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March 18, 1910: An ad disguised as news

Last update: March 17, 2010 - 7:09 PM

    
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Advertising disguised as news was common in some American papers until about 1915. Here's an example from the Minneapolis Morning Tribune. The typefaces used in the headline and text were identical to those of the adjacent news stories:

BOTTLE FLOATED 33 YEARS

Bottles containing messages thrown overboard from vessels have been picked up after drifting about for long periods, but in all probability the bottle picked up last summer at a point in the Atlantic Ocean three miles south of Monomy Point, Mass., holds all records. The paper within the bottle stated that it had been thrown overboard from the ship “Hattie E. Topley,” April 13, 1874, a little eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. It will probably be interesting to know that you can find enjoyment in a bottle of golden grain belt beer. Order a case and see for yourself.
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March 27, 1960: Tiny Edgerton wins state boys' basketball tournament

Last update: March 14, 2010 - 10:32 PM

    
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It’s one of the most memorable achievements in the history of Minnesota high school basketball. Fifty years ago, tiny Edgerton – population 900 beat Austin 72-61 to capture the state title at Williams Arena. The Flying Dutchmen (27-0) showed great skill and heart during the one-class tournament, upsetting powerhouse Richfield in overtime in the semifinal before coolly dispatching Austin in the final.
 
The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune’s sports section was packed with coverage of Edgerton’s remarkable run. On the front page, though, was this charming little story featuring two of the team’s “steady” fans:

EDGERTON WINS
TITLE, 72 TO 61

Fans Coolly
Watch Dutch
Beat Austin

 
Saturday night was like a Buster Keaton silent movie for the fans from Edgerton.
 
They played it almost deadpan as their scrappy Flying Dutchmen coolly thumped Austin 72-61 in the finals of the state basketball tournament.
 
While a record 19,018 people packed smoky, hot Williams arena, stamping and screaming, the two girl friends from Edgerton quietly and nervously eyed their boy friends out on the court. Their calm reaction was typical of most of the folks from Edgerton.
 
“I’VE BEEN nervous all day,” said Judy Roelofs, shyly showing her black onyx class ring, a present from her “steady,” guard Darrell Kruen.
 
“I saw him today, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him,” 16-year-old Judy sighed. “Fact is, I haven’t seen him to talk to since last Sunday.”
 
“Me, too,” said the tiny (5-foot, 1-inch) blonde whose steady boy friend is 6-foot 4-inch center Dean Veenhof.
 
“But my being tiny and Dean’s being tall is no problem,” blushed cheerleader Joyce Zwart, 15, her head just reaching over the raised court from the front-row seat.
 
THE TWO girls and their boy friends double-date back in Edgerton.
 
“They drop us off first,” laughed Judy, who plays baritone in the band.
 
She tugged at her tie – “to get some air” – in the humid arena. “Dad does the knot for me.”
 
With her big horn at her feet, Judy nervously tweaked her nose, clapped and kept track of the score and fouls on a sheet of notebook paper.
 
OTHERS in the band stood up to give a little yell when their team scored a bucket, but Judy just made a little mark with her pencil.
 
Over to the side, little Joyce smiled and turned red every time her boy friend got the ball, swooped up and dunked it in.
 
“I’ve been going with Dean about a month and two weeks,” she said.
 
She cupped her hands to her face and exchanged yells with the band as it swung into “Bleacher Boogie” and then the school song, “Wave the Flag.”
 
“WE DON’T play more than a couple of songs a night,” the girl with the clarinet behind Judy said in a matter-of-fact tone.
 
As the final seconds of the game ticked by, the crowd started stamping and rose to its feet.
 
But not the Edgerton band. They kept to their seats, waiting for the big trophies to be awarded.
 
“We’ll have to build a new trophy case,” smiled the clarinet player, Diane Kruen, a second cousin of Judy’s boy friend. “The one we’ve got isn’t big enough.”
 
Members of the team, and perhaps some of its followers, will attend church today at Riverside Reformed church, 102nd St. and Nicollet Av., Bloomington.
 
Because of its observance of the Sabbath, the team does not plan to return home until Monday, and there will be no celebrations in Edgerton until then.
 
Edgerton players hoisted their young coach -- Rich Olson, 23 -- after winning the state title. (Minneapolis Tribune photo by John Croft)
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March 3, 1940: No Babykrieg in Germany

Last update: March 4, 2010 - 2:47 PM

    
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It's clear from this story that the Minneapolis Star-Journal was doing its part to conserve ink in the run-up to U.S. involvement in World War II. How else do you explain the curious absence of "the" in several sentences below?

No Babykrieg in Germany

Girls Ignore Demands for More Children

There is no ersatz for babies ---
 
And the German baby crop, unlike cabbages, can’t be increased at command of Fuehrer Hitler.
 
Announcement in Berlin that the Reich expects every German woman to bear a child  -- latest development of a plan started six years ago to increase the German birth rate -- now is met by revelation that the Nazi baby market is down, not up.
 
Despite the Fuehrer’s orders the German birth rate is falling and now is 11 per cent below the level needed to maintain a positive population balance.
 
The figures are revealed in a new book, “Heil Hunger,” published by Alliance Book Corp., New York.
 
The book, written by Dr. Martin Gumpert, a practicing New York physician and a former head of a Berlin clinic, is based on scientific information which slipped through German censorship.
 
“IN 1937, UNDER HITLER, FECUNDITY OF THE GERMAN WOMAN SANK TO ITS LOWEST LEVEL, 77.1 PER THOUSAND."
 
 
  March 1940: This is what passed for a photo illustration before Photoshop was invented.
And, according to latest compilations of the statistics department of the Reich, the number of mothers with four or more children, declined between the middle of 1933 and the beginning of 1939 by 160,000.”
 
Fall in the German birth rate follows the decline of the marriage rate. From the high level of 1934 (12.2 per thousand) marriages receded to 8.9 per thousand in 1937, according to Dr. Gumpert.
 
Heinrich Himmler, head of all Nazi police, recently urged women to have children, either in or out of wedlock.
 
While the birth rate is falling notwithstanding such pleas, says Dr. Gumpert, the mortality rate is rising.
 
At least 80,000 more person now die annually in Germany than before the Nazi regime. In 1937 the death rate for infants under one year was 6.4 per cent. In New York it was 4.5 per cent.
 
Declining German national health is reflected in other striking figures which the former Berlin clinic head has gathered.
 
“They prove,” he says, “that the German people, living for the last six years under the frightful pressure of war conditions, has reached the limit of its physical and psychic working capacity, and that if no relief comes it faces the prospect of a collapse much more dreadful than that of 1918.”
 
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Feb. 24, 1960: Little boys tell a big lie

Last update: February 23, 2010 - 12:21 AM

    
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Hey, boys and girls: What’s the biggest lie you ever told? The two youngsters in this Minneapolis Star story got into big trouble when one fed a cop a real whopper. It’s straight out of "Leave it to Beaver" – except that they got a good licking instead of a stern lecture in the den.
 
SMALL BOYS' FIB GOT OUT OF HAND

Officer, a Boy Fell Through the Ice … Well, a Boy Could!


Two small Minneapolis boys got lickings Tuesday for telling a fib to policemen.

 
  Gee, what a mess: Mark Buchanan and Greg Warren pondered their fate.
It all started when Mark Buchanan, 8, 3115 Clinton Av., and Greg Warren, 7, 3132 Clinton Av., were standing at the edge of a 60-foot embankment gazing at the river at Main St. and SE. 6th Av. about 5 pm.

Two patrolmen Warren Burns and Matthew J. Trymucha, cruising by in their squad car, noticed the two boys, stopped, and attempted to chase them away.

Mark, however, boldly announced that another boy had "vanished" on the ice, [and] Greg agreed.

Burns slid down the steep bank. Trymucha called for help. More squad cars arrived and the search began. The search was called off a short time later.

But Burns couldn't get back up the bank.

Another call went out, this time for six firemen to rescue Burns. With their help, he climbed up a long rope, cutting his hand in the process.

Mark and Greg were taken to police headquarters. They admitted the whole thing was a fib.

Mark was placed in the juvenile jail for a few hours and was taken home by his mother about 11:30 p.m.

"He'll look you straight in the eye and tell you all sorts of little lies," his mother said, "but he's never done something as big as this before."

She said Mark got a "hard licking with a belt" and was hustled off to bed.

Greg's mother, Mrs. June Warren, said Greg "was scared" when she arrived at police headquarters to retrieve her son.

"He wanted to go home. He said he was sorry. We talked it over, he got a spanking, and I sent him to bed."

Mark explained:

"I start telling stories. I tell a lot of stories, and they sort of get away from me. I get in too deep, and then I can't get out."
 
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Feb. 13, 1910: Pockets vs. handbags

Last update: February 16, 2010 - 8:21 PM

    
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Why do men’s clothes have so many pockets, and women’s clothes so few? The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune steps into the breeches:

ABOUT POCKETS

 
An over-curious Benedict wants to know why it is that he has twenty-one pockets in his suit of clothes and his wife not one. The plain citizen and business man should know better than to question the edicts of the fashionable tailor and dressmaker.
 
Clothes are made for all sorts and manner of men, and the pockets are put in to meet the average demand for use. The man is so abundantly provided with receptacles that he can carry around a lot of truck and it is his own fault if he isn’t abundantly provided with the little conveniences which make life a joy.
 
But for the lady there is a different standard. Her figure, either by nature or art, is more rounded, and her garments must fit more snugly. Pockets stuffed with miscellaneous articles would produce ridges and irregularities that would be unsightly; if not to the unobservant male, at any rate to the feminine sartorial critic. Hence the feminine portion of the community is driven to the use of the handbag.
 
To the man the necessity of carrying around such an article would be an insufferable bore, and in his absentmindedness he would be sure to lay it down frequently and forget it. But to the other sex the handbag is not an unmitigated evil. It may be made ornamental and for the display of much grace and style. The habit of carrying it and depending on it for supplies of change and other personal conveniences has evidently had the effect of cultivating the memory for details in which women are so superior to men.
 
There is no doubt that the man could dispense with some of his pockets. It would be advisable to cut out the hip-pockets and thus reduce the many temptations of the pistol-carrying habit. Vanity dictate[s] the retention of some of the others, with their flaps and bindings. Perhaps the present trend towards severe simplicity in dress may work a desired reform in this respect.
You can read all you like about what goes on inside the heads of the opposite sex, but cross-dressing is certain to give you deeper insight. Here, Regina Soreson and a few of her friends got a feel for the convenience of many, many pockets in about 1910. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
Not to be outdone, men of the early 20th century also donned costumes of the opposite sex. This photo, taken in 1908 or thereabouts, shows a few fetching members of the Elks Club dressed up as pocketless "Flora Dora Girls." (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
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Feb. 13, 1910: Spanish fraud letters flood state

Last update: February 14, 2010 - 10:02 PM

    
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DEAR READER, I TRUST YOU WILL TREAT THIS MINNEAPOLIS TRIBUNE REPORT WITH THE UTMOST DISCRETION. A FULL CENTURY BEFORE YOU DELETED THE LATEST NIGERIAN E-MAIL SCAM TO HIT YOUR IN-BOX, YOUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER MIGHT HAVE BEEN TOSSING ASIDE A SIMILAR LETTER POSTMARKED "SPAIN." THE SPANISH SCAMMER OF 1910 USED SLIGHTLY BETTER ENGLISH, BUT THE PREMISE WAS EQUALLY PREPOSTEROUS.
 

Fraud Letters Flood State

 

Postal Inspector Warns People
To Beware of Hoary-Whisker-
Ed Spanish Appeals

 
The attention of M.C. Fosnes, post-office inspector, has been called to an influx of fraud letters from Spain to persons in the Twin Cities and he believes that whoever is operating the hoax is receiving some returns from this territory and warns the public not to “bite” at the alluring bait. The letters have been many and the Spanish person is apparently untiring in his efforts in Minnesota. Many of the letters have been sent to the inspector.
 
The following is a sample of the letters received by Victor Segerstom, of the Segerstrom Piano company, and Harry Olstein, 205½ Washington avenue north:
 
Madrid 20-1-10.

Dear Sir – Although I know you only from good references of your honesty, my sad situation compels me to reveal you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune saving at the same time that of my darling daughter.
 
Before being imprisoned here, I was established as a banker in Russia as you will see by the enclosed article about me of many English newspapers which have published my arrest in London.
 
I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of 480,000 dollars I have in America and to come here to raise the seizure of my baggage paying to the registrar of the court, the expenses of my trial and recover my portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden the doument indespensible to recover said sum.

As a reward I will give up to you the third part, viz., 160,000 dollars. I cannot receive your answer in the prison, but you must send a cablegram to a person of my confidence who will deliver it to me.
 
Awaiting your cable to instruct you in all my secret, I am sir,
 
A. DEMIDOFF.
 
Mr. Fosnes, in warning the public, says: “Instead of the writer being a wealthy party in temporary distress, he is a miserable Spanish scoundrel who very likely has been in jail many times. There may be a number of scoundrels working the same line of graft. Every dollar sent to Spain or sent for cablegrams is a tribute to rascality. Better throw the money into the Mississippi river.”   
 
February 1912: Sorting the mail at the Minneapolis post office at Third and Marquette. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
 
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