Sunday, November 15, 2015

Antenna Head



Yes, I know.  Those aren't antennas.  She's wearing some sort of turban held in place by really big hairpins.  Click on the image and bring it up in a bigger window, and you'll also she she's holding a Look magazine and maybe a very small can of beer.  Ah the good old days.  Well, if nothing else, I miss picture magazines like Life and Look, and now that Rupert Murdoch has taken over The National Geographic...I'm not hopeful.

Stamped on the back, "R. HERVEY ANGIER JUL 27 1941."  As a rule, if a photo has any sort of mark that can ID a photographer, studio, or processing lab, I do a quick search for any info I can dig up.  I wasn't hopeful on this one, more a snapshot than a professional portrait.  I figured I was looking for an amateur with a rubber stamp rather than a professional.

My search for R. Hervey Angier photographer wasn't too successful but remove photog and I came up with a couple of maybes.  From the April 1956 issue of Railroad Magazine "R. Hervey Angier, Los Angeles, Southern Pacific hogger is a timetable collector with a collection of over 1000."  From the October 56 issue of the same magazine, "R. Hervey Angier, SP engineer has an unusual hobby, he collects conductors' punch designs."

Then things got kind of creepy.  From 1941, the date of the stamp, a Hervey Angier, without the R was appealing his conviction for unlawful sex with a minor, actually two minors, girls aged five and seven, based on the legal definition of copulation.  His lawyer argued that in California the law defined copulation as intercourse and since Hervey had performed oral sex on his victims, without penetration, he hadn't committed a crime.  I couldn't find any information on the outcome of his appeal.

Of course, R. Hervey Angier the photographer, might not be the same Angier as the sex offender, who might not be the same Angier as the railroader.  But it is an unusual name so one has to wonder.

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