1930s Soviet Propaganda Porcelain

This Soviet-era porcelain vase commemorating the North Pole -1 expedition is pretty accurate: four men and a dog named Vesely were dropped off on a drifting ice floe about 12 miles from the North Pole in May, 1937. By the time they were picked up (at great cost) off of Greenland in February, 1938, the ice floe had shrunk considerably in size.

Propaganda porcelain first started to be produced following the Soviet nationalisation of the Imperial Porcelain Factory in 1918. The factory storage was filled with uncoloured plates, vases, and tea sets, which were all used as the bases for a novel form of Soviet propaganda. 

Soviet Colonial Porcelain: How Plates, Vases and Tea-Sets Support the Conquest of Land by Sasha Setsakova

The Science of the North Pole Drifting Stations

And now, a Canadian Analysis of the Holidome

Talking about Holiday Inn Holidomes: The Holidome was a one-stop vacation destination. Why couldn’t it keep up with the times?

Only two photos, of unidentified Holidomes, but includes this analysis:

At many Holidomes, the humidity from the indoor pools would damage the domed ceiling and make the inner-courtyard-facing rooms damp and stuffy… “While the maintenance of these domed structures is really costly, they’re very easy to demolish, and you still can keep the hotel”

David Israelson/Drew Sinclair

More on the Holidome:

Ode to the Holidome

Topeka West Holidome

Vintage Model Airplane Kits

I did not know that this decade is “the best of times for airplane models,” but according to the National Air & Space Museum, Aviation enthusiasts are scouring the country for the vintage airplane kits of their youth. It’s not the first time the Smithsonian has written about model airplane kits; see also Model Airplanes for Fun and Profit from 2015.

Bussie theorizes that vintage airplane kits will follow the same lifecycle as most artifacts that make the transition from junk to collectibles. First, they were sold at flea markets and garage sales. Then they were traded at club shows and conventions. Next, they were found in antique shops and online auctions. Now they’re being offered by specialty dealers 

Some Assembly Required, by Preston Lerner
Source: oldmodelkits.com

But no matter what the subject, collectors gonna collect:

“The ’80s were the Wild West days of kit collecting,” says Garrity. “A guy would come into the room with stuff that no one had seen before, and I’d literally see people punching each other to get to an Aurora model. “

Some Assembly Required, by Preston Lerner
Source: oldmodelkits.com

Passenger Pigeon Donated to Purdue

A mounted passenger pigeon found at a California jewelry store has been donated to the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. The bird was purchased by Purdue alum Andrew Howe and then flew by plane to Florida before making its final flight to Indiana.

Alumni Donation Brings Rare Passenger Pigeon to FNR Collection

Something that rare carries a ‘stewardship obligation’ and I determined that he needed to be shared with as many people as possible in a public setting.

Andrew Howe

Sometimes, the Jazz Age becomes Archaeology

This artifact, likely a brooch, depicts a 1920s-era flapper, cloche hat and all. It was found at an archaeological site in Jersey City, New Jersey. This and the many other artifacts found during excavation of a series of former houses, most demolished by the 1930s, provide a glimpse of the middle class families who lived in Jersey City in the early twentieth century.

Reference:

Howson, Jean, and Leonard G. Bianchi

2014    Covert-Larch: Archaeology of a Jersey City Neighborhood: Data Recovery for the Route 1&9T (25) St. Paul’s Viaduct Replacement Project Jersey City, Hudson County, NJ, Volume 1. Cultural Resource Unit, The RBA Group, Inc.

Southern Comfort’s 1960s Guide to Toasts and Cocktails

Southern Comfort, the whiskey+fruit n’ spices liqueur (I guess?), produced these pamphlets that you could find in your favorite magazine from the 1950s on. This one is probably from the early 1960s and everyone looks like they’re having a grand time.

You may not be a SoCo fan, but it’s more tasteful than most of these toasts.

Someone else who helped sell Southern Comfort in the late Sixties? Janis Joplin, who drank a lot of it. Joplin died of a heroin overdose (possibly compounded by alcohol) in 1970.

Janis Joplin Source: Jim Marshall Photography LLC

Source: The Hagley Museum

A Week in Southern Maine

Wells Reserve at Laudholm
Laudholm Beach
Ferns galore at Wells Reserve at Laudholm
Tide out, Ogunquit Beach
From the Pedestrian Drawbridge at Perkins Cove
The Eastern Promenade, Portland

The View, with clouds, from Mount Agamenticus

Featured image: Ogunquit Beach from the Marginal Way.

Rhode Island’s Newport Tower

Here’s the Newport Tower in Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island. The remains of a windmill built of stone in the 1600s, it’s sometimes claimed to have been built by Vikings (it wasn’t) or other alleged early visitors to North America. It was originally part of the property of Rhode Island Governor Benedict Arnold (great-grandfather of the other, more infamous, Benedict Arnold), who arrived in Newport in 1651 and died in 1678. The tower is described in Arnold’s will as “my stone built Wind Mill” and by 1741, it was already referred to as the “old stone mill.”

The mortared stone of the Newport Tower.
Statue of William Ellery Channing, Unitarian theologian, in front of the Newport Tower.
The Newport Tower is 28 feet tall.
The Chesterton Stone Windmill, built 1632, in Warwickshire, England. Photo is from the 1930s. Source: ourwarwickshire.org