Old Pictures

[Schmidt Meister]

My wife , who is from CA, thought it was hilarious that around here, north FL, called what she called a 'tow truck' a wrecker. People around here that I grew up with always called them 'wreckers' and it wasn't until I was probably around 18 and had left FL during my Army days that I first heard one referred to as a 'tow truck'.

The wrecker/tow truck was invented in 1916 by Ernest Holmes, Sr., (1883-1945), of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a garage worker inspired after needing blocks, ropes, and six men to pull a car out of a creek. Upon improving his design he began manufacturing them commercially.
By 1919 Ernest Holmes Sr., whose brother Curtis owned a service station, had secured a patent and was selling branded wreckers, which were mounted on the backs of used cars.

[Schmidt Meister]

August Fruehauf and Otto Neumann, blacksmith and wagon makers invented the semi-trailer in 1914 for a local lumber tycoon in Michigan, hitched it to a modified Ford Model-T, and founded an industry.
The Fruehauf Trailer Company operated from 1914 to 1997 across the United States, Europe and Asia introducing such revolutionary inventions as hydraulic dump trailers, bulk tanker trailers, the automatic fifth wheel hitch and the shipping container in 1956.
Over 1,000 inventions, 150 for the military alone, helped the Fruehauf Trailer Company attain the rank of 75th largest company in the world.
By the mid-1920s, trailer sales passed the million-dollar mark, and by the mid-1950s, Fruehauf had expanded into nine plants across the United States, Canada, Brazil and France. Along the way, the company secured hundreds of patents for trailer innovations, including the automatic coupling, hydraulic dump trailers and bulk tanker trailers. In 1956, Fruehauf even had a part in developing what we now know as the intermodal shipping container, designed for simplified shipping of goods on train, truck or ship.
After the company fell out of the family’s hands in the mid-1960s, Fruehauf began to diversify, eventually buying up subsidiaries such as Kelsey-Hayes. But by the 1990s, power struggles and financial problems within the company forced Fruehauf into bankruptcy, leading Wabash National to buy Fruehauf’s main U.S. business in 1997.

[railfancwb]

2 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

August Fruehauf and Otto Neumann, blacksmith and wagon makers invented the semi-trailer in 1914 for a local lumber tycoon in Michigan, hitched it to a modified Ford Model-T, and founded an industry.
The Fruehauf Trailer Company operated from 1914 to 1997 across the United States, Europe and Asia introducing such revolutionary inventions as hydraulic dump trailers, bulk tanker trailers, the automatic fifth wheel hitch and the shipping container in 1956.
Over 1,000 inventions, 150 for the military alone, helped the Fruehauf Trailer Company attain the rank of 75th largest company in the world.
By the mid-1920s, trailer sales passed the million-dollar mark, and by the mid-1950s, Fruehauf had expanded into nine plants across the United States, Canada, Brazil and France. Along the way, the company secured hundreds of patents for trailer innovations, including the automatic coupling, hydraulic dump trailers and bulk tanker trailers. In 1956, Fruehauf even had a part in developing what we now know as the intermodal shipping container, designed for simplified shipping of goods on train, truck or ship.
After the company fell out of the family’s hands in the mid-1960s, Fruehauf began to diversify, eventually buying up subsidiaries such as Kelsey-Hayes. But by the 1990s, power struggles and financial problems within the company forced Fruehauf into bankruptcy, leading Wabash National to buy Fruehauf’s main U.S. business in 1997.

Took too long between the family losing control and bankruptcy that the “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” would not seem to apply. 

[Schmidt Meister]

5 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Took too long between the family losing control and bankruptcy that the “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” would not seem to apply. 

Not sure I understand what you mean, bud?

[railfancwb]

15 minutes ago, Schmidt Meister said:

Not sure I understand what you mean, bud?

Traditional cliche says that a business is started by one generation, managed by second, and frittered away by the third. Too long after the founding family had moved on when bankruptcy happened for this to apply. 

[janice6]

On 9/12/2022 at 4:42 AM, Schmidt Meister said:

The Phillips cross-head screw was originally the brainchild of John P. Thompson of Oregon, who, in 1933, patented (#1,908,080) a recessed cruciform screw and in 1933, a screwdriver for it. The importance of the X-shaped crosshead screw design lies in its self-centering property, useful on automated production lines that use powered screwdrivers.
Thompson wasn't trying to make life with hand tools easier. He was trying to solve an industrial problem. To drive a slot screw, you need hand-eye coordination to line up the screwdriver and the slot. If you're a machine, specifically, a 1930s machine, you ain't got no eye, and your hand coordination may depend on humans.
And not only does a power Phillips driver get engaged fast, it stays engaged and doesn't tend to slide out of the screw. Another advantage: It's hard to over-screw with a power tool. The screwdriver will likely just pop out when the screw is completely fastened. The recessed slot was shallow enough that the driver did pop out when the screw was fully tightened, which prevented over-torquing and damage to the screw, the driver and the product being assembled. As such, it had great potential for the air-driven fastening tools then being introduced into automotive assembly lines.
After Thompson took out a U.S. patent, over the next six months he approached many screw manufacturers, all of which said his screw was impossible to reproduce because the punch needed to create the recess would destroy the screw head.
Thompson decided the whole idea was not manufacturable until he revealed his idea to a Portland acquaintance named Henry Frank Phillips who became intrigued with the idea and offered to buy the rights to the patent.
In 1934, Phillips approached the American Screw Company of Providence, Rhode Island, the oldest (founded 1837) and largest screw manufacturer in North America where a new president named Eugene Clark had taken over. Clark was captivated by the design despite his engineers' reservations. By 1936, after some significant modifications by Henry Phillips (U.S. Patent #2,046,343, U.S. Patents #2,046,837 to 2,046,840) American Screw agreed to underwrite the development of a cold form process to produce cruciform screws.
Phillips formed the Phillips Screw Company in 1934. After refining the design for the American Screw Company of Providence, Rhode Island, Phillips succeeded in bringing the design to industrial manufacturing and promoting its rapid adoption as a machine screw standard.
One of the first customers was General Motors who used the innovative design in 1936 for its Cadillac assembly-lines.

One of the biggest advantages was when the driver cammed (sp?)out of the screw head, it stayed centered in the screw rather than gouging up the material the screw was in.

[Schmidt Meister]

Marilyn Monroe - Skirt Scene - 9.15.1954 - Seven Year Itch

On September 15, 1954, the famous picture of Marilyn Monroe, laughing as her skirt is blown up by the blast from a subway vent, is shot during the filming of The Seven Year Itch. The scene infuriated her husband, Joe DiMaggio, who felt it was exhibitionist, and the couple divorced shortly afterward.
Monroe, born Norma Jean Mortensen and also known as Norma Jean Baker, had a tragic childhood. Her mother, a negative cutter at several film studios, was mentally unstable and institutionalized when Norma Jean was five. Afterward, the little girl lived in a series of foster homes, where she suffered from neglect and abuse, and later lived in an orphanage. At age 16, she quit high school and married a 21-year-old aircraft plant worker named Joe Dougherty.
In 1944, her husband was sent overseas with the military, and Monroe worked as a paint sprayer in a defense plant. A photographer spotted her there, and she soon became a popular pin-up girl. She began working as a model and divorced her husband two years later. In 1946, 20th Century Fox signed her for $125 a week but dropped her after one film, from which her scenes were cut. Columbia signed her but also dropped her after one film. Unemployed, she posed nude for a calendar for $50; the calendar sold a million copies and made $750,000.
Monroe played a series of small film roles until 1950, when Fox signed her again. This time, they touted her as a star and began giving her feature roles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she starred with Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, playing fortune hunter Lorelei Lee. Her tremendous sex appeal and little-girl mannerisms made her enormously popular.
After her divorce from baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, Monroe searched for more serious roles and announced she would found her own studio. She began studying acting with the famous Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. She gave an impressive comic performance in Bus Stop in 1955. The following year, she married intellectual playwright Arthur Miller. She appeared in the hit Some Like It Hot in 1959.
Monroe made her last picture in 1961, The Misfits, which Miller wrote especially for her. She divorced him a week before the film opened. She attempted one more film, Something’s Got to Give, but was fired for her frequent illnesses and absences from the set, which many believed to be related to drug addiction. In August 1962, she died from an overdose of sleeping pills. Her death was ruled a possible suicide. Since her death, her popularity and mystique have endured, with numerous biographies published after her death. Her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio continued to send flowers to her grave every week for the rest of his life.

[pipedreams]

Little girl by the signpost at Bodö Airport, Norway, 1968. Photograph via SAS Scandinavian Airlines.

[Schmidt Meister]

Lt. Edwin Wright, just over 19 yrs. old, just returned from his 39th mission over Munster. His P-47 Thunderbolt (serial number 42-28794) got hit by flak he but continued on his mission dropped his bombs, did some strafing and flew back to his base near St. Trond, Belgium. When he got back he found a hole 8 ins. in diameter through his 11 in. propeller, caused by a direct hit from a shell. If the shell had deviated an inch and a half either side, his blade would have severed and he would have been brought down. (Note that the shell hit the propeller from the rear) He belonged to the 404th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force.
Wright flew 88 missions in P-47’s during WWII and left the Air Force in 1946 after the war. He was called up for the Korean Conflict in 1950 and retired from the USAF as a Major.

[pipedreams]

On The Observation Deck Of The Empire State Building, New York, Mid-1940's

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Love In Time Of War, 1944

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A Couple Drinking Water From Fountain. Michigan, 1940s

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Marilyn Monroe, Startled By A Firecracker, Opens

The Time-Life Building In New York, 1957

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A Filipino Baby And Her Family Inside A Human Zoo In New York, USA. 1906

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Couple On Beach, Coney Island, 1947. Photo By Ruth Orkin

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An Exhausted Young Couple During An All-Night Jazz Session At

The Royal Albert Hall In London, 1957. Photo By Erich Auerbach

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James Dean Signing Autographs In His Car, 1950's

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Young Couples At A Formal Dance Dreamily Sway On

The Crowded Floor Of Dim, Chandelier-Lit Ballroom, 1940s. Photo By Nina Leen

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1890's Walmart?

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White Privilege

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How homework was done before google.

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Orphanage 1931, London

[pipedreams]

18 Sep 1862, the sun rises over the battle fields of Antietam. Both armies tend to their wounded, 22,000 plus 3,700 dead and 2,000 POW/MIA. The aftermath of the bloodiest single-day battle in US history is incomprehensible, here are a few recollections:

Dr. J. Dunn, surgeon: "We had expended every bandage, tore up every sheet in the house, and everything we could find, when who should drive up but our old friend, Miss [Clara] Barton, with a team loaded down with dressings of every kind, and everything we could ask for. . . .In my feeble estimation, General McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battle field."

Maj Gen J. Hooker: “every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in the ranks a few moments before.”

On how there could be MIA's on US soil: Many men were buried in long trenches with no markers. Then the CSA dead were dug up and reburied elsewhere because of anger toward the South. Here is a clip:

When the cemetery was finally begun in Hagerstown [Maryland], more than ten years after the battles, Henry Mumma was hired for the task of moving the bodies. He identified those he could, but as the Hagerstown Herald Weekly of June 1874 reported: "122 were brought to the Cemetery on Saturday, of whom only the eight following were recognized: M. Grubne, Co. C, 16th Georgia; Benj. Mathews, Co. F, 16th Georgia; E. H. A., Georgia; Capt. N. Reeder, Co. H, 16th Georgia; Wm. Smith, Co. B, 16th Georgia; Thomas Hobbs, Co. K, 16th Georgia; Thomas Sander, Co. G, 10th Georgia; Dr. Braddock, S. C.'
[A burial map recently discovered documents 2,634 Union and 3,210 Confederate burials which is 5,844 KIA. One in six wounded would die from infection and other complications]

While many consider Antietam a draw, President Lincoln has been waiting for a military success to issue his Emancipation Proclamation and declares the "Battle of Sharpsburg" a strategic victory and issues the proclamation on 22 September 1862.