So the project I’ve been posting about over the last few months, “Finishing The Story” is still well underway.  I have been emailing archivists, searching online, and am knee deep in books trying to identify all these images from the early 1900s.  I guess you could say I hit a bit of road block in the process of the photographic detective work at this point.  There are a couple of images from towns (street scenes) that I haven’t been able to identify yet.  The fact that images have multiple signs with different names on them would make seemingly make it is easy to discover where they came from.  Unfortunately that has not been the case.  I have had several people who have back ground in this type of work try to help me as well but no such luck yet.

This predicament really made me think about these places.  What are they now?  Why is there no trace of them?  In a day and age where literally everything is at the touch of your finger tips in Google search, so much of our history is fading out sight.  Given these images may not have been taken of any famous cities or buildings, but to me all history is important. I wonder if these are the only documents still in existence of these places, these people.  What was it all for?  How did it end up for sale online?

I guess I find myself asking more questions that finding answers.  That is the motivation for the project though.  To bring awareness to the importance of preserving history.  Not all historical documents are in museums and archives. Maybe they just haven’t been discovered yet, possibly even no one knew they existed.

Next time you find so old papers or images or negatives take a minute to really look at them.  Don’t just throw them away and say “nobody wants this.” Help to bring change these “forgotten” pieces of our history into the “remembered.”

And for the sake of the project, if you want to take a look at these images if anything happens to look familiar to any of you photo detectives out there or someone you know, I would appreciate the feedback. (They were included with all the other images which I have identified from the 1914-1916 time period ranging from New Orleans, LA up the Atlantic Coast to Fredericksburg, VA)