The Lake Steamer Cleveland

Like last week's photo, this small albumen photograph is very faded. A trip through Photoshop, though, brings out a lot of details, and reveals a crowded lake steamer named the Cleveland.

The image had originally been recorded on a glass plate negative, which was damaged (you can see the marks of this next to the man standing on the upper deck bow), suggesting that it had been handled repeatedly. Could this have been a "stock" photo of the steamer, printed in bulk, with the small prints sold as souvenirs?

Faded or Photoshopped, sometimes it's easy to forget that, for the folks on that boat, it was a brilliant, sunny day with bright blue skies, green hills in the background and the party was just getting started!