♪ Yeah, I’m sitting by my computer, clicking like a damn fool, Got the 20th-century newspaper blues. And I’ve given up hope for an interesting headline And an amusing story. Is it any wonder I have eye strain? Is it any wonder I have carpal tunnel syndrome?
♪ Well, I’m so tired of reading—I got a century to get through, And all day to do it. Well, I’d go out reportin’, but I know how it ends, And all night to review [the history textbooks]. Is it any wonder I’m not an historian? Is it any wonder I’m not in a newsroom?
♪ Is it any wonder I’ve got too much time on my hands? It’s ticking away with my sepia photos. I’ve got too much time on my hands. It’s hard to believe they used to print these articles. I’ve got too much time on my hands. And it’s ticking away, ticking away from me. Too much time on my hands. (It’s t-t-t-t-ticking away.) Too much time on my hands. (And I don’t know what to do with these newspapers.) Too much time on my hands.
If you think writing parody STYX song lyrics means I have too much time on my hands. . . you’re probably right. However, the following collection of news articles shows me that at least I’m not the only one.
Along with new fashions, every era comes with critics convinced the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of these fashions. In the early 20th century, Dr. Walter Kidd was one of these naysayers.
The esteemed British physician—a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an expert on the evolution of mammalian hair—should have had plenty to fill his days, including observing “the direction of the hair in animals and man” and “remarkable specific variations displayed by the fine raised lines in the tactile surfaces of the hands and feet of apes, monkeys and lemurs.” That sounds like a full-time job to me.
However, in 1919, the doctor turned his scientific mind to another part of the body.
He methodically collected data to support his thesis arguing against the shortening of women’s skirts:
He says sadly that in his walks abroad during the past year he has observed carefully 2,000 pairs of feet and ankles. He declares it was “a miserable subject” and reports that:
Many women walk like daschunds [sic]; some afford instances of splay foot; 90 per cent suffer from flatfoot, insipient or pronounced; most women have deplorable ankles and feet, which they display with equal levity and audacity.
. . . He pleads that the Cheltenham women of this generation lengthen their skirts to spare him the pain of having their lack of symmetry thrust upon him.
Fortunately for ankles yearning to be free, Walter soon ceased body shaming and returned to science, publishing his final book, Initiative in Evolution, the next year. As best I can tell, it focused on the evolution of species, not skirts.
The “short” skirts of 1919. From the Evening Star, November 9, 1919.
Classic detective fiction led me to believe London’s Metropolitan Police had their hands full at the turn of the century with ghastly murders, baffling kidnappings and brazen jewel thefts. Someone had to keep Sherlock Holmes off the dole, after all. However, according to contemporary newspapers, police officers weren’t too busy to go to extreme lengths to catch perpetrators of minor offenses red handed:
In a case at Clerkenwell Police-court yesterday, in which two Italians, Fedilo Cozzi and Antonio Romano, were summoned for street betting, a police-sergeant told how for weeks, in various disguises, he had kept observation. He had also kept observation with the aid of field-glasses from high buildings overlooking the heart of the Italian quarter.
He adopted side whiskers, disguising himself as a plumber, while another officer admitted putting on a wig and a skirt, but a boy tripped him up. The officers lost their quarry, and, therefore, proceeded by summons. The case was adjourned.
I’m not sure who had more time on their hands—the men who committed the offense, the minster who lectured about it or the journalist who wrote about it:
Pranks pulled by mischievous undergraduates are hardly a new phenomenon. University presidents everywhere should count their lucky stars most aren’t as destructive as the antics depicted in “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” Still, professors and parents across the centuries have likely wondered, with despair or amusement, “don’t they have anything better to do?”
At the University of Cambridge, the answer was decidedly “no.” In 1908, Cambridge Theatre apparently prohibited students from sitting in box seats unless they were “accompanied by a lady, who must be a relative.” Admittedly, this seems like a discriminatory policy that deserved to be challenged. However, something tells me these undergraduates—who were all men, as women were not allowed to be full members of the university at the time—didn’t have civil rights on their minds.
One night the “Merry Widow” [operetta at the Cambridge Theatre] divided the attention of the audience with a beauteous being who sat in the middle of box C, with three undergraduates dancing attendance upon her, supplying her with chocolates, fanning her when the air became oppressive, and competing for her smile in the most approved fashion.
The fair stranger was faultlessly gowned in white satin shimmering with sequins, and had a beautiful head of hair. There was much speculation as to who the beautiful stranger could be, and undergraduates in the stalls cast many envious glances up towards box C.
The suspense is killing me.
Next day the secret was known. The distinguished “lady” was an undergraduate who, with three companions, had thus succeeded in breaking the Varsity rule, but so cleverly that none of the authorities dream of punishing them. The “fair one’s” costume was designed by a well-known Westend Court dressmaker, while the beautiful head of hair was by Willie Clarkson [sic], who journeyed to Cambridge specially to direct the final touching-up.
. . . In the vestibule of the theatre [the students] encountered the managing director, who has a keen eye for undergraduate pranks. So completely successful was the make-up, however, that he was deceived, and that evening was remarkable for the clever acting on both sides of the curtain.
A scene from “The Merry Widow” (as performed in Kansas, not Cambridge, but cut me some slack). Underworked undergraduates not pictured. From the Topeka State Journal, December 19, 1908.
I’ll confine my songwriting to the STYX and won’t attempt a full Cambridge-inspired parody of “The Merry Widow” operetta. Even I don’t have that kind of time on my hands!
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Disclaimer: The modern era is far from the first to grapple with rampant “fake news.” As I am neither a historian nor journalist, I make no claims about the accuracy or lack thereof of the above sources. I assert only that they make for a good story.
Welcome to Second Glance History! This blog seeks to uncover the people and the stories forgotten by history and give them another read through a modern lens. Join me every week as we examine the differences that divide and the common threads that connect the then to the now.
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