Vintage work crew photos

[PJs]

Ran across this physics article this morning and thought I would pass it on here. Saving historical documents is a big deal and a lot of research continues to find new ways to unearth the treasures and cultures of the past through this medium. In this case it's about daguerreotypes (the earliest form of commercial photography ~1830 and quite deadly chemically).

I rabbit hole'd early photography history about 10 years ago and this is a pretty (although quite expensive) big breakthrough. And I thought working at the pixel level was snow blinding but 10 microns requires more than trifocals.

On a side note, historically speaking, the Synchrotron is a derivative of the cyclotron and was graced in the late 60's to get a tour of the Bevetron (billion electron volts) and control room up on the hill at Berkeley, which is a specific type (derivative) of a Synchrotron for proton acceleration in particle physics research. Just one of the electromagnets which I (6'6") could stand up inside was strong enough to kill you when energized. It also had it's own substation to run it so as not to dim the streetlights in Berkeley.

All this just gives some perspective of how far we've come in our workplaces (capturing a moment in time) and technologies (digital photography) and brings full circle, 50 years for me and 188 years of human achievement for humankind...so we can see and learn from the past...Wow! Not my most elegant words but you get the picture...

Here is the short YT clip from the article giving some explanation of seeing into the past with nothing visible in the present...

PJ

[Frank S]

We need more vintage work crew pictures.
Thrashing day 1901 San Juan island North of the Olympics in the Pacific North West.

[Jon]

Sailors on the deck of the French armored steam cruiser Amiral Aube. Date unknown, but the Amiral Aube was in service in the early 1900s and into WWI.

[Frank S]

No Idea what the smith and his 2 helpers are making but there seams to be a lot of interest in it.

[Jon]

Threshing crew. Queensland, Australia, 1899.

[Jon]

The nose of the the USS Akron being attached. The Akron was a helium airship with a frame of Duralumin. In operation in the early 1930s, she went down in a thunderstorm, killing 73 of 76 crewmen and passengers.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...p_fullsize.jpg

[Frank S]

When ever anyone talks about airships often the first thought that comes to peoples minds will be the fiery explosion of the Hindenburg. Ask them any thing about American or British airships and all you will receive is a blanks stare, or they may say oh yeah the Goodyear blimp. Ask them about the Akron the Macon or the R101, R38 the Deutschland, Deutschland II, Schwaben and you get nothing. Ask if they know which was America's America's first rigid dirigible and what happened to it
The Shenandoah, while not being the most devastating crash in history in terms of loss of life it is possible that only the space shuttle Challenger had a larger land area crash site

[mklotz]

Anyone who has read Nevil Shute's autobiography, Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer, will know about the R101 and the dangers of letting schedules dictate the launch of new technology, airship or spaceship, i.e., Challenger.

[Jon]

16"/45 (40.6 cm) gun being gauged following a boring operation. 1942.



More: United Kingdom / Britain 16"/45 (40.6 cm) Marks II, III and IV - NavWeaps

[olderdan]

I really like these vintage work crew archives, this one reminds me of 1959 when I started my apprenticeship at Vickers Armstrong, I actually started in 1958 aged 15 so had to wait a year serving as a post boy until I was 16. That was a fantastic experience as I would visit every Dept on a daily basis and got to see all aspects of manufacturing, they did a lot of MOD work, ships guns etc and the place was full of shops just like this one. I got friendly with a lot of machinists and you soon learnt which ones to go to who had cigarettes and chock bars for sale from their lockers.
Happy days.