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The Byelorussian Soviet Republic: 1971


This map appeared in the front cover of the December 1971 issue of Soviet Life magazine. Soviet Life, as you might have guessed, has grown along with its namesake, becoming Russian Life today. Back in the 1970s, the magazine presented the Soviet Union in a less-than-propagandic way, avoiding too much political content and focusing on common life in the USSR. It made it into the hands of Americans, under the agreement that the Soviet regime would distribute the magazine America to citizens of Russia. In this issue, we learn of Belorussia’s contributions to the world, its participation in WWII and the United Nations, and its advances in arts and sciences. Most all of the article content can be found condensed into this illustrated map, showing off everything from classic styles of dress to cheese to construction equipment. The big logo in the middle is the Soviet-era symbol of Belarus, slightly different from an earlier style (which in turn was based on a general Soviet symbol): today’s symbol is strikingly similar, but exchanging the hammer and sickle for their own nation’s outline. While retaining some Soviet symbolism, the country changed its name from the Soviet-sounding “Belorussia” to “Belarus” with their independence.

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Ever-Expanding Fargo

If you had no idea that Fargo has grown in leaps and bounds, let’s look back 25 years. In 1982, this photo was taken for the Binford Guide to commemorate the 10th anniversary of West Acres Mall. The mall is seen in the upper-center area of the photo — and beyond that are miles and miles of farmland. 45th Street, barely visible at the top edge (it was a dirt road then) is about a mile from I-29: today (see a Google Map), the green, lush farmland you see is almost entirely paved and filled with a zoo, the YMCA, the largest Scheels store in the world, a 6-story office building (in which the Infomercantile webserver lives), and numerous other offices, strip malls, big-box retailers, and apartment buildings. The growth of the Fargo area is dumbfounding sometimes; when they talk about rural areas shrinking in population, it’s because they’re coming to the bigger cities. One thing I find most interesting, from both the photo and the aerial map, is the identification of what’s new versus what’s old based on the railroad line that used to run through this part of town. Buildings built on the diagonal were there before the tracks were removed; buildings on the north-south lines are new.

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Hubbard’s Academy of Immortals

In the old days, when a nation’s art and culture were monitored and controlled by the government in power, many added their greatest artistic minds to a roster called the Academy of Immortals.

American popular culture in the 19th century, a young nation with a rebellious streak, prided itself on being a country of the common man: our government was chosen by the unwashed masses (artfully referred to as the “host of Philistia” by critics), our popular music — including our freaking national anthem — were based on barroom tunes, and our art was crude, functional, and primitive. What place does an Academy of Immortals have in our fair, young nation?

By the late 19th century, it was as a cultural jab at Europe. The membership of our country’s Immortals was commonly seen as open to anybody with half a mind to participate: a country of the people, an art-world of the people. Elbert Hubbard, one of my favorite people these days, called his magazine the Philistine in honor of the free-thinking common man who has no time for culture handed down by ivory towers. His subscribers could, for a $10 lifetime membership, receive whatever back-issues he had on hand, and up to 99 years of free stuff — and each one was granted membership in his American Academy of Immortals. Not content to limit membership to existing fans, Hubbard sent out the sheet (seen on the right), to encourage his fans to turn in their buddies. What member of the proletariat did not deserve to be part of an American Academy of Immortals?

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Inside Black’s Store Without A Name


Meet George M Black. The big building on Broadway, the one sprouting up from Elm Tree Square today, bear this gentleman’s name. In 1912, Black opened up his own department store — Black’s — on that spot and began buying up the surrounding property. Black sold his store to Sears and used the money to build the Black Building — but he wasn’t out of the department store racket yet.

The photo above, scanned from a Binford Guide article about the sale of the Black Building in ’86, is of Black overlooking his post-1929 department store. Black had sold his previous store to Sears lock, stock, barrel, and name, resulting in a guy with retail smarts but no catchy name anymore. His solution: call his new shop The Store Without A Name. The marketing was witty — he held a contest to pick a new name, but to everyone’s surprise the majority of the votes went to keep the department store nameless. One bright suggestion was to abbreviate it to the ‘Swan’, but that didn’t have the sticking power of the unnammed shop. The Store Without A Name is now the parking lot next to the Avalon; the Black Building ceased being a department store when Sears moved out to the mall in ’76.

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Bedouins from beyond the Red Sea


This photo, from the Pennsylvania Report Scrapbook, depicts “Bedouins from beyond the Red Sea“. The photo was clipped from some other source, and judging from the paper it’s on and what I can see of it, the photo was cut from a magazine. As the rest of the photos are from no later than 1904, we can place it quite comfortably in the late 1800s or very early 20th century. Bedouins, as you may know, were nomadic herders in northern africa and the arabic regions. Both appear to be women, with children riding on their shoulders (the kid on the left is rather naked), while the woman on the right has no shoes. For as nomadic as the bedouins were, I’d have thought it more difficult to find some willing to stand still in front of a stock backdrop for a family photo.