Sperry Glacier

I've been to Sperry Glacier, and I suspect that's why I wanted this postcard.  It's on the north slope of Gunsight Mountain in Glacier National Park in Montana. It's not a short hike, but it is doable as a day trip.  The last time I was in Glacier was at least 15 years ago, and Sperry was a lot smaller than it is in this photograph, and if predictions hold true, it will be gone, along with the other surviving glaciers in the park, by 2020.

This card is postmarked "ANACONDA MONTANA, JUL 18, 2-P.M. 1916"  It's addressed to "Miss Marg Bryan, 2732 Renick St., St. Joe, Mo."  No message, though.  Glacier National Park was established in 1910.

The North Texas State Normal College Album 3

I'm assuming that the owner of this album was a student at North Texas State Normal College in Denton, Texas.  But, I can't know that for certain.  Perhaps the owner wasn' a student, but just someone passing through town who liked the album cover.  In any case, that's a lot of people posing in front of that barn.

Click on NTSNC in the labels section to bring up the whole collection.

The North Texas State Normal College Album 2

I'd love to know what kind of time span this album covers.  A normal college's primary purpose was the training of teachers.  Is the first picture a photo of students standing in front of their college or is it newly graduated teachers getting ready to face a school room full of ten year olds?  I'm thinking the former, and the children in the second photo are siblings left behind at home.

Click on NTSNC in the labels section to bring up the whole collection.

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.