So I’ve been doing a lot of research for this book I’m writing (!!!! ?????), which has me poking around on ProQuest and old newspaper archives a lot, and I know we talk a lot about the sad state of Internet media a lot, but can we talk about the ridiculousness of old newspaper headlines? In a way I think they’re much worse, because at least on the Internet you don’t need to post anything if you have nothing to say (which I wish more places would remember), but in a newspaper you literally have pages to fill. So you get headlines and news items like this:
Because you know I’m all about that beef, ‘bout that beef, beef butter
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Maybe the word had more heft to it in 1954.
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Is this not the saddest headline you’ve ever read? “Man understands his chosen activities are meaningless in the scheme of the universe, continues to milk cows.”
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HOT TAKES.
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Like, iced tea good?
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I get it.
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We’re just informing you because we’re a newspaper. That’s what we do. Now you know. You’re welcome.
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Whoaaaaaaaaaaaa
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I’ll need to see some evidence.
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Tags: history, old headlines, old newspapers, someone please tell me what a salad wagon is, what if iced tea…were bad?
Laughing out loud for real over here! This compilation has made 11am (Pacific time) a great time to be alive.
Not as pithy as “Headless Body in Topless Bar”
I’m not sure if the NY Post has gotten better or worse since then.
But it’s the subheading that really draws you in.
the dude who wrote this died recently: vincent musetto
Hotter takes:
– Not So Good: Why I Don’t Like Iced Tea
– Why Iced Tea is Problematic
– Fuck Your Iced Tea There is a Drought
– Why White People Drinking Sweet Tea is Problematic
– Iced Tea vs. Ice-T
– Some Like it Hot: In Defense of Traditional Tea-Drinking
– What is With All of You Iced Tea Haters
– Beyond the Iced Tea Wars: Other “Good” Beverages
THE HOTTEST TAKES!
– Put peas in your iced tea. Trust us.
– Try this one weird trick for excellent iced tea. We couldn’t believe it!
She Asked Him To Pass The Sugar. How He Responded Was Truly Sweet. Click & SHARE!!!
– The miracle iced tea doctors don’t want you to know about!
They started with tea, but you won’t BELIEVE what they put in it!!
It Happened To Me: I Got Fat-Shamed While Drinking Iced Tea
The New York Times is unconvinced by the “cheeseburger”
It’ll never catch on.
The phrase “additional props” is cracking me up, for some reason.
“Ohh, I see, ‘chips’. You position them near this thing they’re calling a ‘cheeseburger’ in order to enhance its aesthetic appea — eat? What, you eat them? Like…with your mouth?” — A New York Times reporter, apparently.
I read this in the voice of ZeFrank doing one of his ‘True Facts About…’ videos, and it became exponentially funnier to me. 😀
“the hamburger bars about town”
Yeah, you know, the ol’ ground beef patty hole.
Beefeasies, if you will.
I do believe I will.
I see the Sunday Styles section was just as hip to the times back then.
The NYT has, as it turns out, ALWAYS been on it.
Oof, they also were pretty cool with tortured grammar.
You should check out the @tweetsofold on twitter, they post some real gems every day, including the location and year! For example: “Mr. Lewis Lacey ate too many cherries last week, and in consequence is sick. WA1901” and “A bad egg filled with red eye terrorized the neighborhood last night with frequent reports of his pistol. MO1890” Ah yes. Too many cherries.
Yes! I love those.
Eating too many cherries is a real and harrowing problem here in WA state.
omg thank you for this
“Clarence Ross killed a large rattlesnake in front of the Star meat market. The snake was from the collection of Bosco the snake eater. ND1900.”
“Sheriff Holles swallowed a live bee yesterday causing him to show of heretofore unknown talents in the dance department. OK1901.”
“The great thing about having your neighbor’s chickens in your garden is that you are worried about nothing else. FL1922.”
It really is an entertaining gem! The live bee one just made me giggle out loud at work, haha.
I love these because it’s a combination of newspaper + Facebook. Dual services!
I question if soybeans are truly “edible” because I don’t think I eat anything that makes me fart as much as soybeans. Mr. The Rock might, though, with all that fish.
Either way, I’m watching you, soybeans.
I’m LOL’ing because as I opened this article, I was consuming a smoothie that contains soymilk.
Also because of the old joke, what’s the worst part about being vegan? Waking up at five am to milk the soybeans, because their teats are just so small.
(BTW I tried making this comment from my phone, and it kept insisting I wasn’t using a real email address! Grrrr.)
I have no idea how, on a scale of “literally” to “it’s a euphemism for something super filthy,” to interpret the phrase “salad wagon.”
The salad wagon is a literal wagon where super filthy things happen. It was real big in the 1930s.
This story has salad on EVERY POSSIBLE LEVEL: “I think I can accept naked delivery men,” mused one local interviewed by the newspaper . “Whether they are naked or not, I will eat my salad calmly.”
KEEP CALM AND SALAD ON
ok NOW I am on board with the salad wagon concept.
Man I really hope the Spartans’ employer properly compensated them for the inconvenience of being arrested.
Women Laughing Together On A Salad Wagon, who’s with me???
I’m already laughing, why not?
(chuckles while holding an empty fork in the air)
But is Naked Delivery Guy coming? And will he be played by Channing Tatum?
See, when I saw the beef butter thing, I immediately got Truffle Butter stuck in my head, not that Bass song.
I bet Joe Manganiello uses beef butter to add some flavour to his chicken bag.
Oh lord, the mental images…
He can get his beef butter in my chicken bag…no, wait, sorry, I just can’t finish that sentence.
Aggghhh, I am frantically searching for the scan I have of an article about two guys getting in a fight over my great-grandmother. WHERE ARE YOU, AMAZING ARTICLE?
EDIT: FOUND IT! (On my iPod, which I can’t connect to the office wifi, so I had to take a picture of the iPod screen with my phone…)
SHE DIDN’T WALK HOME
A Warren professional man, who has been in other rather unsavory scraps, received a beating at the hands of another local man last night on the Warren-Jamestown highway. It appears from the story told by the young woman in the case, that she accepted an invitation to go for an auto ride and when about eight or ten miles from Warren, her “gentleman friend” made improper advances and she jumped from the car, which had been parked, and called for assistance, this being rendered by a passing motorist who was coming home from Jamestown. When the girl was about to enter the machine of her rescuer, her former escort started a row, with the result that he was very roughly handled. He is also the loser of a pint of booze, a pair of glasses and his hat, which may be obtained from his opponent in the scrimmage, as they were picked up on the field of battle after the smoke had cleared away. It is possible that arrests may follow as members of the young woman’s family are very much incensed.
Amazing! Tell us more. Did arrests follow? Did the former escort ever collect his glasses, hat, or booze?
Ahhh, unfortunately we have no knowledge, as the clipping was found tucked behind a photo in her wallet, decades after she died. So I guess technically, we don’t know that it was her in the story either. But if she kept it in her wallet until she died, I would tend to assume!
Is the rescuer your great-grandfather?
I can’t be sure, although I’d imagine if it were, the story would have already been family lore by the time we found the clipping tucked into her wallet.
Was this near Jamestown, NY? My grandma is got there too; I wonder if she knew any of these citizens!
Yes! She was from Warren, PA (not too far across the state border from Jamestown). If your grandma knew any Harrisons, Morrisons, or Cummings from the area, there’s a good chance they were my kinfolk!
I love articles like that in papers, but it’s so much cooler to actually know the person it’s about!
I found out, when doing some family history research, that a distant great-grandfather – of convict origin – was finally brought down by a bar fight over a lady of questionable morals, when he was well into his eighties. Hit his head on a railing, poor chap.
Michael Pollan says “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” which leads me to believe that he does not have any Midwestern great-grandmothers. Those women would view “Soybean is Regarded as Edible” with considerable skepticism.
Soybeans are food for cows. What, I should eat silage and grass too?
My friend’s 106-year-old great grandmother survives on a shot of Johnny Walker Black a day and a steady stream of owning people at Mahjong, so can I do that?
Obviously. Obviously.
#squadgoals
Pollan just has no idea what great-grandmothers actually ate. Mine was a Slavic immigrant; the first time she ever had a banana, she bit into it with the peel on.
I think he did eventually qualify his statement to mean something that *someone’s* great-grandma (regardless of national origin) would have eaten.
my great-grandfather (hey fellow descendant of late 1800s/early 1900s eastern euro immigrant!) did the exact same thing.
and i grew up in LA. my palate would be weird as hell to my great grandparents on all sides.
Hah. My Croatian great-grandmother did the same thing.
My grandmother (not even great-) is REALLY skeptical about the idea of eating a mango. She thinks they’re “weird”. Can you imagine? But she and her parents had absolutely no problem with spraying pesticides all over everything, or with feeding us all manner of overprocessed junk food. Plus they thought nothing of serving a meal in which every dish was 90% starch. I don’t consider these old-timers a quality source of dietary advice, except as a What Not to Do.
my mother told me that her grandmother insisted she didn’t like vinegar. my mother’s hypothesis was that she didn’t actually know what vinegar was.
I always assumed he meant “SOMEONE’s great-grandmother,” as I am fond of soybeans, especially as soymilk and tofu and tempeh and miso, and those come from parts of the world that have been making them in some form for rather a long time.
Also my great-grandmothers were likely all poor farmers during the depression and would have recognized a rather small number of foods.
My great-aunt lived through the Great Depression and had an amazing story of really, really, really wanting mayonnaise but they couldn’t afford it. She got a jar for Christmas and was OVERJOYED and just started eating it with a spoon.
Even as much of a mayo-phobe as I am, this is a heartwarming story. <3
There’s a great story about my wife’s old-world Polish grandmother having that same confused reaction to the idea of eating corn. “This is feed for livestock. Why is it being served to me?”
This book sat in our downstairs bathroom from the days before I learned to read. Learning did not make it any less confusing.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511mXD5bFVL…
This book sat in our downstairs bathroom from the days before I learned to read. Learning did not make it any less confusing.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511mXD5bFVL…
I have no idea how this represents “the ups and downs of life” and I am afraid to ask.
Sometimes you’re Karl Marx in a tutu, sometimes you’re sleeping standing up in a hole in the ground wearing a giant hat. We’ve all been there.
(nods, knocks back a shot of Jameson’s) I know I have.
#lifetruths
See, the tutu isn’t the part I’m having trouble with. What I’m having trouble with is the beam of light on which he is ascending from a trapdoor.
Rapture, obvs.
Oooooooooooh. Rapture, DUH.
But is that really one of the ups of life?
Have you been reading my diary?!
Well, I think it’s pretty obvious.
One of them is up, while the other one is down.
Somewhere at my parents’ house there’s a very old clipping explaining how my great-grandfather had won fame in his village for growing a green bean that was over 1 metre long.
edit this was supposed to be a reply to ksek’s comment about the clipping about her grandmother! Thanks, intensedebate.
It is perfect on its own, like a snowflake of great-grandfather facts. A near microscopic delight that brings joy to everyone that sees it.
Speaking of interesting headlines about family members:
Doxxing his poor family? That’s not cool.
There’s a small follow-up, if anyone is interested:
I like the insistance (twice) that her statement was ante-mortem, just in case we might suspect they’d communicated with her via a medium.
Thanks to this post I’m up to my neck in the online archives of the Canadian Illustrated News (1869-1883) and just found this great ad:
CARRATRACA MINERAL WATER
We are now receiving daily supplies of the above well-known available Water direct from the springs at Plantagenet, Ontario. For sale, in quantities to suit all.
P.S. – The only fault with Carratraca Water (in Canada) is that it is “Canadian” but notwithstanding that melancholy fact, it is superior to, and more certain for all purposes for which it is recommended, than any other Mineral Water known.
Wait, why is a Canadian advertisement ragging on Canadian mineral water? Is this a weird self-deprecating Canadian thing?
Also, if this water comes from a Canadian spring, why the need to add “(in Canada)” which implies that it has other, non-Canadian origins?
yes, a not-so-weird self-deprecating Canadian thing.
But supporting national industry! Locally-sourced products! Look for the Union Label and whatnot.
Canadian Mineral Water: the only mineral water that comes with an apology (TM)
I still find “soy beans regarded as edible food” to be news, tbh.
As an employee of ProQuest, you can bet I emailed this to my [youngish, female, libraryish] cohort immediately, and we are ALL DELIGHTED. (Subject line: “ProQuest receives scantest of mentions on The Toast; employees rejoice forever”)
Wait, you’re an employee of PQ? So am I!
O_O
I am on an Intota call RIGHT NOW.
Yes! I work out of the Bethesda office. (And most of the charming library witches I emailed are in editorial or acquisitions.)
I have been there! During the Jeff Baer days. Still miss working with him. 🙁 I WFH on Staten Island but used to commute to New Prov.
The Toast’s URL is in our employee onboarding handbook, didn’t you notice?
wait – my husband is consulting with you guys…
But not everyone was down with the dudes:
This is one of the best things I’ve seen today.
+++INFINITY
Perfection.
Bring on the progressive western dudes! The world is ready.
I absolutely love the earnest old-timey use of the word “dude.”
Who wears short shorts? Dudes wear short shorts!
Also, here is a high school yearbook from 1911: https://archive.org/details/SPLYearbooksSpokaneHi…
That is amazing. Some of those ambitions…
Phyllis Belle Johnson
Description: O.K.
Occupation: Giggling
Ambition: To murder the faculty
…..
Evelyn Dorothy Moe
Description: On the level
Occupation: Minding her own business
Ambition: To find a nice quiet spot
I think many toasties can relate to Evelyn’s ambition
I love this! “Phyllis Belle Johnson: Ambition: To murder the faculty.” How sinister!
Also, Florence Ann MacGougan: “Ambition: Preparing for matrimonial pursuits…Song: ‘I Want to Be a Merry, Merry Widow'” …..
I am now imagining a tension-filled romance between Helen Jones, Editor-in-Chief, woman with ambitions and an insatiable appetite for journalistic integrity, and J. Victor Jaeger, Business Manager, dashing playboy dilettante.
So many of them are great inspirations for period novels
I knew I saved this link for a reason: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res…
Don’t miss the horse with goggles.
I sympathise with the horse.
When Michael Foot was appointed to chair a nuclear-disarmament committee, the headline was (allegedly) Foot Heads Arms Body. My partner shared this with me recently, and it fills me with joy.
Tbh I would be zero percent surprised to see these in my own state newspaper (The Advertiser, for those Aussies playing along at home.) And yes, it is as terrible as that implies.
Fellow former South Australian chiming in to say, yep, I see it.
I would defend it (my partner’s brother works there!), but you’re almost certainly right.
This reminds me of a song a friend wrote after seeing a crazy tabloid headline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hhbvaGbw8
My favourite (of many) is
TAKING PLACE OF THE MUFF
For some reason I can’t load it up here.
I worked with my (former) University’s branch of the National Digital Newspaper project as a grad student, going through old rolls of microfilm for quality control. The headlines from old newspapers (and the ads) are the best!
You just made me realize that I was doing the same thing without even questioning it.
For my grandmother, it was instant pudding, biscuits (made from the dough that comes in cans), and diet coke – so much diet coke.
wait – my husband is consulting with you guys…
always one of my favorites