Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one, additional labels, part two.

Wednesday, December 23, 1925. Things in Arabia.

Wario2, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Peace having been concluded, Nejd troops entered Jeddah.

This was the conclusion of a monumental event that had been decades in the making, recreating, with slightly larger boundaries, the former extent of the First Saudi State which had come to an end in 1818.   It also demonstrated the tricky nature of British support, as both sides in the conflict had been supported by the British during World War One, although only the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz had been active supporters of the British backed Arab Revolt.

It took oil, of course, to make Saudi Arabia what it is today, and in part what it is, is a house of cards, still ruled by one family.

Henri de Jouvenel was appointed High Commissioner of the Levant, the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

Last edition:

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

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies, Christmas, Movies, USSR

The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.

The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.: I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location.  It wasn't until earlier this f...

Dreams denied and abandoned.

I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location.  It wasn't until earlier this fall that I realized that it's all on Federal Land.

I walked in, as you have to do, while hunting doves.  I only saw one.

It's a full homestead.  Barns, outbuildings, and a substantial house. This is very unusual as a lot of work went into this, but for some reason, it wasn't proved up.  I'll have to see if I can figure out the history of it. So far I've had no luck.

It was well thought out, and sheltered. A substantial hay field, on Federal Land, worked by the current leaseholder remains. What's really surprising, however, is the house.  It was very well built. So much so, that for a time I debated it if was a school, but it was better built than rural schools by quite some margin, and frankly larger.  It's a house.

Usually, although not always, when you walk up on an abandoned homestead, they're on private, not Federal, land.  And that makes sense.  It only took five years to prove up a homestead, and proving it up was one of the first things the people eligible to do so did.  It protected their investment, which was substantial, both in terms of time and labor, but moreover in actual cash outlays, which were actually quite a bit more extensive than people imagine.

The peak year for homesteading was 1913, during which 11,000,000 acres were claimed.  I"m a bit surprised by that, as I thought it was 1914.  World War One caused a massive boom in homesteading which was aided by the weather.  A lot of people took up dry land farming in that period, following the naive popular assertion of the time that "rain follows the plow.

Abandoned wagon.

It doesn't.

A large part of what inspired homesteading entries at the time was the Great War. With Imperial Russia off of the farming export market, which was a huge portion of its GNP at the time, and with European farming massively impacted by the war, grain production, beef production, and horse production turned to the United  States, Canada, and Australia.

Trouble began to set in after the war, although interestingly not immediately so.  1919 was the last year that American farmers had economic parity with those who lived in municipalities.  That started changing soon thereafter, however, and its never reversed.  The Agricultural Depression of the 1920s set in early in the 1920s, and basically carried on until the Great Depression hit in 1929.  Having said that, people continued to attempt to file homestead entries, some people naively believing that if they couldn't make it in town, they could as a farmer or rancher.

The buildings on this spread, however, are too nice to be a late homestead entry.  I've seen a few comparable ones that were abandoned, but they were all earlier homesteads in which the owners became over extended and couldn't make their bank payments during the Great Depression.  A lot of money went into some houses and whatnot while things were going well.  That must have been the case here. So what happened?

That is, at least right now, impossible for me to say.  But what seems clear is that a lot of money went into this spread during good times, and the owners pulled out when hard times hit.  That, and the fact that the abandoned equipment is horse, not vehicle, drawn would suggest that the homesteaders were doing okay during World War One but didn't weather the change in the economic climate of the Agricultural Depression of the 1920s.  If I had my guess, this was probably a World War One vintage homestead which collapsed, after a huge investment of time, effort and money, soon after the war.

They didn't last long enough in order to prove up.

Their dreams must have been crushed.  I hope, and pray, that the rest of their lives went well.  

I'd also note that, more than ever before, when I see places like this I have a maudlin tinge of regret.  My dream was something like this too.  At age 62, I won't make it.

Wednesday, October 7, 1925. Christy Mathewson

 

Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, age 45, died of tuberculosis brought on by a weakening of his respiratory system due to accidental exposure to poison gas during World War I.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 6, 1925. Calvin Coolidge urges tolerance. The wedding of Jesús Antonio Almeida to Susanna Nesbitt Becerra.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Billy Mitchell, Calvin Coolidge, Czechoslovakia, German Weimar Republic, Germany, Locarno Conference, Marriage, Mexico, Music, Poland, technology, The relationship between men and women, the spoken word, USSR

Wednesday, August 12, 1925. Germany demands colonies back as a precondition to entering the League of Nations.

Germany, which may have been governed by enlightened Socialist at the time, none the less indicated that a precondition to its entering the League of Nations was the return of some of its former colonies.

If I recall correctly, Wehrli was a Casper lawyer.  I've  heard of him. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 5 1925. Plaid Cymru.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1970s, 1975, Marriage, Personalities, Turkey, Wales, Welsh language, Women

Roads to the Great War: Prosperity in War—Uncertainty in Peace: The Case of American Wheat Farmers.

Roads to the Great War: Prosperity in War—Uncertainty in Peace: The Case ...: Idaho Wheat Farmer c.1920 Robert Marcell, Homestead National Monument of America Once war erupted in Europe in 1914, farmers in the United ...

Monday, July 20, 1925. Salkhad.

Druze rebels captured the French Army garrison at Salkhad.

Sheikh Sultan el-Atrash, leader of Druze revolt in October, 1925.

The Druze have been in the news recently given a conflict between the Druze, who tend to be allied to Israel, and Bedouins.  

Nobody ever wanted the French in Syria, excepting of course, the French.

Italy and Yugoslavia signed the Treaty of Nettuno.  The treaty allowed Italians to emigrate to Dalmatia, and was opposed by the Croatian Peasant Party, causing Yugoslavia to take three years to ratify it.

Boise City, Oklahoma, was incorporated.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 18, 1925. Nazi tome and Scopes trial.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Adolf Hitler, Art, Evolutionary Biology, German Weimar Republic, Germany, law, Nazi Party, Science, Tennessee, The written word

Tuesday, July 14, 1925. Getting out of the Ruhr and trying to kick them out of Vietnam.

French and Belgian troops began to depart the Ruhr.

The Tân Việt Revolutionary Party, which advocated independence from France of a "New Vietnam", was founded by Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai.  It was not a communist party at the time, but by 1929, would become so.

It's notable in that its founder, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai.was a woman.  She was executed by the French in 1941.

Last edition:

Monday, July 13, 1925. Pregnant lady.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Apostolic Christianity, Art, Cartoons, Christianity, Czechoslovakia, Greek Orthodox Church, Orthodox, Personalities, Prehistory, religion, Sex, Turkey, Women

Thursday, June 18, 1925. Death of Robert La Follette.

"Battling Bob" La Follette, Socialist Senator from Wisconsin, died at age 70.  He'd been ill since 1923.

The German  Reichsgericht, struck down a law confiscating of all the demesne lands of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to widespread public dissatisfaction.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, children, It was because of World War One, law, Marriage, Soviet-Afghan War, The relationship between men and women, Vietnam War, Weapons

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

The Geneva Protocol, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", was signed in Switzerland by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom United States Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Greece, British India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Siam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Arguably US use of CS gas in Vietnam violated the treaty.  The USSR violated it with lethal gas in Afghanistan.

The first National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. 

The competition was won by 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Kentucky, who became a patent lawyer in his adulthood.

A sad Flapper Fanny went to print.

Last edition:

Monday, June 15, 1925. Flying out.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 1920s, 1925, Aircraft, baseball, Exploration, Sports

Sunday, June 7, 1925. The Death of St. Max Talbot.

Reporting Matt Talbot’s life and death, then and now

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was unveiled in France on grounds where the Battle of the Somme had been fought.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Automobiles, Druze, France, French League of Nation Mandates, Golf, Great Syrian Revolt, It was because of the Crusades, It was because of World War One, Lebanon, Levant, Syria, The Crusades, Transportation

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Walter P. Chrysler incorporated the company that bears his name.

The Great Syrian Revolt against the French started when representatives of the Jabal Druze State were treated poorly by the French administrator.  Syrian rejection of French rule, however, had been smouldering since the end of World War One.

Indeed, this ties right into the events we've been otherwise cataloging regarding France at the end of World War One.  Syria and Lebanon had been granted near independence during the war, which France tried to renege on as soon as the Germans were defeated. Only British intervention, which nearly resulted in fighting between the French and British, stopped that from occurring and assured rapid Syrian and Lebanese independence.  French insistence on occupying the same territory at the end of the Great War nearly resulted in fighting between the same two European powers then and France had never been welcome by most of the regions inhabitants.

French attachment to the region is hard to really explain, but it is in part cultural and goes all the way back to the Kingdom of Jerusalem,1099–1187, 1192-1291, the long running "Crusader Kingdom" in the same region. Lasting almost two hundred years, the kingdom, which was mostly governed by French Crusaders, formed a strong cultural attachment to the region with the French.

The Saturday magazines hit the stands.

Last edition:

Wednesday,. June 3, 1925. Blimps and Stormy Weather.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Blog Mirror, Iowa, Lighter than air aircraft, Nebraska, Petroleum, Weather

Thursday, April 2, 1925. Oklahoma.

 

Oklahoma adopted its current flag.

The prior flag:

France and Turkey agreed on the autonomy of Alexandretta, which is today party of Syria.

The Police Forces Amalgamation Act 1925 went into effect in the Republic of Ireland consolidating the Garda Síochána and the Dublin Metropolitan Police into a single national police force.

Last edition:

Monday, March 30, 1925. Cougars win the Stanley Cup.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Canada, Cartoons, entertainment, Hockey, Opus Dei, religion, religious organizations, Spain, Sports

Wednesday, March 11, 1925. Private manufacture of arms.

The League of Nations abandoned proposals to limit the private manufacture of arms in advance of a conferences on arms trafficking  The thought was the United States would oppose such actions, which is interesting in that this is the first instance of such a proposal of which I'm aware.  

Gun control itself had gained support, somewhat, after World War One.  It did exist to some extent before, but after the war it really started to advance, in no small part due to social concerns, rather than criminal ones.  It came into the UK for the first time, for example, as the British upper class feared that the lower class had been radicalized.

Last edition:

Monday, March 9, 1925. Try this in your happy home.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Adolf Hitler, Bavaria, Cartoons, German Weimar Republic

Tuesday, November 11, 1924. Armistice Day.

 

Last edition:

Monday, November 10, 1924. Henry Cabot Lodge passes.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Chicago Illinois, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Crime, Henry Cabot Lodge, Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, Politics, Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen