No. 805
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 18, 2025
alias: OLD IKE
CONFIDENCE
Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Feel free to join the Strange Company staffers for a stroll around the grounds.A particularly gruesome (and notorious) murder case.Does Egypt have a second Sphinx?15,000 years ago, kids were playing with clay.How DNA in dirt is a boon for scientists.Frank Lloyd Wright and the upside-down H.3/I Atlas has probably been weird for a very, very long time.It is my
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Strange Company - 4/3/2026
New York Journal, March 18, 1898.
When the
news of London’s 1888 Whitechapel Murders, attributed to “Jack the Ripper,”
crossed the Atlantic, Americans were instantly fascinated. The vision of a dark,
elusive killer, mutilating women without motive, was morbidly titillating, and the
name Jack the Ripper fired the popular imagination. In the nascent age of
yellow journalism, no one was more
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/4/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
New York is all about secret sanctuaries and private oases. But I’d say Greenwich Village is Gotham’s land of clandestine gardens, a neighborhood of many lush green spaces behind 19th century buildings and churchyards. To come across another of these secret gardens—a block from Washington Square Park no less, with a mystery bronze statue at […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/6/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge)
oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name.
At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
New York is all about secret sanctuaries and private oases. But I’d say Greenwich Village is Gotham’s land of clandestine gardens, a neighborhood of many lush green spaces behind 19th century buildings and churchyards. To come across another of these secret gardens—a block from Washington Square Park no less, with a mystery bronze statue at […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 4/6/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge)
oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name.
At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Feel free to join the Strange Company staffers for a stroll around the grounds.A particularly gruesome (and notorious) murder case.Does Egypt have a second Sphinx?15,000 years ago, kids were playing with clay.How DNA in dirt is a boon for scientists.Frank Lloyd Wright and the upside-down H.3/I Atlas has probably been weird for a very, very long time.It is my
More...
Strange Company - 4/3/2026
The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
