Sailing Ship Stamps

This is a Russian postcard picturing ship stamps by www.markstempel.ru. The English title is "Under Sails."  The majority of the stamps are from the Soviet Union. I also see ones from Poland, Cuba, and Kampuchea.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Sand Artist At Work

This postcard shows a "Sand Artist at Work" in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The artist and date are unnamed, but it was not difficult to find more information about this artist and his sculpture. I discovered that both were well known. The date is less certain.

The artist's name was James Taylor. He is named and shown with a similar statue in the below article from The Strand Magazine, Volume 33, 1907. This certainly suggests a date of 1907. Thanks to Google, I discovered that this article is actually a copy of the beginning of a longer article that appeared in The Strand Magazine, Volume 18, 1899. Furthermore, sand sculptures like this were less ephemeral than the article implies.

The following is an excerpt from the 1899 article:

The variety of subjects which have sprung from the worker's fertile brain is astonishing. Hardly a thing happens in the world such as the blowing up of the Maine or the death of a noted man but what some reproduction of it may be made with sand. The photographs in this article show how varied Mr Taylor's talents are and how quick he is to seize upon the subject of momentary note for the interest of his countless onlookers. His last subject recently done expressly for this Magazine as shown by the illustration below touches we think the highest he has yet reached in sand art. The beautiful figure on the sand with its flowing drapery is really amazing in the naturalness of its lines. When we consider the haste with which it must have keen made and the material of which it is composed it is certainly a cause of admiration.

The sculpture mentioned in the 1899 article was a recumbent woman in a somewhat different pose without the child. Although Taylor made many different sculptures, including contemporary subjects, the reclining woman with child must have been a favorite. An essay, Selling Sand & Sea, mentions that a sculpture of the reclining woman and child was reported in a January 1900 article and appeared on a 1900 postcard by the Detroit Photographic Company.  An article, Castles in the Sand, in the Ocean Beach (California) Bulletin describes Taylor and his tour of California in 1908 and 1909 when he made a similar sculpture on Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California.:

“Cast Up By the Waves,” sometimes called “Cast Up By the Sea,” was a recurring piece for Taylor, who was born in 1860 and plied his trade as sand artist in the first decade of the 20th century. He did versions of “Cast Up” and similar creations in Long Beach, Asbury Park, N.J, and Atlantic City. Though the friezes of famous people rotated, they usually included Civil War generals. . . His signature reclined woman (often depicted clutching a child to her breast) usually acted as a centerpiece to his projects. The woman alone, her dress full of detailed folds and fabric-mimicking undulations, took Taylor about two hours to create. Taylor’s only tools were his hands – and a stick to finish off delicate details.

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Homes of Movie Stars in California

This postcard folder, Homes of the Movie Stars in California, is from 1929. The actors and actresses whose homes are shown were stars of the silent movie era which was just ending.

 

The folder was sent with an interesting message written by Ella on the blank area inside the cover. The message was handwritten and dated April 9, 1929. 

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Post Office & Restaurant - Chandler, Minnesota

Above is a real photo postcard sent from Chandler, Minnesota in 1909. The postcard is rather faded looking, but through a bit of Photoshopping, I was able to get a much better view (below) of the details.

click this photo to enlarge it more and see more details

Chandler is a small town in the southwestern corner of Minnesota, with a 2010 population of about 270. According to the City of Chandler website, Chandler grew rapidly in the first decade of the 20th century and there were 30 businesses in 1906.

J. M. Johnson, whose name appears on the left window, was the postmaster at the time of this photo. He is the man in in the front. The two men with the mail bags are his mail carriers and their carts. (source: email from Murray County Museum)

Below J. M. Johnson's name are advertisements for Northwest Thresher Engines and Separators, and Aermotor Windmill Pumps.

A blanket with flour advertising is on one of the mules in the center of the photo. Minnesota was the top flour producing state in the country, with 400 flour and grist mills in 1901. I believe the name on the blanket is Ethan Allen Flour, a product of Wells Flour Milling Co., Wells, Minnesota. An ad for this flour is shown in Northwestern Miller, and the Minnesota Historical Society has an excellent photo of Ethan Allen Flour advertising on a horse here.

The signs on the right window advertise Meals at all Hours, Hot coffee, Lunch, and Fresh Bread. A small Telephone Station sign is attached to the right side of the building.

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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Here are two maximum cards featuring the Gettysburg Address stamp that was issued on November 19, 1948. The issue date was exactly 85 years from the date Abraham Lincoln made his most famous speech at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The first card shows the Lincoln Speech Memorial at Gettysburg. The second postcards has the text* of the speech.

November 19, 1863 was four and a half months after Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. November 19, 2013 is the sesquicentennial (150 years) anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

Beginning with the now-iconic phrase "Four score and seven years ago," referring to the Declaration of Independence, written at the start of the American Revolution in 1776, Lincoln examined the founding principles of the United States in the context of the Civil War, and memorialized the sacrifices of those who gave their lives at Gettysburg and extolled virtues for the listeners (and the nation) to ensure the survival of America's representative democracy, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." (source: Wikipedia)

* There are five known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address that are each named for the associated person who received it from Lincoln. The versions differ in their wording, punctuation, and structure. The Bliss copy, named for Colonel Alexander Bliss, has become the standard version of the text and the source for most facsimile reproductions of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. 

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Minnesota Centennial Showboat History

 

The original Minnesota Centennial Showboat, shown on these postcards, was operated by the University Theater on the Mississippi River during the summer. It was based on the river adjacent to the University's Minneapolis campus. Cast members were students at the University of Minnesota.

The showboat postcards often had performance schedules printed on the back. This is one with the 1962 schedule. That year, there were two plays, Rip Van Winkle and Merry Wives of Windsor. Performances were mainly in Minneapolis, but also included some in St. Paul. In other years, performances also took place at other river towns such as Red Wing, Winona, and Stillwater.

The postcard below shows an interior scene with the 1961 Bloomer Girl production.

The Minnesota Centennial Showboat was originally a 175-foot (53 m)-long paddlewheeler, the General John Newton, commissioned in 1899. In 1958, the Minnesota State Centennial year,  the boat was purchased by the University of Minnesota for $1 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was renamed and transformed into the Minnesota Centennial Showboat. The Showboat closed for major repairs in 1993. In 2000, it was destroyed by a fire caused by an errant welding spark.

In 2001 construction of a new showboat began. In  2002 the new Minnesota Centennial Showboat arrived at its new docking site at Harriet Island across from downtown St. Paul in April. It opened with a play on July 4.

This video is the Minnesota Centennial Showboat 50th Anniversary Documentary.

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World Post Day

 

World Post Day is October 9, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874. It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress in 1969. The purpose of World Post Day is to create awareness of the role of the postal sector in people’s and businesses’ everyday lives and its contribution to the social and economic development of countries.

I celebrated by sending out some Postcrossing cards (I think that was only the second time I have sent any Postcrossing cards this year) and modifying one of my vintage postcards to make a World Post Day card. The modified postcard is shown above and the original is shown below.