Who are the people in this magic lantern slide? Where is this house? Why is there so much mud? And, most importantly, had anyone heard of firearms safety? The child in the picture must be hoping that the gun isn't loaded.

If anyone can answer these questions (or can decipher the writing on this slide) please let the MAVtech Museum know! In the absence of any answers we can see why this slide is important: many family photographs and postcards show groups outside of houses. With land needing to be broken in, families outside their properties were seen as a kind of colonial pride.

What they are holding also speaks volumes about how people saw themselves (or at least, how they wanted to be seen). The man is holding a gun and is seen as a powerful provider. The boy holds a hammer- has he been helping with the work? The lady holds a book (a Bible perhaps? This was common for womens' photographs in Western countries back then). And the young lady looks ready to go to school or church in her neat hat and tidy clothing. These themes were often used in professional photographs and subconsciously spilled over into many early snapshots. 

Mind you- this could also be a professional photograph.

Also, this is a lantern slide, designed to be projected onto a wall. Unlike a personal photo album, these  slides were usually viewed as a large group. Extended family? A soldier overseas in the First World War? (the Dunedin Photographic Society took photographs of families that soldier relatives could then view near the front. These were all magic lantern slides.)

Photographs are often seen as perfect windows into the past but this one holds more questions than answers! 

Every photograph is a window into the past- and sometimes what you see surprises you. Children singing a waiata about being kind to animals seems like a modern day school lesson, but the writing on this slide is from 1924! In the 1920s only a few private schools taught the grammer of Te Reo. Tragically, all the other schools saw speaking Te Reo as a caning offence. Was this slide of one of the private schools- or a smaller group or club? We just don't know.

Or maybe these children were located at Waiata Shores, near Auckland (although even then, few schools used Te Reo names for locations back in the 1920s).

Art historian Walter Benjamin coined a term called 'optical unconsciousness' and part of that is seeing a photograph in hindsight. The people in it do not know the future, but we do. Whatever this photograph depicted it seems like it belongs in our present than in it's past.

But the past is full of surprises!

Inscription on back: Mrs MacDonald with Flora’s love December 1902

Formal head to waist studio photograph of Flora McDonald. Wearing dark blouse with large ribbon bow over high necked undergarment. Hair down.

Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Horowhenua Historical Society Inc.”

Update from plaque in Main Street, Foxton.

The view from Clyde Street dates from the early 1900s, prior to 1905. It was in that year that the old Bank of New Zealand building (next to the first telegraph pole on the left) was burnt down. Whytes Hotel is on the left and on the other side of White Street is the Red Store of M H Walker. A flag flies on the Post Office Hotel. On the right a group stands outside the building which was built as the Bank of Australasia and in the photograph is probably a doctor's surgery. It was also used by the Salvation Army Red Shield Club before it was burnt down.

Main Street, Foxton, looking south from Clyde Street intersection, c.1900. A group of people are gathered on the footpath while a girl dressed in white stands on the road . A gas streetlight stands on the corner.

Also large mounted copy

Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Foxton Historical Society”