Two things I learned today ...

[elmwood]

… from a report about the history of the Canal District in Buffalo.

1. “Bring out your dead!” isn’t just a line from a Monty Python movie.

Accompanying increasing immigration, commerce, and overcrowding on the waterfront, cholera struck Buffalo periodically in the 1830s and 1840s. The Canal District served as the epicenter of the illness with more virulent outbreaks occurring in 1832, 1834, 1849, and 1854. Of course, the transient population of immigrants passing through Buffalo’s waterfront took the blame (Priebe 1997b; Powell 2001a; Welch 1891:262-265). During the first outbreak in 1832 (the year of Buffalo’s incorporation as a city),

The death carts would patrol the streets, and when there would seem an indication of a death in a house, the driver would shout “bring out your dead.” Bodies were not permitted to remain unburied over an hour or two, if it were possible to obtain carriers, or a sexton to bury them [Welch 1891:264].

2. Lap dances have been around since at least the 1800s.

During the 1880s, it was alleged that “60 percent of the buildings on both sides of Canal street from Erie street to Commercial [street] were houses of prostitution, 30 percent were saloons, and 10 percent grocery stores, etc.” (Rapp 2002, quoting E.E. Cronk). The Only Theater on Canal Street was more of a strip club than a playhouse. At the Only Theater, “the girls would sit down on the men’s lap, pull up their Mother Hubbards so that their bare posterior would be near the man’s masculine appurtenance“ (Rapp 2002, quoting E.E. Cronk).

[essell]

At the Only Theater, “the girls would sit down on the men’s lap, pull up their Mother Hubbards so that their bare posterior would be near the man’s masculine appurtenance“

That’s got me soooo hot.

[hotflungwok]

Pull up their Mother Hubbards? Then what’s an Old Mother Hubbard? And why did it go to the cupboard? And the dog! It went to the cupboard to the dog a bone! What’s that supposed to mean? I always knew those old nursery rhymes were dirty.

[Nametag]

@hotflungwok

Pull up their Mother Hubbards? Then what’s an Old Mother Hubbard? And why did it go to the cupboard? And the dog! It went to the cupboard to the dog a bone! What’s that supposed to mean? I always knew those old nursery rhymes were dirty.

Mother Hubbards = Drawers & Cupboards

Though I’m confused about why you’d pull UP your drawers…

[cher3]

It’s a kind of dress:

Mother Hubbard dress

[Whammo]

@cher3

It’s a kind of dress:

Mother Hubbard dress - Wikipedia

wow… i long for the days when strippers wore neck to ankle dress’s…

[glee]

@elmwood

1. “Bring out your dead!” isn’t just a line from a Monty Python movie.

It goes back to at least 1665:

The driver’s call of ‘bring out yer dead’ was a cue for those with a death in the house to bring the body out and place it onto the cart.

http://www.historyonthenet.com/Stuarts/great_plague.htm