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| CLICK TO ENLARGE THE MAN ON STILTS |
Urchins crowd around the Man on Stilts in this lovely early photograph. Circa 1900 - 1910 Collection Jim Linderman
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Giant Man on Stilts Boy with Hoop Photograph Collection Jim Linderman
Tour de Wichita The Great Kansas Bicycle Race collection Jim Linderman
Okay, so there are no hills (and the trail looks straight as a preacher) but still excitement abounds at the Wichita Eagle Bicycle Pageant!
MAN DOWN! Flat tire anyway. Lucky he has professional assistance to get back into the race. No steroids here. In fact, I doubt many of them have even dropped their voices yet!
The Wichita Eagle, the local newspaper, sponsored the event, so I am going to guess these are the newspaper delivery squad, and some of those hats might even be made from "extra" newspapers...which as I recall from my paperboy days didn't really mean extra, it meant I missed someone. Well...they'll let the paper know.
Set of original snapshot photographs, circa 1920 The Wichita Eagle Bicycle Pageant Collection Jim Linderman
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Phenix Sin City of the South and the Negro Apostolate Divine Savior
Phenix
City, Alabama used to be ground zero for organized crime in the south.
You can look it up, and even though the city has tried hard to make you
forget it, the stories persist. Shooting, prostitution, gambling,
bootleg liquor... and most of it there because the army trained
thousands of hormone-filled young men nearby at Fort Benning, a
considerable naive market for the criminal to prey on. How many towns
are called "The Wickedest city in the United States" even taking into
account that cesspool of smut up north called Calumet?
(Heh Heh...Calumet. Sin City and Phenix of the north!) There have
even been movies and songs written about Phenix, and a famous fictional
guy named Maggot was from there!
Well, it is no wonder the African-American population chose another course for their children. Mother Mary Mission and her Negro Apostolate of the Divine Savior. It is still a happening place, and they even have a Facebook page.
Postcard, No Date. Society of the Diving Savior Mother Mary Mission Phenix (Negro Apostolate of the Divine Savior) Collection Jim Linderman.
Well, it is no wonder the African-American population chose another course for their children. Mother Mary Mission and her Negro Apostolate of the Divine Savior. It is still a happening place, and they even have a Facebook page.
Postcard, No Date. Society of the Diving Savior Mother Mary Mission Phenix (Negro Apostolate of the Divine Savior) Collection Jim Linderman.
THIS IS ALSO A POST ON THE BLOG OLD TIME RELIGION BY JIM LINDERMAN
Sparks Withington Says Suck on THIS Deluxe Tube Television!
Screw your flat screens, man. Here is a tube you can enjoy without even turning on what passes for news and entertainment today. NO wonder they call it part of the designer series. It has a record changer and a radio as well. Fake flowers and what seems to be a fake Buddah extra.
It appears Sparton was a Sparks Withingon manufacturer in Jackson, Michigan. Founded in 1926 as a radio company, they were one of those who spent more on the box than the guts. Like the reputation Magnavox used to have among audio purists (who, back then, were called "Hi-Fi Guys" and spent their time pouring over Lafayette parts catalogs. I think Lafayette was absorbed into Radio Shack, who is trying to rebrand as the hip "SHACK" but it won't work. They'll all close up too. Who wants to go to "The Shack" when you can sit on your increasingly wide rear and order online?
Anyway, This box rocks. They produced until around 1956, about when this beauty was made. It was so good it put them out of business.
Sparton Three-Way Imperial TV Chassis postcard Collection Jim Linderman.
DELUXE!
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Folk Art Calligraphic Dove Asks to Limit Wheat Consumption Collection Jim Linderman
I am not sure which land fight, crop failure, state line or health concern motivated a young woman named Angel to produce this piece of art, but it does add a bit of mystery to the drawing. I do know whatever it was took place in the mid to late 19th century, and the wheat shaft being consumed by an insect might provide a clue to the solution. Maybe it is that little bugger who should eat less.
19th Century original Calligraphic Dove with message "Eat Less Wheat" by Angel Carnegessi. Collection Jim Linderman
The Saga of Cactus Mac (!) Rare Photographs of Canadian Hillbilly with Cactus! Hillbilly History
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| Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman |
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| Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman |
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| Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman |
Not all guitar players take their monikers seriously, but I have the scarce photographic proof that Cactus Mac walked the walk and grew the cactus!
Cactus Mac was an obscure performer on the CKNX Barn Dance (called "Canada's Largest Traveling Barn Dance" in an equally obscure book. It was a radio program which broadcast out of Wingham, Ontario on Saturday nights from 1937 to 1963. According to the North Huron Museum in Wingham, Cactus Mac was a beloved performer…and though he was on the radio, he mugged like a TV Star in the photograph they own. Could be as Cactus Mac was a comic as well.
The website Hillbilly Music is seeking more information on Cactus Mac…well, if they are looking, now they'll know he was a botanist!
At least one recording is known, but since the show ran so long I am sure there are many. The CD Saturday Night Barn Dance volume 1 contains Mac's version of Little Brown Jug.
Three original snapshot photographs of Cactus Mac circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
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Original Salmon Paint Antique Weathervane
World's Biggest Ice Cream Cone fights Midwestern Heat!!
I gotta say, this summer of 100 degree plus days and apocalyptic, biblical quality drought is starting to bother me...but then I moved to the mitten after reading the day would come when water would be more expensive than gasoline. I can go dip it out of the lake with no problem, but as it has been sullied by mankind, I hate to think of all the wood I'll have to chop to boil it first.
Oh well, junior here isn't worried about the heat.
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Announcing HOOFERS AND SWEETHEARTS : THE LITTLE WOMEN OF FRANK WENDT
Announcing Hoofers and Sweethearts : The Little Women of Frank Wendt. The newest photography book by Jim Linderman from Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books.
Sideshow and circus freak photographer Frank Wendt had another line of work. He made hundreds of cabinet card photographs of early vaudeville child actresses to be sold by the performers as souvenirs. Collected for the first time, these turn-of-the-century photographs have never been shown together and come from the collection of Jim Linderman. Young women "earners" from the tawdry and tainted early days of American show business when child labor laws did not apply.
Available in paperback OR as an Ebook download for only $5.99. Preview and Purchase HERE
Asa "Ace" Moore African-American artist from Ohio Black Folk Art Circa 1935 Collection Jim Linderman
A group of the
recently discovered erotic fantasy comic illustrations by Asa "Ace" Moore,
African-American from Ohio, circa 1935. First time ever shown! Share them around the joint,
Comic-Con Folks!
All Original Drawings collection Jim Linderman
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House of David House Band ! RPPC
Slave Made African American Folk Art Figure ? Civil War Jekyll Island Georgia Collection Jim Linderman
A little Civil War man from Jekyll Island, Georgia. Circa 1865, made as a whimsey from lead, I believe, and I assume the same lead used to make bullets. That is a guess. When I obtained the little fellow, he was in two parts, which is not surprising as lead is soft and he was buried a long time. I have rejoined him temporarily for the photo. You can see what he was found with below…relics. Relics of a war we have still not come to grips with. How can we? African American Slave Made Folk Art Figure? Or Mere Whimsey.
When I purchased this fellow, I had not mere whimsey in mind. I was thinking of the famous slave-made iron figure also unearthed, but from a blacksmith's shop and slave quarters in Virginia, not a Civil War resting place. The figure which has been written about by scholar John Michael Vlach is frequently used to illustrate African craft, sculptural traditions and skills which were transmitted across the Atlantic…setting the stage for a war fought over freedom and commerce just before the industrial revolution.
The similar stance, diminutive size and presence was evident immediately. Were there slaves (or African-American freedmen) around the campfire in Jekyll Island when this fellow was melted in a spoon and shaped in the sand? Or was this simply a way for a bored soldier, of either side, to spend some time.
Jekyll Island is called "an affordable Georgia Beach family vacation spot" today. As with much of the low-country along Georgia and South Carolina, what was once plantation is now golf course. Fifty years AFTER the importation of slaves to the United States became illegal, they were still coming to Jekyll Island. The second to last shipment of slaves imported to the states arrived there in 1858…some 450 men torn from their homes and made to work. I do not know how many men were on the boat when it left Africa, but one source says the ship Wanderer arrived with 409 slaves. The mortality rate for passage was 12 percent, so that would be about right.
The people who arranged the illegal shipment knew what they were doing and knew the rewards. They choose to profit.
The Union Army arrived on St. Jekyll Island in 1862. By that time the plantation was deserted, but after the war the man who owned the island returned and split it up among his sons.
So is my mere whimsey a more profound object now? It is to me. Did it just happen to be found during the same dig, but made earlier by an African-American man who lost his home but retained his esthetics?
"Relic" man Metal (lead?) circa 1860 Height 4" Collection Jim Linderman
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"Show Business" by Frank Wendt circa 1890 collection Jim Linderman
The old Razzle Dazzle
Cabinet Card Photograph by Frank Wendt circa 1890 Collection Jim Linderman
Skippy, Scrappy and Colortone American Toy Works Art Education Vintage Paint Set
Colortone was but one of the product names for the American Toy Company, child's toy and game manufacturer active from around the 1920s to the 1940s in Long Island City. They are not well-documented, but what is shown on the web displays a particularly beautiful graphic quality to their boxes. Many of their products were art-orientated, including this huge and impressive set. American Toy Company had their own line of crayons which were sold separately under the "Skippy" brand, and also "Scrappy" though I am not sure how many works of art like to be called scrappy.
Normally price stickers and such on original boxes don't add to the value, but in this case a "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS" pair of stickers from Grandma to Donald at least adds some charm. Donald was not artistically inclined, the set is virtually untouched though funky with age…but the enclosed stencils to allow a child to cheat were well-used.
The book I love is a modest little thing I have mentioned before. The beautiful "Objects of American Art Education" by Diana Korzenik, which contains numerous items such as this from her own collection. The catalog was published in 2004 but it still shows what a dedicated collector can do with persistence and vision. I see a few copies on Amazon. I rate it a BUY.
American Toy Works Colortone Paint Set, circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman
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World's Most Strange Totem Pole Folk Art
Location Unknown (then AND now) A tip of the hat to Joey Lin and Erin Waters.
Curious Folk Art "totem pole" thing. Snapshot no date. Collection Jim Linderman
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