This week we're traveling back to the late nineteenth (?) or early twentieth (?) century with Blake Edwards' The Great Race! Join us as we get into bad fencing, parachutes, suffragists, car races, songs about domestic violence, and more!

Sources:

Parachutes:

"First Parachute Jump is Made Over Paris," History.com, available at https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-parachutist Jimmy Stamp, "An Early History of the Parachute," Smithsonian Magazine, available at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/an-early-history-of-the-parachute-951312/

Suffragists: Krista Cowman, "Doing Something Silly: The Uses of Humour by the Women's Social and Political Union, 1903-1914," International Review of Social History 52, 15 (2007) CJ Bearman, "An Army Without Discipline? Suffragette Militancy and the Budget Crisis of 1909," Historical Journal 50, 4 (2007) Laura E Nym Mayhall, "Defining Militancy: Radical Protest, the Constitutional Idiom, and Women's Suffrage in Britain, 1908-1909," Journal of British Studies 39, 3 (2000) The Exploress Podcast, "Silent No More: American Womens' Fight for Their Rights," Available at https://www.theexploresspodcast.com/episodes/2020/10/28/silent-no-more-womens-suffrage

Car Racing:

Karen Abbott, "Paris or Bust: The Great New York-to-Paris Auto Race of 1908," Smithsonian Magazine (March 7, 2012) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/paris-or-bust-the-great-new-york-to-paris-auto-race-of-1908-116784616/  Sherry J. Holladay and W. Timothy Coombs, "The great automobile race of 1908 as a public relations phenomenon: Lessons from the past," Public Relations Review 39, no.2 (June 2013): 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.12.002   "Omaha, a Stop on the Great Race of 1908," History Nebraska, https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/omaha-stop-great-race-1908  "1908 New York to Paris Great Race," Ames History Museum, https://ameshistory.org/tribunearchives/1908-new-york-paris-great-race  "Longest Auto Race That Ever Took Place: Long-Lost Pictures Show Victor's Woes," LIFE (23 May 1955), https://books.google.com/books?id=rVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12&dq=%22Great+Race%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjajZaDzq_1AhUAkIkEHTvhDAAQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q=%22Great%20Race%22&f=false  "T. Walter Williams of The Times Dies," The New York Times 10 November 1942, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1942/11/10/87399371.html?pageNumber=27 

Songs About Domestic Violence:

Michael Lasser, City Songs and America Life, 1900-1950 (Boydell & Brewer, 2019), 120-150.  Henrietta Yurchenco, ""Blues Fallin' Down Like Hail" Recorded Blues, 1920s-1940s," American Music 13, no.4 (Winter 1995): 448-69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052403  https://genius.com/Ma-rainey-see-see-rider-blues-lyrics  David Monod, Vaudeville and the Making of Modern Entertainment, 1890-1925, (University of North Caroline Press, 2020), 51-90.  Vaudeville Nation, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/vaudeville/roots.html  The American Vaudeville Museum Archive https://vaudeville.library.arizona.edu/collections/  From the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn02zySmtvc 

Film Background:

https://exhibits.library.gsu.edu/current/exhibits/show/johnnymercer/collaborations/henrymancini  Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Race  David Zeitlin, "Greatest pie fight ever creates a horrendous SPLAAT!" LIFE (9 July 1965) https://books.google.com/books?id=R1MEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q&f=false  IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0743232/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1  Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1008852-great_race