Freedom 1910 Style

In a 1911 letter home Marion Nicholson describes catching up with the Montgomerys who are in town to buy a new car, their second in two years. This may be a pic from that event. They are at Atwater Street.

I am writing Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold Girl and I’ve got to the part where Edith Nicholson goes on a 6 hour car trip from Richmond, Quebec to Montreal in June 1911.

In a letter she describes all the places she passed through.

My job is to describe the experience.

Now, today, 6 hours on bumpy hills in a car with no shocks (I don’t think) and in a tight corset would be torture, but for Edith it is euphoric.

That’s the word I’ll use.

The freedom of it! Before long trips were taken by train or by horse carriage. This car, going 14 miles an hour over the hills and dales of the Eastern Townships, must have thrilled the passengers, much like a long long ride at Dominion Park. And there was always the danger of breaking down to add spice to the occasion.

14 miles an hour is the speed limit in the country. 7 miles an hour in the city. (Horse drawn vehicles and autos were beginning here to fight over the road space, a fight which would continue until the late 1920′s, when cars WON.

Ad for Piece Arrow. Car Rides were classy thing! No kidding, cars cost as much as a house.

A recent Salon.com article claims that statistics show that Americans at least are driving much less. The author of the article ascribed this to the Internet, saying young people would rather surf than drive.

(I thought maybe GPS’s had something to do with it. Or Google maps. No getting lost. No spending hours driving all over town looking to buy some item. Etc ete.

Whatever the reason, the thrill is gone. The high price of gasoline doesn’t help either, I’m sure.

In the 60′s I went for a lot of car drives with my dad. It was his recreation. Cheap and he got out of the house. We had a little Austen Cambridge, but my father, a former ferry command pilot, drove fast, 80 miles an hour on the highway.

As his daughter, I wasn’t afraid, although I do distinctly remember almost getting killed by an oncoming 16 wheeler as he passed a car on the highway.

But he swerved in on time, obviously.

Marion sits in her Uncle Clayton’s car.It broke down a lot.

The T Can wasn’t as crowded with trucks as it is today.

I liked looking out the window.  On long distance treks to the US for vacation, my Dad had a game. He had great long distance eyesight (Pilot!) so we called out the state or province of the licence plates ahead,the minute we could guess them. And then there was I Spy..

Today kids don’t look out the window. They are too busy playing or communicating on their iPads, etc. Or watching movies.

We experience the world second hand today. Technology changes us.

Free at Last: In the 1910 era, men drove the cars, but by the 1920′s women went it alone! Here’s Flora second from last. Cars gave women and teens unprecedented freedom.

Teacher’s Little Helpers

Well, as I write Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold Girl I wonder if I am being too harsh on Edith Nicholson, the heroine of  the Spinster story, as I make her an opium addict.

My husband’s great Aunt Edie was a prim and proper Presbyterian, after all, a tee-totaller, in her youth at least.

But then I have a 1911 Na-Dru-Co Atlas to prove my point.

Na-Dru-Co was the National Drug Company of Canada and they sent around a thick promotional brochure in 1911, the time of both my ebooks. I found this brochure in the Nicholson collection.

Most of the products they are pushing remind me of medicines “Granny Clampett” used, sarsaparilla, or parilleeee as she said.

The cough syrup contains licorice, linseed and chlorodyne. I looked up chlorodyne to see that it contained opium and cannabis. Bull’s Eye!

Oddly on a testimonials page someone claims they give it to a baby of 8 months. Another person says she knows someone who got cured of a cough and only used one bottle.

Edith had tonnes of colds and she was always on some medicine. Everyone was afraid of dying from pneumonia or TB!

And then came the horrible tragedy that took the life of her fiance and the Principal of the School where she worked, who was also a medical doctor, fixed her up with ‘heart medicine.’

There’s a product called Nervozone advertised in this brochure with the following blurb:“In the strenuous rush of commerce, the severe strains of depressing social conditions, overstudy, changes of female life, or impending attacks of disease, the nerves become impaired. Irritability, brain worry, Sleeplessness ensue, accompanied by lack of Energy, Emissions, Impotency, Nervous Dyspepsia, Partial paralysis, palpitations of the heart,incontinence…NA-DRU-CO nervozone is specially prepared to cover all such cases…”

I wonder what this concoction contained?

Another blurb about it in the book says “Teachers and especially women teachers are the most fit subject for rest and vacation than any other workers in the country.  One day of worry in the school room is more trying than  a month of hard labour… The best advice we can give teachers is to keep a box of Nervozone in their desks…Tsk Tsk.

I have to have Edith read this..

Ironically, in a 1909 letter, Edith says the doctor has told her – once again – to give up tea. LOL

Titanic in Fashion

Titanic Fashion. My Delineator. I cleaned up this photo with Corel and inserted it my ebook, Threshold Girl, along with many other beautiful colour plates from the era. I suspect that I have the only extant copy of this pretty photo.

“Oh, we have missed Miss Wiley’s speech! says Edith. “Did you get a good look at her, at least?”

“Yes,” said Flora, disappointed and excited at the same time.

“Let’s go in anyway,” says Edith. “They usually end their meetings with a tea. And maybe we can learn what she had to say.”

As the women enter, they are asked to sign a book of condolences for prominent Methodist businessman Hudson Allison and his wife Bess and daughter Loraine, who perished on the Titanic three weeks before.

Beside the book is propped a portrait of the couple, framed in a black ribbon.

“We had a service at school, but not just for the important people, for all the 1,500 victims,” says Flora. “I attended the service for Mr. Hays in the American Presbyterian,” says Edith and then she remarks upon Mrs. Allison’s lovely hair of curls. “They are all the rage. The Ladies’ Home Journal says so.”

The assembly hall is only ¼ full, and it can fit 150 bodies or so. There are six somewhat looking confused older women in out of date fashions, seated at a head table. One woman, though, right in the middle, is the picture of elegance and composure.

“Order. Order,” announces this regal lady. “Well, that was most interesting, wasn’t it? Such passion on both sides of this issue. I don’t think we’ve ever had to break up a fist fight before. But, after all the excitement and before our tea, there is still some business to complete.”

This is an excerpt from my ebook Threshold Girl - that takes place in 1911/12 and is based on genuine letters from the era.

Edith and Flora Nicholson have gone to see British Suffragette Barbara Wiley speak, but they just missed her.

Well, I see that a 3D version of the great Hollywood blockbuster Titanic is soon to be released commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

I will go to the theatre and see it. I love the movie. I’ll drag my husband. He likes the movie too (it’s one of those movies that appeals to everybody) but he can’t see in 3D. He has a weak eye and can’t triangulate. Many people can’t see in 3D, including many First Nations People, apparently.

The Titanic movie has all the elements, and plays on the class divide. Di Caprio’s character is poor, Winslet’s rich.

Middle class people too liners too, at least well-off middle class. 2nd class!
In the summer of 1912, the McCoys, good friends of Edith and Flora and sister Marion, go to Europe. They ask Marion to come along but she writes in a letter home, “Teachers will have to make much more money before I see Paris.”

The McCoys bring her back a blouse from Paris and Marion writes, “Imagine me, wearing a real Parisienne blouse.”

The McCoys sailed in mid June 1912. Right around that time, a Montreal newspaper ran this story:

“Large ships are still in demand. Olympic sails today with full list. 676 first class passengers.”

“The popularity of the large steamer with the travelling public does not seem to be on the wane, as was feared might be the case in consequence of the accident to the Titanic. White Star Olympic is due to sail from New York today for Cherbourge and Southampton.”

The Olympic sailed every three weeks or more, from what I can see. July 6, July 27, August 17, Sept 18. “All steamers equipped with wireless and submarine signals.”

Up Close and Personal

A Single Man on my “old” HD TV. (Oh, it’s my husband’s really, but I’ve hijacked it.) Am I technically allowed to diffuse this image?

You know, I’ve written a lot about this HD TV of ours (an old technology by now)and how I didn’t want one, but my husband did (cliche-city) and how I now am thrilled we got it because I can watch old movies the way they were meant to be watched.

But a few days ago, I tuned into Witness, a movie I really like, for many reasons, but mostly the sex part, and started watching at the scene where John Book is in town trying to phone his partner and I exclaimed to my husband, “Blair, something’s WRONG with this movie. It doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels as if I am right there, a member of the crew, watching the shoot.”

“I changed the setting to High,”he replied. “Do you want me to change it back?”

“No,” I answered. “I am fascinated. It doesn’t look right. It’s a bit like watching a CBC production. And I am wondering why, exactly.”

A little while later we were watching a re-run of MASH (the episode where Radar is leaving) and same thing, it seemed as if Alan Alda were right there in front of me at the table in the Mess Tent.

I flipped to Coco:after Chanel, a modern movie, the scene where she’s getting into the car (or motor as they called it back then) with Boy and same thing, I felt I was about to get into that antique auto too.

And then the weirdest, Chinatown came on, so I watched it too. And I’d seen it a month ago, so I could compare and analyze. Mrs. Mulray was talking to Jake in the Restaurant. Her perfect (and perfectly made-up face) seemed different from the last time I’d watched.

What was the problem? The lighting. You could SEE it.. And because of that the film now had a soap opera feel. And this is Chinatown, one of the best movies of all time.

And somehow the acting seemed a bit soap-operaish. Impossible. How could that be?

Then when they parted on the street, it no longer seemed soap operish, it seemed TV ish, Miami Vice like. (Soap Opera’s seldom have street scenes.)

So I tried to further deconstruct it all… Somehow, with this lighting (my husband says it is twice as clear or something) a barrier between me as the viewer and the characters is removed. Something like that. I can’t ‘suspend disbelief’ as well.

It doesn’t help that my husband has installed a better sound system and I can hear every tiny background noise and tinkle of knife on plate.

Anyway, I went to the exterior hardrive and loaded A Single Man. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel Colin Firth is in the room? Up close and personal like. But, no. The lighting in this film had a filter or something. Didn’t work.

I guess this is something Directors these days have to think about. Apart from the other thing: that a viewer can take any frame of any film and zoom in on intimate body parts.

(Not that I’ve ever done that…)

Oh, the Wizard of Oz is another movie that (in my opinion) can stand up to this HD scrutiny. I guess that’s because it is so-fake anyway, the costumes and scenery and all.

Now, I’d like to see Gone with the Wind on this HD. That’s one movie that seldom is replayed on TV. If I recall, the cotton picking scene already looked pretty fake.

This has absolutely nothing to do with FLO in the City, except with respect to changing motion picture technology and how it affects us.

Motion Pictures were new in those days, the 1910 era, yet people were quick to adapt.

I recall that famous film story, I heard at school. When “primitive” people were shown their first motion picture, they ran out of the room chasing a chicken that had run out of the frame.

And supposedly, everybody recoiled in horror when they first saw a head in giant close up..

In all my readings about early film, for this blog, I have yet to hear any of these stories. Motion Pictures caught on with everyone, the old, the young, right from the beginning. (Well, theatre-owners and Ministers of the Cloth were not fans of the new medium, because it was stealing away their customers.)

I just read an opinion piece that said that 3 D is IT from now on. No one will want to watch the other, anymore. But what about people like my husband and first born son, who have eye issues and can’t see 3 D? Aboriginal North Americans and many Orientals can’t see 3D either, apparently.

I see that BBC Radio Four is doing a show about 100 years of the film industry. It will be interesting. I wonder if they’ll turn it into a book, as they did with 100 Objects. Like they did with Ways of Seeing.

Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, has greatly influenced how I see the world, as this essay proves.

Games with Google Earth

The house that Norman built, 1896. Tighsolas. House of Light in Gaelic.

I am born in 1954, one hunded years after Margaret Nicholson (my husband’s great grandmother, my son’s, well, you know.)

So, I am the same age today, as Margaret was in 1909-1910. Hmmm. I’m sitting in my living room, a few feet from a decorative elm table that once was in Tighsolas. It’s my favorite piece of furniture in the house. I am not wearing a corset, but brown sweat pants, mismatched socks, one neon orange, one white, a burgundy camisole and my husband’s grey fleece jacket, all purchased at Costco.

Like so many women before me, I am wondering what to make for supper. Chicken curry, I think. (I must download a new recipe.)And just like Margaret I am wondering how my children, at university, are doing. Exam time. (Yes, I could email them, or facebook them, or text message them, or call them on their cells but I try to intrude as little as possible on their lives. Ha. Just as I write this my husband picks up the ground line and leaves a message for my oldest, Andrew. We have this ESP thing going.)

I am writing this blog on my new laptop (because the three other computers in my home were too old ) and I am struggling a bit with it, as even the keyboard is different.

My husband tells me to use the battery until its depleted, then plug the laptop in and use it, then use battery again once it is charged. Why? I ask. Well, (my son tells me) batteries, even today, are not efficient. To think that Thomas Edison was fretting about the same problem in 1910. He had a special garage in N.J. to plug in his electric cars. Electric cars were being pitched at women, as they were smaller, less powerful and cleaner. No zoom, zoom, zoom.

In an earlier blog I mentioned how scandalized Margaret was when her neighbour, Mr. Montgomery, in 1910, said he was getting rid of his horse and buying a car. (This will be an episode in my story.) Margaret does not like cars, but I suspect this is partly because the Nicholsons can’t afford one and she doesn’t want her husband to feel like a loser, since all his neighbours are pretty prosperous.

I guess I am also of mixed mind when it comes to the new technologies. And yet, here I am, engaged in this massive history project, in large part thanks to new technologies and Internet archives. In the past, only a university professor with specialized tools, access to world libraries, and a band of underpaid researchers could flesh out the http://www.tighsolas.ca/ letters the way I am doing.

My husband is dyslexic and has little use for the Internet. He does like televisions, and he bought a big screen TV last year.

Well, then he made the mistake of hooking my old laptop up to it and I found I could use it to tour the world using Youtube and Google Earth.

I know London really well now (when I visited I barely registered anything) and I also go to Paris and other French cities and I am starting on Italy. There’s a delivery man in London who has a great camera, an intuitive understanding of editing, and takes people on tours of London neighbourhoods.. Scarletshaz I think is ‘his handle’ or whatever it’s called. There’s also London Landscape TV, which is another guy with a great camera. He works for Tesco.

My favorite game: to eat out at London or Paris restaurants by visiting them on street view, looking up their websites, downloading their menus and sometimes making a dish from the menu. (And, yes, I can buy all this organic yuppie food for half the price -or less- in Montreal!)

I also like looking at slideshows on Flickr. Sometimes I use Flickr slideshows to complement BBC Radio Four Broadcasts. A few weeks ago there was a discussion on Women’s Hour on Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, so I entered appropriate keywords into Flickr and saw her ‘writing desk’ and the garden where she entertained others in her Bloomsbury Group – all while I listened to the radio program.

I still want to visit these cities, well, even more. I intend to go to Europe in the Spring or Fall.

Technology changes us in ways we can’t predict. (My brother has lived in Denmark for 25 years and only last week I got skype and talked to him on a video feed. He’s been bugging me for years. )

Anyway, Margaret Nicholson, like so many of her clan, liked to travel. In 1902, when the Nicholsons were wealthy, she went to Union Hill, New Jersey to see her friend Mrs. Pray and visited the really big city, New York.

Just a few minutes ago I Googled the address I had for her. It appears Union Hill is now Hoboken, but I did find the address and it was a five story greystone. (Pray describes in a letter how hard it was to get her piano into her third story apartment.)

Of course, Richmond, Quebec is not on Google Streetview and the satellite image is very obscure. Gee, I can get close enough to see the shed in my brother’s farm in Denmark, but I can’t see Richmond. I wonder why?