Year-End Pictures, Set 2

Most end-of-the-year picture sets consist of pictures taken in that year. This one's a little different...it consists of 82 pictures from a set of negatives found years ago in a thrift shop. From the available evidence, these pictures will turn 100 years old in the coming New Year—the poster (who, as far as I can tell, is anonymous as well) figures they were taken in 1912. The number of stars on this flag is one of the clues.

Not only do I find some of the pictures fascinating—snapshots they might be, but whoever took them was actually a pretty good photographer—but I think it's telling that they're now "on exhibit" worldwide after being scanned and posted on the web. That part, at least, is very 2012.

Mike
(Thanks to Lynn Burdekin in Sydney)

P.S. Warning: the parent site where these pictures are posted is a bit sketchy, and admits to being vandalized regularly for its extreme political views. I don't see how any reader looking at the pictures could be harmed by this in any way, but I figured you should know.

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Alan Anderson: "The sign in one photo gives clues that the photos were taken in the foothills and slopes east of a line connecting Ventura and Santa Barbara California. The courthouse (?) may have been Ventura County. The naval photos were taken either in San Diego or Long Beach California, both ports used then as now by the U.S. Navy. The older Officer wears two stars, at that time the insignia of a Rear Admiral; his cap device shows he is in the U.S. Navy. Obviously a well-to-do family with acreage planted as new orchards and a processing plant. They also have the connections to arrange a visit to part of the Pacific Fleet."

Featured Comment by Kevin Purcell: "The 46 star flag reminds me of the Simpson's episode (3F20, 'Much Apu About Nothing') in which Apu becomes a citizen with Homer administering the citizenship test:

Homer: Please identify this object.

Apu: It appears to be the flag that disappeared from the public library last year.

Homer: Correct. Now, we all know the thirteen stripes are for good luck, but why does the American flag have precisely forty-seven stars?

Apu: Because this particular flag [chuckling] is ridiculously out of date! The library must have purchased it during the brief period in 1912 after New Mexico became a state but before Arizona did.

Homer: Uh...partial credit.

"So it's a shame it didn't have 47 stars then we could precisely date it :-)

"It's often interesting how much extra date or time info (e.g. from shadow angles) you can get from ephemera in unknown photos."

Comments

[Kevin Schoenmakers]

Nice capture!

[Bob]

WOW! I just left the "Shorpy" site of old photos and came here and linked to these old photos. For a second I thought I was back at the Shorpy site....

[Jamie Pillers]

Wonderful images. Talk about archival... film negatives a hundred years old and look perfect! Hope my hard drives last that long.

Some of the images look like they could be from the California Central Valley, Sacramento River Delta, and the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Thanks for posting the link, Mike. Great fun seeing these images.

[Bill Kearney]

whatreallyhappened.com is sketchy?? For covering items such as the fraud conducted by MF Global?? http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/mf-global-stole-hundreds-millions-their-clients-pay-their-bad-trades-mf-global-advised-g20-c

Mike, you posted a picture of the students being pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, also covered on the same site. The more exposure real stories receive, the better. I thank you for posting the UC Davis image and for linking to http://whatreallyhappened.com

[Jim Richardson]

Number 30 is Radar O'Reilly's mother as a young woman. I swear!

[Walt]

Maybe it's just because the discoverer of these photos said he was looking for magic material at antique stores........ But in photos ant16, ant39, and ant69 the gentleman on the left bears a resemblance to Houdini. In ant16 it even looks like he might be performing a simple trick. I've looked at know photos of Houdini and can't make up my mind. Probably not. Never mind. LOL

[Jim Bullard]

Old photos are fun. When my wife's great aunt died they were going to throw out her negatives but we retrieved them, scanned a lot of them and I put them on Picasaweb. She wasn't a bad photographer considering she was using a simple box camera that had no controls at all. Like the photos referenced here there are a lot of tilted horizons but she got some pretty good ones too. These are a bit newer, covering from around 1920 to the early 1940s. All but one of the people depicted have passed. You are welcome to peruse them if you like and there no extreme political views to disturb you there. ;-)
https://picasaweb.google.com/113942839858347342814/LauraCurrieSPhotographs

[John Krumm]

Enjoyed the photos at whatreallyhappened.com, and the site made me laugh a little. Hard to tell what the political views are at first glance, but it sure does blink at you.

[Jim]

Mike, I know you are a car enthusiast and I believe others are also.
Back in the 1950s, my high school art teacher, Howard Wolery, drove his MG TD to many races around the central US and took pictures with his Hasselblad. In the 60s, he was instrumental in getting my brother and me interested in sports cars and cameras - which led to Leicas and a ton of ALFAs as well as a 40 year habit of racing, but that's another story.
As Howard got older and suffered parkinsons, he asked me to take his albums and care for the, perhaps finding a good home. I digitized them as an album and put them on the web ( http://jimhayes.com/Wolery/album.html ) then gave them to the Watkins Glen Racing Library for their collections.
Howard was not shy, getting close enough to talk with the "stars" of the era, including Stirling Moss, Briggs Cunningham, Jim Kimberly and even Harley Earl, design head at GM. The photos have been used to verify the vintage of several cars, help sell Briggs' watch for a fortune, and illustrate several books, including one in the works on Cunningham.
The WG library has an immense collection of racing memoribilia - a great place to visit if you are in the region. I've also donated my collection of thousands of images of racing in the 60s to them and I encourage any others who know of similar collections to do the same.

[Doug Brewer]

Yep, 1912 was a banner year for flags.

[Mike Johnston]

Doug,
The point about the flag was the number of stars on it. Last flown in 1912.

Mike

[Doug Brewer]

Mike, yes. Two new states were added in 1912, thus two new stars and many new flags. Sorry for the feeble attempt at humor.

[ctein]

Dear Bill,

I gave that site a quick scan, on handful of topics on which I have solid primary-source information or some real expertise. Mike's word, "sketchy" describes it to a T. Sometimes they're dead right, sometimes they're very wrong, and sometimes they're operating in a reality I can't even imagine.

They seem to be a cross between whistle-blowers and conspiracy nuts who've never met an "alternative explanation" they didn't like.

That doesn't mean they're always wrong. Doesn't mean they're not sometimes right. Does mean that if you rely on them for "da troof" you're gonna be wrong a lot more often than if you relied on even Faux Nooz.

pax / Ctein

[Dennis Huteson]

Re your warning: I am traumatized beyond belief and am now away into the night to commit mayhem and topple governments.

Evidence of reticulation I see...I wonder if I can get a plug-in for that.