Seller "2raccoons" is offering this postcard of the interior of a pharmacy / photography store, sent from Michigan to Vermont 102 years ago. Go to the sale page to see more closeups of the cameras and photo products on offer 102 years ago (or if you want to own the original).
(Click on image to see a larger version)
By the way, the Battle Creek Sanitarium (they coined the word) was a health and wellness retreat run by two brothers whose surname you might recognize, John Harvey Kellogg and W.K. (Will Keith) Kellogg. Health and wellness...ironic, huh? (But if you eat "natural" Kashi at your breakfast table, like we do, don't be smug—it's owned by Kellogg.)
The Sanitarium must have attracted upscale patients—the cameras in that case are much nicer than box Brownies.
Mike
(Thanks to Stan B.)
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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
These images..THEY'RE GRRRREAT !
Posted by: Pascal Sauvé | Saturday, 15 September 2012 at 03:52 PM
Nice bustle...
Posted by: Will Whitaker | Saturday, 15 September 2012 at 07:39 PM
Just finished listening to a documentary about those Kellog dudes. "Crackpots" doesn't do them justice. What awful creatures they were!
Posted by: The Lazy Aussie | Saturday, 15 September 2012 at 08:20 PM
I've been spending the past two weeks in Poland and Western Ukraine, and I've come across a "Museum Pharmacies" in L'viv and Warsaw. The one in L'viv is a working pharmacy with a display of old pharmacy bottles, cabinets, and equipment, and the layout is virtually identical to the shop in the postcard, though I didn't notice any photographica. The Warsaw museum pharmacy was under renovation, so I didn't get a chance to go in.
Posted by: David A. Goldfarb | Sunday, 16 September 2012 at 02:06 AM
Just one question: The woman's waist - photoshopped?
Posted by: paul richardson | Sunday, 16 September 2012 at 10:22 AM
Beyond cool. Historically sublime. Great photos. Okay, I've run out of supleratives.
Posted by: Bob Rosinsky | Sunday, 16 September 2012 at 12:52 PM
Mike, my wife wants to know why it is I always have to click on the Joyful Nudes link on my way through the comments...
Posted by: Ed Kirkpatrick | Sunday, 16 September 2012 at 02:09 PM
To learn about early Kellog's in style read this, http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Wellville-T-C-Boyle/dp/0140167188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347835406&sr=8-1&keywords=Road+to+wellville
FWIW, Battle Creek is 20 miles east of Kalamazoo and about 50 west of Jackson, Michigan, home of Michigan's max security prison.
In Hong Kong, Kellogg's cereal boxes are printed in Chinese.
You're welcome.
Posted by: Andy Kochanowski | Sunday, 16 September 2012 at 06:45 PM
You can tell that it's a genuine old photo because the sign above the clerk's head says KODAKS with no apostrophies. : ]
However, Paul, the women's waist might not be retouched, but I suspect that the bottom of her skirt is, to add detail to an otherwise featureless area. They used the 'brush' tool.
Posted by: Roger Bradbury | Monday, 17 September 2012 at 05:16 AM
I'll second Andy on "The Road To Wellville". It was a movie too and you will never spend two hours laughing at more crazy stuff than when watching that movie!!! It is awesome.
Posted by: Brent Parkin | Monday, 17 September 2012 at 09:49 AM
Ditto on The Road to Wellville. It is off the hook funny. In high school the local camera store was a drug store. I spent a lot of time in there. This would be the 1960's. A little after those pictures were taken and about 500 miles west.
Posted by: mike plews | Monday, 17 September 2012 at 12:35 PM
Did the Kellogs coin the word? Their dates of birth are 1852 and 1860 but Dictionary.com carries a citation for the word from 1851.
Pail R
Not Photoshopped but corseted!
Posted by: hamondian | Monday, 17 September 2012 at 04:41 PM
I'm going to say track down the Road to Wellville book* but skip the movie, which adds emphasis on the poop jokes, but misses most of the really funny (and scary, and sad) things from the book.
Also the book was inspired by two other nonfiction books that might be worth tracking down:
Cornflake Crusade by Gerald Carson
and
Nuts Among the Berries by Ronald Deutsch.
*And almost any other book by TC Boyle. Really.
Posted by: MarkR | Monday, 17 September 2012 at 04:43 PM
Dear Roger,
If you're talking about the slight patterning in the lower part of the skirt, that is nonuniform deterioration in the print from fingerprints. Common at the edges of old photos.
Interestingly, sometimes the fingerprint ridges are darker, because the finger oils have protected the image from other, more damaging environmental contaminants.
pax / Ctein
Posted by: Ctein | Wednesday, 19 September 2012 at 12:47 PM
Somebody paid $170.39 for this photo. The woman is likely wearing a corset and she is having trouble breathing I am sure...
Posted by: Ed Kirkpatrick | Monday, 24 September 2012 at 08:18 AM