Naughty Biddy

How did Biddy serve the tomatoes undressed?  Why did Biddy serve the tomatoes undressed?  Hard to believe that this was once considered risque.  No publisher listed or any captions other than the one seen on the bottom right.

Poor Fisherman's Luck

The last of my super cheap, cheesy stereo cards.  I'm not quite sure what to make of this one.  I'm sure it must be a battle of the sexes thing.  But did they catch their man, or are they throwing him back?  Of course there's a third interpretation.  They're dumping the body.

Aerial Photography

Yet another poorly made, no name stereo card.  This one commemorating aerial photography in World War 1.  Aviation in what was once called the Great war didn't begin with life and death dogfights.  The first military aviators were spotters, gathering information on troop movements.  They were successful enough that shooting them down became a military necessity.  And so was born the dogfight, the synchronized machine gun and eventually the bombing raid.  I always knew that photography could be dangerous.

A Girl From the Golden West

This one is a bit interesting.  The card isn't well made and there are no company names or logos on the back.  It also looks to be a movie tie in.  In 1915, Cecil B. DeMille directed a movie called The Girl of the Golden West.  Close to the title of this card, but just a bit off.  The star of the film was Mabel Van Buren, and the woman on this card looks a lot like her.  Most people think that the movies ended up in Los Angeles because of all the sunny weather.  I'm sure that helped, but the reality is a bit more shady.  Inventor Thomas Edison, the patent holder for early motion picture equipment insisted on being paid for every foot of movie film shot, processed or projected.  To enforce those patents, he hired a goon squad who busted up the film productions that weren't in compliance.  The movies ended up in Hollywood because it was far away form Edison's strong hold in New Jersey.  I like the idea that some low end stereoview company was ripping off Cecil B. DeMille; that they left their company name off the back of the card to make it difficult for DeMille's agents to find them.

Women at Work

I've made this point before and I'm making it again; the theory that women were not a large part of the work force before the sixties is wrong.  Women of the upper middle classes and above rarely worked, but women of lower classes have always been part of the working world.  They were farm hands, servants, and as shown on this stereo view, factory hands.

Printed on the back, "20-(22070)  INSPECTING PAPER, HOLYOKE, MASS.

Paper making machines are large affairs.  Sometimes they weigh as much as 400 tons each.  But they handle each sheet as carefully as if they had a fine sense of touch.  These machines take the stock, press it into paper, and cut it into the desired size of sheet.

You see here a battery of paper machines performing the last act in paper manufacture.  The finger bars, mad of flat strips of wood, receive the cut paper, and turn the sheets out on a receiving table.  At this table stands an inspector.  She is an expert in her work.  Each sheet of paper undergoes her careful scrutiny.  If it is  defective in anyway the sheet is thrown out; for nothing but first-class material is produced in this factory.  Sometimes a sheet will have a flaw in coloring, or in texture: or it may have been torn slightly in it's many handlings.  The sheets that are approved are stacked up, and are ready for further folding or cutting if needs be.

You will observe certain things in this factory that are necessary both for the health of the workers and for the work.  The place is  well lighted by side windows.  The inspectors do not have to face a bright glare.  Nor do they have to work under artificial light.  They are seated so do not tire so quickly at their exacting work.  The machines have iron guards to reduce danger of accidents.  All this is very much in contrast with the factory of several years ago, when employees were looked upon merely as a part of the machinery.

Of what things is paper made?  Name some of the processes in paper making?  How does our supply of paper depend on forests?  Account for the shortage of paper during the Great European War.  From what is pulp made?

Copyright by The Keystone View Company."

New Toys

Same publisher as yesterday's post but not so sad and pathetic. Close, but not quite. I'll give this image one bit of praise, I was born about fifity or so years after this photo was taken, (I'm guessing it was taken about 1900 to 1910 going by yesterday's image), and when I was a kid, I would have loved to play with the toy streetcar.

Under the Mistletoe

I don't have many Christmas themed images in my collection and this one is just sad and pathetic. Titled Under the Mistletoe, it could just as easily by Valentine's Day or Violating the Maid. It's no wonder that the publisher didn't put his mark on the card.

Woof

Woof, Woof! (It's in stereo.)

Spinning Yarn

It is a commonly held view that women, before World war 2 and the call of war work, were nothing more than wives and mothers. The reality is that work was as much a matter of economic class as it was of sex. Women of the middle classes and above were born to a certain level of gentility, marring and raising children. Women of lower economic classes were born to a life of labor just as men were. The women in this photo were probably short lived. They very likely, as did men, work sixty to seventy hour weeks. They probably died from their labors. Textile workers would have died from exhaustion as well as lung and heart disease brought on by the inhalation of cotton dust.

Printed on the back, "14-(22080) SPINNING COTTON YARN, LAWRENCE, MASS."

When one looks at a view of this sort, he is confused by the great number of machines. His first thought is that cloth making is too difficult for him to understand. But really there are just two main processes to hold in mind. The first of these is spinning of the thread by twisting together a number of fibers. The second is the weaving; that is, lacing together two sets of cross threads.

Our modern cotton mills weave cloth on a large scale. Most of the work is done by the machines that are watched over by careful experts. The first thing done is to examine the cotton in the bale for quality and it's length. It is necessary that the fibers used in a certain grade of cloth be of a certain fineness. The machines, too are set to handle fibers of a certain length. hence the sorting of cotton is a very important item.

The selected bales are then opened, the cotton is cleaned, and carded. The carding machine combs out the fibers, and makes them lie in parallel rows. These strands are put into cans, and is called sliver (long"i"). The sliver is next "drawn"; that is, 6 strands are drawn through 3 sets of machines until they lie straight and close side by side. The threads pass next into roving frames which make them the desired size.

From the roving room the tread is taken into the spinning room. It is this room you see in the view. In these mills more than 330,000 spindles are busy twisting the threads into yarn. It is this yarn that is woven into cloth. The girl watches for broken threads, or empty bobbins.

Locate Lawrence on your map. Why are so many many of our cotton mills in New England? Why are they not in the south where cotton is grown?

Copyright by The Keystone View Company."

The Albert Memorial

In his book about George Orwell, Christopher Hitchens argues that Orwell was unique among intellectuals in being right about the three important political/moral issues of the mid twentieth century. He was opposed to communism, fascism, and colonialism. Commissioned by Queen Victoria after her husband, Prince Albert's death, the Albert Memorial is a monument to England's colonial power as well as Prince Albert.

This is an interesting stereoview because is appears as if it might be a bootlegged copy of an original. The two images are one print, it's mounted off center, and the usual curved top of the image has been sliced of to fit on the card.

Los Angeles, Spring Street

Well, Los Angeles sure doesn't look like this anymore. While this image looks like it could be a painting, it's very probable that the original image was a black & white photograph that was hand colored, and until proved otherwise, it qualifies for inclusion on a photography blog. Printed on the back of the card, "No. 1260. SPRING STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. The full name of Los Angles is "La Tuebla de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles" (The City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels), a name as beautiful as it is long, and in keeping with the proud position of the city as the "Belle of the Pacific Coast." It is situated twenty miles from the mouth of the Los Angeles River, fifteen miles from the Pacific Ocean, as the crow flies. It was founded by the Spaniards in 1781 and passed into American possession in 1846. It was, however, of no great importance till after 1880, when it underwent an almost unprecedentedly rapid increase in population and wealth. It's population rose from 11,183 in 1880 to 50,395 in 1890, and to 102,479 in 1990, and it's former adobe houses have almost entirely been replaced by stone and brick houses and blocks of tasteful wooden residences. It is now a crowded and lively town of wide streets and spacious sidewalks, with an extensive and beautiful residential quarter, and over 130 churches." And yes, Tuebla is what it says on the card.

Cape to Cairo

The Cape to Cairo Railway was the vision of Cecil Rhodes. The last 700 miles from the southern to Sudan into Uganda have never been completed. Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe after the fall of it's white rule government. Printed on the back of the card

"575 (17023) Lat. 17 S., Long. 26 E. CAPE TO CAIRO RAILWAY, RHODESIA, AFRICA Africa is indeed the Dark Continent if enlightenment comes with railways. It has very few railroads and, outside the Cape to Cairo branches, these are short. Until 1867 the whole continent had only 40 miles of track.

But European countries wished to tap the natural riches of central Africa. To do this railroads were needed to carry the raw materials to the coast. In the hope of striking through the heart of the continent the Cape to Cairo Railway was planned. The Cape means Cape Town at the Cape of Good Hope. Locate. Cairo is a large city in Egypt, on the Nile, and not far from the Mediterranean Sea. Locate Cairo.

The railroad as planned would follow the general course of the Nile into the Lake Victoria country. It would then go near Lake Tanganyika into Northeast Rhodesia and so on southwest to Cape Town. From Cape Town to Northeast Rhodesia 2,000 miles of the road is built. From Cairo to 100 miles south of Khartum some 1,500 more miles are built. This leaves a gap of 1600 miles yet to do. On a map of Africa dot the route of the Cape to Cairo Railway.

The view here shows the railway near the Zambesi River, just below the Victoria Falls. The bridge is 650 feet long, and is said to be the highest in the world-420 feet above the water. The building is the home of a guard who takes fares from foot passengers who cross the bridge-a shilling per person. How much is a shilling? Study the picture of the bridge. Observe the depth of the gorge through which the Zambesi flows. Notice the plants.

Copyright by The Keystone View Company.

The bridge shown is still in use and a color, aerial shot of the bridge showing Victoria Falls can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Victoria5.jpg Click on stereoview in the labels section to bring up other stereoview cards as well as more info on The Keystone View Company, the largest stereoview card company in the world.

Old Soldiers Home

Published by Underwood, & Underwood one of the largest publishers of stereoview cards in the United States. (Click on stereoview in the labels section for more information on the history of the stereoview.) The caption reads, "Old Soldiers at Dinner-dinning room capacity 2,000-Soldier's Home, Dayton, Ohio. Copyright 1902 by Underwood & Underwood." A quick glance at the image and it's clear that many of the men in this photo were veterans of the Civil War. After the war, the first fraternal organization to deal with veteran's rights, The Grand Army of the Republic was formed. It was through their efforts that many of the veteran's homes in the United States were built. The GAR was dissolved in 1956 when Albert Woolson, the last veteran of the Civil War died. 1956 was the year after the year I was born.

Bhutanese Milkmen in Stereo

I've written about Keystone, and Underwood & Underwood, the two largest stereoview companies in the United States in past posts. Anyone interested in going into more detail should click on stereoview in the labels section. In my post of November 28, 2009, "Underwood & Underwood, Geography" I dealt specifically with the Underwood brothers and their company. The backbone of the stereoview industry was geographic images. Staff photographers and free lancers provided many Americans with the only window on the wider world that they would ever know. I was born in 1955 and my first grade teacher still used old stereoviews to teach us geography. The caption on this card reads, "Bhutanese milkmen with curious bamboo-jars, at the public Fountain, Darjeeling, India. Copyright 1903 by Underwood &Underwood."

Fishing in Stereo

No publishers name, no photo credit, no date. Stereoview cards allowed for a simple yet effective 3-D image of the world. A hand colored picture from a black & white original.

Washerwomen In Stereo

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Printed on the back of the card, "50-(W8668) WASHERWOMEN ALONG THE NILE, EGYPT

These women are doing the family washing in the Nile. It is easier to come down to the river and do their washing than to carry the water to their homes. Then they see the other women and have a visit. Here, again, we see the beautiful Nile boats. Copyright by Keystone View Company" In 1892, Benneville Lloyd Singley, former salesman for Underwood & Underwood, one of the largest stereoview manufacturers of the day, set up his camera and took photographs of the flooding of French Creek in Pennsylvania. He mounted them on cards sold them, and began his own stereoview company. Three years latter, with 700 images in his catalog, he incorporated The Keystone View Company in Meadville, PA. Between 1915 and 1921, Keystone, became the most successful stereoview company in the world, not just by expanding it's own collection of images, but by buying out most of it's major competitors. By 1935, Keystone had over 2,000,000 views on file. (Note, I've been unable to determine whether the 2 million figure represents the number of negatives owned, or the number of views offered for sale.) While Keystone offered many novelty images, Singley, correctly, believed that the real success of the stereoview lay in offering images of the world, which would never been seen, in person, by his customers. While Keystone did all of it's manufacturing at it's Meadville headquarters, it would open offices in New York, Chicago, and London. It would also keep photographers on staff all over the world, not only photographing physical and cultural geographic images, but historical events. Singley also began a division in his company to produce glass "magic lantern" slides. He also made stereoview viewers and slide projectors. He aggressively marketed his products to schools. (I was born in 1955, started first grade in 1960, and my first grade teacher still used stereoviews to teach geography.) Singley retired in 1936, and sold all stock in his company to two employees, Charles Krandall, and George Hamilton. Keystone, under the new partner's leadership, continued to increase it's collection of images as well as starting a division to manufacture eye testing equipment. In 1963, Keystone was purchased by Mast Development Company of Davenport, Iowa. Mast continued with the manufacturing of eye testing equipment, eventually shutting down the Meadville offices and plant. In 1978, three tons of negatives and company records were donated to the University of California Riverside. The negatives are housed at the California state Photography Museum in Riverside.

Novelty Wedding Stereoviews

While many stereoview cards where of current events, landscapes, and city scenes, there were also a number of novelty images as well. These two are wedding themed. The faded image, entitled The Bridegroom is three minutes late, was "Photographed and Published by B.W. Kilburn,-Littleton, N.H." On the front, side borders, "Copyright 1897, B.W. Kilburn." and "JAMES M. DAVIS, New York, St. Louis, Liverpool, Toronto, Sydney." Davis was a major distributor of stereoview cards and equipment. The other image, in much better condition, is from the H.C. White Company. Hawley C. White was a major publisher and manufacturer of stereoview equipment. On the borders, "H.C. WHITE CO., Gen'l Office N. Bennington, Vt., U.S.A. Branch Offices: New York, Chicago, London." And, The PREFEC-STEREOGRAPH. (Trade Mark.) Patented April 14, 1903. Other Patents Pending."

Underwood & Underwood, Geography

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Underwood & Underwood was started by Bert and Elmer Underwood of Ottawa, Kansas. In time, their company became the world's largest producer of stereo cards. In 1920, Underwood & Underwood's stereo card business was taken over by Keystone, but the two brothers continued as a major seller of news photographs. The port picture has some damage to the back of the card, but here's what's still there. "11194. Geography-Maracaibo is located on the western shore of Lake Maracaibo and has the best harbor on the coast, which can be used by the largest steamers, when once the sandbars at the entrance are cleaned out. A small American steamer runs between Curacao and Maracaibo three times a month and a great deal of trade is carried on through this port, though La Guyara, which is the seaport for Caracas, has most of the commerce. Products and Industries-Transportation.-Because of it's location in the centere of a region where coffee, rice, tobacco, cocoa, cotton and indigo are produced this city exports a great deal of each of them. The bags upon our right are to be shipped to New York and probably contain the famous Maracaibo coffee which has become so popular in recent years. The empty bags are on the cars to our left, which run down the length of the pier, making shipping an easier (damaged) South American ports. (damaged) here to other parts of (damaged) the third important commercial city in the country has about 40,000 inhabitants. It is Spanish built and surrounded by beautiful coconut groves. Refer again to this view when considering Political, Social, and Economic History of America, Agriculture, Child Life, Biography. Then in a box with translations in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian, the title of the card, "Loading steamer for United States, Maracaibo, Venezuela." The card with the reed rafts, "9052. Geography.- The Irrawaddy, as it flows through the Delta region, is crowded with rafts such as this, which we meet a few miles above Rangoon. Industries.-Lumbering.-Can you realize that it is perhaps seven years since some of these teakwood loge were first girdled and set aside for the market? Teakwood is so heavy that it sinks unless it is rafted beneath a bamboo float, as we see it here. It is three years after girdling before a teakwood tree is seasoned enough for felling. Even then, after it is cut, the "jungle wallah" has to wait for an opportune flood to transport it down the nearest creek. Often the creek falls as rapidly as it rose and then elephants and buffaloes are called upon to rescue the stranded logs and drag them across country to another and larger waterway. Transportation.-This unwieldy craft has been passed by many types of boats on it's 900 mile trip down from the forests of Bhamo-by modern steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, cargo barges, curiously rigged native sailing craft, saucy little sampans, and sturdy paddy boats. People and Homes.-These are merry Burmese lads, despite the fact that they have doubtless undergone the painful operations of being tattooed in a gorgeous interlaced pattern from their wrists to their knees. Their father sitting under his quite serviceable veranda wears a very feminine looking Psyche knot on top of his head. Rafts are usually crowded with thatched huts like the two we see here. Refer again to this view when considering Zone Life, History, Races of Mankind, Child Life, Manual Training, Home Economics. And the the translations of the card's title, "Timber raft coming down the Irrawaddy River, Burma." And finally, the picture of the Chinese Junk, "4376. Geography.-To the north, directly beyond the swelling sails of this primitive craft, lies Manchuria. Port Arthur is rather to the west and Korea lies to the east. Physiography.-Manchuria, between Mongolia and Korea, is far from being the barren country we have imagined it to be. It is much like Canada in climate and resources through it's 370,000 square miles of area. Transportation.-Here is a typical Chinese junk, not so common now since Manchuria has about 1,600 miles of railways under Russian and Japanese control and many modern steamers ploughing her waters. The junk is a large, flat-bottomed, high-sterned vessel with square bows. It has two masts which stand at different angles and give the craft a generally dissipated air. The sails are mere squares of rough cloth fastened to stout spars at either end and stiffened with bamboo poles. History.-China, Japan and Russia have long contended and are still contending for supremacy in Manchuria. Manchuria has been the scene of Japan's two recent wars, and despite the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty of 1905, it is far from being under Chinese control. By the terms of the treaty Russia was allowed to occupy northern Manchuria and Japan southern Manchuria. But each country was to so arrange her interests that she could evacuate Manchuria by April, 1907. Both have taken advantage of the permission to maintain a large number of armed guards over their respective railway interests, and Manchuria is still a bone of contention, though ostensibly given over to China." And then the translations of the card's title, "Chinese junk under full sail on the Yellow Sea."