Silversmith
Looking at this collection of craftsmen and spare surroundings of the workshop, one realizes how much of the fine silver work from Kashmir was a matter of manual labor and skills.
Labor
Cotton Pickers
Many early Bombay postcards focused on the cotton trade, the source, with opium, of much of the city's early wealth.
Hindu Women Carrying Water
A very early blue-toned postcard from booksellers Cobridge and Co. Sent from Bombay's Sea Post Office, date unclear, to Mr. J. Sherman, 12 Middleton Square, Clerkennell, E.C. London, England: "With fondest love to all from Arthur."
Fruit Sellers
A gorgeously coloured collotype with the anonymous note on the front: "They are nearly as nice as ruby lips. best."
Dandy
Although the word "dandy" originally referred to boatmen on the Ganges (Hobson-Jobson, 1906, p.
Coolies
Although posed in the photographer's studio, it shows how young girls carried suitcases and bedding on behalf of visitors to the hillstation.
Gold Quartz Crushing Mills, Kolar Gold Fields
Part of a unique series of court-sized postcards showing the Kolar Gold Fields, India's largest until it was closed in 2001. That series includes Hajee Ismail Saits New Sawmill, Kolar Gold Fields and Extracting Gold, Cyanide Works, Kolar Fields.
A Knife Grinder
Knife grinders are a vanishing craft. Doing this at home before electric knife sharpeners was difficult. Knife grinders would take their sharpening wheels from door to door and take care of the problem.
An earlier postcard view, before divided backs
Knife Grinder
One can see the rapid transformation of the postcard from a time when messages where only allowed on the front, as in this card.
A Baluchi Ploughman
A postcard evocative of the hard toil required to plow fields given the upturned rocky soil. Note the large dog crouching on the right behind the farmer.
