Month: September 2025

Today is the birthday, in 1838, of Victoria Claflin Woodhull (born Victoria California Claflin; September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), later Victoria Woodhull Martin. She was an American leader of the women’s suffrage movement who ran for president of the United States in the 1872 election.

An activist for women’s rights and labor reforms, Woodhull was also an advocate of “free love”, by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce and bear children without social restriction or government interference. “They cannot roll back the rising tide of reform,” she often said. “The world moves.”

Woodhull twice went from rags to riches, her first fortune being made on the road as a magnetic healer before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s. Together with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, she was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, making a second fortune. They were among the first women to found a newspaper in the United States, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, which began publication in 1870. Authorship of many of her articles is disputed (many of her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers, and her second husband, Colonel James Blood).

In October 1876, Woodhull divorced her second husband, Colonel Blood. After Cornelius Vanderbilt’s death in 1877, William Henry Vanderbilt paid Woodhull and her sister $1,000 each (equivalent to $30,000 in 2024) to leave the country because he was worried they might testify in hearings on the distribution of the elder Vanderbilt’s estate. The sisters accepted the offer and moved to Great Britain in August 1877.

he made her first public appearance as a lecturer at St. James’s Hall in London on December 4, 1877. Her lecture was called “The Human Body, the Temple of God,” a lecture which she had previously presented in the United States. Present at one of her lectures was the banker John Biddulph Martin. They began to see each other and married on October 31, 1883. His family disapproved of the union.

From then on, she was known as Victoria Woodhull Martin. Under that name, she published the magazine The Humanitarian from 1892 to 1901 with help from her daughter, Zula Woodhull. Her husband John died in 1897. After 1901, Martin gave up publishing and retired to the country, establishing residence at Norton Park, Bredon’s Norton, Worcestershire, where she built a village school with Tennessee and Zula. Through her work at the Bredon’s Norton school, she became a champion for education reform in English village schools with the addition of kindergarten curriculum.

She was active in the pioneering days of female motorists, with the Ladies’ Automobile Club, and was reputed to have been the first woman to drive a car in Hyde Park, London and in the English country roads.

Albumen silver print by Mathew Brady of Victoria Claflin Woodhull.

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Pretty suspicious…I’ve seen that movie.

Yup, that’s me

New directions in architecture…

Bada Bing Bing Bing…

Ok, distraction over. Release the Epstein Files. Charlie Kirk would’ve wanted it that way.

Him1: I’ve never met a happy atheist. Him2: Maybe it’s because they were all meeting you.

When two people argue online, I believe the one who uses punctuation correctly.

I’m surprised that so many Republican politicians are intent on posting the Ten Commandments everywhere. After all, they’re opposed to things that create an oppressive work environment.

When I m bored I like to call in sick to places I don’t work for. I’m getting written up at The Olive Garden.

Always check your child’s home work… “My daddy really likes sugar. He even eats it with his nose.”

I’m kinda like the package that got messed up during shipping and handling.

Happy B-day to all celebrating it this month! I hope you’re celebrating like the way you came into this world. Naked & screaming.

Life is like toilet paper. You’re either on a roll, or you’re taking shit from some asshole.

The Trump administration saying they will crack down on hate speech is like McDonald’s saying they will crack down on junk food.

It’s ODD how many people call me a communist or a socialist, then think it’s hate speech to call them fascists.

Her: I’ve reached a point in life where my interest in baked goods is greater than my interest in men. I’m calling this new chapter “doughs before bros”.

I just googled my symptoms turns out I need a “”million dollars & a vacation”” (10 million dollars.)

Why are they blowing up boats? They are watching how we react. Like raptors at the fence, testing for weakness.

It’s not the needy who are a problem in this world, it’s the greedy.

I’m not quite sure how to tell my friend that I’m imaginary.

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Happy Autumn!

Today is the birthday, in 1949, of US singer, songwriter and guitarist Bruce Springsteen. Nicknamed ‘The Boss’, he won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’, which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born To Run showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 71 million albums in the United States and more than 140 million worldwide. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards. Patti Scialfa was a member of his E Street Band since 1984 and married Bruce in 1991. In September 2024, Scialfa revealed that she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018. Here are Bruce and Patti with this wonderful ballad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYlZcFuAXmI

On this day in 1656, Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in colonial America, was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and infanticide before the earliest all-female juries in the United States. Catchpole was an indentured servant in the colony of Maryland, arriving there by boat from the Commonwealth of England in January 1656. Upon her arrival she was accused of several crimes, resulting in a trial on September 22, 1656 in the General Provincial Court in Patuxent County, Maryland (now Calvert County).

Catchpole was accused of murdering her child and of other bizarre acts, by the indentured servant of William Bramhall, a fellow passenger on the ship “Mary and Francis”. She was accused of killing her child, cutting the throat of a female passenger while the woman was asleep, and stabbing a seaman in the back.

It was decided that an all-female jury was needed because the issues of pregnancy and birth required female expertise. Composed of seven married women and four single women, the trial was ordered by the General Provincial Court at Patuxent for September 22, 1656.^[3] In order to determine if Catchpole had murdered her own infant, the jury was to inspect Catchpole’s body to find evidence that she had been pregnant and given birth to a child. The jury inspected Catchpole’s body and concluded that she had not recently given birth. Other witnesses gave testimony that the man making the accusations was “not in sound mind”. Additional hearsay evidence was presented that the male accuser had spoken of witchcraft and told other bizarre stories. He had said that after slitting the woman’s throat, she sewed it back up before the woman awoke, and that she rubbed grease on the back of the fatally wounded seaman and he came back to life.

The jury gave little credence to the charges of witchcraft, and seeing no evidence of childbirth, acquitted Catchpole of all charges.

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Woof!

Hmm…

No.

Empathy

Today is the birthday, in 1958, of American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer Joan Jett. She was a founding member of The Runaways and with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, scored the 1982 US No.1 & UK No.4 single I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll. She is also known as the Godmother of Punk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMsazR6Tnf8

I haven’t posted a flash mob for a while – this one is insane.

Today is the birthday, in 1737, of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Carroll was known contemporaneously as the “First Citizen” of the American colonies, a consequence of signing articles in the Maryland Gazette with that pen name. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and Confederation Congress. Carroll later served as the first United States Senator for Maryland. Of all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Carroll was one of the wealthiest and most formally educated. A product of his 17-year Jesuit education in France, Carroll spoke five languages fluently.

Carroll’s father was Charles Carroll of Annapolis, who was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1702. Though he inherited the plantation of Doughoregan Manor from his father, as a Roman Catholic he was forbidden from participating in the political affairs of the colony at the time. Carroll was born on September 19, 1737, in Annapolis, Maryland. Charles Carroll of Annapolis granted Carrollton Manor to his son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. It is from this tract of land that he took his title “Charles Carroll of Carrollton.”

He became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, owning extensive agricultural estates, most notably the large manor at Doughoregan, Hockley Forge and Mill, and providing capital to finance new enterprises on the Western Shore.

Beginning with his election to Maryland’s committee of correspondence in 1774, Carroll represented the colony in most of the pre-revolutionary groups. Carroll was elected as a Maryland representative the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and remained a delegate until 1778. He arrived at the 2nd Continental Congress too late to vote in favor of the Declaration of Independence but was present to sign the official document that survives today. He signed the document in Philadelphia on August 2, 1776.

Throughout his term in the Second Continental Congress, he served on the board of war. Carroll also gave considerable financial support to the American Revolutionary War.

Carroll retired from public life in 1801. After Thomas Jefferson became president, he had great anxiety about political activity and was not sympathetic to the War of 1812. Carroll came out of retirement to help create the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. In 1828, he commissioned the Phoenix Shot Tower in Baltimore and laid its cornerstone. The 234-foot tower, which is still standing, was the tallest structure in the United States until the Washington Monument was built.

Carroll died on November 14, 1832, at age 95, in Baltimore, at the Caton home. He holds the distinction of being the oldest-lived Founding Father. He had outlived four of the first five U.S. presidents. His funeral took place at the Baltimore Cathedral (now known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Carroll was buried in his Doughoregan Manor Chapel at Ellicott City, Maryland after a national day of mourning.

Named in his honor are counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia as well as two Louisiana parishes, East and West Carroll. Cities and towns named for him are in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois (Mount Carroll, Illinois), Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, and New York, as well as neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Tampa. Charles Carroll Middle School in New Carrollton, Maryland; Charles Carroll High School in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia; and Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, are named in his honor.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c. 1763 Yale Center for British Art

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Things you don’t want to find in your home…

Nice photo!

In 1952, its peak year in the U.S., polio outbreaks left nearly 21,000 victims paralyzed and 3,000 dead. After the country introduced a vaccine, which became widely available in 1955, cases in the U.S. dropped to fewer than 100 per year within a decade.

On this week in 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival scored their only UK No.1 single with ‘Bad Moon Rising’ a US No.2 hit. Also on this day the group started a four-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Green River.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6iRNVwslM4

On this day in 1793, George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Prior to establishing the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., the United States Congress and its predecessors met at Independence Hall and Congress Hall in Philadelphia, Federal Hall in New York City, and five additional locations: York, Pennsylvania, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland, and Nassau Hall in Princeton, New Jersey, and Trenton, New Jersey.

The Residence Act was passed in 1790 to pave the way for a permanent capital. The decision of where to locate the capital was contentious, but Alexander Hamilton helped broker a compromise in which the federal government would take on war debt incurred during the American Revolutionary War, in exchange for support from northern states for locating the capital along the Potomac River.

Pierre L’Enfant was charged with creating the city plan for the new capital city and the major public buildings. The Congress House would be built on Jenkins Hill, now known as Capitol Hill, which L’Enfant described as a “pedestal awaiting a monument. L’Enfant secured the lease of quarries at Wigginton Island and along Aquia Creek in Virginia for use in the foundations and outer walls of the Capitol in November 1791. Surveying was under way soon after the Jefferson conference plan for the Capitol was accepted. On September 18, 1793, President Washington, along with eight other Freemasons dressed in masonic regalia, laid the cornerstone, which was made by silversmith Caleb Bentley.

Washington laying cornerstone at U.S. Capitol by Allyn Cox

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Something about the slide…

Some SIGNZES!

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Today is the birthday, in 1962, of Joanne Catherall, singer with The Human League. Formed in Sheffield, England in 1977 the group attained widespread commercial success with their third album Dare in 1981. The album contained four hit singles, including the UK/US No.1 hit ‘Don’t You Want Me’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0