Wednesday, December 30, 1925. Ben-Hur.

The first variant of Ben-Hur was released.

I tried listening to the book as an audio book once, but gave it up.  I should either try that again, or read it.

The Association of College Honor Societies was formed by representatives of six organizations, Alpha Omega Alpha; the Order of the Coif; Phi Beta Kappa; Phi Kappa Phi; Sigma Xi; Tau Beta Pi.  While nothing compared to the post World War Two boom in college attendance, the 1920s did see an increase in it, including an increase in female attendance.

Adding an item that would have properly been posted yesterday, but we were unaware of it, on December 28, 1925, this patent was granted:

We do not wish to be crude, but we do seek to track various developments on this blog.  Indeed, that's one of its main purposes.  This is a real development. This is a sanitary belt for menstruation, a very common, indeed the normal, method of addressing sanitary concerns until the tampon became common which wasn't really until the 1970s.

Anyhow, women in their current societal roles necessitated inventions such as this.  Kotex, the primary brand, was not introduced until 1920.

Related threads:

Clothing: It was because of World War One.

Labels: 1910s, Clothing, It was because of World War One, It was because of World War Two, Men, Standards, The roles of men and women, Women, World War One, World War Two, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Women and Trousers. No big historical deal, or the triumph of the harpies in trousers?

Labels: Christianity, Clothing, Islam, religion, Standards, The roles of men and women, trends, Women, World War One, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Last edition:

Sunday, December 27, 1925. Between time.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, Christianity, Coal, Coptic, Disaster, Mexico, Mining, Oriental Orthodox

Sunday, December 21, 1925. Premier of Battleship Potemkin.

 

The Battleship Potemkin premiered on this day in 1925.  The highly regarded film was influential, with its Odessa steps scene the inspiration for a similar scene in The Untouchables.

Also in the USSR, the government declared that December 25 and 26 would be days of rest, acquiescing to public discontent about the Communist government forcing them to be work days.

Last edition:

Saturday, December 19, 1925. The birth of Saudi Arabia.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 69th Congress, Art, Billy Mitchell, Food, German Weimar Republic, Grocery Stores, Kingdom of Hejaz, Prohibition, Saudi Arabia, Seige of Jeddah, The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell

Sunday, November 8, 1925. The Eagle.

Released on this day in 1925.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 7, 1925. Crabby Coolidge.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies, Art, Calvin Coolidge, football, Frederic Stanley, Sports, The Press

Saturday, November 7, 1925. Crabby Coolidge.

It was Saturday.

Coolidge delivered a crabby press  conference.

Press Conference, November 7, 1925

Date: November 7, 1925

Location: Washington, DC

I keep having inquiries about the coal strike. I don’t know just why I keep having them. I suppose the press would like something to write about. There isn’t anything that I can say about that, and I don’t know of anything at the present time that I can do about it. Now, if you will just keep that in mind perhaps it will be in an indication of what slant you ought to take when you hear rumors.

I don’t know of anything about Commissioner Haynes’ connection with the Government other than what I have seen in the press. I have indicated, I think a good many times, to the conference, that I had a very high regard for Major Haynes. I think he was a very good officer holding a very difficult situation. I am sure that he can be very helpful by continuing. Now whether it is going to be thought best by General Andrews and Secretary Mellon and Mr. Blair to continue him in office, I don’t know. From all I know, I suppose they are going to do so and receive the benefit of the vary vast knowledge he has of the situation and use him in a great many ways.

I haven’t in contemplation any action in regard to Commissioner of Immigration, Curran, of New York. I don’t know what his views are about immigration. I know that he has extensive views that he has voiced in the press, but if there is a difference between him and the Immigration Department, I don’t know just what the nature of the difference is. The only rumor that has ever come to me seemed in a way a reflection of Mr. Curran, and I don’t know that that was warranted, was the fact that he seemed to be making a good deal of criticism of his superior officers. He may have a very good plan of running his office over there that is better than the Department has. Of course, it is always unfortunate when a subordinate starts out publicly to criticize his superiors. I have understood that Mr. Curran was a first-rate public officer. He is a man of intelligence. I think he is a graduate of Yale some time back. It looks as though he was well trained to administer that office. Now I imagine that there have been rumors about it, but that the facts are rather inconsequential.

Press: The matter hasn’t been referred to you by the Labor Department?

President: Not that I know of. I heard something to the effect that a letter of reference had come over here, but I have never seen it and don’t think it has come.

Here is another veteran rumor about my position on the World Court. If you want to know what my position is in relation to it, read the two or three statements that I have made. The first one in my message of 1923, next in my message of 1924, and in an address I made at Arlington the 30th of May, 1924. I haven’t changed my position at all. Nobody has suggested that there should be any compromise. What I want is some practical resolution that will carry out the necessary purpose.

Senator Borah didn’t mention and I didn’t mention the Italian debt or the foreign debts, when he was in here. I sent for him to consult with him as I am consulting with a great many now, to find out if anything had occurred to him in his experience or his studies that would be something that I ought to touch on in my message. I learned from Senator Smoot and Secretary Mellon, who was in here just now, that they seemed to be making very good progress. I haven’t any details. If I did have them, I wouldn’t want to disclose them. But they are making progress. There is every indication I think that an agreement can be reached. That is the general impression I get from my conference with those who are on the debt commission. There seems to be a disposition on both sides to try to make a settlement and I think from such information that comes to me that both sides are approaching the problem with the utmost candor. When that is the case we usually expect that candid minds can meet and agree.

I think that is all for the day.

(Newspaper men called back within a few minutes)

**** between the depression of the franc and the debt settlement failure. The suggestion is that the so-called Morgan credits to France have been held up at the instance of the Government. I don’t think there is any foundation whatever for any rumor of that kind. I don’t know of any proposal by France to get the credits here, and I am sure that our Government has not put anything in the way of any credit of that kind. I am very certain that no suggestion has been made for an additional credit.

Press: That was made a long time ago, Mr. President.

President: Yes. A credit of I think $100,000,000 was extended in the late spring.

Press: Has the administration any plans for a possible debt conference in Europe

President; no.

Theater in Berkeley, California showing the film "The Midshipman" (1925)

Movies were a big deal.

So was football.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 5, 1925. The Big Parade.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies, 1930s, 1933, 1936, actors and actresses, Alcohol, Cheka, Disease, Espionage, Japan, Personalities, Russian Civil War, United Kingdom, World War One

Thursday, November 5, 1925. The Big Parade.

 

Released on this day in 1925, the film is regarded as one of the greatest films about World War One.

The picture also would be associated with a level of tragedy for its stars.  John Gilbert died in 1936 at age 38 due to alcoholism.  He managed to marry four times in his short life, and was not married at the time of his death.  His costar in the film, Renee Adoree made the transition to sound movies, but died in 1933 at age 35 of tuberculosis.  She'd married twice, but was not married at the time of her death.

Born in the Russian Empire, with his true name never definitively learned, Sidney Reilly, a British spy, was executed by the Soviets.

He had a prolific career as a spy, leading to his nickname as The Ace of Spies.  He was reported a model for James Bond.  Early in his life as an emigre he went by the last name of Rosenblum, which would suggest Jewish heritage.  In the late 19th Century he seems to have worked for Scotland Yard as a paid informant on immigrant matters.  He married widow Margaret Thomas at Holborn Registry Office in London in 1898 after her husband had died under conditions that suggested poisoning, something of note as Rosenblum was working as sort of a herbalist at the time.  She was wealthy and that, by extension, made him wealthy.  Soon after that, he began his career as a spy, spying for the British and the Japanese in the lead up to the Russo Japanese War.

While it is difficult to determine the range of his activities, it is claimed that:

• He pretended to be a Russian arms merchant to spy on Dutch weapons shipments to the Boers during the Boer War.
• He obtained intelligence on Russian military defences in Manchuria for the Kempeitai.
• He obtained Persian oil concessions for the British Admiralty in events surrounding the D'Arcy Concession.
• He infiltrated a Krupp armaments plant in prewar Germany and stole weapon plans.
• He seduced the wife of a Russian minister to glean information about German weapons shipments to Russia.
• He attempted to overthrow the Russian Bolshevik government and to rescue the imprisoned Romanov family, actions which lead to his being sentenced to death in absentia.
• He served as a courier to transport the forged Zinoviev letter into the United Kingdom.

He had been lured by into the Soviet Union by the Cheka, posing as anti Soviet agents.

It's difficult to tell the overall truth of his activities.  British intelligence is notoriously able to keep its secrets for one thing.  Reilly was good at keeping them as well, and as he worked for various entities he had a strong reason to.  Like the James Bond character that's supposedly based upon him, he had a strong affinity for women and married up to three or four times, with other alleged affairs in addition.  His last marriage was to actress Pepita Bobadilla.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 4, 1925. Now or then?

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Election, Democratic Party, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, New Jersey, New York

Wednesday, September 16, 1925. B. B. King born.

The great B. B. King was born in Mississippi.

I saw him play in 1986.  He was amazing.

U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg announced that British MP, Communist Shapurji Saklatvala would not be allowed into the United States to attend the congress of the Inter-Parliamentary Union as a British delegate.

Primaries were being held.

The first version of Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments was showing at the Rialto:

He'd film it again some years later.

Last edition:

Monday, September 14, 1925. Mitchell's comments draw a rebuke. Rif siege at Tétouan broken.

Labels: 1920, 1925, Apostolic Christianity, Billy Mitchell, Christianity, Greece, Greek Orthodox Church, Orthodox, religion, Rif War, Shenandoah Incident, Spanish Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy

Monday, August 3, 1925. Black Shirts at polling stations.

Fascists won local Sicilian elections, helped in part by the staging of Blackshirts at polling stations.

Here, locally, MAGA loyalist hung around the courthouse where early voting was occuring.  Protecting the polls, was their claim.  One independent dude wondered around commenting on homosexuals.

Maybe they could spring for cap badges:

Emblem of the Black Shirts.

Mussolini was very successful in suppressing the Mafia during his rule, using strong arm tactics himself.

Released this day:

The plot involves a woman who loses her voice after giving birth to a son, causing her to hate him.  She becomes an alcoholic who raises geese. And there's a love story.  And a murder. And the mother's love returns.

It sounds pretty bad.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 2, 1925. A Date

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Cartoons, Ethel Hays, The relationship between men and women, trends

Friday, June 26, 1925. The Gold Rush.

 

Released on this date in 1925.

The hotel in Browning, Montana, is still in business.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 21, 1925. Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1929, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Communism, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Monday, April 13, 1925. Renewed Riffian War, Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Abd el-Krim of the Riffians attacked French forces in Morocco renewing the Riffian War.

Newfoundland granted women the right to vote.  It was not yet part of Canada.

Ford Air Transport Service, the first dedicated cargo airline, began operations with a Stout 2-AT Pullman airplane transporting 1,000 pounds of freight from Detroit to Chicago.

The Larry Semon-directed version of the film The Wizard of Oz was released. Semon himself starred as the Scarecrow, Dorothy Dwan as Dorothy, and comedian Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man.

Last edition:

Easter Sunday, April 12, 1925. Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy (Pyotr Fyodorovich Polyansky) installed as the Patriarch of Moscow.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1930s, 1937, Apostolic Christianity, Boxer Rebellion, China, Christianity, France, Greek Orthodox Church, Railroads, Russian Orthodox Church, United Kingdom, USSR

Sunday, February 8, 1925. The Lost World.

The Lost World premiered.

Parliamentary elections were held in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with the People's Radical Party (Narodna radikalna stranka or NRS), led by Prime Minister Nikola Pašić gaining 15 seats. The populist party had evolved from a radical populist socialist party into a conservative one.

Actor Jack Lemmon was born in an elevator in Newton, Massachusetts.

Lemmon was a great actor, but personally highly insecure, something that perhaps reflects itself in his portrayal of worried characters, of which there are some very notable performances.  He died in 2001 at age 76.

Radical environmentalist Alice Mabel Gray died at age 43.

Last edition:

Monday, February 2, 1915. Serum run concludes.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Serum Run, actors and actresses, Aircraft, Calvin Coolidge, Mail, Retail, Work

Monday, October 9, 1922. Permission granted and rehearing sought.

Hairy Moccasin, Esh-sup-pee-me-shish, one of Custer's Crow Scouts, died on this day.  He was 68 years old.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 9: 

1922  A petition for rehearing was granted by the United States Supreme Court in Wyoming v. Colorado, a suit seeking to adjudicate the distribution of water from the Laramie River.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles Burke telegrammed Superintendent of the Wind River Reservation's Shoshone Agency R. P. Haas at Fort Washakie, giving him permission to work with actor Tim McCoy and film producers in the movie The Thundering Herd.

The Girl Who Ran Wild was released.

Like most films of this era, it was melodramatic, featuring a plot in which Melissa Bummer declares her independence from the world after the death of her father.  She ends up in school and her teacher falls in love with her, and vice versa, and she reforms accordingly.

Some of these plots are, we'd note, a bit icky.