The Well-dressed Flutist: Uniform Edition

 

The flute has perhaps the oldest heritage of all musical instruments.
(Okay, drums are older, but let's skip that debate today.)
Originally crafted in prehistoric times from hollow animal bones,
it's a simple instrument whereby a player makes a whistling sound
by blowing air over a hole at one end of a tube.
Over many millennium different cultures around the world
improved the flute by making it out of reeds, bamboo, and wood.
Eventually it became the familiar transverse flute. 

 

By the early modern era, flutes were commonly constructed
of dense African blackwood, also known as Grenadilla, (Dalbergia melanoxylon), 

the same timber used to make oboes and clarinets,
and fitted with several metal keys to cover the tone holes.
.

But in the early 19th century the German inventor and musician
Theobald Böhm (1794 – 1881) devised a new improved flute made entirely of silver.
His first patent for a metal flute with improved keywork was taken out in 1847
and it was first displayed to the public in 1851 at the London Exhibition.
This is the type of flute now played in orchestras and bands.

However Böhm's design was not immediately adopted
and in the mid and late 19th century
many flutists preferred the sound quality of a wooden flute
despite the advantages of a silver flute.

 Some players compromised by playing a flute
that had a wooden body for the keys

and a metal head joint for the embouchure hole.  

 

Other instrument makers used ivory.
This hard white dentine material,
taken primarily from the tusks of elephants,
was the plastic of the 19th century.
It was once used in many common household items
as well as for musical instruments
like the white keys of a piano,
the decorative accents on violin bows, 
and for head joints of flutes and piccolos.

Today I present five well-dressed flutists

who took pride in posing for a camera
in their best concert uniform.

My first well-dressed flutist is a young man holding a blackwood flute and dressed in a dark uniform embellished with a swirling line of contrasting embroidery that matches the curls of his hair. This style of jacket was used by musicians in both professional and amateur bands, but not in military bands. 

The portrait was produced at the studio of Ada Houseknecht, Artist, Batavia, New York. It is a rare example of work by a female photographer. Ada was born in 1868 and married to a photographer, Philon B. Houseknecht. Her obituary in 1949 described her as a "well-known photographer" in Batavia.   

On the back is a signature and date:  Walter Bernard, Geneseo, Sept 15, (18)99. I'm not absolutely certain of the last name as the letters are very spiky, but Bernard seems the most likely spelling. Geneseo is the county seat of Livingston County in the Finger Lakes region of western New York. The town is about 25  miles southeast of Batavia, New York. Unfortunately the man's name is too common to make a positive identification as I found no exact match in the either town. But the date is surely correct. 

* * *

My next flutist holds a silver flute as he stands in a photographer's studio with his instrument case and sheet music on a tall wooden plant stand. His name is Albert and he signed the back of his postcard portrait and wrote the date 28-9-10 or 28 September 1910. It was addressed to a Madame Jeanne Guillaume of Paris. 

His uniform is neat but restrained without ornament. There are music lyre badges on his cap and collar. I believe he is a member of a regimental band but I don't see any unit number badge so he could be a member of a civic band from some French commune.

* * *

My third flutist chose an unusual narrow and tall cabinet mount for his portrait, perhaps to accentuate his height and his flute which he holds vertically on a side table. This flute is a hybrid design with a silver head joint and a blackwood body. His uniform has a jacket embroidered with a kind of trefoil design on the front buttons, sleeves, and epaulets and a broad stripe along the trouser legs. His cap appears to be without a brim and has five initials fixed to it:  W.H.P.D.C.  

The photo came from the studio of Rodgers Photographic Palace, 471 Main Street, Hartford (Connecticut). My estimate is that this portrait of a young man, age twenty-something, was taken in the late 1890s or early 1900s. There is a West Hartford and perhaps the letters stand for West Harford Police Department but I don't know what the C could stand for. I would instead expect the letter B which of course would stand for Band. 

* * *

My fourth uniformed flutist is posed seated and gazing off to his left. The photographer has faded the image edges for a dreamy effect but it actually looks as if the studio is on fire and filling with smoke. In the young man's lap are a piccolo and flute, both in blackwood with ivory head joints. His uniform has large fringed epaulets and a single row of shiny brass buttons. The diagonal belt across his chest is to carry a small satchel for his music. 

I suspect he is a member of a state guard band. In the 19th century United States' regular army was quite small and whenever there was a crisis requiring a large military force it depended on state militias to provide the manpower. These state guard regiments often hired professional  bands to play at the unit's annual training sessions, typically 12 to 14 days each summer. For parades the bandsmen would wear this type of formal uniform. 

This cabinet card was produced at the studio of B. F. Freeman of East Somerville, Massachusetts. The style looks like late 1880s to me or perhaps early 1890s.   

* * *

My final flutist has the best uniform, I think. His short jacket is adorned with full fringe epaulets and three rows of 24 brilliant brass buttons. His military forage cap has a two-color feather plume which must have made a splendid effect when his band was marching. In his right hand he holds a piccolo made of blackwood with an ivory head joint and in his left is a blackwood flute. On the table next to him is a third blackwood flute as well as lyre for his music. It looks like it would be attached to a wrist band worn on his left arm.

His belt buckle has a wreath design with three initials in the center. The first letter is definitely a D but the next two are unclear. Like the previous flutist, I think his elite uniform marks him as bandsman of  a state guard regiment. Unfortunately his cabinet card has no photographers name or other marks so I'm only certain it was taken in America, likely in the 1880s or 1890s.

Let's finish with a rendition
of the famous piccolo solo from John Philip Sousa's
march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever". 
The soloist is Staff Sgt. Kara Santos of the United States Marine Band
performing at the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., on May 31, 2013.

Her instrument is made of blackwood 

but appropriately for the 21st century without an ivory head joint.

Sousa claimed he composed his iconic American march
on Christmas Day 1896 on board a steamer returning from England.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that ever since then
 this short tune has been memorized and played
by every flutist from every nation around the world.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where the market has special offers this weekend
on flutes & piccolos fruits and pickles.

The Funny Men: Make Them Laugh!

 

                                    Come all you merry gentlemen,
                                        And smiling pretty lasses,
                                            Attention give unto my song,
                                                And push about the glasses.

                                    I wrote this song this very day,
                                        Your merriment consulting,
                                            And if you do not laugh at what I sing,
                                                I shall think it quite insulting.

                                            (Bob Smith's Clown Song and Joke Book, 1865)

His smile invites you to smile back, to chuckle, to laugh. It's a jolly face of friendly mirth. You don't know what to expect but he's bound to be fun. It's the face of Julius Werner, Humourist crudely printed on a postcard. It was sent from Kiel, Germany, a port city on the northern Baltic coast below Denmark, on 27 December 1899. No doubt the writer composed his short message while enjoying Herr Werner's jokes at a cabaret near the docks. He and his recipient, who also lived in Kiel, likely anticipated celebrating a new year and a new century in a few days as the card was delivered on 30 December. 

In my collection I have only a few early picture postcards, printed before 1900, and most are from Germany or Austria-Hungary, the two nations where this simple medium of communication first became popular. The earliest Austrian picture postcards, mostly lithographs prints, date from the 1870s. The first printing methods for photographs are later and were not widely produced until the late 1890s. 

My particular interest in cards like this is because I want to show examples of how entertainers first began using postcards for promotion of their act. One of the more common types were humorists and comedians who banked on audiences remembering their face from a postcard. The name you might forget, but that hilarious mug you'd never forget.

* * *

Sometimes a smile becomes a welcoming shout. Hallo! Good to see you again! (Even if we've never met.) Join the party, let me sing you a song. That was the appeal in this postcard portrait of J. Kopfmüller, Gesangshumorist ~ Singing humorist, who claimed "Weil i an Spass versteh'! " ~ "Because I understand fun!"

Herr Kopfmüller's postcard was sent from Ulm on 22 June 1902. Ulm is a city on the upper course of the River Danube, at the confluence with the small Blau Stream in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

* * *

At other times the smile makes you laugh even before the punchline. You may think you've heard it before but the longer and more improbable the story, the more funnier it gets. That might have been the style of Oscar Freyer, Mitglied von Emil Winter-Tymian's berühmtesten alles humoristen un Quartett-Sänger ~  Member of Emil Winter-Tymian's most famous everything humorist and quartet singer. Many traditional German songs are ballads that tell a tale. I imagine Oscar knew hundreds of them. He performed in a Dresden male vocal group that at various times numbered five to ten men. It was led by Emil Winter-Tymian (1860–1926), a Saxon folk singer, salon-humorist and theater director. In their skits the group sometimes dressed in women's clothing for comic effect.

Oscar's postcard was sent from Dresden on 2 June 1903. 

* * *

However with many comics sometimes their smile dissolves into a grin where you don't know if the joke might actually be on you. That's in the face of Otto Mücke, Gesangskomiker ~ singing comedian. His smug smirk challenges us as to who knows better; the fooler or the fooled. Up to the end of World War One, comical singers were very popular in Germany. I imagine that Otto sang original material and was likely accompanied on piano or guitar, but his twisted sneer suggests he had a barbed style like what we now call an "insult comic".

Otto's postcard was sent from Charlottenburg, Germany, a section of Berlin, on 2 August 1912. 

                                        Life's the biggest joke of all. 

                                Shakespeare said that all the world's a stage; 

                                    And well he knew in that far distant age. 

                                A stage it is, whereon Comedian Fate 

                                    Don't crack his jokes his whims to satiate. 

                                And after all the struggle, talk and fuss, 

                                    The curtain falls—and life has one on us. 

                                        (One Thousand Laughs from Vaudeville, 1908)

As I have often pointed out in my other stories of comics and clowns, humor is the most ephemeral of all arts. The gags, jokes, and songs that these comedians once told are lost forever. The people they lampooned and teased are forgotten. The social and political issues they mocked and satirized have disappeared into the cracks of history. All that is left is a picture of a smiling comical face.

I wanted to include examples of old jokes from their era (in both German and English) but I could not find anything that really fit. Mainly because the great majority of humor from the beginning of the 20th century is stale and unamusing like a forgotten candy bar left behind in the back of a kitchen drawer. Edible? Maybe. But appetizing? No way. And aging it for another few decades won't improve it either.  

My initial interest in collecting postcards of German/Austrian humorists was because they resembled the stout funny men of my generation. In Germany, humor is a serious business, so it's fascinating to see in these old postcards subtle elements of comic schtick that became part of American comic arts. A good clown can be appealing in any language when they reinterpret a gag.   

For more laughs
check out:
The Funny Men, part 1
High Class Jokers
Four Musical Jokers
Two Wise Guys
Pulling a Face
Stupefaction!

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where no one ever checks your fishing license.  

Look Pleasant, Please!

  

It's an unexpected moment of mischief.
Maybe set off by a bad pun,
a wisecrack,
or something silly.

Instantly the jest spreads
like an electric shock.
Eyes light up,
smiles appear,
as everyone joins the fun.

Then in a flash
the giggles, groans,
and squeals of laughter
can not be contained.

Clowns and comedians
understand how timing
works in humor.

And so do photographers.

This merry moment was captured in a photo postcard of 14 young ladies, members of a small orchestra. They all wear white dresses, though not identical, and are jammed together into a back corner of a stage. Other than a snare and bass drum arranged in front, all the instruments visible are strings—violins, viola, cello, and double bass.

It's a rare image of spontaneous glee. In all of my photo collection it's the only one that makes me wish I could have been there to hear the joke. The girls look around age 16 to 20 and I think they have either just performed a concert or are about to. There is no caption and the postcard was never mailed, but the photographer did helpfully leave their name stamped onto the back.

W. R. C. Mynster,
view photographer
Bell Phone Red 850

It did not take long to find W. R. C. Mynster advertising in the newspapers of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Council Bluffs IA Evening Nonpareil
6 June 1911

                                PHOTOS OF YOUR HOME, PLACE OF
                                business, of the baby,  of your pets,  or
                                anything else,  funerals,  weddings,  lawn
                                parties and social gatherings, a specialty.
                                Taken day or night.  Call Bell phone Red
                                850.  Address  W. R. C. Mynster,  309  Ross
                                St., Council Bluffs, Ia.

His full name was William Rufus Choate Mynster. Like many men named after their fathers, he chose to use his initials as his principal public name, a practice that a century later makes research a bit tricky. W. R. C. was born in Council Bluffs in 1868 and become a professional photographer after several attempts at other careers that included law, medicine, prize fighter, and gambling saloon bouncer. 

His first newspaper advertisements begin in 1911 which may have been in order to compete with a growing number of photographers in his city. His specialty was in commercial photography which included taking large wide photos of convention groups, exterior scenes of buildings, and interior shots of businesses. Council Bluffs is located in Pottawattamie County in western Iowa on the east bank of the Missouri River. On the west bank is Omaha, Nebraska. In 1910 the population of Council Bluffs was 29,292 while Omaha could boast of 124,096. That's a pretty sizeable metropolitan area with a lot of potential for photographers.

{click any image to enlarge}

Panorama View of Council Bluffs, Iowa
1916, William Rufus Choate Mynster
Source: Wikipedia

Here is a panorama of Council Bluffs made by William Rufus Choate Mynster in 1916. It is described as a view of West Broadway in Council Bluffs between 1st Street on the right and the Council Bluffs Post Office and Federal Building on the left at 6th Street. This photo is in the collection of the Library of Congress.

This is a photo postcard of a beautiful house taken by W. R. C. Mynster who stamped the card with the same imprint as on the orchestra's photo. It was never mailed so the location and date is unknown, but presumably it is a home in a historic district of Council Bluffs. I just found the listing for it today, July 13, and decided it deserved to be in my collection.

Council Bluffs IA Evening Nonpareil
22 January 1915

                                PHOTOS TAKEN FOR LODGES,  SO-
                                cieties,  etc.,  of each member, then  all
                                the photos mounted in one frame ready
                                to hang on wall.  For terms of work of
                                this kind call  W. R. C. Mynster,  321
                                Platner St.,  Council Bluffs,  Phone 850.

Choate Mynster, as he was also known, perhaps from his boxing days, also took photos of prisoners at the county jail and of crime scenes for the police. And every spring he would take hundreds of photos of schoolchildren. I suspect my postcard is one he took of a high school orchestra or maybe a string ensemble from a local music academy. The girls' hair styles and the quality of the photo suggest it was taken some time from 1908 to 1915. 

Unlike most photographers who kept a studio for portrait work, he preferred to go to his clients.  In that way he got to know many families and business people of Council Bluffs. In February 1929 the Daily Nonpareil newspaper published a superb tribute on W. R. C. Mynster's life and work as a photographer in Council Bluffs.

Council Bluffs IA Daily Nonpareil
10 February 1929

 

It is very rare to find a photo of a photographer with his camera
so I feel obliged to include it along with the full piece below.

It begins:

   Like the family doctor who has attended to children and children's children and even another generation to follow that,  so has W. R. C. Mynster, 2128 West Broadway, photographer, said, "Look pleasant, please," to three generations of students in the local schools.

{click any image to enlarge}

Council Bluffs IA Daily Nonpareil
10 February 1929

The full article tells a great story of W. R. C. Mynster's life but here is an excerpt which I liked for how it described what a photographer like Mynster did for their community. It's true for many of the forgotten photographers that I have featured on this blog.

   He got out among the people he intended to photograph.  He was called to the bier sides of the city's departed great.  He was called to cyclone areas and took pictures of the piling corpses and the wrecks of once happy homes.  

   He met Coxey's army * as it entered the city and he photographed the flotsam and jetsam of the tides of life as they rolled their tragic way towards Washington and disillusion. 

   He photographed the bloody evidence for the murder trial.  He saw first-hand and his camera caught for all time the grotesque shapes of those who died with their boots on, the victims of hatred, passion, averice, jealousy or their own weakness.

   Mynster crowded into the photography business while remaining in one city, all the adventures and experiences that go to brush the moss from the rolling stone. 

   And he photographed the children.  Little ones, medium ones, grown ones, self-satisfied ones, nervous ones, pretty ones, merely cute ones, but never actually ugly ones, for, he said, "all children are beautiful to me.  I love them.  I like to make pretty poses of them and to catch their pictures so that their parents will always rejoice in the possession of a likeness that will last forever." 

   He photographed the children's children and now he is photographing the third generation.  

* Wikipedia:  Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington, D.C., in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history at the time. Officially named the Army of the Commonwealth in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington, and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march.

On 30 June 1932, William R. C. Mynster died
after suffering a heart attack.
He was 63 years old.

What his tribute report did not mention is that W. R. C. Mynster and his wife Josephine were proud parents of ten children. Two sons: Lyonel and Edwin, and eight daughters: Cora, Sevra, Pearl, Iva, Flora, Nellie, Josephine, and Lillian. 

If the photo of the orchestra was taken around 1908-1915, two daughters, Flora, born in 1893, and Nellie, born in 1894, would have been of the same age as the other girls. Did they play a musical instrument? I don't know. It's only speculation but look at the photo again. Can you spot someone who's heard the cameraman tell this joke before? That's the face that sold me on the photo and still makes me smile today. 

Whether it is Flora or Nellie, or someone else, I expect W. R. C. Mynster knew a thing or two about teasing young girls to get them to show off their best features. To tell a good zinger requires a punchline given with the timing of a prizefighter, a nightclub comic, or a watchful photographer.  

William Rufus Choate Mynster (1868–1932)
Walnut Hill Cemetery, Council Bluffs, Iowa
Source: FindaGrave.com 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where best friends always share

everything with each other.

Keeping Count at the Majestic

Most of the photos in my collection, maybe 98%, are of static people, posing motionless for a camera that is usually secluded in a photographer's studio. Therefore this outdoor photo is, for me anyway, a rare exception. It's a quick snapshot of an urban scene. A few dozen people have stopped along a city sidewalk to listen to a band. The bandsmen stand in a circle and actually seem to be playing music. The moment has a little added tension as a car approaches and the band looks like it is blocking traffic. 

The camera was unable to get everything in clear focus and the sepia tones have the usual faded contrast which I improved. There is also no caption or postmark to identify location or date. On the back of the postcard are some numbers, a couple of sums written down by someone likely figuring out a price totaling 14.86, the $ sign being assumed. 

The cardstock has a NOKO stamp box which indicated a brand of photo paper. The NOKO company used four different stamp box designs and according to a catalog on the now-defunct Playle's postcard website this version was popular from 1907 to 1929.

But there is a subtle clue in the automobile partly visible on the right. 

The car's wheels are a simple spoke design, like an old horse-drawn wagon wheel. The fender has a broad open curve that connects to a running board. The motor compartment is a coffin-like box and behind it are lantern sidelights. All are features of an early automobile manufactured in the 1905-1918 era. I found a good example in a 1909 auto trade journal report about the new models being released by the Oldsmobile company.  

1909 Oldsmobile Advert
Source: 1909 Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal, v. 13

There is too little of the car in the photo to make a positive match but I think the style is close enough to say that the photo could not have been taken any earlier than around 1908. Since there is another similar car wheel on the left of the street, that suggests this picture is closer to 1908 than 1928. Another clue is that the street appears to be unpaved. This is a small town, not a metropolis.

In the background on the right is a storefront with tall glass windows. Stenciled on one is Steam Laundry and hanging on the other side of the doorway a circular sign. But despite my efforts to digitally sharpen the image and contrast I can't make out anything except for a few letters. It's tantalizing to be so close to reading it, but who knows, maybe it was just an advertisement for laundry starch. 

But the best clue was the sign on the next building: 

Majestic   

Special          To
Feature        Night

Clearly it's a theater, or theatre, to use the fancier term, but the name is unhelpful as Majestic was once one of the most common names for a theater/theatre in America. There were hundreds of them in big cities and large towns that genuinely deserved to be named Majestic as they were built with multiple floors, grand entrances, and opulent interiors that could seat thousands. This theater with just a ground floor and a narrow width, maybe just 20 feet, is smaller than the laundry next door. Its archway entrance looks a bit decorative, if not exotic, but the remaining brickwork is plain and looks hastily constructed. That is a pretty low rung on the ladder of majesty. 

But what drew my attention to this postcard is, of course, the band. This ensemble has around 17-18 men with an instrumentation of brass, drums and a few clarinets. The men are dressed in white military-style uniforms, not unlike those of laundry deliverymen, I suppose, that is typical for many small town bands of this probable era of 1908-1920. Except for one thing. Their uniforms accentuates the contrast of their face and hand complexion. This is a band of African-American musicians. In the American newspaper parlance of the early 20th century they were a "colored band". As demeaning as that phrase is in the 21st century, it does make for a convenient expression when doing historical research. 

The automobile and the small theater are consistent with the era of live vaudeville entertainers and a time when cinema films were still silent and of short duration. The Majestic's "Special Feature" might have been a new silent comedy or western. Or it could have been a variety show troupe touring the vaudeville circuit. And this band of Black musicians might be one of the few professional African-American touring shows. 

Or not. 

Maybe they really were an amateur band of workers at the steam laundry. I truly don't know. The only facts are what we see in the photo.

But I couldn't help but look for a connection between "Majestic Theater/Theatre" and "colored band". The archive found a medium long list which I could filter by limiting the time frame and location, mainly to the southern states. (I tried including "steam laundry" too, but that only added more false trails.)

Marion KY Crittenden Record-Press
13 July 1911

In Marion, Kentucky a weekly county newspaper, the Crittenden Record-Press, ran regular notices of the town's Majestic theatre. In July 1911 it promoted the appearance of a "Troupe of 30 colored people band and orchestra "Black Diamond Aristocracy" two nights July 15th and 17th. At the majestic theatre." 

Marion is the county seat of Crittenden County situated in western Kentucky about 10 miles south of the Ohio River, In 1910 it had a population of 1,627. Its Majestic theatre gave regular performances of touring dramas, comedies, and musical revues typical of the lower level vaudeville circuits. Unfortunately I could not find any address for the Majestic. It seems to have operated only from about 1910 to 1912. 

But I did find a better report on the "Black Diamond Aristocracy" in a Greenfield, Indiana newspaper. Greenfield is about 300 miles north of Marion.

Greenfield IN Daily Reporter
13 June 1911

                            

Jubilee Troupe

   The Black Diamond Aristocracy Company will give a concert at the Rogers opera house Monday evening, June 19th. This is a regular colored jubilee troupe. Its members are selected by the President of the Southern Indiana Institute, and the entertainments are being given for the purpose of raising money to buy a farm where colored boys and girls may receive free industrial training.
   The troupe includes thirty people. The Pickaninny Band is a popular feature. The program includes "Down in Louisiana." "The Suwanee River." "Buck, Ben and Bald." "Just Barely Living and That is All." "Jubilee Whoop and Gospel Train." "Loving Joe." "the Old Kentucky Home." "Teach Our Baby That I am Dead." and many other Southern plantation melodies.

I make no claim for a connection between my photo postcard and the Majestic theatre of Marion, Kentucky other than it is purely a coincidence and it was possible. But my larger point is that here are two examples of how African-Americans found work in the entertainment industry of the early 20th century, despite enduring institutional discrimination, ignorant bigotry, and overt violent racism. It is a history that deserves to be remembered for the talent, determination, and tremendous influence these musicians had on our American musical culture.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where shows are half-price all weekend.