Sep 8, 2014
The latest and greatest in electric lights, as seen in 1917 in the Washington, D.C., showroom of Dulin & Martin Co.
Note that the business ends of the lamp cords were shaped like the bottoms of light bulbs. Those were the days when houses were wired with sockets for light bulbs but not with wall outlets; to plug in a lamp or a toaster or any other kind of electrical appliance, you'd first have to unscrew a lightbulb from the ceiling.
Jan 30, 2016
It's Saturday, a good day for bananas!
Approximately one hundred years ago, circa 1917, four people posed for this photo on the steps of somebody's back porch, probably in Minnesota. We can surmise that the house was heated by wood and had no running water–but yes, they sure had bananas.
The gentleman in the upper left is Bernard Burch, who in the 1920s was elected mayor of Wadena, Minnesota. As a young man, he ran his family's department store, "largest of its kind between Duluth and Fargo"; in his later years, he managed the town liquor store.
We do not know the identities of the happy banana-peelers he was hanging out with.