Saturday, May 28, 2022

the DQ Dilly Wagon

Why do they call it a Dilly Bar?

 A couple of brothers who supplied ice cream mix stopped by, and somebody poured a swirl of ice cream on paper, stuck a stick in it and dipped it into chocolate. “Somebody said that's really a dilly,” and the name stuck
 

this van was based on the AMC pacer... but I think it looks a lot better than the Pacer


it's just a shell, the frame is wood, topped with a fiberglass body. 

The side pipes connect to nothing, so there's no turbocharged engine to go with the turbo stickers on the side. For that matter, there aren't even functioning doors

Built by American Motors Corporation as a design study, it's a one-off vehicle that toured the auto show scene with several other AMC concepts in the late 1970s. 

According to duPont Registry, it was the most popular of the bunch thanks to its combination of meaty tires, side-pipe exhaust, and futuristic styling.
 

https://uk.motor1.com/news/587982/amc-am-concept-van-1970s/

Princess Victoria, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and also of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.



https://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/2678370222/

In her teens Victoria fell in love with her first cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (the son of her mother's brother, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia) but his faith, Orthodox Christianity, discouraged marriage between first cousins. 

Bowing to family pressure, Victoria married her gay paternal first cousin, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine in 1894, following the wishes of their grandmother, Queen Victoria. 

The marriage failed – Victoria Melita scandalized the royal families of Europe when she divorced her husband in 1901. The couple's only child, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, died of typhoid fever in 1903.

Victoria married Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich in 1905. They wed without the formal approval of Britain's King Edward VII (as the Royal Marriages Act 1772 would have required), and in defiance of Russia's Emperor Nicholas II. 

In retaliation, the Tsar stripped Kirill of his offices and honors, also initially banishing the couple from Russia. They had two daughters and settled in Paris before being allowed to visit Russia in 1909. In 1910 they moved to Russia, where Nicholas recognized Victoria Melita as Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. 

After the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917 they escaped to Finland (then still part of the Russian Republic) where she gave birth to her only son in August 1917. In exile they lived for some years among her relatives in Germany, and from the late 1920s on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac in Brittany. In 1926 Kirill proclaimed himself Russian emperor in exile, and Victoria supported her husband's claims.

(summary over, here are some specifics)    

Her marriage to Ernst suffered a further blow in 1897, when Victoria returned home from a visit to her sister Queen Marie of Romania and reportedly caught Ernst in bed with a male servant. She did not make her accusation public, but told a niece that "no boy was safe, from the stable hands to the kitchen help. He slept quite openly with them all."

Victoria sought relief from her first husbands scant affection in her love for horses and long gallops over the countryside on a hard-to-control stallion named Bogdan.    

A few months later, war broke out between Russia and Japan. As a senior member of the navy, Kirill was sent on active service to the front in the Russo-Japanese War. His ship was blown up by a Japanese mine while entering Port Arthur and he was one of the few survivors. 

Sent home to recover, the Tsar finally allowed him permission to leave Russia and he left for Coburg to be with Victoria.  Tsar Nicholas II responded to the marriage by stripping Kirill of his imperial allowance and expelling him from the Russian navy.

The couple retired to Paris, where they purchased a house off the Champs-Élysées and lived off the income provided by their parents.

Nicholas II reinstated Kirill after deaths in the Russian imperial family promoted Kirill to third in the line of succession to the Russian throne. Kirill and Victoria were allowed in Russia, Victoria was granted the title of Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna and in May 1910, the couple arrived in St Petersburg.

 The new grand duchess enjoyed entertaining at evening dinners and lavish balls attended by the cream of Saint Petersburg society. Victoria fit in within the Russian aristocracy and the circle of her mother-in-law Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. As French was frequently spoken in high circles, Victoria never completely mastered the Russian language. As Kirill became a keen auto racer, the couple often took trips by car; a favorite pastime was traveling through the Baltic provinces.

During World War I, Victoria worked as a Red Cross nurse and organized a motorized ambulance unit that was known for its efficiency. Victoria frequently visited the front near Warsaw and she occasionally carried out her duties under enemy fire.

Twice during the war Victoria visited Romania, where her sister Marie was now queen, volunteering aid for war victims.

 Kirill, for his part, was also in Poland, assigned to the naval department of Admiral Russin, member of the staff of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, commander in chief of the Russian army.

 Kirill and Victoria had always shared their relatives' distaste for the Tsar and Tsarina's friendship with  Grigori Rasputin. The Tsarina believed Rasputin healed her son of his hemophiliac attacks with his prayers.

With the death of Victoria's mother, she inherited her villa, Chateau Fabron in Nice and her residence in Coburg, the Edinburg Palais. In the following years the exiled family divided their time between these two places.

Kirill, though unfaithful, still loved and missed the wife he had depended so much upon and passed his remaining years writing memoirs of their life together. "There are few who in one person combine all that is best in soul, mind, and body," he wrote. "She had it all, and more. Few there are who are fortunate in having such a woman as the partner of their lives – I was one of those privileged."

designs for airships, by Charles Dellschau, in the era of Jules Verne


Charles August Albert Dellschau (4 June 1830 Brandenburg, Prussia – 20 April 1923 Houston, Texas) was one of America's earliest known visionary artists, who created drawings, collages and watercolors of airplanes and airships and bound them in 12 known large scrapbooks that were discovered decades after his death.

It is known that he emigrated from Brandenburg, Prussia to Texas in 1850, where he worked as a butcher, and at some point after marriage, Charles started working as a sales clerk in his in-laws' saddlery shop.

 In addition to his stepdaughter, Dellschau had three children: two daughters, Bertha and Mary, and a son, Edward, who died in 1877 at age 6. Dellschau's wife, Antonia, died in the same year, leaving her husband a widower at age 47.

After his retirement in 1899, he lived with his stepdaughter and her husband, and worked in their attic apartment in Houston, Texas, where he filled at least 13 notebooks with drawings, watercolor paintings, and collages depicting fantastical airships.




After his death, Dellschau's home remained in the hands of his descendants. His notebooks of paintings and drawings, as well as his diaries were left virtually untouched for half a century until the late 1960s. Following a fire, the house was cleared and at least 12 of the notebooks were placed on the sidewalk to be discarded.

Fred Washington, a local antiques and used furniture dealer, spotted the books, and for $100 bought them from the trash collector. The books sat undisturbed in Washington's store under a pile of discarded carpet for over a year.

 In 1968, Mary Jane Victor, an art student at the University of St. Thomas in Houston stumbled upon the notebooks, and persuaded Washington to lend some of them to the university for a display on the story of flight. She also brought them to the attention of art patron and collector Dominique de Menil. Mrs. de Menil purchased four of the notebooks for $1,500. 

Of the remaining books, seven were purchased by Peter Navarro, a Houston commercial artist and UFO researcher. After studying them, Navarro sold four of the notebooks to the Witte Museum in San Antonio, and the San Antonio Museum of Art. 

One notebook ultimately ended in the private abcd (art brut connaissance & diffusion) collection in Paris belonging to Bruno Decharme, a French filmmaker and art collector. The rest of the notebooks ended up in private hands. Some were dismantled and single pages were sold. In 2016, a double sided page dated 1919, sold for $22,500 at Christie's



reminds me of Von Dutch's sketchbook merged with the Capt America movie flying aircraft carriers of S.H.I.E.L.D


Friday, May 27, 2022

In 1902, Frank Hoyt of Massachusetts, ground his first bag of peanuts and milled it into peanut butter at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York—which was the inspiration behind his brand name, “Buffalo.”





While he was not the first to invent the creamy, delicious concept of peanut butter, he did create a heightened awareness for the treat. 

 This rare 1918 Ford Model T was used as a delivery truck for Buffalo Brand peanut butter and includes original stenciling.


The city of Buffalo began its exponential expansion after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825.

The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied 350 acres of land on the western edge of what is now Delaware Park

Edison and Tesla arrived at the expo on the Eire canal, after testing their electrical demonstrations in Herkimer NY. The Eire is found by looking for I 90, from Albany NY to the Mohawk river, from the North end of the Hudson river






Taking place not long after the Spanish-American War, the Exposition was also a reaffirmation of the friendship and mutual interests shared by the countries of North, South, and Central America. 

In 1901, Buffalo, New York was located within a five hundred-mile radius of the most populated cities in North America. Coupled with an extensive transportation network of ships and rails, located near a world famous natural wonder and at the doorstep of Canada, Buffalo was chosen to host a world’s fair.










Each evening, hundreds of thousands of eight-watt light bulbs were gradually illuminated and outlined the buildings, reflecting pools, fountains and sculptures that occupied the grounds. This was the first massive display of electric power to take place in the United States and it utilized electricity generated by the power plants at Niagara Falls, New York—twenty miles away. In the eyes of people accustomed to gas, oil, and candlelight, the effect was both beautiful and startling. Thomas Edison even recorded it with one of his early moving picture cameras.




the midway


see several good photos at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Exposition


Despite much anticipation and publicity, the “Pan-Am” did not reach its expected attendance goal. Cool, rainy weather in the spring and summer kept people away. By the time the weather improved in September, the Exposition was then overshadowed by the assassination of President McKinley. When it closed on November 1, only eight million people of the projected twenty million had actually visited the Exposition.

Mabel Barnes was 23-years old, and a schoolteacher who visited the fair 33 times, recording her observations in three volumes.

 The most shocking event in the fair was the public slaughter of 700 dogs, many taken from animal shelters or snatched off streets. It was held over two days in front of 20,000 spectators. The Indian Congress, made up of several tribes, carried out the executions with Geronimo, on loan from an Oklahoma prison, killing the first dog with a bow and arrow. The dogs were then eaten.


When the fair ended, the contents of the grounds were sold to the Chicago House Wrecking Company of Chicago for US$92,000 ($2.61 million in 2021 dollars.) 

 Demolition of the buildings began in March 1902, and within a year, most of the buildings were demolished. The grounds were then cleared and subdivided to be used for residential streets, homes, and park land. Similar to previous world fairs, most of the buildings were constructed of timber and steel framing with precast staff panels made of a plaster/fiber mix. These buildings were built as a means of rapid construction and temporary ornamentation and not made to last.

At least one engine from the miniature railway that carried visitors around the fair was preserved. It is currently privately owned and operated in Braddock Heights, Maryland.

Within a year, most evidence of the Exposition had disappeared. The tract of land it occupied soon gave way to residential and commercial property. The New York State Building, one of the few permanent structures built for the Exposition, is now The Buffalo History Museum.

Teddy Roosevelt visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), during his time as U.S. Civil Service Commissioner. In May of 1901, when First Lady Ida McKinley fell ill and President William McKinley was unable to attend the opening of Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition, TR filled in.

 During his time as President, TR attended three major expositions: the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition (1902); the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904); and the Jamestown Tercentennial (1907). The only major event that TR appears to have missed was Omaha’s Trans-Mississippi Exposition (1898), which took place while he was serving in the Spanish-American War and then running for New York State Governor.



The Smithsonian coordinated all of the U.S. Government exhibits and prepared a display on its activities and collections for the exposition, so for better phots of the 1901 expo, look in their archives http://siarchives.si.edu

want to see a photo go viral? Make a USA flag with white, red, and blue old tractors

do you get what I'm saying?  It would take hundreds of red and white ones... but, of there were some red threshers, or combines, that would help.

Just putting good ideas out there in hopes someone makes it happen for the 4th of July

https://www.facebook.com/mecumgonefarmin/photos

Allis-Chalmers 190 Beachmaster





The Allis-Chalmers Beachmaster tractor was designed to work closely with the Allis-Chalmers Beach Sanitizer. This implement was produced in the 1950s and '60s for parks and recreation departments to assist with beach maintenance. This implement sweeps trash up onto a chain link belt and sifts the sand out. The trash moves along to the top and is deposited into a dumpster on the rear of the machine.