Today’s Old Photo is from 1913, and it was taken on a street in New Orleans. It shows a Western Union delivery boy. Kids like this were hired by Western Union to deliver telegrams around town. As far as child labor goes, that has to beat working in a Coal Mine.

I find the bicycle interesting. It is not unlike the one I had growing up in the 1960’s. These were 1-speed bikes. To brake, you slightly moved the pedals backwards. Personally, I liked this system much better than the hand brakes on modern bicycles. It also had a big comfortable seat, which I liked much better than the small seats that came out with the 10-speed bikes. As I grew up, this style of bike fell out of fashion, and the bikes came along with the banana seats and high handlebars. Then a few of these started having multiple gears, and then all of the sudden all bikes became the 10 speed bikes with small seats and low handlebars. I sort of really like the old style bikes similar to the one pictured here.


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