August. Not one of my favourite months (I hate the heat) but this year I love it because it means that July is over and  it was like Hell. But seriously.
I also love it because I’m on holiday and I mean to use this free time to do a few things that have fallen on the wayside lately. I’ll keep you posted!

 

31 Vintage Photographs Captured Street Scenes of Berlin in the 1920s

As always, I can’t resist a collection of everyday life from the 1920s. In this case, it’s Berlin. Most of these photos are from the street. I’ve seen a few of them elsewhere, but many were new to me.
There are a few about jobs (like this photo). I like these in particular because some of these jobs don’t exist anymore. It’s interesting to know that they even existed once (I mean, they just sold margarine?).
Berlin strikes me as a city where past and present coexisted even on the street. Maybe more than other big cities that I’ve seen photos of from the 1920s.

 

In the Swim, July 1920

1920s fashion is undoubtedly interesting for so many reasons, but to me, beach fashion is the most interesting of all. Besides, I think it must have been a field of debate at the time, considering how fast and dramatically bathing suites were changing.
This is a good, comprehensive article about it. Not many photos, but a lot of clips from newspapers of the time. Fascinating!

 

Los Angeles Oil Fields Boom: Pictures of Oil Derricks Loomed Over California Beaches From the 1920s and 1930s

I’ve often seen pictures of the Oil Fields of California and they never fail to impress me. To a point, they are even scary because to my modern mind it’s unthinkable to have oil fields so close to where people live.
If I’ve ever seen anything that spells ‘dieselpunk’ in real life, this is it, and not just for the visuals, also for the meaning. Money and power over people’s life and health.

 

Reporting from the trenches: newspapers in World War I

The relationship between war and information is always a very complex one. It was during WWI one. I read about the trenches’ newspaper the first time in a book about the war. I have never thought trench newspaper existed, though if we think about it, it is not that surprising they did.
It’s not hard to imagine that newspapers at home were generally not very accurate about how the war was going. I would think that most of them were propaganda rather than information. These newspapers were available to soldiers too, but they loathed them. So soldiers made their own newspapers, which were very different, though not necessarily as grim as one may think.
It is a fascinating matter.

 

Brilliant Expressionist Dance Costumers From The 1920s

Let’s face it: Expressionists were a strange lot. But some were even stranger than others.
In 1986, a shock of performance costumes from the 1920s was discovered in a stockroom in Hamburg. They belonged to a couple of extremely peculiar Expressionist dancers, Walter Holdt and Lavinia Schulz. These same costumes had been photographed back in 1924 in a studio in Hamburg.
In this article, the original photos are reproduced, together with some of the original costumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relative Fortune by Marlowe Benn

In 1924 Manhattan, women’s suffrage is old news. For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to launch her own new private press. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers—including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy.

When her friend’s sister, Naomi Rankin, dies suddenly of an apparent suicide, Julia is shocked at the wealthy family’s indifference toward the ardent suffragist’s death. Naomi chose poverty and hardship over a submissive marriage and a husband’s control of her money. Now, her death suggests the struggle was more than she could bear.

Julia, however, is skeptical. Doubtful of her suspicions, Philip proposes a glib wager: if Julia can prove Naomi was in fact murdered, he’ll drop his claims to her wealth. Julia soon discovers Naomi’s life was as turbulent and enigmatic as her death. And as she gets closer to the truth, Julia sees there’s much more at stake than her inheritance…

 

Sarah Pluges Her Stuff