Founded in 2017, Strange Times is a twice-monthly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. To get free games and the original PDFs of every article that runs in Strange Times—plus stories that didn’t make the cut—back me on Patreon.
Things I Like
Library DVDs! Although I resist the temptation to classify people into generations—it’s lazy and reductive and tends to misunderstand that the thing that makes whatever generation is currently in their 20s ridiculous is that they’re in their 20s—I admit that one area in which I am firmly a Millennial is my nostalgia for video rental. The major streaming services have gotten so threadbare that we’ve found ourselves paying $20 per month for video libraries comparable to the DVD section at a highway gas station, so last week my 8-year-old and I went shopping in the DVD section of our local Free Library of Philadelphia, and while it can’t compete with a circa-2000 Blockbuster, they had a lot of good stuff. We ended up renting “The King & I,” which is not very good but which gave us a chance to talk about Orientalism, exoticism, colonialism, and the funny way Yul Brynner uses his elbows.
Gin & Tonic! I quit drinking G&Ts ages ago, when I decided that tonic water leaves a funny taste in my mouth and I was better off just drinking martinis, but last week I impulse bought a bottle of Hendrick’s and boy, a Hendrick’s G&T is exactly as springtimey delicious as I remembered.
London Calling! You’ve heard it before, of course, but when was the last time you sat down and listened to the whole album? You know you’re working with a piece of great art when you can go back to it endlessly and always find something new.
Today we have fashion advice, more fashion advice, and a marriage on the supernatural rocks. Oh and do make sure to read all the way to the ads at the bottom—the one for Child’s talks about Fletcherism! Chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew your food on…
September 1, 1921
100,000 spectators witness a parade of babies and children in Asbury Park, N.J., where the winners include a six-year-old dressed up as Caruso in “Pagliacci,” and a depiction of “Uncle Sam ‘sitting on the world,’” as a demonstration of “American dominance.”
Eleven Illinois miners are killed with a wall collapse releases a toxic mix of gas known as “black damp.”
Although casualties remain limited, authorities facing down the army of miners in Logan County, W. Va., report that “there has been more or less continuous firing on four points of the line today,” and they fear that around 5,000 men may launch an assault on the state capitol unless Washington sends troops.
In another example of an airship failing to make it to Lakehurst N.J.,—the most famous of which will be the 1937 Hindenburg disaster—the navy’s newest and largest dirigible catches fire in its hangar, burning along with three other large balloons.
The Weather: Fair today; Friday fair and warmer; moderate shifting winds, becoming southwest.
This was on the front page of the New York Times. I’m not sure why, exactly—I guess they had space to fill so they put it in a little box right at the top of the second column. Our British readers will kindly refrain from giggling at the phrase, “the desirability of ‘knickers.’”
CHICAGO, Aug. 31.—One of Chicago’s largest wholesale clothing houses for men extensively advertised today knickerbockers for women for general wear.
The advertisement pointed out the desirability of “knickers” for women for business and street wear.
In addition to trying out knickers, women are advised to go corsetless. Not simply for fashion, but for health!
CHICAGO, Aug. 31.—Dr. Katheryn Corcoran, Medical Director of the Women’s Catholic Order of Foresters, speaking for the National Fraternal Congress today, said that the discarding of corsets by women had made them better insurance risks. In going without steel supports, Dr. Corcoran said, woman was playing up her curves and developing muscular activity and endurance almost equal to that of man.
Going without corsets was a good substitute for the old-time “medicine bottle,” she said. “The modern woman is too busy working and exercising to have time to think about her heart and her stomach and their ills,” she added. “Women are much healthier than their grandmothers who squeezed their 25-inch waists into 20-inch corsets.”
It’s amazing how often your sympathy can swing back and forth over a two paragraph story. I was almost on Lowe’s side when we got to the detail about how his wife’s spirituality was so annoying that he’d threatened to kill her. I’m glad her “guides” told her not to take him back!
Eugene Lowe, an actor, who was directed yesterday by Supreme Court Justice Wasservogel to pay $35 a week alimony pending a suit for separation brought by Mrs. Margaret Lowe, told the court that he didn’t mind washing the dishes, sweeping floors and mending clothes to spare his wife some of the household labor, but he objected to the “spirit controls” which influenced her.
Lowe said that his wife was in communication with “Red Feather,” an Indian chief whose picture adorned their wall, and also had spirit chats with an infant girl guide, “Little Flower.” Lowe said his wife’s spirituality didn’t bother him when he was busy in the Winters, but during the Summers he was compelled to listen to her communications and they caused him to lose his temper, and once he did threaten to kill her and send her to join her “guides.” He said he was willing to live with her again because he loves her, but she told him her “guides” advised against it.
