"Spruce Girls" in spruce veneer bathing suits at the beach playing in the surf, probably near Hoquiam, Washington, ca. 1929"
Clearly a publicity stunt (another photo here), but what catches my eye is that they seem to be cavorting on the beach next to a lumbar vertebra from a dinosaur. (?!)
Addendum: two readers have pointed out that it's probably a whale vertebra. I've been away from the ocean too long...
From the Flickr photostream of the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections.
My guess is a whale vertebra...
ReplyDeleteMine too. The morphology looks like a whale vert.
ReplyDeleteThanks, guys. Info added to the post.
ReplyDeleteBut what about the spruce veneer? Can you enlighten us further?
ReplyDeleteAre we to expect the plywood bikini any time soon?
By the way... I once knew a guy who had a glass-topped coffee table sitting on three sections of whale vertebrae.
Further. some four miles from where I live, and some sixty miles distant from the sea, is "Jaw-bones lane", Rothwell.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=jaw+bones+rothwell&rlz=1B3GPCK_enGB345GB345&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
The bones were brought from north america by the son of the local landowner, They've been replaced, but are still a local landmark.
Yes, this is a whale vertebra. All beach photos of the Spruce Girls taken in 1929 were at Pacific Beach, Washington as part of a comedy newsreel filmed by MGM in Los Angeles. These gals are our "mascots" for the 4th annual Chocolate on the Beach Festival this weekend.
ReplyDelete