Man that thing is old, looks like it came over on the Mayflower! It appears the carriage is always engaged with the lead/feed screw. No hand wheel on the apron either, you feed it from that handle on the right end. It also looks like it has some kind of power feed coming off the back of the spindle...the knob on the left end of the screw must somehow engage and disengage it. Has a lantern/rocker style tool post which can still be found in use today although it is also considered a relic of the past.
Most lathes of this era were driven from a drive shaft from above..normally with a flat belt, the same shaft being shared by other equipment in the shop. This one has a V-belt drive...probably so it could be used with a bench mounted motor. It looks like the pulley is almost touching the casting and it only has two grooves (the same size?) which is odd so I'm sure this was added later. There probably used to be a pulley on there with 3 or 4 steps.
Looks like a pretty big swing for a small lathe. Would be a kick to play with it and try and bring it back to life. You would probably need some kind of variable speed motor or an intermediate pulley setup (think jackshaft!) in order to add speed selection and make it more versatile.
I like old machinery like that...post up more pics when you get it running and making chips.
