Real Black Gangsters, I guess. Criminals from the 1950s, but presumed innocent until proven otherwise. I'm not kidding one bit. Given attitudes, practices and institutional racism from 50 plus years ago, these sharp-dressers might have been just walking to work.
Striking Photographs, each near 8" x 10" and each handed back and forth from lawyers, prosecutors, file clerks and now collectors. Another reminder that the photograph used to be a physical object which developed surface, wear and form as it aged.
Group of Original Mug Shot Photographs, New York City 1949 - 1955 Collection Jim LindermanBROWSE AND ORDER JIM LINDERMAN / DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AND EBOOKS HERE at BLURB.COM. ALL BOOKS FOR THE IPAD $5.99, PAPERBACKS AND HARDCOVERS PRICED INDIVIDUALLY. 
Caption on reverse "September 2, 1938 L.A Calif. Afternoon crowd now leaving the circus. Sideshow Band was playing in the midway."
Look close and you will see one of the acts was "The World's Lowest Type Human" and I hate to speculate on that one. Suzie born with the Skin of an Elephant.
If the date on the reverse of this photo is correct, you are seeing the sun go down in the afternoon and the lights go out in the evening. Hagenbeck-Wallace ceased operation the same year.
For those of you animal rights folks out there, in 1913 the circus lost 8 elephants, 21 lions and 8 performing horses in a flood in 1913. That pales in comparison to the train wreck they had five years later, in which an engineer further down the track fell asleep at the throttle and crashed his train into the rear of the Hagenbeck's. Kerosene lamps on the circus train spread fire immediately to the wooden cars, and 86 circus members died, another 127 were injured.
AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE is a occasional feature on Dull Tool Dim Bulb. This is number 31 in the series.
Original Snapshot 1938 Collection Jim LindermanOrder Dull Tool Dim Bulb / Vintage Sleaze / Jim Linderman Books and Tablet downloads for iPad HERE
Carnival Cutout Standee. Three lovely woman on a "girls day" at the carnival! (Does this suit make me look hippy?)
Who doesn't have a photo in the basement or the attic of the kids in fake stockades at some western tourist trap? They are back, if they ever left, that is. Here is a company which will make them, disco-style.Original carnival cutout snapshot circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
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