The offical stamp of F.S. Lincoln

The majority of photographs used in the exhibit are company photos from the American Brake Shoe Foundry itself. These photos were taken by Fay S. Lincoln, a photographer who worked out of New York City in 1930s until the mid 1960s. His company F.S. Lincoln was mostly known for architecture photos. F.S. Lincoln was commissioned by American Brake Shoe for the purpose of providing high quality company photos that American Brake Shoe could use for public relations, such as their magazine The Private Wire. The photos were taken in 1944 and every picture had a date as well as a short description of the image. However, the photo of Jean Reily testing Specific Gravity in the Metallurgy Lab clearly has a calendar in the background of August 1947. The note on the back of the photo makes note of this. This photograph lacks an official description from American Brake Shoe on the back, so there is no official date for this photograph. It was assumed to also be 1944. Some photographs were defiantly taken in 1944 though. The 9th issue of The Private Wire has an image of the Ernest Busch cleaning a sand casting mold on the front cover and the source photograph for the cover is dated 1944. The issue recommends workers to buy war bonds, so this issue was published before August 1947 when the Jean Reily photograph was taken. This leads us assume that there were two times that F.S. Lincoln was commissioned to take photographs for American brake Shoe, one in 1944 and one in 1947. This would explain why some photographs appear to have more able bodied young men in them. They would have been absent from the photographs in 1944 since they were enlisted into the army to fight in World War II. But by 1947, they would have returned to the factory.