Lewis Reed Photos to Appear on Science Channel ‘Impossible Engineering’
I recently received an e-mail from the researcher on the new Science Channel series ‘Impossible Engineering’. They found Lewis Reed’s collection of early dirt track race photos that were taken at the Rockville Fairgrounds and asked permission to use a couple of them in an upcoming episode they are making on the development of the race car.
The following 1923 dirt track race shots taken by Lewis Reed will be used on the program.
Rockville Fair, August 1923. Photo by Lewis Reed
Rockville Fair, August 1923. Photo by Lewis Reed
About Impossible Engineering
Behind every seemingly impossible marvel of modern engineering is a cast of historic trailblazers who designed new building techniques, took risks on untested materials and revolutionized their field. Brand new series, ‘Impossible Engineering’, is a tribute to their achievements. Each episode details how giant structures, record-beating buildings, war ships and space crafts are built and work. As the show revels in these modern day creations, it also leaps back in time to recount the stories of the exceptional engineers whose technological advances made it all possible. How would they have ever existed without the historical work of their ancestors? Interviews with their great advocates bring engineering history to life and retell how these incredible accomplishments shaped the modern world.
“Impossible Engineering” is produced for Science Channel by Twofour Broadcast. No mention of when it will be aired, so stay tuned!
Then & Now: Lucy the Elephant Atlantic City, New Jersey
This post is a continuation of a series of “Then & Now” images that will show photographs of buildings, street scenes, and other historical locales from Lewis Reed’s Photo Collection alongside photographs of how they appear today.
Lucy the Elephant (THEN): Through the first half of the 20th century, Lucy served as a restaurant, business office, cottage, and tavern (the last closed by Prohibition). The building was depicted on many souvenir postcards, often referred to as “The Elephant Hotel of Atlantic City.” (The actual hotel was in a nearby building, not inside the elephant.)
Lucy the Elephant. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1910.
Lucy the Elephant (NOW): The Elephant Hotel was neglected in more recent years, and eventually fell into a sad state of disrepair. In 1966, “Lucy” was saved from the wrecking ball when she was designated as a National Historic Landmark. On July 20, 1970 Lucy was moved about 100 yards to the west-southwest to a city owned lot and completely refurbished. In October, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall near Margate. Lucy remained unscathed, although the surge reached the building’s toes and a small booth in the parking lot was blown over. On July 23, 2016, Lucy announced her candidacy for President of the United States at a celebration for her 135th birthday.
Lucy the Elephant, National Historic Landmark, November 20, 2011
Lewis Reed Photo: Lady & Toddler on a 1913 Excelsior
Unknown lady and toddler posing on an Excelsior motorcycle. Photo by Lewis Reed
Back in the early part of the last century when the motorcycle was still new and a novelty, it was often used for Kodak moments.
Lewis Reed has a number of photographs showing relatives and other unknown people on their motorcycles in the period of the early 1900s through the early 1920s. This photo taken by Lewis Reed is an unknown lady and a toddler (mother/daughter?) posing on an Excelsior motorcycle. The motorcycle was easy to identify because of the logo, but I could not pinpoint the exact year it was made. I tend to think it might be a circa 1913-1914 model Excelsior.
This is, without question, one of the best posed photos on a motorcycle that I have come across in my grandfather’s albums. The toddler’s sporty little cap and goggles make the image. Just imagine how excited she must have been to sit on that big machine.
The motorcycle seems to be well equipped with extras including: a headlamp, a handlebar-mounted Klaxon horn, and a well padded passenger seat on the back.
Then & Now: Thomas Hardware Store, Gaithersburg
Looking at old photographs is like peering through an open window back into history. Not only do they give you a sense of wonder from traveling back in time, but also a staggering feeling of awe from seeing just how much things have changed. For this post, I have used one of Lewis Reed’s original photographs for “then” and a Google Maps street view image from today for “now”.
Thomas Hardware Store (THEN): This photo was taken by Lewis Reed when the first system of water mains and sewers were installed by the WSSC in Gaithersburg, circa 1926-1928. The store in the background is the Thomas Hardware Store, originally built and operated by Thomas Iraneous Fulks. The water pipes to be laid are resting by the side of the road. The child on the right in the photograph is Lewis Reed’s daughter, Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner.
T. I. Fulks was a businessman and farmer. He worked as a bookkeeper for the Gaithersburg Milling and Manufacturing Company and then opened a hardware store at 219 East Diamond Avenue.
Thomas Hardware Store, originally built and operated by Thomas I. Fulks. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1928
Thomas Hardware Store Location (NOW): The same view 90 years later. The old hardware store is enclosed in the present brick building (Gaithersburg Rental Center) at 219 East Diamond Avenue.
219 East Diamond Avenue today
Source: Gaithersburg: History of a City
Photo Manipulation Without a Computer
If you take a look at the state of photography today, such as the advances of digital cameras and the artful image manipulation by Photoshop, it is easy to forget that back in the 1900s photographers couldn’t just go into a computer program and change their images any way they wanted. Instead of retouching an image on a computer, as it’s done now, it originally took place on the negative.
Photo manipulation was one tool Lewis Reed had in his photography tool belt. He was 100 years ahead of his time by creating special effects to images long before the convenience and efficiency of digital photography and Photoshop were ever imaginable.
I was hugely interested in how this was undertaken, and by the fact that the modification looked so seamless in the printed image. Spotting these manipulated photos in his extensive collection has been both easy and difficult. Some were simple double exposure images or hand colored images. The addition of these hand-drawn backgrounds was a little more difficult. It wasn’t until I viewed the high resolution scan that this modification jumped out at me.
Reading up on the subject I have become aware that retouching is in fact an art that evolved right alongside the birth of photography. The photographs below were retouched by hand (also known as “handwork”) on the glass negative using a hard graphite pencil and pieced together in the darkroom from separate photographs. The two photographs, one of the people standing on the edge of a cliff, and the other of the hand-drawn mountains, appear to be joined at the edge of the cliff where the mountains begin. All of this required a degree of artistic skill and access to a darkroom. Lewis Reed developed his own photographs in a darkroom in his house — in the kitchen, to be exact — and worked at night to develop the negatives.
The photographs below show two unknown people posing on a cliff in front of a hand-drawn background of mountains.
An original photograph retouched with hand-drawn mountains by Lewis Reed
Same photo as above, different angle, retouched by Lewis Reed.
Today, we can look back and appreciate the time and creativity it took to edit these photos without Photoshop.
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Copyright Notice
Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Reed Brothers Dodge History 1915 – 2012 
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