Santa’s Workshop, 1906
Collecting, Ephemera December 11th. 2008, 1:25pm
From the archives of the Library of Congress comes this interesting peek into Santa’s Workshop, circa 1906. This image is said to have been one side of a stereo card, but the clear view of the photo studio at the top shows this to be a preliminary image, not a final one. Given the aspect ratio used on vintage stereo cards, and the fact that they were arched across the top, I can definitely seeing how this photo could have worked in that capacity.
I’ve already touched on the popularity of Santa-with-telephone images, and this one features both an oak wall phone and a nice, shiny candlestick. Sure seems like Santa would have a more impressive Christmas tree…
Here’s the phones in a close-up.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
That’s a very cool picture. Zooming in you can see the toys and various goods of a 1906 Christmas, even the type of ornaments on the tree. Anyone know what kind of phones those are?
[Good question, Heath. I've added a text link to a close-up of them at the bottom of the post.]
December 19th, 2008 at 12:40 am
The candlestick looks Western Electric to me. The old one with the big knob behind the transmitter, instead of the later bolt and screw. The wall phone is a mystery to me. Beautiful, though. And the photo is a great look back, too. There’s not a thing there that plugs in, nothing that has a corporate brand on it. It makes me wonder if we’ve gained something with our modern ways or lost something that was perhaps more important than we knew.
[That's a very good point bingster. Right at the doorstep of the mass-production boom we see an assortment of toys with a definite hand-made quality. Truly a ghost of Christmas past.]
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
We do tend to adopt whatever technology is invented and worry about the consequences later eh? This picture is right at the start of the technological explosion of the 20th century, which benefits all of us today. I certainly don’t want to go back to horse and buggy days, but I too wonder if we lost more than we realize.