Old, Old News: November 25, 1911

In pouring over The Literary Digest over the past few months, one of the things that strikes me is just how little and yet how much things change over the years. Take, for example, this political cartoon from the November 1911 edition:




In it, we see President Taft depicted as a fat, round ball being rolled about in a maze. Most certainly he was our heftiest President but did he deserve this kind of abuse? It's one thing to make fun of Bush because he can't pronounce simple words but if we had a fat president today or one with any sort of impairment at all would we be so gratuitous about it? More to the point perhaps, would such a man even stand a chance in our more connected age? Remember, this was in a time before television and radio.

It's also amusing to note just how far women have come in the past 100 years. This is the time of the suffragette, remember and such comments as "twelve women cannot be counted upon to agree about anything" are rife in the press. Any paper today making this claim would find itself the object of more than a bit of negative press. Even more amusing is the topics about which the press seems to concern itself. Note at the bottom of the first column in the page referred to above that there's "cause for alarm" because the women on the jury were allowed to keep their hats on. The continuation of the complaint indicating that a man on such a mixed jury of would be "lucky to retain his scalp" because of all the hatpins in use in the jury box. Ladies, you have come a long way since 1911.

By far the best part of these old publications is the "Science and Invention" section. I'm relatively certain that the "open-air" telescope idea never quite made it off the ground. The article on railway sanitation is an eye-opening one. We tend to forget, I think, in our concern over greenhouse gases just how dirty a prospect traveling was a mere 100 years ago. The article following that one must make any modern photographer smile. This was a day even before film when photographs were taken on photographic plates with the standard size being 4 inches by 5. The section goes on to talk about the reclassification of spiders, advances in farming and a few other random topics.

One of the most amusing aspects of the Digest is it's advertising. Since its primary audience was the exceptionally rich most of its ads are thus appropriately targeted. Your grandparents probably recalled the ubiquitous Victrola:



But you'd probably have to go back to your great-grandparents to find anyone who ever drove a Haynes (built in Kokomo, Indiana):

But many of these products are still around more or less in their original form...



But you wouldn't see some of these on the back of Better Homes and Gardens, that's for sure...



Those interested can read the entire issue of the magazine in digital format on my Picassa page.