Spring Is Here! Baby Animals in Ohio Memory

Spring, a time of new beginnings, has officially arrived in Ohio. Although the days are sometimes still chilly, spring flowers are blooming and trees are showing new leaves. In the spirit of the season, we’re sharing images of another sign of spring–baby animals. We’ve written previous blog posts about dogs and cats, so here we’re featuring some adorable young farm animals from across the state.

This photograph from the early 1900s shows a young boy in Wyandot County bottle feeding a young lamb as a pack of puppies tries to join the action. The photo was taken by Harry Evan Kinley (1882-1969); although he made his living as a salesman, he was an avid amateur photographer. His photos document twentieth-century life in Upper Sandusky, Wyandot County, and the surrounding area. You can read a 2015 blog post about Kinley and see many more of Kinley’s photographs in the Harry Kinley Collection on Ohio Memory.

This image of a woman with chickens was taken by traveling photographer Albert J. Ewing. From the 1890s to the 1910s, Ewing traveled through southeastern Ohio and central West Virginia, taking photos of rural life. The Ohio History Connection holds more than 5,000 of his glass plate negatives, which arrived still stored in the original negative boxes purchased by Ewing. The subjects of his photographs include children and families, school and religious groups, animals, and rural scenes. The face of the woman and the head of one of the chickens in this photo are blurred, indicating that they moved while the image was being taken. One little chick is clearly visible near the woman’s left hand; can you find a second chick in the photo?

This 1950s photo of baby goats and a monkey was taken at the baby animal farm of The F. & R. Lazarus Company, which featured twelve different kinds of domestic and wild animals. Founder Simon Lazarus opened a small men’s clothier in downtown Columbus in 1851. In the following decades the store expanded into a complete line of clothing and other merchandise, and when Simon died, his sons Fred and Ralph took over the company. In the 1920s Lazarus became one of the four founding members of Federated Department Stores. The brothers implemented many innovations over the years, including a fixed price–no negotiating needed. Lazarus stores were the first in the country to feature escalators and were also early adopters of air conditioning. After more than 150 years in business, Lazarus was absorbed by Macy’s in 2005. The Lazarus Family Collection is held at the Ohio History Connection archives; to see more images, click here. For more information about the company, see this 2014 Ohio Memory blog post.

---

Thank you to Stephanie Michaels, Research and Catalog Services Librarian at the State Library of Ohio, for this week’s post!