A Soldier's Boots

 

In August 1914 the Imperial German Army mobilized  3,822,450 soldiers who were then ordered to attack on two fronts, eastwards to Russia and westwards to France. Every man needed a uniform, a helmet, a field kit, a gun, and a pair of boots. By late summer the Kaiser's quartermasters would issue around  7,644,900 boots. They would need a lot more. It was going to be a very long march.  

A single leather hide was typically large enough to make 3 to 4 pairs of boots. So a lot of cows and pigs  gave up their lives to shod the soldiers of World War One. But leather was used for many other things besides footwear. Countless leather harnesses, reins, belts, and straps were needed for millions of mules and draft horses who hauled artillery and supply wagons, not to mention saddles for cavalry mounts. 

This postcard photo shows six German soldiers repairing boots, a saddle and other leather gear. Across the top is a caption:

Handwerkstube im Feldzug  1914/15
~
Crafting Workshop on Campaign  1914/15

The numbers 2/5i may refer to the soldiers' company and regiment. The card was never mailed and has no marking to identify the location. 

In this photo five German soldiers relax on the ground of a forest glen. They are playing instruments—violin, zither, posthorn (a coiled up trumpet), and two guitars—as if they were entertaining a picnic. Two men sit cross-legged showing the hobnailed soles of their boots. A board in front of them has a message written in chalk.

Erinnerung an Aldersbach.  1916.
~
Remembrance of Aldersbach   1916 

Aldersbach is small town in the Bavarian district of Passau in Germany, not far from the Austrian border. The card was also never posted and has no other marks. The location may not be where the soldiers actually are. If they were a Bavarian unit, it might be where they were from. 

A larger group of ten soldiers appears on this next photo of a similar forest scene. Several men hold the same instruments as in the other photo except that instead of one violinist there are two mandolinists positioned with their instrument's peg-end pointed at the camera, almost like how a rifle is held. In the center one man grins as he sits astride a child's hobby horse. All the men have removed their tunics and rolled up their shirt sleeves for some kind of sweaty work. A caption is written on a rectangular wooden board.

"Die Lünftigen Brüder" von Stube 16 
~
"The Merry Brothers" of barrack room 16   

The word "Lünftigen" is not in German dictionaries that I could find. Two other words have nearly the same spelling. Künftigen means future and fünftigen means fifth but those words don't make sense with what we see in the photo. However with the help of Claude, my A.I. assistant, this could be a dialect spelling of Lustigen, the German word for merry, jolly, or funny, which seems more appropriate for these fellows.

Sharp-eyed readers will have spotted several similar faces in the three photos, the most striking being the man with a leathery bronze complexion, dark eyes, and a very broad mustache. It's a surprising coincidence for me as all three photos were purchased at different times, but I'm convinced this soldier and a couple of his comrades appear in all the photos. One subtle clue is the board used for the captions in the last two photos appears to be identical, as does the little pocket posthorn and the turned rod on the zither. 

The soldier in this postcard is not, as far as I can tell,  a member of the Merry Brothers, but he is occupied repairing boots. Six to be exact, not counting his own. It's a clever image produced by a German publisher as a postcard for the troops. In the top corner is a printed caption:

 Der Regimentsschuster
~
The regiment shoemaker

Other than these scenes of soldiers at work and recreation, everything else about them must remain unknown. What did they know of digging trenches in in the fields of Flanders or hauling munition wagons over the vast plains of Poland? Yet not all soldiers served in combat. Battles are often won or lost based on the simplest of military duties like feeding soldiers or refitting a boot heel. So it's not surprising that a regiment might assign a special unit to repair boots. No doubt these men knew about the terrible affliction of "trench foot" which caused thousands of casualties in all the armies of WW1. They understood how heavy ill-fitting boots brought on severe blisters, even gangrene, which could lead to amputations. So I think these soldiers took pride in their craft, confident that a hobnail was just as important as an artillery shell. 

By the end of the war in November 1918, Germany had called up over 13 million men to serve in its army and navy.  Around 2 million were killed, roughly 15 percent, and that is not counting other non-combat deaths from disease and accidents. 

These are army boots from a different war. My father, Lt. Colonel Russell Brubaker wore these during his service in Vietnam. They didn't get abused much, as fortunately during most of his time there he sat behind a desk, though he said there were a few scary moments. These boots have been stored in my basement for 25+ years now and likely weren't worn in the previous ¼ century after my dad's retirement. These are lighter and better designed for a tropical climate than his older all-leather pair which he wore as an infantryman in the Korean War. As a kid I remember trying to learn how to polish those to a spit-shine level. They had smooth leather soles and extra long laces that were challenging for a 6 year old to weave into dozens of eyelets.

Early in his military career my dad transferred from the U.S. Army's infantry corps to the transportation corps which is responsible for the army's logistical movement of troops and equipment. His work involved arranging plans for countless military trucks, amphibious ships, helicopters, and cargo planes to convey thousands of soldiers and their gear from one place to another in both peace and war. 

In the past few months the phrase "Boots on the Ground" has been so bandied about by dishonest politicians and asinine pundits that it has become an offensive cliche meme. Not only does the expression ignore the immense challenges that must be overcome to transport troops into remote foreign lands, it is cheap dehumanizing jargon that reduces soldiers into things. 

After the United States entered WW1 and later WW2, it took many months before our armed forces were assembled and ready to deploy. Generals and admirals knew then, as they should know now, that the success of any military action depends on meticulous planning. Failure to assess risk, map terrain, and identify enemy forces leads to increased casualties. It's a tragic consequence recognized by common soldiers in every war. How can any soldier be expected to do their duty if their boots are falling apart?

Next Monday will be Memorial Day, a public holiday established to honor and mourn the men and women who have given their lives in military service to the United States. It is fittingly a time of remembrance for the individuals we have lost in wars, but it should also be when we as a nation reflect on the tremendous cost of these conflicts. As citizens the best way to honor our fallen is to preserve our commitment to peace and reject all efforts to engage in another unjust and immoral war.    

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is hard at work
with no time for chitchat.

Music of the Mountains

 

It's a smile that gleams like sunshine.
From just a glance
we can recognize
that this is a fellow
of natural good cheer. 

Likewise the shy smile
of this young man
reveals a person we wish
we could hear more from.

And even though a smile
might be hidden
eyes can still invite us
to stop and listen.

Such is the power
of a good portrait photograph.

Today I present three photos 
of musicians I wish I could have met in person.
They represent a mountainous region of central Europe
called the Tyrolean Alps, whose folk traditions
have helped define western music.

 

My first Tyrolean folk musician is a man seated on a rustic fence below a magnificent snow-covered mountain. He wears lederhosen - short leather breeches, wooden clogs, wool shin-socks, and a broad floppy hat. Besides his smile, what first caught my attention was the small instrument he holds. It's called a recorder, or Blockflöte in German, a woodwind instrument that is very rare to see in antique photos, and the only example in my collection. And what makes it even more unique is that it's a little sopranino recorder in F, the second smallest member of the the recorder instrumental family. 

Recorders make a whistle sound and come in a wide variety of sizes. They are associated with so-called "Early Music" from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. Long ago in another life, I was a member of an early music consort that featured recorders and other forgotten wind instruments. For formal concerts we dressed in quasi-Renaissance costumes. I still have two handcrafted "peasant shirts", very like what this man is wearing, which my mother made for me. I also have about two dozen recorders.

This man's costume is characteristic of a rustic Germanic fashion that was worn in the Bavarian, Austrian, and Italian Alps. His cabinet card photo was taken at the studio of J. B. Rottmayer on Griessstätterstrasse in Berchtesgaden, a town in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, 30 km (19 mi) south of Salzburg and 180 km (110 mi) southeast of Munich. The town and its surroundings were once an independent state of the Holy Roman Empire. However during the turbulent Napoleonic era Berchtesgaden changed rulers a few times until 1810 when it was taken  over by the Kingdom of Bavaria. In the 19th century it became popular with tourists and the Bavarian royal family, the House of Wittelsbach, who maintained a hunting lodge in the former Augustinian monastery in Berchtesgaden. 

The Grand Hotel in Berchtesgaden, 1898
photo by J. B. Rottmayer
(later Grand Hotel Auguste Viktoria,
and from 1936 Hotel Berchtesgadener Hof.)
Source: Wikimedia

In 1898 the photographer of my alpine recorder player published a large landscape photo of Berchtesgaden showing the Grand Hotel Auguste Viktoria. His full name was Johann Bapta Rottmayer (1828–1899). Born in Wien - Vienna, Rottmayer became a successful photographer first in Wien, and later established studios in Graz, Brno, and the port of Trieste. He made countless carte de visites of Austria's aristocracy and upper class, as well as grand landscapes, seascapes, and urban views. However he did not start a studio in Berchtesgaden until around 1898 and then died  in 1899. So my photo very likely dates from 1898-1899. 

This portrait has a novelty quality which suggests it was a holiday/vacation style photo made to fool the folks back home. It's not impossible that this sunny fellow was outfitted in a costume borrowed from the studio and given a recorder and walking stick to complete the illusion of a mountain rustic. Even so, it is still a terrific portrait that delights the eye. 

Johann Rottmayer's name is still remembered because of his connection to a bizarre musical story.  In October 1863 a group of medical scientists exhumed the bodies of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1927) and Franz Schubert (1797–1828) who were buried near each other at a cemetery in Währing, northwest of Vienna. The purpose of this macabre disinterment was supposedly to prevent further decomposition to the bodies and establish more worthy resting places for these two great composers. After the skeletons were removed it was Rottmayer's duty to take a series of photographs of the skulls of both Beethoven and Schubert. Each body was carefully examined and measured and plaster casts were made of the skulls. Two weeks later the remains of both composers were reverently placed into new metal coffins and installed into vaults at the cemetery. 

The 1860s were a time when phrenology, a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of the skull, was used as a way to predict human behavior, personality, and intelligence. In the case of these two famous composers, it was thought that their musical genius could be determined from the shape of their brain case. Needless to say, phrenology is a stupid and wicked theory that has been disproven many times. 

To add further insult to the memories of Beethoven and Schubert, in June 1888 the remains of both composers were relocated to the Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) in Wien. 

(Since Rottmayer's photos of Ludwig and Franz show them in a rather undignified condition, I've decided they don't need to be presented on this blog. Better to remember them by their music.)

* * *

In this photo postcard my second Tyrolean musician is standing in a photographer's studio dressed in longer lederhosen fastened below the knee, white stockings, sensible walking shoes, a wool jacket and a large hat with a long thin feather. The card's caption identifies him as Rudolf Hechensteiner, Zithermeister and on a table he displays his instrument, a zither. This string instrument has a strings over a fretted fingerboard and more open strings to add bass notes. It is usually played on a table which increases its dynamic resonance. Rudolf looks very young to be a master musician, late teens or early 20s maybe, but presumably the medals on his belt are a testimonial to his musicianship  

The postcard was sent from Kufstein, a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol, right on the southern border with Bavaria. It's the second largest Tyrolean town after Innsbruck, the state's capital. The postmark imprint on the green face of Kaiser Franz-Joseph is not clear but fortunately the photographer, D. Amort of Kufstein, has left a notice Nachdruck verboten ~ Reprinting prohibited with the year 1910. 

* * *

My last photo is another string player, this time an older man with a contraguitar, also known as a Schrammel guitar. He sits in a photographer's studio with dramatic thunderclouds looming in the backdrop. He is identified in a caption as Seppl Lorenz. Like my recorder player, he is dressed in lederhosen, wool shin-socks, wool jacket and a classic Tyrolean hat with its distinctive Gamsbart plume, made exclusively from hair taken from an Alpine chamois' lower neck. His mustache conceals a hint of a smile but the photographer has captured a moment in his eyes that I think conveys a lighthearted spirit. 

The card was sent from Chemnitz, Germany on 9 October 1919. I expect Seppl Lorenz earned those medals pinned to his jacket in the late war which may account for his good humor. Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and is about 260  miles north of Berchtesgaden, a long way from the Alps. But I think Seppl Lorenz's folk costume is enough to connect him to Tyrolean traditions. Certainly his Schrammel guitar is very much an Austrian instrument. 

To finish here is the "Schrupp-Schrupp Polka"
played on Zither by Balthasar "Hausl" Brandhofer
and on Kontragitarre by Florian Möckl.
Notice how bass notes are played
on the contraguitar with the right thumb
and on the zither with the right pinkie.

And to demonstrate how Tyrolean music
is connected to dancing,  

here is a short historic film
of a Tyrolean dance filmed in 1896.

It was colorized  by the "not.bw" project

and uses the jaunty zither music used as
the soundtrack for the 1949 British film "The Third Man". 

It was written and performed by Anton Karas.

 Berchtesgaden, Germany with a view of Mount Watzmann, 2007
Source: Wikimedia

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where you don't have to climb every mountain
to get to where you are going.

Music with Guitar

 

In the age before electric amplification the guitar was a relatively quiet instrument. It provided useful chords to accompany a melody sung by a vocalist or played on an agile treble instrument but guitarists were never the front man in an ensemble. They usually sat at the side strumming along to keep the music moving. The placement of a guitar in this trio is typical. The two lead musicians play a mandolin and a zither, a string instrument played flat on a table which helps amplify its sound. The group had other instruments to add color: a violin, likely played by the mandolinist as it has the same string tuning; a wooden folk xylophone called a Strohfiedel or Straw Fiddle; and a collection of wine glasses improbably standing on a near vertical tray. They were tuned by filling with water (or even spirits) so that they vibrated at different pitches when stroked by the player's fingertips. There is one more instrument if you look carefully. As a clue, it is from the percussion family.

This unknown trio were photographed seated outdoors, possibly at the wine garden where they performed,  by a photographer from Dresden, Germany. Their colorful bow ties and satin trimmed coat collars are typical of professional musicians in the 1900s. The postcard was sent from Dresden (Altstadt), on 18 April 1910 to someone in Breslau, Germany which is now known as Wrocław, Poland. The handwriting is a peculiarly neat penmanship with completely indecipherable cursive letters that run together. Take a look at the third line — mnmnmnnm.Who could translate that? I believe the writer was the guitar player as he is marked with a discrete X. His signature looks like M. (or W.) Lappitsch.

* * *

Sometimes a guitar defines a group's style even though it isn't the lead instrument. These four young ladies are the Original Damen Schrammel Quartett from the "Jankowski" Kozert Ensemble. The guitarist here plays a contraguitar called a Schrammel guitar which is an instrument associated with the light folk music of Wien or Vienna, Austria. In addition to the standard six strings the Schrammel guitar has a second, fretless neck supporting as many as nine bass strings that are tuned to a scale. This player accompanies two violinists and a button accordionist as they sit in a photographer's studio, but they very likely performed at a wine garden like the previous trio. 

The postcard has no postmark or date but is addressed to someone in Wilhelmsburg on the the Elbe river, a district of Hamburg. There is a faint imprint of a variety theater named Hohenziller(?). The card was printed in Leipzig, Germany probably in around 1910. 

* * *

My last guitar photo is unusual as the guitarist is seated front and center of the ensemble. In this case it is a brass quintet with rotary valve instruments in five different different sizes, left to right: baritone horn, alto horn, bass tuba, tenor trumpet, and soprano trumpet. Needless to say, a brass band really has  no use for a guitarist, especially one with a guitar that looks a bit smaller than a standard modern acoustic guitar. Another odd thing is a small fir tree behind the tall trumpet player on the right. Perhaps this group is playing for the Christmas season. 

The photographer left an imprint on the back of this unposted postcard, R. Fuchs of Kurort Wörishofen. This place was a Kurort or "cure resort" in Bad Wörishofen, a spa town in Bavaria, Germany that is known for a water-cure or hydrotherapy developed by Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897), a Catholic priest who once lived there. Many of the town's hotels and boarding-houses still offer their guests treatment using Kneipp's methods. 

I wonder if the guitarist is a spa guest who has joined with the health resort's band for a souvenir photo. He is neatly dressed in a nice suit with a small corsage in the lapel and some of the musicians have one too. Maybe he is a bridegroom celebrating his wedding day. But what amuses me is that the man's shoes are polished while the brass players' shoes could use a good cleaning. Evidently this guitarist did not march in any parade.

Did you spot the triangle in the first trio?

Since I don't often feature photos
of musical wine glasses, i.e. a glass harp,

here is a demonstration of one  by Anna Szafraniec from GlassDuo.

She plays an arrangement of a well known guitar piece,
the Spanish Romance by an anonymous 19th century composer.

This piece is a standard of any guitarist's repertoire
so I looked for another version played on guitar for contrast.
There are thousands of renditions of it on YouTube
but I found one that is played on a harp guitar,
an instrument very similar to the Schrammel guitar.
Here is the same Romance de Espana
performed by Canadian harp guitarist Jamie Dupuis.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where some guitarists always attract a crowd.

Four Pairs of Zithers

 

Brothers?
Cousins?
Friends?
Sadly, many portraits
of pairs of young men
do not tell us.

But when they include musical instruments
the relationship at least discloses a shared interest
between two fellow musicians.

And when the instrument is unusual
it often connects the players to a common culture.

And even in a less sophisticated portrait
a musical instrument can reveal
a more lighthearted personality
than a formal photo could.

 

Today I present
four pairs of zither players.

Mostly.

My first pair are two serious young men who face the camera at Jacks Studio at 136 Bowery, in New York City. They are dressed in their best suits and have two concert zithers displayed upright at their feet. Their zithers have ribbons tied to the tuning peg side, a decorative feature which suggests they have just come from a performance. The young man standing is marked with an X and has conveniently left his name and date on the back of this cabinet card photograph.

In ink is written: Compliments of FredK Orphal, 1895. Another notation in a different hand reads; Al & Elinor's father. Fred's full name was Gottlieb Frederick Orphal and he was born in Germany in 1874. According to the 1920 census, Fred immigrated to the United States in 1881 and became a citizen in 1887. In 1920 Frederick Orphal lived in Brooklyn with his wife Louise and daughter Elinor, age 21, and son Alfred, 18. Fred's occupation was Manager, Roofer.

* * *

My second pair of sober young men are also from New York, sitting in the Gardiner Art Studio at 461 Fifth Ave. corner of 10th St. in Brooklyn, N. Y. Only one man has a zither while the other holds a mandolin. Unfortunately there is no note to identify them but I think their clothing and the style of the cabinet card date this duo to around 1895-1899.

A Zither is a string instrument with many metal strings stretched over a flat wooden box and played by plucking  or strumming. There are many cultures around the world that have zither-like instruments, but the ones pictured in my photos today are concert zithers developed in Bavaria and Austria in the early 19th century. They have between 29 to 38 strings with four or five melody strings fixed above a chromatic fretboard that is similar to a guitar.  

Perhaps the best way to explain a zither 
is to hear the music of two played together.
Here is Elfi Gach & Maria Ledinek
performing "Der Badewaschl".

* * *

My third duo are from München, Germany. This is a smaller carte de visite photo with two young men posed like the men in the first photo, one standing and the other seated. But the man on the right is wearing dark glasses, an accessory used by blind people to distract attention from their eyes. 

The photographer was Joseph Werner whose studio was located in München at Zweibrückenstrasse 2.

* * *

My last portrait of a pair of musicians is on a German postcard. With a comical "Mutt & Jeff" difference, a short man plays a zither placed on his lap while his taller companion holds a crude folk string instrument made out of a cigar box. It seems to have four strings and a bow like a violin but he holds it between his knees so it may be played like a cello. They are both dressed in nice  suits but someone has mischievously drawn a Prussian mustache under the tall fellow's nose. 

The card was sent from Freiburg on 6 August 1903 by a soldier using the German free military post. The message and signature is too messy for me to decipher, but I assume, even though it went by military post, that it was written by one or maybe both of the two men pictured in civilian attire. However it's interesting that it was sent to Herrn Hermann Heüer, a Hoboist or Haut-oboist of an infantry regiment in Freiburg. A Hoboist was a military rank in a German military band that was equivalent to a chief musician or staff sergeant. No doubt Hermann got a laugh from their little joke.  

In conclusion here is some more zither music
from a Tyrolean ensemble of three zithers and a guitar
playing  "Für'n Phil", a waltz by Dominik Meißnitzer.
The musicians are Anton Mooslechner, Dominik Meißnitzer,
Kathrin Matzenberger, and Markus Brodinger.
It may be a recent composition but I think 
it demonstrates why the beautiful sound of a zither
remains popular with the people of Germany and Austria.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where sometimes two is better than one.

Musical Clubs

 

A musical instrument is a satisfying recreation
for anyone of any age to take up.
After all, it is called
playing music.
 

 

 

 

 

Joining a band or orchestra
offers an even more rewarding experience
of playing on a team.

 

 

 

 

But for the ultimate musical gratification
nothing beats playing your instrument
with other musicians who play the same instrument.
It's just pure fun.

 

When you read as many old newspapers as I do
it doesn't take long to discover
that in the late 19th and early 20th century
people loved to join clubs.
There were clubs for every kind
of political, fraternal, religious,
occupational, and recreational  interest,
and music was equally represented
by countless amateur choirs, bands, and orchestras.

 

One special type of social club
that became very popular in the 1900s
was designed specifically for enthusiasts
devoted to one particular musical instrument.


Today I present a small medley of these musical clubs
that featured unusual musical instruments.
 

 

 

My first photo is an instrumental club on a German postcard of 16 men and 2 women with various string instruments, but predominantly zithers. With nine zither players and only two violinists this is an ensemble that loves to strum. Of course I'm defining what I call a musical club very broadly as I suspect these musicians are probably a private club run by the man seated center, third from right, who is holding a conductor's baton. He is the music professor and these are his string students.

A zither belongs to the psaltery line of string instruments. It has many metal strings attached to a shallow box with four or five strings stretched over a fretted fingerboard and the other strings tuned in a scale like a harp. It is played either on the player's lap or on a table. There are two types pictured in this group. The concert zither has between 29 to 38 strings, with 34 or 35 being most typical. The Alpine zither has 42 strings with a curved extension that supports the longer lower bass strings. 

Alpine Zither
Source: Wikipedia

The postcard was mailed on 12 February 1915 from Remscheid, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, east of the Rhine River near Düsseldorf, Germany. We can only speculate how many of the men would be called up for military service in the next three years. Did they pack a zither in their soldier's kit?

 

 

 

 

 To demonstrate the beautiful sound of the zither
here is a quartet that performed at
the Saitenstrassen music festival in 2021.
This festival of traditional Germanic music
is held in the alpine communities
of Mittenwald, Krün and Wallgau
in the Upper Isar Valley of Bavaria.
The unusual instrument played by the man at the back right
is a Viennese contraguitar or Schrammel guitar
which has extra bass strings like the zither
which gives it a harp-like sound.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

 

The next group comes from a photo postcard that was never mailed but conveniently identifies the group and date on a printed caption. They are the Concertina "Edelweisss" zu Hormersdorf  1908.  As their name suggests this ensemble features six concertina players in what is otherwise a brass band. The 19 men are posed outdoors and wear a kind of formal Sunday best suit that suggests they are giving a concert. I think they look more like an amateur group than professional and again I'm stretching the definition of a club to include bands that promoted one type of instrument. Hormersdorf is a former municipality in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in Saxony, Germany now part of the town Zwönitz. One man seated center has no instrument, unless we count the beer keg in front of him, but he wears a broad sash which I think indicates he is a civic official of the town.  

 

The concertina is a free-reed musical instrument similar in sound to a harmonica but using bellows to provide the air that vibrates the reeds. It belongs to the accordion family and there are many different types of squeeze box instruments that were developed independently by English and German makers in the early 1800s. The English concertina is constructed as a six-sided "box" while the German design is a larger and made as a square "box". Both systems have buttons on both halves of the instrument that activate the reeds, but the arrangement of pitches is very different. 

 

The instrument used by the Edelweiss band are called Chemnitzer concertinas which were developed in Chemnitz, the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony, which is about 13 miles north of Hormersdorf. The reeds are made of steel instead of brass and there are two different notes, sometimes more, that sound independently when the bellows are compressed or extended. The Chemnitzer type concertina became popular in America too and is still found in Polka dance bands. 

 

 

For the past 44 years
concertina enthusiasts
from around the country
flock to Pulaski, Wisconsin
for the Pulaski Polka Days.
Here is a short video of about 50 concertina players
who participated in the 2021 concertina jam in Pulaski.
It captures the passion people have for their favorite instrument
and the great fun it provides to players of all ages.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

This  postcard features 40 men, all holding the same kind of string instrument. They are identified in the caption on the front as C. H. Böhm's Waldzither-Verein. The musicians are neatly arranged in some outdoor park or garden with a large banner that has the faint letters of Böhm and an image of a Waldzither. It resembles a mandolin but looks nothing like the tabletop zithers played by the first musical club. The name and location of the postcard publisher is printed along the bottom edge: Kunstverlags-Anstalt Roepke & Woortman, Hamburg. The postcard also has a postmark of 31 January 1903 from Hamburg, Germany.

 

The Waldzither (which translates as "forest zither") was a late 19th century German improvement on the medieval cittern. It has 9 metal strings set in five courses with the lowest pitch on a single string. The bridge of a Waldzither is made of glass or metal and I believe the neck is hollow to give it more resonance. The tuning mechanism at the head of the neck uses a fine screw adjustment rather than traditional pegs.

 

 

The Boehm Waldzithers were made beginning with the founding of the factory in 1897 until it closed in 1942 during the war. I suspect that membership in Herr Böhm's club included a number of his workers, but evidently the Waldzither became such a popular instrument in Germany that there were efforts, (probably supported by Böhm) to make it the "national instrument" of Germany. Sadly the Waldzither never achieved that kind of status as it has largely disappeared except for a few preserved instruments. In fact I would not have been able to learn about the Böhm company until I found this short demonstration video on YouTube this week.

Here is a video of Björn Kaidel
playing a beautiful melody on a Waldzither that was made
around 1925 by the same "C.H. Böhm Company" of Hamburg, Germany
whose instruments are pictured on my postcard.

* * *

 

 

 

 Since last weekend's story,
The Turner Clubs of Old Wien,
was about Austrian Turn-Verein or Gymnast Clubs.

I can't resist including this next postcard
of a Club of Clubs.
Indian clubs to be precise.

 

 

This group of 43 young women and two men are all dressed in matching uniforms (the girls not the men) that make them look like students or a church choir. But this is what passed for women's athletic wear in 1900. At the top is a caption: Dámský Odbor Sokola Domažlického or the Domazlice  Women's Sokal Union. The language is Czech and the place Domazlice, is a small town that is now in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic, but in July 1902 when this postcard was mailed, it was in Austria. 

The young ladies belong to the Czech equivalent of a German or Austria Turnverein or gymnast club. Along the floor in front of the women are various wooden clubs used in pairs for rhythmic calesthetic exercises. These Indian clubs originated on the India subcontinent, hence their name, and were once a common strength conditioning equipment used in gym clubs by both men and women. In researching this card I was surprised to find many videos on YouTube of modern practitioners of this discipline with a large number from India.

The group is called a Sokola which in Czech means "Falcon" for it's patriotic connotation. Though these Czech gyms followed the same idea for physical training, the Czech Sokol movement, which was founded in Prague in 1862, included more intellectual and moral guidance through lectures, discussions and even military training in support of Czech nationalism. Membership was open to all ages and eventually, as evident in this postcard, women were admitted too. The Sokol training centered on marching drills, fencing, weightlifting and large mass team exercises like this group of women. 

 

The movement's emphasis on national pride led to other Slavic cultures in the Austrian empire starting their own gym clubs. By the 1900s there were Sokols in Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, and other ethnic  areas of Central Europe that were ruled by monarchs of a different historic culture. The Czech Sokols, like the German Turnverein movement, was brought to America by immigrants who established gym clubs and used them to sustain their national traditions. The political power of the Sokol gym clubs was a serious concern for both monarchs and fascists. During the rise of Hitler, the Sokols were shut down, and later in the communist era they were banned too.

 

 

 I can't find any reference to this
but I feel sure that
Indian club exercises at the Czech Sokol
included music
since music has always been a Czech tradition.
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

 

 

 

 

Here is a delightful short film
from the Library of Congress archives
entitled: "Hyde Park School, room 2".
It shows a group of American school children
performing an exercise with Indian clubs.
It was filmed in Kansas City, Missouri on April 18, 1904
by cameraman, A. E. Weed for the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.

 

 

This next clip is too good to pass up.
It is a short film made in 1952
of Phoebe Pegram Swinging Indian Clubs.
The details on this YouTube video explain it best.

Phoebe Pegram arrived at the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNCG) in 1892. She studied "physical culture" (now physical education or kinesiology). By her fourth year, she had mastered the Indian clubs (it was said she was better than any of the instructors!) and was asked to join the teaching staff for the next two years.  When Phoebe came back to campus in 1952 for a class reunion, she was in her 80s but still willing to show off her mastery of the Indian clubs. She's wearing the black wool bloomers used in the physical culture classes when she was a student and teacher.

 

 

 

The clip was digitized from a film housed in the University Archives Film Collection, Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC.

 

 I think Phoebe Pegram understood
that when you learn a skill well
you gain a lifetime of fun.

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where there are always lessons
to be learned in an old photo.