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From circa 1900 in Parts Unknown comes this 4x5 glass negative of G.H. Wood Jeweler, the business, and possibly a Wood or two. View full size.
Can anyone explain what the use might have been of the 3 peices of S shaped metal? One above the door and two above the window. Did it hold something to the wall? I've seen these on other Shorpy buildings, so it just might be a stylized Shorpy S, similar to Nike checkmark.
[They are turnbuckle irons, manifested most frequently on these pages as the turnbuckle star. - Dave]
...a fascinating picture. Thanks for posting it!
Lurking just inside the door, which was the term often used to refer to a bicycle in those years. In this case it is just a wheel, but assume it is attached to a cycle. We used to holler with laughter when our principal Miss Nina B. Glass (1881-1978) at Sanger Avenue Elementary would caution us about safety while riding our "wheels".
G.H. Wood was a prominent jeweler in Lowell, Mass., as evidenced by the ad below from the Jan. 14, 1893 Lowell Daily Courier.
From the "Jeweler's Circular", March 10, 1920. I poked around on Central St. in Lowell, MA, hoping I might get lucky and spot the location, but didn't see it. There are an awful lot of old brick buildings on that street, though.
Edit: Given 20002ist's newspaper ad, and with my article giving about 40 years before 1920, and the sign that says, "Monday July 23rd", that would peg the year at 1883, 1888 or 1894. Though, it sounds like he might have a bigger store in that article than in this picture, so maybe it's 1883 or 1888?
[July 23, 1900, was also a Monday, and might be more in keeping with the light fixtures in the window display. - Dave]
Edit: True, I should have mentioned 1900 as a possibility. It seemed like 7 years after that ad, things would have been more upscale, but it is possible as you say.
Another thought I had is that if one of the gentleman is Millard, then 40 years a jeweler would have possibly made him 20 years old (give or take) in 1880. It's a bit hard to tell, but I would say the tall one is late 20s and the other early 30s. So that would argue for closer to 1890 than 1900. I wonder when electrification came to Lowell.
[Not to mention light bulbs. - Dave]
Edit: Poking through Wikipedia and other sources, Lowell is actually one of the pioneers of hydroelectric power, which fed their industrialization. They were producing power by early-to-mid 1870s. So it's likely they would have been one of the first to get electric lighting, since they already had abundant power generators.
[The answer here, as hinted in the title, is 1900. - Dave]
Edit: Well, the "circa 1900" led me to believe that you didn't actually know the exact date, but if it is labeled as definitively 1900, that makes it interesting that the shop is such a hovel when 7 years earlier they had "goods bought in such quantities, where so many clerks must be employed," etc.
Edit: Just in case anyone else was wondering, electric lights were well established by 1893-1894, as seen in this Edison light bulb price list from 1893 or this 1894 office with electric lights.
How about awarding some of those much coveted 'bonus points' to any commenter who can name the man seen in the barbershop window reading a newspaper?
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