Shall I wear my trousers rolled?

The [Columbia, S.C.] State, April 28, 1897. A fashion faux pas sets off shock waves among the quality of Columbia, South Carolina.

Ties of disaffection

Grand Rapids Evening Press, March 22, 1907. This strikes me as legislative overkill. Seems like there’d be less economic derangement and dislocation if Senator McKnight simply brought his missus to live in Little Rock full-time. Or if that would cramp his style too much, maybe the railway could build her a special rail car with a lily-white hydraulic lift.

It’s a weird thing about coverage of Jim Crow stuff in old papers–some stuff arbitrarily gets lampooned, but it’s no crazier than the stuff that doesn’t.

I wonder if there’s a hidden meaning to the billing being “referred to the department of agriculture”?

Dress to transgress

Tucson Citizen, June 6, 1904. I’m surprised to learn that Youngstown once had an “aristocratic” sector. I got stranded there once and it struck me as an undifferentiated shit hole.

Three’s a crowd

Macon Telegraph, December 17, 1903. To be fair to this dude, there were no established guidelines for negotiating a three-way in the Edwardian era.

Bad fads

Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1903. The pleasure I take in these cartoons is generally inverse to the number of references I understand. So this one is pretty awesome.
The Encyclopedia Chicago tells us this about the Irving Park Woman’s Club:
“Rich or middle-class, the population of Irving Park was generally native-born, Protestant, and white-collar. They participated in community events and activities of a literary and musical nature. Both men and women were active in neighborhood organizations. The Irving Park Woman’s Club formed in 1888 with an agenda of cultural and reform activities.” So, basically we’re talking about a legion of Margaret Dumonts. But WTF is “the kangaroo walk”? Are “side talks with girls”? And why does the no-breakfast dude look just like William S. Burroughs?

Cartoon violence

Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1900. A straight-shooting Southern pastor lays down his life for decency. Of course there’s nothing like a well-wrought cartoon to turn cultural warfare into the real thing.

Sisters are doing it for themselves (give or take a dude)

Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1907. Interesting that this little party should have required the legitimating presence of at least one man. Inferably that’s because it would have been improper for any of the women to strip Hubbard of his clothes. Let’s hear it for standards of decency maintained in the heat of mob passion. Also notable: Women seem not to have required masks for their vigilante actions.

“An artificial thing is usually used”

Washington Post, January 1, 1900. The line between a giddy student prank and an outrage against decency can be such a fine one. Sometimes the distinction comes down to a placard bearing an opprobrious reference to the superintendent. But you can understand how these high-spirited kids got a little carried away on a fun place like Blackwell’s Island, with its small pox hospital, charity hospital, penitentiary, almshouse, workhouse and lunatic asylum.

CSI: New Haven, 1879

Washington Post, November 27, 1879. I’m guessing that photographs weren’t yet admissible as evidence, even though the art of photography was more than sufficiently advanced at this time to serve that purpose.

The justice of neighbors

Chicago Tribune, January 2, 1881. While the majority of Southern lynchings in this period were racially motivated, white ruralites could also get their coupons clipped if they played their cards wrong. This incident strikes me as a rough music that got out of hand: had the mob intended to kill Mr. Dove, the masks wouldn’t have been necessary. Wifebeaters and men who abused their children and horses were routinely targeted for this kind of correction back to colonial times, as was just about anyone widely regarded as an asshole in the surrounding community.