American Jack the Ripper - True Crime Conference, Baltimore, April 7-8, 2018

[ChrisGeorge]

Thanks, drstrange.

Reminder, folks, we have two trivia questions that need answering and you too can win swag from RipperCon. Previous winners not eligible.

1. Name the short-lived (I believe) Australian magazine on the Whitechapel murders edited by the late Julian Rosenfeld and a copy of the inaugural issue of this Down Under mag will shortly be winging its way to you. Australians are exempted from entering. Take that, Cobber.

Here's a clue for you all: It isn't a dump from a kangaroo.

2. What is the connection between the War of 1812 between Britain and the U.S. and the Jack the Ripper case? I wrote about it some years ago for Ripperologist magazine. Think water, think letters, knock twice and pray to Jesus. Good luck.

You could win a nice War of 1812 something. Stay tuned.

P.S. drstrange aka Dusty Miller, send me your snail mail address and I will send you the copy of I'm All Right, Jack by Alan Hackney.

Jackie Murphy on Facebook correctly replied to trivia question no. 1 that the Aussie Ripper mag was Ripperoo.

Swag going to her imminently. Meanwhile another poser for y'all:

"The Battle of Stepney" is usually known by another name. What is it?

First to get the answer wins this antique postcard mailed in 1911 plus another vintage card of my choosing.

Previous winners of RipperCon swag not eligible.

[GUT]

Jackie Murphy on Facebook correctly replied to trivia question no. 1 that the Aussie Ripper mag was Ripperoo.

Swag going to her imminently. Meanwhile another poser for y'all:

"The Battle of Stepney" is usually known by another name. What is it?

First to get the answer wins this antique postcard mailed in 1911 plus another vintage card of my choosing.

Previous winners of RipperCon swag not eligible.

Battle of Stepney, easy for Aussies.

[ChrisGeorge]

Battle of Stepney, easy for Aussies.

You know your thinking is upside down, GUT. Surely it was the Battle of the East End?

[ChrisGeorge]

Jarvis Benson on the RipperCon Facebook page came up with the correct answer. The event is usually known as the Siege of Sidney Street.

Still need an answer to this one:

What is the connection between the War of 1812 between Britain and the U.S. and the Jack the Ripper case? I wrote about it some years ago for Ripperologist magazine. Think water, think letters, knock twice and pray to Jesus. Good luck.

You could win a nice War of 1812 something. Stay tuned.

Those who have previously won loot from RipperCon not allowed to enter.

[ChrisGeorge]

People who are on the RipperCon bus tour scheduled for 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Monday, April 9 will visit the grave of the man who patented the Ouija Board.



Grave of Elijah Jefferson Bond, Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore

For information on RipperCon go to www.RipperCon.com. We will have two full days of talks on Jack the Ripper and True Crime by expert speakers plus two days of tours and surprises. Don't miss out on the only North American Jack the Ripper conference in the 130th Anniversary year of the Whitechapel Murders!

[GUT]

Jarvis Benson on the RipperCon Facebook page came up with the correct answer. The event is usually known as the Siege of Sidney Street.

Still need an answer to this one:

What is the connection between the War of 1812 between Britain and the U.S. and the Jack the Ripper case? I wrote about it some years ago for Ripperologist magazine. Think water, think letters, knock twice and pray to Jesus. Good luck.

You could win a nice War of 1812 something. Stay tuned.

Those who have previously won loot from RipperCon not allowed to enter.

Sidney - Sydney easy peasy.

[Pcdunn]

Chris, re the marker of the inventor of the Ouija Board-- turns out the largest collection of "talking boards" is out here in a Denver home, AND the woman who named the Ouija Board is buried in Colorado.

http://www.9news.com/mobile/article/news/local/next/the-worlds-foremost-collector-of-ouija-boards-lives-in-colorado/486418715

[ChrisGeorge]

Chris, re the marker of the inventor of the Ouija Board-- turns out the largest collection of "talking boards" is out here in a Denver home, AND the woman who named the Ouija Board is buried in Colorado.

http://www.9news.com/mobile/article/...rado/486418715

Thanks for that information, Pat. I will be sure to mention it when we do the RipperCon tour of Baltimore!

[ChrisGeorge]

RipperCon 2018 Speaker Announcement!




AMY BRANAM ARMIENTO—“‘How calmly I can tell you the whole story’: Murder in Edgar Allan Poe’s Fiction”

Armiento is an associate professor of English and the coordinator of African-American Studies at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, she completed her B.A. degree at St. Francis College in Fort Wayne.

Armiento’s Master’s thesis, Literature and Killers: Three Novels as Motives for Murder, was the culmination of her studies at Ball State University. She earned her PhD in English at Marquette University, focusing her dissertation on Edgar Allan Poe.

Currently, Armiento serves as Vice President of the international Poe Studies Association. When she is not teaching or conducting research, she enjoys the many splendors of mountain Western Maryland with her husband, Frank, stepdaughter, Milana, and dogs, Smeg and Stella.

Don’t miss out on RipperCon in Baltimore, April 7-8 -- the only North American Jack the Ripper - True Crime Conference
in the 130th Anniversary Year of the Whitechapel Murders!

Only fifty places available! See full information at www.RipperCon.com

[ChrisGeorge]

RipperCon 2018 Speaker Announcement!



BRIAN W. SCHOENEMAN—“Sir Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police, and the Whitechapel Murders”

Brian Schoeneman is an attorney, writer and veteran American political professional, with over fifteen years of government and private sector experience in government affairs. He has been studying the Whitechapel Murders since 1998, with an emphasis on the Metropolitan Police and Sir Charles Warren.

He currently serves as political and legislative director for the Seafarers International Union, the largest maritime union in the United States. He has served in the past as Special Assistant and Senior Speechwriter to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, and former Secretary of the Fairfax County Electoral Board in Virginia. In his capacity as Secretary of the Fairfax County Electoral Board, he garnered national attention for overseeing the closest election recount in Virginia history in 2013.

Schoeneman is a graduate of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, and receive a Masters degree in political management and Bachelor’s degree in political science from the George Washington University. He is a 2013 graduate of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership, where he was elected class leader by his peers. He is licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is a member and former officer of John Blair Lodge #187, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of Virginia.

He serves on the Vestry of historic St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., and on the Fairfax County Economic Advisory Commission. He ran for Virginia House of Delegates in 2011 and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2015. He is the former editor-in-chief of BearingDrift.com, Virginia’s leading political website.

Don’t miss RipperCon in Baltimore, April 7-8 -- the only North American Jack the Ripper - True Crime Conference in the 130th Anniversary Year of the Whitechapel Murders!

Only fifty places available! Send in your deposit today. See full information at www.RipperCon.com

[ChrisGeorge]

Still looking for an answer to this trivia question. What is the connection between the War of 1812 between Britain and the U.S. and the Jack the Ripper case? I wrote about it some years ago for Ripperologist magazine, as well as in the Journal of the War of 1812. Think water, think letters, knock twice and pray to Jesus. Good luck.

You could win a nice War of 1812 something. Stay tuned.

[ChrisGeorge]

Still looking for an answer to this trivia question. What is the connection between the War of 1812 between Britain and the U.S. and the Jack the Ripper case? I wrote about it some years ago for Ripperologist magazine, as well as in the Journal of the War of 1812. Think water, think letters, knock twice and pray to Jesus. Good luck.

You could win a nice War of 1812 something. Stay tuned.

This trivia question was correctly answered by Diane Williams on Facebook. She correctly answered that the "Saucy Jack" was an American privateer of the War of 1812. Diane's prize was duly dispatched to her and she has just confirmed that it arrived safely.

[ChrisGeorge]

RipperCon 2018 Speaker Announcement!



CASEY SMITH—“William Joseph Ibbett (1858-1934): Poet, Printer, Piquerist, Ripper Suspect?”

Dorset-born W. J. Ibbett was a minor poet in an era noted for minor poetry. He was also a self-taught printer who produced badly printed copies of his poems. On some copies, the words were so poorly inked and broken that he used an ink pen to write over the printing to make it more legible. At times, it appears that the paper he used was taken from his day job at London’s General Post Office. Some of his poetry was produced as handwritten manuscript books, not because of a desire to create a beautiful book, but because it was cheap.

However, Ibbett managed to get some of his books printed by a few notable private presses, and the famous typographic expert and Monotype Corporation publicity manager, Beatrice Warde was an admirer. Warde even wrote the preface to one of his collections of poetry. Ibbett’s friend and mentor, rare book collector Harry Buxton Forman actively promoted Ibbett. In the middle of the 20th century, Norman Colbeck, a London book dealer, systematically collected Ibbett’s works, most of which are exceedingly scarce. (A typical run of one of Ibbett’s books was less than 200 copies.) The third collector in this chain is Mark Samuels Lasner, one of the foremost collectors of late-Victorian art and poetry in the 21st century, and the person who initially got Casey Smith interested in Ibbett.

Ibbett’s poetry, and life story, as detailed in his autobiography The Annals of a Nobody, reveal a complicated and troubled figure, a man who might have been responsible for the 1888 Whitechapel murders in Whitechapel, although Smith admits there is no definitive proof of this. However, Smith believes that bizarre and disturbing aspects of Ibbett’s life make him a good candidate for him having been Jack the Ripper.

Casey Smith is a researcher, writer, and teacher based in Washington, D.C. He has a PhD in English Literature and Victorian Studies from Indiana University-Bloomington, where he concentrated on book history and material bibliography. From 1997 to 2014 he taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design (later, from 2014-2016 at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design at The George Washington University). He has presented papers at academic conferences throughout the UK and US on the subject of Victorian book-culture and art. A former Vice-President of the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association, he is now an independent scholar and Associate Professor Emeritus at George Washington University in the District of Columbia.


Don’t miss RipperCon in Baltimore, April 7-8 -- the only North American Jack the Ripper - True Crime Conference in the 130th Anniversary Year of the Whitechapel Murders!

Only fifty places available! Send in your deposit today. See full information at www.RipperCon.com

[Abby Normal]

This trivia question was correctly answered by Diane Williams on Facebook. She correctly answered that the "Saucy Jack" was an American privateer of the War of 1812. Diane's prize was duly dispatched to her and she has just confirmed that it arrived safely.

Very cool. Very very cool.

What a gorgeous ship. Is that the actual saucy jack?

[ChrisGeorge]

Very cool. Very very cool.

What a gorgeous ship. Is that the actual saucy jack?

Hi Abby

Thanks. No the ship pictured is the Pride of Baltimore II, a replica War of 1812 schooner modeled on Captain Thomas Boyle's Chasseur which gained fame during the war and was hailed by a local newspaper as "The Pride of Baltimore" when it returned to the city in April 1815. The replica schooner operates as a goodwill ambassador for the City of Baltimore.

Cheers

Chris