The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie production company organized by black film makers. The company was founded by actor Noble Johnson in May 1916 in Omaha, Nebraska. The Realization of the Negro’s Ambition was the first of six movies the company produced between 1916 and 1921. The films were intended to create positive images of black people and black life in America, countering the explicitly racist images of white films such as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. The movies became part of a genre known as ‘race movies’ or ‘race films’, a genre that existed until around 1950.
This certificate was awarded to British soldiers in WWII who had returned from behind enemy lines: http://slate.me/10EjOFz
Omnibus, Upper Richmond Road, London, 1895:
Aside from the adverts on the side of this ‘bus, the most striking thing for me about this photograph is the state of the road - I doubt roads on construction sites are as bad as this these days.
On the side of the bus, on the top board, can be seen an advert for Thomas Tilling. Thomas Tilling started business in 1846, buying horses and buses, along with the rights to operate certain London routes with them.
By the mid 1850’s he had 70 vehicles, and by the time of his death in 1893 he had a stable of some four thousand horses.
nodus tollens
n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters that you had originally skimmed through to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.
“I was born March 23, 1850 in Kentucky, somewhere near Louisville. I am goin’ on 88 years right now. (1937). I was brought to Missouri when I was six months old, along with my mama, who was a slave owned by a man named Shaw, who had allotted her to a man named Jimmie Graves, who came to Missouri to live with his daughter Emily Graves Crowdes. I always lived with Emily Crowdes.”
The matter of allotment was confusing to the interviewer and Aunt Sally endeavored to explain.
“Yes’m. Allotted? Yes’m. I’m goin’ to explain that, ” she replied. “You see there was slave traders in those days, jes’ like you got horse and mule an’ auto traders now. They bought and sold slaves and hired ‘em out. Yes’m, rented ‘em out. Allotted means somethin’ like hired out. But the slave never got no wages. That all went to the master. The man they was allotted to paid the master.”
“I was never sold. My mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. Yes’m when a slave was allotted, somebody made a down payment and gave a mortgage for the rest. A chattel mortgage… .”
“Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves,” Aunt Sally asserted. “We left my papa in Kentucky, ‘cause he was allotted to another man. My papa never knew where my mama went, an’ my mama never knew where papa went.” Aunt Sally paused a moment, then went on bitterly. “They never wanted mama to know, ‘cause they knowed she would never marry so long she knew where he was. Our master wanted her to marry again and raise more children to be slaves. They never wanted mama to know where papa was, an’ she never did,” sighed Aunt Sally.
Sarah Frances Shaw Graves, Age 87
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938
Library of Congress, Digital ID mesnp 100126
I edited something for a coworker and had to explain to him why Oxford commas are important, and returned to this tried & true example.
(Because I’m so professional in the workplace.)
Cool finding of the day:
Two sisters danced with Cadet Eisenhower at West Point, and saved their dance cards as souvenirs:http://slate.me/11DLvCe
Tumblr source: scoutingny
