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Post by snacky on Apr 15, 2014 6:01:41 GMT
Player pianos are kind of like early computers, and a good place to encode secret information. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_piano*5 minutes* Dang, just realized I've read something to this effect before. It's part of the plot of Allen Kurzweil's "The Grand Complication". But a player piano roll is a very nifty macguffin for a turn-of-the-century period piece. |
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Post by snacky on Apr 15, 2014 20:37:53 GMT
Once upon a time there were hobo conventions! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HoboHobos had their own sign language, too. William might be interested in that. I learned about hobo signs from the Hardy Boys Detective Handbook when I was in grade school. |
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Post by snacky on Apr 15, 2014 21:00:29 GMT
Invention of the bra will allow for the first bra burning - woohoo! A corset-burning is more likely, though.
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Post by snacky on Apr 16, 2014 7:54:20 GMT
I just realized: MM gets "10% darker" right after the government starts herding citizens into a massive fingerprint database.
Is that an indirect comment on our own Total Surveillance/Terrorism era?
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Post by snacky on Apr 17, 2014 4:37:14 GMT
Overtures to bring Newfoundland into Canada, 1902. faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/nfldhistory/1902Nfldunion.htmHere is something to do with machines in post offices. Kind of lost on me. www.postalhistorycanada.net/php/Machines/Geary/Big fire in 1902: Orangemen as fire-fighters: proposedwebsite.weebly.com/five-orangemen-killed-in-the-line-of-duty-july-10th-1902.htmlAdvances in transplant surgery: www.renalmed.co.uk/history-of/renal-transplantWanstead Train Disaster www.lambtonshield.com/voices-from-the-past-the-wanstead-train-disaster-of-december-1902/General overview of policing. Interesting that the police ran most "social services" like homeless shelters. www.russianbooks.org/crime/cph6.htm1902 as transitional moment for labor unions (they become a "big business" unto themselves) www.umanitoba.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol11no1/tradeunions.htmlOntario Hydro Commission in 1902 (omg, Canadian "China Town") www.niagarafallsinfo.com/history-item.php?entry_id=1443¤t_category_id=250Socialist party founded in Canada about this time (Ontario first). But this "platform" from British Columbia illuminates the issues: 1.Direct legislation. 2.Proportional representation. 3.Abolition of property qualification for voters and candidates at municipal elections. 4.Abolition of system of cash deposits for candidates at provincial elections. 5.Adult suffrage. 6.A minimum wage law, fixing wages at not less than $2 a day for adults. 7.Reduction of hours of labor in all trades to 44 a week. 8.All coal mines to be owned and operated by the province, in the interests of the people. 9.Graduated land tax, similar to New Zealand law. 10.Free medical attendance to all needing such. 11.Scientific and practical management of fisheries, forests and waterways, in the interests of the province. 12.Employment of unemployed labor on useful productive work. 13.Extension of powers of municipalities. 14.The education of children under 14 years of age to be free, secular and compulsory. Text books, meals and clothing to be supplied to children out of public funds when necessary. 15.Municipalization and public control of the liquor traffic. 16.Abolition of poll and personal property tax. 17.No more bonusing private individuals or corporations, with land grants or cash subsidies.” (Western Clarion, January 12, 1902) |
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Post by snacky on Apr 17, 2014 5:02:28 GMT
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Post by snacky on Apr 20, 2014 22:39:01 GMT
Canal wars?
"Without the Erie Canal, the upbuilding of the rival Canadian route would have been greatly encouraged, and the absence of our American waterway would have enriched Canada commercially and strategically rather than the United States."
Canals brought trade prosperity, immigration routes, property disputes, competition from railroads, hydro-electricity tie-ins, and cholera.
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Post by snacky on Apr 24, 2014 5:58:08 GMT
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Post by carco on Apr 25, 2014 16:50:41 GMT
Doukhobours....Russian, religious sect, settled mainly in Western Canada ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukhobor#Canadian_Prairies You've got some interesting links there, snacky  Regarding the radio tuning, wouldn't be surprised if Murdoch catches on to that one. I see Constables with little radios and them radio-ing in to the station house to William while they are on the scene of a crime. Hmmm, nahhhh, maybe Season 9 !! Still on the radios topic, too bad Ted Rogers didn't come on the scene until the 1920's (too much of a jump for even Murdoch Mysteries). Bell Media and Rogers are the key media players in Toronto (in Canada I guess). Yannick's eldest daughter is in a Rogers commercial these days. Which ran during the last two episodes of S7 and is still getting a lot of play these days. Liquid Ozone..... Mrs. Harry Mason (pictured in the ad) probably collapsed on the floor due to the bad haircut as much as anything else....liquid ozone, huh? Someone wrote a comment below the article in that site, indicating that ozone run through liquid is actually not such a bad thing. Maybe good maybe bad, it could be something they could play with on the show. That armoured car sure looked a lot like the vehicle they created for ... was it... I, Murdoch  ? The episode where we found out Mrs. Pendrick was the bad guy not her husband. The writer's (and I assume writer's assistants research all these sites preparing for the next season each winter and spring, I imagine. Plus they work closely with a noted Toronto historian). It must be hard to narrow it down to 18 or less "goodies". So many new inventions, "outlandish" thoughts and ideas, new medical information. Keep up this Canadiana research snacky and you will soon qualify to be a US Ambassador to Canada soon!  |
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Post by carco on Apr 25, 2014 20:24:02 GMT
Invention of the bra will allow for the first bra burning - woohoo! A corset-burning is more likely, though. Well the showrunner did say there was going to be a murder mystery in the world of corsets. So who knows, maybe the murder was by way of a fire! And my money is on a woman as the murderer. |
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Post by snacky on Apr 26, 2014 3:50:17 GMT
Doukhobours....Russian, religious sect, settled mainly in Western Canada ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukhobor#Canadian_PrairiesIt must be hard to narrow it down to 18 or less "goodies". So many new inventions, "outlandish" thoughts and ideas, new medical information. Keep up this Canadiana research snacky and you will soon qualify to be a US Ambassador to Canada soon! LOL, the research is fun - and there is no way that "nothing" happened in 1902. If the official history books are silent, there was stuff going on in the nooks and crannies. I object to the notion that any period show could run out of material. Interesting about the Doukhobours - I haven't looked at the Russians in Canada yet. I was planning to look up weird religious sects, though. There were a lot of Utopian experiments in the 19th century, too. Nothing sadder than murder in Utopia. D: I didn't see that there would be a corset episode. I'm willing to bet money there will be corset burning! Unfortunately the "bustle" is already more or less gone: that was a great (and naughty) place to hide stuff. There is a famous picture of Darwin trying to figure out what the bustle means in terms of evolution. There is a book called "Scenes from Deep Time" about how late 19th century scientists tried to imagine the prehistoric world. I've been meaning to look for this at the library because, like other forms of "science fiction", paleoentolgical fiction probably says a lot about what people (think they) know about their world. www.amazon.com/Scenes-Deep-Time-Representations-Prehistoric/dp/0226731057By the way the author of Deep Time gets murdered in The Difference Engine (one of the first self-identified "steampunk" novels). I wish I could say I was getting a better sense of Canadian history, but most of what I find is world history with a Canadian angle. I still need to find a book where Canadian history is the central thread. There's probably a lot more regarding Canadian competition and cooperation with the US (for instance Canada threw in with the US for their own skating league). There was probably a lot of intriguing around the canals. The Erie Canal is played a big role in changing which cities were economically prosperous in the US, and of course trains changed that again. Great Lakes shipping was also part of the reason Toronto was such a boomtown at the time. Where there's money to be made, there is always shenanigans going on. By the way the Panic of 1901 (after the assassination of President McKinley) was the first stock market crash on the New York exchange: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_market_crashesThe Panic of 1901 caused a recession that lasted 3 years, and it was exacerbated by a drought. (Not sure if that affected Canada). OMG, I just found an incident of Big Technology rivalry in 1902!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_incident_%281902%29Two different telegraphy systems refused to transmit each other's messages, and the brother of the German Kaiser on the ship couldn't send messages either way. I seem to recall similar dirty competition among different telegraph companies in the US. The US has a similar issue today with DSL lines: we let telephone companies - and thus control of the wires - aggregate into vast monopolies. Thus we couldn't develop competition in DSL because everyone had to rent the wires from the telephone monopoly, which was also providing DSL. Thus our DSL is more expensive than it should be, and the only alternative is over-priced wireless or over-priced cable TV systems. After looking at the wikipedia page on Bell Canada, I wonder if Canada has the same problem...? |
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Post by snacky on Apr 26, 2014 4:10:21 GMT
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Post by snacky on Apr 27, 2014 19:44:07 GMT
I wonder what Chinese/Japanese relations were like in 1902. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan became a modern industrial/militarized nation with imperialist ambitions. Japan defeated China in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and took some territory. Later, Japan joined Western powers in intervening in the Boxer Rebellion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_AllianceBeijing and the Forbidden City were looted, causing a "diaspora" of Chinese antiquities. I imagine there was some effort to get these back. The Anglo-Japanese alliance was signed in early 1902: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Japanese_AllianceIf there were Japanese delegations to Canada, there was probably some grumpiness in Chinatown over that. William already met one Japanese person in Toronto (the tattoo artist). Japan was also about to face off with the Russians (Russo-Japanese war in 1904). US relations with Asia at this time were complicated by newspapers whipping up "Yellow Peril" while trying to cultivate Japan as an ally. All the current grandstanding in Asia over tiny islands (and surrounding ocean/oil rights) comes from the conflicts and territorial consolidations of this era. |
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Post by snacky on Apr 29, 2014 1:47:53 GMT
Was there any conflict over environmentalism/preservation of wilderness in Canada in 1902? John Muir (founder of the Sierra club, champion of all sorts of wilderness causes, and friend of Emerson) had just written a book on national parks.
Canada's first Commissioner of National Parks, James B. Harkin, often quoted Muir. He was active in establishing parks and advocating for [reservation and conservation from the 1890s.
Muir himself spent some formative years in Canada, and he might have even been in Canada (after a trip to Alaska) in 1902.
Wilderness preservation was wrapped up in spiritual ideas, so the stakes could have been pretty high to repel loggers and such.
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Post by snacky on May 19, 2014 4:00:54 GMT
This week I'm reading the Coast of Utopia trilogy by Tom Stoppard: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coast_of_UtopiaThe events in these plays (at least in the part I'm on now) occur early in the 19th century), but they are about the revolution in thought and circumstances that led to the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century - and I'm sure we can all agree that was pretty much a world-shaking event. It might have even been a world-changing event if the capitalists of the world hadn't been able to "contain" communism. One of the things Stoppard's plays explores is the influence of the French Revolution - and the later response of German Idealism and Romanticism - on Russian revolutionary thought. This was broiling up throughout the 19th century. I wonder if the French Revolution had much influence on Quebec? Anyway, with such a world-shaking event coming up, shouldn't MM be doing something with Russia? Britain is about to sign a crucial treaty with Japan, which will have dire consequences for both Russian and China later. Some timelines: history1900s.about.com/od/Russian-Revolution/a/Russian-Revolution-Timeline.htmcnparm.home.texas.net/Nat/Rus/Rus00.htmen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_1905Maybe Red Emma can find a Revolutionary date. On a lighter note: cinema destroyed vaudeville. MM might want to discuss. |
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Regarding the radio tuning, wouldn't be surprised if Murdoch catches on to that one. I see Constables with little radios and them radio-ing in to the station house to William while they are on the scene of a crime. Hmmm, nahhhh, maybe Season 9 !! 
? The episode where we found out Mrs. Pendrick was the bad guy not her husband. 