Category Archives: Vintage photos from film reel

In a Field of Cabbage

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Vintage photo from film reel, circa 1940.

Price:  $2.00         Size:  About 2 and 1/2 x 2 and 3/8″

I picked this photo up at the same time as the one in the previous post. Presumably, they came from the same person or family. This is an odd one, though. And I’m not sure if that’s really a cabbage field, just my best guess. This group sure seems pretty intent on looking down at….something. The soil, insects? No idea. I pictured maybe the guy in the foreground, in the white sweater, might be the younger guy from the prior post at Treasure Island. (Maybe.) Then pictured he and his uncles (not in this picture, and just my imagination from the Treasure Island one) are sightseeing and ended up in the Salinas Valley or the Central Valley or somewhere else in California, south of San Francisco. (It probably is California.) Was there a “U Pick” kind of thing going on back then, like apples or pumpkins? But nothing shows in old newspapers for advertisement. Or, maybe they were a college group. The one guy does have a college sweater on, hard to tell from where, though. So, maybe they’re all “ag” students and this is a field trip. One thing’s for sure (and I love it), they certainly are all well-dressed!

Treasure Island, California, 1939 or 1940

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Vintage photo from film reel. Circa 1939 – 1940

Price:  $10.00          Size:  About 2 and 1/2 x 2 and 3/8″

See the next post for a possible related photo.

Treasure Island, San Francisco, California:  Three very smartly-dressed gentlemen, of Asian descent, pose next to a sign which points the way to the Parisian theater extravaganza, Folies Bergère, which was held at the California Auditorium. In the background is the California Building on the left and the San Francisco Building on the right. (The tips of the “pillars” for lack of a better word, that we’re looking at there, between the two buildings, are cut off in the photo.) And that is what was called the Lake of the Nations, or Pool of Nations, directly behind the flower bed.

Treasure Island is a man made island that was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to host the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE), a world’s fair, that helped to celebrate the openings of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. The island had originally been scheduled to become an airport, after the fair was over but was instead turned over to the U.S. Navy, who used it for training grounds and education for a number of years. And, it’s very faint, but you can see one of the bridges in the background.

Check eBay for images of Folies program ephemera. For more on the history of Treasure Island and the GGIE, including videos, see the Treasure Island Museum.

Sources: Treasure Island, San Francisco. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island,_San_Francisco (accessed January 23, 2022).

Folies Bergère. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folies_Berg%C3%A8re (accessed February 14, 2022).

Golden Gate International Exposition. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_International_Exposition (accessed February 14, 2022).

Treasure Island Museum. https://www.treasureislandmuseum.org/media (accessed February 14, 2022).