georgegranthambaincollection

The photo was taken at a reception for New York Bull Moose candidate for Governor Oscar Straus and Mrs. Straus, at the Port Washington, Long Island, home of Bourke Cockran (a Bull Moose candidate for Congress) on September 28, 1912 --- kicking off the Bull Moose (Progressive Party) campaign in Nassau County. Straus had served as Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1912 was running for another term under the Progressive Party's banner. Story in The New York Times, September 29, 1912: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F04EFD9113AE6... Other Bain/LOC photos of the Lawn Fete for Oscar Straus:

Thank You very much, Wystan, for finding this info, I'm a Straus family cousin and have been wondering about where these pictures were taken for months, so you finding this NYT article is a great help. I'll pass this info on to my relatives at the Straus Historical Society.

@tfrancell -- the Straus Historical Society probably has seen Naomi W. Cohen's 1969 biography, "A Dual Heritage; The Public Career of Oscar S. Straus." On page 212 she writes, "The Progressive candidate for governor of New York began his public stumping on September 28 at a garden party in Long Island tendered by Bourke Cochran, a Progressive candidate for Congress." (If anyone needs a copy, with dust jacket, I have one available.) [As we know, Straus lost the New York governorship to the Tammany (Democratic) candidate, William Sulzer, in a three-way race with the GOP -- but Sulzer's incumbency was a brief one: he was promptly impeached by his enemies in the New York State Capitol.]

This is likely the "Knickerbocker Hotel Bread Line". Opened in 1906, The Knickerbocker Hotel was located at 1466 Broadway at the southeast corner of 42nd Street in New York City, The new hotel had 556 rooms but was organized around the dining and entertaining rooms on the lower three floors -- with 2,000 restaurant seats to feed the theater district traffic (with a gold dinner service for 48). [1] The back door to the hotel was on 41st Street, and some of the unemployed and hungry men, women and children would line up there, where they were given a little something to eat. As a run-up to America's entering World War I, there was record unemployment in New York City, and the winter of 1914-1915 was especially hard. The New-York Tribune reported on February 05, 1915:

"More than 1,400 men and 93 women were fed yesterday afternoon In the Hotel Knickerbocker bread line. Eighteen overcoats and twenty-seven suits of clothes were distributed to the more destitute men in the line by guests of the hotel. Two hundred articles of wearing apparel donated by women employees and guests of the hotel were distributed among the needy women and girls who joined the pitiful procession."

On some days, as many as 3,600 unemployed people would be waiting in the Knickerbocker Hotel bread line for something to eat. [2]

Also, seems like a match for this LOC print that bears the caption note: "Caption on corresponding print in LOT 10830: Bread Lines - Bowery man on the Bread Line at the Knickerbocker Hotel, Feb. 1915."



Not sure why note isn't on this, too.

Other Bain/LOC photos taken during the Midsummer Day Festival of the girls of Washington Irving High School, in Bronx Park [Corrected on some photos to Pelham Bay Park] -- June 23, 1911: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163516194/#] Story in The New York Times, June 24, 1911: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A02E1DA1E3EE2...