Back In The Good Old Days

1906

Market Street, San Francisco, after the earthquake.

Sacajawea:

It has come to my attention that this cannot possibly be a real photograph of Sacajawea, as she died prior to the invention of photography. My best guess is that this is a photo of a wax museum piece, or a staged/posed recreation.

Late Breaking:

I have learned that this is a studio portrait owned by the Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library, and was made in 1884 or 1885. It is actually Mary Enos, a Native American (Shoshone) woman, and a baby in a cradleboard. Thanks to Walter Graham. In any event, I'm leaving it up.

Sacajawea - Stolen, held captive and sold, eventually reunited the Shoshone Indians. She was an interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark in 1805-1806 with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau. She navigated carrying her son, Jean Baptiste, on her back. She traveled thousands of miles from the Dakotas to the Pacific Ocean. The explorers said she was cheerful, never complained, and proved to be invaluable. She served as an adviser and caretaker, and she is legendary for her perseverance and resourcefulness.

Naomi Parker-Fraley, inspiration for the famous Rosie the Riveter poster.

April 1945.

Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson plays "Going Home" as FDR's body is borne past in Warm Springs, GA, where the President was scheduled to attend a barbecue on the day he died.

Wagon train on Marietta Street, Atlanta.

Citation (Library of Congress): Barnard, George N, photographer. Atlanta, Ga. Wagon train on Marietta Street. Atlanta Georgia United States, 1864.

Bonnie and Clyde's car following the shootout that ended the two outlaws rampage through the south west.  The gunfire barrage was so loud that many members of the posse experienced temporary deafness.

Civil War veteran Samuel Decker poses with the prosthetic arms he made for himself... somehow. Perhaps with his teeth?

Inmates at Attica play chess.

1953 = American soldiers hunker down in a trench less than a mile away from the detonation of a 43 kiloton nuclear bomb.

1906 Mark Twain smokes a cigar.

LAPD police officers going undercover in 1960 to catch purse snatchers.

1937

Children in iron lungs, before the advent of the polio vaccine.

Cincinnati's cavernous main library, demolished in 1955.

The first known sports team photo ever taken, the 1858 Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, Hoboken, New Jersey.

1922

Albert Einstein visits The Grand Canyon.

1945

Eisenhower. Bradley and Patton examine a trove of stolen artifacts that the Germans hid in salt mine.

1918 - An American field hospital in the bombed out remains of a French church.

1937

Waiting in line following the Louisville flood.

1960

John F. and Bobby Kennedy.

1899

A group of school children examine a bison.

Although not a true historical photo, this is intended to illustrate the advances in communications technology in the space of a mere 57 years (less than my life time).  For thousands of years, the horse was the fastest way to send a written message.  But then, due to technology, the pace increased by more than 2000 times.  This happened as we moved from 40 miles per day on horseback, at end of the Pony Express in 1861 to 100 miles per hour in an airplane, with the inception of Air Mail service in 1918.

1869

The first ambulance: Bellevue Hospital Center, NY.

1862

Abraham Lincoln inspects the battlefield.

A mountain of bison skulls ready to be ground into fertilizer. This picture was taken in the 1880s at the Michigan Carbon Works in Detroit, and the original of this image is at the Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library. This additional information thanks to Le Roy G. Barnett, PhD.

1890

Michigan loggers.