The days of the cave man have passed. Physical strength no longer gives prowess to the individual. What the twentieth century demands is the trained intellect. The man who knows is the man of the hour.

The Standard Question Book and Home Study Outlines, The Frontier Press Company, Buffalo, New York. 1919.

This is the first official post in the revitalized series, Crappy Old Books of the Months, though I did briefly mention the series a day or so ago.

The Standard Question Book and Home Study Outlines is but a little supplement, aimed at calling “attention to the vast amount of information available in [the] one volume reference work” that is our Crappy Old Book of January, 2019, The Standard Dictionary of Facts ( Henry W. Ruoff ed. The Frontier Press Company, Buffalo, N.Y. 1914.) More cynically, the Question Book was probably aimed at selling more Dictionaries, but let us not judge the folks in Buffalo, New York.

STOP!

I understand that you may not be acquainted with how wonderful and entertaining a dictionary of facts from 100 years ago may be, so I’m asking you to trust me. I have spent considerable time studying these sorts of books and they are gold mines! It is absolutely true that they are the funniest– how wrong and backward were people 100 years ago? Let’s go look and see! They are also humbling– how wrong and backward will we be in 2119? Quite, I’m sure.

Plus, you can learn a lot of stuff from these sorts of crappy old books. Did you know that wax myrtles used to go by the name “candleberries”? That Memphis was destroyed by war and decay around 600 A.D.? Or that this is what Victor Hugo looked like?

So stick with me– give The Standard Dictionary of Facts a chance.