Sepia Saturday #151 ERMA and I

I love this photo of the early telephone operators. I actually worked in an advertising agency where I sometimes had to work one of these complicated machines. It took me a while to master it with all those cords and a board that sometimes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Hello, Honig Cooper and Harrington, how may I direct your call" I would have to say. Quite a mouth full. But I'm not going to write about switchboards, instead I'm posting about another machine that I mastered on my very first  job in 1961.

I operated what we affectionately called the batch machine at a bank in Los Angeles. Here's what it looked like (that's not me, no one ever snapped a photo of Nancy, the batch operator).

 

I got to be really fast on the batch machine. Here's how it worked - I would get this big stack of checks and deposits. The checks were entered, then the deposits. If they balanced, the checks went into certain slots. I had to memorize which slot was which. The deposits went into another slot. After everything was entered, the checks and deposits went to some clearinghouse somewhere. Then they came back to the bank and each check was manually filed and checked against the customer's signature. Sounds kind of archaic, doesn't it? But it was 1961, afterall.

I loved working at the bank on Larchmont Blvd. Isn't it a cute street?

Larchmont Blvd. bordered a really rich neighborhood in Los Angeles called Hancock Park. Lots of our customers were really, really wealthy. People like Nat King Cole banked there.

Nat King Cole's house in Hancock Park

 and Dimitri Tiomkin (composer of the theme song from High Noon).

But I digress. Let's get back to the batch machine. It was developed by Bank of America some time between 1950 and 55 to speed up banking.

The early model was called ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting). "The project that resulted in this engineering achievement made the automation of checking accounts practical and reliable, revolutionizing the world of banking system and ushering in the age of data processing machines for businesses."

ERMA's principal users were data clerks (that's me!) who were focused more on the information they processed than the machine processing it (that's for sure!).

In 2001 ERMA received an award recognizing its outstanding contribution toward the standard of living, peace and prosperity (Hey, I was only doing my job!).

If you'd like to read all the nitty gritty about ERMA's development, click here:  ERMA.

If you'd like to read about switchboards and other early machines, click here: Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #149 Woman Removed From Her Property

Here's our photo prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday. You might wonder what's happening here because it's kind of a strange photograph. I think what's happening is this woman is being told she has to move from her little hovel to make room for a spa along this pretty river.

When I saw this photo it reminded me of another time when rich men wanted to take over property for their own benefit while at the same time removing people who were in their way. I'm thinking of the neighborhood in Los Angeles called Chavez Ravine. In the 1950s this property which was considered a slum was going to be converted to a wonderful housing project.

The people of Chavez Ravine were all evicted. They didn't want to move. These were their homes, their neighbors, their life. Some people moved when they were promised first dibs on the new, fancy housing. Others refused to move and were finally forcefully removed from their homes.

Aurora Archega being removed from her home of 36 years.

The proposed housing project was called Elysian Park Heights and was designed by the world famous architect, Richard Neutra. This is his plan for the new development:

 

and a closeup view of some of the housing:

But did this wonderful housing development ever get built. NO. Of course not. Once the politicians got involved, everything changed. The development was considered socialistic (this was the 50s afterall!). Instead the property stood vacant until Walter O'Malley (the owner of the Dodgers baseball team) spotted this nice empty piece of property right in the heart of Los Angeles. He wanted it and he got it. The previous tenants of the property got next to nothing. 

And this is what O'Malley and the people of Los Angeles got - Dodger Stadium:

They promised to at least build a park on the property, but that never happened.

 

See other stories about evictions, spas, rivers here: Sepia Saturday. 

Sepia Saturday 149 One More Photobomb

I just had to share this wonderful example of a photobomb (from our theme from last week). You might have already seen it because it's been all over the news, but just in case, here it is.

President Obama was visiting with some school children during one of his many campaign stops this past week and this photo was taken of the event:

He didn't realize that he was being upstaged by the little boy in the back row:

Now that's what I call the perfect photobomb.

For stories that follow this week's theme (which I did in a second post) click here Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #148 Photobombs

I honestly had never heard of the word photobomb until Kat brought it up in relation to this week's theme. Here's the photo we're supposed to be inspired by to do our own Sepia Saturday post:

And here's the definition of photobomb:
An otherwise normal photo that has been ruined or spoiled by someone who was not supposed to be in the photograph.

See that man peering out of the window on the right. I don't think he was supposed to be in the shot.

So I did a search of some family photos belonging to a friend. And I found three wonderful examples of photobombing.


This particular photo goes nicely with our theme photo as there's a bike in it. Actually it's a boy on a bike. You have to look really hard to see him (he's on the right side of the photo).  Does he spoil the shot? No, I don't think so.

But if you look a little harder, there's another interloper here who really does ruin the shot. It's that poor dead animal hanging around the woman's neck. Can you imagine anything sadder than that? Even his little legs conveniently act as a closure for this goulish wrap. This was before Velcro so I'm not sure how the legs stick together. Maybe they were sewn together and then she drapes it over her head (before she puts on that enormous hat, of course).

Then there's Bernice and friend at the shore in their lovely bathing outfits. There are 3 people who are trying to get into this shot and Bernice and friend haven't got a clue, they're so happily mugging for the photographer. Not only are the 2 girls in the background staring, but also that man in the boat. Will no one give them any privacy?

This was written on the back of the photo:

No mention of the peeping Toms.

This photo is one of those real mysteries. See if you can help me with this one.

She's really all dolled up with her polka dot dress, her hat at a jaunty angle, purse on the arm. She's holding a sign that says "Men Wanted". And there he. Is this the man she wanted or is he an interloper? And why is she standing knee deep in Navajo rugs? (or some kind of rugs, anyway). Why the rugs? This is an extremely odd photo. But don't you just love it?

Thanks Kat, for introducing me to photobombing.  I will never look at a photo the same way again.

For other cop shots, peeping toms and photobombs, click on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #147 Military Uniforms

This week's Sepia Saturday is about the military. I looked through my collection of vintage photos and found some nice examples of uniforms. Unfortunately I know nothing about the men, their country of origin or anything else. None of these photos are marked in any way. But they're all interesting in their own way.

Wow, I wonder how many birds were killed to make this gentleman's hat. I like the background effect of this photo. It's painted so naively. Is it a scene of some sort? Hard to tell. But this is certainly a handsome man that seems awfully proud in his fancy uniform.

This is a much humbler uniform. It appears to be American, WWI. He also seems proud but his uniform doesn't even compare to Mr. Featherhat above. There's no decoration to his hat at all, no feathers. And no sword.

He's an all American Marine. This is a gorgeous uniform. I love the braid and the frog closures. It looks almost Chinese. Ouch - that stiff white collar. I'll bet that caused a few boils. But isn't he handsome?

I'm not sure about this trio. Those don't look like real military uniforms. In fact, they look a little shoddy. Maybe they're some kind of vigilantes. One has a gun, the other a rifle. They're up to no good, that's for sure.

This appears to be some sort of European officer. He certainly looks official. Seems like it would be difficult to button up that jacket and then drape those braids across it. But he's done it quite nicely, he probably had a valet to attend to those details.

This uniform isn't too remarkable. But the thing I like about this photograph is that it seems to include the original frame. I can picture that it sat in someone's parlour waiting for their loved one to come home. Hope he did.

That's all the military photos I have. Wish I had more information about them. But they're very interesting to look at and compare.

For other military uniforms, stories etc. click on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #145 What A Kick

Here's my dad. He went to the University of Chicago and I think this is maybe where this photo was taken. But I don't remember him being on the team. He was on the varsity wrestling team. Maybe this was for an intramural football team. Maybe that's why the "K" is part of the insignia.

I tried to find out what the fraternities were back then, but found nothing that had a K, only sororities. I doubt if he played for a sorority team!

His uniform looks pretty official, so this must have been a serious team of some sort. And the photo was taken by an official photographer. It's marked on the back - J. Sandy of Chicago.

When searching through the University of Chicago logos, I did find this:

T-Shirt Slogans

Houses often raise money for bonding events by selling t-shirts with the University logo on the front and a self-deprecating slogan on the back. Regularly sold during prospective student weekends, the shirts make parents think twice before sending their children to the U of C. Some of the most famous slogans are “Where fun goes to die,” and “Hell does freeze over.” But, as you’ll hear over and over again, don’t take them seriously; the only thing the slogans signify is the wit of the student body.

Overheard while selling self-deprecating T-Shirts: “It’s funny because it’s true.”

My dad would have thought these slogans were funny. He had a great sense of humor. I wonder, though, if he was a great football player. He looks like he knew what he was doing.

Check out other sporting stories by clicking Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #144 Off With Their Heads!!

This weeks Sepia Saturday involves a photo with a headless man. So Alan suggested we find photos where the head has been cut off.

My mother was the grand master of cutting people's heads off in photographs. So I could have shown lots of examples of her photographic work. But then I remembered an instructional leaflet that our company had published years ago. This is what I've decided to post even though it's really embarrassing.

We've published lots of how to do it books during the years and that always involved doing cover photographs. We usually hired models for the covers. But somehow, this particular time we were in a hurry, the photographer didn't have time to wait, no models were available. I don't remember exactly why, but Barbara, Patty (an employee) and I  had to step in that day and model these lace decorated sweatshirts (yes, believe it or not this was a craze back in the 80s).

None of us wanted to model. We whined and complained about it. Our solution was to:

That's right. We did what these ladies had done:

We just merely chopped off our heads:

This actually turned out to be a big best seller. And remember our trip to China? That's why we were invited to go. We had sold so many of these collars to women who wanted to transform their sweatshirts, that we were awarded a free all-expense trip to China to find the next big craze.

You just never know where chopping off heads will lead!

For more posts along these same lines see Sepia Saturday.