Relaxing In Suburbia

It was a golden time after all.  The war was over, the United States had one of the few strong economies in the world, unions were strong, and wages were high.  There was even money to buy the kids a piano.  Too bad rock & roll got 'em.

Stamped on the back,  "ROLLMAN'S CAMERA SHOP APR 6  1954  SHILLINGTON, PA."   What a great name for a camera shop.  I'll bet there motto was buy a roll from Rollman's.  And, as of January 2012, Rollman's was still in business.  Of course my source for that info stated that Rollman's had been in business for 55 years.  Do the math, and that means that the store opened in 1957, so clearly my source has some problems.

Shillington is a small town, a borough actually, adjacent to Reading, Pennsylvania.  In the 1950s, Reading had a population of over 100,000, today it's under 90,000.  There was a community named Shillington as early as 1860, but it didn't incorporate until 1908.  And the first elected official, Burgess Adam Rollman.  It's probable that some descendant of Adam was the camera store Rollman.  The most famous Shillingtonian (?) was author John Updike.  Updike was the valedictorian of the Shillington High class of 1950,  so it's pretty probable that the young lady in this photo either knew him, or knew of him, before he was famous.

Suburban Parties

I really need to add more color to the collection.  I've got a feeling that I wouldn't have liked living in the fifties.  But, I could be wrong.  These people look like they're having a wonderful time.

The German American Collection, It All Ends in Smithtown

Written on the back, "1956 Mr & Mrs B.C. Oakside Rd. Smithtown." Is this a bit of a let down for the last image of the collection? Yes and no. To recap, a dealer had purchased a large collection of photos at an estate sale, sold some of the best images separately, and then bundled the reminder into groups, put them up on EBay, and this was the only lot that I won. The huge gaps make it impossible to build a true narrative. Still, we can know that this collection had plenty of images from both the United States and Germany. What we can't know is how the two came together. Did a German branch of a family send photos to their American cousins? Was there a move from Germany between the wars or after World War 2, followed by marriage into an American family? In any case, somehow or another, some branch of this family ended up in a post war suburb on Long Island. The good life dreamed of by so many, recorded with this one, very faded color photograph. Click on German American in the labels section to bring the whole lot up. Good, bad, and indifferent images, but worth it.