tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45997029570959459382024-03-11T11:09:03.792+13:00Photo-SleuthA series of articles about old photographs, photographers and their subjectsBrett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.comBlogger407125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-18659394502166793902015-07-17T09:00:00.001+12:002022-10-18T15:23:08.191+13:00Sepia Saturday 288: The Changing Face of a Market Town<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/sepia-saturday-288-18-july-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss288.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
This week's Sepia Saturday theme image of a buther's shopfront is a reminder, if we ever needed one, of now much our townscapes have changed in the last century, and by that I'm referring not just to the buildings themselves but also the nature of the window displays and manner of presenting wares to the public. Attractive as they are to the modern tourist, most of the quaint old historic villages that one sees regularly in guide books and on the television bear little resemblance to how they looked in Victorian times. There are some exceptions, however, and some time fellow Sepian Nigel Aspdin has kindly dropped whatever he was doing, hopped on the bus at a moments notice, and spent a rainy morning in Ashbourne (Derbyshire) taking some "now" photos for me.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Green Man Hotel. Ashbourne. W.4286<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/lbtwells.html">Louis B. Twells</a>, Ashbourne, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Consider this image of the Green Man and Black's Head Royal Hotel in the medieval market town of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashbourne,_Derbyshire">Ashbourne</a> in the Derbyshire Dales, which was published by photographer Louis B. Twells, probably in the mid-1880s to early 1890s. A crowd of onlookers has assembled in the archway of the inn's carriage entrance, either to provide a send off for the distinguished looking family departing in the horse-drawn carriage, or at the photographer's bidding to provide some life in his scene. Plenty of human interest there certainly is in this well constructed and executed view, with a gaggle of children lurking on the street corner, a couple of erstwhile shoppers walking down the pavment at far left, perhaps having just visited Henry Hood & Son's tailors and gentleman's outfitters shop next door to the Green Man.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Green Man Hotel, St John Street, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
Mrs. Fanny Wallis was proprietress of the Green Man and Black's Head Commercial and Family Hotel, Posting House & Inland Revenue Office (to quote its full title as given in trade directories of the time) in St John Street, Ashbourne from the death of her husband Robert Wallis in 1871 until her own death in 1898. Little appears to have been done to the exterior since then, and the outfitter's next door is somewhat surprisingly still selling clothing. They have, however, cleaned up the horse droppings on the road.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne02.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Market Square. Ashbourne. W.4285<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/lbtwells.html">Louis B. Twells</a>, Ashbourne, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Nigel's great-grandfather William Barnes had an ironmonger's shop fronting onto Market Place, and used the full extent of the open area to display his wares, presumably by arrangement with the authorities to avoid a fine for obstructing the pavement. His sign in the middle of the square is just visible near the right hand edge of this scene, partly obscuring the shop front of George Hill & Company, boot and shoe manufacturers. The building to the left of this was occupied by the Conservative Club (John Rowland, secretary). The only other sign clearly legible, and reading only "Bradley," is affixed to a building at middle left, actually situated on St John Street. This was, according to the 1891 edition of Kelly's Trade Directory, Edwin Sylvester Bradley, chemist and druggist. The directory also provides the following:<br />
<blockquote>A handsome monument and fountain was erected in the market place in 1873, by public subscription, in memory of the late Francis Wright esq. of Osmaston Manor, for his valuable services to the town and neighbourhood.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa02.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Market Square, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
The monument is still there, although by now somewhat darker than the surroundings, and William Barnes' agricultural implements have been replaced, inveitably, by motor vehicles. Otherwise, the general outline of buildings and skyline remain almost completely unchanged, although I did notice that the top spike is missing from a finial on a building facade at the far left, perhaps knocked off by an over-exuberant spectator or player during one of Ashbourne's annual <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Shrovetide_Football">Royal Shrovetide Tuesday Football</a> games. The then Prince of Wales (future Kind Edward VIII) received a bloody nose during the 1928 match.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa03.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa03.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Market Square, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
William Barnes' shop front is not visible in the lithographic view, but can be seen in Nigel's recent photo, now occupied by the Lighthouse charity shop and Spar and looking rather sad, in my view.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne03.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne03.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Church Street. Ashbourne. W.2669<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/lbtwells.html">Louis B. Twells</a>, Ashbourne, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
In this view of Church Street, which becomes St John Street further down in the vicinity of The Green Man, the streetscape is full of people standing chatting outside shops and, in the case of several blurred figures, walking along the pavement. I've been unable to decipher the name of the shop outside which the three young men are loitering at left, but the shop window looks to be full of bottles. On the right hand side of the street, the wrought iron sign for the White Hart Hotel (Mrs Elizabeth Burton, proprietor) is just visible, although the writing not legible.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa04.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa04.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Church Street, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
The modern day bunting-bedecked view shows the bottle shop at left to be occupied by Fidler Taylor, estate agents, valuers, surveyors and auctioneers; the bottles have gone. There is no longer and parking for vehicles at the kerb, whether horse-drawn or motorised, but there are roughly the same number of pedestrians and the White Hart Hotel now offers Sky Sports Live - I shan't be going in there any time soon.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne04.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne04.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Grammar School. Ashbourne. W.4284<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/lbtwells.html">Louis B. Twells</a>, Ashbourne, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Ashbourne's Queen Elizabeth Grammar School looked somewhat dilapidated, perhaps even slightly ghostly, in the late nineteenth century. It was already three hundred years old, and within a couple of decades the teaching programme had moved to a new location on Green Road.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa05.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa05.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Old Grammar School, Church Street, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
The <a href="http://www.ourashbourne.co.uk/place/the-old-grammar-school">Old Grammar School</a> building has been patched up a little in the ensuing 125 years or so, currently being used as private dwellings, and I notice that it has a "For Sale" sign hanging outside.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne06.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne06.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Ashbourne Church & Grammar School. 9892. G.W.W.<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/3/3_pss_members_wilson_story.htm">George Washington Wilson</a>, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Diagonally opposite the Old Grammar School on Church Street is the gateway to the Parish Church of St Oswald:<br />
<blockquote>The church of St. Oswald, King and Martyr ... dedicated in 1241 ... is a cruciform building, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, south aisle, transept, north and south porches and a central tower, with lofty octagonal spire, 212 feet in height, ribbed with ball flower ornaments and pierced with twenty dormer lights in five tiers of four each; this spire, a work of great beauty and remarkable lightness, is called the "Pride of the Peak," and was restored in 1873.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne05.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne05.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Ashbourne Church. 3918. G.W.W.<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/3/3_pss_members_wilson_story.htm">George Washington Wilson</a>, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
A slightly less obstructed and more rural view of the same church but from over the fields to the south was published by the Scottish publisher G.W. Wilson.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa06.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa06.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Ashbourne Church from the South, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne07.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne07.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Ashbourne Hall. 20,907. G.W.W.<br />
Lithographic print of photograph by unknown photographer<br />
Published by <a href="http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/3/3_pss_members_wilson_story.htm">George Washington Wilson</a>, probably c.1885-1895<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Ashbourne Hall was originally built "somewhat in the style of a French chateau and has still some traces of antiquity."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa07.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa07.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Ashbourne Hall, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
The outlying buildings of Ashbourne have not fared so well, this one appearing to have suffered from partial decapitation.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa08.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa08.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
A.R. Bentley, Groceries & Provisions, Ashbourne shop front, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
Unfortunately I don't have any old photographs of Ashbourne's shopfronts to share with you, but I will include a couple that Nigel took the other day to give you an idea of how it feels to shop in Ashbourne today. Bentley's corner shop probably retains much of the flavour, and perhaps little of the charm, that it had when it first opened in 1973.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa09.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa09.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Vacant premises, Ashbourne shop front, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
We have few clues as to what this tenant offered for sale. All I can say now is that they've moved on, hopefully to greener pastures.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa10.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa10.jpg" style="height: 550px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Ashbourne shop front, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
This purveyor of "Home Cooked Meats" and "English & Continental Cheeses" advertising in the windows of perhaps mostly an authentic shop front caters to a boutique market which doesn't appear to be in abundance on this overcast, showery day,<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa11.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa11.jpg" style="height: 550px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Nigel's, Top Quality Butcher, Ashbourne shop front, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
Nigel (not my friend Nigel, but another one) may have top quality meat for sale, but I think he needs to brush up on his window dressing skills. A couple of plastic models of a beef and a dairy cow aren't enough to replace the lavish display that his predecessors might have had a century earlier.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/6781897522/in/photolist-9TXDqE-fyfvFj-bkhZRC-bDeJjs-fKBvnB-eZrTLC-devMxJ-hyfDiV-9PetpP-fbb7MH-dMf8mP-eqCF8G-eEitca-dkYjey-9Ja9v9-dtrwDV-jobVHR-bNLzuz-ctLsJG-ickBjJ"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss288a.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of National Library of Ireland" /></a><br />
J. Morgan's butcher's shop, Broad St, Waterford, Ireland, 25 Feb 1916<br />
Image courtesy of <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47290943@N03/">National Library of Ireland's Flickr Commons Collection</a></center><br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa12.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ashbourne_nsa12.jpg" style="height: 550px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin" /></a><br />
Road distance marker, Ashbourne, 13 July 2015<br />
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin</center><br />
And if you're interested in where Ashbourne is, I can tell you exactly: 139 miles from London, 45 miles from Manchester, and 13 miles from Derby. Whether you're headed to London, Manchester or Timbuktu, please take a moment to stop off and visit the other <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/07/sepia-saturday-288-18-july-2015.html">Saturday Sepians</a> on the way.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-18602479976301093832015-07-11T23:02:00.004+12:002022-10-18T15:27:21.604+13:00Sepia Saturday 287: Picturing the Shape of an Immigrant Family<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/07/sepia-saturday-287-11-july-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss287.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/sepia-saturday-286-importance-of.html">Last week</a> I introduced the Henschel and Gifford families, likely original owners of an old photo album that came into my possession a few years ago. This week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/07/sepia-saturday-287-11-july-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> theme image suggests group portraits, and is convenient because I will follow on with the cabinet portrait of an unidentified group of young women that I used last week.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet portrait of unidentified group of women, c.1889-1893<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
As explained in more detail in the previous article, these young women are as yet unidentified and we can't even be sure who the woman at the centre of the group, marked with an arrow pencilled in the lower margin, might be. What we can say with a fair degree of certainty, due to a pencilled notation on the back of the card mount, is that either <b>Herbert Henry Henschel</b> (1888-1982) or his wife <b>Agnes Hammersley née Gifford</b> (1888-1967) of Cleveland, Ohio ordered an vignetted enlargement of this woman's portrait, probably between 1907 and 1913. It seems likely that the subject of the vignette was Agnes's mother <b>Ellen (Nellie) Gifford née Slater</b>, who emigrated from England to the United States with her husband <b>Frederick (Fred) Thomas Gifford</b> (1862-1932) and infant daughter in February 1893.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48.jpg" style="height: 355px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48r.jpg" style="height: 355px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified girl, taken c. 1900-1903<br />
Carte de visite by R. Clarenbernie, 46 Liverpool Rd, Stoke-on-Trent<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The preponderance of portraits in the album taken by studio photographers in Staffordshire (9) and Derbyshire (10) (see geographical distribution <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum18.jpg">here</a>), even taken after the Gifford family's emigration to Cleveland in 1893, points to the existence of a wider family network, some of whom may have remained in England. There are two further carte de visite portraits in the album which have inscriptions on the reverse, the first of which is clearly handwritten in black ink, "<i>Fred & Nellie</i>." Jones (1994) handily lists the photographer R. Clarenbernie working at this address in Stoke-on-Trent only from 1900 to 1903, providing us with a good date estimate for the portrait of a young girl.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44.jpg" style="height: 345px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44r.jpg" style="height: 345px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Three unidentified children, taken c. 1898-1901<br />
Carte de visite by Thomas Frost, Victoria Studio, 26½ St Peter's St, Derby<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The second portrait of three pre-teen children (probably a girl and two younger brothers, judging by their facial similarities) was taken by Derby photographer <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/tfrost.html">Thomas Frost</a>, whom I know from my own research was active at that address from c.1896 to 1903. The card format (in particular the words, "late with Gibson & Son") indicate that it was probably used prior to c. 1901, while the clothing (specifically the girl's sleeves and the boys' lace collars) suggest a date of very late 1890s or early 1900s. In this case, the inscription reads, "<i>for Nellie with best wishes</i>."<br />
<br />
Although pretty meaningless until the recent discovery of the Henschel-Gifford family connection with the album, these two inscriptions now tell us a great deal, because we can be certain that they were taken in England several years after Fred and Nellie had departed for North America. In other words, they must have been sent to them by family back in the old country, and it appears likely that the subjects were nieces and nephews, in other words children of siblings of either Fred or Nellie Gifford. The existence of both photographs in this album also strongly suggests that the album may at one time have been owned by Fred and Nellie Gifford.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jamesgifford.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jamesgifford.jpg" style="height: 285px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Frank Bates" /></a> <img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/anngifford2.jpg" style="height: 285px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Frank Bates" /><br />
<b>James Gifford</b> (1829-1902) and <b>Ann née Hammersley</b> (1832-1926)<br />
From the Ancestry.com family tree & collection of Frank Bates</center><br />
So off I went to Ancestry.com to look for Fred and Nellie's respective families, tracing them through census, GRO, parish and other records to build up a detailed picture of their immediate families, and in particular to determine what happen to their parents and siblings. I found several family trees uploaded and made publicly available by others, some of whom are clearly related, which made my job a lot quicker and easier. I am particularly indebted to the research done by <a href="http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vianneytoo/">Frank Bates</a> of Eastlake, Ohio, who is descended from Fred's sister <b>Elizabeth Matilda Gifford</b> (1869-1952). Of special interest are the photographs of Fred Gifford's parents, <b>James Gifford</b> (1829-1902) and <b>Ann née Hammersley</b> (1832-1926), which I have displayed above.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/anngifford.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/anngifford.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Frank Bates" /></a><br />
Ann Gifford née Hammersley, Frank Bates and "Butch," taken c. 1909<br />
Cabinet card by Chesnutt Bros (Lewis H & Andrew J), 318 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
From the Ancestry.com family tree & collection of Frank Bates</center><br />
James Gifford married Ann Hammersley at Stoke-on-Trent in 1853, where they lived and had eight children, four boys and four girls. Their last child <b>Agnes Hammersley Gifford</b> was born in late 1879 and died before her third birthday. All seven of their remaining children married, and six of those couples in due course had children of their own. In the mid-1880s, after most of their children had left home, the Giffords moved to Denbigh, a small town in North Wales. James Gifford died in Denbigh in June 1902, and in 1905 his widow crossed the Atlantic to live with her daughter and son-in-law, which is presumably where the portrait with her grandson and his dog (above) was taken.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i22.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i22.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified middle-aged couple, c. 1879-1882<br />
Cabinet card by W.H. Smith of Crickhowell, Breconshire, Wales<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
It didn't take much time to find a portrait in the album depicting a middle-aged couple who look very much like younger versions of James and Ann Gifford. Judging by the tight sleeves of the woman's dress, with a large full puff at the top sitting high on the shoulders, I estimate this portrait to have been taken in the very late 1870s or early 1880s (Blum, 1974). They would have been in their early forties at the time, a few years before they moved permanently to live in Denbigh.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i06.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i06.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified middle-aged man, c. 1889-1891<br />
Cabinet card by James Murray, Commerce Street, Longton<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This portrait, taken roughly a decade later in Longton (Staffordshire), also appears to be of James Gifford, although his hair is by now completely white.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i30.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i30.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Three unidentified women, c. 1885-1888<br />
Carte de visite by C.F. Wiggins, Imperial Studio, 27 Talbot Rd, Blackpool<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
There is also a carte de visite portrait of one older and two younger women, taken in Blackpool in the mid- to late 1880s. The older woman looks very similar, in both facial features and hairstyle, to the black-and-white portrait of Ann Gifford above. The two younger women in the portrait are most likely her daughters, but which ones? For an answer to this question, it is necessary to widen our view across the whole Gifford family, and this is where it starts to get difficult because of the number of children they had.<br />
- <b>James Gifford</b> (1853-) married Mary Worrall in 1875<br />
- <b>William Edgerton Gifford</b> (1856-1940) married Mary Ann Haywood in 1877<br />
- <b>Frederick Thomas Gifford</b> (1862-1932) married Ellen Slater in 1887<br />
- <b>Mary Ann Gifford</b> (1864-) married Alfred Maiden in 1887<br />
- <b>Charles Gifford</b> (1867-1922) married Jane Grocott in 1892<br />
- <b>Elizabeth Matilda Gifford</b> (1869-1952) married George Bates in 1892<br />
- <b>Cecilia Gifford</b> (1875-1974) married Fred George Ham in 1899<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford_geoft.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford_geoft.gif" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © 2015 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Gifford Geographical Family Tree, <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford_geoft.gif">Click</a> to enlarge<br />
Image © 2015 Brett Payne</center><br />
The need to be able to visualize the locations of the various branches of the Gifford family through time has led me to design a novel type of family tree, which attempts provide a graphical solution to a problem that I have experienced many times when attempting to research family photo albums. This is its first airing, and since it is really just a prototype, I'll hope you'll bear with me if there are a few hiccups and inconsistencies. To be able to see the full version image at the same time as reading my explanation, I suggest that readers right click with their mouse button on the image above, choose to "open in a new window," and then adjust the size of the browser windows accordingly so you can see both at the same time, assuming your screen is big enough.<br />
<br />
Each column on the chart represents a different Gifford family group, with the "first" generation of James and Ann Gifford on the far left, then the seven children of the second generation, and finally Agnes Gifford & Herbert Henschel, who were in the third generation. The vertical axis represents time, and extends from 1850 to 1960, with the decades marked by horizontal rules.<br />
<br />
Individuals are marked on the chart by a series of coloured dots (blue for males, red for females, naturally) connected with lines from their birth date, through marriage (where a male and female line will merge), having children (slightly smaller dots) until their death (marked by a small cross). Underlying the family lines are colour fills representing the locations where they were living at the time, for example pale green for Staffordshire (England), pale purple for Ohio (United States), etc. The key to these colours is at the base of the chart.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="hhttps://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i48.jpg" style="height: 345px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i44.jpg" style="height: 345px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Portraits taken in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, c. 1900-1903 (left)<br />
and Derby, Derbyshire, c. 1898-1901 (right)<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The intention, therefore, is that if the location and approximate date of a photographic portrait are known, and the age(s) of the subject(s) can be roughly estimated, then the chart can be used to determine which members of the family were living in the right place at the right time, and were the right age, to be candidates for the portrait.<br />
<br />
Perhaps readers would like to try their hand at doing this for themselves with the two cartes de visites shown above, to see if (a) the chart works as intended, and (b) whether you come up with the same candidates as I have? In other words, if we assume that these children are daughters and sons of one of Fred Gifford's siblings, which second generation family do they belong to? I'd be very grateful if you'd leave your deductions in the comment box below. If you find the chart too difficult to understand, have some questions or suggestions for improvements, or indeed any other comments, I'd likewise be pleased to hear from you.<br />
<br />
<b>Post Script</b> 14 July 2015<br />
<br />
These are my interpretations of who the subjects of the two carte de visite portraits might be:<br />
<br />
(1) Clarnbernie portrait of girl with a wall-eye<br />
The girls looks to be aged around 8-10 years, which implies a birth date of c. 1890-1895 if my date estimate for the portrait is correct. Three of the second generation Gifford families were living in Staffordshire during this period: James & Mary Gifford, William & Mary Ann Gifford and Charles & Jane Gifford. All three had daughters, but only Charles & Jane had a daughter of the right age. She was <b>Agnes Annie Gifford</b> born in 1892 at Stoke-on-Trent.<br />
<br />
(2) Frost portrait of three children<br />
The only family living in Derby around the turn of the century was Alfred and Mary Ann Maiden, who had three children: <b>Florence Amelia Maiden</b>, born in 1890 and therefore aged c. 8-11, <b>Alfred James Maiden</b>, born in 1891 and hence aged c. 7-10, and <b>Harry Maiden</b>, born in 1896 and aged 2-5.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Alderman, Mari (2006) <a href="http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/VicPhoto1.html">Victorian Professional Photographers in Wales, 1850-1925</a>, publ. online by GENUKI.<br />
<br />
Blum, Stella (1974) Victorian Fashions & Costumes from Harper's Bazaar, 1867-1898, New York: Dover Publications, 294p.<br />
<br />
Harbach, Mike (2014) <a href="http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/STS/Stsphots.html">Staffordshire Photographers Index</a>, publ. online by GENUKI><br />
<br />
Jones, Gillian A. (1994) <b>Professional Photographers in North Staffordshire, 1850-1940</b>, <i>The PhotoHistorian</i>, No. 103 (Winter 1994), Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.<br />
<br />
Jones, Gillian A. (nd) <b>Professional Photographers in South Staffordshire, 1850-1940</b>, <i>The PhotoHistorian</i>, No. 105, Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.<br />
<br />
Jones, Gillian (2004) <b>Lancashire Professional Photographers, 1840-1940</b>, Watford: PhotoResearch, 203p.<br />
<br />
Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-51907831046444206252015-07-03T09:00:00.002+12:002022-10-18T15:33:22.861+13:00Sepia Saturday 286: The Importance of Deciphering a Hasty Scrawl<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-286-4th-july-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss286.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
I spend lot of time trying to decipher almost illegible scrawls inscribed on the back of old photographs, often the only clue to the subject matter of the image on the front. Quite frequently, it comes down to whether a flick of the pen was the start of a new letter or part of the previous one. There's not much point in dwelling on the matter of whether a little more care could have been taken at the time. You just get on with it and work with what you have.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum01.gif" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></center><br />
Six years ago a tattered and threadbare velvet-covered album of family photographs came into my possession, having originally been purchased at a yard sale in eastern Pennsylvania. Jack Armstrong had intended to research it himself, but after several years the almost total lack of any clues left its origins as mysterious as when he bought it.<br />
<br />
A number of the portraits in the album had been taken by studios in Derbyshire (England) - hence my interest - but all provenance had been lost, and clues to the identity of the subjects were almost completely non-existent. I subsequently used the album as a photo-archival exercise, with several articles published here on the standard photographing, scanning and documentation procedures that I use for such projects (<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2010/06/researching-cleveland-album.html">here</a>, <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2010/06/researching-photo-album-1-digital.html">here</a> and <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2010/06/researching-photo-album-2-documenting.html">here</a>). I also used a photograph from the album as the introductory image for a Sepia Saturday article (<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/sepia-saturday-170-gamekeeper.html">SS 170</a>) that I wrote about gamekeepers.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum18.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum18.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 2015 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Geographical distribution of photographs (click <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum18.jpg">image</a> to enlarge)</center><br />
In addition to scanning and documenting the collection, I also did some geographical analysis of the studios at which the portraits were taken. As shown in the pie chart above most of the 55 portraits were taken in the United Kingdom, and of those the majority came from Derbyshire (10) and Staffordshire (9). In the United States the bulk of the portraits were taken in Cleveland, Ohio (8).<br />
<br />
My initial analysis suggested, therefore, that the family which owned the album may have emigrated from one of several locations in Staffordshire or Derbyshire to Cleveland, Ohio at some time within the date range of the portraits in the album.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_dategraph.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_dategraph.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © 2015 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Dates of portrait sittings (click <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/jaalbum_dategraph.jpg">image</a> to enlarge)<br />
N.B. 5-yr moving average of mid-points of date estimates</center><br />
I then constructed a graph showing the frequency of portrait sittings over time, using five year moving averages of the mid-points of the estimated date ranges. I realise that the logic and methodology of using five-year moving averages to represent date range estimates is a bit dodgy, to say the least, and I have since revised my date estimates for several photos, but I hoped that this would smooth out the graphs and at least give an an overall visual impression of the main periods that the images were taken, which it does fairly well.<br />
<br />
The graph (or chart, if you prefer) demonstrates that the US photos start to appear in the early 1880s, while from the early 1890s onwards, the preponderance of UK photos diminishes markedly. To me this suggests an immigration date range from the early 1880s to the early 1890s. It is conceivable that one part of the family immigrated to the US in the early 1880s, while a second part arrived in the early 1890s. This could have been a husband and wife's family arriving at different times, or indeed something far more complicated.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet portrait of unidentified group of women, c.1889-1893<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
There are very few inscriptions on the photographs, and none at all on the album pages. The only one that appears to offer any immediate clues to the identity of the subjects is on the back of a cabinet portrait of a large group of ten women taken in the very late 1880s or early 1890s by a professional, if somewhat hastily put together, studio. It has been mounted onto a standard cabinet card mount with no photographer's name, although the presence of a royal seal in the scroll work design strongly implies a United Kingdom origin.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24r.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24r.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Inscription on reverse of cabinet card mount</center><br />
The text, handwritten in pencil, appears to read as follows:<br />
<blockquote>H.H. Henschel<br />
1223 E 111th St<br />
10 x 12 Sep vig</blockquote>The first line is almost certainly a name, <b>H.H. Henschel</b> or conceivably "Herschel," and is probably the client's name, not necessarily that of the subject. The second line, I think, comprises an address, (number) <b>1223 E</b>ast <b>111th St</b>reet, while the third I have deciphered as instructions for a copy enlargement of the portrait to be made, <b>10</b>" <b>x 12</b>" <b>Sep</b>ia <b>vig</b>nette. At the edge of the front of the card mount is a small arrow marked in pen or pencil indicating that the central figure is the one which is to be enlarged.<br />
<br />
The surname appears to be of Germanic origin, and the address is in a style more likely to have originated in the United States than in the United Kingdom. I came to the conclusion, therefore, that although the original portrait had been taken somewhere in the UK, the vignetted portrait enlargement was requested by someone who no longer had access to the original studio negatives. In other words, it may have been written, and therefore the enlargement made, some years after the original portrait had been taken. It could have been a simple framed vignette or a much more elaborate glazed and framed, colourised portrait, examples of which I have posted <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2008/02/portraits-enlarged-up-to-life-size-2.html">here</a> and, with my Tauranga Historical Society hat on, <a href="http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.co.nz/2014/10/visiting-prices-corner-studio-on-strand.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cleveland1910.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cleveland1910.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © The National Archives & courtesy of Ancestry.com" /></a><br />
Census enumeration for 1221 E 111th St, Cleveland City, 23 Apr 1910<br />
Image © The National Archives & courtesy of Ancestry.com</center><br />
Given that Cleveland, Ohio features so prominently in the US portraits, I searched for the surname "Henschel" in census records for that city. Almost immediately I came up with the following spectacular discovery at 1221 East 111th Street, Cleveland in 1910:<br />
<br />
<i>Gifford</i> Frederick / Head / 48 / Widr / b Eng / Imm 1892 / China Artist<br />
<i>Gifford</i> Frederick J / Son / 10 / S / b OH<br />
<i>Henschel</i> Herbert / SoninLaw / 23 / M 2y / b OH / Auto Co. Electrician<br />
<i>Henschel</i> Agnes H / Dau / 22 / M 2y / b Eng<br />
<i>Henschel</i> Herbert G / GdSon / 11m / S / b OH<br />
<br />
Here was a family that fitted the bill, having arrived in the United States in 1892, settled in Cleveland, with a daughter who married Herbert Henschel in about 1908, and were living at in East 111th Street in 1910 - although at number 1221 instead of 1223. It seemed almost too good to be true but, as I investigated the family further through census records and the discovery of online family trees, pieces continued to fall into place.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cimbria.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cimbria.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Ancestry.com" /></a><br />
The Henschel family arrived on S.S. <i>Cimbria</i> in 1881<br />
Image courtesy of Ancestry.com</center><br />
<b>Wilhelm (William) Henschel</b> and his family emigrated from Berlin, Prussia in 1881. After a fifteen day voyage across the North Atlantic on board the Hamburg America Line steamship <i>Cimbria</i>, his wife Wilhelmina (Minnie) and three children arrived in New York on 6 October and joined William in Cleveland, Ohio.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i02.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Garfield Monument, Cleveland, Ohio, taken c. May 1890<br />
Cabinet card by unknown photographer<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Having arrived in the United States only a few weeks after the assassination of President Garfield, whose home town was Cleveland, it was natural that when a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield_Memorial">monument</a> to him was unveiled at the Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland and dedicated in May 1890, the Henschel family should preserve a keepsake of such an historic occasion in their family album.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i19.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i19.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified child in christening gown, c.1889-1892<br />
Cabinet card by J.M. Tuttle, 1672 St Clair St, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
In the mean time, the Henschel family had grown. A fourth son William was born in September 1884 and a fifth <b>Herbert Henry Henschel</b> on 24 June 1888, nearly seven years after settling in Cleveland. Their only daughter Mamie arrived in July 1891. This baby in a christening gown could be either Herbert Henry or Mamie.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i16.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i16.jpg" style="height: 320px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i20.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i20.jpg" style="height: 320px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified woman, taken c.1891-1892 (click images to enlarge)<br />
Cabinet cards by Rynald H. Krumhar, 225 Superior St, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The two portraits of a middle-aged woman with a very close-fitting hair style and almost as severe an expression were taken by Rynald H. Krumhar who, according to <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=ZdICm_W8xKwC"><i>Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary</i></a>, operated a studio in Cleveland on his own in 1891 and 1892 before teaming up with his brother Robert F. Krumhar between 1892 and 1895. <b>Minnie Henschel</b> (1848-) was in her early forties at the time these two portaits were taken, and I believe must be the prime candidate.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i21.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i21.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified man, taken c. 1887-1892<br />
Cabinet card by Copeland, 588 Pearl Street, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
A head and shoulders vignetted portrait of a similarly aged gentleman with a luxuriant moustache and goatee may have been taken slightly earlier. I don't have dates of operation of the Cleveland photographer Copeland, but from the style of mount, portrait and clothing I suspect it dates to the late 1880s or early 1890s. <b>William Henschel</b> Sr. (1850-) is the obvious choice here, as he too would have been about 40 years old.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i17.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i17.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified young man, taken c. 1894-1897<br />
Cabinet card by Pifer & Becker Photo-Palace, Wilshire Building, 94-100 Superior St, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This young man appears to be aged in his late teens, and probably visited Pifer & Becker's Photo-Palace studio in the mid-1890s. I suspect that it is one of Herbert's older brothers, Max, Hugo or Fred, all of whom were born in Germany.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ssetruria.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ssetruria.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Ancestry.com" /></a><br />
<a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford1893.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford1893.gif" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Ancestry.com" /></a><br />
Passenger manifest for S.S. <i>Etruria</i>, arr. New York 27 Feb 1893</center><br />
On 27 February 1893 <b>Frederick Thomas Gifford</b> (1862-1932) and his wife Ellen arrived at Ellis Island, New York on board the SS <i>Etruria</i> from Liverpool, England with their four year old daughter <b>Agnes Hammersley Gifford</b> (1888-1967), giving Cleveland, Ohio as their destination on the ship's manifest.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24x.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i24x.jpg" style="height: 350px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Vignette of unidentified woman marked on cabinet card</center><br />
Frederick Thomas and Ellen Gifford had a son, also named Frederick, born in Cleveland in July 1899. Their daughter Agnes married Herbert Henschel in Hutchinson, Kansas in February 1907. Ellen Gifford died in April 1908 at 1221 East 111st Street, Cleveland, and was buried at Lakeview Cemetery. It was to this same address that the vignetted portrait enlargement - perhaps looking something like the image I created in Photoshop, above - was sent.<br />
<br />
We also know that the widowed Fred Gifford, his son and the Henschel family were living there in 1910. By February 1913, when Herbert and Agnes' second child was born, the Henschels had moved to Indiana. It seems a distinct possibility, therefore, that the enlargement is of Agnes's mother <b>Ellen Gifford</b> (1866-1908), and that it was commissioned some time in the five years between her death in April 1908 and their arrival in Indiana in February 1913.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i47.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i47.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified child, taken c. 1892-1895<br />
Carte de visite by Krumhar Bros., 225 Superior St, Cleveland, Ohio<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
When this warmly dressed child visited the Krumhar studio on Cleveland's Superior Street both of the Krumhar brothers were in attendance, dating it to between 1892 and 1895. Probably aged between 7 and 9 years old, and I'm guessing a girl because a boy is unlikely to be in a dress at that age, my estimate is that she would have been born circa 1883-1888. I believe this could be be <b>Agnes H. Gifford</b>.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i49.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i49.jpg" style="height: 450px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified group of 2 women & 2 children, taken c. 1892-1895<br />
Sixth-plate tintype (63 x 84mm) by unidentified photographer<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Inserted within the album are three loose, roughly trimmed sixth-plate tintypes, all taken in studio settings but without any indication of location. The clothing worn by the two women in this group portrait suggests they were taken in the early to mid-1890s, a time when the tintype was far more popular in North America than in England. The woman from the vignette appears seated on the right, wearing a broad-brimmed light-coloured hat, while the child from the Krumhar Bros. portrait is seated at left, also with a very flat hat. Are these two Ellen Gifford and her daughter Agnes? I think so, but then who might the other woman and younger child be?<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford1900.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gifford1900.gif" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Ancestry.com" /></a><br />
The Gifford family at 125 Becker Av, Cleveland City, 13 June 1900</center><br />
The answer to the identity of the other child may lie in the 1900 Census record, which shows the Gifford family living at 125 Becker Avenue, Cleveland. In addition to (Frederick) Thomas, Ellen and Agnes, their ten month-old son Frederick J. is shown as having born in July 1899, probably too late to be the younger child in the tintype portrait. However, from the figures in the columns to the right of her age (<b>M</b>arried for <b>13</b> years, Mother of <b>4</b> children, of which <b>2</b> living), we can infer that Ellen had two further children who died young. The younger child could be one of those who died, or alternatively belongs to the other woman who is standing at the back.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i05.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i05.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unidentified young man, taken c. 1915-1925<br />
Cabinet card (Carbonette) by Wendel Studio, 13 Avenue A, New York<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This very smartly dressed young man with a bowtie, fedora and a rose in his buttonhole probably visited the Wendel Studio in New York for a portrait in the late 1920s or early 1920s. He looks to me to be in his late teens, perhaps between 17 and 20 years old, so I estimate that he was born c.1895-1908. The birth date of <b>Frederick J. Gifford</b> (1899-1959) lies well within this range; he married in 1930 and died at Jamestown, New York in November 1959. His father had also died at Jamestown in 1932.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i55.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/jaalbum_i55.jpg" style="height: 500px" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Card mount (114 x 182mm) with no photograph, c.1910-1925<br />
By the Globe Photo Co., 309 Main St., Jamestown, N.Y.<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
My last image for the moment is, in fact, not a photograph at all. This card mount from the Globe Photo Co. studio in Jamestown, New York has lost its contents, so we may never know whose face was framed within it. However I believe that it probably originally contained a postcard format portrait, and the style of mount suggests to me a date of perhaps the 1910s or early 1920s. I found several postcard format portraits from this studio on the web, and they come from a similar era.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/henschel-giffordtree.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/henschel-giffordtree.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a></center><br />
I have no doubt that at this point several readers will be thinking that I have amassed a good deal of circumstantial evidence, and may even have indulged in a fair amount of speculation, but have presented little in the way of proof except for the single inscription. To my mind that inscription, and more specifically the juxtaposition of name and address, establishes the connection between that particular portrait and the Henschel-Gifford family without a doubt.<br />
<br />
From that point, I agree that I'm on much more shaky ground, but I hope you'll bear with me as I continue to build up a family tree, and attempt to link portraits to individuals within that tree. Part of the difficulty is that one has to not only populate the family tree, but also show that individuals were in the right place at the right time to have their portraits taken. It's a lengthy and time consuming exercise to unravel the complex family relationships, which I'll have to spread over several articles in due course. Next week I'll turn to the English side of the family and look at portraits from Derbyshire and Staffordshire.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-25688016631549269652015-06-26T09:00:00.001+12:002023-02-08T11:13:20.524+13:00Sepia Saturday 285: One Button Does It<center><a href="https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/9712204"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/kodak_1888.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of LiveAuctioneers" /></a><br />
The Kodak, introduced by Eastman Kodak in June 1888<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/9712204">LiveAuctioneers</a></center><br />
The firm of Eastman Kodak of Rochester, New York is popularly associated with early amateur photography, bringing to most peoples' minds the <b>Brownie</b> from February 1900 (pictured below), or perhaps even their "original" <b>Kodak</b> box camera introduced in June 1888 (above). The Kodak and its immediate successor the No 1 Kodak used factory-loaded and processed rollfilm and over 15,000 cameras were manufactured before the line was discontinued in 1895.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://redbellows.co.uk/CameraCollection/Kodak/TheBrownieCamera_500.htm"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/kodakbrownie_1900.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of David Purcell" /></a><br />
The Brownie, introduced by Eastman Kodak in February 1900<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://redbellows.co.uk/CameraCollection/Kodak/TheBrownieCamera_500.htm">David Purcell</a></center><br />
The first Brownie was in production for less than two years from February 1900 until October 1901, during which time almost a quarter of a million were sold. Renamed the No 1 Brownie, but almost identical, it went on to sell over half a million more between then and 1916. The superficial similarity between the two rectangular black boxes, however, belies the technological advances that were made and the ideas that were brought together in Eastman Kodak's range of cameras during the last decade of the nineteenth century.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/kodakcameras_1888_1901.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/kodakcameras_1888_1901.gif" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Eastman Kodak Camera Prices and Production Volumes, 1888-1901<br />
Data extracted from Coe (1988)</center><br />
In his book <i>The Story of Kodak</i>, Douglas Collins details many of these developments, including paper-backed, daylight-loading rollfilm, improvements in viewfinders, lenses and shutters, lightweight construction, mass production techniques, judicious acquisition of patents, recruitment of people with appropriate technical skills and fresh marketing ideas. In 1888, 5,200 units of the flagship Kodak sold at $25.00 apiece. In the space of just over a decade, the cameras were simplified and production costs reduced to such an extent that the No. 1 Brownie could be sold for $1.00, and it went on to sell more than half a million units. The No 2 Brownie was even more successful.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_1.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_1.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Pocket Kodak, introduced by Eastman Kodak in July 1895<br />
Dimensions 3" x 4" x 2¼" (74 x 99 x 57mm)<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
In July 1895 Eastman Kodak placed on the market a diminutive new camera whose sales would outstrip all of their earlier models. The <b>Pocket Kodak</b> was tiny, easily fitting in the palm of one's hand, and very lightweight, the early models being constructed of aluminium in a leather-covered wooden case. It used a 12-exposure specially designed roll film (102-format) which produced a photograph measuring 1½" x 2" (38 x 51 mm), and at only $5.00, it was their cheapest camera, a fifth of the price of the No 1 Kodak which was finally phased out that same year. Sales increased spectacularly, and an initial daily production run of 200 units was quickly increased. By the end of the year the Pocket Kodak sold 100,000 units, more than five times the total 19,000 units which their previous most popular model, the No 2 Kodak, sold between 1889 and 1897.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_2.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_2.jpg" style="height: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
'96 Model Pocket Kodak, Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester NY<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Even though the camera was a runaway success, its designer Frank Brownell continued to tweak and make minor modifications to the design while it was in production. At least four models have been identified from the first year alone, followed by '96, '98, '99 and D model designations. My own example of this camera is a '96 Model and, judging by the latest patent date listed on the inside of the case, must have been manufactured after 12 January 1897. This example includes several modifications not seen on previous versions, including a wooden (as opposed to aluminium) film carrier, coarse-grained black leather covering, a rotary shutter (which replaced the Tisdell sector shutter) and a rectangular (rather than circular) viewfinder.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/brownell_patent18970112.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/brownell_patent18970112.gif" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Google Patents" /></a><br />
Patent <a href="http://www.google.co.nz/patents/US575208">US575,208</a>, F.A. Brownell, Photographic Camera, 12 Jan 1897<br />
Image courtesy of Google Patents</center><br />
Although the camera depicted in the 1897 patent drawing appears to be the <b>Kodak No 2 Bullet</b>, with a larger square 3½" x 3½" format compared to the Pocket Kodak's smaller rectangular 1½" x 2", the design is almost identical.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_plateholder.jpg"><br />
<img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_plateholder.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp" /></a><br />
'95 Model Pocket Kodak with Plateholder inserted<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://kodaksefke.nl/">Jos Erdkamp</a></center><br />
The Pocket Kodak does not, however, have a side door on the case, a provision to allow the use of a double plate holder instead of Kodak's new cartridge rollfilm. Instead, a thin wooden panel in the back of the case housing the red celluloid window could be removed and a small, specially designed plate holder be slid into the slot in its place.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_3.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_3.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Wooden Case (left) and Film Carrier (Right), '96 Model Pocket Kodak<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Two strips mounted on the lens-shutter board, accesible by pull-up tabs on the top front edge of the camera, enabled shutter speed (Time and Instantaneous) and aperture (3 settings) to be set by the user. A red celluloid window at the back displayed the exposure printed on the film's paper backing and, with a fixed-focus meniscus-type lens (focal length of 2½"), it was a very simple camera to operate.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0549/"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/kodak_advert1895.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections" /></a><br />
Eastman Kodak Co. Advert, Pocket Kodak, from <i>Cosmopolitan</i>, Oct 1895<br />
Image © & courtesy <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/">Duke University Libraries Digital Collections</a>, <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0549/">K0549</a></center><br />
In the words of an advertisement placed in <i>Cosmopolitan</i> magazine of October 1895, "<i>One Button Does It</i>." Despite the small size of the negative, the quality enabled either contact prints or enlargements "<i>of any size</i>" to be made.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_5.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak96_5.jpg" style="width: 400px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Film Carrier with take-up spool, '96 Model Pocket Kodak<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The most convenient aspect of Kodak's three new cameras released 1895, the No 2 Bullet (March), Pocket Kodak (July) and No 2 Bulls-Eye (August), was that they all used the daylight-loading film patented by Samuel N. Turner, which Eastman purchased in August that year. The celluloid film sensitized with emulsion was backed with light-excluding paper, and then rolled on a flanged spool which fitted into a slot in the camera. The film was then led across rollers at the back and then wound onto a take-up spool on the opposite side of the carrier.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90900361@N08/8332694920/"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_1.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Geoff Harrisson" /></a><br />
'95 Model (First version) Pocket Kodak with 102-format film & "Primer"<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90900361@N08/">Geoff Harrisson</a></center><br />
The 101- and 102-format films, each containing 12 exposures, were enthusiastically received by amateur photographers, who could now send the exposed film, rather than the whole camera, back to the Kodak factory for processing. Nor did they need to take a hundred snapshots before seeing the results. Eastman Kodak catalogues offered "<i>developing and printing outfits</i>" at very reasonable prices, and a few independent firms even began opening shops to process amateur films.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_case.jpg"><br />
<img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_case.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp" /></a><br />
'95 Model Pocket Kodak in leather case<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://kodaksefke.nl/">Jos Erdkamp</a></center><br />
The Pocket Kodak ($5.00) came with two instruction manuals, a "Field Primer" and a "Dark Room Primer," and the owner could also purchase a leather hand-carrying case (75c) large enough to carry the camera and three extra spools of film (25c each). Home developing enthusiasts might order from the 1896 Kodak catalogue enamelled (glossy finish) or platino bromide (matte finish) paper in packets of a dozen 6½" x 8½" sheets ($1.10), enough for a couple of hundred contact prints, and white embossed card mounts at 10 cents for a dozen. Pocket albums to hold 50 or 100 prints were offered, as were "wire easels" for displaying mounted prints to full advantage. Eastman knew that, with burgeoning sales of his cameras, the real money was to going to be made in consumables.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90900361@N08/8365267247/"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak_negenv.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Geoff Harrisson" /></a><br />
Negative envelopes for Pocket Kodak with mounted print<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90900361@N08/8365267247/">Geoff Harrisson</a></center><br />
Once processed the film negatives were returned to the customer in specially printed brown envelopes, together with any prints which had been ordered. Spaces on the front of the envelope were filled in by the processor - in this case Eastman Photographic Material Co., Ltd. and its successor Kodak Limited - with order number and how many good frames and failures there were. Sadly no dates were recorded. If prints had been ordered, and paid for, Kodak undertook to replace any failures with duplicates from the successful shots.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Nellie Ashley seated on front porch, undated, taken c. 1895-1897<br />
Silver bromide print (50 x 37mm, 2" x 1½")<br />
White embossed "Pocket Kodak" mount (86 x 73mm), Design A<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This example of a 2" x 1½" print pasted on the standard embossed white card mount sold for Pocket Kodak sized prints is from my own collection. Although undated, from the size and shape of the woman's sleeves I believe it to have been taken c. 1895-1897, which roughly equates to the period before a wider variety of mounts became available.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://rpkphoto.smugmug.com/Photo-History-1/The-Snapshot-Century/i-Xt5bCrX"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak02.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Rodger Kingston Collection" /></a><br />
Unidentified children, Cole's Photo Studio, undated, taken c. 1900-1905<br />
Silver bromide print (approx. 50 x 37mm, 2" x 1½")<br />
White embossed "Pocket Kodak" mount (approx 86 x 73mm), Design B<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://rpkphoto.smugmug.com/Photo-History-1/The-Snapshot-Century/i-Xt5bCrX">Rodger Kingston Collection</a></center><br />
Kodak's 1898 catalogue shows three different styles of mount sold for the Pocket Kodak, with variations of white and grey, embossed or enamelled faces, but by 1900 the range had increased enormously to a range of 11 styles in white, grey, green, black and brown, with beveled or square edges. The 1901 catalogue, reflecting the replacement of the Pocket Kodak by the Brownie in the company's small box camera range, lists no mounts at all for the Pocket Kodak.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum1.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum1.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of John Toohey" /></a><br />
Cover of Pocket Kodak Album, used c.1896<br />
"Full padded red Morocco cover, to hold 96 Pocket Kodak prints"<br />
Image © and courtesy of John Toohey, <a href="http://www.junkshopsnapshots.blogspot.ca/">One Man's Treasure</a></center><br />
Of course not all photographs produced with a Pocket Kodak were mounted on card. Many went into albums such as the one shown above from John Toohey's collection which was advertised in the 1897 Kodak Great britain Price List as having a "<i>full padded red Morocco cover, plate mark, india tint round openings, to hold 96 Pocket Kodak prints</i>," and sold for 5 shillings (then equivalent to roughly $2.00).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum2.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum2.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of John Toohey" /></a><br />
Page from Pocket Kodak Album, Paris, 1896<br />
incl. views of the "Opéra," "Arc de Triomphe" and "Trinité"<br />
Image © and courtesy of John Toohey, <a href="http://www.junkshopsnapshots.blogspot.ca/">One Man's Treasure</a></center><br />
The album has 12 pages, each containing 8 openings, totalling 96 prints of photographs illustrating a visit to Paris in 1896. John believes that they were probably taken in one day while the photographer was wandering around Paris, possibly trying out the new camera.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum4.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum4.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of John Toohey" /></a><br />
Page from Pocket Kodak Album, Paris, 1896<br />
incl. views of cycling, "Bois de Boulognee" and "Carrefour de Longchamp"<br />
Image © and courtesy of John Toohey, <a href="http://www.junkshopsnapshots.blogspot.ca/">One Man's Treasure</a></center><br />
He has noticed that that same woman appears in several images, suggesting she was travelling with the photographer. They are framed, as described, with a grey india tint around the openings.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak03.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak03.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp" /></a><br />
Unidentified location & date, probably taken c. late 1890s<br />
Mounted Pocket Kodak prints pasted on album page, Designs A (top left) and Design C (others)<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://kodaksefke.nl/">Jos Erdkamp</a></center><br />
Jos Erdkamp has kindly shared from his collection an album page with eight mounted Pocket Kodak prints, four pasted on the front and four on the back. These too appear to have been taken in a city somewhere in Europe, although the location is not identified. Three of the mounts (shown in the image above) are of a third design, different from the two displayed previously.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum7.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/parisalbum7.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of John Toohey" /></a><br />
Page from Pocket Kodak Album, Paris, 1896<br />
incl. views of the "Eiffel Tower" and "Champ de Mars"<br />
Image © and courtesy of John Toohey, <a href="http://www.junkshopsnapshots.blogspot.ca/">One Man's Treasure</a></center><br />
It was the 1890s when amateur photographs first started to appear in any substantial number featuring everyday subjects instead of the usual scenic shots recording places visited, and it is interesting to note that the subject matter of extant Pocket Kodak prints appears to follow that trend. George Eastman recognised that keen amateur photographers who had the time, expertise and interest to learn the skills required to process negatives and photographs would be far outnumbered by those who wished merely to capture a snapshot of their daily life, with no interest whatsoever in getting involved with making the prints. With his famous marketing mantra, "<i>You press the button, we do the rest</i>," he separated the two photographic functions and developed an infrastructure that would take care of all the processing, as well as provide materials to the enthusiasts who still wished to develop and print their own.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_case2.jpg"><br />
<img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pocketkodak95_case2.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp" /></a><br />
'95 Model Pocket Kodak (black) and leather case<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://kodaksefke.nl/">Jos Erdkamp</a></center><br />
Although the Pocket Kodak itself contained no ground breaking new technology, it was the combination of several recent inventions, often made by Eastman's predecessors or competitors, into one fundamentally simple device, cheap to produce and easy to operate, together with a supporting network of processing facilities, that turned turned it and the No 2 Bulls-Eye into runaway success stories. They also paved the way for the introduction of an even cheaper and simpler camera, the Brownie, which in 1900 would eclipse all in the quest for unpretentious sentimental photographic mementos of everyday life.<br />
<br />
I'm very grateful to David Purcell, Jos Erdkamp, Geoff Harrisson, Rodger Kingston and John Toohey who have all kindly supplied me with images of items in their respective collections for my research, and permitted me to use them here.<br />
<br />
A connection with this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-285-27-june-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> theme image, a postcard of the Chittenden Hotel in Columbus, Ohio, is somewhat tenuous, but you'll find several images of multi-storied buildings in my contribution, and no doubt you'll see plenty more if you pay the rest of those happy themers a visit.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References & Further Reading</u></b><br />
<br />
Brayer, Elizabeth (2006) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580464246/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1580464246&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=EMEHCCJFTNGT5SGK">George Eastman: A Biography</a>, Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 637p.<br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1976) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0904069079/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0904069079&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=6DC3G6H3BLAFRYA4">The Birth of Photography: The story of the formative years, 1800-1900</a>, London: Spring Books, 144p.<br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1978) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517533812/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0517533812&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=477P64FKKBPF7RML">Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures</a>, United States: Crown Publishers, 240p.<br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1988) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1874707375/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1874707375&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=X4BH5GEO5UTBO446">Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years</a>, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.<br />
<br />
Collins, Douglas (1990) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810912228/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0810912228&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=A3KDWJFBEYRG7RSS">The Story of Kodak</a>, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 392p.<br />
<br />
Gustavson, Todd (2009) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1454900024/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1454900024&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=Q25GXLRJUPYKUTHG">Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital</a>, New York: Sterling, 360pp.<br />
<br />
Niederman, Rob & Zahorcak, Milan (nd) <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a>, DVD<br />
<br />
Rosenblum, Naomi (2008) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789209373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0789209373&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20&linkId=5D2YMSFWJYWL3CEO">A World History of Photography</a>, 4th Edition, New York: Abbeville Press, 671p.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-285-27-june-2015.html"><img alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett & Marilyn Brindley" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss285.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a></center>Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-80130827186274388872015-06-19T09:00:00.001+12:002023-02-08T11:18:38.582+13:00Sepia Saturday 284: Panel Prints and Coupon Prints<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-284-20th-june-2015.html"><img alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett & Marilyn Brindley" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss284.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a></center><br />
My contribution for <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-284-20-june-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> this week features a photographic format that was popular for only a brief period, and which often receives only cursory attention in photohistory texts, even though they are fairly commonly seen. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, more or less at the same time as amateur photography was taking off, a profusion of new formats were introduced, presumably in an effort to entice customers away from buying their own cameras and back into the studio.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/lan/images/chowell03.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Colin Harding/Photographica World" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/lan/images/chowell03.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Charles Howell's early studio at Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, undated<br />
Image © and courtesy of Colin Harding/Photographica World</center><br />
Among these were the <i>panel print</i> and its smaller sibling the <i>coupon print</i>, which appeared shortly after the turn of the century, had their heyday between 1905 and 1915. Initially the new tall, thin shape was probably a draw, but I have little doubt that their low cost proved the main attraction for both studios and their customers. At half a dozen for sixpence from <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/sepia-saturday-160-charles-howell.html">Charles Howell</a>'s beachfront studio in Blackpool, they were half the price of the already wildly popular postcard portraits.<br />
<br />
The examples featured below include a few from my own collection, and may not represent the full range that were available, but at least they give a fair idea of the format. I've attempted to keep the colours as accurate as possible, and on my screen they are displayed <u>actual size</u>, although they may appear differently to you, depending on the device being used to view this page. I've also provided a number of references to Geoff Caulton's very useful <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/">PhotoDetective 1901-1953</a> pages, which gives many examples of the rapidly changing fashions in hair, hats, clothing and accessories during that period.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/295.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/295.jpg" style="height: 444px;" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/294.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/294.jpg" style="height: 444px;" /></a><br />
Two unidentified young women, c.1914-1918<br />
Panel prints (56 x 121 mm) by D.A. Maclean of Middlesboro & Blackpool<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
These two young women probably visited Maclean's popular Blackpool studio during the Great War, judging by their practical <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/10s-Face.html">swept back hair styles</a>, <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/V-neck-A.html">V-necked blouses</a> and white <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Corselet-A.html">corselet skirts</a> typical of that period. Since I acquired them in the same batch, the appearance of identical backdrop and wicker chair suggests they may have been taken on the same occasion.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/291.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/291.jpg" style="height: 416px;" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/292.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/292.jpg" style="height: 416px;" /></a><br />
Two unidentified teenage girls in costume, c.1912-1915<br />
Panel prints (54 x 113 mm) by unknown photographer<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The younger girl on the left has her hair swept back in a <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Ed-Transit.html">transitional hairstyle</a>, tied with what must be one of the largest <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/WW1-Bow.html">butterfly hair bows</a> that I've seen, popular from 1912 to 1918. The older girl has her down in what was sometimes referred to as her <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Glory.html">crowning glory</a>, although the metal wrist cuffs suggest a costume of some kind. These two panel prints also have similar poses and an identical backdrop, and I wonder if they were sisters appearing in the same stage performance. Perhaps readers more <i>au fait</i> with theatre of the time might be able to suggest a classical play and/or character. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troilus_and_Cressida">Troilus and Cressida</a> is the only one that comes immediately to mind as being from that era.<br />
<b>Post Script</b> Thanks to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/05126935681056217032">Rob from Amersfoort</a>, we now have a probable ID for the role being acted, i.e. that of "Mercia" from Wilson Barrett's 1904 four act historical tragedy, <i>The Sign of the Cross</i>, as shown <a href="https://tpr76797.wordpress.com/tag/miss-marie-studholme/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.robswebstek.com/2013/09/maude-fealy-as-mercia.html">here</a>. Thanks Rob.<br />
<br />
The wristwatch on the younger girl's left arm is an interesting accessory. It's actually a <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Fobwatch.html">leather-cased ladies' fob watch</a> popular during the Edwardian era.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/301.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/301.jpg" style="height: 317px;" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/302a.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/302a.jpg" style="height: 317px;" /></a><br />
Unidentified young women, 28 April 1913 (left) and c. 1910-1915 (right)<br />
Coupon prints (39 x 86 mm) by unknown photographer<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The most striking feature of these two women is their enormous <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/cartwheel.html">cartwheel hats</a>, no doubt kept perched in place with long hatpins and a <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Frenchroll-A.html">low pompadour hairstyle</a>. The large-buttoned and belted jackets, probably worn over <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Hobble-A.html">hobble skirts</a>, confirm that these were taken some time during the decade before the Great War. Also noted in the right-hand portrait is the very visible reference number (7141, reversed), probably written in ink on the negative.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/303.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/303.jpg" style="height: 312px;" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/304.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/304.jpg" style="height: 312px;" /></a><br />
Unidentified young woman and girl, c.1910-1915<br />
Coupon prints (36 x 88 mm) by unknown photographer<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The young lady on the left again has her hair in the <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Ed-Transit.html">transitional style</a> characteristic of the pre-war period. The portrait of the girl is more difficult to date, because her clothing and loose hairstyle could be from any time during the period 1905 to 1920. The belted dress with <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Drop-waist.html">slightly dropped waistline</a> is similar to some seen in the early 1920s, but the lace collar is more akin to the pre-war period.<br />
<br />
These coupon prints were designed so that four could be made from a single postcard cut into strips. The glass plate was probably exposed four separate times, using a card inside the camera, in front of the plate, to mask off all but the desired strip. The shadowing effects across the lower part of the portraits - light in the left-hand portrait, dark in the right-hand portrait - were produced by placing a vignetting card close to the camera, between the lens and the subject.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/305.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/305.jpg" style="height: 258px;" /></a><br />
Unidentified woman, c.1908-1916<br />
Coupon print (35 x 69 mm) by unknown photographer<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The dark, simply ornamented and middle-waisted dress worn with a high frilled collar and long sleeves is also suggestive of the pre-war period. Her hair style, however, is suggestive of a couple of years later. Detailed painted backdrops became far less common after the war, photographers, and presumably their clients, tending to prefer plain or simply ornamented patterns.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/hoseaman01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/hoseaman01.jpg" style="height: 262px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Paul Godfrey" /></a><br />
Unidentified man and child, c. 1918-1920s<br />
Coupon print (38 x 70 mm) by H.O. Seaman of Great Yarmouth<br />
Image © and courtesy of Paul Godfrey</center><br />
This coupon print by <b>Herbert Oscar Seaman</b>, scion of the well known Chesterfield (Derbyshire) firm of <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/aseaman.html">Alfred Seaman and Sons</a>, is unusual in that it has a tiny number printed at the base, apparently with the aid of some kind of counter (better visible with an <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/hoseaman01.jpg">enlarged version</a> of the image).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/dbseaman01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/dbseaman01.jpg" style="width: 400px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the European Patent Office" /></a><br />
Extract from patent GB190305361(A), 16 Apr 1903, by D.B. Seaman<br />
"Improvements relating to Photographic Cameras ..."<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&II=3&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=19030416&CC=GB&NR=190305361A&KC=A">European Patent Office</a></center><br />
In 1903 Herbert's older brother <b>Dennis Benjamin Seaman</b> applied for a patent for a camera specifically designed to produce a series of such 1½" x 2½" images on a single photographic plate (<a href="http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&II=3&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=19030416&CC=GB&NR=190305361A&KC=A">Specification</a>), while "a smaller lens projects an image of a ticket with a number or the like." It seems likely that the coupon print produced by Herbert Seaman, and likewise several others in the collection of Paul Godfrey, were made with an apparatus very similar to that designed by his brother.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/hoseaman02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/hoseaman02.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Peter Jones" /></a><br />
Unidentified man in front of H.O. Seaman's Parade Studio, Yarmouth<br />
Postcard print, Image © and courtesy of Peter Jones</center><br />
The postcard photo shown above depicts the storefront of Herbert Seaman's Parade Studio in Yarmouth not long after the end of the Great War, and possibly with Herbert himself standing at the front door. In the window is a sign advertising "12 LARGE MIDGETS FOR 1/-." Given that he was selling a dozen postcard prints for two shillings, it seems likely that the "midgets" were commonly referred to as coupon prints.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/1470.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/1470.jpg" style="height: 312px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Robert Pols" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/1471.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/1471.jpg" style="height: 312px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Robert Pols" /></a><br />
Two unidentified woman, taken c. late 1920s<br />
Coupon print (43 x 88mm) by While You Wait Photographs,<br />
The Beach Studio, 12 Lower Promenade, Whitley Bay<br />
Image © and courtesy of Robert Pols</center><br />
<center><a href="http://peterfisher.smugmug.com/gallery/104069_e9wU3/5/3672103_GxGkR#!i=3672103&k=tLRBJf8"><img alt="Image © Peter Fisher and courtesy of SmugMug" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/lan/images/chowell09.jpg" style="height: 420px;" /></a><br />
Bessie Fisher, 2 August 1929<br />
Panel portrait (unknown dimensions) by Charles Howell, Blackpool<br />
Image © <a href="http://peterfisher.smugmug.com/">Peter Fisher</a> and courtesy of <a href="http://peterfisher.smugmug.com/gallery/104069_e9wU3/5/3672103_GxGkR#!i=3672103&k=tLRBJf8">SmugMug</a></center><br />
The popularity of the format declined considerably through the 1920s, and by the end of the decade they were largely relegated to seaside arcades (above) and photobooths (below) as a novelty format.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/330.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/330.jpg" style="height: 379px;" /></a><br />
Novelty format displaying weight of unidentified woman<br />
Panel print (47 x 103mm) from photobooth, dated 10 September 1935<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
I'm very grateful to Paul Godfrey who has shared his collection of images, extensive knowledge and the results of his research. I'd also like to extend my appreciation to Colin Harding, Peter Jones, Robert Pols and Peter Fisher for graciously permitting me to use images from their collections in this article.<br />
<br />
For those who find the plethora of photo formats a little confusing, I've prepared a <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/photo_format_guide.pdf">photo format size guide</a> as a PDF file which you can print out and use to gauge photographs from your own collection.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-80856032486974472292015-06-12T09:00:00.002+12:002023-02-08T11:19:57.936+13:00Sepia Saturday 283: Laying New Rails at Derby<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-283-13-june-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss283.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett & Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
<a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-283-13-june-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a>'s theme image this week was taken in the early 1890s shows a number of railway workers standing at the entrance to a large tunnel in County Mayo, Ireland. Some years ago I published a scanned and digitally retouched image of a roughly trimmed cabinet card from my collection which I entitled, "<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2008/06/group-of-railway-navvies-in-yorkshire.html">A group of railway navvies from Sheffield, Yorkshire</a>."<br />
<br />
Thanks to information later received from fellow photohistorian Simon Robinson, I discovered that the workers were more likely to be excavating water reservoirs rather than railway cuttings, but that hasn't prevented it becoming the most popular page on Photo-Sleuth, and "navvies" being the most common search term for visitors arriving via Google. If you type "<i>railway navvies</i>" into Google's image search, it should be in the top few images. According to <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> tools, in the seven years since it was published it has received 1839 hits, a steady stream of visitors averaging 5 per week. I have no idea why, except that it is a great picture. It's also one of my most pilfered images, having been reposted without attribution on a multitude of other sites including, I was surprised to learn, the web site of the <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-commoner-who-salvaged-a-kings-ransom-153162/">Smithsonian Magazine</a> (who should know better).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/349.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/349.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Railway workers<br />
Print (97 x 141 mm) mounted on thick card<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Today I have a similar image of railway workers, likewise scanned from a roughly trimmed albumen print mounted on thick card. Sadly it's a little worse for wear, the photographic emulsion being considerably faded, the surface of the print showing a good deal of ly spotting, and having a large tear almost completely across the upper right hand quarter. the photograph shows a group of five railway workers standing across several sets of railway tracks, with several buildings visible in the background, including a possible railway station and platform at the far right. Judging from the clothing and headgear of the men, I suspect that it was taken in the late 1880s or 1890s, at roughly the same time as the theme image, and perhaps a decade or so earlier than my other navvies photo.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/349r.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/349r.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Inscription: Laying New Rails at Derby(?)<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The intriguing thing about this photo is the caption written in black (or perhaps very dark blue) ink on the reverse. It's rather difficult to decipher but it may read, "<i>Laying new rails at Derby</i>" (or possibly Darley), and that is how it was advertised when I purchased it off eBay not long ago. If any readers can shed light on where the photograph might have been taken, I'd be very grateful to hear from you, either by comment below or via <a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845">email</a>.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-85388559955467215622015-06-05T09:00:00.001+12:002023-02-08T11:20:51.333+13:00Sepia Saturday 282: Derbyshire Photographers: John Mellor Hampson<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-282-6-june-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss282.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
Instead of going with the <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/06/sepia-saturday-282-6-june-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> image theme this week, I'm continuing my intermittent series of posts featuring Derbyshire photographers. Since 2002 I've been compiling a historical database of studio and portrait photographers operating in the English county of Derbyshire, with much of the accumulated data, research material and images presented online: <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/dbyphotos.html">Derbyshire Photographers & Photographic Studios</a>. <br />
<br />
The information about photographers and studios comes largely from trade directories, census records, historical newspapers, genealogical databases and a variety of other sources. Examples of portriats by these photographers come partly from my own collection, but mostly by kind contribution from several hundred contributers around the world who have been in touch with me since the web site was launched in 2002. The database now includes over 500 separate photographers, with detailed profiles on over a third of them, but due to other projects competing for my time and interest - such as Photo-Sleuth - updates to the web site have stalled in recent years. My research, database compilation and collection of relevant images continues, however, and I still welcome further contributions.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/jmhampson01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/jmhampson01.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Portrait of unidentified child, taken c.1880-1885<br />
Carte de visite by John M. Hampson of No. 9 Birch View, Birch Vale<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Although most of the documentary and archival sources where records of photographers might be found hve now been extensively scoured, I still come across the occasional name that is completely new to me, mostly from the discovery of portraits. This, a typical example, is a carte de visite portrait that I came across on eBay recently and purchased for my collection. Like most photos that are sold on eBay, it is not annotated, and has no documentation of provenance, so I have no idea who the subject was. It appears to be a child - possibly a girl, although the short hair makes me wonder a little - in a velvet dress with abundant ornamentation in the form of knotted braid. The chair on which she is sitting is covered with a plaid blanket, while another chair to her right has a floral cloth covering.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/jmhampson01r.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/images/jmhampson01r.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Reverse of card mount<br />
by photographer John M. Hampson of Birch Vale<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The reverse of the card mount has a design which <a href="http://www.rogerco.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/time/back80.htm">Roger Vaughan</a> calls the <i>Early Large Letter</i> design, used in the late 1870s and early 1880s. I suggest this particular example is from the early to mid-1880s.<br />
<br />
<b>John Mellor Hampson</b> was born on 3 February 1846 at New Mills, Derbyshire, son of a wheelwright James Hampson and his wife Martha. By the age of 15, he had already left school and was working as a millwright in nearby Hayfield. He married Maria Bates Randle at Hayfield on 11 May 1870; she had been working as a cotton doubler in one of the local mills. The following year, John was a foreman/millwright at a print works in Hayfield, presumably associated with the cotton mill industry. The censuses of 3 April 1881 and 5 April 1891 both found him living at number 9, Birch View in the small village of Birch Vale, near Hayfield, describing himself as a millwright. By 1901 he and his wife had moved to Hayfield Road, Hayfield, and then by 1911 to Macclesfield Road, Staley Bridge (across the border in Cheshire), but he was still working as a millwright. He died at Whaley Bridge on 13 March 1913, aged 67, and was buried at Hayfield two days later.<br />
<br />
I've found no evidence in the usual documentary records for John M. Hampson working as a photographic artist, although the Bulmer trade directory for 1895 lists him as a coal merchant. However censuses were only taken every ten years, while trade directories provide a fragmentary record at best, and it appears that he must have briefly tried his hand as a photographer during the late 1870s or early 1880s.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-43598529839701817572015-05-29T09:00:00.001+12:002023-02-08T11:23:36.984+13:00Sepia Saturday 281: Home Duties<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-281-30-may-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss281.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
I recently purchased a box containing nineteen exposed 4" x 5" glass plate negatives. They depict various women and children, some of whom appear to be members of the same family. Sadly there are no notes or provenance to provide clues as to their origin but, as I will show, the batch appears to have survived as an intact collection. In other words, they probably belong together. They have little in common with this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-281-30-may-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> theme, except that two of the images show children engaged in what might with some latitude be called "home duties."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/9836.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/9836.jpg" style="width:425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a></center><br />
As with my recent studies of small photographic collections, <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">A Grand Tour of Europe</a> and <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-275-summer-holidays-in.html">Summer Holidays in Derbyshire</a>, this group appears to have been taken in the early years of the twentieth century. Unlike the other two groups, these 19 photographs appear to have been taken over and extended period of time, covering several years in the lives of a family living somewhere in New Zealand. None of the photographs are annotated, nor is the box that they arrived in, so all provenance has unfortunately been lost.<br />
<br />
One of the purposes for my showing these images is to demonstrate the process that I go through when researching such collections, in an an attempt to decide whether they are linked to each other in any way and, if so, then to try and establish a theoretical framework around the subjects. In many cases this may never lead to an positive identification but occasionally I have breakthroughs.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_09.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_09.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #09 - Three teenage children ("Agnes," "Charlie" and "Bertha")<br />
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
I'll start with this nicely focussed snapshot of three teenage children, two girls and a boy, seated on a grassy bank in the shade of tree. Just for convenience I'l call them "Agnes" (left), "Bertha" (right) and "Charlie." The girls have taken their hats off, while the boy, who looks as though he never bothered with one, is eating what looks to me like a dark-skinned plum. The clear images of these three individuals allows us to follow them through several years.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_14.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_14.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #14 - Three young children ("Agnes," "Bertha" and "Charlie")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This image is partly out of focus, possibly blurred from movement and slightly over-exposed, but I think that the same three children are pictured hanging up the washing, although this must have a few years earlier. "Agnes" is handing a peg to "Bertha" and barefooted "Charlie" appears to have carelessly dropped the tin of pegs on the ground.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_05.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_05.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #05 - Three young children ("Bertha," "Agnes" and "Charlie")<br />
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The trio are probably at the beach on this occasion, younger still, with one of the girls wearing a rather impractical cap which must have been difficult to control when the wind got up. "Charlie," seated with legs apart at right, is "unbreeched."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_16.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_16.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #16 - Young boy ("Charlie"), possibly with his mother ("Doris")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Young "Charlie," here dressed in a <a href="http://histclo.tripod.com/faunt.html">Fauntleroy suit</a> popular in the 1890s and early 1900s, appears with a young woman aged in her late twenties or early thirties, seated on a wicker chair, who I think might be his mother and who we will call "Doris."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_08.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_08.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #08 - Young child with doll on wicker chair (possibly "Charlie")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
An even younger child sits confidently in a different wicker chair placed on the lawn, holding a doll. Despite the presence of the doll, the child's facial features suggest to me that this, too, is our "Charlie."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_10.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_10.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #10 - Young boy in school uniform ("Charlie")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Here is "Charlie" dressed in somewhat smarter attire, perhaps ready for his first day at school. The background to this photograph includes the wall of a house, possibly on a verandah or adjacent to an extrance, an upholstered straight-backed chair and a floral carpet.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_04.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_04.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #04 - Older woman ("Eliza") & teenage girl ("Frances") on verandah<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
An almost identical background, only the chair having been changed, appears in two further photographs depicting three more women. In the first portrait an older woman (I'll call her "Eliza"), perhaps in her sixties, is sitting on the chair, while a different teenage girl (say "Frances") is seated on the carpet at her feet.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_17.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_17.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #17 - Middle-aged woman seated on verandah ("Doris")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The third verandah portrait shows the middle-aged woman - I'm guessing she is in her late thirties to early forties - we've previous identified as the boy's mother ("Doris") sitting in the same chair. Unlike the others photographed on what may be the same occasion, who face directly into the camera lens, her gaze is off to the right of the photographer.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_02.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #02 - Middle-aged woman seated outdoors ("Doris")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Within the same general time frame, but probably on a different occasion, "Doris" sat for another portrait outside her home. The same mouldings that appear in other images of their home are featured prominently in this shot, taken when the shadows were long, but still with enough light to make a decent picture. She has a <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Frenchroll-A.html">low pompadour</a> hairstyle and is wearing a <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Watchstrap.html">leather-cased ladies' fob watch</a>, both of which were popular in the decade immediately preceding the Great War, i.e. between c. 1905 and 1915. The <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Scrolling.html">jigsaw embroidery</a> on the front of her blouse and <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/Hobble-A.html">hobble skirt</a> with large buttons are typical of the same period.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #01 - Two young women reading ("Agnes" and "Bertha")<br />
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Relatively few shots in this series show the surroundings of the house, but one that does is this view of the two girls ("Agnes" and "Bertha") seated in the garden, reading. "Bertha" has bagged the comfortable canvas folding deck chair, while "Agnes" has to make do with a dining room chair set partially in the shade. The presence of tree ferns indicates a strong likelihood that these photos originate here in New Zealand, where they were purchased. They both wear sensible wide-brimmed hats, Bertha's being of the distinctive <a href="http://www.photodetective.co.uk/cartwheel.html">cartwheel</a> type. The house itself has a wide verandah along at least two sides, and a wooden railing in a stylish geometric pattern.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_12.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_12.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #12 - Teenage girl and apple tree ("Agnes")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
There are two further portraits of "Agnes" on her own. In the first of these she is standing next to what I believe to be an apple tree, dressed in the same clothing as Image #09, but with her hat on. More prominent in this photo is the narrow velvet choker around her neck, a fashion that arose with the appearance of lower necklines around 1905 to 1910.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_19.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_19.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #19 - Teenage girl, possibly in school uniform ("Agnes")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
In the next photo "Agnes" is seated in a chair, possibly on the verandah of the house, but in a different location from portraits #04, #08 & #10 displayed above. She is wearing what I think might be a school uniform, with a smart jacket or blazer, dark leather gloves, a tie with a shield and emblem embroidered on it, a straw boater with a broad striped hat band, and her hair tied up with a large bow at the back of her neck.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_11.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_11.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #11 - Three women in the garden ("Agnes", "Eliza" and "Gertrude")<br />
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
In a group portrait "Agnes" is seated with two older women, both on chairs placed on the path in front of the house, one of whom is "Eliza" from Image #04. She has a high-necked collar and is holding a pair of spectacles in her lap. The third woman, wearing a white blouse and tie, I will call "Gertrude."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_03.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_03.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #03 - Two women on the garden pth ("Gertrude" and "Eliza")<br />
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
A view of the garden path immediately to the right of the previous image shows "Eliza" and "Gertrude" dressed warmly in furs and large feathered hats walking towards the house.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_18.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/gpn1505_18.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Image #18 - Teenage girl on windowsill ("Frances")<br />
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The third girl ("Frances") is depicted in another portrait, also taken on the verandah, although she is seated precariously on the wide windowsill. Her clothing and hair style are identical with that worn in Image #04, and the two photographs are likely to have been taken on the same occasion.<br />
<br />
<center><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://photos.gstatic.com/media/slideshow.swf" width="400" height="284" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&hl=en_GB&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F117215323424481458539%2Falbumid%2F6148534386602427761%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCJTto-3m2NbefQ%26hl%3Den_GB" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed><br />
</center><br />
The <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117215323424481458539/GlassPlateNegatives201505?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJTto-3m2NbefQ&feat=directlink">Picasa album</a> slideshow above shows the full set of images in the approximate order that I believe they were taken, probably over a period about a decade some time between the years of c.1900 and 1915.<br />
<br />
My analysis of the family is as follows:<br />
- Agnes, Bertha and Charlie are siblings, probably born in the late 1890s to early 1900s<br />
- Doris is the children's mother, probably born in the mid- to late 1870s<br />
- Eliza is the children's grandmother, probably born in the 1850s<br />
- Frances is possibly a cousin of Agnes, Bertha and Charlie, and a similar age to them<br />
- Gertrude may be a friend or a relative, possibly a maiden aunt<br />
I must reiterate that these aren't their real names; I've merely invented them for the sake of convenience.<br />
<br />
It's possible that a positive identification of this family may be made eventually but, in the mean time, if you spot any further clues or even disagree with any of my rather tenuous deductions, please don't hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment below.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-70918537100237929632015-05-22T09:00:00.000+12:002015-06-09T18:40:35.366+12:00Sepia Saturday 280: The Pleasures of a First Pipe<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-280-23-may-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss280.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
The <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-280-23-may-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> theme this week appears to be a postcard reproduction of a pen and ink drawing entitled, "The Leap Year: The ladies after a little wine and tobacco join the gentlemen in the drawing room," and the gentlemen, I must say, don't look particular pleased about the situation. My examples, in a somewhat related vein, are of magic lantern slides, a photographic format that was very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but then very quickly overtaken by the motion picture industry.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/magiclantern01.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/magiclantern01.gif" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection" /></a><br />
Magic Lantern Slide Projector, c.1900s<br />
Image © and courtesy of the <a href="http://www.taurangaheritagecollection.co.nz/">Tauranga Heritage Collection</a></center><br />
Originally invented in the 17th century, the magic lantern was employed by conjurers, magicians and illusionists in the late 18th century to trick audiences into believing they had seen supernatural beings, commonly known as phantasmagorias. By the late 1800s, however, they were being used for the more mundane task of projecting images for entertainment purposes, these pictures covering a wide array of genres. The <a href="http://www.magic-lantern.eu/">Magic-Lantern</a> is one of web sites that has many examples displayed online, and is well worth a browse. By the 1890s, with the cost of photographic equipment no longer being prohibitive, the lantern slide format was even used for vernacular photography, and I have featured several such <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/search/label/lantern%20slides">examples</a> here on Photo-Sleuth.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter183a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter183a.jpg" style="width: 140px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter184a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter184a.jpg" style="width: 140px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter185a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter185a.jpg" style="width: 140px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
The Pleasures of a first pipe, c. 1890s-1900s<br />
Series of three lantern slides from negatives by W.W. Winter, Derby<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Derby photographer <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/wwwinter.html">W.W. Winter</a> is best known for his prolific output of fine studio portraits produced during a lengthy career from the late 1860s until his retirement from the business in 1909. The firm still operates today from premises on Midland Road, near Derby's busy railway station, and with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund, an archivist, an artist-in-residence and a team of volunteers is currently undertaking a <a href="http://wwwinterltd.blogspot.co.uk/">project</a> to rescue and digitize many thousands of glass plate negatives from the cellar.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter183.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter183.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
No. 1 Lighting Up<br />
<br />
<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter184.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter184.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
No. 2 In Full Blast<br />
<br />
<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter185.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/wwwinter185.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
No. 3 The Final Result<br />
Magic lantern slides by W.W. Winter of Derby<br />
Images © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
These three lantern slides are not from W.W. Winter's cellar, but rather a serendipitous find on eBay a few years ago. Not only are they the only lantern slides from this studio that I have come across, but the comic subject is somewhat unusual for W.W. Winter. I suspect it was a experiment which was subsequently abandoned as being commercially unsuccessful. Sadly, the third and last in the series is cracked, and partly masked by tape, rather detracting from the image, but at least it has survived.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/4362.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/4362.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
W.W. Winter Ltd studio, Midland Road, Derby, 14 Sep 2013<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
I was very fortunate to be able to visit the premises of the W.W. Winter studio when in Derby in 2007, and particularly honoured to be given a personal tour by Hubert King, whose association with the firm began as an apprentice when he was a teenager. Hubert's father had started working for W.W. Winter as a photogrephic assistant in 1896, later becoming sole proprietor. At the time of my visit, Hubert was still working part-time for the firm.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/wwwinter_bp2007.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/wwwinter_bp2007.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & courtesy of W.W. Winter Ltd" /></a><br />
Barbara Ellison, Brett Payne & Hubert King, 14 Sep 2013<br />
In the W.W. Winter Ltd studio, Midland Road, Derby<br />
Image © Copyright & courtesy of W.W. Winter Ltd</center><br />
The portrait (above) of Hubert with my aunt and me in the studio gallery (although I'm not sure if they still call it that) was kindly taken by one of the studio photographers. The gilt-framed portrait of King Edward VII around which we have been carefully positioned, by the way, was taken by Mr Winter in that same studio well over a century earlier.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-54222350263885314782015-05-15T09:00:00.000+12:002015-06-09T18:40:20.949+12:00Sepia Saturday 279: Looking for the Bonanza<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-279-16th-may-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss279.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
In the introduction to last week's edition of <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-278-9-may-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a>, Alan Burnett asked whether the meme is becoming old and tired, perhaps prompted by a recent reduction in the number of participants. Personally, I find the stimulus of a fresh sepia image chosen by someone else each week is just what I need to keep me blogging regularly, that is when I'm not too submerged in work or other projects to find the time. Following the theme is not a requirement, which gives me plenty of leeway to sail off on another tack when the mood takes me, or on the odd occasion that I fail to be inspired by the chosen image.<br />
<br />
Many of my Photo-Sleuth articles are weeks or months in gestation, perhaps searching for that extra bit of information, cosidering the right angle to tackle a particular photograph, or waiting for the right image prompt, so always having images from a couple of weeks ahead to work on at the same time suits me well. My first SS contribution appeared four years ago (<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/sepia-saturday-bud-payne-1928-2006.html">SS 64</a>) and my 93 subsequent contributions have been made as and when the opportunity presents itself. I'm very grateful to Alan and Marilyn for the time and effort that they put in to making Sepia Saturday happen. I'd also like to acknowledge the body of fellow Sepians for the inspiring photos they post and thoughtful feedback regularly provided here. Without it, I fear that my blog would have fallen into disrepair long ago.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk286.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk286.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unmounted paper print, 61 x 89mm<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
On the face of it, these two snapshots might appear a strange purchase for my collection of old photographs. Of unknown provenance, all contextual information apart from the captions handwritten on the backs has gone, leaving us with few clues to the identity of the subjects, even to where they were taken. It wasn't the challenge of sleuthing, though, that attracted me, but rather the content of the first image.<br />
<br />
Even without the brief annotation on the back describing it as "The Mill," I recognised it as a three-stamp mill of the type commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to process gold ore, complete with heavy timber frame, driving wheel, cam shaft with tappets, stamper stems, mortar box with discharge screen, tables and amalgam plates. When I first started work as an exploration geologist in the Midlands of Zimbabwe during the mid-1980s, I came across a few of these antiquated but effective pieces of equipment still being used in remote bush locations, usually by equally aged smallworkers in a forlorn quest for their own bonanza.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk286r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk286r.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Reverse of paper print</center><br />
The caption identifies the subjects as 'Hamish,' with his back to the camera, 'January,' the mill foreman and presumably one of the two black men standing either side of the tables, and the two children 'A & J.'. The mere fact that January and the other gold mill worker are black doesn't necessarily mean that the photograph was taken in what was then called Southern Rhodesia (it became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980), but the countryside and vegetation depicted in the second of the two snapshots are very familiar to me, and I think it highly likely.<br />
<br />
In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the Southern Rhodesian government set up an ex-serviceman's rehabilitation scheme, whereby returning white soldiers were provided with training in small-scale mining at a former air force training facility at Guinea Fowl, near the town of Gwelo, now called Gweru. (As a sidebar, I might note that black soldiers also returning from the same war got absolutely nothing.) After completion of their training, they were given soft loans to re-open old gold mines closed during the war or start up new operations. With 221 men trained and 279 mines re-opened, the scheme was regarded as successful (<a href="http://commdev.org/files/1798_file_asm_southern_africa.pdf">Dreschler, 2001</a>), and it seems quite likely that 'Hamish' could have been one of these smallworkers.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk285.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk285.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Unmounted paper print, 83 x 60mm<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The second photo shows 'Joan, Heather & Andrew, on lawn, 1950, May' (resumably from right to left), so it was taken about four years later. Now there are three children, all wearing wide-brimmed hats to ward off the harsh African sun, and playing on a manicured lawn, rather than hanging around the dangerous mill site. The wide variety of toys suggests that Hamish had achieved at least some success at the mine.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk285r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/unk285r.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Reverse of paper print</center><br />
The snapshots are both roughly 2¼" x 3¼", equating to the 620 roll film format that was introduced by Kodak in 1931, and rapidly replaced the similarly sized 120-format film which used a slightly larger spool. By the mid-1940s various versions of the Six-20 Brownie box and Six-20 Kodak folding camera were probably the most popular options available to casual amateur photographers. Many of the folding models used an eye-level viewfinder by this time, and it looks to me that these shots were taken from the lower, waist-level view point characteristically employed with the box Brownies. In the first shot, the eyes of the older girl are on a level with Hamish's waist.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_six20popularbrownie.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_six20popularbrownie.jpg" style="height: 400px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection" /></a><br />
Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' box camera, 1937-1943<br />
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection</center><br />
I suspect they were taken with something like the Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' which was manufactured from 1937 until 1943. It also seems safe to assume that the children's mother was both the photographer and the person who annotated the prints once they had been printed. Presumably Joan, Heather and Andrew were children of the said Hamish, and there is a remote chance that some member of the extended family of Scottish origin (after all, who else would have the name Hamish) will recognise them and get in touch.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/148.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/148.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Visiting smallworker gold claims, Munyati River, Zimbabwe, 1985<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
You might have thought the scene of such a rudimentary mining operation might have long gone by the 1980s. I don't have photos of the mill - which were indeed very much like the one depicted above - but I do have a snapshot that I took of my sister and a friend visiting Uncle Bob Huntly's smallworking near the Munyati/Umniati River south of Kadoma in 1985. The equipment at the head of the mining shaft consists of nothing more than a bucket suspended on a rope around a hand-operated windlass - not even a ratchet in case the hands slipped. I can't believe it, but I went down there, probably without even a hard hat.<br />
<br />
<center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w3aOci_enBg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
The Stamping Ground, Rocky Creek Railway<br />
Working Model by <a href="http://www.trainweb.org/nzgr/Gn15/Gn15.html">Glen Anthony</a></center><br />
I'll close off with this entertaining video of an incredibly accurate working model mine, made by a very clever man in Christchurch, New Zealand. Once you've finished watching that I'm sure the rest of this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-278-9-may-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> participants will keep you entertained a while longer.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-55099170824113140372015-05-08T09:00:00.000+12:002015-06-09T18:40:00.545+12:00Sepia Saturday 278: Ghostly images<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-278-9-may-2015.html"><img alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss278.jpg" style="width: 433px;" /></a></center><br />
While I have plenty of damaged and decaying photographs in my collection to fit with <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/05/sepia-saturday-278-9-may-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a>'s image prompt this week, I'm going to instead focus on another "flaw" that occasionally appears on photographic prints and negatives, and in particular has surfaced in two sets of early amateur photographs that I've blogged about recently: <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">A Grand Tour of Europe</a> and <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-275-summer-holidays-in.html">Summer Holidays in Derbyshire</a>.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak003r.jpg"><img alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak003r.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
"Haddon Hall Terrace," August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 75 x 101mm (rotated)<br />
(Page 3, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Bill Nelson pointed out that one of my 1903 Derbyshire album prints had what appeared to be a "circle with a '3' in it" in the lower right corner (lower left in the rotated image above).<br />
<br />
<center><img alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak003y.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /><br />
Detail of image on Page 3</center><br />
Even with some enlargement and enhancement of the image, I couldn't be absolutely sure of what it was.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010c.jpg"><img alt="Image © Copyright & courtesy of Bill Nelson" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010c.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Ship and tugboat arriving in unidentified harbour, 1904, Ref. #10c<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
However, when Bill sent me a scan of a slightly over-exposed frame from his 1904 Grand Tour negative album it had a very similar, but much clearer, artifact.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010cx.jpg"><img alt="Image © Copyright & courtesy of Bill Nelson" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010cx.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 320px;" /></a><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010cy.jpg"><img alt="Image © Copyright & courtesy of Bill Nelson" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn010cy.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 320px;" /></a><br />
Detail of image #10c, inverted & normal (with some enhancement)</center><br />
In this case, the number "5" in a circle is accompanied by a line on each side. Knowing what to look for, I think I can now see similar bars either side of the "circled 3" in the enhanced image of my own print.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpk_manual9.jpg"><img alt="Image © Copyright Mike Butkus & courtesy of the Camera Manual Library" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpk_manual9.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Extract from manual for No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak<br />
Courtesy of Mike Butkus' <a href="http://www.butkus.org/chinon/kodak/kodak_folding_pocket_3/kodak_folding_pocket_3.htm">Camera Manual Library</a></center><br />
The number in a circle is very similar to the numbers that were printed on the outside of the film's paper backing, which show through the little red window in the back of the camera to indicate when to stop winding on the film (see image above extracted from a No 3 FPK manual). In this case, by contact between the reverse of the backing paper and the side of the nitrocellulose film which has the photographic emulsion, my theory is that some transfer of the ink has taken place while the film was still rolled onto the spool, either before or after exposure.<br />
<br />
In the case of my 1903 print, the "circled 3" is dark, and if it was brought through from the original negative - and, from careful examination of the print, I believe that it was - the implication is that it was reversed, and therefore showed lighter than the surrounding emulsion on the negative. The mechanism by which the ghostly "circled 3" was produced cannot have been a physical transfer of ink, and is more likely to have been a chemical alteration of the silver salts in the photographic emulsion by contact with the acidic compounds in the ink, thus bleaching the parts of the negative that were in contact with the ink on the adjacent paper backing.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/8365.jpg"><img alt="Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/8365.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901<br />
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell<br />
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne</center><br />
The only reservation I have with this explanation is that I would have expected, by comparison with the window on the back of the No 3 FPK that I, quite by coincidence, photographed this week, for the number to have been lower down, closer to the bottom edge of the negative. The position is correct on my 1903 print, but is more centrally placed on Bill's 1904 negative.<br />
<br />
Although the No 3 FPK was by far the most popular folding camera of this size, the No 3 Ensign Carbine was another which used 3¼" x 4¼" film (Ensign E18 format), but from what I can tell the window on this model was also located close to the bottom edge. What I'm now searching for to test my theory, but haven't yet found, is some examples of early roll film.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/8352.jpg"><img alt="Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/8352.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 500px;" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901<br />
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell<br />
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne</center><br />
Since I have the opportunity, I'll share a little more about this recent donation by retired Tauranga commercial photographer <a href="http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/alf-rendell-photographer.html">Alf Rendell</a> to the <a href="http://www.handsontauranga.co.nz/hands-on-tauranga/tauranga-heritage-collection_idl=5_idt=1039_id=4748_.html">Tauranga Heritage Collection</a>. This particular example of a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak was produced some time between Oct 1900 and Jun 1901, and still has the original red cardboard bellows. The serial number 27421, as is usual on Kodak folding cameras, is engraved on the silver foot which folds out of the base plate and serves as a stand to support the camera when taking photos in the "portrait" position.<br />
<br />
Cloth-lined bellows were fitted as standard from June 1901 onwards, since the older versions tended to tear, and from 1910 they were supplied with black instead of red bellows. Many older cameras were later retro-fitted with black bellows, and it is rare to find an old model still with the original red bellows in such good condition.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0560/"><img alt="Image courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1901b.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 500px;" /></a><br />
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement for the No. 3 FPK<br />
From <i>Munsey's</i> magazine, c.1901<br />
Courtesy <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a>, Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0560/">K0560</a></center><br />
George Eastman wanted "a camera in every household," and in the 15 years after the first Kodak was produced in 1888 managed to amass over 60 different models. The first in the series of Folding Pocket Kodaks was brought out in 1897, using the then brand new technology of daylight loading film. The No 3 FPK was introduced in April 1900 and rapidly became the most popular of the range, particularly in the United Kingdom, possibly since the negative size was identical to the already popular quarter-plate format used in many glass-plate cameras. Between 1900 and 1915, when production of this camera ceased, about half a million cameras were sold. The camera was produced with a wide variety of lens and shutter options, and went through a number of developments until production ceased with the Model H in 1914, it being replaced by the No 3 Autographic Kodak.<br />
<br />
The construction of this camera "set the pattern for the design of popular roll-film cameras for the next fifty years." (Coe, <i>Cameras</i>, 1978) A smaller version, the No 0 Folding Pocket Kodak, eventually morphed into the Vest Pocket Kodak, the soldier's camera which became so popular during the Great War.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/sfs.html">Standard Film and Plate Sizes</a>, on <i>Early Photography</i><br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1988) <i>Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years</i>, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.<br />
<br />
Gustavson, Todd (2009) <i>Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital</i>, New York: Sterling, 360pp.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-48306744929771046032015-05-01T09:00:00.000+12:002015-05-01T09:00:03.208+12:00Sepia Saturday 277: A Day at The (Boat) Races<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-277-2-may-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss277.jpg" style="width: 433px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
I'm not really one for team sports, either as a spectator or participant, but I find I am able to rise to Sepia Saturday's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-277-2-may-2015.html">image prompt</a> on this particular occasion. In Bill Nelson's <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">1904 Grand Tour album</a> which I featured here a couple of weeks ago, there is a sequence of photographs of boat races on the River Thames at Oxford.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn009c.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn009c.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
One team pulls past the spectator barges, Ref. #09c<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
If it is the famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_Race">University Boat Race</a> between Oxford and Cambridge, which seems very likely, that traditionally takes place on the last weekend of March or the first week of April, the most recent of which was only two weeks ago - Oxford won by 20 seconds. In 1904, however, it took place on Saturday 26th March and Cambridge won by 4½ to 6 lengths (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_Race_1904">The Boat Race 1904</a>).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001b.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001b.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Spectators watch two crews pass the Club House, Ref. #01b<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Traditionally the teams are known as the "light blues" (Cambridge) and the "dark blues" (Oxford), from the colour of their jerseys, but it doesn't look, on the face of it, as though either of these two teams are wearing dark blue. The main race is preceded by a race involving the two reserve crews, called <i>Isis</i> and <i>Goldie</i> for Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and it is possible that these photographs include both the reserve and main race.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn018a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn018a.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Rowers receive some coaching, Ref. #18a<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Listed at number 7 (from the bow) in the main race in the Cambridge boat was New Zealand-born <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3g9/gillies-harold-delf">Harold Gillies</a>, considered the father of plastic surgery for his pioneering work on facial reconstructive surgery during the Great War.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn013a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn013a.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Spectators take to the water, Ref. #13a<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Once the race was over, it appears that our photographer, along with many spectators, took to the water, recording the ongoing frivolities.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001a.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Barges overflow with spectators, Ref. #01a<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
I can well imagine that the day did not end without one or more of them getting a little damp. However, it is one of the younger spectators on the roof of the barge, at top left, in whom I am particularly interested.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001ax.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001ax.jpg" style="width: 400px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Girl holds a No 1 Brownie box camera<br />
Detail of negative #01a</center><br />
The teenage girl with long hair wearing a straw hat is carrying a box camera and, after a lengthy comparison of this image with those illustrated in Brian Coe's <i>Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years</i>, I've decided that it is almost certainly a No 1 Brownie box camera.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no1brownie.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project" /><br />
No 1 Brownie camera, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a><br />
</center><br />
First introduced in October 1901 as a successor to the original model Brownie (1900), it sold for the grand sum of one dollar, produced 2¼" x 2¼" square prints from 117-format roll film, and was an immediate success. It isinteresting to note that of the hundreds of spectators visible in these photographs, the only one carrying a claerly identifiable camera was a young girl.<br />
<br />
<center><a ref="http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Collection/Photography/PhotographicTechnology/CollectionItem.aspx?id=1990-5036/1651/1"><br />
<img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no1brownie_box.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum Collection" /></a><br />
Packaging for the No 1 Brownie camera<br />
Image © and courtesy of the <a href="http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Collection/Photography/PhotographicTechnology/CollectionItem.aspx?id=1990-5036/1651/1">National Media Museum Collection</a></center><br />
Anyone could now afford a camera, but Eastman Kodak marketed the camera specifically towards children, inserting advertisements in popular magazines like <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> and <i>The Youth's Companion</i> which showed even very young children using them. Even the Brownie name was based on the characters in a popular series of children's books by Canadian illustrator <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Cox">Palmer Cox</a>.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no1brownie01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no1brownie01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of George Eastman House collection" /></a><br />
Group in a rowing boat by unidentified photographer<br />
2¼" x 2¼" mounted print, taken c. 1905, probably with a No 1 Brownie<br />
Image © George Eastman House collection</center><br />
This 2¼" x 2¼" print mounted on white card embossed with a decorative frame, fortuitously picturing a large group in a rowing boat, is from the George Eastman House collection and was probably taken with a No. 1 Brownie. I haven't been able to find many such examples online, and would appreciate hearing from readers who may have similar mounted prints in their own collections.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001c.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001c.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Oxford, Boys running, Ref. #01c<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Another negative in this sequence shows a number of male figures running, although their attire doesn't suggest that they are in a race, more as if they are in a hurry to get somewhere, perhaps to get a good position to watch the start of "The Boat Race." However, it was a dark shape in the background that caught my eye.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001cx.jpg""><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001cx.jpg" style="height: 350px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Detail of negative #01c</center><br />
It appears to be a figure standing on a platform, next to some sort of contraption, perhaps mounted on a tripod. Could this have been a camera of some sort? Upon searching the other boat race images, I discovered that the figure/contraption/platform appeared in front of the club house in the second view as well. This time, the figure is standing behind and partly hidden by the contraption, possibly with his head under a black cloth (below).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001bx.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/bn001bx.jpg" style="height: 350px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Detail of negative #01b</center><br />
My next discovery was even more exciting. While searching the web for material relating to "The Boat Race," I came across a synopsis of a short documentary film in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0812359/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt">IMDb</a> entitled simply, "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race," made in 1904 by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Urban_Trading_Company">Charles Urban Trading Company</a>. <a href="http://www.charlesurban.com/history.html">Charles Urban</a> was a pioneering Anglo-American film producer who specialised in documentaries, travel and scientific films. Many of them have been "rediscovered" and are now available to view <a href="http://www.charlesurban.com/films.html">online</a>, but sadly I haven't yet found the 1904 Boat Race.<br />
<br />
I emailed Luke McKernan, author of <i>Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897-1925</i>, asking his view on the expanded images and received this informative response:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>There were at least three films made of the 1904 Boat Race, by the Charles Urban Trading Company, by the Warwick Trading Company, and by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Urban's film was, according to a catalogue record, filmed from the bow of the Sportsman (presumably a vessel following the race), though they would have had cameramen positioned elsewhere as well.<br />
<br />
The blow-ups in the photographs are puzzling, because neither looks like a conventional cine camera, being much too bulky. It almost looks like a photographer's black hood, and there is an outside possibility I suppose that it could be a still camera. However, my thought on seeing the photos is that they show a camera employed by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who employed 70mm film (unlike the 35mm used by Urban and Warwick) with bulky, electrically-driven cameras. An advertisement for the film states "We have secured negatives of the crews leaving Boat House, and made arrangements to take the finish of the race today". I had thought that they had ceased using 70mm by 1903, but this could be a last-gasp effort with the format.</blockquote><br />
I thought about the possibility of a still camera being used too, thinking the dark shape could be a photographer's hood, but considered the chances of something that size being used outdoors in 1904 was pretty unlikely. For the moment the identity of the cameraman, if that's what it is, will remain a mystery, but I'm very grateful to Luke McKernan for his help.<br />
<br />
The rest of the Sepia Saturday team will likewise be featuring team sports and similar topics this week, and I suggest you you head over <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-277-2-may-2015.html">there</a> to visit them before you get too carried away watching film clips on YouTube.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-5541492057442778432015-04-24T09:00:00.001+12:002022-10-18T13:55:18.407+13:00Sepia Saturday 276: Barr Brothers and Portland Studios, Nottingham<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-276-25-april-2015.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss276.jpg" style="width: 433px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Marilyn Brindley & Alan Burnett" /></a></center><br />
Inspired by Marilyn's recent post of a newspaper article on Sepia Saturday's Facebook page about the dilemma of whether or not to save photos of unknown relatives, my contribution this week presents a series of cabinet portraits that have been "saved" from the skip, and may yet be identified, thanks to the habits of an early 20th century photographer.<br />
<br />
Although certainly not unique (see <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/wwwinter.html">W.W. Winter</a> and <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/dby/pgraham.html">Pollard Graham</a>, both of Derby), it is rare to find a photographer who meticulously recorded the negative number and surname of every customer on the back of each portrait print that he supplied, but the Barr Brothers seemed to have just done that - at least with all 7 examples in my collection.<br />
<br />
<b>William Banister Barr</b> was born in 1877, one of eight children of a Liverpool ironmonger. In early 1897 he briefly tried his hand as an apprentice merchant seaman aboard the ship <i>Irby</i> out of Liverpool. He later joined up as a gunner with the Royal Horse Artillery, but by March 1901 was a patient at the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich, adjacent to the artillery barracks, presumably recuperating from some illness, as it appears unlikely he served with the unit in the Anglo-Boer War.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland01.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Barr Bros, Portland Studio, Nottingham & Cardiff, c.1905<br />
inscribed "15786 Dalby" - taken c. 1905-1907<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>In the 1911 census, only two male children with the surname Dalby and appropriate ages are recorded as living in the town of Nottingham:<br />
- <b>William Hector Dalby</b>, aged 13, son of Frank John Birch Dalby, a builder's foreman<br />
- <b>Samuel Dalby</b>, aged 10, son of Edward Dalby, a builder's labourer<br />
Could one of these two be him, I wonder?<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
In early 1904 he was working as a photographer, with premises at 1 Portland Road, Nottingham. By the time the above cabinet portrait of a young boy in a smart velvet suit was taken around 1905-1907, slightly let down by the studio's scruffy pot plant and rustic chair, it appears his younger brother Harold Cowper Barr (1879-1958) had joined him in the business. The card mount lists a branch studio at 47 Queen Street, Cardiff, which was operating in a building known as City Chambers for several years between 1907 and 1911. Harold was living in Cardiff in April 1911, and had presumably operated the southern arm of the business for some years.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland07.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland07.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "26794 Gregory" - taken c. 1906-1907<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>Unfortunately Gregory was just too common a surname in Leicester and Nottingham (at least 13 of approximately the right age) for me to come up with any decent candidates for this woman.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
In July 1905, when William was married at Fairfield, Lancashire, he was living in Birmingham and had studio premises in 52 New Street. He moved to 213 Moseley Road, Aston in 1906 and his first two sons were born there in 1906 and 1907. Within a couple of years, the "Barr Brothers" name was dropped from card mounts, and it simply became known as the <b>Portland Studio</b>, although the stylised ornate "B" monogram remained and they continued the use of their surname in trade listings. In 1908 William moved again, occupying a studio at 46, Imperial Buildings, Dale End.<br />
<br />
Some time between 1904 and c.1908 they also briefly operated a studio at 68 Craven Park Road, Harlesden, London N.W.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland03.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland03.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "32708 Tomlinson" - taken c. 1907-1908<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>There were even more candidates for Ms. Tomlinson, so all I can hope for is that someone, someday, will recognise her.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
In 1908 a trade directory listed "Barr Bros" with premises at 20 Granby Street, Leicester, but despite the number of examples using the address in my collection it could not have lasted for very long, since by 1909 a photographer named Harry Clare was operating from that address. Of course it is conceivable that Harry Clare had previously been working for the Barr Brothers.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland04.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland04.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "34562 Widdowson" - taken c. 1907-1908<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>The Widdowsons were likewise prolific in Nottinghams and Leicester, making any identification of this slightly older woman difficult, if not impossible, without further information.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
The Barr Brothers had established a branch studio at 83a Bold Street, Liverpool as early as 1908, mosing to 103 Smithdown Road the following year. The Nottingham studio appears to have closed in 1908 or early 1909, and by 1910 listings for the Cardiff studio showed the head office of the business, presumably under the hand of William, as being located in Liverpool. William's third son was born at Hoylake, Cheshire in July that year, and by April 1911 the family was living at 107 Smithdown Road, Liverpool. William Barr described himself as a "master photographer" and an employer.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland02.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "34683 Tomlinson" - taken c. 1907-1908<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>A second portrait of Ms. Tomlinson, a few months after the first, and this time it is full length.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
Barr Bros. disappear from sight for the next few years, but the existence of branches in Belfast (109 Donegall Street) and London (132 Dalston Lane, N.E.) is suggested by the addresses on cabinet card mounts deduced to be from the pre-War period. I have also seen a postcard portrait of a merchant seaman, probably pre-War, that is blind stamped, "<i>Portland Studio, 250 High St, S. Tottenham.</i>"<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland06.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland06.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "34772 Ellis" - taken c. 1907-1908<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>Young Mr Ellis could be any one of a number of candidates.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
William Barr enlisted in the army in June 1916, and was called up for service for months later, at which time he gave his occupation as "photographer." Almost forty years of age, he spent the war in England with various units and was finally demobilised in March 1919.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland05.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/eng/ntt/images/portland05.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cabinet card by Portland Studios, Leicester & Nottingham<br />
inscribed "35159 Pack (or Park)" - taken c. 1908-1909<br />
Image © copyright and collection Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width:80%;"><tbody>
<tr><td>I found a <b>James Park</b>, aged 21, working as a shoe hand in the Lasting Department of a factory in Leicester, in the 1911 census.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
I have no firm evidence that William Barr returned to the photographic profession after the war. He died at Liverpool in 1949.<br />
<br />
A list of studios known to have been operated by the Barr Brothers, not necessarily complete, so if you have any further information, please <a href="mailto:gluepot@gmail.com">email me</a>.<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>1904</td><td>William Banister Barr, 1 Portland Road, Nottingham</td></tr>
<tr><td>c.1905-1908</td><td>Barr Brothers, 1 Portland Road, Nottingham (Portland Studio)</td></tr>
<tr><td>1905-1906</td><td>William Banister Barr, 52 New Street, Birmingham</td></tr>
<tr><td>1905</td><td>William Banister Barr, 17 Lawrence Hill, Bristol</td></tr>
<tr><td>c. 1906-1907</td><td>Barr Brothers, 68 Craven Park Road, Harlesden, London N.W.</td></tr>
<tr><td>1906-1907</td><td>William Banister Barr, 213 Moseley Road, Aston, Birmingham</td></tr>
<tr><td>c. 1907-1909</td><td>Barr Brothers, 109 Donegall Street, Belfast</td></tr>
<tr><td>c. 1907-1909</td><td>Barr Brothers, 138 Dalston Lane, London N.E.</td></tr>
<tr><td>1907-1911</td><td>Barr Brothers, City Chambers, 47 Queen Street, Cardiff (Queen Studio)</td></tr>
<tr><td>1908</td><td>William Banister Barr, 46 Imperial Buildings, Dale End, Birmingham</td></tr>
<tr><td>1908</td><td>Barr Brothers, 20 Granby Street, Leicester</td></tr>
<tr><td>1908</td><td>Barr Brothers, 83a Bold Street, Liverpool</td></tr>
<tr><td>1909-1918</td><td>Barr Brothers, 103 Smithdown Road, Liverpool</td></tr>
<tr><td>1910</td><td>Barr Brothers, 39 (or 33) High Street, Merthyr Tydfil</td></tr>
<tr><td>1910</td><td>Barr Brothers, Market St, Llanelly</td></tr>
<tr><td>1910</td><td>Barr Brothers, 29 High Street, Newport</td></tr>
<tr><td>1910-1914</td><td>Barr Brothers, 79 Taff St, Pontypridd</td></tr>
<tr><td>c.1912-1914</td><td>Barr Brothers, 250 High Street, S. Tottenham</td></tr>
<tr><td>1913</td><td>Barr Brothers, Regent Street, Wrexham (Queen Studios)</td></tr>
<tr><td>1913</td><td>Barr Brothers, 88a Church Street, St Helens</td></tr>
</table><br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Alderman, Mari (2006) <a href="http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/VicPhoto1.html">Victorian Professional Photographers in Wales, 1850-1925</a>, publ. online by GENUKI<br />
<br />
Aston, C.E. John, Hallett, Michael & McKenna, Joseph (1987) <i>Professional Photographers in Birmingham, 1842-1914</i>, Supplement No. 116 to <i>The PhotoHistorian</i>, publ. Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.<br />
<br />
Heathcote, Bernard & Heathcote, Pauline (n.d.) <i>Pioneers of Photography in Nottinghamshire, 1841-1910</i>, publ. by Nottinghamshire County Council.<br />
<br />
Heathcote, Bernard V. & Heathcote, Pauline F. (n.d.) <i>Leicester Photographic Studios in Victorian & Edwardian Times</i>, publ. Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.<br />
<br />
Hicks, Gareth (2003) <a href="http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/GLA/Photographers.html">Glamorgan Photographers</a> (database), publ. online by GENUKI<br />
<br />
Holland, Paul (n.d.) <a href="http://www.hollandfamilyhistory.co.uk/htmlfiles/victorianphotographers.html">Chester & North East Wales Photographers</a>, personal web site.<br />
<br />
Jones, Gillian (2004) <i>Lancashire Professional Photographers, 1840-1940</i>, publ. by PhotoResearch.<br />
<br />
Vaughan, Roger (2003) <a href="http://www.cartes.fsnet.co.uk/photo/azlist2.htm">Bristol Photographers, 1852-1972</a>, personal web site.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-70989576380939449682015-04-17T14:43:00.001+12:002015-04-17T14:43:35.546+12:00Sepia Saturday 275: Summer holidays in Derbyshire, an early Kodak album<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-275-18-april-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss275.jpg" style="width: 433px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Marilyn Brindley & Alan Burnett" /></a></center><br />
My contribution for Sepia Saturday this week has nothing whatsoever to do with the image prompt, I'm afraid. It does, however, follow on from my article last week, which featured an <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">album of nitrocellulose negatives</a> taken during a grand tour of Europe in 1904. Regular readers will recall that series of images as having been taken by an experienced and skilled photographer using a fairly sophisticated modern folding camera, possibly with a view to eventual commercial exploitation.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodakalbum1.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodakalbum1.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 2015 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cloth-covered Kodak photograph album, dated August 1903<br />
Collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Today I'm featuring an album from my own collection which, although superficially similar in that it contains a series of 3¼" x 4¼" 118- or 119-format prints taken during a summer holiday in Derbyshire, England, is actually quite a different set in many ways. The album has 12 white card leaves bound in a light brown cloth-covered stiff card cover, now slightly grubby and showing slight wear on the edges, with "Kodak" printed in large black decorative writing on the front. Each of the leaves has paper sleeves on each side, designed to hold 3¼" x 4¼" paper prints.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodakalbum2.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodakalbum2.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Cloth-covered Kodak photograph album, dated August 1903<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The inside front cover has "Kodak, Ltd. London" printed on the lower right, as well as the following inscription handwritten in black ink:<br />
<blockquote>Summer holidays -<br />
<u>August 1903</u><br />
<u>Derbyshire</u> (Matlock & Buxton)</blockquote>I've been unable to find this specific album design advertised in Eastman Kodak Co.'s (U.S.) catalogues for the late 1890s and early 1900s. During this period they appear to have changed from albums with thick card leaves and standard-sized paper slots for different print formats, to loose-leaved albums with a higher number of pages constructed of thinner grey or black card, onto which the prints were intended to be glued with Eastman's Photo Paste ($0.25 per 5 ounce tube). Presumably this was in response to the rapidly increasing variety of print formats being introduced, and the large proportion of amateur prints perhaps not being mounted on card.<br />
<br />
However, this particular paper slot-style album with 12 pages, designed to hold two 12-exposure films' worth of prints, was sold (and perhaps manufactured) by Kodak Ltd. at one of their six branch outlets in London, and may have been of a design not offered in the United States.<br />
<br />
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://photos.gstatic.com/media/slideshow.swf" width="425" height="267" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&captions=1&hl=en_GB&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F117215323424481458539%2Falbumid%2F6137787137204824801%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCKP5h6Hy8MqPqAE%26hl%3Den_GB" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed><br />
<br />
Each of the 24 sleeves in the album contains a print, some of which are trimmed rather roughly. Although the average size is around 3¼" x 4¼" (82 x 108mm) they range in size from 67 x 98mm to 97 x 113mm. The prints can be separated into three groups, based on size, printing characteristics and subject matter.<br />
<br />
<center><iframe src="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=zTqA666Ym23Q.kuOuRZ8YYbdA" width="425" height="425"></iframe><br />
Locations photographed in Derbyshire, August 1903</center><br />
The first ten prints (pages 1-10) have been roughly trimmed and are slightly smaller (78 x 102mm) but more varied in size. The black and white prints were taken at Buxton, Tideswell, Monsal Dale, Dovedale and Haddon Hall.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak006.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak006.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"The Crescent, Buxton," August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 98 x 67mm<br />
(Page 6, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This image shows a group boarding a horse-drawn carriage at The Crescent in Buxton, perhaps for a day excursion to Tideswell and Monsal Dale. Baedeker's 1901 guide to <a href="https://archive.org/details/greatbritainhan08firgoog">Great Britain</a> describes it thus:<br />
<blockquote>The Crescent, the most prominent building in the town, has the Tepid Baths (1s.-2s. 6d.) and the Chalybeate Wells at the W. end and the Hot Baths (1s. 6d.-3s. 6d.) at the E. end. In front is the Pump Room.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak004.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak004.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"<i>The Cathedral of the Peak</i>, Tideswell Church," August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 77 x 103mm<br />
(Page 4, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Kelly's 1899 <a href="http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16445coll4/id/8894/rec/2">Directory of Derbyshire</a> gives the following:<br />
<blockquote>The church of St John the Baptist is a cruciform building of stone, belong almost exclusively to the Decorated style of the latter half of the 14th century, consisting of an unusually large chancel, clerestoried nave ... a lofty embattled tower at the west end, with battlemented turret-like pinnacles at the angles, terminating in crocketed spirelets ... the old chancel screen ... has been successfully restored.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak007.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak007.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Nab's Dale," Dovedale, August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 80 x 95mm<br />
(Page 7, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Baedeker's guide gives details of the new railway from Buxton to Ashbourne, opened in 1899, which allowed the holidaymaker to travel the 23 miles in under an hour:<br />
<blockquote>... afford[ing] the most convenient approach to the beauties of Dovedale. Passengers should alight at Alsop-en-le-Dale, walk down the valley, and rejoin the railway at Thorpe Cloud ... Alsop-en-le-Dale is the station for the head of Dovedale, a picturesque and narrow limestone valley, hemmed in by fantastic rocks, freely interspersed with woods ... The prettiest part of the valley begins at the Dove Holes ...</blockquote><br />
Nab's Dale, shown in the photo above, is close to Hanson Grange and Alsop-en-le-Dale and appears to be the point at which our photographer and party alighted from the train and entered Dovedale.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak002.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak002.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Below Reynard's Cave," Dovedale, August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 79 x 104mm<br />
(Page 2, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This very much overexposed shot is taken from Reynard's Cave, further down the valley and overlooking the path next to the River Dove, along which several members of the party can just be seen, and down which I myself enjoyed a fine walk with friend and fellow Sepian <a href="http://nigel-aspdin-notes-and-queries.blogspot.co.uk/">Nigel Aspdin</a> about 18 months ago.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak005.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak005.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Peveril of the Peak Hotel & Thorpe Cloud," Thorpe, August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 105 x 80mm<br />
(Page 5, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Upon reaching the southern end of <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/donkey-rides-at-dovedale.html">Dovedale</a>, marked by the characteristic peak of Thorpe Cloud, they arrived at "<i>... the stepping-stones ... where donkeys and refreshments are in waiting ... and, a little farther on, a foot bridge leading to the Izaak Walton Hotel, a favourite angling resort</i>," frequented by my great-grandfather and which I wrote about in <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/compleat-angler-derbyshire-fishing-trip.html">The Compleat Angler</a>. Rather than crossing the footbridge, however, our party appear to have chosen the course which Nigel and I took "<i>... a path to the left ascend[ing] from the stepping stones to the (½ M.) Peveril Hotel, not far from the village of Thorpe and railway station Thorpe Cloud.</i>" Embarking at the station, they either returned to Buxton or proceeded to Matlock.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak011.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak011.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Haddon Hall," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm<br />
(Page 11, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
The next nine prints in the album (pages 11-19) have been trimmed somewhat more accurately, and all are within a couple of millimetres of the standard 82.5 x 108mm. They were also processed slightly differently from the first batch, and are all slightly to moderately overexposed, also show a distinct sepia tone. The borders of the negative are partly visible in 7 of the prints; none were in the first set.<br />
<br />
They were taken at Haddon Hall (above), Chatsworth House and at several locations in the vicinity of Matlock and Matlock Bath, all of which were popular destinations for Edwardian tourists.<br />
<blockquote>Haddon Hall, picturesquely situated on a slope rising from the Wye, is an almost ideal specimen of an old English baronial mansion, and, though unoccupied, is still in fair preservation (adm. 4d.)</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak003.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak003.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Haddon Hall Terrace," August 1903<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 75 x 101mm<br />
(Page 3, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
<blockquote>... the S[outh] facade and the terraced gardens [date] from the end of the 16th century.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak013.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak013.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"In the Model Village - Chatsworth," Edensor, August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 83 x 83mm<br />
(Page 13, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Baedeker again gives a detailed description of the route and the sights to look out for:<br />
<blockquote>... To reach Chatsworth from Haddon by carriage ... we follow the road from the bridge [over the River Wye] to Bakewell [where] we turn to the right and proceed by a circuitous route to Edensor, a model village, on the outskirts of Chatsworth Park. The church contains a memorial window to Lord Frederick Cavendish (assassinated in 1882), who is buried in the churchyard.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak012.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak012.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Chatsworth House," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm<br />
(Page 12, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This is one of the better known views of Chatsworth House, captured by local photographer <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/wpotter.html">William Potter</a> for his commercial carte de visite landscapes as early as the 1870s. In this shot, an open horse-drawn brougham carrying four passengers is driven down the road, presumably on their way to visit the grand house in the middle distance. I wondered at first if they were waiting for the photographer, but since the carriage is slightly blurred, and the nearby tree sharp, I think they were moving at the time of the exposure.<br />
<blockquote>Chatsworth, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Devonshire, is a striking contrast to Haddon, the one being as redolent of modern, as the other of medieval state ... the Gardens (small fee, to the gardener), which are fine but formal, with artificial cascades, fountains, surprise waterworks, etc. The Emperor Fountain throws a jet 265 ft. high.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak019.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak019.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"High Tor, Matlock," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 83 x 107mm<br />
(Page 19, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Six of the remaining photographs were taken in and around the towns of Matlock and Matlock Bath, including this well known view of High Tor, Matlock Dale and the River Derwent. The postcard publishers James Valentine & Sons registered a very similar photograph in 1892, which I featured in an article on Photo-Sleuth two years ago (<a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/sepia-saturday-171-before-humble.html">Before the humble postcard</a>).<br />
<br />
Kelly's 1899 Directory informs us:<br />
<blockquote>Matlock Bath ... is a modern inland and fashionable watering place, with a station on the Midland railway, and is situated in a deep and lovely valley ... The place is celebrated for the romantic character of its scenery and the purity of its medicinal springs, and in the summer season this beautiful locality is frequented by visitors from all parts of the kingdom.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak017.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak017.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"High Tor from Lovers' Walk," Matlock, August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 83mm<br />
(Page 17, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
<blockquote>Among the attractions of Matlock ... Immediately opposite the High Tor is Masson Hill, nearly 800 feet high, from which and from the Heights of Abraham, about 650 feet high (to which a winding ascent has been made), an extensive view is afforded of the scenery of the surrounding country ... The Lovers' Walk, on the opposite side of the river, is another favourite place of resort; paths leading to different points from which the dale may be advantageously seen have also been cut through the wood in various directions.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak016.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak016.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
"Mother & a piece of Monica!" August 1903 (digitally enhanced)<br />
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm<br />
(Page 16, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)<br />
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
A single photograph in this album is directed specifically at members of the holidaying party. Two female figures (Mother and Monica) are seated outdoors on a bench reading newspapers, umbrellas at the ready should the sun prove too hot or a shower present itself. Sadly, it is overexposed - the image above has been digitally enhanced, but even this is not sufficent to reveal Monica's features, obliterated by a careless flash of sunlight or perhaps by some light leakage into the body of the camera. The bench is situated in front of a tree, and what I think is the River Derwent through a gap in the branches immediately to the left of Mother.<br />
<blockquote>In 1887 an iron bridge of 85 feet span was constructed ... connecting the Promenade with Lovers' Walk, and at the same time the Promenade was laid out ...</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak016a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak016a.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Detail of "Mother & a piece of Monica!"</center><br />
There is, however, enough in the image to show three umbrellas leaning against the bench, and a valise or case which may be for the camera. The three umbrellas imply that there were only three in the party on this particular day: "Mother," Monica and the photographer, who could be the husband of either "Mother" or Monica, a son of "Mother" and brother of Monica, or indeed Monica's sister.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak_comp.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak_comp.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Composite of Derbyshire holidaymakers<br />
<i>Click image to enlarge</i></center><br />
Fortunately we have a better image of Monica, taken on the Terrace at Haddon Hall (see lower left, above). The enlarged detail from several photos show several other people, and there may or may not have been more in the party at other stages of the holiday. It is even possible that one of the elderly men with luxurious white beards (at right) may have been "Father." Unfortunately, none of them appears carrying a leather case which would have held the camera, and I suspect that the photographer never appears in the photographs.<br />
<br />
The last five prints (pages 20-24) were taken in Wiltshire the following year. While I have included them in the slideshow at the beginning of this article, they appear to have been inserted later to fill up empty slots in the album, and I'll leave discussion of them for another time.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak_develop.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1903kodak_develop.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project" /></a><br />
Kodak Developing and Printing Outfits, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
The Derbyshire snapshots appear to have been taken in two sequences, the first of ten images, the second of nine. It is my belief that they were probably prints from two consecutive rolls of film, each containing 12 exposures, five of which were discarded as being of too poor quality to print or preserve in the album. The uneven trimming of the prints suggests to me that they were developed and printed by an amateur at home using one of Kodak's readily available kits, rather than taken into a chemist or other processing facility.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1901a.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1901a.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" /></a><br />
"Take a <u>Kodak</u> with you"<br />
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement featuring "The Kodak Girl"<br />
From the <i>Ladies' Home Journal</i>, 1901<br />
Courtesy <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a>, Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0034/">K0034</a></center><br />
The Kodak folding cameras of the late 1890s and early 1900s were specifically marketed towards women, the design intended to mimic a purse or pocketbook, although one would be hard pressed to fit a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak in any standard pocket.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodakno3fpk_1903.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodakno3fpk_1903.jpg" style="height: 400px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
Constructed of aluminium covered with black morocco leather, the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak (like its smaller cousin, the No 1) was designed to be compact and simple to use. Costing only $17.50 (and an extra $1.25 for a black sole leather carrying case, with strap), it was the cheaper version of the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe camera featured in last week's <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">1904 Grand Tour</a> article, but it used the same 118-format film, and therefore produced a print of the same size, 3¼" x 4¼".<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1911.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1911.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Courtesy of Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" /></a><br />
"All Out-Doors Invites Your Kodak"<br />
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement from <i>Life</i> magazine, 1911<br />
Courtesy <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a>, Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0443/">K0443</a></center><br />
With the standard Rapid Rectilinear lens and Eastman Automatic shutter, and in the unsteady hands of an amateur new to framing a photograph, assessing lighting conditions, etc., the quality of of the resulting pictures is likely to have been variable at best. Judging from these prints, I feel it most likely that the camera was hand-held, in stark contrast to the <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-grand-tour-of-europe.html">1904 Grand Tour</a> series, the majority of which are likely to have been taken using a tripod. An unfamiliarity with the equipment may also have meant that the film was loaded with enough care, perhaps even with some exposure to bright sunlight, resulting in what appear to be "light leaks" on many of the prints.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/3961.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/3961.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 2013 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Nigel at the start of the walk down Dovedale, 13 September 2013<br />
Image © 2013 Brett Payne</center><br />
As amateurish as the photographs in this album are, I was delighted with the purchase since, as suggested earlier, the route taken by the party was very similar to the very enjoyable 15 kilometre walk that Nigel and I took from Hartington down Dovedale to Thorpe Cloud, and then to Tissington in September 2013. It's also an area which my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne, as a keen trout angler, must have known well. I hope you've enjoyed the journey of discovery too.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-89916421886866753602015-04-09T17:53:00.000+12:002015-04-09T18:55:23.692+12:00Sepia Saturday 274: A Grand Tour of Europe, 1904<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-11-april-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss274.jpg" style="width: 400px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett & Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
A year ago in <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/sepia-saturday-219-vacation-days-are.html">Vacation Days are Kodak Days</a> I featured a few images from a <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/billinmn/sets/72157622733362984/">collection</a> shared with me by Bill Nelson, scanned from a series of nitrocellulose negatives taken by an as yet unidentified amateur photographer on a European tour in 1904, probably using a <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodakc2.gif">No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera</a>. Most of these high quality shots were taken in locations that were, even in 1904, relatively well known tourist destinations, but with an eye for composition and a technique that betrays not inconsiderable experience.<br />
<br />
Today, given this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/04/sepia-saturday-274-11-april-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> image prompt of a poster of a coal cart drawn by two horses, I'd like to show you a few more of these images. I was initially struck by how many scenes included carts, carriages, wagons and other vehicles drawn by animals, wondering whether the photographer had intentionally focused on them, but in those pre-motor days, such methods of conveyance were a normal facet of everyday life in Europe, and our photographer would have used at least some of these during his journey.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn003.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn003.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Horse-drawn omnibuses, London, England, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
The journey appears to have started in bustling London, where the wide and still unpaved streets were full of pedestrians dodging a variety of horse-drawn hansom cabs, carriages and omnibuses, overshadowed by the tall buildings of the city. A deluge of advertisements flood the viewer with admonishments to buy Horlick's Malted or Nestle's Milk and Fry's Cocoa, or to watch the latest show at the Adelphi or Wyndham's theatre.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn011.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn011.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Organ grinder tableau, possibly in London, England, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
In a quieter suburban street, with a background of sash windows drawn up to let in the languid afternoon air, he captured this engaging image of an organ grinder busy shutting up shop at the end of a day's performances. His hat is perched jauntily on the back of his tousled head, a monkey balances on the organ and his daughter poses between the shafts of the hand cart, totally absorbed by the photographer setting up his apparatus on a tripod. Almost as an afterthought, a pedestrian in a straw boater walking along the pavement, perhaps on her way home from shopping, is momentarily distracted by the tableau.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn004.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn004.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Suburban scene, possibly in London, England, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
A less well framed, and yet just as charming, scene captured in a slightly upmarket residential area appears to record a visit to a private house. The upstairs windows are neatly framed by chintz curtains and underscored with an ornate wrought iron balcony. A hansom cab waits at the kerb, a horse impatiently champing at the bit and stretching its neck against the pull of the reins, while a group of young boys loitering on the pavement ham it up for the camera.<br />
<br />
A woman wearing an enormous pancake hat, so characteristic of the mid-1900s, pauses on the threshold, in front of the already open doorway, while the somewhat disembodied lady of the house and a uniformed house maid peer as if taken unawares over decorated flower boxes through an open window. A scullery maid, caught as if by accident while having an rare break from her daily drudgery, leans wearily against the railings on the steps leading down to the servants' quarters in the basement.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn005.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn005.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Outside the Blue Ball Inn, Countisbury, Lynmouth, Devon, England, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
In Somerset the photographer visited several locations popularised by Romantic poets, such as in R.D. Blackmore's <i>Lorna Doone</i> (published in 1869), including Lynmouth, Countisbury and Porlock. Here a coach drawn by six horses prepares for departure from the Blue Ball Inn, which still operates to this day as a bed and breakfast.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn006.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn006.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Donkeys outside the New Inn, Clovelly, England, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
The tiny but picturesque fishing village of Clovelly in North Devon, brought to public attention by Charles Kingsley's 1855 novel <i>Westward Ho!</i> was another destination visited. Its steep cobbled streets, wattle-and-daub cottages, donkeys with pannier baskets and crusty old characters provided fertile ground for photographic procrastinations.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn007.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn007.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Dog cart in the Netherlands, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
A journey on one of the many ferries crossing the Channel took our photographer to Normandy, where the lives of peasants and fishermen on the pebbly beaches around Étretat caught his attention for a while, and then to the Netherlands, where he photographed this young man selling wares from a small dog cart parked in a leafy avenue.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn008.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn008.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Smock mill Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, Germany, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
The ubiquitous Dutch windmills and canals were photographed too, but it was this huge smock mill in Sanssouci Park, Potsdam (just west of Berlin, Germany) that caught my eye, particularly because of the marked contrast presented by the bizarrely shaped horse-drawn van. Unfortunately I can't quite make out the name of the business painted on its side, and the banner-shaped sign on top is facing the wrong direction, but I wouldn't mind buying a frankfurter or an ice cream from him, should either of those be on offer (perhaps not a frankfurter in Berlin).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn009.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn009.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Oxen and wagon, Austria, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
In Austria a group is just visible taking refreshments in the cool shade of a leafy arbour in the village square, although the camera catches a woman washing laundry in the cherub-adorned fountain, while two oxen harnessed to a four-wheeled cart wait patiently nearby.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn_1904map.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn_1904map.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Possible itinerary for Grand European Tour, 1904</center><br />
A possible itinerary drawn up for the unknown photographer's 1904 Grand Tour through Europe is somewhat fanciful, given that we don't have a clear picture of the order in which the photos were taken, but it does give an impression of the large amount of ground covered. One of the most intriguing aspects to this story is that a contact print of one of the negatives has been discovered in an archive in Bayreuth, Germany, suggesting that the films were being developed and printed along the way. How would this have been feasible for an amateur in 1904? For an answer to that we must start by looking at the camera which produced these fine photographs.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://redbellows.co.uk/CameraCollection/Kodak/No3FoldingPocketKodakDeLuxe_522.htm"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodak_abdeluxe.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of David Purcell" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe Camera, modified Model AB, c.1902<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://redbellows.co.uk/CameraCollectionHome.htm">David Purcell</a></center><br />
118-format roll film, with individual frames measuring 3¼" x 4¼" was introduced by Eastman Kodak specifically for the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera first offered for sale in April 1900. By 1904 this camera was available in its fifth version, the Model C-2, with an array of shutter and lens options. Given the high quality of the images, it seems likely that our photographer was using a recent version with high quality lens and shutter, perhaps similar to the modified AB Deluxe model with Persian morocco leather case, brown silk-covered bellows and an engraved silver nameplate, advertised in the 1903 Kodak catalogue for a pricey $75 (compared with $17.50 for a standard model).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn_negalbum.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn_negalbum.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Negative album and index card for 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format rollfilm<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
The negatives in this collection, some with slightly uneven edges suggesting they were cut using a pair of scissors, are housed in a negative album containing 100 thick paper pockets in a thick green cloth-covered card folder, advertised in Kodak's 1903 catalogue for $1.00 (below).<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_negalbum.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_negalbum.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project by Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak" /></a><br />
Eastman's Negative Film Albums, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
Each 118-format transparent film cartridge with 12 exposures cost 70 cents, and supplies were available from Kodak outlets in, amongst several other cities, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Vienna. Several dozen rolls must have been used during the trip, since there are multiple negatives in each sleeve.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_118rollfilm.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_118rollfilm.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Geoff Harrisson" /></a><br />
Kodak 118-format roll film<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/90900361@N08/">Geoff Harrisson</a></center><br />
The opening pages of Kodak's 1902 catalogue focused on their daylight-loading film cartridge, which utilised a strip of black paper along the back of the film strip to exclude light, making "<i>pocket photography practical and ... it possible to do away with the dark room in loading and unloading the camera.</i>" This technology was already a decade old, invented by S.N. Turner of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company for his Bull's Eye camera, then licensed and later purchased by George Eastman for the Pocket Kodak range.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_devtank1.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_devtank1.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project by Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak" /></a><br />
Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
By the time their 1903 catalog was released, however, the emphasis had taken a leap forward as Kodak announced, "<i>The Dark Room is abolished</i>" with the introduction in August 1902 of the Kodak Developing Machine, an idea brought to Eastman a few months earlier by its inventor A.W. McCurdy. The Kodak slogan had made a radical change, from "<i>You press the button, we do the rest</i>" to "<i>You press the button, then do the rest</i>."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_devtank2.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_devtank2.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project by Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak" /></a><br />
Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
With this tank (the Style E sold for $7.50, which included a wooden carrying case with leather handle) and a Kodak Developing Outfit (containing chemical powders and various other equipment needed, for another $1.60) our photographer would have been set for his expedition. According to <i>The Kodak Story</i>, a press photographer took one of these portable developing tanks with him to the front of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and was able to send developed negatives back to <i>Collier's</i> magazine for quick printing and publication.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_1903cat00.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_1903cat00.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project by Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak" /></a><br />
Cover of 1903 Kodak catalogue<br />
Image courtesy of the <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a></center><br />
Even with some presumed failures, our photographer must have been extremely competent, and I think we must examine the motives for this tour. Was he or she merely recording the adventure for posterity, as some snapshots of people in gardens and on board ship attest to, or were some of the photographs intended for some other purpose? Eastman Kodak Ltd sponsored a huge international contest open to amateur photographers, and many of the winners were featured in <i>The Grand Kodak Exhibition</i>, a spectacular travelling photographic show which toured Britain in 1904 and America in 1905.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn000.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn000.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Men and Girl on the Docks, Marken, Netherlands, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
It is possible that our photographer was inspired by seeing this exhibition in England. Compare the images taken in Marken and Volendam in the Netherlands with those graphics used to illustrate Kodak marketing material and it's hard to deny their similarity. With such a serious commitment to photography, some considerable previous experience and, in the light of both contest and exhibition, was our photographer hoping to enter his own photographs in a subsequent competition? Or perhaps there was a hope of selling scenes to a postcard publisher?<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn012.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn012.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
The Streets of Volendam, Netherlands, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Marken, Volendam and Alkmaar have long been tourist destinations, just as they were when I visited my Dutch grandparents in Holland in my youth, and likewise other European destinations like Oxford, coastal Devon, Bayreuth, Potsdam, Prague and Vienna. The itinerary was one already well worn by generations of travellers as attested to by any number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baedeker_Guides">Baedeker guides</a> from that era. A new century in which transatlantic travel was much easier and quicker presented huge marketing opportunities for the firm of Eastman Kodak, and they had already made it clear they welcomed contributions from skilled amateurs.<br />
<br />
<b>Acknowlegements</b><br />
<br />
Many thanks to Bill Nelson for the opportunity to study his collection of nitrocellulose negatives and reproduce scans of them, and for an ongoing conversation from which much more may eventually emerge.<br />
<br />
I'm indebted to Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak for their extremely useful <i>Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</i>, which has cast such light on the background to Bill's collection, not to mention Rob's kind responses to my questions and sharing of his extensive knowledge of the history of old cameras.<br />
<br />
Thank you also to David Purcell and Geoff Harrisson for permission to use the photographs of items in their private collections, which help to round out the photohistorical story.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1978) <i>Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures</i>, United States: Crown Publishers, 240p.<br />
<br />
Coe, Brian (1988) <i>Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years</i>, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.<br />
<br />
Collins, Douglas (1990) <i>The Story of Kodak</i>, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 392p.<br />
<br />
Hannavy, John (Ed.) (2013) <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Kd5cAgAAQBAJ">Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography</a>, Routledge.<br />
<br />
Niederman, Rob & Zahorcak, Milan (nd )<a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/information-wants-to-be-free-56-years-of-kodak-camera-catalogs-now-available/">Digitized Kodak Catalog Project</a>Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-45719277652029274212015-04-02T21:02:00.000+13:002015-04-02T22:43:00.780+13:00Sepia Saturday 273: The Automobile Association Road Patrol Service<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/03/sepia-saturday-273-4th-april-2015.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss273.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Marilyn Brindley and Alan Burnett" /></a></center><br />
I've been absent from both <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/03/sepia-saturday-273-4th-april-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> and this blog for almost a year, pursuing various other interests, but what better time than Easter Weekend (spring or autumn, depending on your location) to return to the fray.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan05.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan05.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © & courtesy of Simon Debell" /></a><br />
Unidentified Automobile Association cycle scout, c. early to mid-1920s<br />
Postcard format portrait by Morgan's Studio, Cavendish St, Chesterfield<br />
Image © & courtesy of Simon Debell</center><br />
This postcard portrait was kindly sent to me last year for use on my <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/dbyphotos.html">Derbyshire Photographers</a> web site. It features an unidentified young man dressed in the uniform of an Automobile Association Cycle Scout with his bicycle. The donor wondered whether the uniform was a prop, but I doubt it. <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/hjmorgan.html">Morgan's Studio</a> (Proprietor, Henry John Morgan) operated from premises at 7 Cavendish Street, Chesterfield (Derbyshire) from at least 1926 to 1932.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/autoass02.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/autoass02.jpg" style="width: 380px;" /></a></center><br />
The Automobile Association came into existence in 1905, and my "Member's Copy" of <b>The Road Book of England & Wales</b> published c. 1936 (courtesy of Nigel Aspdin) has the following relating to the history of the organisation in its introductory pages:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>The Road Patrol Service</b><br />
... some motorists organized ... a few cyclists on the London-Brighton road whose task it was to warn all passing motorists of "police-traps" ... The week-end cyclists on the Brighton road were the first A.A. patrols. To-day more than 20,000 miles of road in the British Isles are regularly patrolled by an army in distinctive khaki uniform ... The majority of the men are mounted on motor-cycles with yellow side-cars which contain full equipment to enable the riders to deal with the minor troubles which may still beset the motorist.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/5618276867/"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/autoass01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © Automobile Association & courtesy of Carlton Reid" /></a><br />
Automobile Association Cycle Scout, undated<br />
Image © Automobile Association & courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/">Carlton Reid</a></center><br />
The <a href="http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/history/early-roads-gb/1905-aa-cycle-scouts-history-of-the-automobile-association/">Online Bicycle Museum</a> states that "motorcycle patrols, known as Road Service Outfits or RSOs" were introduced in 1919, and that "by 1923 there were 274 AA motorbike patrols but still 376 cyclists."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/autoass03.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/autoass03.jpg" style="width: 380px; border: 1px solid;" /></a></center><br />
After a legal test case in 1910 involving an AA patrolman and a potentially speeding motorist, patrolmen were instructed by their superiors to salute the drivers of cars displaying the AA emblem, except when there was a speed trap nearby. The 1926 handbook stated:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>It cannot be too strongly emphasised that when a patrol fails to salute, the member should stop and ask the reason why, as it is certain that the patrol has something of importance to communicate.</blockquote><center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan04.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan04.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © & courtesy of Margarey Thackray" /></a><br />
Arthur Wood in bus conductor's uniform, c. early to mid-1920s<br />
Postcard format portrait by Morgan's Studio, Cavendish St, Chesterfield<br />
Image © & courtesy of Margarey Thackray</center><br />
A similar portrait by Morgan's Studio of a young man in a bus conductor's uniform, using the identical painted backdrop, has been dated to the early 1920s, and I believe the cyclist portrait to be from a similar time period.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan06.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/hjmorgan06.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © & courtesy of Gill Taylor" /></a><br />
Unidentified group in Salvation Army uniform, c. late 1920s to early 1930s<br />
Postcard format portrait by Morgan's Studio, Cavendish St, Chesterfield<br />
Image © & courtesy of Gill Taylor</center><br />
A third "uniform" portrait from this studio shows a group from the Salvation Army, although judging from the slightly different text this photograph was probably taken a few years later. It seems unlikely that Morgan's Studio specialised in portraits of people wearing uniforms, and it's probably just chance that half of the six examples that I have from this studio are in this vein.<br />
<br />
Now I suggest that you dust off your own cycling uniform, get your bike out of the shed, and join the rest of this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2015/03/sepia-saturday-273-4th-april-2015.html">Sepia Saturday</a> participants for what promises to be a very pleasant excursion.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-71778509170246716692014-04-25T09:00:00.000+12:002014-04-27T21:55:45.976+12:00Sepia Saturday 225: Photomatic in the Antipodes, the original Selfies<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-225-26-april-2014.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss225.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
I'll use the coin-operated jukebox in this week's Sepia Saturday image prompt to post a follow-up to the article on <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/sepia-saturday-175-andy-warhol-looks.html">Photomatic</a> booths and photos that I wrote a year ago.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://from.ph/11009"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/photomatic_booth2.gif" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of The Powerhouse Museum" /></a><br />
Original Photomatic photo booth, Machine No. DP 3<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=11009&img=159815">The Powerhouse Museum</a></center><br />
Based on an <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/eveningpost19400123.jpg">advertisement</a> in Wellington's <i>Evening Post</i> dated 23 January 1940 and a battered <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/photomatic_plate1.jpg">instruction plate</a> in the Tauranga Museum collection, I have deduced previously that at least one Photomatic photobooth, such as the well preserved original shown above from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, was exported to and operated in New Zealand.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/photomatic24.jpg" alt="Image © and courtesy of Margaret Pakes" /><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/photomatic25.jpg" alt="Image © and courtesy of Margaret Parkes" /><br />
Catherine & Errol Morton, Wellington, New Zealand, January 1940<br />
Silver gelatin print in crimped metal frame with printed card backing<br />
Taken by Photomatic (Wellington) Ltd.<br />
Images © and courtesy of Margaret Parkes</center><br />
I now have direct evidence of that. Margaret Parkes kindly sent me these images of two Photomatic portraits of her parents, probably taken on the eve of her father's departure for service overseas in the Second World War, possibly at the Centennial Exhibition.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>I have a pair of prints of my mother and father taken in Wellington before his departure to WW2. To the best of my knowledge they were taken early in January 1940 as the troops boarded the ship on the 5th. My parents Errol and Catherine Morton were living in Taranaki so the time she was most likely to have visited Wellington was for his departure, although I see that the Centennial Exhibition was on at the time.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ellesmereguardian19371119.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ellesmereguardian19371119.gif" style="width: 185px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Papers Past" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/akaroamail19371116.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/akaroamail19371116.gif" style="width: 185px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Advertisements from <i>Ellesmere Guardian</i>, 19 November 1937,<br />
and <i>Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser</i>, 16 November 1937<br />
Images courtesy of <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast">Papers Past</a></center><br />
A detailed search in the online newspaper archives of the period shows that Photomatic Limited was formed in May 1937, shares in the company quickly being listed for sale by brokers in Auckland. In November that year, the department store of <a href="http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Places/Buildings/Hays/">Hay's Ltd</a> in Christchurch advertised the new Photomatic as the only one of its kind in the South Island, "<i>a wonderful machine ... takes your photo, develops, prints, and FRAMES it ... in ONE MINUTE.</i>"<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/eveningpost19380702.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/eveningpost19380702.gif" style="width: 350px;" alt="Image courtesy of Papers Past" /></a><br />
Advertisement from <i>Evening Post</i>, 2 July 1938<br />
Image courtesy of <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast">Papers Past</a></center><br />
Between 11 June and 6 August 1938 Photomatic (Wellington) Limited were seeking "smart young ladies" and "smart youths" to apply in person for positions as attendants for Photomatic portrait-taking machines. The advertisement for 2 July 1938 described the booth as being located in Selfridge's Department Store, Cuba Street.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/eveningpost19400123.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/eveningpost19400123.jpg" style="width: 350px;" alt="Image courtesy of Papers Past" /></a><br />
Advertisement from <i>Evening Post</i>, 23 January 1940<br />
Image courtesy of <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast">Papers Past</a></center><br />
Then there is nothing until early 1940, when the company appears to have operated a Photomatic booth at the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington. Various trade directories show the company operating from premises at 315 Cooke's Building, 58-60 Queen Street, Auckland Central in 1937-1938, from 182 Featherston Street in 1941, and at 23 Waring Taylor Street in 1948-1949, both in Wellington.<br />
<br />
Which leaves us with a few questions that I hope we'll be able to answer some day. Why are there so few references to Photomatic booths in New Zealand? Were the booths hired out, complete with operaters, to franchisees in the various locations, or did the firm maintain control of each one? How many were there? Where did the instruction plate in the Tauranga Museum Collection come from, and where is the rest of the booth? How long did the firm remain in business? Were they really still going in 1948? Where are all the portraits taken in these booths? There must be many remaining in private collections, but I haven't been able to find any in public collections listed online.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cbpayne08.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cbpayne08.jpg" style=" height: 250px;" alt="Images © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cbpayne08r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cbpayne08r.jpg" style=" height: 250px;" alt="Images © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Bud Payne, Durban, South Africa, 4 April 1968<br />
Photomatic photobooth portrait (65 x 68mm)<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
There are few signs of Photomatic booths being exported to other parts of the world, but I found evidence that they were, somewhat bizarrely, in my own family photo collection. This photobooth portrait of my father was taken in the coastal city of Durban, South Africa in 1968, which is pretty late in context of the heyday of the American Photomatic. Although the silver card backing has no identifying marks indicating that it emanated from a Photomatic apparatus, the metal frame, card type and apparent method of manufacture are identical. It has occurred to me that it may have been produced from a refurbished Photomatic machine after the demise of the business elsewhere.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://news.rutgers.edu/feature/mystery-photobooth-portraits-baffle-historians/20140326#.U0tXZVca008"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/photomatic26.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image Collection of Donald Lokuta and courtesy of Rutgers Today" /></a><br />
Mystery Photobooth Portraits<br />
Image Collection of Donald Lokuta and courtesy of <a href="http://news.rutgers.edu/feature/mystery-photobooth-portraits-baffle-historians/20140326#.U0tXZVca008">Rutgers Today</a></center><br />
Lastly, I thought I'd direct readers to an article that appeared recently regarding an exhibit titled "445 Portraits of a Man" currently on display as part of "Striking Resemblance: The Changing Art of Portraiture," an exhibition showing at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey until July. It's an extraordinary collection of Photomatic images, all of the same man, taken over three decades from the late 1930s until the 1960s. The man's identity and why the portraits were collected, remains a mystery.<br />
<br />
If you haven't had enough of coin-operated machines after that, you may well find a few more among the remaining <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-225-26-april-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> contributions this week.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Relevant advertisements and share price listings appeared in several New Zealand newspapers on the following dates:<br />
<i>Auckland Star</i>: 15 May 1937, 17 Jul 1937, 11, 18, 22 & 23 Feb 1938, 2, 11, 15 Mar 1938<br />
<i>Ellesmere Guardian</i>: 16 & 19 Nov 1937<br />
<i>Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser</i>: 16 & 19 Nov 1937<br />
<i>Evening Post</i>: 11 & 21 June 1938, 2 Jul 1938, 6 Aug 1938, 23 Jan 1940<br />
<br />
Auckland Libraries <a href="http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/photographers/basic_search.htm">Photographers Database</a>, entry for Photomatic Wellington Ltd.<br />
<br />
Payne, Brett (2013) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/sepia-saturday-175-andy-warhol-looks.html">Andy Warhol looks a scream, Hang him on my wall</a>, on <i>PhotoSleuth</i>, 3 May 2013.<br />
<br />
Verbanas, Patti (2014) <a href="http://news.rutgers.edu/feature/mystery-photobooth-portraits-baffle-historians/20140326#.U0tXZVca008">Mystery Photobooth Portraits Baffle Historians</a>, <i>Rutgers Today</i>, 27 March 2014.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-20293630240694831032014-04-17T19:52:00.000+12:002014-04-17T19:52:13.243+12:00Sepia Saturday 224: The Servants at Quantock Lodge<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-224-19-april-2014.html"><img alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss224.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a></center><br />
The Sepia Saturday image prompt this week shows a woman watering her artichokes while a man, presumably her husband, stands with a pipe firmly clenched in his mouth and holding a shovel. He's perhaps pretending that he's just finished the weeding, but is clearly not dressed for the task. My contribution to the meme this week is a group of servants, including gardeners and groundsmen, who may be in their best clothes, but they don't look quite as out of place in the garden.<br />
<br />
In something approaching the manner popularised by fellow Sepians <a href="http://tatteredandlostphotographs.blogspot.co.nz/search/label/class%20photos">Tattered + Lost</a> and <a href="http://temposenzatempo.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/a-heros-life.html">Mister Mike</a>, I will attempt a deconstruction and/or reconstruction of the occasion.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
<i>Quantock Lodge Servants, 79/August</i>, Cabinet card portrait<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
This early cabinet portrait mounted on plain card was a fortuitous purchase on eBay a few years ago, lucky in that such items often attract furious bidding which very quickly puts them totally out of my reach costwise, but if I remember correctly I was the only one to show any interest in this. It is unusual not only for the subject matter, a large group of servants from a big house, but also that the location and date are written on the card mount.<br />
<br />
Quantock Lodge is a mansion built as a holiday residence in the Gothic revival style during the mid-19th century for <b>Henry Labouchere</b>, 1st Baron Taunton (1797-1869), and described by Nocolas Pevsner as "<i>a large rather dull Tudor house ... Gothic Stables, a specially crazy Gothic Dovecote and a big Gothic Lodge.</i>" Although Baron Taunton's second wife inherited the estate on his death in 1869, his eldest daughter <b>Mary Dorothy Labouchere</b> (1842-1920) lived there after her marriage in 1872 to <b>Edward James Stanley</b>, D.L., J.P. (1826-1907), later a British Conservative politician from 1882 until 1907. By August 1879, when this photograph was taken, the Stanleys had a son and a daughter, both born at St George Hanover Square, London, and a second son was born on 30th August, also in London.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01r.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01r.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Cabinet card portrait by Monsieur Bernard's Prince Imperial Photographie Francaise, 8 Alphington St, Exeter<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
Rather than using printed card mount, the photographer has used a small paper label with his details pasted on the back of the card.<br />
<br />
<center>MONSIEUR BERNARD'S<br />
PRINCE IMPERIAL<br />
<big><b>MEMORIAL</b></big><br />
<i>Photographie Francaise.<br />
-:o:-<br />
8, Alphington St. EXETER.</i><br />
Copies may always be had.<br />
<i>No.</i></center><br />
I've been unable to find records of a photographer named Bernard working in either Exeter or Somerset. However, there was a Daniel Bernard of Austrian origin living at 12 Smythen Street, Exeter in April 1881 who described himself as picture frame dealer. That he had links with Somerset is demonstrated by the birth of his two children at Bristol in 1875 and 1878. Bernard's use of the name "Prince Imperial Memorial" was particularly opportunisitic, considering that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napol%C3%A9on,_Prince_Imperial">Napoléon, the Prince Imperial</a>, had been killed in Zululand only a couple of months earlier, and the "Prince Imperial Memorial Fund" set up in mid-June.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01a.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01a.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Detail of Quantock Lodge servants</center><br />
This group of servants - 10 male, 9 female and a young lad - is large, indicative of a fairly wealthy household, which the Stanleys certainly were. Mary's mother and paternal grandmother were members of the Baring banking family. The census record of Quantock Lodge, Over Stowey, Somerset for 3 April 1881 (<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1881quantock1.jpg">p1</a> & <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/1881quantock2.jpg">p2</a>), only 20 months after the photograph was taken, shows 21 servants - 8 male, 12 female - as well as a governess and a young boy, with three additonal male employees living in married quarters nearby. In order to compare the census list with the people we see in the photograph, I have extracted their details:<br />
<br />
<table><tbody>
<tr><th>Name</th><th>Age</th><th>Occupation</th><th>1871--1891</th></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Eleanor E. MAJOR</span></td><td>22</td><td>Governess</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Annie REID</td><td>40</td><td>Butler's wife (Visitor)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Caroline FARLEY</span></td><td>49</td><td>Housekeeper</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Emile WELLS</span></td><td>30</td><td>Cook</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Elise REDFLEUR</span></td><td>31</td><td>Ladies Maid [sic]</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Mary MAY</span></td><td>25</td><td>Nurse</td><td>Housekeeper, 1891</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">Thomas REID</span></td><td>45</td><td>Butler</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">Walter REID</span></td><td>37</td><td>Valet</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">William DAVIS</span></td><td>28</td><td>Under Butler</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">Thomas WALKER</span></td><td>30</td><td>Footman</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">James GRANDFIELD</span></td><td>25</td><td>Footman</td><td>Under Butler, 1891</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">Henry WATTS</span></td><td>32</td><td>2nd Coachman</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">James STACEY</span></td><td>23</td><td>Groom</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">George LUCAS</span></td><td>22</td><td>House Servant</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Mary A. PRICE</span></td><td>26</td><td>Kitchen maid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Alice E. TOFFS</span></td><td>19</td><td>Kitchen maid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Elizabeth VINCENT</span></td><td>22</td><td>House Maid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Gerald A. ELLIS</td><td>8</td><td>Scholar (Nephew)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Clara PACKER</span></td><td>31</td><td>Head Housemaid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Hannah HUTCHINGS</span></td><td>28</td><td>Still Room Maid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Elizabeth WALTER</span></td><td>28</td><td>2nd Housemaid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Jane HOOPER</span></td><td>19</td><td>3rd Housemaid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: red;">Caroline THORNE</span></td><td>18</td><td>4th Housemaid</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">William ISTED</span></td><td>39</td><td>Head Coachman</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">Archibald BOUSIE</span></td><td>60</td><td>Head Gardener</td><td>Head Gardener, 1871</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: blue;">John MARSHALL</span></td><td>56</td><td>Head Gamekeeper</td><td></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The boy was actually Mrs Stanley's nephew, <b>Gerald Arthur Ellis</b>, but I've included him in the extract because he is, rather oddly, listed among the servants. Gerald's father Major-General Sir Arthur Ellis was Equerry to the Prince of Wales, and Gerald himself became a Page to Queen Victoria.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19544309"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of BBC" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/servantsgraphic.gif" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Status and heirarchy of servants in a Victorian house<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19544309">BBC News Magazine</a></center><br />
I can't give an authoritative source for this, but I have the impression that census listings for such households generally show the servants in order of seniority. It is interesting to note that the head gardener had been there since 1871, while two of the servants were still working at Quantock Lodge a decade later in 1891. In those ten years <b>Mary May</b> had worked her way up from Nurse to Housekeeper, while <b>James Grandfield</b> had undergone a similar promotion from Footman to Under Butler.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01c.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 215px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01d.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 215px;" /><br />
The Butler and the Housekeeper, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
The two central figures in this tableaux, also probably the oldest, are almost certainly the most senior male and female servants in the household, the butler and the housekeeper. The butler looks to be in his forties. <b>Thomas Reid</b> was shown as 45 in the 1881 census, but 46 or 47 when he died at Quantock Lodge in February 1884 - depending on source - and is therefore a good candidate. His wife Annie is described as a visitor in the census, and was therefore not a regular member of the household. After her husband's death, she continued to live nearby in Taunton, described in the 1891 Census is "<i>living on her own means.</i>"<br />
<br />
The housekeeper at Quantock House in April 1881 was <b>Caroline Farley</b>. She gave her age as 49, but I've been able to track her through the remaining census records from 1841 to 1901, and it appears that at the time the photograph was taken in the garden of Quantock Lodge in August 1879, Caroline was probably in her mid-fifties. The housekeeper in the photograph looks a little older than this, perhaps in her sixties, but there are no older women in the census list, so this may be Caroline Farley's predecessor - it's difficult to be sure.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01e.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 250px;" /><br />
The Valet, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
Thomas' younger brother <b>Walter Reid</b> was also at Quantock Lodge in 1881, aged 37 and employed as a valet. Judging by his clothing, his age and the similarity of their facial features (in particular ears, nose and mouth), I think he may be standing in the back row, second from right, with his right hand resting with some degree of familiarity on the shoulder of a woman seated on the butler's right, and possibly his left hand on the shoulder of another young woman. Walter was the executor of his brother's will dated April 1884, in which he left a personal estate of £480. I've been unable to find any record of Walter after this date.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01f.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 250px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01g.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 250px;" /><br />
The Under Butler and the House Servant, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
Judging by their clothing, their ages and their proximity in the lineup to the butler, I believe that the two young men standing in the back row, directly in line with the butler and the housekeeper, are probably the Under Butler (right) and male House Servant (left), listed in the 1881 census as <b>William Davis</b> (aged 28) and <b>George Lucas</b> (aged 22). George Lucas was an inmate of the Dorchester Union Workhouse at Fordington in 1871, his mother having died when he was very young.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01h.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /><br />
The Two Footmen and the 2nd Coachman, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
The double-breasted coats with large brass buttons worn by all three young men standing at the right hand end of the back row makes them likely to have been footmen and coachmen. In 1881 <b>Thomas Walker</b> (30) and <b>James Grandfield</b> (25) were the two footmen, while <b>Henry Watts</b> (32) was the Second Coachman. It is difficult to tell whether that is the order they appear in the photograph. <br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01i.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /><br />
The Cook and the Head Housemaid, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
Unfortunately these two are in a part of the photograph which has been overexposed, with a resulting loss of definition. From their clothing, seniority dictated by their position seated to the housekeeper, and their ages, I believe them to be the Cook (left) and the Head Housemaid (right). In 1881, these positions were filled by <b>Emily Wells</b> (30) and <b>Clara Packer</b> (31). I tracked down Emily/Emma Wells to the magnificent <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/petworth-house/">Petworth House</a> in Sussex in 1871, where she was employed by the <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw135335/Henry-Wyndham-2nd-Baron-Leconfield">2nd Lord Leconfield</a> as a Still Room Maid, the most junior servant in the household.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01k.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 330px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01j.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 330px;" /><br />
The Governess and the Lady's Maid, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
There are only two women dressed in dark clothing, both of them fairly young, and they must, I think, be the Governess and Lady's Maid. The young woman seated on the grass at the far left of the group has a substantial hat, and appears to be of an appropriate age to be the 22 year-old Governess, <b>Eleanor E. Major</b>. Ten years later she was working as a Governess to the family of her previous employer's sister, Mina Frances Ellis, and was still employed as a governess in 1901. The woman holding a dog on her lap may be the 31 year-old <b>Elise Reafleur</b> (or <b>Redfleur</b>), the Swiss-born lady's maid to Mary Stanley.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01l.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 300px;" /><br />
The Nursemaid, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
Five months prior to the sunny summer morning when Monsieur Bernard visited Quantock Lodge, the Honourable Mrs. Stanley placed an advertisement in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_Post">Morning Post</a>, a conservative daily London newspaper "<i>noted for its attentions to the activities of the powerful and wealthy</i>," looking for a "<i>superior Nurserymaid to help in the care of two children</i> (see below). Pregnant with her third child, she was obviously anticipating the extra work load. It would be nice to think that <b>Mary May</b>, the 25 year-old "Nurse" listed in the 1881 Census, who was still with the Stanleys ten years later at Quantock Lodge as housekeeper, came to them in response to this advertisement. My feeling is that she is seated at far left, between the butler and the governess.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/morningpost18790318.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/morningpost18790318.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Advertisement in the <i>Morning Post</i>, 18 March 1879</center><br />
In 1898 Mary Ann May married the under-butler James Grandfield and the couple moved to Kensington where James found work, now as a butler. The 1901 Census shows the Stanley household without a butler. James was still working as a butler in London in 1911 and died in 1919, while Mary died in 1939.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01m.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 200px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01n.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 200px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01o.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 200px;" /><br />
The Kitchen and House Maids, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
The three remaining women in the group, standing immediately behind the butler, housekeeper and cook, look to be in their early to mid-twenties, and could be either kitchen or house staff. Unaccounted for in the census are two kitchen maids, four house maids and a still room maid. Presumably some were either too busy to outdoors engaging in such frivolities as a photographic portrait (read camera-shy), or absent on the day.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01p.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 300px;" /><br />
The Head Gardener, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
The man standing at the extreme left of the group may be the Head Gardener, <b>Archibald Bousie</b>, who lived with his family in the gardener's cottage on the estate. He was born on 9 March 1821 at Markinch, Fife, Scotland and, judging by the number of credits in <a href="https://archive.org/details/floraofforfarsh00gard">The Flora of Forfarshire</a> by William Gardiner, published in 1848, he was a very knowledgeable and active botanist as a young man. Mr Bousie was employed from c. 1848 by Henry Labouchere, Lord Taunton, as the head gardener in the <a href="http://www.stokepark.com/history/estate-history-book.html">famous gardens</a> laid out by Capability Brown and Humphry Repton at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoke_Park,_Buckinghamshire">Stoke Park</a> in Buckinghamshire. He won numerous medals and prizes for his fuschias, rhododendrons, calceolarias, fancy pelargoniums, figs and desert apples in flower and fruit shows at the Crystal Palace, Royal Botanic Society and Royal Horticultural Society between 1855 and 1863.<br />
<br />
After Stoke Park was sold in 1863, Bousie moved to Quantock Lodge where he worked in a similar capacity, first for Lord Taunton and later for his daughter and son-in-law, the Stanleys. He died at Over Stowey on 20 December 1910, aged 89 years, after having passed on the reins at Quantock Lodge to his son David Alexander Bousie.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01s.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 265px;" /> <img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01q.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 265px;" /><br />
The Head Gamekeeper and the Groom, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
As we get further down the list, I feel on more shaky ground regarding identifications. The man with a large stick and an even more impressive beard seated on the grass is dressed as an outdoor servant, but I don't believe he can be the Head Coachman, so I think it more likely that he is a gardener or a gamekeeper. The 1881 Census shows one <b>John Marshall</b>, aged 56, Head Gamekeeper, living near Quantock Lodge and it seems likely this is him. The man seated at far right, holding onto a dark-coloured poodle, is probably the groom, shown in the census as <b>James Stacey</b>, aged 23.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01t.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; height: 300px;" /><br />
The Young Lad, Quantock Lodge</center><br />
Finally, we have the well dressed young lad sitting cross-legged in front of the housekeeper and the cook. There is only one boy shown in the census, Gerald Ellis, nephew of Mrs Stanley, but in August he would have been only six years old, and this chap looks to me to be around 9 or 10, at least. The Stanley's eldest son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stanley_%28cricketer%29">Henry Thomas Stanley</a> was a year younger than Gerald, so it's not likely to be him either. I suspect that he was a local lad employed as a Hall Boy.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01b.jpg"><img alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/som/images/mbernard01b.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Quantock Lodge servants</center><br />
Possible identification of individuals in Quantock Lodge Servants photo:<br />
<br />
1. <b>Archibald Bousie</b>, aged 60, Head Gardener<br />
2. <b>Walter Reid</b>, aged 37, Valet<br />
3. Unidentified Kitchen or House Maid<br />
4. <b>George Lucas</b>, aged 22, House Servant<br />
5. Unidentified Kitchen or House Maid<br />
6. <b>William Davis</b>, aged 28, Under Butler<br />
7. Unidentified Kitchen or House Maid<br />
8. <b>James Grandfield</b>, aged 25, Footman<br />
9. <b>Thomas Walker</b>, aged 30, Footman<br />
10. <b>Henry Watts</b>, aged 32, Second Coachman<br />
11. <b>Mary May</b>, aged 25, Nurse(maid)<br />
12. <b>Thomas Reid</b>, 45, Butler<br />
13. <b>Caroline Farley</b>, aged mid-50s, Housekeeper<br />
14. <b>Emily Wells</b>, aged 30, Cook<br />
15. <b>Clara Packer</b>, aged 31, Head Housemaid<br />
16. <b>Elise Reafleur/Redfleur</b>, aged 31, Lady's Maid<br />
17. <b>James Stacey</b>, aged 23, Groom<br />
18. <b>Eleanor E. Major</b>, aged 22, Governess<br />
19. <b>John Marshall</b>, aged 56, Head Gamekeeper<br />
20. Unidentified Hall Boy<br />
<br />
Of course I understand that most readers will have decided, probably well before getting to this point, that my IDs are at best tentative, and in the worst case, rather unlikely. My aim at putting this list out in the cybersphere is to generate some interest and possibly further information about the servants who worked, perhaps not straight away, but hopefully in due course.<br />
<br />
For more gardening of the sepian variety, I can recommend visiting the other <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-224-19-april-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> contributers.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-4753815060259121052014-04-09T08:38:00.001+12:002023-01-03T12:36:21.497+13:00Sepia Saturday 223: The Finest Equipped Photographic Gallery in the Vicinity<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-223-12-april-2014.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/ss223.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
This week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/04/sepia-saturday-223-12-april-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> image prompt is all about buildings and town scenes. I'll be taking a closer look at some tintypes from my own family's collection, and an emerging story about a photographic studio in Chicago, Illinois. The building itself will only appear later in the article, so please bear with me.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39x.gif" style="height: 300px;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40x.gif" style="height: 300px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Charles Leslie Lionel Payne (1892-1975), taken c. October-November 1892<br />
Sixth plate tintypes (63 x 88mm, 65 x 90mm), unidentified photographer<br />
Probably by H.R. Koopman, 11104 Michigan Ave, Roseland, Chicago<br />
Images © and collection of Brett Payne & Barbara Ellison</center><br />
Among the family photographs that my aunt and I have inherited are a series of four sixth-plate tintypes. The term "sixth-plate" refers to the size of the photograph, produced by cutting a full plate (8½" x 6½" or 216 x 165mm) into six, each measuring roughly (2¾" x 3¼" or 70 x 83mm). As with many such tintypes, the edges are roughly cut and the corners have been trimmed to make them easier to slip into photo album slots.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39a.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39a.jpg" style="height: 225px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40a.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40a.jpg" style="height: 225px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Detail of two six-plate tintype portraits of Leslie Payne</center><br />
As is also commonly found with this format, they have no photographer's details or other distinuishing marks, but I can be fairly certain that the two almost identical portraits of my grandfather Charles Leslie Lionel Payne were taken in Chicago. He was born there in April 1892 and returned to England with his parents in mid- to late November that year, so would have been six or seven moths old at the time he parents took him to the studio. The two images appear at first glance to be of the same view. A detailed examination of the child in the pram reveals identical poses which I think we have to assume would be impossible to duplicate for two separate exposures.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39b.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39b.jpg" style="height: 230px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40b.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne40b.jpg" style="height: 230px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Detail of two six-plate tintype portraits of Leslie Payne</center><br />
Sharp-eyed readers will however have noticed subtle differences, which are more obvious in these two views of the pram's undercarriage. There is a considerable shift in the position of the rear axle in relation to the rim of the front wheel in the two images. How can this be if the two photographs were taken in the same split second, as evidenced by the child's pose? Well, the answer lies in a question of parallax, defined in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concise_Oxford_English_Dictionary">COD</a> as the "<i>apparent displacement of an object, caused by actual change of point of observation</i>." This <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax">Wikipedia article</a> has an animation which shows the effect very well. <br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.antiquewoodcameras.com/wetpl2.html"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/9tube_gem_wpcamera.gif" style="height: 300px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Rob Niederman" /></a><br />
9-tube "Gem" wet-plate camera, by unknown U.S. maker<br />
Image © and courtesy of Rob Niederman</center><br />
In other words, the two portraits were indeed taken at the same instant, but from two slightly different positions. This was achievable with a multi-lens camera, such as the one shown above. Camera collector and very knowledgeable historian <a href="www.antiquewoodcameras.com">Rob Niederman</a> points out that the noticeable vertical parallax, along with no perceptible horizontal parallax, suggests the second image was probably directly above the first on the original plate. The camera must have had at least a four lens set (1/9-tubes, using a 4¼" x 5¼" plate) or conceivably 9, 12 or 16 lens sets. He adds, "<i>In summary, studio outfits were very adaptable in what you could do with them</i>."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/chpayne22.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/chpayne22x.gif" style="height: 450px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960), taken c. 1892<br />
Sixth plate tintype (62 x 86mm), unidentified photographer<br />
Probably by H.R. Koopman, 11104 Michigan Ave, Roseland, Chicago<br />
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison</center><br />
The third tintype is a three-quarter length standing portrait of Leslie's Uncle Hallam - Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960) - who was with Leslie and his parents in Chicago in 1891 and 1892.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/fpayne01.gif"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/fpayne01x.gif" style="height: 450px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Unidentified subject, taken c. 1892<br />
Sixth plate tintype (66 x 88mm), unidentified photographer<br />
Probably by H.R. Koopman, 11104 Michigan Ave, Roseland, Chicago<br />
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison</center><br />
In the fourth portrait, an unidentified young man, smartly dressed and with a moustache, is seated in a studio with a painted backdrop.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/fpayne01a.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/fpayne01a.jpg" style="height: 170px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /></a> <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39c.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cllpayne39c.jpg" style="height: 170px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison" /></a><br />
Detail of backdrops in two six-plate tintype portraits</center><br />
Examination of the painted backdrop (above left) shows similarities with that used in the two portraits of Leslie Payne. I have some reservations, but the similarity of the branches and knots in the tree trunks has more or less convinced me that they are the same backdrop, although perhaps touched up a little between the two sittings.<br />
<br />
It seems likely therefore, given the similarity of features and their provenance, that all four tintype portraits were taken in the same studio. But who was the man with a moustache?<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pullman01.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pullman01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="" /></a><br />
Pullman Car Works, Roseland, Chicago, c.1890<br />
Photograph by H.R. Koopman</center><br />
Leslie's parents Charles Vincent and Amy Payne had travelled to Chicago, Illinois from their home in Derbyshire, England in May-June 1891, very soon after their wedding. Accompanying them was Vincent's younger brother Frank Payne, and together they would join another brother Charles Hallam Payne, who had gone to Chicago to look for work a year earlier. Uncle Hallam had been working as a carpenter at the Pullman Car Works.<br />
<br />
The moustachioed man is obviously not Charles Hallam and, by comparison with many other photographs in my collection, is not my grandfather Charles Vincent. I thought at first that it might be Frank (unfortunately we have no other photographs in the family collection with which to compare it), but Frank would have been only 18 years old at the time, so I think that is very unlikely. Perhaps he was a friend.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pullman02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/pullman02.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="" /></a><br />
Pullman Car Works, Roseland, Chicago, c.1890<br />
Photograph by H.R. Koopman</center><br />
In a letter written to him on 12 January 1891 his father Henry Payne thanked Hallam for a ...<br />
<blockquote>"... book of Pulman [sic]. I am glad to hear that Pulman does not go in for many hotels. Perhaps you will make a note of that."</blockquote>This book, currently in the collection of my aunt, includes a number of photographs of Pulman's works and the town he built to house his workers, including the two shown above, all taken by photographer H.R. Koopman.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/payne/chp_expopass1x.jpg" style="border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /><br />
Employee's Pass for The World's Columbian Exposition, 1 June 1892<br />
<br />
<img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/payne/chp_ucccard1x.jpg" style="border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and collection of Brett Payne" /><br />
United Carpenter's Council Quarterly Working Card, Oct-Dec 1892<br />
</center><br />
Some time after the arrival of his brothers all three found employment at the Chicago World's Fair, officially known as The World's Columbian Exposition. However, it appears that they were still living in Roseland - Lesley Payne's birth certificate shows that he was born at 10810 Curtis Ave, Roseland, Chicago on 9 April 1892.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/pshs/id/230/rec/17"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman06.jpg" style="height: 350px;" alt="Image © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives" /><a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/pshs/id/662/rec/9"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman02x.jpg" style="height: 350px" alt="Image © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives" /></a></a><br />
Koopman Advertising Flyer, 1 May 1888, Printed paper (150 x 220mm)<br />
Portrait of H.R. Koopman, c. 1894, Oval silver gelatin print (70 x 133mm) on grey-coloured card mount (108 x 212mm)<br />
Images © Pullman State Historic Site, courtesy of <a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/">Illinois Digital Archives</a></center><br />
Henry Ralph Koopman (1865-1944) operated photographic studio in Roseland, a suburb of Chicago, from 1884 until the early 1900s, offering a wide variety of formats at what he boasted was the "finest equipped photograph gallery in the vicinity."<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/pshs/id/662/rec/9"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman01x.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives" /></a><br />
Koopman's Photograph Gallery, Cor. 111th St and Michigan Av., 1886<br />
Silver gelatin print (239 x 182mm) mounted on card<br />
Image © Pullman State Historic Site, courtesy of <a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/">Illinois Digital Archives</a></center><br />
This image of Koopman's Photograph Gallery at 11106 South Michigan Avenue, on the corner with 111th Street, was taken in 1886. The large windows and skylight on the side of the building indicate the position of the studio towards the rear. By the time the Paynes arrived in Roseland in 1892, where they lived only three blocks away from the gallery, Koopman had built himself a much grander three-story building with a studio on the third floor, although I've not managed to find a corresponding external view.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/pshs/id/218/rec/14"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman07.jpg" style="height: 325px;" alt="Image © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives" /></a> <a href="http://cabinetcardgallery.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/children-pose-for-dutch-photographer-in-chicago-illinois/"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman05.jpg" style="height: 325px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of The Cabinet Card Gallery" /></a><br />
Portraits of unidentified woman and children, c. late 1880s<br />
Cabinet portraits taken by H.R. Koopman, Roseland, Illinois<br />
Images © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of <a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/">Illinois Digital Archives</a>, © and courtesy of <a href="http://cabinetcardgallery.wordpress.com/">The Cabinet Card Gallery</a></center><br />
The cabinet portraits above were taken in the late 1880s to early 1890s in Koopman's studio, and demonstrate that he used a very similar style of painted backdrop to those seen in the tintypes, although I have been unable to match the specific backdrop used in the latter with any marked Koopman portraits.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/pshs/id/224/rec/15"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/usa/il/images/hrkoopman03x.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © Pullman State Historic Site & courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives" /></a><br />
HR Koopman photographing his daughter, Marie, in his studio, c. 1895<br />
Silver gelatin print (353 x 279mm)<br />
Image © Pullman State Historic Site, courtesy of <a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/">Illinois Digital Archives</a></center><br />
This wonderfully evocative print from Koopman's archives preserved at the Pullman State Historic Site shows the photographer himself at work in the studio, capturing a portrait of his daughter Marie around 1895. He is composing the image on a ground glass screen at the back of a large format glass-plate studio camera, his head under a black cloth to exclude light. The lighting available from the large window and skylight can be moderated and diffused by the drapes hanging from the ceiling. A painted canvas backdrop is in place behind the seated girl, and a second rolled backdrop can be seen hanging above. There are a number of different items of standard studio furniture, including padded stool, side tables, cane chair, ornate screen, carpets and curtains, as well as a small stove to keep the studio warm and the clients comfortable.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cvpayne02.jpg"><img src="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photosleuth/cvpayne02.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="" /></a><br />
Charles Vincent Payne, August 1891<br />
Cabinet card by Harrison & Coover, Central Music Hall,<br />
cnr. State & Randolph Streets, Chicago, Illinois<br />
Image © and collection of Brett Payne</center><br />
There were many photographic studios in Chicago, and I even have a cabinet portrait of my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne taken at Harrison & Coover's downtown studio in August 1891. However, I don't believe there were many photographers operating in Roseland in the early 1890s, and I think it is very likely that all four tintypes were made there. However, until I find another portrait showing that identical painted backdrop, I can't be sure. To this end, I've saved a search for Koopman portraits on eBay in the hope that some will turn up in due course.<br />
<br />
The identity of the moustachioed man remains a mystery.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References and Further Reading</u></b><br />
<br />
Horn, Don (2003) <a href="http://www.pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanPhotographersImages/ThePullmanPhotographer.pdf">The Pullman Photographers</a>, <i>Railroad Heritage</i>, No. 7, p. 5.<br />
<br />
Nickell, Joe (2010) <a href="books.google.co.nz/books?id=ZMCQ7YHw4CgC">Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation</a>, University Press of Kentucky.<br />
<br />
Payne, Brett (2003) Fifty Years of Payne Journeys to North America - <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/payne/payne_journeys3.html">1890-1892 : Chicago, Pullman & the Worlds Fair</a>.<br />
<br />
Payne, Brett (2009) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2009/02/letter-to-america-moment-in-life-of.html">Letter to America - A moment in the life of a young girl in late Victorian Derby</a>, on <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 14 February 2009.<br />
<br />
Payne, Brett (2009) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2009/10/whistling-bird-arizona-cowboy-and.html">Whistling Bird, the Arizona Cowboy and the Disappearing Lady</a>, on <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 1 November 2009.<br />
<br />
Payne, Brett (2011) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/fearless-femmes-great-grandmother-amy.html">Fearless femmes: great-grandmother Amy</a>, on <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 6 March 2011.<br />
<br />
<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&Operation=GetAdHtml&ID=OneJS&OneJS=1&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=photosleuth-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B0078XFLGK&asins=B0078XFLGK&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&MarketPlace=US"><br />
</iframe><br />
Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-77428254924199569242014-04-03T16:47:00.000+13:002014-04-03T16:47:13.651+13:00Sepia Saturday 222: A Question of Berthage<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/sepia-saturday-222-5th-april-2014.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss222.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
Last year I had some correspondence with Bill Forster relating to the Stalag XXID Prisoner of War Camp at Poznan in Poland, which I wrote about in the story of <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/sepia-saturday-158-bill-ball-and-work.html">Bill Ball and Work Camp 9</a>. Bill had another query in connection with his own research on a group of sailors who also ended up in Stalag XXID:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>I have a puzzle in identifying a photograph of a (French?) port where a requisitioned LNER ferry is berthed which carried the troops of the BEF to France in 1939-40. This is in connection with the book I published about my father's wartime destroyer, HMS <i>Venomous</i>, which I update between editions on my <a href="http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/A_Hard_Fought_Ship.html">web site</a>. I have successfully identified photographs taken by the men on <i>Venomous</i> at <a href="http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Calais.html">Calais</a> on 21 May 1940 and at <a href="http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Boulogne.html">Boulogne</a> on 22 May 1940 and uncovered some fascinating stories of the refugees they landed at Folkestone and Dover.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/archangel02.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/archangel02.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Bill Forster" /></a><br />
HMS <i>Archangel</i> by Eric Pountney<br />
Image courtesy of Bill Forster</center><br />
<blockquote>But [I] was puzzled by [this] photograph taken by the Wireless Telegraphy Operator, Eric Pountney, until it was identified by members of the <a href="http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=48686">"Ships Nostalgia" Forum</a> as the LNER ferry <i>Archangel</i> which was used as a troop transport in 1939-40.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/archangel01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/archangel01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Bill Forster" /></a><br />
HMS <i>Archangel</i> at northern French port, by Lt Peter Kershaw RNVR<br />
Image courtesy of Bill Forster</center><br />
<blockquote>I have recently found a further photograph in my own collection taken by Lt Peter Kershaw of a ship which looks very similar berthed alongside a quay with railways wagons. But where was it taken? <i>Venomous</i> escorted troop carriers from the Solent (Southampton/Portsmouth) to Cherbourg, Le Havre and Brest in the first few weeks of the war and I suspect it would have been taken at one of these channel ports. Where there are no letters or journals - as in the case of <a href="http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Pountney.html">Eric Pountney</a> - I rely on his photographs to tell the story.</blockquote><br />
What I've done is had a good look at all three of the ports that Bill mentioned - Cherbourg, Le Havre and Brest - using the myriad of postcard views that are available, many of them on the <a href="http://postcards.delcampe.net/">Delcampe</a> postcard auction web site. European postcard publishers were prolific, and there are a wealth of sources on the net for images of scenic postcards published before, during and after the Great War, up to the mid- to late 1920s. There appear to be far fewer from the 1930s, and I suspect that this may have been due to financial pressures caused by the Depression, although I haven't found a confirmation of what is really just an assumption on my part to explain the apparent paucity of images.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/lehavre01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/lehavre01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Le Havre, Bassin de l'Eure, undated postcard view</center><br />
From what I can tell, Le Havre was the only one of the three which had the very distinctive tower lights, one of which appears close to the edge of the quay at centre-left in Bill's <i>Archangel</i> photo. They are very tall, probably of steel construction with a lattice framework, and are characterised by a curious bell-shaped frame for the lamp hanging from a short at the top. The lighting towers appear in most of the postcard views of Le Havre port from the early 1900s until the late 1920s - as in the view above, undated but probably from the 1920s.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://impressionistsgallery.co.uk/artists/Artists/pqrs/Pissarro/03.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/lehavre1903pissarro.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of The Web Gallery of Impressionism" /></a><br />
The Inner Harbor, Le Havre, by Camille Pissarro, 1903<br />
Image courtesy of <a href="http://impressionistsgallery.co.uk/">The Web Gallery of Impressionism</a></center><br />
They are also depicted in many paintings by Impressionist artists, who appear to have congregated in Le Havre before and after the turn of the century. A typical example painted by that "father of the Impressionists," Camille Pissaro, in 1903 includes one of the characteristic tower lights.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/lehavre1927.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/lehavre1927.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
La Nouvelle Digue - The New Dike, Le Havre, postcard view, PM 1927<br />
</center><br />
Sadly, I've been unable to find any images of the port, wharves and quays which show railway carriages, or even areas clearly identifiable as railway sidings, although there were tramlines on some of the quays which serviced the ocean liners, I believe. However, I did find a 1927 (postmark) postcard depicting "La Nouvelle Digue" (or, The New Dike), which may well be where railway sidings were later built. The port was extensively damaged by bombing during the Second World War, so looking at modern photographs is probably no use at all.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/brest1912.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/brest1912.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Bassin des Torpilleurs, Brest, postcard view, PM 1912</center><br />
None of the postcards I could find for Brest displayed such tower lights.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cherbourg1908.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/cherbourg1908.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
L'Entrée des Jetées, Cherbourg, postcard view, PM 1908</center><br />
I did find a postcard view of the port at Brest with a similar tower light, but the design was sufficiently different to rule it out as a candidate for the <i>Archangel</i>'s berth. While I can't rule out this particular quay being at some other as yet unidentified port, I think I can be fairly confident in saying that it's not either Cherbourg or Brest. If the Archangel only visited these three ports, then it was, in all likelihood, Le Havre.<br />
<br />
I'm grateful to Bill Forster for permission to include the contents of his email and the the HMS <i>Archangel</i> photographs in this article. I have primarily aimed at demonstrating how the huge database of scenic images, in particular of old postcards, now available in various locations on the internet can be used to research and identify our own family photographs. Apart from the postcards for sale on various auction sites such as <a href="http://www.delcampe.net/page/category/cat,-2,language,E.html">Delcampe</a> and <a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Postcards-/914/i.html">eBay</a>, there are many web sites created by postcard enthusiasts. A little inventive searching will find the one with a particular focus that you're looking for.<br />
<br />
If you haven't yet had your fill of reading about old photographs and postcards, the remainder of this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/sepia-saturday-222-5th-april-2014.html">Saturday sepians</a> will no doubt have plenty more.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-10680503331302871732014-03-28T22:40:00.002+13:002021-03-14T12:10:31.167+13:00Sepia Saturday 221: The Photo Boat<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-221-29-march-2014.html"><img alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss221.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a></center><br />
Travelling photographers catered for quite a different section of the portrait trade from those who had established studios in larger towns. The population of smaller towns and villages just didn't generate enough business to keep a full time permanent studio viable year round. In order to make ends meet, the photographer who either lived in or wished to cater to a small town needed to either find extra work in an alternative trade, or travel further afield in search of customers.<br />
<br />
In previous articles here on Photo-Sleuth I have written about several of these itinerant tradesmen who worked in Derbyshire, England: "Professor" <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/fsimpson.html">Frank Simpson</a>, <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/ctyler.html">Charles Tyler</a> and <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/cwarwick.html">Charles Warwick</a> all owned caravans and toured the countryside, often following the circuit of summer fairs.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/list/backmarks_album/union_pacific_rail_road_pho.html"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Richard D. Sheaff" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/uprr.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
J.B. Silvis' U.P.P.R. Photograph Car<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/list/backmarks_album/union_pacific_rail_road_pho.html">Richard D. Sheaff</a></center><br />
In North America the rapid settlement of vast expanses of land in the late nineteenth century meant that practitioners who wished to ply their trade there needed to be inventive. Much of the expansion took place along the network of railroads, it is therefore not surprising that railroad photographers set up business to service these disparate communities. The most famous of these was perhaps <a href="http://cprr.org/Museum/Silvis/">John B. Silvis</a>, proprietor of the Union Pacific Rail Road car, who took portraits and sold stereoscopic and other landscape views along the Union Pacific and other companies' railway tracks from 1870 until 1882.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
F.E. Webster's Dental and Photo Boats, Lake Charles, Calcasieu, Louisiana<br />
Mounted paper print, 204 x 153mm<br />
Image © and courtesy of Jana Last</center><br />
In parts of the United States, however, communities were linked by waterways rather than roads or railways. Many tradespeople serviced their customers from riverboats, but I had never come across a photographic studio housed on one until I saw this image shared by Jana Last on her family history <a href="http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.nz/2014/02/52-ancestors-5-f-e-webster-dental-and.html">blog</a>. Jana's maternal great-grandfather Frederick Emory Webster (1864-1946) graduated from the Western Dental College, Kansas City, Missouri in April 1896. Some time during the next decade he appears to have operated a dental surgery from the boat shown at centre in the photograph above which, according to the handwritten caption, is on the shore of Lake Charles in Louisiana.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01a.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01a.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Detail of F.E. Webster's Photo Boat, Lake Charles, Calcasieu, Louisiana</center><br />
Moored alongside is an almost identical craft with a sign reading "F E WEBSTER PHOTO BOAT." (Click on the image above for more detail.) That it does indeed house a photographic studio seems quite plausible, as the end of the boat closest to shore has large windows and a special skylight with pitched roof which I believe was the actual room where portraits would have been taken.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster03.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster03.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
F.E. Webster's Dental and Photo Boats, unknown location<br />
Mounted paper print, 202 x 124mm<br />
Image © and courtesy of Jana Last</center><br />
Jana has at least two more photographs of her great-grandfather's boats, although the photographer's studio has now been replaced by the premises of an optician. That the same boat was converted from studio to eye-testing rooms, and presumably a dispensary (or how would he have made a living, since the eye-tests were advertised as free?), is fairly certain because the characteristic skylight is still just visible in both photographs.<br />
<br />
In fact, the Photo Boat may have been Webster's first craft, as the name painted on the prow appears to read "F.E. Webster No. 1," while that on the dental boat is quite clearly "No. 2." I've not been able to decipher the caption fully (it is written in either Portuguese or Galician, in neither of which I am proficient), but it appears to state that the <i>floating theatre</i> is towed by the <i>steamboat with two smokestacks</i>.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01b.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster01b.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 425px;" /></a><br />
Detail of F.E. Webster's Dental & Photo Boats, Lake Charles, Louisiana</center><br />
That steamboat appears to be a different one from that in the first photograph taken at Lake Charles (see detail above). Judging from the apparent lack of paddles or smokestacks on the floating studio and surgery, they were not self-propelled, but rather barges towed by a paddle steamer. It's not clear whether Webster owned his own steamer, or whether he just hired one to tow the two barges whenever they had exhausted the opportunities for business in one location and wanted to move to another. However, I did note that the steamboat superstructure also has "Photographer" signwritten on the wheelhouse.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster02.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster02.jpg" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
F.E. Webster's Dental and Optical Boats, Natchez, Mississippi<br />
Mounted paper print, 205 x 153mm<br />
Image © and courtesy of Jana Last</center><br />
The caption on the third photograph indicates that it was taken at Natchez, Mississipi. Locations in FE Webster's timeline show a general migration south, away from his former residences in Stockton (Kansas) and Kansas City (Missouri), down first the Missouri River and then the Mississippi, although since none of the photographs are accurately dated it is difficult to be precise about his movements. By April 1899, when he was granted a <a href="http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/talented-tuesday-my-great-grandpa-was.html">patent</a> for a dental handpiece, and shortly after the granting of a divorce from his first wife, he gave his address as "Clarendon, Monroe, Arkansas." It may have been an address of convenience, perhaps that of his lawyer, as presumably he was on the move much of the time.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster04.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster04.jpg" style="height: 450px;" /></a><br />
Portrait of Cynthia Maria Webster née Waterman (1834-1895)<br />
taken by The F.E. Webster Photo Boat, c.1894-1897<br />
Albumen print (47 x 61mm) mounted on printed card (60 x 77mm)<br />
Image © and courtesy of Jana Last</center><br />
Jana is also very fortunate to have a portrait taken F.E. Webster's Photo Boat studio. Although identified as the photographer's mother, who died in September 1895, I think it's possible it might be the portrait of one of her daughters. Whoever it is, we can see from the card mount that it was produced on the boat, and I believe from the wide sleeves worn by the subject that it was taken in the mid-1890s.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster05.jpg"><img alt="Image © and courtesy of Jana Last" src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/fewebster05.jpg" style="height: 450px;" /></a><br />
Frederick (Watson) Emory Webster (1864-1946), taken c.1890-1896<br />
Cabinet card print by David P. Thomson of Kansas City, Missouri<br />
Image © and courtesy of Jana Last</center><br />
Webster, pictured here in Kansas City while he was studying to be a dentist or on his graduation, may not have lasted very long in the photograhic trade, but his choice of studio was pretty unusual. I've not yet found evidence of any other portrait photographer using this mode of transport, although there may well have been some.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/doremus01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/doremus01.jpg" style="border: 1px solid; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
Doremus' Mississippi Views Photograph Gallery, c.1870s</center><br />
J.P. Doremus was a portrait photographer from Patterson, New Jersey, who in 1874 constructed a floating photographic studio which he used to travel down the Mississippi:<br />
<blockquote>... from St Paul, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico photographing steamboats, waterfronts, bridges, lumberyards, log rafts, and river towns. Doremus would then convert these images to stereo card views which he described in a short work entitled "Floating Down the Mississippi" (1877).</blockquote><p>While there are plenty of extant stereoviews by Doremus, there is no evidence that he took any portraits in this studio. Perhaps Webster's studio was one of a kind.<br />
<br />
I'm very grateful to Jana Last for the opportunity to use these photographs from her private collection. Thanks also to Dick Sheaff for the use of one of his fine images. You may or may not find similar modes of water transport in this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-221-29-march-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> contributions, but I can guarantee that there will be plenty of interesting images.<br />
<br />
<b>Post Script</b> 31 March 2014<br />
<br />
Mike Brubaker has very kindly drawn my attention to a collection of photographs of <a href="http://wiki.cincinnatilibrary.org/index.php/Photography_Boats">Photo Studio Boats</a> on the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library web site, which demonstrates that Mr Webster's venture was not the only one of its kind. From this page, I extracted details of the following:<br />
- Williams Photo Boat, Sistersville, West Virginia, 1896-1900, and on the Muskingum River, Marietta, Washington County<br />
- H.O. Schroeter's Floating Photo Studio, Green River, Kentucky, 1900<br />
- Doremus Photo Gallery No.1 named Success and No. 2 named Flora<br />
- Thornton Barrette's Photograph Boat, Russell, Ky., 1899-1900<br />
- Little Gem Floating Pictures, unknown location and date<br />
- Eureka Photo, unknown location and date<br />
Clearly more research can be done on this topic.</p><p><b>Post Script</b> 14 March 2021</p><p>A further communication gratefully received from <a href="http://saretzky.com/">Gary Saretzky</a> has shed much more light on the fascinating activities of John P. Doremus and his floating Photograph Gallery between 1874 and 1881:</p><p></p><blockquote> You mentioned lack of evidence that Doremus took any portraits on his floating gallery. There are frequent mentions in his diary that he did and I’ve seen
examples of a tintype and a cabinet card, although these portraits seem
to be quite uncommon compared to his stereo views taken on his travels
down the river from 1874 into the 1880s. Excerpts from his diary are
available online in <a href="https://stereoworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SW_V30_5.pdf">Stereo World 30:5</a> and the entire diary from March
1874 to the end was published in <a href="http://www.riverhistory.org/reflector.html">S. & D. Reflector</a> in sections from
March 1992 to December 1993, also available online. Doremus did not
take all the portrait himself as he had a camera operator as well as
other staff. When he was away from the boat for an extended period, he
let his operator continue taking portraits for a percentage of the
gross. The quality of the portraits I have seen are not impressive and I
suspect those were taken by his operator. On one occasion mentioned in
his diary, he got into a physical fight with an unsatisfied inebriated
customer.</blockquote><p></p><p>
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Last, Jana (2014) <a href="http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.nz/2014/02/52-ancestors-5-f-e-webster-dental-and.html">The F. E. Webster Dental and Photo Boats</a>, Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog, 3 February 2014.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mississippirivermuseum.com/features_halloffame_detail.cfm?memberID=52">J.P. Doremus</a>, on the Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium web site.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.geh.org/ne/str103/htmlsrc2/doremus_sum00001.html">Stereoviews by J.B. Doremus</a>, from George Eastman House.<br />
<br />
</p>Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-4898521126868431712014-03-20T21:25:00.000+13:002014-03-20T21:25:08.502+13:00Sepia Saturday 220: Making Calotypes in the Desert<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-220-22-march-2014.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss220.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
Given this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-220-22-march-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> photo prompt of a statue, I've decided to feature the work of an amateur photographer who pioneered the use of the <i>calotype</i> photographic process to illustrate travel. During the 1840s most photographic views of landscapes were made using the <i>daguerreotype</i> process introduced and rapidly popularised by Louis Daguerre and others. Daguerreotypes produced landscapes with wonderfully fine detail, but the only way that such one off photographs could be replicated for publication was to transform them into engravings.<br />
<br />
<center><a href-"http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/dagcalocamera1845.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/dagcalocamera1845.gif" style="width: 350px;" /></a><br />
Camera style used for calotypes, c.1845</center><br />
However the calotype process, patented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1841, had a significant advantage in that multiple prints could be produced from a single paper negative. In addition, the ability to prepare several days' worth of negative paper in advance considerably lightened the load of equipment that a photographer had to carry.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp01.jpg" style=" height: 350px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Maxime Du Camp (1822-1894)</center><br />
Maxime Du Camp, a French writer of independent means, learned the calotype process from the innovative and influential <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gray/hd_gray.htm">Gustave Le Gray</a> in 1848, and late the following year accompanied his friend Gustave Flaubert on a tour of the "Orient." His official mission from the Ministry of Public Education was ostensibly to record the details of monuments and their inscriptions.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/283143"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp03.jpg" style="height: 450px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
Westernmost Colossus of the Temple of Re, Abu Simbel<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, 1849-1850<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/283143">2005.100.376.149</a></center><br />
Both DuCamp and Flaubert wrote journals of their experiences, and excerpts have been used in Steegmuller's <i>Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour</i>. Stegmuller has also published a collection of Flaubert's letters, a portion of which can be read online, and from which I took the following extracts about DuCamp and his photographic exploits.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Cairo, Saturday night, 10 o'clock. December 1, 1849.<br />
Behind the partition I hear the young Maxime, preparing solutions for his negatives.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287084"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp05.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
Vue du grand Sphinx et de la grande pyramide de Menkazeh (Mycerinus)<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, Dec 1849<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287084">2005.100.376.149</a></center><br />
<blockquote>Max's days are entirely absorbed and consumed by photography. He is doing well, but grows desperate whenever he spoils a picture or finds that a plate has been badly washed. Really, if doesn't take things easier he'll crack up. But he has been getting some superb results, and in consequence his spirits have been better the last few days. The day before yesterday a kicking mule almost smashed the entire equipment.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287115"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp04.jpg" style="height: 450px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
Intérieur du Temple de Khons, à Karnac, Thèbes<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, 1849-1850<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287115">2005.100.376.20</a></center><br />
<blockquote>I have seen Thebes: it is very beautiful. We arrived one night at nine, in brilliant moonlight that flooded the columns. Dogs were barking, the great white ruins looked like ghosts, and the moon on the horizon, completely round and seeming to touch the earth, appeared to be motionless, resting there deliberately. Karnak gave us the impression of a life of giants.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287139"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp02.jpg" style="height: 450px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
Colosse restauré d' Aménophis III, à Thèbes<br />
(Statue vocale ou Colosse de Memnon)<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, 1849<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287139">2005.100.376.76</a></center><br />
<blockquote>I spent a night at the feet of the colossus of Memnon, devoured by mosquitoes. The old scoundrel has a good face and is covered with graffiti. Graffiti and bird-droppings are the only two things in the ruins of Egypt that give any indication of life.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/283672"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp07.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
"Coiffure des Femmes de Nazareth," Palestine<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, 1850<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/283672">2000.118</a></center><br />
After a couple of months in Egypt they moved in to Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, where DuCamp's output was unfortunately far less prolific. Upon his return to France later that year he showed his prints to Blanquart-Everard, who published 125 of them in an elegant edition of approximately 200 leather-bound copies entitled <i>Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie</i>, probably the world's first photographic travel book, as well as individual prints.<br />
<br />
The artistry in Ducamp's calotypes is not held in particularly high regard:<br />
<blockquote>Ducamp's photographs ... reflect his working purpose and follow the pattern of earlier documetary etchings and lithographs ... (He) moves from a distant overall view to an closer one, at times honing in on a detail or two, always positoning his subject in the center of the frame. The overall effect is straightforward and banal. The poor quality of photographs printed by DuCamp himself also indicate his lack of concern for aesthetics. The one original aspect of his work is his use of a Nubian man, ostensibly as a measure of scale, but who is often almost invisible, posed in odd nooks and crannies of the ancienty tombs and temples.</blockquote><div align="right">Hannavy, 2008</div><br />
<center><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287217"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/mducamp06.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" /></a><br />
"Vue générale des ruines de Baâlbek, prise à l'Est," Lebanon<br />
Salted paper print from paper negative by Maxime Du Camp, Sep 1850<br />
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc # <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/287217">2005.100.376.155</a></center><br />
On the other hand his pioneering status is widely respected. Many photographers would follow in his footsteps to the Middle East, among them the far more well known Francis Frith, Felix Bonfils, Antonio Beato, and even his former mentor Gustave Le Gray, but DuCamp was among the first, showing what was possible with the crude technology available at the time.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/baalbek1997.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/baalbek1997.jpg" style="height: 450px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 1997 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Eastern Facade of the Temple of the Sun, Baalbek, Lebanon<br />
Kodachrome positive transparency, taken 25 May 1997<br />
Photo Copyright © 1997 Brett Payne</center><br />
From my own experiences of trying to photograph monuments in the desert (see image above), managing the harsh sunlight is very tricky, and I have the greatest of admiration for DuCamp's efforts with rudimentary equipment under very difficult conditions.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Ballerini, Julia (2008) <b>DuCamp, Maxime (1822-1894) French photographer and writer</b>,in <a href="http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=PJ8DHBay4_EC">Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography: A-I, index, Volume 1</a>, John Hannavy (ed.), Taylor & Francis, on <i>Google Books</i>.<br />
<br />
Meltzer, Steve (2012) <a href="http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2012/10/30/the-birth-of-travel-photography-du-camp-and-flauberts-1849-trip-to-egypt">The birth of travel photography</a>: Du Camp and Flaubert’s 1849 trip to Egypt, North Africa and the Middle East, on <i>Imaging Resource</i>, 30 October 2012.<br />
<br />
Rosenblum, Naomi (1984) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789209373/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0789209373&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20">A World History of Photography</a>, New York: Abbeville Press.<br />
<br />
Stegmuller, Francis (1972) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140435824/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140435824&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20">Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour</a>, Boston: Little Brown.<br />
<br />
Stegmuller, Francis (ed.) (1979) <a href="http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=srZfwgWpQysC">The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, 1830-1857, Volume 1</a>, on <i>Google Books</i>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxime_Du_Camp">Maxime Du Camp</a>, Wikipedia articleBrett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-17009163869988749172014-03-14T10:32:00.000+13:002014-03-14T13:56:38.300+13:00Sepia Saturday 219: Vacation Days are Kodak Days<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-219-15-march-2014_11.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss219.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
Almost five years ago Bill Nelson shared several images with me from a large, fascinating set of nitrocellulose negatives taken during a grand tour of Europe during the summer of 1904, and very kindly offered me the use of them for future Photo-Sleuth blog posts. It's taken me a while, and I'll admit they did slip off the radar a little in the mean time, but at last I've found an opportunity to use a few of them. Hopefully I'll be able to share more of them in the next few months.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>I first obtained them as a packet of nitrocellulose negatives in glassine sleeves, approximately 12 cm x 9.25 cm. Through a little sleuthing of my own, I was able to establish that they were taken beginning in May, 1904 and throughout the summer in England, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and, in one instance, Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine the identity of the photographer. I'm working on it.<br />
<br />
One thing about these images I find remarkable is that the quality is quite high - I've cleaned them up in some cases, but the images are sharp enough to enlarge to 40 cm x 50 cm. Another is that the images themselves are not typical tourist photos but rather more documentary in character.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn338.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn338.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Stephansdom from the Graben, Wien, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billinmn/sets/72157622733362984/">Bill Nelson</a></center><br />
None of the views were annotated, but this one was immediately recognisable to me as the Stephansdom (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vienna">St Stephen's Cathedral</a>) in Wien (Vienna) with its characteristically patterned roof tiles. Further investigation via Google Earth indicates that, in spite the photographer presumably being an amateur - judging by the content, rather than quality, of the remaining images in the collection - he has taken the trouble to find a suitable viewpoint above street level, in fact on the first floor of a building in the Graben.<br />
<br />
The usual horse-drawn traffic which still plies the area around the cathedral today - albeit carrying tourists rather than trade goods - is evident and the streets are mercifully free from thronging hordes. Conveniently overlooking the square in front of the cathedral are the offices of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cook">Thomas Cook & Son</a>, and I am very sad to report that the Riedl Hotel Royal is now occupied by none other than ... you guessed it, MacDonalds.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom01.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 1989 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Stephansdom, Wien, October 1989<br />
Kodachrome colour positive film, 35mm<br />
Image © 1988 Brett Payne</center><br />
Having visited Vienna in October 1989 and again in June 1993, I was very much taken with the striking mosaic of roof tiles. Although the impressive interior of the domed roof of the Library of Congress Reading Room depicted in this week's Sepia Saturday <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochrom">Photochrom</a> <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/pgz/item/2008679547/">image</a> is quite different architecturally, it too has a pattern to it that both pleases the eye and emphasizes its slope and expanse.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom02.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom02.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 1988 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Stephansdom, Wien, October 1988<br />
Kodachrome colour positive film, 35mm<br />
Image © 1988 Brett Payne</center><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom03.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom03.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" /></a><br />
Stephansdom, Wien, c. 1901<br />
Photochrom image by Detroit Photographic Co.</center><br />
Indeed, the Detroit Photographic Co. had published their own colourised photographic view of Stephansdom a few years earlier using the Photochrom process under license.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn349.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn349.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
The Asparagus Seller<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billinmn/sets/72157622733362984/">Bill Nelson</a></center><br />
This wonderful photograph is also from Bill's series of negatives, showing two women selling asparagus and what are probably roast chestnuts wrapped in chestnut leaves from the street in front of a large building. Although it too has no title, I feel there is a distinct possibility that it may have been taken in front of Vienna's famous cathedral.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stephansdom_1905.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/stephansdom04.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of Wikipedia" /></a><br />
Stephansdom, Wien, c. 1905<br />
Image courtesy of Wikipedia</center><br />
Another photograph of Stephansdom taken around the same time shows figures in front of the cathedral who may similarly be touting their wares to tourists and other passersby.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn223.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn223.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Two Gentlemen in London, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billinmn/sets/72157622733362984/">Bill Nelson</a></center><br />
As usual when I am looking at early amateur photographs, my mind turned to the camera which might have been used to produce such high quality images. Bill was thinking along similar lines when he emailed me this convivial snapshot from the same series:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>I can't believe this never occurred to me in all the years I've been looking at these photos. Look at the "Two Gentlemen" photo [taken in London]. The guy in the straw boater. Do you think that might be a camera case he has slung over his shoulder? The camera was obviously on a tripod for this photo- the shutter speed was too slow for a hand-held shot. I wonder if the photographer himself stepped in front of the camera and had a companion trip the shutter?</blockquote><br />
The shape of the case looks to me more like one for binoculars than a camera, but to provide a more definitive answer I looked at the size of the negatives. Bill told me that they vary in size to a certain extent, but are generally "<i>approximately 3.6 in. x 4.75 in. or about 92.5 x 120 mm.</i>" I presume that these are the maximum dimensions of the cut negatives, which could be expected to vary somewhat, depending on how they were cut. If so, then the actual photographic image dimensions would be a little less, and should be more regular, being defined by the size of the camera body.<br />
<br />
Comparing this to the range of roll film available at that time (i.e. 1904ish), I think it most likely that it equates to a size of 3½" x 4¼" (89 x 108). There were several film sizes produced with these dimensions, but the two most likely candidates are the 118 and 119 formats, first manufactured by Kodak in 1900.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodakc2.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodakc2.gif" style="height: 425px;" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak Model C3</center><br />
Several cameras used this film, and the most commonly available ones at the time those photographs were taken were:<br />
<b>118 format</b>: No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Models <a href="http://www.gilai.com/product_292/Pocket-Kodak-Camera.-No.-3-model-A">A</a> to <a href="http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/kodak/3fpk.htm">C-3</a> (1900-1907) & <a href="http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=602&">Deluxe</a> (1901-1903), <a href="http://basepath.com/Photography/AnscoNo4.php">No 4 Folding Pocket Ansco</a><br />
<b>119 format</b>: <a href="http://www.kodaksefke.nl/3-cartridge-kodak.html">No 3 Cartridge Kodak</a> (1900-1907)<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodakc2case.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3fpkodakc2case.gif" style="width: 425px;" /></a><br />
No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak with leather case</center><br />
The No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak was produced in huge numbers (over 288,000 between 1900 and 1915, when it was replaced with the No 3 Autographic Kodak), and I think is most likely what was used for the duration of the unidentified photographer's "grand tour." The images above show the camera opened up as well as folded and with its typical leather case. The shape is quite different from that carried by the man in the London street photograph. I am aware, however, that there were other roll film cameras around, as well as more sophisticated plate cameras which had been adapted with roll film backs.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/gperlee01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/gperlee01.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid" alt="Image © and courtesy of Gail Perlee" /></a><br />
The Pringle sisters in the garden, Ontario, Canada, c.1909-1912<br />
Toned silver gelatin print, mounted on album page, 5½" x 3¼"<br />
Image © and courtesy of Gail Perlee</center><br />
Coincidentally, fellow Sepian Gail Perlee posted a family photograph on her blog <a href="http://songsofanightingail.simplesite.com/167913753">Songs of a Nightingale</a> last week of a group of young women posing in a garden. One of these women carries a leather case on a strap around her shoulders which I tentatively identified - because of its size - as being for a No 3A Autographic Kodak Special, slightly larger than the No 3. Gail confirmed the dimensions of the print:<br />
<blockquote>I have the orig. prints. First 2 pix are 3 1/4 x 5 1/2. Shows how astute I am! I thought she was carrying a purse. A 2nd look, of course, shows a camera case!</blockquote>The 5½" x 3¼" size equates to the 122-format film used by the No 3A.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3aautogkodakspecial.gif"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/no3aautogkodakspecial.gif" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image © 2014 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
No 3A Autographic Kodak Special, Model B, 1916-1919<br />
Image © 2014 Brett Payne</center><br />
The No 3A Autographic Kodak Special above, still in excellent condition although sadly without a case, is from my own collection. It is probably very similar to the camera used to take the group portrait in the garden, although manufactured just a few years later. Unfortunately this size film is no longer available, or I would have very much liked to try it out myself.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0014/"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1901.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Courtesy of the Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" /></a><br />
The Folding Pocket Kodaks, Advertisement, 1901<br />
Courtesy of <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a> Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0014/">K0014</a></center><br />
Actually, it wasn't a lack of astuteness which led Gail to think she was carrying a purse. As Nancy Martha West discusses in her book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813919592/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0813919592&linkCode=as2&tag=photosleuth-20">Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia</a>, the Kodak pocket folding cameras of the 1890s and early 1900s were specifically marketed towards women, and designed to look as much like a purse or pocketbook as possible.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0074/"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1908.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Courtesy of the Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" /></a><br />
There's more to the Vacation when you Kodak, Advertisement, 1908<br />
Courtesy of <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a> Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0074/">K0074</a></center><br />
In a series of advertisements appearing widely in newspapers, magazines and even in literature published by the Eastman Kodak Company, the image of the <a href="http://www.kodakgirl.com/kodakgirlsframe.htm">Kodak Girl</a> became synonymous with the amateur photographer.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0521/"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/kodak_advert1905.jpg" style="height: 500px;" alt="Courtesy of the Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection" /></a><br />
Bring your Vacation Home in a Kodak, Advertisement, 1905<br />
Courtesy of <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/">Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection</a> Item <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_K0521/">K0521</a></center><br />
Likewise, images of leisure activity in the country, on the beach, at fairs and travelling on holiday overseas pervaded Kodak advertising. I am struck by the similarities in content between several of the images in Bill's 1904 album and the themes commonly portrayed in the Kodak advertising of the time. Compare, for example, this 1905 advertisement of two Kodak girls on a dockside in the Netherlands, one using a Folding Pocket Kodak, the other a Box Brownie, with the photograph taken of two men and a girl wearing clogs in Marken by our anonymous visitor in 1904, reproduced below. All that's missing in the latter is a windmill. There were several similar scenes taken at Marken and Volendam, at least one including a windmill.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn000.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/billinmn000.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson" /></a><br />
Men and Girl on the Docks, Marken, Netherlands, 1904<br />
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3½" x 4¼", 118- or 119-format<br />
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson</center><br />
Since this brings us back to the 1904 album, albeit by a somewhat circuitous route, I'll leave it there for now. I'm very grateful to Bill and Gail for permission to use the images from their respective collections. The rest of the negatives from the Grand Tour set can be seen on his FlickrStream <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billinmn/sets/72157622733362984/">here</a>. Once you've seen those, head over to <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sepia-saturday-219-15-march-2014_11.html">Sepia Saturday</a> to check out the remainder of this week's contributions.<br />
Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-12737535128245283312014-03-07T15:06:00.000+13:002014-03-07T15:07:36.281+13:00Sepia Saturday 218: Portraits in the Backyard<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/efbostock08r.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/efbostock08r.jpg" style="height: 425px;" alt="Image collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Reverse of cabinet card by E. Bosotock, Photographer of Schools, & etc.</center><br />
<a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/efbostock.html">Erasmus Bostock</a> worked as a photographer in Derby from the mid-1870s, when he was probably apprenticed to <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/wpearson.html">William Pearson</a>, one of the town's earliest practitioners, then operating from a studio in St. Peter's Street. [1] In the late 1870s and early 1880s he had a brief partnership with a photographer named Carr, during which time they worked from a studio at number 8 Macklin Street. [2] He established then established an itinerant trade as a "photographer of schools" from c.1882, not the only local to visit schools, but apparently the only one in Derby who advertised it as a speciality. [3]<br />
<br />
Over the following decade, he appears to have concentrated on this type of work: of the dozen or so examples of his work from this period that I have hitherto come across, only one is a conventional studio portrait. Between 1891 and 1894 Bostock moved with his family to nearby Nottingham, where he probably took over a studio from Edward Carnell and continued in business until his death in 1919. [4] <br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/efbostock08.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/eng/dby/images/efbostock08.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image collection of Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Informal cabinet card portrait of unidentified group<br />
Taken by Erasmus Bosotock of Derby, c. mid-1880s</center><br />
This informal portrait of what is assumed to be a family group taken by Bostock in a suburban backyard therefore departs a little from his usual fare, and is an important clue to how photographers coped with lean times. I have written previously [5,6] of opportunistic photographers who toured residential suburbs, probably during winter months when business was quiet, looking for potential customers who wanted their photos taken in front of their houses or in their gardens. Some of these professionals worked out of established studios, but many left no mark on their card mounts or, if they did, are not traceable through trade directories.<br />
<br />
It is interesting, then, to find such a portrait taken by a photographer who, it has already been established, travelled into the residential suburbs and, we now know, was a "door knocker" when the occasion arose. A small tidbit of information about one of Derby's minor photographers it is, but it adds to the developing picture of the common practices in Victorian Britain.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/sepia-saturday-218-8-march-2014.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss218.jpg" style="width: 425px" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
For more backyard beauties visit the rest of this week's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/sepia-saturday-218-8-march-2014.html">Sepia Saturday</a> contributers.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
[1] Payne, Brett (2009) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2009/10/all-lined-up-in-school-playground-in.html">All lined up in the school playground in their Sunday best</a>, <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 18 October 2009.<br />
<br />
[2] Payne, Brett (2006) <a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/efbostock.html">Erasmus Foster Bostock</a> of Macklin Street, Derby & Nottingham, <i>Derbyshire Photographers' Profiles</i>.<br />
<br />
[3] Payne, Brett (2008) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2008/09/more-photos-from-st-james-board-school.html">More photos from St James' Board School</a>, <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 14 September 2008.<br />
<br />
[4] Payne, Brett (2013) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/sepia-saturday-176-erasmus-bostock.html">Sepia Saturday 176: Erasmus Bostock, Photographer of Schools &c.</a>, <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 11 May 2013.<br />
<br />
[5] Payne, Brett (2008) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2008/04/story-behind-picture.html">The story behind the picture</a>, <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 8 April 2008.<br />
<br />
[6] Payne, Brett (2013) <a href="http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/sepia-saturday-163-photographer-at.html">Sepia Saturday 163: A photographer at the front door</a>, <i>Photo-Sleuth</i>, 7 February 2013.Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4599702957095945938.post-1898843666659155772014-02-28T22:30:00.000+13:002014-03-02T13:27:02.592+13:00Sepia Saturday 217: A Camping Trip to Rival Any Other<br />
<center><a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/02/sepia-saturday-217-1-march-2014.html"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/ss217.jpg" style="width: 380px;" alt="Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett & Marilyn Brindley" /></a></center><br />
My contributions to the weekly Sepia Saturday theme have suffered a little this summer, mainly due to the run of good weather that we've had, of which I've taken full advantage with plenty of hiking and other outdoors activity, following on from my rather lengthy excursion walking the Camino in northern Spain last year.<br />
<br />
I could not resist Alan's <a href="http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2014/02/sepia-saturday-217-1-march-2014.html">image prompt</a> this week, a black and white photograph from the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergen_public_library/3446742483/">Bergen Public Library's Flickr photostream</a> depicting three classical composers Julius Röntgen, Frants Beyer and Edvard Grieg on an excursion on Mount Løvstakken in June 1900. Another <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergen_public_library/3446747911/in/photostream/">image</a> in the same sequence, and presumably taken on the same day, shows Beyer and Grieg indulging in light refreshments after their exertions.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood01.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Library of Congress" /></a><br />
Roosevelt on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, 1903<br />
Stereographic print publ. by Underwood & Underwood</center><br />
These reminded me very much of one of my favourite photographs which has been reproduced many times, but is shown here in its original format as a stereocard print published by Underwood & Underwood in 1903 (click the image for a larger version). Few of my readers will need to be informed that this was the 26th President of the United States, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt">Theodore Roosevelt</a> (1858-1919) at Glacier Point, Yosemite, with the Yosemite Falls in the background. I haven't yet been able to determine who took the original photograph - and there were quite a number of adventurous glass plate photographers working in the area, right back to 1859 [2] - but I did discover several similar scenes which appear to be part of the same series, and were presumably taken on the same day.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood02.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood02.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Library of Congress" /></a><br />
Roosevelt on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, 1903<br />
Stereographic print publ. by Keystone View Company</center><br />
A second pose, very similar to the first but published by Keystone, shows Roosevelt again standing on an overhanding rock at Glacier Point, with the Yosemite Valley and the Yosemite Falls forming a magnificent backdrop to the north-west. The stereophoto is titled, "<i>President Roosevelt's Choicest Recreation - Amid Nature's Grandeur - On Glacier Point, Yosemite, Calif.</i>"<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood04.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood04.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Library of Congress" /></a><br />
Roosevelt on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, 1903<br />
Unmounted print, unknown publisher</center><br />
A third version shows Roosevelt seated, rather than standing, on the overhanging rock, with the photographer facing east and the charcateristic outline of Half Dome just visible at the right hand edge of the view.<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood03.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/underwood03.jpg" style="width: 425px;" alt="Image courtesy of the Library of Congress" /></a><br />
Roosevelt and Muir on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, 1903<br />
Unmounted stereographic print, unknown publisher</center><br />
A fourth image, also widely published as a stereophoto, shows Roosevelt and another man - the identity of that man holds the clue to why the President was there, and why this series of images has become so widely known. Much has been written about the relationship between Roosevelt and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir">John Muir</a>, the bearded man to his left, and I don't intend to repeat it here, except to quote some of Roosevelt's own words:<br />
<blockquote>It was my good fortune to know John Muir. He had written me, even before I met him personally, expressing his regret that when Emerson came to see the Yosemite, his (emerson's) friends would not allow him to accept John Muir's invitation to spend two or three days camping with him, so as to see the giant grandeur of the place under surroundings more congenial than those of a hotel piazza or a seat on a coach. I had answered him that if ever I got in his neighborhood I should claim from him the treatment that he had wished to accord Emerson. Later, when as President I visited the Yosemite, John Muir fulfilled the promise he had at that time made to me. He met me with a couple of pack mules, as well as with riding mules for himself and myself, and a first-class packer and cook, and I spent a delightful three days and two nights with him.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_sequoia.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_sequoia.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Sierra Club William E. Colby Memorial Library" /></a><br />
Roosevelt's party at the Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Big Tree Grove, 1903<br />
Photograph by Joseph N. LeConte</center><br />
<blockquote>The first night we camped in a grove of giant sequoias. It was clear weather, and we lay in the open, the enormous cinnamon-colored trunks rising about us like the columns of a vaster and more beautiful cathedral than was ever conceived by any human architect ...</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_insppt.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_insppt.jpg" style="width: 425px" alt="" /></a><br />
President Roosevelt and party, Inspiration Point, Yosemite Valley</center><br />
<blockquote>All next day we traveled through the forest. Then a snow-storm came on, and at night we camped on the edge of the Yosemite, under the branches of a magnificent silver fir, and very warm and comfortable we were, and a very good dinner we had before we rolled up in our tarpaulins and blankets for the night ...</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_halfdome.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/roosevelt_halfdome.jpg" style="width: 425px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image courtesy of the Sierra Club William E. Colby Memorial Library" /></a><br />
Roosevelt and Muir with two Rangers, Yosemite Valley</center><br />
<blockquote>The following day we went down into the Yosemite and through the valley, camping in the bottom among the timber ... John Muir talked even better than he wrote. His greatest influence was always upon those who were brought into personal contact with him.</blockquote><br />
Muir's three nights with Roosevelt at Yosemite in May 1903 has been referred to in a rather grandiose fashion as perhaps "<i>the most significant camping trip in conservation history</i>," with some justification. Muir, an ardent conservationist, prolific author and activist, had been visiting and writing about Yosemite for three and a half decades. He was the first to suggest that Yosemite's U-shaped valleys were carved out by glaciers, in stark contrast to the contemporary view of their origin as the result of catastrophic earthquakes. He had befriended naturalist author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>, was a co-founder and first president of the <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org">Sierra Club</a>, an associate of literary naturalist <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/people/burroughs.aspx">John Burroughs</a>, and was a close friend of influential scientist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_LeConte">Joseph LeConte</a>.<br />
<br />
"<i>Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.</i>" – John Muir in a letter to his wife Louie in July 1888 <br />
<br />
"<i>There! empty your heads of all vanity, and look ... Yes, I pottered around here ten years, and you think you can see it all in four days.</i>" - John Muir to John Burroughs in 1909<br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/johnmuir1964.jpg" style="height: 400px;" alt="Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons" /></a><br />
John Muir on a 1964 U.S. commemorative stamp</center><br />
Ranger-naturalist Richard J. Hartesveldt wrote, in an <a href="http://www.undiscovered-yosemite.com/Roosevelt-and-Muir.html">article</a> published in <i>Yosemite Nature Notes</i> in 1955:<br />
<blockquote>This unusual meeting of two great conservationists had a strong influence upon the formulation in our government's land and resources policy ... The prelude to this meeting began a few years earlier when forests which had been set aside by Presidents Harrison and Cleveland were endangered by pressure from commercial interests who wanted the Congress to release them from Federal control. To John Muir, through his vivid writings, goes much of the credit for preventing the passage of such legislation.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=2&cmd=1&id=192171&img=1&mode=1&pg=1&tid=2041381"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/johnmuir1998.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum" /></a><br />
John Muir, Preservationist<br />
<i>Celebrate the Century</i> U.S. commemmorative stamp, 1998</center><br />
<blockquote>The President became interested in the conservation attitudes of John Muir by reading Muir's enthusiastic writings. He indicated to the famed naturalist through California Senator Chester Rowell that he desired to make a trip to Yosemite for the express purpose of "talking conservation" with him ... After receiving a personal letter from Roosevelt, [Muir] wrote ... "An influential man from Washington wants to make a trip into the Sierra with me, and I might be able to do some forest good in freely talking around the campfire."<br />
<br />
The President arrived dressed for the business at hand in his rough hunting clothes. He and Muir left the main party of dignitaries and slept on the ground at night, once in the snow, which delighted the President. The conversations around their Sierra campfires would probably fill several volumes, since both were prolific talkers. Although we shall never know all that transpired on this memorial outing, there is much evidence of the good which resulted from it.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2005_CA_Proof.png"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/johnmuir2005.gif" style="height: 350px;" alt="Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons" /></a><br />
John Muir featured on the California state quarter, 2005</center><br />
<blockquote>John Muir was emphatic about the need for legislation to prevent archeological ruins from being destroyed by "pot hunters" and other collectors. The Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon were foremost among specific areas mentioned. Perhaps it was at this time that the two conceived a workable plan which would vest the President with the necessary power to set apart as national monuments areas deemed nationally significant. The purpose was, of course, to save time when areas were in immediate danger of invasion, and also to circumvent opposition in Congress which might prevent many such areas from being established. The legislation was enacted in 1906 and is known today as the Antiquities Act.</blockquote><br />
<center><a href="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/muirwoods01.jpg"><img src="http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photosleuth/muirwoods01.jpg" style="height: 500px; border: 1px solid;" alt="Image © 2013 Brett Payne" /></a><br />
Redwoods at Muir Woods National Monument, November 2013<br />
Image Copyright © Brett Payne</center><br />
Sadly I didn't have enough time during my recent brief stay in California to visit Yosemite, as it's been on my bucket list far longer than the term has actually been in existence (i.e. <a href="http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/134218/where-and-when-did-bucket-list-come-to-mean-what-it-does-today">2006</a>). I felt it deserved more than the couple of days I had available, so it will have to wait for another time. I did, however, get a chance for a quick visit to <a href="http://www.nps.gov/muwo/index.htm">Muir Woods National Monument</a> - declared as such by Roosevelt in 1908, and named after John Muir at the request of the donors, William and Elizabeth Kent - an old-growth coastal redwood forest close to Mount Tamalpais, with my long time friends Bob and Veronique. Thanks, Bob and Vero, next time we'll do Yosemite.<br />
<br />
<b><u>References</u></b><br />
<br />
Underwood & Underwood (Copyright, 1903) <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93503130/">Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Glacier Point</a>, Yosemite Valley, California, in 1903, stereograph (unmounted), <b>Library of Congress</b>, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.undiscovered-yosemite.com/yosemite-photographers.html">The First Yosemite Photographers</a> / Yosemite Photographers In The Early Days ... Incredible Challenges But Amazing Results, including <i>A Thousand Words</i> by Bill and Mary Hood, by <b>undiscovered-yosemite.com</b>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2009633778/">President Roosevelt and party</a>, Inspiration Point, Yosemite Valley, California, photographic print, <b>Library of Congress</b>, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)<br />
<br />
Muir, John (1871) <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/yosemite_glaciers.aspx">Yosemite Glaciers</a>, New York Tribune, 5 December 1871, reproduced online by the <b>Sierra Club</b>.<br />
<br />
Roosevelt, Theodore (1913) <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/in_yosemite_by_roosevelt.aspx">In Yosemite with John Muir</a>, from <i>An Autobiography</i> (1913), excerpted from <i>Chapter IX. Outdoors and Indoors</i>, reproduced online by the <b>Sierra Club</b>.<br />
<br />
Roosevelt, Theodore (1915) <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/appreciation_by_roosevelt.aspx">John Muir: An Appreciation</a>, <i>Outlook</i>, vol. 109, pp. 27-28, 16 January 1915, reproduced online by the <b>Sierra Club</b>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nps.gov/yose/historyculture/muir.htm">John Muir</a> and <a href="http://www.nps.gov/yose/historyculture/muir-influences.htm">John Muir's Influences</a>, by the <b>National Park Service</b>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/">John Muir (1838-1914)</a> and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/roosevelt/">Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)</a>, <i>The National Parks, America's Best Idea</i>, a film by PBS.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://geotripperimages.com/images/Geologic%20Map%20of%20Yosemite%20Valley.htm">Geologic Map of Yosemite Valley</a>, from <a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i1874/">Geologic Map of Yosemite National Park and Vicinity</a>, California, U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-1874 by N. King Huber, Paul C. Bateman, and Clyde Wahrhaftig, publ. 1989, from the <b>United States Geological Survey</b>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/pictures/john_muir_pictures_from_sierra_club_colby_library.aspx">Sierra Club Historic Photographs</a>, from the Sierra Club <b>William E. Colby Memorial Library</b>.<br />
<br />
Barrus, Clara (1920) <a href="http://www.catskillarchive.com/jb/bm-17.htm">John Burroughs - Boy And Man, Chapter XVII: Work And Play In Later Years</a>, from <b>The Catskill Archive</b><br />
<br />
Hartesveldt, Richard J. (1955) <a href="http://www.undiscovered-yosemite.com/Roosevelt-and-Muir.html">Roosevelt And Muir - Conservationists</a>, in <i>Yosemite Nature Notes</i>, Vol. XXXIV, No. 11 (<a href="http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_nature_notes/34/34-11.pdf">PDF</a> from Yosemite Online Library), p.132-136, November 1955, article reproduced by <b>undiscovered-yosemite.com</b>.<br />
Brett Paynehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706734864792449845noreply@blogger.com36