Sunday, April 23, 2017

Looking Back, #1

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In response to Wayne B’s request for more photographs of the past, today's post commences a regular series called “Looking Back”.

Looking forward, looking back
I’ve come a long way down the track
Got a long way left to go. . . 

- Slim Dusty, Lyrics from "Looking Forward, Looking Back”


Enjoy, Wayne and others.
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London, 1920’s: attaching the main telephone cable to a new support wire whilst sitting in s suspended bosun’s chair.

Btw:
A bosun's chair (or boatswain's chair) is the name of a device used to suspend a person from a rope to perform work aloft. Originally it was just a short plank or swath of heavy canvas and was developed in maritime use. It has been extended to many more situations and now includes modern safety devices.

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Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1875 (for the moment we will avoid the controversy as to who actually invented it and whether AGB stole the invention). By 1887 New York City was covered in masses of telephone wires, resembling some present day scenes in India:


India 
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Telephone pole line construction in New York, c. 1903
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Telephone lines and supporting structure in a lane west of Main Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, March 1914
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London in 1901 - the End of the Victorian Era
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Going to the beach in Florida, 1910.
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Daytona, Florida 1904
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The Sphinx excavation, circa 1850, Giza, Egypt
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Telephone Exchange, 1920’s
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A 1920’s bride
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NASA before Powerpoint, 1960s.

If you get the chance, watch Hidden Figures, a story of contributions to the early American space program by gifted black women, yet who could not use white only coffee machines and toilets. As Slim Dusty said, we’ve come a long way, we’ve a long way left to go.
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1950's newspaper clipping Should Women be Spanked? 

 “As a barber, I've got a lot of faith in the hairbrush. . . . In my business a man sets a lot of store by the results he can get by a hairbrush properly applied.” 

“Most of them have it coming to them anyway. If they don't, it will remind them how well off they are.”

Another Slim Dusty moment
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Early excavations of northern end of York St in Sydney for southern approach to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1930.
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Johnston Street, Annandale, 1880
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A derailed Marrickville-to-Circular Quay tram runs into house at Redfern, 6 September 1934.

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Mother and children living along US Route 70, 1936


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