Lumpy kids on a 1913 sportswear catalog

This 1913 athleticwear catalog cover illo sure makes their customers look like a bunch of swell kids -- like Hal Roach/Our Gang stars who've got the mumps.

Cue the creepy kids!

(Image: 1913 ... Lumpy and Lousey, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from x-ray_delta_one's photostream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: ad • Copyfight • illustration • Kids • Old school • Weird

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hassan-i-sabbah

Aw! Lil Diseased Scamps!
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I especially love young Jason Vorhees back there signalling to the pitcher to give ‘im some heat.
kartwaffles

I love how he’s got safety mask but no shoes. Kids in 1913 were into going barefoot before it was hip.
waksawak

That catcher has taken a few too many bats to the head.
“We keep playing, see. These bunch a swells ain’t got nothing on us. You hang in there mugsy and you can have all the penny candy a boy can desire. Now lay down either three or four fingers and let’s get this guy out.”
phlavor

Too late for the mask son.
- dioptase
  
  That mask isn’t to protect him. It’s a little known fact, but 1912 saw the first zombie outbreak. By 1913, people found they could be useful if you just stopped them from biting. The kid with the bat is an owner disciplining his zombie slave for having stolen a liver.
SomeGuyNamedMark

Back when clothes were made in the old mill towns of New England.
Brainspore

Didn’t Boing Boing just do a post on Garbage Pail Kids?
GatticusFinch

Hey D&M Athletic Goods, William Faulkner called and he wants his idiot man-child back. He said you can keep the catcher’s mask.
voiceinthedistance

Without any hint of padding, it might be tough to decide whether a ball or bat hitting you square on would be preferable to having that metal cage driven into your head. Decisions, decisions.
- Donald Petersen
  
  I’ll have to ask my niece. A few years back she was working in some batting cages and got nailed in the eye with a fastball. (The machine was supposed to be off.) She recovered and is quite lovely now, and you’d never know it but to this day her eyeball is supported from below by a kind of silicon sling, to keep it from drooping down into her skull.
  
  So she might have a qualified opinion on whether this particular gopher trap might be better protection than nothing. If I had to hazard a guess, I think she’d be hard pressed to make a decision.
- zarray
  
  I’d think the cage would at least distribute the force-weight.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Compare this to the icksy-cutesy apple-cheeked’ Campbell Kids or any number of other advertising kootie-pies.
petsounds

Catcher: “Davy, can we go pet the birdies? They’re so pretty.”
Batter: “Shut up, Edgar. We’re going to teach Mister Fancyknickers over there a lesson.”
dragsterhund

The catcher has a little bit of Hannibal Lecter in him…
sean

Heroin will do that to a catcher.