Sepia Saturday 78 : 11 June 2011

Greetings as our journey begins this week in New York City.....as Sepia Saturday magically released the lovely and the boastful  photo of the "New York Skyline" with beaming buildings circling the elegant Eiffel Tower as well....

Wait....the Eiffel Tower in New York City, really?

So if you want to play along too with this theme...or some other Sepia related post just go here

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2011/06/sepia-saturday-78-saturday-11-june-2011.html

Standing on an Island only a short distance away from Manhattan stands the most famous, Statue of Liberty

Postcard of the famous Statue of Liberty - dedicated 1886 "Liberty Enlightening the World -- a gift from France to commemorate liberty in the United States of America.

 Not all famous statues or structures built of great importance or significance still stand all these years later...like Lady Liberty does today.......skipping across the United States to Minneapolis one unique building in it's day no longer waits for company... 

The Metropolitan - Minneapolis - 1890 - 1962

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time...this structure came down because it was built in the wrong neighborhood on the edge of the so-called Gateway District and was torn down in 1962.

Elevators within the building glided up more than 220 feet.  AKA "The Met" there were dedicated groups of citizens trying to "Save the Met" from destruction.....it was described as a "fantasia in glass and iron," until the end it was reputed to be the highest interior in the United States--like Beauvais Cathedral in France, or Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, incomparable. 



The Metropolitan - Minneapolis, Minnesota



Skipping past the theme photo of stately buildings and the Eiffel Tower for a moment please welcome Alexander Graham Bell and his never-ending quest for communication, which he took in so many directions.  Since Alan from Sepia Saturday will be doing just that in his search for a "cyber-cafe" ....it brings to mind just how and where most of our communicating with others began.  Pictured here is Alexander himself sitting on top of his own specially designed tetrahedral observation post for an excellent viewing of his tetrahedral kite flights.  He was quite fond of this creation.  Photo taken August 12, 1907 in Nova Scotia.




Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

There is a great story behind his theory and it involved wires.  These wires that came to mind from all the main pipes that already laid under the streets and they had side pipes that connected to various dwellings enabling gas or water to reach people within their houses or places of business.  Bell believed that future wires (for the telephone) would unite the head offices of telephone companies in different cities and allow people to connect with one another in other parts of the country and thus everyone could communicate by word of mouth to far away places.

Moving on you might believe newspapers were quite a source of communication, in a rather long and single manner....and there were postcards and letters if the telephone proved to be too costly for some...but what about other forms of written words like perhaps....

Writing on bark....this writer is posed to show the manner of sitting while writing on bark.  - Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society
But not just ordinary writing.  The Ojibwa usually drew their pictures on pieces of birch bark with pieces of charcoal or a sharp, pointed bone.  Often drawing them on a smooth, flat piece of cedar.  The wood was often easier to get than birch bark and was large enough for a short message.

A couple of Ojibwa sayings -

"Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind is bearing me across the sky."

In the old days our people had no education.  All their wisdom and knowledge came to them from dreams. They tested their dreams and in that way learned their own strength. - Ojibwa Elder

Thank you for stopping by another Sepia Saturday.