The Funnies: Pogology (1922)

Pogology

Life Magazine, 1922

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the invention of the Pogo Stick. Though a "Spring Jumping Stilt" was patented by George H. Herrington of Wichita, KS in 1891 the Pogo Stick as we recognize it was invented by Hans Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall of Hanover, Germany in 1920.

The Funnies - Special Edition: 100th Anniversary of the Beginning of Prohibition (1922)

"Did you hear of the latest horrible effects of prohibition?"

"No, what are they?"

"Mrs. Boston Terrier's new pups were born without corkscrew tails."

Life Magazine, 1922

100 Years Ago - the 1919 Indy 500

I thought I'd start the month of May off with a look at the Indy 500 from 100 years ago.

100 Years Ago - Felix the Cat

Almost since the first moving pictures thrilled audiences, we've enjoyed cartoons. Digging through the internet archives I came across this little gem from 1919. One hundred years ago, maybe not to the day, but close enough to qualify. Enjoy a bit of ragtime piano and the antics of Felix the Cat.

The Funnies - First Lap of 2019 (1919)

Starting on the first lap of the year.

A combination of the funnies and a 100 years ago post today, the beginning of 1919 in kitten terms. From Life magazine's, January 1919 issue.

Merry Christmas from 1918

A Merry Christmas from a hundred years ago. Funny how times have changed. It's hard to imagine a card shop or mega-mart stocking war-themed Christmas cards nowadays. Sure, you'll find the requisite patriotic one here and there (still rare), but actually mentioning an ongoing conflict? I can't imagine it. Maybe that's just the view from a generation privileged enough to have the choice not to experience any of the ongoing armed conflicts. These are different days.

So, Merry Christmas everyone everywhere. Put on the Bing Crosby or Judy Garland version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and really listen to the lyrics. Understand that it's a song written to those who are far away, fighting a war that seems endless...understand the singer doesn't know if they'll ever see their loved one again. May we all have a Merry Little Christmas...if the fates allow.

The Funnies Special Prohibition Edition: Columbia's Sweetheart (1920)

Columbia's Sweetheart

The Judge Magazine, July 1920

The now defunct three-mile limit refers to what used to be the limits of international waters, back in a day when how far a country's territorial claims was linked to how far a cannon could fire. Even in the 20's when this cartoon came out, military hardware had probably exceeded a range of three miles. The point, though, is that America's prohibition on liquor extended only as far as its waters and three miles out you could enjoy a cool drink without fear of arrest. So, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the House of Representatives ratifying the constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale or consumption of liquor, I give you a time when candy was, indeed, dandy.

The Funnies: World War I Santa (1917)

"What's the matter with having Santa Claus make his entrance in one of them tanks?"

An odd combination this Monday. Santa arriving on a tank is a byproduct of World War I and the emergence of all things mechanized. Nothing jolly about being a "tanker" in the Great War. Their insides were cramped, deafeningly loud, internal temperatures frequently rose above 120 degrees, and their armor wouldn't turn German artillery. Nothing merry about having a German '88 detonate your fuel and armaments while you're sealed inside, I'll wager.

100 Years Ago - Unicycle Dispatch

100 years ago a large swath of Europe had been reduced to a trench-marred killing zone and German bombers had brought the war to London as World War I ground on toward its eventual and inconclusive end. Minds turned toward mechanized warfare, concocting ideas both horrible and ridiculous. In an era before the walkie-talkie, battlefield communication relied upon a combination of semaphore, flares, whistles, and written messages delivered by dispatch. Commanding officers, often located miles from the front, had to rely on outdated and often inaccurate information when making important decisions, adding to the stalemate that symbolized much of World War I.

With this problem vexing military minds, the same fervor for mechanized warfare that had militarized the biplane and created the tank awkwardly pivoted toward improving communication. It would be over twenty five years before reliable two-way radio communication came to the military, so the natural answer seemed to be increasing the efficiency and speed of the dispatch and thus the September of 1917 Popular Mechanics ran this cover.

Popular Mechanics called its big idea "The Unicycle Dispatch Rider" (in spite of the illustration clearly showing two wheels), a machine which essentially amounted to an inverted, prop-driven, velocipede. The idea never took off for a pretty basic reason - trench warfare developed to shelter fighting men from the raking fire of another World War I invention, the machine gun, and riding a big unicycle would be a little like strapping on a big target. Besides, the landscape of the front with its sandbags, shell craters, barbed wire, and other obstacles didn't make for much of a bike path.

Regardless, I like the steampunk feel of the cover, it kind of has a Jules Verne/H. G. Wells feel that speaks to the sci-fi writer in me.

The Funnies Special Edition - New Years Then and Now (1917)

A Happy New Year - 1867

A Happy New Year - 1917

The Funnies - Special Christmas Eve Edition

Cartoonist Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling expressing the Christmas sentiment 100 years ago for the Des Moines Register and Leader. Ding was a multi-talented fellow and important in the conservation movement as well as being an editorial cartoonist, he helped initiate the Federal Duck Stamp program, designed its first stamp, and headed up the US Biological Survey (the forerunner of the Fish and Wildlife Service) for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The man's got a Pulitzer, a National Audubon Society Award, and a nature preserve named after him...who says doodling won't get you anywhere?

100 Years Ago Today: Ford vs. Ghost

Not the eeriest of stories, but it satisfied my love of old cars, turn of the century events, and ghosts...so I give you Ford Model A vs. Mysterious Road Ghost!

100 Years Ago: The Black Tom Bomb

Morgan, in Philadelphia Inquirer
"Under the Stars and Stripes"

On a quiet morning in 1916, hours before dawn, New Yorkers woke to an explosion that shattered windows in Manhattan, could be heard as far away as Philadelphia and southern Connecticut, and measured 5.5 on the Richter scale. In fact, the reason you can't go into the torch of the Statue of Liberty today is owing to damage from shrapnel from this very explosion. The source was a tiny island  with a name that could have come right out of a pulp magazine. Black Tom Island was a munitions dump and shipping facility from which ammunition was shipped to the allies in Europe to support their efforts in World War I. At 2:08 AM on Sunday, July 30th, German agents detonated over 2 million pounds of ammo.

Initially, theories about the cause of the explosion abounded, but it didn't take long for the press to latch onto the idea of German sabotage. Kaiser Wilhelm and his government's denied any involvement, but there was no turning American sentiment. Within a a year the U.S. would enter the war on the side of the Allies and the die would be cast.

It would be 1939 before a joint German-American commission, analyzing the evidence, would come to the conclusion that Germany had actually supported the attack. Of course, by that time a certain Adolf Hitler was in charge of the Fatherland and he wasn't exactly inclined to pay reparations to Germany's old enemy. Reparations wouldn't come until 1953 when World War II had ended and the German economy had been taped back together. The final payment arrived in 1979 and the first "worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil" was brought to a close.

100 Years Ago - Beer, Bread, and Prohibition

The Price of a Pint
"As far as I can make out from the papers, Bert, the breweries seem to 'ave been
'ard 'it by this blinkin' war."

In 1916, while World War I was churning the fields of Flanders into blood-soaked poppy fields, the beer-soaked pubs of England were under siege by the British parliament. In a rationing move then Prime Minister, Lloyd George, implemented the Output of Beer Act of 1916 which cut England's production of beer and raised the per-barrel duty on brewers. Since then, various people have tried to link this action with a hidden prohibition agenda, however no conclusive evidence has ever emerged. In 1916 there may have been grumblings about the rationing of beer and higher prices, but in 1919 these would erupt into civil unrest which eventually undid the Output Act.

In 1917, though, the cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, who'd served with a machine gun regiment in France and had been mustered out of the service after suffering shell shock and hearing loss during the Second Battle of Ypres, obviously didn't feel the pains of the people. His feature character "Old Bill" puts the gripes of the brewers in prospective.

Part of me has to wonder if Samwise Gamgee's pony, Old Bill, wasn't actually a bit of J. R. R. Tolkien tipping his hat to Captain Bairnsfather since they'd both served in the trenches during the Great War.

Tobacco Redeemer

So, a week into the new year, how are those resolutions coming along? Well, it might help to know that for as long as we've been marking time, we've been promising to fix the nits and gnats of our habits and character come New Years Eve. It's also pretty striking that we've been promising to change the same things about ourselves for time immemorial: get fit, get a better job, go out and experience life, or kick bad habit "x".

Case in point, a hundred years ago the Newell Pharmical Company of St. Louis, MO promised to "banish the tobacco habit" with its bupkis cure-all Tobacco Redeemer. So far I haven't been able to find any information on what Tobacco Redeemer actually contained, it may have been heroine for all I know, but I'm pretty sure it didn't cure you of tobacco cravings in 48 to 72 hours. All I can say for sure is that from the time of World War I through the twenties, Newell was plastering every trade magazine with ads for the stuff.

It might be telling that Newell Pharmical eventually became Rubbermaid, producer of trash cans since it looks like they spent the first half of their existence selling garbage.

100 Years Ago: Ominous Overtones

Let America Beware: Some Day the Sun will
Rise Above the Stars
Kladderdatsch, 1916

On August 14, 1914 Japan entered World War I, formerly declaring war on Germany at the request of the British government. For doing so, the Japanese government had been promised possession of all German colonial territories in the Pacific should the Allies win the war. Japanese forces took possession of Shandong province in China and cut off the German settlement at Tsingtao by October and went on to seize the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands.

In 1915 Japan presented China with what would become known as the Twenty-One Demands. These saw Japan as the new and most important power in the Pacific. China would become little more than a Japanese protectorate and the colonial privileges enjoyed by the European Allies and United States would be rescinded in favor of Japanese interests.

This little propaganda cartoon printed in 1916 by the German paper Kladderdatsch (a paper that would later be a major promoter of the Nazi party) was meant to stir up animosities between the U.S. and the Allies. The hope (seemed to be) that the threat to American colonial concerns in China and the Pacific would be enough to fracture the alliance and stop arms shipments to Europe. Instead, the Twenty-One Demands proved so unpopular with the Allies that Japan withdrew the final group of them, leaving colonial possessions in the Pacific and China in tact until World War II. The damage done to the Japanese reputation, though, was irreversible...they had become a naval power, but would never have the close relationship with Europe they'd enjoyed before. Strange how, in a way, Kladderdatsch predicted the eventual strike on Pearl Harbor, though...

The Funnies - The Comet (1910)

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 1910

Halley's Comet visited our solar system in early 1910 and, like many comets, it visited fear upon the earth. In February astronomers had an opportunity to take a look at the composition of Halley's Comet using the recently developed technique of spectroscopy. A look at the comet's tail revealed the chemical thumbprint of cyanogen, a substance commonly known as cyanide. 

After astronomers announced their findings, and that the Earth would pass through Halley's tail on May 19, 1910, the New York Times ran a story which featured commentary by French astronomer Camille Flammarion in which he claimed that the cyanogen in Halley's tail “would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.”

Panic ensued and in spite of the scientific community's assurances no cyanide would penetrate the Earth's atmosphere people rushed out to buy gas masks and "comet pills" for protection. It took six hours for the planet to pass through the interstellar wake of the comet. Nobody was poisoned or even got sick and we're left with the comic strip above as a memento.

Indy 500 - On the Wire (1915)

From the January 1915 issue of Popular Mechanics, a view of the wire suspension bridge that spanned the 80 foot width of the track from the pagoda to the grandstands at the start/finish line. The three-foot wide bridge was used by the flagmen and race officials during the race, an improvement from having the flagman step out onto the track itself to signal the drivers.

The Funnies - Prodigal Son (1915)

The Prodigal Son Returns

(with his wife and five children)

Life Magazine, November 11, 1915

Another comic strip serving double-duty! Not being a member of the vaunted millennial brat-pack, I don't pretend to understand the complexities of entering adulthood in a world wracked with near-constant war, wage stagnation, and a congress that comes to heel whenever a multi-billionaire clears his throat. I've heard complaints that the youth of today expect everything to be give to them and I've heard they are creative geniuses less concerned with making money and more into self-fulfillment. Whatever the case, I can say every generation has seen the one that follows as lacking. As an illustration, take this hundred-year-old comic from the pages of Life Magazine.

Look familiar? The adult child coming home to live in mommy and daddy's basement, along with his wife and kids. Not only are there no new stories to be written, there are no new narratives. We are a species which repeats itself infinitely, each time thinking no other member of the race has been so clear-minded, creative, and enlightened. Ah, to be human!

World War I: The First Zeppelin Raid on Britan

Early Zeppelins

In January of 1915 the average British citizen read about the battles slogging on in France and Belgium in the daily papers with interest, doubtless worried for the well-being of their loved ones who were across the channel and, maybe, the future of the Empire. But the artillery and machine gun fire existed only in their imagination. Like the specters of an M. R. James Christmas ghost story, the horrors of war described by the papers haunted their nighttime hours and lurked at the edges of their minds in idle moments. That was until January 19, 1915 when the monstrosity of war became all too real.

In 1909 Count Zeppelin had started the world's first national airline. Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (DELAG) was founded to promote the airship as a means of travel and potential military platform. Zeppelin airships operated like flying cruise ships, offering twenty well-healed passengers at a time a new-fangled pleasure cruise aboard a faddish, innovation. But travel by airship was a dicey affair. Occasionally a trip ended in unscheduled stop when inclement weather drove the huge aircraft into the ground. Zeppelin slowly improved its design and service and, by the outbreak of the war in August of 1914, the company's airships had carried over 10000 paying passengers on over 1500 flights. As war ravaged the European countryside, the German Army and Navy equipped themselves with Zeppelin's M Class airships, capable of carrying a payload of 20100 lbs. and travelling at a (then amazing) speed of 52 mph.

Early in the war, German war planners imagined the possibility of bombing London, but technology and logistics prevented their realizing this plan. Being filled with hydrogen, the airships tended to burst into flames when hit by ground-fire. It's also important to remember that in 1914 the bomb (as we understand it) hadn't been developed. Early raiders dropped artillery shells on their targets. On the August 5, 1914 a Zeppelin bombed the city of Liege, but it was damaged by small arms fire and destroyed after a crash landing near Bonn. On the March 20, 1914 two Zeppelins successfully bombed Paris, dropping 4000 lbs. of explosives, killing one, and injuring eight.

Forewarned

Zeppelin (at "The Fat Boy"): "I wants to to make your flesh creep!"

John Bull: "Right-O!"

Punch, November 4, 1914

The first raids on Britain would come on the night of January 19, 1915 when two Zeppelins dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn, and the surrounding villages killing four, injuring sixteen. The Kaiser authorized raids on the London docks on February 12, 1915, but the raids were delayed until April 19 and 30th when the German Army received new P Class airships. Raids were conducted on Ipswich, Southendon, Dover, and Ramsgate in April and May killing six, injuring six, and on the last day of May the first raid against London proper resulted in 120 bombs being dropped in a line from Stoke Newington southward to Stepney and then northward toward Leytonstone.