Lately, I’ve been organizing the hundreds of sources and articles I’ve collected on or about Emmett Wilson over the past year. I go nuts if things get complicated, so I like to keep it simple. Here are the categories I use:
- Emmett (birth, education, residences, and the like)
- Emmett’s Family
- Emmett’s Friends
- Emmett’s Career
- Emmett’s Alcoholism
- Emmett’s Research (strategy, contacts, sources)
I’ve also had to add another category I call “What The Hell?”
Here is where I save the interesting and odd things I’ve found along the way. These are things Emmett probably saw/read/encountered on an everyday basis, and thought nothing of it — but to my 21st century perception, made me wonder how the hell could they get away with this stuff?
No way would any of these things be “OK” in 2014. Here’s what I mean:
Shaming those with normal vision into the stores. Yeah. Source: The Pensacola Journal, 1917.
This next one made me very uncomfortable:
This was a gimmick to get theater attendance up at a local Pensacola theater in 1917. Source: The Pensacola Journal, 1917.
I find the text on this ad rather disturbing — the giving away of a baby on the same level as giving away a pet or animal. I have no idea what happened at this event, as there was nothing in the following or previous days’ coverage of The Pensacola Journal in 1917 about this. I wonder that they theater owners — or any business — could get away with that. I do know that adoption procedures were much less stringent than they are today; perhaps that is one explanation why this event could take place. Incredible, isn’t it?
More along the lines of incredulity, check out the next item:
The anti-Catholic sentiment was not felt only in Georgia at that time. Florida’s next governor, Sidney Catts, ran on an anti-Catholic (as well as a prohibition) platform.
I wonder what Georgia grand juries were hoping to find? This item reminds me of when King Henry VIII closed Roman Catholic convents and monasteries in the 1530s. Different era, different scenario, but still.
The next item, which took place right before the U.S. got into World War I, created a bit of a stir, but still, the fellow making the threat was allowed to go about his business in Washington, D.C., without (at least) being questioned by police:
John Parker, who made the threat, was allowed to walk around in the Navy building (next door to The White House), and left, ‘unmolested.’ Source: The Pensacola Journal, Jan. 8, 1917.
To conclude on a much lighter note, I ask you, people, since when is ‘Coffee Face’ a bad thing? I guess it is, if you look like the guy below:
The ad says: ‘Coffee Face — ever see one? Source: The Pensacola Journal, 1917.
And I say, yeah:
This is the Coffee Face I know. Source: Grammarly.com
In fact:
This would also be my ‘coffee face’ if someone tried to sneak Postum instead of dark roasted Columbian into my cup…
Categories: Interesting & Odd Recommended Sources Research Status
jsmith532
Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus
Tell my story. 
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