Different century. Different headlines. Same damn story.

History rarely offers answers but it does give us an opportunity to learn—if we pay attention. When we don’t, it tries again.

Here we’ll explore the strange, ironic, and often unsettling parallels between the past and the present.

Different century. Different headlines. Same damn story.

stories

  • …There can be no doubt… that any law passed by a State which shall exclude the citizens of a foreign country with whom we are at peace, or which shall impose upon them unusual and oppressive conditions, would be an interference with the relations subsisting between the United States and the Government whose citizens were…

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  • It was weeks before I heard someone say it—and I was glued to the news (granted, MY more progressive NPR and BBC news) after Trump won the 2024 election. But still, it was weeks after the election before I heard one straight talking woman called it out. She acknowledged that Harris’s defeat may have been…

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  • Talk about random. I am researching an early San Francisco pickpocket named Annie Piggott and learned that when her first husband William Cronin was a teen in 1884, he longed to be a hoodlum (which was basically a lazy young man prone to petty theft and vandalism when he was bored) . William thought he…

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  • A quick google search tells me we call this breast “enhancement” or “augmentation” now . And apparently some companies will do the job (small, large, xl, xxl sizes) for as little as $2,500. In case one was wondering, this was also included in google’s results: Can you enlarge breasts without surgery? The National Library of…

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  • The greatest enemy of the human race is fear, says C Franklin Leavitt, MD. Many people diet and exercise to regain their health, he pointed out, “But fear alone has sickened them.” Leavitt quotes psychologists, including William James, who believe that every thought and accompanying emotion causes  physical changes in breathing, circulation, general muscular tension,…

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  • “Up to our time, strict economy in the use of natural resources has not been practiced, but it must be henceforth unless we are immoral enough to impair conditions in which our children are to live,” Daniel Burnham, 1893- as quoted in the Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Burman directed the design…

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  • insurance famine

    On April 18 1906, an early morning earthquake leveled much of San Francisco and started fires that lasted for days, destroying an estimated 500 city blocks and thousands of buildings. Insurance companies responded immediately and by December of 1906, the city’s insurance commissioner estimated $180,000,000 had been paid out to help San Francisco businesses and…

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  • “That women lie habitually is confirmed by the common custom of refusing to accept, or accept much of, women’s testimony. This custom grew out of not only primitive man’s disdain for women’s weakness but also his experience with her untruthfulness.” From the Criminal Woman, the Prostitute and the Normal Woman, by Cesare Lombroso and Guglielmo…

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  • Moral cyclones

    We (the collective, not royal “we”) seem to have a habit of imposing our values on others. Always have, probably always will. As many know the focus of my research is the ladies of the underworld, denizens of the red-light districts. I first posted this story, this same damn story, on my NorCal History Blog…

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  • In July of 1892, a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner recognized the threat posed by “powerful rogues”. This just sounded kinda familiar….

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Crazy Quotes

Coming soon

  • The Price of Exclusion…

    …There can be no doubt… that any law passed by a State which shall exclude the citizens of a foreign country with whom we are at peace, or which shall impose upon them unusual and oppressive conditions, would be an interference with the relations subsisting between the United States and the Government whose citizens were…

  • Did Woke and DEI Stop a Harris Election?

    It was weeks before I heard someone say it—and I was glued to the news (granted, MY more progressive NPR and BBC news) after Trump won the 2024 election. But still, it was weeks after the election before I heard one straight talking woman called it out. She acknowledged that Harris’s defeat may have been…

  • Bell Bottoms as sign of rebellion

    Talk about random. I am researching an early San Francisco pickpocket named Annie Piggott and learned that when her first husband William Cronin was a teen in 1884, he longed to be a hoodlum (which was basically a lazy young man prone to petty theft and vandalism when he was bored) . William thought he…

  • ladies wishing to enlarge their busts…

    A quick google search tells me we call this breast “enhancement” or “augmentation” now . And apparently some companies will do the job (small, large, xl, xxl sizes) for as little as $2,500. In case one was wondering, this was also included in google’s results: Can you enlarge breasts without surgery? The National Library of…