The Palimpsest

English

The Palimpsest, vol.71 no.4, Winter 1990

Booth, Harry

You Got to Go Ahead and Get Killed': Lost Creek Remembered

Fourth of July: A Photographic Celebration

Bennett, Mary

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Plush portrait albums, with leather or velvet covers, were common in the Victorian parlor. Now they need proper care 
and storage to survive the effects of adhesives, acidic paper, and photographic chemicals. Note the following tips.
Tips on Displaying Historical Photographs 
in Albums and Frames by Mary Bennett
Photograph Albums
ALBUMS offer a window to the past, giving us 
insights about our family’s heritage. In pre­
serving vivid m em ories, the com pilers 
unknowingly transmit cultural values as well. 
Those of us who have inherited these keep­
sakes need to explore ways of stabilizing and 
protecting the albums so future generations 
can enjoy the stories they tell.
Photo albums have been popular since the 
1860s. Fancy velvet or leather portrait albums 
were showcased on tables in Victorian parlors. 
After the turn of the century7, the snapshot 
album took the place of formal portrait albums. 
I he compiler of a snapshot album no longer re­
lied on professionally made portraits. As a new 
form of self-expression, the snapshot album
opened up vistas to settings and activities 
never photographed before.
Resist the impulse or pressure to dismantle 
an album and to distribute photographs to 
branches of the family. Albums record the sig­
nificant moments in a family’s life, from birth to 
high school graduation, through courtship, 
weddings, and anniversaries. By studying pho­
tos laid out progressively, the viewer can dis­
cover changes in styles of dress or home 
decorating. A narrative emerges as you leaf 
through pages, tracing a family’s history or the 
photographer’s life. Heed the following tips as 
you care for albums or framed photos.
1. Nineteenth-century portrait albums had
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182 THE PALIMPSEST
pre-cut slots or pockets to slide the photos into,
surrounded bv decorative borders. Even✓
though the album pages and covers may be 
acidic and potentially damaging to the photos, 
the album itself is an artifact. Before disman­
tling or rearranging the album, consider 
whether it is worth destroying the original 
integrity of the album. Be aware that the brittle 
paper or cardboard will tear easily if you try to 
force the photos out of their slots or pockets.
2. By the turn of the century, most family pho­
tographers had adopted the snapshot album to 
store and display their keepsake images. The 
black or colored pages of snapshot albums are 
made of poor-quality paper that deteriorates 
images by releasing oxidant gases. Often, pho­
tos are adhered to both sides of the brittle 
paper. Removing one photo might ruin the 
photo on the reverse side. If the images are at­
tached with black photo corners, try slipping 
the photos out of the corners. Then create a fac­
simile or replica album by duplicating the 
arrangem ent of the original photos (or 
reproductions) on archival-quality album 
pages.
A startling example of why albums should he interleafed 
with sheets of non-acidic paper. Here, chemicals from 
the photo (left) interacted with acidic album paper 
opposite it and “copied” the image. Lucidly the opposite 
pocket was empty, or the ghost image would have ruined 
another photo. Sheets of rag paper inserted between 
pages act as buffers and add no further damage.
Thus, adhesives will be transferred to both the 
front and the back of the photo. Today’s poly­
vinyl chloride plastics cause irreversible 
damage to prints, and the adhesives can make 
it impossible to remove the images safely. The 
cheap cardboard backing gives off' peroxides 
that cause yellow staining in both black and 
white and color prints.
3. Avoid modern albums that encase photos in 
cheap plastic. The plastic emits fumes that will 
attack the images. Though commonly used, the 
worst albums have so-called ‘magnetic’ pages. 
The cover sheet picks up adhesive from the 
bottom page before the photos are added.
4. Often the original photos simply cannot be 
rescued without risking further damage. Yet 
the acids and other chemicals from the paper or 
photographs can leave an imprint on the 
opposite page. To prevent the surface of the 
images from touching the opposite page when 
the album is closed, interleaf the pages with
In the 1860s people collected carte-de-visite portraits of relatives, friends, and celebrities, and displayed them in 
photograph albums (left). When cabinet cards were introduced in the 1880s, album size and format changed to 
accommodate the larger size (right). Today, the acidic pages, with pre-cut slots, may be brittle and tear easily.
WINTER 1990 183
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archival-quality paper, which is acid-neutral or 
100 percent rag.
5. When possible, substitute archival-quality 
pages (or sleeves) made of triacetate, polyester, 
polyethylene, or polypropylene. Unfortu­
nately, the material used is not always listed. 
Look for trade names such as “PRINT FILE” 
or “MYLAR, purchase from reputable dealers 
or catalogs, and expect archival-quality ma­
terial to cost more than cheap plastics or acidic 
cardboards.
6. Never attach photos with tape, rubber 
cement, or other damaging adhesives that eat
away at the image and make later removal diffi­
cult. Use archival-quality photo corners, or slip 
the photos in the various sized pockets of archi­
val-quality pages. Ideally, the entire album 
should be constructed of archival materials.
7. Store the album in a clean, safe environ­
ment. A temperature range of 65 to 75 degrees
Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 40 to✓
50 percent is acceptable.
8. Family historians also preserved news clip­
pings, locks of hair, scraps of fabric, pressed 
Rowers, and documents in photo albums. 
Unfortunately, these materials can be detri-
Consider the snapshot albums as a form of autobiography as well as family or local history. People compiled such albums 
as accounts of their lives. Think carefully before dismantling and distributing such a collection.
184 THE PALIMPSEST
mental to the photographs. Use some discre­
tion, however, in removing these items. Re­
cord what you separate from the album, noting 
description and placement, and keep one copy 
of the record with the album and one with the 
removed items.
9. Wrap the album in paper to keep light and 
dust away. Special slipcovers or album cases 
can be made to store albums and support weak 
or broken spines.
T w o  s o u r c e s  f o r  a r c h iv a l  s u p p lie s :  L ig h t  I m p r e s s io n s  (4 3 9  
M o n ro e  A v e n u e ,  R o c h e s te r ,  N Y  1 4 6 0 7 )  a n d  H o l l in g e r  Custom-fit boxes of archival materials will safely house
C o r p o r a t io n  (P O  B o x  6 1 8 5 , A r l in g to n ,  V A  2 2 2 0 6 ) .  fragile albums. Store them in a cool, dry environment.
Framed Photographs
Another common concern for the family photo a reproduction and retire the original photo to a
archivist is how to handle framed photographs. safer storage place away from light, which can
Except for occasional need, most photographs cause fading, 
should be unframed for conservation and easy 
storage.
1. Frames can trap moisture, fungus, and 
other harmful contaminants. The wood back­
ing of older frames can ruin and discolor the 
photo in a short time. The original frame, how­
ever, is an artifact that conveys certain informa­
tion about popular tastes and the significance of 
the photo to the individual who displayed it. If 
you decide to use the original frame, use a 
window matte cut from museum board 
(100 percent rag or acid-free) to separate the 
surface of the print from the glass and frame 
edge. Seal the back of the frame with foam core 
instead of the original wood.
2. Select new frames with care. Wooden 
frames may have damaging solvents and glues; 
metal frames may have harmful lacquers.
3. Hang any original photographs in areas that 
do not receive direct sunlight, such as hall- 
wavs.
4. To prolong the life of the photograph, frame
The edge of this portrait was stained by the acidic ma­
terials surrounding it — an oval wood frame and card- 
hoard. Acidic paper discolors and becomes brittle.
WINTER 1990 185
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Tips on Displaying Historical photographs in Albums and Frames

The Palimpsest, vol.71 no.3, Fall 1990

In This Palimpsest: Celebrations and Stereotypes

The Palimpsest, vol.71 no.2, Summer 1990

Kramme, Michael

Opera House Illusions: Jesse Cox and Theatrical Scenery

Davis, Merle

Horror at Lost Creek: A 1902 Coal Mine Disaster

Bennett, Charles Patricia

Threshing with Steam
As I Remember It
by Charles P. Bennett
I
T ALL BEGAN each year about the first 
week of July when I heard my father tell 
my mother that he supposed he had bet­
ter get the threshing coal. He hitched the 
team to the old wagon — the one with the loose 
tires and the leaky box — and went to the 
elevator or the lumberyard in Tingley, Iowa 
(depending on which one had a car of coal on 
track). If farmers were hard up they bought 
Centerville coal and if they had money and 
wanted to make the operator of the threshing 
outfit happy, they purchased Illinois coal 
because it burned better and with fewer 
clinkers. We usually bought Centerville coal.
When my father arrived home he hauled the 
load of coal near where he planned to thresh 
the timothy. Meanwhile we continued “laying 
by the corn (cultivating it for the third time) 
while watching as our field of timothy seed 
ripened.
Oats were the first crop threshed, so if farm­
ers in the neighborhood had oats ready, we 
would help them thresh while finishing 
cultivating our corn and binding and shocking 
our timothy. There were about thirty-five 
farms on the threshing run, so it was a busy and 
worrisome time in the neighborhood, trying to 
get all the corn cultivated and everyone’s oats 
and timothy threshed.
We threshed with several different outfits 
through the years from 1910 to 1920 but I 
especially remember the outfit we used around 
1916, when I was ten. The owner of this partic­
ular outfit was a slender, wiry, dark-com- 
plected man named Billy McDowell. He ran 
the engine. The separator man was our neigh­
bor Poe Johnston. They made a good team. 
Billy McDowell could get mad when things 
went wrong, but Poe was always good-natured 
and never became excited. The third member 
of the threshing crew was the water hauler,
sometimes referred to as the “water monkey.” 
In this case the water monkey was the 
engineer’s son, Clyde McDowell.
When the big day arrived and the outfit 
pulled onto our farm in Ringgold County, my 
father indicated where the machine was to be 
set. As separator man, Poe Johnston tossed 
some chaff in the air and watched it drift away. 
This helped him decide what direction the 
wind was coming from and where to set the 
machine in order that the dust and dirt would 
be blown away from those working around the 
machine. As engineer, Billy McDowell circled 
the outfit around until the separator was in the 
right position. Then the separator man started 
digging holes for the wheels to drop into. The 
test of a good separator man was his ability to 
dig these holes accurately so that the machine 
would be level without a second try. Any sepa­
rator man worth his salt would claim perfection 
in this, but I well remember seeing Poe John­
ston digging superstitiously under one wheel 
when the chaffers failed to clear properly.
Next the engine was uncoupled. With the 
help of the water monkey, McDowell made a 
half circle that turned the engine around and 
lined it up with the belt pulley of the separator. 
Now here was the test of the engineer. A good 
engineer never had to make a second attempt 
at lining up. Of course, both pulleys were 
crowned and the belts would run okay even if 
the pulleys were out of line a few inches, but at 
ten years old I didn t really know that.
In the meantime the separator man had 
raised the blower up and turned it around, 
unfolded the feeder, and was unreeling the 
drive belt. W ith the engineer up on the engine 
drive wheel, together they wrestled the heavy 
belt onto the giant drive pulley. With the sepa­
rator man holding the belt, often 75 to 125 feet 
long,the engineer placed the engine gently in
52 THE PALIMPSEST
A threshing ring at the J. F. Duncan farm, Oakville, Iowa, around 1910.
reverse. The belt Happed and flopped like a 
living thing as it was tightened. Then the water 
monkey threw wooden blocks in front of thej
drive wheels of the engine.
Grain haulers started backing wagon boxes 
up to the grain spout, and bundle wagons were 
maneuvered up to the feeder. The water 
monkey hauled the water wagon up to the left 
side of the engine, then hitched his team to the 
load of coal and pulled it up to the other side.
Meanwhile the separator man was busy 
turning down grease cups (the old-time version 
of grease guns) and oiling and adjusting the 
machine. Then he stood up and nodded to the 
engineer. The engineer opened the throttle. 
The wheels began to turn, slowly perhaps for 
thirty seconds while the separator man 
checked to see that everything was working 
properly. Once the engineer opened up the 
throttle to normal operating speed, we were 
ready to thresh.
T
HERE WAS SOMETHING fas­
cinating about the steam engine. 
The combined odor of coal, water, 
steam, heat, and oil produced a fra­
grance hard to forget. The engine seemed to be
alive and breathing. The racheting of the oiler, 
the governor with its tiny belt, and the push 
and pull of the cylinder built a beautiful picture 
in the memory. Its power was quiet and 
uniform.
Some farmers stacked the straw, some 
didn’t. Before 1910 thresher separators had 
been equipped with traveling carriers that gen­
tly lifted the straw into the stack. The work was
hard and a little dirty. After 1910 the blower
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came into vogue, and straw stacking became a 
very hard, disagreeable, and dirty job. Timo­
thy and oat straw were important parts of the 
diet of the beef cattle herd of that dav, and the 
farmer wanted the straw preserved in the best 
possible way. But many farmers were unable or 
unwilling to pay the price, in sweat and dust 
and dirt, so more and more the straw was 
blown into a pile.
fhe threshing separators of that day were 
huge machines. They seemed almost un­
limited in capacity and were noisy and dirty. 
We were supposed to feed the bundles in the 
machine head first, but the feeder was so big no 
one paid much attention unless the dividing 
board was in.
The engine whistle was an important part of 
the outfit. Each outfit had a set of signals. One
SUMMER 1990 53
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signal might say, ‘Wake up, separator man. 
Something is going wrong. Another signal 
would say, “Hurry up, grain haulers.’ Still 
another one would warn, ‘Hurry up, bundle 
haulers.’ And then there was the blast that told 
the water monkey that he must get water to the 
engine as soon as possible.
The water monkey worked under pressure 
because the engine could not be allowed to run 
dry. Sometimes he had to go several miles after 
water. Most water monkeys spent considerable 
time trying to “con someone into going with 
them to fetch water. Few people went along 
more than once because hauling water was 
difficult work. The tank held about ten barrels 
of water and sat on top of a heavy-duty set of 
running gears. On top of the tank was a double­
action pump. The water monkey ran twenty 
feet of suction hose into a well, then filled the 
tank pumping with the long wooden handle of 
the double-action pump. It was customary to 
make fun of the water monkey because he 
could take a nap and loaf a little after he had 
brought the engine its vital water supply, but 
in truth he was one of the hardest working 
members of the crew.
T
h e  t h r e s h e r s ’ d i n n e r
required hours of hard work and 
planning. The crew might include as 
many as thirty people and two or 
more tables to seat them. My mother usually 
worked with her sister and my grandmother or 
some neighbor lady. There was friendly com­
petition among the women of the community 
to see who could serve the best meal. The food 
could be, and usually was, out of this world, 
both in quality and quantity.
Cleaning up for dinner involved washing in 
cold water out in the yard and drying face and 
hands on a towel that soon revealed that those 
who had washed before had not done a very 
good job of it. The men also combed their hair 
in front of an old mirror hanging from a tree. 
I he men operating the machine always ate at 
the first table. There was a lot of fun while 
eating, but as a ten-year-old boy I did not get to 
share in it because I had to wait and eat at the 
third table with the women. I always wondered
Threshers wash up for another legendary threshing din­
ner at the August Stille farm, near Nashua.
if there would be any food left for me.
Under the influence of so much good food 
the crew was often slow getting back to work. 
In that case the engineer would give the engine 
whistle a couple of toots as if to say, “Get on the 
ball, we re ready to start.
O
NE YEAR our timothy was the last
crop threshed in the neigh­
borhood, so the run finished on 
our farm. It was nearly dark that 
September day when the bundle haulers 
cleaned up around the machine and went 
home. Our wagons were piled high with the 
white sacks of timothy seed. Poe Johnston said 
to me, “Sonny, run to the house and see if your 
mother will let me have her broom.’ Flushed 
with importance, I raced to the house, got the 
broom, and was back in a jiffy. The powerful 
machine was silent. Poe carefully swept every 
bit of chaff and dirt off the machine. Then he 
started up the separator and blew out all the 
dirt that had fallen out of the cylinder. He 
turned it off, folded up the blower and feeder, 
coupled the engine onto the separator, and 
pulled it away from the stack.
The engineer looked at Poe, happy that the 
run was over. Poe grinned and nodded back at 
McDowell, who reached for the leather thong 
that controlled the whistle.
I knew what was coming — the finishing 
whistle, a long, long, long blast that told the 
world the run was over. I was determined not 
to be a sissy and hold my hands over my ears as 
girls nearly always did.
The engineer pulled the whistle valve open. 
A wail like a thousand banshees broke over our 
valley. On and on it went. My ears began to 
throb and then ache. I decided it wasn’t such a 
bad idea to be a sissy after all and covered my
ears with my hands.✓
Still the mighty whistle roared on. The 
sound must have gone west across Walnut 
Creek Valley past Wishard Chapel to Crooked
Creek and bevond. To the east it echoed and
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re-echoed across Gooseberrv Creek and East
w
Grand River Valiev over to and bevond Old 
High Point Church. And the men and women 
and children of the neighborhood listened and 
looked at each other and said, “It sounds like 
Billy McDowell has finished his run. □
SUMMER 1990 55


Threshing with Steam as I Remember It

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