It’s all been said before. It’s all been seen before. Nothing is new. Or at least this would be one way of looking at recent cultural output, which has amounted to a retrograde immersion in the past. ’80s remakes clog the movie process from pitch to multiplex, fashion revisits deceased designs, the clamor for the posthumous tomes of exhumed esoteric authors — all roads lead backwards.
13x18 Chander & Price Craftsman Press, Courtesy of Boxcar Press, Syracuse
Founded in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1880s, J.A. Bauer Pottery originally specialized in containers for the most popular of local products… whiskey. Manufacturing stoneware crocks and bottles – John Andy Bauer built his business on traditional earthenware techniques, thick and sturdy liquor and water jugs which meant to follow function more than form. It wasn’t until Bauer relocated to Los Angeles in 1909 that his innate creativity began to take root.
J.A. Bauer Pottery Bowl, Circa 1940s
Alice Waters (born 1944) is one of the unrivaled pioneers of California cuisine, owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, among the first US restaurants to promote locally grown, seasonally available, organically produced ingredients. While this now might seem a given, this philosophy was groundbreaking in 1971, when Waters first opened her restaurant.
Alice Waters at her Restaurant 1975
It may be called “hǔbiao wànjīnyóu” in its native tongue, but it’s just Tiger Balm to me. I’ve been using this Chinese remedy since my hippie mom rubbed it on my chest during the cold New England winters of my youth. The burn on my skin still has a calming, comforting effect.
Tiger Balm was invented by Chinese herbalist Aw Chu Kin in the 1870s, using the healing combination of menthol, eucalyptus, clove, cassia and mint oil. Kin had two sons, Aw Boon Haw was a hell-raiser known for street fights and mad business skills while Aw Boon Par was gentle and more reserved. Together, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par would make their father’s tincture a global phenomenon by the early 1930s.
Aw Boon Haw in China 1949
The production of synthetic plastics began in 1907 with the invention of Bakelite by Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863 – 1944). At the time, there was a thirst for a new material that w0uld fulfill the needs of the latest innovations – radios, electrical insulators and mounts, telephones, car parts, cameras, toasters, vacuum cleaners- any product that required a material that could resist heat, electricity, and be cheaply manufactured through mass production.
Bakelite Camera by Kodak
Spawned from the unlikely mind of an expat German scientist — the Chemex coffeemaker is a brilliant melding of design and convenience, a thermal carafe drip-system consisting of lab grade borosilicate beaker glass and a filtration system using laboratory filter paper.
Peter J. Schlumbohm, Ph.D, moved to New York City in the mid-1930s and was desperately searching for a great cup of coffee amid the city’s stale automats and late night diners.
Peter Schlumbohm (Check Out his Cigarette Holder) / LIFE Magazine 1949
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Futures of Yore
Going to the opera in the year 2000, as imagined by Albert Robida in 1882. Image via Paleofuture.
Ever wonder about the material dreams and desires of our forebears? What they wanted, which problems they were certain would be solved by hope, the ingenuity of their fellow men, and the passage of time? The excellent Paleofuture blog knows. It seems the desire to shop online was recorded as early as 1967, apparently at a time when strict gender roles were ossified, not fossilized. (See video below of shopping housewife, then anxious husband receiving the handwritten bill in the “his” of their his-and-hers companion consoles.)
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