Elleda Wilson: Local brevities

Elleda Wilson, The Daily Astorian, Ore.
·2 min read

Jul. 28—Tidbits from The Daily Morning Astorian, July 29, 1884:

—The New Northwest publishes a list of banner precincts on the women's suffrage vote. Clifton, in this county, leads the list, where 98% of the votes cast were recorded in favor of the amendment. Eight Clatsop County precincts gave the amendment a majority.

Note: Oregon put women's suffrage on the ballot six times, more often than any other state, in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, 1910 and 1912, when it finally passed at the state level. Women finally got the right to vote nationwide with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

—A bizarre note in the territorial news: Thomas Haskell, aged 18, of Goldendale, Washington Territory, killed himself last Saturday because he couldn't go to the circus.

—Glue is now used in the manufacture of cheap grades of ice cream. That is ice cream "with a stick in it," as it were.

Note: Unfortunately, ice cream manufacturers were substituting glue for gelatin, because it was cheaper. Even in 1920, the Buffalo Labor Journal claimed ice cream at the time was made of "condensed milk, glue, preserved with formaldehyde and colored with aniline dye."

—A town in Connecticut had a marriage, an elopement, a fire, a funeral, a circus, a murder and a thunderstorm on the same day, and Deadwood is asked to take a back seat.

Note: Legendary Deadwood, North Dakota, was a wild and woolly town, originally a gold miners' camp. The town's website says it "attracted outlaws, gamblers and gunslingers." Both Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried there.

—Finally, a "fresh fashion note": White stockings are coming in again. Doctors are beginning to discover that the sole of the foot absorbs dyes, whether black or colored, and that a continuous process of slow blood poisoning is now going on among those who wear colored stockings. They (the doctors, not the stockings) attribute to this several new diseases that have lately been added to the heritage of our human flesh.

Note: Victorians' colorful clothing could accurately have been described as "to die for," since many fabric dyes contained arsenic and other poisonous ingredients that leeched into the skin.