Back in January I visited the Monroe Historical Society, and their research room in the Edith Wheeler Library there. Past president Nancy Zorena had been gracious to allow me to fondle their collection of glass negatives and even borrow a few for research. .
I returned a few weeks later with a new method for transferring glass negatives. Using my DSLR and a simple light box, in just an hour’s time Nancy and I had transferred approximately 60 slides to the Society’s computer. I was allowed to retain the images on my DSLR in the hopes that I could help the Historical Society learn more about them.
I wasn’t able to do much except make my own amateur assumptions about place and time. In experimenting with video at home, I felt in would be a good idea to create a video of the slides and then cast that out to the interwebs (yes, it’s slang and I love it) and see if the collective of knowledge and experience could answer some of the mysteries posed by these still images.
Please watch the video and see if you recognize something about any of them, even a best guess about the style of dress, hair, or some other tiny detail would be valuable. Leave something in the comments in the video and they will be used to hopefully reach a clearer conclusion.
After you have donated all your energy to that project consider helping me with a mystery of my own. I found what looks like a pillbox, but it has some details that tell me it is more than that. Take a look here and see if you can figure out its true purpose.
Greg Van Antwerp is a Brookfield resident and blogger, who can be found on the weekends in search of a good “dig” or a good story. You can read more about his adventures by visiting his blog.
