Shooting Up Like Weeds

Now I know the origin of the phrase. I wonder if these two just stood around all day looking ominous and scaring the passers by? Printed on postcard stock.

Masculine Feminine

Baggy clothes, short cropped hair, no make-up, way cool sunglasses in her hand, leaning on a souped up coupe. I can see this girl riding around town in a hot rod, but at the risk of dealing in offensive stereotypes, I have to wonder what was the situation. Was she sitting on the passenger side, feet up on the dash board, lisitening to Chuck Berry on the radio while her boy friend, dressed in chinos, a white tee shirt, slicked back hair, looked for someone to race? Or was she the driver, and was her passenger a nice girl from a nice family, with one of those high pony tails and a poodle skirt, who wondered why she liked spending time with the girl that everybody at school said looked like a guy?

Young Men and the Whole World Before Them-The Baker Family 9

The Baker family album has dates from the early twenties to the mid thirties. No dates on this page, but I'm betting from the confidence some of these young men project that these photos had to be taken during the twenties. Or, is it the age of the subjects rather than the date that matters? Is there an age where economic depressions and the shadow of war doesn't matter? Click on Baker family in the labels section to bring up the whole collection.

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 Old Folks-The Baker Family 8

The older members of the Baker family. It's just a guess, of course, but the house in the second picture has an English country side look. It goes with the Brighton, Limey and Australian aunt references. Were the Bakers immigrants to the United States or did an English branch of the family send a few snapshots? Click on Baker Family in the labels section to bring up the whole collection.

Mauch Chunk

In 1953, the towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk merged, purchased the body of athlete Jim Thorpe from his widow, built a tomb, and changed their name to Jim Thorpe in hopes of attracting tourists. Before that, Mauch Chunk's claim to fame was it's gravity railroad. Built in 1827 to move coal 8.7 miles from the mines at Summit Hill to the coal chutes at Mauch Chunk, the railway used mules to haul the cars to the top of Pisgah Mountain and then used gravity to get back down the mountain. In 1846 a second track was laid and steam winches replaced mules for the uphill. It didn't take long for the coal company to realize that people were willing to pay to take the round trip on the gravity railroad. (The technology used by the gravity railroad is the same used by roller coasters.) The four hour ride to the top and the thirty minute downhill became a major American tourist attraction. Unfortunately, the route couldn't survive the great depression. Foreclosed, the only purchaser to show an interest was a scrapper who purchased the system, tore it up for the value of the rails. This card predates the divided back style that allowed for messages. It's addressed to "Miss Grace Book, No 58 fifth st., Bloomsburg, Pa." Postmarked, "MAUCH CHUNK 1905." The rest of the info is obscured. Printer, "H.C. Leighton Co., Portland, Me., Manufacturers of Postal Cards. Made in Germany. No 1130."

July 4

Why do we equate patriotism with war?