Search results for ""author kerry segrave""

Ticket scalping is as much an American staple as apple pie. Beginning as early as the mid - 1800s, scalpers, known as ""sidewalk men,"" were charging all the traffic would bear for event tickets. Although these speculators were generally viewed as pariah and public opinion was against the practice, legal attempts to limit their activities were far from successful. Boston enacted laws as early as 1873, while Pennsylvania followed suit in 1884. Still, such measures did little good since some laws were declared unconstitutional and, for the ones that were upheld, the fines were negligible with jail time rarely served. Over the years, as moral objections to scalping dimmed, the public became more tolerant as the practice became increasingly prevalent. By the 1950s, the capitalist mantras of free market and economic principles of supply and demand were even being used to justify the practice. This volume details the ways in which scalping has changed over the years from a one-man business to an agency-controlled enterprise, from performances by Jenny Lind to Billy Joel. The book examines the general situation, public opinion and legal perception of scalping for four distinct periods: 1850-1899; 1900-1917; 1918-1949 and 1950-2005. Emphasis is placed on the ways in which public and legal perception of the practice has evolved over this period. Scalping, slowly gaining a more positive status, has become more accepted as part of the economic practice of free market.

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Americans began chewing gum long before 1850, scraping resin from spruce trees, removing any bits of bark or insects and chewing the finished product. Commercially-made gum was of limited availability and came in three types--tree resin, pretroleum-based paraffin and chicle-based--the latter, a natural latex, ultimately eclipsing its rivals by 1920. Once considered a women-only bad habit, chewing gum grew in popularity and was indulged in by all segments of society. The gum industry tried vigorously to export the habit, but it proved uniquely American and would not stick abroad.This book examines the chewing gum industry in America from 1850 to 1920, the rise and spread of gum chewing and the reactions--almost uniformly negative--to the habit from editorial writers, reformers, religious figures, employers and the courts. The age-old problem of what to do with chewed gum--some saved it in lockets around their neck; some shared it with friends--is also covered.

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Hippocrates, one of history's earliest known physicians, once asserted, ""Walking is man's best medicine."" Over the last three centuries, people have endorsed walking for a variety of reasons--health among them. Before the 1700s, people walked as an essential part of their lifestyle. With the coming of the transportation revolution--and the advent of such conveyances as horse-drawn coaches, railways and automobiles--walking became something that was done increasingly out of choice rather than necessity. England's fashionable society engaged in afternoon promenades as a stylish fad. While America's vast distances and sparse settlements made this activity impractical, Americans nevertheless took to walking in other ways, including engaging in long distance walking competitions complete with spectators and prize money. Thus, for most of the twentieth century, the activity of walking was much more than a means of transportation.Beginning with the history of walking as a social activity, the book discusses the various issues which have affected walkers, including increased automobile traffic, the attention of the marketing industry and pedestrian regulations. The work examines the contemplative, psychological and observational qualities of walking as well as famous personalities--including Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, John Keats and John James Audubon--who endorsed these intellectual qualifications. During the 1970s fitness boom, walking was reinvented yet again, becoming an activity of numbers and equations as participants fought to maximize health benefits. The book concludes with a legal analysis of pedestrianism as it relates to sharing space with the automobile.

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