The largest group photo I've ever seen -- 50,000 employees of the Ford Motor Company. Can you beat that?
Here's the big fish hole at the "Wacky Golf" miniature golf course in Myrtle Beach, SC.
You're HERE...THIS IS IT! The Texas Wonder Cave is a natural cavern formed by an earthquake a long time ago.
Here's a nice view of the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 1971. I'm posting it in honor of our son, who just returned from there this week after volunteering in a free health clinic for 5 months (and living a 15 minute walk from the beach!).
The Turnpike ride at HersheyPark, Hershey, Pennsylvannia. The traffic is at the tollbooth, waiting to get on the ride --a half-mile tour in a little sports car. 
The "newest, most beautiful Oceanfront Motel" in Miami Beach. Ready for vacation?
Here's a postcard advertising the Desert Holiday Motel in Desert Hot Springs, CA. There's nothing like a picture of senior citizens uncomfortably close to each other in a hot tub to help sell the wonders of this resort!
The Jamestown Buffalo was erected in 1959, the brainchild of the Jamestown, North Dakota Chamber of Commerce. It's 46 feet long and 26 feet high. The statue is unchallenged as the World's Largest buffalo. According to the the "RealND project" (RealND.com), every year thousands of motorists stop to visit this most famous buffalo - taking home fond memories and a one-of-a-kind photo opportunity.
According to the back, only three blocks to downtown! Inidividually controlled, refrigerated air, tiled showers, wall-to-wall carpeting, room television and controlled heat. AAA approved.
This photograph is from inside the "Nautical Gardens" area of the amusement park at Revere Beach, Massachusetts. Postmarked in 1911, the postcard shows a turntable, which rotated and as it increased in speed threw people off to the edges. A viewer's gallery allowed people to watch as others tried to stay on. Many of these fun-house buildings at amusement parks were made entirely of wood and suffered many fires that burned them to the ground. Additionally, they may not have been especially safe, but in those days people just took the bumps and bruises in stride, pre-our litigious society.
This roadside attraction about an hour north of Tampa, Florida began operating in 1947. The main feature of the park, which included a natural spring, was the Mermaid Theater, featuring lovely ladies who frolicked underwater, using special air hoses to breath. The place was at its most popular in the 50's and 60's when elaborately staged underwater shows regularly played to sold out crowds. 
In Bowling Green, KY, have lunch at Mayhew's, advertised on the back as Bowling Green's "Newest and Finest Restaurant, specializing in Broiled Steaks, Chops, and Fine Sea Foods."
In order to make anything sound catchier in the 50's and 60's marketers could just add the suffix "-rama" to it, and all of a suddent it sounded much cooler. The top postcard is the Bowl-a-Rama Bowling Lanes in South Portland, Maine. A cinderblock building with an empty parking lot is much more inviting with -Rama tacked onto the end.
A postcard Austin Powers would have sent. The groovy 1960's border clashes completely with the stately architecture of the Tower Bridge, which opened in 1894, but it certainly helps date this postcard!
The Rex Restaurant in this vintage 1950's chrome postcard looks very inviting! The back promises "Superlative American and Italian Foods" and a seating capacity of 400. Looks like business is good in at this attractively landscaped eatery, located "on the Moorehead Strip," Morehead City, North Carolina.
Hartford, Connecticut, back in the days of the linen postcard. A lot has happened since this bucolic view existed -- a waterfront park including an amphitheater and stage has been added, along with a large convention center and science museum. The white Traveler's tower and adjacent brick buildings provide the continuity between these two views.
The back says:And the following notation was handwritten in:
"Our exciting sales are still on and also we have a special on an Ebony used Acrosonic spinet."
The card is postmarked 1958, when all across the suburbs living rooms were filling up with pianos so the baby boomers could take lessons. The spinets, which are the shortest type of vertical pianos, like the one in the image, were the bottom of the barrel when it came to quality. They had poor tone, generally were cheaply constructed and were notoriously hard to service. Nevertheless, they were a part of many of our childhoods, in part due to the successful marketing campaigns of those times.
Corny as these postcard ads were (I'll post more later), there's some truth in my case. I still play the piano almost every day, often just for ten minutes, but it's rooted in a Danish Modern style Story & Clark spinet that found its way into the living room of my childhood home, in a subdivision built in the 'burbs in the early 60's!
I know it's really the Chinese New Year, but I have over 100 Jewish New Year postcards in my collection, and I wanted to start getting some of them onto the blog! Nearly all of them are from the Williamsburg Art publishing company, and all are about 100 years old. Each says in Hebrew, "L'Shanah Tova Tikatavu" which roughly means "May you be inscribed in the book of life for a good year." They all contain a short message in Yiddish as well, however I don't have translations for most of them. In this one, note the early telephone, still a novelty at the time this postcard was published.
An outstanding handwritten message on this postcard. The New York City subway system opened on October 27, 1904, and Ruth wrote to her friend Jane about riding on it the very next day. The text reads, "We rode on the subway today and it was jam(m)ed. It only opened last night, so of course there would be a crowd." She goes on to say, "Why don't you answer my letters? We went down to the Docks and saw the big steamer in there and went all through it. We also went to the aquarium down at Castle Garden. Give my love to your mother and all the rest. Yours, lovingly." The postmark on the other side is October 29th, 1904.
The Hotel Fiske at Old Orchard Beach, Maine opened in 1882 and burned to the ground in 1907, along with 16 other hotels and 60 cottages. This card was mailed in 1903. I have many more postcards of Old Orchard Beach to follow.
The largest hotel ballroom in the world at the time, seating 2,000 persons for banquets and over 3,000 for meetings. This was Sheraton Hall in the Sheraton-Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Free Reservations by Reservatron reserves and confirms your hotel room in 4 seconds!
There are two Mononas in the United States, one in Wisconsin and one in Iowa. Your guess is as good as mine as to where these fine gentlemen are from. The exclamation point on the bass drum is nice touch!
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