Surgery

Wooden leg (4)

We present a  postcard, taken on the promenade in front of the town hall of Le Havre; a man with a wooden leg, accompanied by a chique wife. Two men turn and gaze at the cripple - bashful, the photographer fixes the motive of the limping man on his plate, as the man looks a moment to the Chaussée, where a horse drove rattles over the cobblestones.

On the back of the card: "Look the man with a wooden leg" - written by an "Eugène" to "Miss E. Denham" in Cowes / England on 23.5.1911.

In contrast to his fellow sufferer from Mondorf, this man also uses crutches!

The city of Le Havre, founded in 1517 as a war and commercial port on the Seine estuary, quickly became a major center, home of the India Company and center, through which exports and imports to and from the United States ran. 1538 Foundation of a hospital. The city became rich through the trade in coffee and cotton, but also by ... the slave trade, which flourished from 1716 to 1793. In the 19th century, the city became an industrial city. In 1870, the city absorbed a number of industrialists from Alsace. In the city center arose rich real estate, hotels, a stock exchange, mostly built in the swashbuckling Haussmanian style, a "Petit Paris". In the hinterland suburbs, in which the social misery dammed: prostitution, beggary, violence; a lot of social fuel so! The city, which had already been roused by the "rouges" in the 18th century, became the stronghold of the communists; it was shaken by social unrest in the late 19th century (from 1886) ...

From 1830, Le Havre became a sophisticated seaside resort, where the Haute Volée of Paris was busy, spending money, investing money, lots of money! Painters, artists moved to the city. This colorful mixture of speculators, tourists, asocials and elements of the "bohême" can be recognized on the promenade in front of the townhouse again ...

The promenade in front of the town hall of Le Havre sank in September 1944 to rubble and ashes when the city was bombed by the Allies after serving as a base for the German troops. After 1945, the city was rebuilt - an Eldorado for concrete architects.