mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

 

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

When the first postwar Plymouths debuted in February of 1946, they were more or less identical to the cars Plymouth had sold in the short 1942 model year.

 

There was little else Plymouth or its competitors could do - America was hungry for cars, with demand pent up from years of depression and war. It was a seller's market for cars the likes of which wouldn't ever be seen again (though the years 2012-2015 have borne some similarity).

 

The 1942-vintage P-15 Plymouths continued virtually unchanged until March of 1949 - when a new car, the P-17/P-18 series (same car, two wheelbases) - was finally introduced. This was after Ford and Chevrolet had already been selling their brand-new 1949 offerings for some time. The 1949 Ford had first appeared in June of 1948 and the 1949 Chevrolet had been on sale since January. Independent competitor Studebaker had introduced brand new car sin 1947 - getting a drop on the entire field. So Plymouth, perennially the third place seller in the world's largest car market, was late to the party.

 

Although the 1949 Plymouths were solid, reliable cars, they had another problem beyond lateness - they were square, literally and figuratively. They were upright, plain, and boxy and looked dowdy compared to the new Fords and Chevrolets. They still had their devotees, however, and they sold almost 600,000 1949 Plymouths. The year was most notable for the introduction of the first all-steel station wagon, the Plymouth Suburban. At that time, station wagons wore wood bodies which needed lots of upkeep.

 

The styling of the cars conformed to a stereotype about Chrysler Corporation's leader at the time, Kaufman Thuma "K.T." Keller - he liked to drive with his hat on, and felt that drivers should be able be dignified and wear their hats in cars. Hats were a standard part of men's clothing at the time - and not hats in the sense of baseball caps. It wasn't until the 1960s that hats became a truly optional accessory for men. Of course, this dictated a tall car, and in the era of longer, lower, and wider, that was anathema. The basic P-18 series would be dressed up for 1953 and 1954 by Virgil Exner, who would revolutionize Chrysler's styling just a few years after this car was built. But that's all in the past now.

 

This car scene was captured at the fantastic Trust Salvage. Special thanks to Matt C. for the opportunity!

 

©2015 A. Kwanten.

  

In order to meet postwar British nuclear-capable bomber needs until the English Electric Canberra could be delivered in quantity, in March 1950, 87 B-29s were loaned to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command as the Boeing B.1 Washington. The Washingtons supplemented the Avro Lincoln (a development of the Lancaster). The RAF Washingtons were returned by 1955 except for two (WW345 and WW353) were turned over to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and assigned the serials A76-1 and A76-2. These aircraft were attached to the Aircraft Research and Development Unit and used in trials conducted on behalf of the British Ministry of Supply. Both aircraft were placed in storage in 1956 and sold for scrap in 1957.

 

No. 57 Squadron was formed on 8 June 1916 as a training squadron. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, the squadron moved to France as part of the Air Component of the British Expeditionary Force. Following the German invasion of France, the squadron relocated to RAF Elgon in Scotland and began anti-shipping strikes off the coast of Norway in Bristol Blenheims. In November 1940, No. 57 was re-equipped with Vickers Wellingtons and later converting to Avro Lancasters. The squadron flew 5151 operational sorties and lost 172 aircraft. After the war, the squadron converted to Avro Lincolns and in May 1951 converted to the Washington, moving twice to RAF Honington and then RAF Coningsby. No. 57 flew the Washington for two years before converting to the Canberra.

 

In this image, a B.1 Washington, Boeing serial number 44-62254 RAF serial number WF555, sits on the rainy tarmac at RAF Coningsby. On 29 September 1951, the crew was tasked to fly on a NATO exercise to test western defences. While returning to base, the number three engine developed problems with the constant speed propeller and eventually ran away and sheared off, severely damaging the number four engine. Three of the crew bailed out but the pilot managed to nurse the crippled aircraft as far as Amiens in Northern France where he successfully crash-landed on a disused wartime airfield. This image shows the extended Fowler flaps. In the redesign, I came up with a sliding mechanism that allows the flaps to extend and drop. Here, they are at an angle of 30 degrees. The design of the flaps needed to slide out and rotate. This complicated the internal structure of the wing.

Coachwork by Zagato

 

Class III a : Post-War Closed Cars "The most elegant ones"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

The New Haven's "Watch Hill", built as one of two round-end observation cars for the postwar "Merchants Limited", spent most of its life as a bar car in commuter service; seen here at Mamaroneck, New York in 1972.

mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

 

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

University of California, San Diego

Architect: Robert Mosher (1969)

Location: San Diego (La Jolla), CA

 

See my blog post on this campus here.

Carte de visite by Thos. Heney of New York City. On September 20, 1869, baseball fans streamed past the White House onto the National Grounds to watch two hometown teams go head to head. The Alerts took the field sporting dark gray shirts, black pants, and caps. The Olympics, wearing blue-striped white caps and white shirts and pants with blue stockings, came out swinging in the top of the first inning with eight runs and went on to dominate the contest with a commanding 56–4 victory.

 

One of the Olympics’ stars, pictured here, Michael Emmet Urell, batted sixth and played first base. At 24, the athletic young man might well have been considered lucky to be alive, having survived a grievous wound in the recent Civil War.

 

His American story began in 1855, when he arrived from the village of Nenagh in County Tipperary, Ireland. Finding a home among New York City’s large Irish population and getting an education in public schools, the war interrupted his peacetime pursuits.

 

Days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Urell left his job as a mercantile clerk and enlisted as a sergeant in Company E of the 2nd New York State Militia, which entered federal service as the 82nd New York Infantry. He and his fellow volunteers faced the enemy at First Bull Run and suffered 60 casualties. Though Urell escaped injury on the fields of Manassas, he had a tougher time the following year during the Peninsula Campaign. He received a slight wound at the Battle of Fair Oaks on the last day of May. In July, he collapsed from sunstroke at the Battle of Malvern Hill, fell into enemy hands, and spent a month in prison.

 

Heavy losses seemed to follow the 82nd in almost every battle in which it fought—Antietam. Fredericksburg. Chancellorsville. Gettysburg. Along the way, Urell proved his mettle in combat.

 

A few months after Gettysburg, the 82nd marched into action at the Battle of Bristoe Station, pitting the 8,400-man Union 2nd Corps led by Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren against Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill’s much larger 3rd Corps. An admirer noted that Sgt. Urell, carrying the regiment’s colors, “seems to have forcefully collided with the whole Confederate Army.”

 

Years after the war, Urell told his story.

 

“My regiment, the Eighty-second New York, was in the rear division, second of the Second Corps. We had left our cavalry behind, at Catlett’s Station, and drawn in our flankers, as we had no idea that the enemy were near. All at once and completely to our surprise the Confederates came yelling out of the woods and under the bridge across Broad Run, upon our left flank. Facing about, we received their onslaught. I was color-bearer at the time, and was in the fight but a few moments when I was shot in the right arm and through the body. The colors were knocked out of my hands and I fell, but immediately rose, picked up the flag, and again faced the rebel lines, rallying my comrades. Soon after I fell again from loss of blood, and was left for dead as the regiment fell back. Next morning I found myself under a blanket with a dead comrade. I was picked up by some cavalry, and soon placed in a hospital at Alexandria, Va.”

 

This wartime portrait of Urell holding the colors and wearing his 2nd Corps badge speaks to his courage at Bristoe Station.

 

Urell joined the list of about 540 Union casualties in the victory for Warren and his forces.

 

The shot through Urell's body, a musket ball, passed through his right lung. He spent the next six months in recovery. He rejoined the 82nd wearing the shoulder straps of a second lieutenant and in time for the Overland Campaign. But the rigors of active army life proved too much for his constitution. During the Battle of The Wilderness, his wound, not entirely healed, reopened and resulted in some sort of paralysis—and an honorable discharge.

 

Other honors for his military service followed in 1865: brevet ranks of captain and major of United States Volunteers for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Fair Oaks, Bristoe Station, and The Wilderness. In 1870, he added another laurel: the Medal of Honor for gallantry at Bristoe Station.

 

In 1875, Urell lost the medal while on a nighttime train excursion from Washington, D.C., to Richmond. He took out newspaper ads offering a reward for its safe return, but there is no record of it having been found.

 

By this time, Urell had made a home in the nation’s capital and received an appointment as a clerk in the War Department. He became an active and popular figure about town, associating with various Irish-American societies in the area.

 

His baseball playing days in the 1860s were fondly recalled by one writer, who noted in the early 20th century: “He was one of the leaders of the game in the old historic White lot, Washington, when the Nationals of that city were regarded as one of the strongest teams in the country. Urell played second base on the old Union team of 1867, acting as captain. Later he joined the Nationals. He was afterward a member of the Olympics of Washington, of which Nick Young was the head. In those days Mike Urell, with his flowing whiskers, facing Colonel Jones, the pitcher of the Nationals, who also wore a full beard, presented a picture that attracted attention. Urell continued his interest in the game throughout his entire life and always argued that the game was just as good and strong in the old days when first bounce was out as it is at present.”

 

The writer’s reference to Nick Young is more than a fellow baseball enthusiast: Nicholas Ephraim Young Jr. (1840–1916) served in the 32nd and 121st New York infantries during the Civil War and went on to become an executive, including president of the National League from 1885–1902.

 

The writer did not mention the lopsided contest in 1869 between the Alerts and the Olympics. This game was notable as an example of interracial play. The Alerts, all Black, and the all-White Olympics played before a mixed-race crowd. While integrated games did occur in some cities where clubs crossed the color barrier during the postwar and early Reconstruction period, the Black teams were not allowed to compete in championship tournaments and leagues. As time went on, segregation intensified, giving rise to a hard line in 1887 that endured for 60 years—until Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

 

In addition to his sports interests, social engagements, and job, Urell served two terms in the District of Columbia Legislature as a Republican. Active in the Grand Army of the Republic as a member of the John A. Rawlins Post, No. 1, he served a stint as Commander of the Department of the Potomac in 1890. He was also a family man, marrying Isabelle Helen Brown, an Englishwoman. Together they raised a son, Patrick, and a daughter, Catherine. Isabelle passed away in 1892, leaving Urell a widower. He did not remarry.

 

Urell also continued his military service as an officer in the National Guard and fought as a colonel of volunteers in the Spanish-American War. He participated in the Siege of Santiago, a two-week operation in June 1898 that effectively ended major fighting on the island of Cuba.

 

Though Urell survived the war, the second in his lifetime, without being wounded, he did suffer from fever that had lingering effects. As years passed, his health became more precarious due to the sickness and exacerbated by his Civil War injuries. A physician suggested a common remedy for ailing patients—a sea voyage. Urell decided to visit his native Nenagh in County Tipperary. Before departing, he left a letter with one of his army friends, Capt. Emil G. Schafer, with instructions to open it in the event of his death while in Ireland.

 

On September 6, 1910, he breathed his last in County Cork, en route to Nenagh. Captain Schafer opened the letter, which read, in part: “If I go and should not return, and what’s left of me is sent back home, I desire to impose upon you the task of seeing that your old commander is placed beside his wife in Arlington Cemetery.” Urell added, “Captain, my dear, good friend, I have never knowingly injured man, woman or child, never wronged anybody intentionally. I may have made enemies by standing by my friends. I have for more than forty years been working in the interests of my people—comrades of the civil war and the war with Spain, and friends; also the friends of friends, and I am satisfied I have done a great deal of good work for humanity. Now I will close this memo hoping that you will never read it.”

 

Meanwhile, the body had been transported to Nenagh and a controversy about the burial erupted. According to Urell’s brother, the late colonel had expressed a desire to be buried in Nenagh. A meeting with Capt. Schafer ended with a decision to bring the remains back to America in fulfillment of his final request. Urell’s remains rest alongside his beloved wife in Arlington National Cemetery.

 

44 years later, in 1954, Spanish-American War veterans who campaigned with Urell gathered to commemorate his military service. The veterans had initially planned the event believing it would have been Urell’s 100th birthday, but discovered they were a dozen years late. Still, about 100 guests held the party for him in the backyard of Arlington resident Robert W. Livingston, senior vice commander of the Urell post of the United Spanish War Veteran’s Camp. “We are here to pay a tribute of respect to the typical American soldier,” Livingston noted, adding, “As bold and brave as a lion; as gentle and affectionate in friendship and love as a maiden; who never deserted a friend, who loved the girls and comforted the widows; witty, brimful of fun and mischief, charitable and generous to a fault, and honest in defense of his country and his God—Maj. Michael Emmet Urell!”

 

I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.

 

The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, originally Cincinnati Union Terminal, is a mixed-use complex in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Once a major passenger train station, it went into sharp decline during the postwar decline of railroad travel. Most of the building was converted to other uses, and now houses museums, theaters, and a library, as well as special travelling exhibitions. Since 1991, it has been used as a train station once again.

 

Built in 1933, it is a monumental example of Art Deco architecture, for which it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

 

Cincinnati was a major center of railroad traffic in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially as an interchange point between railroads serving the Northeastern and Midwestern states with railroads serving the South. However, intercity passenger traffic was split among no fewer than five stations in Downtown Cincinnati, requiring the many travelers who changed between railroads to navigate local transit themselves. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which operated through sleepers with other railroads, was forced to split its operations between two stations. Proposals to construct a union station began as early as the 1890s, and a committee of railroad executives formed in 1912 to begin formal studies on the subject, but a final agreement between all seven railroads that served Cincinnati and the city itself would not come until 1928, after intense lobbying and negotiations, led by Philip Carey Company president George Crabbs. The seven railroads: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad; the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway; the Louisville and Nashville Railroad; the Norfolk and Western Railway; the Pennsylvania Railroad; and the Southern Railway selected a site for their new station in the West End, near the Mill Creek.

 

The principal architects of the massive building were Alfred T. Fellheimer and Steward Wagner, with architects Paul Philippe Cret and Roland Wank brought in as design consultants; Cret is often credited as the building's architect, as he was responsible for the building's signature Art Deco style. The Rotunda features the largest semi-dome in the western hemisphere, measuring 180 feet (55 m) wide and 106 feet (32 m) high.

 

The Union Terminal Company was created to build the terminal, railroad lines in and out, and other related transportation improvements. Construction in 1928 with the regrading of the east flood plain of the Mill Creek to a point nearly level with the surrounding city, a massive effort that required 5.5 million cubic yards of landfill. Other improvements included the construction of grade separated viaducts over the Mill Creek and the railroad approaches to Union Terminal. The new viaducts the Union Terminal Company created to cross the Mill Creek valley ranged from the well built, like the Western Hills Viaduct, to the more hastily constructed and shabby, like the Waldvogel Viaduct. Construction on the terminal building itself began in 1931, with Cincinnati mayor Russell Wilson laying the mortar for the cornerstone. Construction was finished ahead of schedule, although the terminal welcomed its first trains even earlier on March 19, 1933 when it was forced into emergency operation due to flooding of the Ohio River. The official opening of the station was on March 31, 1933. The total cost of the project was $41.5 million.

 

During its heyday as a passenger rail facility, Cincinnati Union Terminal had a capacity of 216 trains per day, 108 in and 108 out. Three concentric lanes of traffic were included in the design of the building, underneath the main rotunda of the building: one for taxis, one for buses, and one (although never used) for streetcars. However, the time period in which the terminal was built was one of decline for train travel. By 1939, local newspapers were already describing the station as a white elephant. While it had a brief revival in the 1940s, because of World War II, it declined in use through the 1950s into the 1960s.

 

After the creation of Amtrak in 1971, train service at Cincinnati Union Terminal was reduced to just two trains a day, the George Washington and the James Whitcomb Riley. Amtrak abandoned Cincinnati Union Terminal the next year, opening a smaller station elsewhere in the city on October 29, 1972.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Museum_Center_at_Union_T...

An unfamiliar type becoming more and more familiar….

 

In the postwar period, Leyland Motors built up a massive export market as part of the Government’s drive to bring in currency into the United Kingdom (UK). One of the markets it exported into was the Republic of Ireland where the state owned Transport Authority of the Republic, Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE) built up a massive fleet of Leyland Buses and Coaches.,

 

However as the Troubles erupted in Northern Ireland, it became very politically sensitive for companies in the Republic to purchase from the UK, particularly state owned ones. So CIE began to look at creating its own bus building business. That had various levels of very limited success. Or was a complete disaster depending on your viewpoint.

 

However in 1987 CIE was split up into Dublin Bus (Bus Átha Cliath), Irish Rail (Iarnród Éireann) and Bus Éireann. With the improvement in the situation in Northern Ireland (and I stress improvement) this led Dublin Bus looking again at UK buses and purchasing Leyland Olympians. Bodywork was by Alexander’s in Belfast. When Leyland was closed down, Dublin Bus built up a massive fleet of Volvo Olympians with similar bodywork, right up to the withdrawal of the type.

 

As accessibility become an important issue, the Olympians were replaced mainly with Volvo B7TLs and B9TLs and were withdrawn. They found a ready market back in the UK as school buses and were re-registered. This one, with its faded Dublin Bus paint showing, is now in the fleet of D&E Coaches of Inverness and is registered R367LHK.

Sammelwerk no. 15 Adolf Hitler, bild no. 147, gruppe 67

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ju 52

 

RoleTransport aircraft, medium bomber, airliner

ManufacturerJunkers

DesignerErnst Zindel

First flight13 October 1930 (Ju 52/1m); 7 March 1932 (Ju 52/3m)

StatusIn limited use

Primary usersLuftwaffe

Luft Hansa

Spanish Air Force

Produced1931–1945 (Germany)

1945–1947 (France)

1945–1952 (Spain)

Number built4,845

The Junkers Ju 52/3m (nicknamed Tante Ju ("Aunt Ju") and Iron Annie) is a German transport aircraft manufactured from 1931 to 1952, initially designed with a single engine but subsequently produced as a trimotor. It had both civilian and military service during the 1930s and 1940s. In a civilian role, it flew with over 12 airlines including Swissair and Deutsche Luft Hansa as both a passenger carrier and a freight hauler. In a military role, it flew with the Luftwaffe as a troop and cargo transport and briefly as a medium bomber. The Ju 52 continued in postwar service with military and civilian air fleets well into the 1980s. The aircraft has continued to be used well beyond that date for purposes such as sightseeing.

 

Design and development

The Ju 52 was similar to the company's previous Junkers W 33, although larger. In 1930, Ernst Zindel and his team designed the Ju 52 at the Junkers works at Dessau. The aircraft's unusual corrugated duralumin metal skin, pioneered by Junkers during World War I, strengthened the whole structure.

 

The Ju 52 had a low cantilever wing, the midsection of which was built into the fuselage, forming its underside.[1] It was formed around four pairs of circular cross-section duralumin spars with a corrugated surface that provided torsional stiffening. A narrow control surface, with its outer section functioning as the aileron, and the inner section functioning as a flap, ran along the whole trailing edge of each wing panel, well separated from it. The inner flap section lowered the stalling speed and the arrangement became known as the Doppelflügel, or "double wing".[2]

 

The outer sections of this operated differentially as ailerons, projecting slightly beyond the wingtips with control horns. The strutted horizontal stabilizer carried horn-balanced elevators which again projected and showed a significant gap between them and the stabilizer, which was adjustable in-flight. All stabilizer surfaces were corrugated.

  

Junkers Ju 52

The fuselage was of rectangular section with a domed decking, all covered with corrugated light alloy. A port-side passenger door was placed just aft of the wings, with windows stretching forward to the pilots' cockpit. The main undercarriage was fixed and divided; some aircraft had wheel fairings, others did not. A fixed tailskid, or a later tailwheel, was used. Some aircraft were fitted with floats or skis instead of the main wheels.

 

In its original configuration, designated the Ju 52/1m, the Ju 52 was a single-engined aircraft, powered by either a BMW IV or Junkers liquid-cooled V-12 engine. However, the single-engined model was underpowered, and after seven prototypes had been completed, all subsequent Ju 52s were built with three radial engines as the Ju 52/3m (drei motoren—"three engines"). Originally powered by three Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet radial engines, later production models mainly received 574 kW (770 hp) BMW 132 engines, a licence-built refinement of the Pratt & Whitney design. Export models were also built with 447 kW (600 hp) Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp and 578 kW (775 hp) Bristol Pegasus VI engines. The two wing-mounted radial engines of the Ju 52/3m had half-chord cowlings and in planform view (from above/below) appeared to be splayed outwards, being mounted at an almost perpendicular angle to the tapered wing's sweptback leading edge (in a similar fashion to the Mitsubishi G3M bomber and Short Sunderland; the angled engines on the Ju 52 were intended to make maintaining straight flight easier should an engine fail, while the others had different reasons). The three engines had either Townend ring or NACA cowlings to reduce drag from the engine cylinders, although a mixture of the two was most common (as can be seen in many of the accompanying photographs), with deeper-chord NACA cowlings on the wing engines and a narrow Townend ring on the center engine (onto which a deeper NACA cowl was more difficult to fit, due to the widening fuselage behind the engine). Production Ju 52/3m aircraft flown by Deutsche Luft Hansa before World War II, as well as Luftwaffe-flown Ju 52s flown during the war, usually used an air-start system to turn over their trio of radial engines, using a common compressed-air supply that also operated the main wheels' brakes.

 

Prewar civil use

In 1932, James A. Richardson's Canadian Airways received (Werknummer 4006) CF-ARM, the sixth-built Ju 52/1m. The aircraft, first refitted with an Armstrong Siddeley Leopard radial engine and then later with a Rolls-Royce Buzzard and nicknamed the "Flying Boxcar" in Canada,[3][4] could lift about 3 tons and had a maximum weight of 7 tonnes (8 tons). It was used to supply mining and other operations in remote areas with equipment too big and heavy for other aircraft then in use. The Ju 52/1m was able to land on wheels, skis, or floats (as were all Ju 52 variants).[5]

 

Before the Nazi government seized control of Junkers in 1935, the Ju 52/3m was produced principally as a 17-seat airliner. It was used mainly by Luft Hansa and could fly from Berlin to Rome in 8 hours. The Luft Hansa fleet eventually numbered 80 and flew from Germany on routes in Europe, Asia, and South America.[citation needed]

 

Military use 1932–1945

The Colombian Air Force used three Ju 52/3mde bombers equipped as floatplanes during the Colombia-Peru War in 1932–1933. After the war, the air force acquired three other Ju 52mge as transports; the type remained in service until after World War II.[citation needed]

 

Bolivia acquired four Ju 52s in the course of the Chaco War (1932–1935), mainly for medical evacuation and air supply. During the conflict, the Ju 52s alone transported more than 4,400 tons of cargo to the front.[6]

 

In 1934, Junkers received orders to produce a bomber version of the Ju 52/3m to serve as interim equipment for the bomber units of the still-secret Luftwaffe until it could be replaced by the purpose-designed Dornier Do 11.[7] Two bomb bays were fitted, capable of holding up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) of bombs, while defensive armament consisted of two 7.92 mm MG 15 machine guns, one in an open dorsal position, and one in a retractable "dustbin" ventral position, which could be manually winched down from the fuselage to protect the aircraft from attacks from below. The bomber could be easily converted to serve in the transport role.[8] The Dornier Do 11 was a failure, however, and the Junkers ended up being acquired in much larger numbers than at first expected, with the type being the Luftwaffe's main bomber until more modern aircraft such as the Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 86 and Dornier Do 17 entered into service.[9][10]

 

The Ju 52 first was used in military service in the Spanish Civil War against the Spanish Republic. It was one of the first aircraft delivered to the faction of the army in revolt in July 1936, as both a bomber and transport. In the former role, it participated in the bombing of Guernica. No more of the bomber variants were built after this war, though it was again used as a bomber during the bombing of Warsaw[11] during the invasion of Poland in September 1939. The Luftwaffe then relied on the Ju 52 for transport roles during World War II, including paratroop drops.

 

World War II

In service with Lufthansa, the Ju 52 had proved to be an extremely reliable passenger airplane. Therefore, it was adopted by the Luftwaffe as a standard aircraft model. In 1938, the 7th Air Division had five air transport groups with 250 Ju 52s. The Luftwaffe had 552 Ju 52s at the start of World War II. Though it was built in great numbers, the Ju 52 was technically obsolete. Between 1939 and 1944, 2,804 Ju 52s were delivered to the Luftwaffe (1939: 145; 1940: 388; 1941: 502; 1942: 503; 1943: 887; and 1944: 379). The production of Ju 52s continued until around the summer of 1944; when the war came to an end, 100 to 200 were still available.

 

The Ju 52 could carry 18 fully equipped soldiers, or 12 stretchers when used as an air ambulance. Transported material was loaded and unloaded through side doors by means of a ramp. Air-dropped supplies were jettisoned through two double chutes; supply containers were dropped by parachute through the bomb-bay doors, and paratroopers jumped through the side doors. Sd.Kfz. 2 Kettenkrafträder (half-track motorcycles) and supply canisters for parachute troops were secured under the fuselage at the bomb bay exits and were dropped with four parachutes. A tow coupling was built into the tail-skid for use in towing freight gliders. The Ju 52 could tow up to two DFS 230 gliders.

 

Lightly armed, and with a top speed of only 265 km/h (165 mph) – half that of a contemporary Hurricane – the Ju 52 was very vulnerable to fighter attack, and an escort was always necessary when flying in a combat zone. Many Ju 52's were shot down by antiaircraft guns and fighters while transporting supplies, most notably during the desperate attempt to resupply the trapped German Sixth Army during the final stages of the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943.

 

From November 24, 1942 to January 31, 1943, 488 aircraft were lost (this number included 266 Ju 52, 165 He 111, 42 Ju 86, 9 Fw 200, 5 He 177 and 1 Ju 290) and about 1,000 flight personnel [12]

 

Denmark and Norway campaign

The first major operation for the aircraft after the bombing of Warsaw was in Operation Weserübung, the attack on Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940. Fifty-two Ju 52s from 1. and 8. Staffel in Kampfgeschwader 1 transported a company of Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) and a battalion of infantry to the northern part of Jutland, and captured the airfield at Aalborg, vital to support the operation in southern Norway. Several hundred Ju 52s were also used to transport troops to Norway in the first days of this campaign.

  

A minesweeper Ju 52/3m MS (Minensuch) equipped with degaussing ring

The seaplane version, equipped with two large floats, served during the Norwegian campaign in 1940, and later in the Mediterranean theatre. Some Ju 52's, both floatplanes and landplanes, were also used as minesweepers, known as Minensuch — literally, "mine-search" aircraft in German — and fitted with a 14 m (46 ft) diameter current-carrying degaussing ring under the airframe to create a magnetic field that triggered submerged naval mines. These aircraft were usually given an -"MS" suffix to designate them, as had been done with the similarly equipped Bv 138 MS trimotor flying boat.[13]

 

Netherlands campaign

The Ju 52 transport aircraft participated in the attack on the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, where they were deployed in the first large-scale air attack with paratroops in history during the Battle for The Hague. Many aircraft where shot down by Dutch AA-fire; a total of 125 Ju 52s were lost and 47 damaged, a very costly defeat in the opening days for the Luftwaffe[14]

 

Later, these aircraft were deployed at airfields in the Lyon, Lille, and Arras areas in August 1940.[15]

  

A Ju 52 approaching Stalingrad, 1942

Balkans campaign

The next major use of the Ju 52 was in the Balkans campaign, most famously in the Battle of Crete in May 1941.

 

North Africa campaign

During the North African campaign, the Ju 52 was the mainstay reinforcement and resupply transport for the Germans, starting with 20 to 50 flights a day to Tunisia from Sicily in November 1942, building to 150 landings a day in early April as the Axis situation became more desperate. The Allied air forces developed a counter-air operation over a two-month period and implemented Operation Flax on 5 April 1943, destroying 11 Ju 52s in the air near Cap Bon and many more during bombing attacks on its Sicilian airfields, leaving only 29 flyable.[16] That began two catastrophic weeks in which more than 140 were lost in air interceptions,[17] culminating on 18 April with the "Palm Sunday Massacre" in which 24 Ju 52s were shot down, and another 35 staggered back to Sicily and crash-landed.[18]

 

Hitler's personal transport

Main article: Hans Baur § Die Fliegerstaffel des Fuehrers

Hitler used a Deutsche Luft Hansa Ju 52 for campaigning in the 1932 German election, preferring flying to train travel. After he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hans Baur became his personal pilot, and Hitler was provided with a personal Ju 52. Named Immelmann II after the World War I ace Max Immelmann, it carried the registration D-2600.[19] As his power and importance grew, Hitler's personal air force grew to nearly 50 aircraft, based at Berlin Tempelhof Airport and made up mainly of Ju 52s, which also flew other members of his cabinet and war staff. In September 1939 at Baur's suggestion, Immelmann II was replaced by a four-engine Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, although Immelman II remained his backup aircraft for the rest of World War II.

 

Chiang Kai-shek's personal transport

 

A Ju 52 of Eurasia, 1930s in China

Eurasia was the main Chinese Airliner Company in the 1930s and the Ju-52 was their main airliner plane. One of them was commandeered by the Chinese Nationalist Party government and became Chiang Kai-shek's personal transport.[citation needed]

 

Postwar use

 

Ju 52 HB-HOS on sightseeing tour at Degerfeld[20] airfield (2016)

 

Ju 52/3m of British European Airways in 1947

 

French-built AAC.1 of STA at Manchester Airport in 1948: This aircraft is preserved in Belgrade.

 

Junkers C-79, s/n 42-52883, at Howard Field, Panama Canal Zone, late 1942 with the USAAF 20th Transportation Squadron, Sixth Air Force.

Various Junkers Ju 52s continued in military and civilian use following World War II. In 1956, the Portuguese Air Force, which was already using the Ju 52s as a transport plane, employed the type as a paratroop drop aircraft for its newly organized elite parachute forces, later known as the Batalhão de Caçadores Páraquedistas. The paratroopers used the Ju 52 in several combat operations in Angola and other Portuguese African colonies before gradually phasing it out of service in the 1960s.[21]

 

The Swiss Air Force also operated the Ju 52 from 1939 to 1982, when three aircraft remained in operation, probably the last and longest service in any air force.[22] Museums hoped to obtain the aircraft, but they were not for sale.[23] They are still in flying condition and together with a CASA 352 can be booked for sightseeing tours with Ju-Air.[24] During the 1950s, the Ju 52 was also used by the French Air Force during the First Indochina War as a bomber. The use of these Junkers was quite limited.[25]

 

The Spanish Air Force operated the Ju 52, nicknamed Pava, until well into the 1970s. Escuadrón 721, flying the Spanish-built versions, was employed in training parachutists from Alcantarilla Air Base near Murcia.[26]

 

Some military Ju 52s were converted to civilian use. For example, British European Airways operated 11 ex-Luftwaffe Ju 52/3mg8e machines, taken over by the RAF, between 1946 and retirement in 1947 on intra-U.K. routes before the Douglas DC-3 was introduced to the airline.[2] French airlines such as Societe de Transports Aeriens (STA) and Air France flew Toucans in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

 

In the USSR, captured Ju 52s were allocated to the Civil Air Fleet, being found particularly suitable for transporting sulphur from the Karakum Desert.[27] Various Soviet agencies used the Ju 52 through to 1950.

 

A Ju 52 and a Douglas DC-3 were the last aircraft to take off from Berlin Tempelhof Airport before all operations ceased there on 30 October 2008.[28]

 

Other versions

Most Ju 52s were destroyed after the war, but 585 were built after 1945. In France, the machine had been manufactured during the war by the Junkers-controlled Avions Amiot company, and production continued afterwards as the Amiot AAC 1 Toucan. In Spain, Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA continued production as the CASA 352 and 352L. Four CASA 352s are airworthy and in regular use today.

 

A CASA-built Ju52/3m appears in the opening sequence and finale of the 1968 Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood film Where Eagles Dare.

 

Variants

Data from Junkers Aircraft & Engines 1913–1945[29]

 

Civil variants

Ju 52

Prototype of the single-engined transport aircraft, of twelve laid down only six were completed as single-engined aircraft. First flight: 3 September 1930, powered by a BMW VIIaU engine.[30][31]

Ju 52/1mba

The prototype Ju 52, (c/n 4001, regn D-1974), redesignated after being re-engined with a single Junkers L88 engine

Ju 52/1mbe

Aircraft powered by BMW VIIaU

Ju 52/1mbi

The second prototype, (c/n 4002, regn D-2133), fitted with an 600 kW (800 hp) Armstrong Siddeley Leopard engine

Ju 52/1mca

D-1974 fitted with drag flaps and refitted with a BMW VIIaU

Ju 52/1mcai

D-2356, (c/n 4005), crashed in May 1933

Ju 52/1mce

D-USON (c/n 4003) used as a target tug. D-2317, (c/n 4004), converted to a torpedo bomber in Sweden as the K 45

Ju 52/1mci

The second prototype fitted with 11.05 m (36 ft 3 in) long stepped floats, flying from the River Elbe on 17 July 1931

Ju 52/1mdi

The second prototype after having the floats removed and undercarriage reinstated, registered as D-USUS from 1934

Ju 52/1mdo

D-1974 fitted with a Junkers Jumo 4 engine as a testbed, reregistered as D-UZYP from 1937

Ju 52/3m

Three-engined prototype, powered by three 410 kW (550 hp) Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp engines, first flight: 7 March 1932

Ju 52/3mba

VIP version for the president of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, Romanian prince Gheorghe Bibescu, powered by a 560 kW (750 hp) Hispano-Suiza 12Mb engine in the nose and two 423 kW (567 hp) Hispano-Suiza 12Nb engines (one on each wing)

Ju 52/3mce

Three-engined civil transport aircraft, powered by three Pratt & Whitney Hornet or BMW 132 engines

Ju 52/3mci

Planned version for Sweden, powered by Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines, not built

Ju 52/3mde

Seaplane version for Bolivia and Colombia, converted from Ju 52/1m

Ju 52/3mfe

Improved version, with chassis reinforcements and NACA cowlings on the outer engines, powered by three BMW 132A-3 engines

Ju 52/3mf1e

Trainer version for DVS

Ju 52/3mge

Airliner version, powered by BMW Hornet 132A engines

Ju 52/3mho

Two aircraft powered by Junkers Jumo 205C diesel engines, used only for testing

Ju 52/3mkao

Version powered by two BMW 132A and one BMW 132F or BMW 132N as a testbed

Ju 52/3ml

Powered by three 489 kW (656 hp) Pratt & Whitney R-1690-S1EG engines

Ju 52/3mlu

Airliner version for Italy, powered by Piaggio Stella X engines, later re-engined with Alfa Romeo 126RC/34 engines

Ju 52/3mmao

Similar to kao except with NACA cowling

Ju 52/3mnai

Airliner version for Sweden and Great Britain, powered by Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines

Ju 52/3mreo

Airliner version for South America, powered by BMW 132Da/Dc engines

Ju 52/3msai

Airliner version for Sweden and South America, powered by Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines

Ju 52/3mte

Airliner version, powered by three BMW 132K engines

Ju 52/3mZ5

Export version for Finland, powered by BMW 132Z-3 engines

Military variants

Ju 52/3mg3e

Improved military version, powered by three 541 kW (725 hp) BMW 132A-3 (improved version of the Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet) radial engines, equipped with an improved radio and bomb-release mechanism. Later versions had a tailwheel that replaced the tailskid.

Ju 52/3mg4e

Military transport version, the tailskid was replaced by a tailwheel.

Ju 52/3mg5e

Similar to g4e, but powered by three 619 kW (830 hp) BMW 132T-2 engines, it could be fitted with interchangeable floats, skis, and wheeled landing gear.

Ju 52/3mg6e

Transport version equipped with extra radio gear and autopilot, could also be fitted with a degaussing ring

Ju 52/3mg7e

Transport version, capable of carrying 18 troops or 12 stretchers, featured autopilot and larger cargo doors

Ju 52/3mg8e

Similar to g6e, but with improved radio and direction finding gear, a few were fitted with floats.

Ju 52/3mg9e

Tropical version of g4e for service in North Africa, fitted with glider towing gear and strengthened undercarriage

Ju 52/3mg10e

Similar to g9e, but could be fitted with floats or wheels, lacked deicing equipment

Ju 52/3mg11e

Similar to g10e, but fitted with deicing equipment

Ju 52/3mg12e

Land transport version, powered by three BMW 132L engines

Ju 52/3m12e

Civilian version of Ju 52/3mg12e for Luft Hansa

Ju 52/3mg13e

No details are known.

Ju 52/3mg14e

Similar to g8e, but with improved armor, last German production version

 

Preserved AAC 1 showing corrugated skin, at Duxford, 2001

A.A.C. 1 Toucan

Postwar French version of g11e, 415 built[32]

CASA 352

Postwar Spanish version, 106 built[32]

CASA 352L

Spanish version with Spanish 578 kW (775 hp) ENMA Beta B-4 (license-built BMW 132) engines, 64 built[32][33]

C-79

Designation assigned to a single example operated by the United States Army Air Forces[34]

D52

Designation used by the Czechoslovak Air Force

T2B

Designation used by the Spanish Air Force

Tp 5

Designation used by the Swedish Air Force

K 45c

A single Ju 52/1mce (c/n 4004) was delivered to the Junkers factory at Limhamn in Sweden, where it was converted to a torpedo bomber as the K 45c.

Operators

Main article: List of Junkers Ju 52 operators

 

A Lufthansa Junkers Ju 52/3m (registered D-CDLH), until 1984, known as "Iron Annie N52JU", was painted as D-AQUI in historic 1936 Deutsche Luft Hansa colors. D-CDLH has P&W engines, now with three-bladed propellers (ex Caiden).

 

CASA 352 (license-built Junkers Ju 52/3m) in Ju-Air markings at Zürich airport

Argentina

Austria

Belgium

Bolivia

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Chile

China

Colombia

Independent State of Croatia

Czechoslovakia

Denmark

Ecuador

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Italy

Lebanon

Norway

Peru

Poland

Portugal

Romania

South Africa

Slovakia Slovakia

Soviet Union

Spanish State

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

United Kingdom

United States

Uruguay

Yugoslavia

Accidents and incidents

Main article: List of accidents and incidents involving the Junkers Ju 52

Surviving aircraft

Airworthy aircraft

Main article: List of airworthy Ju 52s

As of 2018, the two remaining Ju 52s which operated pleasure flights from Dübendorf airport in Switzerland, are grounded following corrosion found in the wreck of the JU 52 which crashed in August 2018 with the loss of 20 lives.[35] Lufthansa operates one Ju 52/3m (D-AQUI) for air shows and pleasure flights.[36]

 

Aircraft on display

Germany

 

Junkers Ju 52/3m (D-AZAW) is on display at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin

Junkers Ju 52/3m (Amiot AAC.1 Toucan) is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Ex FAF 363

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L, c/n 016) is on display at the Flugausstellung Leo Junior at Hermeskeil, Germany.[37]

Junkers Ju 52/3m (D-AZAW) is on display at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin.[38]

Junkers Ju 52/3m is on display at the Technikmuseum "Hugo Junkers" in Dessau, which is situated where the Junkers factory stood until 1945.[39]

Junkers Ju 52/3m g4e (WNr.6693) is on display at "Ju 52 Hangar" of Traditionsgemeinschaft Lufttransport Wunstorf e. V.(Air Transport Community of Tradition) near Wunstorf, Germany.[40]

Junkers Ju 52/3m (D-ANOY) is on display at the Visitors Park at Munich Airport.[41]

 

Survivor in the Munich Airport

Argentina

Junkers Ju 52/3m (WNr.4043) is on display at the Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica de Argentina (National Aeronautics Museum) in Morón, Buenos Aires.[42][43]

Belgium

Junkers Ju 52/3m is on display at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels.

Colombia

Junkers Ju 52/3mge (AMC-625, WNr.5023) is display at the MAECO Museum of Colombian Air Force in El Dorado Airport, Bogotá, Colombia.

France

An Amiot AAC.1 Toucan was acquired in 2011 by the Association des Mécaniciens Pilotes d'Aéronefs Anciens, Brétigny-sur-Orge, Essonne, France. Formerly with the Portuguese Air Force as 6311, it had been stored for over 40 years at the Portuguese Air Force Museum, Alverca do Ribatejo.[44]

Norway

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L)(LN-DNL) is on display at the Norwegian Aviation Museum, Bodø, Norway.[45]

Junkers Ju 52/3m g4e (CA+JY) is on display at the Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection at Gardermoen near Oslo, Norway.[46]

Poland

Junkers Ju 52/3m g10e (Amiot AAC.1 Toucan) previously exhibited in Duxford is on display at the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków.

Portugal

Junkers Ju 52/3m ge is on display at the Museu do Ar in Sintra, Portugal.

Serbia

Junkers Ju 52/3m (Amiot AAC.1 Toucan) 7208 ex F-BBYB is on display at the Museum of Aviation, Belgrade.

Spain

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352) is on display at the Spanish Air Museum in Cuatro Vientos (Madrid, Spain).

Sweden

Junkers Ju 52/3m built in Spain in 1948 (painted as a Ju 52 that flew to Sweden with eight German refugees in 1945) is on display at Svedinos Bil- och Flygmuseum in Ugglarp, Sweden.

United Kingdom

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L) is on display at the Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford.[47]

United States

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L) is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia.[48]

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L) is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The aircraft was donated to the museum by the Spanish government in 1971. After being on display outside for 40 years, the aircraft has been placed in indefinite storage to protect it from further deterioration.[49]

Junkers Ju 52/3m (CASA 352L) (N352JU) is on display at the Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Specifications (Junkers Ju 52/3m g3e)

Data from The warplanes of the Third Reich[50]

 

General characteristics

 

Crew: Two

Capacity: 17 passengers

Length: 18.90 m (62 ft 0 in)

Wingspan: 29.248 m (95 ft 11.5 in)

Height: 5.550 m (18 ft 2.5 in)

Wing area: 110.5000 m2 (1,189.412 sq ft)

Empty weight: 5,720 kg (12,610 lb)

Gross weight: 9,500 kg (20,944 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 10,499 kg (23,146 lb)

Powerplant: 3 × BMW 132A-3 9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines, 541 kW (725 hp) each for take-off(525 PS[51])

Propellers: 2-bladed variable-pitch propeller

Performance

 

Maximum speed: 265.5 km (165.0 mph, 143.4 kn) at sea level

276.8 km/h (172.0 mph; 149.5 kn) at 910 metres (3,000 ft)

Cruise speed: 246 km (153 mph, 133 kn) maximum continuous at 910 metres (3,000 ft)

209 km/h (130 mph; 113 kn) economical cruise

Range: 998 km (620 mi, 539 nmi)

Service ceiling: 5,900 m (19,360 ft)

Rate of climb: 3.9 m/s (770 ft/min)

Time to altitude: 910 metres (3,000 ft) in 17 minutes 30 seconds

Wing loading: 83.35 kg/m2 (17.07 lb/sq ft)

Power/mass: 7.95 kg/kW

Armament

Guns: * 1 × 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 15 machine gun or 13 mm (0.512 in) MG 131 machine gun in a dorsal position

1 × 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 15 machine gun in a semi-retractable bustbin turret

  

Bombs: up to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) of bombs

On the Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Marylou" redirects here. For the album by Anna Rossinelli, see Marylou (album).

For other uses, see On the Road (disambiguation).

On the Road

 

1st edition

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac. On the Road is based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry and drug use.

The idea for On the Road formed during the late 1940s. It was to be Kerouac's second novel, and it underwent several drafts before he completed it in April 1951. It was first published by Viking Press in 1957.

When the book was originally released, The New York Times hailed it as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."[1] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked On the Road 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[2]

 

This section is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (December 2012)

Many aspects go into understanding the context of On the Road, and they must be viewed cohesively in order to appreciate why the book was as relevant and pertinent as it was. The following issues are important to consider as the foundation for the book and its reception by the public.

Kerouac biography[edit]

Kerouac was born in a French-Canadian neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts, and learned English at age six. (He had difficulty with the language into his teens.) He grew up in a devout Catholic home, and this influence manifested itself throughout the work. During high school, Kerouac was a star football player and earned a scholarship to Columbia University. After dropping out following a conflict with the football coach, he then served on several different sailing vessels before returning to New York in search of inspiration to write. Here he met the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs who would not only become characters in the book but also form the core of the Beat Generation.[3]

Many of the events depicted in the book are the experiences that shaped both its content and production. Kerouac met Neal Cassady, who would become Dean Moriarty, in December 1946 and began his road adventures in 1947 while writing what would become The Town and the City. The adventures themselves, which took place between 1947 and 1950, were meant to help him overcome writers block during early attempts to write the book. It was through letters and other interactions with his friends that Kerouac decided to write the first person narrative that became On the Road as we know it today.[3]

The publication process was another adventure unto itself, which took a major psychological toll on Kerouac. He was discouraged by the struggle (even though he continued to write during the period) and finally agreed to substantially revise the original version after years of failed negotiations with different publishers. He removed several parts in order to focus the story and also to protect himself from potential issues of libel. He also continued to write feverishly after its publication in spite of attacks from critics.[3]

Historical context[edit]

On the Road portrays the story of a fierce personal quest for meaning and belonging. This comes at an interesting point in American history when conformity was praised and outsiders were suspect. The Beat Generation arose out of a time of intense conflict, both internally and externally.

The issues of the Cold War, the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism took center stage of the cultural arena in the 1950s. As the U.S government cracked down on left-wing influences at home and abroad, the sentiment of unifying and banding together led to extreme measures of censorship and control.

The Cold War was the backdrop for this fight. In a short time after defeating Germany, the Soviet Union fell from ally to threat in the eyes of the United States. In the postwar reconstruction process, the two powers found themselves continually at odds. The sentiment arose clearly as a struggle between two opposing ways of life. Contention over Soviet support for alleged communist revolution in Iran, then Turkey and Greece, led to the American policy of containment and the Truman Doctrine. Before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman stated, "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support the people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[4] That summer, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed a plan for the economic reconstruction of Europe. While Western European countries planned how to go about rebuilding with American help, the Soviets walked away and forced the Eastern European countries to do the same. A Soviet aid and recovery plan followed for these countries and would mark the beginning of a punch and counterpunch pattern that would typify the early years of the Cold War. This laid a foundation for the tension that would define the period.[4]

Beat Generation summary[edit]

It was in this climate that some individuals of the young generation were seeking meaning outside the mainstream worldview. Amidst all the conflict and contradiction, the Beats were seeking out a way to navigate through the world. As John Clellon Holmes put it, "Everywhere the Beat Generation seems occupied with the feverish production of answers—some of them frightening, some of them foolish—to a single question: how are we to live?"[5]

The idea of what it means to be "beat" is still difficult to accurately describe. While many critics still consider the word "beat" in its literal sense of "tired and beaten down," others, including Kerouac himself promoted the generation more in sense of "beatific" or blissful.[6] "Beat" can also be read as a 'rhythm' such as in music, as in Jazz - a rhythmic beat or 'the rhythm of life' itself.

Holmes and Kerouac published several articles in popular magazines in an attempt to explain the movement. In the November 16, 1952 New York Times Sunday Magazine, he wrote a piece exposing the faces of the Beat Generation. "[O]ne day [Kerouac] said, 'You know, this is a really beat generation' ... More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately, of soul: a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself."[7] He distinguishes Beats from the Lost Generation of the 1920s pointing out how the Beats are not lost but how they are searching for answers to all of life's questions. Kerouac's preoccupation with writers like Ernest Hemingway shaped his view of the beat generation. He uses a prose style which he adapted from Hemingway and throughout On the Road he alludes to novels like The Sun Also Rises. "How to live seems much more crucial than why."[7] In many ways, it is a spiritual journey, a quest to find belief, belonging, and meaning in life. Not content with the uniformity promoted by government and consumer culture, the Beats yearned for a deeper, more sensational experience.

Holmes expands his attempt to define the generation in a 1958 article in Esquire magazine. This article was able to take more of a look back at the formation of the movement as it was published after On the Road. "It describes the state of mind from which all unessentials have been stripped, leaving it receptive to everything around it, but impatient with trivial obstructions. To be beat is to be at the bottom of your personality, looking up."[5]

Literary context[edit]

At the time of publication, On the Road was not the first book to criticize contemporary American culture. A nonconformist sentiment characterized the arts and popular culture of the 1950s as a way of rejecting societal norms. Many of the best selling books of the time achieved this same mission.[4]

J. D. Salinger produced the first shock to the tranquil suburban landscape with the publication of The Catcher in the Rye in 1951. His protagonist Holden Caulfield struck a chord with young readers also at odds with the adult world. Caulfield's rejection of the regimentation and "phoniness" of the world around him resonated with the struggle for meaning that drove the Beat Generation. Salinger's rejection of traditional middle-class values signaled the first widely recognized public stand against the cultural conformist pressure.[4]

Among the best-selling novels of 1950s was Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Published in September 1956, it managed to be the second most sold book in the country that year and then to top the chart in 1957. In fact, it went on to be the best-selling book in American history up to that point.[8] Often cited as the prime example of the decline in American culture of the decade, the novel examines the traditional values of a New England mill town by introducing the complications of extramarital sexual affairs. A book that received a broad range of reviews after publication, Peyton Place's popularity shows that popular culture was ready for a break from their traditional expectations.[8]

Another popular contemporary was Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) that dealt with the increasing suburbanization of American society. Tom Rath struggles with the dilemma of following his conscience or pursuing the big salary and lush lifestyle typically portrayed of the 1950s family. In the end, though, he discovers that he can have both. While Wilson can be seen as chastising the societal norms at times, he concludes with his character achieving them. This shows the dichotomy of attitudes toward the middle-class values of the day.[9]

Production and publication[edit]

  

The scroll, exhibited at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, summer 2007

Kerouac often promoted the story about how in April 1951 he wrote the novel in three weeks, typing continuously onto a 120-foot roll of teletype paper.[10] Although the story is true per se, the book was in fact the result of a long and arduous creative process. Kerouac carried small notebooks, in which much of the text was written as the eventful span of road trips unfurled. He started working on the first of several versions of the novel as early as 1948, based on experiences during his first long road trip in 1947. However, he remained dissatisfied with the novel.[11] Inspired by a thousand-word rambling letter from his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac in 1950 outlined the "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" and decided to tell the story of his years on the road with Cassady as if writing a letter to a friend in a form that reflected the improvisational fluidity of jazz.[12]

The first draft of what was to become the published novel was written in three weeks in April 1951 while Kerouac lived with Joan Haverty, his second wife, at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan, New York. The manuscript was typed on what he called "the scroll"—a continuous, one hundred and twenty-foot scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together.[13] The roll was typed single-spaced, without margins or paragraph breaks. In the following years, Kerouac continued to revise this manuscript, deleting some sections (including some sexual depictions deemed pornographic in the 1950s) and adding smaller literary passages.[14] Kerouac authored a number of inserts intended for On the Road between 1951 and 1952, before eventually omitting them from the manuscript and using them to form the basis of another work, Visions of Cody.[15] On the Road was championed within Viking Press by Malcolm Cowley and was published by Viking in 1957, based on revisions of the 1951 manuscript.[16] Besides differences in formatting, the published novel was shorter than the original scroll manuscript and used pseudonyms for all of the major characters.

Viking Press released a slightly edited version of the original manuscript on 16 August 2007 titled On the Road: The Original Scroll corresponding with the 50th anniversary of original publication. This version has been transcribed and edited by English academic and novelist Dr. Howard Cunnell. As well as containing material that was excised from the original draft due to its explicit nature, the scroll version also uses the real names of the protagonists, so Dean Moriarty becomes Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx becomes Allen Ginsberg, etc.[17]

In 2007, Gabriel Anctil, a journalist of the Montreal's daily Le Devoir discovered, in Kerouac's personal archives in New York, almost 200 pages of his writings entirely in Quebec French, with colloquialisms. The collection included ten manuscript pages of an unfinished version of On the Road, written on January 19, 1951. The date of the writings makes Kerouac one of the earliest known authors to use colloquial Quebec French in literature.[18]

Plot summary[edit]

 

The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Salvatore "Sal" Paradise, and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal's travels. The novel contains five parts, three of them describing road trips with Moriarty. The narrative takes place in the years 1947 to 1950, is full of Americana, and marks a specific era in jazz history, "somewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis." The novel is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author and Dean standing for Neal Cassady. The epic nature of the adventures and the text itself creates a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose for the themes and lessons.

Part One[edit]

The first section describes Sal's first trip to San Francisco. Disheartened after a divorce, his life changes when he meets Dean Moriarty, who is "tremendously excited with life," and begins to long for the freedom of the road: "Somewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me." He sets off in July 1947 with fifty dollars in his pocket. After taking several buses and hitchhiking, he arrives in Denver, where he hooks up with Carlo Marx, Dean, and their friends. There are parties — among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. "Oh, where is the girl I love?" he wonders. Soon he meets Terry, the "cutest little Mexican girl," on the bus to Los Angeles. They stay together, traveling back to Bakersfield, then to Sabinal, "her hometown," where her family works in the fields. He meets Terry's brother Ricky, who teaches him the true meaning of "mañana" ("tomorrow"). Working in the cotton fields, Sal realizes that he is not made for this type of work. Leaving Terry behind, he takes the bus back to New York and walks the final stretch from Times Square to Paterson, just missing Dean, who had come to see him, by two days.

In this section, Kerouac not only introduces many of the book's characters but also its central conflicts and dilemmas. He initially shows Sal as the deep thinking writer who yearns for greater freedom. As the plot unfolds he shows the depth and degree of Sal's internal conflict in the pursuit of "kicks," torn between the romanticized freedom of the open road and practicality of a more settled, domestic life. Dean appears as the "yellow roman candle" that catalyzes the action of the novel. His uncontainable spirit invites Sal to follow but also foreshadows problems of commitment and devotion that will reappear later on.

Part Two[edit]

In December 1948 Sal is celebrating Christmas with his relatives in Testament, Virginia when Dean shows up with Marylou (having left his second wife, Camille, and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco) and Ed Dunkel. Sal's Christmas plans are shattered as "now the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty." First they drive to New York, where they meet Carlo and party. Dean wants Sal to make love to Marylou, but Sal declines. In Dean's Hudson they take off from New York in January 1949 and make it to New Orleans. In Algiers they stay with the morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane. Galatea Dunkel joins her husband in New Orleans while Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue their trip. Once in San Francisco, Dean again leaves Marylou to be with Camille. "Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him," Marylou tells Sal. Both of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth, and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: "what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don't know," and Sal departs, taking the bus back to New York.

In this section, Marylou sums up the dilemma of Dean's lack of commitment and selfishness when she says that he will always leave you if it isn't in his interest. This central conflict appears again after Dean returns to Camille in San Francisco, abandoning his two travel companions. Sal again finds himself at a loss for purpose and direction. He has spent his time following the other characters but is unfulfilled by the frantic nature of this life. Much of the euphoria has worn off as he becomes more contemplative and philosophical.

Part Three[edit]

In the spring of 1949, Sal takes a bus from New York to Denver. He is depressed and "lonesome"; none of his friends are around. After receiving some money, he leaves Denver for San Francisco to see Dean. Camille is pregnant and unhappy, and Dean has injured his thumb trying to hit Marylou for sleeping with other men. Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: "You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks." Sal realizes she is right — Dean is the "HOLY GOOF" — but also defends him, as "he's got the secret that we're all busting to find out." After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Street, they depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a "fag," who propositions them. Dean tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. During this part of the trip Sal and Dean have ecstatic discussions having found "IT" and "TIME." In Denver a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. They get a '47 Cadillac from the travel bureau that needs to be brought to Chicago. Dean drives most of the way, crazy, careless, often speeding over 100 miles per hour, bringing it in a disheveled state. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid Row, Dean hoping to find his homeless father. From Detroit they share a ride to New York and arrive at Sal's aunt's new flat in Long Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child.

After seeing how he treats Camille and Marylou, Sal finally begins to realize the nature of his relationship with Dean. While he cares greatly about him, several times discussing future plans to live on the same street, he recognizes that the feeling may not be mutual. The situations are beginning to change, though, as Sal has received some money from his recently published book and can begin to support himself and also Dean when he comes to New York. Sal is taking a more active role in his freedom as opposed to just following Dean.

Part Four[edit]

In the spring of 1950, Sal gets the itch to travel again while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girlfriend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures — listening to basketball games and looking at erotic playing cards. By bus Sal takes to the road again, passing Washington, Ashland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City when they learn that Dean had bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredo, where they cross the border. They are ecstatic, having left "everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things." Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is "delirious and unconscious." Dean leaves him, and Sal later reflects that "when I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes."

In this section we see Dean's selfishness finally extend to Sal, as he leaves Sal abandoned in Mexico City. Sal has sunk to the bottom of his reality having seen Victor put his family obligations over the freedom of the road and Dean was not ready to do the same thing. This is the moment where the paths diverge and Sal realizes that he has more to live for than just constantly moving.

Part Five[edit]

Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery from dysentery in Mexico, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He finds a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco. Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives over five weeks early but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home to Laura and sees a copy of Proust and knows that it is Dean's. Sal realizes that his friend has arrived, but at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco. On hearing this Dean makes the decision to head back to Camille and Sal's friend Remi Boncoeur denies Sal's request to give Dean a short lift to 40th Street on their way to a Duke Ellington concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. Sal's girlfriend Laura realises that this is a painful moment for Sal and prompts him for a response as the party drives off without Dean; to which he replies "He'll be alright". Sal later reflects as he sits on a river pier under a New Jersey night sky about the roads and lands of America that he has travelled and states ". . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Character key[edit]

Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.[19][20]

"Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same person's name in each work."[21]

Real-life personCharacter name

Jack KerouacSal Paradise

Gabrielle KerouacSal's Aunt

Alan AnsenRollo Greb

William S. BurroughsOld Bull Lee

Joan VollmerJane

Lucien CarrDamion

Neal CassadyDean Moriarty

Carolyn CassadyCamille

Hal ChaseChad King

Henri CruRemi Boncoeur

Bea Franco (Beatrice Kozera)Terry

Allen GinsbergCarlo Marx

Diana HansenInez

Alan HarringtonHal Hingham

Joan HavertyLaura

Luanne HendersonMarylou

Al HinkleEd Dunkel

Helen HinkleGalatea Dunkel

Jim HolmesTom Snark

John Clellon HolmesIan MacArthur

Ed StringhamTom Saybrook

Herbert HunckeElmer Hassel

Frank JeffriesStan Shephard

Gene PippinGene Dexter

Allan TemkoRoland Major

Bill TomsonRoy Johnson

Helen TomsonDorothy Johnson

Ed UhlEd Wall

Helen GullionRita Betancourt

Major themes[edit]

 

The main ideas of the Beat Generation, the longing for belief and meaning in life, are reflected in On the Road. While interest in the book initially revolved more around Kerouac's personal life rather than the literary nature of the text, critical attention has burgeoned in recent years. Although the book can be viewed through many lenses, several major themes rise up from a deeper study.

Kerouac has admitted that the biggest of these themes is religion. In a letter to a student in 1961, he wrote:

"Dean and I were embarked on a journey through post-Whitman America to FIND that America and to FIND the inherent goodness in American man. It was really a story about 2 Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him."

[22]

This idea of an inward adventure is illustrated in all of the experimentation. The Beats had a more liberal definition of God and spirituality closely related to personal experience.

All of the travel and personal interaction in the book permit an examination of the ideas of masculinity and mobility in the 1950s. While these concepts may seem unrelated, Kerouac weaves them together to provide another form of rebellion against the social norm of conformity. Mary Pannicia Carden examines this and proposes that traveling was a way for the characters to assert their independence. "[Sal and Dean] attempt to replace the model of manhood dominant in capitalist America with a model rooted in foundational American ideals of conquest and self-discovery."[23] Travel is a very symbolic act both in history and in literature of coming of age and self-realization, especially for males. But not only do they see conformity as restricting, but in many senses, they view women this way as well. "Reassigning disempowering elements of patriarchy to female keeping, they attempt to substitute male brotherhood for the nuclear family and to replace the ladder of success with the freedom of the road as primary measures of male identity."[23] The interactions of the book come down to balances of power and gains and losses of masculinity. Even though they seek to defy its traditional markers, Dean and Sal also rely on this masculinity in their self-definition. In the end, their divergence to different paths reflects Sal's understanding of the limitations of complete freedom that is sought on the road in so far as it pertains to relations to culture and identity.

In a broader sense, On the Road's major lesson is about the proper way of growing up. Unlike Holden Caulfield, Sal Paradise is struggling with getting through adolescence and maturity rather than delaying it. We see this contrasted with Dean Moriarty who is portrayed as the depiction of a child, always on the move. Sal's struggle is how to balance these opposing forces. We saw these exact issues in Holmes's definition of the Beat Generation as a whole, of which Sal Paradise becomes the metaphorical face.

Language[edit]

 

In addition to the themes and controversial topics addressed in On the Road, Kerouac's apparently erratic writing style garnered much attention for the novel. Some have said that On the Road was merely a transitional phase in between the traditional narrative structure of The Town and the City (1951) and the so-called "wild form" of Kerouac's later books like Visions of Cody (1972).[24]

Kerouac's own explanation of his style begins with the publication of "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" (1953) in which he outlines the core features of his techniques. He likens his writing to Impressionist painters who sought to create art through direct observation. He endeavored to present a raw version of truth which did not lend itself to the traditional process of revision and rewriting but rather the emotionally charged practice of spontaneity he pursued.[25]

This spontaneity produced a book that was not only readable in 1957 but still captures the attention of audiences today. The personal nature of the text helps foster a direct link between Kerouac and the reader. Because he is writing about actual experiences, conveying appropriately the environment provided this connection. Kerouac chose to do this through his detailed descriptions, rarely pausing for a breath between sentences. His more casual diction and very relaxed syntax, although viewed as less than serious by some, was an intentional attempt to depict events as they happened and to convey all of the energy and emotion of the experiences.[25]

Reception[edit]

 

The book received a mixed reaction from the media in 1957. Some of the earlier reviews spoke highly of the book, but the backlash to these was swift and strong. Although this was discouraging to Kerouac, he still received great recognition and notoriety from the work. Since its publication, critical attention has focused on issues of both the context and the style, addressing the actions of the characters as well as the nature of Kerouac's prose.

Initial reaction[edit]

In his review for The New York Times, Gilbert Millstein wrote, "its publication is a historic occasion in so far as the exposure of an authentic work of art is of any great moment in an age in which the attention is fragmented and the sensibilities are blunted by the superlatives of fashion" and praised it as "a major novel."[1] Millstein was already sympathetic toward the Beat Generation and his promotion of the book in the Times did wonders for its recognition and acclaim. Not only did he like the themes, but also the style, which would come to be just as hotly contested in the reviews that followed. "There are sections of On the Road in which the writing is of a beauty almost breathtaking...there is some writing on jazz that has never been equaled in American fiction, either for insight, style, or technical virtuosity."[1] Kerouac and Joyce Johnson, a younger writer he was living with, read the review shortly after midnight at a newsstand at 69th Street and Broadway, near Joyce's apartment in the Upper West Side. They took their copy of the newspaper to a neighborhood bar and read the review over and over. "Jack kept shaking his head," Joyce remembered later in her memoir Minor Characters, "as if he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t happier than he was." Finally, they returned to her apartment to go to sleep. As Joyce recalled: "Jack lay down obscure for the last time in his life. The ringing phone woke him the next morning, and he was famous.”[26]

The backlash began just a few days later in the same publication. David Dempsey published a review that contradicted most of what Millstein had promoted in the book. "As a portrait of a disjointed segment of society acting out of its own neurotic necessity, "On the Road", is a stunning achievement. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that leads to nowhere." While he did not discount the stylistic nature of the text (saying that it was written "with great relish"), he dismissed the content as a "passionate lark" rather than a novel."[27]

Other reviewers were also less than impressed. Phoebe Lou Adams in Atlantic Monthly wrote that it "disappoints because it constantly promises a revelation or a conclusion of real importance and general applicability, and cannot deliver any such conclusion because Dean is more convincing as an eccentric than as a representative of any segment of humanity."[28] While she liked the writing and found a good theme, her concern was repetition. "Everything Mr. Kerouac has to say about Dean has been told in the first third of the book, and what comes later is a series of variations on the same theme."[28]

The review from Time exhibited a similar sentiment. "The post-World War II generation—beat or beatific—has not found symbolic spokesmen with anywhere near the talents of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, or Nathaniel West. In this novel, talented Author Kerouac, 35, does not join that literary league, either, but at least suggests that his generation is not silent. With his barbaric yawp of a book, Kerouac commands attention as a kind of literary James Dean."[29] It considers the book partly a travel book and partly a collection of journal jottings. While Kerouac sees his characters as "mad to live...desirous of everything at the same time," the reviewer likens them to cases of "psychosis that is a variety of Ganser Syndrome" who "aren't really mad—they only seem to be."[29]

Current reactions[edit]

On the Road has been the object of much study since its publication. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of publication, several critics took a fresh look at the text in 2007. It is interesting to consider how the perception has evolved in the last half century.

David Brooks of the New York Times compiled several of these opinions and summarized them in an Op-Ed from October 2, 2007. Where as Millstein saw it as a story in which the heroes took pleasure in everything, George Mouratidis, an editor of a new edition, claimed "above all else, the story is about loss." "It's a book about death and the search for something meaningful to hold on to — the famous search for 'IT,' a truth larger than the self, which, of course, is never found," wrote Meghan O'Rourke in Slate. "Kerouac was this deep, lonely, melancholy man," Hilary Holladay of the University of Massachusetts Lowell told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "And if you read the book closely, you see that sense of loss and sorrow swelling on every page." "In truth, 'On the Road' is a book of broken dreams and failed plans," wrote Ted Gioia in The Weekly Standard.[30]

John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think), says "We're no longer shocked by the sex and drugs. The slang is passé and at times corny. Some of the racial sentimentality is appalling" but adds "the tale of passionate friendship and the search for revelation are timeless. These are as elusive and precious in our time as in Sal's, and will be when our grandchildren celebrate the book's hundredth anniversary."[31]

To Brooks, this characterization seems limited. "Reading through the anniversary commemorations, you feel the gravitational pull of the great Boomer Narcissus. All cultural artifacts have to be interpreted through whatever experiences the Baby Boomer generation is going through at that moment. So a book formerly known for its youthful exuberance now becomes a gloomy middle-aged disillusion."[30] He laments how the book's spirit seems to have been tamed by the professionalism of America today and how it has only survived in parts. The more reckless and youthful parts of the text that gave it its energy are the parts that have "run afoul of the new gentility, the rules laid down by the health experts, childcare experts, guidance counselors, safety advisers, admissions officers, virtuecrats and employers to regulate the lives of the young."[30] He claims that the "ethos" of the book has been lost.

Influence[edit]

 

On the Road has been a major influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, and many more.

"It changed my life like it changed everyone else's," Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song and calling the Beats "father figures." At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend — Kerouac wrote the introduction to Franks' book, The Americans — and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had On the Road not laid down the template; likewise, films such as Easy Rider, Paris, Texas, and even Thelma and Louise.[32]

In his book Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, Ray Manzarek (keyboard player of The Doors) wrote "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed."

Since the mobile lifestyle popularized by "On The Road" had a strong influence on the large market segment of baby boomers who joined the hippie movement the death of Jack Kerouac was of interest to the readers of the pioneering new journalism publication Rolling Stone. As a result, editor and publisher of the tabloid, Jann Wenner, printed a detailed account of the funeral of the "On The Road" author by writers Stephen Davis and Eric Ehrmann. According to the Rolling Stone article, Jack Kerouac's open casket viewing at the Archambault Funeral Home and subsequent burial funeral at the Edson Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts were attended by few of his "On The Road" era friends. Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in the book) had died the year before in 1968. San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti chose not to come east to attend. Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx in the book) showed up with Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso was there filming the event. Author Terry Southern sent a floral arrangement that was on display near the bier. One writer in attendance not associated with the "On The Road" group or Beatnik crowd was New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin, who, like Kerouac, came from a working-class background. Breslin, who had been inspired by "On The Road" in his youth, journeyed up to Lowell to pay his respects, his feelings about Kerouac's appearing as part of the Rolling Stone coverage. Many writers, actors and artists including Ann Charters and Hettie Jones, inter alia, would later share their feelings about how they were influenced by "On The Road" and the Beat culture in the Rolling Stone Book of The Beats edited by Holly George Warren published by Hyperion in 1999.

 

The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, originally Cincinnati Union Terminal, is a mixed-use complex in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Once a major passenger train station, it went into sharp decline during the postwar decline of railroad travel. Most of the building was converted to other uses, and now houses museums, theaters, and a library, as well as special travelling exhibitions. Since 1991, it has been used as a train station once again.

 

Built in 1933, it is a monumental example of Art Deco architecture, for which it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

 

Cincinnati was a major center of railroad traffic in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially as an interchange point between railroads serving the Northeastern and Midwestern states with railroads serving the South. However, intercity passenger traffic was split among no fewer than five stations in Downtown Cincinnati, requiring the many travelers who changed between railroads to navigate local transit themselves. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which operated through sleepers with other railroads, was forced to split its operations between two stations. Proposals to construct a union station began as early as the 1890s, and a committee of railroad executives formed in 1912 to begin formal studies on the subject, but a final agreement between all seven railroads that served Cincinnati and the city itself would not come until 1928, after intense lobbying and negotiations, led by Philip Carey Company president George Crabbs. The seven railroads: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad; the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway; the Louisville and Nashville Railroad; the Norfolk and Western Railway; the Pennsylvania Railroad; and the Southern Railway selected a site for their new station in the West End, near the Mill Creek.

 

The principal architects of the massive building were Alfred T. Fellheimer and Steward Wagner, with architects Paul Philippe Cret and Roland Wank brought in as design consultants; Cret is often credited as the building's architect, as he was responsible for the building's signature Art Deco style. The Rotunda features the largest semi-dome in the western hemisphere, measuring 180 feet (55 m) wide and 106 feet (32 m) high.

 

The Union Terminal Company was created to build the terminal, railroad lines in and out, and other related transportation improvements. Construction in 1928 with the regrading of the east flood plain of the Mill Creek to a point nearly level with the surrounding city, a massive effort that required 5.5 million cubic yards of landfill. Other improvements included the construction of grade separated viaducts over the Mill Creek and the railroad approaches to Union Terminal. The new viaducts the Union Terminal Company created to cross the Mill Creek valley ranged from the well built, like the Western Hills Viaduct, to the more hastily constructed and shabby, like the Waldvogel Viaduct. Construction on the terminal building itself began in 1931, with Cincinnati mayor Russell Wilson laying the mortar for the cornerstone. Construction was finished ahead of schedule, although the terminal welcomed its first trains even earlier on March 19, 1933 when it was forced into emergency operation due to flooding of the Ohio River. The official opening of the station was on March 31, 1933. The total cost of the project was $41.5 million.

 

During its heyday as a passenger rail facility, Cincinnati Union Terminal had a capacity of 216 trains per day, 108 in and 108 out. Three concentric lanes of traffic were included in the design of the building, underneath the main rotunda of the building: one for taxis, one for buses, and one (although never used) for streetcars. However, the time period in which the terminal was built was one of decline for train travel. By 1939, local newspapers were already describing the station as a white elephant. While it had a brief revival in the 1940s, because of World War II, it declined in use through the 1950s into the 1960s.

 

After the creation of Amtrak in 1971, train service at Cincinnati Union Terminal was reduced to just two trains a day, the George Washington and the James Whitcomb Riley. Amtrak abandoned Cincinnati Union Terminal the next year, opening a smaller station elsewhere in the city on October 29, 1972.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Museum_Center_at_Union_T...

Forerunner of the postwar Gatford and Gatso sportscar. Two-seater, with luxurious red Connolly leather interior. Detachable fabric top. Bodywork custom-built to Maurice Gatsonides' requirements by Schutter & Van Bakel, Amsterdam.

Built on the first Ford Mercury chassis imported into Holland, and therefore featured the enlarged, 3.9 litre 95 b.h.p. V8 engine fitted with high-compression aluminium cylinderheads and two double barrel carburettors.

The engine was exclusive to the Mercury line, rather than the regular 3.6 litre 85 b.h.p. Ford V8.

With only the "Kwik" (the Dutch word for "mercury") legend on the body being visible here it is the typical Ford-pattern road wheels which give a clue to the car's mechanical specification.

 

Making its debut in the Prize of Zandvoort 1939 with number 38, a cylinderhead-gasket problem and engine damage from the resultant overheating caused Gatsonides to pull out of the race before the end.

 

Contested the Liège-Rome- Liège Rally in 1939 with number 28. Team : Maurice Gatsonides - Lex Beels. Finished in 14th place.

 

Early 1940 Kwik collided with a truck and a streetcar (tram) in the Dutch village of Lisse.

Repaired, it was sold soon afterwards, and has subsequently disappeared......

 

At the end of 2003 Tom Gatsonides, the son of Maurice, became the new proud owner of "Kwik".

The Duchess copper deposit was discovered by Jack Kennedy, the son of pioneer pastoralist Alexander Kennedy, in 1897. In 1906 the Hampden-Cloncurry Copper Mines Ltd acquired it and it became the richest producer in the region. By 1912, Hampden-Cloncurry had also gained control of the rich Trekelano copper mine to the south of the smaller Mount Mascotte mines to the north. The ore was railed to Kuridala for processing. However, in 1918 continuing labour shortages, breakdowns, exhaustion of the high-grade oxidised ore, and the drastic postwar drop in copper prices forced the closure of most of the company’s mines including Duchess. At the time, the Duchess copper mine boasted a 100 ton capacity bin. This elaborate structure was the wonder of northwest Queensland at the time and it enabled a full train to be loaded in a relatively short time. Mining activities in the region then almost ceased. The Duchess mine had produced 204 865 t of ore that yielded 25 155t of copper, 76kg of gold and 62kg of silver.

 

The Duchess orebody occurred in a steep west-dipping shear zone that cuts granite and dolerite, which are probably the same age as the Burstall Granite, and mica schist and calc-silicate rocks of the Corella Formation. The lode in the upper levels of the mine consisted of bornite and subordinate chalcocite, malachite, and cuptire in calcite, but at deeper levels chalcopyrite with quartz was dominant. The mine was worked to a depth of 259m. Today only concrete footings of the machinery remain, apart from a small pit and trenches excavated by more recent exploration. Malachite forming veins and fracture coatings in quartz, and some pyrite can be found on the site. Numerous smaller copper mines occur in the vicinity of Duchess but most are very small.

 

The Duchess railway opened on the 21st of October 1912 as a temporary terminus for the Great Western Railway construction project. The Hampden Co pressured for the early completion of the line to Duchess to reach its copper mine situated near the station. Ore was forwarded on the 10th of June 1912 as soon as the rails reached Duchess, several months before all the bridging and ballasting was completely finished, such was the urgency.

 

When the railway arrived in 1912 a small town sprung up on both sides of the station. Amenity comprised a hotel, store, butcher, school, police station, and a post office. There was a local activity as shown by passenger traffic levels at around 4000 annual journeys. Distant travellers were catered for by the connecting road coach services. A weekly coach ran from here to Camooweal via Colton Hills (320km), taking in mines and pastoral stations on the way. The service departed Duchess on Thursday at 0800am and arrived at Camooweal by 1800pm. Another coach service ran to Trekelano mine twice a week on a day return.

 

At first there was no water infrastructure required here, locos apparently running to and from Duchess ex Malbon without filing tender tanks. However when the Trekelano tramway opened in 1917 the locos were required to haul a water gin owing to the extra distance involved. In 1918 the manager of the Duchess mine offered Queensland Rail (QR) access to a mine well and this was availed of. QR erected a 30 000 gallon tank for loco water. After the mines closed QR was able to tape the shafts of several mines in turn to maintain supply, which water was suitable after softening.

 

Rail passenger figures remained firm for a few years by dipped after 1921 and settled at around 1200 annually until the late 1950s when they increased to the mid-1960s, probably due to workers from the Mount Isa Line rehabilitation project. A sharp decline then ensued, and numbers dwindled to a couple of hundreds per year.

 

The downturn in smelting saw Duchess ore loadings terminate abruptly at the end of 1920. The Hampden Co closed the Duchess mine in 1921 and the site was not revived until 1926 when the dumps were able to be sold for smelting. QR repaired the long unsued siding to allow safe access and over the next 18 months the dumps were completely removed. The Hampden Co has no further use for the mine (its workings completely flooded by then) and none for the rail connection so it sold the siding to QR in 1928. The mine plant and the rail weighbridge were removed at the same time. Penny packets of ore continued to be sent away throughout the 1930s by district gougers and tributers, presumably loaded at the mine siding.

 

The copper ore and limestone traffic revived in the earnest for Mount Isa Mines from the late 1940s and a few thousand tons annually were loaded at Duchess for a while and again in the mid-1960s at around 10 000 annual tons. No copper ore or limestone was loaded after 1970. The largest single burst ore traffic came from the Phosphate Hill mine in 1975 and 1976 when phosphatic rock to the order of 176 000 tons was road trucked to rail at Duchess pending completion of the Flynn to Phosphate Hill railway and associated loaders at the mine.

 

The station lost its status as a terminus when the line was continued to Butru in 1915 but the place came into its own when the Mount Isa mining filed was discovered and subsequently developed. Traffic for Mount Isa went through Duchess as it was the closest railhead. The railway extension to Mount Isa officially opened on the 17th of May 1929 and Duchess became the junction to Dajarra and Mount Isa from this time. The yard was expanded, and a full suite of signals was installed. The station was protected from three directions (Mount Isa, Dajarra, and Cloncurry) by distant and home signals all worked from a six lever frame near the station office.

 

Some sidings were re-arranged to a new layout. The goods shed road was lifted at one end and relaid around the Mount Isa curve where a new loading bank was installed. The passing loop was extended at the Dajarra end to run beyond the Mount Isa turn out. A refreshment room was established in 1929 when the new line opened and it catered for passengers on the Mail plus the mixed trains and those transferring to and from the Dajarra service. The rooms remained in business until 1938 and benefited from the Dajarra service being worked from Mount Isa for a period in the 1930s.

 

Additional staff and their accommodations were placed at Duchess from 1929, including track gangs and train crews. The train crews were necessary to do away with the need for Cloncurry crews to run the full distance to Mount Isa on overnight rest.

 

The mine siding remained in place until around 1950 when it was lifted and an alternative ore loading ramp provided between the legs of the angle that was served by a new length of siding. The rehabilitation project of 1961 – 1962 saw the crossing loop extended at the Cloncurry end and the Up home signal moved further out.

 

The place generated enough traffic to justify the appointment of a station master, particularly when the copper boom lasted. However, when ore traffic ceased in 1921 the place was immediately downgraded to a gate. Developments from Mount Isa from 1924 onwards saw the station master position returned in 1928 when construction of the extension was underway and Duchess becoming a junction station. Fettling gangs were placed at Duchess to maintain the track in three directions.

 

The station master position lasted until 1972 when replaced by Porter-in-Charge under gate conditions but the building and opening of the Phosphate Hill branch and a rise in ore traffic caused the position to be reinstated in 1975. Changed in train running and safe working led to the final demise of the station master office in 1988 and the place was unattended from the 30th of September that year. The introduction of mechanised gangs from 1966 led to the gradual attrition of the fettling gangs and track inspectors and from a high point of 20 or so staff and a dozen departmental residences the Duchess staffing establishment dwindled to nothing by the late 1990s.

 

In 1988 Train Order Working was implemented here and yard rationalisation was initiated in instalments from this time through to 2004. Removed during this phase were the goods shed, water softener, ore loading siding, goods shed sign and loading bank, the western leg of the angle and, a little later, the eastern leg plus the Dajarra line stub and loop continuation at that end of the yard. The loco water tank was retained as the basis for the town water supply after being lifted from its stand and mountain at ground level. The wooden station office (a 1949 replacement to the original which was destroyed by fire) was demolished in 2006. Its substitute is a new high level, short length, passenger platform and rudimentary shelter.

 

The Duchess township slowly diminished in concert with the railway attrition and by 2007 was down to a few houses, the hotel, and the corrugated iron public hall (with children’s playground intact). The opening of the Trekelano mine and associated camp 14km out of town in 2005, with the access road junctioning at Duchess, gave the hotel a welcome injection of custom.

 

Source: Rocks and Landscapes of Northwest Queensland by Laurie Hutton and Ian Withnall, Copper in the Curry by Norman Houghton.

The Duchess copper deposit was discovered by Jack Kennedy, the son of pioneer pastoralist Alexander Kennedy, in 1897. In 1906 the Hampden-Cloncurry Copper Mines Ltd acquired it and it became the richest producer in the region. By 1912, Hampden-Cloncurry had also gained control of the rich Trekelano copper mine to the south of the smaller Mount Mascotte mines to the north. The ore was railed to Kuridala for processing. However, in 1918 continuing labour shortages, breakdowns, exhaustion of the high-grade oxidised ore, and the drastic postwar drop in copper prices forced the closure of most of the company’s mines including Duchess. At the time, the Duchess copper mine boasted a 100 ton capacity bin. This elaborate structure was the wonder of northwest Queensland at the time and it enabled a full train to be loaded in a relatively short time. Mining activities in the region then almost ceased. The Duchess mine had produced 204 865 t of ore that yielded 25 155t of copper, 76kg of gold and 62kg of silver.

 

The Duchess orebody occurred in a steep west-dipping shear zone that cuts granite and dolerite, which are probably the same age as the Burstall Granite, and mica schist and calc-silicate rocks of the Corella Formation. The lode in the upper levels of the mine consisted of bornite and subordinate chalcocite, malachite, and cuptire in calcite, but at deeper levels chalcopyrite with quartz was dominant. The mine was worked to a depth of 259m. Today only concrete footings of the machinery remain, apart from a small pit and trenches excavated by more recent exploration. Malachite forming veins and fracture coatings in quartz, and some pyrite can be found on the site. Numerous smaller copper mines occur in the vicinity of Duchess but most are very small.

 

The Duchess railway opened on the 21st of October 1912 as a temporary terminus for the Great Western Railway construction project. The Hampden Co pressured for the early completion of the line to Duchess to reach its copper mine situated near the station. Ore was forwarded on the 10th of June 1912 as soon as the rails reached Duchess, several months before all the bridging and ballasting was completely finished, such was the urgency.

 

When the railway arrived in 1912 a small town sprung up on both sides of the station. Amenity comprised a hotel, store, butcher, school, police station, and a post office. There was a local activity as shown by passenger traffic levels at around 4000 annual journeys. Distant travellers were catered for by the connecting road coach services. A weekly coach ran from here to Camooweal via Colton Hills (320km), taking in mines and pastoral stations on the way. The service departed Duchess on Thursday at 0800am and arrived at Camooweal by 1800pm. Another coach service ran to Trekelano mine twice a week on a day return.

 

At first there was no water infrastructure required here, locos apparently running to and from Duchess ex Malbon without filing tender tanks. However when the Trekelano tramway opened in 1917 the locos were required to haul a water gin owing to the extra distance involved. In 1918 the manager of the Duchess mine offered Queensland Rail (QR) access to a mine well and this was availed of. QR erected a 30 000 gallon tank for loco water. After the mines closed QR was able to tape the shafts of several mines in turn to maintain supply, which water was suitable after softening.

 

Rail passenger figures remained firm for a few years by dipped after 1921 and settled at around 1200 annually until the late 1950s when they increased to the mid-1960s, probably due to workers from the Mount Isa Line rehabilitation project. A sharp decline then ensued, and numbers dwindled to a couple of hundreds per year.

 

The downturn in smelting saw Duchess ore loadings terminate abruptly at the end of 1920. The Hampden Co closed the Duchess mine in 1921 and the site was not revived until 1926 when the dumps were able to be sold for smelting. QR repaired the long unsued siding to allow safe access and over the next 18 months the dumps were completely removed. The Hampden Co has no further use for the mine (its workings completely flooded by then) and none for the rail connection so it sold the siding to QR in 1928. The mine plant and the rail weighbridge were removed at the same time. Penny packets of ore continued to be sent away throughout the 1930s by district gougers and tributers, presumably loaded at the mine siding.

 

The copper ore and limestone traffic revived in the earnest for Mount Isa Mines from the late 1940s and a few thousand tons annually were loaded at Duchess for a while and again in the mid-1960s at around 10 000 annual tons. No copper ore or limestone was loaded after 1970. The largest single burst ore traffic came from the Phosphate Hill mine in 1975 and 1976 when phosphatic rock to the order of 176 000 tons was road trucked to rail at Duchess pending completion of the Flynn to Phosphate Hill railway and associated loaders at the mine.

 

The station lost its status as a terminus when the line was continued to Butru in 1915 but the place came into its own when the Mount Isa mining filed was discovered and subsequently developed. Traffic for Mount Isa went through Duchess as it was the closest railhead. The railway extension to Mount Isa officially opened on the 17th of May 1929 and Duchess became the junction to Dajarra and Mount Isa from this time. The yard was expanded, and a full suite of signals was installed. The station was protected from three directions (Mount Isa, Dajarra, and Cloncurry) by distant and home signals all worked from a six lever frame near the station office.

 

Some sidings were re-arranged to a new layout. The goods shed road was lifted at one end and relaid around the Mount Isa curve where a new loading bank was installed. The passing loop was extended at the Dajarra end to run beyond the Mount Isa turn out. A refreshment room was established in 1929 when the new line opened and it catered for passengers on the Mail plus the mixed trains and those transferring to and from the Dajarra service. The rooms remained in business until 1938 and benefited from the Dajarra service being worked from Mount Isa for a period in the 1930s.

 

Additional staff and their accommodations were placed at Duchess from 1929, including track gangs and train crews. The train crews were necessary to do away with the need for Cloncurry crews to run the full distance to Mount Isa on overnight rest.

 

The mine siding remained in place until around 1950 when it was lifted and an alternative ore loading ramp provided between the legs of the angle that was served by a new length of siding. The rehabilitation project of 1961 – 1962 saw the crossing loop extended at the Cloncurry end and the Up home signal moved further out.

 

The place generated enough traffic to justify the appointment of a station master, particularly when the copper boom lasted. However, when ore traffic ceased in 1921 the place was immediately downgraded to a gate. Developments from Mount Isa from 1924 onwards saw the station master position returned in 1928 when construction of the extension was underway and Duchess becoming a junction station. Fettling gangs were placed at Duchess to maintain the track in three directions.

 

The station master position lasted until 1972 when replaced by Porter-in-Charge under gate conditions but the building and opening of the Phosphate Hill branch and a rise in ore traffic caused the position to be reinstated in 1975. Changed in train running and safe working led to the final demise of the station master office in 1988 and the place was unattended from the 30th of September that year. The introduction of mechanised gangs from 1966 led to the gradual attrition of the fettling gangs and track inspectors and from a high point of 20 or so staff and a dozen departmental residences the Duchess staffing establishment dwindled to nothing by the late 1990s.

 

In 1988 Train Order Working was implemented here and yard rationalisation was initiated in instalments from this time through to 2004. Removed during this phase were the goods shed, water softener, ore loading siding, goods shed sign and loading bank, the western leg of the angle and, a little later, the eastern leg plus the Dajarra line stub and loop continuation at that end of the yard. The loco water tank was retained as the basis for the town water supply after being lifted from its stand and mountain at ground level. The wooden station office (a 1949 replacement to the original which was destroyed by fire) was demolished in 2006. Its substitute is a new high level, short length, passenger platform and rudimentary shelter.

 

The Duchess township slowly diminished in concert with the railway attrition and by 2007 was down to a few houses, the hotel, and the corrugated iron public hall (with children’s playground intact). The opening of the Trekelano mine and associated camp 14km out of town in 2005, with the access road junctioning at Duchess, gave the hotel a welcome injection of custom.

 

Source: Rocks and Landscapes of Northwest Queensland by Laurie Hutton and Ian Withnall, Copper in the Curry by Norman Houghton.

Coachwork by Zagato

 

Class III a : Post-War Closed Cars "The most elegant ones"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

W H Paul Ltd was engineering concern who in the main, manufactured steel fabricated products. The company was well known in the 1950s & 1960s for manufacturing stainless steel kitchen sinks & wooden kitchen cabinet units. They also produced electric washing machines, domestic paraffin heaters, central heating boilers, commercial and industrial containers, brewery, hotel and canteen equipment. I understand that they also made parts for Rolls-Royce jet engines.

 

The company was started in 1939, and became a public company in 1959. WH Paul was acquired by Glynwed Holdings in March 1972. I don't know what happened beyond that, but certainly the factory was closed at some point after the takeover. At its peak, it is claimed that the company employed some 600 people.

 

Today, WH Paul's post-war built factory still stands in Longmoor Lane, Breaston, Derbyshire. The building is a fine example of a mid-sized postwar built factory, which remains in more-or-less original condition. That is with the exception of the third-storey built onto it, and an extended front entrance and reception area.

 

After WH Paul vacated the premises, it was occupied by a succession of small businesses for many years. However, it was recently vacated and put of for sale for residential redevelopment. In August 2021, a 'sold' notice placed on the 'for sale' sign, likely marks the end for this wonderful piece of British industrial history and post war prosperity.

 

12th August 2021.

 

The Broad is a new contemporary art museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. The museum is designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler and offers free general admission. The museum is home to the more than 2,000 works of art in the Broad collection, which is among the most prominent holdings of postwar and contemporary art worldwide. With its innovative “veil-and-vault” concept, the 120,000-square-foot, $140-million building features two floors of gallery space to showcase The Broad’s comprehensive collection and is the headquarters of The Broad Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library.

Postwar postcard from G. A. Krauss of Stuttgart.

During a youth exchange visit to Rendsburg in 1958, the boys in our Lancaster group were invited on board this ship for a days sailing in the Baltic! The crew entertained us with 'man overboard recovery', some mine sweeping exercises and kept us well fed - a right 'grand day-out', it was my 15th birthday, which I'll never forget.

 

M1071 & M1070 were brand new ships as was the Bundesmarine itself. West Germany too - barely 10 years in existence, finding its way through the devastation still in evidence around us. Fleets of rusting Kriegsmarine hulks lay in Kiel docks, I saw U-boats in their wrecked pens - all awaiting the cutters torch.

 

In those post-war years Germany was still under allied occupation, Schleswig-Holstein was in the British Sector as was much of Northern Germany. However, the growing threat of the Cold War accelerated West Germany's recovery in the 1960's. Gradually West Germany was brought in to play it's part in NATO and the occupiers were withdrawn. At some stage in this re-awakening or perhaps, besser gesagt 'Wiederaufbau' und 'Wirtschaftswunder', M1071 received its fore-deck cannon, notably missing in my photo and quite obvious in others on the internet.

 

Its sister ship M1070 Göttingen is seen tied up behind Koblenz in this photo. The group of exchange students including our German hosts was split up between the two vessels for the days activities.

 

Camera: Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor 54/18

Film: not known

Scanner: Epson V800 with Epson Scanner software.

The postwar restyling of the original Continental. One of my least favorite Lincolns. Just too much chrome.

 

Seen at the new Lincoln Museum, a part of the Gilmore Museum complex in west Michigan. From Wikipedia:

 

" For the 1942 model year, all Lincoln models were given squared-up fenders, and a revised grille. The result was a boxier, somewhat heavier look in keeping with then-current design trends, but perhaps less graceful in retrospect. 1942 production was shortened, following the entry of the United States into World War II; the attack on Pearl Harbor led to the suspension of production of automobiles for civilian use.

 

After World War II, the Lincoln division of Ford returned the Continental to production as a 1946 model; Lincoln dropped the Zephyr nomenclature following the war, so the postwar Continental was derived from the standard Lincoln (internally H-Series). To attract buyers, the design was refreshed with updated trim, distinguished by a new grille. For 1947, walnut wood trim was added to the interior.[7]

 

Following the death of Edsel Ford in 1943, Ford Motor Company re-organized its corporate management structure, which led to the 1946 departure of the Continental's designer Bob Gregorie. 1948 would become the last year for the Continental, as the division sought to redevelop its new 1949 model line as an upgraded version of the Mercury; the expensive personal-luxury car no longer had a role at Lincoln.

 

Sooke, BC Canada

 

The company was the first with a new postwar car (1947), the first with a proprietary automatic transmission (1950) and part of the first wave offering a V8 engine, ahead of many Big 3 offerings. One accomplishment that is often skipped over is that the company also introduced a brand new and highly successful truck line, one that would turn out to be in active service until the company’s final days.

 

By 1949 Studebaker had a two-decade history as the maker of a full line of trucks – from big over-the-road haulers down to the half-ton pickup for the farm or the workplace. For a company that was built on providing sturdy, well-regarded commercial vehicles to the nation (albeit horse-powered ones) to wait until 1929 to really get going in the truck business is just one more in a long list of head-scratching decisions that came out of South Bend.

 

But once Studebaker jumped into trucks it certainly made up for lost time. After a decade and several series of purpose-built trucks, the 1941 M series made a significant splash with truck buyers.

 

Reference: curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1949-studebaker-2r-5-two-all-new-trucks-in-one-studebakers-first-and-last

 

This image is best viewed in Large screen.

 

Thank-you for your visit, and please know that any faves or comments are always greatly appreciated!

 

Sonja

Postwar era British bridge-laying tank

The original Churchill AVLB (Armoured Vehicle-Launched Bridge) was produced during WW2 to replace the Valentine and Covenanter AVLB variants and combined a Mk.III Churchill chassis with a No.2 Tank Bridge. This is a post-war example which used a Churchill Mk.VII chassis and a No.3 Tank Bridge. Able to deploy the 30ft bridge in 90 seconds, this version was used during the Korean War.

It is seen on display at the Royal Engineers Museum

Gillingham, Kent, UK

24th July 2021

The Duchess copper deposit was discovered by Jack Kennedy, the son of pioneer pastoralist Alexander Kennedy, in 1897. In 1906 the Hampden-Cloncurry Copper Mines Ltd acquired it and it became the richest producer in the region. By 1912, Hampden-Cloncurry had also gained control of the rich Trekelano copper mine to the south of the smaller Mount Mascotte mines to the north. The ore was railed to Kuridala for processing. However, in 1918 continuing labour shortages, breakdowns, exhaustion of the high-grade oxidised ore, and the drastic postwar drop in copper prices forced the closure of most of the company’s mines including Duchess. At the time, the Duchess copper mine boasted a 100 ton capacity bin. This elaborate structure was the wonder of northwest Queensland at the time and it enabled a full train to be loaded in a relatively short time. Mining activities in the region then almost ceased. The Duchess mine had produced 204 865 t of ore that yielded 25 155t of copper, 76kg of gold and 62kg of silver.

 

The Duchess orebody occurred in a steep west-dipping shear zone that cuts granite and dolerite, which are probably the same age as the Burstall Granite, and mica schist and calc-silicate rocks of the Corella Formation. The lode in the upper levels of the mine consisted of bornite and subordinate chalcocite, malachite, and cuptire in calcite, but at deeper levels chalcopyrite with quartz was dominant. The mine was worked to a depth of 259m. Today only concrete footings of the machinery remain, apart from a small pit and trenches excavated by more recent exploration. Malachite forming veins and fracture coatings in quartz, and some pyrite can be found on the site. Numerous smaller copper mines occur in the vicinity of Duchess but most are very small.

 

The Duchess railway opened on the 21st of October 1912 as a temporary terminus for the Great Western Railway construction project. The Hampden Co pressured for the early completion of the line to Duchess to reach its copper mine situated near the station. Ore was forwarded on the 10th of June 1912 as soon as the rails reached Duchess, several months before all the bridging and ballasting was completely finished, such was the urgency.

 

When the railway arrived in 1912 a small town sprung up on both sides of the station. Amenity comprised a hotel, store, butcher, school, police station, and a post office. There was a local activity as shown by passenger traffic levels at around 4000 annual journeys. Distant travellers were catered for by the connecting road coach services. A weekly coach ran from here to Camooweal via Colton Hills (320km), taking in mines and pastoral stations on the way. The service departed Duchess on Thursday at 0800am and arrived at Camooweal by 1800pm. Another coach service ran to Trekelano mine twice a week on a day return.

 

At first there was no water infrastructure required here, locos apparently running to and from Duchess ex Malbon without filing tender tanks. However when the Trekelano tramway opened in 1917 the locos were required to haul a water gin owing to the extra distance involved. In 1918 the manager of the Duchess mine offered Queensland Rail (QR) access to a mine well and this was availed of. QR erected a 30 000 gallon tank for loco water. After the mines closed QR was able to tape the shafts of several mines in turn to maintain supply, which water was suitable after softening.

 

Rail passenger figures remained firm for a few years by dipped after 1921 and settled at around 1200 annually until the late 1950s when they increased to the mid-1960s, probably due to workers from the Mount Isa Line rehabilitation project. A sharp decline then ensued, and numbers dwindled to a couple of hundreds per year.

 

The downturn in smelting saw Duchess ore loadings terminate abruptly at the end of 1920. The Hampden Co closed the Duchess mine in 1921 and the site was not revived until 1926 when the dumps were able to be sold for smelting. QR repaired the long unsued siding to allow safe access and over the next 18 months the dumps were completely removed. The Hampden Co has no further use for the mine (its workings completely flooded by then) and none for the rail connection so it sold the siding to QR in 1928. The mine plant and the rail weighbridge were removed at the same time. Penny packets of ore continued to be sent away throughout the 1930s by district gougers and tributers, presumably loaded at the mine siding.

 

The copper ore and limestone traffic revived in the earnest for Mount Isa Mines from the late 1940s and a few thousand tons annually were loaded at Duchess for a while and again in the mid-1960s at around 10 000 annual tons. No copper ore or limestone was loaded after 1970. The largest single burst ore traffic came from the Phosphate Hill mine in 1975 and 1976 when phosphatic rock to the order of 176 000 tons was road trucked to rail at Duchess pending completion of the Flynn to Phosphate Hill railway and associated loaders at the mine.

 

The station lost its status as a terminus when the line was continued to Butru in 1915 but the place came into its own when the Mount Isa mining filed was discovered and subsequently developed. Traffic for Mount Isa went through Duchess as it was the closest railhead. The railway extension to Mount Isa officially opened on the 17th of May 1929 and Duchess became the junction to Dajarra and Mount Isa from this time. The yard was expanded, and a full suite of signals was installed. The station was protected from three directions (Mount Isa, Dajarra, and Cloncurry) by distant and home signals all worked from a six lever frame near the station office.

 

Some sidings were re-arranged to a new layout. The goods shed road was lifted at one end and relaid around the Mount Isa curve where a new loading bank was installed. The passing loop was extended at the Dajarra end to run beyond the Mount Isa turn out. A refreshment room was established in 1929 when the new line opened and it catered for passengers on the Mail plus the mixed trains and those transferring to and from the Dajarra service. The rooms remained in business until 1938 and benefited from the Dajarra service being worked from Mount Isa for a period in the 1930s.

 

Additional staff and their accommodations were placed at Duchess from 1929, including track gangs and train crews. The train crews were necessary to do away with the need for Cloncurry crews to run the full distance to Mount Isa on overnight rest.

 

The mine siding remained in place until around 1950 when it was lifted and an alternative ore loading ramp provided between the legs of the angle that was served by a new length of siding. The rehabilitation project of 1961 – 1962 saw the crossing loop extended at the Cloncurry end and the Up home signal moved further out.

 

The place generated enough traffic to justify the appointment of a station master, particularly when the copper boom lasted. However, when ore traffic ceased in 1921 the place was immediately downgraded to a gate. Developments from Mount Isa from 1924 onwards saw the station master position returned in 1928 when construction of the extension was underway and Duchess becoming a junction station. Fettling gangs were placed at Duchess to maintain the track in three directions.

 

The station master position lasted until 1972 when replaced by Porter-in-Charge under gate conditions but the building and opening of the Phosphate Hill branch and a rise in ore traffic caused the position to be reinstated in 1975. Changed in train running and safe working led to the final demise of the station master office in 1988 and the place was unattended from the 30th of September that year. The introduction of mechanised gangs from 1966 led to the gradual attrition of the fettling gangs and track inspectors and from a high point of 20 or so staff and a dozen departmental residences the Duchess staffing establishment dwindled to nothing by the late 1990s.

 

In 1988 Train Order Working was implemented here and yard rationalisation was initiated in instalments from this time through to 2004. Removed during this phase were the goods shed, water softener, ore loading siding, goods shed sign and loading bank, the western leg of the angle and, a little later, the eastern leg plus the Dajarra line stub and loop continuation at that end of the yard. The loco water tank was retained as the basis for the town water supply after being lifted from its stand and mountain at ground level. The wooden station office (a 1949 replacement to the original which was destroyed by fire) was demolished in 2006. Its substitute is a new high level, short length, passenger platform and rudimentary shelter.

 

The Duchess township slowly diminished in concert with the railway attrition and by 2007 was down to a few houses, the hotel, and the corrugated iron public hall (with children’s playground intact). The opening of the Trekelano mine and associated camp 14km out of town in 2005, with the access road junctioning at Duchess, gave the hotel a welcome injection of custom.

 

Source: Rocks and Landscapes of Northwest Queensland by Laurie Hutton and Ian Withnall, Copper in the Curry by Norman Houghton.

 

Postwar Dialogues:

 

Europe and the United States

 

The cataclysm of World War II brought in its wake the obligation of profound reflection as well as an intense desire for a new beginning. The nations of Europe were starting to recover from physical and economic devastation and to recognize that the horrors of war had irrevocably damaged former ways of life, social bonds, and cultural assumptions. Having avoided home-front hostilities, the United States emerged from the war a geopolitical superpower, optimistic about the future but also bearing the scars of wartime sacrifice. The artistic cultures on both sides of the Atlantic remained deeply interconnected, but the perceived balance of authority began to shift toward the Americans.

 

The Brutally reactionary Nazi regime decimated the progressive cultural communities of Europe, and many of its leading talents—among them Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Piet Modrian, and Arshile Gorky—fled to the United States, infusing new ambition into the country’s artistic life. Abstract Expressionism (in New York), Art Informel (in Paris), and CoBrA (in Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam) developed as parallel efforts to delve beneath the compromised façade of Western civilization to seek sources of cultural rebirth in archaic eras and the art of children and the insane. Meanwhile, individualists such as Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, and Balthus explored universal aspects of the human condition: desire, alienation, and dream.

 

From the Placard: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

 

www.philamuseum.org/

  

The Museum of the Dreamers

The Phantastenmuseum is a museum in the Palais Palffy in the 1st district of Vienna Inner City. It shows the evolution of fantastic, surreal and visionary art of the postwar period to the present.

History

Following discussions between the Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs (* 13. Februar 1930 in Wien; † 9. November 2015) and the publisher, organizer and author Gerhard Habarta the idea of a museum of fantastic art in Vienna came to the realization. The "Austrian Cultural Center since 1958" in the Palais Palffy was enthusiastic about the idea, the plans for the new museum were concretised in the year of 2010. In autumn 2010 was started with the adaptation of the premises, which was completed in January 2011. The opening of the museum took place under the patronage of Federal President Heinz Fischer on 15 January 2011.

Premises

For the museum parts of the historical Palais Palffy due to war damage in the 1950s renovated were used.

The foyer was designed by Lehmden student Kurt Welther about The Marriage of Figaro. Here, also a lobby with the ticket office, the information and the museum shop has been set up. In this one gifts like replicas of famous works of art, sculptures, jewelery, catalogs and posters as well as original editions are sold. On the 1st floor is located opposite the Figaro Concert Hall the gallery. It is a 150 m² large space for solo exhibitions. The museum occupies the entire top floor and consists of designed spaces. In addition to works from its own collection and permanent loans, documents and portraits of artist personalities are shown.

The museum

The museum is divided into the following areas:

Impulses: Here are the inspirations identified which brought the young artists first information after the war, with works by Edgar Jené and Gustav K. Beck and Arnulf Neuwirth.

Academy: Here, the young creatives found an artistic home, including works by Albert Paris Gütersloh, Ernst Fuchs, Fritz Janschka, Anton Lehmden and Kurt Steinwendner before he turned into the filmmaker and object artist Curt Stenvert.

Contemporaries: These include older artists of fantastic, who had survived the dictatorship, like Greta Freist, Kurt Goebel, Charles Lipka or the CIA agent Charles von Ripper. And the young ones, as Rudolf Schoenwald or Arnulf Rainer as well as painters who moved in later Art Club. These include the "partisan" Maria Biljan-Bilger, Peppino Wieternik before he turned to the abstract, and Carl Unger who designed a large glass front of the Palais Palffy.

Art Club: It gathered the artistic elite of the post-war period and became with the Strohkoffer (straw suitcase) a social center.

Dog Group: It became the first counter-movement, in which the rebels as Ernst Fuchs, Arnulf Rainer and Maria Lassnig, Wolfgang Kudrnofsky and maverick visionary Anton Krejcar with graphics that today have become valuable manifested themselves.

The Pintorarium of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Ernst Fuchs and Arnulf Rainer fought actionistically with wall newspaper and nude demonstration against the established Academy, bad architecture and for the freedom of the spirit.

Hundertwasser realized the theories of Pintorarium in his buildings. A photo documentation of Kurt Pultar.

Vienna School of Fantastic Realism: The core of the museum with pictures of Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, Fritz Janschka, who lives in the United States and Anton Lehmden. Of Rudolf Hausner is - in addition to an oil painting - the documentation of long-term work on his Ark of Odysseus to see. In addition to an early work by Ernst Fuchs, a specially created for the museum great painting version of a 55 years ago arosen drawing is shown.

In the department of simultaneous 16 images of that Viennese Fantasts can be seen who presented themselves in the 1960s for the first time, among other things, in the gallery that installed Ernst Fuchs.

In the Department Next Generation are those almost still "young ones" which - despite temporary exclusion by the avant-garde - are committed to the new tendencies of the fantastic. They studied partly with Hausner, Lehmden, Hutter and Fuchs and also learned as wizards.

The Graphic Cabinet presents some etchings and lithographs to stamps. Here the global network is shown in about 30 works by international visionaries. Representatives from Japan, the US, Australia and European centers are the ambassadors of associations of fantastic artists, the Ambassadors of the Fantastic Universe.

 

Phantastenmuseum

Das Phantastenmuseum ist ein Museum im Palais Pálffy im 1. Wiener Gemeindebezirk Innere Stadt. Es zeigt die Entwicklung der phantastischen, surrealen und visionären Kunst von der Nachkriegszeit bis zur Gegenwart.

Geschichte

Nach Gesprächen zwischen dem österreichischen Künstler Ernst Fuchs und dem Verleger, Organisator und Autor Gerhard Habarta entstand die Idee zur Verwirklichung eines Museums für phantastische Kunst in Wien. Das „Österreichische Kulturzentrum seit 1958“ im Palais Pálffy zeigte sich von der Idee begeistert, die Pläne für das neue Museum wurden im Jahr 2010 konkretisiert. Im Herbst 2010 wurde mit der Adaptierung der Räumlichkeiten begonnen, die im Jänner 2011 abgeschlossen wurde. Die Eröffnung des Museums fand am 15. Jänner 2011 unter dem Ehrenschutz von Bundespräsident Heinz Fischer statt.

Räumlichkeiten

Für das Museum wurden Teile des historischen, aufgrund Kriegsschäden in den 1950er Jahren renovierten Palais Pálffy genutzt.

Das Foyer wurde vom Lehmden-Schüler Kurt Welther zum Thema Figaros Hochzeit gestaltet. Hier wurde auch ein Empfangsbereich mit der Ticketkasse, der Information und dem Museums-Shop eingerichtet. In diesem werden Geschenke wie Nachbildungen berühmter Kunstwerke, Skulpturen, Schmuck, Kataloge und Kunstdrucke sowie auch Original-Editionen verkauft. Im 1. Stock befindet sich gegenüber dem Figaro-Konzertsaal die Galerie. Es handelt sich um einen 150 m² großen Raum für Einzelausstellungen. Das Museum nimmt das gesamte Obergeschoss ein und besteht aus gestalteten Räumen. Neben den Werken aus eigenem Bestand und Dauerleihgaben werden Dokumente und Porträts der Künstlerpersönlichkeiten gezeigt.

Das Museum

Das Museum ist in folgende Bereiche gegliedert:

Impulse: Hier werden die Impulse aufgezeigt, die den jungen Künstlern erste Informationen nach dem Krieg brachten, mit Werken von Edgar Jené und Gustav K. Beck und Arnulf Neuwirth.

Akademie: Hier fanden die jungen Kreativen eine künstlerische Heimat, mit Werken von Albert Paris Gütersloh, Ernst Fuchs, Fritz Janschka, Anton Lehmden und Kurt Steinwendner, bevor er zum Filmemacher und Objektkünstler Curt Stenvert wurde.

Zeitgenossen: Dazu zählen ältere Künstler des Phantastischen, die die Diktatur überlebt hatten, wie Greta Freist, Kurt Goebel, Charles Lipka oder der CIA-Agent Charles von Ripper. Und die Jungen, wie Rudolf Schönwald oder Arnulf Rainer sowie Maler die sich im späteren Art Club bewegten. Dazu gehören die „Partisanin“ Maria Biljan-Bilger, Peppino Wieternik, bevor er sich zum Abstrakten wandte, und Carl Unger der für das Palais Pálffy eine große Glasfront gestaltete.

Art Club: Er versammelte die künstlerische Elite der Nachkriegszeit und wurde mit dem Strohkoffer ein geselliges Zentrum.

Hundsgruppe: Sie wurde zur ersten Gegenbewegung, in der sich die Aufrührer wie Ernst Fuchs, Arnulf Rainer und Maria Lassnig, Wolfgang Kudrnofsky und der Außenseiter-Phantast Anton Krejcar mit heute wertvoll gewordenen Grafiken manifestierten.

Das Pintorarium von Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Ernst Fuchs und Arnulf Rainer kämpfte aktionistisch mit Wandzeitung und Nacktdemonstration gegen die etablierte Akademie, schlechte Architektur und für die Freiheit des Geistes.

Hundertwasser verwirklichte die Theorien des Pintorariums in seinen Bauten. Eine Fotodokumentation von Kurt Pultar.

Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus: Der Kern des Museums mit Bildern von Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, dem in den USA lebenden Fritz Janschka und von Anton Lehmden. Von Rudolf Hausner ist - neben einem Ölbild - die Dokumentation der langjährigen Arbeit an seiner Arche des Odysseus zu sehen. Neben einem Frühwerk von Ernst Fuchs ist auch eine eigens für das Museum geschaffene große Gemälde-Fassung einer vor 55 Jahren entstandenen Zeichnung ausgestellt.

In der Abteilung der Gleichzeitigen sind 16 Bilder jener Wiener Fantasten zu sehen, die sich in den 1960er-Jahren zum ersten Mal präsentierten, u.a. in der Galerie, die Ernst Fuchs installierte.

In der Abteilung Next Generation sind jene fast „noch Jungen“, die sich – trotz zeitweiliger Ausgrenzung durch die Avantgarde – neuen Tendenzen des Phantastischen verpflichtet fühlen. Sie haben zum Teil bei Hausner, Lehmden, Hutter und Fuchs studiert und auch als Assistenten gelernt.

Das Graphische Kabinett stellt einige Radierungen und Lithographien bis hin zu Briefmarken aus. Hier wird in etwa 30 Werken internationaler Phantasten die weltweite Vernetzung gezeigt. Vertreter aus Japan, den USA, Australien und europäischen Zentren sind die Botschafter von Vereinigungen phantastischer Künstler, den Ambassadors of the Fantastic Universe.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantastenmuseum

Carte de visite by Z.P. McMillen of Newark, Ohio. Literary references to Civil War cavalrymen as knights in shining armor abound. Many a wartime and postwar writer turned to medieval nobility to describe the blue and gray troopers who fought from 1861 to 1865. Such depictions are intended to appeal to the romance of war and honor the personal qualities of American citizen soldiers.

 

In my experience, I’ve encountered these literary treatments in post-war Confederate writings. (Read the profile of Lt. Col. William Gaston Delony of Cobb’s Legin Cavalry: opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/cold-steel-and-c...). Yet here is a first for me—a Union knight. He was Capt. William H. Scott of the 1st Ohio Cavalry, pictured here.

 

His story, complete with knightly references, is reproduced here from Four Years in the Saddle, a history of the 1st Ohio Cavalry. I recommend a read of the unedited text:

 

Captain William H. Scott.

 

By Captain John P. Rea.

 

One, who by the unaided force of his own personality unconsciously commands the respect, confidence and admiration of his associates, and while rapidly rising in rank and authority over them awakens no jealousies, but fastens them to him with constantly strengthening bonds of friendship, shows the possession of the best elements of true nobility. Such a man was Captain William H. Scott, of Company D.

 

He fell in youth, but his short life grew a manhood as strong, rugged, gentle, symmetrical and complete as ever awakened the hope of country, inspired the confidence of friend, or warmed the heart of home. No words can paint him here as he rides ever in the old picture painted by himself on the canvas of his comrades' memory.

 

Not only among the men of his own regiment is he remembered, but by all who ever met or knew him. Twenty years after the war I was addressing a soldiers' gathering in Minnesota, when a voice called to me from the rear of the hall, saying: "Tell us about 'Scotty,' the ideal soldier of the old brigade." The voice, as I afterwards learned, came from a member of the Third O. V. C.

 

In July, 1897, I spent a day in Calhoun, East Tennessee, where our regiment was stationed for some weeks in the winter of 1863-4. I found the old residents full of reminiscence and praise of Lieutenant Scott. They only knew him for a few weeks, a third of a century before, as an officer in war time, enforcing military rule in their midst. Their fresh and kindly remembrance is a better monument than stone or bronze.

 

His soldier record is told in the regimental history. It may be epitomized thus: An unknown, friendless Irish boy; a private soldier; Sergeant-Major; Lieutenant; Adjutant; Captain; Staff Officer; the trusted friend and subaltern of Millikin, Cupp and Long; every rank attained and every confidence secured by demonstrated merit. To say that he was brave in battle is to accord him only the just tribute due every manly man who goes into battle. Gentle by nature, tender of heart, without the slightest suggestion of braggadocio; careful of his men; alert to every contingency of danger of which personally he never seemed conscious, he revelled in the storm when it broke and rode the fiery front of battle, a veritable prince of war. He rose with so little friction from the ranks, and breasted every duty and occasion with such ease, that those who knew him best felt that they had never fathomed his full capacity of daring and doing. He had decision without arrogance, and in places of peril seemed instinctively to know what to do and where to strike. He had all the enthusiasm of a knight of old combined with the reckless daring of the typical American cavalryman.

 

Those who saw him ride like a centaur upon the enemy's lines at Stone's River, and saw him in his last fight, on foot, with his shattered right arm dangling by his side, waiving his saber in his left hand as he charged through Wheeler's lines at Lovejoy Station, know that ever and always he was the same dashing, undaunted, unconquerable soldier. He was a strict disciplinarian, but not a martinet. His men always spoke affectionately of him as "Scotty," but there was a quiet, unpretentious air about him that forbade familiarity. His dignity was not of the kind that had to assert itself, it was "native and to the manor born"; it commanded instinctive respect; his men loved him and never feared to follow where he led, and he always led if the enemy were in front. He belonged to the fated ones, who while eagerly seeking, not infrequently emerged from, glorious battle covered with wounds.

 

In that heroic charge of the regiment at Stone's River, riding by the side of the chivalric Millikin, he received a terrible wound in the groin; a moment after, as he lay in his blood, he saw his Colonel and best friend fall a few feet away, while at the same time he knew that his old Captain, who first of all had recognized his worth, was dead on the same field.

 

It was months before he was fit for duty, but he was in his saddle when the order came to advance in the summer of 1863, and though saddened by the loss of his friends, he was buoyant and brilliant as ever. He rode heroically through the campaigns of that and the succeeding year, making a record full of dash and enterprise, dazzling with valor and ending without a stain. Shot through the right shoulder and knocked from his horse in Kilpatrick's charge at Lovejoy Station in August, 1864, he rose to his feet and, waving his sword in his left hand, followed the charging column through the enemy's lines. For seventy-five miles he rode uncomplainingly over rough roads under a broiling August sun in an ambulance: all the weary way, though in intense pain, cheering his wounded companions.

 

The morning after reaching our camp within the lines, I was awakened by Surgeon Canaan and asked to go with him to see "Scotty." On the way he told me that Scott's life could only be saved by amputating his right arm, which he refused to permit. When I reached his ambulance he welcomed me with a smile and cheerful words. I sat by his side in the ambulance and talked for an hour. He then told me the story of his short but eventful life. I urged him to let the Surgeon have his way. He answered, "No. To amputate my arm it must be dislocated at the shoulder. That will leave me maimed and disfigured. I can die, but I can not fight the battle of life alone without my good right arm. I have no mother, no wife, no relative in America; except my comrades there are none to mourn my death; I want to live, but will not purchase life at such a cost." No persuasion could induce him to consent to the operation, and after lingering some weeks, he died.

 

An incident occurred while I was talking with him that morning that lies a precious pearl on the beaten shore of memory. A noble boy of my own company was lying mortally wounded in the next ambulance. He was moaning in great pain. The Surgeon came up and was getting ready to dress his wound, when Scott heard the moans from the next ambulance. He raised his head, and with an air of command and an unselfish heroism, equaling that which made the dying Sidney immortal, said: "Doctor, don't you hear poor Steve Barton? Never mind me, let me alone and go and relieve the suffering of that brave, dying boy."

 

In the center of one of the circles of dead in the National Cemetery at Chattanooga, on a slope looking out toward the East and catching the first rays of the morning sun as it rises above the hallowed heights of Missionary Ridge, there is a little mound with a little head-stone marked "Captain William H. Scott, First Ohio Cavalry."

 

No kindred have ever visited it, no woman's tears have ever moistened it: but under that mound lies one whose life was as clean, whose brain was as clear, whose heart was as true and loyal, whose soul was as chivalric and unselfish as the story of any land or age can furnish.

 

I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.

 

Architect: Le Corbusier, with Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand (kitchen and bathroom cabinetry and layout) and Jean Prouvé (staircase and other metalwork), among others... (1952)

Location: Paris, France (building actually located in Marseille, France)

 

Walk-in model of Le Corbusier's first Unité d'Habitation, conceived and built in Marseille. This example is in the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris.

Postwar London scene in 1/76 scale.

As the postwar suburban sprawl spread throughout New Jersey in the 1950's, it made its way down into Central New Jersey and what was typically the "Jersey Shore" area. This extremely unique ShopRite building was built as a Penn Fruit supermarket during this era to accommodate the many people relocating to this area. Penn Fruit had its roots in Philly, but by the 50's, the company was building its trademark barrel-roofed stores in Northern New Jersey and New York City.

 

In 1971, Penn Fruit's sales were up 27% to a record $372 million and its income was soaring. It had also made a very powerful enemy in A&P by opening an innovative rock-bottom discount grocery store in New Jersey which put the neighboring A&P out of business. A&P, with its thousands and thousands of stores coast-to-coast, was ready to fight for its market share, and it started the great 1972 Price War in Philadelphia, which ultimately led to the demise of Penn Fruit and Food Fair.

 

The Penn Fruit Company threw in the towel in 1975 and ShopRite took over quite a few of their stores, including this store and a similar store in Paramus (which has since been demolished).

 

The Belmar store has remained ShopRite for the last 40 years, with very few changes to the store, both inside and out. The surrounding area skews older and whiter than most of New Jersey, and the slower place of change (and life in general) in these communities seems to suit the locals, which hopefully means few changes to this classic store.

 

You can see the similarity to the former Waldbaums of Fresh Meadows, Queens and the Dollar General in Woodlyn, PA (all former Penn Fruits).

West-German postcard by F.B.Z., no. 500. Photo: Europa / Fama-Film / Wesel.

 

Pretty, wide-eyed Austrian leading lady Maria Schell (1926-2005) became one of the first film idols of the European postwar generation. With her ‘smile under tears,’ she appeared in dozens of German and Austrian popular films, but she also starred in British, French, Italian, and Hollywood productions.

 

Margarete Schell was born in Vienna in 1926 as the daughter of the Swiss author Ferdinand Hermann Schell and Austrian actress Margarete Schell Noé. She was the older sister of the actors Immy, Carl, and Maximilian Schell. Her family had to escape from the Nazi regime in 1938, and she received dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay for her studies she worked as a secretary. Billed as Gritli Schell, she made her screen debut at 16 in the Swiss-filmed drama Steibruch (Sigfrit Steiner, 1942). It would be six years before she'd appear before the cameras again in Der Engel mit der Posaune (Karl Hartl, 1948). This Austro-German production was simultaneously filmed in an English-language version, The Angel With the Trumpet (Anthony Bushell, 1950), which brought her to the attention of international filmgoers. In the 1950s Maria often played the sweet and innocent Mädchen in numerous Austrian and German films. She starred opposite Dieter Borsche in popular melodramas like Es kommt ein Tag/A Day Will Come (Rudolf Jugert, 1950) and Dr. Holl (Rolf Hansen, 1951). With O.W. Fischer she formed one of the 'Dream Couples of the German cinema' in romantic melodramas like Bis wir uns wiedersehen/Till We Meet Again (Gustav Ucicky, 1952), Der träumende Mund/Dreaming Lips (Josef von Báky, 1953), and Solange Du da bist/As Long As You're Near Me (Rolf Hansen, 1953). She also starred in British productions like The Magic Box (John Boulting, 1951) with Robert Donat, and The Heart of the Matter (George More O'Ferrall, 1953) opposite Trevor Howard.

 

In 1954, Maria Schell won a Cannes Film Festival award for her dramatic portrayal of a German nurse imprisoned in wartime Yugoslavia in Die letzte Brücke/The Last Bridge (Helmut Käutner, 1954). Two years later, she claimed a Venice Film Festival prize for her role in Gervaise (René Clément, 1956). In this adaptation of Emile Zola’s 'L’Assommoir', she played one of her best roles as a hardworking laundress surrounded by drunks. Other important films were Robert Siodmak’s thriller Die Ratten/The Rats (1955), and Luchino Visconti’s romantic Fyodor Dostoyevski adaptation Le Notti bianche/White Nights (1957), with Schell as the young and innocent girl in love with Jean Marais but loved by Marcello Mastroianni. Hollywood called and Maria Schell was contracted to star as Grushenka opposite Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Brooks, 1958), a messy adaptation of another classic novel by Dostoyevsky. This was followed by roles in the Gary Cooper Western The Hanging Tree (Delmer Daves, 1959), the remake of Edna Ferber's Cimarron (Anthony Mann, 1961), and The Mark (Guy Green, 1961), opposite Academy Award nominee Stuart Whitman. Then she returned to Germany for the family drama Das Riesenrad/The Giant Ferris Wheel (Géza von Radványi, 1961), again with O. W. Fischer.

 

In 1963, dissatisfied with the diminishing value of the characters she was called upon to play, Maria Schell retired. But in 1969 she made a come-back with the witty French comedy Le Diable par la queue/The Devil By The Tail (Philippe de Broca, 1969) opposite Yves Montand. Then followed two horror films by cult director Jesus Franco, Der Heisse Tod/ 99 Women (1969), and Il Trono di fuoco/Throne of the Blood Monster (1970), starring Christopher Lee. Among her, later assignments were Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976), Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978), Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo/Just A Gigolo (David Hemmings, 1978) with David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich. On TV she portrayed the mother of Nazi architect Albert Speer (Rutger Hauer) in Inside the Third Reich (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1992). She also played Mother Maria in the TV sequel to Lilies of the Field called Christmas Lilies of the Field (Ralph Nelson, 1982), and she did guest appearances in popular crime series like Der Kommissar (1969-1975) starring Erik Ode, Kojak (1976) starring Telly Savalas, Derrick (1977-1978), and Tatort (1975-1996). Besides being a film star; Maria Schell appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, at the Salzburg Festival, and she went on provincial tours from 1963. Among the plays she performed were such classics as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, and modern classics such as Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. With her brother, Maximilian Schell Maria only appeared in one film, the thriller The Odessa File (Ronald Neame, 1974). In 2002 Maximilian made a documentary about her called Meine Schwester, Maria/My Sister, Maria, in which he documented how her mental health deteriorated along with her finances during her later years. In 2005 Maria Schell died at age 79 of heart failure in her sleep. She was twice married, first to film director Horst Hächler and later to another film director, Veit Relin. She was the mother of actor Oliver Schell and of actress Marie-Therese Relin, who is married to Bavarian playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz and has three children. In 1974 Maria Schell was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany's Cross of Merit) and in 1977 the Filmband in Gold for her impressive contributions to the German cinema.

 

Sources: Stephanie D'Heil (Steffie-line), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, AbsoluteFacts.nl, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

A postwar Plymouth left showing its underparts in the almost dead town of Ludlow, California.

 

Postwar Dialogues:

 

Europe and the United States

 

The cataclysm of World War II brought in its wake the obligation of profound reflection as well as an intense desire for a new beginning. The nations of Europe were starting to recover from physical and economic devastation and to recognize that the horrors of war had irrevocably damaged former ways of life, social bonds, and cultural assumptions. Having avoided home-front hostilities, the United States emerged from the war a geopolitical superpower, optimistic about the future but also bearing the scars of wartime sacrifice. The artistic cultures on both sides of the Atlantic remained deeply interconnected, but the perceived balance of authority began to shift toward the Americans.

 

The Brutally reactionary Nazi regime decimated the progressive cultural communities of Europe, and many of its leading talents—among them Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Piet Modrian, and Arshile Gorky—fled to the United States, infusing new ambition into the country’s artistic life. Abstract Expressionism (in New York), Art Informel (in Paris), and CoBrA (in Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam) developed as parallel efforts to delve beneath the compromised façade of Western civilization to seek sources of cultural rebirth in archaic eras and the art of children and the insane. Meanwhile, individualists such as Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, and Balthus explored universal aspects of the human condition: desire, alienation, and dream.

  

From the Placard: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

 

www.philamuseum.org/

  

Architects: Gerald L. "Jerry" Allison and George V. Whisenand for Wimberly & Cook, later Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (1959)

Location: Honolulu (Kailua), HI

 

An early work by what would become Hawaii's largest and most well-known architecture firm.

W100

 

6.332 cc

V8

250 hp

 

Class IV : Post-War "1965-1985"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

4,0 Litre

6 In-line

150 hp

 

Class III : Post War "1945-1965"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

This unidentified Leyland PD1 was converted to reversed stairs and front exit while operating in Sarajevo.

 

www.skyscrapercity.com.

A scene from a golden-age road trip fantasy—where chrome glints in the sun, waves crash nearby, and the open road beckons.

 

The 1953 Buick Skylark convertible was a limited-edition marvel created to celebrate Buick’s 50th anniversary, with only 1,690 units ever produced. It’s a fusion of postwar American luxury and European-inspired styling. The Skylark was part of Harley Earl’s legendary “Triple Crown” of GM show cars, alongside the Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Fiesta. Earl, GM’s design visionary, infused the Skylark with sweeping lines, a cut-down beltline, and radiused wheel openings—giving it a sleek, low-slung profile that echoed European sports cars.

 

Beneath its elegant exterior, the Skylark packed a 322-cubic-inch V8 engine paired with a Twin-Turbine Dynaflow automatic transmission, delivering smooth and powerful performance. It was loaded with advanced features for its time: power steering, power brakes, power windows, and a power-operated convertible top—all standard, underscoring its luxury status.

 

The car’s “sweepspear” chrome side trim, Kelsey-Hayes wire wheels, and ventiport-free fenders set it apart from other Buicks. Its red leather interior, often paired with a bold exterior like the maroon seen in the photo, added to its dramatic flair. The windshield was lowered and the seats trimmed to enhance its sporty silhouette. With a $5,000 price tag in 1953 (a fortune at the time), the Skylark was Buick’s most premium offering. Its rarity and design pedigree make it highly sought after by collectors today, often commanding six-figure prices at auctions.

 

[Source: Bing Copilot}

 

The first all-new postwar Cadillacs arrived in 1948, sporting tail fins inspired by the Lockheed P-38 fighter plane on a Cadillac. Series 62 Cadillacs had a slightly shortened wheelbase, but the track width was increased by two inches, increasing interior room.

 

The new Cadillac OHV V8 was the big news for 1949, with minor trim differences otherwise. This 331 cu in (5.4 L) engine produced 160 hp (119 kW) and weighed 200 pounds less than the old flathead V8 in addition to being shorter and lower. The 331 V8 could also handle higher compression levels to take advantage of improved, higher octane postwar gasoline formulations. The major difference between Series 61 and Series 62 models of similar body style was minor trim variations.

 

The Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville was introduced late in the 1949 model year. Along with the Buick Roadmaster Riviera, and the Oldsmobile 98 Holiday, it was among the first pillarless hardtop coupes ever produced.

 

For 1950, major styling changes were performed. The cars were lower and sleeker, with longer hoods, and one-piece windshields were fitted. Hydra Matic transmission was now standard. The Series 61 was again a short wheelbase model, having been reduced to 122 in (3099 mm). Sales set yet another record at 59,818.

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Postwar reincarnation of the Mercury I (c1945).

 

Universal Camera Corp. suspended their normal camera-making operations during World War II in order to manufacture binoculars for the armed forces. By the time the war ended and Universal resumed camera production, they had decided to revamp the popular Mercury in order to allow it to accept standard 35mm film rolls (as opposed to the special Univex #200 film required for the Mercury I). This required new dies, resulting in the Mercury II being about a quarter-inch longer and taller than the Mercury I.

 

Aside from the addition of the rewind knob and other obvious physical differences between the Mercury I & II, there were two cosmetic differences which would become somewhat problematic. The Mercury II was made from a different alloy which quickly lost its luster, making clean examples hard to find today. Also, the Mercury II was covered with a synthetic material instead of the leather found on the Mercury I. This may have necessitated the use of a different adhesive, as most examples of the Mercury II have what looks to be glue that has oozed out at the edges of the covering. Despite these issues, the Mercury II was a popular camera in its time, and popular among collectors today.

4,0 Litre

6 In-line

150 hp

 

Class III : Post War "1945-1965"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

Chassis n° B26BH

Coachwork by Franay

 

Class II b : Post-War Open Class "Fresh Air for 4"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

Referred to as the prewar RTs. Quite different from the later postwar versions. Great design.

 

Might be Fulwell according to Ian Smith's common end place for the 2 recognisable buses, and the trolleybus post, centre state, might back this up.

 

FXT325 / RT150 & FXT180 / RT5 were in LT service 1940/41 – 1963. AEC Regent chassis with Chiswick built bodies. Ian's Bus Stop RTs – PreWar or 2RT2s

 

To be precise, RTs 5 and 150 were 3/2RT2/2 buses. See detailed information of class modifications in comments by Brian Watkinson.

 

Photographer unknown. Love the period motor bike and old floods in the background.

Nine of Yakolev’s postwar jet types form an impressive line-up.

From left to right they are:-

Yak-130 ‘RF-43130 / 01 outline’,

Yak-23 ’15 red’ c/n 31231015,

Yak-25M ’03 red’ c/n 0718,

Yak-25RV-II ’11 red’ c/n 25992004,

Yak-27R ’14 red’ c/n 0703,

Yak-28L ’44 red’ c/n 2920902,

Yak-36 ’36 yellow’,

Yak-38 ’37 red’ c/n 7977864401137

and

Yak-38M ’38 yellow’, c/n 7977862816323.

Behind them, the Yak-141 is just visible tail-on. I doubt that these types could be seen together anywhere else.

All are on display at the Central Air Force museum, Monino, Moscow Oblast, Russia.

27th August 2017

1.098 cc

4 Cylinder

43 kW

760 kg

 

Special Coachwork Postwar

Concours d'Elégance Paleis Het Loo 2017

Apeldoorn

Nederland - Netherlands

July 2017

West-German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1247, 1956. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

 

Pretty, wide-eyed Austrian leading lady Maria Schell (1926-2005) became one of the first film idols of the European postwar generation. With her ‘smile under tears’ she appeared in dozens of German and Austrian popular films, but she also starred in British, French, Italian, and Hollywood productions.

 

Margarete Schell was born in Vienna in 1926 as the daughter of the Swiss author Ferdinand Hermann Schell and Austrian actress Margarete Schell Noé. She was the older sister of the actors Immy, Carl, and Maximilian Schell. Her family had to escape from the Nazi regime in 1938, and she received dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay for her studies she worked as a secretary. Billed as Gritli Schell, she made her screen debut at 16 in the Swiss-filmed drama Steibruch (Sigfrit Steiner, 1942). It would be six years before she'd appear before the cameras again in Der Engel mit der Posaune (Karl Hartl, 1948). This Austro-German production was simultaneously filmed in an English-language version, The Angel With the Trumpet (Anthony Bushell, 1950), which brought her to the attention of international filmgoers. In the 1950s Maria often played the sweet and innocent Mädchen in numerous Austrian and German films. She starred opposite Dieter Borsche in popular melodramas like Es kommt ein Tag/A Day Will Come (Rudolf Jugert, 1950) and Dr. Holl (Rolf Hansen, 1951). With O.W. Fischer she formed one of the 'Dream Couples of the German cinema' in romantic melodramas like Bis wir uns wiedersehen/Till We Meet Again (Gustav Ucicky, 1952), Der träumende Mund/Dreaming Lips (Josef von Báky, 1953), and Solange Du da bist/As Long As You're Near Me (Rolf Hansen, 1953). She also starred in British productions like The Magic Box (John Boulting, 1951) with Robert Donat, and The Heart of the Matter (George More O'Ferrall, 1953) opposite Trevor Howard.

 

In 1954, Maria Schell won a Cannes Film Festival award for her dramatic portrayal of a German nurse imprisoned in wartime Yugoslavia in Die letzte Brücke/The Last Bridge (Helmut Käutner, 1954). Two years later, she claimed a Venice Film Festival prize for her role in Gervaise (René Clément, 1956). In this adaptation of Emile Zola’s 'L’Assommoir', she played one of her best roles as a hardworking laundress surrounded by drunks. Other important films were Robert Siodmak’s thriller Die Ratten/The Rats (1955), and Luchino Visconti’s romantic Fyodor Dostoyevski adaptation Le Notti bianche/White Nights (1957), with Schell as the young and innocent girl in love with Jean Marais but loved by Marcello Mastroianni. Hollywood called and Maria Schell was contracted to star as Grushenka opposite Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Brooks, 1958), a messy adaptation of another classic novel by Dostoyevsky. This was followed by roles in the Gary Cooper Western The Hanging Tree (Delmer Daves, 1959), the remake of Edna Ferber's Cimarron (Anthony Mann, 1961), and The Mark (Guy Green, 1961), opposite Academy Award nominee Stuart Whitman. Then she returned to Germany for the family drama Das Riesenrad/The Giant Ferris Wheel (Géza von Radványi, 1961), again with O. W. Fischer.

 

In 1963, dissatisfied with the diminishing value of the characters she was called upon to play, Maria Schell retired. But in 1969 she made a come-back with the witty French comedy Le Diable par la queue/The Devil By The Tail (Philippe de Broca, 1969) opposite Yves Montand. Then followed two horror films by cult director Jesus Franco, Der Heisse Tod/ 99 Women (1969), and Il Trono di fuoco/Throne of the Blood Monster (1970), starring Christopher Lee. Among her, later assignments were Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976), Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978), Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo/Just A Gigolo (David Hemmings, 1978) with David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich. On TV she portrayed the mother of Nazi architect Albert Speer (Rutger Hauer) in Inside the Third Reich (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1992). She also played Mother Maria in the TV sequel to Lilies of the Field called Christmas Lilies of the Field (Ralph Nelson, 1982), and she did guest appearances in popular crime series like Der Kommissar (1969-1975) starring Erik Ode, Kojak (1976) starring Telly Savalas, Derrick (1977-1978), and Tatort (1975-1996). Besides being a film star; Maria Schell appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, at the Salzburg Festival, and she went on provincial tours from 1963. Among the plays she performed were such classics as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, and modern classics such as Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. With her brother, Maximilian Schell Maria only appeared in one film, the thriller The Odessa File (Ronald Neame, 1974). In 2002 Maximilian made a documentary about her called Meine Schwester, Maria/My Sister, Maria, in which he documented how her mental health deteriorated along with her finances during her later years. In 2005 Maria Schell died at age 79 of heart failure in her sleep. She was twice married, first to film director Horst Hächler and later to another film director, Veit Relin. She was the mother of actor Oliver Schell and of actress Marie-Therese Relin, who is married to Bavarian playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz and has three children. In 1974 Maria Schell was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany's Cross of Merit) and in 1977 the Filmband in Gold for her impressive contributions to the German cinema.

 

Sources: Stephanie D'Heil (Steffie-line), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, AbsoluteFacts.nl, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.