Category: History

  • Historic Palestinian Documents at the Lady Izdihar Archive

    Historic Palestinian Documents at the Lady Izdihar Archive

    Lady Isdihar runs an archive of USSR era documents and some Palestine documents. This page links out to several of contemporary interest.

  • Henry George’s Racist Screed Against Chinese People in California, New York Tribune, May 1, 1869

    I was forwarded a paper that was published in a journal. I wondered what the journal was about, and found that they were looking to preserve the intellectual lineage of Henry George, a late 19th century philosopher and early Progressive reformer of capitalism. He wanted land to be held in common, and was known for…

  • Village Scale Epidemic Management in Japan

    Village Scale Epidemic Management in Japan

    This paper has influenced me during this COVID-19 pandemic. It breaks past the idea of looking at epidemic policy narrowly, through the lens of science and government, but with a broader view that includes “natural, social and economic factors.” Smallpox and the Epidemiological Heritage of Modern Japan: Towards a Total History https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3143877/ The TL;DR: in…

  • Erasing Racism with Revisionist History about Ichimatsu Dolls

    I stumbled across and ad for an old Japanese doll, and wanted to get an idea of what’s out there, so I went to eBay and found out. On there, I saw listings for “Ichimatsu” dolls, which I’d never heard of before. A little research turned up some info, but the most interesting story was…

  • Treasure Chest, Robert Louis Stevenson Jr. High School Yearbook, 1939

    Bought at a local estate sale, this yearbook is a look into history, into the East Los Angeles community. East Los Angeles was an unincorporated area east of the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Many of the residents there came from Boyle Heights, which was a “melting pot” of different cultures. According to the…

  • Mid90s and Redlining

    I don’t know the story behind Mid90s, but the trailer and description hint at some urban geography and class issues related to the relationship between the middle class neighborhoods of Cheviot Hills and working class neighborhoods of Culver City.   Whenever something like this comes up, I like to look at the HOLC maps that…

  • 1529 Pizarro St. Los Angeles, CA 90026

    I was moving some photos around from my father’s hoard, and found a photo of a tiny piece of paper with his name at that address, 1529 Pizarro St.

  • Civil Rights Unionism

    Jacobin has published a good article about the organizing of Local 22 at the Reynold’s tobacco company, and how the union had originated and combined the civil rights struggle for African Americans with the union, and with the participation by the Communist party organization. Civil Rights Unionism by Robert Korstad

  • Redlining was Part of the System of Segregated, Whites-Only Communities

    Most narratives about HOLC/FHA redlining focus on the redlined areas. The narrative goes something like this: redlined communities were created, and Black people were forced to live there. While that’s generally accurate, it ignores all the other groups that suffered from the HOLC grading of communities. This post excerpts some of the Los Angeles County…

  • National Geographic want you to accept their apology for being racist AF

    Dustin Seibert wrote about his personal experiences with the Nat Geo: Why the colonizers at National Geographic want you to accept their apology for being racist AF – theGrio Let me see if I can find the photos I have of  a 1930s issue of the Nat that I had, before I threw it out.…