JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Sometimes, while easing myself into a work session, I compose Twitter threads of things discovered while browsing through old newspapers. Sometimes these discoveries are made in the midst of research, sometimes through lazy browsing of online archives. This weekend marks the first time in nearly a year I've spent time in my hometown, Amherstburg. Taking advantage of the beautiful weather the first two days I was down here meant wandering around town and the rest of Essex County. Today is not so lovely, so I've parked myself in my Mom's dining room, where, depending on the angle, I can stare out into the lush greenery of the south end of town along the Detroit River. So, as an easing-into-work-you'll-see-in-a-few-months exercise, I decided to flip through the pages of the Border Cities Star from the second weekend of July a century ago. Instead of throwing this material onto Twitter, it seemed like a good excuse for a blog post where I could expand on some of the storie...

This is the first of a series collecting odds and ends from the Christmas and New Year's holiday season 100 years ago. Ads, editorials, recipes, and anything else that caught my eye will be featured between now and January 1. Though not quite the dumpster fire 2020 has been, 1920 was still a turbulent time - the effects of the First World War, the upheavals of 1919, and the Spanish flu were still affecting North Americans. What you'll find in many of the items I'll feature is a sense of hope for the new year, that maybe things might be settling into a new sense of normal or are (finally) pointing toward a brighter future.  First up, a selection of ads from a sector that was doing far better in 1920 than 2020: department stores. Their Christmas Eve/Christmas Day ads generally avoided last-minute sales in favour of uplifting messages, wishes for peace on Earth, or cozy domestic scenes.   Border Cities Star, December 24, 1920. We'll start in Windsor, where Smith's th...

Panel from the Detroit Historical Museum's exhibit, Detroit 67: Perspectives . July 8, 2017. One of the elements I appreciated in the current Detroit Historical Museum exhibit on the civil unrest in Detroit in 1967 was its analysis of the media coverage. One panel lists what elements that we might expect today were missing. Panel from the Detroit Historical Museum's exhibit,  Detroit 67: Perspectives . July 8, 2017.   For television coverage, a space designed to evoke a middle class living room displayed footage on screens resembling vintage sets. As you'll see from the articles included in this post, the Canadian coverage followed a similar playbook. As the disturbance grew the morning of July 23, authorities urged the media to avoid or downplay reports, in order to maintain calm. It quickly became impossible to hide what was going on. CKLW-TV (now CBET) provided the first local TV report around 2 p.m. Soon, reporters from outside the region began desc...

Poster hanging outside the Detroit Historical Museum, July 8, 2017. A police raid on a “blind pig” (an unlicensed drinking venue) at 12 th Street and Clairmount Avenue in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967 provided the fuse for five days of civil unrest in Detroit. Whether you call what happened that week a rebellion, riot, or uprising, the repercussions are still evident around the city, and remain a well-debated subject. Given Detroit’s proximity to Canada, the events that unfolded affected Windsor, and were commented on elsewhere around the country. What I aim to do with these posts is show Canadian reaction to the events in Detroit, primarily from newspapers in Toronto and Windsor. This series grew from several streams of things I’ve done over the past year: Collecting newspaper stories: Side stories I saved while researching Canada’s centennial, others I tracked down out of personal interest. Museum visits: if you’re visiting Detroit during the...