Teen Spirit: 1926

The girl in the middle looks like she might be playing a G7, a basic ukulele chord, but the others seem to have placed their fingers on the frets randomly. It is posed photo, after all, taken during the height of the ukulele craze of the '20s when so many families owned one. If the photo had been taken 80 years later, the girls might have been posed with their iPods!

But they do seem to all be forming chords with their left hand, albeit different chords. Ukes use a different tuning than a guitar, so I don't know what chords they're making.

So Tom, did your Gram walk 10 miles to school in the snow uphill, both ways? I do admit Shorpy has been awesome at giving me a better glance into the past!

According to my mother who could have been one of these ladies, no one she knew actually played a tune. They just set the pace. She had a uke and plunked up, down and sideways while people sang what they wanted. A very "in" thing to have in those days.

These ladies are just perfect. I wonder what song they might have been strumming?!

My Gram would have been this age in 1926 ... she told me that life was unbearable, tough, nobody even the rich had any fun, that it was always cloudy and cold and snowy, people dropped over from disease all the time ... guess she was wrong!