My grandmother always had one around her neck with her traveling suit and hat and those thicker higher heeled shoes when she got off the train from St.Louis every year (from Niagara Falls) when she came to visit for about 6 weeks each year. We met the train as she got off, and I could recognize her from her outfit right away. I liked to sit in the back seat going to our house, opening and closing the "mouth." This was through the 1950s. She always had licorice drops in her "reticule." She was lots of fun.

Known as the"Father of foreign photographic news" George Grantham Bain, is, I suspect, little remembered today (tho his namesake gets 1,732 mentions in Newspapers.com ... 1,731 more than most of us can hope for). As for this specific (non-foreign and not really news) photo: some fashions from the past have aged better than others.

[Departures out of New York Harbor to Europe and arrivals there from the Continent were most definitely news, with thousands of shipboard photos in the Bain News Service archive chronicling the trans-Atlantic travels of various social notables. - Dave]

I interpreted the caption to mean this was a post-graduation harbor excursion, but yes, a European voyage makes more sense: "chaperones" seem out of place for a day trip. -N

As I've said before several times, Dave, these are my very favorite Shorpy photos (whether they are men OR women OR both!). I so wish I knew of the lives of each of them because that is most fascinating to me -- especially the Gunston Girls from 1905 and the Bensonhurst Lifeguard from 1908.

Thank you for my daily Shorpy fix, Dave!!!

I never knew rotting skulls were fashionable.

We had company, and the lady had a coat with an animal for the collar. Her husband was a bit of a prankster and put his hand under the coat. At 5 years old I went over to see the critter and he jumped the coat at me I about wet my pants. I hated that idiot the rest of my life.

I looked up "waist corsage" online, but every link took me to wrist corsages. In any case, just the accessory for sailing in your fur coat, big-brimmed hat, and the open air.

[A bouquet fastened about the waist is, in Victorian parlance, a nosegay. - Dave]

Once again, Shorpy sends me online, to the Oxford English Dictionary. 'Nosegay' was a general term for a bunch of flowers, often with emphasis on scent. They could be carried or attached more or less anywhere on the person. (It is odd, however, to think of the association of 'nose' with the waistline.)