Bruce's Smorsasborg

 By Bruce Shawkey I've been intrigued with typewriters and adding machines since I was a kid. I think I started to type when I was about seven, fueled in great by the fact that my mom was a secretary and used both machines as part of her job. Later, I would become a writer and journalist, and part of those jobs is being able to touch type. I took two semesters of typing in high school, and learned on an electric typewriter, an IBM Selectric (with the type ball) which I thought was pretty high tech at the time. Later, I worked at the Wisconsin State Journal and typed on a Harris "dumb terminal," which of course replaced the giant Merganthaler Linotype machines. Here are some typewriters and adding machines from the Internet Archives. Here, of course, is Christopher Sholes, credited as being the inventor of the modern typewriter. Note that he is from Milwaukee, Wis. Here are a couple of early typewriters from the Remington company: A typewriter chair. Man, this looks uncomf...

 By Bruce Shawkey George Eastman's goal was to make picture=taking a pleasurable and affordable experience for the common man. To that end, his company produced the "Brownie" camera in 1919.  It is said that Kodak named the camera the "Brownie" because the name was inspired by the popular children's book characters "Brownies" created by Palmer Cox, which depicted small, mischievous sprites. The name also partially referenced the camera designer, Frank Brownell, with the "Brown" connection.Kodak named their camera the "Brownie" because the name was inspired by the popular children's book characters "Brownies" created by Palmer Cox, which depicted small, mischievous sprites, making it a fitting name for a camera marketed towards children and designed to be simple and accessible for anyone to use; the name also partially referenced the camera designer, Frank Brownell, with the "Brown" connection. Here is the...

 By Bruce Shawkey Found this fun cookbook on the Internet for kids. Here are some sample recipes: Breakfast: Lunch: Dinner

When the school bell rings for noon recess, millions of America’s school children hear it as the call to a good lunch. Yearly more communities are organizing to give their children a meal at noontime that meets at least one-third of the food needs for the day. For the school lunch program pays dividends now and for the future—dividends in better marks on report cards, in fewer absences from school because of illness, and in building in countless ways stronger, more alert citizens of tomorrow. For many years the Department of Agriculture has fostered the school lunch program. First by providing menus and recipes for the use of schools where the services of a trained dietitian were not available. Then in pre-war days by distribution of foods in surplus. Beginning in February 1943, the War Food Administration developed a new plan fer assisting community school lunch programs. This gives financial aid to sponsoring agencies for the purchase of foods locally, to the end that the school lunc...