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mishacrews · 9 months

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Notes from Angel River: Washington, DC has an Unexpected Place in Music History

My latest novel, Sweet Music, is centered around a music shop that has been owned by the Sullivan family for generations. Here's something fun I found out when I was researching the story.

My latest novel, Sweet Music, is centered around a music shop that has been owned by the Sullivan family for generations. Here’s something fun I found out when I was researching the story. In 1888, Washington, DC was actually the hub of the burgeoning recording industry. Columbia Phonograph Company, who had franchising rights for Thomas Edison’s phonograph, had initially marketed the invention…

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#angel river #angel river blog #angel river blogs #music store #Washington DC #washington dc history

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yesterdaysprint · 1 year

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The Washington Post, May 19, 1912

#1910s #vintage #history #newspapers #washington dc

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theworldatwar · 2 months

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Women workers work on the fuselage of the B-29 Superfortress bomber in the Boeing plant - Seattle, USA, date unknown

#world war two #ww2 #worldwar2photos #history #1940s #ww2 history #wwii #world war 2 #ww2history #wwii era #assembly plant #Seattle #washington dc #washington #USA #Boeing #b29

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pointandshooter · 3 months

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National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC

photo: David Castenson

#black and white photography #abstract photography #national museum of african american history & culture #washington dc #photographers on tumblr

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vintagecamping · 8 months

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Loaded up and ready to go. BSA Troop 666 heads out on a 2 day trip.

Washington DC

1978

#vintage camping #campfire light #camping #hiking #backpacking #washington dc #boy scouts #vintage fashion #1970s #history

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onceuponatown · 8 months

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The Loomis Radio School, Washington D.C. ca. 1921.

The school was located at 401 Ninth St. N.W. and operated with the call letters 3YA. By 1920 it was offering a six month course enabling the graduate to obtain a first grade commercial radio license and by January of 1922 was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates.

The school was founded by Mary Texanna Loomis, pictured in the last photo.

Born August 18, 1880 near Goliad, Texas. She was the second child born to Alvin Isaac and Caroline (Dryer) Loomis. Though born on homestead in Texas in 1880, by 1883 her parents had returned to Rochester NY and then on to Buffalo where Alvin became president of a large delivery and storage company. Little is known of her early years, but appears she had a fairly middle-class up bringing. She seemed well schooled, with an early interest in music and language (she mastered French, German and Italian) Her early years were spent in Buffalo, NY and she later relocated to Virginia.

During the early years of World War I, she became interested in the new field of wireless telegraphy. There was a family precedent; her cousin, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, had conducted early wireless experiments with moderate success and may in fact have been the first person, in 1865, to send and receive wireless signals.

Mary soon became proficient enough in wireless telegraphy to be granted a license by the United States Department of Commerce. Thoroughly fascinated with the field now called “radio”, she decided to turn her expertise into a career. Also, she wanted to do something that would honor her pioneering ancestor. Her idea was to do this by founding a radio school.

Though radio was indeed, for many years, a profession dominated by men, Mary Loomis around age 40 took no notice and in 1920 founded the Loomis Radio School in Washington, D.C. and it quickly gained an excellent reputation. Ms. Loomis set high standards for the school and it attracted students not only from the United States but Europe and Asia as well. Loomis enjoyed teaching as much as she enjoyed radio itself. In an interview, she said, “Really, I am so infatuated with my work that I delight in spending from 12 to 15 hours a day at it. My whole heart and soul are in this radio school.”

As president and Lecturer of the Loomis Radio School, Mary authored a definitive book on radio, named “Radio Theory and Operating.”

By January 1922 the school was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates. Loomis also intended that her students understand more than just the inner and outer workings of radio. In addition to a radio laboratory (with equipment constructed almost entirely by Mary herself), the school maintained a complete shop capable of teaching carpentry, drafting and basic electricity. She reasoned that many of her graduates might find themselves at sea, or in other challenging situations and she wanted them adequately prepared. “No man,” Ms. Loomis said, at the time, “can graduate from my school until he learns how to make any part of the apparatus. I give him a blueprint of what I want him to do and tell him to go into the shop and keep hammering away until the job is completed.”

The school appears to have been in existence at least through the early 1930's, but it has not been possible to find information after that.

In an interview given to H.O. Bishop of the Dearborn Independent in 1921, Mary was asked: “What sort of young men are taking up the radio profession?” to which she replied:

“The Kind who have grit and want to get there! Virtually all of them are ambitious and enthusiastic over the possibility of visiting every nook and corner of the world. My students are not only enrolled from various sections of the USA and Canada but from many foreign countries, such as Sweden, Ireland, England, Poland, Russia, Austria, Rumania and the Philippines. One of the brightest pupils I ever had was Prince Walimuhomed of Far-away Afghanistan. He was an extremely modest young man, keeping his real identity a secret until after graduating. He said he had no idea of earning his living by working at radio, but just wanted to know all about it. He does.You have no idea how much happiness I get out of the success of each individual graduate. My boys keep in touch with me from all parts of the world. Scarcely a day goes by that I do not get some trinket or postcard from some remote section of the world. I have made the wonderful discovery that the only way for me to get happiness for myself is to make some one else happy. I find that I am making these young men happy by teaching them every phase of the radio business so that they can earn a comfortable living for themselves and their dependents and at the same time, see the great big beautiful world.

As far as we can figure out, Mary Loomis left Washington D.C. around 1935 and moved to San Francisco where she worked as a stenographer. She died in 1960 and is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, CA.

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#radio history #radio #women's history #loomis #washington dc

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20th-century-railroading · 6 months

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SR train, engine number 1383, engine type 4-6-2 Passenger train, crossing the Potomac River; 10 cars, 12 MPH. Photographed: at Washington, D.C., August 10, 1932.

#sou #southern #1932 #trains #passenger train #history #washington dc

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mrskennedy · 24 days

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Jackie Kennedy and her father-in-law Joseph P. Kennedy watching the inaugural parade in Washington D.C. on January 20th, 1961.

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tammuz · 1 year

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Sassanian ewer made with silver and gilt, and dates back to the 7th-8th century CE. Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Photo by Babylon Chronicle

#History #Persian #Smithsonian #Washington DC #Museums #Archaeology

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strathshepard · 1 year

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American Indian Movement (AIM) teepee on the grounds of the Washington Monument

#native america #american indian movement #AIM #black and white #washington dc #politics #history #teepee #flags #washington monument

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wandering-jana · 23 days

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Between the Tidal Basin and the Lincoln Memorial is the D.C. War Memorial. It was built in 1931, a few years before WWII, and dedicated to soldiers from D.C. that were lost in WWI.

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