1959 El Camino

Today's installment on recently viewed cars of the past features a 1959 Chevrolet El Camino.

The El Camino was Chevy's effort to combine the pickup truck with the coup.  The result was a light pickup truck that really wasn't very suitable for much, but which had a certain appearance that people either love or hate to this day.

The El Caminio followed a prior mid 1950s Chevrolet pickup truck that was specifically aimed at an urban market.  That model, based on its standard pickup, had some sedan features that Chevy incorporated in the hopes of breaking into the suburban market, and in fact it was called the Suburban Carrier.  The El Camino followed and was sold first in 1959, with various models lasting all the way to 1987.  By that time it had evolved from a really sporty looking car/truck to a fairly pedestrian looking late 80s sedan/truck and, by that time, the plethora of trucks in the urban market, including light duty Japanese trucks, rendered it pointless.

Which is to assume it ever had a point in the first place.

But maybe it did.

Pickup trucks entered the American market really early and in fact there were pickup truck conversions for Model T body's available as early as 1913.  Dodge introduced a factor built pickup in 1924 and Ford followed in 1925.  While early pickups were on car frames, with car suspensions, the heavy duty nature of cars at the time made them pretty suitable for such conversions.  By the 1930s, however, with improvements in roads, pickups were departing company with automobiles in significant ways.  While postwar automobiles remains more suitable for dirt roads than any car made today, the direction was very clear and by the 1960s car suspensions were low and no longer really suitable for double duty, rural and urban.

Not that the El Camino really was either, but pickups of the 1940s and 1950s were definitely rather stout vehicles.  In the rural West there were plenty of people who used a pickup as their primary daily driver, almost all of which were two wheel drives, but Chevrolet was on to the need for an urban carrier.

El Caminio's filled a notch that nothing else really did, but they were a vehicle of mixed success.  It really took the introduction of Chevrolet's sleek styled pickup in 1968 to begin the move towards urban popularity of pickup trucks.  Dodge followed suit in 1972 when it remodeled its D Series trucks along similar lines.  Ford had started towards a sleeker line of truck, which still remained a work styling, in the 1960s, but followed suit with a major restyling in 1987.

Ford in some ways ultimately won this contest. . . for the time being, with the Ford F Series trucks absolutely dominating the market for the most part.  Ironically, however, Dodge's 1994 turn from this style of truck to a more rugged appearing body style brought beefy back into the truck market and secured, at least for the time being, Chrysler as the heavy truck king, a position it had held from the end of World War Two until at least the early 70s due to its wartime Power Wagon series of truck.  Everyone else has followed since then except that Ford and Chevrolet both make light duty trucks that are more car like, but still trucks.

Whatever else the world may have needed. . . .

yet another Godzilla movie definitely wasn't it.

May 31, 1919. Villa Resurgent, NC4 Victorious, the Indianapolis 500 Resumed.

On this day in 1919, Pancho Villa was fully in the headlines once again, if at the bottom of the page.

The U.S. had pulled out of Mexico in early 1917, at which time Villa was clearly on the rebound.  Just a few months earlier it appeared that U.S. forces might run him to ground in Mexico, and he himself had been recovering from wounds.  After that, things hadn't gone so well for the U.S. expedition.

Now things weren't gong that well for Carranza, who in early 1917 was close to committing to action against the U.S.  Now he was fully back in action against Villa, although Zapata was no longer a concern due to his assassination earlier this year.

In other news, the NC4 made it to Plymouth England. And in other things mechanical, the seventh Indianapolis 500 resumed after a hiatus due to World War One.  It featured extreme hazards, as the headline made plain.

Blog Mirror: Friday Farming. 2019 Branding

2019 Branding

2019 Branding

Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago; Percentage of U.S. Household Expenditures Spent on Food, 1919 and 2019

Interior of the first Piggly Wiggly.  Piggly Wiggly was the first modern grocery store.  They opened in 1916.

Once again, and excellent and illuminating post on A Hundred Years Ago.

Percentage of U.S. Household Expenditures Spent on Food, 1919 and 2019

Our concept on how average people lived and how average incomes, let alone the incomes of the poor and the wealthy, worked in prior eras is quite skewed. As we've noted here before, for instance, the middle class of a century ago lived much closer to the poverty line than the middle class of today, which in fact tends to be statistically skewed in the other direction. 

Average expenditures, for average people, were a bigger burden in the past then they are now.  Automobiles, for example, cost a massive amount, and lasted for only a short time, in relative terms.  Housing was also quite expensive.

And food consumed a very large percentage of the income of the poor and the middle class.

The statistics shown on the linked in page speak for themselves, but suffice it to say, 40% of a budget going towards food alone, as it did for the poor of 1919, is a shocking statistic.  In comparison, today that percentage is down to less than what it was, as a percentage of household income, for the wealthy of 1919.  For all classes the percentage of income has dropped at least in half.

American plow at work in Serbia, 1919.

Now there are a lot of factors playing into this, and a person can not point to any one thing.  For one thing, in the wealthy class, wealth likely is "more wealthy", if that makes sense, than it was in 1919.  Given that those who are wealthy include those who are higher up on the wealth scale, the percentage of their income they spend on food would necessarily decrease.  Put another way, the more people there are who are super wealthy, if you will, the lower this figure would have to be.  This is not to say that there were not people who were wealthy in 1919, but rather, no matter what we might think, there are a lot more people who are quite wealthy now than then.

Employee of a Department of Agriculture farm, 1919.  This man's clothing is, fwiw, entirely made up of surplus Army clothing.

But another factor is the "cheap food" policy of the US, something that came in, in an indistinct way, in the 1930s and became official U.S. policy in the 1950s.

Most Americans aren't even aware there is a "cheap food policy", but there is or was or sort of is. The degree to which there is, is debated. But there certainly was from the 50s through the 70s, and much of what was institutionalized there remains to some degree.  In that era the U.S. encouraged "fence to fence" planting (it no longer does) and sponsored programs that encouraged farm consolidation and efficient agriculture.  It also subsidized some aspects of agriculture, dairy being the most notable example.

This drove down the cost of food, but it also had a lot of collateral impacts which aren't necessarily good.  How sustainable it actually is long term has been questioned, as has its industrialized nature.  The local food movement and a whole host of related movements is, to a degree, a reaction to it.  It's not hard to find critics of the movement on an economic basis, but you can also find numerous critics of it who base their criticism on social and environmental grounds, some of whom are quite extreme.  It certainly has greatly diminished, and indeed frankly destroyed, the agrarian nature of American agriculture that still existed in some areas, particularly in the American South, as late as the 1950s.

Which circles us back around to 1919.

1919 was the lat year in American history in which farmers had economic parity with urban dwellers.  Now, in context, that means something other than it might sound like.  It's completely true that from 1914 through 1919 farm incomes dramatically rose, principally due to World War One.  Indeed, lots of people entered farming in the war who had no experience with it whatsoever, an event which contributed to the collapse of the farm economy after the war and which additionally contributed to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.  But what this also tells us is that the common claims that "everyone ate better", or that "everyone ate better as they had a garden" are pretty questionable. There's some truth in that, but there are large areas of that claim that are off the mark.  Tenement dwellers in New York's numerous poor neighborhoods, for example, probably didn't eat better.

Anyway you look at it, everyone was paying more for food.

Checking teeth of a ewe on a government farm, 1919.  Based upon his dress, this individual was likely a very recently discharged soldier.

May 30, 1919. This Was Memorial Day

Casper's newspaper for May 30, 1919 featured Memorial Day themes, but they were Civil War oriented.  A celebration that had been planned for Casper was postponed.  New wars remained on the front page of the paper.

I've touched on Memorial Day here plenty of times before. As noted in those prior posts, May 30 was originally Memorial Day, so the day fell more often than not a a day other than a Monday.  In 1919, it fell on a Friday, giving people the three day weekend we're accustomed to.

Memorial Day Commemoration in France.

The day was a poignant one for Americans with fresh memories of the recent war dominating the day.

President Wilson delivering an address at a cemetery in France.

The recent war of course dominated in the minds of servicemen who were still serving overseas, as made plane by their newspaper, The Stars and Stripes.

The entire May 30, 1919, Paris edition of the Stars and Stripes, which was heavily focused on Memorial Day. Some of the news, and some of the advertisements are a bit of a shock to read a 100 years later.

Everywhere in the U.S. the day was being noted in some fashion.

 The Cheyenne Leader had a variety of news on the front page, including an auto race in Cheyenne, and a resurgent Villa in Mexico.

Even with the war news, however, the front pages were returning to news that was less war oriented, even though the official peace was yet to come.

That included the Lusk Standard, which featured the recent Lusk businessman, Lusk schoolgirl, scandal on its front page.

May 29, 1919. It's all relative

On this day in 1919 Woodrow Wilson, showing that he did indeed learn from history, did what he should have done back in 1916 and denied permission to Carranza to transport Mexican troops across American soil so that they could go into action against Pancho Villa.

That failure in 1915 had lead to Villa's cross border raid into the U.S. on March 9, 1916, which in turn launched the U.S. into its expedition into Mexico. That expedition failed to run Villa to ground, although for a time it looked like he'd been essentially defeated.  It nearly brought the U.S. and Carranza's government into war with each other, as while Carranza was dedicated to Villa's defeat, he also couldn't stand the through of Americans in arms on Mexican soil and he basically detested the American government in general.

None of which kept him from asking him to repeat the practice and bring troops by rail into the area near Juarez so that they could be ready to engage a resurgent Villa. This time Wilson refused.

A long solar eclipse lasting over six minutes occurred in the Southern Hemisphere.  It was the longest solar eclipse since May 27, 1416.  A longer one would occur on June 8, 1937.

This event was significant in that Astronomers were able to detect the bending of light from stars during the event, confirming Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

Does anyone here drive one of the old gassers daily?

You know, the ones that were made for leaded fuel?

1971 GMC Pickup, made just before unleaded started to come in.

I've had a lot of such vehicles over the years but in thinking about it the last one I used as a daily driver, made in 1973, I sold around 1996, just before unleaded really disappeared.  I have a vehicle , an old work truck, that takes unleaded, but I don't drive it very much.

I've read various things about whether unleaded is really that necessary for these vehicles or not.  Some say that after some date in the late 1960s it isn't. Some say it is.

Anyone who stops in here have any practical experience?

Flatbed

I don't know much about this one, other than it must be from the 1930s.

On these old flatbeds of 1 ton or greater size, I'm often impressed by how massive they were. They had very low horsepower, but fairly high torque, and were huge.

May 28, 1919. Russian POWs, Stargard Germany.

Prisoners of War were not immediately repatriated after World War One.

The Allies generally repatriated their men held in Germany within a month or so, while they themselves held on to German prisoners into 1920. While that sounds cruel, in fact Germany was aflame and returning discharged German soldiers to what was already a state of slow revolution involving discharged servicemen would have not been wise, nor would it have been particularly kind to the POWs, who were at least housed and fed.

An exception for Allied POWs was that of Russian POWs.  I don't know what became of them, but they continued to be housed in Germany following the end of the war.  The country that had sent them into war no longer existed in the form it had.  Imperial Russia was gone.  Men like this probably had no strong desire to fight for the Whites or the Reds but that would have been their fate had they been immediately repatriated.  Neither Germany nor the Allies wanted them in Red arms, and there was no way to guarantee that they'd end up as loyal combatants for the Whites.

Lost. How is this even possible?

Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii

From a recent news story.

WAILUKU, Hawaii (AP) — A Hawaii woman who was found alive in a forest on Maui island after going missing more than two weeks ago said she at times struggled not to give up.

Amanda Eller told the New York Times that despite these moments, she told herself "the only option I had was life or death."

"I heard this voice that said, 'If you want to live, keep going.' And as soon as I would doubt my intuition and try to go another way than where it was telling me, something would stop me, a branch would fall on me, I'd stub my toe, or I'd trip," said Eller, 35, a physical therapist and yoga instructor. "So I was like, 'OK, there is only one way to go.' "

The Hana Highway on the wilder side of Maui.

Now a disclaimer.

I've never been lost.

Never.

I've spent a lot of time in the sticks and in the woods by myself and not once in my life have I been lost.

For that matter, I've spent a lot of time in big cities all over and I've never been lost in them.

I'm not exactly a globetrotter, but in my time on the ground in three countries (including the US, of course) on two continents, I've never been lost.

So perhaps I simply don't appreciate this.

But I've been to Maui, and I just can't begin to grasp how a person could possibly get lost on Maui.

Yes, there's some wild areas, sort of, on Maui, but come on.  All water flows downhill and its wet.  Walk downhill anywhere in Maui and you end on on a beach.  It's frankly not all that big.

I can see how you could get injured. There are rugged lands.  You could trip and break a leg, a real danger in hiking by yourself.  You could fail to appreciate the nature of volcanic terrain and take a bad fall and be killed.

But lost?

That's only possible as we've become so acclimated to our manufactured cubicle world that we're really clueless.

1934 Austin American

I put up a photograph of a Ford Model T yesterday and commented on how small they were.  And they were small.

We are used to American cars prior to the mid 1970s being just gigantic. They didn't start off that way, although they had acquired considerably bulk by the late 1930s.  Even at that, it's worth remembering that there was the odd exception to the rule.  Here's one.

The Austin Car Company was a company that was founded in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression, and which went out of business in 1956, which was at the height of the dominance of the giant American automobile.  It was always an odd exception to the rule.

Austin was the American expression of a British company, and it made small cars.  It was the company that introduced the Jeep, but after making over 2000 of them, it lost out to Willys and Ford for the Willys variety.  That was because it lacked production capacity to really put its Jeep, which was lighter, but less powerful, into the level of production the U.S. required.  Their Jeeps did see action in World War Two, but mostly in Soviet and British hands. 

This 1934 example is a real classic example in fine shape.  This car would have competed with the Model A, which was considerably larger.

The Tragic Tryst of Blinn and Sayer, and the laws of 1919 and 2019.

Yesterday I ran an item from the Casper newspaper featuring the story of a young girl (18) who ran off with a 33 year old Lusk businessman. The man, age 33, was married and had six children. That items is here:

May 26, 1919. Monday scenes.

Treaty news still dominated, but other events were creeping in, including disaster and adventure.

As well as misbehavior and lust.  A Lusk businessman had departed that town with an 18 year old girl, still in school, and abandoned his wife and six children. The shamed couple had relocated to Venice California, where they'd opened a "root beer concession".

The youthful participant in the illicit tryst admitted she had "loved unwisely".  She was now with child.

I didn't go into it beyond that, but perhaps I should have. That story tells us a lot.  About then and now, but perhaps beyond that.

Okay,t he story itself.

Earl Blinn, a man with a business in Lusk, married and father of six, sold his business and drove to Salt Lake.  Bessie Sayer, of a well to do family, followed by train, as was prearranged, and met Blinn in Salt Lake. From there they traveled on to California. 

Based upon the story we know that they must have left weeks if not a couple of months prior, and more likely that. We also know that Sayer must have been 17 years old at the time as there's a suggestion that the Mann Act might be invoked, although that's not entirely clear.

Blinn had been arrested on charges of deserting his family.  It was expected that more serious charges were yet to come.

So would all that happen now?  And if not, should it?

To start with, a lot matters about Sayer's age. If she was 17 years old, the Mann Act would still come into play and indeed Blinn could be charged, and probably would be, with some variety of sexual assault.  That latter charge would have been highly likely in 1919 as well.  "Statutory Rape" is the common term for that offense. 

The Mann Act itself makes it a Federal crime to transport a "woman or a girl" across state lines for prostitution or "debauchery".

That's relevant here as Blinn would could potentially still have been charged with a violation of the Mann Act even if Sayer was 18.

And that's quite different from now.

In 1919, and for at least two decades there after, it was generally illegal to cohabitate in Wyoming without being married, and that was also the case for other states.  Some states addressed this through common law marriage, but in no state then, as now, could a person be married to more than one spouse and there was no such thing then, as now, as common law polygamy.

So Blinn could have found himself facing Federal criminal charges now matter what.

Blinn was charged in 1919 under state law with abandoning his family.  That's not a crime now.  Indeed, if she was 18, nothing in what we see here is now illegal at all.   You could do all of it, consequences don't matter.

And those consequences are quite real.  Mrs. Blinn was left with six children in Lusk after her husband sold his business and took up with the youthful Miss Sayer. Sayer was playing the "unwise love" card, but truth be known, she'd done a terrible injustice to Mrs. Blinn.  In 2019, that would play itself out in court and Mr. Blinn would end up with a divorce decree that split their property and he'd also end up paying child support.  If things work as they so often do, he'd frequently fail to pay it and there'd be little that could be done about.

In 1919, he stood a good chance of going to jail.  Not that this would address Mrs. Blinn's financial distress.

The Blinn's were highly likely to get a divorce as there certainly was fault here, an element of that action at that time.  No Fault divorce didn't exist.  Chances are high that Mr. Blinn would find himself paying alimony in 1919, something that's uncommon here in 2019.  His support obligations would go on.

Chances are good two that Miss Sayer would face a legal action from Mrs. Blinn in 1919.  Sayer committed a tort called Criminal Conversation as well as the tort of Alienation of Affection.  The newspaper article reminds us that Sayer was from a "well to do" family, and she may have had some resources.  So her troubles may very well have not ended.

Indeed, in practical terms, they were far from over.  Sayer was pregnant and going to end up having a baby in an era when out of wedlock children, let alone ones that were the product of adulteress affairs, resulted in scandal.

So what's the best result, that of 1919 or 2019? 

It's certainly the case that in 1919 the law backed marriage up and in fact required it in certain ways.  The divorce rate was low, and fault was required for divorce.  Children born in to the circumstance of that which was about to be that of the seventh Blinn child were much lower.   The law may appear to have been harsh in some ways, but were the results less harsh?

May 27, 1919: The Peace Conference waits on the Germans, Wyoming troops wait on discharge, Tragedy in Casper.

David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson in Paris, May 27, 1919.  Of interest, only Orlando wears the Edwardian suit, a somewhat less formal alternative to formal dress clothes. Everyone else were's morning coats, which were not i the nature of tuxedos today, but conventional formal wear.

The peace conference continued on with the question still being, would Germany sign, or not?

The Wyoming State Tribune was reporting that British and American Marines had been landed, as a result of the uncertainty, in Danzig.  I've never read that claim before and I frankly wonder if its correct.

In the same issue, a building story about the perception that troops from the West were not being mustered out as quickly as those from elsewhere was reported on.

And the news that the NC-4 had nearly made it to Portugal was featured.

It was also featured in the Casper paper, which also had the story about Western troops. The big news in Casper, however, was a tragic explosion near town.

It wasn't Memorial Day, like it is now, but the weather was certainly more holiday like.  Casper was enjoying a warm spell in 1919.  It isn't now.

 Seattle, May 27, 1919.

Seattle Washington was photographed.

They were so small. Model T Doctor's Coupe

I don't know the year, but this is a Model T Doctor's Coup.  The Colorado license plate features the year 1926, and it would be a fair guess that 1926 was the year of manufacture for this example.

Odd to think of.  In an era when families were larger than today's, this was a really small car.

The Doctor's Coup was called that as it was thought they were suitable replacement's for the Doctor's Buggy, a type of horse drawn buggy that was called that as physician's favored them for house calls.  they were not particular large either, so perhaps the marketing made sense.

The Model T operated in a somewhat different fashion from a modern automobile so you actually have to be taught to drive them specifically.  The reverse, for example, is not identical to a modern standard transmission.