Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: oceans

An elaborate nineteenth-century advertising trade card for Buchu-Paiba, a patent medicine that supposedly cured kidney, bladder, and urinary diseases. Buchu-Paiba "'Buchu-Paiba,' quick, complete cure [for] all annoying kidney diseases, $1." Words in the water: "Rescued from kidney and bladder affections." Flags: "Rough on Rats" and "Wells' Health Renewer." "Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann, Lith., N.Y." Excerpts from the ads printed on the back of the card: "Mother Swan's Worm Syrup. For fever, restlessness, worms, constipation. Tasteless. Perfectly harmless, but the most effective worm destroyer extant." "Rough on Rats. 15c boxes. Clears out rats, mice, roaches, flies, mosquitos, bed bugs, insects, skunk, weasel gophers, chipmunks, moles, musk rats, etc." "Wells' Rough on Corns. Complete cure." "'Bucha-Paiba.' Quick, complete cure, all annoying kidney and urinary diseases. $1.00 at druggists." "E. S. Wells, manufacturer and proprietor, Jersey City, N.J. U.S.A."

A distinguished gent in a souvenir real photo postcard from "Miami, Fla., 1922," as it says on the tree stump. Looks like the poor fellow is fending off alligators with his cane as he poses in front of a scenic backdrop of ocean, sky, and coconut tree, all of which received appropriate tinting after the photo was developed. For an untinted photo from the same studio, see Man and Dog with Alligators on the Beach (note that the tree stump is hidden behind the dog).

For more information, see the full version of this photo.

A photo of a dock or a pier for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. This is a 1957 snapshot of the Steel Pier , an amusement pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Billed as "The Show Place of the Nation," the pier hosted a variety of shows and acts, including a diving horse and a bicycle-riding bear. When I purchased this photo, however, I didn't realize that it showed a bear and a woman riding bikes on the high platform visible on the left-hand side (mouse over the image to see an enlargement ). After I spotted the bear, I still couldn't imagine that you could train an animal like that to climb a ladder and ride a bicycle. But a YouTube clip of the Bicycle-Riding Bear that's part of The Nieroslavski Family at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N.J. --filmed during summer 1960--provides a glimpse of how the bear performed its act. Attitudes toward animal acts have changed over the past fifty years, however, and making a bear ride a bicycle seems inhumane and dangerous by today's standards. As far as I've been able to determine, there are no longer any bicycling bears or diving horses in Atlantic City.

A photographic Easter greeting card with a soldier posing in front of a fake palm tree and beach.

"Inman Steamship Company. The Major & Knapp Lith. Co., N.Y." Rubberstamped on front: "Chas. W. Hamilton, Brimfield, Illinois. Brimfield Bank." A Victorian-era trade card advertising the Inman Steamship Company , a British passenger shipping company.

"Travers American Hammock. Trademark. Patented July 29, 1879. New style, perfect in shape, beauty & strength; brass mounted, cardinal binding. Samples by mail, $3.00, postage, 50 cents. Hellerson." Vincent P. Travers, who was one of the officers in the company that manufactured Travers American Hammocks, held a number of hammock patents, but I haven't been able to locate one dated July 29, 1879. Perhaps the patent cited on this trade card was actually Improvement in Hammock-Supports (U.S. Patent no. 221,984), which the Patent Office approved a few months later on November 25, 1879.

"5/1/1906. Come and join me in a bath. Bathing scene, Heinz Pier, Atlantic City, U.S.A. Seashore home of the 57 varieties." Addressed on the back to "Miss Sue I. Barger, 1307 Flora St., Phila., Pa." This amusing advertising postcard published by the H. J. Heinz Company features the Heinz Pier in the background and includes the food processing company's pickle logo and 57 Varieties slogan. The pier was destroyed by a hurricane in 1944. For another Heinz card from the early twentieth century, see H. J. Heinz Company, Main Plant and General Offices, Pittsburgh, Pa. :

Sign: "Danger. Keep away from edge of cliff." Unless you're having your picture taken, of course!

"A souvenir of Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939. A Pageant of the Pacific. Leland W. Cutler, president. H. C. Bottorff, exec. secretary. M128027."

"Love's Cable. Handed in at Cupid's Court. No code book is needed for these cables, true love deciphers them. St. Valentine. Bow and Arrow Avenue, Feb. 14. To my valentine, I cable to say, I am yours today, my heart is true, my love to you. If the accuracy of this message be doubted, it will gladly be confirmed on payment of twenty kisses." This folded Valentine's Day greeting was a parody of a "cablegram" (often shortened to "cable"), which was a message transmitted over the submarine communications cables that were laid across the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere as early as the 1850s. So why would you need to use a code book to send a cablegram? Author Frank C. McClelland described how these worked in the following excerpt from his book, Office Training and Standards (Chicago: A. W. Shaw, 1919), p. 49: How to use a code book. Firms with foreign connections or correspondents also find use for a cable-code book which helps greatly to cut down the expense of cable messages by shortening the number of words required to convey the message. A code book is simply a directory of code words arranged alphabetically, each word being the code for a certain phrase. For example, the word "Dardejante" may stand for "Draft has been presented for payment." and the word "Daricus" may stand for "Draft is correct; please pay." Nearly every kind of message is given in a code book. Suppose we desired to send a cablegram to London reading "Merritt Brothers draft has been presented for payment for two hundred dollars Shall we pay for your account?" If we did not use a code book the cablegram would contain 18 words in addition to the name, address, and signature, which might bring the number of words up to 27. At 31 cents a word, the cablegram would cost $8.37. By using code words we would get this result: "(name) (address) Merritt Brothers Dardejante Morderesti Genageld (signature)," making only eight words, which would cost only $2.48, a saving of $5.89.

An on the beach photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. The guy on the left--with his hat and cigarette and distinctive stance--looks like he may be a bit wilder and crazier than the kid and the other fellow.

Judging by her blurred appearance, the youngest child was squirming in her seat when the photo was taken, and her brother and sister don't look like they're having a good time either.

A cyanotypes photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. "You can use this to keep the mice and rats away. Yes, I will keep the dog in and put out the key. A.S." Addressed to: Miss Maud W. Parker, North Lubec, Maine. Postmarked: South Lubec, ME, Oct. 18, 1906, and North Lubec, ME, Oct. 18, 1906. The joke about a photographic portrait being so bad or ugly that it scares away rodents, insects, and burglars was evidently a common one in the early twentieth century. Another version, for instance, appeared in a 1911 letter sent to American musician and composer William D. Dawson: "My Dear Mr. Armstrong: I duly received, welcome, and possessed myself of your portrait and am glad to have it. At the same time I am ashamed to recall that I have so long neglected to acknowledge it or to send the reciprocal photo to you. I have autographed one this evening and it will be shipped by freight tomorrow. It is warranted to scare away rats and burglars" (see W. T. Norton, William Dawson Armstrong, American Composer , New York: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1916, p 87). For another 1906 real photo postcard with a "scare away the rats" joke, see Guaranteed to Rid Any Cellar of Rats, Roaches, or Other Creatures (below).

For more information, see the full version of this real photo postcard:

A summer vacation photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. At first glance, this real photo postcard appears to show a typical summertime scene of vacationers enjoying the beach. A closer examination, however, reveals that the crowd's attention is focused on something that's happening on the left side of the image. "The rescue" is the dramatic caption that's written across the rolling waves at the top of the photo, and, in fact, on the left-hand side there are some lifeguards who are leading a rescued swimmer away from the water (mouse over the image above to see a close-up of the lifeguards and swimmer ). Many of the bystanders surrounding the group have concerned looks on their faces. When I first purchased this photo postcard, I didn't notice the lightly written "rescue" caption and couldn't quite make out what was going on. It was only after I scanned, darkened, and enlarged the image that I was able to figure it out. Unfortunately, there's no indication of a date or location.