Korea

I wish I could tell you more about these cards. Unfortunately, the writing in English doesn't tell me much, and I don't read Korean. If you have some insight, please leave a comment.

The first card shows a pagoda on top of the Keiron. I couldn't seem to find any information on what the Keiron is. There's something very beautiful and mysterious about the card though, so that's why I'm posting it.

Here's a close-up of the people. The variety of hats is particularly interesting.

And here's a picture of a village - but where? I wonder what it looks like now. Is it Yangdong Village? If so, it looks a little different today.

I'd love to be able to wander in for a closer look. Here's a little close-up, showing some people in the village. I'd also love to know more about the building materials. The roofs appear to be straw thatch and the houses may be constructed of mud bricks.

 

Finally, we have a card showing Prince Li's Palace in Seoul. I don't find anything under Prince Li's Palace either, although there are several palaces in Seoul.

The back of the cards all look like this.

The Organ Grinder

Tracy from Tracy's Toys sent me this incredible card. She has a great eye and manages to find not only amazing toys, but also some beautiful and unique cards. I feel very fortunate to have this one.
The 1906 advertising card of an organ grinder and his monkey was published by Livermore & Knight Company, a publisher known for their holiday and color advertising cards. It was sent from Detroit to Miss Elenor Croop in Niagara Falls, New York in 1908.

If you pull on the monkey's head, you'll find that you can pull him out. And there's something attached to him, a folded note.

Oh, look, it's an advertisement for sheet music. When was the last time you saw an advertisement for sheet music? This advertisement seems to be directed at retailers. It's a creative approach; I wonder if it worked.

Just so you know what it sounded like, here's a 1909 recording of Harry Macdonough singing Sweetheart Days.


And here's the back of the card, showing the matching design around the stamp box that Livermore & Knight were known for.

This is a Sepia Saturday post. To participate or see what others have posted, click on the picture below.

Your Next Vacation

Once again I am offering my assistance in planning your next vacation. I have selected some lovely motels for you as a starting point. The Motel Troy in Troy, Alabama is nice and it has some cute fake deer out front.

If you'd like to explore the Land of Lincoln, I suggest the Southern View Motel in Springfield, Illinois. I'm not sure what you'll see in that southern view, but there's plenty of parking.

As you head up north from Illinois, you may want to stay at Krueger's Motel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The motel manager, Freddy Krueger, seems very outgoing and energetic.

As you can see by the back of the first card, there are deals to be had. The card wasn't even mailed. I think it was just a note to remind the person what a good deal they got.

Stayed here Wed. nite July 25th 1962. $12 for the 6 of us. Supposed to be a 20 room.

Here are the backs of the other two cards:

Augusta, Georgia

This is how Augusta, Georgia looked in the 1920s.

And here's an aerial view from around the same time. If you look closely, you can see the memorial in the middle of Broad Street.

If you were visiting Augusta back then, you might have stayed at the elegant Bon Air Hotel. The hotel was built in 1899 and burned down in 1921. This card shows the rebuilt structure of 1924. The hotel attracted northerners looking for some sunshine and warmth in the winter months. It was an elegant getaway, attracting famous people such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Winston Churchill.  It was also the place you would go if you were attending the Masters' Golf Tournament, at least in the early days. In 1970, the Bon Air Hotel sued Time Magazine for reporting that the hotel had declined into dishevelment.

Over the years it lost its appeal and became a retirement community. Now it serves as government subsidized apartments for seniors and people with disabilities. 

In 2011, the Augusta Chronicle reported that a young man was shot there in what was believed to be a drug turf dispute. The arrested man also lived in the facility with his mother.

For more old postcard views of Augusta, be sure to look at Picturing Augusta, which features historic postcards from the collection of the East Central Georgia Library.

Cupid Gets A Driver's License

Be careful, he's definitely a distracted driver. I wonder what he wore to his driver's test.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Oh, look, there's a message to Iris Green of Wayland, New York on this one:

Dear Iris,

will now write you a few lines to day are all sick with the grip hope you are all well it is bitter cold here today anser soon  ____

Ethnic Humor Valentines

I think these cards by the Gibson Art Co. are all well-intentioned, though I'm not sure all the Dutch humor cards were.  In some cases the humor was fueled by anti-German sentiments (during World War I) and in other cases immigrants who had been in the country longer resented more recent immigrants and their customs and fashions (wooden shoes.)  When that was the case the humor seems to be aimed at revealing the primitive intelligence and customs of the Dutch or other ethnic group. These cards, on the other hand, seem to focus on the charm of the foreign culture, even though they make fun of the language differences.

Though it may look like it, the cards are not water damaged. The red and green colors that you see are actually part of the paper.

The cards are all blank on the back and look like this.

Books and Pain Killers

It turns out that books were used with some frequency as a marketing tool on trade cards in the 1880s to promote all things unrelated, including pain killers. Books featured in an advertisement of medicine may have suggested that the product was backed up by learning and research, giving it an aura of legitimacy.

This card features Louise Paullin, an actress (who died in 1910), holding a book and promoting Burdock Blood Bitters as a treatment for demon dyspepsia.

Only part of the druggist stamp is visible at the bottom of the card though, so I'm not sure where to go to buy these Burdock Blood Bitters.

Now, on to the pain killers. Here we have the learned professor instructing young pupils in the use of pain killers.

In this case, the top of the card has been cropped, so I'm not sure what the brand is,  which means I can't go out and buy it.

The message on this one below is pretty clear though. It's fairly evident that this painkiller stuns birds and makes young boys drop their inkwells from trees. It will also make my hands soft and cure a felon quicker than anything else known. Dalley's Magic Pain Extractor: this one's for me! And it only costs 25 cents.

And finally, there's this smart child with her books and spectacles, who doesn't appear to be selling anything. It may have been a sample waiting for the appropriate imprint.

Don't forget to head on over to Sepia Saturday for some more book learning this week. Click on the photo to read all about it.

Valentines from the 1860s

Here are some very ornate homemade valentines. One has a date of 1869 on the back and another has a date of 1864. I assume the others are from around the same time.

The flap on the next one opens up to show a message that reads Devoted to Thee.

This one also has a little message inside.

And this one has a tiny little rhyme on the front. I'm trying to imagine what the shops that carried all of these decorative paper supplies must have looked like.

 

And finally, here's the one that says Valentine's Day 1864 on the back. The valentine may not look like much, but it's interesting to imagine that during the time this valentine was created, the Civil War was raging and Abraham Lincoln would soon be re-elected as President.

A couple of these valentines also seem to have a paper size stamped on the back. It does not correspond to the measurement in inches though. Is anyone familiar with these stamps?

Metropolitan and Not-so-Metropolitan Operas

The Metropolitan Opera was not the first opera house in New York. There was a smaller, more exclusive one, the Academy of Music, but it catered exclusively to the old-money families and excluded the new rich, such as the Vanderbilts, the Roosevelts, and the Morgans. There were two-short-lived opera houses before the Academy of Music too, the Italian Opera House and the Astor House. When the Metropolitan Opera House opened at 1411 Broadway in 1883, it quickly became the opera house, and the new rich were able to see and be seen.  Here is the Met in a pre-1907 view:

It nearly burned down in 1892, but was rebuilt and reopened in 1893. The Met remained at its original location until the opera company moved to Lincoln Center in 1966. The building was demolished in 1967. I have never been to the Met, but I have been to a few of the live in HD performances at a local movie theater.  I'm sure it doesn't compare to being there in person, but I recommend it anyway.

So, while New York City was building itself an opera house in 1883, what was happening up in the  Amazon rainforest? It turns out that they were finalizing plans to build an opera house there too. While they started construction at about the same time, the process in Manaus, Brazil was a lot slower. Building materials, including marble for the stairs, columns and statues, were imported from Europe. The first performance, Ponchielli's La Giaconde, took place in 1897. No expense was spared though, resulting in a lavish building with electric lights, all funded by riches from the rubber industry. My friend Karin visited the place and sent me this picture of the Teatro Amazones.

Karin also mentions that: The pavement in the plaza in front of the Teatro is by Roberto Burle Marx, a famous landscape architect.  It represents the ‘meeting of the waters’ where the black Rio Negro and the latte-colored Rio Solimoes meet, just outside of Manaus.

Here is a gallery of photos from the Teatro Amazones.

And here's the back of the first card.