Rare Set Of 2 Creole Standard OIl Venezuela PHOTO ALBUMS - 300, Personal Photos
Item History & Price
Rare Complete Set Of 2 1938 Standard OIl Venezuela PHOTO ALBUMS Personal Photos. Condition is Used. Shipped with USPS
2 Photo Albums - Album #1 is completely captioned with names, place and activities. The 2nd album is not captioned. It chronicles a 1938 oil/gas trip to Venuzuela - Caripito, El Lirial, Maturin, Perdernales and other locations. Photos of Esso's "Company" aircraft are included in the lot - Essowing and other LOCKHEED aircraft. There are just too many... interesting photos to cram into the eBay maximum 12 photo allowance.
There are between 300 and 400 photographs total in both albums. The captioned album's pages are coming loose with some loose however the photos are all in great condition if not relatively pristine considering the age.
History that I have gathered in reference to the photos of the Americans in their Oil/Gas "Camp Life"Standard Oil Company of Venezuela (later Creole Petroleum, a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey), and Shell Oil built residential camps to house their employees. In classic Jim Crow fashion, the companies created distinct areas for foreigners, typically white U.S. employees or “senior staff, ” Venezuelan professionals or “junior” staff, and more modest housing for workers. The senior staff clubs included a pool, golf course, tennis and basketball courts, as well as bowling alleys while the workers club typically had a baseball field, a bolas criollas court (bocce), a bar and a dance floor. In spite of this hierarchy, by the 1950s the camps became symbols of U.S.-sponsored “modernity, ” with orderly communities, higher salaries and access to a full range of services that sharply contrasted with conditions found in the local Venezuelan settlements.
The camps represented an improvised and largely transitory society made up of residents from different parts of the United States and Venezuela. The camps allowed Venezuelans to interact with people from other regions, races and countries. With few if any roots to the local community, workers were frequently transferred between camps, and the company promoted an esprit de corps among its employees that centered on an all-encompassing corporate culture. Company practices favored hiring family members, thus handing down values such as the “American way of life” from generation to generation.
Yet despite their artificial nature, the camps left an enduring legacy in Venezuelan culture and society. For the generations that worked in the oil industry, the camps reinforced their image as a privileged sector of Venezuelan society. Just as importantly, the camps were sites of cultural and social exchange, with the “American way of life” influencing everything from politics to values. Those employed in the industry expected the Venezuelan state to be the guardian of this distinctive lifestyle. Many residents retained a collective nostalgia for the experience of the camps, overlooking the racial and social hierarchy that prevailed and the detachment that existed from Venezuelan society.
Caripito was typical of this oil town culture. The same ships that navigated the San Juan River to load oil also brought an array of U.S. fruits and canned products for sale in the camp commissary. Festivities in oil camps highlighted the extent to which the camps represented self-contained enclaves of U.S. culture in the heart of Venezuela. Seldom if ever questioned, the pervasive influence of the U.S. oil industry made political and cultural ties with the north appear normal. Celebrations of the 4th of July melded with Venezuelan independence on the 5th of July, becoming shared events that allowed politicians and company officials to make largely perfunctory claims of solidarity. Expatriates, especially from Texas, saw the occasion as an opportunity to prepare Southwest-style barbecues where local beer flowed freely. Uncle Sam, the benevolent father figure that later morphed into a symbol of U.S. imperialism, mixed freely with Tío Conejo, a shrewd rabbit from a Venezuelan folk tale who regularly outwits his tiger nemesis, Tío Tigre.
Other festivities, however, diverged from Venezuelan traditions for which no parallel activity existed. During Halloween, children dressed as Mickey Mouse, cowboys, ghosts and witches wandered throughout the senior camp asking for candy from befuddled Venezuelans. Thanksgiving celebrations by the U.S. expatriate community, which often included public gatherings, and the consumption of frozen turkeys imported from the United States, remained an exclusively foreign activity. Venezuelans outside of the oil industry had no connection to these events. A traditional Christmas in Venezuela had always included building a Nativity scene, but in the oil camps, this practice was slowly displaced by ornament-laden imported pine trees. To add to the festive mood, the oil company typically decorated a nearby oil well or water tower with colored lights in the shape of a Christmas tree, with adjacent loudspeakers playing seasonal melodies.
2 Photo Albums - Album #1 is completely captioned with names, place and activities. The 2nd album is not captioned. It chronicles a 1938 oil/gas trip to Venuzuela - Caripito, El Lirial, Maturin, Perdernales and other locations. Photos of Esso's "Company" aircraft are included in the lot - Essowing and other LOCKHEED aircraft. There are just too many... interesting photos to cram into the eBay maximum 12 photo allowance.
There are between 300 and 400 photographs total in both albums. The captioned album's pages are coming loose with some loose however the photos are all in great condition if not relatively pristine considering the age.
History that I have gathered in reference to the photos of the Americans in their Oil/Gas "Camp Life"Standard Oil Company of Venezuela (later Creole Petroleum, a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey), and Shell Oil built residential camps to house their employees. In classic Jim Crow fashion, the companies created distinct areas for foreigners, typically white U.S. employees or “senior staff, ” Venezuelan professionals or “junior” staff, and more modest housing for workers. The senior staff clubs included a pool, golf course, tennis and basketball courts, as well as bowling alleys while the workers club typically had a baseball field, a bolas criollas court (bocce), a bar and a dance floor. In spite of this hierarchy, by the 1950s the camps became symbols of U.S.-sponsored “modernity, ” with orderly communities, higher salaries and access to a full range of services that sharply contrasted with conditions found in the local Venezuelan settlements.
The camps represented an improvised and largely transitory society made up of residents from different parts of the United States and Venezuela. The camps allowed Venezuelans to interact with people from other regions, races and countries. With few if any roots to the local community, workers were frequently transferred between camps, and the company promoted an esprit de corps among its employees that centered on an all-encompassing corporate culture. Company practices favored hiring family members, thus handing down values such as the “American way of life” from generation to generation.
Yet despite their artificial nature, the camps left an enduring legacy in Venezuelan culture and society. For the generations that worked in the oil industry, the camps reinforced their image as a privileged sector of Venezuelan society. Just as importantly, the camps were sites of cultural and social exchange, with the “American way of life” influencing everything from politics to values. Those employed in the industry expected the Venezuelan state to be the guardian of this distinctive lifestyle. Many residents retained a collective nostalgia for the experience of the camps, overlooking the racial and social hierarchy that prevailed and the detachment that existed from Venezuelan society.
Caripito was typical of this oil town culture. The same ships that navigated the San Juan River to load oil also brought an array of U.S. fruits and canned products for sale in the camp commissary. Festivities in oil camps highlighted the extent to which the camps represented self-contained enclaves of U.S. culture in the heart of Venezuela. Seldom if ever questioned, the pervasive influence of the U.S. oil industry made political and cultural ties with the north appear normal. Celebrations of the 4th of July melded with Venezuelan independence on the 5th of July, becoming shared events that allowed politicians and company officials to make largely perfunctory claims of solidarity. Expatriates, especially from Texas, saw the occasion as an opportunity to prepare Southwest-style barbecues where local beer flowed freely. Uncle Sam, the benevolent father figure that later morphed into a symbol of U.S. imperialism, mixed freely with Tío Conejo, a shrewd rabbit from a Venezuelan folk tale who regularly outwits his tiger nemesis, Tío Tigre.
Other festivities, however, diverged from Venezuelan traditions for which no parallel activity existed. During Halloween, children dressed as Mickey Mouse, cowboys, ghosts and witches wandered throughout the senior camp asking for candy from befuddled Venezuelans. Thanksgiving celebrations by the U.S. expatriate community, which often included public gatherings, and the consumption of frozen turkeys imported from the United States, remained an exclusively foreign activity. Venezuelans outside of the oil industry had no connection to these events. A traditional Christmas in Venezuela had always included building a Nativity scene, but in the oil camps, this practice was slowly displaced by ornament-laden imported pine trees. To add to the festive mood, the oil company typically decorated a nearby oil well or water tower with colored lights in the shape of a Christmas tree, with adjacent loudspeakers playing seasonal melodies.
