Classic Rock in Kansas

What makes a good vintage photograph?
Is it the clarity? The tonal contrast?
The artful pose and framing?

Sometimes it's a good photo for what we don't see.

A superior image might let us feel the warmth of sunshine and
a cool breeze through the shade of cottonwood trees.
It conjures up the aroma of freshly mown hay
mixed with the scent of crisply starched linen.

A good snapshot can resonate
with the music of laughter
and friendly conversation.
It can sparkle with animation,
letting us see the flicker of movement.

The good photo invites us to travel to a distant place
and experience a moment frozen in time.

It stimulates our imagination
to enjoy a sense of life and vitality
that the camera could not record.

It makes us feel as if we were there that day too.
.  

And every so often a great photo can speak to us.

My first example of a great photo is a postcard of five young musicians, three men and two women sitting on top a rock wall with their string instruments. The quintet has two standard mandolins on the left and two larger mandolas on the right, with a guitar in the center. 

The group looks dressed as if for a summer Sunday. The women wear white frocks, and the men are in crisp white shirts and ties. All are wearing freshly shined shoes. They appear to be in their late teens or early twenties. 

The postcard was sent to Miss J. Ainsworth
of Marion, Kansas on 24 August 1908.

Dear Jim - I have the
goods. I found it.
I will send it
sometime this week
just as soon as I get
it cut off. How are
you getting along?
It's pretty rainy isn't
it?  We have got the 
cutest little pup. –  Emma 

Florence is a small town in Marion county, Kansas, established in 1870 along the proposed route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, at the point where the railroad would cross the Cottonwood River. Today the population of Florence, Kansas is only about 435. But in 1908 it was nearly 3 times that number with 1,168 citizens. This meant it was large enough to have a music store.

Florence KS Bulletin
27 February 1902

The Emporia Music & Book Co. advertised in the Florence Bulletin, "Music!  Muisc! (sic) We carry everything in the musical line from the (c)heapest that's good to the best that's made."  The price of a piano in 1902 cost from $150 and up, but mandolins started at $5.00 and guitars at just $3.00 since they had two fewer strings. This was also the price of a Kodak No. 2 Brownie camera which took photos 2½ x 4¼ inches.

Florence KS Bulletin
4 June 1908

The Florence Bulletin, might have benefitted from a better spell checker, but it still provided a wonderful variety of social news about this little town in east central Kansas. Every week the people of Florence could learn about their neighbors' activities and other local events. The newspaper's regular edition printed 8 pages, and though it included state and national news, its reports were primarily about its local readership.

Florence KS Bulletin
10 May 1906

In May 1906 the paper noted that "A guitar and mandolin club, composed of Misses Addie Bender and Mause McCollum and John Stamp, furnished music for the supper given by the ladies of the Christian church last Friday evening."  

The mandolin is an instrument that can be played with the same fingerings and level of virtuosity as a violin. It can also be strummed using simple chords just like a guitar or banjo. Its popularity in America is tied with Italian immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century, and somehow it became a favorite instrument for the young people of Kansas. Using an admittedly unscientific method, the word "mandolin" did not appear in a search of American newspapers in Newspaper.com until about 1885 when it got just over 1,000 hits. By 1897 the references peaked at 57,616, declined to 32,200 hits in 1908, and plateaued to a ±20,000 level over the next two decades. Presently our 21st century, "mandolin" gets a mention about 3,000 times annually in newspapers. 

 

My second example of a great photo is another postcard. It's a picture captioned Main Street, Florence, Kans. and shows an impressive row of two story mercantile shops facing a wide dirt street with a dozen horse-drawn wagons parked in front. A barber's pole is on the far right of the street. In the foreground is a small white donkey pulling a cart driven by two children, a girl and younger boy.  

Street scene postcards like this were once very popular in America during the early 20th century. Florence's town plan was typical of many towns in the Midwest which followed a simple grid layout  of streets and avenues. This postcard was posted from Florence, Kansas on 8 September 1909.  Like the other postcard it was addressed to Miss Jimmy Ainsworth in Marion, Kansas, which was the namesake and largest city in Marion county, with a population of 1,841, though in 1910 this was only 800 or so more people than in Florence. 

Dear Jim:
Billie and I both
like the small or first
one the best but then
you go ahead and have
the one finished that
suits you.  Remember the
donkey in this picture.
Dont study too hard.    Goodbye
                                         from Emma.

One of the wonders of our internet age, is Google Maps street view. The engineers who dreamed up this  amazing concept were probably intending it to used by people navigating in the 21st century. But for amateur historians like myself, it lets me travel time and space to compare the Before image with the After.

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Here are three more historic street views of Florence found at KansasMeory.org.

They let us better appreciate that bucolic nature of Florence
was sometimes disturbed by the fierce natural forces of America's Great Prairie.

People in flood waters in front of the gallery
in Florence, Kansas June 7, 1906
Source: KansasMemory.org

Flood in Florence, KS 1906
Source: KansasMemory.org

Notice that sign on the porch of the small building
behind the men in the boat:
BULLETIN – Florence's local weekly newspaper.

Flood in Florence, KS
Horner Block, 1906 or 1905
Source: KansasMemory.org

I think my two postcards are both great photos because they each attract our attention in different ways. The 1909 picture of Florence's Main Street tells more about Kansas life than a thousand words could.  And the 1908 photo of the guitar & mandolin club is a beautiful portrait of American youth at the start of the new century.  

Of course the best part is that both postcards bring us the voice of a young woman named Emma writing to someone oddly named Miss Jimmy Ainsworth. Was Emma a friend, cousin, or sister? Once I added the surname it wasn't hard to find Emma Ainsworth. In the 1900 census for Marion, Kansas, Emma Ainsworth, born August 1886, age 13, lived with her mother, Elizabeth, age 51; four sisters Villa, 22; Myrtle, 16; Inez, 11; Clara, 8; and brother Roy, 20. 

However in the Kansas state census of 1895, the family included her father, William, a farmer born in Vermont, and four other siblings, all female.  Unfortunately only initials are listed and not always correctly. It would seem that Emma had an older sister born in 1880 with the initials J. L. Ainsworth. In the 1905 Kansas state census for Marion, mother Elizabeth Ainsworth is listed as the head of household with four daughters, Myrtle, Emma, Inez, and Clara. By 1910 only one daughter, Clara, is still at home with her mother.

In these postcards the person to whom Emma is writing seems to be a younger school age girl. I think the name Jimmy or Jim is Clara's family nickname. There may be other complicated reasons for this relationship, and I've considered cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. but between 1900 and 1910 there were only six Ainsworths living in Marion and none of them had a J in their name.

However in Florence there were only a few people connected to either a mandolin or a guitar.

 

Florence KS Bulletin
16 April 1908

In April 1908, the Florence Bulletin reported that John Stamp and Will Hudson spent an evening at a family party and "entertained with mandolin and guitar music." Since is was in that order, I believe Stamp was on mandolin and Hudson on guitar. 

Just two month's later, J.W. Hudson's name made the front page of the Bulletin, alongside Miss Emma Ainsworth.

Marion KS Review 
11 June 1908

In June 1908, the Marion Review ran an announcement that "J. W. Hudson of Florence and Miss Emma Ainsworth of this city were married at Emporia on Wednesday June 3rd. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson will make their home in Florence.

"Emma Ainsworth is one of the finest girls Marion has produced and that is saying a good deal. she was for several years in the telephone office here and was one of the best operators and most accommodating employees the company has ever had. Mr. Hudson is the wire chief of the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Co and an expert electrician. He helped install the present telephone plant in this city."

In both postcards, Emma was writing as the newly married Mrs. Hudson. In other reports I learned that she visited Marion to stay with her mother Elizabeth Ainsworth, and that Clara Ainsworth visited her sister Emma in Florence. Emma's husband's full name was John William Hudson. By the 1925 state census John and Emma were living in Marion and had four children, three boys and one girl.  

Was Emma one of the young women on the rock wall with a mandolin? I can't really say for sure that she was. The two women may be the two mentioned in the 1906 report on the guitar and mandolin club. But I think a better bet is that the handsome guitar player is John William Hudson. It would be a very good reason for Emma to have the photo and send it to Clara. And also a reason why she felt no need to identify him either. Sometimes it's what hidden in a photo that makes it really interesting.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is rocking and rolling this weekend.