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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Do Your Bit to Keep Him Fit

We have a new collection on the digital library that I am really excited about. Almost as excited as I was about the very first collection we ever published but not quite because that was a huge accomplishment. Nothing will ever beat it but this one is pretty cool. 

The Minnie Fisher Cunningham is the collected papers of the national suffrage representative from Texas. She successfully lobbied congress for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Her pivotal work ensured passage. After the amendment was ratified she organizes the National League of Women Voters. How cool was that?

The suffragettes started on this path 40 years before with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and while voting rights was their ultimate goal they put additional effort into social welfare, child labor laws and school reform also. They just plain RAWKED!
One of the major social problems that affected World War I soldiers was venereal disease, with the predominant one being syphilis. At this time there was medication to cure it if caught in time and a way to test for it before it became so far advanced that it couldn't be cured.


Minnie Fisher Cunningham kept thousands of documents some of which are pamphlets from national and local governments about health information. These are another fantastic bit of social and public history. And, they are pretty funny too.

Is his hat not the bomb? I'd wear that. I've got a brown casual skirt and jacket that would look great with it. I've got nothing to wear with the gun though.





It looks to me that this pamphlet was printed to take all the fun out of being a soldier to me.


Isn't prophylactic treatment after you've been exposed a little like closing the barn door after the cows have gotten out?



I love the line; "falling prey to the hordes of street-walking prostitutes who are probably even now crowding like vultures into your community." 

Is Free Lance Prostitute a pun?



It seems that some of those hordes were plying their trade openly in a district set apart for that purpose.



Wait a minute? Didn't they just say that to put the girls out of business? How do they plan to provide all those soldiers with entertainment?



Bowling alleys, libraries, and churches? How do those compete with sex to an 18 to 20 year old boy, out of his own, most likely for the first time?




Important information from your Sub-Committee For civilian Cooperation in Combating Venereal Diseases.



There you go, a bit of social history for your Wednesday.

Love,
M

PS: I just realized that I'll probably get some strange search strings off this post.

11 comments:

  1. Me: How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm Now That They've...

    Jim: ...Been Fellated?

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  2. It's only 7:15 AM and I think I'm going to feel dirty the rest of the day. Cheers Michele!!

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  3. MAW: When Jim finishes your sentences he does it with style.

    Matt: There is not enough hot water in the world to get this off is there?

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  4. I read the title and looked to the saucy librarian with a slight grin. Little did I realise the direction the essay as going to go.

    At the time for the general population TB was by far the more feared illness. Syphilis was seen like Aids in the early 80's, a disease that was caught only by those that deserved to catch it. However this was not so. The well educated section knew the vectors of transmission and this was where the suffragette women played their part by opening up that information to the public at large.

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  5. Other alternatives to attending to his desires? YMCA?
    Special alcoves at the library? I highly doubt there's going to be writing going on there..

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  6. Do your bit to keep him fit... hee hee.

    Half your pics aren't coming up on my stupid computer.

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  7. I was going to make a witty comment about all this, but I'm too busy laughing at unmitigated's...

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  8. BWAHAHAHAH

    Linda
    http:coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

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  9. I've got nothin' - because I'm laughing with all the other comments and my lame-o witty one went right out of my head. ;)

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  10. The poor soldier being taken advantage of by all those evil women. This is fantastic!

    Thanks for sharing.

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