Unidentified Photos, Various – "Your Dying Charlotte"

Winters Past…In Color

It seems like a good time to remember once again the winters of Yore…*

Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 1956.

*Sleighing on Beacon Street, February 1901. Courtesy Boston Public Library.*

*A snowball fight in front of New York Public Library, New York City, 1939.*

*Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1860.*

*A German car advertising image (but very real snow), late 1950s.*

*The white streets of Portland, Maine, mid-1960s.*

*Maybe not such a good time to go caravaning, 1960s.*

*The Common, Boston, Massachusettes, circa 1875. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.*

The frozen Thames River at London Bridge, London, England, December 1895.

*Skating on a frozen pond, 1891. Courtesy British Library.*

*A snowstorm in Boston, Massachusetts, c. 1930. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library/Leslie Jones Collection.*

*Daguerreotype of a village in winter, France, Circa 1850.*

*Skating on a frozen canal, Amsterdam, Holland, 1997.*

*All black and white images were colorized.

Best Christmases Ever: Twenty Color Photos from Holidays Gone By

tumblr_ngufhgmjAv1s8u38co1_640 — A little girl by a Christmas tree, photographed by H.B. Wills on 10 December, 1914. Color plate, assembly (two-color Kodachrome) process. Courtesy Eastman Museum.

95c306275b8f971f6251509062f256b2 — “Bill, Emily & E.S. Dec. 25, 1951.” Courtesy Shorpy Historical Photo Archive.

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All Hallows is Here Again

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, “Tonight is Halloween!” —Dexter Kozen

32202382682_bf9ff8102b_o — A Halloween party in the 1960s. Collection unknown.

c921331072117bea9ccff26add2a0fc5 — This image was taken in Urnäsch, Switzerland, in 1944. Collection unknown.

Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr., visit their father in the White House Oval Office, 1963. Courtesy John F. Kennedy Library.

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In Honor of Juneteenth, Three Images from My Collection

I own just a few early photographs of African-Americans, for they are scarce and much sought after. I present them with love.

18472494001_5f2b547cf6_o — A gelatin silver bromide print of a beautiful African-American woman wearing full mourning. Despite her loss, she was clearly a survivor. Circa 1900.

daga1IMG — Of this enchanting young Creole woman, I know only that she was from New Orleans, Louisiana, and her name was probably Jois. This was likely a wedding photo. Ambrotype, circa 1855.

21506079371_ed5484c3f4_h — Mrs. Della Powell, post-mortem albumen print, 1894, photographed by William Carroll, Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. Formerly in the collection of Ben Zigler and now in mine, this rare post-mortem image of an African-American woman, who may have begun her life as a slave, was published in the 2004 book “Mourning Jewelry and Art” by Maureen DeLorme.

Easters Ago

As the Northern Hemisphere explodes with green life, let’s take a look back at rebirth celebrations of yesteryear.

bfbeb62789c5e88cae8e29f0528efdc1 — A beautiful early Easter image, probably 1890s.

Easter_parade_Fifth_Avenue_1890 — The 1898 5th Avenue Easter Parade, New York City, New York. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

3a46622r — Children at the 1898 White House Easter Egg Roll. Courtesy Library of Congress.

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The First Photographed Frostie

Last week, a storm brought 10 inches of snow to Western Maryland and turned my mind to snowmen of old.

DXIlkTUW0AA4wV8 — A woman builds a snowman whilst a man shovels snow. Courtesy National Museum of Wales.

In all probabilty, humans have sculpted snowmen for millenia. In 2007, Bob Eckstein, the author of The History of the Snowman: From the Ice Age to the Flea Market, told NPR that in writing his book, “I wanted to make it clear that snowman-making actually was a form of folk art. Man was making folk art like this for ages, and…maybe it’s one of man’s oldest forms of art…. [T]he further back you go, you find that people were really fascinated with snowmen.”

Eckstein says that building snowmen was “a very popular activity in the Middle Ages…after a snow came down and dumped all these free-art supplies in front of everyone’s house.” The earliest known representation of a snowman dates to that era, drawn in a 1380 A.D. Book of Hours. A century later, in 1494, Michelangelo was commissioned by Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Gran Maestro of Florence, to practice his art with snow. According to art historian Giorgio Vasari, “de’ Medici had him make in his courtyard a statue of snow, which was very beautiful.” Sadly, no one drew it for posterity.

In 1510, a Florentine apothecary, Lucas Landucci confided in his diary that he had seen “a number of the most beautiful snow-lions, as well as many nude figures…made also by good masters.” Another notable snowmen outbreak occurred just a year later, when folk in Brussels built more than 100 of them “in a public art installation known as the Miracle of 1511,” notes Atlas Obscura. “Their snowmen embodied a dissatisfaction with the political climate, not to mention the six weeks of below-freezing weather. The Belgians rendered their anxieties into tangible, life-like models: a defecating demon, a humiliated king, and womenfolk getting buggered six ways to Sunday. Besides your typical sexually graphic and politically riled caricatures, the Belgian snowmen, Eckstein discovered, were often parodies of folklore figures, such as mermaids, unicorns, and village idiots.”

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Funeral Fragments

“When old Francis died in 1913, Dad sent him off in a hearse pulled by four black horses followed by mutes carrying ostrich feather wands and a procession of friends and family in the deepest mourning possible.”—Barbara Nadel

6297270408_005fc6f399_b — An invitation to the funeral of Ruth Evelyn Cooper, who died of pneumonia in the aftermath of influenza. She was one of upwards of 50 million people whose deaths were associated with the 1918 influenza pandemic. Ruth was born 21 June, 1898; she was the daughter of mail carrier George F. and Clara Good Cooper of Murrell, Ephrata Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

9587428394_61b9ea0e3c_k — This glass slide captures one moment in the lengthy funeral proceedings of Queen Victoria, as her coffin wended its way through London, 2 February, 1901. The slide is unmarked save for the handwritten inscription, “The Queen’s Coffin.” It does not appear to be part of a commercial set and may be a personal remembrance of the day taken by someone in the crowd. (Note the two boys looking down on the passing procession from the high wall on the right.)

14260852403_752914a036_h — This photo shows ephemera from the funeral of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1 May 1769–14 Sept., 1852). It resides in the museum of Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, England. The duke was beloved for leading the defeat of Napoleon’s forces at Waterloo, 18 June, 1818. He went on to become a prime minister and is still considered to be one of Great Britain’s chiefest politicians. The handwritten note reads: “Relics of the Funeral of the late Duke of Wellington. No.1 Silver lace from the car. 2. Cloth from the Hall. 3. Silver Tissue from the Canopy. 4. Tape from the Canopy, Chelsea Hospital. 5. Autograph of the late Duke, Nov. 1852.”

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New Year’s Eve: Roaring End, Rowdy Beginning

New Year’s Eve was celebrated on 31 December for the first time in 45 B.C. when the Julian calendar came into effect.

anticipation 9 — New Year’s Eve in the 19th Century was as jolly and booze-fueled as it is in the 21st. Here, Baby New Year 1838, the first born of the reign of young Queen Victoria, enters stage right as the black-draped old woman of 1837 departs stage left, taking with her the Georgian Era.

vintage-new-years-eve-celebrations-4 — This New Year’s Eve party had it goin’ on. Conga lines—usually drunken Conga lines—became popular in the 1930s and remained so right through the 1950s. The Conga was originally a Cuban Carnival dance.

CXiMIVtUkAAT3eE — Nothing says Swinging ’60s New Year’s Eve like bullet-bra and hot-pants-wearing go-go dancers workin’ it in a giant glass of champagne.

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Remembering the Christmas Truce of 1914

During World War I, soldiers on both sides ceased dealing death for one joyous Christmas Day.

ww1-xmas-1_custom-38641966b11e147a12de9127e356b676a7f80272-s900-c85 — Camaraderie outside the trenches, Christmas Day 1914. A beautifully colorized version of this photo can be found here.

It came and then was gone, but for a while, death held no dominion on the battlefields of France. Soldiers on both sides were entrenched, following killing orders from generals and cousin kings. “You no shoot, we no shoot,” the signs Germans troops held up supposedly read. So, the British did not shoot. Instead, they all met in the middle—a muddy No Man’s Land. They decorated tiny Yule trees and exchanged cigarettes, cigars, tinned foods, and even helmets. They buried their dead; they sang carols and played football, too.

According to historian Gerard DeGroot, a professor at the Unversity of St. Andrews, “The truce was, first and foremost, an act of rebellion against authority. In the trenches, though peace on earth seemed a ridiculous fantasy, impromptu ceasefires had been occurring as early as December 18. The British High Command, alarmed that the holiday might inspire goodwill, issued a stern order against fraternization. Officers were warned that yuletide benevolence might ‘destroy the offensive spirit in all ranks’. Christmas, in other words, was to be a killing time.

“The Germans, however, were stubbornly festive. In an effort to bolster morale, truckloads of Christmas trees were sent to the Kaiser’s forces. All along the line, Germans were acting in a bizarrely peaceful fashion. Guns fell silent. Candles and lanterns taunted British snipers. Late on Christmas Eve, Germans singing ‘Stille Nacht’ [‘Silent Night’] echoed across no man’s land. The British, initially perplexed, soon joined in.”

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On This Day for Mothers

“Mothers, I believe, intoxicate us. We idolize them and take them for granted. We hate them and blame them and exalt them more thoroughly than anyone else in our lives. We sift through the evidence of their love, reassure ourselves of their affection and its biological genesis. We can steal and lie and leave and they will love us.”—Megan Mayhew Bergman

4715860088_170bbac360_o — From left, my grandmother, Lillian Marie Fox; my great-grandmother, Rebecca Murdock Fox; and my great aunt, Rebecca Fox, posed for this tintype in about 1901. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

11178332634_3e9d60169a_o — This tintype’s sitters were a beautiful turn-of-the-century mother and daughter who appear to be African-American. Courtesy Jack and Beverley Wilgus Collection.

5099229059_1a590a3bd5_o — An American mother sat outside with her children for this ambrotype taken on a clear day in about 1880. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

3360043331_837fa3d3cd_o — An adoring, late-Victorian mother and delighted child were the subjects of this albumen print on cardboard. Photo Courtesy Price and Zimmer Collection.

15981569687_60f65482d1_k — An unknown lady tenderly holds her baby in this circa-1875 carte de visite by Hills & Saunders, Oxford, England. Courtesy James Morley Collection.

I wish all mothers a happy day of love and peace. For all you have done and will do, you are saluted.

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