A fascinating history of women with tattoos

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Most people think of tattoos as a modern phenomenon. According to new book, Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoos, the history of the tattoo is longer than realised. From the woman who was tattooed as part of a Native American religious rite to the upper class Victorian society women who went crazy for tattoos, getting inked has been part of subversive subculture for centuries.
And while covering your body with tattoos has become part of a popular trend for body decoration, for Olive Oatman, one of the first white women ever to be given a tattoo, it wasn't a matter of choice.

Pioneer: Olive Oatman was taken in by the Mojave tribe after her family was killed. The Mojave tattooed her chin to ensure her passage into the afterlife

Going Native: In this 1858 lithograph, Olive Oatman is seen being presented to the Mojave tribal council before being tattooed as part of a religious rite

Enslaved: Although Olive was treated well by the Mohave, her younger sister Mary Ann (also tattooed) died from starvation

 Circus: Betty Broadbent, a 1920s circus performer, is one of the many women whose story is told in Margot Mifflin's new book 

Oatman's story began when she was kidnapped aged 13 by a group of Yavapais Indians, along with her sister Mary Ann, 10. Apart from her brother Lorenzo who was clubbed and left for dead, the rest of her family were murdered by their attackers in what came to be known as the 'Oatman massacre'.

The girls remained with their by Yavapais captors for a year, during which time they were treated as little more than slaves and endured repeated beatings. But their luck changed when a group of Mohave Indians arrived in their kidnapper's village and persuaded the Yavapais to give up the girls in exchange for two horses and some blankets.

The pair were swiftly moved to a Mojave village on the Colorado River, where they were taken in by one of the village families and treated as full members of the tribe.
Although both girls were tattooed by the Mojave, Mary-Ann sadly did not live long enough to be photographed - dying of starvation during a famine that hit the region a year after their arrival.

'She [Olive] was raised by Mojave Indians after her family was killed on a trip from Western Illinois,' recounts Margot Mifflin, author of Bodies Of Subversion. 'The tribe tattooed lines on her chin because they believed it would ensure her passage to the afterlife.'

Oatman remained with the Mojave until she was 19, when the authorities at nearby Fort Yuma belatedly found out that a white girl was living with the tribesmen.
A messenger from the Yuma tribe was sent to negotiate with the Mojave for her release and eventually, they agreed to part with her in exchange for horses and blankets.

At Fort Yuma, Oatman was reunited with her brother Lorenzo. Although she later married, to cattleman John B. Fairchild, she never had children although the couple did adopt a daughter, Marnie, in 1877.

After she died aged 65 in 1903, rumours surfaced of a previous marriage to a Mojave chieftain which was said to have produced two sons. Romantic as it sounds, the rumours were never substantiated.
Since Olive was given her tattoos in 1858, body art has become an ubiquitous part of modern life in the UK, with an estimated 20 million Brits believed to have one.

Painted lady: Women with extensive tattoos, such as this one, were often to be found in travelling circuses during the 1920s

Fashion: By the 1920s, tattoos were seen as seriously stylish, including by this woman seen being inked by legendary Bowery tattooist Charlie Wagner

Pin up: Australian model, Cindy Ray, had become a global superstar by 1962 - all thanks to her elaborate tattoos

Art: Circus attraction turned tattooist Irene 'Bobbie' Libarry, (photographed in 1976) followed in the footsteps of pioneering female tattooist, Maud Wagner

Creative: Modern tattoos by the likes of German collaborative team Simone Pfaff and Volker Merschky or Roxx can be just as compelling as their vintage counterparts

Tattooing has long been part of Polynesian culture, while body art has also been found on the mummified remains of Ancient Egyptian priests and priestesses.
Although tattoos first made an appearance in the woad etchings of Iron Age Britons, they didn't reappear in Western culture until the 19th century and the first recorded body art craze which originated in Victorian high society.
Popularised by 19th century explorers returning home to the UK full of tales about the weird and wonderful tattooed women they saw on their travels, tattoos swiftly became the accessory of choice for upper class women.

Such was the intensity of the craze for body art during the Victorian period, even Queen Victoria is believed to have had one in the form of a Bengal tiger fighting with a python.

Wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill's mother Jennie also had a serpent tattoo, although hers was rebelliously visible and inked bracelet style around her wrist.

'Upper class women were making a feminist gesture,' explains Mifflin. 'They were taking control of their bodies when they had little power elsewhere.'

Sadly, tattoos didn't equal control for many Victorian women, some of whom were tattoed against their will and press-ganged into work as circus attractions.

According to Bodies of Subversion, several women claimed to have been abducted and forcibly tattooed before being made to pose for paying punters visiting the period's popular travelling freak shows.
Other tattoo tales chronicled in the book include the story of Maud Wagner, the first known woman tattooist, who in 1904 traded a date with her tattooist husband-to-be for an apprenticeship and the story of the first British female tattooist - one Justine Knight who opened her London business in 1921.
But while tattoos remained popular during the 1920s, their popularity waned in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Left to languish in the fashion wilderness for nearly 40 years, the tattoo next staged a comeback in the 1970s, when they were claimed by the nascent feminist movement.

'It was about the greater freedom of women to do what they wanted with their own body,' says Mifflin. 'In the '70s, tattoos took on a whole new dimension when issues of abortion rights and contraception and government regulation of women's bodies called attention to the question of who's controlling women and why.'

Since then, tattoos have only become more popular. In the book, Mifflin charts how the rise of body art mirrored that of cosmetic surgery in the body-conscious 80s, before becoming part of mainstream culture in the 1990s.

Although a huge celebrity trend that boasts the likes of Samantha Cameron and Cheryl Cole among its adherents, the book reveals that tattoos have also been adopted by breast cancer survivors, who use them to conceal the marks left by their mastectomies.

This chimes with Mifflin, who envisions a future where faded roses and ugly barbed wire designs have become a thing of the past; replaced by tattoos that compliment the body rather than smothering it.

'The future of tattooing is about decorating the body and not hanging pictures on it. And abstract work has a better chance of standing the test of time.'

Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoos by Margot Mifflin (£15.20, Powerhouse Books) is available from amazon.co.uk

PAINTED LADIES: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TATTOO IN EUROPE

3300 BC: Tattoos were common among the prehistoric peoples of Europe. Ötzi the Iceman, dated to 3300 BC, has 57 different etchings including a cross and six straight lines. An early ancestor of modern European man, the Iceman was found buried in a peat bog in the Ötztal Alps in 1991.
54 BC: The Picts or 'painted men' of Scotland struck terror into the hearts of invading Romans thanks to their scary blue woad tattoos. Julius Caesar also noted the presence of inked tribesmen in the British Isles in book five of his history of the Gallic Wars.
900 AD: Iraqi explorer, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, wrote that members of the Scandinavian Rus tribe (forerunners of the Vikings) were tattooed from 'fingernails to neck with dark blue tree patterns and other figures' during his travels around what is now Sweden. By this point, tattoos were becoming less common in the UK and elsewhere in Christian Europe, where they were seen as a mark of paganism.
1577: Although some of the England's Anglo-Saxon kings were believed to have sported tattoos, the next definitive sighting of body art came in 1577 when the explorer Sir Martin Frobisher returned from a voyage to the Arctic with three Inuit captives. The man, woman and child - all of whom bore tattoos - died within a month of arriving in London.
1691: Explorer William Dampier brought a tattooed native from New Guinea, who later became known as the 'Painted Prince'.
1776: Captain James Cook returned from a voyage to Polynesia bringing with him tales of the 'tattooed savages' he and his men had encountered. He also introduced the word 'tattoo' to the English language, which is itself derived from the Tahitian 'tatau'.
1892: The future King George V kick-starts the tattoo trend in Europe after he gets a Cross of Jerusalem tattoo while on a visit to the Middle East. His sons, the Duke of York and Clarence follow suit while on a naval tour of Japan.
1898: Another future British monarch, Edward VII, gets a tattoo and is swiftly copied by nearly every crowned head in Europe. Among the royal ink fans were Denmark's King Frederick IX, the King of Romania, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Even Queen Victoria was rumoured to have one.
1900: The first tattoo exhibition is held in London, kickstarting a trend for tattooed 'freaks' in contemporary travelling circuses
1921: The first British female tattooist, Justine Knight, opens the doors to her London parlour
1939: The outbreak of war in Europe precipitates a decline in the popularity of tattoos which continues throughout the 1940s. 50s and 60s
1970: With the advent of the Women's Liberation movement, body art begins to become popular once more.
2013: Body etching has become part of mainstream culture, boasting celebrity fans ranging from Samantha Cameron to Cheryl Cole. An estimated 20 million British people are believed to have one.

Timbuktu

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JOHANNESBURG — Islamist extremists damaged or stole only a limited number of manuscripts in Timbuktu in Mali before they fled the fabled desert city, a South African university said Wednesday.

People in the north Malian city who have knowledge of the documents reported that there was no malicious destruction of any library or collection, said the University of Cape Town, which helped fund a state-of-the-art library to house manuscripts.

"The custodians of the libraries worked quietly throughout the rebel occupation of Timbuktu to ensure the safety of their materials," said the university. Islamist rebels have been in control of Timbuktu for nearly 10 months.

The university said that a report from Britain's Sky News that 25,000 manuscripts had been burned was false. Other news reports quoted the city mayor, who wasn't in the city, saying manuscripts had been destroyed, the university said.

With its Islamic treasures and centuries-old mud-walled buildings including an iconic mosque, Timbuktu is a U.N.-designated World Heritage Site.

Most of the manuscripts, which are as many as 900 years old, were gathered between the 1980s and 2000 from all over Mali for the Ahmad Baba Institute for Higher Learning and Islamic Research, which moved into its new home in 2009.

Media reports said that the Ahmad Baba Institute had been ransacked by the militants. But the university said a senior researcher at the institute, Mohamed Diagayete, said the majority of the manuscripts were stored in an older building elsewhere in the city.

The manuscripts cover subjects from science, astrology and medicine to history, theology, grammar and geography. They date back to the late 12th century, the start of a 300-year golden age for Timbuktu as a spiritual and intellectual capital for the propagation of Islam.

Islamist extremists decimated tourism in 2011 when three Europeans were taken hostage from a Timbuktu restaurant in November that year. In April 2012, Tuareg nationalist rebels seized control of Timbuktu from government troops. A day later Islamist insurgents moved into the city. They banned music, insisted women cover themselves and began carrying out public executions.

On Tuesday, Timbuktu was in control of French and Malian troops, including some 250 French paratroopers dropped from the sky. The extremists melted into the desert without firing a shot. Townspeople were jubilant at the city's liberation from intolerant Islamist extremists.
"The protection of the cultural and intellectual heritage of this region needs to be enhanced and promoted," the university said. "The abandonment of the security of Timbuktu nine months ago, the flight of archivists and researchers, and the closure of libraries should not be repeated."
In Paris, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said that the U.N. cultural agency will do everything possible to safeguard and rebuild Mali's cultural heritage.

"In times of turmoil, the risks of illicit trafficking of cultural objects are at the highest, with Mali's renowned ancient manuscripts being the most vulnerable," Bokova said.

"We will mobilize all our expertise and resources to help safeguard and preserve the ancient manuscripts that testify to the region's glorious past as a major center of Islamic learning."

9 Historical Methods of Detecting Pregnancy

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Home pregnancy tests are magical and work by detecting trace levels of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the urine; hCG is present after egg implantation, which occurs six to 12 days after fertilization, and is secreted by the cells that are beginning to form the placenta.

Home pregnancy tests became widely available in 1978, although they took two hours to develop and gave false negatives 80 percent of the time. Today they can tell as early as five days before your missed period.

Before the invention of this miraculous device, the most reliable test was to wait and see. While it might be a nice surprise to find out you’re pregnant the old-fashioned way—barfing, missing periods, having a baby—women still wanted to know as early as possible,

So how did they do it? It always comes back to pee ...

1. The Wheat and Barley Test

Possibly the earliest home pregnancy tests came from Ancient Egypt. In 1350 BCE, women were advised to urinate on wheat and barley seeds over the course of several days; if the wheat sprouted, she was having a girl, and if the barley sprouted, a boy. If neither sprouted, she wasn’t pregnant. The most interesting thing about this test was that it actually worked: In 1963, a laboratory experimented with the wheat and barley test and found that, 70 percent of the time, the urine of pregnant women would cause the seeds to sprout, while the urine of non-pregnant women and men did not. The Ancient Egyptians knew everything.

2. The Onion Test

While the Ancient Egyptians were on to something with the wheat and barley test, they and the Ancient Greeks shared a fuzzy understanding of anatomy. Both Egyptian medical papyri and Hippocrates, lauded as the father of medicine, suggested that a woman who suspected she might be pregnant insert an onion or other strong-smelling bulbous vegetable into her vagina overnight. If her breath smelled of onions the next morning, she wasn’t pregnant; this was based on the idea that her womb was open, and wafting the oniony scent up to her mouth like a wind tunnel. If she were pregnant, then the womb would be closed, so no wind tunnel.
The onion test might explain why one young man left an onion in his sleeping lady friend’s vagina after a drunken tryst as, the medical report explains, “a parting gesture of affection.” She only discovered it after she tore off to the hospital thinking she had vaginal cancer.

3. The Beer and Date Mash Test

Another Ancient Egyptian papyrus suggested spreading mashed up dates and beer around on the floor and recording how many times the unfortunate woman who sat on this carpet of nasty vomited. If it were a lot, then presumably she was very  pregnant. The thinking behind this, though impractical and weird, is not ridiculous, aversion to strong odors and propensity to vomit are often signs of early pregnancy. Or it could be a sign that covering a floor with mashed up beer and dates is gross.

4. The Latch Test

From The Distaff Gospels, a collection of women’s medical lore written in the late 15th century: “My friends, if you want to know if a woman is pregnant, you must ask her to pee in a basin and then put a latch or a key in it, but it is better to use a latch—leave this latch in the basin with the urine for three or four hours. Then throw the urine away and remove the latch. If you see the impression of the latch on the basin, be sure that the woman is pregnant. If not, she is not pregnant.”

5. Piss Prophets

As bizarre as the “latch test” sounds, it still recognized that something in pregnant pee was different than non-pregnant lady or man pee, a fact that 16th century European “piss prophets” also recognized. These so-called experts claimed that they could determine whether or not a woman was with child by the color and characteristics of her urine. Some also mixed urine with wine and observed the results, a test that might have seen some success, given that alcohol can react to proteins present in pregnant pee. Of course, these piss prophets didn’t limit their wee divination to pregnant ladies; they could also, by examining urine, intuit whether the urine’s owner was suffering from any illness or disease.

6. Look Into My Eyes

One 16th century physician, Jacques Guillemeau, claimed you could tell by a woman’s eyes whether she was pregnant. Guillemeau, author of an influential treatise on ophthalmology, claimed that as early as the second month, “a pregnant woman gets deep-set eyes with small pupils, drooping lids and swollen little veins in the corner of the eye.” That is likely not true, but he was right about one thing: Eyes can change during pregnancy, affecting your vision and why it is unwise to get new contacts or prescription glasses during pregnancy.

7. I Saw the Sign

Early in pregnancy, six to eight weeks in, the cervix, labia and vagina can take on a dark bluish or purple-red hue, owing to the increased blood flow to the area. This remarkable indication of pregnancy, before other traditional signs like craving pickles and barfing, was first noticed in 1836 by a French physician. It later became known as Chadwick’s sign, after James Read Chadwick, an obstetrics doctor who brought the discovery up at a meeting of the American Gynecological Society in 1886. Given that you had to look at the vagina to see the sign, and how prudish 19th century doctors tended to be, it is unlikely that Chadwick’s sign was used very often as an indicator of pregnancy.

8. The Rabbit Test

Other than observational tests such as Chadwick’s sign, pregnancy tests were still unpleasant until the 20th century. Investigation into hormones, the big thing in science at the turn of the century, made pregnancy testing unpleasant for rabbits, mice, and rats.

In the 1920s, two German scientists, Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek, determined that there was a specific hormone present in the urine of pregnant women that seemed to be linked to ovary growth; we now know it as human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG. They figured this out by injecting the urine of pregnant women into sexually immature rabbits, rats, and mice, which would induce ovarian development. Most of the time, the pregnant pee  produced bulging masses on the animals’ ovaries, a sure indication of the presence of hCG. The Rabbit Test was born. According to a contemporary medical journal: A sample of urine was injected into a group of young female mice over a period of five days. On the fifth day, the mice were killed and autopsied to examine the state of their ovaries. If their reproductive bits looked excited, the test was positive. If you wanted your results in less than five days, they could simply use more mice.

This method ran through lots of rabbits, mice, and rats; though the phrase “the rabbit died” popularly meant that the woman was pregnant, in actuality, all of the rabbits—and the mice and rats—died. Though doctors could look at the ovaries of the animal without killing it, that tended to be too much trouble.

9. The Frog Test

Though it worked on the same principle as the Rabbit Test, this one was actually a bit better—at least the animal remained alive at the end of it. In the late 1940s, scientists determined that when pregnant lady pee is injected into a live toad or frog, the unfortunate amphibian will produce eggs within 24 hours. The toad or frog lived to see another day and, usually, another test. The test was also called the “Bufo” test, after the particular species of toad usually used.
As horrible as the animal-killing tests sound, they were important steps on the road to first the blood test and then the home pregnancy test, which fundamentally changed the way women think about pregnancy and their own bodies. So let’s all say a quiet thank you to the rabbits, rats, mice, frogs, and onions who were sacrificed for the cause.

Vintage Chanel

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Rare fashion sketches from the house of CHANEL through the 1950s and 1960s... http://adore-vintage.blogspot.com/2013/01/vintage-chanel-fashion-1950s-1960s.html

The Firearm

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Worst invention in history ....

The Beatles

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Today is the anniversary of the last live public concert by The Beatles on January 30, 1969: http://huff.to/WQjAM3

 Photo Credit: Getty Images

FDR

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MLK

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Fifty-seven years ago today, Dr. Martin L. King Jr.'s home was bombed with his wife and first child inside. Dr. King urged his people to go home when they insisted on defending him, saying:

"If you have weapons, take them home. If you do not have them, please do not seek them. We cannot solve this problem through violence. We must meet violence with non-violence. Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Remember this movement will not stop, because God is with it."

It is easy to speak an ideology, but to live it in the face of danger is heroic.
...
http://newsone.com/2173732/dr-kings-house-is-bombed/
 

Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X, Muhamed Ali

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The Origin of Blue Jeans

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An early pair of Levi Strauss & Co.'s "Duck Trousers." Photo courtesy American History Museum

On the 109th anniversary of Levi Strauss’ death, his chief product—blue jeans—have become a $91 billion per year industry, an icon of American culture, and quite possibly the world’s most popular article of clothing. His name, more than any other, evokes the tough denim fabric and heavy stitching of America’s favorite pair of pants. But the birth of blue jeans came under surprising circumstances—and the ancestral trousers barely resemble the blue jeans of today.

It all started in 1871, when tailor Jacob Davis of Reno, Nevada, had a problem. The pants he made for miners were not tough enough to withstand the conditions in local mines; among other issues, the pockets and button fly were constantly being torn. “A miner’s wife came up to Davis and asked him to come up with pants that could withstand some abuse,” says curator Nancy Davis (no relation), from the American History Museum. Davis looked at the metal fasteners he used on harnesses and other objects. “At that time, he came up with the riveted trousers.”

As local miners snapped up the overalls he made with rivet-strengthened stress points and durable “duck cloth,” a type of canvas, Davis realized he needed to protect his idea. “He had to rush, due to the fact that these worked really well,” says Nancy Davis. “He realized he had something.” Lacking the money to file documents, he turned to Levi Strauss, a German immigrant who had recently opened a branch of his family’s dry-goods store in San Francisco, and the two took out a patent on a pair of pants strengthened with rivets.

Davis soon moved to San Francisco, and wide scale production of riveted pants started for the first time. Strauss ran the business, while Davis became production manager. “[Davis] actually was the person in charge of making sure that the trousers really did what they said they were going to do,” says Nancy Davis. “He was the person who knew how these pants should work.”

A close-up of the Smithsonian's original Levi Strauss trousers. Photo courtesy American History Museum

Business boomed as pants flew off the shelves. “Strauss was doing pretty well in terms of bringing in merchandise from the East, but this was great because he didn’t need to bring in everything. He could manufacture it there, and that cut out a lot of cost,” says Davis. “He didn’t make just the jeans, but this was the principal thing he was making, and they were very popular.”

Essential to the Levi’s name was the integrity and ruggedness of the trousers. As seen on the American History Museum’s own pair of antique duck trousers, made sometime between 1873 and 1896, the label clearly proclaims “Patent Riveted Duck & Denim Clothing. . .Every Pair Guaranteed. None Genuine Unless Bearing This Label.”

Even as the patent expired in 1890, Levi Strauss & Co. was already associated with a tremendously popular product and set up for long-term success. But introducing a new, more flexible fabric—blue denim—to go with the rivet idea proved to be the combination that would shape American wardrobes for more than a century and more. “The brown duck continued to be used as late as 1896, and for a while it was side by side with the blue jeans,” Davis says.

The 1890 creation of the iconic Levi’s 501 style, in particular, led to the denim jeans taking over, eventually moving outside of the working class demographic and into the embrace of everyday casual fashion. “Initially, with Davis, it was the people who really needed serviceable pants, and needed them to last a lot longer than most,” says Nancy Davis. “Then we have record of—as early as the 1930s—people, other than blue-collar workers, wearing jeans. You do have people wearing them who don’t need to wear them, especially young people.”

In the latter half of the 20th century—decades after Strauss’ death in 1902—blue jeans achieved widespread cultural significance. “They really come to their apex in the 60s and 70s,” Davis says. “The interesting thing is that this particular type of pants, the blue jeans, have become international,” she adds. “It’s what people think of. When they think of America, they think of blue jeans.”

We Wear Pants Because Cavalry Won Wars

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Photo: The Armatura Press

Duke University evolutionary biologist Peter Turchin, writing about the proposed cultural evolution of pants, says,

If we go back to the ‘Cradle of the Western Civilization,’ the Mediterranean region two thousand years ago, we will find that none of the civilized people there (notably the Greeks and the Romans, but also Phoenicians and Egyptians) wore pants.

Zip forward in time for about a thousand years and pants are everywhere.

Why did the Italians switch from tunics to pants? The answer is the horse. Not only are the horses responsible for why we live in complex, large-scale societies (or, at least, how such large-scale societies first evolved), they are also the reason why males have to swelter in pants in summer, instead of wearing the cool kilt.

Around the world, societies which had mastered the art of horseback combat wiped out those that had not. The theory states that men in battle needed to protect their most sensitive organ, and riding sidesaddle was not amenable to the chaos of combat.

Writing in The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal adds to the discussion the similar history of the bicycle and the decline in long, frilly dresses. Madrigal says,

What all these examples suggest is that technological systems — cavalry, bicycling — sometimes require massive alterations in a society’s culture before they can truly become functional. And once it’s locked in, the cultural solution (pants) to an era’s big problem can be more durable than the activity (horse-mounted combat) that prompted it.

Walter Cronkite Tours the Home of 2001

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Walter Cronkite gives a tour of the home office of 2001 on his show The 21st Century (1967)

Legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite’s regular half-hour CBS documentary program “The 21st Century” was a glorious peek into the future. Every Sunday night viewers of the late 1960s were shown the exciting technological advancements expected in 30 or 40 years in the future. The March 12, 1967, episode was a look at the home of the 21st century, complete with 3D television, molded on-demand serving dishes, videophones, inflatable furniture, satellite newspaper delivery and robot servants.

Exterior of the house of the future (1967)

Cronkite spends the first five minutes of the program deriding the evils of urban sprawl and insisting that everyone dreams of a house in seclusion on a few acres of land. Cronkite and his interviewee Philip Johnson insisted that moving back into ever denser cities was the wave of the future. This would be a second home, Cronkite said — far removed from the high density reality that everyone of the 21st century must face:

Let’s push our imaginations ahead and visit the home of the 21st century. This could be someone’s second home, hundreds of miles away from the nearest city. It consists of a cluster of pre-fabricated modules. This home is as self-sufficient as a space capsule. It recirculates its own water supply and draws all of its electricity from its own fuel cell.

Walter Cronkite in the living room of the future (1967)

Living Room of 2001
The living room of the future is a place of push-button luxury and a mid-century modern aesthetic. The sunken living room may feature inflatable furniture and disposable paper kids’ chairs, but Cronkite assures us that there is no reason the family of the future could not have a rocking chair — to remind us that “both the present and the future are merely extensions of the past.”

Once inside we might find ourselves in a glass enclosure where the lint and dirt we’ve accumulated during our trip is removed electrostatically. Now we step into the living room. What will the home of the 21st century look like inside? Well, I’m sitting in the living room of a mock-up of the home of the future, conceived by Philco-Ford and designed by Paul McCobb. This is where the family of the 21st century would entertain guests. This room has just about everything one would want: a big (some might say too big) full color 3D television screen, a stereo sound system that could fill the room with music, and comfortable furniture for relaxed conversation.

If that living room looks familiar it may be because it’s the same house from the Internet-famous short film “1999 A.D.” produced in 1967 (often mistakenly dated as 1969, which would make the moon landing footage less impressive) and starring a young Wink Martindale.

Walter Cronkite showing off the control panel for the 3D-TV of the year 2001 (1967)

Cronkite explains that a recent government report concludes that Americans of the year 2000 will have a 30-hour work week and month-long vacations “as the rule.” He goes on to tell viewers that this will mean much more leisure time for the average person:

A lot of this new free time will be spent at home. And this console controls a full array of equipment to inform, instruct and entertain the family of the future. The possibilities for the evening’s program are called up on this screen. We could watch a football game, or a movie shown in full color on our big 3D television screen. The sound would come from these globe-like speakers. Or with the push of a button we could momentarily escape from our 21st century lives and fill the room with stereophonic music from another age.

For more, visit: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2013/01/3d-tv-automated-cooking-and-robot-housemaids-walter-cronkite-tours-the-home-of-2001/?utm_source=facebook.COM&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=20130129&utm_content=3dtvautomatedcookingandrobothousemaids

11 Little Known Tips About Ancient Egypt

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Ancient Egypt stood as one of the world’s most advanced civilizations for nearly 3,000 years and created a culture so rich that it has spawned its own field of study. But while Egyptian art, architecture and burial methods have become enduring objects of fascination, there is still a lot you probably don’t know about these famed builders of the pyramids. From the earliest recorded peace treaty to ancient board games, find out 11 surprising facts about the Gift of the Nile.

1. Cleopatra was not Egyptian.

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Along with King Tut, perhaps no figure is more famously associated with ancient Egypt than Cleopatra VII. But while she was born in Alexandria, Cleopatra was actually part of a long line of Greek Macedonians originally descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s most trusted lieutenants. The Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 B.C., and most of its leaders remained largely Greek in their culture and sensibilities. In fact, Cleopatra was famous for being one of the first members of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually speak the Egyptian language.

2. The ancient Egyptians forged one of the earliest peace treaties on record.

Giovanni Dall'Orto/Wikimedia Commons

For over two centuries the Egyptians fought against the Hittite Empire for control of lands in modern day Syria. The conflict gave rise to bloody engagements like 1274 B.C.’s Battle of Kadesh, but by time of the pharaoh Ramses II neither side had emerged as a clear victor. With both the Egyptians and Hittites facing threats from other peoples, in 1259 B.C. Ramses II and the Hittite King Hattusili III negotiated a famous peace treaty. This agreement ended the conflict and decreed that the two kingdoms would aid each other in the event of an invasion by a third party. The Egyptian-Hittite treaty is now recognized as one of the earliest surviving peace accords, and a copy can even be seen above the entrance to the United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York.

3. Ancient Egyptians loved board games.

Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis

After a long day’s work along the Nile River, Egyptians often relaxed by playing board games. Several different games were played, including “Mehen” and “Dogs and Jackals,” but perhaps the most popular was a game of chance known as “Senet.” This pastime dates back as far as 3500 B.C. and was played on a long board painted with 30 squares. Each player had a set of pieces that were moved along the board according to rolls of dice or the throwing sticks. Historians still debate Senet’s exact rules, but there is little doubt of the game’s popularity. Paintings depict Queen Nefertari playing Senet, and pharaohs like Tutankhamen even had game boards buried with them in their tombs.

4. Egyptian women had a wide range of rights and freedoms.

DEA/A. Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images

While they may have been publicly and socially viewed as inferior to men, Egyptian women enjoyed a great deal of legal and financial independence. They could buy and sell property, serve on juries, make wills and even enter into legal contracts. Egyptian women did not typically work outside the home, but those who did usually received equal pay for doing the same jobs as men. Unlike the women of ancient Greece, who were effectively owned by their husbands, Egyptian women also had the right to divorce and remarry. Egyptian couples were even known to negotiate an ancient prenuptial agreement. These contracts listed all the property and wealth the woman had brought into the marriage and guaranteed that she would be compensated for it in the event of a divorce.

5. Egyptian workers were known to organize labor strikes.

Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Even though they regarded the pharaoh as a kind of living god, Egyptian workers were not afraid to protest for better working conditions. The most famous example came in the 12th century B.C. during the reign of the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses III. When laborers engaged in building the royal necropolis at Deir el-Medina did not receive their usual payment of grain, they organized one of the first recorded strikes in history. The protest took the form of a sit-in: The workers simply entered nearby mortuary temples and refused to leave until their grievances were heard. The gamble worked, and the laborers were eventually given their overdue rations.

6. Egyptian pharaohs were often overweight.

rob koopman/Wikimedia Commons

Egyptian art commonly depicts pharaohs as being trim and statuesque, but this was most likely not the case. The Egyptian diet of beer, wine, bread and honey was high in sugar, and studies show that it may have done a number on royal waistlines. Examinations of mummies have indicated that many Egyptian rulers were unhealthy and overweight, and even suffered from diabetes. A notable example is the legendary Queen Hatshepsut, who lived in the 15th century B.C. While her sarcophagus depicts her as slender and athletic, historians believe she was actually obese and balding.

7. The pyramids were not built by slaves.

Peter M. Wilson/Corbis

The life of a pyramid builder certainly wasn’t easy—skeletons of workers commonly show signs of arthritis and other ailments—but evidence suggests that the massive tombs were built not by slaves but by paid laborers. These ancient construction workers were a mix of skilled artisans and temporary hands, and some appear to have taken great pride in their craft. Graffiti found near the monuments suggests they often assigned humorous names to their crews like the “Drunkards of Menkaure” or the “Friends of Khufu.” The idea that slaves built the pyramids at the crack of a whip was first conjured by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century B.C., but most historians now dismiss it as myth. While the ancient Egyptians were certainly not averse to keeping slaves, they appear to have mostly used them as field hands and domestic servants.

8. King Tut may have been killed by a hippopotamus.

Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis

Surprisingly little is known about the life of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen, but some historians believe they know how he died. Scans of the young king’s body show that he was embalmed without his heart or his chest wall. This drastic departure from traditional Egyptian burial practice suggests that he may have suffered a horrific injury prior to his death. According to a handful of Egyptologists, one of the most likely causes for this wound would have been a bite from a hippopotamus. Evidence indicates that the Egyptians hunted the beasts for sport, and statues found in King Tut’s tomb even depict him in the act of throwing a harpoon. If the boy pharaoh was indeed fond of stalking dangerous game, then his death might have been the result of a hunt gone wrong.

9. Some Egyptian doctors had specialized fields of study.

Blaine Harrington III/Corbis

An ancient physician was usually a jack-of-all-trades, but evidence shows that Egyptian doctors sometimes focused on healing only one part of the human body. This early form of medical specialization was first noted in 450 B.C. by the traveler and historian Herodotus. Discussing Egyptian medicine, he wrote, “Each physician is a healer of one disease and no more…some of the eye, some of the teeth, some of what pertains to the belly.” These specialists even had specific names. Dentists were known as “doctors of the tooth,” while the term for proctologists literally translates to “shepherd of the anus.”

10. Egyptians kept many animals as pets.

The Art Archive/Corbis

The Egyptians saw animals as incarnations of the gods and were one of the first civilizations to keep household pets. Egyptians were particularly fond of cats, which were associated with the goddess Bastet, but they also had a reverence for hawks, ibises, dogs, lions and baboons. Many of these animals held a special place in the Egyptian home, and they were often mummified and buried with their owners after they died. Other creatures were specially trained to work as helper animals. Egyptian police officers, for example, were known to use dogs and even trained monkeys to assist them when out on patrol.

11. Egyptians of both sexes wore makeup.

The Art Archive/Corbis

Vanity is as old as civilization, and the ancient Egyptians were no exception. Both men and women were known to wear copious amounts of makeup, which they believed gave them the protection of the gods Horus and Ra. These cosmetics were made by grinding ores like malachite and galena into a substance called kohl. It was then liberally applied around the eyes with utensils made out of wood, bone and ivory. Women would also stain their cheeks with red paint and use henna to color their hands and fingernails, and both sexes wore perfumes made from oil, myrrh and cinnamon. The Egyptians believed their makeup had magical healing powers, and they weren’t entirely wrong: Research has shown that the lead-based cosmetics worn along the Nile actually helped stave off eye infections.

Did You Know?

• The Great Pyramid of Giza was so ahead of its time that it stood as mankind’s most significant architectural achievement for several millennia. Built in 2560 B.C. for the pharaoh Khufu, the structure consists of some 2.3 million stone blocks and took an army of workers 20 years to complete. Not only is it the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it is the only one still standing. Perhaps most astonishing of all, at 481 feet tall (now 456 feet after centuries of erosion) the Great Pyramid stood as the world’s tallest structure for over 3,800 years.

The Boston Tea Party

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

On the night of December 16, 1773, dozens of colonists boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and hurled 342 crates of tea overboard in an act of political protest. While the story of the midnight raid has often been told, here are 10 facts you may not know about the Boston Tea Party.

1. The “tea partiers” were not protesting a tax hike, but a corporate tax break.
The protestors who caffeinated Boston Harbor were railing against the Tea Act, which the British government enacted in the spring of 1773. Rather than inflicting new levies, however, the legislation actually reduced the total tax on tea sold in America by the East India Company and would have allowed colonists to purchase tea at half the price paid by British consumers. The Tea Act, though, did leave in place the hated three-pence-per-pound duty enacted by the Townshend Acts in 1767, and it irked colonists as another instance of taxation legislation being passed by Parliament without their input and consent. The principle of self-governance, not the burden of higher taxes, motivated political opposition to the Tea Act.

2. Commercial interests, perhaps more than political principles, motivated many protestors.
The Tea Act was a government bailout for a company on the brink of financial collapse, the flailing East India Company, which was deemed to be, in modern terms, “too big to fail.” The legislation gave the East India Company a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade, allowing it to bypass colonial merchants as middlemen and to even undercut the price of smuggled Dutch tea, which was widely consumed in the colonies. Thus, the Tea Act directly threatened the vested commercial interests of Boston’s wealthy merchants and smugglers, such as John Hancock, who fomented the revolt.

3. George Washington condemned the Boston Tea Party.
Although America’s foremost Revolutionary figure wrote in June 1774 that “the cause of Boston…ever will be considered as the cause of America,” he strongly voiced his disapproval of “their conduct in destroying the Tea.” Washington, like many other elites, held private property to be sacrosanct and believed the perpetrators should compensate the East India Company for the damages.

4. It was the British reaction to the Boston Tea Party, not the event itself, that rallied Americans.
Many Americans shared Washington’s sentiment and viewed the Boston Tea Party as an act of vandalism by radicals rather than a heroic patriotic undertaking. There was less division among the colonists, however, about their opposition to the measures passed by the British government in 1774 to punish Boston. The legislation closed the port of Boston until damages were paid, annulled colonial self-government in Massachusetts and expanded the Quartering Act. Colonists referred to the measures as the “Intolerable Acts,” and they led to the formation of the first Continental Congress.

5. For decades, the identities of participants were shrouded in secrecy.The band of protestors was tight-lipped. Even after American independence, they refused to reveal their identities, fearing they could still face civil and criminal charges as well as condemnation from elites for engaging in mob behavior and the wanton destruction of private property. Even today, only the names of some of the participants are known.

6. The event wasn’t dubbed the “Boston Tea Party” until a half-century later.
For years, Bostonians blandly referred to the protest as “the destruction of the tea.” The earliest newspaper reference to the “Boston Tea Party” doesn’t appear until 1826. In the 1830s, two books—A Retrospect of the Tea-Party and Traits of the Tea Party—popularized the moniker and cemented it in popular culture.

7. There was a second Boston Tea Party.
Three months after the Boston Tea Party, Bostonians once again sent tea splashing when 60 disguised men boarded the Fortune in March 1774, forced the crew below deck and dumped tea chests into the harbor. The sequel wasn’t quite as impressive as the original, however, as only 30 chests were sent overboard.

8. Subsequent “tea parties” were held in other colonies.
Tea Act protests spread to other colonies throughout 1774. In cities such as New York, Annapolis and Charleston, South Carolina, patriots dumped tea off ships or burned it in protest.

9. The financial loss was significant.
It’s estimated that the protestors tossed more than 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. That’s enough to fill 18.5 million teabags. The present-day value of the destroyed tea has been estimated at around $1 million.

10. One “tea partier” appeared to rise from the dead.
After being knocked unconscious by a falling tea crate in the hold of a ship, John Crane was reportedly thought to be dead and hidden by his compatriots under a pile of wood shavings in a nearby carpenter’s shop. He awoke hours later, however, and was the only man harmed in the Boston Tea Party.

Languages Under Siege

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

According to a recent report, aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus,may soon be extinct. In existence for some 3,000 years and once commonly used across the Middle East, this ancient tongue is rapidly dying. And not only Aramaic, experts predict that 50-90 percent of today’s languages will have vanished by the end of this century.

Maalula, Syria, is one of a few villages in the world where Aramaic is still widely used. (Getty Images)

According to a recent report in Smithsonian magazine, Aramaic, once widely used for commerce and government, could likely disappear within a generation or two. A leading scholar of modern Aramaic, University of Cambridge linguist Geoffrey Khan, is trying to document all of Aramaic’s dialects before its final native speakers die out. As part of his work, Khan has interviewed subjects in Chicago’s northern suburbs, home to a significant population of Assyrians, Aramaic-speaking Christians who left their native countries in the Middle East to escape persecution and war.
The Assyrian people adopted Aramaic (which originated with desert nomads known as the Arameans) when they established an empire in the Middle East in the eighth century B.C. Even after the Assyrians were conquered, the language thrived in the region for centuries. (Famously, the dialogue in Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie “The Passion of the Christ,” about the final 12 hours of Jesus’ life, was in Aramaic and Latin.)

Aramaic remained the common language in the Middle East until the seventh century A.D., when it was replaced by Arabic by invading Muslim forces from Arabia. Afterward, Aramaic continued to be spoken only by non-Muslims in remote mountain areas of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Over the past century, as Aramaic speakers have fled their villages for cities and other countries (such as the Chicago-area Assyrians interviewed by Khan), the language hasn’t been passed on to younger generations.

Today, there could be as many as 500,000 Aramaic speakers dispersed around the planet; however, this figure is deceptive. Researchers believe there are more than 100 different dialects of the mother tongue, known as Neo-Aramaic, some of which have already become extinct. Other dialects have few living speakers, and in most cases Aramaic is only used as an oral—and not a written—language.
Aramaic is far from the only endangered language. Linguists fear that, as the world becomes increasingly connected, 50 percent to 90 percent of the approximately 7,000 languages in use today could be gone by the end of the century. As things stand now, 94 percent of the people on the planet communicate in just 6 percent of its languages.

An Original Miss Selfridge

Mary Hindmarsh was a Selfridges employee from 1938-1940

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception


When I was growing up in Kilburn, north London, in the 20s and 30s, Selfridges was the finest department store in the country.
There was Liberty, Whiteleys in Bayswater, DH Evans, Marshall & Snelgrove and the newly opened Marks & Spencer, but Selfridges on Oxford Street was the shop everyone wanted to work in.

Just before my 15th birthday, in 1938, department heads from the store came to my convent school to interview the best-presented girls.
I remember being taken into the head's office where I was asked some questions and looked up and down.
I was offered a job in the haberdashery department for 15 shillings (around £21 today) a week and I was thrilled. (Haberdashery was in the basement and everyone started in the basement, being moved up through the floors as you gained more experience.)

Before I began I was given some training along with the other new girls. We were taught always to address customers as Sir or Madam, and had Mr Selfridge's mantra - the customer is always right - impressed upon us.
There was no uniform but everyone had to wear a black dress or suit, dark stockings and flat shoes. They didn't provide us with the clothes so my mum had to buy mine from Marks & Spencer. We could only wear minimal make-up and no jewellery.
Every evening, Mr Selfridge used to tour the store and inspect every department.
If he saw someone with a hair out of place he'd tell the 'floor walkers', who were in charge of each department, and you'd be in trouble! Mr Selfridge never spoke to us, only the floor walkers.
I remember him as a very smart man in a suit with a tie pin - although he was 80 by the time I got my job.
He had an apartment above the shop and I'm sure senior staff used to gossip about him. He had a lot of glamorous friends and there were often music hall stars in the store. I think Wallis Simpson used to shop there.
To be honest, everyone who shopped in Selfridges looked very smart. It was during the Depression and only the well-off could afford to buy things there.

The ladies were always in hats and gloves and lots of them used to make a day of it. Selfridges was a destination in itself and lots of customers would spend hours there, perusing the departments, having lunch or taking tea with friends.

 

It was very different for the staff, of course. My mother was a hotel cook, my father had died and I could never afford to buy anything from the shop.
When we needed something we went to M&S, which was for more ordinary people. I knew some girls who would buy a dress there, wear it for three months and then take it back, saying there was something wrong with it!

'If he saw someone with a hair out of place he'd tell the "floor walkers", who were in charge of each department, and you'd be in trouble! Mr Selfridge never spoke to us, only the floor walker'

We had to be on the shop floor at our counter every morning at 8.45am, ready to begin work. We finished at 7pm, although the more senior staff stayed until 9pm, and we worked till 1pm on a Saturday. Sunday was the only full day off, and you sometimes got a half day during the week.
If you were late twice you lost a day's wages so I made sure I was never late.
We got one tea break and a lunch break which we used to take in the cloakrooms, in among the coats. We took our sandwiches and sat on armchairs that were too tatty to be out on the shop floor. After I'd eaten I used to walk round the different departments, admiring the building.
It was so elegant! Everything about the store was beautiful - there were statues and paintings and even the staircases and lifts were lovely. (But we didn't use the lifts, with their uniformed attendants - they were for the customers.)

Crowds gather to watch a Selfridges window dresser in the early 1940s

And the tills were magnificent, all marble and gold and emitting a delightful 'Trrrrring' when you opened them.
Back then it wasn't uncommon for families to have ten children and many of the girls were helping to support their siblings.

I was lucky, I had just one sister, and my family weren't dependent on my wages. Although I gave some money to my mother she usually gave it back to me for sweets, and I spent the rest at the cinema and the swimming baths.

Selfridges was a beautiful place to work but I must admit I became rather bored there, and after about a year I decided to leave. I got a job as a nursery assistant in Kent and I found that much more fun. But I do look back fondly on my time at Selfridges, and I still shop there occasionally. I don't think it's nearly as elegant as it once was - it just looks like all the other big stores - but it's still Selfridges!

The saucy sisters who ruined Mr Selfridge

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

At the gaming tables of a casino at Cannes, wealthy men and beautiful women surveyed their cards and pushed their chips across the green baize as immaculate waiters buzzed around with trays of cocktails.

Suddenly the hubbub ceased as a woman walked into the room, her beauty so dazzling the room stilled and everyone looked up from their games to marvel at her beauty. In a black sequinned gown and hat topped with ostrich feathers , she was dripping in jewels, an awe-inspiring sight.

Double trouble: Jenny and Rosie Dolly changed Harry Selfridge's life. They dominated Selfridge's later years and helped to bring about his eventual downfall

Each gem of the stunning necklace that adorned her slender neck and the bracelets that covered her arms from wrist to elbow were emeralds. One ring bore a gem the size of an ice cube.

As the woman made her way through the room, an impeccably dressed man of 70 — twice her age — trailed her adoringly. He was not her escort but her banker, there to hand her limitless wads of money.
He was Harry Selfridge, the American entrepreneur who had created London’s famous department store. A self-made millionaire who revolutionised shopping. He understood what women wanted and gave it to them in style.  The beautiful woman was Jenny Dolly and with her twin sister Rosie, dominated Selfridge’s later years and  hastened his eventual downfall.

The tragedy of Harry Selfridge was, while he succeeded brilliantly in pleasing millions of women who entered his department store - Jenny Dolly - the one woman whose approval he sought most, always remained just beyond his power.

During the course of almost a decade he bought her extravagant jewels, clothes and houses and bankrupted himself financing her ruinous gambling habit but never truly won her heart.

Selfridge was an inspired retailer who invented the phrase ‘the customer is always right’ - he understood shopping was about sex appeal and he made Selfridge’s a London landmark.

 

His addiction to beautiful women and high living would destroy him.

 

Harry Selfridge’s incredible story, from the backwoods of Wisconsin to becoming the ‘Earl of Oxford Street’ has become the TV drama, Mr Selfridge. Based on Lindy Woodhead’s fascinating biography Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge with Jeremy Piven as Selfridge and Zoe Tapper as the cocaine-snorting showgirl who becomes his mistress.

Harry Selfridge had a tough start in life. Born in 1856, his father deserted the family when he was five and his two older brothers later died, leaving Harry and his mother alone.

After getting a job as a lowly sock boy in a Chicago department store, Harry swiftly rose to the top. Dubbed ‘Mile-a-minute Harry’ because of his tremendous energy and fountain of ideas - he was the first person to suggest lighting shop windows at night and the first to open an in-store restaurant - he became general manager, then founded his own, rival store, which he sold for a huge profit.

At the age of 50 and  flushed with success he  travelled to London with its fusty and unwelcoming stores which were ripe for a retail revolution.

On one visit to London, he had gone into a store and a snooty assistant asked what he wished to purchase. When Selfridge replied that he was ‘just looking’ the assistant dropped his posh accent and told him to ‘’op it, mate.’

At first leaving his wife, Rose, and their four children in the U.S., he bought the now famous Oxford Street location and  creating a palatial, five-storey store. It opened in 1909 and was a sensation. Assistants were encouraged to help customers rather than patronise them and goods were displayed so they could be handled.

The Dolly sisters: Twins Jenny and Rosie Dolly were 'as cute as dolls' with their almond-shaped eyes and dark, exotic beauty

With restaurants, a hairdressing salon and sumptuous soft furnishings,before Selfridge, cosmetics and toiletries had been hidden discreetly away at the back of the shop and considered too racy and taboo  for display.

But in 1910 Selfridge saw them openly on sale in Paris and decided to follow suit, moving them to the front entrance of Selfridge’s so as people entered they were assailed by a cloud of sweet scents.

It was revolutionary and worked like magic.
 
Selfridge was an innovator: the store sold telephones, refrigerators and in 1925 held the first public demonstration of the television. His attention to detail was legendary: he was known as The Chief and would patrol the floors every day.

While he was devoted to business, he always found time for pleasure. In the U.S. he had had a series of affairs, including one with the dancer and bisexual advocate of free love Isadora Duncan.

In London, he began squiring the beautiful Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Any woman he set his sights on was given a personal tour of the store, choosing whatever she liked from fur coats to jewellery.

 

Inspirational: Mr Selfridge was the first person to suggest lighting shop windows at night and the first to open an in-store restaurant

He adored beautiful women but seemed particularly attracted to those with expensive tastes, which he was happy to indulge.

In 1910, he fell in love with a pretty French music hall singer, Gaby Deslys, famous for stripping to her underwear on stage and leased a house in Kensington for her and every day sent a Selfridge’s van with hampers of delicious food and bouquets of flowers. He bought her exquisite jewels including a black pearl necklace.

He installed his family at Highcliffe Castle in Dorset, freeing him to spend time with Gaby but by 1917 the affair had fizzled.

The following year, Selfridge’s wife, Rose, died of pneumonia. Selfridge was heartbroken: for all his womanising, he had adored her. His grief did not stop him from embarking on more affairs, with aristocrats and showgirls.

In 1921, he watched a stage show in which a pair of twins, Jenny and Rosie Dolly, were performing.

It was an evening that would change the course of his life. Dancers of Hungarian origin - their real names were Jancsi and Roszica  - who had made their Broadway debut as teenagers, first in supporting roles but soon dancing as a double act, their mesmerising, identical beauty captivating audiences.

Innovator: Mr Harry Selfridge (seen at the Palace Theatre with Leslie Mitchell) paid attention to detail and would patrol the floors every day

Dubbed the ‘Dolly sisters’ their almond-shaped eyes and dark, exotic beauty made them ‘as cute as dolls’ and they attracted legions of rich admirers. In additon to their intoxicating beauty, the Dollies’ great appeal was that they were the quintessential good-time girls.

As Gary Chapman, author of a riveting biography of the sisters, observes, they were generous, fun and discreet. They never kissed and told, although they liked to shock. When one newspaper reporter was called into their dressing room for an interview, he found them both stark naked.

By 1925, when he was 69 and they were 33, Selfridge was totally captivated by Jenny.

Selfridge had been generous with his previous mistresses but with Jenny he lost all control becoming obsessive in his desire to please her. Knowing that she loved ice-cream, he had it flown daily from London to Paris, where she was performing.

He followed her around the social circuit from London to Paris and on to St Moritz, Deauville and Le Touquet, indulging her every whim. Once he had the jeweller Cartier set a pair of four-carat blue diamonds in the shells of a pair of live tortoises before sending them to the Dollies.

 

When the Dollies were not performing they were gambling. Selfridge would perch on a stool behind Jenny, feeding her wads of 1,000 franc notes.

At one all-night gambling session in Deauville, they lost heavily. The next day, to console them, Selfridge sent Jenny a diamond bracelet and Rosie a string of pearls.
Despite his unwavering devotion, Jenny refused to marry Selfridge, and took other lovers while enjoying her benefactor’s patronage. He helped her buy a chateau near Fontainebleau,and gave her thousands to redecorate it and fill it with antiques.

Then in Paris, she took another lover, a French actor-cum-gangster named Max
Constant. One morning in 1933 their car hit a tree overturning and throwing Jenny 30ft into the air. She suffered devastating internal injuries, her skull was fractured and her face torn and mutilated.

Her dancing career which had relied so much on her beauty was over. Unable to work, she soon found herself heavily in debt and was forced to sell her jewels.
Selfridge helped pay for the operations to restore her face but had racked up huge debts of his own, thanks in part to the millions he lavished on Jenny and her sister.

In 1939 exasperated with his profligacy, the Selfridge’s board ousted him from the business he had created 30 years earlier. He owed £150,000 to the store and £250,000 to the Inland Revenue or £8 million and £13 million in today’s money.

A few years later, Selfridges (the store lost its apostrophe when he left) cut his pension from £6,000 to £2,000 a year and he ended up in a rented flat in Putney. Often he took the bus to Oxford Street to gaze at his creation. By then his clothes were so shabby that he was once arrested as a vagrant.

Jenny returned to the U.S. and married a lawyer but the marriage did not last. In 1941, lonely and depressed she hanged herself with her dressing gown sash in her Hollywood apartment. Rosie never recovered.

Selfridge followed Jenny to the grave six years later. Among the flowers at his funeral was a wreath of red and white roses with a card saying: ‘From Rosie and Jenny’.

 

Rosie had not forgotten him even if she and her sister were, at least partly, responsible for his downfall. They had cost him, it is estimated, around £5 million or as much aa £ 270million in today’s money.

Perhaps it is unfair to pin the blame on the sisters. As biographer Gary Chapman says: ‘Selfridge squandered his money on Jenny, but he chose to.’

He could not help himself. The man who knew how to seduce women in his stores was helpless in his own private passion.

The Dolly Sisters: Icons Of The Jazz Age by Gary Chapman is available in paperback, published by Edditt and also available as an ebook (Apple & Amazon).

LIFE.COM on Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty"

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

A series of photos — most of which did not run in LIFE magazine — by John Dominis in impoverished eastern Kentucky in 1964, early in Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty." http://ti.me/X883HG

(John Dominis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

 

 

http://life.time.com/history/life-in-appalachia-photos-from-a-valley-of-poverty-1964/#1