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A real photo postcard from the turn of the century depicts three children with odd dresses. The woman in charge is "Mrs. Davis" and all three youngsters have different last names. Each has a small number written on them, the corresponding names are written on the back. My first thought was they they could be orphans. Early visitors to Japan? Any guesses welcome.
Real Photo Postcard c. 1900 - 1930. Collection Jim Linderman
I guess we could also call this "Ness moves his Mess." Real photo postcard shows E. W. Ness moving 34 kinds of farm animals through town on a sled. Why? MY guess is that the locals had created a nativity scene downtown, and Ness agreed to provide the critters. Human Nativity Scenes used to be fairly common.
Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
Books and affordable Ebooks by the author available HERE.
American Folk Art Construction in a Hardware Storefront Window which celebrates the local football team winning a big game. Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman.
Adairsville, Georgia is about halfway between Atlanta, GA and Chattanooga, TN. Route 75 probably allows one to skirt the roadside craft folk one could have run into during the 1930s, but it looks like Mrs. J. A. Greene did all right. Hooked Rugs and knick-knacks of wood likely made by her son. Folk Art of the rural South. RPPC dated 1941 Collection Jim Linderman
SEE ALSO THE BOOK AND EBOOK IN SITU: AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE available from Blurb.com
Florence Brugger was a singer and obviously a performer with body control. A newspaper from Reading, PA in 1917 reports on a concert. She apparently also posed for a real photo postcard riding in one of those "crescent moon" novelty real photo postcards, as I find a brief record. That is about all I can find, but this RPPC remains…"Statue of Liberty posed by Florence Brugger in Theatre December 11, 1918."
IN 1947, a strange man entered a Kansas City pawn shop and left with $750 dollars in his pocket. He had pawned an amazing book. It was handmade and two feet long, covered in the finest red leather, encrusted with jewels and titled "Orange Blossoms Over America." The author, and the man pawning the book was Jesse T. Stubbs. The book was locked and encased in a box a foot thick.
There were 13 stones. Diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Mr. Stubbs told the pawn owner he needed money to travel to Washington. He said he would return in a few months to reclaim the book. He never did.
Two years later, Pawn owner Phil Tobias had a duplicate key made to open the book, and the story of Mr. Stubbs was revealed.
Once a wealthy man, Mr. Stubbs had lost it all during the stock crash of 1929. His wealth had apparently come from prospecting and then selling securities. He also obtained a small orange grove and began tending orange trees as a hobby. At some time, an accident left him unable to straighten up…hit by a steam shovel.
Stubbs came upon a notion. He decided to spread orange trees to every corner of the country. He uprooted a tree and planted in on the back of a trailer and began his travels. He reached too many cities and states to count. Ending up in NYC, he built a large glass encased box for his orange tree. He took a job as a parking attendant to pay for the project and to protect his tree. The parking lot, (apparently the very same one Kramer on Seinfeld found a condom in George Costanza's car) was on 12th Avenue and 42nd street. By 1939, his tree was living in a corner of the lot. The glass for the case came from discarded window glass. Below is Jesse's Orange tree standing in the shadow of the New York Skyline, a detail from the painting above.
At one time in Jesse's life, he took a break from tending the tree to walk to Alaska. The famed humorist Will Rogers and his buddy Wiley Post were killed in an airplane crash in 1935, and the tree-tending parking lot attendant had a "retroactive" vision of sorts…he decided to travel to Alaska and build a memorial to Will Rogers 15 years after their plane went down in the most remote area of the state. At the time, Stubbs was 72 years old. He made it to Anchorage, but the last 850 miles would be tough. He left with a 60 pound Siberian husky named Quacco pulling an 80 pound sled. They made nearly 450 miles on their own, and upon reaching Fairbanks and he accepted a plane ride to the site in Barrow, Alaska.
There ARE powerful miracles made by man, and Jesse Stubbs not only made it to the crash site, he completed his stone and concrete monument to Will and Wiley! The statue, an obelisk ten feet tall with four square blocks was completed. it is still accessible only by airplane.
The "more official" monument gets most of the attention, but here is Jesse's on the right, still standing, in a photograph from the National Register of Historic Places.
Jesse Stubbs passed away in 1960 at the age of 81.
The image above is a real photo postcard which shows a painting of "The Traveling Memorial" by Jesse Stubbs depicting an orange tree in full bloom that he transported from coast to coast in an exhibit so that people could see the growth of an orange After V-J Day he decided to exhibit a painting of his exhibit at Times Square in New York City to honor the sacrifices made by the military during WW II. This card is a photograph of that memorial. It appears in the book AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE: IN SITU AVAILABLE HERE. The back of the image is below.
Real Photo Postcard circa 1945 collection Jim Linderman
Aieee! Three dead animals stapled to wood decorate the yard of a woman! I'm not sure if they were just dropped off by the taxidermist or she IS the taxidermist! For my thoughts and additional pictures of stuffed creatures, see my article HERE in Paraphilia.
It's bad enough to move a refrigerator, but when the International Harvester company went into the fridge business, they had to move their humongous fabricated salesman too! Many of the ill-fated giant boxes survive, but I am not sure where the dummy ended up. I also do not find anything which indicates the box "ran silent" which is no surprise.
The web is full of folks asking if the International Harvester refrigerator they found in the barn has any value. One helpful suggestion says "they make great smokehouses" and another drilled a hole in his for a spigot and keeps a keg of beer inside!
Apparently the machine talked too...I don't know if the dummy did. There is another postcard with a woman trying to open the giant door, and it says the box talked to her on the reverse.
Real Photo Postcard 1951 "Have just seen this 13 ft. giant at the 1951 Ohio State Fair. He was telling every one about the many exclusive feathers of the International Harvester Refrigerators and Freezers" caption on reverse. Collection Jim Linderman
From CURLEY'S ANTIQUES.
A stone birthday cake topped with wedding photographs welcomes you to the creations of Mr. Wegner. An American flag made from shards of colored glass. A replica of the ocean liner which brought Paul and Matilda Wegner to America. All circa 1925 - 1935 creations built in the yard to attract visitors. Automobiles were becoming common, but what the hell was there to drive to? Wegner's Garden. The couple did not allow photographs, choosing rather to sell real photo postcards to visitors. There are 24 different images known, here are four of them. It is good to remember real photos were more commerce than art. A photographer or "publisher" would print as many as he though would sell.
Real Photo Postcards of the Wegner Grotto.. circa 1930 - 1935 Collection Jim Linderman
