More from News in the 1910s, courtesy of The Commons.
If only it were so. I’ve always felt that New York City is a stratified place, forever re-enacting its own story, to an audience of itself. My favourite fictional New York is the communist Manhattan alluded to in Bruce Sterling and William Gibson’s excellent alternate history, The Difference Engine. The power of a morality shattering, utopian communism reveling in its liberties draws me in. An equally fascinating fictional New York might be one where old time religion rises again in the earthy temple of Central Park, surrounded by a new island-Babylon of steel and machines.
These girls, all dressed in white, seemingly taking some significant interest in their photographer, could very well be the daughters of Germanic immigrants, engaged in a holdover fertility ritual from the pre-Christian era, or the daughters of New York’s elite, studying a castrated descendant of that ritual as part of their “proper dance education.” Given the May 14 date (rather than May 1), I’d presume it’s the latter, but one can always hope…
Technorati Tags: photography, May Pole, dressed in white, post pagans, May 1912, Library of Congress, The Commons, Flickr, George Grantham Bain Collection
