JF Ptak Science Books: World War I Photography

A Pie Line and Sugar Angel, 1918: U.S. Troops in Paris

JF Ptak Science Books 

 

9x6 inches, 1918. Original photograph.  $200

There's definitely an angelic figure in this photograph, an image  made showing American Doughboys lining up in front of a bakery/candy store (high-sugar delivery transport systems enhancer) in Paris in 1918.  This photograph is a News Photo Service item, produced by the Western Newspaper Union, which would send photographs (and their captions) on demand  to newspapers and magazines requesting a scene, say, of American soldiers waiting patiently in line for apple pie at a Parisian bakery.  The caption says that "America's sons (were) grouped about the store waiting for doors to open" so that they could have at the apple pie. They are waiting for something, to be sure; it doesn't seem quite right that a bakery would not be open during daylight hours (though the shutters on the upper floors are closed still) in the winter (I see snow), but then again I'm not an expert on the hours kept by small business in Paris during WWI. 

I am taken with the figure of the small girl in the windowed-door of the bakery, standing there with her hands clasped, framed by the window pane, dressed in flowing white.  Is the place really closed, or did the soldiers simply have no money for these treats, the little girl standing there in the unlocked doorway wondering why all of these soldiers just don't come inside?  Were the men paid in scrip with no value in the streets of the city?  The good news is that these men were alive, and it may have been November or December of 1918, which means that the killing of millions and millions of soldiers and civilians had just about come to an end, so they could probably stay living,  safely making their idle if not penniless way around the snowy streets of Paris, wanting and waiting to go home.

 

Volunteer Efforts to Aid the Wounded, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books   

This is another magnificent group portrait from my collection of News Service Photographs from World War I.  This is image is from mid-1918 and depicts nurses, wounded and recovering soldiers and an assortment of volunteers preparing relief packages for other wounded soldiers in field hospitals.  My experience with these images is that are many levels of portraits within the larger group portrait--looking at them under magnification is an addictive process, and quite often there are some lovely surprises.  

Image: 9x6 inches. Good condition.  $300
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Found-Portraits within Portraits, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books  

Original photograph, 1918. 9x6 inches.  Good condition.  $350 

 

In my collection of WWI News Photo Service Agency photographs I would say that half or so of them show  scenes like this--semi-informal group portraits of military support groups.  250 portraits like this seem to be a lot, and I'm not sure why these images are so well represented. Except of course that there weren't that many images (overall) of active-battle scenes. 

These bakers, working at a front-line support station, from my read were probably taking a break, and the photographer took the opportunity to draw them together for the portrait.  I don't know why they're separated so, but they do look as though they have a real camaraderie--it is just a wonderful picture, full of friendship and loyalty, and I'm sure it has never been published before.  

Christmas Mail, 1917

JF Ptak Science Books  

This is the U.S. Army mail depot at Regents Park, London, braced for and under siege by  Christmastime mail in 1917. It strikes me that there may be a million items in this photo--at this time in the war there were something like 35 million people in the services for all countries dedicated to the war effort, which is approximately half the number that served in total.  If these letters in this picture were bodies, I reckon that there would be five more rooms like this necessary to tell the visual picture of the war dead and wounded.  This aside, I initially focused on the guy in the rear with the white shirt and tie, standing there pretty much overwhelmed by the task of moving all of that stuff...and perhaps with the idea that much of the mound would wind up being undeliverable because the recipient was killed.  I wonder if that mail was returned, or not?

 Original photograph, 1917.  9x6 inches. Good condition.  $175

A Census of War Dogs, 1918

Original photograph, 1918.  9x6 inches.  Good condition.  $200

I wonder what the French officer sitting behind the table at the center background thought about at night, after his day was done.  I wonder what it was that went through his head, his eyes fluttering, as he slipped into sleep?  As the accompanying caption of this photo states, this was a census of dogs, a census of army dogs in the French army, taken at "the battle front" of Verdun, and dated 10 October 1918.  Did he think of his duties expended throughout the day, and weeks and months?  Counting dogs as a war effort may have been a hard thing to consume.  Perhaps this officer had already seen his share of war, perhaps he had fought from 1914 and onwards, this position being relatively benign, a reward for years of impossibly difficult service in a bloody war. Or perh

A Series of Original WWI Photos Relating to Carrier Pigeons

Original photograph, 1918.  8x6 inches.  Good condition.  $125

Here's a series of three photographs relating to carrier pigeons in WWI.  The first is a magnificent photograph of a memorial to a carrier pigeon named Auguste, a famous flyer who evidently performed invaluable services time after time, a bird of splendid behavior whose actions no doubt saved the lives of many soldiers, and who was shot down by German troops in commission of an assignment.  Auguste's comrades constructed this makeshift memorial in the trenches for the heroic animal.

And another photograph that told the story of the pigeon in very plain  language:

Original photograph, 1918.  9x6 inches. Good condition.  $75 

 

Original photograph, 1918.  9x3 inches.  Good condition.  $75

And yet another appreciative handler of a valuable reseource:

 

Amusement and Relief, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books  

In a moment of levity at the end of WWI, these sailors from America and the U.K. and France got together for a bit, and turned their little doggie mascot into a small attraction of sorts, entertaining themselves and the small curious crowd surrounding tthem.  The photograph was made anonymously by the Western Newspaper Union and is stamped "British Official Photograph", and published on 10 October 1918.

Which is a delightful detail from the full scale image, which measures 5x8", and is in good condition.   The original photograph:  $275

And this intriguing woman, who appears in the upper right corner:

 

 

WWI U.S. Standardized Ship Launch, 1918--The "Agawam"

JF Ptak Science Books

[A detail from:]

This great photograph was made in 1918 and stamped on the reverse "Photo by Central News Photo Service" of NYC. It shows the launching of the U.S.S. Agawam, the first standardized ship launched by the U.S. Navy (according to a New York Times article for May 3, 1918, ("FIRST FABRICATED SHIP; The Agawam, Forerunner of Standardized Fleet, to be Launched Today").

The photograph measures 10x7", and is in good condition, with one small tack hole in upper left corner and a bumped right corner.  Good condition.  $175

The image reminds me in a way of the launching of the Dreadnought, which in some ways was another beginning of WWI, or at least of the naval race right before the war and of the competition for naval superiority between the Germany and England.  And I remember how King Edward VII, rickety with illness, climbed the stairs to deliver his speech, and to break open the bottle of Australian wine against the Dreadnought's bow. Except that the bottle didn't break on the first attempt--a somewhat forbidding element, except that it was her bow that Dreadnought used to sink a German sub.  The ship revolutionized naval technology and Germany played catch-up to it (and in effect an entire new class of battleship) right to the beginning of the war.  Less than 15 years later, the Dreadnought was sold for scrap.  

Books as War Booty, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

In the vast caches of loot taken during the course of war I suspect books have ranked somewhere in the middle of stolen stuff--no doubt some fine libraries have disappeared, though I can't offhand say how many fine libraries emerged from the slaughterhouse.  This photograph--a wartime news photo service image--is one of the few that I have seen depicting the capture of stolen books. The image:  9x7 inches, including the original text that came with the photo for the use of captioning it.  Good condition.  $175

ANd a moderate detail:

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Mundane Images of War Necessities--Found Bullets

JF Ptak Science Books

A little went a long way, sometimes, in collecting the ends and bits of a campaign or a retiring column or from the attics and basements of village houses, or in scrapyards or dustbins or abandoned yards and buildings. Scrap has sometimes contributed greatly to major war efforts; and sometimes it has contributed just a few hundred rounds of ammunition, gathered from the sick or dying or forces on the move, that have told the tale of change in battle.  When you can only carry so much in a campaign where shooting can be an endless process, you can by definition never really carry enough bullets when you're already carrying enough of everything else.

Original photograph, 1918.  8x6 inches.  Good condition.  $225.

 

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