#FridayReads and a vintage photograph of women in prison

OK, OK. They're not really in prison. I'm actually not sure what's going on here. But it is a vintage photograph, measuring 3½ inches by 5 inches. Written on the back is the date of September 11, 1952. But there's nothing else about these two smiling criminals.

In the meantime, here are some links to a wide and rambling and eclectic variety of great things to read. I promise y'all will find a few things here that pique your interest. If not, I'll mail you a vintage postcard to compensate you for your lost surfing time.

• York Daily Record: "Lassa fever took its first U.S. victim in York County 46 years ago. Here is the family's untold story" by Joan Concilio
• The Atlantic: "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The New York Times: "Ta-Nehisi Coates to Write Black Panther Comic for Marvel" by George Gene Gustines
• Vanity Fair: "Decades After Her Death, Mystery Still Surrounds Crime Novelist Josephine Tey" by Francis Wheen
• Rock Paper Shotgun: "How GOG.com Save And Restore Classic Videogames" by Tom Bennet
• The New York Times: "Hemingway Was a Pack Rat. Here’s What His Mementos Reveal." by Charles McGrath
• Odd Things I've Seen: "Hey, Hey, We’re the Monsters: The Monstrous Monkee Mash" by J.W. Ocker
• The Atlantic: "Hit Charade: Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts" by Nathaniel Rich
• Priceonomics: "The Cookie Butter Patent Wars" by Rosie Cima
• Smithsonian.com: "That Time When Ansel Adams Posed for a Baseball Trading Card" by Brad Balukjian
• Atlas Obscura: "The duke, the landscape architect and the world's most ambitious attempt to bring the cosmos to earth" by Alina Simone
• NPR: "What We Lose When A Neighborhood School Goes Away" by Gene Demby
• Slate: "Choose Your Own Adventure – How The Cave of Time taught us to love interactive entertainment" by Grady Hendrix
• BBC: "The lost tunnels buried deep beneath the UK" by Chris Baraniuk
• Slate: "Once regarded as a symbol of backwardness, Iceland’s historic turf-roofed homes are making a comeback" by Mark Hay
• My Inside Voices: "The Big D" by Susan Jennings
• Al Jazeera America: "How the north ended up on top of the map" by Nick Danforth
• Strange Maps: "Fabled and False: the Mountains of Kong" by Frank Jacobs
• Longreads: "Loving Books in a Dark Age: In the 'dark ages' of Europe, people began reading silently to themselves, and a love of books and learning took hold, pioneered by Bede" by Michael Pye
• Rolling Stone: "'Space Jam' Forever: The Website That Wouldn't Die" by Erik Malinowski

Advertising card: Autumn greetings from Rices Landing

Warning: This post rambles in many different directions. But they're mostly interesting ones

This undated vintage advertising card, which is about the size of a baseball card, celebrates autumn with an illustration that features two people dressed as if they're going to appear in a Shakespeare production, a large pumpkin and a platter filled with harvest goodies.

A short verse underneath states:

In the cool, dark days of autumn
when the earth is damp and cold,
we should wear out "Candee" rubbers,
they are "worth their weight in gold."
That verse, of course, is not Shakespeare. And, as a lover of autumn, I would disagree with characterizing it as cool, dark, damp and cold. It's a cheery time of beauty and warm colors, as I documented in a photo essay last photo.

Way back in the day — we're talking the 19th century — Candee rubbers were pioneering footwear invented by Leverett Candee (1795-1863). After a long career manufacturing other items, Candee, in the 1840s, licensed Charles Goodyear's rubber vulcanization process and became the first to manufacture rubber shoes. Those shoes are being advertised on this trade card.

Here's the back of the card:

We see that the particular Candee rubber shoe being advertised was The Belle, "a light croquet Alaska for ladies" with a "fine cloth top."

[Full disclosure: I have no idea what "croquet Alaska" means, in terms of shoe design. Or in terms of anything, really.]

These rubber shoes were available from Thomas Hughes in Rices Landing, Pennsylvania. The trade card states "Rice's Landing," with an apostrophe. There are numerous examples online of the town name with and without the apostrophe. I believe, however, that the correct name of the tiny borough in Greene County, southwestern Pennsylvania, is Rices Landing, with no apostrophe. That's how it's spelled on the official borough website and on the Wikipedia entry.

Rices Landing has an interesting history that dates to the 1770s and includes visits from George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and important trading post at the then-edge of the Western frontier, and a stream named Pumpkin Run. It was officially incorporated in 1903 and saw its population swell to nearly 1,000 in the 1930s and 1940s before falling to fewer to 500 today.

Its most famous resident is Pennsylvania wrestler Cary Kolat, whose many athletic achievements include one of the most amazing mat moves you'll ever see on the high school level.

In 2009, Rices Landing elected Ryan Belski, who was then 20 years old, as its mayor.

The Thomas Hughes store were the Candee rubber shoes were sold still exists and is part of the Rices Landing Historic District, which was was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

For more on the colorful history of Rices Landing, check out this 2008 post on the Ten Mile Creek Country blog (which I hope someone preserves in one form or another before it vanishes).

Finally, here's the front of one more trade card for Candee rubber shoes, this one featuring Summer as its theme...

Today's work of art: Page from an old library book

If you can see the beauty in this page from the front of a discarded library copy of The People of Montana, we're kindred spirits and you're definitely on the right blog.

There's so much of interest here. So much of the story of where and how this book was used ... a tale told by its stamps, stickers, circulation-card pocket and more.

Let's start with the book. The People of Montana was written by Ralph C. Henry¹ and published in 1958 by the State Publishing Company in Helena, Montana. The 237-page volume was used as a civics and social studies textbook for public-school students in Big Sky Country. It includes chapters on Montana's history, climate, geography, cities and towns, government and school system.

The circulation-card pocket tells us that the book was shelved in the Carnegie City Library in Kalispell, Montana.² The Carnegie City Library, constructed with a $10,000 grant, was one of 17 Carnegie libraries built in Montana between 1901 and 1918. It is now, appropriately, Kalispell's Hockaday Museum of Art.

The Carnegie City Library was part of the Northwest Montana Federation of Libraries, a regional cooperative that was formed in 1945 and provided book-lending and bookmobile services to the region.

The People of Montana was given the number 978.6 — the designated number for general Montana history — in the Dewey Decimal System. It was, according to a hand-written note, shelved in the Juvenile books section.

At some point later in its life, the book became part of the Flathead County Library System³ and received a barcode. It was checked out in February 1993 and March 1995, according to a pair of stamps. And then, at some unknown point, the book was stamped WITHDRAWN. It eventually found its way to at least one used-book store before ending up in York, Pennsylvania.

The Flathead County Library System, by the way, has also gone by the wayside and been renamed as (or replaced by) ImagineIF Libraries. The ImagineIF collection includes several books on Montana history by Ralph C. Henry, whose middle name, it turns out, was Chester. Those titles include Treasure State: The Story of Montana for Junior Montanans and Our Land Montana: The Story of Our Treasure State.

As a final fun note, here's a closeup of the tiny logo at the bottom of the circulation-card pocket. I wonder what company that is.

Thematically related posts

• There's beauty in them thar old library circulation cards
• Pennsylvania College's old library copy of "Flatland"
• Old-style Ruth Manning-Sanders library book borrower's card
• Water-stained work of art: Hudson & Manhattan Subway Terminal
• Water-stained work of art II: Princes Point on Orr's Island

Also, I've recommended it before, but you should absolutely check out Kerry Mansfield's portfolio of images of old and discarded books.

Footnotes
1. Ralph C. Henry also used the pen name "Eric Thane" for some of his other history and non-fiction writing, according to a note at the beginning of the book. That's a bit interesting, because you don't see many non-fiction authors using pen names.
2. Kalispell is the birthplace of Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles.
3. Flathead County was founded in 1893 by Wurb Flathead, a descendant of Dimwit Flathead.

Pretty maids all in a row — literally

This vintage postcard features an illustration of the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary." The rhyme dates to the 18th century and there is little agreement over the meaning of its lines. Some think it refers to the 16th century's Mary, Queen of Scots, but there is dispute on that point.

There are also multiple versions of the rhyme, and it's the last line that seems to vary the most. Some of the different final lines include:

• And pretty maids all in a row
• And so my garden grows
• Sing cuckolds all in a row
• Cowslips all in a row
• With lady bells all in a row

This postcard goes with the most traditional final line, but the illustration takes it a little too literally, giving us the somewhat disturbing image of maidens sprouting out of the dirt...

The card was postmarked on July 28, 1910, in Brooklyn, New York.¹ It was mailed to a woman named Gladys in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The note is a bit hard to decipher, but I think it reads:

"Dear Gladys
Mama's letter received & beg [?] to say little Marnie and I are going up to see Auntie May on Sunday. Boat leaves Battery at 9 a.m. Red Bank Boat. Regards to Papa and love to Maura [?] and yourself. Auntie Em."

(Probably not that Auntie Em.)

Footnote
1. On July 28, 1910, President William Taft arrived in Biddeford Pool, Maine, aboard the presidential yacht Mayflower. See this photo from the Maine Historical Society. (The Mayflower, by the way, had a fascinating history, eventually ending its career as INS Maoz in the Israeli Navy.)

2015 York Fair: My favorite photos

The York Fair, which was celebrating 250 years of existence, wrapped up yesterday. Here are some of my favorite Instagram shots from this year's festivites.

Elks anniversary stamp from 1968

This six-cent U.S. stamp was issued in 1968 and commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and its youth programs.

The National Postal Museum, operated as part of the Smithsonian Institution, has an amazing online database of U.S. stamps, called Arago. The database page for this 1968 issue provides the following historical information:

"The 6-cent Support Our Youth commemorative postage stamp was issued on May 1, 1968, at Chicago, Illinois, during National Youth Week, which was sponsored by the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The stamp was available at other post offices as fast as manufacturing facilities permitted, but there was some delay.

"In observance of its centennial that year, the BPOE extended its youth service program. One activity was a massive job hunt in some 2,100 communities to uncover summertime and part-time employment opportunities for young people.

"The stamp was designed by Edward Vebell of Westport, Connecticut, and was issued in panes of fifty, with an initial printing of 120 million."

Now, 47 years later, I'm using one of these stamps to send a York Fair postcard to a fellow Postcrossing user in Minden, Germany.

Because, sometimes, baby ostriches are just what you need on a Monday

Here's the perfect postcard for a Monday. It's titled "Baby Ostriches just out of the shell."

(And now these birds will all think that little girl in the white dress is their mother.)

The postcard has a stamp from California's Cawston Ostrich Farm, which was in business from 1886 to 1935, on the back.

The postcard from never mailed, but someone wrote a note across both sides of the reverse side. It might be a note that extended over multiple postcards, because it seems to end in midstream. Here it is:

"Dear Selina,
I am sending you the little calendars now because they might do no good later on. Please give one to Miss Midgley. We were glad to get your letter but very sorry you have had such a hard time. Will write soon. The mocking birds have begun their spring songs. One of their"

The postcard was published by Newman Post Card Co. of Los Angeles and California and is labeled B15 On the Road of a Thousand Wonders. According to Metropostcard.com, Newman was in existence from 1907 until the 1960s. It was "a publisher and printer of postcards in tinted halftone, mostly views of southern California, with some cards of Hawaii and Nevada and the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition. They were related to the O. Newman Company. Acquired by H.S. Crocker in the 1960’s."

Previous Papergreat Ostrich Postcards

• "Sunday Night Ostrich" would be a good name for band
• Of baby ostriches and shite pokes

Groovy stuff from August/September 1970 issue of Pack-o-Fun

Let's take a Sunday night dive back 45 years — to September 1970, when Hillary Clinton was working on Joseph Duffey's U.S. Senate campaign, Bernie Sanders was months from beginning his political career as a member of the Liberty Union Party, and Bernie Taupin was crafting "Levon" for Elton John.

Featured tonight is the August/September 1970 issue of the "scrap-craft" magazine Pack-O-Fun¹, which served as the Back to School issue.

Here are five cool things² from this issue:

1. The first article is titled "Designing with Weeds" and begins: "Weeds — gathered from vacant lots and fields — can be used to make lovely pictures."³

The article goes on to describe how the seeds and silk from a milkweed pod can make perfect owl eyes. Who ever thought stuff from the vacant lot could be so crafty?

2. Next comes "crafting with macaroni." Remember when you made art projects using dried pasta, beans and/or seeds in elementary school? (Remember when the pieces of pasta would start to come unglued and end up in your backpack and on the kitchen floor?) Pack-o-Fun wanted home crafters to do the same thing, making a rooster suitable for hanging on the wall in the family room out of pasta shells, macaroni, spaghetti and rotoni. You could soak the macaroni in water for 30 minutes to get curvy tail feathers!

3. For a "novel" name tag during back-to-school week, Pack-o-Fun suggested that you could put a piece of wide adhesive tape on your palm and write "How! Me (person's name)" on it. That way, a kid could greet someone and let them know his name at the same time! It's frankly amazing that this idea never caught on.

4. Hidden deep in The Craft Mart (classified advertisements) is this gem: "POTATO SALAD RECIPE, always first to go at any Pot Luck, 25c coin, self addressed stamped envelope. Christy's, Box 1239, Santa Cruz, California 95060." Do you think it's too late to send for this?

5. Finally, this photo of the Wankiyu Camp Fire Girls...

Footnotes
1. The previous Pack-o-Fun issue featured here was from November 1970, just two issues after this one. It's entirely a coincidence. I came across these two issues in different years and in different places.
2. As judged by me, of course.
3. I'm not sure what it was about the early 1970s and weeds. Remember the Weed Christmas Tree?