Proceedings of the Society for the Preservation of Everyday Ephemera and Detritus (S.P.E.E.D.) Vol. 1

From time to time, I'll be sharing photographs and cultural artifacts I've found at various antique stores. There's something pretty melancholy about going through pictures that have ended up in unsorted boxes at antique shops. At one point, the moment in the picture felt important enough to someone that they wanted to capture it forever. At some time between then and now, though, the person who cared stopped caring, either through the circumstances of passing time or death. (This, of course, omits situations in which the person lost the photograph, which I'm sure is the case for some pictures.) The vast majority of the pictures in most stores I've been to consist of portrait photographs from the first half of the last century. Although still interesting, those are not what I'll be (mainly) focusing on in these posts. Rather, I'll be sharing pictures that capture moments of day-to-day life, hence the title of this post. The mission of S.P.E.E.D. (the Society for the Preservation of Everyday Ephemera and Detritus) is to seek out and share otherwise forgotten cultural memories, predominantly in the form of photos and trinkets. I find these sorts of things incredibly meaningful, and I hope they make you think about how you engage with your day-to-day, too. I also have a plan to use some of these photos in an upcoming creative project. More on that later. In the meanwhile, here are the first nine pictures in this ongoing series.

The photographs below were purchased at Main Street Antiques in Woodland, CA. I've included dates and rear captions when applicable, save when the captions provide identifying information. (Believe it or not, I've already located people from two of the pictures presented below.)

1.1 Unknown Date
Rear Caption: "Jennifer's Datsun car leaving [illegible] for Santa Barbara"

1.2 Unknown Date
Rear Caption: "Sorry I don't have a better picture, but the one in the middle is me. (Clara)"

1.3 Unknown Date
Rear Caption: "Thanks for being you! I love you so and I just hope that someday I can mean as much to someone as you do to me. Loving you always, Barbara"

1.4 Unknown Date
No Rear Caption

1.5 Unknown Date
Rear Caption: "Miranda S*******"

1.6 Unknown Date
No Rear Caption

1.7 Unknown Date
No Rear Caption

1.8 June 1970
Rear Caption: "Bruce + Susan T***** June 14, 1970"

1.9 November 1968
Rear Caption: "George is really not unhappy here. The sun was making him scowl and I had him turn but I should have waited to take the picture and I should have had more film with me. George, Susan, Jim, Janice"