JF Ptak Science Books Post 1190
[All of the images below are available for purchase; see our blog bookstore for details.]
This is another in a series of posts on images from my News Service Photographs of WWI collection. All thousand or so of them were made in the last half of 1918 (save for a very few made in 1919) , in the last months of the grueling conflict, and were intended to be used by newspaper and magazines to illustrate stories about the war. An editor would send off a request to one of these agencies for, say, a photograph of marching American nurses, and the agency would send one back (for a fee) along with a caption. There's really no way for me to determine if these photos were ever published, and there is never an attribution for the photographer.
Most of the images have an accompanying descriptive text--this was to be used by whomever published the photograph, along with the attribution for the source of the photo.
In almost every case I supplied a detail of the image, hopefully of something that you'd want to see a detail of.
ORIGINAL Photograph, 1918. 8x6 inches. Very good condition. $150
Many more in the continued reading section, below:
The detail comes from the sweeping woman at right, taking care of some debris in a munitions factory in October 1918, sweeping as the King and Queen of England stroll by on a visit/inspection. I suspect she was instructed to say nothing and to not look up from her work. She doesn't look nervous to me, though--her hands aren't tightly gripped around the broom handle, and her face looks relaxed...
WRAF in track and field exercises, Kent. This is the third-place finisher, running while leaning back, trying to keep everything in place, mouth closed, arms down--pretty good results from such an awkward and highly-mannered style of running. Also, the woman to her right is a dead-ringer for Alan Turing (if you've ever seen the Enigma Man running at track, I think you'd have to agree.)
The great Alan Turing
Detail of the image of the Forestry Corps of the Women's Land Army of England, working at cutting telegraph poles on some great-looking draught horses. (The horse on the right--ears back--looks big and unhappy.) I love that this woman is wearing a tie.
Detail from "Soldiers' children being care for by volunteer nurses, Berlin, June 19, 1919".
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