A Carte de Visite Album 1

This is one of the first big pieces in the old photo collection, given as a present by a relative, even though she agreed with the rest of my family that it was very weird that I was obsessed with collecting stuff. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to space this one out. There aren't that many photos left in the album. Many of the pictures have been torn out, the pages and album spine are very delicate, and I'm somewhat concerned that I might damage it when I put it on the scanner. It's hard to see, but there is a price of $15 on the first full page of the album. A bargain by today's standards.

As I've written in some of my earlier carte de visite posts, the CDV and the larger cabinet card were early attempts to come up with standard format for photographs. Printed and then mounted on same size card stock, they could be carried in card cases, or mounted in blank albums. In this particular album there is a slot in each page that allows for two CDVs, per page, to be slid in, back to back. While the photos could have been taken out and scanned separately, I decided not to risk any more damage to the album pages and left them in for scanning. The results, as can be seen, are a bit crooked.

Because some of the CDVs have been removed, the backs of some of the cards have been exposed. The photographers mark on the back of the woman holding the baby reads, "GEO. B. CHASE PHOTOGRAPHER, Scranton, Pa." The first shot of the child in a dress, "FRANK JEWELL PHOTOGRAPHER, Chase's Gallery. SCRANTON, PA." It seems that George Chase either took a partner or was successful enough to hire employees. It looks like this family moved, since the photos of the final two children each have "J. HAMILTON, PHOTOGRAPHER, FOURTH STREET, SIOUX CITY-IOWA" stamped on the back.

There was a strange custom in the nineteenth century of raising young boys as girls for the first four or five years of their lives. Note that the two pictures of the child wearing a dress look to be the same child, and that child is male.

Baseball

It's raining in Los Angeles. A massive storm is blowing in from the Pacific northwest and if forecasts hold, the snow level may drop down to 500 feet and fall in the San Fernando Valley. San Fransisco 7, Arizona 6 in Cactus League play. Spring season games have begun.

True Color, Grayscale, and Silvering

Every time I scan in a photograph I have to make a decision whether I should use the grayscale or the true color setting. As a former professional black & white printer, I'm always tempted to go grayscale, but after some thought, I decided that, for this blog, I should do my best to duplicate the look of the original. That would be an easy decision for this image. The original is a mounted albumen print with a rich brown, sepia tone. But with many photographs the choice is far less obvious. Many of the old snapshots I have in the collection are in that zone between a nice black & white photo with blacks, whites, and gray mid-tones, and slightly yellowish-brown tones, caused by a less than successful, final, archival wash. When I worked at photo labs, one of my jobs was operating a copy camera. Sometimes our customers would bring in old family photos, and some of those would be leaching photographic silver and, of course, silver reflects light. When prints aren't washed or fixed properly, over time the residual silver will begin to show on the surface of the print. When making prints from copy negs, if the silvering wasn't too bad, we could always burn in backgrounds or print to a non matching contrast to hide the problem. When scanning a print into a computer the silver can make it almost impossible to get a decent scan. There is a bit of silvering on this print, seen in the uneven tones in the bottom third of the print. Mounted on cardboard, labeled, "Milton Loryea SPOKANE WASH." Written on the back, "Charles Butter."

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Added: Milton Loryea Photo Studio was listed in the Spokane city directory from 1893 to 1909. He and his brother Archie, also a photographer moved to Spokane from San Jose, California in 1892. Archie died in 1900.

Foltz & Fowler Cabinet Card

Go back through the collection and there will be a lot of photographs that have a brown tone to them. Most are brown because the printer did not give the print an archival wash. Fix, or hypo, is the chemical used to harden the print emulsion. If the printer doesn't wash the print long enough, the hypo that remains behind leaches out of the print and turns a yellowish brown. An albumen print, a nineteenth century medium that used egg whites as a solution, mixed with the light sensitive salts and applied to the paper that was then used for printing had a natural rich brown tone. Sepia tone.

Turn Me Over

It's a shame that these two photos are so faded, since it's such a unique artifact. The picture of the young lady facing the camera, tennis racket in hand, is mounted on a card. Written in pencil under the image, "Turn me over-" Turn the card over, and the other photo, back to the camera, is mounted on the same card. The date "1900" is written under the rear view.

19th Century Prosperity

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This picture of a prosperous couple, middle or upper middle class, was taken sometime from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Perhaps a professional person, broker or business owner. Typically a couple like this would have had live-in servants, at least a cook, maid and housekeeper. In their younger days, a governess for any children. Probably horses and at least one carriage. If this image was taken in the twentieth century, possibly a car. Their house would have been large and have well maintained gardens. His suits would have been hand tailored, and she would employ a dress maker. He would most likely have been a member of a club which would bar women. Because marriages were for life, and divorce was a scandal, the man may have kept a mistress, and his wife, with no other options in life, would have accepted it as normal.

R. Becker The Tailor

R. Becker the tailor, Dr. Ward the dentist and an American Telephone & Telegraph Co. sign hanging on the door frame. Also known as Bell Telephone, we know this picture can't be older than 1877, the year Bell Tel. went into business.

A Portrait By George H. Van Norman

Every time I find a commercial photograph with a photographers mark, I always run an web search and I almost never get a hit. Well, this one is an exception. George H. Van Norman was a prominent local Massachusetts photographer active from 1884 to 1890 in Waltham, Mass. and then he relocated to Springfield and was active there from 1890 to 1901. I've also found reference to him in a book titled, "Photo Miniature vol. 6" published in 1905, and have found a cabinet card of a woman wearing a dress decorated with photographs, a head piece made from a studio view camera with the curtain framing her face, holding an advertising banner for the Van Norman studios that's part of the permanent collection of The Portland (Oregon) Museum of Art. This wonderful portrait is mounted on a card, embossed "GEO. H. VAN NORMAN SPRINGFIELD MASS." so we can date this image from somewhere between 1890 and 1901.

Nine Women

There are a lot of reasons these nine women could be posing together, but with the corrugated sheet metal wall that is the backdrop, my guess is that these ladies may be the office staff in a mill, or perhaps garment workers.

Pace Krider, Carte de Visite

Written on the back, in pencil, "Yours Truly Pace Krider 1875." Carte de visites were often given as calling cards, as the name implies. With the greeting and date, this gent, no doubt a veteran of the civil war, very likely left this CDV as a calling card. For more information on the history of the carte de visite, click on CDV or carte de visite in the label section. Stamped on the back, "FROM ROSHON & RICHIE'S GALLERY, SELLINGSGROVE, PA. The negative from which this Picture was printed will be preserved. Duplicate copies can be had at any time, at $1.00 per half dozen." One of these days, I'm going to find an intact archive of glass negatives shot to size for contact prints used to make carte de visites. There could be thousands all boxed up in some body's attic just waiting to be discovered.

Louise Creighton, the Daughter

In my last post, I put up a CDV of Kate Creighton, a young woman who I think was very likely the mother of Louise Creighton, the subject of this post. Kate had her picture taken in Philadelphia, PA, while Louise had hers done in western Pennsylvania. The oval photograph with the water stains along the edges was taken at the Mammoth Gallery, McIntire & Co. studio from Butler, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh. The clean oval, and what seems to be the middle image in age range, was from Triece's in Blairsville, PA, east of Pittsburgh. And finally, H. Bishop from Pittsburgh, itself. And no, it's not a misprint. There was a time in the 19th century when Pittsburgh lost the H.

Carte de Visite, CDV With Hat

This CDV was rather crudely made. I used the scanner to square up the image, but the actual picture, an albumen print, was trimmed out with a very ragged edge, and then pasted, off center, on the card. Unlike the Daguerreotype and ambrotype, carte de visites were cheap to produce, and made it possible for lower income people to have their picture taken and for a young man on the make to get into a non labor profession for a small up front investment. The high collar makes the subject look very statue like, at least to me.

Carte de Visite, CDV, C.C. Shadle

In the first half of the nineteenth century, it was considered good manners to arrive with a visiting card, made of a heavy stock, with the visitors name printed out in a decorative script. But, that all changed in 1854 when French photographer, Andre Adolphe Disderi patented the carte de visite, an albumen print pasted on a heavy card stock sized to 4.5x6.5 inches. The size was chosen to be that of the visiting card, and it soon became the accepted thing to do to go with a photographic visiting card rather than one with fancy calligraphy. Soon a craze in Europe, by 1860, the first year of the Civil War, it had spread to the United States. With the war and the mass movement of people across the battle field, carte de visites became a way of sending photos home and to receive photos of family and friends in return. Unlike the daguerreotype or the ambrotype, which were printed on glass, the carte de visite could be sent through the mail without danger of breakage. Soon photo studios were selling carte de visites of celebrities. Both Lincoln and prominent actor John Wilkes Booth were big sellers. Since the carte was a standard size, it also became popular as an album photo. Collectors anywhere in the world could put carte de visites of family, friends, and famous in easily purchased albums designed with slots for the carte's standard size. While the carte de visite would remain in use for over two decades, it's popularity would be eclipsed in the early 1870s by the larger cabinet card. Also an albumen print pasted on heavy card stock. These two images are of the same young man, taken at the C. C. Shadle studio in Kittaning, PA.

Trains

Not all of my old photos are of people. This is another one of the images that, when I was working in a photo lab, I made copy negs and prints from. The original is an old albumen print, very likely from the late 19th century through the early 20th, and probably made from a glass negative. I 'd love to know where the photographer was standing. The image makes me think that this may have been a professionally made, commissioned image. I imagine that the camera was not a small, hand held one, but one mounted on a tripod. It's difficult to take a quick snap and then step out of the way of an oncoming train with one of those.

19th Century Old Lady

I hated to crop off the edges of the oval matt on this picture, but it just wouldn't fit on the scanner. Normally I wouldn't have cared, but sometimes the proportions of the mounts add to the beauty of the image. A very rich, albumen print of an old lady who was a little girl in the very first years of the United States. Let's say she was in her sixties when this image was taken. If true, and considering the age of the photograph, she was probably born near 1800 to 1810.

Interesting Young Men

A fraternity party, an acting troupe, Vaudeville, a late nineteenth century group of gay men? It's impossible to say. Anyway, we've got one man in a woman's bonnet, one in what might be a woman's hat, and one man in a dress. An albumen print from the late nineteenth century (probably) with a very interesting group of young men.

Moorish Scene, Minnesota

A strange albumen print. Written on the back, "Margarie Greenwood-Dancer, Charlie Allen-Faiker, Hermann Percival-Juggler, Olga Lawitzky-Singer. Moorish Booth-Midway Plaisance, Duluth-Minn. August 5-10, 95" Travelling entertainers working the county fair circuit, or locals having some exotic fun?

The Munson Coronet Band

Before radio; before television, many small towns had bands that played in the local town square. These two images are albumen prints. Albumen prints were made by suspending photographic silver in egg whites, which were then used to coat the printing paper. Very likely these two photographs are contact prints made from glass negatives.

The Uniform Makes the Man

The crossed rifles on the cap, I think, is infantry. Written on the back, "Vester Lynn."

Team Photo

A team on a military base, or some sort of early 20th century ROTC?