Frank Brewer at Camp Gordon

Because of it's proportions, you'll really need to click on the image and bring it up in a bigger window to see it well.

The stamp box on the back is in the middle of the card, so I'm fairly certain that it was designed to be folded in half.  But, while there is a message on the back, there is no post mark and no indication that the card was ever stamped.  I'd bet that Frank Brewer, the author, folded the card in half and put it in an envelope for mailing.

"Dear Mother & Dad,  Yesterday there was 6 of us transfered frome the 24 Co to the 157 Depot Brigade.  Here we get good grub and all we want of it.  The rest of are 24 Co. has gone on a hike with rifel and full pack on.

I had to turn in my rifel and pack.  At this camp we have a snap.

I will write what we half to dew latter.  But I am liber to be transfered in any time in site of 3 months.  Cannot tell.

Tell Atkins my new adress.  I was at the rifel range and done some shuting and they put me down as a good shot. Ther are sending some Co to France in 4 weeks time.

If you write to B.B., C.B. or T.B. tell them my new adress.

Your Sun, Frank.

P.S. Did you get my inshurance papers yet."

In a separate section, Frank wrote his address.

"Mr Frank A. Brewer
31st Co. 8 Training Battalion
157 Depot Brigade
Camp Gordon, Ga."

I always love it when I find someone who spells worse than I do.  Interesting card.  Being sent to France?  But World War 1 or World War 2?  It's almost certain that this card was from the first World War.  Being sent to France was how soldiers described being sent to the trenches of World War 1.  Too, I've also found a web site about a young soldier,  serving at Camp Gordon, in the 157 Depot Brigade, in 1918.

Camp Gordon was opened in July 1917, at Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta.  It closed after World War 1, and was reopened in 1940.  It became Fort Gordon in 1957 and now trains more soldiers than any other military facility in the United States.

Stone Mountain may not be the largest rock in the world, as noted on the front of the card, but it is pretty big.  The mile from base to summit notation refers to a trail, not the elevation.  Today, Stone Mountain is the site of the world's largest bas relief, depicting  Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.  The Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan worked for years to establish the  confederate monument at Stone Mountain, but it wasn't until the 1960s, in reaction to the civil rights movement, after Stone Mountain had become state property,  that the project got off the ground.  In 1915, the Klan was reestablished, and an  easement form the owner was granted that allowed Stone Mountain to be used, in perpetuity, as a Klan rallying point.

And the caption on the back: "STONE MOUNTAIN, 16 MILES FROM ATLANTA, GA.  The steep side of Stone Mountain has been dedicated to the Confederacy by the U.D.C., and thereon will be carved in relief a stupendous monument of Lee and Jackson at the head of the Confederate Hosts.  Each figure will be approximately 30 feet in height: the horses, cannon, etc. as true to life as possible to be made.  Stone Mountain will stand through the ages an everlasting monument to the Boys of the Confederacy.  (Atlanta Convention Bureau.)"

That's Not Writing, That's Typing

I was thumbing through the photo grab bag collection, (100+ photos purchased in a sealed envelope, sight unseen.) and found another image with a typed label that should have been part of  the I Love Lucy post from the second of this month. When I put up that one I was thinking, a cold, overly analytical type who labeled everything with his typewriter, and then filed, cross referenced, making things easy to find.  Now I'm going with middle aged, mid western romeo who had his collection of conquests and had to keep things organized just in case the ladies of 1938 ran into the ladies of 1941.  Typed on the back, "Helen Aug-1938"

Bonus points for whoever gets the title reference.

Labor Day

Child labor?

Hard as it is to believe, Labor Day didn't start out as an end of summer three day get away.  In 1897, President Grover Cleveland signed a law creating a holiday celebrating American labor.  Of course, the law was passed in panic.  Federal troops and U.S. Marshals had just gunned down a number of strikers at the Pullman rail car plant in Illinois, and the country was worried about the possibility of a violent,  labor rebellion.

The American labor movement fought for the eight hour workday, the forty hour week, minimum wage laws, better wages and safe working conditions.  Labor also fought for better schools, the expansion of state college systems, infrastructure, safe drinking water, old age pensions, health insurance, and sewer socialism, the movement to improve cities and towns through government spending. And with each labor victory, the business community warned that the economy would collapse and small businesses would fail.  Sound familiar?

So is this photograph an example of child labor?  Probably not.  Labor also pushed for the end of child labor in the United States, and for vocational training where young people could learn a trade while still at school.

I grew up in a small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania.  A lot of the seniors in my home town were missing fingers.  They told stories of being five year old breaker boys at the mine.  Rather than going to school, they would sit at a conveyor belt and sort coal by size.  It was a rare child that made it to ten without loosing a finger or two.  Their greatest fear as children was they would loose too many fingers, and be unable to grip a shovel when they were old enough to go into the mines.  That meant being turned out of the company towns and destitution.

I Love Lucy

Another low angle shot, though nowhere as interesting as the last post.  Is this woman a relative or a sweetheart?  Whatever the relationship to the photographer, I find it strange that the caption on the back isn't hand written, but typed.  It just seems cold.  "Lucille, Turkey Run State Park, Ind. 7/40"

Turkey Run State Park opened in 1916, and was the second state park in Indiana.

Shirley Bristow

Labeled Shirley Bristow.  I love the low angle.  I don't know whether the photographer used a fill flash or if the printer dodged  Shirley's upper body, but it's a nice contrast with the darker background.  Probably from the mid thirties to early forties.

The North Texas State Normal College Album 1

It's time to put up another album and it's a mess.  There are 25 pages with images, a number where the photos have been removed, and damaged pages as well.  In addition there are a lot of  loose photos, some of the period, others newer, that have been stored between the pages.  Because there is so much to see, I'll be putting additional posts up in a when ever I get to it fashion.  I'll be putting NTSNC in the labels section so that those who are interested can click and bring  everything up together.

NTSNC stands for North Texas State Normal College.  It was founded as a private teachers college in 1890 in Denton, Texas.  It held classes above a hardware store and was called The Texas Normal College and Teachers Training Institute.  It changed hands in 1893 and became The North Texas Normal College.  In 1899 it was taken over by the state of Texas and finally became The North Texas State Normal College.  There were more name changes in the future.  In 1923, North Texas Normal College. In 1949, North Texas State College. In 1961, North Texas University.  And in 1988, it's present name, The University of North Texas.

I suspect part 2 is at least a week away, so be patient.

How We Got Around

When I was born, in 1955, there were people alive, younger than I am today, who could remember an America where people still got around by horse and buggy.  This photograph was cut from a larger image and pasted in an  album which someone has taken apart.  No date or captions.