30 October 2026
The People of 1926 - A Year Through the Lives of Those We Never Knew
Introduction
A hundred years ago, the world was just as much of a mess as it is today. Yet, people still (like today) found the time
to sing, dance – and live the fullest of lives. That included, of course, posing for
photographs. In this snapshot of time (a
follow-up to last year's The People of 1925), let’s take a look at the
faces, fashions, and fragments of ordinary lives from 1926.
We’ll begin with one man and his dog, as it were – and set the tone for the post. This is CD (Charles Douglas) Barnard and his canine co-pilot, whose name has unfortunately been lost to history. After the First World War, Barnard became involved in civil aviation, air racing and record-breaking flights. This picture was to publicise the new London Aviation Club, which had been set up the previous year to try and make flying lessons accessible to ordinary people, rather than leaving it to wealthy private owners and the military.
In the photo, Barnard is fitting the dog with goggles,
presumably to protect its eyes from wind and airborne debris. Whether or not they proceeded to take off and
fly around London is not recorded, but I would suspect it was not the case…
A quick note before we continue
As last year, I used Flickr’s The Commons and Wikimedia
Commons for this project. Many
photos from this era are not marked with exact dates or even years and so
unless they were associated with a specific event, then the curators had to be
vague (between 1920 and 1930 and so on), so that excluded many fantastic
pictures.
When I have included people who were well known or even
celebrated in 1926, it is in more informal settings wherever possible. The
decision to select only photographs with verifiable dates was a good one – I
hope you agree that I have managed to source some wonderful pictures that are
verifiably and indubitably from 1926!
Photography in 1926 was affordable enough for many ordinary
families to participate but still a small luxury, especially when compared to
how easy and cheap digital photos are today. Each shot counted, and people
often took photos to capture special moments rather than daily life. So, many of these photos will seem arranged,
organized and posed for a good reason: they were!
I hope you enjoy this gallery of (some of) the humans of 1926.
JANUARY
Clement Whirlwind Soldier, a full blooded Sioux Indian from
the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, who as sworn in as a member of the
Washington police force. He is the first Indian ever to serve on that body. The picture here is taken with William Henry
McMaster, who served as a U.S. senator for South Dakota from 1925 to 1931. We don’t know how long Clement served with
the police, but considering that the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, which gave
citizenship to all indigenous people born within the US, was just a few years
old, this is a remarkable achievement for Whirlwind Solider. The pros and cons of the act are still
debated to this day.
He was born in Nebraska, the son of Whirlwind Soldier (aka “Hugh”) and Julia, but he was also the grandson of the famous Chief Spotted Tail, who was a highly influential Brulé Lakota leader. Although he was only 61 when he died in 1933, Clement Whirlwind Soldier he had been, throughout his adult life, a prominent representative for the Rosebud Lakota community and helped his people to navigate the difficult transition period of reservation life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The name Whirlwind Soldier is still in use by members of his (extended) family to this day.
January was not a good month for inveterate criminal William
Earl Miller – the law finally caught up with him and sent him to prison for a
number of crimes, including burglary, larceny and arson. Don’t be deceived by those good looks either
– the prosecutor (FW Jenny) of the case stated that Miller was “as rough a
character as he had ever come across”.
He held down a job in Missouri, working for Citizens Cleaners in
Union, and it was there that he perpetrated the robbery that finally caught
him.
Apparently, Miller’s car (which he had stolen in the nearby
city of Hannibal) had run out of oil and, in anger, he had set fire to it. He had then gone on to steal another car from
close by his workplace. Where he was so
desperately trying to get was not recorded.
Perhaps it was to his wife of seven months – a certain Miss
Sterling? Their matrimonial festivities
had been recorded in some detail by the Sedalia Democrat newspaper,
suggesting that Miss Sterling’s family may have been prominent in the
area. What chagrin the extended family
may have felt at Miller’s incarceration is also not recorded, or whether the
marriage weathered this particular storm.
Regardless, the two motor vehicle incidents alerted the
police and once he had been apprehended, it was discovered that he was wanted
in Hannibal on eight counts). It was
also discovered that he had stolen property while in Union and, to make matters worse, had forged a
check for a traffic violation. Miller
was sentenced to 25 years, but was out after close to 14 years, in November
1939.
By the time of his release, Miller’s neat, side-parted style
with the hair swept back and close to the head was well and truly out of
fashion. It was associated with the period's patent-leather look because
of its smooth, glossy finish. This was a fashionable look for men in the 1920s.
Talking of fashion, the Charleston dance was still all the
rage in 1926 – more of that to come in February. However, on January 10, the Seattle Times
reported, "So thoroughly has the snappy Charleston captured the fancy of
Seattle that even its horses have taken it up." In this photo, Dorothea
Richmond teaches the dance to George, an artillery horse from Fort Lawton.
Fort Lawton had only recently acquired its horse-drawn
artillery unit. In 1925, new stables were built there, making George’s
appearance in the newspaper a little piece of military history as well as a
jazz-age novelty. Of course, Miss
Richmond had an ulterior motive – she had been a dancer at The Folies in
New York and had come to Seattle to teach
the locals The Charleston. She
advertised in The Seattle Times: “WANTED – To learn the Charleston
right, fifty pupils, male and female at the Cinderella every afternoon and
evening this week. Dorothea Richmond, in
person, instructor.
So poor old George was something of a dupe, made to dance to
enrich an itinerant showgirl! It doesn’t look like he minded too much…
FEBRUARY
Vivian Marinelli taught dance in Washington DC and in February 1926 she seized
the opportunity to deliver Charleston lessons to an entire basketball
team. The Palace Club wanted some
publicity with broad appeal, so what better than pairing up the sport with the
biggest dance craze of the decade? As
the picture shows, everyone entered the spirit of the thing with some gusto.
The target audience were likely in no doubt that suggesting
the Charleston as a basketball training method wasn’t completely serious, but
there is no doubting its aerobic efficacy.
After all, the dance involved quick footwork, high kicks and plenty of
energetic movement, as well as rapid changes of direction, balance,
coordination and precise timing. So,
it’s not completely outside the realms of possibility that the same qualities
useful in the execution of a fine Charleston could be transferred to
basketball, where dribbling, quick defensive actions and high-speed movement
around the court were important.
The Washington Palace Club players of 1926 picture here are Cowboy
Jones, Jerry Conway, Bob Grody, Russell Saunders, Teddy Kearns, George Glasco
(spelled "Glascoe" in the original caption), and manager Ray Kennedy.
Notable among them is Ray Kennedy. He was both the team manager and a player –
effectively the team’s on-court leader.
Kennedy was also the Palace Five’s leading scorer of the 25-26 season
with 216 points. This was before the era
of established coaches, front offices and fixed roles, so it was quite common
for respected veterans of the game to serve as both player and manager.
As for the Charleston – its popularity was peaking. It had already been around as a “craze” for
over a year, but had originated in South Carolina among the Gulla community of
African Americans as early as 1920.
Although it would remain immensely popular for at least another year, it
was beginning its transformation from a crazy novelty to a more refined
ballroom dance. One set of kids doesn’t
really want to use the same steps as the previous set, after all - and although this was its heyday, the
writing was already on the wall. By 1928, it would be superseded in terms of
popularity by new dances such as the Black Bottom and the Lindy Hop.
February is one of Miami's most pleasant months, with mild
temperatures and relatively low humidity.
So, the four young women photographed on the rooftop of the Southern
Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company building were probably happy that they
lived there rather than some place like New York. This picture was taken on February 6, at the
height of the Florida Land Boom (a speculative property frenzy transformed the
state) and these young ladies would have been busy.
It is unlikely that they were all Miami natives – the city’s
population had exploded from around 30,000 in 1920 to well over 100,000 by 1926. This put enormous pressure on utilities,
including Southern Bell's telephone exchanges. The company was constantly
hiring and expanding its facilities – and expansion meant new jobs for new
workers. By 1926 it was struggling to keep pace with Miami's extraordinary
expansion, as thousands of new residents and businesses demanded telephone
service.
The operators worked the telephone switchboards, and were
mostly young women aged between 18 and 30. They were chosen for a number of qualities - clear voices, good
hearing, quick reactions, patience, polite manner, and neat appearance
(although why that counted for a telephone operator, who can say?).
Their job was to manually connect telephone calls by
operating large switchboards. They answered callers, often saying “Number,
please,” and then connected the calls by inserting cords into the correct
sockets. It sounds simple, but it took
some training and then experience to get up to speed. They also managed
long-distance calls, emergency requests, directory enquiries, wake-up calls,
and reports of telephone faults – it was quite a desirable job for young women. There was a slight downside, however. American
employers commonly used marriage bars in the 1920s. This meant that female
employees were dismissed or expected to resign after they married, so that they
could look after the home and bring up any kids that came along.
So, our four were singletons and their clothing certainly represents
the modern working woman of the Jazz Age: shorter skirts, bobbed hair,
comfortable (almost tubular) silhouettes, and fashionable but practical dresses
were the order of the day. The look is less the glamorous evening “flapper”
image often associated with the 1920s and more the everyday professional style
of young women who had to work for a
living but still wanted to look good.
Let’s hope that they all kept their jobs (or met a nice
young man) because dark clouds were on the horizon (not just metaphorically). The Florida Land Boom would come to a
spectacular end just a few months later, when a devastating hurricane struck the
southern part of the state in September 1926. The storm tore through Miami,
causing widespread destruction and killing hundreds of people across the
region. After years of overbuilding,
rising property prices, and growing financial strain, the hurricane helped
bring the Florida Land Boom to an abrupt halt.
Some historians suggest that Florida entered the Great
Depression early, thanks to the end of the land boom. For our young workers at
Southern Bell, the optimism of the boom years gave way to a much more uncertain
reality. Yet they had their moment in the balmy February sunshine - the image
of these four young women is a snapshot of a moment when Miami represented
opportunity, modernity, and the promise of a rapidly changing future for their
generation.
Ever heard of The Chicago Pirates? The men above are the engineering staff of WJAZ in Chicago, Illinois. They were (not so gently) taking a swipe at the US Government, which had recently branded their station a “pirate”. The station had been assigned a specific wave length, but the station continued to broadcast on a frequency of its own choosing. Following another of many great American traditions, litigation ensued. As part of their protest, the engineers broadcast an operetta on February 5, which is recorded as being called The Pirate. As I can’t find an operetta of that name, I will have to assume it was probably Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance or – perhaps – Il Pirato by Bellini. Either way, the message (or perhaps challenge is a better word) had been delivered. The picture is part of the station’s publicity campaign – and has possibly one of the worst plays on words in human history as a caption.
Embarrassingly for the government, the judge of the case,
James H Wilkerson, ruled in favour of WJAZ.
Apparently, the Secretary of Commerce did not have sufficient authority
under the Radio Act of 1912 to impose the specific frequency and operating
restrictions of WJAZ. The pirates, of
course, rejoiced. However, the result
was… chaos.
As the Commerce Department was (temporarily) unable to
exercise any kind of centralized control over broadcasting, stations began
popping up all over the place. They also
broadcasted on whatever frequency they wanted.
The act of piracy created a new, if metaphorical, wild west.
Congress responded quickly, with the Radio Act of 1927. This restored federal authority and created
the new Federal Radio Commission to allocate frequences and regulate
stations. The pirates now had to accept
the new frequencies assignment to them, or close. WJAZ continued to broadcast for several years
on its newly allotted frequency, but lost its place on the air in 1931. Its license was deleted and the pirates were
finally defeated and quietly disappeared from the dial, sailing for the last
time into radio silence.
MARCH
When this picture was taken in 1926, the Saint Paul’s
Lutheran school in New Orleans, Louisiana, has been open for quite some
time. It had been established in 1879 by
John F Doescher, just at the end of the Reconstruction era. He was a missionary and if you look at the
names in the photograph, the white male at the front - E. H. Wildgrube – is
also classified as a missionary. The
word “missionary” perhaps needs some unpacking.
The word was used in general for anyone – a pastor, teacher
or church worker – sent by a Lutheran denomination to maintain Christian
institutions which existed outside its existing network of congregations. So, it isn’t quite as patronising as it
sounds.
William Seeberry, for example (front, left), was the son of Napoleon
Seeberry, who had graduated from Luther College in the city in 1904 and had
become a teacher at St Paul’s in the same year.
William followed in his father’s footsteps and by his posture in the
photograph looks very used to being in authority. He quite likely came through the school
himself and then onto the college – and his father’s expectation would have
been that his son formed the institution’s future. So, there was very much a pipeline for Black
children to become trained Black educators in New Orleans at this moment in
time.
I can’t find anything about the two other teachers pictured,
the initialised first names in S. Raymond and A. Berger didn’t give me enough
clues.
By 1926, Panama Al Brown (above, right) was a
renowned boxer, and he is pictured here with his trainer in Paris, the city he
made his home. Hailing from Panama (his
parents were American but had emigrated there), Brown had first been introduced
to boxing after seeing American sailors boxing in his home town. He went to New York in 1923, quickly
establishing himself as the third best flyweight in the world and two years
later, the sixth best bantamweight.
Emigrating to France, he became a hugely popular boxer
there. You may well ask why he chose to
go and live a continent away, but boxing was a hugely popular and highly
lucrative sport in the Europe of the 1920s and all roads led to Paris. He became the world's first Latin
American world champion there in 1929.
There was another reason for a move to France. Brown was gay and homosexuality had been
legal there since 1971 (although there was still a deal of both state and
social discrimination). The fact that Brown was also Black was another
reason for his move – France and the French – which offered a significantly
more relaxed life for people of color than the US at the time.
Brown fell in love with Paris, and with French writer Jean Cocteau, with whom he had a long-term relationship (allegedly). He enjoyed the nightlife of the city and was noted for the elegance of his clothing as much as his boxing prowess. alongside his emerging boxing career in France, Al Brown also ventured into Parisian entertainment, performing as a tap-dancer with Josephine Baker’s company and later appearing as a song-and-dance performer at the Caprice Viennoise.
Yet sadly, the fun
was not to last. The advent of the
Second World War meant that Brown had to
move back to the US – leaving most of his money there. He settled in Harlem and tried unsuccessfully
to find work in cabaret. He could not
find any, so had to go back to boxing,
despite being a little old for that particular sport. He fought professionally a few times, but
mostly found employment as a sparring partner, making a dollar a round, taking
a lot of beatings in the process.
Panama Al Brown fainted on 42nd Street in April 1951. The police at first thought he was drunk, and took him down to the station. It was there discovered he was in the advanced stages of tuberculosis and was transferred to hospital where he died on April 11. He was only 48, and perhaps felt abandoned by those who had acclaimed him – once upon a time. He died not realising that a Paris newspaper had begun talks about organising a fund drive for him, with the objective being to return him for good to his Paris home.
APRIL
The photo above doesn’t quite do Hadji Ali justice. Although
he never gained wide fame, Hadji was famous for swallowing things and then
bringing them back up, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea as a must watch
act but made him a good living. The
“act” in question is known as controlled regurgitation (and popularly
known as water spouting in 1926). It was
the mainstay of his Vaudeville act. First,
he would drink up to 100 glasses of water and then – to the audience’s
astonishment – bring it all back up in a continuous stream that lasted up to 60
seconds.
Hadji did not restrict himself to water, and did tricks with
nuts, cigarettes and handkerchiefs – all of which involved swallowing and
regurgitating these items. His most
infamous variation was swallowing water but finishing it off with a pint of
kerosene. As kerosene is lighter than
water (and doesn’t mix with it), he could swallow and then spray it over a
model house (with a flame already inside) which would then be set ablaze by the
regurgitated combustible. To top it all,
Hadji then would extinguish the fire with the remaining water from his stomach (from
up to six feet away). I’m not sure how
much I would pay to see this, but he was apparently Judy Garland’s favorite
Vaudeville act at one point.
Although a naturalized US citizen, he started life in Egypt
and made his way to the US after having toured his act throughout Europe. Returning to tour the continent in 1937, he
contracted bronchitis in England and died of heart failure. His daughter and
show assistant Almina (I suspect that’s her in the picture) offered her
father’s body to John Hopkins University for surgeons to investigate his
special abilities, but the offer was declined.
He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York with the mystery
of his unusual talents unsolved by medical science.
Two volunteers from The Wild Flower Preservation Society
post up notices to deter people visiting nature sites from taking home
souvenirs. The society was one of America's earliest organized conservation
movements. By 1926, it had only recently been reorganized, but it was already
campaigning nationwide to stop the destruction of native wildflowers. It was
led by Percy L Ricker (1871–1963) – who I believe to be the gentleman on the
left of the photo (this is the
only other picture of him I could find).
He was a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture botanist and lent his
considerable knowledge to the movement.
The sign the gentleman on the right is nailing to a tree
says “Thoughtless people are destroying our native Wild Flowers by pulling them
up by the roots or by picking too many of them. Woods will replace them only if
there are enough plants left to go to seed. Will you help to save them?”.
Was this such a problem in the 1920s? The simple answer is yes. By 1926, automobiles were allowing far more
people to reach the countryside than ever before. Picnics and longer vacations
into the countryside had become common. One consequence was that wildflowers
were being dug up or picked in enormous quantities for bouquets and gardens. Visitors
probably just assumed that nature would replenish. Yet roadsides, parks and forests were
suffering noticeable losses, sometimes being stripped of flowers completely for
commercial use (they would be taken back to town and sold as bouquets).
These signs were erected in parks, forests and scenic beauty
spots during the 1920s and 1930s as a gentle reminder to visitors not to pick
flowers. This is probably in the
Washington DC area as the photographic company is Harris & Ewing, who were
based there. Notice there is no threat of legal action or absolute prohibition
– it’s a simple and courteous request. They are among the earliest examples of
conservation signage in the United States.
To us, it seems obvious that native plants should be
protected, but in the 1920s this was a relatively novel idea. That made Mr Ricker something of a pioneer in
the field of conservation and it’s good to see that he made it to his 90s. His
campaigns to persuade ordinary people to leave wildflowers where they grow
foreshadowed the "Leave No Trace" ethic that is now standard in parks
and nature reserves – and everything has start somewhere.
The picture above shows the aftermath of the annual Easter
Eggs Roll, which took place each year on the White House South Lawn. In 1926 it took place on Easter Monday –
April 5, Children rolled hard-boiled
eggs across the grass and took part in various other activities. This was hardly a new thing. Although Calvin Coolidge was president in
1926, the tradition had started (somewhat more sedately) under President
Rutherford B Hayes in 1878.
The White House Egg Roll began because of a ban! Children
had been prohibited from rolling eggs on the grounds of the US Capital, so off
to the White House they went instead.
Accounts vary as to when President Rutherford gave the children to run
amok on the grounds of the White House, but it’s still a nice response to a
piece of mean-spirited legislation. Sometimes,
a ban just sends people somewhere more interesting!
The Egg Roll has been cancelled on a number of occasions,
notably during the First and Second World Wars (it took till 1953 for President
Eisenhower to bring it back after WW2).
It was also cancelled during the Covid pandemic, but is now going strong
once more. The 2026 White House Easter
Egg Roll was the 148th – but today entry must be applied for online
through a lottery process.
Looking at the mayhem of 1926, perhaps that’s not such a bad
idea...
MAY
A group of young, well-dressed women, photographed on their way to work. How do we know this? Look down, at their feet. Yes, they are all wearing roller-skates. Roller-skating was already fashionable, particularly among the younger population. However, these women had another reason to put on their skates – there was no public transport in the UK between 3-12 May 1926. 1.7 million workers were on strike – and that included bus drivers.
To cut a long story short, coal miners were facing wage cuts
and longer working hours after mine owners announced new employment terms. They went on strike and the Trades Union
Congress (TUC) called a national “General Strike” in support of the
miners. Railway and transport workers,
printers, iron, steel, engineering and shipbuilding workers all responded to
the call. Even electricity and gas
workers went out on strike, too (although essential services were maintained).
The government had prepared for this kind of event. The
police, army and a host of volunteers (mostly university students, and
middle-class professionals) stood in for the striking workers – with some
success. As such, Britain did not experience anything approaching civil war or
a nationwide breakdown of public order.
However, the transport disruption of the strike gave people
a practical reason to skate on the streets, turning an existing pastime into an
ingenious means of commuting. The young
women in the picture were not alone – roller-skaters were frequently spotted on
the streets during the General Strike, which was abandoned on the 12th
May. The miners did not fare well. They
continued to strike until November, at which point they too returned to work
but with very limited improvement in their working conditions, plus the longer
hours and lower wages that the mine owners had originally envisioned. The TUC became much more cautious about
calling national strikes – and were soon “stitched up” by the government. An
Act of Parliament in the following year banned sympathetic (or secondary)
strikes altogether.
The Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, held an
annual Tree Day celebration in early May.
Taken by local photographer Frank R Snyder, here we can see the women
entering the spirit of things with some gusto. Central to the day’s activities
was the (obligatory) dance around the Maypole – and Snyder took the opportunity
to take a shot from atop of one of the college buildings, capturing the spirit
of the event beautifully. The photograph
is particularly striking because of the white-themed costumes and carefully
staged outdoor performance, making it look almost theatrical or even slightly
surreal to modern eyes.
My guess is that this photograph captures the opening of the
ceremony. The Maypole has been erected as the centrepiece, but the ribbons have
not yet been taken up. The dancers are processing into position or performing
an introductory dance before the ribbon-weaving began. Of course, the real highlight of the day –
and why it was called Tree Day – would be the ceremonial planting of the
senior class tree - a ceremony that, starting in 1890, remained one of the
college's best-loved annual events for more than sixty years.
Tree Day offers a fascinating glimpse into women's higher
education in the early twentieth century. Rather than concentrating solely on
academic ceremonies, the event celebrated community, creativity and the natural
world – perhaps something that we could learn from today?
Now known as the Western Campus of Miami University, the
visitor can still find many of the trees planted on various Tree Days. They
stand as majestic, living monuments to the college’s history, and are
recognizable by a low-profile limestone and granite class stone embedded in the
turf at their roots. Carved simply with graduating years like "1891"
or "1905," these flat markers anchor the towering oaks, elms, and
maples to the exact cohorts of women who planted them.
The boys were not to be left out. This picture is from May 22 and shows how the
University of Washington's junior class transformed the Montlake Cut into a
stage for one of the most anticipated events of the academic year. Junior
Day was a celebration of student life, bringing together sport, spectacle,
and a healthy dose of university rivalry. Thousands of spectators gathered
along the waterway, taking their places on bleachers beside the Montlake Bridge
to watch a day of unusual aquatic entertainment.
The programme was far more than a simple sports competition.
Canoe battles, colourful float parades, and other student-led performances
filled the day, but the high-diving contest was one of the biggest attractions.
In this photograph, a diver has just launched himself from the top of a
towering steel diving platform, suspended above the waters of the Montlake Cut
as crowds watched below. The name of the diver does not survive, unfortunately
– it would have been great to credit this feat.
The event captured the spirit of the 1920s, a decade when
colleges and universities embraced increasingly elaborate traditions and public
displays of school pride. At the University of Washington, Junior Day offered
students a chance to step away from lectures and exams and create their own
entertainment - combining athletic skill with the theatrical flair that defined
much of campus culture during the era.
The setting itself was iconic. The Montlake Cut, completed
just a few years earlier as part of Seattle's Lake Washington Ship Canal
project, had become one of the city's most recognisable waterways. On this
spring day in 1926, it served not just as a passage for boats, but as a giant
outdoor arena where students could dive, compete, and celebrate. Young people still jump into the waterway at
this spot, despite it being a prohibited activity nowadays. Yet they are unlikely to do it with as much
elegance as the diver in the 1926 photograph.
Meanwhile in China… this picture was taken in Beijing on 18
May 1926, when the city was then known in English as Peking. it shows a crowd
gathered around a long communal table at what appears to be an informal street
restaurant. Diners sit shoulder to shoulder, eating with chopsticks, while
others look on from behind. The photo is in the collection of the Dutch
National Archive, so perhaps the presence of a photographer attracted more men
around the table than usual.
Beijing in 1926 was living through a turbulent period in
China's history. Political instability and the struggles of the warlord era
were part of everyday reality. Yet here, in this photograph, history seems to
fade into the background. People are eating. They're talking, sharing food,
watching the photographer, and simply getting on with their lives.
And perhaps that's what makes the image so compelling. Major
events may dominate the history books, but ordinary people still must eat
lunch. They still meet friends, gather around tables and go about their daily
routines. Whatever was happening beyond this restaurant, for these people, this
was simply another meal on another day.
Look closely, too, and you'll notice that several of the men
are wearing long braided pigtails, or queues. By 1926, these were already an
increasingly uncommon sight in the city. The hairstyle had been associated with
Qing rule, which ended with the 1911 Revolution, and many men had cut off their
queues as a symbol of the new Republican era. Yet here they remain, worn by
some of the men around this humble restaurant table - a small but striking
reminder that history doesn't change overnight. Even as Beijing moved into a
new political age, the old world was still visible in everyday life, sitting
alongside the new.
In May, athletes from around Europe arrived in Paris for the
Sports Gymnastics Championship at the Buffalo Stadium outside of the city. Here, a group of Parisian firefighters show
off their gymnastic abilities in a coordinated group display.
The Paris Fire Brigade was not an ordinary civilian fire
service. It had been established as a military organisation by Napoleon in 1811
and became the Paris Fire Regiment in 1866. Its members were trained as
soldiers as well as firefighters.
Seven years earlier, the Paris Fire Regiment established a
specialist gymnastics team known as La Spéciale. Its purpose was twofold. First, to demonstrate the physical abilities
and skills of Paris firefighters. Of
course, their second aim was to promote the Fire Regiment and encourage new
recruits to join. The original team consisted of nine instructors. They
performed demonstrations throughout France and abroad.
Here's the Montrouge team doing what the Montrouge team did...
JUNE
Meanwhile in New York (and the rest of the US, for that
matter), calorie counting was all the rage and had been since the 1910s,
reaching something of a frenzy by 1926. The
media did its very best to promote health and fitness – but not necessarily in
the right way. The women pictured above
were doing calisthenic exercises as part a weight-reduction course. The
photograph certainly reflects the growing popularity of organised physical
culture and women's exercise programmes in the United States during the 1920s but
often the exercises were marred by one thing - what constituted suitable
exercise was still highly influenced by contemporary expectations about
femininity.
In 1926, most women basically starved themselves to lose
weight. In 1926, The Delineator, a women's magazine that was “a
journal of fashion, culture, and fine arts,” had more than twenty thousand letters about dieting
from concerned readers. A 1924 letter to
The Smith College Weekly warned: “If preventive measures against
strenuous dieting are not taken soon, Smith College will become notorious, not
for the sylph-like forms but for the haggard faces and dull, listless eyes of
her students.”
Many instructors promoted moderate exercise, posture,
coordination and graceful movement. More strenuous sports were also becoming
popular, although attitudes varied between institutions and communities. Most
women going to weight loss exercise groups, however, found themselves doing “exercises”
which didn’t truly lead to meaningful weight loss (but it may have made them
more graceful). Exercise was not explicitly
marketed for weight reduction until the 1950s – so the women in the picture are
the vanguard of an eventual, much larger movement. Until then, dieting would be the primary
means of achieving and maintaining weight loss, rather than real exercise.
In June 1926, Virginia Beach, Virginia, would have been
entering its busy summer season: a fashionable seaside resort beginning to fill
with holidaymakers escaping the heat of inland Virginia and the cities of the
East Coast. Taken on 17 June, this
picture shows a group of young people enthusiastically performing a collective
dance on the sand, combining the era’s interest in swimming, music and social
gatherings.
Although the 1920s was known for its “get your kit off” joie
de vivre, beach clothing looked very different from today. Men often wore wool
or knitted bathing suits that covered much more of the body than modern
swimwear. Women’s swimsuits were becoming shorter and more practical, but
modesty rules still influenced beachwear. From left to right we have Ray West, Patty
Hunter, Silas Whedbee, Elizabeth Parker, Shelton White, Lois Efird, Peg Landon,
Katharine Hunter, and Jane Parker.
The photograph comes from the Surry Parker Photograph
Collection and captures the growing popularity of the American seaside house
party. For families with the means to do so, places like Virginia Beach offered
a chance to escape the summer heat, socialise with friends, swim, play games
and enjoy the new leisure culture of the Jazz Age. Jane and Elizabeth Parker
were part of this world of organised seaside outings, where a week at the coast
had become a fashionable symbol of modern life and freedom.
I was drawn to one name in particular, not least for its
Dickensian properties… Silas Whedbee, third from left, was a lifelong resident
of Hertford, North Carolina (where he practiced law) and died in 1996 at the
grand old age of 94. He was also the
mayor of Hertford in the late 1930s, as well as being active in the Hertford
Volunteer Fire Department. His
grand-daughter India has kept the profession in the family and practices law in
Raleigh, North Carolina.
I try to include pictures with people I can name, but the
joie de vivre of the boy in this picture was too difficult to resist. He looks most definitely like the cat that
got the cream.
There is something wonderfully infectious about this 1926
portrait: a young boy beaming at the camera while wearing a pair of adult-sized
boxing gloves that seem almost comically oversized on him. Was he dreaming of
becoming a fighter, playing at being a champion, or simply enjoying the novelty
of the moment? We will probably never know, but the sense of fun captured in
the image has lasted for a century.
The photograph was taken by Harris & Ewing, one of the
most important photographic studios in early twentieth-century America. Based
in Washington, D.C., the studio documented an extraordinary range of subjects,
from presidents and politicians to performers, public events and everyday life.
Its vast collection of negatives, now preserved by the Library of Congress,
provides a remarkable visual record of the period. Unfortunately, many of the
plates were not catalogued so whoever this boy was, let’s hope he continued to
have as much fun throughout his life.
JULY
And it does seem that boys just wanna have fun. Here, a group of boys have a larj in the reflecting pool in
front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC – along with a rather large
model sailboat. Although this looks like
a harmless piece of fun, it was in fact a subtle political protest. The boys were splashing about in the
reflective pool to object to the fact that Washington DC had insufficient
custom-made swimming pools for its growing population. The only alternative, it seems, was to take a
dip in the reflective pool.
Now, the reflective pool was supposed to… reflect. It was designed as a feature and not a
recreational space. Regardless, the
people of Washington DC would use it to paddle in, sail their toy boats, and in
the winter, it was regularly used as a skating rink. While these activities are strictly
prohibited today (and people want to avoid algal blooms anyway), police would
turn something of a blind eye in 1926, when the water came from the city’s
drinking water supply. The boys’ pretest
did have a point. The reflecting pool had
been opened just a few years earlier, at some significant expense, and the boys
were pointing out that if they couldn’t have amenities of their own, then they
would use the one available to them.
The boys are all wearing one-piece swimming costumes. While the 1920s let loose in many ways, male swimsuits had a close-fitting knitted top which was attached to shorts – a one piece costume. Wool was most often used and the suits followed the conventions (and often regulations) of the time – the male chest should not be bare. By the 1930s, manufacturers began to introduce suits with removable tops which allowed the wearers to expose their chests. As restrictions on topless male bathing eased during the decade, the sight of full swimsuits became less common. By the 1940s, separate swimming trunks without a top became the standard. The swimming briefs of today would have caused an outrage on any beach – and still caused controversy in many places when they were first worn in the 1960s.
Meanwhile in South America…
Elmer Samuel Riggs was a prominent palaeontologist Chicago’s Field
Museum. He was the first to describe Brachiosaurus
in 1903 but is most remembered for his research on giant fossil mammals. He led the 2nd Captain Marshall Field
Paleontological Expedition to Buenos Ares in Argentina, including the Quequén
River region. Here he is on the left, in the field (together with an unidentified
colleague). They are extracting the
pelvis of a Megatherium (an enormous, extinct ground sloth native to South
America) from its resting place. Riggs’
South American expeditions substantially expanded the museum's collections of
prehistoric mammals.
Fossilised bones can be surprisingly fragile, even when
they’re enormous and look like solid rock. Plaster jackets acted like
protective casts, allowing palaeontologists to remove and transport specimens
without them breaking apart. In this picture, you can see how difficult it must
have been to transport large fossil specimens in their protective plaster
casing.
Elmer eventually became the Curator of Palaeontology at the
field museum, and worked their until his retirement in 1942. However, he was still active in the field and
was sought after as a lecturer, giving speaking tours for many years after his
retirement. He died in 1963 at the ripe
old age of 94.
Ever heard of a pony ballet?
Starting in the 1890s, precision-dance troupes of young ladies as
scantily dressed as the times would allow, were often dressed as ponies with
drivers – or featured horsy choreography.
Make of that what you will, but by 1926 this particular art form had
evolved, and although the name was retained, the synchronized high kickers were
a staple part of any Vaudeville show. The act evolved from John Tiller’s
precision-dance troupes and related acts like the Tiller Girls.
The dancers pictured are (from left to right) Mabel
Broadfoot; Evelyn Smith; Eve Fonneli; Vivian Neale; Toby Borman; Hilary Salmon;
Billie Lough; Mabel Cormack; Evelyn Price. Together they formed the Wintergarten
Pony Ballet and performed in and around Brisbane, Australia during the
1920s. Here they are dressed as clowns – a clear departure from the equine
routes of their routine.
Live entertainment like this had flourished for decades…
however things were about to change. In
the US and Europe (not to mention Australia), traditional variety theaters
would soon lose ground as the venues in which they performed were gradually
converted to cinemas. This would
accelerate from 1927 with the introduction of sound films – the talkies –
and The Great Depression didn’t help either.
The change was not sudden, but gradual.
Live performers continued to appear alongside movies for years
(particularly outside of large cities), but the writing was most definitely on
the wall. We aren’t the only century, by
any means, to lose jobs to new technology.
AUGUST
The cast of Blackbirds of 1926 bask in the summer sun during a break from rehearsals. This picture was taken in London before the shows 11 September opening – and it was the fourth venue for the revue. Previously it had been rapturously received in Harlem (New York), Paris (France) and Ostend (Belgium. The show was the brainchild of Lew Leslie, a Jewish American impresario – and the first to showcase African American artists on the Broadway stage. Its star was Florence Mills, who you can see on the left of the front row in the photograph. It was even named after her most famous song - "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird," a thinly veiled protest against racial injustice, which she had first sung in 1924.
The London show was a triumph, and ran for 279 performances.
"Blackbirds mania" swept London and even the young Prince of
Wales (later Edward VIII) became a fan and reportedly saw the production many
times. Of course, it was the cast who
made the show and although I avoid putting famous people in this article, I
think I can be forgiven for breaking my own rule this time. These were not
simply performers in a popular revue — they were pioneers who helped bring the
energy and creativity of Harlem to an international audience. Also pictured in the front row are Johnny
Hudgins, a remarkable dancer, comedian and mime artist whose performances
became one of the highlights of the revue and Edith Wilson, already an
established blues and vaudeville performer.
They both had long and successful careers, but it was not to
be the case for Florence Mills.
Tragically, she died the following year, due to complications after an
appendectomy. She had had plans to
return to Europe in Blackbirds in the West End which went ahead in 1928
without her. The show must go on,
as they say. Over 10,000 people paid
their respects at the funeral home and thousands more attended the funeral
itself. She was just 31 years old.
Don Juan wasn’t a Talkie, but it was a sound
film. The Jazz Singer was just around the corner and would be
released in 1927 to huge acclaim as the first feature-length motion picture
with both synchronous music and lip-synchronous speech and singing (although
not throughout). Meanwhile, a year
earlier, movie goers made do with the almost there of Don Juan. It used a sound system called Vitaphone,
which synchronized its musical score and sound effects, although the magic of
spoken dialogue would have to wait another year.
Regardless, the crowds went wild and the movie was a huge
success. In the picture you can see first-nighters
crowding on the sidewalk outside of the Warners’ Theater in New York. The film starred John Barrymore, paternal
grandfather of Drew Barrymore, as the eponymous hand-kissing hero and its
premiere on 8 August drew huge crowds.
Most of them did not get in – the ticket prices were $10 each, making it
the first theater on Broadway to charge more than $3 for entrance to a
movie. As the average wage was then
under $30 a week, most of the excited throng pictured here would have waited
until August 9, when ticket prices were down to their usual $3. Kinda. On its opening weekend, people
literally fought to get in and tickets changed hands at over $5, so a tidy
profit could be made by touts. Variety reported “street speculators
reaping harvest”, such was the public appetite for the Vitaphone
innovation. Of course, those fans who
could hold out a week would be able to get the cheapest tickets for their usual
75 cents the week later.
As well as Don Juan, the evening’s entertainment also
included six shorts using the new Vitaphone system. The film became Warners’ highest grossing
movie to date.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in America, a poor donkey
struggled under the weight of not one or two or three, but four bathing
beauties. Donkey rides had been
established as a seaside attraction in the late 1800s and the practice was
still very much alive and kicking in 1926.
The practice would fade away gradually by the 1940s, never having been truly
established as a widespread national activity (unlike in the UK, where it was hugely
popular until the turn of this century).
The donkey in this picture has a rather stoic expression on
its face. Yet clearly, this was one beach holiday the donkey wasn't going to
remember fondly.
Speaking of bathing beauties, here’s a picture of
Miss Marjorie Joestring. She was the
runner up in the 1926 Miss America contest, which took place in Atlantic
City. She represented the District of
Columbia and lost out to Norma Smallwood, representing Tulsa.
She narrowly missed out on the title, losing to Miss Tulsa
by just five votes. Newspaper correspondent Peggy Ellsworth suggested that her
appearance in photographs may have counted against her, writing that she
"did not photograph as well as the Tulsa girl because she was too much of
one color."
In April 1931, five years later, the Lincoln (NE) Star
reported on her during a visit to relatives. The article included a wonderfully
forward-looking comment: "Having sung over the radio and appeared on the
stage, Miss Joesting has her eye on a combination of the two in the
soon-to-come television broadcasting era."
After that, I can find nothing of Miss Joestring. I can only imagine that she found a nice
young man and settled down.
SEPTEMBER
On 29 September 1926, Australian aviation pioneer Vincent
Patrick (V. P.) Taylor demonstrated an inflatable rubber survival suit by
floating on San Francisco Bay. Designed to keep aviators afloat after ditching
at sea, the suit was one of several inventions and publicity stunts undertaken
by a man who had already earned a reputation as one of the world's most daring
aerial performers. Yet his life would be
cut short just a few years after this picture was taken.
Earlier in his career, Taylor had often performed under the
stage name "Captain Penfold", but by the 1920s he was using his own
name. After moving to the United States in 1920, he worked as a Hollywood
stuntman while continuing an extraordinary career as a balloonist, parachutist
and adventurer. His exploits included parachute jumps from the Niagara Falls
River Bridge and the Twin Falls–Jerome Bridge over Idaho's Snake River Gorge,
nearly 500 feet above the water. He also survived trips over Niagara Falls and
other waterfalls in barrels, and designed and tested his own underwater
breathing equipment.
Taylor's remarkable career ended in tragedy during the Great
Depression. He fell, like so many
others, on hard times. In 1930 he was admitted to the charity ward of the
county hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, suffering from a severe digestive
disorder. A lifelong advocate of physical fitness who neither smoked nor drank,
the cause of his illness remains uncertain. Artificial feeding proved
unsuccessful, and he died aged just 39.
Although he died penniless, Taylor was not forgotten. After
the British Consul notified his family in Sydney, the American Legion, assisted
by the Returned Soldiers' League in Australia and the Daughters of the British
Empire, arranged a full military funeral. A requiem Mass was held at the Church
of the Holy Rosary before he was buried with military honours in St Mary's
Cemetery, in Jacksonville, Florida. His coffin was draped with the Union Jack
alongside the Australian and American flags, and escorted by the Florida
National Guard - a dignified farewell to one of the great daredevils of the
pioneering age of flight.
September 25th was a big day for the kids of the town of
Manly in Brisbane, Australia. Once the
pool had been opened by local dignitary Mayor Jolly (couldn’t make it up), the
children happily proceeded to their first swimming lesson. It looks like the lesson was unnecessary for
at least a few of the kids, who are already messing about with the diving board
and splashing in the water instead of posing for the photographer. Behind them are the crystal clear waters of
Moreton Bay, which raises the question – if the sea was so close, why build a
swimming pool?
No, it isn’t sharks. While
shark attacks in the bay have always been uncommon, their presence was well
known, so this was not the main factor for building the pool. The principal
motivation for building it would have been to provide a safe, controlled
environment for swimming instruction, protected from tides, boats and changing
weather conditions. And OK, sharks, including the gloriously named Wobbegong. In
the early twentieth century many Australian children simply couldn't swim,
despite living near the coast. Drowning was a major cause of accidental death,
so municipalities across Australia built tidal baths and swimming pools to
encourage swimming lessons and improve public safety.
The Manly pool opening in 1926 fits into a much larger
story: it was not really a response to sharks, but part of a national effort to
teach a water-loving population how not to drown. The irony of Australia
needing to teach its coastal children to swim was well recognised at the time. The
building of municipal swimming pools in the 1920s was part of a wider movement
across developed nations to make swimming a public skill rather than something
people simply picked up informally.
Remarkably, almost a century after Mayor Jolly declared it
open, Manly Pool is still teaching children to swim - just as it was in 1926.
There have been renovations over the years, of course, but it still serves the
local community just as it did a century ago.
The policeman’s familiar uniform might suggest a scene in
Britain, but this photograph was taken in Canada. That resemblance is no
coincidence: Canadian police uniforms inherited much from British policing
traditions, which crossed the Atlantic along with many other British
institutions. Uniforms had already
diverged in some areas (for example, the North-West Mounted Police, aka the Mounties).
Over time, Canadian municipal forces developed their own
insignia, headgear and practical variations. The familiar overall look
persisted despite these differences.
The mothers pictured
(the police officer is the only male in the picture – no doubt the fathers were
all at work) had just taken their children to the Canadian National Exhibition
(CNE) – Toronto’s famous annual summer fair.
It was a combination of amusement park, agricultural show and industrial
exhibition – and no doubt their children had dragged them around the stalls all
day, meaning a rest while waiting for the bus was in order.
By 1926, the CNE was already something of a national institution in its 48th year. It is held at Exhibition Place on Toronto’s and is affectionately known as The Ex. It now includes the Canadian International Air Show, and is visited by 1.5 million visitors each year.
On September 26th, two young boxers met at Paris’ Salle Wagram, a famous entertainment and sporting hall near the Arc de Triomphe. By the 1920s it was one of the city's major boxing venues, hosting professional bouts, wrestling matches, and other public spectacles. It was not quite the grandest championship venue (the Palais des Sports would later take that role), but fighting at Wagram meant a boxer was already appearing before a serious Paris sporting crowd. This could be the start of something big, and both these young boxers would have known that.
On the right we have George Kent, an English flyweight who
had turned professional in 1925. He sports the classic 1920s "wet
look" hairstyle, with hair combed tightly back from the forehead, a strong
side part, and heavy use of brilliantine (a shiny hair oil/pomade). This was
the fashionable look for young urban men, especially athletes, dancers, actors,
and men wanting a smart, modern appearance.
On the left we have 20 year old Emile Pladner. His is a slightly more transitional style
with shorter sides, fuller volume on top, and hair brushed upward and back rather than
flattened. This is closer to the youthful "college boy" look of the
Jazz Age - less formal, but still carefully groomed.
The bout at Salle Wagram was scheduled for 10 rounds and
ended with Pladner winning on points. Kent's career seems to have faded quickly
afterward. His recorded professional career consists of only six bouts, with
one win, three losses, and two draws. However, this was an important victory for
Pladner because it marked his arrival on the Paris boxing scene. Shortly
afterward, he continued his winning run, building the reputation that would
eventually lead to European and world titles.
Émile Pladner had a remarkable and rather tragic life after
his boxing fame. After becoming NBA world flyweight champion in 1929 - famously
defeating American Frankie Genaro in just 58 seconds, one of the fastest
world-title victories in boxing history - his career gradually declined as he
struggled with weight, injuries, and difficult fights at higher weights. He
continued boxing into the mid-1930s, winning the French bantamweight title
again, but was forced to retire in 1936 after suffering a detached retina.
The most dramatic chapter came after retirement: despite
operations, Pladner lost his sight completely in 1937 at the age of 31, just 11
years after this picture was taken. Rather than withdrawing from public life,
he learned Braille and retrained as a massage therapist/physiotherapist,
working with athletes. He eventually joined the staff of France's national
sports institution, and later worked with the French national rugby team.
He spent his final years in the Gers region of France and
died in 1980, aged 73. Today he is remembered not only as a champion boxer but
also as an example of resilience: a fighter whose career ended in adversity,
yet who rebuilt his life around helping other athletes.
OCTOBER
Cato Pallenberg (maiden name Suverein), pictured above with
a bear cub, was born in the Netherlands.
She married a German bear trainer called Emil Pallenberg and they
arrived in the US in 1914. By 1926 they
were associated with the Ringling circus organisation and toured the states
extensively.
Although training wild animals to perform entertainment is
very much frowned upon today, raising a number of animal-welfare concerns, back
in 1926, bear acts were incredibly popular.
Often, as you can see, the bears would reproduce and a new generation
would be reared to perform in public.
The Pallenbergs’ bears were renowned for roller-skating and riding
bicycles, as well as walking tightropes and stilts.
During the 1920s, the Pallenberg troupe of bears became so
popular that they would take up two circus rings, with Emil handling one group
of bears in the first and Cato orchestrating the performance of another group
in the second ring. So, unusually for
the time Cato was an accomplished bear trainer in her own right, not simply the
wife of one.
Any faint of heart time traveller from 2026 might wish to
avoid the high street of any town or village of a century ago. Pictured above is M O’Regan’s butcher shop in
Waterford, Ireland. It is signed as
being a victualler which is a traditional term for a shop selling meat
and other provisions.
The shop displays an impressive row of pig carcasses, ready
for sale, while Mr O’Regan’s butchers pose proudly outside their Georges Street
premises. And, of course, there’s the messenger boy and his bicycle.
Hanging pig carcasses outside your shop might seem
questionable today – but in 1926 questions were already being asked.
Although the display was likely both a practical arrangement as well as a form
of advertising, it doesn’t also mean that the butcher was neglectful by the
standards of the day. However, the
hygiene problem was real.
Although the picture is from Ireland, a 1925 report from a
London medical officer criticised carcasses being hung outside shops, pointing
out that the meat could collect dust, dirt and airborne contamination
while flies and other animals presented even more risks to public health.
By the 1930s-50s, better shop fittings and refrigeration and
food hygiene controls meant that meat was increasingly displayed indoors.
However, it took until the early 1970s for the practice to disappear entirely.
NOVEMBER
Five young French boys excitedly await the start of a troticycle
race. Their objective, to make it
through a 50km (31 miles) journey from the Grille de Versailles to the Bois de
Boulogne in Paris. Although their names
are not recorded, their ages are - between 9 and 12. My immediate reaction was that’s a long
way to expect boys that age to race.
Plus, this was the end of November, (28th to be exact), so it
would have been getting a little cold by that time of the year. At least they seem to be wrapped up well in
their matching racing outfits, complete with woollen ties.
The object of this particular race was to publicise the
troticycle. Patented the next month by inventor
Henri Caillot, it was a scooter with a difference. Rather than propelling the scooter forward by
pushing against the ground with his foot, the trotinettiste (ok, scooter rider)
remained standing and operated a pedal with one foot and the pedal-and-chain
mechanism drove the rear wheel. If you
look just to the right of each front wheel, you can see the pedal.
A local newspaper reported: The laurels of the great sports
champions prevent little boys from sleeping. To satisfy this childish ambition,
championships have been organised according to their means. Here is a
picturesque tricycle race organised for the children of Rambouillet.
Of course, rather than being left to their own devices
during this arduous task, they had a number of older chaperones to help out if
they got into any trouble or distress.
Apparently the boys finished the course in under 2h 50m,
which means they averaged about 17km an hour (or just under 11 miles an
hour). That’s quite a feat for such
young boys and it showed the world that Caillot’s invention worked. The troticycle became an overnight success
with huge sales. However, he was soon to
face a problem – rival manufacturers simply copied his design, arguing that
Caillot’s patent was invalid as scooters had already been around for a number
of decades and that simply adding a peddle did not make it patentable. It took
till 1935 for this issue to be settled, when a French court ruled in favour of
Caillot and that his design was a genuine, distinct and legally protectable
innovation. Let’s hope he died rich.
Rugby had arrived in France in the 1870s when British
workers introduced the game in the port of Le Havre where they worked,
establishing a club in 1872. The game
had subsequently spread to Paris and beyond, with the first French championship
taking place in 1892. At first an elite
game, it had spread regionally and to huge audiences, becoming a powerful
source of local pride.
For the members of Section Paloise, a team founded in the
Pyrenean city of Pau, 1926 was a vintage year – and the team is pictured when
club teams travelled to Paris to play at one of the country's most important
sporting venues, the Stade de Colombes, now known as Stade Yves-du-Manoir.
The club won the Côte Basque championship for the first time
in November, while its campaign in the French championship ended in the
semi-finals against Stade Français. The
best was yet to come. In 1928, Section
Paloise won its first French championship title, defeating Quillan 6–4 in the
final at Toulouse.
The various hair styles in the picture are typical of 1926 –
but the slightly tousled look of some of the players indicates that this
photograph may have been taken after an arduous training session. Although we
do not have the names of the players to go with the photo, but the team belongs
to a formative chapter in the history of French rugby.
In fact, I have been able to discover the name of one of the
player. The short guy, top row, fourth
from the right is Jean Defrançais. He stood at 1.61m, which is quite short even
for 1926. His nickname was reportedly "Petit-Jean" ("Little
Jean"), likely reflecting his modest stature. H died in 1976 at the age of 74, so will have
been 24 in our picture.
If you think that Christmas preparations and parties start
too early these days, then it was the same back in 1926. Here, the Portland Police Reserve hold their annual
ball (otherwise known as a Christmas dance) over a month before the big day - 18
November to be exact.
The Portland Police Reserve was (and still is) an auxiliary
organisation associated with the Portland Police Bureau. Reserve members were
distinct from regular paid police officers. They assisted with police-related
duties and community activities. They
also knew how to have fun. I'm not entirely sure the photographer shouted cheese, however.
DECEMBER
When it comes to the Christmas in the UK, then it’s time for
Christmas Pudding, which is also known as plum pudding (although it doesn’t
contain any). In 1926, demand was so
high that this chef had to prepare the fruity concoction in a huge mixing bowl,
aided and abetted by his assistants
(who, we suspect, glammed up a little for the photo). Although we don’t know where this was taken,
it looks as if it could be for one of the larger metropolitan hotels, where no
Christmas meal could be served without the pudding!
In various forms, plum pudding had been going since the
middle-ages, but by 1926 had evolved into the form that British people would still
recognize today. It was made with dried
fruits, spices, suet and breadcrumbs.
Then it was usually steamed for several hours and often prepared well in
advance of Christmas Day. It is traditionally served with brandy butter, cream
or custard. Its preparation was often a family affair, with recipes and traditions
passed down through generations – so there are many variations on the theme.
By December 1926, it was firmly established as one of Britain's
most beloved Christmas traditions.
Today, most people buy their Christmas Pudding from the
supermarket, but there still diehards who go through the whole rigamarole of creating
it by hand.
Taken on 22 December 1926 by Toronto photographer John Boyd,
this wonderful photograph shows dozens of children gathered around a
beautifully decorated Christmas tree at Beverley Street Baptist Church. Dressed
in their finest clothes, the youngsters are arranged in neat rows for what was
almost certainly a church Christmas celebration. Their expressions, ranging
from solemn to curious, provide a charming glimpse of community life in Toronto
almost a century ago.
The church stood just a few blocks from Toronto's original
Chinatown in The Ward, and the children in the photograph appear to be from the
local Chinese Canadian community. Beverley Street Baptist Church was built
between 1880 and 1886 as an outreach of Jarvis Street Baptist Church and
remained an important neighbourhood institution for decades.
The building's later history makes this photograph
especially significant. In 1967, Chinese Baptist congregations began meeting in
the church's basement, and by 1972 the building had become the Toronto Chinese
Baptist Church. Today it continues to serve the city's Chinese Canadian
community with services in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Seen in that
context, this festive 1926 group portrait may represent an early chapter in a
relationship between the church and Toronto's Chinese community that would eventually
span generations.
This charming Christmas photograph becomes all the more
poignant when you realise it was taken at a boys’ home. It was taken at the Lark Ellen Home for Boys
on Christmas Eve 1926. It had previously
been called the Los Angeles Newsboys’ Home in 1890, and had been founded to
provide shelter and support for poor, homeless, or working boys. It was later
renamed in honor of the soprano and philanthropist Ellen Beach Yaw, who helped
support it.
The institution presented itself as less of an orphanage in
the old-fashioned sense and more of a structured “home” intended to teach
discipline and independence. They would
learn how to keep a house tidy, tend gardens and would receive allowances under
staff supervision. The institution
reflected the attitudes of its era: it emphasized “character building,” labor,
discipline, and becoming “useful members of society,” ideas common in early
20th-century child welfare programs. The kids in the photograph do have the
appearance of little men rather than young boys. Yet they all look clean and
well-cared for and let’s hope they all went on to lead productive and happy
lives (which would be interrupted for at least some of them in the picture by
World War Two, a decade and a half after this picture was taken).
There appears to be two girls in the picture. It was still
common in the 1920s for very young boys to be dressed in clothing that today
would be read as “girls’ clothing,” especially before breeching (the transition
from dresses to trousers). The practice was declining compared with the 19th
century, but it had not disappeared.
However, their hair would suggest that they were girls – probably siblings
of residents or staff members’ children.
I was particularly drawn to the face of the boy at the top right of the photo. He has managed to perch himself head and shoulders above the other boys, giving him a clear view of Father Christmas. His face appears full of curiosity and attention, as though he is captivated by the moment – but there is, perhaps, a tinge of sadness in those eyes. Let's hope he went on to live a long and happy life.
