“St. Louis, Mo., Dec 14.– Ruling that male attire was not unbecoming to Mrs. Mary Bertha Schmidt, alias ‘Mister Schmidt,’ judge Hogan, in police court here, refused to fine the young woman who for two years posed as a man and who ‘married’ her cousin, Anna Assade, last October.
‘I think you look very nice,’ said the court. Mrs. Schmidt was clad in her neatly pressed trousers and pinchback coat. She explained she had adopted the garments because she could earn $80 a month as a man and $6 a week as a woman.
‘If a woman can earn $4 a day by reason of wearing trousers, I say wear ‘em,’ said the court, and ‘Mister Schmidt’ walked out of court with a smile on ‘his’ face.”
In ancient Rome, pants were considered effeminate. Only dirty barbarians wore pants. A good Roman male was expected to keep a breeze on his privates at all times. Also, women couldn’t wear togas. If you saw a woman wearing a toga, it meant she was a prostitute.
History side of tumblr: verify please?
*Bursts through the door*
You rang?
I should probably clarify I mean trousers, not underpants, for all you folks of the British persuasion out there. Romans didn’t have undies as we do, but they did have loincloths. Generally they just let it all hang out, though. Wearing leg wraps or thick loincloths was a sign of old age or weakness. Think of high school boys today who wear shorts in winter to prove their toughness; it was the same for Romans.
Trousers were despised in ancient Rome because they were worn by barbarian Germanic tribespeople. In iconography that depicts Germans, they are shown with wild hair, long beards and pants to distinguish them from the good, civilised, neatly-shaven toga-wearing Romans.
Just look at those filthy barbarians. In trousers! So unlike us masculine Roman men.
#judgingyou
Wearing pants in Rome was a big no-no. A good Roman citizen simply wouldn’t wear pants, and they were banned from the Senate, Forum and Circus, so any Gallo-Germanic representative from the provinces had to change into Roman dress before he would be admitted.
Slaves and non-citizens still wore them, but freeborn Romans attached enormous prejudice to trousers. Inevitably, however, they became popular among lower classes until, in the lead up to the sack of Rome by the Goths, strong anti-Germanic sentiment against barbarian invaders led to Emperor Honorius banning pants in Rome. That’s right, trousers were banned. (Codex Theodosianus 14.10.2-3, tr. C. Pharr, “The Theodosian Code,” p. 415)
This site here should give you a quick run down on the basics of Roman dress. Togas were for men, and women wore long flowy dresses called stola that covered everything down to their feet. There’s a hilarious poem by Ovid where he talks about getting off on seeing a girl’s ankles; that’s how modestly they dressed (Amores, Book 3, Elegy II). The stola also came with a headscarf attached. Women were expected to cover their hair when they went out, which means dress standards for women were not unlike the dress codes of some Muslim countries today. Wearing the stola with the headscarf up says “back off boys. I’m a respectable Roman lady. Go find someone else to annoy.”
can’t touch dis
Prostitutes, of course, need to send out the opposite message, and the simplest way to do that was by cross-dressing. If a Roman man walked down the street and saw a group of girls wearing men’s clothing and scandalously showing off their legs, he’d know instantly they were lupae, she-wolves; what we might call ‘ladies of the night’. In law, prostitutes actually came to be denied the privilege of the stola so that at all times they would be marked as meretrices. Prostitutes were also known to cut their hair short and dye them fantastic colours to further advertise their availability. This site should give you further information; it’s got some great quotes from source texts too.
I mean… George could’ve written some kinky stuff to Martha… we don’t know… because SOMEBODY BURNED THEM…
*side eye* MARTHA.
I mean this is pretty much historically accurate according to the Chernow biography.
I will never forget reading the chapter that discussed how George apparently told dirty jokes, ordered known aphrodisiacs at the time, and wrote illusions to sex in letters to a few people that have survived. There is also this line “..J. P. Morgan destroyed some letters by Washington that he owned, claiming they were “smutty.”“ It was like going into this whole other area where I learned things I didn’t want to know about the father of this country.
And here I thought I was just making a joke… and it turns out it was probably true… I love this omg
HARRIET TUBMAN ESCAPED FROM SLAVERY AND THEN WENT BACK TO GET OTHERS. LIKE, I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO HARRIET TUBMAN IS AND THAT SHE DID THAT, BUT I JUST WANT YOU TO TAKE THAT IN FOR A SECOND.
HARRIET TUBMAN WAS HELD CAPTIVE AND BOUND TO UNPAID, BACK-BREAKING LABOR SINCE BIRTH UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE OR DEATH. SHE MANAGED TO ESCAPE THAT LIFE, AND SHE TURNED THE FUCK AROUND AND WENT THE FUCK BACK TO GET EVERYONE ELSE WHO WAS STILL TRAPPED IN IT. AND THEN SHE DID IT AGAIN EIGHTEEN MORE TIMES.
WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS UNSURE WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS PREPARED TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST SLAVERY, HARRIET TUBMAN BASICALLY SAID HE SHOULD STOP BEING SUCH A DIAPER BABY AND THAT GUYS WHO ARE TOO SCARED TO END SLAVERY DON’T DESERVE TO WIN WARS.
NOT ONLY DID SHE SECRET OVER 300 SLAVES TO FREEDOM ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, BUT SHE ACTED AS A SPY FOR THE UNION ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR, AND BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD AN ARMED ASSAULT IN THE CIVIL WAR. THAT RAID BROUGHT FREEDOM TO OVER 700 SLAVES IN ONE GO.
SO I JUST WANT YOU TO STEW ON THAT FOR LIKE A MINUTE. ACTING IN THE SHADOWS, SHE WALKED INTO HELL ON EARTH 19 TIMES TO SAVE HER FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE TORMENT SHE ENDURED, AND THE SECOND SHE WAS GIVEN EVEN A MODICUM OF POWER, SHE MANAGED TO FREE SEVEN HUNDRED SLAVES IN ONE DAY.
I GUARANTEE, HOWEVER IMPRESSED YOU ALREADY ARE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN, YOU ARE FALLING LIKE AT LEAST 40% SHORT OF HOW IMPRESSED YOU SHOULD BE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN. SHE IS ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF BADASSERY IN THE ENTIRETY OF AMERICAN HISTORY.
I just feel like it should be noted that she navigated her way across the Underground Railroad (through thicket and swamp and forest and every risk of wildlife you could imagine) with her own knowledge of the natural world. Some call her “the first Eco-womanist” because it was that understanding of the plant and animal life around her as well as knowledge of the stars that allowed her to bring people with her. Her prowess for dealing with immense problems and obstacles on the spot was nothing short of genius.
She didn’t stop there, either. Harriet Tubman also worked with the Union army during the Civil War as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy. She organized black men in the area as scouts, and often led missions herself with the task of gathering information and to persuade slaves to leave; most of whom joined the regiments of black soldiers for the Union.
She also got ripped off by the government, who wasn’t paying her what she deserved (and wouldn’t even give her her pension after the war for her service- but instead eventually granted her pension as the widow of a veteran), so she supported herself by making and selling root beer.
She used her earnings to support free black women, she worked to support two schools for freed men in the south, she provided food and care to the black people that came to her home, and she fought for women’s suffrage. When she died, she was buried with military honors.
Oh, and when she had brain surgery, she denied anesthesia and instead bit down on a bullet.
THESE ARE EVEN MORE AWESOME THINGS ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN, GOOD ADDITIONS, YOU GUYS!!
Also worth noting that she did all this while living with the results of a traumatic head injury sustained in her childhood, which included pain, bouts of dizziness, and episodes of hypersomnia (sudden passing out)
she was not just a badass, she was a disabled badass
Reblogging particularly for that last comment, because plenty of people know Harriet Tubman was a hero but don’t know she was a disabled hero. Not in a “how inspiring she worked through it” kind of a way, eugh, not that. But I mean that a lot of people don’t include that fact in the literature or lessons about her in school and that’s a fact that shouldn’t be erased.
the image “george washington welcomes abraham lincoln into heaven” is so homosexual
everyones reblogging this as if its contemporary or asking who did it but i gotta inform you all it was made in the very same year lincoln was assassinated (1865) and we literally have NO GODDAMNED CLUE who made it and its like fuckin 150 years old
no but here’s where the story gets wild, because this was a thing. and I don’t just mean super gay-looking quasi-religious ascensions of Lincoln into Washington’s arms, we’re talking waaaay weirder than that. I don’t know why it’s not covered in American history classes, because it’s amazing, but Washington enthroned in heaven was such a common motif in American art (largely immediately after his death and again after Lincoln’s assassination) that it has a name: the Apotheosis of Washington. said motif is, simultaneously, incredibly American, incredibly French, incredibly lame, and actually kind of moving in terms of early national mythmaking.
the imagery is largely lifted from paintings of the assumption of the Holy Virgin (as seen here, courtesy of Titian), and usually has Washington ascended into heaven, surrounded by embodied virtues, cherubs, or best of all, old army buddies
(both of whom I briefly mistook for Marie Antoinette)
or here’s a good one, Washington being lifted from his crypt by Father Time and an angel, wearing the expression of a man doing the world’s most unenthusiastic trust fall. note Lady Liberty weeping at his feet, and the Native American warrior playing the part of the grieving land itself. there’s a strong Napoleon vibe in this one, which probably isn’t an accident. that was a man who knew a little something about artistic self-deification.
but the prime example of this motif is in the United States Capitol, in a fresco of the same name, (too detailed to blow up here) where Washington sits enthroned, outfitted in military finery and flanked by Liberty and Victory. around him are six scenes displaying American virtues, or rather–with all due disrespect to Neil Gaiman–American gods: Freedom (depicted, tellingly, as War), Science, the riches and firepower of the Sea, Commerce, Mechanics, and Agriculture. Washington presides over all of them, as the man who created a nation with the strength of his will and the fire in his heart. the heavens are spread around him, and he gazes down at the American experiment sternly and benevolently.
…in other words, monarchy is a really hard habit to kick, especially in art. but the Apotheosis of Washington comes at a real crossroads in the developing American psyche. yeah, there’s a lingering hunger for kingship, that old tendency to bend at the knees, ringed around–visually overpowered–by what would rise to fill that void: commerce, invention, war, and the uniquely American conception of Liberty.
the Lincoln thing is water from the same source: Washington forged the country, Lincoln preserved it, and paid the greatest price for his efforts. in fact, the Capitol painting was commissioned the same year Lincoln was shot, for obvious reasons. the almost-but-not-quite-kissing image of both men in the original post was actually a postcard, and was distributed in large quantities in the months following Lincoln’s death. I like to imagine that people had them pinned up in their houses, where they could unconsciously admit another president into the pantheon of gods
but please never be sorry i found your old art history movements LJ post years ago, got a museum studies degree (best known by my family as “don’t ask what her art history classes are like, she’s going to tell you she’s studying butts in England this week.”) and am now in grad school for art history and frankly weird facts about art like this is my literal favorite
please enjoy these other hilariously great pseudo god-like Lincoln’s and/or Washington’s that are my favorites:
a personal fave where George Washington literally stands in for God with a halo of sun rays emanating from his face under which angels call up Lincoln to heaven done by Philadelphia’s Max Rosenthal and also apparently people argue about whether or not it was said “Now he [Lincoln] belongs to the ages.” or “Now he belongs to the angels.”
If you study history for a living you get used to being less than certain about many important facts. Take the famous comment attributed to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton as he stood weeping beside Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed on the rainy Saturday morning of April 15, 1865. “Now he belongs to the ages,” Stanton is supposed to have said, soon after his friend stopped breathing.
also this Pemberton print for Washington where a woman in blue weeps over his death in front of a giant obelisk in a completely unsubtle cribbing of the Virgin mourning christ
incidentally, this is still the single most hilarious anecdote re: apollo astronauts i have come across
Apollo 13 was halfway to the moon before Swigert realized he had not flied his income taxes and that he would be quite unable to do so before the April 15 deadline. The subject came up as scientist-astronaut Joe Kerwin was reading the Sunday morning news: “Today’s favorite pastime across the nation—Uh oh, have you guys completed your income tax?”
Swigert radioed, “How do I apply for an extension?” Mission control exploded with laughter. “It ain’t too funny, things happened real fast down there and I do need an extension. I’m really serious…”
“You’re breaking up the room down here,” Kerwin said. A few minutes later he assured Swigert that there wouldn’t be any problem: an automatic extension is granted to anyone who is out of the country at tax time.
I have a story to relay for you, Tumblr. About life, about perseverance, about sticking it to the man, and about super cool secret passageways.
In the late 70s/early 80s, Illinois State built a brand new dorm building where the rooms all had two closets, one on each side wall. But because they built the dorm on the cheap, the backs of the closets didn’t have real walls, only thin pieces of pressboard. That was all that was separated one dorm room from the next.
Once students figured this out, they cut big holes in the pressboard so that you could get to the adjoining dorm room by opening the closet door and scooting through the hole in the back wall.
They did this in room after room, until they had effectively built a huge secret passageway connecting every single dorm room on the floor.
The creation of this secret passageway led, almost immediately, to a culture of endless, enormous, authority-proof dorm parties. As soon as anybody knocked on the door or the party room, everybody could bail through the closets and be seven doors down the hall by the time the R.A. or campus security were let in. Or they would keep all the alcohol and what-not in one room, and have all the people in the next. So even when the R.A.s KNEW there was a ginormous party happening, they couldn’t do jack shit about it. It was total non-stop chaos.
Some of the bigger hooligans would commit all manner of mischief on campus, and then high-tail to this dorm building, knowing that once they were safely inside any room, there was no way the cops could ever find them.
Every summer, the school would replace the ripped out pressboard with sturdier and sturdier material. But students just got stronger saws, and kept rebuilding the secret passageways, year after year.
Eventually, only a few years after they built it, the school gave up and tore the whole building down.
vikings made their woman handle the finances because they thought math is witchcraft
The idea that unicorns are only able tamed and captured by virgins originated as a medieval joke. The idea was that it took a mythical creature to catch a mythical creature.
There was once an English minstrel called Roland the Farter. He was awarded lands by the king on the condition that he turn up to the court every Christmas to perform his characteristic “whistle, leap and a fart”. His children could keep the lands after his death if they learnt and performed the same trick.
There is graffiti from the Norse invaders that reads (roughly) “ I slept with Ingiborg, the most beautiful woman in the world ”
A close friend of Alexander the Great named Dioxippus, once told one of his generals, named Coragus, to stop being so up himself, Coragus took offence and challenged him to a duel in front of all of his troops unaware that Dioxippus was a champion of Pankration, Ancient Greek Wrestling. Coragus turned up with all of his weapons and armour, Dioxippus turned up naked with a club, lathered in Olive Oil. The match was over in about 5 mins and Coragus got his arse well and truly kicked.
When an army of Swedes went off to war with the Norwegians, they left all the women to manage everything, however, in the village of Smaland, right on the Southern Border, they were attacked by an opposing force of Danes. The women, led by a woman named Blenda, responded to this by inviting the invaders in, feeding them, making them comfy and basically having a massive party to get them REALLY drunk. When all the invaders all passed out, the women slaughtered them all with anything they could find, and when the men came back, the King was so impressed that he basically granted them a bunch of new rights that were previously unavailable to them. From that point on, all daughters had the right to inherit property, money and land equally with their brothers, and were allowed to wear military-style garments around town and at their weddings. They were also given the prestigious right to wear the Royal Coat of Arms on their clothing – a tradition that has lasted to this day.
The term in Chess “Checkmate” is thought to have come from the Persian term “Shah Mat” which means “The King is dead”.
Captain Benjamin Hornigold, the mentor to Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, once captured a ship just so he could steal all of the crew’s hats, because his crew had gotten drunk the night before and thrown all of theirs overboard.
Napoléon Bonaparte, the Corsican soldier who eventually became the Emperor of France following the French Revolution and Maximilien de Robespierre’s “Reign of Terror”, was terrified of cats.
Just look at those filthy barbarians. In trousers! So unlike us masculine Roman men.
#judgingyou
can’t touch dis
