Painted Scenes on Painted Screens

As Tyler and I were leaving our favorite antique mall in Lewes, DE, last summer, I plucked a photograph jauntily resting on a table with other photos. I noticed two children and what I presumed to be some sort of pet pony.

Intriguing, but not really what I collect. (Perhaps of interest to the eminent Pet Historian?) I returned the photo to its perch as quickly as I picked it up.

"Wait," Tyler said.

I looked at it again. This time, I saw what Tyler saw: a painted screen.

"Whoa, cool!," I said. "Perhaps it's from Baltimore."

I collected my loot (hard to resist at just $8) and walked briskly to the cash register, eager to do some reading on the topic. I had recently seen a segment on the CBS show Sunday Morning about Baltimore painted screens, so it was cool to see a photograph of one so soon thereafter. Then, just a few months after this acquisition, I saw the book about Baltimore's painted screens on sale for just $10 at the National Museum of American History. Another steal!

It was time to do more reading.

Baltimoreans have been painting screens since about 1913. The provided passers-by with something nice to look at from the outside. They also allowed air to flow freely in the warm summer months while obscuring view to the inside of the house from the sidewalk. People have been painting screens since at least the eighteenth century. But in downtown Baltimore, it all started with a grocer. You can read more about this fascinating history and the state-of-the-craft in Elaine Eff's book The Painted Screens of Baltimore.

It's hard to say with certainty if this photo was taken in Baltimore. It looks to me like the kids are from around the 1910s or so. They certainly could be Baltimore kids.

Recognize them?

Either way, I love the backdrop they chose for the photograph. And there's probably a story behind their four-legged friend as well.

What would you paint on your screen?

Further Reading

Elaine Eff, The Painted Screens of Baltimore: An Urban Folk Art Revealed (University Press of Mississippi: 2013)

Painted Screen Society of Baltimore

Death on the Porch: Uncle Bill Moody's Trophies

Meet Uncle Bill Moody.

Meet Uncle Bill Moody and his friends.

Nicole Belolan's Collection

I bought this gem, labeled "Uncle Bill Moody" on the underside, in what looked like an unpromising antique mall in northern Virginia. I was struck by Bill's "here's my stuff" stance and the fact that he and the photographer took the trouble to bring the deer from inside of the house to the porch for the portrait. (As you can see from the detail of the photo below, the taxidermic deer heads would have fallen onto the porch floor if someone had attempted to open a door.)

Bill had this photo taken some time after 1892 and probably before 1910 (his rifle was an 1892 or 1894 Winchester carbine, which I identified using Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms and a little help from Tyler). Around this time, the professional taxidermy trade reached its apex. You can learn more about the history of taxidermy in Beth Fowkes Tobin's "Women, Decorative Arts, and Taxidermy," published in Women and the Material Culture of Death. Yet many forms of the art had preceded this turn-of-the-century manifestation of it. Women had prepared taxidermic animal specimens for decades to make fancywork. Explorers also preserved animals they killed while on exploration expeditions. Many specimens made their way into early museums. And avid hunters like Bill placed them on their walls. If Bill or a family member did the taxidermy work at home, they may have learned how from a book like Practical Taxidermy and Home Decoration (1890). The frontispiece from this book featured a deer much like Bill's and is pictured below.

Practical Taxidermy frontispiece

Or a professional taxidermist may have processed the heads. It's also possible Bill ordered his trophies "ready-made" from a catalogue like Relics from the Rockies (1894). You can get a sense of the variety of objects Relics peddled from its frontispiece below.

Relics from the Rockies frontispiece

But based on Bill's photo, I'm inclined to think that he hunted these deer himself and took pride in posing with death on the porch (perhaps carrying on the legacy of displaying "death in the dining room" [to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite books] in the form of sideboards decorated with scenes from the hunt). Either way, this portrait gives us some insight into what Bill's decor looked like inside his home and his standards of gentility. He could have, after all, left his hat inside the house.

Was or is taxidermy a part of your home decor? Let me know in the comments!

Further Reading

For more about the history of taxidermy, see Beth Fowkes Tobin, "Women, Decorative Arts, and Taxidermy," in Women and the Material Culture of Death, ed. Maureen Daley Goggin and Beth Fowkes Tobin (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 311-330.

Taxidermy is also making a comeback among crafters and DIY-ers. Check out this recent article from the New York Times. 

If you want to take a look at some nineteenth-century taxidermy manuals, you can view many online:

Captain Thomas Brown, The Taxidermists' Manual (1853)

American Mutual Library Association, Ladies' Manual of Art (1887)

H.H. Tammen Company, Relics of the Rockies (1894)

Joseph H. Batty, Practical Taxidermy, and Home Decoration (1890)

Charles Johnson Maynard, Manual of Taxidermy for Amateurs (1901)

Mantague Marks, Home Arts and Crafts (1903)

What a Mess

I love this photograph.

I can't quite make out who and what are pictured in the dozens of photographs arrayed on the wall. But that's besides the point. I love it because I can't help but think about the fact that a hundred years before this late nineteenth-century photograph was taken, it just wasn't possible to surround oneself with likenesses of one's friends and families in this way.

How did photography change the nature of remembering and sentimentality? 

I also love this photograph because it reminds me how much I wish more curators of period rooms in museums took a cue from "real life" and dared to fashion more cluttered and less sterile (if not physically, than perhaps intellectually) interpretive spaces. A question about how remembering and sentimentality changed over time probably would not be inspired by a period room featuring a token photograph on the wall. Indeed, it occurs to me that most members of the general public (as opposed to a historian/museum pro like me) get their history from house museums, not collecting and studying intently photographs of historic interiors. So it's really up to the keepers of museums to embrace what a mess history was and is and how fascinating and enlightening interrogating these messes can be.

One of the most memorable "messes" I saw in a period room was last winter at Colonial Williamsburg.

For me, at least, I started to think about the history of cleanliness, pest eradication, and even sex--not just the identities of the people who lived there in the colonial era.

So what are we waiting for? Find your museum's mess and stir it up. Or if you are doing this already (or have seen it done), tell me about it in the comments!

Further Reading

I wrote a bit about cleanliness and period rooms last February as it related to workshop period rooms. Check out that post about cleaning, inventorying, cataloguing, and reinstalling a duck decoy shop here.

Kitty Calash writes often and well about accessing "truth," "authenticity," and the like in historical interpretation at living history events and inside historic house museums at her blog, Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer. Franklin Vagnone writes on some of these themes too. You can check out his stuff here.

For more examples of nineteenth-century interiors of people and their photographs, see Katherine C. Grier's Culture & Comfort: People, Parlors, and Upholstery, 1850-1930 (1988).

The "Specter at the Right"

Flipping through the finalists of a frenzied photo shopping spree one day last fall, Tyler and I debated which CDV's, tintypes, snapshots, and cabinet cards to let go and which ones to add to our collection. Short on cash, I rejected a number of interiors (oh, those store interiors!) I would have bought ordinarily (perhaps they're still there). I'm not even sure if Tyler bought this one or if I did.

Photograph of a woman and her things, late-ninteenth or early-twentieth century
(Nicole Belolan's Collection)

Either way, I'm glad it's ours now. I loved it even without noticing the self-deprecating note scribbled on the underside:

"would be very good were it not for the specter at the right."

I beg to differ!

From my perspective as a historian, this photograph is not just good but great. Like many interior photographs of parlor-type spaces from the mid-late nineteenth century, every time I look at it, I see something new. (In her book Culture & Comfort, Katherine Grier defined a parlor as "a space within a private household in which families could present their public faces" [59]. There are a lot of great interiors in her book; do take a look!) In the end, the photo was never really meant to focus on the "specter" at the right, anyway. She's off to the side, perhaps trying to draw some attention away from herself and to her stuff. Prints, photographs, table linens, a floor covering, a desk, books, and more, though I am curious to know what she was pretending to be writing. And is that mourning dress?

We don't get enough information in this photo to figure out if she used this space for sleeping too or if it was part of a larger household. Nevertheless, all the objects the sitter and photographer managed to get into the frame help the specter tell us a little about herself and her time. This particular assemblage of stuff may be unique, but the genre of the interior photograph was not. There are many others out there featuring similar personal possessions that signaled a particular level of social standing and taste. Not all of the specter's contemporaries would have boasted over a dozen books tucked into bookshelves and scattered on tabletops or decorative prints on the walls. On the flip side, some would have had even fancier abodes.

I have a few more interiors from the same period I'll post in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, what objects would you feature in your own home photograph? Would you choose to be photographed inside a particular room?

Further Reading

For more on nineteenth-century everyday life and aesthetics, start with Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: People, Parlors, and Upholstery, 1850-1930 (1988), Beverly Gordon, The Saturated World: Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, Women's Lives, 1890-1940 (2006), and Thomas J. Schlereth, Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876-1915 (1991). 

For a more recent look at domestic interiors and the stuff inside them, check out Jeanne E. Arnold et. al. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors (2014) (I read this in one sitting last August) and Peter Menzel's Material World: A Global Family Portrait (1995).

Material Culture Minute: Where did you Get that Giant Papier-mâché Boar?

Perusing a small Shriners' Hall antiques show in New Castle, Delaware, today, I could not help but stand aghast at and bemused by the sight of a giant papier-mâché boar perched at one dealer's booth.

Yep, he's a biggin.

As I engaged the dealer in a conversation about where he got it (Lancaster County), when he got it (yesterday), and how it had been used (who knows--but it's "early"), I made Tyler take photos so I could share this unusual material culture specimen with you on the blog. The asking price--$300--was a little steep for me, especially once I started thinking about conservation and preservation concerns (enough to make an integrated pest manager's head spin)...not to mention finding space for it.

Could I suspend it from a ceiling?

Probably, but there must be better ways to drop a grad student's coin jar fortune. 

As the succulent smell of snack bar bacon wafted through the air, I continued my stroll through the Hall, which was, I should point out for those looking for a wedding reception site, adorned with a disco ball.

"Stayin' Alive" at a Sunday morning Antiques Show in northern Delaware

As I poked through the tools and jewels, a man I did not recognize at first (so sorry!) said to me, "Hey! Did you win the raffle again this year?" 

("Is this what is feels like to be a movie star who's recognized in the neighborhood Brooklyn coffee shop?," I asked myself.)

Reminded of my waning luck, I explained that, sadly, no, I don't think I won the Paper Americana Show door prize twice in four years. 

(I did win it two times out of four, though. As Meatloaf sang, "two out of three ain't bad," right?)

Still a bit dejected by the boar dealer's asking price, I moved on to less costly (but not less fascinating) pastures. With the boar (and that bacon) on my mind, I perused a container of snapshots priced at 25 cents each. I've really been enjoying snapshots. They're still rather inexpensive in comparison to daguerreotypes, tintypes, etc., yet they offer fun glimpses into the past that you just can't find in cased photos due to the limitations of the medium. For instance, here's a fascinating photograph of a woman standing behind row house additions in the early twentieth century. What can we learn about turn-of-the-century American life by examining these transformations? (Amanda Casper, a colleague at the University of Delaware, is asking just that. Check out her blog here.) 

After a few minutes, one of the snapshot dealers (The Collector Gene) asked me if I had looked through that box previously. I shook my head no, but she meant that I had looked through the photos at none other than the Paper Americana Show just last month. Silly me. 

"Well," I said, "I haven't seen anything yet that I recognize, so I might as well keep looking!" 

We had a good laugh and exchanged cards. Apparently these friendly folks have an antiquing blog also.

On a roll, Tyler and I rounded out the early afternoon with a stroll through the ever entertaining New Castle Farmers' market flea. 

A giraffe greeted us.

Does the giraffe help out with the 2AM emergency rug cleaning calls?

We pawed through the treasures displayed inside cardboard boxes on the ground.

Clearly, this is serious business.

(No hand-inscribed early nineteenth-century shawls today.)

And others clamored for a good find at a costume jewelry table.

In terms of sheer frenzy, this might be the flea market equivalent for Loehmann's legendary "grab the gown sale." 

I made it home with a few snapshots as well as some good stories. The next time someone asks me what I like about Delaware, instead of using the 'ole line that it's close to a lot of cities, the antiquing/flea culture will top the list.

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: "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.

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.