1800s

The Urinary Leash

RETRO

The first women’s public toilets in London opened on Bedford St on 11th February, 1852 – attempting to capitalize on the success of George Jennings’ ‘monkey closets’, used by over 800,000 visitors to the 1851 Great Exhibition. Unfortunately, even though the facility had been fought for by campaigning women’s sanitary organizations, middle and upper class …

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The Hashish Club

RETRO

Theophile Gautier’s account of ‘green jam’ cannabis consumption at the drug-addled dinner parties of the ‘Club des Hachichins’ – alongside literary figures Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac – was first published in Revue des Deux Mondes on 1st February, 1846. The Club, founded by psychiatrist Dr Jacques Joseph Moreau to establish the psychedelic effects …

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The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

RETRO

Before becoming the most valuable poem in American Literature, ‘A Visit From St. Nicholas’ was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel on 23rd December, 1823 – its author remaining a secret for fourteen years. The work, commonly known as ‘The Night Before Christmas’, was eventually revealed to be written by philosopher and lecturer Clement Clark …

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