Monday, November 30, 2015

Steffano Webb

Group of women and children, in a garden, around 
a table laid out with afternoon tea items, ca. 1910s
  
Reese family, Christchurch, 12 September 1914
  
Returned soldiers wearing medals march past onlookers 
in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, ca. 1920s
  
W Hayward & Co, taxi depot, Armagh Street, Christchurch, 1880s-1920s
  
Wedding party of Mr & Mrs Lane, 4 December 1914
 
Steffano Webb Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Dundurn

That's Dundurn, Saskatchewan.

Dundurn, Saskatchewan, "off to the elevator", September 10, 1908
  
Dundurn, Saskatchewan, "the big automobile town"
  
Dundurn, Saskatchewan, ca. 1911
  
Harvest scene, Dundurn, Saskatchewan, ca. 1910
  
Harvest scene on the Swager Farm, Dundurn, Saskatchewan
 
Source: Prairie Towns

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Courtship Ritual

This very odd series of photos is from the Library of Congress's stereograph collection. I can't help thinking that when they were made (1906) they must have been thought of as impossibly salacious if not downright obscene. Who was the audience for these?

 "It's your move."
  
 "Now dear you know I don't snore."
  
"Slow! Well I'll beat you yet."
  
At the hour of midnight

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Northwood Brothers

Group outside a thatched wooden hut, ca. 1930
  
 
Items washed up from the wreck of the ship Forrest Hall 
on Ninety Mile Beach, February 1909
  
The Forrest Hall broke up in the heavy waves and most of her cargo was unable to be salvaged. The shipwreck occurred in controversial circumstances, with the ship running directly on to the beach in broad daylight. A subsequent commission of inquiry raised issues of drunkenness and insurance fraud, but ultimately found the captain guilty of gross negligence.
    
Nita Lomba on horseback with a sack of mail; 
the Paranui to Mangonui postal service, ca. 1910
  
 
Settlement, beach and young girl, Ahipara, 1 August 1913
  
Three Maori girls shelling toheroa on a beach, 1910-39

Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Huron County

That's Huron County, Ontario, Canada.

Basting the roast, 1910
  
Canoe girls, 1909
  
Four women in field of flowers
  
Group portrait in front of sugaring shack, 1910
  
James Jackson's farm, about 1900
 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Alexander Galbraith

Family of William Rennie, curling party, 
Swansea, Ontario, December 25, 1904
  
Ice boat on Toronto Bay, 1906
  
Logging operation, after 1920
  
Robert Parker's team and cutter, 1908
  
 
Toboganning, High Park, Toronto, 1904
  
Sleighing party, Queen's Park, ca. 1906
 

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Mr. Prokudin-Gorskii was a pioneering Russian photographer whose experiments with color were way ahead of his time and gave amazing results, as you can see from these. The Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection features color photographic surveys of the vast Russian Empire made between ca. 1905 and 1915. Frequent subjects among the 2,607 distinct images include people, religious architecture, historic sites, industry and agriculture, public works construction, scenes along water and railway transportation routes, and views of villages and cities. An active photographer and scientist, Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook most of his ambitious color documentary project from 1909 to 1915.

Armenian woman in national costume. Artvin
  
Bashkir in national costume
  
 
Command crew of steamship Sheksna MPS

Girl with strawberries
  
In Malorossii

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Dorothea Lange

Siler City, North Carolina. Wagons pulled up in field 
one block away from the main street, July 1939
  
Sorghum mill near New Carthage, Mississippi, August 1938
  
 Striking cotton pickers talk it over. The strike is failing. Kern County, California. "I don't care. Let them throw me in jail. There's somebody will take my place." November 1938
  
Texas tenant farmer to migrant pea picker in California. "I never have 
wrote back home and told my folks we live in a tent. I've wrote that we're 
well, and such as that, but I never have wrote that we live in a tent." 1937
  
The older brother teaches the younger on a 
farm in the Piedmont, North Carolina, 1936

Friday, November 20, 2015

William James Family

A Ward's Island backyard, ca. 1908
  
Champions of all the regiments, 
35th Battalion tug-of-war team, ca. 1915
  
Children on toboggans and sleds, Rosedale, ca. 1910
  
Concertina player on Major Street, ca. 1912
  
Costume garden party, 1920s