Aviation

I run across these all the time; collections put together by dealers by theme, but otherwise not related. With my post of the flying family just a couple of clicks back, I thought it would be a good time to put up this aviation themed collection. As usual when purchasing a group like this, I'm drawn to some images more than others, and in some cases, I don't really have an interest in some of the pictures at all. But since I would prefer to err on the side of putting up too much rather than too little, I'm posting them all.

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To be born in 1955 is to be interested in airplanes. World War 2 had only ended a decade earlier and movies of fighter pilots and bombing raids were still an entertainment staple. Jets had come along, but prop planes were still common commercial air carriers. When I was 14 in 1969 man walked on the moon. A 75 year old person in 1969 would have been nine when the Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, and would have been old enough to have clear memories of the announcement that man had flown a powered craft for the first time. A fast progression of technology. And too, it didn't hurt that my mother was from England and built Minerva engines for Spitfires during the war.

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The long shot of the control tower and terminal with the factory smoke stack to the right is labeled, "11/4/39 Broward Field Hartford, Conn." The two color photos are stamped, "THIS IS A KODACOLOR PRINT MADE BY EASTMAN KODAK EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY T. M. REGIS. U. S. PAT. OFF. Aug 20, 1948." Still flying prop planes out of a small airport. Note the cars parked on the edge of the tarmac. There is a date stamped on the picture of the two girls in the helicopter, MAY 1984" but that has to be when it was printed rather than taken. The hair is all wrong for the 80s. The picture that shows a few small planes lined up on a runway is stamped "AMERICAN PHOTO SERVICE NOV 9 1948." The photographer was clearly drawn to the sky since it's the main part of the composition. Written on the back of the Aviation Mechanics School with it's Army Air Force insignia, "Hanger 1510B we use it for school-we work inside, it's a pretty big place." The TWA wing tip, again a prop passenger plane, "Geneva." I suspect that the group picture wasn't taken at an airport but the plane in the background just barely qualifies it as an aviation themed photo, written in the margin, "Lorasine Schleminns, Bill Donlin, Gabriel Pea, Beth Donlin and Becky-Wash, D.C." The old lady with the leis, "Oct 9, 1950." This may have been her first flight. The group of people standing in front of the control tower, "Our group at the Lourdes, France airport before we left for Paris." And the plane on the grass field, "July 12, 1939 Bendix Airport. U. S. Army Bomber." I'm fascinated that so many of these people dressed up to fly. The last time I flew, I wore jeans and an old, comfortable shirt.

Another CDV From C. C. Shadle

Most of the carte de visites I own were purchased when I first started collecting photographs and most are from my home state of Pennsylvania. C.C. Shadle was born in 1817 and learned photography at the age of 45, around 1862. After working as an engineer for three years, he opened a photography studio in Apollo, Pennsylvania, (My home town.) around about 1865, the year that the Civil War ended. He then set up a studio in Tarentum, PA, and then moved to Kittanning, (The town where I was born.) in 1869. For more detailed information on the life of C. C. Shadle go to www.freepages.geneology.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~treasures/pa/.../ccshadle.pdf Written on the back, "Nancy's Grand Pa." Stamped on the back, "C. C. SHADLE, Photographer, TARENTUM, Penna."

The Flying Family and One Really Creepy Doll

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, magazines from Life, and Look to Popular Mechanics predicted that one day the United States would be a country where it would be common for people to own small planes, personal helicopters, and one day the flying car, capable of rolling down the highway and bypassing traffic with the quick flip of a switch that would deploy the wings. Well, I'm still waiting for my flying car. The horizontal format photo with all the people standing in front of a plane is dated "1932." The picture with the "GULF" logo is labeled, "David & Arla, Nogales, AZ 1939." Gulf oil was once one of the largest oil companies in the United States before it was bought out by ARCO. The four adults with the child on the wing, "Shirley, Wesley, Nogales, AZ 1939 Alice, Helen, Emory." Possible it's mislabeled, but there was a time when Shirley, was a far more common man's name than a woman's, so if Shirley is one of the men, the sex balance is restored. The little boy has a toy airplane as would be expected with this flying family. Labeled, "Aug 7, 1937. Robert-3 years. Rafer ranch." Please tell me that the baby carriage picture is a very creepy doll. If not, that's one very weird looking kid. Labeled, "May 1935 Nogales, Ariz." Nothing written on the trio of people, the man in the flying helmet and goggles the old lady and the other man, but stamped on the back, "GUARANTEED FOR LIFE THIS IS A GENUINE BORDER Fox Tone PICTURE. MADE BY FOX COMPANY, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. COPYRIGHTED 1927 BY CARL P. NEWTON." Nogales is on the U.S./ Mexico border and before the interstate highway was built it would have been one hell of a drive over dirt roads, impassable during the summer monsoon rains. Flying might have been the only real mobility these people knew.

A Portrait By George H. Van Norman

Every time I find a commercial photograph with a photographers mark, I always run an web search and I almost never get a hit. Well, this one is an exception. George H. Van Norman was a prominent local Massachusetts photographer active from 1884 to 1890 in Waltham, Mass. and then he relocated to Springfield and was active there from 1890 to 1901. I've also found reference to him in a book titled, "Photo Miniature vol. 6" published in 1905, and have found a cabinet card of a woman wearing a dress decorated with photographs, a head piece made from a studio view camera with the curtain framing her face, holding an advertising banner for the Van Norman studios that's part of the permanent collection of The Portland (Oregon) Museum of Art. This wonderful portrait is mounted on a card, embossed "GEO. H. VAN NORMAN SPRINGFIELD MASS." so we can date this image from somewhere between 1890 and 1901.

19th Century Portrait of a Man

A nineteenth century portrait of an upper class man mounted on a card embossed, "THE WATERTOWN STUDIO 7 MAIN ST." Watertown is in Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, near Cambridge, the home of Harvard College.

Pole Climber

When I write that I think something is turn of the century, I now have to specify which century. I figure, from the kids clothing, that this image was probably from the beginning of the twentieth century into the very early teens. From back in the day when kids were supposed to get in trouble.

Nine Women

There are a lot of reasons these nine women could be posing together, but with the corrugated sheet metal wall that is the backdrop, my guess is that these ladies may be the office staff in a mill, or perhaps garment workers.