Category: History

  • Let Them Have Cake

    We tossed the cakes to them and I fed them like chickens with small pieces of cake and like chickens they ate it. Mr. Stevens kept guard with a whip with which he pretended to whip a small boy. We made them open their mouths and tossed cake into it. For a ‘Coup de Grace’ we threw a lot of them in a place and a writhing heap of human beings.  We drove on very soon in the moonlight, It was beautiful.…We made the crowds that we gave cake to give three cheers for the U.S.A. before we gave them cake….

    Theodore Roosevelt, Diaries of Boyhood and Youth

    The “fun” occurred during a trip to Italy in December of 1869.


  • Finding Cliff Clavin in 1930s Minnesota

    While watching the final installment of Ken Burns’s “Prohibition” documentary I noticed a picture that was notable solely because I watch too many old reruns of “Cheers”:

    Vintage“Saturday Night in a Saloon,” Russell Lee, Craigville, Minnesota, 1937 (LOC)

    And as it appeared in “Cheers”:

    StillStill from the opening credits of “Cheers,” Season 7 (Youtube)

    Thanks to the fine folks at Shorpy, who highlighted the photograph last year.


  • Tulsa’s Architectural Link to September 11th

    Front page New York Times* article from yesterday on the fact that Tulsa’s BOK Tower is basically a smaller version of the Twin Towers. It should be noted that the tower will become the second tallest building in Oklahoma upon the completion of the Devon Tower in Oklahoma City.