Rosemary's Queue

National Poetry Month - Day Seven

Threshold by Maggie Smith

hi, a lot of you need a perspective reset

the thing is you're like obviously Austen was spectacularly talented at lampooning the worst kinds of people in a universal way that is still deeply relevant today and then you actually read some Austen again and you think wow she really was spectacularly talented at lampooning the worst kinds of people in a universal way that is still deeply relevant today

I don't see people talking about this so today is the 110th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in where the factory owners locked working women and girls inside to "eliminate the risk of theft" (in reality it was too keep them from taking breaks), which resulted in the gruesome deaths of 123 mostly immigrant women and girls and 23 men, many of whom jumped to their deaths from the ninth floor either in a panicked attempt to escape or in order to die quickly. There were reports that some of the workers were on fire already as they jumped.

The eighth floor of the building was able to telephone the tenth floor to warn them about the fire, but the factory on the ninth floor where these women and girls labored had no such communication and such warning.

The factory owners were criminally charged with manslaughter for actions that contributed to the mass deaths but acquitted. However, this tragedy led to mass sympathy to the labor movement, and unions spurred on safety regulations that passed in New York state and eventually the entire country, and activists were able to reduce child labor in the process.

This tragedy is a reminder that has been forgotten in the 110 years since: every safety regulation-- every scrap of paperwork contributing to the hundreds of pages of red tape people like to complain about--every word of it was written in the blood of a laborer.

111th anniversary

They were discouraged from breaks because they were actively trying to unionize, and bosses felt that keeping them from unsupervised contact would prevent them from joining the garment workers' union.

This is why unions are important. This is why today, right now, the biggest companies in America are trying to squash unionization of their laborers and why those workers are fighting so hard to unionize.

@tikkunolamorgtfo did a great write-up a few years ago about the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and I highly recommend reading it (and anything else you can about the fire). It is painfully relevant still and it's incredibly important women's, Jewish, immigrants', and workers' history.

#most of the girls working there were either jewish immmigrants or southern italian immigrants #two of the more exploited immigrant groups at the turn of the century particularly in nyc but elsewhere too #the labor history element of it can't be overemphasized tbh (x)

An aesthetic that first appears to be pure and basic Heterosexuals Are At It Again, but becomes increasingly uncomfortable until you finally understand:

these babygrows (onesies) with parental professions on eBay.

An entrepreneurial sort, eBay user “justtheshirt” realized that for some people, the perfect gift for, say, the baby of a beekeeper is a onesie saying “Daddy’s Little Beekeeper.” In fact, the more obscure the profession, the more excited the customer will feel about the representation! So they took a list of All the Professions, and generated a listing for each one. If someone buys a onesie, they can stamp it with whatever the listing said - and make a rather enormous profit, on a £3 onesie, having made exactly one design and used one script. Genius!

The issue is, they didn’t curate the list. Not a single human appears to have overseen this process. So they have inadvertently created some uncomfortably themed babywear, like “Daddy’s Little Maid,” “Daddy’s Little Nightwalker,” and “Daddy’s Little Courtesan.”

The database also contained a massive proportion of obscure Medieval English professions, like “fulker” and “meader” and “whipcord maker.” (The auto-generated listing enthuses something like, “the perfect gift for a whipcord maker - or just for someone who wishes they were one!”)

There are onesies for babies whose daddies are herbalists, muleteers and sacristans.

I have come full circle in my feelings about this and now I am all in favor of dressing babies in these, as long as the profession is incredibly obscure, and the daddy in question refuses to explain anything.

Honestly the perfect gift.

The rare gift that suits invertebrates AND veterinarians!

Horseleech took me halfway out and “Daddy’s little strikebreaker” finished the job

I mean, after all of that, “Daddy’s Little Mortician” just has some wholesome spooky vibes to it that seems comparatively normal.

I sent my mom a picture of a little Caesars box and said “guess what time it is!🔪”

And she calls back all concerned, asking me what’s going on and why the knife emoji

Me: …it’s the ides of march?

Her: okay? And?

Me: and Julius Caesar. Little Caesar’s.

Her: What about him?!

Me: He was killed on march 15th?

Her:*gasp* THANKS FOR THE SPOILER-

I am being so serious right now.

Apparently she’s been watching this show on HBO and she didn’t know when he was going to die, and now she’s annoyed at me for “spoiling” it.

AITA for spoiling something that happened 2068 years ago??

YTA for sure.

Et tu, Child of Historically Obvious Woman? Et tu?!?!?

Brutus committed to the bit 100%.

Brutus, buddy, this is absolutely hilarious, but I think I understand now why Dante put you in the lowest pit of hell.

Fortunately, the lowest pit of hell is Tumblr

why does this have 32k notes? it’s just a picture of a knife in a ranch bottle, is there some unspoken joke that 32 thousand people share? what is going on here, i dont get it. it’s just a fucking picture of a knife in a ranch bottle. is there some spiritual connection people have to this picture? is there some ominous and mystical reasoning that this has 32 thousand notes? do people reblog this because it makes them look like some indie blogger? or is there just something funny to this? someone please explain

no one tell him

This is it, lads. The post that started us on this path 9 years ago.

I sure hope no one told him.

Its that time of the year again. Praise

I’m not like, super religious but I do celebrate the major holidays (an ides’er and greason’s tumblric)

this is my favourite thing ever

Uk peeps!! Let’s get this going! 🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇧

...Non-UK peeps, please reblog for reach ❤️

Not an invitation to cocoon yourself in a self-care bubble for four years, but a reminder to the 24/7 worriers that you can literally write "To Do on Monday: Worry about ________" on a post-it note and stop worrying about it for one day while you recharge.

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

Good night to only the team names at the Seattle women’s hockey club

Why do right-wing memes make us look so cool. I support these gay anarchists and their dog backpack

Do you always get smooches and a dachshund from joining antifa? If the answer is yes, how do I?

I love your enthusiasm but have you ever seen a dachsund in your earthly life

[image description: the text “When he comes back home safely from his armed Antifa protest” above a photo of two white men in hiking clothes kissing. One wears a dog in a backpack. The dog is significantly bigger than a dachshund.]

How dare the ID be funnier than the rest of the post

a long time ago i watched a tik tok from an older trans woman, in her 60’s or 70’s. someone had commented on another video of hers asking “why don’t we ever see trans men from your generation? why aren’t they involved in activism?” and her response was “because a lot of them died.” she told stories abt the trans men she knew who committed suicide rather than be married off and forced to live as a woman, or died from medical neglect or botched abortions. “they would be here if they could, but they can’t because the world failed them.”

LOU SULLIVAN MENTIONED!!!!

and a shoutout to the two Māori men who travelled to Vienna in 1859, got themselves apprenticed as printers (and incidentally became accomplished ballroom dancers), and finally had an audience with Franz Josef where they charmed him so much that he sent a printing press to New Zealand….which was promptly used from 1861 to print the newspaper of the Kingitanga anti-colonial movement.

Just researched a bit- they’re names are Wiremu Toetoe and Te Hemara Rerehau Paraone and it’s quite a fascinating story.

NZ National Library page about them