Happy National Accordion Awareness Month

In my story this guy is leading them out of town, Pied Piper style...but that's just me. June is National Accordion Awareness Month - makes the instrument sound like a disease, which ironically is exactly what a poorly played accordion sounds like! Photo from the lovely collection ad Shorpy!

Shellbacks and Pollywogs

On this day seventy years ago a converted passenger ship named M. S. Bloemfontein crossed the equator at 153° 35’ west en route to the Admiralty Islands and while doing so, commemorated the occasion with a maritime tradition that dated back to at least the early 1820’s –The Crossing of the Line. The ceremony marks the first crossing of the equator for members of the ship’s crew, referred to as slimy Pollywogs, initiating these relatively untested seafarers into the shared hardships and triumphs that lay ahead. Tried and true Shellbacks who have seen southern hemisphere drag the Pollywogs before the most experienced member of the crew who, for the time being, is designated His Majesty Neptune. What follows is a session of hazing which can include being shaved bald, blasted with a salt water fire hose, getting smeared with axel grease or paint, or being forced to drink a dose of “medicine” concocted from ingredients such as Tabasco sauce, diesel oil, raw eggs, and pepper. All the while the Shellbacks hurl insults at the Pollywogs and the ceremony goes on until Neptune is satisfied the initiates have been properly humbled. Once the ordeal is over the Pollywogs are pronounced honorable Shellbacks, members of the Royal Order of the Deep, and awarded a certificate stating as much.

Indy 500 - The Mystery of #49

On one of my trawls through the internet, searching for Indy 500 imagery to share with you during race season, I came across this little gem. It's a nineteen-teens era car, obviously in sad shape, sitting in the middle of what appears to be a field, but the information that came with the information was (to say the least) sketchy. The image came from the archives of the Indiana Historical Society, usually a very reputable resource with detailed notes on the photographs in their digital archives. In this case, though, the only information available was the title "Car 49, Wrecked" and the date of the photograph listed as 1919.

Undaunted by the challenge, I started digging through the resource for all things factual - Wikipedia - and I made a discovery. There was no car number 49 in the 1919 Indy 500. From 1915 through 1919 starting position was determined by car speed during a single qualifying lap, so it is possible that the driver of number 49 wrecked during this lap, so I made a check.

Details on the 1919 race are spare, but they do exist. I can tell you that Howdy Wilcox won the 1919 race, that it was the last year for single lap qualifying, and that supposedly a band played Back Home Again in Indiana as Wilcox (a Hoosier) made his final lap thus cementing the song's association with the 500, but there is no record of there being a wreck during qualification. It seems unlikely that something as dramatic as a car wiping out would be left out of the historical record, so I'm doubting the Car 49 wrecks before qualifying scenario.

Next I decided I'd go back through history to find the first instance of a car with the number 49 participating in the 500. We know that there was no Indy 500 in 1917 and 1918 due to World War I. In 1915 and 1916 there was no number 49 in the race. In fact you have to go all the way back to 1914 to find a car number 49 involved with the Indy 500.

That car was driven by a one-time Indy driver named Ray Gilhooley. Ray drove the Isotta entry for that year's race, starting in 20th position and wrecking in lap 41 and finishing in 27th position out of 30 entries. He never led, didn't sit on the pole, and never raced in another Indy 500. Interesting note, in the article to the right (clipped from the May 1919 issue of Automotive Industry magazine) a 500 entry couldn't even be backed by a woman because "women have no standing with the contest board of the AAA).

It'd be another 15 years before another car number 49 would compete, but the 1929 entry (driven by Wesley Crawford) went out due to carburetor problems, not a wreck. There's also the small fact that by the late 20's, Indy cars looked like the Stutz Black Hawk shown at the left. Gone was the ride-along mechanic and the Beverly Hillbillies squared-off grill so definitely no match.

In the end our mystery car is Gilhooley's Isotta from the 1914 race. It's doubtful this is an image from the back straight where Gilhooley's racing career seems to have ended. Initially I thought even the infield of the track would have been better groomed than what's pictured here, but then I recognized the banked track in the background (initially it just looked like a cloud bank). The image had to have been taken on Saturday, May 30th, the day of the 4th Indy 500 documenting the final resting place of Gilhooley's number 49.

Then and Now - the Canaan Moravian Church

Here's a look at two images of a (not so) little church in the wilds of North Dakota. Both are images of the Canaan Moravian Church in Addison, ND. Not much seems to have changed in almost eighty years aside from the number of graves in the churchyard. The 1938 image comes from the July 18 issue of Life Magazine while the modern one comes courtesy of Google maps.

I really wish I could have gotten a little closer in the modern image. Apparently there are places the ubiquitous Google photo-mobile hasn't reached. For now I'll have to be satisfied with the NSA spy satellite style look. Who knows, maybe someday I'll pay a visit to ND to have a first hand look.

Cable Car Day

In the book of little-known observances you'll find that January 17th is Cable Car Day. As you might suspect, it's a San Francisco-centric holiday, honoring the city's position as first in the nation to have an operating cable car system and the only US city to still operate that system. Instead of going down the easy route and finding a picture of the vertigo-inducing hills of SF, I opted for something a little more noir.

This is a picture from the Shorpy archive showing downtown Charleston, NC's King Street after dark. Love the long exposure and the motion blur. I'm expecting Sam Spade to amble across the street to pick up a smoke at Pinkusshon's Cigar Shop. He'd pause in the doorway, catching a glimpse of a lovely dame lingering in the window just above the jewelry shop and then she'd disappear into the shadows. A few minutes later there'd be a shot, a scream, and a whole lot of trouble.

Rose Parade - 1904

I found this picture in the 1904 issue of Sunset Magazine, 110 years ago the Rose Parade had nothing to do with football.

Nuke Las Vegas

I love this image. 1951, Las Vegas with all the old-style casinos and in the background an atom bomb test. Yes, that's a mushroom cloud in the center of the picture. Irradiating all those fifties era gangsters and gamblers and leaving a good part of the Nevada desert off limits for a long time to come.

This one comes courtesy of the November 1951 issue of Life Magazine.

Indiana State Fair - 1936 License and Registration Please!

I’m having a tough time with this image. It shows an exhibit put on by the Indiana University Department of Psychology at the 1936 Indiana State Fair and it is supposed to test reaction time. What on Earth could a Scotty dog have to do with reaction time? Whatever the connection, the woman in the driver’s seat looks a bit like the officer standing at her side has just asked for her license and registration and the kid watching looks like he’s in shock.

Indiana State Fair - 1939 Lard

You've heard of butter sculpture, well in true fair form here's a lard sculpture! I've always had mixed feelings about any food product that's gleefully promoted by the animals it's made from. It has a high creep-factor! According to the description on the Indiana Historical Society's site this photo was taken in the Horticulture Building and the sculpture sponsored by the National Livestock and Meat Board.

Indiana State Fair - 1900

A Victorian era crowd milling about the fairgrounds on a hot summer afternoon. No better way to spend the day!

Indiana State Fair - 1936 Home Economics Club

You are looking at the women of the Indiana State Fair School of Home Economics wearing the finery they made and modeled for the 1936 4-H Dress Review. It never fails to amaze me when I see an image like this. Normally, when I see a historic photograph which features the clothing of a particular era I wonder who the maker was, but in my mind I'm envisioning a company. This shows how talented many people were at making their own clothing and not just flour-sack dresses, we're talking stuff that would look at home on a rack in your favorite high-end department store. All I can say is maybe consumerism isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Another thing that strikes me? Check out the right-leaning hats! It's like tilting your bonnet to the right is some kind of Econ-Club uniform that goes along with a secret handshake and midnight meetings to weave cloth for ceremonial gowns.

The building in the background is familiar, though I'm having problems placing it at the moment. When I make my annual pilgrimage to the fairgrounds this month I'll make it a point to look for the buildings in these images.

What Did You Do Today

I spent the day fussing with car problems and when I sat down at the keyboard I'd achieved a pretty good snit of feeling sorry for good old me. Then I came across an interesting fact, on this day in 1944 the invasion of Normandy began. Thousands of young men stormed the French beaches beginning a new phase in the liberation of Europe. I guess a little car problem isn't so bad after all.

Thanks to Shorpy for the great photo of New Yorkers watching news of the invasion scroll across the New York Times news line.

The 1910 Air Show at the Speedway

1910 and Airplanes at the Speedway

A year after the National Balloon Race, the Speedway played host to another display of the cutting edge technology of the era. In June of 1910 Indianapolis played host to a six-day air show which included an appearance by the Wright brothers and Walter Brookins' breaking of the world record for altitude.

Another favorite photo of the track is this panoramic image showing box kite like aircraft lumbering around the oval. In the background you can see an early dirigible as well as a monoplane. The picture was taken from the south end of the track, allowing a view of the beginnings of the pits and the fabulous pagoda on the front stretch, but what I find amazing is the lack of separation between the track and the spectators.

The wonderful site The First Super Speedway has a day-by-day run down of the air show's events and links to Indianapolis Star articles of the era in case you want to read up.

Up, Up, and Away...

A Panoramic View of the 1909 National Balloon Race held at the Speedway

You might think of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as home to Indy car racing, a place where cars set speed records in a race that's steeped in tradition and history. You'd be right to think of the track this way, but it is and always has been a business venture. In fact, before the track's construction had finished its President, Carl Fisher, was thinking of ways to get a return on the money his investors had put into the track.

The National Balloon Race held on June 5th 1909 was organized as an attempt to recover some of this money. Construction of the track began in early April of 1909 and and, as you can see from the image above, it would be some time before the facility would be ready to host an automobile race. Carl Fisher always had been fascinated with aviation and he became the 21^st person in the United States to earn a balloonist’s license. According to the Indiana Historical Society site most of the spectators show in this image didn’t pay admission, instead they gathered outside the Speedway grounds to watch the show from afar.

A Photo Postcard of the 1909 National Balloon Race held at the Speedway

The amazing panoramic view of the pre-race preparations comes from the digital archives of the Indiana Historical Society and I highly recommend making a trip over to their site where you can zoom in to look at individuals in the crowd. I’m not sure about the positioning of this photo, but I believe it’s what will be the north end of the track.

There also are some great Indianapolis Star articles at the First Super Speedway site, take a look!