Negative, Glass-plate

Negative, glass-plate. Monochromatic glass-plate negative from the studio of Louis James Pesha bearing a photo of the starboard side of the Detroit and Buffalo Steamboat Company passenger steamship EASTERN STATES, along with a poem. Passengers are visible on the promenades of the steamer, and both an early biplane and a pedal-powered airship have been superimposed above the it. Print below is:

In nineteen hundred and sixteen
We all shall be flying--perhaps!
And racing with sea-gulls and thunder clouds
In dizzy aerial laps

We'll go to our business each morning then
In speedy aeroplanes,
And move our dirigible balloons
To steeples or weather vanes

Then all will be joy to the chaps who fly
But days full of fear and dread
For the common people who have to dodge
Things dropping from overhead

Stillson wrenches and gasoline cans
And champagne bottles and corks
Will cover the buildings and fields and streets
And bury the chap who walks