inform Mr. Gould about his wife's betrayal. Finally she decided the Christian thing to do would be to 'follow the Golden Rule' and write to Mr. Gould.

    According to testimony, one of Mr. Gould's attorneys was then sent to visit Miss Harrison at the Young Womens Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.)

    It came out today, incidentally, that Miss Harrison is now employed at The Belmont, where Mrs. Gould has been languishing in (relative) poverty. This news startled and pained Mrs. Gould, the reporter notes.
    ****
    Please don't let my summary here discourage you from reading this very engrossing article. I have left out many of the most interesting signs of the times. I hope my summary encourages everyone to read this, who is interested in American cultural history.

    To follow the divorce trial from the beginning, you can scroll down through my entries looking for the 'Gould' name. This is surely the best reading in the New York Times of 1909 so far, and it was always on the front page, above the fold. On some days it was even in the far right column, which is usually reserved for the most important story of the day. (Yes, this is while President Taft was preparing the country for an income tax.)

    The details are minute and hook you along. There is also verbatim testimony (Q's and A's).
    *****
    Most surprising is Mrs. Gould's willingness to go through this ordeal, and her general good spirits. (She must be sober. We've learned that she is very disagreeable when drunk). Two of her charges are already dismissed. The contest now is whether Mr. Gould is guilty of 'abandonment'.

    Tomorrow is Sunday in 1909. Hopefully there will be opinion articles and letters to the editor about the case. I'm not yet sure if that was apropos in the 1909 Times.

    Naturally, I have not looked ahead. I have no idea what becomes of Mr. and Mrs. Gould. I already know too much about the future in general, and I am reading my daily 1909 paper because of stories like this, which reveal so much about our forebears and what they could and could not endure.

    This is all news to me, each day, and it's a marvel. I feel like I'm doubling my life-span, and not just because I'm partially escaping the news of our own WMD/Rogue State era.

    It's just possible I may live to see the day when the New York Times reports about Sputnik. I will be nearly 100 years old and so thoroughly---no, uniquely--- mixed up by then, my nurses may give me special attention.

    See, there' that too...To be distinguished even if it's by double-barrelled senility.


    Gould Divorce Trial Dearie

    Nude Painting Controversy

    Emma Goldman mentions this in her lecture about "Puritianism", below.

    Bridal Morning




    Bridal Morning Painting Opposed in Pittsburg

    Emma Goldman: 'Puritans' still using smelling salts

    She refers to nude "Bridal Morning" painting (see above), saying it caused 'Pittsburg to hold its hands up in horror'.

    Emma Goldman 2

    Thursday, June 18, 2009

    Emma Goldman : Class dismissed

    Emma Goldman 1

    Gould Divorce Trial: Now the Footman too

    The article is in two parts, so be sure to enlarge the file with the toggle button in the upper right corner and scroll all the way down.

    I don't know what to make of this. Did Mrs. Gould stab her hostess with a fork and punch her friend in the eye?

    Mrs Gould at Party

    Wednesday, June 17, 2009

    Heaven help us: busy Martians

    The Times Machine is broken today and we have found ourselves stalled in the most awful year of 1915, when the world was truly coming to an end, for some.

    This curious article about the 'artificial' canals on Mars seems to peter out from exhaustion. Also the headline does not warn of the startling blow to come: the Martian canals are not ancient! There seem to be new canals, and recently repaired canals as well.

    For me it wouldn't be so much a fear of having an enemy planet. It's more to do with the verse from Psalm 8:5, about mankind. "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour."

    To be plain, I mean that I would feel a nervous jealousy, wondering just how much glory and honor these dern aliens have compared to us.


    Mars Canals Dr Lowell

    Tuesday, June 16, 2009

    Mrs. Gould's Servants Testify

    The Gould divorce was covered on the front page and above the fold. By comparison, the New York Times was more distinguished and proper than its Hearst competitors, so you can imagine what may have appeared in the "New York World".

    The Goulds were married for eight years , probably married in 1898. Her acting career began in the 1880's, but the court did not allow Mrs. Gould's age to be put in the record. She is still attractive, I believe, and probably in her 40's? Mrs. Gould may have been famous in her own right before the marriage. Bill Cody was her manager at one time.

    Mr. Gould was robber-baron rich (see post below) So, this is a singular artifact, atypical in many ways.

    Still, it's true that personal details of divorce cases (and simple marital problems) received great publicity. Mind, I write this merely as a 1909 newspaper junkie/"time traveler", not a historian.

    Most surprising to me are instances when news reports revealed the names of third parties who may have been suitors or lovers. Most people would agree---eventually they agreed---that this was a brutal newspaper practice that must stop. (Imagine the family feelings of those third parties. They weren't always mere glancing wounds, but at times certainly mortal.)

    1909 was an era of progress and reform, but with many false starts, and so much to consider in the way of unintended consequences. Civilization's victory over 'yellow journalism' , in regard to divorce cases, was nearly complete.

    This is before that.
    _____
    I plan a series of posts about "Fainting and Swooning in 1909".

    When servants testify, it's time to faint.
    ___
    Socialists were already accused of targeting 'the family' as an institution, but it would sound like a joke to say they were really culpable in the rising divorce rate. Shame becomes a less fearful prospect once it is witnessed among society's elite. You could blame 'the rich', and competitive newspapers, as reasonably as you would blame New-Age Free-Love types for popularizing Reno.
    ____
    Henry James addressed the subject of divorce in his novel What Maisie Knew (1897). (I'm personally acquainted with someone who actually read 'Maisie' all the way through! Jiminy Christmas...but I digress.)

    You can find my first post about the Gould's divorce here, with a Times editorial.


    Note: it's easy to miss the full article reproduced here. Use toggle button in upper right corner and be sure to scroll all the way down, as there is a break in the print that may fool you. Much of the testimony is produced in the second (bottom half) of this article.

    Mrs. Gould Excitable

    I'll post more as the story develops. How things can get any worse for poor Mrs. Gould is hard to imagine, as we approach the tipping point where we start to pity the (apparent) villain.

    This is not an era when, as Dylan sang, "what's good is bad, what's bad is good". Fame and infamy were still opposites. There would be no reality TV show, and I'm sure no profitable self-caricature.

    If Mrs. Gould wrote a memoir, we'll see if it's from Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville. I doubt the Suffragists would have anything to do with her. She could have taken a "Doll's House" defense I suppose.

    Mrs. Gould in the headlines

    Gould Divorce Replete With Surprises

    Hapless husband arrives home early

    (Use toggle button on the far right of the document for easy reading.)

    Hapless Husband Gets Heave-ho

    Monday, June 15, 2009

    AKA: "The Smoke Fairy"

    Our year 1909 produced silent movies with amazing stop-action special effects. What is going on here, I have no idea, and neither does The Internet, apparently.

    One Triple Alliance

    Italy was like, 'meh'.

    Triple Alliance Made New

    The Kaiser's Kindly Feelings

    Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought is a great history of the British/German naval rivalry that proceeded World War 1.

    Kaiser to Recieve Clergy

    Africans Reject Prussian 'Virtues'

    Who, what, when, where? At some point a Prussian officer declared, "Something must be done!" (according to Paul Fussel, a Prussian declaration that best demonstrates that culture's mind-set). What was the last straw, do you suppose?

    Prussian Military Bans Blacks