Here's a little fun for a Monday morning .... this photograph of a children's pie eating contest was taken on this date, September 13, in 1919.
The contest was a part of a company picnic hosted by the South Philadelphia Works of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. The picnic, documented by staff photographer Charles Yessel (1877-1953) for publication in the company newsletter, Machine News, also featured a baseball game, potato race, tug of war contests, musical performances, a push ball game, a button sewing contest, and a "fat man's race".
The South Philadelphia Works, located in Essington and Lester, Pennsylvania, manufactured gas and steam engines, turbines and mechanical stokers for use in railway systems, fire service pumping stations, the shipping industry, and other large scale industrial purposes.
This image is part of Hagley Library’s collection of Westinghouse Electric Corporation Steam Division photographs (Accession 1969.170). A curated selection of items from this collection has been digitized; our Digital Archive offers over 1,000 photographs from this resource dating from 1898 to 1964. These photographs cover a variety of subjects including building construction, turbine manufacturing, research facilities, machinery, executives and employees, and visitors to the facility. To view more material from this collection online now, including more photographs from the 1919 company picnic, click here.