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THE FIRST OF OUR LOFTY BUILDINGS TO BE
SUBJECTED TO FLAMES

(Frank Leslies Weekly/December 22, 1898) No fire in years has attracted more attention in New York City and throughout the country than the one which occurred on December 5th, on Broadway and Warren Street, and destroyed a clothing store and damaged the Home Life Insurance building. The fire is not a notable one because of fatalities connected with it, nor because of the damage done, although that amounted, in round numbers, to a million dollars. This particular blaze will stand out in the history of modern conflagrations, because it was the first to put a so-called absolutely fire-proof building to the test. The “sky-scraper” has been “tried by fire,” and some problems which the fire department and insurance companies had been speculating about ever since the sky-scraper became a leading feature of the city’s architecture have been elucidated.

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These short items were compiled for the Frank Leslies Weekly issue for November 23, 1918.

• · American casualties in the war lately totaled 56,876, including 10,572 killed in action.
• · In Berlin many women formerly wealthy and moving in high social circles are now compelled to earn their living as street-car conductors.
• · Owing to a speech which he made at Rome on the immigration question, Milan labor leaders refused to meet Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, during his visit to Italy.
• · A retired broker, a millionaire eighty-six years old, of Greenwich, Conn., recently married a twenty-five-year-old woman after a short courting. She lived with him only one day and then deserted him.

Articles like this appeared in newspapers like Frank Leslies Weekly and brought little bits of information from around the world to their readers. This one ran on July 3, 1858.

An Angry Mistress – A French woman named Girault, who had formerly been the kept mistress of M. Galley, a French merchant of this city, entered his counting-room on the 12th May and suddenly stabbed him, as she thought, to the heart. Although it missed that particular part, the wound is mortal.

American Health – Are our ladies as capable of enduring hardships as their grandmothers? That is a very important question and demands a reply. Our present ladies turn up their noses at their grandsire’s wives, but it would be as well if they were trained up to milk their own cows, as in days of old, and then they would not have to mourn over their infant’s coffins, filled by that poisonous compound swill milk. As it is, they are born in hotels, live in hotels and die in hotels Hotels are excellent places to stay at on a visit, to entertain a friend, to study the travelling world, and to give one a keener relish for home, but are the graves of domestic virtue, happiness and health!

Two of our collections – Godey’s Lady’s Book and Frank Leslie’s Weekly – contain many travelogue articles from all over the world. Many of the later articles contain early photos or illustrations of the scenes described by the travel writers.

The description of Halloween in Scotland below appeared as part of a longer travel piece titled Scotland the Playground of Royalty and Americans by Gilson Willets, special correspondent for Leslie’s Weekly. The description of how Halloween in Scotland contrasts with Halloween in America caught my eye.

Halloween Customs in Scotland

All Scotland is preparing even now for All Halloween . People are being invited for house parties where, on the first of November, all the customs of Halloween known in the United States, and many that are not known there, will be observed here. For this is the place where the custom of celebrating Halloween originated, and where the evening was given its name. Superstitious Scotchmen still believe that to be the night on which the invisible world has peculiar power. His satanic majesty and witches generally are supposed to have great latitude on this anniversary. (more…)

Whether or not the Federal Suffrage Amendment is ratified by a sufficient number of the States in time to permit the women of every State to vote in the next Presidential campaign, there will be 15,492,751 women eligible to vote in 1920. Leaders of women in this country are endeavoring to increase the number to 29,000,000, by securing the ratification of the Federal Amendment by thirty-six States within the next few month.

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