Exhibition Monday: Cameras

Hello Everybody!

So, I would have posted Thursday but I was out almost all day and too exhausted by the time I got home. Its pretty cool though because not much happened on Tuesday. Friday was exciting however and I'll be telling you a little about it today and more about it on Thursday.

Today I am going to talk about cameras, and a little about phones. I mentioned in my last post that I had been making a list of what's in what upstairs. I partially did that so we could get through the artifacts quicker but I also did it to see what's up there that I can use in my exhibit. Now the main things I was looking for were, old games, cameras, telephones, and kitchen ware.

I started two weeks ago but, because of the cold and the fact that its freezing up there, delayed finishing it until Friday. Two week ago I got through the first set of shelves and was quite happy to find, besides the original box of cameras, another box of cameras. Even better, it had at 3 or 4 different flashes that belonged to a Polaroid Land Camera. (I should say one of them but I'll get to that in a bit.) It also had instructions for the Argus 75 which was fantastic but I can use it to explain loading and unloading film in cameras that use 620 film. Because, despite what the director thought, this wasn't a 35mm film camera.

Along with the cameras, I found two boxes of phones. The phones are good because I have two sitting downstairs that are waiting to go in the exhibit. The first box, which I expected, didn't have any spectacular phones. The second box, on the other hand, had one of those old stand-a-lone phones that you picked up the ear piece to and simply told the operator who you wanted to call - no dialing. Its not in the best of shape, but the box was full of dust, so hopefully with a little cleaning it'll look great in the exhibit.  If that doesn't work, I suppose I'll have to figure out how to restore it a little.

After that first day, I was pretty sure I had found all of the cameras. So on Friday, eager to find kitchenware and games, I started on the next section. I was on the second to last set of shelves in the second section when lo and behold there was another box of cameras! After a brief moment of amazement, I pulled the cameras out of the box and looked to see if any pictures were tucked away with them. There were two other Land cameras in this box and I pulled them both out. The one in the first box, was open but I couldn't figure out how to get it shut. Both of these Land cameras were shut. So what did I do?

Of course, I opened one. I was happy to see that it slid open fairly easily and that it was in good condition. I looked over the rest of the cameras and then I put them back in the box, except for the open Land. I tried to close it. I looked all over the bottom of it to see if I could get it to fold back into itself. No luck. The lesson I learned, don't go opening things if you don't know how to close them. I had to rearrange the whole box so I could fit the camera in it.

I also found in that section, a box with two newer phones in it, including an early cordless. (Which I found hilarious and interesting because I had never seen a cordless that you tucked the phone into a kind of side box to hold it.) Then I moved onto the next section.

On the second shelf, and this time I was very surprised, I found another box of cameras! I really thought that I'd done with them after three boxes. But no. This box had the greatest treasure of all, though. Well two of them at least. So let me go into the not so interesting one. This box had a film developers kit. Including, one film canister, two trays, a ton of photo paper, two deeper trays, and instructions of some sort. (I didn't get the best look at them.) With all of this stuff was, guess?

Another Land camera. I guess they were popular in Cherokee. It also held a Argus Cintra, which was the camera the director was thinking of. I was playing with it, like normal, and I hit the button to take a picture, and it worked beautifully. So beautifully that I decided to try it again and I hit the lever to move the film forward. It worked so well that, instead of hitting the button again I debated an idea in my head. I just bet this camera has film in it, I thought to myself. So I took the tape off of the sides, popped open the back and closed it as fast as I could! Sure enough, there was a roll of film that hadn't been removed. I left the camera where it was, hoping I hadn't exposed the film badly, since the light was on. I finished my list on the third section, grabbed the camera and practically ran down the stairs.

I talked to the director and showed him the camera and told him about the film. Since we knew it had to be taken out in the dark he said I could take the camera home. However, I am not very good at waiting around and not fiddling with stuff. (As evinced by the now open Land camera.) So I popped upstairs, left the light off, made sure I was rolling the film the correct way, and pulled the film out of the camera. I handed it to the director and he asked if I thought we should have a lottery to guess what's on the pictures.

Thinking about that, we looked in the system to see who had donated the camera. We all thought it would be an individual but we were surprised to see that it was actually the Service Extension who had donated it. (I, being mainly from a city, had to ask what that was, so I'll tell you here.) Pretty much the Service Extension kept an eye on the farmland around the area and assisted farmers and so on and so forth. The director, who is going to get the pictures developed - if I didn't mess it up with that brief second of light, thinks that we're going to find mostly cotton in the pictures. Either way it'll be interesting to see them, if we can.

I won't find out until Wednesday, when I go back to the museum again. If even one blurry picture is saved, you can bet I'll put it in the exhibit.

This Tuesday I have an interview at the library, which is why I'm going Wednesday. Here's hoping I get the job. You all have a wonderful week!

Tune in for Thursday's update and hear about Radios!

Doings

Hello faithful readers!

I say that because if you're still reading this, you are definitely faithful. Sorry for the very long hiatus. My dog does indeed have cancer and we'll be putting her down tomorrow. But enough about that. I'm here to catch you all up on the doings at the museum.

 On the 20th of January we had a book signing at the museum! I heard it went very well, I didn't go that Friday because Saturday I went with my friend. :) Anyway, the book signing was for a book being written by George Wallace Jr. about his father and his family life. Since, I am not from Alabama, I don't know much about Governor George Wallace. I can say that everyone thought the book signing went very well, and according to the director they quickly ran out of books. One of the girls told me that it was interesting, but Mr. Wallace left out anything that could have been controversial. Either way it was a good event that got us some publicity.

So, the visit with my friend on the 21st went really well. Hopefully, when we're both not quite so busy, we'll be able to set up a schedule where we both go out to Cherokee at least once a month. Having someone else to work with me is a big help. We got so much done! In fact, I'm thinking of leaving the inventorying of upstairs to her. After, I go through a quick look through the boxes to see what is artifacts and what is archival material, as well as if there is anything else I can use for the exhibit.

Now to get into what we found:

Isn't this dress lovely? This is the flappers dress that I mentioned which was worn from the late 1930s until the 1950s. It was worn by Bonnie Brasfield who was a dancer, a singer, and daughter of Lawrence Brasfield. If you haven't heard of Lawrence by that name you may have heard of Boob Brasfield - his stage name, or Uncle Cyp and Aunt Sap - the characters he and his wife played on the Red Foley Show. If you haven't heard of him at all, then you may have heard of his brother Rod Brasfield, who did skits with Minnie Pearl on the Opry Radio Show.

If you'd like to see one of his brother's skits you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkn6yqACcWs&feature=player_embedded#!

I couldn't find anything from when Bonnie or her father and mother performed but if you find anything please comment and tell me!

We also found this gorgeous dress here which was handmade in the late 1800s. The detail on the dress was wonderful and we were both very happy to have found it in such good condition.













One of the other great things we found was a World War II Army Air Force jacket.

The patch on the picture below led me to suspect that it may have been an early Airborne patch. When I returned home I immediately looked it up and found out that it is the insignia for an Airborne Engineer Unit. From this little patch I am able to gather that Wellman, the name written in the jacket, was an Airborne Engineer and was therefore part of the support services. Pretty cool right?

It makes it a lot easier now that I'll have someone who can help me inventory. The last two Tuesdays I've gone to the museum I've been able to focus on putting information into the database and inventorying the first floor. Hopefully things keep moving this quickly. Even if my friend can't continue going with me I should be okay because the Director told me last Tuesday that I may have a high school student volunteer who can help me out. (To which I happily thought of trying to twist another mind to the wonder of public history.) Also this summer I'll probably have two helpers from a college in Rome who are going to intern at the museum! Yay! For both the supervisory experience, and the help. Cause I need it.

So I mentioned that I'm going through the boxes upstairs to mark off which ones are artifacts and which are mostly archival. I'm doing that so we can get through the artifacts quicker, and then can start on the archival and photo material after because the artifacts are vastly more important at this point in time. Anyway, its really good that I'm doing that because I was upstairs Tuesday and I found another box of cameras. Go figure! Shame on me for even bothering to think there would only be one.

Anyway, in the box was the card for the old Argus 75 that I had found in the first box. It said just the most beautiful thing on it too. It said that the camera should still be working! Yay! Because I was planning on taking pictures with a Polaroid, I'm donating to the museum, and a Konica, also being donated. (Both are 80s era and are the last group I need to round off the non digital cameras.) What I found further in the box was even better. The instructions to load it! The director, who I mentioned the box and the card to, remembers having one when he was younger and he thinks its a 35mm film! Which is really easy to get your hands on! So I'll check on that for sure next Tuesday.

What do you all think of having pictures taken of the various sites around the county? Wouldn't that be really good to put in the exhibit. I thought the kids might like to see both images from a non digital format, and a digital format. Kids today probably don't really know about cameras that even take film. Though, they've probably seen pictures from film cameras but, they might not link the two together.

Oh and I also discovered the boxes of telephones upstairs too, which is fantastic!

That's it for tonight. See you next Thursday!

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