Evening Post: August 12, 1899. "She immediately alighted, caught hold of the astonished youth, and gave him a sound thrashing, using her fists in a scientific fashion…” I would love to know what this means.
Source: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
The Modern History of Swearing
In his [Francis Grose'] 1785 “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” Francis Grose includes to huffle, which is “a piece of bestiality too filthy for explanation.” (The 1788 and 1823 editions decide that discretion is the better part of valor and fail to mention the bestial practice at all.) Grose also lists “to bagpipe, a lascivious practice too indecent for explanation.” Even Farmer and Henley, brave champions of obscenity who boldly explained fucking, refuse to define to bagpipe in their dictionary — they simply repeat Grose’s definition manqué. One hopes for something really spectacular from these words, but they are simply the Victorian version of blow job.
Other wonderful words that may be unfamiliar to you include godemiche, another French import, meaning “dildo.” A dildo, Grose helpfully explains, is “an implement resembling the virile member, for which it is said to be substituted, by nuns, boarding school misses, and others obliged to celibacy, or fearful of pregnancy. Dildoes are made of wax, horn, leather, and diverse other substances, and if fame does not lie more than usually, are to be had at many of our great toy shops and nick nackatories.” Grose is wonderfully able to describe what a dildo is while denying any firsthand knowledge of them. Lobcock is “a large relaxed penis, also a dull inanimate fellow.” A rantallion is “one whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece.” Fartleberries are “excrement hanging to the hairs about the anus, &c, of a man or woman.” (Here &c, “et cetera,” is back to being slang for the private parts.) And then there is burning shame, “a lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.” Why this lascivious practice bears mention when larking and huffling don’t is not completely clear. Grose defines cunt as “a nasty name for a nasty thing”; perhaps he was simply unable to deny himself the pleasure of the pun: burning shame is “terrible shame/shame (cunt) on fire.”
These are easily the two most incredible paragraphs I have ever read.
1890-1919. White tie tuxedo illustrations. Note the unusual styles in the 2nd and 9th image (the cuffs in the former, and the lapels and waistcoat in the latter). These are earlier forms that are no longer considered acceptable.
Conversely, the black ties and waistcoats in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th images were dinner jackets that later evolved into the modern black tie tuxedo. These were originally not acceptable in mixed company.
Hello do you happen to know of any resource blogs who post only about a certain decade, I'm looking for the 1920s to be exact, thank you
I can think of these two, http://fuckyeah1920s.tumblr.com/ http://1920s.tumblr.com/
But the second link isn’t very well sourced and I see a lot of images aren’t actually from 1920s, but simply evocative of the 1920s. If you’re looking for something specific, google is a pretty big help too. I wish I could help you out more, but good luck!
1924. Clip from the silent horror film Le Diaboliche Alchimie Del Dottor Morte (The Unknown) set to Malneirophrenia's track of the same name.
profoundlygay-deactivated201609
"They were slim, pale, consummately self-possessed youths, whose finger-nails were always irreproachably shiny." A homoerotic magazine illustration from the early 1900s.
Source: keepstill.com
1901. Informal image of young men in Montreal, Canada playing before the camera. The boy on the right is shy about his short bathing suit.
1902. Men's fashion dress chart by Brooks Brothers describing the appropriate attire for a number of situations, times, and activities.
1900. A group of (likely) Manchu children in Los Angeles, California's Chinatown.
Unlike many other Chinese ethnic groups during this time period, the Manchu were strictly against foot-binding and made several attempts to outlaw it when they came to power. They did, however, enjoy the swaying gait of women with bound feet and would wear boat-shaped 'flower bowl shoes' in order to emulate it.
1910. Exclusively vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. At the time the term 'vegetarian' would have referred to what we now know as a vegan, one who lives entirely off of vegetation.
1900s. Guadeloupe Women on Ellis Island. Photography by Augustus F. Sherman
1904. Colored postcard depicting a dragon dance in Los Angeles, California's Chinatown
1910. Colored postcard depicting a Tong parade in San Francisco, California.
1900-1910. Psyche knot photographic hair tutorial
1. Remove all the tangles and then make a parting, commencing at the forehead -then run backward through the center and over the top of the head, but never down the back!
2. Make a second and then a third parting. Begin the second on the line of the first parting roughly two and one-half inches from the forehead. Run it down the left side of the head and terminate it an inch behind the ear. Make the third parting like the second, starting at the same point, and then finishing about an inch behind your right ear.
3. You now have your hair is split in three divisions,two front ones and a back portion. Now before creating the pompadour, all that back hair must be carefully combed and then tied back so it won’t be in the way. Start putting your pompadour up now.
4. To begin with – smooth the left side, brush it forward, then brush up and finally back into an exciting pompadour shape. Fasten the pomp to the top of your head with a hair-pin. Now smooth the hair out on the right side, brushing it up into a pompadour and then pin securely at the top of the head, near to the place where the left side was fastened. When the pompadour is made, pull out the hair carefully with your hands and cover up the three partings.
5. Now your hair is ready to tie the psyche knot. Comb out the pompadour ends. Untying the back hair, comb both it and the ends of the pompadour together. Brushing your long hair up – you now tie it with a small black ribbon, plum to the head, and roughly two inches above the nape of the neck. After you have tied your hair in place, begin twisting the coil into shape.
6. Lift the twisted coil upwards to the the top of the head, and shape into the ‘psyche effect’. Secure it with two or three hair-pins. Then continue twisting the remaining hair until it is all used. Remembering at the same time to coil it loosely around the first part of the psyche knot. The secure the completed psyche knot with hair pins.
7. Complete your coiffure, fastening a wide slide just under the psyche knot or as in our girls case – two plain pins!
8. The new look for 1911 is to wear a band of gold braid mounted on a velvet band as an ornament, trimmed with narrow ribbon velvet and gold braid.
Source: glamourdaze.com
"Les Maison de la rue Grenier-St.-Nazaire” by Eugène Atget, Paris c. 1908 (George Eastman House)
Source: Flickr / george_eastman_house
Potted Plants, 1920s via The New York Public Library Digital Collections
Source: digitalgallery.nypl.org
1920. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari full film.