urban remains, bldg. 51 museum, eric j. nordstrom photography and chicago workers cottage association
while looking through images of salvages in 2016, i found a few of a discovery made in a 19th century workers cottage on evergreen. if i recall correctly, several 19th century calling cards fell to the floor shortly after i extracted a newel from its landing. to this day i can only speculate as to why the cards were stuffed deep inside the box-shaped oak wood newel. i spent days researching the names and businesses found on the cards. i wanted to do an exhibit with the newel and calling cards in the middle of a gallery (as found), surrounded by any and all existing images (blown-up) of the businesses and/or people found on the cards. the images on the wall would represent the surrounding neighborhood with the cottage (in the form of newel and cards) in the center. a little corny i suppose.
I was removing some paneling in an older highrise once, the paneling was not original, and on the plaster underneath was a cartoon profile in pencil of a man with "Cigarette Joe 1912" scribbled next to it. I have a photo of that somewhere.
How cool! Did the calling cards stay intact after exposure?
What an interesting find. Wonder if there had been a container for calling cards near here.
One I have heard is to place a penny of the year of completion below front door threshold.
An elderly carpenter in New York once told me that tradesmen in the past liked leaving clues about their presence on a job. They would hide them to be found during repair work in the far future. Perhaps there is a link between the cards and builder of the stair.
Cool idea for an exhibit!
Sounds like a cool exhibit to me. Congratulations on an amazing find.
I recently heard that sometimes the house construction drawings were placed inside the newel post of the home. Have you come across this in any of your explorations? Thank you!
Networker * Relationship Builder * the Crane Lady
5yI'd love to see such a display!!