Recent comments in /f/OldSchoolCool

SavorySouth t1_j9k1328 wrote

Reply to What do you do with photos that you don’t know who people are? More information in comments. 1940? by cosplayernerdgirl

As others have posted, photo is 1920’s, likely 1918 -1925. My thoughts are: it’s a studio bridal portrait with high end florals. I think the ladies are sisters (bride & maid of honor). Likely age 18-22 at the time of the photo and would have been part of the great immigration (1892-1924) of 20M through Ellis Island into the US. They would have been their families first brides in the US and the photos reflects the prosperity reached…. Studio bridal portraits were a point of pride for immigrant families, sent as postcards back to the old country. Bride has a mid length graduated pearl necklace and white silk Mary Jane shoes (pumps meant you had teas and socials to go to that required this level of dress, otherwise it would have been brogues worn, shoes were expensive). The dress hem is a huge clue as to the date, shortest closest to 1930. This looks longer length. Bride is wearing Mary Jane shoes (not laced boots) popular and widely available 1920’s.

The headpiece with exposed hair is somewhat unusual as most brides would have their heads covered…like a cloche style headpiece in same fabric of the dress with tulle again to match the dress. Bride doesn’t have this, the “tulle fan” definitely starts behind her exposed hair and she also has a lot of her neck and some décolletage exposed. For a bride it’s way unusual and if you run across others photos with this look write down their name & possible ethnicity & location of the wedding…. my guess it it’s a Americanized spin on their old world European bridal traditional. It’s definitely an American wedding, those florals with the long ribboned streamers are US floral style. The florals are quite beautiful for the entire group, they paid top $ to have these in the photo & it’s meant to show the bride came from a family of means.

OP, on the reverse of the photos does it anywhere indicate the studio or location? It appears to be a studio portrait rather than on location at the bride’s family’s home. If so, that “window” in the back was used for a multitude of other wedding, baby and family portraits. You might just luck out and find that window in a image search & so find what city it was taken in.

If I’m correct and they are childhood immigrants or 1st gen, the Ellis Island records are pretty detailed. Problem is where to start. My suggestion is to do a family tree on both sides to get to wherever everyone was living in 1940 and go to the publicly accessible US census record for 1940. The ladies in the photos would be probably alive for the 1940 census. 1940 census indicates where they were born, almost always their maiden name & age. You can use that to start your Ellis Island search.

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Binged_Kelvin OP t1_j9jc1vz wrote

Reply to Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy filming Before Sunrise, 1995 by Binged_Kelvin

I remember a lot of girls I knew outside of school used to wear those dresses - big, long and baggy - with a t-shirt underneath. Still think of Ethan Hawke as a greasy wee sod though all these years later.

I think Before Sunset was beautiful. Before Midnight was devastating (hello, hotel room fight).

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