Guts and Glory

          Why was it that so many famous writers in the 20th century chose to serve in World War I rather than concentrate on their literary careers? It is said that at least 23 authors drove ambulances in the first World War, and many served in other ways, working in medical fields. Some of the most famous literary figures to do so were Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, e.e Cummings, and Somerset Maugham. Gertrude Stein also worked in the medical field during the war. 
          What was it that made the appeal to drive these ambulances so strong for these famous writers? And why did this occur in World War I more than in other wars? Up to this time, there were not many ambulance services to join. The first ambulance wagons were seen in the 1480's with Queen Isabella's forces and in 1792, the chief surgeon of the Grand Armee of France developed the first of these wagons specifically designed as ambulances. They had medical supplies and refreshments, but the first motorized ambulances were not seen until the late 19th century. The medical care of this time however, was not known to be of good quality. Early ambulance wagons were also pulled by animals, which did not prove to be very effective. 

Early ambulance wagon

          When the first automobile ambulance was created in Chicago in 1899, it had the an attractive allure due to its speed and novelty. Young, educated men were drawn to this and, in fact, many young men had to learn to drive first, before they could serve. There was also prestige to driving these ambulances, and volunteers were considered "gentlemen drivers"and equivalent to officers. 
            

Early automobile ambulance 

          Moreover, a number of these famous poets and writers who became ambulance drivers did so because they did not pass the qualifications to serve. Some had bad vision, such as Hemingway, and in Maugham's case, some were too old or too short. People joined to help serve the country, to be with their friends and people they knew, and for adventure. Many of them simply joined the army to escape their dull lives. Many soldiers in the war, however, looked down on these ambulance drivers for having non-combattive roles in the war. 
          Being part of this war experience first-hand provided for a lot of literary subject matter. It inspired many of the famous poets and authors, as they had much time to think while driving and were emotionally moved by witnessing the suffering of war. Hemingway, for example, published A Farewell to Arms, which was about an ambulance driver who fell in love with a nurse in the war. e.e. Cummings wrote The Enormous Room about his own experience in a French prison. 
          After returning from war, many of these authors were too restless to stay at home. They continued to travel in order to experience and see new things, inspiring more of their later poems. 

Sources:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/ambulance.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambulance_drivers_during_World_War_I
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/169718/John-Dos-Passos
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156
http://www.ctspanish.com/legends/isabella1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Armée
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enormous_Room
http://www.powerweb.net/bbock/war/trans.html
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=WWI+ambulance&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1186&bih=632&tbm=isch&tbnid=nPjh5lvQYOZHKM:&imgrefurl=http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Keplinger/kepTC.html&docid=fAEguopZZd6yPM&imgurl=http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Keplinger/thumbs/smk001tn.jpg&w=432&h=399&ei=ahxpUIW0HuH30gHT5YGoBA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=800&vpy=302&dur=50&hovh=216&hovw=234&tx=104&ty=129&sig=106803548166308161713&page=1&tbnh=124&tbnw=134&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0,i:118

Pin-Up Girls: Sexist or Morale Booster for Troops?

Betty Grable, famous pin-up girl from the 1940s

    The 1940s was a decade of hardships and loss; World War II was not only hard on the soldiers physically, but mentally as well. It wasn't easy seeing close friends lose their lives every day on the battlefield, and being away from home was a struggle for many.

    Thus, the Pin-Up girl was born. A pin-up girl is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. They are intended for informal display, generally found "pinned-up" on a wall. 

    Soldiers across the United States who were either away at training camp or off at war filled their walls with pin-up models like Betty Grable, Bettie Page, and Esther Williams. They were considered to be a sign of good luck for the troops and a reminder of what they were fighting to come back home to. 

    The images of these gorgeous women could be found in newspapers, magazines, and advertisements. Due to such popular demand, posters, paintings, calendars, and photographs began to be mass produced in order to satisfy the country's craving for the voluptuous All-American women. 

    There's been a long standing debate about whether or not this concept of a pin-up girl is degrading to women, and I'm not sure there will ever be a clear consensus on the issue. On one hand, women are being objectified; they are being photographed while wearing little to no clothing and hung on walls for men to look at. On the other hand, if that's the least we could do for our troops while they fight for the safety of our country, then is it really all that bad?  

    This question is purely opinion based, but if we're asking for opinions here I might as well share mine. I'm not sure I see anything wrong with this concept. These girls are willingly allowing themselves to be labeled as "objects" in order to further motivate the troops overseas to fight and return home safely. War is ugly and horrifying, and anything we can do to brighten the soldiers' days and keep them sane sounds good to me. As we say today, "No harm, no foul."

 

Sources: 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=409

http://grableonline.tripod.com/betty001.jpg

http://foodtruckfestivalsofne.com/the-history-of-the-pin-up-girl/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin-up_girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEDgymwImhg

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0656114/bio

http://www.biography.com/people/esther-williams-259340

Not Just a Poet, but a Painter Too!

Edward Estlin (E.E.) Cummings was born in October of 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and passed away in September of 1962, at the age of 65.  Cummings is most famous for his poetry, which he began writing at only 10 years of age.

Cummings was a unique poet of his time period, veering from the traditional forms of 20th century poetry and experimenting a lot with unusual typography (alteration of the traditional capitalization, punctuation, appearance, and form).  He eventually settled into his own unique style of poetry though and became very popular for his poets about war and sex, consisting of simple, easy to understand language.

Cummings was not just a poet, but a widely praised painter also.  His paintings actually reflect his style of poetry in a way.  Just looking a a piece of his artwork, it seems as if he pictures a certain scene, then adds vibrance and life and emotion to it by distorting what the would "normally" look like.


The painting below is called "Fantastic Sunset." Being an abstract piece of art, it is hard to say this is a painting of a sunset just by looking at it.  Cummings adds a twist to his art in order to convey his feelings about a certain scene or moment in time.  He uses very vivid colors and a puts a sort of twisting, windy movement to this particular painting, possibly conveying some happiness mixed with confusion.

"Fantastic Sunset" by E.E. Cummings

There were a number of people who loved Cummings's poetry but did not think his paintings lived up to the same standards.  Cummings pushed the boundaries and veered a lot from traditional ways of painting and writing.  He still however gained much respect and became very famous, mostly for his poetry.


The video below is a slideshow of some of E.E. Cummings's famous paintings accompanied by music.



SOURCES:
http://www.dailyartfixx.com/tag/e-e-cummings/
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156
http://www.artsofinnovation.com/cummings.html
http://eecummingsart.com/prosp/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5jQKwiVr1A

Dada- Is it Art or Not?

The Dada movement was a European literary and artistic movement lasting from 1916 to 1923.  It began in Zurich, Switzerland as a reaction to World War I.  Dadaists believed that the war was irrational, and the reasons for it- nationalism and rationalism- were absurd.  Therefore, these protestors began a movement that mocked the direction their society was headed in.  

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

They decided that Dadaism consisted of  "non-art." This art form did not really make sense, and has very little significance if we only pay attention to the art itself.  The rationale behind WHY the Dada movement occurred is what makes the movement significant.  Otherwise, the art was extremely odd and meaningless.  Artwork from this movement is mostly colorful, sarcastic, silly, odd, and sometimes scattered.  A well-known example is Fountain by Marcel Duchamp (shown to the right).  This is exactly what it looks like- a picture of a urinal signed by "R. Mutt."  This is just one of the many examples of ridiculous, bizarre Dada artwork.

Deciding on a title for this movement was not easy.  Richard Huelsenbeck ultimately came up with the term by randomly sticking a knife into a dictionary.  "Dada" is French for a hobbyhorse.  It also mimics the first words of a child, which was particularly attractive due to the foolish and childish nature of the movement.  

The Dada movement was just an odd and absurd reaction to to World War I.  It was influenced by Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism, yet it was far more meaningless than any of those styles.  The absurdity of this movement is what makes the concept difficult to grasp- it is not art, but it is- Dadaism is simple, yet so baffling.

SOURCES:
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/duch/hd_duch.htm
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/dada/huelsenbeck.html
http://phomul.canalblog.com/archives/stieglitz__alfred/index.html (picture)

The Lost Generation

          "The Lost Generation" has a few different meanings. According to some, it is known as the time from the end of WWI to the beginning of the Great Depression. Others think of it as the people who came of age during and soon after WWI. This generation was generally presumed to be born between 1883 and 1900, and in Europe, it is known as "The Generation of 1914," because this was the year in which World War I began. It is also known to be the people who died in WWI. More recently, it is referred to by some people as the generation of young adults today who do not leave home and begin a career and start a family.
          Today, however, the term is most widely thought of as a very distinguished group of writers, which included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scot Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Apparently, this term originated with Gertrude Stein in France. The story is that she was getting her car fixed, but the job was unsatisfactory, so she asked the garage owner where his workers had been trained. The garage owner replied that the young workers were easy to train, but they were part of "une génération perdue," French for "a lost generation." He believed that these men in their twenties and thirties who had been through WWI were "the lost generation."

"The Lost Generation"

          In 1926, Ernest Hemingway published The Sun Also Rises, which utilized the term as the group of post-war expatriates. Hemingway, however, specified that he believed this generation was merely "battered, not lost." This generation was unified by the war experiences as well as the fact the they were born and raised in a society which had begun WWI.
          The three writers mentioned above were part of this "lost generation." While there were other writers of this time, including Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane and Ford Maddox Ford, the three writers previously mentioned were the most influential. Because the term was mentioned in Hemingway's famous book, it stuck with these writers.
          After the war, people lost faith in the country. They believed that doing good and being good did not lead to goodness, because innocent people fought and died in the war. They had no faith in their previous "moral guideposts," and were therefore "lost."

"WWI soldiers"

Sources:
http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/jbolhofer.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm
http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lost-gen.html
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/315
http://www.gradesaver.com/author/sherwood-anderson/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/hart-crane
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/boyle/bio.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Madox_Ford
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/are-todays-youth-really-a-lost-generation/245524/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Generation
http://personal.stthomas.edu/KOEN2121/productionfinal/images/hemingway.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cagenweb.com/placer/images/WWI_soldiers.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cagenweb.com/placer/military/wwi_draft.htm&h=364&w=500&sz=86&tbnid=1N6fT7eY-OcF7M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=124&prev=/search%3Fq%3DWWI%2Bsoldiers%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=WWI+soldiers&usg=__xF-moMWM8gc-5X9ZF9TXwk6C54Y=&docid=JNGSocYimlrrCM&sa=X&ei=W8xfUMvJD6_V0gHr5oDwDA&ved=0CCIQ9QEwAA&dur=581

It's Up to the Women

Working women of the 1930s

     The 1930s was the era of the Great Depression, in which the women took on a completely new role. Now that the rebellious flapper stage was over, many expected women to resort back to their traditional roles; however, washing the dishes, cleaning the household, and strictly taking care of the children were all things of the past. They took it upon themselves to get a job and help support their families.

     Women began to acquire jobs as school teachers, nurses, factory workers, secretaries, social workers, and journalists. Although this was a major step for them, women still struggled to be treated as equal citizens. During the Depression,  they often worked for long hours, in poor conditions, and for half the pay of what a male would receive. Even though women began to work in factories, they still weren't considered suitable for heavy construction jobs, and they were sometimes stuffed into minuscule sewing rooms.

     In addition to the already deficient conditions that women worked in, they faced much social criticism because they were believed to be taking away jobs from the men. In many of these cases though, the women were doing the work at wages that most men wouldn't be willing to accept. These were types of things that made women so strong and courageous. Despite all of the obstacles in their way, they did what they thought best to keep their families secure.

     Although at the time many were against the new roles that women were taking on, when you take a step back and examine the crisis, the country would not have been able to piece itself back together without their help. Being able to bring in two incomes for some families helped significantly and single women needed the jobs to keep themselves afloat, especially if children were involved. The days of the quiet, obedient housewife were numbered and the rise of strong, independent women was on the horizon. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "A women is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water." 

Sources: 
http://paperchildren.com/2011/02/gender-roles-in-the-1930s/
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/great-depression/essays/women-and-great-depression
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Working_women.aspx
http://mayfieldfhs.wikispaces.com/file/view/1930_women.jpg/122494903/480x336/1930_women.jpg

Cheers

                                                                 
          Have you ever wondered why Prohibition was so unsuccessful in the 1900's, yet the ban on other drugs has been strictly enforced?

          The 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920 banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol in the United States until 1933, when it was appealed by the 21st Amendment. While Prohibition was enacted to prevent the "evil behaviors" associated with drinking alcohol, it actually caused a black market into which organized crime and gang violence became very prevalent. 

          This illegal production and sale of alcohol became known as bootlegging. Speakeasies were also opened, which were social places people could go to illegally drink alcohol. There were also people known as "rum runners", who smuggled alcohol across boarders, especially from Canada.

          These were all reasons that Prohibition was so difficult to enforce. While America banned alcohol, it was still embedded into the daily lives of other countries. It was a huge part of their social lives, and many countries prided themselves on the quality of their wines. 

         Another reason that Prohibition did not last is the fact that alcohol has been part of worldwide culture for centuries, beginning with its religious roots. Alcoholic beverages appear in the Bible, and many other religions use it in their rituals. While drunkenness in condemned in the Bible, the use of alcohol in moderation has been part of the world's history.  Alcohol, such as champagne, is also commonly used in celebrations.

          Wines were also often used in the ancient Indian healing system of Ayurveda. This system of medicine recommends wine for some specific health conditions and for some certain body types. 

          Breweries and vineyards have been a huge part of the economy for ages, so taking alcohol away from the United States hurt economies worldwide. 

          Alcohol's use is so old and widespread, many people thought of Prohibition as an infringement of their basic rights. 

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/volstead-act/

http://prohibitionrepeal.com/history/21st.asp

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bootleg

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/speakeasies

http://www.vintageperiods.com/prohibition.php

http://visualartsminnesota.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Speakeasy.jpg

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ayurveda

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihyphenhyphenx8ODbkOZ8uz2_4s_PK_EtjZWXyYGpIfzILMsasC6Nopl_jyiiZGcNNJoEDowwrqeKrl_650sk_0jg3-Hcnk-mmQYjOde03cZANFKDeKu0mHIjau9JWTT5ZGlJx4IJHIN7JtK3g1zBDa/s400/Monk+drinking+wine+right+out+of+the+barrel+Li+Livres+dou+Santé+by+en+Aldobrandino+of+Siena+-+France%2C+late+13th+century.+British+Library.jpeg

Public Enemy Number One

The name Al Capone is no stranger to most Americans. He’s not remembered for doing any good deeds, but rather for his leading role in the illegal activities that lent Chicago its reputation as a lawless city in the 1920s Prohibition Era. Capone was America’s best-known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of order and law in the United States of his time.

During the 1920s, America underwent a lot of drastic changes and tradition was forced to take a back seat. Women were dressing more provocatively, an economic boom was occurring now that the war was over, and most importantly the Eighteenth Amendment was put into action. Americans were more rebellious than ever.

It was a time in which mobsters, like Al Capone, corrupted politics and ran the large cities by bribing officials. The Chicago Outfit, which was run by Al Capone, was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early 1920s until 1931.

Capone was a danger to the city and no one wanted to get involved because they feared for the safety of their families. He was finally arrested and put behind bars for tax evasion because that’s the only evidence that the city had against him on paper.

The term public enemy was actually coined in the early 1930s in an attempt to publicly denounce Capone and other organized crime gangsters. Capone was “honored” with the title of Public Enemy Number One on account of how dangerous he was to the entire city.

Frank J. Loesch, then chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, said, “I called them Public Enemies, and so designated them in my letter, sent to the Chief of Police, the Sheriff every law enforcing officer. The purpose is to keep the publicity light shining on Chicago's most prominent, well known and notorious gangsters to the end that they may be under constant observation by the law enforcing authorities and law abiding citizens."

Al Capone 

Sources:
http://www.biography.com/imported/images/Biography/Images/Profiles/C/Al-Capone-9237536-2-402.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
http://www.chicagohs.org/history/capone.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_enemy

            

The true definition of "Jazz"

Everyone talks about "Jazz music,"  but do we truly understand what that term means?  I didn't, until I did some research.  If you look up the definition, you'll get something along the lines of "A type of music of black American origin which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm. Brass and woodwind instruments and piano are particularly associated with jazz, although guitar and occasionally violin are also used; styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz." (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/jazz)   Another commonly stated fact is that jazz originated in New Orleans.  While all those things are 100% true, jazz is identified by numerous other characteristics.  

Black slaves in the south singing while trudging along
after a hard day's work (early 20th century)

Some of the first jazz musicians (Scott Joplin, Charles "Buddy" Bolden, and Louis Armstrong) actually claimed that "to jazz" meant to have sexual intercourse, while literary critics claimed that the word emerged years and years back, during the time of Chaucer and Shakespeare.  This music originated in the early 20th century in the South, where poor, underprivileged black slaves sang songs while working (most commonly in the fields).  These slaves would trudge along side by side after a long day's work and sing these songs together.  Thus, jazz incorporates a mixture of African folk songs and rhythms as well as Caribbean and black American music.  While it did originate in New Orleans, jazz was also being played and sung at the same time in other large cities such as Saint Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago.

Sometimes the term "Jazz music" is abused or used too often by people who don't fully understand the term.  It is important, being that jazz is one of the few art forms to actually originate in America, that we fully understand the concepts and creation of this beautiful music.  While there may not be a single, "true" definition of the word, we must know the history and creation of the music in order to be able to fully appreciate jazz.

SOURCES:
http://www.apassion4jazz.net/
http://www.redhotjazz.com/originsarticle.html
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/
http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/music/musichistory/jazzbirthplace.html
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/jazz
http://jazz.about.com/od/historyjazztimeline/tp/Ten_Early_Jazz_Musicians.htm
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMsT7eKCiSNYWtQqhO8TQnHyuKxkM8HoW0OqSCpl69xWgyXya4zeBqW_FZow3lXWilfs_LVpyDSF1Fm_O5lR8kyg6yvNPmnyIzncjTnDSihH4Zgq4Qips4wGWErZetky6YPR6zBC0w_U/s1600/field2.JPG

Victorian Women and Fashion...

One defining characteristic of the 19th century is fashion, which underwent a significant change during Queen Victoria's 63 year reign (1837-1901).  Prior to the 1800s, the spread and influence of fashion had been declining since the 17th century, but this decline was quickly reversed.  Both men's and women's fashion changed from decade to decade, and word spread quickly about what was in style that year.  The focus however, was on women's fashion.  In the 1840s and 1850s women wore gowns with lower waists, bell-shaped skirts, and narrower shoulders.  Corsets, a piece of clothing women find very uncomfortable and inconvenient today, were worn under women's dresses during this time.  By the 1860s, the skirts were fairly flat in the front, but extended farther in the back.  Many women also began to wear gloves with their evening dresses, which had low necklines and short sleeves.  In the 1870s, tea gowns (less structured dresses made of lighter fabrics) became increasingly more common.  By the time the 1880s and 1890s rolled around, fashion became a lot simpler.  Dresses were much more loosely-fitted than they had been in the past.  The traditional corsets were rarely worn anymore; rather a new type of corset was made, one that was longer and gave women a different curve to their bodies.  Also during these last few decades of the 19th century, skirts that stopped just above the knee and high necked shirts with puffy sleeves came into style.

Of course, we cannot leave out the last popular piece of Victorian women's fashion, and what probably comes to most of our minds first when we think of this time period, which is the oversized feather hat!  Hats went through a number of different stages throughout the decades, until they finally became extra large, extravagant, and usually with flowers or feathers.  In the beginning of the 20th century, factories began mass-producing clothing and selling them at fixed prices in department stores; same type of department stores as we have today.  The whole idea of department stores and mass-producing clothing was so foreign and shocking to people at the time, but it is something we just take for granted today.  We never really stopped to think about where or when department stores came about, did we?

SOURCES:
http://gallery.sjsu.edu/paris/fashion/
http://www.mostly-victorian.com/fashion.shtml
http://www.victorianstation.com/lifestylemenu.htm
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/victorian-dress-at-v-and-a/
http://siannesvintageloveaffair.blogspot.com/2011/04/photo-inspiration-victorian-fashion.html

19th Century Was Just the Beginning

Everywhere you turn anymore a new celebrity is making the headlines for drug overdose, and they're just a small fraction of the overall picture. There were 27,658 deaths from drug overdose alone in the US in 2007, and half were due to opioid overdose. The main reason why people aren't aware of the severity of this situation, is that not every "average joe" who dies makes the front cover of US Weekly. So the question that's on my mind is, "How did we get here?" I somehow find myself going back to the 19th century, when opium was introduced to Europe in abundant amounts through sailors and travelers. Opium is a reddish-brown heavy-scented addictive drug prepared from the juice of the opium poppy, used as a narcotic and in medicine as an analgesic. Many notable European figures were either casual users or hard-core addicts. Some of the more well-known were Pablo Picasso, Allister Crowley, and Charles Baudelaire. Many writers of the time who also were users, began to romanticize it's use. They gave it a sense of mysterious allure, which was extremely far-fetched from the harsh reality. Many of those who did opium went to this so-called "opium den", which generally were unfurnished, grimy rooms in back alleys, where addicts could surrender to the to their pernicious habit untroubled. Not all opium dens were in poor condition; in Paris alone they had up to 1,200 opium smoking establishments. Many sought a cultural craving for foreign luxuries, which only helped to expand the curiosity of the newly found drug. Was this the beginning of what a large portion of the world suffers from today? I think so.

"The 19th century witnessed the rise of the Bohemian salon-one characterized by lack of money (or at least unemployment), long hair, loud ranting against the bourgeoisie, unruly sexual behavior, and copius consumption of wine, absinthe, opium, hashish and other substances d'abus."

Sources: 

http://unrepentantoldhippie.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/opium-museum-photo-gallery_1258644918603.png

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=opium&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=opium&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=enROULrMMKP10gHH14DgBw&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=e3490c762154f3f1&biw=1164&bih=818

http://news.yahoo.com/facts-statistics-drug-overdose-deaths-212600826.html

http://jreuter.hubpages.com/hub/Opium-Use-in-19th-Century-Europe

California Island?

“Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of the Amazons.”           

This very erroneous statement came from a romantic novel called Las Sergas de Esplandian. It was written in 1510, by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. As ridiculous as it is to believe that in 1510, Europeans believed California to be a sacred paradise, the notion was not proven as false until the 18^th century in 1776, by Juan Bautista de Anza.

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was a form of electricity by flying a kite and a key during a storm, but even at the time of this revolutionary discovery, people still believed California to be “an earthy paradise like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis.” In 1770, the American population was around 2,205,000. Still, with this many people populating the country, California was still believed to be an island. The Declaration of Independence was adopted the year California was proved to be part of the North America land mass!

It’s ironic that a place that was the subject of such fictional beliefs has turned out to be the home of many major movies studios and the center of creative imagination and entertainment. 

Sources:
http://listverse.com/2009/01/19/10-debunked-scientific-beliefs-of-the-past/
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=california+island&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1186&bih=621&tbm=isch&tbnid=i-v6xXu7ZKxvOM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California&docid=28x6h1l7LDrVCM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg/350px-California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg&w=350&h=243&ei=7YpOUPmaLsTz0gHcvYCABA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=104&vpy=181&dur=760&hovh=187&hovw=270&tx=163&ty=136&sig=106803548166308161713&page=1&tbnh=109&tbnw=157&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:89