simple things- past times

i was cleaning out my cell phone pictures when i came across a bunch that i snapped at the dayjob last month.  part of my work is to do an environmental history of the sites we work on, kind of like detective work into what went on there over the years.  to do this we utilize our state archive.  on these days i head to the basement of our state library and tuck myself away with the genealogy buffs, examining historical aerial photographs, atlases, and telephone directories. 

my favorite jobs are the ones that bring me back into the early 1900s and late 1800s phone directories.  i often daydream of coming to the archive on a day off and squirreling myself away with all of the turn of the century phone directories and maps- there is something magical about browsing all of the antique advertisements and maps, transferring myself to times forgotten.  my love of typography just adds to this.  last month i had one of those jobs that brought me back to those times- these are some of the advertisements that caught my attention (please pardon the craptastic pictures taken of the microfilm projection with my cell phone, ha!  one day i will buy myself a proper hand held scanner and scan the love out of those directories!).  and so i welcome you to take a peak into a time when....

your ice came to you by horse, straight from the frozen lake...

along with your oil....

because this is what a truck was...

and this is what your fridge looked like...

and the sewing machine was the home's "most valuable of all economical instruments"....

and a time when this style was vogue...

and physicians and drug companies didn't bombard us with a myriad of synthetically produced pills....

a time gone past, tucked into the dusty pages of a basement archive.