This is a close-up of a photo taken across the street from The Broadway Department Store at Broadway and Fourth Street, Los Angeles, circa 1909. (See the full photo below) but I zoomed in because I wanted to show how packed with life the streets were. Not only is the sidewalk busy with formally dressed pedestrians, shoppers, window shoppers, but just in this stretch along there are six horse-drawn carriages, most of them with two horses. So the air was filled with both sounds (neighing, clop-clopping horseshoes, drivers calling) and smells (which we can all imagine) that we no longer witness. But now I’m wondering: can you parallel park a horse-drawn carriage?
Click on the above photo to get a larger view.
You can click on it a second time to zoom in even closer.
There is no one, male or female, who is not wearing a hat.
I hadn’t noticed that, Gordon! Ah, t’was the golden age of hats!
Arthur Letts, founder of The Broadway Department Store,exponent of the “Don’t Worry” philosophy. https://bit.ly/2TYYVtj
Ah! So that explains that! Thank you! I figured there must be a reason for it.
Notice that Letts provided free education for his young girl and boy workers.
That works all fine and dandy IF the employee/students were industrious, respectful, invested White children of the time. Other races–not then, not now–
not so much.