Read my new article on OZY.com about the Laserman, the Swedish serial killer. 

At a time when a nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment was sweeping through Sweden, a political party took advantage. The New Democracy party fed on those fears, and created a space where Swedes could "say what they thought." One result? A man got the idea that it would be OK to shoot immigrants with a laser-sighted rifle. Read the article for more, and if you speak Swedish, check out the Sveriges Radio P3 Dokumentär that informed some of my reporting.

A police sketch of the Laserman, courtesy of the Swedish Police Museum.

Read my article on OZY.com about the Drunkometer.

From "Intoxication Tests - Chemical Tests in Action," reprinted from Public Safety Magazine, published by the National Safety Council, 1948. Courtesy of the National Safety Council.

Not everything great can make it into an article, so I've included some more images and documents here on the blog!

Friday is Women's Equality Day, and given Hillary's nomination, now seems about as good a time as any to see some images from the women's suffrage movement. 

"The greatest thrills of the campaign came with the street parades.... I marched in one in Baltimore and in the famous one staged in Washington the day before the first inauguration of President Wilson.... The professional women in cap and gown, lawyers, doctors, teachers and students formed a conspicous section of the parade." - Dr. Lillian Welsh, Reminiscences of Thirty Years in Baltimore

Photograph courtesy of the Goucher College Special Collections.

Photograph courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society

Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Some fun typefaces from advertisements in a Frederick, Maryland paper from December 18, 1885. 

We're right in between the 2016 Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, and things feel a bit divided. Maybe some images of Lady Liberty will help keep our spirits up?

Everyone is in place, waiting. Money and honor are on the line. The gate comes up. Bang! They're off! 

Peace activist and priest Daniel Berrigan passed away this past week at the age of 94. 

"Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators during the trial of the Catonsville Nine, Oct. 5-9, 1968. Photo by William Morgenstern/ UMBC AOK Library."

Wait, what? Easter? Witches? 

Don't worry, they are mostly friendly witches! These photos from Nordiska Museet.

It's 1902. Two young girls are conjoined near the waist. A daring doctor decides to separate them and film it. 

In a typical side-show cabinet card promotional photograph, Radica and Doodica stare just to the right of the viewer, no doubt very used to the fact that people paid to stare at them.      Frederick Drimmer briefly describes the lives of Radica and Doodica in his book Very Special People. They were born in Orissa, India in 1888 and by the early 1890s, on display in Europe with circuses. For Radica and Doodica, it wasn't just the fact that they were conjoined twins that made them exotic, it was also that they were South Asian. The Victorian Era was a time of putting the exotic on display (including that time the Bronx zoo put a small Congolese man in a cage...), and Radica and Doodica were no exception, often dressed in "traditional clothing" during shows.