1930s New Jersey / Jersey Shore Print - WAKE UP, AMERICA!!! - Wildwood Baby Parade - Roosevelt New Deal - Joe Biden - Antique Stop Watch

Treasures from THE PHILADELPHIA / DELAWARE VALLEY COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review. Print size 18 x 24 and consciously formatted to work with an 18 x 24 frame, or custom framed as you see fit.

This is SUCH an image for our time, yet I see optimism rather than a declaration of doom.

Wildwood is where generations of hard working Americans, most from the Philadelphia area, flock every summer to chill on the beach. It has none of the broad expanses of Long Beach Island and little of the languid leasure time one thinks of in Avalon or Ocean City. It bustles and pops and pulses, the boardwalk as busy as a bee, nonstop.

Think early 60s, Bobby Rydell, Frankie and Annette, Paul Anka, Chubby Checker.

That said, Wildwood took its time filling in, and the baby parade goes back to very relaxed roots in 1909. There are themes for individuals and families, if they choose to dress up to carry that message together and like the Mummers Parade in Philly, some of the themes can be pretty wiseacre, though considerably tamer at the shore than on Broad Street.

This early 30s photo is a charmer, and brought considerable grins all around when we unveiled it here in the studio for friends. Good for every house at the Jersey Shore, it is not region bound, and the sentiment is universal.

Enjoy!
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SHIPPING
All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

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A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.