Category: Culture
Ohio Undertaker Used a Corpse as a Business Sample
Mr. Pearce, an undertaker in Ardmore, Ohio, believed his work deserved to be seen. After all, shoemakers displayed their shoes, tailors hung their finest garments…
Why Some People Buried the Dead With “Hell Shoes”
A pair of shoes placed on the dead might seem like a small kindness, but in many old-world traditions it carried a much deeper meaning….
Wedding Dance Custom Ends in Brawl and Bride Gets Black Eye
The wedding celebration began with music, dancing, and an old social custom. It ended with broken heads, a riot call, seven arrests, and a bride…
Parents Feared Missing Teen Girls Ran Away With the Circus
When two teenage girls vanished from Washington, D.C., their parents feared the lure of the circus had carried them away. Seventeen-year-old Edith Holmes and fifteen-year-old…
Sick Children Were Once Tapped With a Blacksmith’s Hammer to Cure Them
For centuries, the village forge was a place of transformation. Cold metal entered the building and emerged as tools, weapons, horseshoes, and household objects. To…
This Was Considered One of Wisconsin’s Most Modern Restaurants in 1922
When King’s Cafe opened in its new brick building on West Second Street in 1922, local readers were told they were looking at one of…
New York’s “Quiet” Fourth of July Was Filled With Explosions and Bloodshed
New York celebrated Independence Day in 1926 with packed beaches, exploding fireworks, stray bullets, and at least one violent confrontation between police and revelers. An…
Don’t Poison Baby
At the beginning of the twentieth century, exhausted parents could purchase “soothing syrups,” cordials, and drops intended to quiet a crying baby or help a…
4 Women Arrested for Wearing Soldiers’ Uniforms on Halloween in Washington
Four young women dressed in soldiers’ uniforms for a night of Halloween fun never expected their costumes to land them in police custody. In 1919,…
Des Moines Woman Won Divorce After Family Jokes Turned Sour
In 1905 Des Moines, Iowa, Mrs. Roslie Pohlman went to court with an unusual complaint: her husband would not laugh. According to her divorce petition,…
