Meri's Play Place

Lavinia Ellen Ream was born on September 25, 1847 in a log cabin in Madison, Wisconsin to Robert and Lavinia (McDonald) Ream. Robert was a surveyor and civil servant in the Wisconsin Territory.  The Reams also operated a stage coach stop -- Madison's first hotel --  in their home. Guests slept on the floor. Young Lavinia, known as Vinnie, was a young woman of great promise. She attended college in Columbia, Missouri where her innate artistic ability blossomed. In 1861, her family moved to Washington, D.C. Vinnie became one of the first "women" (she was a mere 14-year old when she was hired)  to obtain employment  with the federal government. She worked as a clerk in the dead letter office of the postal service beginning in 1862.  Her employment there continued until 1866.    That's impressive in itself. But it was just a foreshadowing of her greatness. In 1866, at age 18, she became t...

Hugh Brady, born July 29, 1768 in Pennsylvania to John and Mary (Quigley) Brady. He was a twin to Jane Brady and one of ten children who survived infancy and early childhood - six boys and four girls. His father, Captain John Brady was killed during the Revolutionary War in a skirmish with Native Americans. After John's death, Mary Brady moved with her children to her father's home in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. When Hugh was 16, his mother died. HIs older siblings had begun to marry, so Hugh moved with his brother Samuel to Washington County, Pennsylvania. Though Samuel married, Hugh continued to live with his brother until 1792, when Hug embarked on a military career. Library of Congress Photo Collection (Daguerrotypes) -  LC-USZ62-110036  portrait of General Hugh Brady by Mathew Brady between 1845 and 1851. He was inducted with a commission from George Washington as an ensign in the army of General Anthony Wayne and joined a rifle company. Within two year...

There's a Robert Redford film out now  about the trial of Mary Surratt  before a military tribunal for conspiracy  in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln..  That film inspired today's SEPIA SATURDAY post. (Click on the link to visit Alan and the other Sepia Saturday participants). Mary Surratt (nee Mary Elizabeth Jenkins)  was born in Waterloo, Maryland in 1823.  She was educated in Alexandria, Virginia  by the Sisters of Charity at the school  for girls run by St. Mary's Catholic Church. Mary Surratt photo from the Surratt.org website In 1840, at 17, she married John Harrison Surratt  of the District of Columbia. They lived  on a small farm in Oxon Hill where they reared  three children : Isaac, Anna, and John Jr. John H. Surratt bought 287 acres of farmland  in Prince Georges County, Maryland (near present-day Andrews Air Force Base) in 1852. On the land,  he built a two-story frame building that be...

A little color, 1890s style, from around the world. Women of the Caucacus - Library of Congress Collection LC-DIG-ppmsc -03930 Traveling by Reindeer, Archangel, Russia - Library of Congress Collection - hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.03931 Distinguished Moorish Women, Algiers - Library of Congress Collection (LC-DIG-ppmsc-05553) Photochrome prints are  colorized  images produced from black and white photo negatives that are directly transferred onto lithographic printing plates. The process was invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid (1856 - 1924). It was popular in the 1890s, when color photography was in existence but still commercially impractical. Sepia Saturday.

With all the political upheaval in Egypt   featured in press coverage and on my mind, I thought I'd present some historical photos from the Library of Congress G. Eric and Edith Matson collection. Dating of these photographs is uncertain, with dates between 1898 and 1946 all in the range of possiblity. Strangely, many things haven't changed all that much in the last 65 years. Here's a glimpse of more recent Egypt from my trip to that beautiful, historical land in 2009. Along the shore of the Nile, between Aswan and Luxor. The Sphinx is no longer easily accessible. There is a walkway around the perimeter for viewing. To access the area between the paws, a special permit is required. The facade of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, shown in the vintage photograph above from the air. Along the road between Luxor and Abydos.  In the villages outside of the Cairo metropolis,  people live much as their parents  and grandparents did, except that they have...

It always amazes me to see photographs taken more than a hundred years ago. And it makes me feel like a little part of a longstanding tradition, capturing moments in time via camera. Of course I don't have to haul around big cameras with heavy plates or worry about the harmful chemicals,  just tripods and spare batteries and extra memory cards. But once upon a time, a man named  John C. H. Grabill (1866 - 1934) made his way around the American West -  circa the late 1880s to the mid-1890s  and took photographs of a way of life that's disappeared. He sent a portfolio of images to Washington, D.C. to obtain copyright protection for his works. And then he seemed to disappear into the landscape. But because he copyrighted those works, way back then, the Library of Congress has made them available to photography aficionados everywhere. I searched census records,  but never discovered Mr. Grabill. Online sources have scant info,  though one a...