Burial Vaults at the height of the great depression.

Yes we are all going to die. Some of us will be buried, some cremated, some given to schools to play with and dissect. But everyone has to go from this mudball called earth. It is a interesting thing to see how the funeral industry found new and fascinating ways to not only bury your loved ones, but also rid you more of your hard earned cash. In 1834 it was just a box and a quick burial. By 1934 as this ad suggests, it was a big process. Which meant ....MONEY!!!

So this heart rending scene of mother's letter let's us know that she and every other widow would be very content to know that her husband was in a airtight, sterile, and protected environment. Not to be morbid, but unless we are bringing them up again, should I care what anyone else is buried in? They are dead, they are not making encores.

It is a great racket, but not what it once was. The day of the 3 day funeral with all the trimmings is pretty much past. Even 2 days of viewings is looked at as kind of silly. And once the body is in the ground...well it is not coming out.

But the funeral industry has made it a pretty good racket out of grief and making sure you respect your family member. Even in an economic depression. But now we have been brain washed to think that is normal to embalm a body, or find a fancy casket, or a fancy vault.
When my grandmother died I got her the cheapest casket and no vault. She was part of nature in a matter of months. Why bother? I would be happy for the same.
Cause yes these vaults work for a while, but then they leak and pollute the ground with all of the embalming fluids just like every other embalmed body.

Can you just imagine the toxic waste dump cemeteries are? Not from bodies not embalmed, but from those that are!


Well it is all history, and the history of embalming I should go into soon.

This is a great ad, and I am sure it sold a lot of burial vaults...even in a great national depression.

Safe and healthy milk. Advertisement for glass lined tanks for milk 1935

The 1936 PIERCE ARROW A great color advertisement and a last gasp of a dying company.

The Pierce Arrow was a great maker of luxury cars and had been making such cars since the dawn of the 20th century. In fact the cars used by President Woodrow Wilson, Harding and for a time Coolidge were all Pierce Arrows. The company was one of prestige and class.

The cars themselves were built like battleships with a wooden white ash frame and paneled with 19 gage steel. This was very time consuming process and a very lengthy process for manufacturing.

But the cars were built to provide the safest and most luxurious performance of any car then on the market. The cars weighed in at around 3 tons. Gas consumption was extreme. But once again if you could afford a ten thousand dollar car in the height of the great depression...did that really matter?

But this was one commodity that could not survive a great economic downturn. By the 1930, Studebaker and Pierce Arrow has joined forces, but there was little hope for a company that in it car department made only luxury cars.
This last attempt in 1936 was to bring out a V8 to V12 luxury car that was the safest and best car you could buy. It was!
But who could afford it? Sadly in 1938 the company closed out it production of cars and the last maker of cars in Buffalo New York was gone.

So here is a late advertisment for the last great Pierce Arrow that did not change the fortunes of the company. A new frame, a better engine, a fantastic car....and an economic depression.

Wellesley College Float Night booklets from 1894, 95, and 96.

These old booklets are from Wellesley College, which was an early all girl school founded in 1875 by Henry Fowle Durant. Float Nights were big events and as here written by LINDA VAUGHAN, she explains some of what the "Floats" were about.

Starting in 1875 a tradition in women’s sport was in the making at Wellesley
College. At that time the sport was referred to as rowing; it is now known as crew. There were several major components associated with the development of the crew tradition: a boating pageant known as “Float Night”, a “scientific” instructional program, and intramural and intercollegiate competition. During the formative years two people strongly influenced the development of crew and its component parts; the founder of the college, Henry Fowle Durant, and the first director of the department of hygiene and physical training, Lucille Eaton Hill.
While at the time of the opening of the college in 1875 Victorian women were assumed
by most people to be frail creatures whose health might be impaired by the rigors of
academic life, Mr. Durant was a strong advocate of vigorous exercise in the fresh air and sunshine. He therefore provided an opportunity for the students to exercise and enjoy the outdoors by purchasing three boats for rowing on the lake. More boats were purchased and eventually the rowers established a practice of serenading the campus while drifting in their boats on the lake at sunset. This spontaneous gathering evolved into a campus event known as Float Night which for a period of time was one of the major components of the crew tradition. Eventually it became an elaborate panorama of parades, singing, rowing demonstrations with star and W formations, processions of tableaus in the form of floats and fireworks displays. Because of gasoline shortages and blackouts, this pageant was not held
during the war years, and after several attempts to revive Float Night after the war, it was totally abandoned in 1948. It had become too costly and the existing student body had never witnessed the event, so that the thread of at least one part of the crew tradition had been lost.
A second aspect of the tradition began in 1882 with the arrival of Lucille Eaton Hill
who was keenly interested in organized sports. Under her direction a more scientific
approach was instituted in the crew program. This was also made possible by the purchase of new 8-oared barges. The crews began to be selected on the basis of health, discipline and technical skill so that by 1900 the original rower-singers had become athletes.








Class of 1896

John Paul Jones Sword presented by Louis the XVI by Charles Henry Hart 1907

Charles Henry Hart (1847-1918) was born in Philadelphia and was a well known art collector, author, and historian. His works and collections were huge. He was involved in the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago as a head of artistic operations dealing with American art. He was the director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. plus the author of many books and articles. Here we have a short piece on John Paul Jones's sword and the story of how it ended up where it was
. This was from a program that was read by Hart in 1907. He inscribed the pamphlet in the front. I had this for many years, I bought a box of pamphlets about 20 years ago. All for a dollar. So I have found some treasures in the box and a lot of junk, more junk than anything else. I will be putting more stuff on from that box soon.
But here is a neat address that was all the rage to do, as Jones body had just been returned to the United States not too long before. So there was a lot of people having a lot to say about the great captain of the American Revolution and all things associated with him.

"MOXIE" A soda from New England that was never the biggest or the best. But sure got some interesting advertising.

Moxie soft drink is a New England, and mainly just New England drink. It has been around since the 19th century when it was originally devised Dr. Augustin Thompson. it was a nerve medicine to cure such things as softening of the brain and things like that. It was a popular drink in the 19th century. Even as we entered the 20th century it had many fans. One such fan was president Calvin Coolidge. Well, Coolidge was from New England so that answers that.



How many soft drinks get a song named after it. Well, Moxie did. It was out and for sale from around 1921-24. Maybe Calvin Coolidge had a copy he played on his Victrola. Below is a record label for that hit song.

Even the baseball legend Ted Williams was wild about Moxie. He was from New England too. For a while they even used Ted Williams picture on their label.

Sadly I have just not seen it becoming or having been much of a big deal in other parts of the country. At least in the last 50 years or so.
It remains a New England soft drink and I guess for as long as it exists will remain so.
But after all is said and done, how many sodas have a hit song named for them. I am sure I will fine one. I recall the Coca Cola commercial of the 1970's "I'd like to teach the world to sing" which was used to advertise coke. But it was not originally about it as far as I know. So I am sure you will not hear the song Moxie anytime soon, but at one time it was, like the soda, a big hit!

Carrie Nation and saloon smashing. March, 1901 "Review of Reviews"

Carrie was the talk of the town when it came to "saloon smashing". She was on her moral crusade to end the ability of people to have the evil drink. This article came out in the March 1901 issue of Review of Reviews. She would go in a smash up a saloon with a axe on her hands. She truly was another Kansas cyclone as they say here in the above cartoon. So enjoy reading some history when it was news!

LBJ's Little Red Book ...a little political fun for the 1968 election

This came out in 1968 in response to China's leader Mao's little red book. In this book on LBJ it takes speeches, comments, observations, and off the cuff statements that were often taken out of context and put into one very 1960's volume.

The 1960's were all about anti establishment and this is a bit of that.

In 1968 it was expected that Johnson would run again for office. However, as I recall watching on TV he announced he would not run. That made this book a bit a bit of a useless thing. But when it came out it had its followers and collectors. None more so than members of LBJ's administration who wanted to know what the Hell was in it.