Ferntree Gully

A forester’s cottage, Ferntree GullyDandenong Ranges, Victoria, Australia, ca. 1900, a glass lantern slide by Archibald James Campbell, via Museums Victoria Collections.

I like the two log pillars at the bottom of the steps, each topped by a potted plant.

During the 19th century, the forests of the Dandenong mountains were a major source of timber for Melbourne.

The Sunday porch: Dubbo

“Portrait of four girls and a man on a verandah,” Dubbo area, New South Wales, ca. 1915, by Edward Challis Kempevia National Library of Australia Commons on flickr.

I wonder if those are scented geraniums in the planter on the left?

The Rev. E.C. Kempe was an amateur photographer and principal of the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd at Dubbo from 1912 to 1915. The Good Shepherd was one of several “Bush Brotherhoods,” Anglican religious orders that sent traveling priests to thinly populated rural districts. “They were described as a ‘band of men’ who could ‘preach like Apostles’ and ‘ride like cowboys’,” according to Wikipedia. Kempe left behind an album of 157 photographs from his time in the bush.

The Sunday porch: wedding party

Sanders-Eckles wedding party, Lincolnville, Florida, ca. 1925, from the Richard Twine Collectionvia Florida Memory (State Archives and Library of Florida) Commons on flickr.

Lincolnville is an historically African-American neighborhood of St. Augustine. It was established after the Civil War, in 1866, by several freedmen and women who leased the land for $1 a year.  By the 1880s, it had begun to grow and “was characterized by narrow streets, small lots, and houses built close to the street line, similar to the colonial St. Augustine style and land-use pattern,” according to Wikipedia. By the 1930s, it was an important subdivision of the city in size and in political participation of its residents, and by the 1960s, it drew national attention for its role in the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1991, Lincolnville was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its many late Victorian Era buildings and its place in African-American history. It is now known as the Lincolnville Historic District.

Edmonton, Alberta

Gladys Reeves and father, W.P. Reeves, ca. 1940, vía Provincial Archives of Alberta Commons on flickr.

Gladys Reeves immigrated from England to Alberta with her family when she was 14 years old. A year later, she began working for photographer Ernest Brown as a receptionist and later as an apprentice. In 1920, she set up her own studio, The Art League, in Edmonton. She may have been the first woman in the region to operate her own photography business — which she ran until 1950. She was also a serious gardener and won a medal for best garden in the city in 1907.

You can click on the picture to get a larger view.

The Sunday porch: Mothers’ Day


“Woman holding baby on outdoor porch,” ca. 1915, an autochrome by unknown photographer, via George Eastman Museum Commons on flickr.

The porches look as if they are facing out to a beach.