We were asked just today, in a random encounter, how we came up with a thousand definitions for our One-Letter Words: A Dictionary.  We had to make up an answer, because the truth verges on unbelievable.  From North Texas' 1918 yearbook.

From Cosmopolitan (1919).

From the Michiganensian yearbook, 1911.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

"The world has always been dangerous; all the triumphs of civilization have been snatched from disaster, and optimism has always had its heroic as well as its foolish side." —Lyman Bryson, The Drive Toward Reason

From Lustige Blätter, 1918.

Here's a precursor to trendy "craft beers" -- it's "art wine."  From Nebelspalter, 1911.

From Bradley's 1916 yearbook.

From Bradley's 1916 yearbook.

Reblog if you wish your own childhood textbooks had featured the pony named Dark that takes us into the unconscious.  From the Elson-Runkel Primer, 1914.

Marching with scissors.  From Lustige Blätter, 1917.

From Le Journal Amusant, 1911.

"'I've come to apologise,' said the stove."  From The Wonderful Land of Up by Olive Roberts Barton and illustrated by Neely McCoy, 1918.

You've heard of a well-dressed person looking "like a million bucks."  It traces back to when money itself used to be more presentable.  From Lustige Blätter, 1917.