Aerial History In Connecticut

If you want to learn more about Aerial history, I recommend checking out the Connecticut University Library. This one is focused on the aerial history in Connecticut. They have impressive photographs. There are also many great links in Google.

Connecticut University Library - History of Aerial Photography in Connecticut
http://www.cslib.org/AERIALS/Aerialshist.htm

What Do Hot-Air Balloons, Kites, Rockets & Pigeons Have In Common?

The Professional Aerial Photographers Association has an excellent page for the history of aerial photography. It all started in 1855 when the French photographer and balloonist, Gaspar Felix Tournachon, also known as Nadar, patented his idea for using the aerial photographs in map making and surveying. Three years later he took an aerial shot of a French village called Petit-Becetre. He took the shot from a tethered hot air balloon that was 80 meters above the ground. However, this photograph among other early photographs from Nadar didn't survive. Today the only earliest photograph that is still in existence is a James Wallace Black's 1860 image of Boston from a hot-air balloon. When it wasn't necessary to carry heavy equipment anymore, due to advancement of the dry plate process, Triboulet took the first photo from a free flight balloon in 1879 of Paris.

As you continue reading more about the history of aerial photography, you'll read about further methods of the aerial history from the 19th century throughout the 20th century. The other methods were kites, pigeons, rockets and at last the airplanes. The aerial photography was used first for military purposes. After the war, for a successful business purposes and for private use.

The images above were taken by a pigeon. As a matter of fact, you can see the wings on the top left image. The pigeon carry a tiny breast-mounted camera that was developed by Julius Neubranner in 1903. These Bavarian Pigeons use the camera largely for the military use. The birds were introduce at the 1909 Dresden International Photographic Exhibition that also had the birds' popular aerial photos postcards that depicted the aerial shots of the exhibition.

PAPA - History of Aerial Photography
http://www.papainternational.org/history.html

More Skooters At Historical Glen Echo Park

Here is another one. A site called Glen Echo Park - The Bumper Car Pavilion. The historical Echo Park is located in Washington DC by the Potomac. What we are seeing here in this url are photos of the bumper cars and the exterior of the Pavilion from the park's heydays. Most of the pictures are from the first half of the 20th century starting in the 1920s. It doesn't show every decade nor every single year (there are no photos from the 50's and the 70's). The last photos are from the early 1980's. It's not an extensive collection and not all photos show the cars. Some show the exteriors outside the Pavilion. Originally it had a different name. The original name for the pavilion was "The Skooter" to "Dodgem" and Finally to the Bumper Car Pavilion.

Glen Echo Park - The Bumper Car Pavilion
http://www.nps.gov/archive/glec/bcar/index.html

The Dodgems & The Skooters

So far this is the best site that I've been able to find so far about the bumper cars. They are also called skooters (no typo here) and dodgems. Those are the little mini cars that you see in amusement parks. You drive in a small arena where you bump into other cars.

I did see a few other sites, but they usually had one or two old photos and not much information. So this site has the most info and most [old] photos that I could find so far.

Lusse Auto Scooters
http://www.lusseautoscooters.com/

The Way Nurses Used To Be

This site belongs to the Mount Saint Vincent University. They present their online project called "Nursing History Digitization Project - Nursing Education in Nova Scotia".

A short excerpt from the introduction (see Home page) explains the purpose of this project: "This site, which was developed by the Mount Saint Vincent University Archives, explores the history of nursing education in Nova Scotia from 1890, when the Victoria General Hospital established the first nursing school in Nova Scotia, to the late twentieth century. "

If you look at the left column, you'll see that the nursing history project is divided into 8 sub categories. Personally, I liked them all, but mostly the Male Nurses, Racial Exclusion, and the Hospital Based Nursing Programs. A well site.

The images above are called "Graduation Class 1899" (with two male nurses), and "Student Nurses Attending a Class" from the 1940s.

Nursing History Digitization Project
http://www.msvu.ca/library/archives/nhdp/history.htm