Hoover For President

 

I've been saving this one for election day.  The couple in the middle are Herbert and his wife Lou Hoover.  It's dated on the back, 1928, the year he won the presidency.  Herbert Hoover was a farm boy from Iowa, graduated with an engineering degree from Stanford, went to Australia and worked as a mining engineer.  After a year, he made a brief return to the U.S. to marry Lou who was the first woman to get a degree in geology from Stanford.  Between them they made a fortune in both Australia and China.  They were in China during the Boxer Rebellion.  During World War 1, Hoover headed up the food relief program for western Europe, and he did the same thing during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.  What's sad about Hoover was that he was a very accomplished and decent  person who didn't know what to do about the great depression.  It kind of destroyed a well deserved good  reputation. 

Raised Republican

But did it take?   Written on the back, Pete 7 mos. Jan. 1969."

Pat Brown For Governor

I, of course, knew who Pat Brown was when I bought these photos.  Even though I was still living in Pennsylvania during his two terms as Governor of California,  he was famous enough that even a school boy from a coal mining town on the edge of Appalachia would know his name.  I didn't know what he looked like when I purchased these,  perhaps forgotten or perhaps I never knew, so I had to look it up before starting this post.  I kind of assumed that Brown was the bald guy who's in every picture, but I was wrong.  It's possible that Brown is the glasses wearing man on the center couch in the bottom picture, but it's only a resemblance, and I can't really be sure. As far as the year these pictures were taken, Brown ran for governor three times.  1958, which he won, 1962, also a victory, but he lost a third term bid in 1966 to Ronald Reagan.  So these are either from 1962 or 66.

So about Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr.  There's a lot on the net about the man, easy to research for anyone wanting detail, so I'm going to limit myself to an overview.  Brown was born in 1905 in San Francisco.  He graduated college and went to law school at San Francisco State.   His first foray into politics was a failed 1928 run for the state assembly as a Republican.   By 1934, at the height of the great depression, having lost faith in the Republican party he re-registered as a Democrat and became active in New Deal politics.  There was another electoral failure when he ran for San Francisco D.A. in 1939 and finally won the office in 1943.  From the beginning Brown was in the liberal camp, breaking with FDR by opposing the internment of Japanese Americans as well as the attempt to deport Harry Bridges.  In 1950, Brown ran for state attorney general, a win made him the only Democrat holding statewide office.  serving from 1950-1958.  In '57 he ran for governor, serving from 1958-1966.  In many ways, Brown invented modern California.  As governor he championed massive infrastructure projects, including massive water projects that made the central valley the most important agricultural region of the United States as well as providing the water needed to fuel the growth of southern California.  Also major highway projects and a major expansion of the UC system and the state college system. In 1960, Brown was the favorite son candidate for president, running  only in  California.  Because of the state's size, technically Brown finished second to Kennedy, but the plan had always been to pledge his delegates to JFK. Brown died in 1996.  Too, his son was Jerry Brown who ended up serving four non consecutive terms as governor as well as making several far more serious runs for the presidency. 

There's a photographers stamp on the back of these photos, "PHOTO BY Bob Crabtree, 8733 E. HOVEY ST., ROSEMEAD, CALIF.,  ATlantic 7-0317."  I couldn't find a thing about Crabtree.  Rosemead is a suburb of Los Angeles.

Vote For Hugh-Hugh's For You

At least that's what it says on the back of the card.  I was born in Pennsylvania, and for much of my early life, Hugh Scott, Jr. was my senator.  He was born in 1900, not in Pennsylvania, but Virginia.  After getting his law degree, he moved to Philadelphia, in 1922, and joined his uncle's law firm.  After World War 2, he entered politics.  After serving in the house of representatives, in 1959, he was elected to the U.S. senate.  He became minority leader of the senate in 1969.  He was one of the Republican senators who told Richard Nixon that it was time to go.  He was what was once known as a Rockefeller Republican, pro business, but liberal on social issues.  Despite his southern background, Scott was a supporter of civil rights and voted for all of the major civil rights legislation that came before congress during his tenure. 

Also on the back of the card, "Dear Friend:  U.S. Senator Hugh Scott has seniority and experience that work for us in Washington.

He fights for what is right, as in the Bobby Baker investigation and in the many bills he has cosponsored which are now law.  Both labor and industry have praised Hugh Scott for helping to create jobs for Pennsylvania. 

Don't trade his record for a promise.

Please remember to vote for your U.S. Senator Hugh Scott, on Tuesday, November 3.

Sincerely," 

Vote

It took my best magnifying glass to make it out, a single word on the one ladies paper hat.  "WARD"  It's not a term used much anymore, but there was a time when every person in the United States knew what a ward healer was.  In the days of on the ground machine politics, a ward healer solved peoples problems, found them jobs and medical care in return for party loyalty.  Sure, it was considered corrupt. but it was a hell of a lot better than the machine politics of today, as party leaders bend over backward to do favors for big donors while the rest of us get forgotten.

A Fragment

I'm really fascinated by this one.  To start with, it is, as the title of the post states, a fragment.  It 's cut from a larger picture.  It was so faded, that I abandoned my usual attempts to get a scan that looked as much like the original as possible, and went the opposite direction, trying to dig out as much detail as was there.   So what did I get?  It looks like a black woman in the fifties, surrounded by white men, walking along, not just carrying a newspaper, but displaying one.  I know that the headline may be about an air show, but I think this could be a photo of some sort of civil rights demonstration.  The front page of that newspaper may also have a story about a lunch counter sit in, attempts to register black voters, or perhaps even a lynching.  I know it's easy to read things into photos that aren't there.  That's part of the fun of collecting old photos.  But, I'm standing by that guess.

Kennedy For President

Dated 1963, my guess is that one of the people in this photograph, after the assassination, had it printed as a remembrance of their time as a Kennedy supporter.