Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

This exhibition features publicity images of actors and performers in the 1910's and 1920's.

Wherever these performers graced the English, Yiddish, or German language stages throughout the United States, Eastern Europe, and Germany, these photographs followed...
These images were selected from Record Group 8 - The Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection, at the YIVO Institute in New York.

A. Amelia. Liepaja, Latvia, 1917.

Anne Dolores. Portland, Oregon, 1924.

Rose Goldberg. Poland, 1914.

"Ms. Bernstein", first name, date, location unknown.

Hersh Balbirsky. Lodz, Poland, 1912.

Garte Bulman. Date, location unknown.

Belle Didjah in various roles. United States.

Hermann Heuser in various roles, including: Rasputin (top left) and Macbeth (top right). Germany, year unknown.

"Yiddishe Wunderkind" children dancers, the Badensteins, in costume. Lublin, Poland, 1918.

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at: Headshots

Supplementary Material:
[1] How to prepare for your headshot
[2] Yiddish Theater
[3] Organic Headshots
[4] 5,000+ Headshots
[5] "The Headshot"

About this series:
This is installation twenty of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

"BACK ISSUES" NOW AVAILABLE - JUST EMAIL ME!

okay,
Jesse

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

This exhibition features images of Jewish Soccer Clubs in Poland in the 1920's and 30's. These soccer teams were associated with Jewish sports clubs that operated in towns and cities throughout Poland prior to World War II, offering young people activities such as soccer, cycling, gymnastics, and hiking. Though some were unaffiliated, these clubs were usually organized by and actively affiliated with one of the several Jewish political parties that vied for the support of the Jewish masses. Many cities had several sports clubs, each one affiliated with a rival political ideology (Zionism, Socialism, etc).

These sports clubs were successful both in the wide popularity they enjoyed by their participants, and in their ability to recruit young people who were still more interested in playing games and socializing than they were in the loftier ambitions of an ideological-political movement. Those loftier ambitions often followed.
These images can be found in Record Group 120 - Poland and Record Group 1400 - Bund Archives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.

Bialystok, October 2, 1923. Members of the Bialystok Jewish Sports Club soccer team

Lunna, year unknown. Members of the Morgnshtern soccer team. Morgnshtern was the sports organization associated with the Bund, the Jewish Socialist Workers Party in Russia, Poland, and Lithuania

Vilna, 1936. The Maccabi soccer team. Maccabi was the a Zionist-affiliated sports organization

Warsaw, 1924. "Morgnshtern First Workers Soccer team"

Sokulki, August 1931. The Maccabi soccer team posing with representatives of the Polish Army soccer club

Unknown Morgnshtern soccer team

Brzeziny, 1932. The soccer team of the Jewish Association of Sports Lovers ("T.M.S")

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at: Old World Cup

Supplementary Material:
- FIFA WORLD CUP 2006
- Who Should I Cheer For?
- Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club
- Arab-Israeli Soccer

About this series:
This is installation eighteen of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

In the summer of 1918, nearly 3,000 members of the US Armed Forces departed for Siberia under the direction of Major General William S. Graves in a loosely defined and soon forgotten mission that would be the United States' only intervention in the Russian Civil War. The "American Expeditionary Force" in Siberia, as they were known, arrived in the city of Vladivostok in the fall of 1918 and remained in Russia until 1920, well after the conclusion of the First World War in Europe. Although the ostensible reasons for their deployment involved the promotion of democracy abroad and the rescue of a stranded Czech Legion, the more pressing matter at hand for the US government was the protection of nearly a billion dollars worth of armaments and war supplies sent to Russia before the Revolution of 1917. In the interim, the AEF had to contend with the conflicting priorities of armies from Great Britain, France, Japan, and China, as well as the hostile Bolshevik Red Army and ruthless Cossack warlords, all of whom traveled the region in armed trains. Negative 40 degree winters, an epidemic of typhus, and general confusion and widespread lawlessness contributed to make the AEF's experience all the more miserable. By the time that the US Congress demanded the troops returned home in April 1920, over 300 men were dead.

The photographs in this exhibition were taken and collected by journalist Herman Bernstein, during the two years that he accompanied the AEF in Siberia as a war correspondent for the New York Herald.

These images can be found in Record Group 713 at the Archives of the YIVO Institute.

Bernstein's Album

Lt. Scovell on a camel "somewhere in Sibera Asia"

Bread received from the peasants at Meahs. June 17, 1918

Girls in field

A member of the expeditionary forces, with "a Mongolian, somewhere in Siberia Asia"

Members of the Expeditionary forces swimming

"Wreck at Verst Post 340 between stations Boyasky and Posolskaya. This was result of line having been cut by Colonel Ushakoff where Bolsheviks lost 61 eschelons. Aug 18, 1918"

Captured Bolsheviki in a train

"These long haired individuals are Bolsheviki prisoners, and are typical types, being prisoners so long, their hair growns very long"

Russian refugees live in a Siberian train station. Some have lived this way for four months

Herman Bernstein

Supplementary Material:

American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia"

The Story of the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia

Czech Army

With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia by John Ward

About this series: This is installation sixteen of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Friday, May 5 at 11:09 AM

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

Operating out of Benton Harbor, Michigan, beginning in 1903, the House of David was a Christian Kingdom where followers of a bearded preacher named Benjamin Purnell gathered and lived together to await the millenium and the eventual emergence of a "Kingdom of God" in Jerusalem. The endeavor began a year earlier, in Fosteria, Ohio, where Burnell was ousted from after declaring himself the seventh of seven messengers sent by God to save the world in a lineage originally prophecied by the English 'prophetess' Joanna Southcott in 1620.

"King Benjamin's" kingdom had strict rules: abstinence was demanded of its residents, as was vegetarianism, the abolition of personal property, and the mandate that men not cut their hair or shave. He also put his followers to work, ammasing an enormous personal fortune by transforming the commune into one of the Midwest's most popular tourist destinations, famous for its miniature train, mineral springs, and a famous jazz band, the "Syncopep Serenaders". Burnell was also an avid sports fan: he founded a popular barnstorming baseball team that travelled the country beginning in the 1910's taking all challenges, drawing crowds, and spreading Burnell's word. In its later years, The House of David basketball team played exhibition games with the Harlem Globetrotters in the '30s and '50s.

By the the early 1920's, Burnell's eccentricity and fortune had attracted the scrutiny of the press and law enforcement officials. Following a series of exposés alleging that Burnell had violated his vow abstinence with several young female followers, charges were filed in 1923 by the state attorney general, accusing the colony of being built on "a foundation of deceit, immorality, and fraud". A number of raids on the colony in 1923 revealed that Burnell had gone into hiding, remaining a fugitive in a secret chamber beneath his compound for three years, before eventually being given up by one of his followers and arrested in 1926. In November of that year, following a sensational trial in which he was brought to court in a collapsible bed, Burnell was found guilty, his fortune seized, and he was expelled from his kingdom. He died only a few months later. His followers waited in vain for three days for Purnell's body to be resurected and to be lead by him to the promised land.

In his absense, a schism formed in the community and it soon split into two camps (located across the street from one another). One camp, the "City of David", was led by Benjamin's wife Mary, who now claimed that she too was the seventh messenger of God. The other, lead by Purnell's loyal disciple, Judge H.T. Dewhirst, used the name "the Israelite House of David". Both maintained touring baseball teams and both continued to use the name "House of David" for promotional purposes. Mary's "City of David" is now a museum run by a very small group of followers. "The Israelite House of David" is now defunct but maintains a "web presence" on the Internet.

House of David, Promotional Postcard. 1910's.

Miniature Train. c.1910's-1920's.

House of David Baseball team. c.1920's.

House of David Junior Baseball Team. 1927.

House of David Basketball Team. c. 1910's-1920's.

House of David Jazz Band, the "Syncopep Serenaders". mid-1920's.

Sheet music, "The House of David Blues", 1923. This was also the HOD Basketball team theme song.

Benjamin Burnell, just before his death in 1927.

Supplementary Material:

• "Bearded Angel Leads the Holy Rollers Here." New York Times 24 March 1905.[pdf]
• http://www.israelitehouseofdavid.org/
• http://www.maryscityofdavid.org
• Finding Aid, House of David Collection. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan [pdf]
• http://the-light.com/longhair/

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at: http://brightbrown.fastmail.fm/houseofdavid/

About this series:
This is installation fifteen of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

During the 19th Century, German educationalist Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel developed a series of new educational devices designed to enhance and nurture a young child's emerging sense of the world. The devices, known as Froebel Gifts, were first introduced in the late 1830's at the original Kindergarten (a term introduced by Froebel) in Bad Blankenburg, Germany. His ideas grew to be recognized and practiced around the world and continue to have influence today.

This exhibition presents the entire contents of a notebook from an Italian kindergarten practicing Froebel's methods during the 1917-1918 school year.

Supplementary Material:

1. apexart
2. artnet
3. massteacher

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at: http://brightbrown.fastmail.fm/school/

About this series:
This is installation fourteen of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

Among the thousands of photographs held in the collections of the YIVO Archives are hundreds and hundreds of unidentified portraits taken during the early 20th century in the United States and in Eastern Europe. This exhibition presents a selection of these images.

New York, date unknown.

Russia, date unknown.

Place, date unknown.

Lodz, Poland. 1912.

Berlin, 1920.

United States, year unknown.

United States, year unknown.

United States, year unknown.

United States, 1936.

Supplementary Material:
[1] YIVO
[2] swapandsave.com
[3] Lost Gallery

About this series: This is installation thirteen of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me with "subscribe" in the subject so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Toy peddlers. Once Train Station, Buenos Aires. October 26, 2005.
Photos by JAC. Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen



Supplementary Material:
http://www.google.com.ar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo
http://www.loscolectivos.com.ar/frameset1.htm

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at: Juguetes

About this series:
This is installation ten of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and maybe tell you about when my band is playing and stuff if you want.

okay,
Jesse

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

Throughout the Czarist period, as far back as Peter the Great, Russian rulers used exile as a form of punishment for criminals and other 'undesirables' of society. With the addition of political prisoners to this class in the mid-19th century, the imperial government began to send thousands of men and women to the Siberian hinterlands to serve sentences stemming from their political activities. These thousands were a mere foreshadow of the millions who would be moved by the Soviet GULAG in the decades following the revolution.

Featuring original and unpublished archival photographs from the turn-of-the-century, this exhibition attempts to portray daily life in the communities formed during these years of exile.

Exiled revolutionaries. Siberia, circa 1909.

Exiled revolutionaries beside the river Ob'. Narym, Siberia, 1911.

Exiled revolutionaries. Siberia, August 27, 1909.

A political prisoner. Siberia, 1905.

Exiles. Siberia, year unknown.

Exiled revolutionaries, including the writer A. Vaiter. Krasnoyarsk, 1902.

Exiles. Siberia, year unknown.

Exiles at a meal. Siberia, year unknown.

This exhibition features material found in Record Group 1400 (Bund Archives) and Record Group 120 (Territorial, Russia I) of the YIVO Institute in New York. If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at EXILES

References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_history,_1892-1920
2. http://tlcom.krs.ru/index.cgi?l=e
3. http://www.bisnis.doc.gov/bisnis/isa/011202tomsktour.htm
4. http://www.clipartreview.com/_gallery/_search_term_pages/exile.html
5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/siberia/
6. http://brightbrown.fastmail.fm/exiles/

About this series: This is installation nine of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whomever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me first. Thanks.

okay,
Jesse

(August 26 - September 30, 2005) Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen
This exhibition presents a selection of panoramic images from the more than 4,000 found in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Enjoy!

(click below to view all images in full-size...)

South Beach Alligator Farm. Florida, 1910.

Coney Island, 1910.

Destruction of Dreamland. Coney Island, 1911.

Manhattan Beach, c.1902.

Second International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eighth Annual Bathing Girl Revue. Galveston, Texas. May, 1927.

Inter-city Beauties Pageant. Atlantic City, 1925.

Balloons at inspection. Arcadia, California. c.1919.

1st National Aviation Meet, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. June, 1910.

Wreck on I.C.R.R. Near Farmer City, Illinois. October 6, 1909.

Panorama of San Francisco disaster, 1906.

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen. This exhibition presents a selection of postcards from Czarist Russia, dating to the first decade and a half of the 20th century. While a variety of postcard genres were popular at this time in Russia (romance, political satire, venerated personalities, etc.), these macabre scenes of death and anguish are particularly curious. In these postcards, the events that inspired such a bleak portrayal of Russian life--war, famine, Czarist abuses--have been idealized and mass-produced to be used for personal communication. These images are a selection from the YIVO Institute's postcard collection, Record Group 122.

March of Death, Shpungenberg. Publisher unkown.

Home at Last. Maimon. Publisher unknown.

The Apotheosis of War (1871), Vasily Vereshchagin. Publisher unknown.

Victor. F. Stuck. Publisher unknown. (caption is in Polish)

All Quiet at Shipka Mountain. Artist, publisher, unknown. (Reference to Russo-Turkish war)

Black Days. Artist, publisher, unknown.

Killed, Biereshaygen. Publisher unknown.

On the Battlefield, M. Faber. Publisher unknown.

Supplementary Material:

About this series:
This is installation seven of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found at Email Exhibition 6: Postcards from the Edge

Thursday, August 11 at 02:51 PM

(June 24 - July 29, 200) Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

In belated acknowledgement of Bike Month NYC (May 2005), and in support of the growing effort to make our cities more bike-friendly in response to the even-increasing number of young people killed or injured while riding---- the exhibition "Bike Month" presents a series of historical photographs depicting young people with their bicycles.

These images are drawn from a collection of several thousand pre-war Eastern European photographs at the YIVO Institute, a Yiddish library and archives in New York where the curator works as a photo and film archivist.

Russia, before 1917.

Radom, Poland. Year Unknown.

Warsaw, Poland. March 8, 1928. Members of a Socialist-Jewish youth movement pose with hand-drawn political poster and masks.

Czestochowa, Poland. 1927.

Poland, year unknown.

Warsaw, Poland. June 1938. Members of a Socialist-Jewish youth movement take part in a demonstration during their annual convention.

If you are unable to view the images, they can also be found here

Supplementary Material:

Times Up

Andrew Morgan, 25, June 22 2005

Rasiej for Public Advocate

Yivo Institute for Jewish Research

About this series: This is installation six of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whoever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me.

Contact: If you were forwarded one of these exhibitions and would like to subscribe yourself, please email me so I can add you to my list and also tell you about when my band is playing and stuff.

okay,
Jesse

Friday, June 24 at 06:21 PM

Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

This exhibition (April 29 - May 27, 2005) presents a small sampling of work created by members of four disparate groups in which envelope art has thrived as a creative medium, namely: members of the US Armed Forces, Deadheads, incarcerated Americans, and video game enthusiasts. If the medium is the message, then the message of envelope art seems to generally involve craft, dedication, boredom, and the desire to communicate personality with the recipient from afar. For deadheads, this message also involved a desire to score primo tix.

Supplementary Material:

Ray Johnson

Prison Mail Discussion Forum

Inmate Correspondence Policies

Grateful Dead Ticket Service

Eric's Envelope Artwork

About this series: This is installation four of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings.

Friday, April 29 at 05:36 PM

(March 25-April 29, 2005) Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

London. Conceived to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, the original Crystal Palace was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in just 10 days. The massive iron structure built in London's Hyde park contained over 1,000,000 feet of glass. Inside, the Palace featured over 13,000 exhibits designed to showcase Great Britain's industrial and cultural might at the height of the Victorian era. The Palace was originally designed as a temporary structure, but due to its sensational popularity (over 6 million people visited), plans were drawn up to rebuild the palace in Sydenham, South London, in 1852. The new Crystal Palace, opened by Queen Victoria herself in 1854, was even more grandiose: over 1,800 feet long and featuring an array of attractions from natural history, arch itecture, and industrial exhibits to a circus, a roller coaster, and the world's largest organ. 12 workers were killed during the construction of the Sydenham palace when a scaffolding collapsed. In 1866, a fire broke out, destroying the palace's north end and many natural history exhibits. In 1892, a hot air balloon accident killed one person, and in 1900 another was killed by an escaped elephant. On the evening of November 30th, 1936, Crystal Palace General Manager, Henry Buckland, and his daughter, Crystal Buckland, noticed a small fire at the palace. Spreading quickly, the fire frustrated the efforts of over 80 fire engines, reducing the palace to ashes and rubble by morning.

New York. Designed following the success of London's Industrial Exhibition of 1851, New York's Crystal Palace opened to the public in 1853 on the corner of 42nd st. and Sixth Avenues, the current site of Bryant Park. The centerpiece of the impressive iron and glass structure wa s a 100 foot diameter glass dome, the largest in the Western world at the time. The Palace featured over 5,000 exhibits from 23 countries including: painting and sculpture, minerals and jewelry, and a wealth of industrial products. A leaky roof destroyed several of the exhibitions. Financial disappointment led to the closing of the exhibition in 1854, and the building was then used sporadically for concerts and exhibitions over the next 4 years. On Tuesday October 5th, 1858, the New York Crystal Palace, which had been declared "fire-proof" at the time of it's opening, caught fire during the annual fair of the American Institute. The building burnt to the ground in just 30 minutes.

Dallas. Modeled after London's Crystal Palace, Infomart Dallas was constructed by the Trammell Crow Corporatio n in 1985. Boasting over 1.6 million square feet of office space and 3,247 parking spaces, Infomart offers an extensive array of amenities and services, including 24/7 security, a restaurant, newsstand, and shoeshine, as well as full-service catering facilities. It is home to over 50 bandwidth intensive companies requiring extraordinary infrastructure, network connectivity, and elegant, Class A office space. Offering amenities that transcend those of the traditional office building, Infomart is a complex communications ecosystem that is the world's first truly successful technology community.

"New" Crystal Palace - Sydenham, London - circa 1920's New York Crystal Palace, 1853 Infomart, Dallas, circa 1998

Photograph of the "New" Crystal Palace in Sydenham, circa 1933..... New York Crystal Palace, 1853..... Infomart, Dallas, circa 1998

Interior of original, Hyde Park Crystal Palace, 1854..... Interior of New York Crystal Palace, circa 1853..... Interior of Infomart, Dallas, circa 1998

Sydenham Crystal Palace burns, 1936..... New York Crystal Palace burns, 1858

The morning after the fire, 1936..... The morning after the fire, New York, 1858

Supplementary Material

victorianstation.com

crystal palace

lib.umd.edu

bryantpark.org

infomartusa.com

About this series: This is installation three of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions. A ne w exhibition opens on the last friday of every month. Each exhibition contains low-resolution images with a text and some supplementary readings. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whoever you want, but please don't reproduce the images in print or on your website without asking me.

Friday, March 25 at 04:56 PM

(January 28-February 25, 2005) Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

From Forward, an old socialist-yiddish New York paper. Below the yiddish is the English translation which reads: "INDIAN CHIEF. --- One of the most remarkable pictures ever made of the widely honored scientist. this photo shows Dr. Einstein and Mrs. Einstein after his induction as an honorary member of the Hopi Indian tribe. Ceremony took place in Grand Canyon National Par, Arizona. February, 1931."
About this series: This is installation one of a monthly series of Email Exhibitions (you can call them "eeksabitions" for short. or, you can email me with a suggestion for a better name). A new exhibition will open on the last friday of every month from now on. Sometimes these exhibitions will be like this: tiny, with a couple of archival pieces that I found, no text, and with just some supplementary reading for explanation. Other times, I may write something, or other times I may just send a great or funny collection of pictures that I found on the internet or something. Each exhibition though will contain low-resolution images that will hopefully delight you in some way. Please feel free to forward these exhibitions to whoever you want, but please don't reproduce the images without asking first. Thanks.
- Jesse Aaron Cohen

Supplementary readings:

www.hanksville.org

http://www.cs.brockport.edu/~smitra/einstein.html

Friday, January 28 at 03:58 PM