Image find

[richardh]

Might have already been seen on these forums but:
Found this image on the internet. The door and the wainscote look like those in #13

[Rosella]

Interesting, Richard. Thanks for posting it. What on earth is that complex-looking piece of machinery just above the child's head?

[kookingpot]

Interesting, Richard. Thanks for posting it. What on earth is that complex-looking piece of machinery just above the child's head?

Looks like a pump of some kind. Perhaps a water pump. There is even a spigot on the left side of the machine. I'm definitely going with water pump.

[Robert]

A primitive fire extinguisher?

[kookingpot]

I actually think it's more along the lines of the water source for a couple apartments. I don't think there was much in the way of plumbing (specifically running water) the way there is today, and I am of the opinion that it's more a place for people to draw their water, similar to wells outside. Only 30 years earlier was the famous cholera epidemic which was traced to everyone getting their water from a certain contaminated well, so it makes sense for old buildings to have their own pumps that served multiple apartments rather than suddenly everyone has sinks and faucets.

[Harry D]

That kid's got a bigass cranium.

[Elamarna]

Kookingpot

you are probably right on that it is a pump , I remember in the mid 1960's visiting a great aunt who live in Bexhill on the English south coast.
The house, dating from the mid 1800's, had been little updated since it was first built, it had electric lights and running water. but I gather those were installed in the 1920's.

Anyway the large sink in the kitchen had a pump like that, it was used to fill the sink and to put water into a coal fired boiler which was next to the sink and heated water for clothes washing. When i visited the water heater had been converted to electric, and water filled directly from the mains.
However the water pump still worked. i remember playing with it and pumping the handle up and down as a youngster.

Steve

[Michael W Richards]

The fact that its indoors suggests that it was likely something that might have been used to hook into in the case of fire. In the case of general water supply a house like the one in the picture would not have been equipped with any indoor plumbing, and if it was a general access water pump for the residents as has been suggested, it would be outside the dwelling, like in the alcove outside room 13 Millers Court, Marys room.

[GUT]

Very similar to early petrol (fuel/gas god the different words for one thing) pump.

You pumped the petrol not the glass container at the top (to measure a gallon) then opened the spigot to fill the car.

But a petrol pump wouldn't be inside.

Water pumps (or any I've ever seen) wouldn't have the container, you just pumped into a bucket or bowl.

Is t a kid or a doll? Something about it don't look right.

[GUT]

Then I look again, is/was there a glass (like a lamp cover) container at the top or are they just support arms.

Yep I'm flipping and flopping.

[GUT]

I have to stop looking at it.

Now it just looks like a pretty standard pump a handle a pump mechanism and a spigot.

[jerryd]

The pump caught my eye but look to the right above the railing. This is the freaky part. There is a person standing to the right. Almost looks like an apparition. If you look between the railing you can see a hand. Zooming in on the picture you can see the definition of the fingers. The face looks distorted for sure.

[Pcdunn]

Motion-blur, old style

The pump caught my eye but look to the right above the railing. This is the freaky part. There is a person standing to the right. Almost looks like an apparition. If you look between the railing you can see a hand. Zooming in on the picture you can see the definition of the fingers. The face looks distorted for sure.

Not an apparition, just an example of why old cameras needed people to stand perfectly still for a long period of time.

I think the woman was coming up the staircase to the right side of the picture.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

And The Winner Is

It's a water pump. Photograph by Jacob Riis, part of his collection The Other Half.

The picture is from New York City.

http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/Baby-in-slum-tenement,-dark-stairs--it's-playground.-2F3XC58XXXXX.html

from wiki:
Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography. He endorsed the implementation of "model tenements" in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. Additionally, as one of the most famous proponents of the newly practicable casual photography, he is considered one of the fathers of photography due to his very early adoption of flash in photography. While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the bad living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Sorry link to the picture doesn't work, but if you copy/paste, it's fine.