I found this amazing pic of “Husband Libber” Harry Britton posted to the Blue Pill subreddit; it was taken in 1972 by the father of Blue Piller smileybird.
According to Cape Girardeau History and Photos, which has another pic of him,
New York Magazine wrote that he was a fixture who had been supporting himself wearing placards, carrying signs and selling his leaflets for 25 cents each for several years. “Harry makes only $2,000 a year [roughly $12,000 today –DF]. He’s not in this for the money, though; he says his only goal is reconciliation with his wife, from whom he is, not surprisingly, separated.”
Another account said he was the “president (and probably sole member) of the National Association of Dissatisfied Husbands subsisting on sales of publications extolling ‘Husband Lib.(‘It’s not men’s lib,it’s Husband Lib. The Bachelors are not oppressed yet’).”
Here’s that pic, and a couple of others; thanks to SquashedBananas in the Blue Pill for tracking all this down. (And thanks to the reader who emailed me about all this.)
@ Falconer
Emperor Norton was America’s greatest political figure :’)
Emperor Norton would be an improvement on most politicians today.
Well, okay, Norton wanted to annex Mexico. I guess that’s better than going ew ick brown people.
Over here in New Zealand, the desire/dream to own a house (which funnily enough the person wishes to at least partly furnish) has been one avenue through which some* baby boomers and the preceding generation have been attacking generation Y. We used to have affordable housing to buy, now it’s unaffordable in most places apart from small towns – which don’t have jobs. In NZ, government superannuation is given out on basic residency grounds, and is a pay-as-you-go scheme so that the current year’s taxpayers fund the current year’s superannuatants. It is not means tested, either by income or by assets. So we have some people in two generations who believe they “earned” their superannuation attacking young people for being lazy, because anyone who can’t afford a house is lazy, and if they didn’t spend on their money on fripperies like new furniture then well, the could afford a house, so it’s laziness plus spend, spend, spend.
Clearly everyone should use beer crates for all their furniture even though in relative terms furniture is dirt cheap now compared to what it used to be (assuming it is bought rather than made). And sleep on blankets on the floors. And in the winter, they can huddle around a single kerosine heater just like they used to. /sigh
I’m now very sensitive to arguments about how people spend their money because it’s used as a very blunt instrument criticism.
* but very vocal ones, and they’re all over comments sections, these people are just like MRAs
Pallygirl,
It’s the same in the US. Baby boomers had affordable college, affordable housing and ever increasing wages when they entered adulthood. Then they decided “I want low taxes and loose regulations so screw the next generation because I’ve got mine!” Then they turn around and call younger people lazy for not bootstrapping properly. So many of them seriously don’t see that they got all these advantages.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Also, jobs were still a thing back then.
Sad cat,
That us truly hilarious and horrifying at the same time! Stalkers have the same entitled deluded attitude too. All the horrible things they do and ridiculous expectations they have, and then they’re the most surprised person in the world when their partner runs to the hills.
I had an ex stalk me. Once he jumped I to my car while I was at a stop sign! He wanted me to “admit to me what you’ve done!” Apparently I was guilty of sleeping w one of his asshole friends (which never happened). He yanked my keys out of the ignition and wouldn’t give them back. All if this happened on a residential street and a woman in the nearest house came out and demanded he give me back my keys. So that was awesome. He gave them back but then continued to follow me around in this car with a girl driving, shouting “admit to me what you’ve done!!!” Also for months after “slut!” Would be shouted at me randomly by people I didn’t know. It’s funny to look back on but shit.
Nitram, Sad Cat, I’m so sorry that happened to you. Hugs if you want them.
Pallygirl, WWTH, katz – yep. I work with colleges and universities (in Minneapolis! Hi, WWTH! I think?) and the degree to which people in this industry Don’t Get that tuition cost is a problem is ridiculous. I pay the same for my loans as I do for rent. It’s always “well you’d be worse off with without a college education, people need to understand that it’s worth it” – that’s the industry line.
A college degree just isn’t that optional any more. So, yeah I guess I’d be worse off in the sense I’d have even less access to jobs (plus I’m white, that helps with getting a job), but it’s not like all the money I’m NOT saving up to buy a house and instead using to pay loans is reasonable.
It’s like healthcare – can’t live without it, can’t afford it.
Makes me so mad I can’t even think of any jokes!
And when was the last time you met a young person who had a job that actually required a college education?
@Emmy Rae
What I don’t understand is how people think my generation hasn’t gotten the message. Like ‘GO TO COLLEGE TO GET A BETTER JOB!’ hasn’t been shoved down our throats since we were born (in the U.S., at least).
Emmy Rae,
I didn’t know there was another Minneapolis Mammotheer! Yay!
As a boomer but the father of four, I am very concerned about what young people of my two younger children’s age (28 & 26) face. If you don’t go to college, you are either competing with Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. workers or (for jobs that can’t be conveniently outsourced) with huge numbers of your peers. If you do go to college, you probably have massive debts because my generation of stinkers decided not to support public colleges the way our parents supported us — so then employers set job requirements so that nobody qualifies and they can whine that they need to bring somebody in from overseas — at, naturally, a much lower salary than a college-loan-burdened US young person has to ask for. (I heard of one company that required 5 years of experience with a piece of software that had only existed for 3 years.
Now you have Paul Ryan pushing the idea that Medicare should be turned into a voucher but not for people over 55, which means that you will be taxed to pay for our Medicare but will have to also pay for your own health care if you happen to survive to 65. My generation’s lack of responsibility puts your generation in a nasty spot. It stinks.
It’s exactly the same in Australia with jobs, housing and education.
Hear, hear.
My boomer mother suggested a while back that I take out a home equity line of credit. Not for any particular expense, just open one in case we had something happen and needed cheap money fast (she’d just gotten one, and the rates were very good at the time). She was flabbergasted when I reminded her that, despite paying extra toward the principal every month for eight years, Mr. FM and I have no equity in our home. We are in fact still very underwater on our mortgage. When she said how unfair that I was, I reminded her that I’m one of the lucky ones: I still have a house.
I’m one of the tail-end baby boomers, born just late enough to cop all the same crap Gen X did – recurring, frequent economic downturns, lifelong job instability (jobs for life disappeared even in the public service by the early 80s), spiralling housing and education costs, on top of Australia’s high cost of living. Living on my mother’s wage, which was bottom-rank public service, meant university was never going to be possible. Nor was buying a house. It’s always taken both our wages, or in the last twenty-plus years, my wage and her pension/super, to have a decent place to live. Neither of us could manage to rent and pay the bills even in a tiny flat, on our own, and we are far from being poor in any meaningful sense.
I don’t know how anyone on normal income can afford to live in Melbourne or Sydney. Canberra is also quite unaffordable unless you’re two people on at least mid career APS wages.
@kittehserf – Ooo, I straddle a generation divide, too (Depending on which arbitrary scale you use I’m either at the very end of Gen X or the tippy-top beginning of the Millennials). I’ve done all right out of my split; I got to finish college when it was still just expensive instead of absolutely absurd and I’ve usually been able to find a job of some sort. That sucks that you got the short end of both the boomer and Gen X sticks 🙁
Hey, we must be about the same age, Flying Mouse!
I haven’t done too badly employment wise: I was out of work for two solid years (from September 11 2001, would you believe) and for a few months a couple of years after that, and then now. I’ve worked all the rest of the time since ’84, but every damn job, half of which were in the public service, disappeared because we were being Jeffed – massive job cuts by the then Premier, Jeff Kennett, a total right wing bastard, but who looks good compared with the current crop. Schools, hospitals, country rail services – you name it, he closed it.
I was born in 1980, the year Reagan was elected. I don’t know if those two things are related. If so, my parents and I are really sorry.
Awfully big of him. [/sarcasm]
Glad you got away. What an absolutely ghastly man!
HUSBAND SUFFRAGE
I have no words, this is so incredibly awesome.
It’s like, you know what “suffrage” means, right ?
Who cares ? All that counts is that women’s libbers want it, so he wants it too !
Yeah. I went to Harvard when I was seventeen. Even so, I just… always planned that I would be poor. It just seemed the smartest, safest thing to do, because I always had this nagging suspicion that we’d be fucked someday.
Made it till twenty-four before homelessness. And now I’m disabled and get to feel like I’m just adding to the burden of the rest of my country. LOLZ.
Just… priceless.
I was born in 1977, which puts me right in the grey area between Gen X and millennials (indeed, a lot of the classic Gen X movies featured people about a decade older), and I had the extra burdens of having mental issues (including, it turns out, undiagnosed autism) and coming from a family that had always been kind of poor. I had a nervous breakdown at college and spent two years recovering, and I never did get to go back. I have a good job working for a family member, but said family member is up in years himself…
On top of that, my parents are both over 50, and my stepdad lost his longtime position a few years back and was out of work for three years. He’s since found seasonal work, but he really wants something full-time since my salary barely covers the bills. My mom has physical issues and even if she did find a job, the commute would be hard for her.
So I’m pushing 40, I mainly learned all I know from either reading about it or on-the-job-experience, I never finished college, and I have people depending on me. If one thing goes wrong, this whole house of cards may come down. And given my age and my apparent lack of qualifications compared to cannon fodder straight out of college, I’m not even sure I could work in my desired field should I have to change jobs or move.
I’ll be okay for now, but I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing 10 years from now.