Confident Young Men

  

I don't know if this photo looks so familiar because I've already posted it and threw it in the wrong storage box, or because it was supposed to be the next one up, and somehow or another it got shunted into aside.  Anyway, these guys all look like they're ready to face the world.  For obvious reasons, I've spent a lot of time thinking about war for the past few weeks.  My guess is this photo is from the twenties, or perhaps early thirties, that they are all high school kids, (With a much older teacher in the lower right corner.)  and most would have ended up serving during World War 2.  I have to wonder, how many survived?  

School Girls and Caskets 1

I'm starting another mini collection.  There will only be three posts and I'm putting them without interruption.  Even though it's probably not necessary I am assigning it a tag, obviously, School Girls and Caskets.   And, you'll have to wait for the next post to understand the title.

So, the two class photos are each dated, "Jan. 1921."  I'm assuming the guy in front of the top picture is a teacher.  The third picture is cut out from a bigger image.  The full frame version will be in part three.  It is a good opportunity to really make out the uniform badge.  It looks like either GTV or GTU. 

Dana Hall School For Girls 10

Unlike most of the album pages I post, this one is too large to show the whole page for position.  The top photo takes up the entire width of the page, the next three, left to right, easily fit in a second row beneath the girls on parade photo.

So, one of the tings that I find interesting about a lot of these photos is the students at Dana Hall all look so mature.  These are high schoolers, but they all look much older.  To go back to the beginning of the collection and see more, click on Dana Hall School in labels at the bottom of thr post. 

Graduating In Peace

I'm not quite sure what this picture represents.  Maybe a prom photo or homecoming.  It's a bit out of focus, but once I blew it up, it looks like the sign above the stage reads Classes with some dates.  I'm not 100% sure, but I'd say 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941.  Perhaps it means that those four classes raised money to pay for the auditorium.  In any case, there is a photographer's stamp on the back, "ARTHUR W. F. LOWENSTEIN, MORO, ILL. OCT 22 1945"  If I'm reading it correctly, the class of 1941, the last one listed on the sign would have been the last graduating class before World War 2, and the Class of 1946 would be the first to graduate after VJ-Day. 

I couldn't find anything about the photographer, but Moro is near St. Louis, Missouri. 

The Smart Ass Of Sweet Water

More than likely, some classmate of Joe, Roger, Bob. Lorena, and Lillie wrote their names on this photo.  More than likely, years latter, some smart ass wrote roof, grass, and drew the skull and crossbones  on this image.  I hate smart asses.

School Days

No, I don't know for sure that this is school photo, but the building has that institutional feel, and there is a bell on the wall that sure looks like the one that made my life miserable at my high school.

What's interesting to me is that this photo includes two black women.  It' true that only the southern states had Jim Crow laws, but it's also true that when this picture was taken, different races didn't hang out a lot, and while things have improved over the years....well, I live in Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities on the planet, and when I wander around the area, what I see is a world that's still pretty separate.

And for the record, California never had Jim Crow, but it did have restrictive real estate covenants.  In a nut shell, real estate developers had their customers sign agreements that forbade them from selling their new homes to non approved groups.  Blacks, of course, Hispanics, Asians, and Jews were the most frequently targeted groups for exclusion.   Ronald Reagan, when he first ran for governor, had three main issues, lower taxes, ending free higher education, and the preservation of restrictive real estate covenants.  Two successes and one failure.

Girl's Basketball

When did girls start playing high school sports?

Written on the back "1940  L-R Leatrice Sabovrin, Betty Griffits, Carrie Curnan, Alina Paskowitz, Ora Sfeddo, Elaine Ugone, Clair Webster, Irene Rui, Nancy Whitiker, Doty Piccin, Judy Griffits, Phylis Whitiker, Coach Joe Vinick"

And yes, I did double check the spelling.  I suspect Griffits should be Griffiths, and Whitiker should be Whitaker. Which, of course, brings into question the other spellings.

School Days

Just a reminder.  There was a time, in the United States, when we put a higher priority on education than low taxes.  There isn't a date on the  postcard of the New High School, Springfield, Ohio, but I was able to find a similar one on one of my favorite research sites, EBay, postmarked 1913.  Judging by the clothes on the people, I'd say that the hand colored photo was taken some time around 1900.  The population of Springfield in 1900 was 38,253.  Not a big city, but a small one by the standards of 1900.  At a time when schools were paid for by local taxes, the people of Springfield decided to build a large stone building with a cupola.   The Pleasant Home High School of Andalusia, Alabama, dated 1942-44, is a lot more modest, expected from a small town of 6,886 people, (That's from the 1940 census.) but it's still well built and maintained.  (And yes, I do know that a decade before Brown vs Board of Education,  that this would have been an all white school, and that the local black population attended a far less impressive institution.)

I meet a lot of young people in my work, and while they are well versed in modern technology, I'm surprised at how little they've read, and how little they know about government and current events.  I know I'm sounding like the classic old fogy complaining about kids these days, but I went to what was considered a sub standard high school, and our school had a mandatory reading list, and classes in government and current events.  With cuts in funding for education, schools are less likely to educate for the well rounded citizen and more likely to go for job skills.  I'm sure many people think that's a good thing.  I'm not one of them.

Above the Rim

White men can't jump? Well, this guy needed a bit of help. Dated "MAR 70" That means that number 41 is right around 60 or so, and still can't jump.

The Lettermen of Lushton, Nebraska

Lushton is a very small village in York County, Nebraska. According to the 2010 census, the population comes to a whopping 33, spread out over sixteen households and 12 families. So was Lushton big enough, in the 1920s, to support a high school and field a baseball team, or did Lushton High cater to all the farm kids? The latter would be my guess. There is nothing written on the back of the first photo in the group, (Gotta love the kid hanging off to the side.) but on the others in descending order, "Cecil Franc, Denzel Smith" "Cecil 7, Raymond, Mark, Denzel" "Raymond, Mark, Bill, Steve, Wayne" "Mark, Cecil" "Raymond 3, Mark 1" "Cecil 7, Denzel" "Bill, Steve, Wayne" Anyway, I think I might have figured out the connection to yesterday's post. It's the photographer, rather than the subjects. The names on the back are the people who want prints. The names that were crossed out from yesterday were either filled or cancelled orders. Hey, hasn't Blogger heard of Denzel Washington? The spell check says it isn't a real name.

Are You Ready For Some Football

I did not play high school football, and in smash-mouth football obsessed western Pennsylvania that was not a popular choice. Sissy was the politest name I was called and , well let's put it this way; I was hit as much for not playing as I would have if I had played. Of course, my high school didn't have a very good team so that didn't necessarily mean anything. My high school team lost every game for three straight years. We came close to a win in my junior year. We were playing our arch rival and managed to loose by only six points. 6-0 to be exact. In the last ten minutes of the game, our opponents managed a seventy yard march to victory. Sixty yards on penalties. Fifteen yards when one of our players left the Field on the wrong side. There he was, a lone white uniform in a sea of blue. And just so you know, I am a fan. Steelers in the Super Bowl. I guarantee it!

The Girls of Union High

I've been gathering up old photos for decades, and this small group of images was one of the first collections of related photographs that I ever bought. Purchased in western Pennsylvania, it shows some young girls, and a few adults in a small town. My guess is that these images are from around the World War 1 era to the early twenties. But is this a company town, a community built by a coal company for it's workers, or just a poor rural township in the hills of Pennsylvania? Written on the back of the horizontal image, "Left to right. Mariam Cosley, Thelma Allenbaugh, Irene Forgie, Alice, Elma Evans, Freshman year at Union High School." I've always thought that Alice must have been related to the photographer, so no last name was needed. The two girls sitting on the railing, "Left to right. Thelma Allenbaugh, Elma Evans. Freshman year at Union High." On the picture with the winking girl, "Left to right. Irene Forgie, Elma Evans, Freshman year at Union High." I think Elma must have been the clever, fun one of the class. The two older woman in the long dresses. "Miss Helen Johnston Algebra I teacher U.H.S. at right. Miss Eleanor Fuller Geog. I teach U.H.S. at left. Freshman year." The longer shot with the girl standing on the rock, "Grace Cosley. Freshman year." Mariam's sister from the horizontal image? The three girls standing with the two sitting, "Standing from left to right are Grace Cosley, Bertha Kreiger, Elma Evans. Sitting Left, Thelma Allenbaugh. Right Irene Forgie. Freshman year." Elma is looking down in this one. Was Bertha the most popular girl in school, and did she make the normally gregarious Elma a little self conscious? Or perhaps she is worried that she might fall off the rock on which she is standing.