A self-service booth photo taken on 20 September 1941 at the Gratz Fair, Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, of Melva Naomi Sitlinger (1901-1985).
Booths were set up at local, county, and state fairs where patrons desiring to have photos taken of themselves deposited coins in a machine which took up to five photos at set intervals, and then developed the photos and produced the 1.5″ x 2″ photos in a strip format. Often several friends or family members crowded into the booth to have their photos taken together as souvenirs of the visit to the fair.
This particular photo was taken taken less than a year after Melva Sitlinger was appointed Postmaster of Loyalton, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and less than two months before the United States entered World War II. She retained her position through World War II, and the complete Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy presidencies. Her official retirement occurred about five weeks after the Kennedy assassination.
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