Bowling - Life in the gutter 1910
by Mike Savad
Title
Bowling - Life in the gutter 1910
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1910, February
Original Title: Bastable Cafe, 8 very small boys employed here
Location: Syracuse, NY
Somewhere, down a dark alley, children work the night shift. Working long hours often until midnight. While its better than working the streets, the job still has its dangers. These kids are pin boys. Bowling alley's in the past didn't have automated systems, they had children to set the pins up and send the ball back.
If they were lucky, they had a chair to get out of the way. Children made an ideal candidate because they are small, fit well back there, work cheap, and have lots of energy.
As far as pin setting goes, these boys had it easier, they used a machine to place the pins back. Other alley's relied on a peg system, where as a lever was pulled and pin guides would come out of the floor, and the pin would sit on that pin (they have holes on the bottom), after the pin was balanced, the pegs would lower and the bowler would move on.
Today, we don't use people back there as much. There are still lanes that have them though. The automated systems take up a lot of space, and if you only have a few lanes, it makes more sense to have someone back there.
Uploaded
May 5th, 2017
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