This is great! With better-maintained boat houses, a big wide dock with picnic tables and-of course-modern fashions, this could easily be any of the present-day "rustic" fish camps up and down the St. Johns River and lots of other places in Florida. All you need to fill the shot are some egrets and herons and a manatee floating by.

What always strikes me about pictures of this era is how white the whites are. These bonnets practically glow! Even when photographed in the woods, on a train, at the beach, etc., these ladies all looked immaculate. Testimony (I guess) to lots of boiling water and scrubbing. I can't make it from my house to my car in white pants without having to turn around and change. Yipes.

The comment by "Walt Kelly" isn't too far from the truth, with a cast of characters suitable for lampooning. Substitute 'flat' for 'glass' bottom boat (where it was invented), consider that Tarzan made an appearance, and how the story goes that a scenic boat promoter in the 30's let monkeys loose on an island not knowing they could swim, leading to roving bands of them along the river to this day.

I love those ancestral sun bonnets that add to the peaceful look of the women in this picture. The only place we get to see one today, is occasionally, on a baby in a pram.

Something always puzzles me about these things. Florida is so hot and humid almost year round yet in the old photos people are always dressed so hot.. I break out in a sweat just looking at this one ... did they not perspire?

[Florida was a winter resort -- not many people went in the summer. As someone who was born in Miami and grew up in Florida, I can assure you that it's not "hot and humid almost year round." - Dave]

Now there's your nightmare.

Is looking really hard for a glimpse of wrist!

Well, at least the hats don't look silly. You could hide cannonballs under those things.

Looks like the lady on the left has more than just her bonnet to keep her afloat unless that's just the wind.

One of those ladies might be Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, searching out her muse.

For a comic strip set in a funny-named swamp with animals getting into hilarious situations, topical satire, and flat bottom boats bearing different names.

That character in the background sitting on the canopy (?) of that boat (??) looks like he might have jumped straight out of a Toonerville Trolley cartoon.

And I agree with Slump; this picture has a curious dream-like perspective to it. It's as if the figure in the background is the actual subject of the shot and the ladies in the boat just happened to be there. He seems to be posing for the picture too as if he knew he was the focal point.

My take on it is David Wark Griffth filming Lilian Gish in her prime.

If that movie was made by David Lynch.

And this photo has the makings of a very odd nightmare.