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| Flygbild av Mullsjö |
Aerial Photo from Mullsjö
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| ÄKTA FOTOGRAFI Ensamrätt A/B Almquist & Cäster, Hälsningborg Ahrenbergsflyg |
GENUINE PHOTOGRAPH
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This postcard was sent to my great-grandmother Selma for Mother's Day in May 1937, from her step-daughter Ester (one my grandmother Sally's older half-sisters), living in Mullsjö - a village by a lake with the same name, located some 25 km north-west of Jönköping.
At first glance, a postcard like this looks rather dull to me - but when I started thinking about it, it struck me that aerial photography like this was probably still rather new in Sweden in 1937.
The name of the company "Ahrenbergsflyg" took me to a Swedish Wikipedia article about Albin Ahrenberg, 1889-1968. Leaving military aviation in 1924 he started his own company, with flights for postal services and aerial photography. In 1929 he planned a flight from Stockholm to New York, via Norway, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and the Labrador region of Canada. He got as far as Greenland - but was forced to return to Sweden from there (by boat), because of technical trouble.
In 1931, he returned to Greenland to help search for an English meterological research expedition that had gone missing there. He was successful and returned a hero this time.
Later on, during WWII, he served again in some military position, with surveillance of the Stockholm archipelago. (I'm afraid my knowledge of military terms and organisation is not sufficient - in either language! - to quite grasp the details.)
Anyway - the story serves to support my thought that back in 1937, a black and white aerial photo of a countryside village probably still seemed a lot more impressive to the recipient than it would today!
In 1937, Selma was 76 years old, and living with her daughter and son-in-law (my grandparents Sally and Gustaf), and her grandson Bertil (my father, 6 going on 7 that year).
And below is an aerial photo of the house to which the card was sent. It's the house that my grandparents built, and moved into in 1930, when they got married.
I'm not sure whether that photo is from the 1930s, 40s or 50s, though. (It was obviously black and white with the colours added to it afterwards.) When my brother and I sold the house in 2014 (rather different-looking by then - twice as big, and yellow), we left the original of this photo hanging in the house for the new owners, as we don't have a younger generation of family to pass it on to anyway.
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| "Aero Foto Vetlanda" |
Linking to Sepia Saturday 658
Aerial photo postcards today would, most probably, be in color & I, myself, would find them interesting. I'm sure you're right that back in the '30s especially, aerial photography on a large scale would be relatively new. How nice you left the framed aerial photograph hanging in the house for the new owners. I hope they appreciated your thoughtfulness. :)
ReplyDeleteA great postcard to use for this weekend's theme. When I saw your aerial photo I had the same initial thought. How and why was a picture of a small village taken? From what I've read about in early aviation history, the first practical use of an airplane was for scouting and aerial reconnaissance. Aerial photos were first used in WW1 and were very unsophisticated as they were taken by the pilot holding a simple camera and then making notes for compass direction and altitude. But a bigger task was analyzing the photos with maps because people had never seen the world from this perspective before. It's why so many aviators often got lost. Maybe this was Ahrenberg's idea to give pilots visual landmarks to identify their location when flying. Of course I immediately "flew" to Mullsjö using Google Maps and was rewarded by clicking on a 360 view that suddenly had me standing on the frozen lake ice!
ReplyDeleteAerial photographs never crossed my mind to go with the theme, but they certainly do. Thoughtful of you to leave the photograph of the house for the new owners.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting story from aerial photo postcard to the house of your grandparents and it's own aerial photo! Good to figure out who the photographer was also!
ReplyDeleteA great take on the prompt and I can agree that in 1937 coming across these aerial photographs featuring your house would be an exciting find.
ReplyDelete