Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: rackets

Edward Ridley & Sons, a New York City department store, printed this trade card for customers during the holiday season in 1880, and the store also took out newspaper ads to offer its "annual greeting." The other side of the trade card is a wintertime illustration of a little girl holding some toys as she stands in the snow. This side (above) features the store's Christmas greeting: 32nd Annual Greeting A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Toys, Dolls, and Holiday Presents. Edw. Ridley & Sons 309, 311, 311½ Grand St. 59 Orchard St. 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70 Allen St. New York The following excerpt from the store's advertisement in the New York Herald on December 5, 1880, provides additional details about its holiday sales: Thirty-second Annual Greeting Santa Claus' New Building. Opening Monday, December 6. First Floor—Endless variety toys, dolls, hobby horses. Also china, glass ware, &c. Second Floor--Work boxes, writing desks, Japanese varieties, &c., &c. Tuesday, December 7. Third Floor—Dolls, dolls, dolls. And everything belonging to a doll. Fourth Floor—Wednesday, December 8. Will contain toys of the very finest description…. Our new building gives 23,000 square feet. All devoted to toys. Come and see the toys and our methods. Worsted embroideries, slipper patterns, brackets, &c. Photo and auto[graph] albums, in plush, Russia[n] leather and French calf bindings. Handsome jewel and combination cases, pocketbooks, cigar cases, &c. Prices below every other house—we warrant.

This is the front of a Victorian-era trade card advertising a New York store (for the other side, see Christmas Greeting, Edward Ridley & Sons Department Store, New York City, 1880 ). I'm not sure why this wide-eyed little girl is taking all those toys with her out into the snow. She's dressed for the winter weather, however, and is even holding her hands—and her doll—in a muff to keep them warm.

A sport photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. With eight rackets and four balls (stacked next to the racket lying in the lap of the guy at front center in the photo), this group seems ready to play tennis. But don't they look too dressed up to head out onto the tennis court, even by early twentieth-century standards? There's no identifying information on the back of this real photo postcard, but the dealer who sold it to me thought that it may have come from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. If so, perhaps this was a group of students, along with their instructors or chaperones, at the Cumberland Valley State Normal School, which is now Shippensburg University .

A cabinet card photo featuring a decorative mask that forms a tennis-themed border, with two crossed tennis rackets and three tennis balls at the bottom, netting along the bottom and sides, and leaves and vines at the top. This appears to be the same mask (although flipped horizontally) used in Photo_History's Woman with Tennis Racket Decorative Mask - Cabinet Card .