Flying High in Iowa

 

At first glance people might have
mistaken it for a giant box kite.
But this contraption could change direction
and move as easily into the wind as with it.

It also soared up and down 
almost like a bird
though it wings did not flap
and its engine was noisier than a flock of geese.

It was the new era of flying machines.
Some zipped across the sky like a hawk.
Others drifted along as sedately as a cloud.

Aeroplanes and airships
seemed to be everywhere now.
Not just in France, or Germany, or England,

but even in Iowa. 

A biplane flying above State Street in Blakesburg, Iowa did not seem to attract much attention from its townsfolk. You'd think people would wave or point. Maybe they were concerned about distracting the pilot as takeoff and landing an aeroplane on such a muddy unpaved road must have been pretty challenging. He appears to be sharply ascending perhaps to avoid the telephone and electric wires. 

Blakesburg is a town in Wapello County in southeast Iowa. In 1910 it had 344 citizens while its current population was 274 at the 2020 census. 

This dramatic picture of an aeroplane was published as a "Real Photo" by the Des Moines Post Card Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. In the 1910s the company's photographer documented quite an impressive number of flying machines over other parts of the state. 

By coincidence, just north of Blakesburg is the Airpower Museum, a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) aviation museum founded in 1965 by Robert L. Taylor and the Antique Airplane Association. It has approximately 25 vintage aircraft on display and features a collection of aviation models, engines, propellers, photos and original art including some fighter planes from World War II.

In this next postcard another aeroplane very similar to the one over Blakesburg is making a dive over the entrance to the U. S. Fish Hatchery at Manchester, Iowa. You'd think this would startle the fish to jump out of the ponds. But unless that pilot pulls up quickly he will be startled too and  find himself hung in the trees around the hatchery.

Manchester is a city about 150 miles northeast of Blakesburg and 45 miles west of Dubuque, Iowa. In 1910 its population was 2,758 and 110 years later can boast of 5,065 residents. The Manchester Fish Hatchery is situated 4 miles southeast of Manchester and was first stocked with fish in the 1890s when it was operated by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1976 the hatchery was turned over to the State of Iowa as part of a land trade. Every year it produces 600,000 fish stock, primarily trout, that are then dispersed in Iowa waters.

The aeroplane is similar to the Wright brother's Wright Flyer Model A which was first flown at public demonstrations in Le Mans, France in August 1908. This was also the same model that the brothers contracted to build for the United States War Department in February 1908. The Wright brother's Model A design was licensed for production in Europe with the largest number produced in Germany. 

Evidently one enterprising fellow in Iowa found the means to buy one too. On 10 February 1913 he wrote a message on the back of this postcard to explain his new wings to his sister, Miss Olive Des Antels of Northville, Michigan. 

Sunday

Hello Sis,                                     

                  How are you all?

I'm fine.  This picture shows

me just coming back from   

town in my aeroplane.        

What do you know about   

       that?  No news out here.  Write

        me Sis.  Have subscribed for the

    Record.  So you won't have to

       trouble sending them any more.

            Love to all, Your loving Bro. Gene.

            Write soon.                          

Seventy miles northwest of Manchester is the town of Shell Rock, Iowa. It's much smaller than Manchester and in 1910 it had only 741 citizens. But amazingly the little town of Shell Rock could brag that flying over its sky were two aeroplanes and a sizeable airship too. Presumably the airfield was not on the main street. Those utility poles look very prickly. I wonder how they produced hydrogen for the airship.

It seems Shell Rock must have been the site for one of the first international airports as this postcard was addressed to a someone in Eibergen, Netherlands. It has a postmark of 6 October 1910, 4 PM from Shell Rock and a second postmark from Eibergen of 18 October. That's a very impressive delivery time considering that the maximum speed for Count Ferdinand Zeppelin's airships was around 48 km/h (30 mph). His dirigibles were designed to carry mail and passengers though I don't know how successful his competitors in Iowa were. Even the Wright Flyer could only manage 42 mph and still lacked sufficient power and fuel capacity for trans-Atlantic flight. I suppose the postcard more likely went by train. I believe there was once a railway bridge from Boston to Amsterdam.

Uit verre vorde
zend ik u ga me
er hartelghe goet
Shellrock Iowa
2 Oct 1910
            U** behende (?)
H. G.

From far away I
send you my
best wishes
Shellrock Iowa

During the 1910 decade of the first era of flying machines the people of Iowa were not going to be left behind. It seems nearly every town in the state had a visit from an airship or an airplane. I suppose it is part of that Iowan tradition of taking pride in what their state can produce.  Photo postcards of their gigantic Iowa corn cobs were very popular as well as pictures of 10 foot long Iowa carrots, rabbits the size of hippopotamus, and monstrous long pike fish (presumably well-fed on trout). I don't believe many people today know how important Iowa was to the development of airships and aeroplanes, but I have enough "Real Photos" to prove it. This is only the beginning of a series of stories I plan to tell about the early aviation craze in Iowa. So readers can expect to see more. No joke. It's all true, I'm sure.  

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where combing the seashore can get pretty messy.

Smile for the Camera!

 It's a shape that was once instantly recognizable.

Everyone knew what a camera looked like, even in silhouette. 
It was a large box with lens and shutter bulb, tripod legs, 
and came with a fabric cape to drape over the photographer.

Okay, maybe some dogs were a little confused.
That's a retriever thing.

A photographer was often like a theater director
commanding actors on a stage as they
prepared both the camera and the subjects. 
Everything had to be ready for just the right moment
when faces gleamed with a winning smile.

There were costumes to freshen up
and makeup to arrange.
The choice of camera placement 
might record a full figure or move in for a closeup.
Adjusting its angle for shadows and light 
accentuated features or disguised blemishes.
A good photographer considered themselves
more than just a craftsperson
but an artist too. 

Today I present a new genre of postcards
that I have started to collect,
art depicting early cameras and photographers.

Chez le photographe

                                            La mise au point est parfaite,

                                            Mais baissez un peu la tétem

                                            Ramenez sur vos bras nus

                                            Ce trop large pli de la manche,

                                            Prenez votre air du dimanche,

                                            Et, morbleu ! ne bougeons plus. 

At the photographer's

                                            The focus is perfect,

                                            But lower your head a little

                                            Bring back over your bare arms

                                            That overly wide fold of your sleeve,

                                            Put on your Sunday air,

                                            And, gadzooks! Let's not move.

This postcard shows a flamboyant photographer catching the attention of a little girl who poses for his camera. It was produced as number 3 in a series of humorous postcards by publisher A.D. of Nantes, Frances. The photographer looks professional enough but it looks like his camera is not pointed correctly. Nantes is a port city situated on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of western France. The postmarks have a date of 2 January 1908 and the card was sent to a young lady in Belgium.

* * *

My first image of a hooded photographer and a dog was cropped from a picture postcard showing a larger family group posing for a camera. It is a silhouette, a paper art form that was once a very popular kind of portraiture back in the time before photography. A talented artist used scissors to carefully cut a recognizable outline of a person from black paper. This image was made by a German artist Anna Schirmer (1852–1922) who was born in Stuttgart. This card was part of a series published by A. Ackermann's Kunstverlag of  München. The postmark is also  from Stuttgart with a postmark of 7 June 1910.

* * *

The third postcard is a colorful picture of a photographer preparing to take a photo of a young child in a home surrounded by a large family all dressed in rustic folk costumes. The girl looks directly at us as her mother arranges her head scarf.  The back of the postcard gives the title: 

Vesnický Fotograf ~ Village Photographer
from a collection entitled
"Obrazy z Chodska" ~ Pictures from Chodska. 

The artist was Jaroslav Špillar (11 October 1869 – 20 November 1917) a Czech artist who specialized in painting the Chodové ("Rangers"). This is a region in what was once western Bohemia, and now in the Czech Republic, where the Chods, an Eastern European ethnic group live. They speak the Chod dialect, a variation of Czech, and still maintain a strong sense of identity connected to the Bohemian Forest and their traditional role as defenders of the western Bohemian borderland.

This card was sent sometime after World War I as it has a Czechoslovakian postage stamp. The postmark is from Přeštice, a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic near the Chod people's homeland. The date is unclear but the 1920s is a fair estimate of date. The sender's message is in Czech, I believe.

* * *

I'll finish this short medley of cameras and photographers
with a picture of the photographer
who asked me to smile
more than a few hundred times.
He is my dad, Russ Brubaker,
seen here with his eye behind
a single lens reflex camera.
 

My dad had a lifelong passion for photography and
collected hundreds of vintage cameras of all kinds
and in different film formats.
He also produced countless prints
which he developed himself
in various dark rooms set up in our many homes.

My mom likely took this photo of him
with a modern digital camera and it is originally a color print.
But after scanning it to include in my bog post this week
I decided to use a software feature that transforms
a modern image into a vintage sepia tone style, 
in this case a platinum print from the early 20th century.

My earliest memories of my dad
are of him pointing a camera at me asking me to smile.
And I still do whenever I see one of his photos.  
Next week would have been his 96th birthday.

For other pictures of Russ behind a camera
check out my previous stories:
The Eye Behind the Camera and Everything In Focus

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where you never know who might be behind the camera.

(Note: This woman is behind a windup cine camera
that makes a movie, not a still picture.)

The Clear-eyed Helicon

 

To play a helicon,
the first wrap-around tuba,
a musician must make a serious commitment.
Such a large instrument requires
a good ear and a lot of breath control
since all its notes will be
the foundation of any band's music.

Likewise being a father,
and a husband, too, 
demands steadfast dedication
and conscientious practice. 
Raising a child requires a lot of patience
and at least one good eye
to keep a kid on the right path.

.

I think this no-nonsense fellow
knew something about personal discipline
as his photos are unusual examples
of a musician posed with the loves of his life,
his instrument and his family. 

These two small portraits came to my collection
united in their original tattered paper envelope
but separated from their family photo album
so I do not know their names, location, or date.
And unfortunately the photographer
left no mark either so I have to guess
that they are posed somewhere in America
in the late 1860s or 1870s.

The photos are tintypes, also called a ferrotype or melanotype,
which was a photographic process that used a thin sheet of metal
that was not actually made of tin but of iron (i.e. ferro).
It was coated with a collodion emulsion of silver halide  

that when exposed to light in a camera
produced a positive image
directly onto the metal plate. 
The resulting image is reversed
left to right like a mirror reflection.
This is evident in these two photos
because the valves of a helicon
are played with the right hand,
not the left as in the image.

Using digital software I can flip
the man's portrait to show his true likeness.

Now not only is his helicon in the correct position
but so is his right walleye too.
He appears to be in a photographer's studio
as his chair is in front of a painted interior backdrop
with a rumpled linoleum floor.
But it might have been taken outdoors
perhaps set up in the front yard of his home.

The man's family portrait with his wife and son
 was clearly taken outside as they are seated on a grassy lawn
and other neighboring houses are visible.  

Another useful clue for a tintype's orientation
is to see how buttons are arranged on a male garment.
A man's or boy's shirt or jacket almost always
has buttons inserted into holes on the left side
putting the seam edge on the right.

Here with the image reversed both father and son

now have their buttons done up correctly.
However mother's tight bodice buttons are also arranged
like her husband's with buttonholes on the left.
This is likely a dressmaker's convenience
that demonstrates how fashion
does not have hard and fast rules.

There's not much more to tell about this bandsman and his family
as what we see is only a brief moment in their lives.
It's likely that he earned a living at some other trade or business
as playing a tuba or helicon has never been a good way to make money.
His military style uniform is rather stylish
and suggests he was a member of a band
associated with a state militia.
But that was not like a regular army band
and would only be semi-professional work
performing for local parades and civic events.

Whatever his regular occupation
this helicon player seems to have done pretty well
to keep his son with nice shoes
and his wife in elegant dresses and hats.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where where the only rule
(a suggestion really)
is to leave only footprints behind.

Listen to the Bells

 

It was a big day in our town.
Not too hot, a bit of breeze,
and dry enough for us townsfolk,
though ranchers and farmers might say otherwise.

It looked like everyone turned out
with ladies wearing their best hats
and men in their cleanest shirts.
No surprise that the stores on Main
did some brisk business
especially at the confectionary shop 

but it was probably too crowded for some. 
Mostly it was a time to catch up
with friends and family.

Our band played some lively tunes
that had the ladies singing along.
Then there was some speeches
and more songs too,
before everyone retired to the park
where the churches had laid out a big supper.
All in all it was a grand day for everyone.

You should have been there.

 

This postcard of a large throng of townspeople milling around on a wide dirt road came from Bells, Texas, a small town 70 miles north of Dallas. According to Wikipedia, it was established in "the 1870s when the railroad was extended to that point. According to local tradition, the ringing of church bells to greet the arrival of the railroad caused the name to be selected." In a 1914 gazette for the state of Texas, Bells was listed as having three churches, Baptist, Campbellite, and Methodist; a weekly newspaper, The Bells Chime; as well as a bank; restaurant; hotel; general store; drugstore; tailor; and two grocers. There was a photographer too, the Bows Brothers, who likely took this photo, perhaps out of a second floor window at their studio. Bells' population in 1910 was just 496 residents.

The 16 musicians in the brass band are typical for a small town. The bass drum even has the town's name stenciled on the drumhead though the other letters are unclear. I think they are members of a fraternal order, possible Woodmen Of the World as the word "Camp" and maybe "W.O.W." is visible. The W.O.W. was a group that in 1890 broke away from the larger Modern Woodmen of America and then split again into two versions of the W.O.W.

There is no caption or date for this occasion in Bells, Texas but with the long shadows it looks like a late summer day to me. Perhaps there was a county fair or maybe it was Flag Day (June 14th) though there are no patriotic bunting and flags around the storefronts. But it clearly shows a spirited event that attracted a very large number of people for such a small place. Unfortunately the buildings seen here have not been preserved in 2025 to identify this precise location. 

This postcard was sent from Bells, Texas
on 19 November 1907
to Miss Ruth Goree of Whitewright, Texas.

Bells Tex  Nov 18 –
Howdy –  I thought
I would send you  
a picture of our   
 town  Come up and
   I will show you all
the attractions –     
       Give my love to all
your folks –   George

The way George wrote the name of Ruth's hometown makes it look like Millwright but there is a second faint postmark below that reads Whitewright, a town located about 7 miles south of Bells. In 1910 it was a veritable city with 1,563 residents, three times the size of Bells. In 2020 the two towns are nearly the same size with 1,725 and 1,521 respectively.

But high above the crowd in Bells that day
was one fella who had work to do.
It was important to keep
the lines of communication open.

 

I wonder when George
first used a telephone.
Did he call Ruth's number?

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where most folk are just standing around

waiting for something to happen.

White Tie and Tailcoat - The Well-Dressed Cornetist

 

It's a style of formal evening dress
that has never gone out of style.

A white tie and black tailcoat
was once high society's mark of a gentleman.
It implied dignified sophistication,
refined culture, gallantry
and polite manners. 

Today it remains a man's preferred attire 
for attending a graduation, a school prom,
a royal gala, an opera performance.

or that most special occasion—his wedding day.

But a formal white tie and tailcoat
can also be a uniform.
It has been, and remains today,
the required outfit
of male musicians who perform 
in a symphony orchestra.

Today I present 
four very well-dressed cornetists
who once posed for their portraits.
Their names are unknown
but their musical talent still shines through
and the gleam on their instruments
remains untarnished.

My first cornet player hails from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin where he posed for the camera at the photography studio of Kafer & Co. on the corner of Main and 2nd St. He holds a B-flat cornet with a bell embellished with fancy engraving. His mustache is carefully waxed to an impressive handlebar style that would certainly emphasize his embouchure when playing. 

This cabinet card photo was likely taken in the 1890s. Fond du Lac is on the southern end of Lake Winnebago and in the 1880-1900 era was a thriving city with a population of around 13,000 to 15,000. 

* * *

My second cornetist is a young man who opted for a clean shaven style. His pose is similar to the Wisconsin player with a far-off gaze as if watching for a conductor cue to play. His cabinet card photo was produced by the Loryea Bros. of San Jose, California at 26 S. First Street. Back in the 1890s when this photo was probably taken, San Jose was not much larger than Fond du Lac with a population of 18,000.

The Leryea Brothers called their studio the Souvenir Gallery and had an elaborate imprinted on the back of the card mount. There is a single name written in the upper corner but I can't make out the first letter. Tamma or Jamma? It doesn't look like a common first or last name. Any guesses? 

* * *

My third well-dressed cornetist is from Hartford, Connecticut where he posed with his instrument at the Stuart photography studio. His mustache has a tiny bit of an upturned curl that I think hints of a Germanic heritage, but that could just be a false twist. In 1890 Hartford was over twice the size of San Jose or Fond du Lac with a population then of 53,230. From 1874 to 1891 Hartford was the home of  Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain so it's possible that Sam might have heard this cornetist play in concert.  

* * *

My final cornetist is a very debonair young man with a trimmed mustache and a fancy engraved cornet. He is from Boston, Massachusetts where his photo was taken by Charles C. Fisher of 74 Meridian St. in East Boston. Boston, of course, was a big city even in the 1890s and arguably one of the most musical places in North America with numerous theaters and many professional musicians. 

The celebrated Boston Symphony was founded in 1881 as the third major orchestra in America.  The New York Philharmonic was the first, established in 1842, followed by the St. Louis Symphony in 1880. After Boston came the Detroit Symphony in 1887, the Chicago Symphony in 1891, the New Haven Symphony in 1894, the Cincinnati Symphony in 1895, the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1895, and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1900. According to a Wikipedia entry on the San Jose Symphony Orchestra, there was a orchestra there in 1879 that gave occasional performances but a formal symphony association was not formed until 1937. Similarly in Hartford, its symphony orchestra started in 1934. But as far as I know there has never been 

a symphony orchestra in Fond du Lac. 

Other than their formal attire, there really isn't anything in the portraits of these four stylish cornetists that connects them to an orchestra. But it's unlikely that an amateur musicians would wear such an elegant suits or play such first-class instruments. I think it's very possible that they were concert artists or principal musicians as in the 19th century the cornet was the premier solo instrument of both bands and orchestras. 

Very long time readers might remember the Boston cornet player as he was featured in A Boston Love Story which I posted in August 2011. It was my first effort at writing a short fiction based on old photos in my collection. I am rather proud of it, in part because I found this young man a companion, though it was a courtship that was not to be. But I shouldn't give away the ending. Perhaps I should write stories for the other three cornet players and turn them into a romance series!

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where a good book can be worth a thousand photos.

Polar Opposites

 

As fair-haired as light? 

Or as dark as a raven?

Brighter than flax?

Or solemn as dusk?

These are family questions of personal style,
fashion, and even genetics
that have no definitive answer.

Today I present
two musical families,
each as opposite as magnetic poles.
Both are professional entertainers,
but one family is positively bright as sunshine
and the other as negatively somber as a thundercloud.

Their salt and pepper contrast is purely accidental,
a coincidence of two different photography studios.
Yet each appealed to a concert style that fit their family.

The first family ensemble is quite large with mother and father presiding over nine talented children—four girls and five boys. They are dressed in matching folk-style costumes with the mother and daughters in Germanic dirndl dresses and father and sons in knee pants and satin vests. 

The youngest is a boy about age 5 who stands center holding a triangle. He has twitched his head just as the photographer clicked the camera shutter. Two slightly older sisters play drums while the oldest girl and another younger sister hold violins. Two brothers on the left look enough alike to be twins. One plays cello and the other a piston valve cornet. On the right the tallest boy, perhaps the oldest child, holds a flute made of blackwood with an ivory headstock. His younger brother in front has a viola, slightly larger than his sisters' violins. At the back is mother with a double bass and a slightly sour or even annoyed expression. Next to her is her husband but he has no instrument, maybe because he is the conductor of his family orchestra.

Their names and date is unknown, but the location of their photo is not. They are in Amsterdam,  capital of the Netherlands. The photographer was P. D. van Rhÿn of Damrak 42 and Utrechtschestraat 47. {The first address is now a chip shop named "Mannekin Pis" (oddly a landmark of Brussels, Belgium) famous for its Dutch fried potatoes, and the second address is now an luxury shoe shop.}  

This cabinet card photo with its wide landscape format is undated but is similar to American and European photographs from around 1890-1900. The family's costumes resemble a Tyrolean fashion like those of folk groups from Bavaria, Austrian, or Switzerland, but they could be Dutch too. I think they likely played a larger assortment of instruments and sang too. 

 * * *

My second family orchestra is a group of seven siblings, I think, as there is no one who looks old enough to be a parent of the others. The youngest is a girl about age 6-7 seated in front with a small banjo and a wooden xylophone. Her three older sisters have similar dark hair with long curls let free rather than styled tied atop their head. On the right, one sister, possibly the oldest at over 18, has a mandolin; the next in center holds a piccolo; and the third, seated right, has a violin. The brothers are older, early twenties maybe? They play cello, pocket cornet, and a button concertina. 

They are an eclectic mix made darker because of the men's formal tail coats and sash and the women's long dark gowns. It resembles a "concert party" fashion that was popular in the early 20th century for performances at private society events rather than on a music hall stage. I think they are actually more colorful that they appear, as the sepia tone photo does not really favor their costumes.

Like the group from Amsterdam, the name and date of this ensemble is unknown, but their location is. The photographer was Cooper & Sons of Blackpool, England with a studio on The Promenade, the seaside resort's celebrated boardwalk avenue between Blackpool's North and South Piers. The back of this cabinet card has an fanciful illustration of a young woman, looking like a Grecian goddess, arranging a large wooden camera. I was only able to find a few references to the photographer, Mr. H. Cooper, who with his sons ran a studio in Blackpool from around 1904 to about 1910 before moving on to another town. But they only advertised an address at The Promenade in 1904 and not later. So that seems to narrow down a time for this family orchestra who very likely were performing at a theater on The Promenade. 

Like many of the anonymous photos in my collection there is little more history about these two musical families that I can add. Yet hidden in their respective bright and dark photos are little details of their lives that we can still deduce. That they were professional entertainers is easy to presume as these are not casual snapshots but formal studio photographs of people posing in stage costumes to promote their ensembles. And clearly each family must have had a talented bunch of kids to have learned how to play so many musical instruments. A family band's performance might be as little as a 15 minute turn on a theater stage, or at most, an hour or two long concert at a wine garden or private soiree. Their repertoire was likely not new original music but popular tunes familiar to their audiences. Any act had to sell tickets if it was going to be successful.

But now picture how a large family of seven or eleven entertainers might travel in the 1890s or 1900s. Each troupe surely required numerous trunks and suitcases for their regular clothes and their stage outfits too. Even more cases were needed for their instruments. 

No doubt the mother was responsible for keeping her brood clean, dressed, healthy and well fed when out on the road. She was also in charge of lost drum sticks and gender appropriate dressing rooms. How she managed laundry is another question. 

It was surely the father who managed the show business work, corresponding with theater agents, booking train and ship tickets, and arranging hotel accommodation. And he likely did  all the porter duties, too, lugging the children's cases around. Since most family bands got their start from a father's musical skills, it was he who created their concert programs, arranged parts, and taught his offspring how to play their instruments. 

But how did the children get a proper education? Or even find time to just play outside and make new friends? Those are the questions I wish I could answer. All that's left is to use our imagination.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where every family smiles for the camera.