Cute kitty pix were pretty much the first thing Americans came up with at the dawn of mass media

​Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

The New England Home Magazine

Date: April 2, 1898, and September 4, 1898

Publisher: Boston Sunday Journal

Discovered at: Whately Antiquarian Book Center, Whately, MA

The Cover Promises: The face of a young beauty is just the finishing touch for your potpourri bowl.

Representative Quotes:

“[A Hawaiian] native cannot be persuaded to argue with a white man. He seems to have an instinctive belief that foreigner is shrewder than himself. … They have no business capacity, lacking the power to direct and control, but are trusty, faithful and apt clerks.”