London Beer Flood

Yesterday, October 17th, was the 200th anniversary of the London Beer Flood.  It sounded humorous and I chuckled so I thought it would be a good subject for a random act of googling!  But it turns out to be more of a tragedy than a comedy.

A London brewery, the Horse Shoe Brewery, had an enormous vat that held approximately 160,000 gallons of beer.  A metal band snapped causing the vat to burst open.  The resulting outpour broke open other vats which resulted in more than 250,000 gallons of beer to flood through the streets of the St. Giles neighborhood.  Reports related that a 15-foot tall tidal wave crashed into buildings, knocking down walls and flooding ground floor rooms and cellars.  A total of eight people were killed; some drowned, some were slammed into walls, and one was crushed by a collapsed wall.

The Horse Shoe Brewery was cleared of any liability and remained open for more than another hundred years.



Frances Hodgson Burnett

This all started because I was looking for something new to read on my Kindle that was cheap! I have been rereading some of my favorite books so I decided to see if there was a free/cheap version of The Secret Garden or The Little Princess, both written by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  To my delight, I found the entire collected works of Frances Hodgson Burnett for under $3.00!

After downloading the book, I was surprised at how many books there were in this collection, so I decided to find out what I could about the author.  I was shocked at how little information is out there, and so much of it is contradictory!  For heavens sake, she didn't live that long ago.  She was born in 1849 and died in 1924 and her children's books are considered classics!  Well, that just made me more curious.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in England and emigrated to the United States at the end of the Civil Way at age 15.  Some websites call her English and other call her American.  All agree that she started writing as a child and continued throughout her entire life.  I could not find any agreement on when her father died.  I read he died in 1852, 1853, 1854, 1865.  After his death, the family lived in abject poverty, genteel poverty, or gradually declining affluence.  However, everyone agrees that she supported her family with her writing.  I saw that she was successful enough to support her family starting at age 18, 19, or 20, and that she was not successful until much later in life.

Again, websites disagree about how many books Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote.  They range from just a few to thirty, forty, fifty and sixty.  Now, she is strictly known as an author of children's books.  But during her lifetime, she was apparently best known for her children's book or her historical novels or her books for adults or for her plays.  Speaking of her plays, I read that she was a playwright as well as that she didn't write plays, just that her novels that were dramatized for the stage.

Some websites say the critics loved Frances Hodgson Burnett and others say that the critics really disliked her, critiquing her more for her private life than for her writing.  She was considered scandalous.  She married and divorced twice, she earned her own money and controlled it herself, she liked fashion and travel, and was entirely too independent.

Most everything I read agrees that her first marriage was unhappy.  Frances Hodgson met her first husband, Swan Burnett, shortly after arriving in Tennessee as a teenager.  Swan Burnett became a doctor, and I read on one website that she put him through medical school with her earnings as a writer.  Or she just financed his advanced training.  Or her husband was Dr. L. M. Burnett out of Washington, DC.

The most interesting contradictions I found is regarding Frances Hodgson Burnett's second husband.  Some websites state he was an English doctor, a secretary, her business manager, or an actor.  One website stated that he blackmailed her into marriage in order to control her fortune.

With all the contradictions I found, I felt that I had to find out more about Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I downloaded her biography to my Kindle and I should be able to find out the true story of this fascinating woman.

Random Girls

I was taking a break and turned on the TV; Funny Girl was on.  It is a Barbra Streisand movie about and an early Broadway star, Fanny Brice.  And so begins my Google searching!  The movie took some liberties with the real life of Fanny Brice but Barbra Streisand depicted her fairly accurately.  I was surprised how differently Fanny Brice could appear in photographs.  I can definitely see the comedic actress but she wasn’t that ugly.

Fanny Brice

Next, I looked up the Ziegfeld Follies.  They were put on by Florenz Ziegfeld and were around for around 25 years starting around 1910.  I guess they were sort of a cross between more modern Broadway musicals and vaudeville.  The chorus girls, or Ziegfeld Girls, were famous for being beautiful, but I was surprised at how risqué most of their pictures were.  I guess they were the pinups of their time.  Reading a bit more, I found out that many stars got their start as a Ziegfeld Girl (but I recognized more that were turned down by Flo Ziegfeld).

Ziegfeld Girl

Lillian Lorraine was considered the most famous of the Ziegfeld Girls.  Apparently, she had an affair with Flo Ziegfeld and he loved her even after their affair ended.  I looked up her image and was surprised… I think she wasn’t that good looking.

Lillian Lorraine

Researching even more, I found out that the Ziegfeld Girls were preceded by the Floradora Girls.  Floradora was the first of a series of musicals during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that became really popular.  These chorus girls were not nearly as  risqué as the Ziegfeld Girls.  Amazing what a difference about fifteen years can make!

Floradora Girls

And before the Floradora Girls were the Gibson Girls.  I was expecting the Gibson Girls to be similar to the Floradora and Ziegfeld Girls.  But, instead of being chorus girls on stage, they were a illustrations by an artist, Charles Dana Gibson.  Not real.  In fact, very not real.  I know, that is not grammatically correct but I couldn't believe how unrealistic he depicted women.  He combined two different standards of beauty into an impossible ideal; he wanted a “fragile lady” with the “voluptuous woman”.  In order to reproduce the look of a Gibson Girl, women needed to lean forward and have a tightly cinched waist.  In fact, in order to maintain such a ridiculous posture, a special corset was developed to allow women to depict this artist's ideal.

Edwardian S-Curve Corset

Gypsy

I love finding out new things!!!

We watched the 1962 movie "Gypsy" and I was curious how accurately the musical portrayed the real life Gypsy Rose Lee.  It was fairly accurate for two of the main characters: Louise (Gypsy Rose Lee) and her sister, June.  They were child performers in vaudeville, they did have a pushy stage mother, and June was the more talented singer and dancer.  June did elope at an early age in order to escape her mother, and she became a pretty famous actress.  Louise did go into burlesque and became a "classy and witty striptease artist".  Both sisters did well in the entertainment field, acting on stage, in films and on television.  Both became writers, and June even was nominated for a Tony award for a play she wrote and then directed on Broadway,

The mother, Rose, was portrayed much more sympathetically in the movie than what I gathered from everything I found out about her.  I enjoyed reading about both Louise and June, but I was shocked at what I read about Rose!  I could not believe that when Louise was born in 1911 she was named Ellen June Hovick but when her sister was born one or two years later, her mother gave that name to the new baby and renamed her Rose Louise.  What mother does that!?!  Later, Louise became know as Gypsy Rose Lee and June went by the name of June Havoc.

June never knew exactly in what year she was really born because her mother forged several birth certificates for each of the girls.  Rose put June into silent films as a toddler, and was able to get her to cry for the cameras by telling her the family dog was killed.  The girls supported the family throughout their childhood by performing in vaudeville.  As I mentioned above, June did elope with one of the boys in the act.  She was 15 or 16 at the time.  Unlike in the movie, Rose did call the police and had the boy arrested.  Rose went to the police station to meet with him carrying a concealed weapon, and tried to shoot the young man!

Horrible passport pictures of June, Louise and Rose

Rose was supported by both her daughters for the rest of her life, and continually made demands for money and gifts.  Louise set her mother up with a farm in New York state and a 10-room apartment in Manhattan which Rose ran as a boardinghouse.  One thing I read described it as a "lesbian" boardinghouse and, apparently, one of the women became Rose's lover.  Louise came for a visit, and the woman made a pass at her.  Rose shot and killed her, but was never prosecuted for it because the woman's death was made to look like a suicide! 

Those two sisters definitely had interesting lives!

History of Crochet

The inspiration to many of my google searches is a penchant for not taking things at face value.  I read an article someplace or I see a show on TV, and a little radar goes off.  Ping: error!  And I need to look up the topic to see if I am right that what I read or saw is wrong!  Whew, does that sound convoluted so on to the topic today: the origin of crocheting.

 

Let me start off by stating that crochet is a method of creating fabric by intertwining loops of thread (or yarn) with a rod about the size of a pen with a hook on the end.  Crocheting can be used to make anything from delicate, lacy doilies to afghans to clothing items.

Now, back to the google search.

Of course, the first entry that pops up on Google is that treasure trove of information: Wikipedia.  Wikipedia states that there is no direct evidence on the origins of crochet.  There is a theory that crochet evolved from other types of needlecraft, needlecraft from China, Iran or South America.  The first real historical evidence starts in the early 1800's.

Other websites state the reason there is no early evidence of crocheting is that it was worked with the fingers (as opposed to today's hooks).  Since there was no tool used and the fabric disintegrated, there is no historical evidence.  I liked one website's response to that (love-crochet.com).  There are "... surviving pieces of knitted, woven, knotted, and other fabrics – everything, it seems, but Crochet. If it existed pre-1800, surely some fabric would remain?"

A few websites try to claim the Renaissance period as the origin of crochet.  But I notice one problem with that: they base this on the existence of lace.  Lace from that period was looped, braided and knotted thread - not crocheted.

So, it looks like the first historical evidence for crochet all date to early 1800's.  That is when crochet is first mentioned, that is when the first patterns are found, and that is date of the oldest surviving fabric proven to be crochet.  My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was in 5th grade, but I haven't crocheted in years.  Researching this topic made me want to start crocheting again!

ZIP Codes

The inspiration for today's blog comes from this past weekend.  My sweetie and I were watching a TV show and they were talking about a ghost town in California.  It had become a thriving town during borax mining in the early 1900's.  They were showing old photos of mining, buildings in their prime compared to now, and so on when a guy said that the town had been so big that it even had its own zip code.  My radar went off - I thought zip codes came into effect after the town declined!  My new google search!

The precursor to our modern zip code system began in the 1940's.  Codes were first used in large cities in order to help quicken mail distribution.  The volume of mail increased dramatically after WWII and the US Post Office needed to adopt a new system nationwide.  Zip codes became mandatory for 2nd and 3rd class mail and bulk rate mail in 1967.  The zip code system expanded in the 1980's to include +4.  The +4 zip code is required for bulk mail.

I found out a few interesting things when I looked into this subject.  First of all, the zip code system was necessary because the amount of mail after WWII increased dramatically.  But the increase was due to business mail; personal correspondence (you know, letters) was actually decreasing and is now estimated to be less than 10% of the mail sent in this country.  Zip codes are not mandatory for first class mail (single piece)!  And lastly, I was surprised to find out that zip codes do not actually designate towns or even post offices but distribution centers. 

Hoosier Cabinet

I like finding new things, not new in terms of age but new as in "I have never seen/heard this before!" Today, the new thing is Hoosier cabinets! But let me back up a little... I was reading a story on Lillian Gilbreth. Back in the beginning of the last century, she worked with her husband as an industrial engineer; they invented motion study. In the early 1900's women were not accepted as professionals in the workplace so even though Lillian Gilbreth was a full and equal partner in their endeavors, she stayed in the background allowing him to be the "frontman" and get all the credit. But after he passed away, she had to support the family (twelve children!). She was not accepted in the industrial sector anymore so the business changed direction and she focused on the home.

Now I had heard of Lillian Gilbreth before but I did not remember many details and as I was reading the article I kept thinking "Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that!" Lillian Gilbreth was responsible for designing the layout of the modern kitchen! In describing how she came up with the layout, the article described what kitchens were like back then and it mentioned Hoosier cabinets. I have never heard of that before! What was it? So I started googling.

Hoosier cabinets were freestanding pieces of kitchen furniture, the precursor to our modern kitchen cabinets! Back in the day, they were considered the very model of high tech efficiency. There were all sorts of options available and the cabinets could be customized to fit the needs of the cook! In looking at old advertisements and various pictures of Hoosier cabinets, I can see where we get the look of our modern kitchens!