Mystery Automobile

This unidentified horseless vehicle came from a cache of old photos from an old bank in Newburyport, I am told. The print was made at some later date than the original celluloid negative which is now blistered and brittle (I have not yet attempted to rehydrate or scan it).

I have been unable to determine if it is a steam or electric vehicle, but it is early and perhaps experimental; I am guessing late 19th (based on the woman's dress) or first years of the 20th century. My gut feeling is electric because I see no very good evidence of a fire box or the large radiator that was imperative with steam, but there is piping and a valve on the right side if indeed this is a small steam boiler. An early Locomobile was much smaller than this and had the engine in the rear, so I am not prepared to say it is not a steam car.

My research indicates that there were several hundred small companies that tried to build and market steam cars at this time, less than 50 were still at it in two or three years, only a handful lingered into the 1920s, so it is hardly surprising that there are very few photos of these efforts and even fewer that have reliable identification. The story of electric vehicles is similar.

The detail is not good; though it does appear to have a chain drive to at least the right rear wheel and the tiller steering has an interesting configuration that wraps around the engine (?) and has a rather narrow rack and pinion connection for such a wide front axle. This is truly a high wheel carriage that has bowed suspension in both directions to ease the ride; one look at the condition of the wet street makes you realize the advantage of sitting up high, but fenders would have been an added benefit to keep mud off of madam's coat and hat. From our safety-conscious perspective, sitting on that bench with only a handhold must have made everyone thankful that they were cornering at a (breakneck) five or ten mph.

If the woman is the inventor's wife, you have to wonder what she felt were the odds of success as she witnessed the investment of money and labor in such a newfangled enterprise; perhaps her solemn detachment expressed her belief that if he didn't get them killed riding in this contraption at least there was an even chance they would go to the poor house.

In A (School) Class By Itself

This large cabinet print was in as poor condition as any I have ever had, not exposed properly to begin with, extremely brittle, faded, dirty, torn, altogether badly treated by time. I was the only one intrigued enough, or fool enough, to take it on it seems.

Without evidence to persuade me to the contrary, I am inclined to believe this may be Irish (or English) rather than American for several reasons. The group of older girls to the right are all dressed identically, wearing aprons and caps, holding brooms with bows on them; they hold the broom in the right hand with the left crossed onto the right shoulder – it is as if they have completed training intended for employment as household servants. The boys on the far left are outfitted in an odd assortment of martial costumes with tall pointed hats decorated in different manners, some have drums and others hold mock muskets or other objects I do not recognize. All of the children are dressed simply but without any being either better dressed or more poorly dressed than others, something I have not seen in photos of American school groups from the period.

I am inclined to date this to the mid-1880s because of the men's bowlers and homburgs with curled brims and cut-away jackets with abbreviated lapels; the women's short jackets and narrow sleeves (the single feature I find puzzling is the shallow lampshade hats worn by some of the women – usually associated only with the first five years of the 20th century, but much simpler, lacking the mounds of flowers and feathers of that period – yet nothing reliably places this later than 1890). 

The man in the center with the cane may be the headmaster; the woman in the right foreground may be the head teacher; there are five other women who also do not wear hats and may also be teachers. There are no flags or other obvious cultural markers.

If this is an American image, it breaks the mold completely and I would like to know what sort of school it could be.

Haley's Housewares, Antiques & Undertaking Emporium

Unparalleled one-stop shopping convenience – get that new or antique lamp and arrange to have Uncle Clem buried at the same time!

A more balanced view would be that in communities without a large population, there is not enough clientele to make a living in just one line of service. Haley may live above the shop or rent to someone else, but whoever lives there might think about running downstairs and ordering new curtains – things are looking a little shabby. There are clothes drying on the line to the left however.

I am a century too late to inquire about the nice antique child's rocker and piecrust table on display – why do I always miss the good stuff? <sigh>. Whoever got the chair on the right made a good decision; who knows, it may turn up on Antiques Roadshow one of these days. Lots of nice knickknacks to see; I left my nose and fingerprints on the window glass!

The seller of this early 20th century image had reason to think it was New Hampshire.

Parlor Games Edwardian Style

Glass negatives of four adults having a good time posing for photographs at home, nothing very serious except for the one on the upper left perhaps. Clearly they are playing to the camera. As soon as cameras were available to anyone who could afford them, the hobby was taken up and a more relaxed, leisure time era of photography came into being. The interior and the quality of cloth and tailoring marks this as an affluent household.

Oklahoma Redux 1880s

There is no singing or dancing here, yet something about this cabinet print made me think of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma though this is likely 20 years before the early 20th century setting of the musical. (Yes, I know, redux means "bring back" or "revive", so this would be redux-in-reverse, more like "back to the future").

I don't know what to make of this scene, so I will start by saying what I know, then what I think.

It is old –everything about the print, its aging, the coarseness of the paper, the quality of the film, all tell me that. It was printed from a glass negative that had a label attached to the lower left that, oddly enough, was not cropped out before the print was made and mounted, yet the writing is so poor I have been unable to decipher it (it doesn't help that half of the label is missing); it is likely that it was for the photographer's use and not meant to identify the subject anyway; there is a date, Jun 29/?? (unreadable). The resolution is too low for any of the food containers' labels to be read.

The people in this photo are aware that it is being taken, but not everyone is looking at the camera; it does not feel like a posed scene where people have been told where to stand, what to do, where to look, so I am lead to think that it is an outdoor event of some kind and that the people are from a settled community. I do not accept that these are in any way settlers on a trek to settle land – the clothes are simply not travel clothes. The women, particularly, are young – not young girls and not middle age; they are likely wives of the men in the picture. The image is too early to be a historic celebration of the wagon train era, that came much later.

Like most antique prints, there is enough mystery here to keep you wondering forever. It is especially frustrating to have one with a label that cannot be read.