On the text at the back of the image it says ( mums handwriting) "Alberdina Balkema, vriendin".
Translated: Alberdina Balkema, friend. ( of Rensktje and / or Abel )
Note, actual photo size is 5 by 8 cm ...
Rensktje Krol born * 23-11-1907
Married to Abel Smilda
Abel Smilda and Rensktje Krol are the parents of my mum Feikje Smilda
Date: 20 may 19.. ?
Photo by:
Foto Steenmeijer
Zwanestraat 47
Groningen
For documentary reasons I left most spots on the photo as original .
Location of the photo-studio is in the city of Groningen It was in this street you are looking into.
The photo-studio was on the left side where now is a yellow painted building with a blue sunscreen carrying the name Style Company. It is the place where this photo was made.
Use the scroll button on the mouse to zoom in.
Click on the cross, right above in the image to view it in full screen.
Use the mouse pointer to navigate. Esc button will bring you back.
PS, My parential home is only 300 meters from the burail place, I could even see it from the backyard and during her burial I was at home, so close to her.
Thank you Nanda, Health is poor, winter-depression combined with low energy. I am resting a lot in bed to preserve energy. My soul tries to glip back in my frame, slowly. Dreams say a lot to me where I am. My psychiatrist is really nuts but I am alive :) Harry
It seems wonderful photo collection antriguas you're putting around here, so dive in the past is one of my favorite hobbies. harry great happiness. kisses
More and more I have the feeling that these images were made and used as a kind of business card. You would go to the photo studio in your best outfit, have the image made and share prints of you with friends and potential employers, to promote yourself and solicit/apply for a job.
-------------------------------------------
Comment by: Jim Loy
Let a history teacher enlighten you.... Early on, in photography, the glass plate negative and even the eary film, was v-eee--rrr---yyy Ssssssllllooooowwwwww to take an image. A person had to sit VERY still for (sometimes a full minute or two) a long time. A smile would look really strange if the person had to hold it for a long time. So a plain, natural face was mandatory... because of the equipment. As the equipment got better, people would smile and look natural..... and then, at THAT moment, the forced smile entered the photographic world. At first it was the equipment... then it was false. Lesson over.
Thanks Jim ! AA for you.
-----------------------------------------------
There is another reason for these youn men and women not to smile. I saw emotions as anger, desinterest, uncertainty.
Typical for the first 2 or 3 decades in the 20th century are poor families with a large number of children. It was before the era of industialisation.
As soon as children finished elementary school, they were sent off to work, starting at the age of 12-14 years. Every penny, cent, guilder was welcome in the parential family to provide food and clothing for all of them.
Employment was mainly available at landowners and farmers. A large farm would provide work for several maids and young men.
Life was as hard as the mentality of the employer. In worst case they would have to work theirs *sses of, they were fed with leftovers and crumbs, had a seat in a cold unheated kitchen in the evening and sleep in the stable or in special rooms for the girls and young ladies.
Work was 6 days a week, only one week off (holiday) in a year and the contract would last from may till may next year. If the landlord did not like the attitude of the worker, or the girls would not respond in a proper way to abuse as e.g. sexual intimidation by the landowners son, the employee was fired in a second.
Servants in aristocracy or city upper class usually got better treatment, some even had diner with the employers family.
Starting 1930's industry provided work for the young ladies and mechanisation took over the work at the farm.
Resources of this section provided by Iris TouchingLove:
-Familieportret. "Huishouden van Oom Jan van Esch". Esch, 1870.
-Vrouwelijk huishoudelijk personeel in Nederland. Bron: wikipedia.org
-‘Dienstboden’ uit het befaamde en meest verkochte boek over de etiquette ‘Hoe hoort het eigenlijk’ uit 1939 van Amy Groskamp-Ten Have.
I was puzzled why these very old images were archived in almost mint condition in a brandnew photo-album. The only traces of wear and tear were caused by the people exchanging the photos back in ~1925. I saw droplets of what probably is nailpolish.
Mum has inherited the photos from her parents. My 2 cents they have been kept in a "shoebox" since 1927. Mum has completed the album. She made notes at the back of each image as if she knew I would find them and publish them. Thanks Mum !
I know the places where the people on the images lived and the where-abouts of the photo studio. I have been crossing their footprints many times during my study in Groningen city.
And I also wondered why they would make a 4 hour journey on a bike in a heatwave or in cold weather or autumn gails to have the photos made, for fun ?
I remember mum told me grandpa ( Abel Smilda ) did make the journey by foot, walking. That would be a 6 hour journey roundtrip ( ~30 km total ).
No, not for fun as we do nowadays, for work and survival ! To find a job and income and food. Guess the story is universal to other places on the world in all times ( children labor 14 hrs a day ).
I realise now it is an unique collection of "business cards" used by the people in the first 3 decades of the 20th century ( ~1910-1925 ). A kind of "LinkedIn" or "Facebook" of old times.
With the start of industrialization and mechanization, the ladies found work in factories, the men in industy and other professions since the work on the fields was mechanised. And thus the era of these "business card" images disappeared. In fact it cannot be reproduced in our times, just simulated.
0 
