Interesting photo blog about life 100 years ago

[BobbyMike]

Makezine just ran a post about this very neat site. I plan on using it as a teaching tool for my home schooled kids. Thought you all might find it interesting. Lots of neat old tools and machines in the backgrounds.



Shorpy.com is a photo blog about what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating.

[Ugg013]

Mike:

Back then having a job didn't always mean goin to someone else's business to work either. Back then, most of the US population still lived on farms or ranches. Now it's the other way around, with most of us working for the XYZ Corp, punching a clock, and praying they don't start outsourcing to a 3rd world country.

Speaking of which, on the news this morning, we heard that Micky D's is trying to change their image, to where working for them will be considered a "Career With A Future!" Now isn't that a scarey thought?

Later
Ugg

[JimmieD]

Here's the link:

http://www.Shorpy.com/

[MoparNorm]

Mike:

Back then having a job didn't always mean goin to someone else's business to work either. Back then, most of the US population still lived on farms or ranches. Now it's the other way around, with most of us working for the XYZ Corp, punching a clock, and praying they don't start outsourcing to a 3rd world country.

Speaking of which, on the news this morning, we heard that Micky D's is trying to change their image, to where working for them will be considered a "Career With A Future!" Now isn't that a scarey thought?

Later
Ugg

So...you want fries with that?
(I think you'd look cute in that little red hat)

[JimmieD]

Seems whoever did that webpage has a preoccupation with rats? Interesting stuff though. Sometimes it's like when I go in antique stores and see the antiques for sale and think, "Hey, that's not an antique, why we had those when I was a kid!" When I look at price tags I have to make that difficult decision: try to figure it out through my bifocals, put on my 'readers', or just go au natural and squint??

[MoparNorm]

When I was a tadpole, I had an S gauge American Flyer train layout. Later, when I was in the Army, my parents moved, I had no place to store the stuff, so I went to their home on a 48 hour leave and tossed the entire set, some still in the new unopened boxes....imagine my sick feeling when 40 years later I came across an American Flyer set in only fair condition, selling for $400 per car....= (
I must confess here in front of the world that also in my stack of stuff that was tossed, was a near mint condition WC53 hood, fenders, radiator, grill and rear doors. They were off a WC53 that I found in the SoCal Desert, abandoned by Patton's Army and found by me in the late 50's. I had been bringing it home, one piece at a time........ I had a running near mint WC53 that I paid $800 for so it didn't seem like a big deal at the time....I know, I'm going to **** for that one......
Back on topic, I've seen a majority of a century, can I start a blog....?...= )

[Ugg013]

So...you want fries with that?
(I think you'd look cute in that little red hat)

Nammy:

I'll do it as long as you promise to visit in your PINK tu tu (Ya know, I get the snakes everytime I say that and the picture of you dressed like that enters my minds eye. HA!).

Uggy

[JimmieD]

Wel if you're destined for the heated rooms I may end up your cellmate! Due to circumstances beyond my control, and because I also had a complete and running example, threw away a Town Wagon hood, front doors, rear doors, radiator support, fenders inner and outer, spare sliding windows and several boxes of small parts.

I'll try to bring some hot dogs if you'll grab some chips for the barby?

[MoparNorm]

Wel if you're destined for the heated rooms I may end up your cellmate! Due to circumstances beyond my control, and because I also had a complete and running example, threw away a Town Wagon hood, front doors, rear doors, radiator support, fenders inner and outer, spare sliding windows and several boxes of small parts.

I'll try to bring some hot dogs if you'll grab some chips for the barby?

Deal! I only throw out stuff that's valuable, I keep the junk....= )

[Paul Cook]

Junk in my will

My daughter-in-law wants me to leave the good stuff to the rest of the family and leave her all all my JUNK. She is convinced that she can put it on e-bay and get enough to pay for all my grandkids to have a fine college education.

Come on, Norm... You've seen my junk. Tell me it really is junk.

[MoparNorm]

Ha!Ha!
You have the BEST junk Paul....my junk is more like one of the banned words here for fecal matter......= )

[JimmieD]

I recall as a lad sitting at my grandfather's knee and listening with rapt attention and awe as he told of the 'old days' when he was young. Tales of a proper man packing a pistol, and of a good horse, and visions of dirt streets, wooden sidewalks, gas lights and the invention of electricity thrilled the young heart! He was an automobile lover [and never called them 'cars'] and had owned some of the finest as Cord, Duesies, Terraplane, and long stately Chryslers 8's. What joy it was.

Also my favorite auntie [and we all had a favorite auntie, didn't we?] was descended of a man that was a Texas Ranger and early Border Patrol. Hearing of Panco Villa, various desperados, and the ways of proper marksmanship and quick gun handling were the subject of dreams, and hearing how he survived it was truly amazing. True tales of posses and riding hard on the leather all night chasing across vast deserts into unknown danger set a young boy's mind to reeling.

Curious, but I recall how they near always wore a proper 6 button woolen vest with the faint red and blue stripes, and that great gold chain hanging just right across the placate, and those wonderful gold Waltham railroad watches! "Let's see what time it is, Jimmie." Grandfather had a love for huge green Corona-Corona Cuban cigars which after a very careful trimming and piercing would be lit to fill the room with an horrendous odor. Grandmother would continually object, and call his name in that special way, and "Why don't you boys go outside and play...?" Instead he woule let it go out and then spend the next hour or two chewing it down to a soggy stub!

The doctors warned him about the fine big stogies, how they'd be the death of him one day and sure enough they were right. He finally succumbed to their pollutions at the age of 96 or so after a life that was indeed full by any man's measure!

[BobbyMike]

I come from a family of people who made things. I have the "Grandfather clock" that my father's grandfather made. My dad saved it for me because he knew I would fix it.
I like for a number of reasons. My mother's family came from all over the south, but a large group of them lived in West Virginia and made their living working in the mines. My grandmother's family (on my dad's side) came into the US through Ellis Island and lived in the neighborhood that is shown in this photo of the Hebrew district of the Lower East Side in NYC.

I don't pine for those days, but I find them fascinating.

[Ugg013]

I don't pine for those days, but I find them fascinating.

Hey Mike:

I hear that. My Dad's folks came thru Ellis too, and he was a child of the Depression. He, like me (as I discover the older I get) remembered/s the good things of the past and tried/s to forget the bad. He would always talk about the many different jobs he had then, selling apples, working for the WPA and such. How he'd "Hobo" across the country. VERY rarely would he mention the stealing of coal for heat so they didn't freeze to death, or the worries of being tossed out in the street cause they couldn't afford rent for their small apartment (he was the oldest of 9 kids and both parents in a 1 bedroom apartment with a "SHARRED" bathroom).

There were times in my past that were, well, not nice, but, there are also some good things that were intertwined. I tell the good parts to my kids, not the bad, and who knows, they may see it as a better time, or even a good time, when in fact, it was anything but good? Uh Oh, I'm getting to deep. Nammy, get me outa here! HA!

Later
Ugg

[MoparNorm]

No helping you this time Ugg, you've got it right ( as weird as that is...)! The worst was not as bad as we thought, and best was maybe better, but through the prism of time we see things differently. Look at our trucks, did the men who build those think past the war? Did they think that a vehicle built to last a few months would still be here 65 years later? Those were the best of times, no matter the circumstances, honor, values and family, no matter the condition of each.