What Makes a Great Cabinet Card Part 2?

Yesterday I asked the question, with millions to choose from, what makes a great cabinet card. Well, here is an example. The photographer, M.J. Streuser from Bellevue, Iowa had a great eye for composition, the subject matter, a group of guys out having a good time, the sense of movement one gets from Arnie brandishing his club. Wow. I feed the name M.J. Streuser into Google, not expecting much, and found another example of his work on the Cowan Auctions site, of a photographer and his assistant posing with their wares. Probably a self portrait and it was wonderful too. I really recommend that others visit and take a look. The very first post I put up on this blog was a group of prints I made from a set of glass negs, all from the same photographer, and the thought of picking up more Streuser prints, well it's the same. Written on the back, "Arnie, Geo. Zentiner, Frank Kegles, Charles Hartley, Ed Kamp, Phil, Joe Brandt, From one of Arnie's birthdays." Go punch in M.J. Streuser into Google before the Cowan Auctions site takes down the cabinet card I mentioned, and please use the archives section to the right to navigate back to Montana Glass Negatives, pubished on June 9. 2009.

Iowa By Canoe

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Stamped on the back, "GEPPERT STUDIOS STAMP of QUALITY DES MOINES, IOWA." Des Moines is on the Des Moines River. Is it just me, or is the blond wearing a somewhat revealing swimsuit? Fun fact, in the first decade of the twentieth century, in most states, men could be arrested for going topless at the beach.

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.

Carte de Visite, From Peru, Iowa

I'm getting through the cache of old carte de visites that I recently found in an old box in the closet. This one is from the studios of B. C. Daily of Peru, Iowa, and probably dates from around the Civil War to the 1870s. Peru is an unincorporated community in Madison County, Iowa. The town had a post office that opened on April 18, 1853 that closed for good on September 14, 1903. A sure sign of a town in decline, when the post office closes.

Iowa Girls at the Beach

It's always somewhat risky trying to determine personality from a photograph. The tall girl seems like the leader of the group, but she might have that look because she's taller than her friends. The girl to her right, with the sad expression, grasping her friend's arm, is the shy, frightened one, I would think. Stamped on the back, "GEPPERT STUDIOS STAMP OF QUALITY DES MOINES ,IOWA" From the twenties I would think.