OMG, Bottled Water!

And here I thought bottled water was just a recent gimmick, but while perusing through one of my favorite blogs (http://oldadvertising.tumblr.com/), I found this gem from 1910. It should not be that surprising considering how crappy drinking water was back then.

I was just watching How the States Got Their Shapes on the History Channel, and they had this segment of the history of Poland Spring. Coincidentally,I was drinking a bottle of Poland Spring water, and for the first time noticed the "since 1845" on the label. So bottled water has a much longer history than I thought.

Shell Shocked

I was watching one of my all-time favorite movies (for the tenth time ;) the other day --- A Very Long Engagement. Without giving too much away, the story is about this young girl, who despite being told that her fiancé has been killed in the war (the 'Great' one), tries to find out the true story. It's not just a love story, but a story about war and how it affects people.

I love the 1910's, but I'm not into the politics of WWI. I do like to learn about the lives of the soldiers. I can't imagine living in the trenches with bombs, gunfire, and mustard gas. A Very Long Engagment also touches upon the issue of 'shell shock.' It's now called combat stress, which can lead to post traumatic stress disorder. Even though I'm sure that there were people who suffered from combat stress in every war ever fought, it is strongly associated with the First World War. If you've ever seen a documentary about this war, you've probably seen some shocking video of shell-shocked soldiers. Below are a few interesting ones I found on Youtube.

WARNING: Some of these videos can be very disturbing.

Gangsters, Preemies, and Pygmies ...Oh my!

Here I thought that I would have to wait for next summer for True Blood season 4 to satiate my need to obsess over things, but HBO once again fulfills my needs with their new series 'Boardwalk Empire'. I already had an existing obsession with the 1920's, and although I'm not a huge gangster movie fan, with a show set during in Atlantic City during Prohibition, I am hooked by the opening credits.

I love the scenes on the Boardwalk with all the vintage ads and shops. In one scene, Nucky Thompson passes by a storefront that had preemies (prematurely born babies) on display, and for 25 cents admission one can go in and see them in incubators. This reminded me of an episode of 'History Detectives' (PBS) where a woman claims to be one of the babies displayed in incubators in the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The baby incubator was invented around 1890, and before its use to help premature babies, these precious under-weight infants would usually die . As far as I can tell, babies have been displayed in incubators since the 1904 World's Fair (maybe even before that).

It is seems so strange (and maybe a little unethical) to have human beings on display, but at the turn of the last century their were many attractions that displayed human beings. There were the sideshow 'freaks' in the carnivals, and most famously Coney Island. In one of my favorite blogs 'Old Picture of the Day', one theme of the week was Coney Island. There the author put up old pictures taken from Coney Island's heyday. One of them was of a sideshow and another showed a display of native Filipinos. Boardwalk Empire actually touched upon this in a later episode. Apparently at this time, there were many exhibits like this around the world called 'human zoos'. In the same episode of the 'History Detectives' they mentioned a pygmie man named Ota Benga who lived at the Bronx Zoo in the monkey exhibit for a while before people were upset and sent him to live in an orphanage.

Crazy, crazy stuff

1910s Wedding Footage

Another Youtube gem:

Vintage 1910s Corset Ad

Found this on Youtube. I love old (extremely old) advertising. I just wanted to share. :)