From the monthly archives:

August 2009

Mildred Griffiths

August 31, 2009
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Photos like this are a common artifact from the early years of the 20th century. Taken in 1911, the subject is Mildred Griffiths, a thirteen year old resident of Eastport, Maine. Mildred was a packer at Blanchard’s Sardine Factory, the sort of grueling, and dangerous, job that was often performed by children. I believe I’ve [...]

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The Clucking Clerk

August 31, 2009
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It seems that when I was a kid (I’m thinking about the early and mid-’60s) it was common to find “machines” such as this with a trained chicken, duck or rabbit inside. Anyplace with arcade games was liable to have one. I distinctly remember there being at least one at Aquarena Springs, an amusement park [...]

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Muller Brothers Service Station

August 30, 2009
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The swell folk at Google, in cooperation with the groovy gang at Life Magazine, have made thousands of Life photos available to the public, and perusing those images is liable to turn up all sorts of interesting things. Most of the images never graced the pages of Life, and are unused and forgotten photos from [...]

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A Fabulous Frigidaire Oven

August 29, 2009
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My wife and I were at an estate sale in our neighborhood this morning, and the coolest thing we found there was the built-in oven, a Frigidaire unlike any I’ve seen before. (I apologize for the poor photos my Blackberry takes, but it’s sure handy!) Now I don’t claim to be an expert on ovens, [...]

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CD Review: Ace’s Special Novelty Edition

August 28, 2009
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My favorite series of early rock and roll CDs is The Golden Age of American Rock’N’Roll, volumes that aren’t American at all. Published in the UK by Ace Records Ltd, they hit the nail right on the head, presenting the early hits (and misses) in fine fashion. This particular volume is called the Special Novelty [...]

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The Wham-O Water Wiggle

August 27, 2009
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Wham-O followed up their 1961 smash hit, the Slip N’ Slide, with the Water Wiggle in ‘62. Both were tailor-made for watery fun, particularly for those unfortunates, such as myself, who didn’t have a swimming pool in the back yard. As with the Slip N’ Slide, the Water Wiggle was hooked to a garden hose, [...]

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The Great Air Ship Craze of 1897

August 26, 2009
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In 1897 Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula hit London booksellers, and in the U.S. the New York Sun published Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But more newsworthy in that year was a story that was followed by every newspaper in the nation, the repeated sightings of a large air ship. In fact, it’s primarily [...]

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Go-Karts

August 25, 2009
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Karts, “go-karts”, were huge in the late ’50s and into the ’60s, much like mini-bikes a decade later. This magazine, from June of 1961, is just loaded with advertisements that show how specialized, and competitive, karting had become in less than five years. The gallery below includes many of those ads, both from specialty companies [...]

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Film Review: Unknown Island (1948)

August 24, 2009
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Now this is my kind of movie! I don’t remember what prompted me to get Unknown Island from amazon.com a few years ago, but I’m sure glad I did. This 1948 release has it all: a well-worn story, horrible acting, and men in dinosaur suits… and it’s even in color! It’s low-budget escapism at its [...]

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D.G.S. Store, Washington D.C.

August 23, 2009
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This photograph, from the archives of the Library of Congress, is an interior shot of one of the D.G.S. stores in the Washington D.C. area. D.G.S. stood for District Grocery Stores, a cooperative for Jewish grocers that was established in 1921. The exact year of the photo is unknown, but I think it’s almost certainly [...]

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A&P Coffees

August 23, 2009
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Perhaps you too remember the days before Starbucks ruled the world, when fresh-ground coffee was purchased at your local A&P Grocery. In the 1950s and ’60s, when virtually no one used home grinders, A&P stores featured electric grinders at the checkout aisles. Other supermarkets stocked only the popular pre-ground canned coffee brands, such as Maxwell [...]

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Les Baxter’s Ritual of the Savage

August 21, 2009
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This is the album that started it all. In 1951, over six years before Martin Denny recorded his landmark album, Exotica, Les Baxter invented the genre. Ritual of the Savage represented a true breakthrough, a new musical statement that was ideally suited to the times. How is it then, that such a significant work has [...]

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Coney Island Panorama

August 20, 2009
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The tiny sliver of a photograph above, taken in 1910, is a 180-degree panorama of Coney Island, with Dreamland dead ahead. You’ll want to click to enlarge the picture, as there are a lot of interesting details to examine. Approximately a year after this image was taken a fire ripped through Dreamland, completely destroying the [...]

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Reel-Type Power Mowers

August 19, 2009
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I was just a little tyke, but I still remember seeing Dad mowing the yard with a type of mower that’s all but forgotten: a reel-type power mower. The reel push mowers (the blades driven by the turning of the wheels) were the instrument of choice in the 1920s through the ’40s, and have recently [...]

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Film Review: The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)

August 18, 2009
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From 1959, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is an unusual film, having taken attributes from the juvenile delinquent genre and added comedy and light horror elements. The result is remarkably similar in feel to a beach movie, and it’s easy to imagine their having been a series of films done around the group of car-crazy [...]

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Whee-Lo

August 17, 2009
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Just about everyone, at least everyone whose age is within ten years of my own, had one of these as a child. They were introduced in 1953 by a company called Maggie Magnetic Inc., and the design has been made, by various companies, ever since. (I’ve tried to find other products from Maggie Magnetic, but [...]

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Hobbies for Young Men

August 16, 2009
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What we have here is the July 1955 issue of Air Trails HOBBIES for Young Men, an interesting magazine with a convoluted history. The magazine was founded in 1928 as Air Trails, a publication for airplane enthusiasts. In 1931 it became Street and Smith’s Air Trails before ceasing publication after five issues with the name. [...]

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Elvis

August 15, 2009
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I could go on and on about Elvis Presley, and in the future I’ll do exactly that. But for now I thought I’d leave a simple remembrance to acknowledge the 32nd anniversary of his passing. (He died on August 16, 1977) Which Elvis do you remember? The many facets of the man and his career [...]

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