The adventures and various works of a photographer, road tripper, former patron of the local arts, aspiring app developer, and late night coffee drinker and conversationalist.
This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks and the histories behind them.
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It’s 1994, and you’re in the mood for some local flavor. The DFW music scene has come into its own, and Deep Ellum is a hoppin’ place on the weekends. Local music has been taking off on the radio, and the composers and performers of said music are gaining real traction with the teen- and twentysomethings sets. Some bands are even getting signed to national labels and their music is beginning to be stocked in the big name, big box outlets. But on this particular day you’re looking for something a bit less mainstream and a bit more underground in ethos. You pile your things into the car and head out in the direction of the historic Exposition Park strip. It’s in one of those areas where people are supposedly afraid to go thanks to a reputation for being crime-ridden, but this particular carve-out is said to be safe. You pass by Forbidden Books and The Bar of Soap, negotiating the never-ending road construction, and arrive at a small retail store on Parry Avenue, sandwiched inside a row of businesses just across the street from the entrance to the fairgrounds.
Vintage photos, like modern-day ones, are vignettes of the daily life of their time. Here is a selection of twenty-three such examples from my collection.
1920s dry goods store
I found this one a bit intriguing despite not really having a place for it in any future projects. Perhaps this is because I've always had a bit of a fancy for small neighborhood markets laid out in a late 19th/early 20th century style. It's what attracts me to Rudolph's Market & Sausage Factory in Deep Ellum, a fixture in the neighborhood since 1895, despite my being meat-free since 1999. There's no indication in the photo of this store's location.
1920s dry goods store
Bathing beauties
Bathing suits have changed a lot in the last century. I'm guessing this photo dates to the 1920s or 30s.
Two shapely women in bathing suits
Continue reading "Vintage scenes from life"
A couple of weeks ago, whilst making my usual rounds at some area antique stores, I came upon a collection of interesting historical oddities. These were a decent-sized stack of old nineteenth-century letters, carefully unfolded and presented with their original envelopes inside sealed plastic Ziplock bags. The correspondence varied, consisting mostly of everyday life updates, but there were also business-related items and even some love letters included in the mix. Most were from senders inside the state of Texas, and a few were even addressed to recipients located right here in Dallas. I thumbed through the stack, looking at each item in turn, and ultimately decided I would buy one with a Wood Street address. Within the correspondence I saw references to what seemed to be the State Fair of Texas, and I was intrigued.
I like to collect vintage photos, particularly vintage photos of my hometown of Dallas and photos of places I've visited. Most of these date from the era of affordable personal photography and include mostly slides, real photo postcards, and everyday prints with the occasional vintage film negative thrown in. But a handful of items in my collection date to a period even earlier than that. These are not photo reproductions or reprints, period postcards, or facsimiles, but are actual period specimens that hail from the nineteenth or extreme early twentieth centuries. Here are examples of some of these.
Daguerreotype of young lady, 1/6 plate, circa 1840s
This portrait of a young lady is said to date to sometime during the 1840s, making it the oldest photo in my collection as of this writing. The ringlets in the woman's hair are a particular draw for me stylistically, and, unlike most photos from this period, you can see a bit of a smile playing upon her lips. Daguerreotypes consist of sheets of silver-plated copper, very highly polished and chemically treated to be light-sensitive. The image consists of the same silver as the surface upon which it sits, meaning that the appearance of the photo alternates between a positive and negative image depending on how the available light hits it. Daguerreotypes are very fragile objects and are usually presented behind glass-plated frames, which are stored inside latched, decorative cases. Mine came without a case, but I immediately placed it into one upon receipt.
Unfortunately, I have no information on the location, the photographer, or the identity of the woman in the photo. What I can say is that having one daguerreotype makes me want to have another. This was purchased from an online seller in mid-January 2025.
