A Feast for the Eyes: Paper and Photographic Ephemera Roundup

As I glanced through the mail a few Saturdays ago after taking in the antiques show in Elkton with Tyler, I squealed with glee when I noticed a letter from the Singerly Fire Company. This could mean only one thing: I won the paper show door prize. Again.

We had joked with friends about my chances of winning the door prize for a second time, but I had never expected that it might actually happen. I don't plan on sharing the booty, but I will take a few moments to share some recent paper and photographic acquisitions with you.

First, there's the item I bought at the January paper show: a 1930s scrapbook a teenager in high school put together. I tweeted a teaser photo a few weeks ago, and I hope to blog about it soon when I have more time to take a closer look at it. (For starters, she liked to save cigarettes.)

I can't emphasize enough how much I enjoy collecting paper ephemera and photographs. For one, these objects are accessible to most people (including kids--start 'em young!) in terms of cost. Saturday, for example, I bought several photos for just $2/each at the Elkton Antique Show (same location as the paper show). Second, this stuff is portable and is great to collect for teaching purposes. When I want to bring a real mid-ninteenth-century religious tract into class to show students what tract society peddlers carted around to promote developing a more personal relationship with God, I can. I have two stored safely in acid-free plastic sleeves.

What else have I acquired recently? For starters, I am a sucker for unusual or hard-to-find photographs of interiors or exteriors that document everyday and ordinary domestic life. We know how the elites lived. Their stuff is published,  collected, and interpreted with verve. We know less about how ordinary folk lived. Take, for instance my friend Mr. Grier Youngman here (he name is on the underside). At first glance, I registered a regular guy reading, sitting in a common Victorian balloon-back chair. As I looked a few seconds more, I noticed all the "props" in this photo that give us some hints into his everyday life. He rode a bike, which is peaking out from behind the chair and the packed rotating bookshelf. On the wall, you see two decorative pieces of art and what is most likely the bottom of an American flag. 

What's his story? Perhaps this gentleman boarded in a room alone, and perhaps he made a living in a profession that required a small library. Or he was a voracious reader. In either scenario, he probably featured his books (and his reading) prominently in this photograph because he saw his books as part of his identity. After doing some genealogical digging in Ancestry Library Edition, I discovered that Grier was from Danville, PA, and that he was born around 1871. He married in 1894, and I would suspect that he had this photo taken when he was still a bachelor bank cashier (or teller). The way Grier staged this photograph suggests that he had some professional ambitions as a young man. And so it is not surprising that, by the time 1930 rolled around, according to the census, Grier had become the President of the Danville National Bank. Grier had built what we might consider a solidly "middle class" lifestyle by the Depression. Did this photograph represent Grier's aspirations to attain that status? What made the interior we see here a "home" for him?

Exterior visions of domestic life can be equally thought-provoking. 

In this photo, we see (cut?) flowers sitting on a shelf at right, as well as some hanging flowers descending from the roofline. Presumably, early twentieth-century ordinary folk used plants and flowers for decorative purposes around their homes, but we rarely see that practice documented in photographs (let alone in manuscript evidence). And by chance, it looks like I might have found a photograph featuring an older man with a cast of his left hand (related to my interests in disability history). What do you think?

Also with the body in mind, take a look at this photo.

We don't think much of women drawing attention to their pregnancies in photographs today. Indeed, celebrities often pose nude when pregnant for magazine covers. Did you ever stop to think when it became customary to draw attention to one's pregnancy while posing for a photograph (or any portrait, for that matter)? It looks like that might be what is going on in this early twentieth-century image.

I am unaware of a tradition of "pregnancy" portraiture in early American visual culture. That said, I do know that a number of Elizabethan era portraits picturing women in the late stages of pregnancy survive. Scholars such as Karen Hearn and Pauline Croft have suggested that those 
portraits, an example of which you can see below, may have embodied, among other things, concerns over political machinations, producing successors to various hereditary titles, and the health dangers associated with bearing children as women aged.

Portrait of a woman, probably Catherine Carey, Lady Knollys, oil on panel, 1562 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection). Published in Pauline Croft and Karen Hearn, "'Only matrimony maketh children to certain...' Two Elizabethan pregnancy portraits," The British Art Journal 3, 3 (Autumn 2002): 20.

What does the relative unpopularity of such portraiture in earl(ier) America suggest about our attitudes toward women and child-bearing, privacy, and corporal modesty? 

And finally, we have some jokesters.

I bought this online for Tyler for Christmas, thinking it was a whimsical tintype (as the dealer said it was).

I was somewhat skeptical since the men's hairstyles looked to be from the 1920s, but I knew that tintypes were (believe it or not) in use through the 1930s.

Sure enough, when I opened the package, I knew the minute I looked at the photograph in person that it was not, in fact, a tintype but a paper photograph that  looks a lot like a tintype when developed. I am not annoyed that I didn't receive a tintype. Rather, I am annoyed I have yet to figure out exactly how this photograph was produced. I think it may be an example of a photograph produced by a an early photobooth or photomaton that was used to capture images of people at fairs and carnivals. In the cop and robber photo, for instance, the fact that there appears to be a crowd in the background suggests that this was taken outdoors at a place (such as a fair or carnival) where there would have been a lot of people. If anyone out there is familiar with such images from the early twentieth century, I'd be interested to learn more about them. What can this practice reveal about how the conventions of humor and visual trickery have changed over time?

Once I had familiarized myself with "fair" photos, I didn't hesitate for an instant to snatch up this contemporaneous photo of a man posing behind a "fat suit" cutout.

French fries, anyone?


Further Reading

Historians, sociologists, and economists alike have struggled to enlightened us all with fascinating discussions in an effort to define the "middle class." If you're interested in joining the conversation, you might start with Burton J. Bledstein and and Robert J. Johnston, eds.,  The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class (2001) and Stuart M. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760-1900 (1989). For a discussion of Victorian home interiors and middle class culture, nothing beats Katherine C. Grier's Culture and Comfort: Parlor Making in America, 1850-1930 (1989) and Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-class Identity, 1850-1930 (1997). Also see Kenneth L. Ames, Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (1992).

On the history of Mr. Youngman's bicycle, see David V. Herlihy, The Bicycle (2004).

For more on Elizabethan pregnancy portraits, see Pauline Croft and Karen Hearn, "'Only matrimony maketh children to certain...' Two Elizabethan pregnancy portraits," The British Art Journal 3, 3 (Autumn 2002): 19-24.

Humor, visual trickery, and photographic manipulation boast long histories. You might be interested in the Met's recent exhibition on the history of photographic manipulation. On of the exhibition's sub themes was "novelties and amusements." In addition, Tromp l'oeil ("to fool the eye") visual culture in American isn't quite analogous to what we're seeing in the fair and carnival snapshots above, but I think it's related. If you're interested in reading more about visual trickery and the tradition of tromp l'oeil (to fool the eye) painting in America, see Wendy Bellion's Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America (2011), exhibition highlights from the National Gallery of Art's exhibition Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Tromp L'oeil Painting, and the online catalogue for the Brandywine River Museum's exhibition on contemporary tromp l'oeil artists here.

Material Culture Minute: Dressing Down

Like many in the field of material culture, I spent several days last week in New York City visiting the Winter Antiques Show, the American Antiques Show, and a handful of other institutions to take-in the sights and sounds of Americana Week. Yes, there were plenty of special objects to be had (for a price, of course) at the shows and at auction. One highlight (per my taste) includes a set of botanical markers made from iron posts and bottle tops featuring hand-written plant names under magnification (so you can read them from a standing position). The dealer selling the set also had several fascinating early nineteenth-century snuff boxes on hand I will describe in more detail in an up-coming post.

In addition to viewing the shows, I spent one afternoon at The Morgan Library & Museum, one of my favorites. I was there for a new exhibition called The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives. In usual Morgan fashion, the objects were spectacular, but the interpretation was not as dynamic as it could be. The exhibition divided a spread of amazing diaries into categories such as love, war, and everyday life, drawing connections between today's penchant for blogging and the comparable size of historical diaries and today's smart phones. It would have been interesting to see these objects in conversation with related documents, books, or objects. Regardless, I recommend the museum and exhibitions highly, particularly for paper and book lovers.

Finally, I dragged two of my colleagues to E. 67th Street to Didier Aaron, Inc., a gallery, to take in their exhibition titled The Master of the Blue Jeans. The exhibition, which was smaller version of an exhibition by the same name that was in Europe last year, featured a handful of "everyday" seventeenth-century people wearing jean, or denim, probably known then as fustian (a blend, typically made from wool and cotton or linen, but, like the history of most textiles, the history of this cloth is complex).¹ The "Master's" identity remains a mystery. Despite this, the imagery was fascinating. First, I had no idea that denim was worn or that it existed in the seventeenth century. Of course, Florence Montgomery's Textiles in America outlines the term's history, tracing it to the fourteenth century when it was a worsted (wool) textile.² Per the catalogue, we learn that "Blue was commonly used for working class clothing throughout Europe, and especially in Flanders, Spain, Italy, and France"³. The fabric was likely dyed used woad or indigo, the latter of which did not require a mordant.⁴ Second, I was thrilled to see several images that featured individuals with disabilities. For example, a woman featured in Woman Begging with Two Children, is depicted using a crutch. You can view a small example of this painting at the gallery's web site (see the thumb nail at the far right toward the bottom of the web site). Also, a gallery staff member chatted with us graciously for several minutes about the paintings, the exhibition, and more.

If you have any interest in denim or everyday life in visual culture, I highly recommend that you contact the gallery to purchase a catalogue or visit before the exhibition closes on 4 February. Since the paintings are for sale, it is not likely that we will be able to see them all in one place again any time soon. Investigating the early history of this fabric's role in everyday life would be fascinating.

Next At Home posting on Chapter 1: 2 February 2011.

Notes

1. Marzia Cataldi Gallo, "The Master of the Blue Jeans and the Mystique of Blue," in The Master of the Blue Jeans: A New Painter of Reality in late 17th Century Europe (Paris: Galerie Canesso, 2010), 22-23.

2. Florence Montgomery, "Fustian," in Textiles in America, 1650-1870, 1984 (New York: W.W. Norton and the Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, 2007), 244.

3. Gallo, 24.

4. Gallo, 24-25.

Further Reading

John Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).

Picturing African Americans

I spent a good portion of the week after Christmas trolling antique stores in northern Michigan with All Dressed Up with No Place to Go. I acquired a good amount of loot, one item of which I left up North to be shipped at a later date. For the most part, we patronized antique malls/co-ops--nothing fancy, but certainly worth wading through to uncover some gems. All Dressed Up has a penchant for photographs. Tintypes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes....you name it, he looks through it. Up until recently, I thought that these "instant relatives," as some dealers like to call them, were odd objects to collect. They're someone else's relatives...But lately, I have been taking more time to look through some of them with my picking partner. After all, like paintings and print culture, they provide a window into the past.

As a scholar of textiles and costume in particular, All Dressed Up tends to go for images with distinctive costumes or props. He also Hoovers-up soldiers. Images with provenance are also of interest. While in Michigan, we were looking through a stack of photos together when I noticed that at least a fifth of those in a pile of perhaps 100 were of African Americans. All Dressed Up confirmed that that was unusual, so I started to look more closely through those particular images. I set aside three of interest and bought them (total cost, $14 plus tax). At this point, I was accused of invading All Dressed Up's collecting territory and of starting a "distraction collection" of images of African Americans (guilty on both counts, but this 'distraction' collection will probably include images of all individuals with disabilities, ill individuals, etc. ).¹ But when you take a look at these photos, I think you'll agree that they have special appeal.



This photo, probably taken in the 1880s or 1890s or so, based on the subject's costume, features a woman wearing a photo portrait miniature. Miniatures boast a long history. For example, sitters for paintings were sometimes pictured wearing painted portrait miniatures, and anyone familiar with twentieth-century political campaigning, is familiar with candidates' portraits on pins. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British and French first started producing and wearing miniatures at court in the 1520s. By the late nineteenth century, they began to fall out of fashion. Check out the V&A web site for more on the history of miniatures.

This badge was worn by a "guest" at the 1930 44th Annual Session, Supreme Council, Golden Jubilee of the UPEC (Portuguese Union of the State of California. The celebration was held in San Leandro, California. Both the ribbon and the metal attachment indicate that the badge was made by made by B. Pasquale, Badges, Banners, Lapel Buttons of San Francisco. Overall dimensions: approximately 2" x 4".

According to All Dressed Up, photos within photos are rare. Although, we did see a pin photo miniature later in the day displayed inside a glass case, and All Dressed Up recently acquired the photo badge pictured above.



It's more difficult to date these ladies, as their clothing is not particularly fashionable for a specific era. That said, I suspect that the photo was taken in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. I was struck by the group, as the women seem content and friendly. All Dressed Up's mother astutely pointed out that the woman on the far left may have vision problems, as it appears that her right eye my be covered with something. Furthermore, a friend suggested that her hands are situated in a way that also suggests that she may be blind. Click here for an image of women at the Society for the Relief of the Destitute Blind holding their hands similarly. Is anyone familiar with the history of the ways in which blind individuals may or may not have used/posed their hands specifically or body more generally?

Finally, we have a woman who is sporting 1920s or so fashions. I was struck by her melancholy yet serene stare.



Then, I took a closer look.



What are your thoughts on her arms?

These images are beguiling, to be sure, and the later two are related to my current research on the material conditions of changes in the body over time. But the photos caught my attention for another reason. The dealers labeled the photos in a way that was quite distinct from the images of white people. For example, the photo of the woman wearing the photographic miniature was priced at $6 and noted as being a "very stylish black lady." The photo of the woman with (or without?) arms was priced at $4 and described on the price tag as "Black lady all dressed up out by the rose trellis." An image of an African American man All Dressed Up snatched-up (and not pictured here) was also marketed in a similar fashion. The fact is that the photos of white people featured individuals dressed similarly for their portraits, and the dealer did not note that they were "dressed-up."

Although I have pooh-poohed photographs in the past, I am glad that I took a second look. Photographs are a great way to start collecting antiques, particularly if you are on a budget.

Notes

1. This article about Oriental rugs introduced the concept of the "distraction collection" to me. A distraction collection is what you collect when you cannot find objects that speak to your true passion. In my case, my "real" collection may be my collection of Empty Space.

Further Reading

To learn more about collecting African American photographs, All Dressed Up recommends Introduction to African American Photographs, 1840-1950: Identification, Research, Care & Collecting, by Ross J. Kelbaugh. I haven't had a chance to survey this yet, but it should give readers an indication of what is most valuable (monetarily) and how to care for your photo collection.