It looks like this one was cut down from a larger print. And it's still out of focus. With those haircuts, I'm guessing the 1920s. With the exception of the kid in the lower left, who is looking down, all appear to be little girls. Notice that he's wearing an Indian headdress with a single feather.
This is the flip side of an album page that I've already posted. (Click on The Los Angeles Indiana Collection in labels to bring everything else up.) Every time I put up an album page, whether it's been cut out of an album the way this one has or if it's from a full album, I always like to put up the whole page at least once to show position. More than likely it doesn't really matter, but it's always possible that the person who made the album had a reason other than available space for the choices they made. Perhaps it's the order they were taken or the same location. Unless a photo is labeled there's no way to tell, but just in case. So, just to repeat myself, why Los Angeles Indiana? Well, I purchased this album page from an eBay seller in Indiana and there's a decorative border on a couple of the prints from L.A. Right at the top is the peristyle of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It's true that the photographer could have sent his film out to be processed and he could have sent his film through the mail, but I doubt someone living in Indiana would have mailed film all the way to Los Angeles for processing. So, did this Hoosier family make a trip to the west coast? If they did, they might have gone to the 1932 Olympics. Or perhaps, they were living in L.A. and eventually moved to Indiana. Who knows, and I doubt I ever will.
There is almost always an odd number of subjects in group shots because someone has to take the picture. So, three couples and a woman with the camera? One of the things I've noticed is that there are usually more women, indicating a male photographer, but not this time. Anyway, there's a lab stamp on the back, "GUARANTEED Linnprints LINN CAMERA SHOP INC., Lansing, Mich." And a date, "JUN 7, 1946." Also, a handwritten notation, "'46" And, written on the front border, "George, Me, Randy, Eunice, Willis." So, which of the five people in this photo were old enough to serve in the military during the war? It's impossible to tell.
Written on the back, "R.E. Stadelman & Todos Santos Indians at 116 Palace Hotel, Guat. City, Nov. 29, 1940. R.E.S. & T.S." There's also a processor's stamp, "Foto-Reinet, B766, Guatemala." Every once in a while, I find a photo where I can actually do a bit of research. I don't know what the R.E. stands for, but it looks like he was some sort of scientist. The Smithsonian has at least one collection of gastropod shells in their collection that was found by Stadelman, dated February 1931. There's also a stereo photo of Stadelman himself in the California state archive, captioned, "Mr. R. E. Stadelman of the laboratory who extracts venom from the snakes. H.K. Mulford Laboratories. Glenolden, Pa." Okay, a bit weird grammatically, but that's what it says, and the picture is of the same guy in this photo. The H.K. Mulford Corporation was founded by pharmacist Henry Kendall Mulford in Philadelphia, PA, in the late 1880s, and was sold to Sharp & Dohme in 1929, though the Mulford name was retained. They had a laboratory complex located in Glenolden, PA, that made diphtheria, smallpox, and rabies vaccines, digitalis, and antivenin, hence the need for a snake guy.
