Month: September 2014

Mickey Marches In

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Jumping off on our parade theme from earlier this week, Cats on Parade, I offer these two photos I purchased last year on eBay under the theory, where there are cats, mice will surely follow. There is no indication of date, but there is a Philadelphia studio stamp on the back, For Duplicates of this Photograph order by number which appears on face of this print or on Back, Hood-Weintraub, 501 Keith Theatre Bldg. Phila, PA. [sic] Also scrawled in pencil on the back of the top one, “We posed for this before the parade began. Can you find me. don’t we look Cute. see how wet the streets are. it had rained in the early morning” [sic – all and below.]  Same studio stamp on the back of the other and this in the same hand, “you surely ought to find me in this. looks how I am stepping out.  this was taken on Broad St just below Aunt Edith” Does make you wonder who “me” is – I have spent some time looking at these and contemplating which one me might be.

While this may be Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade – evidently the oldest in the country having started in 1920, I vote instead for the Mummer’s New Year’s Day parade.  Wikipedia tells us that it is 130 years old and believed to be “one of the oldest folks festivals in the country.” Just because it is really great, I offer here this spectacular snippet from New York’s Thanksgiving parade in 1935:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKbMq3di4aM

However, when you see this clip from the 1926 Mummer’s Parade, you’ll see where I got the clue that this is where these photos are from!

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh_7R_JrkeM

(The tail end of this shows an equally good Rose Parade clip from the period – as an aside, Kim tells me his dad, Gene, designed a winning float for one for an ice cream company around 1946 or so!)

While my heart will always belong to Felix and those donning Felix costumes, (see Felix on Parade and Felix Mask-o-Rama) who wouldn’t love these folks dressing up in Mickey clothes?  Braving foul weather and sallying cheerfully forward nonetheless. We should all take a page from their book. 

We Love Our Cat Photos

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I’ve acquired these photos over the past few months and in my mind they somehow are all of a kind.  The top two photos (which are postcards) are from the United States, the smaller one on the bottom is a small photo and although I purchased it from someone in the US it has im Garten (in garden?) written on the back.  So I guess this could be from Germany.

I love to look at photos of people with their cats in the newspaper or magazines – Sunday morning, reading the Times, me showing Kim a photo in the Real Estate section of a family, “Hey, nice looking cat, huh? Calico.”  Kim, “Uh huh.” (He nicely puts up with me.) Clearly, one immediate response to someone taking your photo is to pick up the family cat or dog. (I know I do.) These photos are nice examples of that. Hard for me to say when I think these are from, but I am leaning toward the teens and twenties. Of course the whole point is that we’ve always loved to photograph our beloved cats and to be photographed with them, and to photograph them as part of our family.  From blurry tintypes to the several hundred photos I have on my iPhone of Cookie and Blackie today, we love ’em – they are our family and we have always liked to take their picture.

For more early cat photo, you might want to check out my Happy Hooligan post. Enjoy!

Cats on Parade

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: While clearly not Felix these cats are pretty spectacular in their own right – not to mention the little Shriner-esque fellow driving. This float was honoring the 70th Anniversary, Swiss Settlers Swiss Colony, August 16, 1885-1915, New Glarus, Wis. (I have taken the liberty of checking up on New Glarus  and, sure enough, it is still known as America’s Little Switerzland today.) The stand-out supporters of this float appear to have been Hole-Proof Hosiery and Masurys Paints.  Sadly the other banners do not appear to be legible, even when I blow this up. The support of these fine businesses now lost to the sands of time.

Before taking note of the year, I thought this card was from a somewhat later period, but date notwithstanding, on closer inspection the car is a very early one and the storefront and house in the background are early too.  Seems very much Main Street, USA, circa 1915 except that the cats look like they could be from decades later – with a somewhat alien quality. No joking around on this float – all business I think, driver very serious. And why black cats? I guess we’ll never know.  Still, I send a tip of the hat to Glarus – I do mean to stop by if I’m ever in the neighborhood.

Felix Takes the Beach

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Pam’s Pictorama photo post:  A Labor Day beauty!  This new acquisition seems perfect for the last unofficial day of the summer season. While an in depth look at my Felix photo postcards is pending (they are the unofficial inspiration for this blog – my photos and the prolonged and boring recuperation from foot surgery earlier this summer) I can’t resist considering each of them on their own merits. As I said in Let the Cats Begin when I first saw one of these photos as published in the Felix the Cat bio book, it never occurred to me that I would get to own dozens of them – oh bliss! It was years before eBay was so much as a glimmer in anyone’s eye, and considering I have acquired almost everyone of these from Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain it is truly unlikely that I could have amassed the collection without it.  (Oddly however, this one was purchased from someone in Florida. It may be the first I’ve purchased from a US seller.)

All that aside – how wonderful! A waggish Felix is just peaking into this photo – makes me wonder if they had to pay full fare considering.  The grandmother (?) such a solid citizen, brooking no nonsense – Felix notwithstanding.  The back of the card, shown below, is more or less illegibly scrawled, presumably by the little girl.  I have gotten pretty good at reading these, but this one defies my abilities a bit.  The little girl is very much enjoying the whole thing however.

I don’t know what it is (a happy past life as a Felix photographer perhaps?), but these cards just make my pulse race. I won’t rest until I own them all!

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