The Gaines and Brown Families of Carbon Canyon, Part 10: Olinda Village Middle School Students, ca. 1913

This coming Monday the 27th marks the first day of school in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District, so this is a good time to highlight another great photograph, courtesy of descendant Joyce Harrington and her collection from the Gaines and Brown families of Carbon Canyon, of students from the original Olinda School.

Dated to 1912 or 1913, the image shows 7th and 8th graders of the school, which served the residents of the Olinda community, largely based around the oil producing areas surrounding the campus.  The view shows 35 students and their teacher Mr. Turley standing (and, in a few cases, seated) at the steps to the open front doors of the school building.

A list of those shown in the photo was also provided and is shown here, including the names of twins Ora and Nora Brown and Aileen Gaines from the two families from which Joyce is descended.  It is interesting to peruse the first names of the students to see how different they are from today's names.  So, we are not likely now to see such examples as Earl, Hattie, Oscar, Herman, Wilfred, Willard, Frances, Myrtle, Bessie, Olive, Edna, Ernest, or Walter!

Reflective of the demographics of the community, only two of the students are Latino with the rest being White.  In 1910, there were just under 1,500 residents of Olinda and 88% were White with 8% being Latino. 

Another demographic point of note is that there were only 14 girls in the class, constituting 40% of the total.  This is a bit lower that the representation of females in the Olinda population at large, which was 44% in the census.  Given that Olinda was an "oil town," this is not that surprising broadly, because many single men worked in the fields, but that doesn't account for the disparity in the student population at the school, so that might just be an anomaly.

It is also interesting to look at how the students were dressed, considering this was probably a very rare "formal" occasion for them.  Note that quite a few of the boys sport ties (one has a natty bow tie) and some have the short pants common for the time.  Yet, a number wear the overalls expected in a working-class and rural community, though some spruced up their look by adding some neckwear.  The young gent at the far right of the top row even thought it good to accessorize his look with his baseball glove on his left hand!

The boys do have some variation in color, but check out the absolute uniformity of the girls, with one notable exception, when it comes to clothing color.  All wear radiant and pure white, while the girl third from the right in the middle row strikes a sartorial note of difference with a long-sleeve dress of a color that is not white.  Hairstyles, though, do vary and a couple of the young ladies did add hair bands to make their appearance distinctive and one girl in the front row set her self apart with her white hose and shoes.

School portraits, from any place in any era, are always interesting to look at in terms of the elements discussed above, but also as comparisons and contrasts to what we see today.