A snapshot of how Owensboro welcomed 1926
Happy New Year — again!
It’s a greeting we human beings have been exchanging for millennia, accompanied by reviews and reflections on the year gone by and prospects and predictions for the year yet to come.
As we turn back the pages of time to Owensboro of a century ago, we see the truth of the old adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
One hundred years ago, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer newspaper headlines issued dire warnings about – gasp! – climate change and global warming. Meteorologists predicted that the summers of 1926 and 1927 would be “summerless,” with cold temperatures, heavy rain and unfavorable growing conditions leading to crop failures. A major volcanic eruption would prove catastrophic. “Keep your fur coats, heavy undies and galoshes handy,” advised one so-called “expert” — whose warnings were refuted by the U.S. Weather Bureau, which scoffed that long-range weather forecasting was a “scientific impossibility.”
Less ominous (except for the most old-fashioned and prudish among us!) were the predictions of Ernie Young, who was called the “Flo Ziegfeld of the middle west.” His experience in working with young ladies in the theatre industry qualified him as an authority whose predictions “have always come true.” He described the young woman of 1926 as a flapper, saying “everything about her will be shorter, from hair to skirts.” Most notably, her complexion would be “ghastly white … the face of a corpse” as young women would “endeavor by every cosmetic means to resemble, as closely as possible, a spook.”
“She will weigh between 115 and 120 pounds,” Young prophesied. “She will balance with dexterity a cigaret holder no less than 10 inches long between her teeth. Her costume will be of the eight-ounce variety and will affect the pattern of vertical-striped silk. As for ‘undies,’ she will do without or reduce them to the utmost irreducible minimum. … Her slogan will be more freedom and less clothes. Altogether, she will be very enjoyable and cute and we will love her more than ever.”
For what it’s worth: The weather in 1926 was pretty much the same as always, and few photographs are to be found of ladies of that era looking like corpses.
But the arrival of the New Year was still an occasion to celebrate in Owensboro in 1926. Residents of the city hosted “radio parties,” with most tuned in to hear the ringing of the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia, sounded for the first time in 90 years, or a broadcast of the chimes from London Tower, or a concert by the U.S. Marine band. The country club hosted a dance of the Married Couples group, while church services and movie theaters offered programs for those so inclined.
Far beyond the borders of Daviess County, at least one visionary predicted the development of “the airplane of the day after tomorrow,” promised to “(soar) in one gigantic 20-hour leap across the Atlantic.”
“The huge metal albatross” would feature three bodies, the central body dedicated to the navigation and flight crew, while the lateral bodies would contain “lobbies, dining halls, salons and first-class cabins.”
When all is said and done, however, we would do well to reflect upon the closing verse of a poem dedicated to the New Year of 100 years ago:
“It’s you who have your life to live.
Success or failure — which?
A heap depends on what you give
To make the whole world rich.
To smile. To work. Ah, that’s an art
To which the wise man sticks.
There is no better time to start
Than nineteen-twenty-six.”
Or, for that matter, in twenty-twenty-six. OL
