In my dreams, someone might find a great-grandparent here. I’ve built a blog so visitors who know something about the people or the setting can add comments. I’m chipping away at enlarging the people in the panoramic photo of Kitchener factory workers from 1928. Check back to see who I’ve uploaded. Easier still, sign up (here on your right) for automatic notification that I’ve uploaded a new person.
Employees of the Merchants Rubber Company, September 11, 1928. Photographed by the Toronto Panoramic Photography Company, Lansdowne Avenue, Toronto, Ontario
My friend Deb showed me this old rolled-up photo she found among her late mother’s belongings. I was fascinated, poring over it with a magnifying glass. I imagined scanning it to enlarge the image so I could properly view all these wonderful faces. Then Deb made me a gift of it! I figure although the young boy on the far right of the panorama in the site header (if he was 13 in 1928) is possibly alive today at 95, it’s pretty safe to assume everyone here has passed on. This is the Merchants Rubber Company, started by Jacob Kaufman (you know the name from Kaufman Footwear, such as the famous Sorel boots).
This shot was taken by the Toronto Panoramic Photography Company on Lansdowne Avenue. Wiki says, “Following the invention of flexible film in 1888, panoramic photography was revolutionised. Dozens of cameras were marketed, many with brand names heavily indicative of their time. Cameras such as the Cylindrograph, Wonder Panoramic, Pantascopic and Cyclo-Pan, are some examples of panoramic cameras.”
February 19, 2010 at 12:25 am
You could make a whole world out of these folks, inventing histories and stories, having them fall in love or feud with each other, or both! I guess that’s what happened. But looking at them . . . every face tells a story. Very evocative.