Blacks Package Company Pickled Pigs Feet --ten cents a pound Salmon--in strips--4 pounds-10 cents. Oyster Gems--10 cents a pound Honey in quart jars--per quart--35 cents Sweet Potatoes-a pound--10 cents. 100 links sausage--18 pounds--25 cents Salad Macaroni-per pound--22 cents-4 pounds--25 cents. The regular Saturday matinees that were such a success last year at the Empire bid fair to again be the event of the week for the children.That is the blackface set of the Georgia Trio.Those three funny comedians have one of the most riotous acts that ever completed an excellent bill at the Empire.They have an act that is a scream. Every night they have had to respond to encore after encore and recall after recall, for their work is the kind that people like.It is so full of fun that they have people on the verge of hysterics. There is one of the oldest acts in vaudeville now playing at the Empire. That is "The Yellow Fang," the Chinese play that is dramatically and compellingly interesting. It is a tale of life in underground Chinatown and is spectacular in the extreme.It is played by the Millard-King Company and is very interesting. A Chinese lantern, darkened with age,which hung in the San Francisco Chinatown for many years in an Opium den is one. Another is opium boxes which were smuggled in.A star with two bullet holes in it is testimony of the dangers that an officer must meet in apprehending opium smugglers. ( There's more describing some additional vaudeville acts-- a singing duet, a juggler and some Dutch wooden shoe dancers. In the beginning of this article when describing the Georgia Trio blackface act , there are some artist renditions of black people that would absolutely get a newspaper shut down and run out of town today. Found this old paper in some things of mine that I hadn't seen for years. Hope you found it interesting)
Hilarious stuff there Scratcho! I have similar memories...from my Grandfather's tales of his youth He backed up a lot of his tales with newspaper clippings...some of which I still have. Vaudeville was the thing. Entertainment on the fly, acts moved around the country freely. Blackface comedy was everywhere. It was totally racist and segregation was solidly enforced at that time. Except for free-wheelin' wild west cantinas that is. And San Francisco, of course.
The town my father grew up in in Pennsylvania was frequented by the Three Stooges. There was a trolley park there that was on the Vaudeville circuit and Moe and Shemp spent time there. Here they are in Jeannette, Pa. Shemp is bending down in the back center with a black hat, Moe in front with the straw hat.
heard about mcclatchy. hard to believe. there was a {townname} bee, everywhere. that was mcclatchy. all of a sudden all gone now. seriously whatha'. more then a hundred years. don't remember what year was their first, every day, some towns twice, morning and evening, and a big load of double supliments on sunday. funnies and features. allie oop and blondie. dennis the menace, little nancy, that catz n jammr kidz, and some of the newer ones. the loyal opposition in sacramento was called the union. that's been gone for more then a couple of decades now too. all we've got now is gannet (and that on the boob tube) and pravda (i mean u.s.a.) today. actually we do have, non-comercial radio like pacifica and kvmr. as for the goings on a hundred years ago, when my parents were kids, they still had horses on city streets. my dad served in world war two and my mom was carried through ellis island, a new born in her mother's arms. there was a switchtower and 19th and R streets, where the very first tract west of the mississippi, which was by then a branch of the sp crossed the wp, and there was a track which connected them for interchange (the light rail follows r street now, and crosses what was then the wp line on an overpass), diagonally opposite the tower, was the huge printing complex of the sacramento bee. still there long after the tower was gone and rt's light rail was running. one of those fixtures that had been there forever. makes me wonder what will become of that building and its presses. there was still a spur off what had been the wp, when i was growing up it had been served by the sp, (both are u.p. now), where multiple whole carloads, of roles of paper to be printed on, where delivered by rail every day. and a motor pool of trucks and vans to deliver the printed papers to drop off points, where local delivery drivers would pick them up and deliver to subscribers in the way early hours of the morning. bright yellow trucks with a white circle and multicolor bee flying out of it carrying a rolled up newspaper. i even had a little cloisone pin, don't remember how i ended up with it, of their logo.
Great--thanks. Remember the old radio shows? The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow--"who know what lurks in the hearts of men--the Shadow does,", Allens Alley, Jack Benny, Fibber Mcgee and Molly, and the one I used to listen to when I was a little kid--Let's Pretend. "Plunk your magic twanger FROGGY." and off they'd go with a story. My gramma used to listen to soap operas of the day--( a name)--Backstage wife, and several others. Of course those were in the 30s, 40s.
