One of the joys of working in this library is happening upon the buried treasure in our juicy vertical files. These thousands of files are dedicated to the people and topics of photography, and are amalgamations of hundreds of individual and mass contributions.
Whenever I search for information in the vertical files [“WAY BETTER THAN GOOGLE!” enthused a High School researcher upon discovering them], I look for yellowing clips from newspapers, which I carefully photocopy [for the next generation of researchers].
Today I found this clipping in a file called “Amateur Photography.”
The article, clipped from the New York Times Sunday Nov. 24, 1957 edition, is headlined “Camera Bugs Flit at Japanese Fete: It’s a Heaven for Amateurs as Dancers Chase Demons at Central Park Outing.”
The photo, taken on Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, is of two men performing the Shishimai Lion dance for a group of amateur photographers.
Further serendipity goes to the extra-photographic, though. The clipper could not bear to cut off the one column to the right of the article, which has an article with the title “Anteaters Gather at Luncheon Series,” and relates a report from a Washington DC club of gourmands who eat exotic game…in the National Zoo!
If only the amateur photographers had been invited to that event…
[Deirdre Donohue, Stephanie Shuman Librarian]
Monsters & Madonnas 