Featured Uncle Sam's Party postcard and other items

Knowing that I like to do research on mysterious photos, GalleriaGila sent me a real mystery among the gifts in our Santa drawing this year. I posted a photo but there is even more to it than I thought. She apparently bought this all together from an online seller.

Anybody feel like helping with this? Apparently the postcard from 1914 was inside the envelope postmarked 1937, as was the little badge sort of thing.

When I posted this to the Santa Reveal thread, @KingofThings posted the following information about the U.S.S. Perkins:

Namesake: George Hamilton Perkins
Builder: Puget Sound Navy Yard
Laid down: 15 November 1934
Launched: 31 December 1935
Commissioned: 18 September 1936
Fate: sunk following accident 29 November 1943 ('her' fault)
~
Perkins earned 4 battle stars during World War II.

Photos follow: Written in red, and also written in pencil on this back of this postcard:
Uncle Sam's Party
July 4, 1914
Pichilinque, Mex.

Some of the guys in the picture appear to be wearing uniforms but I can't tell if they are also costumes for the party. Gila wrote a note saying "I did find that the US military was involved in the Mexican Revolution @ 1914..."




Envelope: There is another similar envelope that recently sold through eBay, posted only a couple of days before this one.



Sender of the envelope...



Back of the postcard:



The badge is approximately 1/2 inch wide:




So, an envelope sent in 1937 containing a postcard from 1914... and that badge! There is a small bit of red residue inside the envelope that may have come off of the badge.

A multifaceted mystery! If anybody wants to help in research, please do!

 

I must be a bit thick but... could you explain what exactly the mystery is?

Debora

 

A couple observations and/or questions.

Uncle Sam is clearly in costume, as is the woman with whom he's linked arms.

She has one leg up resting her foot on the shoulder of the middle one of the 3 men - in strange outfits - sitting in front of them. A dominant kind of posture - perhaps those 3 men are from (or are representing) the losing side in the Revolution?

The fellow on the right looks like he's been wounded - arm in a sling, the one in the middle has his legs wrapped in a way that suggests cavalry (at least to me.) But his head is covered by a sort of wrapped scarf - turban-like? Does he have a substantial mustache? Like Pancho Villa?

On the right of Uncle Sam, the uniformed man has a couple strange things going on. Can you see what it says on the front of his hat? He's holding 2 bottles of champagne (?), one obvious and the other down at his side. But what's with his face? His left eye appears to have something like (but bigger than and square) a monocle. Looks like it's a costume to me.

The man on the left of the woman - not in uniform I think - wearing a long coat and with a top hat in his hand? Maybe representing the US president? Or F. D.Roosevelt - who was Secretary of the Navy at the time?

I think this party involved some kind of skit and these folks were all part of it.

 

Another thing that made me wonder - the 1937 postmark from the Perkins is accompanied by a cancellation from La Paz, Mexico. Is La Paz (which I never of before, Bolivia yes, but Mexico no) somehow important to the explanation....

Would a normal sailor have a return address stamp? Or does that appear to have been printed on the envelope?

 

The mystery for me is why this postcard and the badge were in this particular envelope. I know that it could be random, but since at least one of the two things was there long enough to leave red residue inside, it seems that they were through some temperature changes. I'd also like to know whether the people at the party were in the military. And as for the envelope, I wonder what the "shakedown cruise" and "shenandoah crew" were. Oh, and what is the story behind the badge?

 

Let me look more closely at things to try to answer your questions. As you can see, the photo is not very sharp.

And, thanks for the ideas! This whole packet just seems overwhelming to me.

 

It looks like he is probably wearing a turban, and -- I think I see the edge of a handlebar type of mustache. That part of the photo is very dark, and I can't see even under magnification.

The guy to the left in front is wearing a shirt that says "U. S. Possession" on the front. That made me wonder whether this skit had anything to do with the Mexican-American War of the 1840s? But would they have been doing that almost 70 years later? Maybe not.

 

The square thing in front of his eye is strange... it might be a defect in the development of the photo. If it isn't, I can't tell what it is.

I can't see what is on the front of his hat. I can't even tell for sure if there is lettering there. There might be, but I'm not sure.

"I think this party involved some kind of skit and these folks were all part of it." -- I think you're right!

"the 1937 postmark from the Perkins is accompanied by a cancellation from La Paz, Mexico. Is La Paz (which I never of before, Bolivia yes, but Mexico no) somehow important to the explanation."

I just found that La Paz and Pichilinque are very close to each other in Baja California Sur, Mexico. And I went back to look at the envelope that just sold on eBay. It was mailed on March 6, 1937 (two days before mine). And the city was Pichilinque. So, my envelope was mailed almost 23 years after the party on the postcard, but from the same area.

I just had a thought... maybe the postcard was found in Pichilinque by a military person who was there in 1937 on the U.S.S. Perkins, and mailed to the person on Dallas?

 

We invaded in April 1914, occupying the port of Veracruz until November. This was done because at Tampico, the local authorities arrested several US sailors, getting one of them off his ship - US territory. Wilson insisted they apologize, they refused, so we invaded.

 

Your C.E. Pierson seems to have mailed a lot of letters. As to the badge, likely has something to do with Australian efforts to form its own navy. Suceeded with the Royal Australian Navy in 1913.

https://www.navalcovermuseum.org/restored/PERKINS_DD_377.html

Debora

 

A "shakedown cruise" is the first major voyage following commissioning - get the kinks out, find the problems and resolve them.

 

Yes, I had found that. But Veracruz is nowhere near Pichilinque. On the opposite coast, and much farther south. So must have been something else going on...

 

I hadn't looked at the map yet.

But the invasion would explain the fellow's shirt in the context of the party.

 

Thanks! Looks like the Perkins got around. Two of those postmarks are from Hawaii, One from Hilo on Feb. 25, 1937! So 9 days later came the one that was posted from Pichilinque and recently sold on eBay. (By the way, that one was mailed to a different person and the back of the envelope was not shown in the listing so I don't know who the sender was... may not have been Pierson.)

 

Guess what? Pichilinque is also called La Paz!!

 

Pierson only sent the top two envelopes. He is identified as doing so by the museum (as C.E. Pierson.) Both envelopes were sent to James M. Ferris in Birmingham, AL.

Debora

 

Oh, duh! Didn't notice... Thank you!

 

So I finally went back and read the replies I had missed somehow.

I see you already got the La Paz connection, Fig. I agree that the postcard could have been "found" in '37 and that Pierson and Gebhardt are unlikely to have had anything to do with the Party in person.

 

The red ‘tag’ is tobacco related and should have no real connection to the event other than they may have consumed it.

 

"Vintage tobacco tin tag?" Interesting. Had never heard of such a thing.

Debora