Category Creative Historical Thinking
Mail stamp with date and time (and other neat archival finds)
From the archival papers of Willard Wichers (a.k.a. “Mr. Holland), at Hope College. This stamp used for outgoing correspondence of the Netherlands Information Service reminds me of an old library stamp, but instead of just adjusting the date, it also could be adjusted to note the time of date. And this stamp, from the same […]
“Word Maps” or “Maps without lines”
When it was still expensive and difficult to print maps, some sources created “maps” like this one, in German, showing the locations of places in North America. From Gottlob Hebold, Das Brittische Reich in America; oder: Kurzgefasste Beschreibung der engländischen Pflanzstädte samt ihrer Macht, Geschichte und Handlung iin [sic] Nord-America (1761)
Jakub Rozalski and the past meeting the present
A few months ago, I discovered this Polish artist named Jakub Rozalski. His work mixes historical agrarian scenes, folkloric elements like werewolves and gnomes, with futuristic mechanical evils. He sets his work in particular years, such as a series of paintings about “1920” as seen in the top image. It is obviously influenced by the […]
A Brief History of the Origins of Croquet in America
Unlike the obscure origins of most other American sports, Croquet’s beginning in the United States is quite definite. Well, that is if we believe a newspaper advertisement from 1863, in which Daniel O. Goodrich, proprietor of the Boston Bazaar, claimed to have introduced the game to the American public two years earlier, in 1861. […]
Who Invented the “Wet Burrito”?
A recent thread on reddit concerned the origin of the “wet burrito.” For those who don’t know, a wet burrito is like a regular burrito, but it is typically eaten on a plate, with a fork, and it is covered in an enchilada sauce. Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the 1980s and 1990s, […]
A 19th Century Waldo
Browsing through those 1870s county histories for New York and I discovered this guy, a kind of 19th century Waldo, was a frequent stand-in for the artist. Some amazing sketch work in these volumes by the way.
Metal detecting and material culture
When I was much younger, I interned for 4 months at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It was about that time when I discovered “material culture” as a field of study. As a historian raised on a steady diet of old papers, I couldn’t make much sense out of material culture. It seemed to me […]
Michael J Douma 