Last night, Melissa Harris-Perry was the guest host of The Rachel Maddow Show and the Best New Thing segment was about scruffy mutt named Owney. Owney was the nation’s most famous canine, riding with Railway Mail Service clerks and mailbags all across the nation from 1888 until his death in 1897. And Owney was a [...]

So you and your family are driving down the road, on your way to some vacation destination spot, and suddenly a giant dog appears — I mean a huge building designed to look like a dog. A classic roadside attraction offering ice cream, coffee, sandwiches, and, of course, hot dogs. It didn’t matter if you [...]

One of the great things about collecting old photographs are the things in the photos — not only the objects and persons the photographer intended you to focus on, but the little extras which make the scene. Like in this vintage photo of Alice White. Clearly designed to promote the movie star, but (as pretty [...]

Absolutely adorable family of vintage Rogers Clean-Grip clothes pins — with little heads and faces of each family member, including the family dog and cat. The vintage plastic clothes pins were called “Clean-Grip” because the plastic did not stain, discolor, or soil the wet laundry like wooden and/or metal clothespins can. Plastic clothespins don’t splinter [...]

I suppose technically, this vintage sawdust stuffed dog belongs to my stuffed animal collection, but like Tigger, I resist calling him a collectible. In truth, I often resist calling things “collectibles,” because that tends to make people think of them as part of some set of things, as opposed to the more individual sentimental reasons [...]

In the 1930′s and 40′s, terriers were quite the popular dog. I usually refer to these terriers as Airedales because they seem so large to me — not ‘to scale’ or anything, but something makes them seem like big dogs rather than smaller ones. But I think because the bodies are more white than brown [...]