Revisiting the 'She Doctor' Panic of 1869 | Undark Magazine
“Preston remained unfazed. After another 13 years of persistence the hospital finally gave in again. Now, Ann and her students would test the waters a second time with a new crop of students. And the male students did their best to trouble that water.”
The Paris Morgue Provided Ghoulish Entertainment | JSTOR Daily
“The writer and photographer Maxime Du Camp wrote that “the kids, who go there as they would to a theatrical representation, call the exhibited corpses the artists, if the exhibition room happens to be empty, they say: The theater is temporarily closed today.”
Clamshell Currency | Hakai Magazine
“The thought of having to go for four days without readily available cash shocked Americans. Around the country, businesses began issuing IOU-style notes or ersatz dollars—often called scrip currency—in the form of metal or wooden tokens so that everyday transactions could continue even when retailers couldn’t easily issue change to customers. In Pismo Beach, however, locals turned to a different resource: the shells of the Pismo clam, a large, edible clam once plentiful in the coastal waters of central California.”
Sicko Doctors | The Public Domain Review
“To understand why this was the case, we might take a closer look at the above-excerpted review, which uses a metaphorical doctor to evoke a real ethical question that obsessed Americans at the time: the appropriate way to relate to other people’s suffering.“
Britain and America’s Theatrical War | History Today
“Theatre-going in the United States in the mid-19th century more closely resembled Elizabethan than Victorian London. All classes of people attended the same theatres, co-existing in a shaky peace. The readiness to riot empowered the rough-and-tumble, self-styled ‘common man’ to rule the theatre. When an actor or manager did something to elicit their displeasure, criticism might include harsh words and chants as well as various missiles like eggs, vegetables and, on occasion, animal carcasses or furniture.”
Bugs and Beasts Before the Law | The Public Domain Review
“But, as we have seen with Chassenée's rats, the outcome of these trials was not inevitable. In doubtful cases the courts appear in general to have been lenient, on the principle of "innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt". In 1587, a gang of weevils, accused of damaging a vineyard, were deemed to have been exercising their natural rights to eat - and, in compensation, were granted a vineyard of their own.”
Throwback Thursday | American Hippopotamus | The Atavist Magazine
“Days before the speech in Pasadena, Burnham had gone to Denver to meet with the former president and secured his endorsement all over again. The New York Timescalled the idea “practical and timely.” Editorials around the country claimed that the idea’s time had come, or that it couldn’t come soon enough.
The idea was to import hippopotamuses from Africa, set them in the swamplands along the Gulf Coast, and raise them for food. The idea was to turn America into a nation of hippo ranchers.”