A Fascination with Disaster in Ulster County

Now let’s view postcard images from the era.

From a glance one could surmise that Ulster County lurched from decade to decade like a drunk constantly working to free itself of disaster. The truth is probably simpler. Accidents and fires were opportunities and local photographers captured them on film, the images probably worth good money. That makes Rondout both a lucky and unlucky place.

That they come down to us today while the vast majority of bucolic images go unnoticed is probably nothing more than that a burning house is more compelling than a smiling family, unless of course it’s your family.

Every town had the potential for photogenic events but the number of photographers interested and or able to take the pictures and then market them seems much less. In the Hudson Valley there were many towns of note but so few photographic postcard images extant as to suggest fewer shots were taken elsewhere. For whatever reason Rondout, the Rondout Creek riverfront of what is Kingston today became an epicenter of such shots, probably because there were many disasters and several photographers nearby. Whatever the reasons the frailty of life in Rondout and nearby places is graphically preserved.

Late in the 19^th century the happy confluence of constant disasters, a breathless public, traveling photographers, faster film, and changing postal regulations brought the photograph postcard into its golden era. The result was a twenty-year run of photographic images running the gamut from American Gothic-like family scenes all the way to up in smoke and out-like-a-light. The memorable examples are the disasters.

Fast forward. Today on television we see the latest generation of these photographers, their subjects - the disasters-du-jour be they drunk driving, equipment malfunctions, divorce, public arguments and spats and of course crashes and wrecks. Are people at automotive events there to see the race or the accidents? Today’s wreck-du-jour videographers and the channels and websites they supply show a starlet under-siege, a terrible accident, and the gone-to seed mug shot of a once famous and now declining star – altogether in five minute segments sandwiched between ads for Viagra and Tide. Perhaps these Ulster County photo postcards are simply an early manifestation of the same human impulse to see other people’s misfortunes.

Click here to read to read Howland’s Railroad Accidents in the United States to which is appended Accounts of Recent Shipwrecks, Fires at Sea, Thrilling Incidents, etc. The full text is in Google Books.

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A Fascination with Disaster in Ulster County

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A Fascination with Disaster in Ulster County

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