Digital

I have been back into the digital image files of the University of Washington Library again. I keep hoping that I might find an image that would show great grandfather Fifer’s place of business. No luck so far, but I’m getting a real sense of what it might have felt like to be living in Seattle in the first part of the 20th century.

This research has made me realize that our great grandchildren will have a different problem when they decide to look for a digitized piece of recent history; there will be far too much available! How will they decide which is valuable and which is not? The images in the archives of the library number in the thousands while I have that many on my hard drive. But which ones reveal our “real” life?

This one is recent? Only a month older than I am. (Cable car at Yesler and Third. August of 1940)

Coal being delivered to heat your house...1918, and mom was a 3 year old toddler.


And I was recently standing on this same corner while my daughter was shopping for a t-shirt in a nearby store. (behind me) This photo was taken in 1919