You Should Have Been There

As I pointed out last weekend in
Music for Flag Day 

it's a general rule that

outdoor photos of town bands

come in two types –

bunches or lines.
Last week's unknown band was a line. 

Today I offer a brass band posed in a bunch.

or to use the technical term,

a clump. 

The photographer has taken care
to get good light,
placing the fifteen bandsmen
and one mascot,
on a shady slope in a grove of trees.

As noted in a caption on the photo postcard
and on the bass drum
they are the Elizabeth Band
of Elizabeth, Illinois.
 

The card was sent to
Miss Olive Nash
of Stockton, Ill.

                        Sun. Oct. 1, 1911.

                        Dear Olive   Rec'id your
                        last card Thurs A.M.;
                        when I was waiting for
                        the excursion train,
                        You were mistaken about
                        me not having a hat
                        on, in that picture; I
                        am at the other side of
                        the picture with a black
                        hat on.  On the other
                        side of this card is a
                        picture of the Elizabeth
                        Band ! !  The little darling
                        in the middle of the
                        picture, who has no hat or
                        uniform on, is myself.    ↩

                                        I have, also, four brothers in
                                        in the picture, so you see, it
                                        is well worth keeping! (?)
                                        We intended to come up to that
                                                                        ball game
                                        today, but the immortal gods
                                        have upset our plans.  Maybe
                                        there will be another to go to, soon.    ↩

 

                                                            We saw Clara, Naomi and a 
                                                            Miss Cook at the Fair.  You
                                                            should have been there and     ↩

                                                                            got a Merry-Go-Round ride.

                                                                            We may be up to leave some 
                                                                            candy at the schoolhouse
                                                                            for you some sunday.  What other
                                                                            girls have you at school that Ross 
                                                                            or Bert could give candy to?     ↩
                                                                                                            Sherm W.     ↩

                                                                                        This card is in
                                                                                        one of my 
                                                                                        classy
                                                                                        envelopes

Elizabeth, Illinois is a village 150 miles west of Chicago on the way to Dubuque, Iowa, about 10 miles east of the Mississippi River. In 1910 it had a population of around 703 citizens, a bit more than its current population of 694. The village was the site of the Apple River Fort, a frontier fortification built by settlers during the 1832 Black Hawk War. During a fierce battle with  warriors from the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes, a pioneer woman named Elizabeth Armstrong, rallied the other settlers to fight back. Afterwards the community decided to honor her bravery by naming the village Elizabeth. 

Which four bandsmen were Sherm's brothers?

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where sometimes no one
is really sure what's going on.

Music for Flag Day

 

As a general rule
outdoor photos of town bands
come in two types –
bunches or lines.
The musicians might be arranged
in an orderly or haphazard fashion,
depending on the fastidiousness
of the photographer or the leader of the group,
but it's still either rows or clumps of people.

My favorites are vintage photos of small bands
which assembled near a residential home.
    It adds an element of time and place
which is absent in photos of a band
posed in front of a stone wall or park bandstand.

Most photographs of this kind
were taken on special occasions,
often on a summer's day
when the band's musicians wore
their best uniforms.
If the light was good
and the camera well focused
it becomes a portrait of individuals
as well as of an ensemble. 

This brass band of thirteen players
chose to stand in a line for their group photo.
They are on the grassy lawn of a large two-story house
built in a 19th century style called "Steamboat Gothic"
with a grand porch accentuated by fancy turned posts,

spandrels, balustrades, and millwork brackets.
The musicians are of various ages 
with a handful of boys and girls in their teens.
Their caps and uniform coatss are decent quality with 

braided knots on the cuffs and around the buttons.  
Standing center on the porch behind them
is an older man, age 60+,  holding an American flag.

This large albumen photo, mounted on card stock 11 x 10 inches,
has no photographer's imprint to identify where it was taken.
However neatly written on the back
are the names of the band's musicians. 

I believe the names top to bottom correspond
to the players left to right since the only female names
for the two girls are Lynn and Edd.

• Harry Reynolds
• Neil Reynolds
• Lloyd Hill
• Lynn Hill
• Martin Wilder
• Edd Brown
• William Schade
• August Hinz
• Percy Townsend
• Semore Reynolds
• Ola Higbee
• Grover Johnson
• John Johnson
• Arron Holben  Holding flag

Despite my best efforts searching for these names
in Ancestry.com and newspaper archives
I've been unable to find the solution to the puzzle
of where they are standing.
The names are just too common.

And so, for now anyway, this small town band
must otherwise remain unknown. 
My best guess as to its date is roughly late 1890s to early 19o0s.

But that flag is a hint that this photo
commemorates a holiday concert by the band.

It might be May 30th, Memorial Day,
once known as Decoration Day.
Of it could be July 4th, Independence Day,
commonly called the Fourth of July.

But I think is might be June 14th, Flag Day,
the day set aside to honor the adoption
of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777. 

Storm Flag raised at Fort Sumter
Source: Wikipedia

Flag Day was first proposed in 1861
not long after the attack by Confederate forces
on Fort Sumter, the island fortress which guarded 
the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.  

On 13 April 1861, after a relentless bombardment,
Fort Sumter's Federal Army commander, Major Robert Anderson,
was compelled to lower Fort Sumter's flag and surrender.
Thus began four years of America's terrible Civil War. 

I will let Fort Sumter's flag's Wikipedia entry tell the rest of the story:

Anderson brought the flag to New York City for an April 20, 1861, patriotic rally, where it was flown from the equestrian statue of George Washington in Union Square. More than 100,000 people thronged Manhattan's Union Square in what was, by some accounts, the largest public gathering in the country up to that time. The flag was then taken from town to town, city to city throughout the North, where it was frequently "auctioned" to raise funds for the war effort. Any patriotic citizen who won the flag at auction was expected to immediately donate it back to the nation, and it would promptly be taken to the next rally to repeat its fundraising magic. The flag was a widely known patriotic symbol for the North during the war.

On April 14, 1865, four years and one day after the surrender and as part of a celebration of the Union victory, Anderson (by then a retired and sickly major general), raised the flag in triumph over the battered remains of the fort. Author Shelby Foote quotes Anderson as saying, "I thank God that I have lived to see this day," as he took the flagpole's halyards in his hands.

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was the principal orator at the 1865 celebration, and gave a lengthy speech, as was the custom of the day. He said in conclusion:

"On this solemn and joyful day, we again lift to the breeze our fathers’ flag, now, again, the banner of the United States, with the fervent prayer that God would crown it with honor, protect it from treason, and send it down to our children.... Terrible in battle, may it be beneficent in peace [and] as long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over a nation neither enslaved nor enslaving.... We lift up our banner, and dedicate it to peace, Union, and liberty, now and forevermore." — Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

Later that night President Lincoln would be shot at Ford's Theatre.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Flag Day was never a big celebration in the United States since it was initially scheduled in June boxed in-between larger more memorable patriotic holidays. But some states, mainly in the north, did continue this tradition of honoring our flag's anniversary on 14 June. While I can't confirm that this little brass band's photo is connected to this holiday, there is no evidence that it isn't either. So let's pretend that long ago Major Anderson's flag inspired Uncle Holben to join the fight to protect the Union and our flag. 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where parades only work 

if everyone marches in the same direction.

The Ship's Musician

 

Some call it a life ring or a lifebuoy. 
Other names better describe its purpose,
a life-preserver or a life-saver.

But no matter what you call it,
everyone onboard a boat or ship
should know where it is and when to use it.

Your life may depend on it.

Royal Navy Protected cruiser H.M.S. Doris, circa 1910
Source: Wikimedia

This lifebuoy came from the H.M.S. Doris, one of nine second-class protected cruisers of the Eclipse-class built for Britain's Royal Navy in the mid-1890s. A protected cruiser had only an armored deck and was a lighter version of an armored cruiser which was protected by armored plate on both the deck and the ship's belt, i.e. the hull sides. I'll skip over the distinction between the other battlecruisers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and scout cruisers.  

Construction of the Doris, the fourth ship of the Eclipse-class, began on 29 August 1894 at the naval shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, England and was completed on 18 November 1897. Six of the nine Eclipse protected cruisers were finished that same year.

Royal Navy Eclipse class cruiser diagrams
from "Brassey's Naval Annual" 1896
Source: Wikimedia

The ship was 350 ft (106.7 m) long with a beam of 53 ft 6 in (16.3 m) and displaced 5,600 long tons (5,690 t). Its twin propellers were powered by two triple-cylinder vertical engines which used steam supplied by 8 coal-fired boilers. The engines were capable of 8000 horsepower, giving the Doris a top speed of 18.5 knots. Its normal stockpile of coal was 550 tons, but there was reserve capacity for almost twice as much fuel at 1075 tons. The ship also had two masts for sail rigging, though I don't know how often, if at all, sails were used. Perhaps it was insurance for an emergency if the steam engines should fail.

As seen in this schematic of Eclipse-class cruisers, H.M.S. Doris positively bristled with guns on all sides of the ship. As originally built it had five 6-inch (152 mm) quick-firing guns, six 4.7-inch guns, six 3-pounder guns, and three 18-inch torpedo tubes. In 1905 it was refitted with six more 6-inch guns and nine 12-pounder guns in order to reduce the number of different size munitions. 

The ship's complement originally consisted of 393 officers and sailors, though, like most ships, this varied over time depending on its assignments. The reason for my interest in the H.M.S. Doris is that I found a postcard featuring just one serviceman from the cruiser. He was described as the ship's musician.

His instrument is not one usually associated with a navy, or the sea, for that matter.

He is a Scottish piper wearing full highland dress with feathered Glengarry hat, jacket, cross belt, plaid, kilt, dirk, sporran, stockings, and buckled brogues, not to mention a set of bagpipes too. The piper stands on the bottom step of a removable set of stairs that lead to a very odd, short doorway on the ship. 

From what little I have been able to discover, it was not uncommon in earlier times to have a piper assigned to a warship in the British Navy. It was likely a choice of the captain, who was presumably Scottish, to add musical color to the ship's daily rituals. Usually bugle players and drummers were used on warships as their sound could carry in the heat of battle and convey orders from the commander. In the age of sail a ship's musicians was often a fiddler who played tunes that helped the sailors toiling at a capstan while pulling lines or weighing anchor. I imagine a piper could do the same on a battleship whenever the crew was hauling coal or heavy rigging.

But compared to bugle calls I'm not sure the sound of bagpipes triggers the same level of warrior zeal in sailors, though its squeal can be pretty bloodcurdling. At least when played with gusto. 

This colorful postcard of the H.M.S. Doris, 2nd Class Cruiser shows the ship on a placid teal sea. The Doris did service during the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902) and later joined the Channel Fleet. In WW1 it was sent to the Mediterranean as part of the Allied forces opposing Turkey. In 1915 it was part of the naval support for the attack on the Gallipoli peninsula. From March 1917 to November 1918, the Doris was stationed in India, where she served as a hulk–a floating troops barracks. Following the end of the war, in February 1919 she was sold for scrap in Mumbai.

This postcard was sent from Weymouth, England to Mr. A. Slade, a Porter (?) in Chipping, Sodbury, England. The postmark is unclear but the green, half-penny stamp of King Edward VII puts it sometime pre- WW1.   

                                                        2 Charles St

                                Dear A.  Many thanks for P.C
                                I was surprised to hear of your
                                being at C. Sodbury, and am
                                glad you are on alright.
                                Are you going to have a trip
                                down here in the summer.
                                No doubt you have heard I am
                                back at Weymouth again. Hoping
                                you are quite well  I remain yours truly
                                                                            Jezlipr (?)

As I was preparing this short post I discovered a colorized version of the Ship's Musician from H.M.S. Doris, so I bought it. An unknown artist has given the piper's uniform beautiful detail, bringing out his tartan's color. But I can't decide which unit he is from, the two black tassels and green plaid are either the Gordon Highlanders or the Seaforth Highlanders. Or maybe some other clan. To be honest, Scottish plaids look like camouflage to me as it makes my eyes blur. However until I saw this colorized image I had not noticed the photo bombers in the picture.  

So what did the piper play on H.M.S. Doris? Did he perform regular hours or only on special occasions? Where did he practice? The sound of the pipes likely could be heard from ship's bilge to its crows nest. And how did he keep his kit clean? I don't think wool and seawater are a good mix.

But unlike the other sailors who needed to keep track of all the lifebuoys on the ship, a piper had the benefit of carrying his own personal flotation device.   

To best demonstrate Scottish bagpipes
here are two young Scots playing pipes and drum  
at a farmers market in Perth, Perthshire. 

The player blows air into the pipe bag
through a mouthpipe that has a small flap valve
where it connects to the bag. 

It is the pressure from the left arm on the bag
that propels the air to vibrate the reeds
of the chanter and drones.

It is not easy. 

For more pictures of pipers,
all sober and landlocked,
check out
The Sinister Piper
Four Well-dressed Pipers
The Piper and the Auld Brig o'Earn

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where boating safety is always first.

Austrian Horse Power

 

It's a dramatic moment that could easily be mistaken for a storyboard scene from an action movie. A squad of cavalrymen, actually hussars, chase after a huge airship soaring in the sky. The lead officer leader exclaims, "So leicht ist Zeppelin nicht zu fassen." ~ "A Zeppelin isn't that easy to catch." The horses look like they still want to try.

The artist of this postcard is Fritz Schönpflug (1873–1951), an Austrian postcard illustrator whose clever work I have enjoyed collecting for many years. I was originally attracted to his colorful and amusing caricatures of the people living in his native city of Wien (Vienna) during the final years of the Hapsburg Empire. But I soon discovered his postcards covered a much wider range of subjects than just quirky people. 

This spirited drawing was created in 1909 as indicated by the number 909 under Schönpflug's signature. It bears a striking similarity to another postcard by a different artist that I featured earlier this year in The Art of War – Aerial Assaults, part 1. 

In this thrilling painting by Anton Hoffmann (1863–1938), a painter and commercial artist from München, a half dozen horsemen of the 2nd Silesian Hussars Regiment, a distinguished cavalry unit of the Prussian Army, gallop after a Zeppelin that flies in the distance. My research found that this postcard was produced in 1913 as a benefit for a foundation sponsored by Germany's Crown Prince and Crown Princess. So it would seem that Schönpflug's 1909 sketch, which I believe depicts the same gallant Silesian regiment, inspired Hoffman's 1913 painting. 

Both pictures capture a thrilling moment when the time-honored military force of a cavalry encounters the new modern age of war machines. But what makes both pictures exciting is the way each artist portrays the movement of horses. Schönpflug was particularly skilled at drawing horses, which I've featured before, such as his carriage horses in Getting Around Old Wien part 3, and race horses in Horse Racing in Old Wien. Today I present some of Fritz Schönpflug's caricatures of horses and soldiers.

In this picture a group of German field artillerymen race up a hillside on horseback. Schönpflug expected his patrons to recognize that the soldiers were German by their leather Pickelhaube helmets, and that they were artillery because their hats were capped with a round knob instead of a sharp spike. The lead officer on a white horse shouts to one gunner, "Mensch, halt' dich Feste!" ~ "Man, hold on tight!" The horses appear to levitate with all four hooves above the ground. The officer's horse gives the impression it is thrilled to be given free rein to gallop at full speed. 

This card was never posted but Schönpflug's signature includes 909 for 1909. 

 In this picture a cavalry officer on horseback writes a message as cannons fire just beyond him. The officer is an Austrian dragoon signified by his light-blue tunic and tall crested helmet. His horse, not surprisingly, is alarmed at their position. The caption reads, "Aufklärungsdienst." ~ "Intelligence service." The subtle joke, of course, is that the officer's smartness is questionable when his horse knows they should not be so close to the field guns. 

This card was posted from Wien on 17 March 1912.

Schönpflug's human characters are sketched in a cartoon style with expressions that make us laugh at their foibles or foolishness. But his horses are not just stage props or animal figures in the background. He drew horses  carefully to show their natural strength and beauty. Yet a closer look reveals how Schönpflug gives each horse a personality that is reacting to the silly moment that he is illustrating.      

In this era many more horses were used as common draft animals than as gallant cavalry steads. And soldiers needed training to learn to drive wagons pulled by teams of horses. In this picture we see a soldier trying ineptly to control his runaway wagon. The pair of horses look to be having some fun exerting their full power. The caption reads:  "Der Herrenfahrer." ~ "The Gentleman Driver."

This card was never posted but Schönpflug's signature has 908 for 1908.

In this painting we see another collision between old military conventions and  the modern machine. An officer's horse is suddenly startled by the sight and sound of an automobile bringing army couriers with a message. The caption reads: "Feindliche Pferdekräfte." ~ "Hostile Horsepower." The joke is that sometimes the worst threat can come from someone on your own side. The horse appears genuinely insulted by this mechanical menace. 

This card was also never posted but has 909 next to Schönpflug's signature. All of his postcards were published in a series of six or eight different cards each  connected by a theme like these pictures of army maneuvers. Schönpflug was especially careful to get military uniforms correct because I think he sold a lot of postcards to soldiers. The brilliant colors of his pictures was another reason I was attracted to his artwork. Until I saw his postcards I never appreciated the difference between Prussian blue and Austria blue, since that is a distinction hidden in black and white photographs. 

My last postcard shows a wild cavalry charge by Austrian, or possibly Hungarian, cavalrymen. But they attack a field of geese and pigs! The caption reads: "Durch dick und dünn!" ~ "Through thick and thin!" The horses look a bit unsettled to be partaking in this unfair assault on defenseless livestock. 

The card has a postmark of 23 January 1911 from some place in Austria. The sender has used every available space on the front and back for their message. I wonder if putting the stamp of Kaiser Franz Joseph upside down coveys some secret message or political statement. 

I greatly admire how talented artists like Schönpflug were able to depict moments that in his time were impossible for photography to show. His artist eye caught all manner of funny human conceits but I think he depicts horses with a higher level of respect, showing us their natural nobility and steadfast virtues. You can see it in their eyes.  

There are many more postcards
of Fritz Schönpflug's horses in my collection
which I expect will be introduced
whenever I get stuck for an idea to write about. 

For the full list of my stories 
on Schönpflug's art

click this <link>.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where the best road trips
are never the adventure we expect.