Everything New is Old Again: The Moscow Mule

Ah hipster, un-originality is thy name. The latest blast from the past to grace the drink menus of every bar and restaurant I've visited in the last three months is the Moscow Mule. Sure, it gets twisted and "reinvented' with rum or whiskey or artisan, hand-crafted tiddlywink juice from South Jub-Jub, but we all know under the frill and garnishes it's the same drink dressed up in funny clothing.

The first Moscow Mule was concocted in 1941 and served in the Cock and Bull Restaurant in LA. It's origin is most likely as described in a 2007 Wall Street Journal interview with Cock and Bull bartender Wes Price, "I just wanted to clean out the basement, I was trying to clear out dead stock..." Necessity, mother of invention and cocktails! As for the copper mugs, well signs point to John G. Martin who traveled the US promoting Smirnoff vodka and the Moscow Mule with specialty copper mugs. Since then the vessel has become the traditional container for the mule.

The ad to the left is from a May 1950 issue of Life Magazine and falls neatly into Martin's promotional tour. I'm assuming the "Gold Coast" mentioned in the ad copy references California and not Guinea Africa, but advertising never has had much to do with truth. The recipe very specially points you to Smirnoff and the Cock and Bull's house brand of Ginger Beer, though no copper mugs are specified (though Mr. Mule is holding one).

So, next time you're settling down in your retro pop-up commando food crafting hot spot and you pick up the bed pan ironically turned menu and see a handcrafted Haitian Mule...remember, you're not a special snowflake after all.

The Funnies - Bank Failure (1894)

Judge's Library, January 1894

I think this one qualifies for the Everything New is Old Again category too. All too often we think that bank failures only happened in the 30's during the Great Depression. Before FDIC, depositing your earnings could be risky business. Hence stuffed mattresses and buried Mason jars!

The Funnies - Election Day Bonus (1920)

"Get together, you poor simps, and do something. I'm sick of both of you."

Life Magazine, January 1, 1920

I guess some things never change. Funny how we tend to think we're the first generation with politicians who'd rather behave like two-year-olds than adults.

Everything New is Old Again - Wind Power (1923)

Harnessing the power of the wind has been around for centuries, but we're not talking about pumping water or milling grain here, we're talking electricity. In the present day you'll find lobbyists on both sides of the wind issue, those telling you it'll re-green the planet and bring back the do-do bird and others saying it's just hooey and is making cold slaw out of migrating birds and bats. The thing is, it's nothing new.

Case in point, the cover of the December 1923 issue of Popular Science Monthly. Right there in all it's illustrated glory is an image of a wind turbine producing electricity to power a distant city. This is nearly a hundred years before we'd actually get around to making the idea a reality. 

Happy Earth Day

Environmental Cartoon from 1938 issue of the Rotarian

Sometimes I get a kick out of what we think of as new. Take Earth Day as an example. The Earth Day Network marks April 22, 1970 as the beginning of the movement, stating "Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center." It all sounds good, I mean more and more of us don't actually remember the 70's so we're prone to take the word of 'official' sources to tell us what happened and to read that information as historic rather than the opinion (informed or otherwise) it really is. The problem happens when the facts get in the way. 

June 1948 saw the first piece of legislation to lay down federal regulation of water quality, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, passed by Congress.  The years between 1948 and 1970 would see the government playing a larger role, imposing regulations to control automotive emissions, protect endangered species, and Environmental Impact Statements for Federal legislation. But even the landmark FWPCA wasn’t the beginning of awareness of the value and importance of nature. 

As early as 1864 California was setting aside park land in the Yosemite Valley. This action came, in part, as a response to Frederick Law Olmstead’s suppressed manifesto calling for greater protection of Yosemite and the growing realization that America’s wild spaces were an asset worth protecting. In 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill creating Yellowstone as the country’s first national park and by 1890 Yosemite would join Yellowstone in lands set aside as protected natural spaces. 

Surely, none of these facts change the dire state of the planet we’re facing today. To survive, we must give up the convenient ignorance that makes the damage we do on a daily basis acceptable. By becoming more educated about the environment and how we can improve it and that not only applies to understanding how our habits and choices impact the planet, it also means understanding our whole history. It means avoiding seeing the generations which preceded ours as all bad or all good and merely seeing them as all human. 

Happy Earth Day to everyone. Go out and help the planet, do a good deed, and learn something that will change your life and the lives of all those who will come after you. It’s the least you can do.

Everything New is Old Again - Drones II

Another look at the everything new is old again files and drone warfare, this time from the December 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics. Here we see a dawn of World War II era vision of drone warfare, only slightly different from the vehicles operated by the Air Force today.

Borland Electric

This little car falls into the Everything New is Old Again and 100 Years Ago Today categories. We've come to think that alternate fuels and electric cars are a new idea, but Borland Electric was producing an automobile powered by two GE motors as early as 1910. By 1913 they offered five models including a 7 passenger limousine.

I couldn't find any information on the fate of Borland. Apparently the company merged with several other electric car manufacturers to form American Electric, but I didn't find any definite confirmation. It was clear that the going price of the Borland 5 passenger coupe ($2900 according to the ad) put it out of the reach of the common worker who earned somewhere around $30 a week. The image in the ad gives the impression that Borland's target demographic was the idle rich. The ad comes from the back of the February 1914 issue of Life Magazine. It's interesting to consider Life Magazine's editorial cartoons of this era strike a pretty consistent anti-suffrage tone, but the ad shows a woman at the wheel.

Everything New is Old Again - Drone Attacks

With the smoke and flames of Syria in the air, here’s a little example of drone warfare as imagined in the December 1917 issue of Popular Mechanics. In June of 1944 the Axis would make the theory into a reality with its V1 flying bomb and today US drones unleash Hellfire missiles on targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan.