Home Style Temptress

As I've noted before, when I worked at the photo lab I never had a week go by where I didn't print some sort of amateur adult picture. There were a lot of home made pin-ups, nude wives and girlfriends, the occasional naked man, couples having sex, and for reasons I've never understood, lots and lots of cross dressing. These are pretty mild, but then they were printed in "JAN 63."

Rural Glamour

I was born in 1955 in a small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania and when I was a child there were still a lot of these old metal framework bridges with wooden decks still standing. On back roads, many unpaved, the wood planking starting to rot, we still used them and so did a lot of coal trucks. I'm still amazed that they didn't collapse killing the poor guy who just happened to be heading into town that day. In 1921, when this picture was taken, this bridge was probably only a few years old. A year or so after Prohibition went into a effect, I like to think that this young lady was headed off to a roadhouse, thumbing her nose at all the moralists who tried to solve the real problem of alcohol abuse with legislation that had no chance of working. When I was in my early twenties, I worked at a mine in West Virginia. The older residents had a saying, "Coal mine, moonshine, or movin' on down the line."

The German American Collection, Until Death do us Part

Written on the back of the first picture, "Our Wedding Day April 18th 1942 Until Death do us Part." I've scanned in the back of the second. Click on German-American in the labels section to bring up more images.

All of Us

I picked up this photo here, in southern California, so it's tempting to write that it's a shot of an outing to Catalina. (Click on Catalina in the labels section to pull up some examples.) Then again, the 1920s when this picture was most likely taken, was the era of passenger ships. Travelling from Los Angeles to San Fransisco, Seattle or Victoria, British Columbia was more likely to be done on a coastal steamer than by car. Too, liners were the main way to get to Hawaii, Asia, Europe or any place else not in North America. Then again, the twenties was also the era of gambling ships. With prohibition in force, and no handy casinos, southern Californians took small boats to ships anchored just outside the three mile limit where they could gamble to their heart's content and drink all the booze they could pay for. Written on the back, "All of us." Is it just me, or does the guy in the upper left look a lot like Eugene O'Neill?

12/2/44

From Pearl Harbor to V-J Day more than 16 million Americans, mostly men, served in the military. Many of them, about to be shipped overseas, rushed into marriage and left behind pregnant wives. (And a few pregnant girlfriends as well.) In for the duration, not given passes home, a photograph was all they would see of their young children until the end of the war. Those who didn't come back would never see anything other than photos. This picture is dated "12/2/44" The Battle of the Bulge was only two weeks away. The invasion of Okinawa was only four months in the future.

Hazel Hamilton Rogers/Hazel Elizabeth Rogers

Written on the back of the second photograph, "Mother-1911 On Graduation From Wesleyan." On the third picture, "Mother's Wedding Picture Hazel Hamilton Rogers." The Confederate battle flag in the background of the graduation picture led me to Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, founded in 1836 as a Women's college by the Methodist Church. With Georgia as a location I went in search of any information I could find on Hazel Hamilton Rogers. What I found was a small foundation set up in memory of a school teacher named Hazel Elizabeth Rogers, daughter of Dr. Thomas Edward Rogers and distinguished musician, Hazel Hamilton Rogers. No sibling were mentioned in the brief paragraph. It looks like Hazel Elizabeth never married or had any children. The clear hand writing on the back of these pictures must be hers and very likely there were no family members to claim these pictures.

Alfalfa, Sr. Cabinet Card

I dare anyone to tell me that this guy doesn't look like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals. All that's missing is the cow lick and a few freckles. This card was probably made in the nineteenth century, so it is possible that this man could be an ancestor of little Al. Nice tie, too.