April 3, 1920 Congress looks into the packing industry, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre marry, Tag Day, and the looming Jazz Age.

" The House Agriculture Committee which is at present considering legislation to regulate the packers, photographed in the Committee room at the Capitol today. Front row left to right, James Young Texas, John W. Rainey Ill. and William W. Wilson of Ill. Middle row, Left to right, E.S. Candler, Miss. Gordon Lee Ga? Gilbert M. Haugen, Iowa, Chairman Jas C. McLaughlin Mich. and Sidney Anderson Minn. Back Row. Left to right, H.M. Jacoway, Arkansas, Thomas L. Rubey Mo. John V. Lesher Pa. Fred S. Purnell Ind. J.N.Tincher Kans. M.O.McLaughlin Nebr. Elijah C. Hutchinson N.J. Edward Voigt Wis. L.G.Haugen, Clerk."

Congress was looking into regulating meat packers on this day back in 1920.

My grandfather was employed in the meat packing industry around this time, although he may not have been quite yet.  He'd come to own his own plant, making him something that doesn't really seem to exist anymore, the owner of a single packing plant.

While this entry is from 1920, I'll note that on this Friday, a day which I frequent put in posts related to farming, as the price of meat is way up, but the price of cattle is down. There's something really wrong with that, and a lot of what's wrong with that has to do there being too few packers, something that's come about due to the general trend of industry consolidation in the U.S. and due to complicated external factors.

Anyway you look at it, however, a situation in which the price of cattle is down, and the price fuel, and hence transportation costs, is way down, should mean that meat in the grocery store is also down.  Conversetly, if it is up, the price paid to the producing farmer and rancher should be up as well.

None of that is true.

On the same day, it was Tag Day in Washington D.C.

"TAG DAY UP TO DATE IN WASHINGTON D.C. No longer can the citizen who rides in an automobile feel secure on tag days. In the past the lowly pedestrian has been the one to "Come across" while the automobilist was comparatively safe. Washington society ladies sprang a new one today in selling tags for the benefit of Columbia Hospital. Fair damsels on horseback "Held Up" automobiles while their sisters on foot "Worked" the sidewalks. Photo shows Miss Ellen Messer receiving a liberal contribution from a surprised automobilist."

Elsewhere, eight days after the publication of his first novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald at that time was already in his early stages of alcoholism and Zelda would follow him on that trip, with her mind declining into insanity and ultimately to a tragic death in a fire in a mental health sanitarium.  All that was before the couple, however, which had an on again off again relationship up to this point.  She'd virtually define the flapper of the Jazz Age and was a thinly veiled character in much of Fitzgerald's writings.

Not quite in the Jazz Age but already heading there, J. C. Leyendecker portrayed a style of hat that was to become common in the 1920s, in this instance as an Easter bonnet.