THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW

We all remember our kindergarten teacher telling us about the first Thanksgiving as we traced our hands to turn them into turkeys. Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate abundance, to be thankful for what we have. In 1621 the Pilgrims held first Thanksgiving to thank God for shelter and that they didn't die of starvation and disease because the Pilgrims did not know crap about survival and Indigenous People saved their white asses. Thanksgiving was made a national holiday in 1863, but whomever was President fixed the day of celebration, usually anytime between October and January. In the 1940s Thanksgiving became about family and tradition to keep up support for World War II. In 1941 FDR made the fourth Friday in November the official Thanksgiving holiday. Gilded Age Thanksgiving was a day to say thanks for the millions of dollars in your bank account by showing off your fancy clothes at restaurants and hotel dining rooms. And Gilded Age diners didn't partake of jelly beans, popcor...

  "People may say I can't sing, but no one can say I didn't sing." Florence Foster Jenkins never so much sang as performed opera loudly and off key. A wealthy patron of the arts, she lived amongst New York City society, participated in social clubs, and created Tableaux Vivants. And of course, Florence sang. No one could pry her from the stage, to the detriment of audiences' ears. Born Narcissa Florence Foster, July 19th 1886 in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, she was the elder daughter of wealthy attorney Charles Dorrance Foster, and society matron / painter Mary Jane Hoagland. "Little Miss Foster" loved playing piano and performed in recitals, even performing for President Rutherford B. Hayes. After Florence graduated high school she planned study music in Europe. Her father refused to fund her music education. In 1883 Florence lost a younger sister to diphtheria. Eight days before her 15th birthday she fled to Philadelphia with a doctor 16 years her seni...

If, like me, you were a late '80s to early '90s teen, you know that the mall was the place everyone went to to socialize. You teased and hair sprayed your permed hair, put on your hypercolor shirt and acid washed jeans to camp out at the food court and gossip about other kids at school. Imagine that, only with expensive gowns, jewels, and tail coats worn by millionaires attending the opera. The opera was the backbone of the social season. If you have read Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence  you know that the opera is where Newland Archer and May Welland make their plans to announce their engagement. And if you've seen Season 1 of The Gilded Age you know that being asked to the opera by someone from society was your key to social success. (Good riddance Mr. Raikes!) Opera had always been viewed at the Academy of Music until the nouveau riche, tired of exclusion, built a nouveau house of their own. The opera was crucial to New York City society. Opera was a way of brin...

    "Gimme a head with hair...long beautiful hair."  Before these words meant 1960s freedom and rebellion they could have been the motto for The Sutherland Sisters, a sibling act that had long hair, and...that was basically all.  Well not all.  They sang religious songs, sold millions of hair care and cosmetic products, built a mansion, refused to bury a dead sister, took drugs, and swapped sex partners. Allegedly - the drugs and sex swapping were never proven, but the dead sister part - yeah, that was real.  The Sutherland Sisters followed a trajectory of obscurity to fame, fame to wealth, wealth to poverty, and poverty to obscurity that set up the pattern followed by many celebrities for well over 100 years.  And they did it with -  " shining, gleaming, streaming, ... shoulder length or longer" ... hair Born on a turkey farm in Cambria, New York from the years 1845 to 1865, the Seven Sutherland sisters were : Sarah, Victoria, Isabella, Grace, Na...

    It doesn't matter what you do It doesn't matter what you say There will always be One who wants things the opposite way It doesn't matter where you go It doesn't matter who you see There will always be Someone who disagrees We do our best We try to please But we're like the rest We are never at ease  That wisdom could come from anyone who feels the malaise and discontent so abundant in the world today.  But that philosophical nugget came from a trio of sisters once described as "lobotomized Trapp Family singers."  Sisters Dot, Betty, Helen, and (sometimes) Rachel Wiggin formed a band at the behest of their domineering father.  Their lyrics lamented a lack of straight hair and distress at missing their runaway cat. With dischords and discontentment The Shaggs became, to the music elite, avant-garde provocateurs with one locally pressed and poorly distributed album.  But the sisters do not miss the limelight they never really stood in. Austin Wiggin,...

     In a Drunk History segment comedian Jenny Slate asserts "you definitely can't make juice out of corn.*" The Cherry Sisters made a career out of being not very good at performing.  Who could have imagined that five sisters, fresh from the farm, would set a precedent for freedom of the press in terms of the right to fair comment. For ten years Addie, Effie, Ella, Lizzie, and Jessie Cherry performed for audiences armed with rotting vegetables. Their  Something Good, Something Sad  was something so bad The Cherry Sisters are still a hallmark of terrible entertainment 127 years later. Born on a farm in Marion, Iowa to father Thomas Cherry and mother Laura Rawson, the family included : Addie (1859 - 1942), Effie (1867 - 1944), Ella (1854 - 1934), Lizzie (1857 - 1936), and Jesse (1871 - 1903). They had a brother, Nathan, who Wikipedia said disappeared. Maybe he just couldn't sit through another rehearsal. Ella left the act before 1896. The remaining sist...

  October 21, 1888 - the New York Academy of Music - a diminutive woman stands on a stage, popping her ankle and toe joints. Is this some new craze, some avant-guard form of entertainment? The woman, Margaretta (Maggie) Fox is debunking her abilities as a psychic medium. In 1848 when she was 14 and her younger sister Kate was 11, they convinced their parents, friends, and the village of Hydesville New York that they could speak to the dead. What followed was a life of fame, money, sorrow, and questions still unanswered 176 years later. The Fox family - father John, mother Margaret, daughters Margaretta and Catherine (Kate) were a close-knit family - almost too close, as they lived in a small house near the river. A house long reputed to be haunted.  John and Margaret occupied one bed, and Maggie and Kate the other in the same room. One night in April the four Foxes hear knocking - but not at the door. Kate repeats the knocks and knocks a different pattern. Who - or- what - eve...

    "When there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?" Rose Mackenberg! Not quite the refrain that 80s kids remember, Rose "The Rev" Mackenberg didn't exactly bust ghosts, but rather she busted the people who claimed to speak to ghosts. In her 43-year career Rose Mackenberg busted thousands of fake psychic mediums. She braved harrassment, testified before Congress, lied about husbands and babies, all while exposing charlatans and helping countless grief stricken individuals seeking solace. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1892 to Russian immigrant parents, Rose Mackenberg worked as a stenographer in a law office. While investigating a case involving a client suffering investment losses at the hands of an unscrupulous psychic medium, Rose met Harry Houdini. Houdini, while not folding himself into milk cans and straitjackets, committed himself to busting fraudulent psychic mediums. Advising Rose on her case, Houdini liked Rose and asked he...