Julius Fromm, a “quintessential ‘entrepreneurial proletariat’”, and a modest man with minimal education, sought a career alternative to making cigarettes and began taking evening classes in rubber chemistry around 1912. Julius Fromm then hit upon the idea of making condoms. The early condoms from the eighteenth century were generally made of animal intestines, and were used primarily by wealthy men – like Giacomo Casanova, who referred to them as “English riding coats” . . .
The Great Rubber Robbery: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis.
via 3 quarks daily
posted by Rumple
on Nov 9, 2011 -
2 comments
Biomedical Ephemera, or, a Frog for your Boils is "A blog for all biological and medical ephemera, from the age of Abraham through the era of medical quackery and cure-all nostrums. Sometimes featuring illustrations of diseases and conditions of the times, sometimes fascinating ephemeral medical equipment, and sometimes clippings and information about the theories themselves." The
archive page is also a useful starting point.
via Things Magazine.
posted by Rumple
on Aug 29, 2011 -
8 comments
Objects Through Time tells the story of immigration and the changing ethnic diversity of New South Wales, Australia through "
movable heritage" - that is, artifacts and objects with historical resonance. While almost ignoring 50,000 years of aboriginal occupation, the site does a nice job of both familiar topics through a fresh lens (e.g., Captain Cook's "
secret instructions"), but also takes pains to look at those lesser known topics which may be more accessible through material culture than through texts.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Sep 14, 2010 -
7 comments
The Language of Food is a blog with only four entries, but each one is an excellent, well-researched essay on, yes, food and language:
ketchup,
entrée,
dessert, and
ceviche. The author, Dan Jurafsky, teaches a parallel course at Stanford, the syllabus for which you can peruse
here.
via (mefi's own) honestengine.blogspot.com
posted by Rumple
on Aug 14, 2010 -
10 comments
The
American Academy of Pediatrics is proposing that
doctors be authorized to perform a “ritual nick” on the genitals of pre-pubescent girls in order to satisfy cultural requirements and hopefully stave off more invasive forms of Female Genital Cutting (FGC):
Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm. (source: PDF; not safe for work, contains line drawings of female genitalia.)
posted by Rumple
on May 7, 2010 -
162 comments
Metafilter's own
JF Ptak has an
interesting post on the Life magazine issue of March 2nd, 1942, readers of which were confronted by some startling maps detailing possible Axis invasion strategies for North America. There was invasion down the
St. Lawrence valley, there was invasion via
Trinidad, via
Bermuda,
full frontal west coast, and down the
west coast as well - note the mapping of the large "fifth columns". As Ptak notes, maps such as these with huge arrows pointed menancingly at the American homeland were very much not the norm of the day.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Jan 3, 2010 -
44 comments
Waterlines is a new online exhibit from the excellent
Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle. It tells the story of the land underlying Seattle, one of the United States' most geologically active city sites, and of the human attempts to engineer this landform. Closely related are the
archaeology of West Point and
Coast Salish Villages of Puget Sound (e.g., read the
story of North Wind and Storm Wind).
posted by Rumple
on May 2, 2009 -
3 comments
Peace and War in the 20th Century is an ambitious, in progress, massive assemblage of posters, photographs, propaganda, ephemera, letters, diaries, paintings, sketches, stories, letters, music and related items, from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The collection is international in scope. Some of the nodes lack content, and the navigation is a little confusing, so the jump I list some of my favourite case studies from their site.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Jan 2, 2009 -
4 comments
Art Images for College Teaching is a
searchable,
browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian
Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the
Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the
exterior sculpture of Chartres; and
grave stele.
posted by Rumple
on Feb 1, 2008 -
4 comments
"The "
American Intervention in Northern Russia, 1918-1919," nicknamed the "Polar Bear Expedition," (
wikipedia) was a U.S. military intervention in northern Russia at the end of World War I." The ostensible purpose was to open an Eastern Front following the Russian withdrawal from World War I, but in practice the unit stayed to fight Bolshevism. An archive of the expedition, which gives wonderful insight into early Bolshevik Russia as well as war-weary United States, is
online.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Jan 25, 2008 -
23 comments
A nice
set of photographic glass-plate transparencies depicting life in Japan ca. 1910. These "Yokohama photographs" were sold to foreign tourists between about 1868 and 1912. I found the
Crafts and Trades section most interesting.
posted by Rumple
on Jun 7, 2007 -
18 comments
The Perfume of Garbage: an archaeology of the world trade centers (pdf). What do the the
godfather of
garbology, a leading
post-modern archaeological
theorist (
blog), and
a "space archaeologist"(cf. space junk) think about the WTC? Obviously as a ruin and as an archaeological site - but much more. An intriguing analysis placing the WTC ruins into archaeological context, and, most particularly, responding to the Smithsonian's
exhibition of artifacts from the events of September 11, 2001. Also, a
commentary (pdf) responding to garbage, space and the WTC.
And yes, garbology goes well beyond Mick Jagger ephemera.
posted by Rumple
on Nov 5, 2006 -
7 comments
The Virtual Gramophone. A massive database of early Canadian 78 RPM recordings, now available in mp3 and rm format. Over 13,000 titles available, freely downloadable. Includes
biographical notes on the artists, notes on the
history of Canadian recording, interesting
technical notes on media conversion, a
few videos from the olde dayes, and
podcasts. This collection is particularly strong on Quebecois and Acadien folk/fiddle music. Courtesy of the
Library and Archives Services of the Government of Canada.
Mentioned once before in passing, five years ago on Metafilter, but much improved since them realaudio only days.
posted by Rumple
on Oct 31, 2006 -
18 comments
Searchable database of >120,000, reasonably high-resolution editorial cartooons. Mainly from the UK, and from the last 100 years. Search by person depicted (e.g.,
Thatcher,
Gorbachev,
Thatcher and Gorbachev); by year (e.g., Hitler and Stalin in
1941 or
1942), by design elements (e.g., cartoons
referencing sculpture by Rodin, or
cartoons with zebras), by topic (e.g.,
BSE,
Falklands War), by artist (e.g.,
William Hogarth,
L.G. Illingworth,
Carl Giles,
Steve Bell) or by publication outlet (e.g.,
Punch,
Evening Standard (over 10,000 from Evening Standard alone). There is a handy searching wizard as well.
posted by Rumple
on May 13, 2006 -
17 comments
The Virtual Museum of Canada has funded or collaborated on almost
150 virtual exhibits, mostly relating to Canadian History and Culture. There is great diversity, among my favourites are
Nk'Mip Nation Aboriginal Childrens' Art from the Inkameep day school (a welcome counterpoint to the
residential schools tragedy), the historic re-photography and soundscapes of
Montreal, Haida Culture
documented , and also compared to
Inuit Culture, Inuit (Eskimo)
games and
3-dimensional (VR) sculpture, a history of the
Canadian Trucking Industry, a splendid overview of
Canadian documentary film making, Canadian
design in the late 20th century, and the
Shipwrecks of Vancouver Island. There is also a searchable
image gallery. The only thing missing is a historical
whodunnit or
two (or
three). All sites available in both French and English, and some in other languages too.
posted by Rumple
on Nov 25, 2004 -
17 comments
