Bridge Running

I know it's out of focus and  leaching 80 year old chemistry, but I like it anyway.   I wonder if they were running from something?  A little harmless prank, hurrying away before getting caught, while their less adventuress friend took pictures?

Scalp Treatment

What's a scalp treatment?  What's an oil treatment?  Are these the owners, or customers? Do children need scalp treatments?  Did these people decide they needed a picture of the kids and decide, "Hey, I've got the perfect place for a picture.  Down by the scalp treatment store."  (Or is it salon?)  Written in the print border, "2mo"  Written on the back, "June 9, 1946"

Swedes In America

Are there any Swedes out there?  I'm not even going to try and translate this one.  I assume it's in Swedish because it was mailed from the United States to Broby, a town in southern Sweden.  I'm not even sure from where in the U.S.  The image is from southern California.  The publisher is M. Rieder, a company in business from 1901 to 1915, located in Los Angeles, but the postmark....well, I think it's from Michigan, but I'm not even sure of that.  Did a Swedish immigrant pass through L.A. on his way to Michigan and send a card to those he left behind at home?   I would say that's most probable, but it's not the only possible explanation.  Los Angeles is a seaport, and there are also ports on Lake Michigan that service international shipping.  So, perhaps, a sailor.  Then again, the sender of this postcard might have been a tourist.  1906 seems far back in time, but like today, there were plenty of international travelers who just roamed for the sake of seeing the world.  And that's why I need someone who can decipher the handwriting and translate it into English.  It's the only way I'll know the who and the why of this message.

We have a partial translation from J'lee.  Click on  comment at the bottom to read what she has found out.  It seems Nils, in Wallace, Michigan is trying to send something to his sister Sigrid, in Sweden.  Whatever it is, it has to be well packed.  Wallace is the name of two occupied places in Michigan.  One on the southern, upper peninsula, and one not.  And I've double checked.  The entire card is visible on the post.

Camera Woman

I love pictures of people with cameras.  This one is dated "JUL 4 1946" a year or so after the end of World War 2.  It's inconceivable the lady in this photo didn't know a number of people who went off to the conflict.  The camera looks like it's from the thirties.  I have a number of them in my collection, and it probably uses 620 film.  That's six exposures per roll, and she must have gone through a lot of rolls of film taking pictures of her friends, now out of uniform.  But who was the photographer of the photographer?  The 620 format gives a long narrow image.  This image could have been cropped, or it could have been from a newer 120, or even a 35mm.   Perhaps a war souvenir.  Both the Germans and the Japanese have a long history of making fine cameras.

For anyone interested, lots of old, folding 620 cameras from the thirties still work and give a nice, sharp negative.  To use one, you'll need two 620 reels. If there aren't any in the camera, they can be found on EBay.  Go into a dark room, strip off the film from a roll of 120 film and respool it onto a 620 reel.  Most of these old cameras will have a small window on the back with a red, celluloid cover.  There a numbers on the paper backing of the film.  If they're visible, the frames will be 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11.  If the numbers don't line up with the window, good luck trying to figure out how far to advance the film per exposure.

Cooks

Thanksgiving weekend is over and it's time to clean up the mess and figure out what to do with all the leftovers.  Written on the back of this photo, "voc. school"  It looks like these three young ladies are learning what to do with dried up turkey, fatty gravy, cold mashed potatoes, and stale stuffing.  Man, I'm feeling hungry.  Going by the hairdos, I'm guessing the 1920s.

The Hunting Camp

I grew up in a small town where most men, and a sizable number of women, hunted.  During the great depression my father hunted out of necessity, and had no interest in hunting for sport.  As an adult, I've developed an interest in environmental issues.  It surprises the people I know that I have no objection to regulated hunting.  It shocks many of them that I'd still like to try hunting.  Looks like these guys are having fun.

Dr. Henry Chung

A magic lantern slide or glass transparency, take your pick.  Labeled on the front, "Made by Committee on Conservation and Advance, 740 Rush St., Chicago, Ills."  And on the back, "Neg. 89658 Slide 56  Leet. X-Hermit  Dr. Henry Chung"

A search for Dr. Henry Chung didn't get me much.  There are a lot of Dr. Henry Chungs out there.  And that's just in the United States.  A search for Committee on Conservation and Advance, on the other hand, was a bit more fruitful.  The Committee was a branch of the Methodist Episcopal Church  that was active in Korea from 1908 to 1922 and was very successful in converting Koreans to Christianity.  The Methodists, and other Christian church missionaries, were so successful that Korea is one of the most Christianised countries in Asia.  

But the real find was at digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/collection/kda-m7.html, The Reverend Corwin and Nellie Taylor Collection, a group of glass slides documenting the Committee on Conservation and Advance's activities in Korea.  It's part of the Korean Heritage Collection at the University of Southern California.  It's easy to access and well worth a look.  The only problem I had with it was that it made me want to find all the images in the collection and that's a daunting task.  And one more bit of information.  I found this slide in the USC collection.  Dr. Chung is listed as the author of The Case of Korea.  Don't know whether that's a book or a pamphlet; whether it's about Korea's political situation or about Christianity.  Whatever it is, it doesn't have an internet presence.