The Summer Song, halftone photograph by Frank Eugene, ca. 1908; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1972, accession no. 1972.633.62

Some interesting items have been have been announced recently, or I have stumbled upon something, and I want to share those things with you. Maybe you will think some of these are cool enough to make this hot, hot, August more bearable.

• Newspapers:

Kenneth Marks, of The Ancestor Hunt has noted the updates and additions to the Library of Congress newspaper site Chronicling America. States in his list include several in the South: D.C., Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

That announcement caused me to do some exploring for photographers in the newspapers of the states mentioned, and it was great fun. I discovered an excellent advertisement for a photo studio in Nashville. This one is particularly interesting to me because these two fellows are African American.

Mr. J. J. Lay and Mr. William Hargraves were, it appears, partners in The Rembrandt Studio, in 1908. Biographical details of their experience is found in the advertisement, and we see that Lay, who owned the studio and was an accomplished photographer, employed Hargraves, a “first class view photographer” to work with him.

Take a look at this advertisement yourself, at the bottom of page 11 in the Sept. 4, 1908 Nashville Globe.

In this state we are very lucky to have many of our Georgia newspapers available in state via the Digital Library of Georgia – Newspapers, but you will be amazed at what you can discover related to Georgia or originating in Georgia, within the newspapers of other states. Keep that in mind when you are doing newspaper research!

• Image Sources:

“Old photographs and postcards from family albums, old yearbooks, genealogy records and shoeboxes submitted by researchers” (I think maybe shoeboxes of photos?) can be found on a site called FamilyOldPhotos.com (Free Old Photo Archive). You can take a look at one or more pages of the results found via browsing Georgia on that website’s “Browse By State” feature here:  Georgia images

There are all kinds of images here. At the site of each one, you can click on a city or town for more information, or on the surname to see if more photos are available tagged with that name. In other words, the possibility exists for a researcher to discover a wealth of related information. But, unfortunately, photographers do not seem to be noted very often by name.

In my original post on Florida in Researching Photographers Working in the South I mentioned Florida Memory  – check it out again.  In addition, while you are in the mood, take a look at Central Florida Memory and at Orlando Memory.

Orlando Fire Department Engine, 1912 (Orlando Memory)

Items on these sites include postcards, photo prints, maps, newspaper pages, city directories, gazetteers, and more. The Central Florida site claims “over 80,000 images” from area universities, museums and archives. Oh my, that’s a lot of memories of Florida!

• From my readers:

Two readers recently shared images from their family collections with me, and both relate to Georgia photographers. I am able to share the one below, made by Noble E. Merck of Gainesville, Georgia. I wrote about N. E. Merck in a prior post on a Friday Faces and Places: An Account Book and Some Gainesville Photographers

Hutch and Julia Carter and their eleven children, of Jackson County, Georgia, ca. 1915. Photo by Noble E. Merck, Gainesville, GA; collection R. Michael Jackson

The oldest of these children is the reader’s Grandmother. What a great photo to have in one’s possession. It is always a pleasure to hear from my readers and to answer questions they have about the photographers and/or dates of their images. Sometimes making a connection like this can make my day!

I hope your days throughout the remaining crazy, hazy days of summer are delightful – and full of great research discoveries. Continue your Hunting and Gathering, and be sure to enjoy the journey.

© E. Lee Eltzroth and Hunting & Gathering, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without  written permission from this blog’s author is prohibited. The piece can be re-blogged, and excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to E. Lee Eltzroth and Hunting & Gathering, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.