We are currently living in the age of digital media, everything we do we can almost always tie in how technology plays a role in the activity. This includes how we take pictures. I don’t have anything close to a professional camera, but I do have an iPhone. This device is how I take nearly all of my pictures and videos. I’ve shot concerts and music festivals and taken pictures with friends when we’ve gone out. However, during these events, I’ve always wondered if I am missing out on truly living in the moment. Am I truly experiencing something if I am viewing it through a screen? These questions led me to the decision to use a disposable camera for my recent trip to Salem. 

    About a week before the trip I purchased my first disposable camera at my local Walgreens, spending nearly thirty dollars on it (my mom said they used to be $1.50 when she was in college). The camera itself seemed to be made of plastic and the viewfinder is an “inverted Galilean-type plastic lens finder” (Target, n.d.). The camera is 2.5 inches (H) x 5.9 Inches x 1.4 Inches (D) and weighs about .25lbs. The camera brand and make is a Fujifilm Quicksnap, which was Fuji’s first disposable camera that had model features that allowed for usage in the day and night due to the built-in flash. (Wiki, n.d). Fuji was one of the first brands to ever create a disposable camera making its debut in 1986 (Wiki, n.d.).  These cameras grew especially popular in the 90s and early 2000s but have since died down as new digital technology has emerged. 

    I had never used this type of camera before so there were definitely a few hiccups along the way. The first was I didn’t know how to actually use it. I had thrown out the box the morning before we left for the trip and little to my knowledge the box had the directions on it. After about five minutes of my boyfriend and I standing in massive crowds and trying to figure out how to get it to work we eventually gave up and looked up the directions. First you had to scroll the film wheel to the right, then you line up the shot by looking into a tiny viewfield, and lastly you hold the button at the top of the camera until you hear the click (Bear and McClure, 2021). Once I learned how to actually use it, another issue we ran into was distance. With digital cameras or cell phone cameras there are options like zoom and refocusing the lens but with the disposable camera this wasn’t an option. Every image I took I could only be a maximum of ten feet away from. While this wasn’t a deal breaker or really that inconvenient it was just something that really stuck out to me. The last real “issue” or difference I noticed was that I couldn’t see what the actual pictures looked like. With a digital camera you are able to look back and see if you need to take another picture but with the disposable camera you don’t get that option. I noticed I was just taking a bunch of pictures of the same thing hoping that at least one of them would turn out good. I still don’t know if any of the images came out good since it takes three weeks for the photos to be developed. 

All this being said, I enjoyed the experience much more than I anticipated. The disposable camera was chunky so taking it in and out of my purse was a bit of a hassle, especially in the Salem crowds. This eventually led to me taking less pictures than I thought I would, and only using it to capture really important or truly beautiful images. With iPhones specifically you can take 100+ different photos and not feel any real connection with the images but with the disposable camera every picture felt like a moment captured in time. That’s another thing I noticed, I felt more connected to the world around me when using the disposable camera. I can’t explain the feeling, but there is something to pulling out this chunky box and having the person you’re with pose for you or having to stop in the middle of the street to make sure a picture is in focus. It makes you laugh and the moment just feels more real.

When looking back at this experience I can definitely say that I will be using a disposable camera again or maybe even look at investing in a film or polaroid camera in the future. I don’t have anything against iPhone cameras or typical digital cameras, I think they’re both really great tools and honestly phone cameras are just really convenient, but there is something to be said about using a disposable one. As I mentioned before there was a feeling of really living in the moment when using it. Taking the picture made just as good of a memory as what I was trying to capture. I was really able to connect and slow down when using the camera as well. Another thing I noticed was taking the picture felt like creating a souvenir rather than just a photo I could look back on. There was more depth and more of a story connected to the image than you typically would get.

I would never have thought that an object like a camera could create a feeling of liveiness yet when comparing both disposable and iPhone the disposable would win over and over again. The object itself created memories and I think that is my biggest take away from this. Before this experiment I couldn’t really place what Marie Condo meant by only having items that give you joy, but now I can say without a doubt that the disposable camera I used is one of them. 

References 

Bear, Crystal, and Eric McClure. “How to Use a Fujifilm Disposable Camera.” WikiHow, WikiHow, 9 Aug. 2021, http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Fujifilm-Disposable-Camera#Taking-Photos.

“Fujifilm Quicksnap 135 Flash 400-27exp Camera.” Target, http://www.target.com/p/fujifilm-quicksnap-135-flash-400-27exp-camera/-/A-79898667?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&fndsrc=tmnv&DFA=71700000088114232&CPNG=PLA_DVM%2Ba064R000011uOSaQAM-Fujifilm_HolidayFY21_NovDec_Solo&adgroup=PLA_Fujifilm&LID=700000001393753pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9004843&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4b2MBhD2ARIsAIrcB-Tm3xZOJivUVnK0bCHFImgnC3lEoStULFmfXa4y3ye5ThR_DLAQcE4aAjhHEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.

“Fujifilm QuickSnap.” Camera, camera-wiki.org/wiki/Fujifilm_QuickSnap.

In 1803, J. DeWitt was brought into Dr. John Bogardus’s physician’s office suffering from a gunshot wound to the arm. It can be speculated that J. DeWitt was accidentally shot in the line of duty as at the time he was the sheriff of Dutchess County (DeWitt Family Papers, 1750-1890). Suffering from a gauging wound and multiple fractured bones Bogardus was forced to amputate the arm. His physician records are extremely detailed in the amputation process, yet the document I continued to look at was the second page of the record he kept. This page described the process and meticulous steps that Bogardus had done to ensure a safe healing. 

    21st-century medicine has come an extremely long way from the 19th century yet the same foundation of understanding what physiological process must take place for proper healing essentially remains the same. In his physician notes, he discusses how he ensures that the wound will close and the medications involved. While some of the steps are illegible two distinguished treatments are used: chamomile tea and Laudanum. The healing properties of chamomile tea have been documented for centuries as it is an  anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, mild astringent and healing medicine. Chamomile is a medical practice of the native world and comes in both German and Roman forms (Srivastava et al., 2010). It has properties that allow for treatment of the “ skin and mucous membranes, and for various bacterial infections of the skin…as well as wound healing.” (Srivastava et al., 2010). In a recent study conducted on wound healing, it was found that chamomile is statistically significant in wound drying and epithelialization ability (Srivastava et al., 2010). This medical practice was not new to the 19th-century medical field and was widely practiced. However, Laudanum was a different story. Not knowing much about the drug, to begin with, I became fascinated with this seemingly new and foreign treatment. 

Laudanum, had been deemed as of 1803 as “God’s own medicine” for its reliability, long-lasting effects, and safety (PBS Frontline, n.d). They first entered the United States market in 1800 when the British Levant Company purchased almost half of the opium that was coming out of Turkey with the pure intention of importing it to Europe and the United States (PBS Frontline, n.d). Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium, prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy into alcohol (Wikipedia, 2021). The preparation method of this drug is known as a whole opium preparation since it contains all of the alkaloids found in the poppy. Laudanum is extremely bitter, and reddish-brown in color. In the context of this physician’s note, he was most likely using it as a pain medication as it contains morphine and codeine. Historically speaking this drug was also used as a sleeping aid and cough suppressant. In the physician notes Bogardus notes that DeWitt did not once complain of pain and this can explain why.

    When looking at this document and the nuance of this drug (as it was only just approved for medical use in 1803, the same year this note was written) it gives us insight into how the opioid crisis started. With doctors prescribing this “miracle drug”, as well as it becoming over the counter, with very little (if any) longitudinal research done, this would explain how addictive properties of it were seemingly unknown. It is said that “It wasn’t until the late 1890s that the medical community began to understand the seriousness of the country’s opiate addiction problem. By the turn of the century, the estimated number of addicts in the United States was 250,000.” (Fernadez & Libby, 2011). This document can be considered one of the first accounts of the medicinal usage of Laudanum in the United States, as well as gives us insight into how trade and importing must have looked like in New Paltz over 200 years ago. It marks the beginning of an opioid epidemic that rivals that of the mid-1990s. 

References

Fernandez, Humberto, and Therissa A. Libby. Heroin: History, Pharmacology & Treatment. Simon and Schuster, 2011, https://books.google.com/books?id=aEXXDQAAQBAJ&dq=%22Heroin:+Its+History,+Pharmacology+and+Treatment%22+(Hazelden,+2011),&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

“Laudanum.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Nov. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudanum#History.

“New York State Library.” DeWitt Family Papers, 1750-1890: New York State Library, http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc15161.htm.

“Opium throughout History | the Opium Kings | Frontline.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/history.html.

Putt Corners, hpc.townofnewpaltz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1852&Itemid=78. 

Srivastava, J. K., Shankar, E., & Gupta, S. (2010). Chamomile: A herbal medicine of the past with a bright future. Molecular medicine reports, 3(6), 895–901. https://doi.org/10.3892/mmr.2010.377

    This was not the first time I had read Frankenstein. Still, it was the first time that I read it diligently enough to catch on to the themes of alchemy, specifically the reference to the Philosopher stone and the elixir of life. I’m not going to lie when I read over this passage “My dreams were therefore undisturbed by reality; and I entered with the greatest diligence onto the search of the philosopher and the elixir of life.” (Shelly, p.23) where these items were mentioned my mind was kind of blown. I had never heard either of these terms used outside of the Harry Potter books before so to say I was surprised to learn that these are actual objects that have been studied throughout time was a shock to my system, to say the least. 

    The Philosophers Stone is a substance that could turn any metal such as iron, tin, lead, zinc, nickel, and copper into metals like gold and silver (Pruitt, 2018). It is said to come in a variety of substances ranging from anything from powder to red and white stones. The white stone is said to be a more immature version only being able to turn metals into silver, while the red can change them into gold. The history of this stone is said to date back to biblical times where Adam received the knowledge of it from God. According to the legend it was passed down to biblical patriarchs through the years. This stone was also mentioned in connection to the Temple of Solomon (Psalm 118). However, the first written account of the Philosopher’s stone was found to be c. 300 CE in Cheirokmeta by Zosimos of Panopolis. From the Philosopher’s stone, it was said that the elixir of life or the elixir of immortality could be created. The elixir of life is a potion that is said to give its drinker immortality, as well as cure any disease. If you believe the legend that it was passed to biblical patriarchs it would explain the longevity of their lives. 

    Both the Philosopher stone and the elixir of life have been studied by alchemists for centuries as alchemy is the study of finding ways to transmute metals, prolong life, and even create life (cough cough Victor Frankenstein). The history of alchemy goes all the way back to Egyptians and their beliefs of life, death, immortality, and mummification, as well as the Arabs and their beliefs of transforming metals into noble metals which they then brought to Spain. However, the height of alchemy came with both the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment period. 

The historic periods shaped the way Shelly created this story as the Enlightenment period was a time where philosophy and intellect dominated Europe and the Scientific Revolution shined a light on biology, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and chemistry. Using these major scientific advances Shelly integrated them into Frankenstein by making it the foundation of Victor’s character. We learn very early on about Victor’s love of natural philosophers such as Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus despite the criticism he receives for enjoying their works. These philosophers were monumental figures in alchemy science outside of this novel, making it very obvious that Shelly had outside influence from these scientific movements. These initial philosophers Victor fell in love with as an adolescent shaped the actions he would do later in life. When reading through Frankenstein Shelly really just name drops the Philosopher’s Stone and the elixir of life and moves on with the story, yet I think this is such a turning point within the story. This is where Victor’s fascination with alchemy goes from something he reads about and studies to something real. After he mentions the stone and elixir he begins his work on creating the creature and challenging life and death. With both the stone and the elixir there is a lot of worry about the soul not being complete if you are to create life using these methods and I think that is also really emphasized throughout the story. Victor views his creation as a soulless monster which aligns with the theories and worries that alchemists used to discuss. Shelly uses these objects in order to foreshadow and really create a foundation for this story. She integrates the science and philosophy of the time into a work of fiction and storytelling. Maybe this is Shellys way of theorizing what could happen if these real scientific and philosophical theories were to become real? Regardless I think the mentioning of these objects was extremely important for the structure of the story and can be overlooked if not engaging in the reading. 

                        References 

“Elixir of Life.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Nov. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_of_life.

Nobes, Patrick, et al. Frankenstein. Oxford University Press, 2008.

“Philosopher’s Stone.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Oct. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone.

Pruitt, Sarah. “What Was the Philosopher’s Stone?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 25 Sept. 2015, http://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-philosophers-stone.

(Left to right: Voldemort, Harry, Snape)

I have grown up with a relatively big immediate family. I am one of four girls, so as you can imagine getting Christmas presents for everyone can become rather expensive. Because of this in my house, we do secret Santa among my siblings. Last year for Christmas my sister Sara got me a collection of Harry Potter pens that are made to look like character wands. In the set, I received Harry’s, Snape’s, and Voldemort’s “wand”. I tend to get a little wary when asking for pens because I can really only use ones that are ballpoint. Gel pens are an absolute disaster in my hands, as whenever I use them a trail of smudged ink will follow (blame it on being a lefty). I also have a thing against blue ink pens, as they tend to make my notes look sloppier.

    Upon inspection of the pens I received, I was beyond pleased to realize that they were both ballpoint and black inked. Over the last year, these pens have become my absolute favorite, and I use them whenever I can. Unlike some pens that tend to have a lighter ink (I’m looking at you Bic Round Stic), these pens are prominently black and almost have the same boldness as a fine point sharpie. They also have a medium point tip allowing the writing to be more fluid than when using a fine point pen, which can write choppily. 

As found in the “about this item” section on Amazon these pens are made from ergonomic durable plastic and are officially considered part of the Harry Potter Merchandise. The plastic from Harry’s “wand” was molded to mimic the wood used for the wands. The plastic shaft has been painted the color holly (the wood his wand is made from). When you reach the “handle” of the “wand” it becomes wider in size and is carved to match the jagged wood handle we see in the movies. The handle of the pen is no longer holly colored but black.

Severus Snape’s pen is fully jet black and is said to be made from ebony. Unlike Harry’s wand, there is no molding to be made to look like wood, instead, the shaft is completely smoothed. The handle of the “wand” is divided into two columns separated by a thick black ring. These black rings can also be found at the top of the first column and the bottom of the second. The columns contain intricate carvings of symbols that have been hypothesized to make the “wand” more capable of dark magic.

The last wand/pen is Voldemort’s. The entirety of the pen is ivory, as his wand is said to be made with yew wood. Just like Snape’s wand, the shaft of the wand is completely smooth. The handle of this wand is where we see incredible detail. “Carved” in a hook-like manner the handle of this wand was created to mimic bone. When looking carefully at the handle of this wand there are small areas that are left unpainted (assumingly to give it more depth) which expose a clear material underneath. This material seems to be the plastic the exterior of the pen was molded from. 

    When looking at the shaft of the pens in small black writing is information from how these pens are created. The first title I recognize is Seven20. Seven20, also known as Underground Toy company in the U.K. This company was initially stationed in the U.K. but has begun to branch off into the U.S. for marketing and production time reasons.  This company is also known for the infamous Funko Pop toys as well. This product is designed and licensed under the Seven20 brand. 

Once the product is designed it is sent over to a factory in China where the pen is then produced. I couldn’t find anything on the factory that produces these products. However, once created these products are sent to warehouses located in both the U.K. and the U.S. From the Seven20 warehouses, products are then distributed to stores and warehouses such as Target and The River Colony trade, which is the company Amazon uses to sell and distribute these pens. The River Colony Trading resells goods produced from other companies (such as Seven20). This business address is located in Connecticut.

    When trying to map out the journey my pens took, this is how I believe it proceeded. It started in a design studio in the U.S. From there the product design was sent over to the factory in China, where workers manufactured the product. After manufacturing, it was sent back over to the United States on a plane or cargo ship. The Seven20 warehouses then distributed the product to the specific warehouse, in this case, the River Colony Trading site, where it sits until someone purchases the product through a site (like Amazon). Once the item is bought it is packaged, labeled, and shipped to the buyer’s house. 

Link to References 

https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=1&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=&protocol=current&seller=A1B7M9EQGNCLQA&sshmPath=

https://licensinginternational.org/news/seven-20-brands-former-underground-toys-u-s-to-focus-on-housewares-toys/

https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Wand-Pens-Pack/dp/B08PDSZKX1/ref=asc_df_B08PDSZKX1/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=475690120006&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6317465216951890356&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004843&hvtargid=pla-1131898528970&psc=1

Repurposed kitchen backsplash from the 1900s

I never thought I had a lot of family history until I asked my mom one day if she had anything that would be interesting to investigate for this assignment. We were eating dinner during this conversation, so I was surprised when she stood up and walked over to one of the tiles in our kitchen backsplash. Now, this backsplash is something that I have seen every day since I was five, so to say I was confused when she pointed at a seemingly ordinary tile was an understatement. The tile is 4x4in and in the shape of a square. The edges of the square are rough, and the corners are rounded out. The tile is textured and when you run your hands over it you can feel the bumps that were added to give it dimension. Painted onto the tile are a brown pitcher, a light blue bottle of oil, some fruit and vines, a bundle of garlic, and a small cream-colored teacup. My mom proceeds to tell me that this tile was custom-made from the grounded remnants of a tile she was gifted after my nana’s passing. The tile she was gifted was an original tile from the Vedovato bros tile business. The Vedovoto bros were the business my family started when they first arrived in America. My mom proceeded to tell me that she thought the original tile looked too dated to be used in our kitchen, so she went to a local tile company and had the tile ground down and remade into the tile above. She walked back to the dinner table after this and began to tell me the history of the Vedovato bros business (something I had no previous knowledge of).

In the late 1800s William, Vincent, Joe, and Erminio Vedovato, went to a trade school in Italy to study tile, marble, terrazzo, and mosaic. After they finished their education, they moved to Germany. In Aachen, Germany Acme Tile and Marble was created. The business was going really well so Vincent and William decided to take a vacation to New York City. On this vacation, they realized two things. The first was that construction was on the rise. Second, there were barely any tile businesses. This sparked an interest and after heading back to Germany, (as history goes) there was a long conversation between the four brothers. This conversation specifically discussed the turmoil they sensed boiling within the German government and the new opportunity they could have in America. This leads the brothers to their third move.

Upon arriving in the city, they bought a storefront at the end of 116th street right next to the East River. This location was prime for them because tile shipments were easily brought to their storefront. With the new move to a different country, they also changed the name of their shop. In 1910, they became the Vedovato bros and was primarily being run by Joe and Ermino.

Once again business was going extraordinarily well, but three major events changed the course for these brothers. The first and second events occurred in tandem with WWI in 1914 and the Spanish Influenza in 1918. While both the war and the flu put a strain on their business financially the biggest loss was the death of their brother Vincent who succumbed to the influenza. However, after his death, the roaring 20s picked up in full swing, and apartments were being built faster than they could produce the tile. This brought on more change within the business. In the mid-1920s William had decided to leave the business and headed back to Italy to help my great-great-great-great-grandparents on their family farm. Joe also left the business selling his share to Ermino. My great-grandfather Leon then joined the family business and worked along with his father.

The third major hit for this business was a combination of the stock market crash, the great depression, and WWII. When WWII hit the Vedovato bros shifted their company from tiles to a machine shop where they manufactured nuts and bolts to help aid in the war. Once the war was over, they were able to reopen the tile business and began importing tile from Japan. The shift from Acme tile imports to Japanese imports came from the U.S. government taking over Japan’s rebuilding where they began focusing heavily on the tile industry.

As the years went on more of my family began to join the business and more storefronts and storage warehouses were created in the Vedovato name. My grandpa ended up joining the business after his father (Leon) had passed and began to run the company alongside my nana Lena and her brothers. The business did begin to slow down until 1968 when my nana Lena decided to open one of the first tile showrooms in New York.

This new way of visualizing tile allowed for the business to pick up once again and be passed down into more generations. The business has since passed down to the fourth generation of Vedovatos and was the origin of one of the tiles in our kitchen backsplash!

The object at hand is my great-grandmother’s (i.e., nana’s) locket. Within the women of my family, it has become a family heirloom that was passed down from my nana to my mom and eventually will be given to me.

This heirloom is made of solid yellow gold and consists of three heart-shaped layers (back, front, and the middle pull apart). The pull-apart capability of this locket was created from having a thinner gold heart inside the general locket. There is a clasp at the top of the heart that allows the wearer to open the locket. When this item was in possession of my nana a small picture was inserted into this pull-apart section. If we look at the front of the locket the ridges around the edge of the heart are both raised and slightly rounded creating a small reservoir or sunken effect where a thin layer of gold lays flat beneath it. This thin layer of gold is textured. If you rub your finger across the surface, it is the same as when you rub your fingers against a decorative pillow. If we look at the top of the heart, we can see two rods of thick gold curve down into roughly the center of the locket. These rods are attached to the flat gold base and are each adorned with a single round-cut diamond.

When you compare the dainty modern-day lockets to this one you can see the drastic size difference. This locket measures about 3.8 centimeters in length. When clasped the width is nearly 3.6 centimeters, and when fully opened it expands to a little over 5 centimeters. This locket can fit perfectly in the hand of a toddler.

When I flip this locket over, we see the real significance of the object. Engraved in English roundhouse script are three parallel lines of writing. The first line reads To Lena, which is then followed by From Leon. Finally, the last line has the date of 11~24~59. Due to this slight shakiness in some of the lettering, it can be determined that this was done by hand. If I theorize a lozenge burin could very well be the tool used to make these markings. The markings on the locket are consistent with the markings the tool makes. The engravements appear to be deeper than the width of the letters.

The chain is completely flat, unlike a rope chain. Each individual link seems to be made of an “S” like shape, and each of these “S’s” intertwine with the tail of the next. Even through heavy research, not much is known about the maker of this object. It can be assumed that it was made in 1959, as the given date suggests, and when looking at the clasp at the top of the chain a small stamp of Italy, 14k can be found. In my own assumptions of the making of this necklace I imagine that it was imported from Italy to a jeweler in the city or Scarsdale, NY; where then a small business owner took it upon himself to make the engravings.

The necklace was a gift given by my great-grandfather, Leon, to my nana Lena for their 25th wedding anniversary. They had been married in 1934, a year before they had my uncle (great-uncle) Dick, and eleven years before the birth of my grandpa Larry. They had been high school sweethearts and were married for 29 years before Leon had passed away at the age of 50. This necklace was given to her four years before his passing and my mom recalls that never once had she ever taken it off. My mom has told me stories that when she was little, she used to sit on her nana’s lap and play with the pendent begging for her to let her try it on. “When you’re older I’ll give it to you Laur.”, she would say; she later gave it to my mom a month before she passed. In this photograph of my mom, myself, and nana, if you look closely, you can see the chain of the necklace around her neck.