Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The drama critic of The Spokesman-Review was not pleased, not pleased at all, by “The House of Bondage,” presented by the Baker Players at the Auditorium Theater.

He called it an “unexpurgated white slave play without any dramatic merit, without any moral that is at all noticeable and with no justification for public presentation.”

He said that white-slave (prostitution) dramas were in fashion, but he condemned this one as a “weak imitation.”

Meanwhile, another critic enjoyed “The Serpent of the Nile,” starring an unusual Cleopatra. She was portrayed by “first-class female impersonator” Bothwell Browne, who was accompanied by a “coterie of dancing girls.”

From the technology beat: An editorial made a bold but farsighted prediction: that “wireless telephony” (radio) would soon sweep the world. 

The writer noted that Guglielmo Marconi had already developed a wireless system, although his work had been interrupted by the war.

The editorial closed with what today seems prophetic: The world is “in an electric age, and an age that will do without wires.”

Also on this date

1961: President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps.