NYTimes November 11, 1911 | Hacker News Reader

NYTimes November 11, 1911

timesmachine.nytimes.com

104 pointsllambda44 comments

Page four features articles on both freight rates concerning interstate commerce[1] and debate over banks allowing customers to overdraft on their deposits[2].

In light of recent Internet tax/interstate commerce debates, and bank reform as it concerns overdraft fees, it really rings true that the more things change the more they stay the same.

[1] http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881907...

[2] http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881909...

Just look at the front page and realize all of the articles that are similar to things that are happening right now:

Government spending - Army Costs in the Philippines

Small celeb gosip - Some baron wanting to marry

Lynch mob over a case about harming a child in PA

"ST. LOUIS, Mo., Nov. 10. -- Mrs. Eugene Batten, whose first husband, David Rothschild, died in Sing Sing Prison, where he was sent for wrecking the Federal Bank of New York and the Globe Securities Company, to-day told where was to be found $422,000 in currency which her husband secreted just before his two institutions were closed. "

Ah, the good old days, when bankers were sent to Sing Sing for their crimes, and their wives even returned the money. Hey, at least something has changed in 100 years.

Also, in those days reporters weren't payed by the sentence...

I thought the most fascinating thing was the strong and effective language regarding foreign affairs (i.e. the article about China): "The sun set upon a scene of fire, rapine, desolation, and butchery unrecorded in modern history", "Innocent Chinese are fleeing..."

The language these days about these sorts of things are much more deferent, careful, more similar to the language used in articles about domestic affairs. Really shows the issue of globalism.

Sounds like the article is in the context of the Xinhai revolution. Anyone know of any interesting details or articles about that?

It's more about the need to paint a picture that the readers would never actually see with their eyes. Remember the people that read that article didn't see 10 reports on a television news show first.

He's talking about the 1911 Chinese revolution[1], taking down the last dynasty of China and beginning of the Republic of China. All is not so bright however, a powerful general was made president because he was instrumental in the revolution; But his greed and death 5 years later leads to the Chinese army splitting among local warlords. It won't be until 1928 China is unified again[2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhai_Revolution

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Expedition

What caught my eye about that story was the transpacific communications, since the dateline was Nov. 10, 1911. Looking it up on Wikipedia, the first transpacific cables were laid in 1902 (transatlantic in 1986), so getting a cable from Nanking was still a recent development. I know 1911 wasn't the stone age, but I have a healthy respect for what they were able to accomplish with the technology they had at the time.

I don't understand the fascination with (merely) the number 11.

Wouldn't NY Times November 11, 1918 be more appropriate today?[1] Or maybe Philip Larkin's MCMXIV.[2]

[1] http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends

[2] http://net.lib.byu.edu/english/WWI/influence/MCMXIV.html

Today will be 11/11/11 again. Just like in 1911.

Right. But what I meant by "I don't understand" was more along the lines of "So it's 11/11/11 again. Who cares? Oh, and by the way, every 11/11 is Veterans' Day..."

I don't think we need to read too deeply into the selection of the date. This is little more than a slice of trivia, the equivalent of saying "On this day, 100 years ago...". The choice of back-dated front page doesn't have any profound consequence, other than as a passing curiosity. I don't think the NYT is trying to make a statement with it.

> every 11/11 is Veterans' Day

Veterans Day has only been held on 11/11 every year from 1954-1971 and 1978 to today. This is older.

First, Veterans' Day, by that name, was only recognized after WWII, as you say, but 11/11 was a day of remembrance long before that under other names (Armistice Day or Remembrance Day).[1]

Second, obviously a newspaper from 11/11/11 is earlier than a holiday on 11/11 precisely because the 11/11 dating comes from the end of World War I on November 11th, 1918 (on "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month"). I'm sorry if my point wasn't clear, but my original comment refers to World War I, 1918 and a poem about the start of World War I.

My original point remains: Today is (in many countries, not only the US) a national holiday in remembrance of the veterans of World War I or veterans more generally. I find it depressing that people care more about a piece of numerical trivia than that.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day

“I find it depressing that people care more about a piece of numerical trivia than that.”

You don’t know that. Unless you want everyone to care about nothing else whatsoever. Don’t always assume zero sum games.

Well, not the one in 1911.

Tomorrow will be 11/12/11 again. Just like in 1911.

If it makes you feel better, at least there isn't a front-page article about it in the NY times today like there was 100 years ago: http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881854...

That article is pure fluff. I can just imagine the editor saying to some reporter “Tomorrow is 11-11-11, now go and blow that up to a few dozen characters”.

am i the only one who is getting..

TimesMachine is available only to home delivery subscribers. Contact your library for complimentary access to the complete archive of The New York Times offered by ProQuest.

I get it too. I'm in Australia if that's why it hates me

From India here.. maybe it is some demographic limit. Strange no one else brought it up until now.. Is almost everyone here from US?

I get it from the US.

Nope, me too. Germany.

Interesting that "Today" used to be spelled "To-day"

Also To-morrow.

According to the Corpus of Historical American English, 1911 was right in the middle of the transition from to-day to today, with to-day having 95% market share in 1890, 80% in 1900, 70% in 1910, 30% in 1920, 20% in 1930, and 5% in 1940: http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/?c=coha&q=12896286

(Can't use Google n-grams on this one, because its punctuation-stripping makes it impossible to distinguish to-day from to day.)

I wonder if she ever married the Baron.

I can't find any reference to a Baron Schlep having ever existed, leading me to suspect (along with the fact that he only had twelve dollars, and what sounds like a suspiciously made-up sort of name) that he may have been a fake Baron all along.

If you compare the letter to both the 'l' and the 'i' in 'Ellis' on the line above, it looks like it might be an 'i'. The article can't decide whether it goes before or after the 'e' though, which means that if I'm right, it's either 'Schiep' or 'Scheip'. However, I can't find any info on anyone with those names either.

Edit: the NY Times of November 12 has an update, confirming he was deported [pdf]: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F02E6DD1E...

> Commissioner Williams said it was not because the man had only $12 in his possession, but because he was an undesirable alien. He was not a Baron, the Commissioner added.

To further complicate matters: other newspapers covering the story back in the day spelled the man's name as "Adolph Schopf", "Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph Schüp".

He's described as "a real German baron, a graduate of three German universities, one of which is the famous Heidelberg, the hero of five duels and the suitor of a beautiful young widow who has been making her home in Meriden during the past three months. His full name is Adolph Schopf, baron of Bottleburg, New Weissensee, province of Kieden Barden, Prussia."[1]

[1] http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Cg9JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=k...

"Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph Schüp" are the same name, Schuep just has Schüp re-spelled without the umlaut.

Schopf, Schiep, and Scheip are likely just phonetic respellings/typos.

Not only were people back in the day not that particular about exactly how a foreigner's name was spelled, often times people wouldn't be sure or would change how their own name is spelled.

If she did, it was a short marriage. She married Henry A. Bergman, a manufacturer of Parkersburg, IA on March 14, 1912[1].

However, I highly doubt it, because Mrs. Stadia's local newspaper, the Meriden Morning Record, had quite a different take on the story than the Times did:

"WIDOW RETURNS WITHOUT TITLE OF "BARONESS" Saw Baron on ship's deck but turned on her heel and walked away–she thinks it's a good joke–he's deported today

The young widow, Mrs. Olga Stadia, whose fond letters had brought a German nobleman across the seas to court and wed her, returned to her modest basement home on Willow Street Friday evening from New York city without a husband and without the much desired title of Baroness. She saw her mail order fiance at Ellis Island but did not think it worth while paying the immigration officials the necessary amount to allow his setting foot on American soil. The poor fellow who had made the long voyage expressly to marry her must return today to his native land on the steamship "Abraham Lincoln" a sorrowful but wiser man. The young woman was under severe nervous strain when seen by a Record reporter Friday evening but said she could pass the matter off as a joke now because she had changed her mind about barons, titles, etc.

Mrs. Stadia went New York on the 12.57 train Friday afternoon accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Henry Ebert. They carried enough money to pay Baron Schuep's admission into this country to which he came without friends or kindred. The meeting was not very romantic. A policeman and a reporter for one of the New York dailies escorted the hopeful widow to the ship's side. There on the deck stood the baron expectantly waiting for the writer of ardent love epistles and promises to marry. She said he was quite distinguished looking but could not pay his way. His financial status began to assume greater and greater importance to the little widow who has been earning her own living since she arrived. The more she thought about her predicament the she became convinced that she was not acting wisely. It was one thing to pay $35 to secure her life partner and quite another thing to find him a job, which is quite necessary even in a free country. Without asking his advice or even exchanging a word with the ardent suitor from Bottlenburg she turned on her heel and walked away.

The two women returned on the 1.54 train. Mrs. Stadia was all smiles when interviewed at her home, she said she was glad she had turned down her German lover because he had represented in her letters that she was the heiress of a great fortune, but claimed that she had told her distant wooer only the truth. She said she had made up her mind to laugh the whole thing off. Being an accomplished woman she was not at all ignorant of the fact that her little plans had interested the reading public of not only Meriden but the whole state and New York city as well. The widow shows individuality in dress and the gown she wore to please the baron's eye was black with red satin trimmings, Mrs. Stadia is employed as dressmaker bu B. Danle's, the ladies' tailor. Her associates say she's a very talented young woman, plays the piano, sings and talks fluently in the best German.

[1] http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2513&dat=19120328&...

[2] http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2513&dat=19111111&...

reCATPCHA supposedly uses scans of old NYT articles like this as the source image for some of their challenges. The idea is to harness crowd intelligence to digitize their archives. One half of the challenge is a word whose meaning is known and the other is one that still needs human intelligence to interpret.

So it's a little sad then that, when you click through to the actual article, you get to read a blown up image.

I wonder about that since I invariably get one legible word in reCAPTCHA, and one junk word. Not just illegible or non-OCR-able, but actually nonsense strings of letters, e.g. "umower", "dealiff", "etstcom". My theory is that the source OCR is incorrectly breaking up words, so some words get split into multiple parts. And reCAPTCHA is useless for that.

The way it works is that the one legible word is the control string, and the other one is the challenge string -- in cases like this it's obvious which is which, but not always. The challenge string could be comprised of characters from different scans, each of which had failed recognition by OCR software.

The control word is there to prove that you're a human, and the challenge word is there for you to provide a small amount of work. In this case the work could benefit different scans at one time.

The archive is full-text-searchable, though, so they must have something internally. Not sure if they just don't want to expose it, or if it's OCR with too many errors to be presentable to the public.

For some reason it makes me happy to see that it's not a new phenomenon to make such a big deal about something so pointless and manmade.

It looks like The Verge website today (http://www.theverge.com/).

amazing! I can just imagine someone reading this a hundred years ago, not knowing all that was to transpire over the coming century. Who knows what the world will be like in 2111?

The first thing that struck me about this is how word-dense the page is compared to current newspapers.

That's definitely due to the cost of printing. The whole paper was only 20-25 pages back then too.

Newspapers have a lot less than 25 pages of content these days, but a lot more ads.

In Thailand it's the year 2554. Just a bunch of numbers, who cares.

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