SHE HID HER MAN’S LEG

Mrs. Hanlon Supports the Family and Proposes to Choose its Acquaintances

                Edward Hanlon, now of 102 Charlton street, was run over by a railroad train several years ago and his left leg was cut off at the knee. His wife bought him a wooden leg and since the incident has supported him. Edward has made friends whom Mrs. Hanlon does not like. On Sunday Edward said he was going to call on these people. His wife said he wasn’t. He had not yet screwed on his wooden leg, and when he was not looking Mrs. Hanlon hid it on the top shelf of the closet among the dishes.

“Where’s that leg” Edward asked later.

“You ought to know where you put it,” his wife answered. Edward hoppled around the room, and looked under the bed, in the bureau drawers, and in all the corners.

“You’ve hid it,” he finally said to his wife. She says he threatened to kill her, but on one leg and a half he couldn’t catch her. As he chased her about the room, she screamed and a policemen came in and took Edward to the station house, after the wooden leg had been found and screwed on.

Edward looked sheepish yesterday as he was led in front of Justice Welde and heard his wife say that she not only supported him but allowed him forty cents a day for tobacco, drinks, and other luxuries. Justice Welde held Edward in default of $300 bail for his good behavior for three months.

Up in Minnesota too winter weather seemed warmer. “Is Minnesota’s climate changing? With the middle of December already here and winter caps, earmuffs and fur-lined gloves hardly used at all as yet, this question, for years the subject of heated and cold argument in Minnesota, has leaped to the fore and is again a common topic of discussion.”

Astute weather observer Charles P. Lovell noted the change. “Why, thirty years ago,” said Mr. Lovell in the Minneapolis Journal, “people were wont to go sleigh riding in the afternoon, but almost invariably they were compelled to seek their firesides by 4 o’clock because it began to get cold at that hour. Now you see them starting out at noon and riding until midnight. They had fur robes then and were bundled up just as tightly as they are now, but it got too cold for them before the afternoon was well spent.”

Lovell had his own theories as to why the climate was changing. “I have pondered long on this question and have reached the conclusion that railroad rails and telegraph and telephone wires played an import role in making this once frost-bitten, barren country a veritable Eden. These rails and wires seem to absorb electricity from the air.” More plausible was Lovell’s argument regarding re-forestation, “Timber, given a chance to grow after the settlers stopped the prairie fires that formerly kept it razed, has also contributed by breaking the force of the wind and dissipating storms that originate in far-off regions.”

It wasn’t just in the western portion of the country that folks were concerned about climate change. “People in the northeastern sections of the country, in particular are saying that something has happened to the winter;” wrote the New York Tribune, “that when they were children there was always deep snow at Christmas and the sleighing lasted for weeks.” Theories were advanced as to the cause; the Gulf Stream had shifted, as civilization pushed westward the growth of farming and land clearing had changed the topography and with it the weather, or that rising urbanization was to blame.

Robert De Courcy Ward, Professor of Climatology at Harvard University, weighed the scientific evidence regarding climate change. He consulted records from the Roman Republic, three centuries worth of grain harvest dates from France, obscure meteorological data regarding English farming, rainfall in Greece, Syria, and North Africa, the high water marks from the Caspian Sea and temperature surveys taken throughout North America over a period of thirty years.

Finally, De Courcy Ward announced the results of years of work. “The idea that the agency of man in cutting down forests and in cultivating new soil has resulted in a change in the climate of the United States finds no support in the recorded instrumental data…”  Professor Ward announced emphatically, “The answer to the question ‘Is the climate changing?’ is a negative one.”

So my friends, there lies the story of how Robert De Courcy Ward, Professor of Climatology at Harvard University, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, resolved the debate about global warming…in 1906. Aren’t you glad we got that one resolved?

Katarina Petrinovich

Jerry told her of the wonders of California, that he had a fine home, was a mere 30 years of age, and that he’d built a career as a successful restaurateur. There’s no way around it, Jerry lied to the distant girl. He lived in a one room apartment, and worked as a night cook. The picture he sent on, if not exactly fake, was the 1910 version of photo-shopped; in the words of a reporter from the San Francisco Call “it flattered the original.”

Jerry proposed and Katarina accepted. Of course, her parents weren’t keen on dispatching an unmarried daughter half-way around the world to a man they never met, and so Jerry arranged a legally binding proxy marriage. His brother in Split, given power of attorney stood in for Jerry and married the girl in his name. With that, Katarina was dispatched to California, a journey of about two weeks.

Jerry Petrinovich

The couple took up residence in Jerry’s small apartment. Jerry kept his new bride a virtual prisoner. If he wasn’t available to watch her, an aged aunt was assigned to keep an eye on her. Disappointed and repulsed by a husband who’d led her to have such high hopes only to see them dashed by poverty and misery, Katarina rebelled and the two fought. Long and loud, their words echoing through the thin walls of the apartment house in Orchard Street.

Jerry’s refusal to take Katarina to a picnic sponsored by their fellow Croatians on June 20, 1910 proved the final straw. Their high volume argument went on and on, and finally Jerry’s aged aunt went to the door of the couple’s room and forced her way in. Harldy had she made her way in to see what the ruckus was about when Jerry pulled his pistol from his coat hanging on the door and sprung at his wife, who was lying on the bed. A pistol shot, in her right breast was followed by a cut with a knife along her throat and abdomen. The Aunt did nothing but scream, as Jerry turned the knife on himself, drawing the knife over his own throat.

Jerry died that evening at Belvedere Hospital, never recovering consciousness. Katarina lived long enough to give a statement to San Jose’s assistant district attorney James P. Sex. “I am 19 years o f age. My husband shot me because I did not love him. He was trying to make me care for him, but I could not. He did not threaten me. He never did. I knew that he was going to do me harm because he said he would not let me out of the room unless I promised that I would care for him. He was talking a great deal about his caring for me and my not caring for him.”

Tragically it seems, Jerry got his wish never to be separated from his beautiful wife. The two share a gravestone at the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery.

Boston-Jan. 9 – L.C. Weilli, travelling salesman for Julius Brecker, dealer in human hair at 28 Howard Street, New York, came to Boston on Saturday with $6,000 worth of hair. On his arrival at the Boston and Albany Station he gave the check for his trunk containing the hair to Armstrong’s Express, with instructions to take the trunk to the United States Hotel. When Weilli went to look for his trunk on Tuesday, he could learn nothing concerning it.

The expressmen said that they had left it upon the sidewalk in front of the hotel. No clue to the thieves or property was obtained till yesterday morning, when officers on South street saw two young fellows carrying a trunk and bag on their shoulders. Knowing them to be thieves, they started to follow them, but the men dropped their loads and ran. The bag and trunk were brought to the station, and on being opened, were found to contain about $2000 worth of missing hair.

To-day, Michael and Andrew Presley were arrested for the robbery, and the trunk, empty, was found in their rooms. Many of the young hoodlums of the South Cove appeared on the streets to-day sporting flowing beards and moustaches and wearing wigs. The value of the plunder is said to be $10 per ounce. In all, about $2250 was recovered.

Don’t you wish you could see the facial hair display amongst the hoodlums of the South Cove?

In its glory days, Amagansett, a tiny village on the Long Island shore, had based its economy on whaling. Remnants of the once profitable trade still could be found in the shops and homes of its 300 or so residents; walrus tusks, rusting harpoons, and scrimshawed teeth from long departed sperm whales. Older residents, such as Captain Josh Edwards and his brother Gabe still told stories of battles fought with 100 ton beasts, of longboats caved in, of men dragged under the Arctic ice by a diving sperm whale, of long chases and narrow escapes. Overhunting had diminished the supply of sperm whales until it was no longer profitable to send the whaling boats out, and by 1885 Amagansett subsisted on the efforts of fisherman who sailed out into the Atlantic for the cod which would find their way onto the tables of homes and restaurants in New York City.

Captain Josh arose before daybreak on Saturday morning, December 12, 1885, and accompanied by his son began the cold walk to the beach. Cod fisherman such as Captain Josh used a dory, a 20 foot long boat which offered little protection from stormy seas or bitter cold, but was at least easy to pilot. As he strode up one of the sandhills that bordered the Amagansett beach, the Captain thought he spied another ship about a half mile off, which was curious. He knew everyone of the fisherman in the small village, and was sure none had beat him to the shore that day. “Here’s somebody that’s been spryer than us,” he complained to his son, “who do you suppose it can be?”

Then came a spout, and Captain Josh joyfully sang out words he hadn’t employed in many a year. “By gosh, thar she blows.” All thoughts of cod fishing forgotten, the Captain ran back to Amagansett and on the village flagpole ran up the town’s Weft, a tattered old flag that indicated a whale had been sited. Recruiting his brother Captain Gabe, Josh roused the villagers, and a tremendous bustle ensued as harpoons and lances were dug out of storage. Three boats of six men each shoved off, and it was a family affair. Captain Josh and Captain Gabe led the first, while relatives Jesse Edwards and Jonathan Edwards led the second and third boats respectively.

The whales, for soon it became apparent there were two, and already moved off to the southwest, and even the most experienced of the whalers knew there was slim chance at catching them. From the helm, Captain Josh encouraged the men to row harder, shouting with glee another “Thar she blows” whenever the whales broke the surface for a breathing spell. Breathing spells weren’t allowed for the men in the boats, and for hours they pulled at the oars, drawing ever closer to the beasts.

As they approached, it became clear that the two whales were exceptionally large prizes, a cow some 60 feet in length and a bull about 40 feet long. To Captain Gabe went the honor of the first throw, and from the bow he let the harpoon fly. Three feet of cold steel backed by ash buried itself up to the handle in the cow, and a shower of blood speckled spray covered the boats as both whales dove deep.  Under orders from Captain Gabe the boat backed away as the rope attached to the harpoon was made fast.

As the whale dove, smoke rose from the rope as it played out through the ring on the boat’s front. Taking advantage of the whale’s dive, Gabe and Captain Josh traded places, and the other two boats came up.  At last the whales again appeared, and were greeted with a shower of harpoons. Harpoons stuck from the whales’ bright shiny backs, but they made a game fight of it and their tails stove in the bows of two of the three boats. Again and again the harpoons flew, and both whales were soon hopelessly entangled in ropes that prevented them from diving. After two hours of fighting the cow’s spout showed blood, a sure sign she’d been hit in a vital spot, and a few minutes later she was dead. The bull too showed signs of exhaustion and the men took advantage of the slowed movement of its flukes to approach more boldly. Soon the bull too succumbed.

The battle over, the men discovered they’d drifted some ten miles from Amagansett, and binding the whales to the boats began a long strenuous row backwards, the carcasses trailing behind them. Sore, weary, but satisfied with a job done, the men dragged the whales on the beach and returned to their cottages. The next morning, they gathered round for the long bloody work of removing the blubber, whale oil and whalebone.

All together, the whales were worth around $1000 apiece ($250,000 each  in 2010 dollars) for the poor village of Amagansett, and it came as a welcome early Christmas present for the town.

Freddie Welsh, the present lightweight champion of England, a vegetarian with puny hips, watery eyes and a weak mouth, who has never been knocked out, puts is advice to aspirants in three words, ‘Get his goat!’ Originally this phrase was racing slang. To keep a racehorse from going stale a trainer frequently quarters with him a goat, for the pet relieves the thoroughbred of his loneliness. But intriguers have found that by stealing a goat from a horse a day or two before a great race he can be thrown out of his condition. The loss of his favorite companion annoys the horse and he goes into the big event in a highly feminized state of nerves. So, to ‘get his goat’ is to remove his confidence.

His courtly manners and his polished appearance, coupled with a bit of Latin charm, made him one of the more popular professors on the Berkley campus, especially amongst the female student body. Many of the coeds signed up for private Spanish language tutoring at Hidalgo’s offices in the Westbank building.

His Latin American heritage also made him an advisor of sorts to the small contingent of foreign student from Central American who were studying at Berkley, among them Juan Posados, son of Zenon Posados, the coffee king of Guatemala. The two shared an interest in aviation, and Hildago took Posados, a sophomore, under his wing. As Posada recalled in June, 1910, “About three or four weeks ago, he invited me to visit a girlfriend of his. Prior to this time he had often boasted to me of his conquests among the girls of the University of California, most of whom, he said, were very young.”

Apparently, Hidalgo’s conquests were not solely due to his charm, “[h]e, knowing that I was interested in chemistry, asked me to let him have a drug which would render a person unconscious, explaining at the time that there was a girl visiting his offices at the Westbank building on whom he had designs.”

Posada never disclosed whether he provided the knockout drops to Hidalgo, but teacher and student kept in contact, “[h]e took me to the Hotel Cecil, where I was introduced to a woman named Marie Milder. I gave her $15.” Two weeks later, Hidalgo arranged another prostitute for Posada. “Last Saturday Hidalgo came to me again and invited me to meet another girl friend of his that night. Again I accepted. On this occasion I met Grace Carter. The strange part of the affair was that she was not the person whom it was intended to meet, but the other party failing to keep the appointment, Hidalgo found Grace Carter walking the streets, became acquainted with her to be a substitute.” Hidalgo reached an agreement with Carter, and they split the proceeds of her night with Posada.

The ease with which he’d arranged trysts between Posada and Grace (a/k/a Grace Ellifritz) gave Hidalgo an idea; a house of assignation in Napa, where he could arrange meetings between his wealthy Latin American students and a hand selected group of prostitutes. He pitched the idea to Grace Carter, fully intending her to run the house while he took care of recruiting student visitors. Posada was either brazen or foolhardy; his meeting with Grace took place in his offices in the Westbank building, where a 20 year old student he’d ravished lay passed out from the effects of absinthe. Carter agreed to the proposal.

Meanwhile, Posada and Carter’s trysts at the Hotel Navarre continued. As Posada described one tryst “Hidalgo left us, and waited outside in the corridor. After he had gone the girl told me of her meeting with Hidalgo and said that he had proposed to her that he should bring students to her, and that she should give him a third of the money she received. ‘He is waiting for his share now.’ she said. ‘Let him wait.’ I replied. ‘He waited until 1 o’clock in the morning, and then slipped a note in through the door, saying he would call again at 3 o’clock the following afternoon.”

Hidalgo did call, although by that time Posada was gone. Carter and Hidalgo finished off a bottle of absinthe, then went looking for another victim. It didn’t take long. At one of the neighborhood cafes, Hidalgo sighted Richard Barry, sitting alone nursing a drink. Hidalgo quietly pointed him out, and discreetly withdrew.

Hidalgo couldn’t have chosen a worse victim. The lonely young man who appeared to be a likely looking Richard was a writer for Pearson’s Magazine. Even worse for Hidalgo, Barry was a muckraker who’d dedicated his literary efforts to exposing corruption in everything from boxing to the Utah state government. A skilled interrogator, Barry soon had the full story, and he dragged Grace Carter off to the San Francisco District Attorney, and then to the police.

Chief Martin, and Detectives Wren and Boyle set up a sting operation, and ordered Carter to phone Hidalgo and invite him to visit her at the Hotel Navarre on the evening of Wednesday, June 22, 1910. To entice him, Grace let him know that she’d found a mining millionaire willing to invest in the Napa establishment.

That night, Richard Barry, the detectives, a newspaperman from the San Francisco Call, and a police stenographer sat in an adjoining room, listening as Grace steadily drew Hidalgo out. The conversation, preserved by the newspaperman, gives the modern reader a fascinating window into the economics of prostitution and the slang of the day:

Grace: How much would it take to sta

rt an assignation house?

Hidalgo: Where?

Grace: Here, in San Francisco.

Hidalgo: Oh, about $3000 at least.

Grace: I’ve heard of a chance in Napa. I hear you can rent a house there for $35 per month, and get a license for $30.[1] So we could start on easy capital. Would you like that?

Hidalgo: Certainly.

Grace: Well, make a square propositi

on. How shall we run it?

Hidalgo: The way to do business is half and half. You take half and I take half.

Grace: How about getting the women for the place.

Hidalgo: Oh, get some you can manage – two young chickens and one good old one. Do not get them under 18. You have to look out; but get young fools –

Grace (laughing): Like the one you gave absinthe on your couch the other day?

Hidalgo: Yes, certainly.

Grace: How old was she?

Hidalgo: Oh, 20, I guess.

Our newspaper report cuts off here, presumably out of concerns of revealing the identity of the young victim. At 4AM, the police broke down the door, and took Hidalgo away in manacles. Two days later he was indicted on one felony count for a “criminal conspiracy against public morals.” Isaac Goldmen, grand jury foreman opined “It is the regret of this grand jury that the law does not permit of a stronger felony charge being laid against the man, as the evidence proved him to be of a most depraved character and a danger to the community.”

Hidalgo’s lawyer, H.F. Marshall, put up a valiant but forlorn effort to quash the indictment, and moved that it  be dis

missed because one of the witness’ names had been spelled incorrectly. The motion was denied, and on July 26^th, 1910, Hidalgo pled guilty before Judge Conley of the county court. According to the San Francisco Call, “the assistant district attorney…urged the imposition of a light penalty, and said the prosecution would be satisfied if Hidalgo were sent to jail for a month.” Scheduled for sentencing on July 30^th, Hidalgo was unable to appear in court because of a quarantine placed upon the city jail after a smallpox outbreak. On August 23, 1910 the court granted Hidalgo probation, on the condition that he leave the country immediately. After seven weeks in the county jail, Hidalgo hightailed it out of San Francisco and was last heard of in Mexico, where he was managing airplane races. He got off easy if you ask us.

As for the rest of the motley collection of characters they disappear, except for Richard Barry who kept right on muckraking.

Puren was apparently a large fellow; at least according to the Prosecutor who called the twenty-year old a “big hulking brute,” when he appeared before Judge Gordon on a charge of disorderly conduct.  His crime was breaking into a boxcar that lay on a siding near the Seattle waterfront on the morning of April 6, 1908.

Puren had been out of work, and as a consequence was hungry. He’d last eaten on the morning of April 4, and when he saw the refrigerated boxcar, knew it contained food of some sort. He broke the car’s seal, and downed four cans of condensed milk. But then Puren did a strange thing, which we confess we might not have done in his shoes. He left a note behind:

 “Dear Sir,

This burglary have been made by me, O. Puren, because I was near to the starvation. I am voluntary to give myself up and pay for it by such act. I am courageous to give myself up because I am unequal to do wrong. I was broke and nothing to eat since 10 a. m. yesterday. I guess you will be very satisfied because that is not so many thieves in the country confess their crime. I drunk four of the cans of milk that were in the box present here.

Yours Truly,

O. Puren

Puren then marched out, found Patrolman Jennings of the Seattle Police Department, and placed himself in the officer’s custody. Taken before Judge Gordon the next morning, Puren received the maximum sentence; 30 days in jail and a $100 fine. Unable to pay the fine, Gordon added another 33 days of hard labor on the chain gang.

Compared to the other sentences handed down by the same Judge, Puren’s sentence seems unduly harsh:

• On March 27, thirty Chinese workers were arrested for gambling, and had the charges against them dropped;
• On that same date, George Baldwin was apprehended with a loaded gun, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon. He was fined $20;
• J. Hong was convicted of operating a boiler without a license, and forfeited his bail and went free.
• Several men were charged with selling milk that didn’t come up to the standards of the health code, and fined $15 each.

There ends the story of poor, but honest O. Puren, who leaves behind a question for us some 105 years later. Would you have turned yourself in?

Had it not been for the foul stench, Robert Vandervort, baggage master of the Hudson River Railroad, would never have opened the trunk labeled as freight to Chicago on the hot afternoon of August 27, 1871.  Inside was the naked corpse of a young woman, bloody and rotting.  Dr. Cushman, who performed the autopsy, could still tell that the nameless victim had been comely, with blond hair, blue eyes, and skin “as white as Parian marble.”  Cushman discovered she’d had an abortion; whoever had performed it had botched the job, and she’d died in excruciating pain.  Cushman noted that her mouth still bore the marks of an agonizing death scream.

Even before the police ascertained the victim’s identity, they had a suspect.  Through the cartman who’d delivered it to the station, the police tied the trunk to Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig.  He did not look the part of a doctor; one reporter noted Rosenzweig was “a fat, sensual looking fellow, without any trace of refinement in person or manners, and does not bear the faintest appearance of the educated physician.”  Appearance matched reality.  The “Dr.” before Rosenzweig’s name was little more than an honorific, purchased for $40.00 from a Philadelphia medical institution, and costing nary a minute of study.  Before setting himself up as a doctor, Rosenzweig tended bar in a dive saloon and worked a brief stint as a butcher, which provided a cursory understanding of anatomy and little else.

As if being one faux doctor wasn’t enough, the police discovered that Rosenzweig ran an abortion parlor on South Fifth Avenue under the name Dr. Ascher.  Further victims turned: Mary Carroll, true name unknown; Rosenzweig had convinced the undertaker to list dropsy as the cause of death; Agneta Dumague, who had come to the city and promptly disappeared.  A gentleman who preferred to remain anonymous identified Rosenzweig as the man he’d kicked down the stairs after he’d almost killed the gentleman’s wife through medical ignorance.  The police suspected Rosenzweig in the death of his young cousin Figa, who’d disappeared.  Rosenzweig swore she’d moved back to Europe, but rumor had it he’d impregnated her, then killed her while performing the abortion.

For the New York Times, the discovery of the mysterious woman in the trunk could not have come at a more fortuitous time.  At the time, abortion before the first quickening was legal, and for months the paper had crusaded for an outright ban on the practice.  The Times considered abortion barbaric, likely to lead to feminine licentiousness, and most importantly, to demographic displacement; since the Irish eschewed abortion Protestants would soon be eclipsed.  The Times was not completely altruistic.  Abortionists, including Dr. Ascher, regularly advertised in the rival New York Herald, and the Times were not one to miss the opportunity to goad a rival.

It took until Wednesday, August 30, for the corpse to be named.  The body had already been dead a few days before Vandervort opened the trunk, and even though Dr. Cushman had ordered the body packed in ice, the sickly sweet stench of death lingered in the broiling summer air around Bellevue Hospital.  Theodore G. Kimmel and Joseph Parker, both real medical professionals and both of Paterson, New Jersey, identified the body as Alice A. Bowlsby.  Kimmel recognized an odd vaccination mark on her forearm, and Parker, her dentist, recognized his handiwork on two fillings.

Only 20-years-old, friends knew Alice as a sweet, gentle, innocent girl, who taught Sunday School and worked in the family’s dress shop.  Alice and her mother had been staying with Alice’s aunt in Newark, and she’d left to return to their empty home in Paterson after a brief shopping trip in Manhattan, or so she told her mother and aunt.  Bowlsby disappeared into the metropolis in a white lawn dress, tucked and ruffled, with a blue sash and ribbons about her waist.

The newspaper reporters got to Bowlsby’s aunt quickly, and she identified the putative father, Walter F. Conkling; bookkeeper at the Dale Silk Mill, and son of a Newark alderman.  By the time Conkling showed up for work the next morning, the entire Silk Mill knew of the accusations, and co-workers gossiped amongst themselves whether a diamond stick pin, which he usually wore but which was now absent, had been used to pay for Rosenzweig’s services.  Conkling refused to discuss the matter.  He looked nervous and pale as he balanced his books, and refused to join his friends for lunch.  While the office was empty, Conkling tore a page from his ledger and scribbled:

I have long had a morbid idea of the worthlessness of life, and now to be obliged to testify in this affair and cause unpleasantness in my family is more than life is worth.  Good by dear father, mother, brother and sister.

                                                                                                                                Walt

Putting the note in his pocket, Conkling went to the fireproof room where the company stored finished silks, put the barrel of a revolver behind his left ear, and pulled the trigger.

A few months later, the state tried Rosenzweig for manslaughter.  The state’s key pieces of evidence were a handkerchief with “Bowlsby” inscribed with indelible ink, the cartman’s testimony, and some scraps of fabric purportedly belonging to Bowlsby’s dress.  His lawyers put up a vehement defense, glossing over the testimony of the cartman, who’d admittedly never seen Rosenzweig, and finding an alternative Mrs. Bowlsby from Brooklyn to testify that the handkerchief belonged to her daughter.  At the close of the case, two jurors held out, and only agreed to a verdict of guilty provided that they jury agreed to request mercy for the accused.  The court ignored the mercy request, sentencing Rosenzweig to seven years in Sing-Sing.  The murder sparked public outcry, leading to the outright abortion ban championed by the New York Times.  Ironically, Rosenzweig’s lawyers managed to use the legal change to free Rosenzweig after a successful appeal.  Released after a year in prison, Rosenzweig went right back to providing backroom abortions, neither chastened nor chagrined.

Want to charm your friends with scintillating stories of the distant past? Anxious to read entertaining stories of a world gone by? Do yourself (and us) a favor, and follow us on Twitter. Better yet, to be sure not to miss a single post enter your email address at the top right to receive a copy of each new forgotten story in your inbox.

Some fun stuff from the archives:

The World’s Worst Divorce Attorney: http://tinyurl.com/acc4v24

The Original Flagpole Sitta: http://tinyurl.com/bsptdjx

A Public Service Announcement from 1896: http://tinyurl.com/bzkavtk

The Great New York Shoe Conspiracy: http://tinyurl.com/bpjwnpm  

According to Miss Page, “[h]ousweork is one of the most natural and wholesome of womanly occupations. It offers variety, opportunity for frequent breathing spells, and a chance to develop one’s individuality. It is performed among cheerful surroundings, in good air and with proper hygienic safeguards. Its different phases exercise every muscle in the body, and the mental qualities as well. And it is work done on a schedule and with a definite purpose, not casual calisthenics.”

The best upper body workout of all…the washtub. Let’s start with figure one. Here, “the young woman is following the example of all good housewives and putting the white clothes to soak in cold water the night before washing day…She wants to be sure that all the garments are completely immersed. Her whole body sways almost imperceptibly following the direction of her arms. The slight sidewise movement at the waist…is the exact exercise recommended by the obesity doctors for the taking off of surplus flesh.  The whole process is a gentle preparation for the more strenuous activities to follow.”

Good, you’ve made it through the warm-up. Now to figure two, scrubbing the clothes along the washboard. “The body moves from the knees, up and down over the board. Then there is the splendid up and down swing of the arms. They go down straight from the shoulder to the very bottom of the board. Then they are drawn back to the top, so that the elbows are bent almost at right angles to the body, and the elbow muscles are brought into play. The motion is very similar to that of the pulley-and-weight machine in the gymnasium.”

Now we get a bit of a cool down, as seen in figure three, where the woman daintily rests her hand upon the edge of the washtub.

But, not a long rest mind you, because we can move right on to our next exercise, which works out the forearms. “There are always obstinate spots on tablecloths and napkins. If these are rubbed on the board with the vigor necessary to remove them, a hole in the linen will result. So the young woman at the tub assumes another position in Illustration 4. She straightens up, draws a deep breath, and gives the napkin a gentle but effective rubbing between her closed fists.”

Lest you think that the washtub workout ignores the biceps and shoulders, we move to figures five and six. Here, the clothes large and small are wrung out, and “the arms are extended to their full length, and there is a fine straight sweep of the shoulders.”

For our final step, we focus on the torso and pectoral muscles. Here, clothes are dipped in a tub of “blued[1]” water at least twice getting rid of the soap, with “a slow, even up and down movement of the arms and torso.”

“Where will you find a better course in calisthenics than a morning every week at the washtub?  The ‘poor washerwoman’ receives a lot of professional pity, but come to think of it, doesn’t she usually look healthy?” We agree, and hope that you’ll give the washtub workout a try. Let us know your results, won’t you?