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May 6, 1925. Washington, D.C. "Miss Edna Rush & Miss Olga Joy." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
It's depressing to note that wooden row boats are now found only in maritime museums or wealthy collectors storage sheds. Those clunky, heavy and slow handmade half-crates were pretty much indestructible, as long as you hauled them out now and then, but you could never get the stink of worms and fish out of the bilge.
There looks to be only six inches of water, hope they were able to catch something besides our eyes!
Edna...Olga. Olga...Edna.
In this self-consciously rustic scene the boat is self-consciously crude too -- no ribs, thwarts resting on a stringer with no knees or gussets securing it to the hull, oarlocks on blocks through bolted with huge unsightly bolts to the sheer strake, itself held on by staples (probably the joint is not watertight), and the area below that shows no seams. It couldn't be plywood in that period, could it? But that's what it looks like. If we could see all of it, it might well be a pram (square in the bow as well as the stern where Edna, or is it Olga, is fishing.)
Which leads me to wonder where they got such a craft in the (even then) fairly refined nation's capital.
[The craft is a small river punt. - Dave]
Not so much really, but couldn't resist using one form of the word ogle.
I always find it interesting the way names, like clothing and so many other things, go out of style. I can't say I've heard of too many Ednas or Olgas nowadays.
Here's a list of some old-fashioned names to give some examples of what I mean (though interestingly, neither Edna nor Olga are on it... lol).
Miss Edna Rush was a popular nightclub and vaudeville entertainer who at one time had her own radio show. In 1945 she married actor James Dunn (an Oscar winner for "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn").
The steep rocky banks are a giveaway. Although there is a building in the background, of which there are very few. It looks like it was partially drained at the time.
Must be a high class fishing hole, they're both wearing pearls. They must be asking themselves "Do I have to put my feet in that mucky water?"
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