Month: October 2015

Gideon Lichfield on "The Gun Control Conflict"

As the British journalist Dan Hodges observed in June, “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
Since that massacre less than three years ago, there have been almost 1,000 shootings in the US at which four or more people were hit, and over 1,200 deaths. The most shocking thing about this week’s killing of nine people in Oregon was its ordinariness.

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1902 trading cards imagine the 'Women of the Future'

women-future
Way back in 1902, a French manufacturer released a set of trading cards designed by artist Albert Bergeret that imagined the “women of the future.” The cards envisioned women stepping into roles that would have seemed fantastical to most ladies at the time: doctor, lawyer, politician, firefighter, even members of the military.
Although there’s a pin-up quality to many of the images—they’re showing an awful lot of arm, after all—there’s something charming about this retrofuturistic attempt to expand the role of women in society, even if it was nothing but fantasy at the time. Indeed, fantasy and science fiction can often help us open our minds behind the limitations of the world we live in and imagine a better one instead. In the small and fashionable world of these cards, at least, women were given a more equal role in society, not to mention some spectacular hats.
Here are some of my favorites:
women-future2
(Lawyer)
women-future3
(Journalist)
women-future4
(Master of Arms)
women-future5
(General)
mayor
(Mayor)
firefighter
(Firefighter)
Check out the full series of cards here.
from Boing Boing