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While using Google Books, I’ve been collecting particularly nice examples of either 1) pages scanned so badly that they become interesting as “found art” in their own right, or 2) images of non-book items, including hands, scanned with the books. There are some very peculiar pages tucked in amongst everything else there. I’m hoping to get a set of images together in the near future for a new online gallery project. If you happen to run across anything that seems likely, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

I’m guessing very few people will even notice, but my old “general” blog, Libertatia Lab Reports, has made its final journey to the bit-bucket. I used it very little, and not particularly effectively. If you were one of the three or four people who read the old Reports blog, or you want to start keeping tabs on my more general thoughts, my MySpace blog, The Alphabet Conspiracy, is the place to go. It’s everything the other should have been, but never was. There will, however, be more Libertatia Lab Reports. I’m launching a new print zine, starting sometime in January. […]

While using Google Books, I’ve been collecting particularly nice examples of either 1) pages scanned so badly that they become interesting as “found art” in their own right, or 2) images of non-book items, including hands, scanned with the books. There are some very peculiar pages tucked in amongst everything else there. I’m hoping to get a set of images together in the near future for a new online gallery project. If you happen to run across anything that seems likely, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

The patent search at Google is easier to navigate than the equivalent at the U.S. Patent Office, although the images at the latter are a bit better. Both sites are of potential interest, as a large number of innovators in the realms of politics and economics were also inventors. From my first search, here’s 38 pages of patents, all apparently the work of Joshua King Ingalls. I’ve got patents by Warren, Weitling and Westrup that I’m looking through as well.

Here’s yet another short sequel to Bellamy’s novel, by Edward Berwick. It appeared in the June 1890 issue of the Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, to which Berwick submitted a number or articles. His work also appeared in The Outlook and The Arena. FARMING IN THE YEAR 2000. A. D. With nerves unstrung by that horrent nightmare, which had replunged me into the cruel vortex of nineteenth century antagonism and brutality, I cast around for some method of restoring my usual equanimity. An excursion into the country would, it appeared to me, serve the double purpose of acting as […]

In this exchange from The Open Court (April 10 and May 1, 1890) Dyer D. Lum and Rabbi Solomon Schindler square off over Edward Bellamy’s ideas in a set of sequels to Looking Backward. Schindler was a Boston radical, a proponent of Bellamyite Nationalism, and a regular contributor to The Arena. Dyer was a regular contributor to Liberty and The Index. Their exchange is a nice window into the basic conflict between the state socialists and anarchists at the turn of the centry. A JOURNALIST’S CONFESSION. BOSTON, A. D., 2001.[COMMUNICATED THROUGH DYER D LUM.] You will be surprised, my dear […]

The American Studies program at University of Virginia has a number of nice resources on their website, including all three volumes of Vernon L. Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought: Vol. I – The Colonial Mind [my students should bookmark this one now!] Vol. II – Romantic Revolution in America Vol. III – The Beginnings of Critical Realism Parrington is rather old school but also very good. These volumes were one of the key influences on me at an earlier phase of my education. While you’re on the site, also check out Erastus Salisbury Field’s magnificent The Historical Monument of […]

Florence Finch Kelly was an extremely prolific journalist, who, as the introduction to this piece remarked, had “written much on social questions.” She worked as a book reviewer for the New York Times, contributed to The Independent, wrote novels and poetry, and, as “F. F. K.,” was a contributor to Liberty. I’ve been “mining” The Independent a bit for radical material and ran across several essays by Kelly, along with a number of other things (a Milo Hastings piece on Edgar Chambless’ Roadtown, Upton Sinclair on the Home Colony, etc.), all of which are of interest. More soon. . . […]