School's Open!

Miner Normal School - 1st grade, Washington, DC

 Teacher, Ada Hand,
Children brushing their teeth

Between 1900- 1920

More information on Miner Normal School

New York Labor Day Parade, carriage carrying chorus girls union members

Image from glass negative from the George Grantham Bain Collection .

George Grantham Bain (1865-1944) was a New York photographer. Born in Chicago January 7, 1865 to George and Clara Mather Bain, he grew up in St. Louis. Graduated 1890 from St. Louis University with a law degree. Originally working for United Press, he founded the first news photography service Bain News Service in 1898. His news photo service, including portraits and worldwide news events, had special emphasis on life in New York City. The Bain News Service accumulated photographs of world-wide coverage which were distributed to various newspapers and was enhanced by receiving local pictures from its photo service subscribers as part of their reimbursement. The range of subjects includes: celebrities, parades, sports events, immigration, political events, aviation, World War I, and the Mexican Revolution. Most of his photographs date from the 1900s to the mid-1920s, but scattered images can be found as early as the 1860s and as late as the 1930s. A collection of his photographs resides at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Women's Auxilliary Typographical Union, Labor Day Parade 1909

Labor Day parade, New York

September 6, 1909

Woman on float of the Women's Auxilliary Typographical Union.

More info on the history of Labor Day

May 1, 1909 Labor Day Parade: Abolish Slavery

May 1, 1909 Labor Day parade

New York City

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September. The holiday originated in 1882 as the Central Labor Union (of New York City) sought to create "a day off for the working citizens".

Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894.^[1] All fifty states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

Traditionally, Labor Day is celebrated by most Americans as the symbolic end of the summer.

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s. The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday—a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations," followed by a festival for the workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civil significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement

Wikipedia

Walt Whitman, 1887

Walt Whitman, 1887

Platinum print by George Cox

Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.  His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle

from Wikipedia

More info at The Walt Whitman Archive 

Georgian (Republic) woman 1905-1915

Taken by Prokudin-Gorskii  who photographed the Russian empire between 1905- 1915, this is a compilation of threes glass slides

  Prokudin-Gorskii intended his photographic images to be viewed in color because he developed an ingenious photographic technique in order for these images to be captured in black and white on glass plate negatives, using red, green and blue filters. He then presented these images in color in slide lectures using a light-projection system [right] involving the same three filters. 

More info on Prokudin-Gorskii  and his survey of the Russian Empire

Newspaper Boy, Rochester, NY, 1910

Selling During School Hours 2 PM

Rochester, New York,  February 1910

photographed by Lewis Hines

Between 1907 and 1917 Lewis Hine working for the National Child Labor Committee,  documented with his photography child labor in America to aid NCLC lobbying efforts to end the practice 

This is a link to a wonderful gallery of Lewis Hines images. Joe Manning has attempted to  put a name to all these anonymous  children who lost their childhood working 10 hour days.

Joe Manning's  Lewis Hine Project

Suffragettes! 1915

Suffragettes! 

Suffrage Parade , New York Oct. 1915

photograph of Margaret Vale 

Today is the anniversary of women in America obtaining the right to vote on Aug. 26, 1920.

Countries that have more recently given women the right to vote are Switzerland 1971, Portugal 1976, Iraq 1980, Liechtenstein 1984. Countries were women still do not have the vote are Bhutan, Lebanon (Partial suffrage,proof of elementary education is required for women), Brunei (no one has vote), Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates , Vatican City. 

History Of Women's Suffrage in USA Wiki

African Americans in Georgia 1890-1900

Children sitting on porch in Georgia  1899-1900

From the Du Bois albums of photographs of African Americans in Georgia exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universal in 1900

This photo is from a series of photographs collected by Du Bois of African American life in in America from 1890 -1900. What I find fascinating is the number of people  identified as African American in these albums who do not appear to be African American. 

Ansel Adams at Japanese internment Camp

Tom Kobayashi, South Fields

Ansel Adams produced a series of photographs taken at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California in 1943.  The series contains portraits of Japanese Americans, portrayal  of daily life and some wonderful landscapes. 

In 1942, the United States government ordered more than 110,000 men, women, and children to leave their homes and detained them in remote, military-style camps. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II. Manzener now is a national historic site

More info on Manzanar War Relocation Center