Tag: 1920s

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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

Continue reading “New Year’s Eve: Roaring End, Rowdy Beginning”

Mommy and Me

“Because I feel that in the heavens above
The angels, whispering one to another,
Can find among their burning tears of love,
None so devotional as that of ‘Mother,’
Therefore, by that dear name I have long called you,
You who are more than mother unto me.” — Edgar Allan Poe

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A proud mother and her adorable daughter pose in this 1/6-plate daguerreotype, circa 1850. The mother wears a fashionable “Jennie Lind” collar, made popular by the soprano Jennie Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” who toured North America from 1850 to 1852 under the relentless promotion of showman P. T. Barnum. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
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This mid-1870s tintype from the Jack and Beverly Wilgus Collection includes a shy “hidden mother” who is revealed with the removal of the decorative paper mat.
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A nicely dressed English mother and son photographed in about 1862. Her smoothed and center-parted hair, pagoda sleeves, full hoop, and applied decorative trim was at the height of fashion. Her boy’s checkered, belted, one-piece dress was perhaps in shades of red and tan, similar to the fabric used in this earlier example. This albumen carte de visite is from the Caroline Leech Collection, originally photographed by G. J. Tear, Clapham Road, London.
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A mother, son, and baby in a pram enjoying a sunny day in England during the late 1920s. Scanned film negative from the James Morley Collection.
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An American mother and two daughters pose for an adorable 1/6th-plate Gaudin daguerreotype, circa 1852. The plate is marked “Double, A. Gaudin, 40,” the hallmark of Antoine Gaudin & Bro., 9 Rue de la Perle, Paris, a French company whose products were widely used by daguerreians throughout America. The older daughter is wearing a “protective” coral necklace. Coral was thought to have special efficacious properties to safeguard children. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

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A quick note: I will be having surgery on Tuesday, 4 April, and will be taking at least a four- or five-day hiatus to recover. I will return as soon as possible. Promise.

Beside the Seaside

“Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside! I do like to be beside the sea! I do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom! Where the brass bands plays tiddely-pom-pom-pom! So just let me be beside the seaside! I’ll be beside myself with glee and there’s lots of girls beside, I should like to be beside, beside the seaside, beside the sea!”

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This British ambrotype shows either a mother (right) with three daughters, or four sisters of disparate ages, posed on the exposed ground of a tidal estuary or river. Their fashions date to about 1870. The littlest girl is either carrying her bonnet or a bucket. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

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Capocci & Sons, ice cream vendor, on the beach during a sunny, happy day at Bournemouth, Dorset, in the 1890s. The 1891 census enumerated Celestine Capocci, a 51-year-old ice cream maker born in Italy, and her large family living at 5 St. Michael’s Cottages, Holdenhurst, Bournemouth. Glass-plate negative courtesy James Morley (@photosofthepast). The identification of the ice cream vendor was made by EastMarple1, who is a collector and historian at Flickr.

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Three elegant young adults on the deck of a ship or a seaside pier, circa 1900. Glass-Plate negative from the collection of James Morley.

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On the beach at Trouville, Normandy, France, in September 1926. Paper print from the collection of James Morley.

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Although posed in front of a backdrop, this girl was genuinely at the seaside, as Littlehampton, West Sussex, remains a vibrant holiday community to this day. Whilst photographers roamed the beach at Littlehampton and other resort towns, photography studios with their painted seaside scenes provided a second souvenir option. This Carte de Visite, taken circa 1900, is courtesy Caroline Leech.

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“The most easily identified and most commonly found British tintype are the seaside portraits where families pose with buckets and spades in the sand or lounge in deck chairs on pebbled beaches with wrought iron piers in the background,” writes the administrator of the site British Tintypes. “The seaside might also be the one place where middle class people could safely and easily have a tintype made—as a fun, spur-of-the-moment amusement in keeping with other beach entertainment.” Tintype, mid-1890s, Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

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Lyrics to “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside,” written in 1907 by John A. Glover-Kind.

Dashing Through the Snow

Even the fake kind, or the missing altogether….

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Tintype, circa 1870.

Oh my. After this debacle, let’s hope there was snow outside to sled on.

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Austrian unused real photo postcard, circa 1905, stamped “Fotographie L. Strempel, Klosternburg, Stadplaz.”

Okay. Well, at least there is fake snow. And a fake dog.

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Phyllis and Barbara Nute on Christmas Day, Winthrop, Maine, circa 1927. Paper print.

This is more like it: Real snow outside and the girls are rocking those gifts from Santa.

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Edward Miller on his sled, paper print, circa 1915.

A happy boy on his sled the back garden of what seems to be a row house. A woman stands at the end of the wooden-plank walkway, probably his mother. I hope Edward’s father took him to a local park where there were many high hills to fly down.

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Unmarked albumen print on cardboard, circa 1915.

A wistful girl sleds on a snowy day near the family farm. Everything about this image charms me—from the baggy pants, the bottle curls, and mad hat to the upturned, pointed noise of the sled and the low mountain beyond. I wish I knew more about her, but sadly there is no photographer’s impression or inscription. Ω

All images: Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

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Snow banks on U.S. Route 40 at Keysers Ridge, Garrett County, Maryland, circa 1925. Real photo postcard.

“Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

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Electric trollies navigate the snow-jammed streets of a U.S. city, probably Seattle, Washington, during the enormous snows of 1916. Real photo postcard.

“It doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I’ve bought some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow! Let It snow! Let it snow!”

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My paternal grandfather James Albert Longmore shovels out after a winter storm in Camden, New Jersey, during the late 1930s.

“When we finally kiss good night
How I’ll hate going out in the storm!
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm…”

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My mother Sally Garnand Longmore outside our home in  Linette Lane, Annandale, Virginia, circa 1980.

“The fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you love me so
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!” Ω

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Snow-covered trees somewhere in the Western United States. Postcard by William P. Sanborn, circa 1940.

Words: Sammy Cahn; Images: Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.