1853 First Hose Co. Hand Pumper

Written in pencil on the back of this large cabinet card: Hand Engine of the Citizen's Fire Co., built in 1853 for the First Hose Co. of Hagerstown, Md. 

The Citizen's Fire Company of Charles Town, W. VA, acquired it at some later date and for some reason it was photographed on a residential street (Miller Home, Washington St. is indicated) unattached to the team of horses that would have pulled it and with no fire house as part of the picture. Was it out of civic pride and for the record, or was it already an outdated object of curiosity well over a century ago when it was taken?

Early railroad engines, steam tractors, fire engines and other large machinery, and even small appliances like sewing machines or typewriters, were lavishly ornamented by Victorian designers as if they were objects of art, perhaps because they were conflicted by the rapid evolution from an agrarian economy to the appalling filth and ugliness of urban mass industrialization. They got over it – industrial design was soon a matter of efficiency and cost.

This tiny pumper was operated by four men as part of a team who took enormous pride in their strength and stamina as well as their status as protectors of life and property. Steam pumpers were coming into existence at the time this pumper was built, but there was enormous resistance to adopting them even when it became evident that they were far superior in performance – the cost of fire insurance and ever taller buildings brought cities to a more rational mindset: machine over muscle.

Steam Pumper Fire Engine 1900

If you are startled to see a vivid blue photograph on Timebinder, it is a cyanotype, one of the least pleasing or successful of the early print processes – not my cup of tea either.

Sir John Herschel discovered the formula in 1842: equal parts of Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate are dissolved in water, the paper is saturated in it and dried in the dark; when exposed in sunlight (or any ultraviolet source) through a photographic negative (or plants, flowers or anything that light will penetrate) the Prussian blue dye is evident when the paper is washed with water. Because it is a chemical salt that is "in" the paper itself instead of silver or platinum salts that are in an emulsion "on" paper, the results are rather coarse and incapable of revealing the tonal range of the black and white images we are accustomed to seeing. Below is the same image converted to grayscale which is easier to look at (perhaps because we are accustomed to it), but it still does not have much dynamic range.

Having dispensed with the process, we can deal with the image itself. I do not know where it was taken or who manufactured it, but it is an early self-propelled 20th century model that is the heir to the horse drawn steam pumpers used as early as 1829 in England and well into the 1900s. Why did it take so many decades to decide to use the power from the steam to drive the vehicle as well as the pumps, after all, the invention of steam engines had always been for pushing, pulling, pumping, sawing and motive power? The self-propelled fire engine steamer wasn't around very long because the internal combustion engine was soon capable of greater power, was easier to maintain and inherently safer to operate (any steam engine in the wrong hands was patently lethal; it's dangerous enough fighting fires without worrying about being blown up!) The Stanley Steamer automobile couldn't compete with the gasoline engine either.

Is That Burnt Red Tape I'm Smelling?!

That is making too light of the situation facing San Francisco's population when the City Hall burned following the 1906 earthquake; the loss of records may not have been the most pressing concern in the immediate aftermath but it must have been a major problem as time went on.

This is a cabinet card from the original negative from the period, probably one of many offered for sale to inhabitants who experienced the disaster as well as to curious outsiders (this one was still in San Francisco when I acquired it.) This was likely taken some days after the worst of the fires, but it is surprising that there are so few people in sight. It is interesting to speculate about whether the damage to the domed tower was due to the quake or the ensuing fires.

Fire Brigade

Six members of a UK fire brigade pose on their decked out equipment for a special celebration early in the 20th century – bows on the driver, running lamp, whip and bridle, Union Jack on the horse and wagon. I can't read enough of the letters on the wagon to make any educated guess as to what it identifies. Here are a matched set of dappled draft horses only a few years before internal combustion fire engines will send them into retirement. 

The late Victorian house has toned ornamental courses on Flemish Bond brickwork. This is a quite large print taken in nearly shadowless light on a breezy day (the trees and vines are not frozen by the shutter speed and the f-stop has made for shallow depth of field).

Hook & Ladder 1869

You are looking at the first Minneapolis Hook and Ladder Company, 1869. Their uniforms have embroidered hooks and ladders on the chest; some men hold axes, and the very young boys standing at the right may be holding hooks which appear to be decorated with flowers and greenery, as does the entire vehicle. This is an occasion for civic pride.

Surely they have a fire house, but here they pose before Vail's imposing undertaking establishment which advertises a Coffin Wares Room. Do we take that to mean readymade coffins or does the company sell coffin hardware, decorative handles and castings, and linings for the coffin-making trade?

There is someone looking on behind the curtain in the only open window above. As is common, the side of the building has ads and event notices pasted directly on it – which we can't read due to the low resolution of this early image.

We would not be wrong in assuming that many of the men in this picture spent time as soldiers in the very recent war; as dangerous as their current job may be, surely it is a relief from what they have witnessed and been engaged in, and at least this is home and what they do saves lives and property in their community.

It's a bright day, perhaps overcast; photographers like such scattered and reflected light because there are no harsh shadows on faces.