The Fall of the House of Usher

No mystery on this one. I used to work at a photo lab, I owned a 16mm copy of the 1928 silent, experimental film, The fall of the House of Usher, directed by James Sibley Watson, and Melville Webber. I made a inter-neg from one of the frames, and this print. The lady is Hildegarde Watson, as Madeline Usher.

Culture In America 2

These photos were found in the same envelope of the ones in the previous post. While there is no proof that they were taken at the same function, the number is right for a single roll of film, and the lady with the fur muff in the first image is in the party photos. No dates or location.

Culture In America 1

I'm dividing this collection into two parts. I've got a lot of photographs that were all found in the same envelope. No dates, or locations. They seem to be photos of a party, divided into the adults only half and the more a kids/young people friendly group. Part two are pictures of the entertainment.

Prom Queen and Graduate

Three photos of Miss Candy Fickes, very likely from Cloverdale, California. The photo of Candy in her prom gown is labeled, "Candy Fikes, first formal." The two graduation pictures not only have Candys' name written on the back but a photographers stamp, "PHOTO BY C. FRANK TILESTON, Jr. CLOVERDALE, CALIFORNIA." I tried running Candy Fikes on Google and didn't come up with anything. C. Frank Tileston, however, came up with a death notice and dates, March 25, 1918 to December 7, 2002. If these photos were taken in the sixties, that means Tileston would have been in his forties or fifties when taken. I also found a notation of a Chester Tileston, a student at Cloverdale High from 1961-65.

Wendy Summers, Stripper by Gene Laverne

Technically this is not a photograph, but a halftone. A halftone is an image made by a series of dots, varying in either size or distance from each other to create the illusion of an image. I used to make halftone negatives at the photo lab where I worked, all the time. They were used primarily for newspaper advertisements. Gene Laverne was a photographer from Buffalo, New York who specialized in glamour, and theatrical photography, was well known for his portraits of strippers. This image is captioned, "WENDY SUMMERS, BALTIMORE" I did a web search for Wendy Summers, and couldn't find anything about this lady.

The Lighthouse

This is one of the strangest images I have in my collection, not because of the image itself, but because it's a transparency made on a very thin film. I think, but I'm far from sure, that this is a contact made from a negative.

Modesto

An estate collection bought from a dealer in Modesto, California. Usually when I buy one of these small collections it's one or two of the photos that I'm really interested in. The images that really grabbed me are of the old photo booth strip, clearly the oldest of the lot, the woman on the ships gang plank, and the picture of the young lady getting her pants mended while across the lap of the seamstress. Only some of these photographs are labeled in any way. The school children, some standing, some sitting, "Roosevelt Jr. High Librarians." Because of the age, I'm guessing that the Roosevelt referenced is Theodore, not Franklin. One of the sailors has either "Dale," most likely or the rather impersonal, "Date" written on the front of the photo. The woman and the baby in the small wheel barrow, "Betty, Mother" The small boat, most likely taken in San Fransisco Bay, has "Waperry" stamped on the border, part of which can be seen in the scan. The young lady on the gang plank, "October 3-'31 Faye Maple." The small child sitting on the mule, "Larry & Grandpa Scott." And the three children, the little boy in the middle flanked by the two small girls, "Aug. 15-1932, Elaine, Raymond Maple, Betty."