The Alamo was about Slavery

via delanceyplace
“In today’s excerpt from Delancey Place — as David Crockett entered into sparsely-populated Texas from Tennessee in 1836 hoping for riches from new land grants but unwittingly headed for martyrdom at the Alamo, white settlers there were chafing at the Mexican laws that prohibited slavery. While the causes of the Texas War for Independence were many, the principal cause was this prohibition of slavery. And of the ‘holy trinity’ of heroes at the Alamo — William Barrett Travis, James Bowie, and ‘Davy’ Crockett — both Travis and Bowie were land speculators and slave traders:

“Like many others making the same journey at the time, Crockett understood what he faced once he crossed the Red River into Texas and left the United States. He had to have been aware that, in the weeks before he departed, the animosity had increased between the government of Mexico and the American settlers, called Texians, in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, The white colonists were becoming increasingly tired of living under Mexican rule, and they headed for war with hopes of forming their own separate republic. Many of these Anglos were illegal immigrants and did not abide by Mexican law. All citizens were required to join the Catholic Church, accept the language and laws of the governing country, and, by the late 1820s, observe the ban on the enslavement of human beings…”
Read the rest here.

Suffragette Surveillance, 1912

via retronaut
“In 1912, Scotland Yard detectives bought their first camera, to covertly photograph suffragettes. The pictures were compiled into ID sheets for officers on the ground.

When Evelyn Manesta, one of the Manchester suffragettes, refused to pose for a picture, a guard was brought in to restrain her in front of the camera. But when the photograph of Evelyn Manesta appeared, the arm had been removed. The photographer had acted on official instructions to doctor the photograph so that it would be less controversial...”

Images © National Portrait Gallery, London. Read the BBC article here. More images from the BBC can be found here.

1910: Mademoiselle Fifi Crosses the English Channel

via BlackandWTF
“In 1910, on the first airplane flight across the English Channel to carry a passenger, American aviator John Moisant flew from Paris to London accompanied by both his mechanic and his cat, named either Mademoiselle Fifi or Paree, depending on which newspaper you believe…”
Visit the link here.

Letterpress and Jack Daniels

via printeresting
Watch a video of Yee-Haw Industries making letterpress prints for their Tennessee pals Jack Daniels.
The video can be found here. I’m not a whiskey fan, but it is fascinating watching the carving of the plates, much like a stamp for a letterbox.

Firecracker Labels

via letterology

See more examples of early firecracker labels here, with links to even more.

Earworm of the Day: Sinnerman by Nina Simone

Nina Simone

I first heard this song in The Thomas Crowne Affair; you can watch the clip from the movie that used the song here. A search turned up this link on Nina Simone’s life — she was was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Here is a link to her official website.

Sinnerman (spelled as one word) is one of Nina Simone’s most famous songs and she recorded her definitive 10-minute-plus version on her 1965 album Pastel Blues. Simone learned the lyrics of this song in her childhood when it was used at revival meetings by her mother, a Methodist minister, to help people confess their sins. In the early days of her career during the early sixties, when she was heavily involved in the Greenwich Village scene, Simone often used the long piece to end her live performances.  Listen to her 10-minute version here.

Find the lyrics to Sinnerman here, and more about the song’s history here.

Ditto

via mehallo blog
“Before there were photocopiers, scanners and printers, there was the Ditto Machine (a.k.a. spirit duplicator), produced by the Illinois-based Ditto Corporation; originally introduced in 1923…”
Read the rest here. A link for a pretty cool t-shirt can be found there as well.

The Ampersand, part 2½ of 2

via shady characters
“Although the ampersand’s creator (if it can be said to have one at all) is not recorded, there exists a popular misconception that the symbol’s name is taken from ‘Amper’s and’, after a supposed originator. Mentions of this derivation come from sources as diverse as an 1883 book on Personal and Family Names written by one H. A. Long, and more recently the collaborative, internet-based Urban Dictionary which suggests that the symbol was both invented by and named for a 17th century typesetter called Manfred Johann Amper. Unfortunately, both claims are undermined by a lack of corroborating evidence, and even more telling, ‘Manfred Johann Amper’ appears to never have existed.

The real origin of the word ‘ampersand’ likely owes more to Latin than to French, although it is a far more recent creation than the character which bears its name. During the 19th century, the ampersand was routinely taught as the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet, and in common with those other letters which formed words by themselves — ‘A’ and ‘I’, for example — it was prefixed by the Latin per se, or ‘by itself’. Schoolchildren would recite “X, Y, Z, and per se and”, while particularly bored pupils would not so much recite as slur the final syllables to yield any one of a dazzling variety of words. This entry from Farmer & Henley’s 1905 Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial Engish recorded some of them for posterity:

Ampersand. 1. The posteriors. 2. The sign &; ampersand. Variants: And-pussy-and; Ann Passy Ann; anpasty; andpassy; anparse; apersie (a.v.); per-se; ampassy; am-passy-ana; ampene-and; ampus-and; am pussy and; ampazad; amsiam; ampus-end; apperse-and; empersiand; amperzed; and zumzy-zan...”
Read the rest here.

Image of the Day: Life is a Bowl of Perry's

It’s always fun when we drive into the regions that serve Perry’s ice cream!
More on the company can be found here.

Klotz Type Experiment

spotted by my son
Combine wooden blocks and perspective and what you’ll get is a fascinating Block Type Experiment by Marc Bottler.
See it here.

Linotype Machines

spotted vis a friend on TunnelBug's photostream 
“These ghostly linotype machines stand guard on the 7th floor of this early 20th century gothic masterpiece in St Louis, MO. Linotypes made the plate for printing presses by embossing red hot plates of iron. I couldn't help but imagine red hot plates of iron passing the halls of this grand skyscraper…”
Visit TunnelBug's photostream here.

Restoring an 1870s Tintype

via topdog imaging and boingboing
“Bob Rosinsky from Top Dog Imaging walks through the extraordinary process of restoring a badly damaged 1870s tintype using modern, high-tech techniques, such as a polarized strobe and ultra-high-rez camera. He hints at even more advanced techniques employing X-rays, UV and infra-red light…”
Read the rest here.

Hamilton Wood Type and Target announce a new Hamilton inspired Fall clothing line

via kartemquinfilms
Target has just announced their Fall line inspired by designs and prints from Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. Visit the link below to watch a video from Target that features a behind-the-scenes look at the design, and a quick glimpse of the clothing. Also, you can find a link to an article in The Atlantic, where you can find a bit more about how this all came to be. And finally, watch a video interview from earlier this year with the Moran Brothers on how Typeface has made a positive impact on Hamilton.
All the links and more can be found here.

Image of the Day: 8783 C

Image of the Day: Time Among the Ampersands

For some reason, this clock makes me think of the Wizard of Oz.
Perhaps it is the shape of Tik-Tok...

Phipps Conservatory 1910

via shorpy
Pittsburgh circa 1910. Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park. Detroit Publishing glass negative.
View full size here. I have loved going to Phipps Conservatory since my college days in the early 80s.

Color Communication: When You Say X, Your Designer Hears This

via colourlovers

Image from
Hearing Color: Neil Harbisson, Cyborg

“Let me paint a picture for you. You’ve just started working with a new designer. You sat down with that person, explained all of your dreams for the design, and left the meeting feeling like you were really on the same page. Then the next time you meet with them, they present a design that is completely different than what you expected. It’s not necessarily a bad design, but it is definitely different than what you described. Sound familiar? This is what I like to call a “lost in translation” moment. And it’s exactly what inspired me to create this guide on translating “design talk.” Why is there a disconnect?…”
Read the rest here.

Odd Color Names Offer a Primer in Marketing

via nytimes

“If you heard the words “Tempest,’ ‘Turbulence’ and ‘Tornado Watch,’ you might head for the basement — fast. Paint manufacturers want you to head for the living room. In a redoubled effort to capture consumers’ attention in this sputtering economic recovery, some paint companies are hoping to distinguish their brands with names that tell a story, summon a memory or evoke an emotion — even a dark one — as long as they result in a sale. What they do not do is reveal the color…”

Read the rest here.

Alessandro Novelli’s The Alphabet

via felt and wire
“In just over a minute, Alessandro Novelli captures his (and our) love for typography and animation in The Alphabet, a spelling video inspired by children’s hornbooks..”
Read the rest, and watch the video, here. P.S. Can you spot the typo?

Image of the Day: Bad Plate

I love the texture left by the wash-up of the plate.