Bethlehem views from the Studio of the Eastern Illustrating Co

Back over the summer I was obsessed with postcards from the Eastern Illustrating Company of Belfast, Maine and kept meaning to write up a blog post.  Then I got distracted by the 1898 assessment roll.  

Now, I am back to it. First, a little background, then a whole bunch of photos that you will spend hours poring over.  Believe me, I have.

So, I have seen the logo above on several postcards in the town's historic photo collection.  It got me to wondering about what a company in Maine had to do with Bethlehem.  Googling around led me to the website of the Penobscot Marine Museum and the most astonishing collection of "real photo" postcards and the glass plate negatives they were created from.  Basically, from 1909 to 1947, the Eastern Illustrating Company sent photographers all over the northeast to take pictures of notable local sites that they then turned into postcards.  Go to their website and read all about it. 

https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/eastern-illustrating-publishing-company/

In searching their database, I found that photographers visited Clarksville, Delmar, Elsmere, Feura Bush and Selkirk. Interestingly, there are several cards from Slingerlands that are in the town's collection, but not in the online database. They've also got a couple of Delmar places listed as Elsmere and vice-versa.  I'm also wondering about Glenmont, South Bethlehem and Cedar Hill. So, I emailed the curators.  I'll let you know what I find out. 

The images I found on website are awesome, many of which I have never, ever, seen before.  I could write whole blog posts on each one of them. Like this one about Piney Rest which I wrote without even knowing it was an Eastern card until it popped up on the database. 

 https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/piney-rest-farm.html

All of the pictures below are taken from the Penobscot Marine Museum website and are inscribed with the museum's watermark.  You can purchase clear copies from the museum, and please do! They've got 50,000+ images to archive and they could use the money.

https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/historic-photo-prints/

And without further ado I give you the postcards that are on their website. Enjoy. 
(PS - I tried to put them in some semblance of order, note that most pictures are numbered.  It looks like the lower numbers are of an earlier date.)

Clarksville

Delmar

Elsmere

Feura Bush

Selkirk