Annual Macy Parade For Thanksgiving
New York: Photo shows “Uncle Sam” as it passed through 34th Street, in front of Macy’s. photo: Acme 11/21/1940
As isolationists wanted the United States to stay out of World War II, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1940 had a patriotic balloon of Uncle Sam. The balloon was not a statement of being pro-war, Continue reading
Even if you know little about publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst you may have inferred a few things about him from Orson Welles film Citizen Kane (1941), “loosely” based upon Hearst’s life,
Hearst, an inveterate collector, loved all animals. He could not stand to see any animal suffer. Mice and even rats were to be caught and released. Continue reading
Buoys And Girls – In New War On Drowning
New York – These lucky buoys are embracing the quartet of pretty maidens who assisted at the tests of a new life preserver at the Park Central Hotel pool today (Tuesday.) The device is said to be of one third the weight and three times the buoyancy of the present cork life vests. The belts are the invention of Jesse W. Reno, well known engineer who also invented the modern escalator or moving stairway. The girls are, left to right: Dorothy Day, Pat Hughes, Prudence Edgar and Sherry Pelham. photo: International News Photos 5-3-1932
As this old news photo confirms, getting publicity for a product usually works when you have pretty women pose with it.
Engineer Jesse Wilford Reno has an extremely short biography on Wikipedia. Reno’s entry says he invented the escalator and claims it was first installed at the Iron Pier at Coney Island in 1891.
But when Reno died at the age of 85, his obituary Continue reading
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
New York City has a lot of beggars with children. It always has.
If you look up from your phone you’ll see them weaving through subway cars or standing or sitting mid-block or on corners with children close by. Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
