I used to be a swimmer; I’d spend my summers hanging from the pool’s edge, wolfing Laffy Taffy, rescuing frogs, and slowly frying on a worn Snoopy beach towel on the adjacent, boiling tennis courts. I was ten. Then puberty hit and it all fell apart. Boobs, hips and height washed over me, and my body felt unfamiliar and not my own.

While talking with my friend Jaime, reflecting on New York City beaches, I realized that I haven’t even put on a swimsuit for three years. Three years! And I haven’t even been to any of those beaches! Not the mythical, taco laden Rockaways, the nudist-friendly dunes of Fort Tilden or any of the other sandy entrances to the Atlantic. It’s a shame, really. I miss swimming, and I’ve never even overcome my personal equator (waistline) while standing at the water’s edge.

Reflecting on these historic bathing suits — modeled during the late ’30s in a retrospective of past swimsuits (lots of stockings and pantaloons) and future, imaginary renditions — I’m reminded that I shouldn’t view the beach as a vaguely threatening expanse filled with broken bottles and judgment; I should revel in the fact that I don’t have to wear pantaloons! Or a bikini! And that bathing suits are not, in fact, inherently scary. If anything, they’re playful and fun and maybe even a treat. How often can you feel so unencumbered and float, weightless, in a massive sea?

I’ll take one of the bathing suits with a cape, please. Body confidence: in for 2011.

[Images via New York Public Library Archives]

Isn’t this house a dream? The owner, a writing professor in Philadelphia, bought this 19th-century house in Nantucket and furnished it with all-secondhand finds to create what she calls an “instant heirloom house.” Fun fact: the home was once owned by Samuel Robbins, a first mate on a whaling ship who died at sea in the 1820s. I’m a fan of the many nautical, New England paintings and artifacts.

See more photos at The New York Times.

I’m trying to keep myself from buying this amazing antique sleep mask from Ethanollie (look at the eyes!), so I thought I’d post it here, in the hopes that someone else would buy it.

And….go!

What’s that foolish old adage: “Boys don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses”? I don’t think that’s the case, if these stylish ladies are any indication. The hunt for new glasses is most decidedly on!

Each photo links to the furniture in question.

This “turkey tracks” crazy quilt was made in the 1930s. If I ever found something like this, I’d hold it so tight, I’d never let go.

This African American improvisational quilt was originally constructed to raise money for the temperance movement (a.k.a. outlawing alcohol) in the ’20s. It looks so contemporary!

And finally, this Japanese indigo-dyed quilt from the 19th century is beyond beautiful. It has the color and texture of perfect, ancient blue jeans.

I am waiting with bated breath for Todd Haynes’s Mildred Pierce. The trailer is so beautiful!

The tools of the optometrist trade make for great conversation.

Find it here.

This ring leaves me speechless.

Aren’t these handkerchiefs striking? Political ballyhoo as eloquent art form. I can’t say I’d want a George W. or a Reagan portrait on my wall anytime soon (maybe Bill Clinton, actually — silver fox!), but these politicians of yore are positively charming. Find many more at relics in Cornell University Library’s textile collection, conveniently available on Flickr.

[Via Miss Moss, my new favorite blog.]

I have always wanted to live in an old, ramshackle house. I grew up continually moving from one newish house to another, constantly renovating, knocking down walls, putting up new; in fact, my family spent three years turning a 1950s ranch into a two-story behemoth, all by ourselves. (It’s pretty damn traumatizing to live in a construction zone for that long.) My wish has always been to live somewhere old — really, really old, like 200 years or more — and not change a thing. Nothin’. Maybe wipe down the windows, a fresh coat of paint, but I want that decay. I want that history. I want that story. I do not want wall-to-wall carpeting.

This ridiculously beautiful building, located in Selma, Alabama, was originally constructed as a Jewish men’s club in 1909. Boarded up for forty years, the current owner has created a livable space (minus all the pigeon crap) while maintaining the originality and character of the building. (Granted, it did take years. Can I just find a place that looks like this already?) The bathroom alone gives me chills — need an antique crucifix, stat. And can we talk about the pile of rusted industrial fans? Never has a pile looked so good.

See the full slideshow and read the article for more information.

The gorgeous photos are by Robert Rausch of GAS Design Center.

[Via]

JB and I just burned through all three seasons of Deadwood. I didn’t know if I could get down with a western, but I seriously loved it! (I ended up covering my head with a blanket during some of the more grisly moments, but the incredible characters and actors make up for the violence. Quite Shakespearean, Deadwood.) With that in mind, this undated cabinet photo from Waverly, Iowa looks pretty familiar! The ‘staches, the dirt “thoroughfare,” the dudes in windows and the many small businesses are oddly reminiscent of the show — or, you know, the other way around. (“Chicken or the egg,” and all that.) I’m captivated.

Available here.

[Via]

Somehow, I’ve still yet to visit Dead Horse Bay. The area has been used as a facility to manufacture fertilizer from the remains of dead animals (that’s where the Dead Horse comes from), at one point produced fish oil from menhaden caught in the bay, and served as a landfill for New York City’s garbage. Such history! Getting some grime under my fingernails and digging up 100-year-old sunken bottles is my idea of a fantasy weekend.

“When/ This You/ See/ Remember/ Me When/ I.am. Far/ From The(e)”

These delicate etched coins are, in fact, handmade love tokens (“leaden hearts”) made by English convicts being transported to Australia. Whether these artifacts were actually given to a beloved or stashed somewhere to be found by a stranger, being deported for the life of a convict didn’t provide much hope for a reunion. Remembrance was the goal. According to the National Museum of Australia Canberry,

“Convict love tokens, typically made of smoothed down coins and engraved or stippled with a message, provide a poignant, personal insight into the transportation system, as well as its transnational character. Also known as ‘leaden hearts’, the tokens stem from traditional sailors’ farewells. Convict tokens were made for the whole of the Transportation period in New South Wales and Tasmania, with the majority produced during the 1820s and 1830s. As objects purposely made by or for convicts to give as mementoes, to be left behind when the prisoner was transported, the tokens are a unique part of the record of a convict’s transportation experience.”

[Via]

This Spanish shrine is so petite and cute! I love the handmade details, the scrolling artwork and the closing doors. Find it on Etsy.

This antique dressing mirror is magic! I love the muddled glass.

Oma Vintage is just killing it lately. So many classic looks and such great styling!

…You’ve were one lucky little girl! This enormous dollhouse was loved, I’m sure — I wish the furniture was still in it for more effective decorating and arranging. Gloriously faded and used, this handmade miniature was tagged years ago in childlike all-caps with “NANCY ALLEN.” What I would do with a dollhouse, god only knows, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one as an adult! Available at 1st Dibs.

[Via Anonymous Works]

I’ve been pining after an antique football (the really old kind that’s like a huge, deflated prune) or baseball glove for a while, and I can’t really explain it for the life of me. I’m not much of a “sports person,” if you couldn’t already tell! (I don’t follow baseball, I didn’t watch the World Series and I don’t really know what the gravity or significance of that specific game is.) HOWEVER! I do love antique leather, and these worn-ass gloves, owned by famed players of the past century that played in the World Series, are pretty damn cool. See their stories in the New York Times Magazine.

“The old phones came to be indispensable to anyone who longed for a complex social and emotional and aesthetic life, a reliable vocal-auditory miracle, intimacy, friendship, romance, furious down-slammings, hissed interruptions and the awesomely strange sensation, via the mouth- and earpieces, of being inside someone else’s accent, intonations and sighs, ear canal and larynx and lungs.

“Your phone voice was distinctive; your phone manner was distinctive. You thought a great deal about people who rhythmically and mysteriously inhaled and exhaled cigarette smoke while they talked or left long silences or didn’t hang up immediately after saying goodbye.

“A conversation could last hours upon dazed hours, as you sat on your parents’ bed, twirling the curly cord, or hauled the house phone into the bathroom, the better to monopolize family telecommunications. Chortling, gasping, sighing, sobbing, throats catching or forming word after idle or impassioned word: you made every sound that humans make and thus joined your solitudes.”

This New York Times Magazine piece on the death of the analog phone makes me pretty nostalgic. I’d forgotten about so many of the niceties of using an “old style” phone: the pleasant weight of the receiver, mindfulness of not calling during dinner hour or after 9 p.m., and the feeling of surprised importance when your presence was requested on the line by a faux-receptionist sister (“It’s for you.”). I count myself lucky to have grown up with such a stolid and dependable mechanism. In fact, in my house we answered the phone “Feldmann’s,” like it was a grocery store or a bar. Odd, in retrospect — but even more odd that babies today create imaginary cellphones out of blocks and hold them up to their heads, murmuring hellos and goodbyes and “Can you hear me now?”, but in tiny burbling toddler words. (True story. My friend’s nephew would always play with “his phone” like this.)

What do you miss about the phone?

Home movies are such a treat. Peering into the lives of others at the beach, on birthdays and Christmas just never gets old for me. This gem, documented at a Halloween dinner party in 1939, is so silent and quaint! Why aren’t there costumes like that anymore?

[Via The Look See]

I’m obsessed with searching for stuff from the World War One era, and Etsy does not disappoint. This collection of sixty postcards were sent from an British sergeant stationed in Russia to his family and friends. This is what makes me want to start a journal (for real this time). Save your correspondence, friends!

See more here!

I also found this German relic from the same era. It was sent by an American soldier to his wife at home. The address?

Mrs. B. Seldin Feldman
30 Nostrand Ave
Brooklyn, New York USA

The listing states that if you “know a Feldman in Brooklyn, pass it on!” If this isn’t meant for me, I don’t know what is! (Wrong spelling of Feldmann, but whatevs.)

The embroidered banners of the suffragist movement were many things: informative, aggressive, sometimes even philosophical or motivational. There’s something about the handiwork that went into these that make them much more powerful than a markered sign at a protest. I wonder if any are still around… (Can’t you see me already rushing to eBay to look?)

[Via Secret Holiday, who's making contemporary banners inspired by these!]

This has got to be the most accomplished sand sculpture I’ve ever laid eyes on. Whoever created this monumental bust obviously realized that this was a once in a lifetime sculpture and documented it for posterity with this photograph — that’s now for sale on eBay. Check out the details: I see the words “grains of sand,” “cast up by the sea” and even Teddy Roosevelt’s face. Wow!

[Via Anonymous Works]

Lately I’ve been scouring Etsy vintage for folk art and original paintings. Here are a few favorites I found (and managed not to buy) during my internet travels.

[From top: Vintage Photograph: Through the Keyhole; 1937 Nature Scrapbook by Beverly, Age 10; Carved Bust of Woman Holding Roses; Sunlight and Horses Photograph; Mid-century Viking Bowl; Hand-carved Duck Made of Twigs; Brass Caterpillar; Antique 1890s Log Cabin Pillow; Art Deco French Alarm Clock; Glass Eyed Dog Postcard]

Wow. This cabinet card is magical! Circa 1890, it shows a famous horse named White Wings, who was a popular sideshow and circus attraction of the Victorian Era.

Interestingly enough, on the back of the photo in old ink somebody wrote: ”ASTORS PET HORSE.” I wonder which Astor?

It’s like playing cat’s cradle, but with an enamel roller attached! Oh, yo yos.

[Via Stopping Off Place]

I’m a bit quilt obsessed. I have a linen closet steeped with antique quilts made by my grandmother and aunts, and I sleep with a worn purple number given to my as a gift by my mother (garage saled!). I lie with them on the couch, I buy them anywhere I can find them, and I keep diminutive quilt remnants on the edges of drawers as little reminders. JB, thoughtful as always, found a book on quilts — The Quilts of Gee’s Bend: Masterpieces From a Lost Place — and knew that I would love it. These functional art pieces are all kinds of beautiful, as you can plainly see; however, there’s also a fascinating back-story to the Gee’s Bend community.

“Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850. After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an ‘Alabama Africa’ — to this sleepy hamlet.

“The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present.

“Throughout much of the twentieth century, making quilts was considered a domestic responsibility for women in Gee’s Bend. As young girls, many of the women trained or apprenticed in their craft with their mothers, female relatives, or friends; other quilters, however, have been virtually self-taught. Women with large families often made dozens upon dozens of quilts over the course of their lives.”

For more photos and quilted goodness, check out the Quilts of Gees Bend Catalog. And get the book! Seeing all of the photos up close and in bound form is a delicious experience.

[I'd forgotten about this book until I saw these beautiful photo on Cursive Design. Thanks for the reminder, Sarah!]

Just bought this 1926 pastel beauty after seeing it on my new favorite daily read, Ashley’s List. Girl knows good design and finds the best deals — I have no idea how she finds them, but they’re incredible. These moody little sheep will be going above my mantle.

My idea of the ultimate score: a watercolor folk art rendition of Abe Lincoln on his deathbed. Wow. Now available on eBay.

[Via Anonymous Works]