to Alexander G Swasey Sr.
My great-great-great grandfather
Birth 10 Sept 1784 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts, USA
Death 28 Oct 1861 in Newport, Newport, Rhode Island, USA
Last year I posted in his honor HERE. And earlier I posted about him HERE.
This year I will just add a newspaper article that was about him and his work as a wood carver.
My sleuthing feelings say it came out in the early 20th century because of the referral to "during the middle decades of the last century" referring to the wood carving having been on display at the Market on Pelham St (in Newport, RI).
A World's Fair in New York is where his carved eagle was being displayed. That should give me a date. Well, there were a lot of expositions of different interests in New York many times in the early twentieth century. But we might go for the first big one, called a World's Fair, which is just an assumption.
That was the 1939-40 World's Fair, which had a lot to do with a forward thinking outlook, moving away from the depression years, and with the 60 foreign exhibits, showing the world that the US was doing pretty darn well. It also was interrupted by the beginnings of the European conflict and two countries didn't even open their exhibits in 1940, Poland and Czechoslovakia.
I wonder if the Rhode Island unit of the New England pavalion was during that World's Fair...
The article also seems to have some sarcastic remarks about how the Swasey eagle replaced another "more modern" exhibit. I wonder if that had anything to do with the beginnings of World War II...a patriotic symbol instead of some terns.
I'm joining Sepia Saturday with the connection (frail though it may be) that this post is also about something published in a newspaper. Check out other posts over at Sepia Saturday HERE.
