My Word with Douglas E. Welch

The Sifter is a beautiful database of 5,000 historical cookbooks via Input [Food]

For that past 50 years, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton has been meticulously compiling the information of historical cookbooks in Europe, North America, and beyond, including ingredients, illustrations, and backgrounds about the people behind each morsel. That labor is now available for the world to behold in the form of the beautiful and old-school-style database known as the Sifter.

Read The Sifter is a beautiful database of 5,000 historical cookbooks via Input 

On Nextdoor I often see posts like “What is going on? Why are there helicopters overhead? Why am I hearing sirens?” and others. This is natural, as we all want to stay in touch with what is happening in our neighborhood and city,

There are several ways you can sort out what is going on and one great source is Twitter. Here in the San Fernando Valley, we have a great resource in @sfvscanner, an account that monitors scanner traffic and seeks to keep people informed of major events in their area.

I follow this account, among others, and even have notifications set up on my phone for each tweet that they post. This might be overkill for most people, though. You can also use it as an on-demand resource whenever something is happening and you want to know more.

That said, scanner traffic is notoriously of-the-moment and can show the confusion of an event in progress. It is important to not take everything mentioned as gospel, but rather as a reason to avoid particular areas where police and fire activity is occurring. They also delay or avoid posting information that is too sensitive at the moment to not compromise police operations. They will then post the information once the event has been completed.

By staying aware of public safety activities in our neighborhoods we can protect ourselves and our neighbors and help improve our civic life.

Additional Twitter accounts I follow include:

• LA Fire Department (@lafd)
• KNX News Radio (@KNX1070)
• Emily Valdez, KNX News Radio (@EmilyValdezKNX)
• Brian Douglas, KNX News Radio (@BrianDouglasKNX)
• CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE)
• ABC Eyewitness News (@ABC7)

So, just what is “civics” anyway?

Civics is defined as: the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens.

Civic education is the study of the theoretical, political and practical aspects of citizenship, as well as its rights and duties. It includes the study of civil law and civil code, and the study of government with attention to the role of citizens―as opposed to external factors―in the operation and oversight of government. — League of Women Voters of Delaware.

In order to have the government we want, we need to both understand and engage in civics activities in our local communities. I am dedicated to doing better in 2021. How about you?

Things To Do Outdoors With The Internet Archive

Summer is in full swing, but in many areas recreational facilities are closed and gatherings limited. Wondering how to stay entertained when movie theaters, pools, summer camps, amusement parks, playgrounds, concerts, and sporting events are all canceled or closed? The Internet Archive has a huge number of resources that you can use to make your own fun. Here are a few ideas for activities you can do in small groups, outdoors, for free, AND while using our collections!

Things To Do Outdoors With The Internet Archive

I have been eagerly waiting for this since it was first announced and my good friend Daniel let me know this morning (via our family and friends Discord server) that it was finally available here in California. It is not like I have gone much of anywhere for the last 261 days, but it always good to keep aware of what is happening around you.

There is nothing to install. Exposure notifications is built into the iPhone. Just follow the steps below to activate.

Once you activate CA COVID Notify, it does all the work. All you do is keep your bluetooth on. You will only receive alerts if you were in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19. Your privacy is protected as your identity is not known and your location is not tracked.

Set It Up Today!

Complete Information Here

Looking toward the new year, I am making an effort to be more civic-minded and taking more interest in my city, country, state, and country.

Today aI am highlighting the wealth of data available at data.LACity.org. This is public data collected by all the city’s systems and shared online in database format. Today’s resource is a database of all 311 calls (and 311 app requests) for 2020 (and the past, should you wish). 

Have you ever wondered if someone had reported that abandoned sofa on the curb yet? How about the graffiti on the corner or the illegal dumping in the empty lot? Now you can get updated status of these reports and add your own if no one has reported it yet.

MyLA311 Service Request Data 2020

You can slice and dice this data however you wish. I am setting up some custom views for monthly reports and reports by Zip Code and Council District, but they haven’t been approved for public access yet. (Probably the holiday slowing everything down.) Still, you can add filters to limit the data to just your area of interest.

There is a lot of interesting data here that Neighborhood Councils could make use of and it is fairly easy to use.

You can also map the data in various ways, like this…

Check it out!

So, just what is “civics” anyway?

Civics is defined as: the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens.

Civic education is the study of the theoretical, political and practical aspects of citizenship, as well as its rights and duties. It includes the study of civil law and civil code, and the study of government with attention to the role of citizens―as opposed to external factors―in the operation and oversight of government. — League of Women Voters of Delaware.

In order to have the government we want, we need to both understand and engage in civics activities in our local communities. I am dedicated to doing better in 2021. How about you?

Albrecht Düre – BBC In Our Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. These range from his woodcut of a rhinoceros, to his watercolour of a young hare, to his drawing of praying hands and his stunning self-portraits such as that above (albeit here in a later monochrome reproduction) with his distinctive A D monogram. He was expected to follow his father and become a goldsmith, but found his own way to be a great artist, taking public commissions that built his reputation but did not pay, while creating a market for his prints, and he captured the timeless and the new in a world of great change.

With

Susan Foister
Deputy Director and Curator of German Paintings at the National Gallery

Giulia Bartrum
Freelance art historian and Former Curator of German Prints and Drawings at the British Museum

Ulinka Rublack
Professor of Early Modern European History and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge

Listen to this podcast

Links and Further Reading on the BBC Web Site

Looking toward the new year, I am making an effort to be more civic-minded and taking more interest in my city, country, state and country.

Part of this involves being more aware of all the city meetings that take place almost daily here in Los Angeles. 

Today, I am starting with resources that give you links to City Council, City Departments, Neighborhood Councils, and More.

This page provides links to all the public city meeting agendas. I wish it were accessible;e via RSS or other API, but at the very least, this is a place you can add to your “daily/weekly visit” bookmarks list in your browser.

So, just what is “civics” anyway?

Civics is defined as: the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens.

Civic education is the study of the theoretical, political and practical aspects of citizenship, as well as its rights and duties. It includes the study of civil law and civil code, and the study of government with attention to the role of citizens―as opposed to external factors―in the operation and oversight of government. — League of Women Voters of Delaware.

In order to have the government we want, we need to both understand and engage in civics activities in our local communities. I am dedicated to doing better in 2021. How about you?

I love this zoomable interactive display of British & Exotic Mineralogy. To create it, Nicholas Rougeux collected 718 hand-drawn mineral illustrations by James Sowerby sourced from a pair of multi-volume books called British Mineralogy and Exotic Mineralogy, published between 1802 and 1817. Then he arranged them according to hue and brightness in a collage worthy of Knoll.

A great story on how old films, now uploaded to YouTube and elsewhere can hold genealogical resources for those researching families or general history. Also, just a great example of how to approach any research project. — Douglas

Also Check out the Update Video, where I interview a living descendant of the Lochowicz family

In this video I discuss how I was able to identify people in the film 1911 A Trip Through New York City. In one scene of the video there is a well to do looking family being driven around by a chauffeur. The license plate on the car can be clearly seen as 65465, so I wondered if I could identify them through this little piece of information.

I learned through the Federal Highway Administration that there were 81,370 auto-mobiles registered in NY by 1911. I also learned registration was published publicly and quickly found a listing for license plate 65465 in the Brooklyn Life Magazine showing a June 12th, 1911 registration E.M.F. – Mrs. Lochwicz 548 Eighth Street. The car in the video definitely looked like a 1911 E.M.F. Model 30 Touring Car, so I tried to find the family in the 1910 census and was able to find them living at 548 Eighth Street. The household consisted of six people; Head of house Florian Lochowicz, his wife Antoinette Lochowicz (listed as Antonie in the census), their children Francis, Emily, and Elsie, and a servant named Mary Moriarty.

Florian Lochowicz was born in Posen in 1871 and immigrated to America in 1890. His wife Antoinette was a distant cousin of his and she was the daughter of Konstantyn Cornelius Lochowicz and Julia Hectus. Konstantyn had immigrated in 1864, possibly due to the January Uprising in Poland. Florian worked as a barber and became very prominent because J.P. Morgan was patron of Florian’s. Florian died unexpectedly in 1918 but was worth $70,000 at the time of his death. His wife continued running the Barbershops into the 1950s and still lived at their Brownstone home in NYC at 548 Eighth Street.