File:American GI in front of Firpo's restaurant in Calcutta in 1945.jpg

English: Original description: "The GI tourist here ponders the purchase of a 'rare gem'---a typical camera study of life on Chowringhee

during the war. Firpo's famous restaurant is in the background, and dhoti-clad Indians and a British officer in shorts lend a bit of atmosphere."

The South Asia Section of the Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania recently acquired from a bookdealer a photograph album consisting of 60 photographs of Calcutta taken most likely between 1945-1946. The photographer, Mr. Clyde Waddell, also provided the interesting glosses accompanying each photograph. Several attested copies of this work has emerged including one with a 'title page' held by the Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. Mr. Waddell was a military photographer. Many of his captions sound like annotations that would be found in a typical military magazine. The album begins with several general long shots of Calcutta and ends with a picture of dhobi-s (washermen) washing clothes. The text accompanying the last photograph also sounds as if the author intended to finish with that picture of one of the "great mysteries of India." The annotations have been included because of their intrinsic interest not only to the photographs but to a 'typical' American impression of India at this time.