Biggest Folk Art Basket Trade Sign Basket Factory Stockbridge Michigan

CLICK TO ENLARGE GIANT BASKET!

W. S. Kennedy Basket Factory was located in Stockbridge, Michigan from 1895 to 1915 or so, at least as much as I have found.  Interestingly, I find a 1903 note in "Crafts and Hobbies" which says they are seeking fire insurance!  Makes good sense to me.  They made baskets out of ash wood...and that giant trade sign basket on the roof could go right up in flames!

Plenty of cultural and historical content for one photograph, despite condition.  Looks like a staff of around twenty, counting the victims of child labor laws on the steps.  Likely Old Man Kennedy's kids. 

I sure would like that big basket.  It looks like it could pretty much hold the entire staff, that is if you stuffed them in tight. 

Original Photograph, circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman

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Some of the Free Acts at the Iowa Fairs 1925 At the Circus in Black and White series #32

At the Circus entry number 32 is "Some of the Free Acts Season 1925 Iowa Fairs.  A snapshot and a beauty.

Collection Jim Linderman

AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE is a occasional feature on Dull Tool Dim Bulb. This is number 32 in the series.

Original Snapshot 192 Collection Jim Linderman

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Ladies and Gentlemen The New Book I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads

I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection is the newest book from Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

Real Photo Postcards, Snapshots, Polaroids and more!  Amateurs and professionals, anonymous and not, the story here is the figure.  Vents!

78 pages and available as a paperback ($21.95) or Ebook for ipad ($5.99) only from Blurb.com.

FREE PREVIEW and ORDERING IS HERE!

THREE Big Pauls Paul Bunyan, a Beatle and a Friend with a Gun Me and Paul

One of the three most famous and deserving "Pauls" in the world, the other two being Sir Paul of Beatle and just plain Paul who played drums and carried the gun for Willie Nelson for 50 years. (The club owners who hired Willie were often slow to produce the night's receipts...Paul was there to make sure they did.)  If you are interested in Paul, the song "Me and Paul" tells the story.  You already know Sir Paul's story, and if you don't know Paul Bunyan's tale, you can read it HERE from several years ago, and see a bunch of his big effigies.

The Paul here was built by Cyril M. Dickinson and Jim Payton, in 1936, in Bemidji MN.

Paul Bunyan Real Photo Postcard circa 1936 Collection Jim Linderman

Jean Lussier Balls the Falls ! Dapper Dry Debonair Devil of Dare

Jean Lussier balled the Niagara Falls only once, but he made a living off it for over 30 years.  As you can see here, he sold pictures of himself as a famous daredevil who defeated the mighty falls as a young man all the way into his old age.  He is looking pretty dapper in the last one, having apparently awarded himself some kind of "captainship" or something.  Dapper but dry as a bone...and dry a long time.


Lussier was smart enough to figure out a rubber ball was the way to survive the fall.  So he created a rubber raft inflated with inner tubes.  The round contraption with him inside went over in 1928.  The rubber beast is seen here poked with flags behind young Jean in the first photo, and it appears he has already started ripping sections out to sell as souvenirs.


I'm not kidding...Jean DID sell off his rubber, one patch at a time.  When he ran out, he sold random chunks of tires he purchased claiming they were historic!  He also toured the country giving lectures at special screenings of the film made while he bobbed and dropped.


After living off his 30 minute trip for 30 years, Lussier decided it was time to rekindle interest. He claimed he was planning another ball drop, this one three times as big around (no doubt to provide him with enough historic scraps to last him the rest of his life) but it never happened.  He passed away in a beat-up boarding house in Niagara Falls, New York.


COLLECTION OF THREE JEAN LUSSIER AUTOGRAPHED REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS circa 1928-1940  Collection JIM LINDERMAN


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