The second of today’s posts featuring old photos is a series containing 95 photos taken during the Civil War. The Civil War has become sort of an abstract event for me.  It’s one of those things that I’ve read about, learned about, researched, etc. – but it doesn’t quite seem real.  It’s too difficult to imagine a time when people in America owned other people, a time when a war was fought in my own...

As I’ve mentioned previously, I love old photos.  For that reason, today I’m doing two posts featuring old historical photos of the United States, the first of which is a series of photos by 1800s photographer Timothy O’Sullivan.  (The second post features American Civil War photos) This series features photos of the American West in the 1860s and 70s.  It’s basically exactly how I pictured it in my head – vast,...

There’s no real point to posting this video, other than I expected it to be stupid and then ended up watching a decent amount of it. Basically, the guy shapes a ginormous jawbreaker into a cup by way of a lathe.  It’s not worth watching for the whole 13 minutes, but it’s worth a skim.  The way the colored layers are revealed is kind of...

This is one of the coolest things I’ve come across in a long time:  an atlas of the United States created for the blind – in 1837. No ink was used in the making of this atlas, as the content is created by way of embossing so the blind could feel their way around.  It was made for children at the New England Institute for the Education of the Blind in Boston, and is pretty awesome. It’s wild that this is from 1837, I suppose...

These cool shadow faces were created by street artist Isaac Cordal out of standard-issue kitchen strainers, and they’re surprisingly detailed.  They were created for a project called Cement Bleak. I would’ve never looked at a kitchen strainer and thought “I bet I could use that to make shadow faces.”  But I’m glad Mr. Cordal did, because they’re a good reminder to try and look at things around you in a new...