Seeing the Southwest

At most estate sales I attend, there are old magazines.  And no old magazines are as prevalent at estate sales as back issues of National Geographic.

People subscribed to the magazine for decades before there was a cable TV channel nicknamed "Nat Geo."  And people who subscribed, tended to keep the back issues.  I don't know why.  Perhaps it was a badge of honor among magazine collectors; perhaps it was because information about faraway places was not as readily-available then as it is now, and people liked to look through them long after they arrived.  Often I see hundreds of old National Geographics, stacked and gathering dust, in the garage of an old house.

At a recent sale, though, I spotted only two, dating from 1924 and 1925, and since they were very inexpensive I brought them.

 

If you look through these old magazines, you can see how the world was changing in 1924 and 1925.   A pair of advertisements show a couple of pretty young women.  Of course pictures of pretty young women have long been used to sell products. 

 

 

But look closely: one young woman is sitting in the driver's seat in a car.  The other has just graduated from school.  You probably would not have seen many ads like that, say, 20 years before.  Their world was changing.

 

Many of the ads in these National Geographics were, predictably, travel-related.  The one that caught my eye was for travel to the desert Southwest:

 

 

New Mexico and Arizona had not been states for very long; New Mexico officially joined the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912 and Arizona as the 48th, on February 14th of the same year.  So in 1924-25, Arizona and New Mexico were still probably somewhat exotic travel destinations that few travelers had visited. 

 

Scientists and tourists alike were interested in the Southwest.  The scientists writing for National Geographic made several expeditions and reported on them in these and other issues of the magazine.  The pictures tell stories of the landscape, the history and the people -- Hopi, Navajo and Zuni -- of the time:

 

 

 

This photograph of another pretty young girl caught my attention:

 

 

So, according to the caption, this young woman's world was changing too.

 

Little did the caption-writer know that, many years later, that same hairstyle would become part of a series of iconic films set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...."

___

 

By the way, if you're interested in the history of the Southwest, or in Native American history and culture, a great place to visit is the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix.  Their website is at   http://www.heard.org/  .

 

 

 

The Dog of the Day

March 17th

At most of the estate sales I've attended lately, there have been a number of antique (or rather, vintage/retro) dealers and collectors interested in what they call "Mid-Century" items:  stuff from the 1950s and 1960s, the "Mad Men" era.   Pastel pink appliances, pale gold Naugahyde chairs with short narrow wooden legs, "Jetsons"-looking lamps and bowls all fly out the door at good prices.  There is one particularly dedicated set of young men who, I suspect, may run a flourishing business selling Mid-Century items to interior decorators and Hollywood set designers. 

I haven't noticed that this increased interest in Objets Mid-Century has extended to the family dog, however.  Many of the ads I see in magazines from the mid-20th century feature dog breeds that, for whatever reason, have fallen out of favor or popularity.  For example, how long has it been since you saw someone walking a Collie?  A Scottish Terrier?  Or especially an Irish Setter?

The Irish Setter used to appear in all sorts of magazine advertisements in the early to mid-20th century.  His glossy red coat and happy smile were used to sell everything from dog food to silverware to whisky.   The Irish Setter's dark chestnut coat also appeared on the backs of playing cards, like this one I found a couple of weeks ago:

Now, if you do an Internet search for "Irish Setter," the first thing that pops up is a brand of shoes.

Who knows why the red dog fell out of favor?   Perhaps it's because not every dog owner has the time and energy to take care of a Setter.  As the American Kennel Club website notes:

One of the most distinctive Sporting breeds, the mahogany red Irish Setter is an active, aristocratic bird dog.... Over two feet tall at the shoulder, the Irish is known for his style, powerful movement and clown-like personality.

A rollicking breed, the Irish Setter is high-energy and requires regular exercise. His outgoing and stable personality make him a favorite with families. Their long, glossy red coat, although beautiful, must be groomed regularly to prevent snarls or mats.

In other words, the Irish Setter can be a bit of a drama queen, and will take it upon himself to get regular exercise, whether his owner feels like going "walkies" and playing fetch, or not.  Every knock on the front door, every squirrel scurrying up a tree, is a good enough reason for the Irish Setter to rev up and explode in a shower of ecstatic barking and running.  And if you don't take him to the groomer every few weeks, he'll start looking like a walking curly red haystack.  He's rather high-maintenance.

And yet whenever we take the red dog who lives at our house for a walk, strangers rush up to pet him and indulge in a little nostalgia.

"You don't see Irish Setters very much any more!"

"We had one of those when I was a kid!  He was the dumbest dog I ever saw, but he was so friendly...."

"When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey," said one older gentleman who stopped to pet the Irish Setter, "the family who lived next door to us had two of these guys.  Mick and Molly were their names.  We usedta take 'em out into the woods and let them run.  Man, those dogs could run, and so could I."  He paused thoughtfully.  "I don't remember the names of the kids next door, but I sure remember those dogs...."

It's good to remember the happy times.  And the Irish Setter is happy to help you do it.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone.

Mr. R. Dox in the City of Light (and rain)

In the dark garage at the estate sale house was a large blue trunk, falling apart with age and wear.  Inside the trunk were a packet of letters tied with a rough string and four old postcards.

Usually when I find personal letters at an estate sale, I ask the people holding the sale if they are sure they want to sell them.  These folks said they had been friends of the old man who had lived in the house; he only had distant relatives on the other side of the country, and none of them was interested in the contents of his estate after he died. 

The people holding the estate sale then gave me a paper grocery bag and told me to fill it with the things I wanted, so I added the letters and postcards to my bag and went to look at old books and magazines from the same estate.  When I got home, I looked at the four postcards first.

 

 

 

 

All four cards had been sent from Paris in 1909 and 1910, written and addressed in the fine, careful hand of one R.D., or R. Dox.  He had sent the postcards to other people with the same last name, so they must have been related.

He didn't have much to say.   He put an "X" over his room in a picture of one building. 

He commented on the weather in the other three postcards; it was raining.

A few minutes' online research told me that R. Dox was Ralph W. Dox, and the recipients of his postcards were his parents.  R. Dox was from upstate New York. He graduated from Columbia University and worked at the US Embassy in Paris.   An online copy of the school's yearbook even had a picture of him:

The yearbook went on to describe Ralph Dox as "eccentric."  "Boring" might have been more like it,  I thought, judging from the contents of his postcards home to Mom and Dad. 

I didn't think about the postcards or their abrupt messages for many months.  Then I ran across a Facebook post from a group of French history buffs.  The photo they posted showed the Gare D'Orsay (train station then, fantastic art museum now) under several feet of floodwater from heavy rains in January 1910.

Rain.  In Paris.  In 1910.  The postcards from R. Dox.

Time to do some more online research.  It turns out that it usually rains in Paris in January, and some flooding is not uncommon.  But in January 1910 there was so much rain that the Seine River flowed into the sewers and tunnels, flooding the city.  Outside Paris, the Seine overflowed its banks, swamping the suburbs.  Because the water rose rather slowly, there were no fatalities, but the damage estimate was 400 million francs -- $1.5 billion in today's US dollars.   As you might expect, there are videos of the flood damage on YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyudbNoyOPA

Ralph Dox's parents must have known about the Great Paris Flood of 1910, and they were probably worried about their son.  I got out the postcards again and studied them.  He'd sent a postcard home on New Year's Eve 1909 showing them his flat high above the city streets, then three in rapid succession May 10, 11 and 12, 1910, all commenting on the weather. 

It's raining here today.  Perhaps Halley's Comet is the source of all this rotten weather.  They tell me, however, that it is sometimes this way here.

The eccentric young American diplomat had run into typical French understatement. 

Now when I look at the postcards, I wonder if this was his way of reassuring his folks that all would be well.  Or were the short messages on the backs of his postcards, examples of dry wit that his parents recognized?  Further online research provided me with a copy of a newspaper clipping that said that R. Dox and other American diplomats had fled France after the outbreak of World War I.  He returned to New York State and practiced law.

Perhaps there were more postcards or letters from R. Dox to his parents in New York in the packet I'd found at the same sale?  I wondered.   But no, at least not in the items I brought home from the estate sale.  Almost all of the letters I found there were from three women in Van Nuys, California to the same young sailor during World War II, and none of them had the last name Dox. 

I looked again at the contents of the estate sale grocery bag.  Some greeting cards; some books; an owner's manual for a 1951 Hudson.  A school workbook owned by a young woman with the last name Gehring, who was studying French in 1928:

And there, as I leafed through the pages of the workbook, I saw again the precise, careful, tiny handwriting of Mr. R. Dox.

Why were the postcards from R. Dox in this estate, and what was his relationship to the Miss Gehring who was learning French?  I'm afraid most of their story has been lost to time.  

Mystery from Muzaffarpur

I found a stack of old photographs at a recent estate sale.  They were mostly studio portraits and group shots of men, women, small children from the Midwestern United States. 

I see pictures like these all the time at estate sales and yard sales.  But mixed in with them, was a large photograph the likes of which I'd never seen before.  Torn at the edges, apparently well over a hundred years old, was a group shot that had been removed from a photograph album.

What in the world was going on in this picture? I thought.  I turned it over and saw the words written in ink:

"1st Conf" in where?

Thank God for being able to search the Internet for the correct spellings of far-off locations:  Muzaffarpur.  The city is in Northern India, said to be one of the gateways to Nepal. 

I looked more closely at the people in the photograph.  My guess is that the men on the left in the front row (pith helmets removed for the photograph), and most of the women in the front row, were English or otherwise not-from-around-here:

The rest of the people in the photograph were perhaps locals. 

The man on the end of the top row, right, and the short man in the center are holding books.  The tallest man in the top row holds a violin, and his expression seems to show he's ready to play as soon as the photographer dismisses the group.  None of the people in the photograph is wearing a caste mark.  Another person stands to the far right, next to the building.

But who were they, and why were they together?  Does "1st conf." stand for "First Conference?"  If so, of what?  Are the books religious or philosophical treatises?  Does this photograph relate to the Indian independence movement?  I also wonder, why was this photograph in with all the American studio portraits?  (And what did the violinist have to do with the gathering?)

I'm e-mailing a link to this blog entry to some Indian history organizations, to see if they can help solve this puzzle.  I'll keep you posted.

Progressive Nostalgia and the Class Clowns

I like to look for old high school and college yearbooks at yard sales and estate sales.  Some of them are rather collectible, and there are lots of folks who didn't buy a yearbook when they were in school who are kicking themselves now and looking online for the book they didn't buy.

I found a stack of 'em at an estate sale this past weekend.  In addition to several yearbooks from a local high school dating back to the 1980s -- pictures of girls with big hair, guys on the basketball team wearing very short shorts -- I found a copy of the 1957 L'Acadien from Southwest Louisiana Institute in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The 1957 L'Acadien is a snapshot in time of the American South.  The student body was mostly white, but there were a number of African-American students, as well as some international students from Central and South America and Asia.  The school's website confirms my observations:

"In 1954, SLI became the first college in Louisiana to integrate its student body. The first African American students were admitted without incident, and today UL Lafayette has honored its first African American graduate, Christiana Smith, by naming an alumni chapter after her."

The students celebrated Sadie Hawkins Day; they joined sororities and fraternities, the Home Economics Club; they played basketball and football.   Entire pages were dedicated to debutantes, to showcase their "glamour" photos.  (This was the South, after all.)  Some of the student names are very "Southern" as well, and hearken back to this era past -- young ladies named Heartsease, Jose Ann, Inza Rae and Billy Ann; young men named Abelardo, Junice, Expadie, Ludrice, and Curvin.  A young woman named Reggie Lou Gates was in the ROTC.

But as I leafed through the pages of  the book, my nostalgic-progressive reverie was interrupted by the presence of the fruits and vegetables lurking among the photos of the underclassmen.

The pear's name is listed as Conspiance Poire.  A few pages later, Belle Pepper appears among the sophomores. 

An apple, a bunch of bananas, and a female student smoking a cigar labeled "Pogo Possum, Okafonokee, Georgia" also appear among the underclassmen.  Many of the sophomores and freshmen had their class pictures made wearing silly hats.

The yearbook staff had struck again.

The school is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and apparently L'Acadien is still being published.  I hope the current yearbook staff members have as much innocent fun, and put out as nice a publication, as their predecessors did.  

And if anyone is looking for inspiration and a reference source for a Gently Humorous Novel of the Mid-Century American South -- y'all need look no further.

The Clipper Salesmen

I think I'll pass along these estate sale items to someone who might be able to appreciate them -- like this:

 

February 4, 2013

Company Historian

Wahl Electric Clipper Corporation
Sterling, IL


Dear Company Historian:

I am enclosing with this note, two items I found at a recent estate sale in my area.

At first, I had no idea what they were. 

 

 

When I unrolled them, I realized they are panoramic photographs from the 1930s.  Upon closer inspection, I saw that they are group shots of conventions of Wahl clipper salesmen from that era.  I believe they’re standing in front of your company’s old offices on Third Street.

 

The Library of Congress has more than 4,000 panoramic photographs in its collection, but apparently it doesn’t have these.  The LOC website explains the history of panoramic pictures and how they were made:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/panoramic_photo/pnabout.html

Your company website says the first patent for a vibrating “electromagnetic hair clipper” was granted to your company founder in 1921.  Ten years later, one of these photographs was made.  Is Mr. Wahl one of the people in the front row of this picture?

 

The photographs are not in the best of shape.  The woman who was holding the estate sale told me, “Take them, just take them – who’s going to want something like this?"  (She had no idea how they got to my part of the country, what their connection was with the estate sale, nor why someone hung onto the pictures for more than three-quarters of a century.)

 

I thought you might like to have them -- if for no other reason than to look at the faces of the people who worked for the company more than 80 years ago.  You can imagine the personalities of the salesmen if you study the pictures closely.

 

And you can admire how nicely they dressed: hats and spats and overcoats, the fashion of the day.

 

But I think the panoramic photographs are more than just a unique find at an estate sale.  During the Great Depression, it must have been important for businessmen, especially men looking for new jobs, to be well-groomed.  I’ve enjoyed looking at these pictures of the salesmen who, through their own work, gave local barbers across America the tools to help men feel confident about their appearance.  I hope you'll consider having the pictures conserved and framed, so other people can appreciate these little time capsules of American business history. 

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Editor, The Estate Sale Chronicles

Ruth's Handkerchiefs

Her name was Ruth, and she liked handkerchiefs.

No, scratch that.  She loved handkerchiefs.

Seriously, the picture shows about one-third of the hankies that came home with me, just from the one estate sale.  Ruth, whoever she was, had very good taste and loved her hankies, especially the ones with flowers.



Daffodils and Daisies

Roses

Lilacs

Tulips

I had to find out more about what fueled this sort of passion, so I started doing some online research on the humble handkerchief and discovered how it evolved from something with which to wipe your nose or your eyes, to a tiny work of art.   The hankies Ruth collected were in their heyday during the 1940s and 1950s, some of the vintage hanky websites told me, when women could freshen up a drab wartime wardrobe with these small splashes of color.  They carried hankies with red, white and blue designs in honor of servicemen far away.  

Ruth had hankies for every occasion, every holiday.  At Christmas she could carry any of more than a dozen Christmas designs, including these.



Poinsettias

Reindeer Conga Line with More Poinsettias

Ruth, like many women in the 1930s through 1950s, crocheted borders on her plain handkerchiefs.   Among her collection was a pamphlet dated 1931, explaining how to add these colorful edges to liven up a plain square of cloth.

Apparently Ruth spent a lot of time doing this over the years.

The Internet is blanketed with vintage handkerchiefs.  I found them on Pinterest, and on sale sites like etsy and eBay.  I found well over a dozen websites that chronicle the history of hankies, and even more that show modern uses for them.  Vintage hankies are very popular with collectors.  Modern-day brides have their wedding invitations printed on vintage hankies, so the guests will have something to wipe away the tears of joy.   Seamstresses and crafters use hankies to make clothing, curtains, wall hangings and more.  Vintage hankies can be made into baby caps, with the idea that when the child grows up and is married, the hanky can be "something old" for the bride to carry up the aisle. 

So a hanky, small as it is, can be an important part of a larger whole.

Looking up the uses of vintage hankies reminded me of a classic scene from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, as Meg and Jo leave the house for a party:

"Have a good time, dearies!" said Mrs. March, as the sisters went daintily down the walk. "Don't eat much supper, and come away at eleven when I send Hannah for you." As the gate clashed behind them, a voice cried from a window...

"Girls, girls! Have you you both got nice pocket handkerchiefs?"

"Yes, yes, spandy nice, and Meg has cologne on hers," cried Jo, adding with a laugh as they went on, "I do believe Marmee would ask that if we were all running away from an earthquake."

"It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief," replied Meg, who had a good many little 'aristocratic tastes' of her own.

I wonder what Meg and Jo's pocket handkerchiefs looked like?  Whatever style they were, we know Ruth, like Marmee, would have approved.