What Baseball Artifact Brings You Back in Time in the Deepest Way?

[dbussell12]

This does not have to be personal memory. It can be, and perhaps is even better, if it is collective, archetypal memory. An artifact that literally draws you back in through time to a recollection of a history or a time long since passed.

This to me is the power of primary baseball historical artifacts; would love to hear your stories and selections.


------


"Marcel Proust was the first person to coin the term involuntary memory, in his novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past). Proust did not have any psychological background, and worked primarily as a writer.

Proust viewed involuntary memory as containing the "essence of the past," claiming that it was lacking from voluntary memory. When the protagonist of Proust's novel eats a tea soaked madeleine, a long-forgotten childhood memory of eating tea soaked madeleine with his aunt is restored to him.[2] From this memory, he then proceeds to recall the childhood home he was in, and even the town itself. This becomes a theme throughout In Search of Lost Time, with sensations reminding the narrator of previous experiences. Proust dubbed these "involuntary memories"."

[Metsfan0507]

To me, it's my T206 cards. When i look at them I'm not so much thinking about the players that are pictured, but I think about the previous owners of the cards.

What was their life like in 1909? Were they a little kid begging adults for cards outside the newspaper shop, or were they an adult buying the cigarettes for themselves? Did they live in a city or a more rural setting?

Had the owners ever gone to an mlb game themselves when they were collecting? did they live near a team, could they afford to go? or did they follow the sport through the newspaper and radio?

How did these little pieces of paper survive all this time- did the previous owners keep them in a shoebox? glue them into an album? display them? how did they get passed through the generations while they were basically worthless? did the middle generations appreciate them, or were they a burden inherited from grandpa?

I'll never know the answer to any of these questions, but it is fun to speculate.

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Metsfan0507

To me, it's my T206 cards. When i look at them I'm not so much thinking about the players that are pictured, but I think about the previous owners of the cards.

What was their life like in 1909? Were they a little kid begging adults for cards outside the newspaper shop, or were they an adult buying the cigarettes for themselves? Did they live in a city or a more rural setting?

Had the owners ever gone to an mlb game themselves when they were collecting? did they live near a team, could they afford to go? or did they follow the sport through the newspaper and radio?

How did these little pieces of paper survive all this time- did the previous owners keep them in a shoebox? glue them into an album? display them? how did they get passed through the generations while they were basically worthless? did the middle generations appreciate them, or were they a burden inherited from grandpa?

I'll never know the answer to any of these questions, but it is fun to speculate.

Ah... fellow Mets fan! I 100% agree. This is why I don't care so much about 'who' is on old cards strictly speaking and look more for printer marks, wear, or other distinguishing signatures that speak to that kind of accumulated history you're talking about.

One of my favorite cards is a T206 Addie Joss with tape marks and a ton of creases but is deeply, deeply worn. It almost looks like an entirely different card but it glows with a different aura than anything else. Can't be replicated, precisely because it acquired another density as an artifact through time an engagement. And of course Joss' impact on baseball history can't be overstated. Addie Joss day is one of the most important events in baseball history IMO.

There are multiple ways to look at cards or other aspects of baseball history; it sounds to me like we look at them similarly. As historical artifacts; something that remains from a time long gone. It's easy sometimes to get distracted by images and forget the multidimensional backgrounds like you are discussing.

Thanks for sharing this insight!! LFGM!!!!

[Eric72]

I’ve had this baseball since 1988. My father and I were at Wrigley Field that June. During batting practice, this ball cleared the fence and my father wound up with it. The ball sits on a shelf in my home office now. I frequently glance at it and take a moment to go back (in my mind) to that time and place.

[Lucas00]

I love the 1950s aesthetic. Walking through a store and seeing an advertisement for star cals for example would be the coolest thing to me. Advertising in particular from the 50s is nostalgic to me even never having experienced it.

Similarly the roaring 20s give me the same second hand nostalgia feeling. I love the architecture and flashy lights, monster movies. This snapshot of Wajo from his 1924 scrapbook is the best I can show this.

Another that really interests me is Worlds Fairs. Chicago 1893 in particular, but also New York 1939/1964. For this example I'm showing my 1939 centennial paper logo with the original envelope given out at the 1939 new York world fair by Oppenheim Collins. A womens clothier.

[Webster]

This:
IMG_7997.jpg

Pretty fun night for an 11 year old.

[RayW]

As a long time Willie Mays fan, the glove used to make “the Catch” at the HOF has special meaning to me. Mays used a Rawlings Harvey Haddix glove, which has HH on the heel.

[Kawika]

A handful of 1957 Topps cards takes me back to the time when the penny dropped and I got hooked on baseball. It was a great time to be young and a Giant fan. For one more year anyway. However, instead of traveling down that particular memory lane I will present this autographed 1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig as an artifact that evokes history. At some moment between 1934 and the time he lost his motor skills Lou Gehrig, living and breathing, held this very baseball card in his hand and affixed his signature in all its cursive glory.

I have a yearning nostalgia for the era between the two world wars. It's when my father was in his youth. The world he lived in was colorful and exciting - terrific music, fancy women, great athletes. Never mind that he grew up in San Francisco, 1000 miles west of major league baseball. It still had that jazz age gestalt that Gehrig's autograph evokes for me.




Fancy Women


Terrific Music
This YouTube - Manhattan by the California Ramblers - is a sweet jazz melody with great visuals, even with the "jitters". It's part of the soundtrack of my fantasy voyage in time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2rDsY-zge4

Great Athletes
Baseball historians say nice things about the 1928 San Francisco Seals. They won the PCL by eight games and were 120-71. I possess the glass negative from which this photo was printed. [Come to think of it, the neg itself would be a separate cool artifact by the terms of this writing assignment. Wish I had a pik of it. That piece of glass was looking right at those guys, its architecture re-arranged by light rays bouncing off them. Spooky stuff. Too much marijuana in my youth]. Frankie Crosetti is 18 years old here. Thirty years later we see him again via home movie camera waving Norm Siebern home on an inside-the-parker.






My Dad was born at home in a house one short block away from this Mission District street in 1920. He was an altar boy at St Peter's church whose corner and steps are at left. He delivered the San Francisco Chronicle to pitch in with expenses. Some of his customers were Civil war veterans. Imagine that. He saw Henry Oana play.




He attended St Ignatius HS which is by the athletic field to the left of SI Cathedral. In the background the Golden Gate Bridge is under construction. He saw the bridge go from nothing to magnificence.


Thusly this card held by the Iron Horse has a shred of his mana and brings illumination to an era that matters to me. So there. Not sure if I met the requirements set out by the OP but I'm kinda scatterbrained at the best of times and I had fun throwing it together.

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Kawika

A handful of 1957 Topps cards takes me back to the time when the penny dropped and I got hooked on baseball. It was a great time to be young and a Giant fan. For one more year anyway. However, instead of traveling down that particular memory lane I will present this autographed 1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig as an artifact that evokes history. At some moment between 1934 and the time he lost his motor skills Lou Gehrig, living and breathing, held this very baseball card in his hand and affixed his signature in all its cursive glory.

I have a yearning nostalgia for the era between the two world wars. It's when my father was in his youth. The world he lived in was colorful and exciting - terrific music, fancy women, great athletes. Never mind that he grew up in San Francisco, 1000 miles west of major league baseball. It still had that jazz age gestalt that Gehrig's autograph evokes for me.




Fancy Women


Terrific Music
This YouTube - Manhattan by the California Ramblers - is a sweet jazz melody with great visuals, even with the "jitters". It's part of the soundtrack of my fantasy voyage in time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2rDsY-zge4

Great Athletes
Baseball historians say nice things about the 1928 San Francisco Seals. They won the PCL by eight games and were 120-71. I possess the glass negative from which this photo was printed. [Come to think of it, the neg itself would be a separate cool artifact by the terms of this writing assignment. Wish I had a pik of it. That piece of glass was looking right at those guys, its architecture re-arranged by light rays bouncing off them. Spooky stuff. Too much marijuana in my youth]. Frankie Crosetti is 18 years old here. Thirty years later we see him again via home movie camera waving Norm Siebern home on an inside-the-parker.






My Dad was born at home in a house one short block away from this Mission District street in 1920. He was an altar boy at St Peter's church whose corner and steps are at left. He delivered the San Francisco Chronicle to pitch in with expenses. Some of his customers were Civil war veterans. Imagine that. He saw Henry Oana play.




He attended St Ignatius HS which is by the athletic field to the left of SI Cathedral. In the background the Golden Gate Bridge is under construction. He saw the bridge go from nothing to magnificence.


Thusly this card held by the Iron Horse has a shred of his mana and brings illumination to an era that matters to me. So there. Not sure if I met the requirements set out by the OP but I'm kinda scatterbrained at the best of times and I had fun throwing it together.

David - have you ever thought about putting any of this to paper in essay or book form? My apologies if you already have and I don't know anything about it... deeply evocative writing and the pictures you just shared with us here are wonderful. I think you hit the nail on the head here and then some. Could have mistaken the Seals manager in that picture you shared for T.S. Eliot...

[Michael Peich]

Wow, David, this is a fabulous post! Thank you sharing everything especially the Gehrig and the '32 Oana. What a wonderful tribute to your father.

Mahalo,
Mike

[dbussell12]

Guys this is some great stuff. I think there's a profound thread here, how tangible materials are portals back in time to places we can reach in our minds; spaces we inhabit with mixtures of personal, ancestral, and collective memories. Much of this recall in my experience is a fusion between storytelling, myth, and how history is passed down and shifts and changes through time aurally and in how we process time through time.

We, of course, are living in time; these objects and materials live in time with us. The Willie Mays glove, the ball you got with your father as a child -- these things acquire deeper power as time goes on because they become mingled with what was and what will never be again, but still is as embodied through the object itself and the memory you retain of it.

Anything Satchel Paige to me is the peak or height of this kind of thing when it comes to baseball history. Satchel himself represents to me the absolute epitome of how baseball functions as story and storytelling. He is one of those figures who seems to himself rise above baseball and tell us something more profound about our humanity and what it is to be human through baseball; his life and times. I can never get enough of his stories or characterizations and depictions. He himself is as mythic of a figure as it gets; artifacts from his time and era that involve him never cease to grab me.

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Michael Peich

Wow, David, this is a fabulous post! Thank you sharing everything especially the Gehrig and the '32 Oana. What a wonderful tribute to your father.

Mahalo,
Mike

From what little I have seen and heard from David so far on the forum I remain convinced he could write the baseball book to define all baseball books... I would love to see what would or could come of it. Such lyrical and poetic writing there and the references are just fantastic!

[ruth-gehrig]

Originally Posted by dbussell12

From what little I have seen and heard from David so far on the forum I remain convinced he could write the baseball book to define all baseball books... I would love to see what would or could come of it. Such lyrical and poetic writing there and the references are just fantastic!

I vote you and the other David collaborate for one hell of a good baseball book!! Seriously. Dibs on 1st copy

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by ruth-gehrig

I vote you and the other David collaborate for one hell of a good baseball book!! Seriously. Dibs on 1st copy

By David squared

If you're interested I've done a fair bit of writing for SABR baseball cards and on Substack working with printing methods and modern image production/reproduction with cards and photos. I'll share here. There's a lot of work on the T206s and the T3s and their industrial American context. The SABR essays are all accessible on their blog --

https://davidbussellarchive.substack.com/

[ctownboy]

Not an actual baseball item but.....freshly mown grass in early May.

Back in the late 1970's I lived in a small town with my mother and younger sister. We didn't have a lot of money so what money I received for an allowance (if I even got one) was very small. To supplement this, I mowed grass and rode my bicycle along our small town roads looking for discarded glass soft drink bottles to be able to redeem.

When I had enough money, I would go to a small grocery store nearby and buy packs of baseball cards. I would then rush home and open them hoping to find Cincinnati Reds cards in general and Johnny Bench cards in particular. Living in southern Indiana, close to Louisville, Kentucky, being a Reds fan at that time was GREAT!!!

Now, almost fifty years later, every May when grass is starting to be mown and that fresh smell hits me, I go back in time and remember the miles of mowing grass and the miles of bike riding I did just to be able to buy new packs of baseball cards.

David

[Kawika]

I think there's a profound thread here, how tangible materials are portals back in time to places we can reach in our minds; spaces we inhabit with mixtures of personal, ancestral, and collective memories. Much of this recall in my experience is a fusion between storytelling, myth, and how history is passed down and shifts and changes through time aurally and in how we process time through time.)

The future, these days coming on like a tidal wave, unnerves me. The older I get the more I reach into the past. You are much more articulate and analytical about the anthropological matters of collective memories, story telling, myth-making and the like. I couldn't have written what you wrote but I appreciate your insights.

David - have you ever thought about putting any of this to paper in essay or book form?

Never had any aspirations to be a writer. There are certain things I would like to get down on paper for the benefit of my nieces and nephews related to our family's story, and I want to write up some biographical info about my wife who has lived a tough, interesting and honorable life. She has fifty-one - count 'em - first cousins and someday there will be a gazillion young Vander Kooys whom I want to remember her.

From what little I have seen and heard from David so far on the forum I remain convinced he could write the baseball book to define all baseball books... I would love to see what would or could come of it. Such lyrical and poetic writing there and the references are just fantastic!)

Have been posting on this board for over twenty years. Most of what I have written is more terse and less whimsical than the post we're discussing. I get a kick out of the English language. You can paint with words and express things in all sorts of ways. It pleases me to come up with a well-turned phrase. The next step is a paragraph and beyond that are pages, articles, books. Anything beyond a paragraph takes disciplined and dedicated effort. I'm too hyper for that. I wish to un-convince you of the possibility of me writing the ultimate baseball book. Wouldn't even know where to start. All the same, thanks for the complimentary words.

Could have mistaken the Seals manager in that picture you shared for T.S. Eliot...

When i acquired the glass slide about fifteen years back I attempted to ID each of the players. Probably named two-thirds of them and put the project aside and there it has sat. I thought the man in the sweater was manager Nick Williams but was corrected by Dave Eskenazi that TS Eliot was the trainer and Williams is to his right.

[whitehse]

This is something I wrote a few months ago and I hope fits exactly what the OP is asking for.

The summer of 1969 provided many memorable moments in history. We saw the first moon landing, A little music festival in Woodstock, New York, the Vietnam war was still raging and the Bums in Wrigley’s bleachers were signing Hey Hey, Holy Mackeral because the Chicago Cubs were making a legitimate run for the National League pennant. All over Chicagoland the lowly north siders began to steal the hearts of baseball fans with their winning ways and Cub Power was sweeping the land. Little did those fans know at the time that Cub Power would be timeless, but their team was not as the Cubs once again failed to appear in the post-season and would not do so for several more seasons.


It was during this summer that my Aunt Bertha, who lived just beyond the Chicago city limits and who was well aware of my 6 year old fanaticism for all things baseball gave me a gift that I would never take off until it literally fell off of my back. It was on one of her semi-monthly trips to “the country” when she casually handed me a bag that contained a t-shirt, but not just any t-shirt, but one in which had the logo emblazoned on the front that I began to see all over television. With the words “Cub Power” printed in the traditional blue and red of the north side baseball team, I stood in awe as I hurriedly stripped the shirt I had on and replaced it with my gift from my now favorite Aunt. I wore that t-shirt until it became a dingy gray color and the logo slowly peeled off from too many times in the wash cycle but whenever I see that logo I am immediately transported back to a time in which summer meant baseball and watching the Cubs on WGN was must see TV.


A few years ago, my cousin came upon this picture of myself, my sister and brother appearing to do some sort of yard work for my grandmother who appeared in the background. As I stared at this picture I was transported back to simpler time, a time where the realities of life had not reared its ugly head and changed our lives forever. Just four years after this picture was taken, my sister would have a diving accident that would land her in a wheelchair for the remainder of her life. The accident changed our family in so many ways but the fascination with the north side Cubbies remained in all of us. Cub Power may have died out when the 1969 season ended in failure, but the love for the team and more importantly, for the game of baseball itself continued and even provided a welcome distraction when life tried to steal our joy. Cub power continues in our hearts and in our minds and still brings me that excitement that it did when that t-shirt was first slipped over my six year old head so many decades ago.


Now, does anyone know where I can get a size 5X Tall Cub Power t-shirt?

480927065_10236624764189249_3896093987554010145_n.jpg

[whitehse]

I forgot to add the update:

Not long ago a package arrived at our new address from a dear friend who read about my memories of this shirt. Little did I know, this awesome friend took up the challenge and somehow made this memory a reality. I was immediately taken back to being a nine year old (the biggest nine year old one has ever seen I am sure) as I slipped this 5XL bundle of awesomeness over my head and marveled at the fact that someone would send me a gift I never thought I would see. I immediately looked at that 50 year old picture and thought how incredibly cool it would be if I could only recreate is as grown ups with my brother, sister and grandmother now that I have the shirt once again. Sadly, that picture can never be recreated but that doesn't stop the memories of that summer where Cubs Power was a reality and I can now relive it all over again. I just hope I don't get orange popsicle stains on this one!!

cubs.jpg

[dbussell12]

Man... Andrew this is just phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing this. The memory and the period flavor is just so visceral. You have a gift and talent for writing without a doubt! Such a strong sense of Sandlot Americana in what you just shared; I'm so glad that you got your shirt. It's crazy how just an object like that, a t shirt, can bring you back everything that defines a period. The photo as well, how it gave you insight and memory deep into the time as well.

Cheers; hoping you are having a great evening.
David

PS- You guys have some phenomenal teams in your history. With my deadball era research focus, the 1906-1910 teams are some of my favorites. But you can't go wrong with those 30s Cubbies either. That 1932 World Series with the Ruth called shot is one of the most mythic moments in the sport!!

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by ctownboy

Not an actual baseball item but.....freshly mown grass in early May.

Back in the late 1970's I lived in a small town with my mother and younger sister. We didn't have a lot of money so what money I received for an allowance (if I even got one) was very small. To supplement this, I mowed grass and rode my bicycle along our small town roads looking for discarded glass soft drink bottles to be able to redeem.

When I had enough money, I would go to a small grocery store nearby and buy packs of baseball cards. I would then rush home and open them hoping to find Cincinnati Reds cards in general and Johnny Bench cards in particular. Living in southern Indiana, close to Louisville, Kentucky, being a Reds fan at that time was GREAT!!!

Now, almost fifty years later, every May when grass is starting to be mown and that fresh smell hits me, I go back in time and remember the miles of mowing grass and the miles of bike riding I did just to be able to buy new packs of baseball cards.

David

This is fascinating David; its really quite something how this happens biologically/chemically. I'm sure there are some more in depth studies scientifically about how powerful sense memories function and are triggered when we experience them again; how they are formed initially.

Did you get any of those Bench cards? His Sporting News All Star cards from the early 70s are some of my favorites.

David

[ctownboy]

I wasn't a baseball fan (or any sports fan for that matter). But I was in third grade and had a crush on my teacher. Her father was the mayor of a nearby larger town and he was originally from Boston.

My teacher told us that she was going to be gone for a few days because her father had tickets to the 1975 World Series games in Boston. Not knowing anything about sports, I decided to watch the games to see if I could see her in the stands. Turns out I was watching one of the best World Series ever and became a fan because of it. My two favorite players became Johnny Bench and Yaz and the Reds became my favorite team.

I started collecting cards in 1977.

Yes, I did get some Johnny Bench cards from those packs.

David

Edited to get the year straight....it was late when I posted.

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Kawika

The future, these days coming on like a tidal wave, unnerves me. The older I get the more I reach into the past. You are much more articulate and analytical about the anthropological matters of collective memories, story telling, myth-making and the like. I couldn't have written what you wrote but I appreciate your insights.



Never had any aspirations to be a writer. There are certain things I would like to get down on paper for the benefit of my nieces and nephews related to our family's story, and I want to write up some biographical info about my wife who has lived a tough, interesting and honorable life. She has fifty-one - count 'em - first cousins and someday there will be a gazillion young Vander Kooys whom I want to remember her.



Have been posting on this board for over twenty years. Most of what I have written is more terse and less whimsical than the post we're discussing. I get a kick out of the English language. You can paint with words and express things in all sorts of ways. It pleases me to come up with a well-turned phrase. The next step is a paragraph and beyond that are pages, articles, books. Anything beyond a paragraph takes disciplined and dedicated effort. I'm too hyper for that. I wish to un-convince you of the possibility of me writing the ultimate baseball book. Wouldn't even know where to start. All the same, thanks for the complimentary words.




When i acquired the glass slide about fifteen years back I attempted to ID each of the players. Probably named two-thirds of them and put the project aside and there it has sat. I thought the man in the sweater was manager Nick Williams but was corrected by Dave Eskenazi that TS Eliot was the trainer and Williams is to his right.

You have a wonderful perspective David, I want to let you know it gives me great joy to read your posts! There is always something illuminating and profound stored in them. I would love to chat further sometime and pick your brain about those old NYG teams.

Many kind regards,
David

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by ctownboy

I wasn't a baseball fan (or any sports fan for that matter). But I was in fourth grade and had a crush on my teacher. Her father was the mayor of a nearby larger town and he was originally from Boston.

My teacher told us that she was going to be gone for a few days because her father had tickets to the 1976 World Series games in Boston. Not knowing anything about sports, I decided to watch the games to see if I could see her in the stands. Turns out I was watching one of the best World Series ever and became a fan because of it. My two favorite players became Johnny Bench and Yaz and the Reds became my favorite team.

I started collecting cards in 1977.

Yes, I did get some Johnny Bench cards from those packs.

David

Ha!! What a way to get started with the sport. You have a truly great story here! I wonder if you would consider writing about it and telling it in full? I am a big advocate for writing and writerly pursuits... especially intertwined with early childhood and baseball.

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by RayW

As a long time Willie Mays fan, the glove used to make “the Catch” at the HOF has special meaning to me. Mays used a Rawlings Harvey Haddix glove, which has HH on the heel.

Wanted to take a second to respond directly. The Catch play is just such a great mid century iconic moment. So strange that Haddix would be tied to the moment in this way. The details create quite a narrative thread don't they!

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Webster

This:
Attachment 661914

Pretty fun night for an 11 year old.

I can imagine.... wow!!! Did he sign it the same night?

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Lucas00

I love the 1950s aesthetic. Walking through a store and seeing an advertisement for star cals for example would be the coolest thing to me. Advertising in particular from the 50s is nostalgic to me even never having experienced it.

Similarly the roaring 20s give me the same second hand nostalgia feeling. I love the architecture and flashy lights, monster movies. This snapshot of Wajo from his 1924 scrapbook is the best I can show this.

Another that really interests me is Worlds Fairs. Chicago 1893 in particular, but also New York 1939/1964. For this example I'm showing my 1939 centennial paper logo with the original envelope given out at the 1939 new York world fair by Oppenheim Collins. A womens clothier.

I agree. The 50s and the Worlds Fairs are great choices; there's a lot to be said for the aesthetics of both. Especially those futuristic exhibits at the WFs right? Wild stuff. Futurism and imagining the 2000s if I remember correctly was a large pursuit in the 50s as well. Diner culture is great... greasers, Brando, the whole shebang!

[dbussell12]

Originally Posted by Eric72

I’ve had this baseball since 1988. My father and I were at Wrigley Field that June. During batting practice, this ball cleared the fence and my father wound up with it. The ball sits on a shelf in my home office now. I frequently glance at it and take a moment to go back (in my mind) to that time and place.

This is a great memory Eric. I can imagine a summer at Wrigley catching BP... it's great that you got that as a memory of your time together there; I bet its quite vivid. Thank you for sharing this!!

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by dbussell12

This is fascinating David; its really quite something how this happens biologically/chemically. I'm sure there are some more in depth studies scientifically about how powerful sense memories function and are triggered when we experience them again; how they are formed initially.

Did you get any of those Bench cards? His Sporting News All Star cards from the early 70s are some of my favorites.

David

-
Of all the senses, the sense of smell has the strongest link to memory recall. The olfactory system has a direct connection to the hippocampus and amygdaloid, brain regions crucial for memory and emotional processing.
-

[Lucas00]

Originally Posted by dbussell12

I agree. The 50s and the Worlds Fairs are great choices; there's a lot to be said for the aesthetics of both. Especially those futuristic exhibits at the WFs right? Wild stuff. Futurism and imagining the 2000s if I remember correctly was a large pursuit in the 50s as well. Diner culture is great... greasers, Brando, the whole shebang!

Yes the worlds fairs showed many inventions. Also showed tons of quacks and the like that I would've loved to see. Products that don't exist but for that time frame. Everything about them would've been grandiose, like a victorian millionaires wedding is how I imagine the setting in Chicago. Every corner you turn something weird and cool. I'm sure food from around the world and exhibits of some strange animals and the like. The original Ferris wheel.

I love this photo of the 1893 Chicago fair. Fountains, huge buildings. Catwalks to look down on everything. A photo I can almost hear.
Not to mention the story of H.H Holmes. Who likely used the fair for numerous killings. Obviously not a good thing, but adds to the mystique that much more.

27 million people visited the Chicago worlds fair for the 6 months it operated. That is an unimaginable number for the time. Especially in such a small time frame.

Here is a quote I found:

More than 65,000 exhibits from 46 nations were displayed in more than 200 structures built for the fair. Visitors were introduced to many new (and relatively new) concepts, inventions, and products, from Cracker Jack and Juicy Fruit gum to large-scale electric lighting and the Ferris wheel.

[Keith H. Thompson]

I was fascinated by a gold lined solid silver cup that always sat on top of my mothers sewing machine. Looking inside I saw what I now know was Sam Thompson's Dauvrey Cup Medal in the original blue silk container, a ball and tons of yarn for sewing.

The cup was a prize that Sam Thompson won in a fan popularity contest in 1894, and today can be seen in the HOF.

[ColtWinchester]

I still have the St. Louis Cardinals team autographed baseball from a game during the 1986 season. I was 11 years old and had recently been released from the hospital after having my 5th foot and leg surgery in that short timeand at my favorite place. Busch Stadium! I can still remember the feeling of anticipation, the sun on my face, and the sounds of the ball park. The smell of the hotdogs and bark of the memorabilia vendors. And then the disappointment of seeing kids lined up at the railing getting autographs of their favorite players, realizing with my legs in casts I couldn’t get there to get my ball signed that i brought. I was just happy to be there seeing my favorite team. I asked my dad “can we get down there to get autographs?” And my dad tryied to explain to me that he probably wouldn’t have much luck getting their attention with all the kids there” and how it’d be too hard to get my wheelchair down. A few minutes later An usher in a fancy red uniform tapped me on the shoulder and held out an official game ball with the entire teams signatures, and they were all real, in different pen colors. He had overheard our conversation and took it upon himself to get ahold of someone in the dugout and soon they brought the ball to him to give to me! I was ecstatic and couldn’t have had a better memory of baseball, my dad and kindness of strangers

[ruth-gehrig]

My gosh what an amazing story and memory!! Simply fantastic

Originally Posted by ColtWinchester

I still have the St. Louis Cardinals team autographed baseball from a game during the 1986 season. I was 11 years old and had recently been released from the hospital after having my 5th foot and leg surgery in that short timeand at my favorite place. Busch Stadium! I can still remember the feeling of anticipation, the sun on my face, and the sounds of the ball park. The smell of the hotdogs and bark of the memorabilia vendors. And then the disappointment of seeing kids lined up at the railing getting autographs of their favorite players, realizing with my legs in casts I couldn’t get there to get my ball signed that i brought. I was just happy to be there seeing my favorite team. I asked my dad “can we get down there to get autographs?” And my dad tryied to explain to me that he probably wouldn’t have much luck getting their attention with all the kids there” and how it’d be too hard to get my wheelchair down. A few minutes later An usher in a fancy red uniform tapped me on the shoulder and held out an official game ball with the entire teams signatures, and they were all real, in different pen colors. He had overheard our conversation and took it upon himself to get ahold of someone in the dugout and soon they brought the ball to him to give to me! I was ecstatic and couldn’t have had a better memory of baseball, my dad and kindness of strangers

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by ColtWinchester

I still have the St. Louis Cardinals team autographed baseball from a game during the 1986 season. I was 11 years old and had recently been released from the hospital after having my 5th foot and leg surgery in that short timeand at my favorite place. Busch Stadium! I can still remember the feeling of anticipation, the sun on my face, and the sounds of the ball park. The smell of the hotdogs and bark of the memorabilia vendors. And then the disappointment of seeing kids lined up at the railing getting autographs of their favorite players, realizing with my legs in casts I couldn’t get there to get my ball signed that i brought. I was just happy to be there seeing my favorite team. I asked my dad “can we get down there to get autographs?” And my dad tryied to explain to me that he probably wouldn’t have much luck getting their attention with all the kids there” and how it’d be too hard to get my wheelchair down. A few minutes later An usher in a fancy red uniform tapped me on the shoulder and held out an official game ball with the entire teams signatures, and they were all real, in different pen colors. He had overheard our conversation and took it upon himself to get ahold of someone in the dugout and soon they brought the ball to him to give to me! I was ecstatic and couldn’t have had a better memory of baseball, my dad and kindness of strangers

Neat story, nostalgia, kindness to others all wrapped together! Nice story, great memories. Thanks for sharing

[Yoda]

What brings me back are all the wonderful artifacts and exhibits found in a special place to house them in upstate New York.

[Exhibitman]

From my Substack post "Analog Days":

To paraphrase Terence Mann in Field Of Dreams:

“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But collecting has marked the time. These items, they are a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

Personally, I find that modern life is so frantic, so immediate, so consuming, and so impermanent that I long for something more. I want to reach that constant that baseball represented to Terence Mann (and yes, I am aware that he is a fictional character, but don’t let the facts obscure the point).

I am a child of the 1970s. Young enough to have had electronic entertainment (we got cable tv! One channel!! Mattel Electronic Football, anyone?) but old enough to remember when we weren’t all carrying supercomputers in our pockets and our parents had no way of contacting us during those lazy summer days we spent running around our neighborhoods playing street football (car!) or chasing the ice cream truck. I call it the “Analog Days.”

Back in the Analog Days, we had to make a real effort to be connected to one another, to remember who we were and where we came from. Long distance calls were expensive and rare in the Analog Days; when the phone rang late at night everyone’s first thought was “death in the family” (RIP Richard Lewis). Air travel was not the commonplace, Greyhound-In-The-Sky, experience that it is today, so we communicated in analog: we wrote letters, mailed postcards, took and shared pictures, recorded and swapped cassette tapes. And we kept them. Treasured them. That is the collector mentality in a nutshell: memory through objects. History in hand.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the technology today that connects us all. I paged through my photo albums a lot after we moved to Los Angeles and left New York in 1977. I was 11 years old and longing for the connections that I would otherwise have lost. And I looked at the cards I had collected with friends in primary school. It was all I had left of the life back there, because my contacts with friends and family were so stretched and tenuous. Tech makes it so much better. Facetime brings my daughter to me across a continent and the miracle of web publishing brings my missives to you like the dead rats your cat drops on the doorstep to show you he cares; think of these dispatches as dead rats from me to you. I also love that I can write and be read by selling my books through an on-demand publisher. Unlike my father, I’m not just some guy writing books that no one will read because he can’t find a publisher. I can publish and sell books and blog and have hundreds of subscribers in a year’s time. But I also remember when there wasn’t a 24/7/365 livestream, when your life wasn’t an avatar, and when tangible things you held in your two hands were the only mementos of the world. And so I collect.

The mere fact that these things we collect are tangible sets us apart from the non-collectors. My wife often asks me why I want to keep an item when I could sell it for a profit. The non-collectors like her will never get the appeal these things have for us collectors; it is almost mystical. These things were made with great ingenuity and effort and care. They were meant to be enjoyed in the physical world. Some were meant to be cherished as heirlooms. Many were not, which makes their continued existence 100 or more years later all the more wonderful. I recently came across a pair of ornate, die-cut, pop-out valentines from the 1890s. How does something so delicate and temporary and beautiful make it into my hands intact? Why would generations of someones save a scrap of paper through two world wars, two pandemics, depressions, natural disasters, and so on just so I could look at it 130 years later?

My father wasn’t a collector, but he was nevertheless a product of the Analog Days. He had a childhood scrapbook that he carried with him through decades of life, different homes, a marriage and children, and across multiple cities a continent apart. Years ago, he found the moldering book in the garage and gave me a signed note from Sid Luckman, the great HOF quarterback, that his older brother’s father-in-law got for him at the Columbia Club in New York when he met Luckman in 1946. The scrapbook was falling apart yet he kept it. When he passed away, I found it in his home office and salvaged the items, which was one good use for the tons of paper ephemera storage supplies I have. Photos into pages, paper items into mylar sleeves, all to be organized into card binders, properly stored and preserved. Beautiful.

Pondering these questions is one of the things that gives me respect and, yes, love for old cardboard. I often think about the journey that items at estate sales and antique shows have taken, especially when I see materials from someone's military service, a ribbon or medal from an athletic event, a program or memento of a big night out, or an official photo from some Important Event, all painstakingly preserved in someone’s scrapbook. It being valuable to them makes the items all the more valuable to me. Interestingly, not everyone reacts well to the concept of these items being collected. Some people find it depressing to see things like a soldier’s military company photo for sale at a flea market. I don’t. Quite the opposite. To me, it feels reassuring. Even though someone’s children or grandchildren just did not care about and would just as soon throw away the items, there are strangers who do care about these artifacts and will preserve them. That snapshot from Great Uncle Leo's time in Japan during WWII means nothing to his family but someone will purchase it and enjoy it and research the subject and remember and honor the man that way, and that's what I find redeeming about the process: we collectors are the Memory Alpha for these people, both the subjects of the items and the people who cared for the items, just as other collectors will be for us after we are gone. Little Howie McCormick is long gone but his back-stamped T206 collection lives on through the collectors who have his old cards and actively trade and discuss them on card chat boards.

Now, excuse me while I go watch Field Of Dreams again.