I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO GIVE YOU for the holidays, and so I went window-shopping up and down the aisles of the internet, where suddenly I found just the right thing: the uplifting images by “the camera man” Leslie Jones, from the Boston Public Library’s massive collection. Consider this slideshow my holiday card to you.
Jones (1886-1967), who modestly called himself “the camera man,” worked for “The Boston Herald-Traveler” newspaper from 1917-1956, creating a photographic history of Boston—both the mundane and magical—that now seems to transcend any specific place. The Leslie Jones Collection of about 34,000 photographic plates lives on the 5th floor of the Boston Public Library. Read more about the treasure trove, which was donated by Jones’s family in the early 1970s.
The Slideshow
Click on the first thumbnail to start the show, then toggle from slide to slide using the arrow keys on your computer or the arrows beside each caption. May your holiday season be filled with soaring joys. May the preposterous come true as it does in these images selected from Jones’s legacy.
Browse the Vast Collections
- The Boston Public Library Flickr photo stream
- The Leslie Jones Collection website and its Flickr stream
- The Boston Public Library website
All photos Copyright © Leslie Jones. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.
More, More, More
Still hungry for more? Remember the slideshow I did of botanical Louis Prang chromolithographs from the BPL collection? Or the Edward S. Curtis photos of Quentin Roosevelt, youngest son on President Theodore? Or the story of little-known Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier? Enjoy. (It’s OK to stray from horticulture this week, I think, isn’t it?)
Your blog is a gift to me every day!
Merry Christmas dear Margaret! All the best for 2012.
Happy holidays to you Margaret! And may 2012 be filled with all the possible, preposterous opportunities we can conjure up.
Thank you, Margaret, for another season of interesting and enlightening posts. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Thanks for sharing all your wonderful gardening tips, pictures and recipes (your baked beans is our Christmas dinner :)
Great pictures – thanks for the link. I often wish you had a “like” button, because I enjoy your words and any I add seem superfluous. As we’re near the end of the year, I’m putting some down now to thank you for your wonderful writings and pictures and positivity. I look forward to reading your thoughtful blog in 2012. May your holidays be peaceful, and your new year be the best yet.
You bring smiles and solutions and great wit to those of us who love to garden. You are a gift.
thank you Margaret for your gift and most of all for being an inspiration to us the rest of the year.
Thank you too, and Merry Christmas and a healthy, Happy New Year.
.A wonderful gift you have given us this cold winter morning. Happy Holidays, Margaret!
Thank you and hello to Carol and Carole — and all of you! Fun to look at old photos together and free-associate and dream as the year winds down. Noel!
Merry Christmas and have a happy, healthy new year!
Merry Christmas to you too Margaret! Thank you for sending great gardening gifts our way every day. Here’s wishing for preposterous events for you too!!
Margaret: Thank you for sharing your blog with us. May you and your kitty have wonderful holiday season.
Have a great day,
John
Merry Christmas and thank you for another wonderful year of blog posts. Yours is always the first I check every day, and if there’s not a new post, I sometimes enjoy linking through some of the older ones. Here’s hoping your season is bright and that your new book is in the bag, or close to it!
Hoping you & Jack have a joyous Christmas & a prosperous 2012. ps…when is the new manuscript coming out?
Thank you so much for these delightful pics, Margaret!! I can always count on you. I am wishing you a year of peace and enchantment AND of course, SOARING JOY!!!
Love,
Charlotte
Thank you, Margaret, for the visual cookies. Wishing you and Jack a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2012!
Love,
Nancy
Amazing photos..we have come so far…great fun to look back so we can move forward…Thank you..
—thank you Margaret—right back at cha!!! I bet all of our hopes are for a happy, healthy New Year and tha’ts what I wish for you!!!!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks very much for a wonderful year! All the
best to you and yours’ in 2012!
Thank you thank you thank you!
This made me smile and laugh! The photo of the snowy pigeon Santa just took my breath, amazing.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
What a delightful post! As I’ve learned to expect from you – thoughtful, delightful and slightly wacky! Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Margaret! I love looking at old photographs so I love the slideshow. Thanks so much for sharing and hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Blessed New Year! :)
Hi to Phyllis, Dawn, and all the latest contributors here. I feel vindicated that my photo-hunting wasn’ t pur procrastination about my book manuscript that’s due soon. :)
You made my day!!! Thanks for all your efforts to bring us so many things outside the box while you teach, teach, teach. May the new year bring you the best of everything.
As usual, a visit with Margaret made me smile. Merry Christmas! Re: your manuscript… I’ll bet you work well under pressure. ; )
Margaret,
Wishing you health, wealth (both the material and non-material kind), and much happiness in 2012.
Thank-You for the true blessing that you are and for bringing much needed light and laughter into our lives.
Merry Christmas to you too! It was a joy seeing all those wonderful images. Thank you
Wishing you joy and happiness in the coming year:)
Merry Christmas, Margaret, and best wishes for the new year! Finish that book so we can read it! ;-)
Have a glorious holiday and new year. Thank you for the wealth of knowledge, images and humor that you share with all of us.
Love the santa with the pigeons!!
Have a great holiday!
Ha ve a wonderful Christmas
Margaret Roach
How do I thank you for your blog that enriches my life every day !
Many blessing and many more plants for 2012
Linda Smith
Happy, happy, Linda, Dorothy and Diantha — than you for your sweet wished for the holiday season.
MERRY CHRISTMAS MARGARET AND HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Ah! Margaret your wondrous mind! I haven’t opened my e mail in days still swearing this is my last season in retail. When I did today it was my wish that there would be a new one from you. What a joy! One I will share. Thank you! It’s so good to be a part of your world. That all you give return to you twenty fold! Looking forward to yhe New Year. Good health to you and yours! My best, Daisy.
Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year! I’m snuggling on the couch with your book today (knit, read, knit, read some more…) my darling husband bought it from you for me for Christmas. I thanked him and now I thank you…
Karen
How sweet of you to come say hello, Karen. Thank you (and thanks to your husband as well!). Enjoy it. See you soon again, I hope.
Merry Christmas to you as well Margaret! Thank you for sharing this fascinating gentleman’s legacy with us!
Margaret, thank you so much for the wonderful, giddy images! Just before opening your e mail I was looking back through my journal and listing the most impressive and moving books I read in 2011. And I Shall Have Some Peace There heads the list.
Thank you once more for all you give to us, and may your new year be filled with all the things you so richly deserve!
Oh, Nancy, you can be my new best friend. :) That is a very nice comment to mark the close of a very hectic and crazy year, thank you. How very kind. (Selfishly I ask: Go tell Amazon with a “review” that you love the book!)
I LOVED this! Thank you, Margaret, for a wonderful year of all-things-gardening and for the hope and joy in this post today. Happy new year!