A German poster for the lost film “London After Midnight” has been listed on EBay. Notice that the vendor is in Spain. Also notice that it is listed as Buy It Now for $14,000. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.
Photo: Mark Twain. Credit: Library of Congress.
RECOMMENDED
Kim Palchikoff has a fascinating op-ed piece in the New York Times about some family icons that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
Edward Rothstein of the New York Times reviews the North Carolina History Center in New Bern, N.C., and compares it with Tryon Palace, completed in 1770.
Could there be a more startling contrast? The new history and the old confront each other not in the form of academic debate or historiographical argument, but in the form of experience: one history is here, another there. And visitors — whose number has doubled to about 200,000 a year since the new center opened last fall — can’t miss the juxtaposition. On the one hand, there is a 20-acre complex of historical buildings and gardens, which opened in 1959 as Tryon Palace: an ambitious development project inspired by John D. Rockefeller’s re-creation of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. A highway had to be rerouted, a bridge rebuilt, property acquired and buildings moved so that these places could re-establish New Bern’s claim to historical importance.
NEWS
Donna Gregor, a controller at the Mark Twain House and Museum, admits embezzling more than $1 million. Shelly Banjo in the Wall Street Journal | NBC Connecticut
Robert B. Townsend of the American Historical Assn. writes about changes in institutional review boards intruding on historical research such as oral histories. “Any historian who uses oral history methods, or supervises students who conduct interviews, should speak out and demand change,” Townsend writes.
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 Photograph by Tony Rivetti Jr. / Universal PicturesAbove, Colm Feore as Police Chief James Davis, “Changeling,” set in 1928. |
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 Los Angeles Times file photoAbove, Police Chief James Davis, 1926. |
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This souvenir photograph from the Florentine Gardens has been listed on EBay. Most of these pictures come in a cardboard holder that’s stamped with a date. This one isn’t marked, oddly enough, but a comparison with my reference file indicates that it’s probably from 1942. The club, which was managed by Nils T. Granlund, was known for having its showgirls tease the customers, as this woman is doing. I suspect she is Marie Van Schaack, better known as Lili St. Cyr, who was one of the regulars at the Florentine Gardens. If anyone can verify her identity, thought would be great. Bidding starts at $19.50.
Photo: A page of Woody Guthrie’s scrapbooks. Credit: Robin Carson, the Woody Guthrie Archive
Eve M. Kahn of the New York Times examines efforts to preserve Woody Guthrie’s fragile, crumbling scrapbooks. The Woody Guthrie Foundation received an $80,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to conserve the material. If you have ever examined an old scrapbook, you know just how easily this material disintegrates. [Bonus fact: Guthrie was briefly a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. No, really!]
Reed Johnson, in the L.A. Times’ Culture Monster, visits an event at the Hammer Museum that marks the unofficial beginning of Pacific Standard Time, a festival that will examine and celebrate art in Los Angeles from 1945 to 1980.
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 The “Enigma Boy” who fooled police into believing that he was Walter Collins is identified as Arthur Hutchins Jr. of Iowa.Read Part I of The Times reports on the story that formed the basis of “Changeling.” |
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Jan. 30, 1937: Leroy Broomfield and Aurora Greeley perform at the Ubangi Club.
[Update: This is Aurora Greeley, and if you have never heard of her, you have lots of company.]
Here’s a Witzel photo that truly is a mystery….
Photo: Retired Lt. Col. Leo R. Gray with “The Spirit of Tuskegee.” Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post
Jacqueline Trescott of the Washington Post writes about “The Spirit of Tuskegee,” a Stearman trainer that has been acquired by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The biplane was restored by Air Force Capt. Matt Quy after being used as a crop duster and eventually wrecked.
The Victoria (Texas) Advocate has a story by Jennifer Preyss about a research odyssey that began when Jack Hodge discovered the World War II dog tag of Capt. Wesley P. Vordenberg in his frontyard.
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 “Outside the Edison,” by Marion Eisenmann. |
| Note: I’m reposting the sketches that Marion Eisenmann did on the former incarnation of the Daily Mirror blog. This is from 2010. I thought it would be fun to write about the crowds that have revived downtown nightlife in the last few years, so late one Friday, Marion Eisenmann and I strolled up 2nd Street from The Times and studied the people waiting to get into the Edison. It’s an ultra-hip club with an entrance in the alley and lots of arty-industrial metal stairs going down to what used to be the boiler room in the basement of the Higgins Building.There’s usually a long line on the sidewalk on Friday nights and sometimes a stretch limo is parked nearby. The flashy young crowd lined up for half a block and the packs of bicyclists that take over the streets are quite a contrast to the many nights when I left The Times Building to find that I had downtown to myself.Marion says: “It was easy to determine the color mode for this illustration. It was night, and the people lining up for the club were dressed in black or black and white.”Note: In case you just tuned in, Marion and I are roaming Los Angeles in a project inspired by Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens’ Nuestro Pueblo.Anyone who’s interested in Marion’s artwork should contact her directly. |
 Police Capt. Jones and LAPD officers search the lake in Lincoln Park for the body of Walter Collins, Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1928. |
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Photo: President John F. Kennedy and Stan Musial. Credit: Cecil Stoughton, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Washington Post columnist John Kelly has a terrific story about author Harvey Sawler, who is looking for two boys, one white, the other African American, from the Washington Metropolitan Police Boys Club who joined President Kennedy for the July 10, 1962, All-Star Game. Harvey has found Dennis Marcel, the white boy in the picture, but is still looking for Frank Brown.
Photo: “The King of Pop.” Credit: Rosanna Xia
Seaton Brown’s portrait of Michael Jackson in soda cans has been sold for $7,500 to Ripley Entertainment, which operates Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museums. Mike Boehm in the Los Angeles Times’ Culture Monster.
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One of the countless gags in Olsen and Johnson’s “Hellzapoppin’ ”
This is Part 3 of James Curtis’ 1975 interview with Dick Lane. In this installment, Lane discusses Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Jack Benny, Howard Hawks and making “Hellzapoppin’ ” with Olsen and Johnson.
Barbara Ware, killed at the age of 23, whose body was found Jan. 10, 1987.
Note: Since the “Grim Sleeper’s” 911 call is back in the news, here’s a post I wrote about it in 2009.
I thought it would be interesting to examine the 1987 LAPD tape of the call reporting the death of Barbara Ware, one of 11 homicides attributed to the “Grim Sleeper.”The recording is fairly noisy, so I cleaned it up a bit. The first thing I noticed is that there are a variety of background noises. There’s Morse code, which I assume was picked up by the dispatcher’s microphone/headset from the radios at LAPD communications. There’s also what appears to be the sound of accelerating vehicles, which makes me think the caller was at an outdoor phone. At the very beginning of the recording, there’s a slight bit of what sounds like background music, but it’s too brief for me to identify.
[Update: Please congratulate Don Danard for identifying James Bush (d. 1987). Here he is with Joan Wheeler (d. 2001) in “The Merry Frinks.”]
Here’s another mystery photo courtesy of Steven Bibb!
[Update: A previous version of this post had a 1972 headline about another hijacking. Thanks to Dewey Webb for pointing out the error.]
Nov. 26, 1971: D.B. Cooper bails out with $200,000. Credit: Los Angeles Times
SPOTLIGHT
Tera W. Hunter has a great op-ed piece in the New York Times about rewriting the history of slavery as reflected by “The Marriage Vow.
The vow, which included the assertion that “a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President,” was amended after the outrage it stirred. However, this was not a harmless gaffe; it represents a resurfacing of a pro-slavery view of “family values” that was prevalent in the decades before the Civil War.
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Image: Los Angeles Conservancy’s Last Remaining Seats Program for “Zoot Suit” Credit: Jose Legaspi
In Part 5, we looked at the story of Joe Dacy Coleman, “patient zero” in the Zoot Suit Riots, which led to a report at the National Archives. As it turns out, the archives have moved from Laguna Niguel to Riverside, so while we track down that report, here’s something else interesting.
In 1997, while doing research at the city archives on the Black Dahlia case, I came across a stack of radio addresses by Mayor Fletcher Bowron. My philosophy is: “If you think you’ll ever need it, take it, because who knows when you’ll be back.” So I copied everything.
Fourteen years later, I have unearthed two of Bowron’s speeches about the Zoot Suit Riots. Here’s his speech from June 9, 1943, courtesy of the optical character recognition software on my scanner.
In the speech, Bowron (a former Superior Court judge) wholeheartedly supports the LAPD and the servicemen, and warns
about the increasing threat of juvenile delinquency and gang violence.
Bowron’s view is that there was no racism involved in the attacks on zoot-suiters, saying: “The action of the service men was entirely understandable and largely excusable. It is unfortunate that Mexicans and negroes, whether they wore zoot suits or not, happened along the street at the wrong time.”
Chief Horrall says: “Police reserves were utilized to the fullest and the amount of damage done and the injuries received was slight. And while these crowds were large and contained many Service men, the spirit was one of fun rather than an attitude of belligerency.”
Also notice how Chief Horrall emphasizes that the Police Department has 545 vacancies due to enlistment of personnel in the military.
“Zoot Suit” and History, Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
BROADCAST BY MAYOR FLETCHER BOWRON, RADIO STATION KECA
Wednesday, June 9, 1943. 7:45 p.m.
Image: Los Angeles Conservancy’s Last Remaining Seats Program for “Zoot Suit” Credit: Jose Legaspi
Coming on Tuesday in our continuing examination of “Zoot Suit” and history: A June 9, 1943, radio address by Mayor Fletcher Bowron on the Zoot Suit Riots.
Brontë Sisters Power Dolls! No, they’re not real. But they are funny.
Photo: Letter allegedly by Lord Byron that was revealed as a fake. Morristown, N.J., National Historical Park
SPOTLIGHT
Cara Buckley of the New York Times writes about the closing of New York’s famed Chelsea Hotel.
Bruce Japsen of the Chicago Tribune talks with Dr. Howard Bauchner, the new editor of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., who is trying to bring the old and venerated journal into the Digital Age.
Bauchner said he will pursue a strategy of “intelligent innovation” for the journal, looking at ways to get information to doctors and consumers through several new platforms, such as social media, video and other digital forms.
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Bauchner is also considering having the journal experiment with shorter, condensed articles, to better engage busy physicians who can take advantage of a “more CliffNotes version.” An original article might remain 2,500 to 3,000 words, but an online version of 500 words, with less background information but still providing “clinical nuggets,” would also be available to readers.
NEWS
A letter purportedly from Lord Byron to Capt. John Hay, in the collection of the National Historical Park at Morristown, N.J., was revealed as a fake during preparations for an exhibit, according to Dan Goldberg of the Newark Star-Ledger.
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Photo: 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse for sale on EBay. Bidding starts at $9,102.
Queen of the Dead—dateline August 1, 2011
• Elliott Handler, cofounder of Mattel, died on July 21, age 95. He and Harold Matson (thus the name: Matson, Elliot), founded the company in 1945; after Matson left soon thereafter, Mrs. Handler—Ruth (1916-2002)—joined up and proved to be a whirlwind of creativity and business acumen. Barbie dolls are Mattel’s most famous creation, but among its other memory-joggers are Hot Wheels, Creepy Crawlers, Cabbage Patch Kids, Magic 8 Balls, Polly Pocket, Chatty Cathy, and See ‘n’ Say. Handler is survived by his daughter, Barbara; his son, Ken, died in 1994. (I did some research to see if my sister’s old “growing hair” Tressy doll was from Mattel, but it was from American Character—who also manufactured Mary Makeup, which would be the best drag name.)
“I kept his body around the house for three days before I buried it.”
Enigma Boy identified.
Enigma Boy lured by Hollywood.
Christine Collins accuses Capt. J.J. Jones of forced hospitalization.
“Tell your mother how you have almost made a wreck of the Police Department.”
The boy claiming to be Walter Collins poses with Christine Collins, Aug. 18, 1928
Several regular readers have asked to see the original stories that formed the basis of the current movie “
A Glendale service station attendant says he saw the missing boy in the back of a car.
Police suspect kidnapping is retaliation against boy’s father, a Folsom inmate.
Missing boy found in DeKalb, Ill., refuses to identify “daddy.”
“I do not think that is my boy,” Christine Collins says.
Police insist boy is Walter Collins despite statements that he was killed.
Mother returns boy, saying he’s not her son.
Handwriting expert says boy is not Walter Collins.
