Horse

Now here's a mystery.  Why would anyone make a postcard from this nag?  He's not a race horse.  No, this horse is a working horse, made obsolete by tractors and cheap fuel.  This one's a pretty old card, from back in the day when farmers worked their horses and didn't think of them as a family pet.  Maybe the owner of this animal had a soft spot and liked his livestock.  Maybe after his working life this horse was retired to the back pasture.  More likely, when this photo was taken, the farmer/owner was thinking of how much money he could get for old Jughead.  Take a look at this card and make an offer.  Jughead can still pull a plow, a wagon, and if that doesn't work, there's always the slaughterhouse.

Berries

But what is she eating?  I thought grapes, but grapes come in bunches.  Whatever it is, this lady likes them, and I do think it's the same lady, photographed a decade or so apart.  Stamped on the back of the second photo, "V Sutras-Tartu"  I assume a photographers name, but who knows these things.   And, I'm guessing Europe.

50,000 + How It All Started

I just took a quick look at the stats page and noticed that, sometime in the past week or so, I went over 50,000 page views. I have no idea whether that's a big number for a blog like this or not, but when I started this I was lucky to get thirty or forty views a month, so it seems big to me. Anyway, to mark the 50,000 milestone, I thought I would do something I've never done before. I'm repeating myself. These seven images, all hand printed, by me, form the original glass negatives, are the very first photographs I posted on The New Found Photography.

I think it must be the dream of every collector of old photographs to walk into some out of the way junk shop and find a box of photos by an unknown photographer of real talent. I sometimes wonder, if circumstances had been a bit different, if this could have been my discovery. It was back in the good old days when I had a full time job, a decent income, and three weeks of paid vacation a year. I had just finished a backpacking trip in Montana, had cleaned up, packed the car, and was headed home to Los Angeles, when I made an impulse stop at an antique store, well more of a junk shop actually, and found these glass negatives. The owner of the place told me that he once had a crate of images, all from the same source. He thought that there must have been 500 or so, but he had broken up the collection. He had given some of them away, thrown some out, (Not because they were damaged or not very good, but because they were taking up too much space.) and had been selling the rest for a couple of bucks a piece. He had about forty or so left, but for reasons I've never understood, thought credit cards were for suckers, and it was a cash only sale. I bought these seven, got his phone number, and after I got home called him up, and offered to send him a check for the rest, but he said, "Nah, it's too much work."

I wonder what those other negatives might have been like. And I also wonder who took them. Perhaps it was a local professional or maybe an amateur who had a primitive darkroom in the fruit cellar. When I look at the farm photograph, I don't see the mother of the family, so I sometimes speculate that the photographer was a woman. We will never know, and any chance of finding out has, I think, been destroyed by a road side vendor, who thought more highly of telephone poll insulators, old barbed wire, and 50 year old beer bottles than he did of a box of glass negatives, and the unknown photographer who recorded a small, intimate piece of Montana history.

Feeding the Cat to the Calf

All kidding aside, I wonder how many people in the United States have never been on a farm. Is it a good thing to know where our food comes from? I've worked on a farm, and I've been in a slaughter house, and I'm not sure such familiarity is a bright idea.

The Epworth League Album 22, Kids

This one falls under my no editing of albums rule. The first photograph is faded to the point of being almost unrecognizable and the second isn't much better. Though, the second kid does have a great, look at me, I matter, pose. I'm willing to bet that around about the age of thirty, he ran for office. Local school board, county commissioner, or maybe mayor. Wouldn't it be something if we were looking at a future senator, or maybe even a president. Unlikely?

The Epworth League Album 6, Ethnic Dress or Strange Fashion?

Are the ladies in the second image wearing some sort of ethnic dress or did they have similar tastes in fashion? I've been looking through Google images searching for a match, and so far no luck. Click on Epworth League in the labels section to bring up the lot.

Moo

The J1 visa program was started in the 1960s as a cultural exchange program that allowed foreign students to enter the United States. It also allowed those students to accept jobs. Since their stays were supposed to be of a limited duration those jobs were exempt from social security and medicare payroll taxes and not subject to prevailing wage requirements of other guest worker programs. It seems that Hershey, America's favorite chocolate manufacturer, has been sponsoring J1 visas, paying low wages, and no payroll taxes as a cost cutting measure. So much cheaper than hiring American workers. I promised myself that I'd keep my socialistic politics out of the photo blog, but I did own this old postcard and I needed some text to go with it. Oh well. At least the cows seem to be well paid.

Surge Electrobrain!

An advertising postcard from the Surge Dairy Equipment Company. "It's here! The Electrobrain Surge Pipe Line Washer that washes, rinses and sanitizes at just one push of a button!" About forty years ago I had a summer job at a dairy farm. I cleaned things with a shovel, not a push button. Those interested in a history of the Surge Bucket Milker can go to www.surgemilker.com

Affectionate Men

Printed on postcard stock. The message on the front reads, "this is Charley with the cap on it was taking at the fest fall Bel lost" At least I think that's what the writer meant, since "fall" is off where it shouldn't be. The Message on the back, "gime 15 1911 Dear mother as were are all well and soray to here that Iris is not well. I dont see how i could com out But i love to. I have 40 turkies But few chicknes this is my day to take Butter to moristoun. Roy has got the cows here and i must milk. I sit a letter soon B By and send Kate our love to." The name of the addressee is partly obscured by the post mark but I think it's "Mrs (obscured) Rork, Greensburg, Indiana RR6" Greensburg is the county seat of Decatur county and had a population of 5,140 in 1910. The postmark is a bit smeared, so I can't make out the name of the town where it was mailed, but I can make out, "JUNE 16 4 PM 1911 OHIO"

Green Bay Business College- Family and Farm

I'm closing in on the end of the Green Bay Business College collection. To recap, all of these photos came in envelopes addressed to either "Mr. Kenneth Bierke 225 Quinton, Green Bay, Wisconsin," or "Green Bay Business College, 123-S Washington, Green Bay, Wis." There are some really interesting single images in the collection, but as a group, they follow one family from the early twentieth century farm/small town life, through World War 2, and the post war years, through what is probably the Bierke family retirement. I think these images may be from Mrs. Bierke's family. Click on Green Bay in the labels section and pull up the Home front post and you'll see the same lady who is standing on the back of the farm wagon, the first image in this group. Few of these photos are dated or labeled, but there are a few. They three flapper girls, standing on the sidewalk, "Anetta Maichle, Colgate, Wis." The lady with the collie in the paper frame, stamped on the folder, "To Add Beauty and Brilliance insert a piece of cellophane over the picture. GEPPERT STUDIOS, DES MOINES, IOWA." Written in pencil, "Helen A3217, Irene A3509, Marion A3389," then there are two names that have been erased, then "Joe A2617." I'm guessing that those have t0 be early phone numbers. The picture of the little boy standing on the bench is dated, "10-27-44" The family around the Christmas tree, (Note the same lady already noted, though older, sitting in the center of the image.) stamped on the back, "STILLER BLDG., GREEN BAY, WIS." The image of the family, standing beside the tar paper shack, "Mr. & Mrs. Schrader, Mr. and Mrs. Warner, Mr. & Mrs. E. Koepael, Robert Z., Earnest & Mother S., The Wooden Soldier and Ella." The people sitting in front of the log, "Reading from Right to left. My Sis, Feru, Wilfred E., Lee R., Pearl M., Mrs. Ahlgrine, Ora C., Lois C., and Myself. Scene Camp 24."

Vacations and Reunions

I've noticed a strange conceit in many people from the sixties generation and younger that we are the first generations of Americans who have travelled. Forget the wars that have been fought in the twentieth century, travel has always been something we've done. All prints from the same estate. The two women on the bicycles is labeled, "Bermuda 1925" The water front picture with the single sail boat, "Dock Nassau, Bahamas July 1936" Note the building signed Kelly's Lumber Yard. I doubt that water front property in the Bahamas is cheap enough now to allow for a lumber yard. I'd be very surprised that this site isn't now occupied by a luxury hotel. The guys in the row boats, "Nassau, Bahamas. July 1936" Note the one man swimming. The photo of the couple, shipboard, "Aug. 1927" Not the life preservers, identifying the ship as the John A. Topping, registered in Fairport. The ship's superstructure, "Aft in our headquarters S.S. Managua July 1936" The squarish building with the steamer in the background, "The oldest town in Bermuda, St. George July 1936" The government building is labeled, "Capitol of Havana, Cuba July 1936" It seems to modeled after the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The row boats all clustered together on a lake, "Liberty N.Y. 1926" No Caribbean getaway in 26. A;ll of the farm pictures are labeled, "Lookout, Pa. 1926" It looks like a probable family reunion to me. My guess is that the couple who took these trips were a generation or two away from the farm.