Material Culture Minute: Collecting Disability History

I had the pleasure of writing a blog post about my collection of disability history photographs, crutches, ceramics, and ephemera--and how collecting these things informs my research on early American disability history--for the Disability and Industrial Society blog. You can check out my post here.

Tintype of two girls, one with crutch, mid-late nineteenth-century
(Nicole Belolan's Collection)

Be sure to stay turned for subsequent posts that will be published on the Disability and Industrial Society blog in celebration of the UK's Disability History month!

"Estate Sale": Newport

Two days ago, as I was driving to my temporary digs after work, a prominently posted white sign with black lettering caught my eye.

ESTATE SALE! Antiques! Military! Tomorrow!

Oh, my.

My mouth watering, I did a drive-by after dinner so I would be familiar with the neighborhood the following morning. The house looked a little shabby. White shingles, covered in green moss (not of the decorative variety). But I decided it was worth the short drive. You never know what you may find, and I was hoping for a good deal after coming home from Brimfield nearly empty-handed.

The sale was scheduled to open at 7:30AM. I debated whether I should stand around at 5AM, but I decided to take my chances since I needed to get enough sleep. And so, instead of reading the news yesterday morning before working, I hopped into my still dew-covered car and headed back to the estate sale house.

As I pulled up to the block I had visited the previous night, I spied two women putting an old-looking folding stool into their trunk, which angered me since it was prior to the time the sale was to open. As I approached the house, I was somewhat confused. No line, no numbers, and the house was opened before the advertised sale time. Where was the organized chaos to which I was accustomed in northern Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania? There are ground rules for such sales, but apparently no one in Newport adheres to them. Don't get me wrong, I hate standing in line for hours, but at least it gives me a chance to size-up the competition. I like to identify the real pickers ahead of time so I can scuttle in front of them.

Undeterred, I walked up the driveway. The front door and the garage were wide open. A grumbly woman emerged.

"Is this the location of the estate sale," I asked cheerily.

"Yeah...if you can call it that," she responded. "It's mostly junk."

Perfect, I thought.

Sure enough, the treasures were few and far between. The clientele appeared to be comprised mostly of middle class Newporters, and no one looked too crazed. As I creeped into the house, I walked past a chair busting at the seat, some veteran's WWII (?) gear and memorabilia, and a lot of glass whatnots from the twentieth century. Along a wall in the living room, a long table displayed most of the small goods. I spied two framed tintypes immediately. (I wrote about tintypes before. See this post and this post.) I picked up one full plate (about 6.5" by 8.5") tintype portrait of a man:


and was pleased to see what may be the original photographer's mark on the back. I do not have access to my usual library this summer, but a friend suggested that this gentleman's costume suggests that the photo dates to the 1850s or 1860s. I could not find too much information online about the photographer, but one web site noted that extant photographic images by the firm date from the 1870s-1880s. Of course, I cannot be sure that the Prior brothers produced this image just because their mark is on the back of the frame. Perhaps Tyler will take this apart later to see if he can find additional clues as to its origins.

I put it down, and picked-up an older woman nearby:

She came in a frame similar to that of the man, but the glass is broken. Because of that, I removed the full plate tintype and photographed it outside the frame. Her costume suggests that tintype may date to the 1860s. Is she wearing a wig?

As I examined the older woman, a fellow picker grabbed the man. I panicked, realizing that I should not have put him down (first rule of picking: never put anything down until you are certain you will not buy it!). For a few seconds, I cursed myself as she considered the find. Finally, she set the man back down on the table. I swiftly snagged him and cradled him--dirt, mold, and all--in my arms.

Unlike sales I have attended back home, nothing was priced (except a few Hummels--I suppose they have a price guide in their library).

"Can you tell me how much you would like for these please?" I asked the thin and pleasant woman who seemed to be running the sale with her husband and her teenage son.

I figured they couldn't be asking more than $20/each and was pleasantly surprised to learn that they were only $10/each.

"Great!" I said. I asked her to set them aside for me as I looked around once more.

Since the tintypes were a mere $20 investment, I decided to scoop-up a fading stereo view ($1) as well.


The underside reads "A.J. Davis/Slaughter House." It also bears the stamp "ALDEN PHOTO CO./503 WASHINGTON ST/BOSTON." Some information floating around the internet indicates that the Alden Photo Co. was in operation in the 1870s and 1880s.

At these prices, there was no reason to be too particular.

After the tag sale manager removed the spider nest from one of the frames, I paid and escaped with my treasures, pleased that, if anything, I got a deal.

Material Culture Minute: The Best Things in Life are (Almost) Free

A few weeks ago, just before the spring semester began, Tyler and I ventured to the Paper Americana Show in Elkton, Maryland. Paper and ephemera shows attract an interesting group of people. Paper and ephemera collectors are definitely different from collectors who gravitate toward furniture, ceramics, etc. Many ephemera booths categorize their stock into themes. For instance, someone who specializes in trade cards and trade catalogues often creates categories such as "food and drink;" "health and medicine;" "animals"; "sports"; specific states such as "Delaware"; "foreign," etc. Why? Because paper and ephemera collectors tend to collect items that fall into only a handful of themes. I didn't quite get this until after I attended a few of these shows and found myself looking through only a handful of themes (health and medicine, needlework, etc.). This makes sense, as paper and ephemera shows feature way more stock than a regular antiques show does. You couldn't go through it all if you wanted to. The problem arises when you run into a collector interested in all things "Delaware" who takes over not only the "Delaware" box of postcards, menus, car dealership advertisements, etc., but also a three feet perimeter around the Delaware box. That means that Connecticut and Florida collectors will have to wait for an untold number of minutes to see if they can find any treasures in their respective boxes. Not all paper and ephemera collectors are this territorial, but there are enough out there to make browsing difficult. Beware.

At any rate, Tyler and I didn't find anything extraordinary, but we picked up a few interesting photos and other pieces of ephemera for a few dollars here and a few dollars there.

For example, here is a great late nineteenth-century tintype featuring some ladies wearing identical plaid or checked skirts.



And here, we have a snapshot of a woman in a well-stocked general store.



And who can't resist shoes? Below is a 1866 receipt for a pair of shoes. The cordwainer in question worked in his trade through the nineteenth century in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, in York County, and he also served in the Civil War.



Here, we have a late nineteenth-century trade catalogue for paper collars. Tyler and I were hoping that the brand name was the same as the one of the paper collar box I purchased in Michigan in January, but, alas, we misremembered the name. Either way, the catalogue can be used in conversation with the contemporaneous box.



And finally, I got all this at a steep discount. About a week ago, I found an envelope in my mailbox from the Singerley Fire Company in Elkton, MD. I immediately thought of the paper show and the door prize drawing I entered, but I also wondered if I was being tapped to donate to a firehouse 20 miles away.

Sure enough, the envelop contained a lovely note congratulating me on winning ($25, which covered about 80% of the total cost of my purchases) and letting me know that they hoped that I had had a lovely time!

Material Culture Minute: "Buy it when you see it."

Last July, I picked-up a special treasure (the subject of a future post) at an antique mall in southeastern, Pennsylvania. As you may recall from that posting, I explained that the item I purchased was something that I had seen the week before and couldn't stop thinking about until I found a place for it on one of my bookshelves. On those two visits, my boyfriend Tyler had looked longingly at a mid-late nineteenth-century occupational tintype.

As succinctly described by the National Museum of American History, "Tintypes were popular and inexpensive photographs made on coated iron plates." Click here to view an example of a four-lens tintype (camera) at the Smithsonian. When you come across tintypes in antiques stores, they are usually either in the form of the image on the tin, the the image on the tin and nestled into a paper frame, or the image on the tin stored inside a decorative case. Those that are not encased and have no name or other provenance associated with them seem to go for anywhere between a few dollars and $20. Prices rise exponentially if the subject matter is more highly collectible or if the sitter is identified, etc. Tintypes were made in several different sizes between about 1860 and the early 1900s. For more on the differences between daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, check-out this "Photograph Identification Guide" by David Rudd Cycleback. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's, CAMEO: Conservation & Art Material Encyclopedia Online also features a brief explanation of tintypes online.

Occupational tintypes in particular are rather special. They depict an individual or a group of people posed with the tools of their respective trades or professions. Dentists are pictured with their dental tools, and tailors are pictured with their shears and other sewing supplies. Tyler's tintype was quite lovely, and it was priced fairly (but not at a bargain-basement rate) at $150. I thought he was going to buy it, but we left the mall twice without it.

Over the ensuing months, the tintype always came to mind when I was considering what to get him for Christmas, his birthday, etc., but I often decided on something else since he had suggested a few times that he was surprised at the extent to which tintypes had risen in value over the past few years. In short, he didn't like the idea of supporting what he considered to be an inflated market (we take these investments seriously, folks). But as his birthday approached, I decided that I would take a drive and look into bringing Tyler's tintype home. I fantasized about how I would package it so that he would be surprised when he finally got to the bottom of the box, but I also had a nightmare in which, upon arriving at the antique mall, the tintype's price had increased by several hundred dollars, thus putting it out of my reach. The realistic side of me thought that it may have been sold weeks ago. After all, the last time we saw it was 24 July.

Despite all this, I was hopeful. I boldly entered the antique mall this morning and walked straight down the middle aisle, eying the glass cases on the left where I had remembered that the tintype was on display. I swept past the toy soldiers, the railroad ephemera, and the Santa Clauses. Everything seemed to look the same. I recognized countless items I had admired back in July. A mid nineteenth-century red and green women's hat, a pink wooden cutlery tray, Wendy Cooper's In Praise of America (I bought that today and added it to the "furniture" section of my growing library), a black spice tin with its spice containers, which was being sold by the same dealer from whom I purchased my own treasure. I thought that surely the tintype is still here also. As I moved to the end of the glass cases, I scanned the shelves at eye-level where I had recalled that the tintype had rested. Finally, I arrived at the end of the cases and started. Something wasn't quite right. The case where I was certain the tintype had been for sale was a mere 10% full, and the tintype was nowhere to be found. I looked elsewhere in the vicinity frantically. No tintype, no cased photographs.

Was it sold? Did the dealer move his booth within the building? Did the dealer leave the co-op?

I inquired at the front desk and learned that the tintype dealer had pulled out of the business entirely. The man on duty kindly pointed out other photographs in the mall, but they were not the tintype.

Curses! My birthday surprise was foiled, and I was now crestfallen.

Happily, I brought a friend along for the ride. After the disappointment settled in, my best friend and I leisurely walked through the mall, chatting away, when Tyler called. I had told Tyler I was meeting my best friend for lunch (true), but I had not mentioned that we would meet at the antique mall on a mission to recover his occupational tintype. Since I would have nothing with which to surprise Tyler, I decided to give him the news.

"Oh, really? How thoughtful!," Tyler exclaimed. "Well, when you see something you like, I guess you should buy it when you see it," he said very matter-of-factly if not somewhat remorsefully.

Indeed.

Disappointed but eager to spend quality time with my friend, we walked through the first and second floors, opening boxes and unfolding quilts. She observed that many of the labels noted that the objects were "old" something-or-others.

"Well, of course they're old!," she said. "This is an antique store, isn't it?"

How true, my friend! How true.

Alas, I had a great time bonding with my friend, but I am sorry to say that neither Tyler nor I had snatched-up that tintype back in July.

Next time, we will buy it when we see it.

Further Reading/References

Check out this dealer's web site of "occupationals" to get an idea as to the breadth of the occupational photography world.

The American Museum of Photography posted "A Primer on [Photographic] Processes online.