Blessed Assurance

When I came across this photograph, I stopped and stared. How could I not? Such a direct gaze is relatively rare at any time, and certainly in a woman of the 1880s. Cool, self-assured, leaning back, one hand in her lap and the other curled around the chair back – here is a woman comfortable with herself and aware of how she appears to others. You can't help but wonder what circumstances in life made her this way: money, education, social standing, a position of responsibility, her accomplishments, the respect of her associates? 

This is a studio setting; she had rapport with the photographer because such images don't just happen.

How To Vandalize A Photo 101

Whoever owned this photo took lessons from Attila the Hun and is excused from the beginner’s course – advance directly to the professional level!

First, I know things happen, I know this is only a snapshot, but let’s not be overly polite and just say there are no excuses for this (and don’t give me that threadbare tale about how the dog did it)!

Second, if you come across a badly damaged photo that you think is kind of neat and should be saved, and if tape is all you have to make repairs, please stick it on the back of the photo – NOT on the front! As my Mom would say, “Use your head for something besides growing hair!” (I did, and now I have very little).

Third, what’s with the holes? Okay, I really don’t want to know!

In spite of it’s deplorable condition, this was such a wonderful image – not technically, but for all the other reasons that make you look at a photo and grin. And because the car looks like something Daisy Duck drove! So I rescued this sadly abused child of the camera and gave it a decent home – and spent a few hours making it presentable.

The car is a 1912 Detroit Electric; Thomas Edison owned one in that year, too. The woman’s expression is an interesting one – as are her Wicked Witch of the West pointy shoes. Do you have a caption?

Great Western Railway Locomotive 1889

My research tells me this is 3224, a 2-4-0 coal-fired steam engine, the 18th of 19 Barnum locomotives built at the Great Western Railway's Swindon works in 1889, the last fitted with open sandwich frames in Britain. The GWR was chartered by act of Parliament in 1835 and became the envy of UK railways – sometimes called "God's Wonderful Railway".

The steam engine and first steam railways were British inventions; the first railroads in America used engines and rails from England which is why we inherited the "standard gauge" we use (if you would like to know the short, hilarious tale of where the Brits came up with that gauge, contact me at timebinderpics@gmail.com, I'll email it to you). UK, and indeed european railroad engine designs were always quite different from American counterparts, much sleeker and stylish in overall appearance, especially in the 19th century.

I do not know the location of this photograph; while water was being taken on, the engineers watch the photographer. It is a good size original print but I do not know if it was taken for the company.

The Crop Of The Cream

This is surely a scene of rural milk production being delivered by farmers to a processor of some kind, whether for distribution of raw milk and cream or for the manufacture of cheese or other milk-based product; my guess is late 1870s to 1890s. Pasteurization of milk began to come into common use in the 1870s in an effort to reduce disease, refrigerated railroad boxcars came into use in the 1880s, so there is at least a chance that such a daily delivery of raw milk as seen here could have been for a wider market though you might think the facility would have been located on a rail line so that it would not need to be transported a second time (cheese would be a good guess except the facility seems small for such a volume). There are signs nailed to the building that indicate sale of supplies needed by farmers: Kow Kud, Magic Yeast, and what may be bottles for feeding calves and products for horses. There is no signboard on the building, so these are all questions that will go unanswered because the photo came without information.

Certainly there were women involved on family dairy farms (some may even have been owned and operated by women) but the transport we see recorded here is strictly a male endeavor. Men and boys of all ages are looking directly at the camera, as are the factory workers, two of whom are wearing neckties and the one on the right may be smoking. There is a smoke stack indicating heating is employed here – more than for warmth in cold weather. Many of the wagons have quite large metal cans that are made to be lifted by the apparatus you see on the platform.

The plowing and the presence of flowers in the field indicate late Spring or early Summer.

Pennsylvania Avenue 1910

No matter how many street scenes of Washington, D.C. you see, what strikes you always is the width of the streets and the sidewalks – it makes you a believer in planned cities when you imagine what it would be like today had they not been laid out that way, though of course the early 19th century planners never imagined either machine driven vehicles or the sheer numbers there would be. At this date the horseless vehicles are outnumbering the horse drawn in a city like Washington, so there is enough here to keep even the crankiest antique car buff happy for at least a few minutes. This photo is not much more than post card size, so the blowup of the West End Laundry panel wagon and the little open delivery truck parked nose-in to the curb (I want one!) is a bit grainy.