The Great African American Escape to Soviet Russia

In pursuit of the African American story abroad, we often look to 1920s Paris, where jazz was first introduced to the French and Black culture was embraced with open arms. It’s a more familiar story than the one about Soviet Russia opening its doors to thousands of Black Americans in the 20th century, where they…

The Unexpected Elegance of Antique Salt Cellars

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: there is no better entertainment than watching the rich out-rich each other. Especially when all the standard bling has been bought, and folks start getting really creative – like, salt-shaker-bedazzling creative, which was the class act move for ye olde aristocrats in need of a stand…

A Hidden Suffragists Portrait Studio Discovered in a New York Attic

In a forgotten attic, sealed up for decades, the life’s work of a photographer for the Suffragist movement has been found, and it all started with the changing of a lightbulb. David J. Whitcomb, 43 year-old lawyer bought a building in Geneva, New York for his practice and was doing some electrical maintenance when he…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXLI)

1. In southern Japan, there’ a train station in the middle of nowhere, with no entrance or exit.. You get off at Seiryu Miharashi Station, but you can’t go anywhere and, to leave, you have to wait for the next train. This station has only one function: to remind men of the importance of stopping,…

A Love Letter to the Lost World of the Parisian Pneumatic Post

Years before the Paris Métro opened, there was another subterranean transport system rattling away beneath the city streets. Instead of messages floating around in the internet ether of apps and social networks, if you wanted to send a note to someone in your city in the 19th century, you tube. A network of sealed lines…

This Dark Age of Disco and the Brave New World of Nightlife

Did Covid really kill the disco? Or was it just the nail in the nightclub’s coffin? Some would argue the clubbing era officially died near the end of the 00’s, and that it was the age of social media that pulled the trigger. It’s a nostalgia-driven debate that can be found thriving in the comments…

Bridgerton’s Black Presence isn’t Total Fantasy, it’s Hidden History

There’s a reason why Google autofills questions about the authenticity of Black presence in 17th and 18th century Europe – lots of people are asking. The hit Netflix show Bridgerton is Shonda Rimes’ first historical drama, but anyone who enjoys the screenwriter’s work (be it Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and many more), knows that…

Who Wants to Buy a 1950s Doo-Wop Motel?

The Jersey Shore earned a certain kind of reputation when MTV cameras infamously descended on its coast in the naughties, but “guidos” aside, in the 1950s, it was Hollywood royalty like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly who had claimed it as their summer vacation spot. In post-war America, the shore hosted some of the biggest…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXL)

1. Empress Elisabeth’s mourning mask and veil. C. 1880 Empress Elizabeth’s only son Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide with his mistress, a 17 year-old Baroness. After Rudolf’s death, Elizabeth dressed only in black for the rest of her life. The Empress Elisabeth of Austria has a seriously interesting story. Here are some interesting facts about…

But Where are the Women of Wall Street?

Do we still have to ask where we are with gender equity on Wall Street? Let’s take stock… Decades before they had the vote, when women were still shut out of stockbroking on venues like the New York Stock Exchange (among many other things), they took it upon themselves to launch their own Stock Exchange.…