Labor Day

Why is it so difficult to find photographs of people at work? Dated 1956, women assembling radios (I think), an industry that can no longer be found in the United States.

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."

Miss Rathburn

Written on the back, "Miss Rathburn. Pacific School, Seattle, Wash." When this picture was taken, teaching was about the only profession a woman could enter. For some odd reason, being a married woman was considered a bad example for the children. My first grade teacher (1960), Miss Snyder was born in the nineteenth century and never married. I wonder if she thought it was a good deal.

Finding Your Niche

Nice picture but the message on the back is better. "A small corner of the biggest job of my life. Just the niche I've always wanted. Pat, Kathy and Me." Who wouldn't want to find their niche?

Cranberries

Again, the original source material for color, linen postcards are almost always hand colored black & white photographs. This one shows black migrant workers harvesting cranberries on Cape Cod.

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Printed on the back, "HARVESTING CRANBERRIES The cranberry is indigenous to Cape Cod. It is a highly profitable and highly specialized business which employs an army of scoopers to skim the great bogs for the Delectable Feast of Thanksgiving." Also, "TICHNOR QUALITY VIEWS MADE ONLY BY THE TICHNOR BROTHERS, INC. BOSTON, MASS."

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Written on the back, "Darling Tina, I wish you were with us, we are just going to the beach. The next time you go with us I suppose you will be swimming better than ever.

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Yesterday was my day to write, but Mummy wrote so I thought I would wait until to-day. Just heaps. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Me."

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Addressed to, "Miss Christine Anderson, Camp Four Winds, Mass Girl Scout Camp, Buzzards Bay, Route 2, Mass."

Maids

The reason so many old homes are so large is because room had to be made for staff quarters. From the late 19th to the early 20th century. People who think of those times as more civilized never think that they might have been the ones getting up at six in the morning to scrub the floors.

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.

Glass Negative of a Garment Factory

This is one of my great regrets. When I was working at the photo lab, I could have made a high quality enlargement of this, instead all I ever got around to was this quick and dirty contact print from a beautiful razor sharp 8 x 10 glass negative.

Washerwomen In Stereo

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Printed on the back of the card, "50-(W8668) WASHERWOMEN ALONG THE NILE, EGYPT

These women are doing the family washing in the Nile. It is easier to come down to the river and do their washing than to carry the water to their homes. Then they see the other women and have a visit. Here, again, we see the beautiful Nile boats. Copyright by Keystone View Company" In 1892, Benneville Lloyd Singley, former salesman for Underwood & Underwood, one of the largest stereoview manufacturers of the day, set up his camera and took photographs of the flooding of French Creek in Pennsylvania. He mounted them on cards sold them, and began his own stereoview company. Three years latter, with 700 images in his catalog, he incorporated The Keystone View Company in Meadville, PA. Between 1915 and 1921, Keystone, became the most successful stereoview company in the world, not just by expanding it's own collection of images, but by buying out most of it's major competitors. By 1935, Keystone had over 2,000,000 views on file. (Note, I've been unable to determine whether the 2 million figure represents the number of negatives owned, or the number of views offered for sale.) While Keystone offered many novelty images, Singley, correctly, believed that the real success of the stereoview lay in offering images of the world, which would never been seen, in person, by his customers. While Keystone did all of it's manufacturing at it's Meadville headquarters, it would open offices in New York, Chicago, and London. It would also keep photographers on staff all over the world, not only photographing physical and cultural geographic images, but historical events. Singley also began a division in his company to produce glass "magic lantern" slides. He also made stereoview viewers and slide projectors. He aggressively marketed his products to schools. (I was born in 1955, started first grade in 1960, and my first grade teacher still used stereoviews to teach geography.) Singley retired in 1936, and sold all stock in his company to two employees, Charles Krandall, and George Hamilton. Keystone, under the new partner's leadership, continued to increase it's collection of images as well as starting a division to manufacture eye testing equipment. In 1963, Keystone was purchased by Mast Development Company of Davenport, Iowa. Mast continued with the manufacturing of eye testing equipment, eventually shutting down the Meadville offices and plant. In 1978, three tons of negatives and company records were donated to the University of California Riverside. The negatives are housed at the California state Photography Museum in Riverside.

Railroad Men

I don't know where this was taken, but it looks like the rail line that crosses the Sierras between Truckee and Sacramento.

Working at Western Union

The clock on the wall is from Western Union, the telegraphy company. Looks like it's from the 1920's, a time when few married women worked.

Working Women

I see machine tools, wiring of some kind, ball bearings and an assembly line. I've often wondered if the numbers, BBC 45746, visible in the print indicates that this picture was from the British Broadcasting System. All of the workers are women, perhaps from World war 2 when the men were all in the army.