Category Archives: History

Book Review – The Day The Bubble Burst October 29, 1929

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A Classic Wall Street Tale – Soon To Be Repeated

October 29 is an important anniversary date that many do not remember because they did not live through it. On that date in 1929 the stock market crashed to an astonishing level.

Major media outlets are praising Aaron Ross Sorkin’s forthcoming book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation, (Random House, November 4 2025). 

Coincidentally I was just finishing an older book about the same subject. It is  among the best books ever written about Wall Street.

The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (Doubleday, 1979) is a masterful work of  storytelling.

While John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1955 book The Great Crash 1929, remains the seminal work on the economic causes of the crash, Thomas and Morgan-Witts examine the human aspects of the financial calamity which ushered in the Great Depression.

Threading together the lives of movers and shakers of Wall Street and the ordinary citizen, the authors lay out stories that resonate today. Events unfolding before us now, have similarities to the great crash of 1929. Continue reading →

The Tragedy Of A Forgotten & Handsome 19th Century Artist

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The Story Of Artist Reuben H. Norcott Who Died As His Star Was Rising

It’s funny when you are reading an old newspaper and you come across a completely different story that leads down a rabbit hole.

Such is the case of Reuben H. Norcott.

While researching a story in the Chicago Daily Tribune from 1883 about another person, I saw Norcott’s story on the same page.

I quickly became immersed in Norcott’s story as told by an (unfortunately) unnamed New York correspondent for the Tribune. Continue reading →

Sexual Innuendo Postcards – Same Message With Different Risque Images

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The Risque Postcard 1906-1908

While both of these double entendre postcards would be considered risque around 1900, the photographs are quite different.

This first postcard of “Practice This Piece With Me” from 1907 implies making out during piano practice time.

The second postcard goes a bit further. Notice where his hand is. Continue reading →

See What Products Were Produced In Major Cities Of The United States In 1939

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The United States Once Produced A Wide Array Of Goods And Products

Here’s What The Big Industrial Cities Used To Make

Parke, Davis and Company, manufacturing chemists, Detroit, Michigan. Packaging of pills and tablets on a conveyor belt May 1943 photo Arthur Siegel

We ran this list below a few years ago, but are showing it again considering all the talk of bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

The controversy over tariffs to correct a trade imbalance has its proponents and its critics. One of the goals for the United States is to be more self-reliant by bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Continue reading →

6-Year-Old Snake Charmer – 1949

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Parisian Judge Orders 6-Year-Old To Stop Snake Charming

JUST CHARMER NOW, NO SNAKE
Paris, France – She was “Nita”a snake charmer in a traveling circus, who thrilled the audience with her five foot rose python snake form Brazil. But she was also Nicole Vaissiere, six-year-old. So she’s been taken out of her animal trainer step-father’s side show by a court order. Nicole’s on her way to school where the three R’s aren’t all in the word wriggle. Credit: Acme photo by New York staff correspondent David S. Boyer 12/29/1949

And what else? That’s our usual question to a news story like this.

Checking the news outlets of the time did not yield much more information. United Press International did report some additional facts. Nicole’s snake act Continue reading →

At The First Baseball Hall Of Fame Ceremonies 1939

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Celebrating 100 Years Of Baseball At The Hall Of Fame – 1939

This weekend the National Baseball Hall of Fame will honor this year’s inductees; Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner.

The Baseball Hall of Fame began in 1936, but  the first ceremony inducting former greats wasn’t until the museum first opened its doors on June 12, 1939. Continue reading →

A Rarity – Summer Vacations In The Late 19th Century

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19th Century Summer Vacation?

For Most People There Was No Such Thing.

Congress Hall Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY ad 1886

Summer is underway. For many people summer vacation plans are in place.

Yet, vacations are something we take for granted and are a relatively modern notion.

What was leisure like in the late 1870s?

Your family lives in the city. Your job as a shipping clerk; pressman; dressmaker; bookkeeper; engineer; blacksmith; engraver or iron worker pays the bills, and you may be able to put a little money aside each month.

New York Sun Help Wanted ads 1872

Your work schedule: 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Days off?

One. Sunday. The Lord’s day of rest. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #183 – High Bridge

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High Bridge circa 1890s

This magic lantern slide offers a clear view of the oldest existing bridge in New York City, High Bridge which opened in 1848.

High Bridge spans the Harlem River from the Bronx to Manhattan. It was constructed to connect the city with water from the Croton Aqueduct. A pedestrian path was built and became a popular spot for New Yorkers to visit and take in the rural landscape.

Below is the 19th century hand-colored version Continue reading →

Book Review – Of Things That Used To Be, The Bronx In The Early 20th Century

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A Step Up From New York’s Tenements

Nathan (Nat) D. Lobell’s Of Things That Used To Be  A Childhood On Fox Street In The Bronx In The Early Twentieth Century is a memoir concentrating on a striving South Bronx neighborhood full of  immigrants, primarily Jewish, Irish and Italian between World War I and the 1920s. Continue reading →