To celebrate the Spring season, here are some fun photos from around 1900 showing the well-dressed Pierson family in Hopewell. Perhaps these are not Easter bonnets, but these folks clearly are having fun with being dressed up, and do have some fine looking headgear.
It’s also interesting to see how unconcerned these folks were about the backgrounds of the photos. They are posing near their home at Blackwood Avenue and Railroad Place in Hopewell, on dirt streets, with railroad cars and factory buildings (and associated equipment) behind them – and not thinking at all about how the heads and figures in the photos interact with the scenes behind them.
“For In your Easter Bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.” …“On the avenue, fifth avenue, the photographers will snap us,
“Easter Parade” (1933) by Irving Berlin
And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.”
Thanks again to Bob Gantz for these photos, and the identifications.
See the previous post on Fletcher’s Castoria advertising by the train station for more photos from this collection.
We welcome additional materials like these to share, especially for other areas around the Hopewell Valley.
