Looking For Women On The Internet

Yesterday I needed a picture of two ladies to illustrate an entry in the Civil War soldier’s diary that I’m editing for publication.

No problem; there are hundreds of thousands of pictures of women on the Internet. (I know). So all I had to do was google for “Ladies” in the Library of Congress photo files.

I discovered that there are no Ladies at the Library of Congress.

The term “Southern Belles” produced no better results. OK. I tried the search term, “women, 1864” and “Dresses” and “Girls, 1860s” and “Fashion, Civil War era”.

None of the pictures Google offered struck my fancy.

Good Heavens! Are there no photos of dressed women on the Internet? You know, “females wearing clothes”.

What I wanted was a picture of two ladies in a garden, a haunting picture like the one in — Light bulb above my head!!! — like the picture hanging in our back room, a picture I found in the trash about 40 years ago when I walked by an old house that was being torn down.

Pulling down the old picture from our own back room, I dusted it off and scanned it into my computer, frame and all.

This is just what I wanted.

Sometimes, in your own backyard.