reject the melancholy cabbage

koboldfacedlie:

“One of the most fascinating archeological finds in Russia has been the discovery of hundreds of “birchbark documents” (messages written on the bark of birch trees with a sharp stylus) that were created from the 11th to the 15th century.

The birchbark documents of Novgorod are a major source for information about life in Medieval Novgorod because they are not the writings of church theologians or political leaders, but rather, personal messages, IOUs, love letters, shopping lists, and so on. One of the most fascinating items, in my mind, is a collection of children’s drawings that have been unearthed.

Children’s drawings in the Middle Ages?! Even if such things were created in period, how could they have survived to the present day? After all, finger paints, magic markers, and crayons were not yet in use, paper was far too valuable of a commodity to waste on children, and refrigerator doors were unavailable for the display of Junior’s artistic genius. Most of the products of childhood inspiration probably were expressed on the ephemeral canvas of dirt or sand.

But birchbark was a different story. The bark was widely available (although there are indications that excessive use of the medium caused a decline in the local birch population) and easily cultivated. Anyone could use it. When one was finished with the message, it was simply thrown into the mud, where the presence of water and clay created an unusually bacteria-free environment which preserved the documents. So, we have the ideal medium: cheap, easy to come by, and (thanks to unique geology) preserved for hundreds of years.

The drawings from Novgorod that we have found appear to all come from a Russian boy named Onfim, who lived at the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth century in the city of Novgorod. By the estimate of the archaeologists who unearthed his works, he was around seven years old at the time that he made these drawings. 

Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labeled the person on the horse as “Onfim.” 

Fantasies of becoming a mighty warrior were not the only things that Onfim thought up though. In another example, he took the piece of bark that he was practicing on (left), turned it over (right), and drew a picture of himself disguised as a wild beast (which he identified by writing “I am a wild beast” [Ia zver’] over it). The beast, with its long tongue (or fiery breath), is apparently still a friendly beast as it is carrying a sign that reads “Greetings from Onfim to Danilo” [Poklon ot Onfima ko Danile]. Danilo (i.e., Daniel) was probably a friend, perhaps even a schoolmate sitting next to Onfim. 

Onfim liked to draw people and while his artistic aptitude may have been lacking, he was prolific.”

source: http://www.goldschp.net/SIG/onfim/onfim.html

thegetty:

Ye olde San Francisco, 1855 or ‘56.

Six-part Panorama of San Francisco (+ details, including view down Stockton Street and Telegraph Hill and view of harbor with ships) from San Francisco Album: Photographs of the Most Beautiful Views and Public Buildings of San Francisco, 1855–56, attributed to Carleton Watkins, photographer, and G. R. Fardon, printer. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007.53.a–.f

Answering a question on our Facebook page: What’s the oldest photo of the Western hemisphere in the collection? Cataloguer Miriam Katz:

The oldest Western Hemisphere photograph in the Getty Museum’s collection is a daguerreotype of Washington Square, New York, taken in 1839. We also have a pair of salted paper print portraits taken by O.B. DeMorat of Philadelphia in the 1850s, and several landscape views of San Francisco around 1855–56. Our oldest South American photographs are daguerreotypes from Chile and Peru from roughly 1850–55.

suicidewatch:

galasai: Japanese youth photographed by Michael Rougier, 1964

art-of-swords:

Calendar Sword

• Dated: blade ~ about 1686; hilt ~ 16th century
• Culture: German

Source & Copyright: Royal Armouries

“what day is it?” “THE DAY OF YOUR DEATH!!! …but also the day of St. Athanasius.”

thecivilwarparlor:

Piece of Hardtack With Original Paper Wrapper, Issued By The United States Army During the Civil War.

Hardtack is a biscuit (or cracker) made from flour, water and salt. It was a staple of the Civil War soldier’s diet because it was inexpensive and, when properly stored, lasted for years. Hardtack, while nutritious, could be exceedingly hard and usually had to be soaked before it could be eaten. The wrapper reads “Army / Cracker / or / Hardtack 1864 / John W. Weiser / Ohio Infy”. It was given to Levi Longfellow, Principal Musician of the 6th Minnesota Regiment, Company B, by John W. Weiser, Ohio Infantry, at the close of the Civil War.

Watch the Collections Department’s podcast about hardtack to learn more.-Curator Matt Anderson shows a very old piece of food from the Minnesota Historical Society’s collection: an original piece of hardtack from the Civil War. It’s one of the more bizarre items in the collection, and an edible that was made to last.

Let us close our game of poker, take our tin cups in our hand
As we all stand by the cook’s tent door
As dried mummies of hard crackers are handed to each man.
O, hard tack, come again no more!

CHORUS:
‘Tis the song, the sigh of the hungry
:“Hard tack, hard tack, come again no more.”
Many days you have lingered upon our stomachs sore.
O, hard tack, come again no more!

jk1dd0:

unhistorical:

February 5, 1917: Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1917.

Also called the “Asiatic Barred Zone Act”, this piece of immigration legislation was passed over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto and added to a list of “undesirable” people, who would henceforth be banned from immigrating to the United States, “all idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease…” as well as polygamists, anarchists, and anyone inclined to commit treason against the government. The act also provided for literacy tests for any prospective immigrants over sixteen. This clause stated that if any foreigner could not “read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish”, they would also be excluded. 

Even more controversially, the act created an “Asiatic Barred Zone”. In 1882, the landmark Chinese Exclusion Act restricted Chinese immigration to the United States, eventually becoming permanent in 1902; the 1907 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” was an informal accord between both countries that nevertheless did stop immigration from Japan; the creation of the Asiatic Barred Zone spelled further restrictions against immigration from the continent as a whole, continuing the general trend of isolationism, nativism, and xenophobia that manifested itself in legislation and public sentiment. As a result of this act, immigrants living in areas “adjacent to the continent of Asia” (besides any American territorial possessions) and within certain coordinates were denied entry to the country.

The Immigration Act of 1924, which set nationality quotas and further restricted the immigration of non-Western Europeans, finally stopped Asian immigration to the United States altogether. 

This is sad

The Acts also heavily restricted immigration from Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

In the immediate aftermath of this, the western United States suddenly discovered that the vast majority of their agricultural work had been performed by laborers from the countries that they had now banned, and a crisis of employment occurred. After all, this was the 20s—white and even black Americans were generally upwardly mobile in the booming economy, and indentured labor was so hard to find on short notice. Luckily, the US had recently captured Spain’s colonial properties. Those colonies became the source of massive influxes of cheap labor—on the East Coast, I think it was largely Puerto Rican, and on the West Coast, largely Filipino. Filipino farm labor became the single thing most important to the economy of California, Oregon, and Washington, and large Filipino communities began to form throughout the State. Mexican immigration also stepped up at this time.

Then the Depression hits. Suddenly, the Philippines aren’t a source of free, expoitable labor— Filipinos are taking desperately needed jobs from white American men. Xenophobia against Filipinos floods the West, and western senators propose that the Philippines be granted their independence so that they can also be barred by Asiatic Exclusion. It’s effective. Philippine independence, which has been stalled for thirty years despite lukewarm support from most of the country, lurches into high gear, and America ostensibly releases its colony back into the wild. Filipinos, while not to my knowledge forcibly deported, are strongly encouraged to get the fuck back to the Philippines, and the burgeoning communities mostly collapse. White farm labor, of course, remains about the same. There were never actually enough white farmworkers to farm California. Instead, Mexican labor becomes the new linchpin of the Central Valley. The United States learnt nothing from this at all and continued to practice colonialism and act surprised when it damaged the colonists in various ways.